#there's one room where you gotta roll a remote bomb in

[viulus]

So I haven't been updating anyone on my BotW progress, not really, but I felt like doing that right now.

Last night I finally made my way up to my first Devine Beast (Vah Medoh), and with that I also got to see the first flashback with Revali, and... I think he deserved to die in the Calamity, actually

[the-iceni-bitch]

Happy Fucking New Year!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Words: 5071

Summary: You and Bucky spend New Year’s Eve together in Paris!

Warnings: Explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral sex (F receiving), unprotected vaginal sex, anal play, cum eating), explicit descriptions of violence, minor character death, SMUT, 18+ only!!!

A/N: Well, my grandma ass passed out while literally writing this fic last night at like 10PM so sorry it’s late! But it’s still New Year’s Day so whatever. It’s kinda fun, I definitely enjoy having Bucky and Sam be complete idiots while our poor reader is the only one with common sense, so you may be seeing a lot of those two fucking things up in this series. Join my taglist here if you’re inclined and a Happy New Year to all you lovely hoes!

“Damn, Barnes. Look at your ass in that tux.”

He choked on his champagne when you snuck up behind him, grabbing one ass cheek and giving it a squeeze before he had a chance to turn around.

He didn’t know how you always managed to catch him off guard.  He was used to being able to pick up on any threat immediately, but you were always able to slip under his defenses.

The expression that came over his face when he finally saw you was priceless. You loved surprising him with shockingly revealing outfits, offending those sweet old man sensibilities he pretended to have in public. But you knew exactly what he was thinking as his eyes drank you in.

The gown you had picked was a deep blue velvet that hugged your curves. While the skirt was tight against your legs, it still could’ve possibly been considered modest. The top though…. The v of the neck wasn’t as deep as your usual style, but the back dipped so low he wondered how you could possibly be wearing panties. All he could think of was snapping those thin straps with his vibranium hand and watching the fabric slide over your soft skin before it pooled around your ankles.

He couldn’t believe the two of you were spending New Year’s Eve in Paris. You’d barely had a chance to speak to each other after your tryst in Stockholm, and now you were together in the city of lights on one of the most romantic nights of the year.

“Hey, Barnes, you still in there?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.” He grinned at you as he watched you take a sip of champagne. “Just wondering where you’re hiding your knives in that dress?”

“Mmm, if this night goes according to plan, maybe I’ll let you look for them later.” You teased him, giving him a wink as you walked your fingers across his chest.

“Alright, that’s enough. You two promised to cool it with the kinky shit over comms.”

The two of you turned to shrug apologetically at Sam, who was glaring murderously at you from across the foyer.

“Sorry Sammy.” You whispered, tittering to yourself.

“Yeah, sorry Sammy.” Bucky gave him a stupid grin as the three of you started slowly moving to one the hallways leading to the main building.

“You don’t get to call me that, Barnes. You keep getting me into these fucking stupid situations, and your poor girlfriend always has to get us out. We were almost home, man, and you just had to follow that shady fucker at the airport.”

“No, he was following me. And anyways, I was right about him. I told you HYDRA had various goon squads lurking around.”

“You guessed.”

“I guessed right.”

“So, you admit it, you guessed!”

“Hey, boys!” You furrowed your brow as you turned to glare at the two of them, a little annoyed at the bickering. “Isn’t there supposed to be a door here?”

They finally shut up and followed your line of sight to where all the intelligence indicated the access door to the arsenal should be located.

Bucky let out a deep sigh and clenched his jaw, his eyes moving up the wall until they found the tiny hatch in the corner, fifteen feet off the floor. He turned his head to Sam and growled.

“You were in charge of reconnaissance. Do you not know the difference between a door and a hatch? Do your little robot minions not know how to take measurements?”

“Hey, don’t blame the robots man! This was based on human intelligence, which I’m pretty sure is your responsibility.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

You ground your teeth together as you listened to the two of them, not sure how you were able to put up with this shit. You took in your surroundings, trying to figure out a way through this situation.

“Well one of us has to get up there.” You murmured to yourself.

“I nominate robot boy.”

“Ok, ya know what, they’re not robots. I might’ve been able to let it go but, heh, I can’t. They’re drones. And if you think me buzzing one of those through the party out there is inconspicuous…”

“Oh, not one of your robots, you. What if I throw you at the hatch?”

One glance at him let you know he was seriously considering throwing your friend at the hatch. You rolled your eyes as you slipped out of your pumps.

“Ok, now you’re trying to piss me off, I just told you they were drones. And you are not throwing me at that tiny door. It’s not even open.”

“Well, if I throw you hard enough, that won’t matter.”

“It’s a solid steel door, dumbass. And I’m pretty sure it opens outward. I vote we come back later with some tools.”

“We’re on a timetable. I say we settle this with some old-fashioned rock, paper, scissors.”

“Um, no, you cheat.”

“How can you cheat at rock, paper, scissors?”

You did your best to tune them out as you stretched, sighing as you gathered your dress up over your thighs and grumbling to yourself about ruining another outfit.

“I don’t know, but you do. Ok, if you use your normal hand, maybe that’ll work.”

“Whatever, I’ll still win.”

You walked back down the hall, then turned and sprinted past the two of them, vaulting off one leg when you reached the corner and using your momentum to spring yourself off the wall until you were able to brace yourself in the tiny alcove next to the hatch.

“Could one of you toss me the laser driver from my clutch?” You called down to them, now that they had finally stopped their incessant arguing.

Sam grinned up at you as he picked your clutch off the ground, tossing the driver to you when he found it.

“Man, every time.” He shook his head at Bucky as you started working on dismantling the door. “I don’t know how your dumbass has survived this long without us, Barnes. You can’t just punch your way through everything.”

“I’m sorry, ‘us’? Seems like she’s doing all the work while you’re just bossy.”

“Can you two just give it a rest? I’m in.” You pulled the hatch open and slid through it, hanging over the edge by your fingertips for just a second before softly dropping on the balls of your feet on the other side. “Fuck, that’s a lot of bombs.”

“What kinds of bombs?” Sam asked over the comms, all business now.

“Well, I’m not an expert, but this sure looks like tesseract related tech to me.”

“Shit.” Bucky hissed. “Any way to disarm?”

“Well, probably, sweetie, but there’s at least 100 of these fuckers, and I don’t really feel like spending all of New Year’s Eve playing ‘which wire?’”

“Alright, just give us a second.”

You heard a yelp from outside and all of a sudden Sam’s torso came flying through the open hatch, his hips catching on the edge.

“Did he just throw you?” You asked, not bothering to hide the grin that spread over you face as Sam looked for something to swing down with. You dragged over an empty shelf and he pulled himself through, climbing down gingerly to come stand beside you.

“Your boyfriend is a fucking menace.” He grumbled, brushing some debris off his shoulders. He whistled through his teeth when he got a good look at the stockpile you had uncovered. “Shit.”

“Fuck me.” Bucky murmured, suddenly behind the two of you, making Sam jump.

“Goddamn it Barnes, why you gotta always be so stealthy?”

“Maybe you just need to pay better attention, what if I’d been a goon?”

“You are a goon.”

“Oh my god, I cannot do another round of this. Sam, can you call this in please? Maybe Sharon will have some idea of what to do about the massive pile of shit we just stepped in.”

“Fine, Y/N. I’ll call the boss.”

You went to examine the bombs more closely. They all seemed to have remote triggers, but you didn’t want to take the chance that they were volatile, so you resisted the urge to pick one up.

“Yeah, this is definitely tesseract tech.” Bucky muttered, and your heart jumped into your throat when you turned to see him tossing one of the bombs into the air and catching it again in his vibranium hand.

“Motherfucker put that down you idiot! What if there had been a pressure sensor?”

Bucky stared at you for a second, then back at the bomb in his hand. “Right, whoops.” He placed it back on the pile gingerly and gave you a sheepish grin.

“I swear to god, the two of you are going to end up getting me killed.”

“Ok, boss said they have a remote drone about one minute out that should have the ability to disarm these. She just wanted us to open the skylight for it.”

“The what?” You hissed at him.

“Uh….”

“There’s a fucking skylight?” You looked up and scoffed, seeing a very large window right there in the ceiling.

“Nice, Wilson.” Bucky just shook his head at him.

“Fuck you, Barnes! You didn’t know about it either.”

“No more! One of you morons get up there and open it!” You were seething. “You’re lucky I like the two of you or I swear to god, I would stab the both of you right now.”

“Alright, rock, paper, scissors?”

“No!! Bucky, just fucking do it.” You screwed your eyes shut and pressed your fingers into the peaks of your eyebrows.

“You got it, beautiful. You’re so cute when you’re mad… shit.”

He had to scramble up one of the shelves as you tried to charge at him, but Sam was able to hold you back at the last second.

“Ok, let’s all just take some deep breaths. It’s all good. The drones on the way. We didn’t have to fight anyone. And there’s still 25 minutes until midnight, so we’ll all get to toast the new year.”

Right as he uttered that last word, a large door on the opposite end of the room opened, and three goons carrying large guns entered.

“Goddamn it, Wilson, you jinxed us. And look, another fucking door!”

“Yeah, they do seem to be popping up everywhere.” He muttered under his breath. “Hey, fellas, we were just…. god, y’know what, I’m too tired to come up with something. Should we just fight?”

You sneered at him before hefting one of the bombs and chucking at the head of one of the guards, hitting him right between the eyes and knocking him out.

“OOHH! What if that had gone off?” Sam yelled at you as you charged the two standing goons who were still standing, diving at the last second to roll one of them over your shoulder.

“Oh, so only you and grandpa are allowed to make stupid decisions, then?” You said, pulling out a knife from under your skirt and trying to stab the guard who was still standing. You were just a little too slow and he dodged you, making you hiss. “Do you mind giving me a hand?”

“Shit, right.” He found a metal pipe leaning against the corner and walked over to where the first guard was starting to come to his senses, bringing it around in an arc to crash against his chin, knocking him out again.

“Drone’s here! Aww man, you guys started a fight without me?” Bucky had climbed back down to find the two of you grappling with your respective opponents.

He walked over and punched the asshole that had Sam in a chokehold in the face with his vibranium fist, feeling a satisfying crunch as he went down. Bucky started to stride over to give you a hand as Sam tried to catch his breath when you suddenly drove your knife up under your opponent’s ribs, giving it a twist before you withdrew it.

“Y’know,” He murmured as he watched you bend over to clean off the blade on the dead man’s jacket. “I’m a little mad at you now. I was looking forward to looking for that later tonight.” He grinned at you, nodding at the knife in your hand as you drew up your skirt to return it to the sheath on your thigh.

“Don’t worry sweetie, there’s plenty hiding under here for you to discover.” You teased him as he pulled you to him, pressing a deep kiss to your lips and moaning against your mouth. He always got so worked up after watching you fight.

“Ugh, I’m still here, you freaks!”

“Shit, sorry Sam!” You flashed an apologetic grin at your friend as he glared at you. Bucky was pulling at the front of his pants and screwing his eyes closed as he tried to fight his obvious erection.

“There’s something wrong with you two.” He muttered under his breath as he started climbing the shelves to leave through the skylight.

The drone had done its job. All the indicator lights on the bombs were off, showing there were no longer armed. You gave a small sigh of satisfaction before looking up at the skylight.

“Gimme a boost, Buck.”

“Yep.” He hooked his hands under one of your heels and grinned to himself as he brought his arms up a little faster than you had intended, flinging you up to the roof in one swift motion and making you yelp.

“You’re such a dick!” You shouted down to him as he started to climb out after you, making him laugh. “What time is it Sam?”

“Hey, we’ve still got 10 minutes to midnight!” He said, giving you a grin.

“Ooh, think we can make it back?”

“Yeah, it’s just a couple rooftops over! Barnes, move your ass!”

Bucky was just climbing onto the roof as you and Sam started jogging towards the adjacent building and cursed under his breath as he clambered to follow you.

Sam let out a whoop as he leaped between the buildings, one of his drones catching him halfway and carrying him to the other side.

“Oh my god was that waiting out here the whole time?” You scolded him as he swooped back to lift you across the gap, depositing you softly on the next roof.

“Yeah, why are you surprised?”

You just gave him a laugh as Bucky flung himself over the space between the structures, rolling in his landing and scowling at the two of you when he regained his feet.

“No thanks, I don’t need any help.” He growled at Sam, voice dripping with sarcasm as he brushed some pebbles off the shoulder of his tux jacket.

“You’re fine.” Sam waved a dismissive hand as the three of you walked to the next edge, which led to your hotel.

You dropped down first to the ledge that was 10 feet below, landing on the balls of your feet and twisting just a bit to gain your balance before you started gliding towards the window to your room.

“You good, Y/N?” Sam called as they watched you crouch as much as you could when you reached the end of the ledge.

“She’s got it.” Bucky muttered as you uncurled your body like a whip, shooting across the gap between the two buildings, latching onto the buttress above your window as you stretched down, your toes reaching for the lower sill. You found your purchase and released one hand to draw the window open, then slipped inside easily. “See?” He gave Sam a grin as he moved to follow you.

It only took the two of them a minute to join you, and you met them with champagne and a pleased smile on your face.

“Hello boys, just in time for the countdown!”

You passed out the drinks and took one for yourself before the three of you headed out to the small balcony that was around the corner from the window you had entered through.

“And 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Happy New Year!” The three of you shouted.

You heard the city erupt in cheers and fireworks started exploding over the Eiffel tower. Bucky set his champagne flute down and drew you into his arms, bringing one hand up to cradle the back of your head as he pressed his lips to yours. You sighed as you opened up to him, welcoming the crisp taste of champagne on his tongue as he curled it against yours.

“Ooookay, that is my cue to leave.” Sam said, downing the rest of his drink and avoiding making eye contact with either of you as he made his exit.

“Mmm, Happy New Year, Sammy!” You called after him. Bucky just waved a hand at him as his mouth moved down to your neck, his lips trailing over your throat as his other hand pressed against the small of your back.

“Just, remember to take out your comms, I’m begging you.” Sam said before shutting the door behind him.

“Fuck, right.” You plucked yours out of your ear and set it next to your glass as Bucky drew you back into the room, sucking on the curve of your shoulder softly. He released you for just a second to remove his own comm and closed the door to the balcony before turning back to you.

“Oh, that fucking dress.” He growled as he took you in, his eyes dark with desire. “You know, I’ve been wanting to peel you out of that thing all night, you damn cock tease.”

You stepped into him and pressed your hand against the bulge in his pants as you nipped at his bottom lip. “Mmm, your always so good to me when I tease you though, baby. I can’t help it.” You moved your hands up to start undoing his tie. “Besides, I don’t know how you can blame me for teasing you when you’re walking around in this tux. I’ve been wet all night.” You whipped the tie off and started working on the buttons of his shirt as you took his earlobe between your lips and sucked on it.

His hands moved to your ass and squeezed as he ground his hips against you, making you gasp. “Don’t tell me that unless you want me to do something about it. Fuck, are you even wearing anything under here?”

You slid his jacket off his shoulders and followed it with his shirt, running your fingers over his bare torso before starting to undo his belt. “Why don’t you get it off me and find out?” You purred, gazing up at him through your lashes as you drew the belt through the loops and moved to unbutton his fly.

He leered at you and brought his hands up to your shoulders, running the thin straps of your gown through his fingers before snapping them easily. He sighed as he watched the material slither over your curves and pool at your feet. “I fucking knew it.”

You were completely bare under his gaze, aside from the two knife belts you had around your thighs, each of which contained 2 blades.

“Damn it, Barnes.” You scolded him.

“What?”

“Could we have one night where you don’t end up ruining at least one expensive item of clothing?” You sighed, bending over to pick up the dress and shooting him a soft look of reproval.

“Shit, baby. I’m sorry. I get too excited.” He did feel a little bad, but every time you wore something like that, all he could think of was ripping it off you.

“Well, now you’ll just have to make it up to me.” You teased, tossing the dress aside and drawing him closer.

“Yes, ma’am.” He murmured as his fingers moved to start undoing the belts around your thighs. He brushed his lips against the small hollow beneath your ear as he worked, flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin there as his fingers brushed over your legs, making your pussy clench around nothing. “You want me to show you how sorry I am with my tongue?” He set aside the two belts and moved a hand to cup your sex, groaning at how warm and wet he found you.

“God, just fucking do it.” You hissed as he teased a finger between your folds, barely brushing against your heat before withdrawing again.

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” He picked you up and carried you a few feet to lay you on the dining room table, kicking the chairs out of the way with a clatter.

He gave you a searing kiss, taking your breath with him when he withdrew to kneel between your thighs. His stubble tickled at your skin as he moved his lips and tongue up your inner thigh at an agonizing pace, moving to the other thigh when he had almost reached your cunt and making you whine.

“I’m so sorry I ruined your dress, pretty girl.” He finally dragged his tongue over your slit and you let out a low moan, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as he repeated the motion. “Wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but this pussy does things to me.”

He pressed the flat of his tongue against you and drew it over your entrance heavily, slurping up all the evidence of your arousal with an obscene sound before wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking. The whimper you let out made his cock twitch as your thighs clenched around his shoulders, drawing him into you even further.

“God, Bucky, right there.” You murmured as he increased the pressure on your bundle of nerves and inserted two fingers into your cunt, moaning at the feeling of your satiny walls clenching around him. He curled them just a bit and you wailed, arching your back into him as you started whispering “please” over and over like a prayer.

He grinned against you as he shook his head slightly, pressing himself even further into your heat and lapping up the juices that leaked from you as he fucked you with his fingers.

He added a third finger and crooked his wrist just slightly and that was it. Every muscle in your body went rigid as you came against his face, soaking him in your release as you clamped down on his fingers and sobbed with pleasure. You released him slightly, only to spasm again from the aftershocks as your muscles quivered around him. He finally managed to draw himself away and stood between your legs, grinning down as he watched you come down from your orgasm, shivering occasionally as a random jolt of pleasure shot through you.

“You think you can forgive me?” He asked wickedly as he finished undoing his slacks and slid them over his hips, followed by his boxer briefs. He drew his hand over his length as he waited for you to answer, nudging the tip of his cock against your folds and making you yelp.

“Fuck, yes. God Bucky.” You sat up and wrapped your hands around his neck, bringing his face to yours violently. You ground your hips against him, groaning as you felt his shaft slide through your slick easily. He started to lift you to bring you to the bedroom and you shook your head a bit before releasing him. “No, I need it now.”

He grinned at you as he teased his head against your clit, making you whine. “You want me to fuck you right here on the table?”

“God, yes please. Gimme that cock. I need you inside me.” It was driving you crazy. You brought a hand between the two of you and wrapped it around him, making him hiss as you lined him up. “I want you to split me open then fuck me until I can’t breathe.”

He let out a low growl from deep in his chest. He loved when you talked like this. He pushed into slowly with a groan until he was sheathed to the hilt, relishing in the feel of you clenching around him. “Fuck baby, you feel so good. So tight and warm. What else you want me to do to you?” He started moving his hips slowly, grinding them against you each time he was bottomed out.

“Shit,” You were panting with need as he moved inside you, his cock dragging against your g-spot over and over and making it hard to think. “I want your mouth on my tits. God, just like that.” He was following your instructions beautifully, dragging his tongue over the inner slope of your breast as his hips kept up their slow pace. “Fuck, baby, suck on my nipples now.”

He did as you asked, swirling his tongue over the sensitive buds as his lips closed around them, sucking softly and making you whine. He’d always been good at following orders.

“Mmm, move faster.” You commanded, wrapping your fingers in his hair as he continued lavishing attention on your breasts.

He obliged easily, picking up the pace until he was slamming into you, knocking the breath out of you. You met each of his thrusts with your own, mewling as you felt a coil starting to knot in your abdomen.

“God, I’m gonna cum.” You whined.

One more drive of his hips and the coil broke, making you scream. Your fingernails dug into his scalp as you went stiff for just a beat before everything released. He smiled into your neck as you vibrated against him, panting heavily as you came down.

He kept fucking into you like a man possessed. He brought his mouth back up to yours and kissed you softly as he felt you relax a bit. “Did I do good, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, baby, you did great.” You laughed into his mouth as he kept moving.

“You’re in charge, pretty girl. What do you want now?”

“God, work my clit. Fuck, just like that.” You were having trouble focusing as he did what you asked. “I need your mouth on my neck. Hngh, Bucky! That’s so good.”

“What else, beautiful?” he grinned against your throat, loving how easily you were coming apart around him. He picked up the pace with his hips a little more and felt you flutter around him.

“Shit, stick your thumb up my ass.”

He was not prepared for that and his hips faltered for a bit. He whipped his head up to stare at you as he regained his composure.

“What?”

“Ahh, fuck.” You were just a little embarrassed. You usually liked to ramp up to this type of thing, and especially with Bucky, you had wanted go really slow with this particular kink. You didn’t know how much of a thing anal play had been in the 40s. “Um, you can forget I said that.”

To your surprise, he broke out into an absolutely sinful grin and gave you a savage kiss as he laid you back on the table, stilling his hips but keeping himself sheathed in you as he drew your knees up to your shoulders.

“I’ve been dreaming about this ass, baby.” He said as he started moving his hips again, dragging his thumb through the slick that was leaking out around his cock and moving it down until it was pressing against your pretty hole, making you gasp.

“Bucky, don’t tease me.”

“Thinking about this tight little hole wrapped around my cock, I was worried you’d never let me in.” You moaned as he pressed himself through the tight ring of muscle and your eyes rolled up into your skull as you arched yourself into him. “But here you are, giving me a fucking invitation.”

He gave a groan when both your holes clenched around him, and he felt his cock moving in your cunt with his thumb through the thin lining between your passages. He drew himself out halfway and slammed back into violently, the tip of him barely kissing your cervix and making you whine.

His fingers on your clit pressed down hard and you flew apart around him, your orgasm ripping through you with abandon. The scream you let out was otherworldly as you creamed all over his cock.

The sight of you writhing beneath him sent him over his own edge and he shouted your name as his cum spurted inside of you, coating your walls and his dick as he collapsed on top of you.

You were still trembling as aftershocks rippled through your body. He kissed your neck and pulled out of you gently. You barely noticed, you were so fucked out.

“Shit sweetheart.” He muttered as he drew himself up. “This body treats me so fucking good. Damn, look at that.” He drew your knees apart and stared appreciatively at you pussy, still clenching as you came down. His cum was slowly leaking out of you and dribbling over your puckered hole. “Let’s clean you up.”

You had expected him to go get a towel, but he knelt down and dragged his tongue over first your asshole, then your slit, making you sob as he lapped up the mixture of your releases. When he drew his tongue over your clit, you came again immediately, it was so overstimulated.

“Fuck, you ok, Y/N?” He hadn’t expected you to be that sensitive and was worried he might have overdone it. He brought himself back up to look you in the eyes, cupping one cheek in the palm of his hand as he studied your face with concern.

“God, Bucky, I’m fucking great.” You gave him a sloppy grin as you stared up at him, turning your head to press a kiss into the palm of his hand. “I don’t think I can walk though.” Your legs were jelly.

He just laughed and scooped you into his arms, carrying you into the bedroom and laying on the bed. He covered you with the sheets and pressed a soft kiss to your temple before heading into the bathroom to clean himself up. He was only gone for a minute before he was sliding behind you and wrapping you in his arms.

“Happy New Year, beautiful.” He whispered into your hair as you drifted off to sleep, drowsy now that you were surrounded with his warmth.

“Happy fucking New Year, Bucky.” You murmured before you dozed off, blissfully satisfied.

Permanent Tags:

@drabblewithfrannybarnes​ @starlightcrystalline​ @stargazingfangirl18​ @buckysnumberonegirl​

[trashytummiez]

Could you write a story about Mina and Kirishima having a date where their appetites get the better of them, so they wind up all full and burpy?

Kirishima had always been meaning to ask Mina out on a date but every time he tried to work the nerve to talk to his pink-skinned classmate the butterflies in his tummy would always get the better of him and he'd always chicken out. So when she ended up asking him out instead it certainly made things a lot easier. She always knew how to make everything look so much easier than it was after all.

The two ended up going out to dinner which Mina insisted was really casual. Kirishima still kept trying to mind his manners all throughout dinner but unfortunately the red haired boy also had one of the most immense appetites within UA. Meaning despite his best efforts he ended up eating quite a lot more than he intended to eat but he just couldn't help himself. The food was simply way too good and the well-meaning boy ended up eating a whole heck of a lot more than he intended to eat on his first date with his long time friend.

But to Kirishima's surprise whereas most girls might have been turned off by his voraciousness Mina was right there with him every step of the way. He knew the pink girl had a pretty big appetite of her own but he never imagined in his life that she could ever pack it away an ounce as much as she had done on their date. It was surprisingly disarming and only worked to help Kirishima relax that much more around her which only encouraged him to eat even more as the night went on.

By the time they were back at Kirishima's place both teens were stuffed to the brim. "Unngh man I'm stuffed..." Kirishima groaned heavily and placed both hands atop his belly. He'd eaten so much that his tummy was bulging out as though he swallowed a beachball that rode his t-shirt up and exposed his bare stomach. It churned noisily while Kirishima rubbed it to try and soothe that persistent ache. His stomach felt so incredibly heavy and taut after eating so much in one sitting. "How're ya holdin' up Mina-chan?"

"Unnnnnnngh..." was the only reply he got when the bloated pink girl flopped down lazily onto the couch next to the red haired boy.

When Kirishima glanced over at his date and saw how much she'd managed to eat in full he couldn't help being impressed.

Mina's tummy was huge.

Like Kirishima she looked as if she swallowed a basketball. Though it was notably smaller than Kirishima's belly due to the strength of his stomach and his overall endurance it was nonetheless big enough that her own top was riding up and her shorts were both unbuttoned unzipped and even tugged down a little to give her big perfectly round tummy some much needed breathing room. But because of the nature of her acidic quirk much of what she had eaten was already well more digested than what Kirishima ate. Which was why Mina's stomach looked much softer and more sloshy than Kirishima's rock hard stomach.

"Dude I can't believe how full my tummy is right now," Mina said rubbing her belly and giving a strained huff in the process.

Kirishima couldn't help snicker at her adorable use of the word 'tummy'. "Heh at least we know you could kick Kaminari's ass if he tries to challenge ya to an eating contest," he said encouragingly.

Mina giggled but that soon turned to a sickly groan when the giggling made her tummy jiggle and slosh heavily.

Kirishima saw that and scratched the back of his neck bashfully. "My bad."

But Mina waved her hand dismissively and smiled at the sight of Kirishima's larger belly. "I'm still blown away by how much you managed to eat over there. You almost look pregnant!" She teased and gave Kirishima's big belly a teasing pat.

Kirishima blushed both from the joke and from Mina's hand thumping his tummy like that. Unfortunately that pat she gave disrupted some of the pressure that was brewing in his stomach. It wasn't long into his binge eating that Kirishima felt the need to burp really badly. But because he was around Mina he didn't want to embarrass her or gross her out with his crudeness especially if he wanted there to be a second date. All dinner long Kirishima desperately needed to burp but had been holding it in all night. He knew if he tried to let out muted ones to relieve pressure it would all come rushing up. And he knew if he gave any closed mouth burps those would still be loud enough to draw attention.

So when Mina's pat tried to work the pressure up his throat Kirishima desperately willed himself not to burp hoping instead he could excuse himself for a moment to leave long enough to let loose clear of Mina's earshot. Mina looked at him with confusion when she saw Kirishima clamping a hand over his mouth and looking mildly nauseous.

"Are you okay? You're not about to be sick are you?" She asked obvious to Kirishima's gastric distress.

All Kirishima could do was nod desperately in the hopes to holding back the pressure.

But then a thick gurgle erupted from Mina's own bulging tummy. And without a moment of hesitation Mina threw her head back and gave a huge throaty burp that completely caught Kirishima by surprise.

HHHRRRRREEEEEEERRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUURRRRAAAAAAAAAHHPP!!!!!!!

Kirishima was in awe. Not only was Mina even remotely embarrassed by letting out a big unladylike burp but she looked almost as proud as she did relieved the way she moaned in satisfaction and gave her belly such a hearty pat of relief after. Her tummy jiggled and sloshed heavily from the pat she gave it.

"Ohhhhhh yeah I needed that good god," Mina moaned contently then casually let rip another hearty burp. She turned to Kirishima and tilted her head. "Sure you're okay? You're sweating bullets."

Unfortunately since Kirishima was so awestruck he had almost forgotten how turbulent his tummy was getting when he tried to assure her that he was okay. Because the only thing that exited Kirishima's mouth was a giant burp that was infinitely louder than what Mina had just let out.

BBBBRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHRRAAAAAHHP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All that gas Kirishima had been holding in came violently rushing out of him like a bomb. That had to be one of the biggest burps Kirishima had ever let out. And the relief he felt was immense. But with that monster freed came all the pressure behind it.

Kirishima palmed the side of his bloated belly and brought a fist up to his mouth in time to give an incredibly deep closed mouth burp Mina could hear rumbling quite loudly in Kirishima's mouth. Then Kirishima gave an even longer and deeper closed mouth burp that made him wince from how hard it was to hold back from exiting his mouth.

He wearily blew the gas off to the side and sighed heavily giving his tummy a few hearty pats of his own. But he nonetheless blushed and gave a bashful, "'scuse me. Sorry but I really needed to get that out..."

Mina giggled loudly. "What are you apologizing for dude? That was a great one! Bet that felt amazing too!" She patted Kirishima's belly a few times then started rubbing it a little firmly. "Got any more in there?"

Kirishima was blushing immensely from having his tummy rubbed by his pink skinned crush. "Umm...p-probably..." he said timidly. Her rubbing was not only deeply sensual when his belly was so heavy and full but it was stimulating his stomach muscles enough to circulate more air in Kirishima's stomach.

He turned his head and gave a really big burp that he couldn't hold in.

BBBRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHP!!!!!

Mina giggled some more. "Wow you really were holdin' back all dinner weren't you!" She said and gave Kirishima's tummy a few firmer pats.

"Well I was..." Kirishima paused to give a really deep burp that left him panting. "...AAAAAAUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRHP!!!! Ohhhh man...but yeah, I was tryin' not to embarrass you."

Mina tilted her head in confusion. "What by burping? Who cares? I'm not Momo dude! I wasn't gonna get grossed out or anything."

"Yeah but we were also in...buuuuuuuhhhp...unf...in public. It's not manly to potentially gross other people out when they're tryin' to enjoy their meals."

Mina simply gave Kirishima a smile and teasingly poked his belly button a few times which made him blush even harder.

"You're too cute sometimes," she said which earned a bashful smile from the muscular boy. "Well either way if ya gotta burp don't hold back dude! I'm definitely not gonna," Mina said.

And right on cue her own belly gave another thick churning sound which made Mina's face tighten.

That was until she gave a thick rumbling burp that rolled out of her for a few seconds. But Mina maintained that look and held up a finger.

"Mph wait there's more," Mina said in a concentrated tone. She gave her glutted tummy a few pats which drew Kirishima's eyes to her bulging pink belly watching its flesh ripple with each pat she gave and slosh like it was full of incredibly rich jelly. She gave another low rolling burp and followed it up a few shorter ones.

BRRRAAAAAAAAARRRUUUUUUUURRRUUULLLLP!!!!!!

HRRRRUUUUUUUuuuuuuurrrOOOOOOOORRrrlk!!!

BrrrrruUUUUHP!!

As none of the burps gave Mina any relief she huffed in frustration that almost resembled a mildly nauseous pout.

"Ungh hate when they get stuck like that," Mina complained gently stroking her tummy from side to side while it churned noisily. "Kirishima you wanna gimme a hand?"

The bloated red haired boy tilted his head in confusion. "Ummm...whadduya mean?"

"I mean literally gimme your hand silly!" Mina said and grabbed Kirishima's hand. The boy yelped and went as red in the face as his hair when Mina placed his hand right against the dead center of her utterly engorged belly.

It felt so unbelievably soft to the touch and was so fast at digesting that her tummy almost felt a little squishy the way Kirishima's hand sank mildly into her bloat.

"There ya go! Now all you gotta do is push down!" Mina explained.

Kirishima gulped thinly and anxiously. He'd never touched Mina's flesh so intimately before and something about holding her belly just made Kirishima feel incredibly funny. But in a pleasant sort of way he couldn't describe.

Pushing thoughts aside for a moment Kirishima took a nervous breath then did as Mina asked by pushing down into her tummy.

Straight away a rush of gas worked its way up her chest and Mina this spunky pink skinned girl expelled a burp so loud that Kirishima almost mistook it for a dragons roar.

AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUURRRRHHHHHRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOORRRHHHHHPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kirishima was amazed. Not only was such a monumental burp easily a record breaker but he could feel Mina's tummy rippling under his palm from how intense that burp was.

Mina looked dazed but oh so relieved when it ended the way she slumped in her seat and nearly went cross eyed.

"Ohhhhh wow...that felt amazing..." Mina moaned.

Though he was still blushing Kirishima gave a fang-y grin. "Dude that was manly!" He said and gave Mina's jiggling tummy a few pats.

Mina hiccuped from the patting then grinned at Kirishima. She subtly gulped down some air which made her tummy feel mildly tighter under Kirishima's hand. Then Mina burped that air back up in the form of the words "Th-AAAAAAAAAAANNK . . . YYYYOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!"

Kirishima was taken aback by Mina burp-talking so effortlessly and really stretching the 'you' out for as long as she could. It left her panting when she finally finished and managed a weary giggle.

She seemed to be helping Kirishima to get more comfortable because the manly boy took in a few gulps of his own and gave an even louder response to Mina's crass antics.

AAANYY...

T-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMME...

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kirishima successfully burp-talked the words 'anytime dude' with his eruptive dialogue getting louder with each word until he pushed out a really loud finish.

Both teens broke into a fit of laughter at their incredibly juvenile antics. Mina's tummy kept jiggling the more she laughed but with all that gas let loose it didn't hurt as much to laugh as prior. When the laughter subsided Kirishima smiled fondly. Because he was so much more comfortable now he began to gently rub Mina's belly.

The pink girl closed her eyes and sighed contently while Kirishima's hand gently stroked up to the roundest peak of her tummy and down all the way to her delicate lower tummy without reaching too low in case that made his date uncomfortable. But at this point Mina didn't appear uncomfortable with anything. She sighed happily and leaned against Kirishima and leaned further into his hand.

He continued to gently rub her belly and feel that odd warmth throughout his body. Kirishima couldn't explain it but the sight of Mina's tummy so big and round and the feeling of it brought an indescribable pleasure for the boy. A feeling that was more subtly matched by Mina whenever she caught a glimpse of Kirishima's belly in its bloated state.

Neither one could put into words what they were feeling. But they both knew that they very badly wanted to see the other getting stuffed like this again in the future.

Which all but guaranteed there would be a second date. And a third. And a fourth after that.

But for now both teens could very comfortably say this first date couldn't have gone any better.

[unbridgeabledistances]

prompt - casual touches/pda bc we don’t see much in the show!

<3 <3 ty so much for the prompt anon! this ask was sent in before the most recent ep (where we were fed ALL of the casual intimacy!) but i wanted to write a little something to maybe hopefully comfort some lingering discontent about the whole non-monogamy thing– so here is a communicative one-shot of ian and mickey discussing their boundaries and processing s5 traumas before 11x07! (w lots of soft touches😌)

--

It was one of those casual, routine evenings at the Gallagher house when Ian brought it up again, a couple of long weeks after that first conversation on the front porch under the streetlights. They were all lounging in the living room during the slow, undefined hours after dinner, when Carl and usually Ian and Mickey would sit hunched around the TV, passively watching some movie or cartoon while they scrolled through their phones.

That night, Debbie and Sandy were having some sort of erratic spat in the kitchen, and the shrieks back and forth were making it hard to hear the crashing and blaring of the action movie that Mickey had picked out coming from the TV’s speakers— after a couple minutes of trying to make out the movie’s dialogue, Carl stood up with a huff and flicked off the TV with the remote that had been shoved between the cushions of the chair in the corner, stretching and standing up to head down to the basement.

“Night, guys.”

“Night Carl,” Ian replied, and then kept looking down at the Instagram feed he’d been circling through for a good hour while trying to tune out Debbie once again shouting at Sandy for “traumatizing” her by keeping secrets. They’d had the same fight almost every night for the past few weeks since Debbie had discovered that Sandy was living in her car, and had been married to some random guy when she was a teenager or some shit like that— Ian honestly wasn’t even going to ask, but he’d heard the conversation enough times to be uninterested enough to drown it out.

Franny was sitting with splayed knees on the living room carpet, playing some elaborate game with Liam’s truck toys and little Lego construction workers, that had been stowed in the cabinet but Franny had somehow dug out a few weeks ago, causing yet another one of Debbie’s conniptions— and finally the voices in the kitchen trailed off, like they always did once Debbie ran out of steam and got tired of victimizing herself.

“Time for bed, Fran.”

Debbie came into the room and scooped Franny up from where she was sitting, trudging up the stairs with Franny in tow and Sandy trailing close behind—

And then suddenly it was just he and Mickey in the living room, pressed thigh-to-thigh and knee-to-knee beside each other on the couch, resting in the rare but comforting weight of the silence.

Mickey was slouched back on the couch, his chin practically touching his chest, playing some game that involved him turning his phone sideways and lazily shooting pixelated zombies. Ian looked over at him for a moment, taking in Mickey’s relaxed face and the solid press of Mickey’s body against his side…

And he had to fucking do it.

It wasn’t like Ian wanted to bring up the conversation again, about monogamy and boundaries and fuck-knows-what-else; but these past few weeks had been hard, like something cavernous was cracking and splintering between them. Their banter had slowly turned less and less humorous, and more pointed and jagged, about who was the breadwinner and who was the “man”; and even though they’d patched it up and built small bridges between them, and had hung off of each other’s bodies at Lip’s apartment the night Ian had brought up the monogamy conversation for the first time, Ian couldn’t help but feel the weight of the things unsaid wriggling and rustling inside him, like a germinating seed about to bloom.

Ian totally understood why, the moment he had mentioned “fucking other people” during that conversation on the porch, he had immediately felt Mickey’s knee stiffen where his palm had been resting on it. There was so much shit they hadn’t talked about—so it made sense that Mickey had immediately bristled when Ian had brought this all up the way that he did, and had put himself on high-alert and fled the scene the moment Carl came through the gate.

It would be so easy to just… not bring it up again. But Ian knew they needed to talk it out, and needed to let out all of the questions that were hanging on the edge of his lips like a ticking time bomb. If there was one thing that Ian knew, it was that Mickey was sensitive about this shit; the last thing that Ian wanted to do was crack and fall through the thin ice he was walking on and accidentally push Mickey away if he made some comment about another guy being hot, or if he reciprocated some dude checking him out at Kev’s gym— if Mickey had gotten upset at the fact that he only had 87% of Ian’s heart, some stupid comment that came out of Ian’s mouth before his brain could really process how he knew Mickey would feel about it, then how was Ian supposed to know what was and what wasn’t okay?

The problem was, talking about all of this shit so explicitly with Mickey felt like trying to walk upstream; things with he and Mickey had always just kind of… flowed, and had never been spelled out or agreed upon or set in stone, at least until he was leaving Mickey in prison and they kind of had to strongarm themselves into talking about what they wanted to future to hold. Even with the proposal and the marriage shit, they had just sort of stumbled their way into it, without explicitly needing to sit down and spell it all out. If he was being honest, Ian fucking loved that; he loved that he and Mickey’s relationship was a roller coaster, a high-speed train ride that they didn’t know the stops of. Things with Mickey just happened the way they were supposed to, in a way they never had with anyone else that Ian had ever been with. He remembered Trevor’s goading about boundaries and sex positivity and communication, and how at first it felt like Ian had marbles rolling around in his mouth as he tried to stumble over words like “ethical non-monogamy” and “compersion” and “polyamory”; it felt like he was speaking a foreign fucking language, like he was talking about things he couldn’t quite grasp— and he didn’t want to push Mickey into feeling that way. But as much as he hated it, he knew they had to at least talk about it; there were too many things left unsaid, too many holes they needed to patch up before slipping through one them.

So that’s why, with a gentle creeping of his fingertips from his own lap to rest on Mickey’s upper thigh, Ian said the words into the soft silence of the living room:

“Mick, we’ve gotta talk about the whole monogamy thing again.”

Instantly, in a sensation that was fully reminiscent of that night a few weeks ago, Ian felt Mickey’s torso stiffen beneath him.

Mickey sniffed, then hesitantly pressed his thumb up to his phone screen to pause the game he was playing mid-level. Mickey’s body was still slumped and leaning on the couch, but now there was a new rigidity to the way he was sitting, like he was bracing himself for something. He clicked off his phone and shoved it into his pocket, then looked down at his hands.

“Don’t know why you think we gotta talk about all this shit, man. We already did your thing with the paper and you said you didn’t wanna fuck other people.”

Ian let out a breath, then snaked an arm across the back of the couch so it was just barely touching where Mickey’s shoulders were leaning, just to where he could feel the heat radiating up from Mickey’s body. If he was going to fucking do this, he needed Mickey to be close to him—he needed their bodies to be pressed together a little more than they already were.

“Yeah, but I guess… I never really got a chance to hear how you feel.”

Mickey’s body tensed up again; Ian could feel his shoulders clenching beneath his where his arm was limply strewn across the back of the couch.

“I don’t know, man.”

Ian swallowed down the sudden wave of resentment he started to feel that Mickey wouldn’t just say what he was feeling, and took a deep breath. Sometimes Mickey just didn’t know how, and he needed to sit there and acclimate to the airwaves that were bouncing between them before Ian could pull something out of him, or before Mickey could pull something out of himself. Ian let them just sit there, and let himself fixate his eyes on the rise and fall of Mickey’s chest under his tattered t-shirt; and after a moment, he decided to give a gentle nudge, to at least get the ball rolling towards the depths of wherever Mickey’s head was at.

“So do you… wanna fuck other people?”

Mickey made an airy popping sound by smacking his lips together— like he was trying to do anything with his mouth except let words rest inside it, like he was trying to puncture the blanket of silence with a sharp sound. Ian waited.

“Or is it— that you think I want to fuck other people?” He could hear how cautious his own voice sounded, like he was tiptoeing onto uncertain territory, gently coursing into rough and uncharted waters.

Ian felt an almost imperceptible slump work its way back into Mickey’s rigid shoulders. Oh.

He leaned himself closer towards Mickey’s warm body, wrapping his arm down off the back of the couch and directly onto Mickey’s shoulders, feeling the soft bristles of Mickey’s hair pressing up against the crook of his elbow.

“Hey.” Ian tried to keep his voice soft, soft. “I know it fucking sucks, but we’ve gotta talk about this. I don’t ever wanna do shit you aren't okay with.”

Mickey raised his chin, leaning back onto Ian’s arm, and flickered his eyes to meet his gaze.

“You really don’t wanna fuck other people?”

It was the same question Mickey had asked the other night on the porch, the first time they'd had this conversation— but this time there was no bravado to it, no directness or volume like the way Mickey had asked that night with his eyebrows raised. This time he asked in a low voice, a voice that was husky and soft around the edges. Ian squeezed Mickey’s shoulder.

“Mickey, I got married to you. I don’t really know what you thought that meant— but for me, it pretty much means fucking you til the day I die.”

Mickey hesitantly rolled his eyes, blowing a puff of air out of his mouth. “But, like— fucking only me?”

Ian took a deep breath and steeled himself for the messier part of conversations like this, the part where he tried to get Mickey to split himself open. “You’ve gotta give me more than that, Mick. What’re you asking?”

Mickey looked down at his hands again, running his fingertips over a loose thread at the bottom of his shirt. “I don’t know, man. Guys are always droolin’ over you. Just don’t want to hold you back.” Ian felt the rise of Mickey’s shoulders, the breath of air being let into his lungs. “I just don’t wanna not be enough for you, or whatever. Don’t want you to regret shit a couple of years down the line.”

Not be enough for me? If this didn’t feel like a serious and slightly terrifying, fragile conversation to have, Ian could have laughed in Mickey’s face— how could Mickey think that he wasn’t enough for him, when he was the fucking focal point, at the center of everything? Ian didn’t know what words could radiate that out of him, could make Mickey get it— he opted for another squeeze of Mickey’s shoulders, and then migrated his hand under Mickey’s chin and forced their eyes to meet.

“Mick.” He tried to ooze every ounce of certainty, every ounce of resolve that he was feeling, into his voice. “You’re more than enough for me, are you fucking kidding? You’re all I ever think about— if you weren’t enough for me, I wouldn’t have married you. I know what that means, I always have.”

Even saying the words aloud, Ian quickly flashed back to it’s just a piece of paper, to back when Mickey smelled of cheap cologne and bitter smoke in an oversized tux— even then, Ian knew what marriage meant, knew the weight of it, and that’s why Mickey getting married that day tore him apart. Ian wouldn’t have done this, wouldn’t have said “I do” if he wasn’t ready for all of that— so why did Mickey think that he wasn’t?

The tension was creeping back in between Mickey’s shoulder blades. “Took you a while to decide to do that, though.”

Ian paused. They’d rehashed this shit enough times, but it still always stung to think back to when he was too wrapped up in his own shit to think outside of his own spirals of self-doubt, and left Mickey bleeding at the altar in the process. He didn’t know how to put it into words; Mickey had just always been everything, had always been a solid presence inside him, tugging at his heartstrings so tangibly that it made him ache; Ian had a bullshit complex about marriage, but not one about his iron-heavy commitment. Mickey had to understand that by now— but it seemed like there were scars there that still hadn’t been healed.

Which made Ian wonder— where else was this coming from?

Ian cupped his hand below Mickey’s chin again, raising his other hand from his lap and reaching up to push Mickey’s hair out of his face—a gentle touch, a touch to root him and give him something to hold on to more than anything else.

“Hey. Look at me.” Mickey’s eyes met his. “S’there anything else you’ve been holding in about this monogamy stuff?”

Mickey’s eyes flickered downward— and there it was, Mickey’s defenses were being raised, just like they always were at first. But Ian knew how to breach them, knew how to wait it out. He reached his hand downward, intertwining it with Mickey’s limp fingers and giving his hand a squeeze. Mickey dryly cleared his throat.

“You remember that night, before you, uh. You left with Yev or whatever. And you did the porno with that guy.”

Ian felt an ache of awareness rip through his solar plexus, as the words continued to tumble out of Mickey’s mouth.

“It fucking gutted me, man. That and… all the shit with you running off. Not coming to visit me in prison. And I know we’ve talked about it, and I know we’re over it, and I know wasn’t your fault; but I can’t stop feeling like this”—he paused, eyes flickering down at their clasped hands, their pair of silver rings— “that this might be too good to be true.”

Ian felt something hollow ache in his chest. He couldn’t believe they’d never really talked about all of this, never dug this deep, even in the endless blank calendar squares of their days and months in prison together— sure, Mickey had called out Ian’s shit about leaving him over and over again, but he’d never really said the words out loud, never pinpricked Ian’s actions so specifically.

He’d left Mickey, hadn’t he? Even when he didn't mean to, even when it wasn't his fault— that wasn't just going to go away.

A nauseating awareness started to drip through Ian’s veins. He sat frozen on the couch, planted there— not really sure what to say, not sure what words could patch the holes in something solid that he didn’t even realize were there all these years later. While his mind was whirring, Mickey spoke again— he met Ian’s eyes, and this time the iron shutters in his eyes betrayed a trace of pain, just sharp enough for Ian to barely see it.

“Can we go to bed? And talk about all this shit in the morning?”

Ian felt an indecipherable lump in his throat— and he nodded.

**

Mickey had climbed the stairs slowly, and Ian had trailed behind— and now Ian was laying flat in the bed, all changed into a worn tank top and boxers while Mickey brushed his teeth down the hall. Ian propped his upper back on a pillow he had shoved next to the wall, trying to sift through all the emotions that were swirling and buzzing in his head, threatening to pull him under. How was he supposed to fix this?

Mickey turned the corner into the room, lingered in the doorway. He looked deflated, and tired— and instantly, Ian needed to bridge the gap between them, need to feel Mickey warming the empty sheets beside him.

“C’mere.”

Mickey almost comically collapsed onto the bed like a ragdoll— between the conversation downstairs and the few moments they took apart in separate spaces, something small had dissipated, something had turned less brittle and was starting to bend. Ian instantly shifted to his side and wrapped his arms around Mickey, locking his fingers behind Mickey’s head, overtaking his sight line and holding him close in the bed. Mickey gave a half smile— an acknowledgement.

“Hey.” He heard the note of thickness in his own voice. “I’m so fucking sorry. For… everything. Fuck.”

Mickey coiled an arm around Ian’s waist, laying a palm on the small of his back, soaking him in.

“I know. Just gotta give me some time. And we've got all the time in the world, Gallagher.”

Ian breathed out. “Fuck. Yeah.”

He pulled Mickey closer, until Mickey was almost on top of his chest, his face pressed into the crook of Ian’s neck. He listened to Mickey’s steady breath, feeling the curls of it tickle his chin. Ian reached over to switch off the lamp on the bedside table, then pulled Mickey in closer, slotting a leg between his.

After a moment, he broke the silence.

“So. Monogamy?”

He felt Mickey’s chest vibrate with a breathy laugh. “I don’t know, man. What do you think?”

Ian grinned, feeling something fizzle out of him. He prodded Mickey in the side. “Come on, Mick. What do you want? Actually?”                                                     

Ian felt Mickey’s ribcage expand and retract from where he was pressed against him. “I don’t wanna fuck anyone else, man.” Ian breathed out; and he was about to let out a gust of see, that wasn’t that hard, was it— when Mickey spoke up again.

“But I guess… we could talk about doing stuff. Together?”

Holy shit.

Mickey’s words kept flowing, his breath running hot against Ian’s neck as his words floated through the dark room. “I don’t wanna be with any guy that isn’t you. But it might be kinda fun to like— I don’t know, try that shit some day? Like those hot fuckin’ pornos or whatever.” He breathed out a laugh. “Never thought I’d get to try that shit, and probably never will— but it’d be fun... to try? If you ever wanna.” Mickey paused. “But that’s where I draw the fucking line, man.”

Ian barked out a laugh—and instantly felt a weird, warm sense of pride welling up in his chest. This was Mickey asking for what he wanted—this was Mickey letting Ian in, letting him have all of it, and showing that he trusted him despite all the high and lows they’d both muddled through. This was miles beyond what he would have guessed Mickey would’ve been comfortable with, with all of his Terry-inflicted internalized homophobia still thawing somewhere deep inside him— but he was in. It honestly sounded... fucking hot, all the more because Mickey was so into the idea. 

Ian was so fucking glad that they were talking about this— if this was what Mickey wanted, at some point down the line, he would give it to him. He would give him everything.

Ian pressed a kiss to the curve of Mickey’s jaw, just below his earlobe. “God, Mick.”

Mickey just wriggled closer to Ian, almost like he was nervous. “Yeah?”

“If it makes you excited to do shit with other guys together—only together—than we can totally fucking do that. But only if you want to. I don’t need anything else, Mick— you’re all I need. You’ve gotta know that.”

For the first time in what felt like hours, the ice had thawed from behind Mickey’s eyes when he pulled back to meet Ian’s gaze— Ian could make out the glint of light in the darkness. “I know.”

And as he pulled Mickey’s close and pressed the pulse of their lips together, he was sure of one thing: that Mickey belonged to him, and he belonged to Mickey.

Whatever they tried (or didn’t try)—they would do it together.

[descendantofthesparrow]

Encore - Part of your world - Part 21 - Valentines Day

*posted two hours after the day ended but i count it!!!!*

=

Harry slowly slipped out of your shared bed at 4:30 am, carefully pulling the black and red duvet back over your shoulders. He pressed a soft kiss to your exposed cheek and snuck over to his dresser, taking out his clothes and changing in the bathroom.

20 minutes later he was finally ready and left a small note on your side of the bed, giving you one last kiss before sneaking out of your room through the portal.

Hours later, you finally woke up, your jaw clicking as you let out a deep yawn and sat up, groaning a bit as you stretched and your back popped comfortably “mmm” you turned to look at Harry's side of the bed, raising your brow to see that he was gone. “Harry?” you called out, slipping out of the bed and walking to the bathroom, checking inside for your handsome pirate fiancé “you here?”

When no response came you sighed, turning back to the bed to go back to sleep for a bit when you noticed a note on the nightstand next to your side of the bed, Harry's handwriting just barely visible.

You walked back to the bed and picked up the note, letting gout a small coo as you read the note.

-good morning my love, happy Valentine's day! I got some plans for us today so just get dressed in something comfortable (bring a jacket) and I’ll come back to pick you up at 2! - your pirate

You glanced at the digital clock on Harry's side and nodded, it was only 9 am so you had 5 hours to kill.

Time to take a bath with your new bath bombs~

-

And with the last touches on your (light/heavy) makeup, you were ready for whatever Harry was planning.

You had decided to wear a combo of comfortable formal yet action ready clothes.

A loose red and black patterned shirt, your favorite pants, your comfortable worn-in ankle boots, and one of your red jackets Evie had made for you that complimented Harry's iconic one.

You glanced at the clock, the red letters reading 1:58 pm, nodding you grabbed your keys and attached them to your hip. As you grabbed your bag which held Harry’s gift, the door to your room glowed and opened, Harry stepping through a moment later.

“yer prince is here…ta…wow” you snorted, shaking your head a bit as you turned to look at Harry, leaning against your dresser and crossing your arms. You smirked as his eyes drifted up and down your body “uh….wow” you giggled to yourself and pushed yourself off the dresser, walking over to Harry and wrapping your arms around his waist, admiring the full black suit he was wearing, thin lighter black stripes on his jacket.

“not so bad yourself babe~” you giggled as his ears turned red at the pet name, you sometimes cringed when you heard yourself say it but watching his ears and face turn red was too cute not to do it.

“Thank yeh” he said quietly, eyes locking with yours for a moment before he quickly pecked your nose and tugged at your hands. “come on, I gotta whole thing planned” you laughed as he tugged you through the still-open portal and into Auradon.

You stepped out onto the deck of the docked lost revenge 2.0 and Harry led you off the ship and down to the docks, nodding towards the forest trails nearby “it’s a bit of a walk, is tha’ okay?”

“Good thing I wore my comfortable boots” you joked, squeezing Harry's hand and swinging them between your bodies as you walked towards Harry's plan.

-

15 minutes of walking and talking, Harry covered your eyes, gently pushing you towards the spot “it's just right ‘ere, don’ worry yeh won’ trip” he whispered in your ear, smiling as you grabbed his biceps and whispered right back.

“I trust you mo leannan*” Harry bit his lip as Scottish Gaelic easily rolled off your tongue and pressed a quick kiss to the back of your neck in thanks.

“Thank yeh bonny, now jus’ a couple more steps” he helped you down a couple more steps and pulled his hands from your eyes, setting them on your shoulder and setting his chin there as well “open”

As you opened your eyes you let out a small gasp.

Harry had taken you to one of the clearings in the enchanted forest near the docks, a midsized wooden table sitting in the middle, a pinkish-red table cloth resting over it with white plates and silverware, two thin candles ready to be lit. your eyes drifted to the two large ice boxes next to the table, one you guessed was filled with the drinks the other food.

“Harry this is amazing~” you squealed, spinning around and pulling him into a gentle kiss, smiling as he quickly wrapped his arms around you and hummed into it. You pulled away, smiling at the pout that quickly appeared on his lips “thank you so much”

“yer welcome my love” he muttered with a dreamy smile on his lips, his eyes drifting back to your lips. You took a step back with a teasing smile and turned, walking over to the ice chests and flipping the right one open, humming happily as you took in the multiple types of soda, juice, and other drinks. You picked your (fav drink) and skipped over to the table, setting it next to one of the plates and turning back to Harry, who was digging through the other ice chest and pulling out the food. “oooh what’ja bring?”

“(fav food)” Harry beamed, bringing over the black food boxes and setting them on the table “serve yerself, imma get the sides n shit”

You happily did so, having not eaten since your small snack in the morning to prepare for the possible large meal Harry was going to give you. Harry was back moments later, setting down a box of mashed potatoes, seasoned rice, shrimp stir fry, baked mac, and cheese, corn, and oven-baked Brussel sprouts “but you don’t like Brussel sprouts?” you laughed, picking up the box and shaking it in Harry's face. He leaned back and pushed it back towards you.

“aye but yeh like em” you let out a small coo and set the box back down, watching Harry go back to the food box and pull out a tall container filled with gravy “’ere we go, a meal fit fer a goddess~”

You looked around, pursing your lips “so then where Uma?” Harry let out a small snort, shaking his head “sorry but you gotta admit Uma is fucking beautiful” Harry laughed again, grabbing a root beer and sitting down, looking up at you with a fond smile.

“aye, she is, but righ’ now I’m takin’ bout yeh my love” you smiled back and sat down across from him, popping open the mac and cheese and scooping some onto your plate. Harry served himself some (fav food) and mashed potatoes, scooping some shrimp stir-fry and rice as well.

You took some of the stir fry, Brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes. Sticking your tongue out slightly as you poured the gravy on top. You and Harry glanced at each other for a moment before you dug in.

You danced in your seat as the delicious taste of the (fav food) hit your tongue. Harry smiled as you danced, licking his lips clean as he watched you continue to eat and dance “do yer little dancy dance” Harry sang, yelp-laughing as you kicked his ankle gently.

“shush~” you stabbed a shrimp and popped it in your mouth “I’m enjoying myself”

“as yeh should”

-

An hour later and you had finally finished your late lunch/early dinner, Harry doing a quick clean up and packing the food away to retrieve later. He held out his hand for you, and once you took it he lead you to back up the trail that guided you to the clearing.

You stepped closer to him, wrapping your arms around his arm and laying your head on his shoulder, closing your eyes and trusting him not to let you trip or bump into anything.

Harry hummed a tune in his throat, filling the comfortable silence as you walked. Soon you were back at the ship and harry told you to go to his room while he got the last couple of things he needed, as you walked to the set of cabins near the back you turned to see Harry going down into the kitchen.

You opened the door of Harrys room and gasped, Harry and decked out his room to be the ultimate comfort zone, he had several fluffy blankets piled on his bed, multiple pillows, hanging sheer blankets that blocked out the remaining sunlight of the day, and soft led-fairy lights strewn across the walls.

You kicked off your boots and jacket and flung yourself onto his bed, giggling as some of the blankets folded onto you. You burritoed yourself and waited for Harry.

A couple of minutes later the aforementioned pirate stepped through his door, kicking it closed with his foot. “well don’t yeh look all comfy~” he purred, setting down the large bowl and bag on his desk and leaned over you, his arms caging your head.

“I am~” you laughed, reaching from your burrito blanket and pulling Harry on top of you “and you will join me!”

He smiled, pulling your hands off his jacket and pulling out a crystal rose from his inner pocket. You gasped and took it, twirling the fake rose in your fingers “I will, jus’ need ta set up our first movie”

“otay” you chirped back, setting the rose on the nightstand next to Harry's bed and pulling your hand back into the blanket, and watching harry take off his suit jacket, shoes, and grabbing a remote.

He grabbed one of the blankets you hadn’t commandeered and settled onto the bed next to you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder as you snuggled into his side.

“sooo” he licked his lips, going through Netflix to find a movie the two of you would enjoy “what are we watchin’?”

You were silent for a few moments as harry scrolled through his suggested movies before a grin spread on your face “Shrek the musical” Harry paused, looking down at you as you just giggled to yourself.

“is it good?” he wondered aloud, going to the search bar and typing in your request.

“it's so fucking good, absolutely amazing” Harry snorted, clicking onto the movie and letting it play.

He grabbed the popcorn and bag of snacks and set them to your left, leaving you to grab what you wanted. “alright, let's watch.

-end of part 21-

* mo leannan = my sweetheart

permtaglist

@queer-cosette @sephiralorange

@lunanight2012 @daughter-of-the-stars11

@musicarose @descendantsobsessed

@remembered-license @random-thoughts-003

@thecaptainsgingersnap @rintheemolion​

@verboetoperee​ @imtryingthisout​

[odd-birds-and-booksellers]

For Once In My Life

Hailey is keeping one life changing secret from Jay.

It's just fluffy upstead.

Hailey was so angry with herself...with the world. She couldn’t seem to catch a break, things were finally going good and she’d called it, she said to Jay only two weeks ago that things were too good. He’d laughed it off, telling her that thing just got better with time, refusing to believe a bomb was waiting for them but right now as Hailey stared down at the stupid plastic stick in the sink she knows she was right and he was wrong as usual.

“Hailey, are you ready to go?” She heard Jay knock against the bathroom door as he passed by, heading towards the stairs. She sighed clutching the plastic, making sure she was definitely reading it right. These things could be false right? “Hailey?” Jay's voice pulls her from thoughts again.

“I’m coming giving me one sec,” she yells back hoping he couldn’t hear the slight tremble in her voice as she opened the cabinet in front of her shoving the test behind a box of tampons as she quickly splashed some cold water on her face. Come on Upton get it together.

“You good?” Jay mumbled as she reached the bottom of the stairs where he was putting his boots on.

“Yeah...fine, let’s go before we’re late.” Hailey forces a smile on her face, not giving Jay a chance to respond as she heads for the door, she knew the longer she was around Jay the quicker he would pick up on her obvious angst.

They drove to work in silence which wasn’t uncommon for them, she was lucky to be with someone who she felt completely comfortable around, she could enjoy the quiet moments just as much as their usual banter.

Hailey jumped slightly when she felt his warm hand wrap around hers on the console, intertwining the fingers.  He flashed her his warm signature grin before turning back to the road, making the butterflies stir in her stomach. He had no idea the noise going on her mind, the thoughts racing around in her head.

It wasn’t the right time. She wasn’t ready. she wasn’t ready in her career to take the time out she had imagined she would when she finally started a family. She hadn’t even really spent the time considering if that’s what she wanted if that’s what Jay wanted. They’d been living together for three months, she thinks in all the time she’d known him, Jay, he’d maybe mused the idea of a family like once or twice. It wasn’t the right time but there was this small part of they kept reminding her there was never a right time and maybe her Jay hadn't been together that long and maybe they'd never properly discussed kids but she sure as hell knew she'd never felt love like this before so how could a baby made from the love possibly be an inconvenience.

“You good?... You were a little quiet this morning. Are you still feeling a little sick?” He mumbles as they pull up at a stoplight, his thumb brushing across the back of her hand. It takes everything in Hailey not to just blurt it out right there, knowing everything is better with Jay when they just talk through it. That’s what worked between them, talking even when it was hard, even when they could think of nothing worse. They were always better when they faced things together.

That’s why the words were at the tip of her tongue when his phone rang out, Ruzek's name lighting up Jay's phone as they untangled their hands, Hailey grabbing it for him. They have a case and thank the god she doesn't believe in for the distraction.

She stared down at the info Kim had sent through as Jay does a sharp turn towards the crime scene, the team were already on the scene waiting for them but Hailey's mind was whirling with Kim’s pregnancy a couple of years ago, she’d have to stop working pretty much immediately, even if Voight didn’t immediately bench her Jay would never let her out of his sight and definitely nowhere near a crime scene.

She should tell him, she should just say it. She should just rip off the band-aid before they're wrapped up in a case, running headfirst into danger.

Luckily for Hailey the crime scene is already under control when they get there, though she’d definitely turned heads when she’s stopped to retch on the side of the street, she’d heard sniggers from the uniforms clearly assuming she couldn’t stomach the scene.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Jay grumbles rubbing her back softly, they tried to keep any affection towards each other to a minimum while working, they wanted to prove nothing could get in the way of their work but clearly watching your other half attempt to throw up on the side of the street trumped any professional boundary.

Hailey shrugs, standing up and straightening out her shirt. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, Hailey...do you honestly think I can’t see right through you.”

“I...er.”

Jay rolls his eyes, glancing around quickly to see who was watching as drops his hands to her waist. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk about it yet.”

“I...can we do this at home?” Hailey shrinks away from him, brushing his hands off as she takes a few steps back.

“Sure…” Jay nods, she could tell from the look on his face he wasn’t quite ready to give it up but as he hears Kim call out for their attention he has no choice but to let it go for now.

Hailey spends the rest of the morning at her desk trying to focus on the case at hand but every so often she’d find herself drifting off, little images of the baby half her half Jay filling her mind. She had to be sure. If she was gonna tell Jay. If they were gonna make any sort of decision. She had to be sure before she set off a bomb.

Grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair she heads towards Voight's office ignoring the way Jay's eyebrows knit together as he watches her curiously.

“Come in…”

Voight waves her in as he looks up from the paperwork scattered around his desk. He frowns as he watches her expectantly waiting for her to speak.

“I need the afternoon…” Hailey mutters quietly as she meets Voight's eye, hoping he wouldn’t press her on the subject. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

He raises his eyebrows at her contemplating her request for a moment as he fiddles his pen between his fingers. “Sure go do what you gotta do…”

Hailey nods, muttering her thanks as she begins to back out of the room. “Hailey.” Just as her hand reaches the doorknob he starts to talk again. “Everything good?”

Hailey glances through the glass looking out at Jay who seemed to be squinting at the screen as Kevin leaned over his desk both deep in discussion. He was a good man...he made mistakes. I mean they both did but he was good, he was loyal and he was funny and he would make the most amazing dad...if that’s what he wanted, all she knew is the longer she thought about it the more she wanted it.

“Yeah...yeah, I think it’s all gonna be good.”

Confirming it had been harder than expected, cringing as Jay's smiling face lit up her phone once again, he’d called pretty consistently since she’d sneaked away earlier today. She should’ve gone to Lakeshore...why had she come to Med knowing Will was slinking around the halls? At any moment he could appear and patient confidentiality be damned Jay would be here in a heartbeat.

“Have you got it? Do you have the results?” Hailey yelped the second Natalie came back into sight. Squirming uncomfortably on the hospital bed she’d been forced to sit in for the blood draw.

Nat laughs, shaking her head as she slips into the room, pulling the curtain back as quickly as possible. “Jesus Hailey...you know most people don’t get their labs rushed through as fast as you do.”

“Nat…” Hailey deadpans.

“Congratulations Hailey...looks like there’s a baby Halstead on the way.”

“Oh god…” Hailey cries dropping her face into her hands, a small part of her thought maybe she'd been wrong, but now she really was pregnant, a tiny part of her and Jay was growing inside her and suddenly her whole world had changed.

“Were you guys trying?”

“No...no we were doing the opposite of trying. Well, not the opposite actually...more like a lot of trying…”

“Hailey calm down” Natalie comes to stand in front of her, wrapping her arms around Hailey who wasn’t usually one for hugs but right now that seemed to have gone out the window. “I’ve never seen you this worked up, you’re usually so calm and collected.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Hailey cried, mumbling into Nat's shoulder.

“The hormones no doubt, I remember them well, and from the looks of it, you are already about nine weeks along. I'm surprised it took you so long to figure it out, detective.” Natalie smirks as she pulls back, pulling up the results on the tablet for Hailey to look at, she didn’t really understand any of it but she appreciated it nonetheless.

“Sometimes I miss my periods...the stress at work...I just figured.” Hailey shrugs, her heart thumping hard in her chest as it all suddenly felt so much more real than this morning. “Oh god, I’ve got to tell Jay.”

“Oh that you do, I’ll pray for the world another Halstead is on its way.”

-

“Jay…” Hailey calls out as she shrugs her jacket off, kicking her boots to the side as she enters their home.

“Hey, where have you been?” She hears him before she sees him, standing at the stove, stirring a pot of pasta and she had to resist the urge to snap a photo because even though they’d been together a while now it still amazed her anytime she saw Jay Halstead doing anything remotely domestic.

“I text to say I had something to do,” Hailey mutters wrapping her arms around him from behind, leaning her head against his back.

“Something is pretty vague babe.” She feels him wrap one arm around hers, lifting her hand slowly to press a kiss against it, she knows she’s about to change his world but he has no idea how every small thing he does settles her nerves and makes her feel safe and loved and protected. “Hailey it’s me whatever is bothering you-”

“-I’m pregnant.” She blurts out, her eyes squeezing shut as she cuts him off, the words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to know what she was doing.

“What?” Jay exclaimed, unwrapping her arms from him as he turned around, pushing her back lightly, his eyes searching hers.

“I’m sorry...I’m so sorry” Hailey begins to cry, huge tears welling in her eyes as she looks at his face. “I had this whole speech planned out, I was gonna tell you how in love with you I am and how great you are at taking care of the people you love and what an amazing dad you’d be and I’ve ruined it.” She groans as the tears begin to flow down her face.

“Hey hey hey, Hailey come here...don’t cry, babe.” Jay shushed her gently wrapping his arms back around her, pulling her in so his chin was resting against the top of her head.

He slowly guides them over to the sofa as Hailey tries to speak but it all sounds like a blur of apologies and hiccups to Jay. “You haven’t ruined anything.” He mumbles, rubbing her back softly as he pulls her down onto his lap, brushing the mess of blonde hair out of her face, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “You’re pregnant?” He whispers eyes wide as she looks up at him, taking deep shaky breaths as she tries to calm herself. This was so un Hailey like, she wasn’t a huge crier at all.

“I’m pregnant.” She nods, her fingers dancing dangerously close to her abdomen as she speaks.

Jay stared at her for a moment, his eyes flicking between her face and stomach in disbelief as he tried to process the news. “We’re having a baby.”

“Yeah...is that okay?”

Hailey bites her lip, watching as Jays breaks into a huge grin that lights up his whole face, instantly squashing all her fears with one smile. “Hailey, that's more than okay. We’re gonna have a baby...there’s a baby in there right now.” He mutters, his own eyes welling with tears, as he places his large hand over her still flat stomach.

“But our job and we’ve only just moved and…”

“Hey, none of that matters as long as you’re happy...are you happy?” Jay asks, shifting back on the sofa, pulling her impossibly closer, one hand coming up to cup her face.

Hailey nods biting her lip gently, her eyes sparkling with happiness that makes Jay's heart soar. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about all day and I think I am...I really am happy.”

“Even to be on desk duty?”

“Are you kidding me?” Hailey exclaims wrapping her arms around his neck, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck as he begins to press light kisses along her collar bone. “Platt is like my icon...she's terrifying but totally my icon...maybe they’ll let me shadow her.”

She squirms in his lap, as he reaches her pulse point sucking lightly, knowing how much she enjoys it when he does. His grip tightening on her hips. This is why they’d managed to make a baby without even trying because she was putty in his hands, she had no willpower when his lips were on her.

“So that’s what had that lost look on your face all day...and you’re disappearing act earlier?”

“I had Nat confirm it at Med.” She nods, pushing him away lightly before they get so carried away she forgets what’s she’s trying to say. Slowly she pulls out the black and white photo Nat had given her. After they’d got her blood results back Nat had insisted they have an ultrasound to really see the baby.

“Wow…” Jay's mouth drops as Hailey laughs softly rubbing her thumb across his lip as she helps him shut it, leaning in so they can both examine the photo, a tiny black and white blob already so loved.  ��Look at that.”

“Definitely a Halstead look at the size of that head.”

“Hey…” Jay shakes his head, rolling his eyes at the way Hailey smirks. “My head isn’t that big.” He pouts.

“Your head is perfect… I love you, Jay.” She whispers, taking his face in her hands as she pulls him in, her lips finally finding their home on his.

“I love you too...and I love you, little man.” Jay grins pulling away as he places his hand back over her stomach.

“Who said it was a boy?” Hailey mutters, placing her hand on top of his, all the worries of her day finally fading away, she had everything she needed right here, her tiny little family.

“I sure hope he is...man am I in trouble if it’s a little girl...hmm if we have another tiny Hailey in the house I don’t stand a chance.”

Thankyou so much for reading, leave a comment and a prompt if you feel like it. It's my first time writing for Upstead so please leave some feedback.

It's just a short drabble but I hope you like it.

Also please check out my other socials twitter and insta @oddbirdsandbooksellers for more upstead edits

[thelastspeecher]

Stanuary ‘21 - Week Three: Crime

I decided to go with one of my favorite AUs, my Superhero/villain AU, and write a scene that I should have written a while ago, to be honest.  Namely, Ford convincing Stan to give up a life of crime and become a hero like he always wanted.

Shout-out to the ficlet “Farmer’s Market”, by @mythomagically-delicious, which takes place in an AU of the Superhero/villain AU.  I drew some heavy inspiration from it.  ;)

Enjoy.

———————————————————————————————————–

              Stan made a mad dash for safety.  He ducked into an alley just before the police following him rounded the corner and crouched behind a dumpster.

              “Think he went in there?” one of the cops asked, nodding at the alley Stan was hiding in.

              Shit!  Stan took a deep breath, trying to steady his breath.  No, stay calm, Stan.  It’s fine. You have a backup plan, remember? As if on cue, said backup plan went into effect.  There was a loud bang in the distance.  Stan didn’t want to look and risk being spotted, but he knew from experience that his distraction was producing enormous plumes of ash-colored smoke.

              “He’s a pyro, that’s gotta be him!” the other cop said.  The two rushed off towards the planted smoke bomb and away from Stan.  Still, Stan waited a few minutes to be sure.  Once he was positive the coast was clear, he emerged from his hiding spot.

              “Damn,” he breathed.  His smoke bomb was still billowing, filling the sky with gray.  “I mighta souped that one up a bit more than I needed to.”

              Not long ago, Stan had discovered he could use his pyrokinesis to enhance the effects of smoke bombs.  That discovery led to him learning how to make his own. Unfortunately, the method he’d used to improve store-bought smoke bombs didn’t work for his homemade ones, so he had to develop a new one.  All in all, he’d invested a lot more time than he’d care to admit into his smoke bomb research.

              At least it’s paying off now.  The smoke bomb showed no sign of slowing down.  Damn, I might have accidentally caused more smoke damage than fire damage.  Stan shook his head, dispelling those thoughts.  Get back to your car, get outta dodge before the cops come back and get a look at your face.  Stan trudged out of the alley.  He seamlessly joined the crowds that had gathered to stare at his latest disturbance.

              As he mingled with the rubberneckers, Stan’s ears picked up on a nearby conversation that, for some reason, stood out more than the background muttering.

              “What could cause that amount of smoke?”

              “A fire.”

              “Well, yes, but they put out the fire already! And the smoke isn’t coming from where the fire was.”

              “My lil brother used to prank our older brother with smoke bombs…”

              “Could a smoke bomb be responsible for this?”

              “Only if there’s a pyro behind it.”

              Stan ducked his head and picked up his pace, hoping to get far away from the two men and their eerily accurate discussion.  He quickly arrived at the Stanleymobile and got in.  But not until the town had faded into the distance, did he allow himself to relax.

              Okay.  Back to the drawing board.  Can’t use a smoke bomb that attracts that much attention.

-----

              Stan finally straightened his back, stretching to dispel the kinks that came from hunching over a desk for hours on end. He was back in his crappy motel room, trying to do something about his overeager smoke bombs.  So far, he hadn’t had much luck.

              The news blared on the TV.  After a lot of trial and error, Stan had found that the news was just loud enough to provide background sound, but just boring enough to avoid being a distraction.

              “In another blow to peace in the Middle East-” the newswoman began.  Stan grabbed the remote.

              “Nope,” he said, turning off the TV.  He stood and stretched.  “I’ve got my own problems, lady, I don’t need to hear about other peoples’.”  His stomach rumbled.

              …I could use a snack.  Just as Stan was heading for the place he’d stashed his bags of chips, he felt a tingling sensation akin to feet falling asleep spread throughout his body, starting at his toes and gradually reaching his head. Though it felt familiar, it took him a moment to place it.  He blinked, and he wasn’t in the motel room anymore.  But the dorm room he was in now looked just as bad.

              “Oh, thank goodness, you’re not nude,” said the man standing in front of Stan.  “It’s been some time since I summoned a person, and I was worried I might accidentally leave your clothes behind.”  Stan crossed his arms.  He raised an eyebrow.

              “You say ‘thank goodness’ now, Ford?” he asked dryly.  Ford looked away, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

              “I might have picked it up from my roommate.”

              “Good for you.  Now, tell me where the hell I am so that I can go back to where I was,” Stan said.  Ford blinked.

              “You’re not curious as to why I summoned you after all this time?”

              “Nope.”

              “Why not?”

              “Look, Sixer, if you wanted a nice, brotherly chat, you would’ve summoned me back when Pops first kicked me out,” Stan snapped. He fought down the small amount of happiness he felt at seeing his twin again.  “But it’s been years.  Which means either someone’s dead or you want something from me.  And whichever one it is, I don’t care.”  Stan turned on his heel and stormed for the door.  As he put his hand on the doorknob, Ford spoke.

              “I know,” Ford said softly.  “You don’t care about me, about yourself, or anyone else.” Stan paused.

              “Why do you think I don’t care about myself?” he asked.

              “Because you’ve given up.”  Ford interpreted Stan’s continued silence as permission to continue.  “You’ve given up on the thing that gave you drive our entire lives.”

              “What?”

              “Being a hero,” Ford said simply.  Stan’s hand fell away from the door.  His heart pounded in his ears.  “I saw your latest arson on the news.  Actually, I saw it in person.  My roommate and I were shopping in the store next to the one you set on fire.” Stan looked over his shoulder.

              “You’re not gonna snitch on me, are you?” he asked.

              “No.”

              “Good.”  Stan fully turned around.  He let his hands burst into flames.  “It wouldn’t end well for you if you did.”  Ford didn’t react to the threat.  At least, not in the way Stan expected.  Rather than blowing up at him or scoffing, Ford just stared at Stan, evidently sorrowful.

              “Have you really gone that far astray?” Ford asked. Stan’s mouth went dry.  “Would you hurt your own twin?”

              “Where’s all this coming from, huh?” Stan demanded. “What, I set a building on fire and suddenly you’re worried about me?  After spending all this time pissed at me?”  He threw his hands, still aflame, up in the air.  “That was the secret all along!  I shoulda committed a crime in front of you years ago!” That got the reaction Stan expected. Ford’s worried frown twisted into a snarl.

              “I despise what you did to me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to throw your life away!” Ford snapped.  “Ever since we were kids, you wanted to be a hero.  You worked hard to follow in Mom’s footsteps. But now?  You’re perfectly fine with burning down stores and setting off smoke bombs?”

              “Why do you care?!” Stan roared.

              “Because I’m the reason you’re letting all your potential go to waste!” Ford shouted.  Stan stared at him in shock, the fire around his hands finally smothered. Ford’s eyes widened.  He looked away.  Stan stepped forward.

              “What do you-”

              “You heard me,” Ford said tartly.  He looked down at his feet.  “I- I hate what you did to me.  But I can’t deny my role in your current situation.”  Stan opened his mouth.  “And the reason why I summoned you now…”  Ford took a steadying breath.  “I started feeling guilty the moment Mom kicked out Pops for what he did. But I’ve been able to stifle that guilt under anger.”

              “Until today.”

              “Until today,” Ford repeated.  He took another breath.  “When I realized you had committed that arson, I knew you had given up on your dream of being a hero, and I couldn’t ignore the guilt any longer.”

              “Why?”

              “Honestly?”  Ford looked up at Stan.  He managed a weak smile.  “Because you’d be a damn good superhero, Stanley.  You could do so much, help so many people, save lives!  And that’s been your goal since we were children.”

              “Because I could help other people.”

              “Because it’s what you were meant to do.  Mom saw that in you, even before your powers manifested.  I saw that in you.  Hell, Pops saw it in you, too.”  Stan raised an eyebrow doubtfully.  “He saw it in you,” Ford insisted.  He rubbed the back of his neck.  “He just didn’t care about supers.”

              “You’re right about that,” Stan said.  He cleared his throat.  “And you might be right about the other things, too.”  Ford perked up.  “Everything’s not suddenly hunky-dory, just so you know.”

              “I know.  I have negative feelings towards you that have yet to be resolved.”

              “Yeah.  Same for me, but in a less nerdy way,” Stan said.  Ford rolled his eyes.  “But…” Stan trailed off.  He sighed.  “I turned to a life of crime ‘cause I didn’t have a choice.  But I never felt that great about it.”  A faint smile quirked the corners of Stan’s mouth.  “Call it Mom’s influence.  I couldn’t quite shake the feeling I was meant to follow in her footsteps.”

              “Of course not.  You were meant to become a hero,” Ford said.  Stan’s smile grew stronger.  “We both have issues to work out, between the two of us, but I don’t want you to give up on your destiny.”  Stan let out a bark of laughter.

              “Destiny, huh?”  He grinned at Ford.  “Well, when you say it like that, I can’t really say you’re wrong, can I?” Ford smiled back.

              “So you’ll give up crime?”

              “Yeah.”  Stan cocked his head thoughtfully.  “Not until after I fill up the Stanleymobile one more time, though.  She’s running low on gas.  Once that’s done, I’ll go back on the straight and narrow.  Just gotta figure out how to join the Defenders or whatever.”

              “There’s a newer team on the West Coast that I think you have a better chance at joining,” Ford said.  Stan shoved his hands into his pockets.

              “I’ll look into ‘em.”  Ford nodded in relief.  “Oh, by the way, remember our deal?”

              “Deal?”

              “Every time you summon me without warning, you owe me food,” Stan said.

              “Wh- we made that agreement when we were children!”

              “And I’m holding you to it,” Stan said.  “I’m guessing you brought me back into town when you summoned me?”

              “Yes.”

              “My motel isn’t too far away, so I’ll be back at 6 for dinner.”  Ford sighed.

              “Very well.”

              “See you then.”  Stan opened the dorm room door and strolled out, whistling.  As he walked out, Ford’s roommate Fiddleford walked in.  Fiddleford looked curiously at Ford.

              “Ya had a visitor while I was out?”

              “Yes.”

              “Was it a good visit?”

              “Yes.  It was.”

              “That’s nice.”  Fiddleford walked over to his bed and set his bag down.  “I found what I wanted at the library.”

              “What were you looking for, again?”

              “Blueprints.”

              “For?” Ford pried.  A devious twinkle appeared in Fiddleford’s eyes.

              “Haywood Hall.”

              “The building that all our school records are kept in?”

              “Yessir!” Fiddleford chirped.  He began to dig around in his bag.  “Surprisingly easy to get.”

              “I’m shocked that they even allowed you to check them out of the library,” Ford said.  Fiddleford hummed noncommittally.  Ford’s eyes widened.

              Wait, Stan doesn’t have the Stanleymobile.  How is he going to get back to his motel? Ford closed his eyes and focused. A surge of power flowed through him. There was a shout from outside.

              “What the fuck?!”  Ford walked over to the window and looked out.  Stan stood in the parking lot, staring at his red El Diablo. He looked up at the dorm.  After a moment, he lifted his middle finger.

              Ford snickered.

[lexosaurus]

Everything Was White: Part 10

Part [1] / [9]

Read on [ffn] [ao3]

---

Click.

“Danny Fenton Phantom was spotted today exiting from the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle at the Kaufman Health Center, a recovery center specializing in adolescent mental health and trauma—”

Click.

“—what I want to know is what the hell happened here? Okay? Because in this video I see a kid who can’t walk, who’s looking around like he’s terrified someone’s going to come get him, and you’re sitting here telling me that this is Danny Phantom? This kid? So what happened inside—”

Click.

“—was released from his inpatient stay at the Amity Park Psychiatric Center just this week. Though it is unclear at this time if we’ll see him soaring through the skies again anytime soon, sources say he is recovering quickly—”

Click.

“—no, Dave, I agree that something’s not right here. If you ask me, he’s gotta be a ticking time bomb—”

Click.

“—a ghost or a human? That’s the question we’ll be discussing tonight—”

Click.

“—while what happened during his time within the government’s hold is still unknown, one thing is for certain: Danny Phantom has a long way to go if he wants to get back to his former glory.”

Click.

The screen went black.

“You shouldn’t be watching stuff like that,” Jazz said from behind him.

Danny stared blankly at his lap, not even bothering to turn around and face Jazz’s disappointed gaze. His therapist had told him—had told his parents—that Danny should avoid the news for a while. In her office, Danny found it too easy to comply because he was only just beginning to jigsaw together the broken pieces of his life, so why the hell should he care about the news?

But now it was different. It was unavoidable. The media had been tipped off that Danny Phantom had returned to modern society—somewhat—and that he was attending a PHP program, and now any brief semblance of anonymity he had was gone.

Just like that.

“Twitter’s worse,” he muttered.

Jazz sighed and came around the sofa, sinking into the cushions next to Danny. Her hair was up in a messy bun with strands sticking out like gravity didn’t exist. She pulled the sleeves down on her oversized hoodie and wrapped her arms around her legs.

There was a long pause, and for a moment, Danny prepared himself for a Jazz-style lecture about teenage psychology and how he needed to listen to his therapist because she was the expert here, not him, but instead all she gave was a small “I know.”

His stomach turned, and in a moment of vulnerability, he uttered, “I think the worst part is...they’re right.”

“Danny—”

“No. They...I...I used to get this stuff all the time. When I was just Phantom.” He paused, waiting for Jazz to butt in, but she didn’t. “It was so much—so much easier to ignore. Back then. Because they were wrong. I—I knew they were wrong. I wasn’t...a ghost. I was a halfa. They were...they were looking at me like a full ghost, you know? And...the theories were wrong. They didn’t know…”

“Some of the things they said were pretty ridiculous, I remember that.”

“Right?” Danny twisted around to face Jazz. “It was obvious to us, but they didn’t know! They sounded crazy!”

Jazz looked at him with an uncertain gaze. “You realize that they still sound crazy, right? All the people talking about you?”

“No...you don’t get it. The theories are updated, and they know—they know I’m Phantom. Don’t you get it? Everything they’re saying...it’s all based in truth.”

Her expression turned pained. “Danny, stop.”

“But I’m right.” 

“Danny just—come on, think about it for a second! The public hasn’t seen you in months, everything they’re going off of is based on rumors!”

“They saw me this morning, didn’t they?” Danny gestured at the television.

Jazz scoffed. “And you’re really going to take their word over mine? Because of a five-second video of you going into a building?”

A headache was building in his skull. Jazz was trying to guilt him, wasn’t she? But he knew the truth.

The public didn’t need much more than the short video of him going from the GAV to the building, because there wasn’t much else to the legendary Danny Phantom anymore. Everything in that video...that’s all he was now.

Just a traumatized teen going to a health center.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Danny—”

“No, I’m—I’m...” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “I’m tired.”

“Me too.”

Her voice was so quiet, so defeated . Danny couldn’t remember a time where Jazz ever sounded like this.

He was selfish, wasn’t he? He had spent all this time so caught up in his problems and his anxieties that he never thought about what Jazz was going through. They had talked, but not really. 

A wave of guilt swept through Danny because he was such a selfish and awful brother who didn’t ever think to check in with his sister despite everything she had done for him and she deserved so much better than him.

His throat felt tight. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, cut it out,” she said, slapping his arm playfully.

He tensed and immediately felt his face heat up in embarrassment. He kept his eyes trained down to his lap, not wanting to see if Jazz noticed his reaction.

“It’s not your fault, Danny.”

Danny didn’t know what she was referring to. Even so, she was probably wrong. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“With what, spending quality time with my little brother?” 

“Sure.”

“Well...” She yawned. “See? I’m too tired to do any more homework. Guess I’m forced to chill here on the couch with you. Woe is me and all.”

He rolled his eyes. “The horror.”

“I know, you should pity me.”

“Maybe you should take a nap.”

“Why do that when they’re showing reruns of ‘The Bachelor’ on TV right now?” Jazz plucked the remote from Danny’s fingers.

“Oh god.” A grin began to creep on Danny’s lips. “I get back from—from being abducted by the government...and you want to torture me with trash television?”

“Yup!”

“Unbelievable.” 

Jazz shot him a playful smile. “Well, your options are either ‘The Bachelor’ or you could always find Dad and let him blather on about ghosts for three hours. Choice is yours!”

“And become the victim of his—his latest invention? You drive a hard bargain.”

The depressive fog was beginning to lift in the room, and it was as if Danny could see clearly for the first time. Here he was, joking around on the couch with Jazz, just like before. There was nothing holding him down. He didn’t need to stand up and walk anywhere, his chest was surprisingly calm for once, and his brain felt clear and calm.

This was what he’d always wanted, right? To sit here with his sister, watching mindless television and joking about whatever was on their minds.

This was what he’d dreamt of nearly every night in the Guys in White compound.

He was safe.

Right?

“Ugh, I don’t know why she got so far into the season,” Jazz said, her eyes glued onto the screen. “She was awful.”

Danny watched as a brunette on the screen threw her purse at another girl and stormed out of the scene cursing. “The producers probably...they made her stay.”

“Oh yeah, no doubt. She was crazy. There’s no way Kevin actually liked her.”

“I mean, it is reality TV. It’s not—not actually real.” 

Kind of like how this isn’t real, huh, Fentino? 

Danny gripped his shirt. No, his brain needed to shut up right now. This was real. He was safe and the government was nowhere near him and they couldn’t touch him because the courts had made sure of it. 

“Well, she was annoying either way. I know they like to keep someone on there every season to make drama but ugh, she was just the worst. Like, look!”

“This whole show is the worst though. I can’t...believe you’re make—making me watch this.”

“Well, there’s always those packets Lancer left you!” Jazz said in a singsong voice.

Danny couldn’t hide his disgust. He flopped back against the cushions. “Ugh, don’t even joke about that.”

She took one look at him and laughed, her voice light like a stone skipping over a pond. It was a bright and cheerful sound, one that reminded him of the time he tried to attempt duplication in front of Jazz, resulting in an extra arm sticking out of his torso. 

Danny stared mesmerized at his sister, watching as her smile widened across her face and her eyes squeezed shut, crinkling at the corners. He tried to recall if she’d laughed like this at all since his release from the government, but came up blank.

Sure, they’d had moments of sibling bonding since his release, but they were all held back by something. Whether it be the watchful eyes of nurses or Danny’s body perpetually in recovery mode, there was never a moment where they could truly relax and enjoy each other’s company.

But now he was safe.

Well…

His brain drifted back to the leaked video, and his mood instantly soured. His phone felt heavy in his pocket, and he resisted the temptation to take it out and scroll through Twitter.

He couldn’t even imagine what people were saying.

He was probably a joke to them now, wasn’t he? Amity Park’s hero, reduced to nothing more than a shell of his former self. To go from a confident teen who would soar through the skies, protecting citizens from all sorts of unsavory characters to a traumatized, disabled teen who couldn’t get through a day without hours of therapy and needed his mom’s help to get inside of a building was...well, if that didn’t make him a joke, what would?

Jazz’s attention was now back on the TV screen, and Danny tried to emulate her. After all, he was safe and comfortable and with his sister and there was nothing else to this moment, that was all there was to think about. 

But then something flashed in the corner of his vision, and for a moment he hoped that his eyes betrayed him because it looked like a white van but that was...it couldn’t be…

No…

But it was.

He glanced over to Jazz, but she was too transfixed on the screen to notice him, and he wouldn’t know how to get her attention anyway because his voice wasn’t working and he couldn’t even breathe now and he was going to die, wasn’t he? He was going to die.

They were coming back for him.

He was going to die.

The van slowed to a crawl, and he desperately tried to see inside of the tinted windows but he couldn’t and they wouldn’t roll down their windows either so who was in the van? Was it...was it…

But it had to be him, right? Who else would come back for him?

He tried to suck in a breath but couldn’t. His chest wasn’t working anymore. 

He blinked and the backs of his eyelids were green. Just like his cell floor and the splatters along his wall and his rib when he awoke to it in front of his face and oh god he was going to die, he was going to die, they were coming back for the rest of his core and his ectoplasm and he wasn’t going to survive another round of the compound he knew it he would rather die than do that but his core wouldn’t let him because it needed to protect him his stupid Obsession was going to force him to endure whatever they threw at him in order to protect him.

Unless they ended him first.

Which they were probably here to do.

He was shaking. He was distinctly aware that he was shaking and he hoped that Jazz hadn’t noticed him but she probably would have said something, wouldn’t she?

Oh god. She was going to have to go through it all again too. No...he couldn’t let her...he couldn’t let that happen.

He needed a plan.

But...there was no plan. He couldn’t do anything. The only thing he was capable of was sitting here like some helpless dog watching the van slowly drive by his house. All he could do was wait for it to stop at his driveway, for the agents to jump out of the doors and surround his house, for Operative O to step out with that signature smirk on his face as he held up the inhibitors in one hand and the fucking red bag in the other hand and say with his deep, arrogant tone, “You ready for round two, dog?”

But then, just when the van looked like it would stop, it sped up and turned the corner of their block.

Danny blinked, staring at the empty spot where the van was just seconds ago. 

Had it really...left?

He let out a shaky breath. And then another.

It left.

But it had been so close to stopping.

Oh god. Oh no. Oh no no no.

“Danny?”

The room was spinning. He needed air. The lights were so bright. When he looked up, the ceiling was white and he kept trying to tell himself that it was a wooden ceiling but the room was spinning and he couldn’t see correctly and the lights were too bright.

It was too late. His cover was blown. His hands flew up to his hair and he felt a comforting tug on his scalp.

Get a grip, get a grip…

“Oh my god, Danny! Hey, look at me!”

Danny shook his head. Or, he tried to. He didn’t know if he was able to or not, because he definitely couldn’t look at Jazz right now because he was going to be sick—

“Danny, what do you need?”

“I—”

What?

He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think. Everything was frozen. He felt something wet on his face but he didn’t know what it was or where it came from and his chest was sparking to life and his ears were ringing and he didn’t know what to do. 

“Try to breathe.”

Right, he needed air.

He tried to push himself up but only succeeded in falling back onto the couch. 

“Hey, what are you—”

Hands invaded his vision, touching his arm, and he swatted them away.

He needed to get out. Escape.

Something grabbed his wrist, and he yanked his arm back to his chest, his eyes snapping onto Jazz’s face.

“Danny—”

“Van!” he gasped.

Jazz stilled. “Huh?”

“There was…” Danny looked back out the window, half expecting to see the white van back outside their house.

But there was nothing.

“...a van.”

Why had it left? What did they come here for in the first place if not to take him back to the compound?

It didn’t make sense.

“What are you talking about?”

“I…” He hugged his chest, looking desperately at Jazz’s confused face for even an ounce of understanding.

Why did the van leave?

“Do you need me to get Mom?”

“No!” He was breathless. He couldn’t explain what was going on because he didn’t even know what was happening. Why the Guys in White decided to patrol around their street. Why they decided to slow down in front of their house. 

Jazz tracked his gaze to the window where a black APC News van was stopping to park across the street.  “Danny, I know there are lots of news vans around here now, and I know it’s really stressful. But Mom and Dad tinted all the windows so they can’t see inside of the house, okay?”

Danny gritted his teeth. He wanted to yell out that it wasn’t the news, it was the Guys in White, but his voice wasn’t working and even if it was, Jazz would just call him paranoid and insist that the government wasn’t there to get him again, that he was safe, even though he knew that was a lie.

So instead, all he could force out was a tense “sorry.”

“I know this is hard, but we can get through this together, alright?”

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see her bright, trusting eyes. And, with a final shuddering breath, he felt the last of his adrenaline rush out of him.

Because maybe Jazz was right. After all, this was Jazz. She was always the smart sibling, the one who everyone could trust. She must have been right. It had to have been just a news van.

Maybe he really was unstable.

“Sorry. I’m fine.”

He was suddenly hyper aware of where he was, sitting on the living room couch with his sister, who was looking at him like he was a ticking time bomb—and maybe he was. Maybe that was all he was destined to be from now on.

Either way, it was embarrassing. 

“Sorry, I—I’m gonna go lie down for a bit.”

Jazz’s face almost looked relieved. Danny couldn’t blame her. 

“Sure, Danny. Do you need help getting upstairs?”

“No.” Danny glanced over to the stairlift, grimacing. He really couldn’t get his core back quick enough.

He began the arduous task of getting up to his bedroom, trying to remember the stupid grounding techniques that the PHP therapists were making them practice. “When you feel your brain trying to pull you into your trauma, remember your senses. Try to think of one thing for each of your five senses to bring you back to the present.”

It was stupid. He didn’t need grounding techniques because he wouldn’t even be in this situation if not for the Guys in White trying to ruin his life again.

One, touch. He could feel the loose ectoplasm beneath his fingers, the way his hands were sticky against the damp tile, the burning electricity they would use to punish him, the cold metal straps chaining him down to the examination table, the ecto-inhibitors weighing down on his neck, the way Operative O’s fingers trailed his chest just before the scalpel sliced through his skin, his flesh tearing off of his body all while he lay there, silently screaming, waiting for the pain to take him because he couldn’t do it anymore.

No, that’s wrong. You’re doing this wrong. 

But how could he come back to the present when the past refused to leave him alone?

Think, Fenturd. 

He closed his eyes and felt...his sweatpants. And…

Two, hearing. He could hear Operative O’s deep voice—

No.

—and the way it would echo around the tiled rooms, the sounds of nice black shoes hitting the pristine floors, the squeaking of Phantom’s damp hero suit as the operatives dragged him across the floor, the—

Stop. 

—machines whirring to life as they prepared to drain him of more ectoplasm every day, the scraping of tools against a metal table, the metal straps clicking into place each day, the slight squeak of the IV drop they would have to wheel into the experimentation room after Danny stopped being able to eat—

STOP.

His hand slammed the emergency brake, and the stairlift lurched to a halt. A wave of nausea swept over him, and he sat there at the top of the stairs, focusing on breathing if only to prevent hurling all over his dad’s stairlift. 

He needed to calm down. Ground himself. Be present in the moment. Do what the therapist told him to do.

He could hear his heartbeat. The TV Jazz was watching. The crickets outside.

He flipped the stairlift back on and continued forward.

Three, sight. He could see the controls for the lift. The red emergency brake. His hands. His human skin.

He ascended the last few stairs and, like a robot, rolled off the platform and pushed himself to his bedroom.

He could see his door. It was a wooden door, not like the metal door in the Guys in White facility. The metal door smeared with green ectoplasm—he got punished for that one—with a sickening pool of ectoplasm right in front of it from Danny’s attempts at eating the meals they would bring to him every evening. He could see the cameras in the corners of his cell, always pointing down towards him as a constant reminder that he was always being watched. He could see the granola bars on the other side of his cell mocking him, the tube Operative O would show off before he would shove it down Danny’s throat—for being an insolent, disrespectful creature, of course—the scalpel glistening under the bright lights, ectoplasm speckled on it like jewels.

He could see his bed. His window. His rug.

His nightstand, which he knew if he opened the drawers he would see pens, batteries, his phone charger, and a bottle of oxycodone.

Danny pulled himself onto his bed, pointedly turning his head to face his wall. He could see all the cracks in the wall. When he first got out of the hospital, he used to spend hours tracing the cracks. It was the only thing that would help distract him from all the pain.

He ran a hand along the rough surface, but to his disappointment, the magical distracting aura of the wall had vanished, leaving behind nothing but a broken surface.

Four, smell. Ectoplasm. Nothing but ectoplasm. Burnt battery acid with a hint of lime. Disgusting, revolting, inhuman. On his skin, in his hair, under his nails, everywhere. 

The smell of Clorox in the hallway, the distinct rotting of his cell, the red bag…

He covered his face with his hands. He was doing this exercise all wrong, he knew he was, but for some reason he needed to do it this way. He wanted to forget, but there was another part of him that almost needed to relive what happened as if to punish him for existing. It was an ugly, revolting part of him that he loathed right down to his core but it just wouldn’t shut up.  

He glanced over to his nightstand.

He needed to make a decision, didn’t he?

Five, taste.

---

“So, Danny. Your mom’s been worried about you,” the therapist said, scanning her clipboard. 

Danny prodded at the stress ball in his lap. The one in the hospital had been blue, but this one was green. It could have looked like a ball of ectoplasm if it weren’t so dull. 

“Oh?” He feigned surprise.

“She said you’ve been having trouble eating again.”

He hummed, neither confirming nor denying her statement. There was no point in really responding anyway. This was his personal therapist, the nice blonde lady he saw three times a week. She knew him better than anyone at this point. If he even thought about lying, she would call him out.

She tapped her clipboard with her pen. “She told me your father made hot dogs last night. Do you remember?”

Danny stared down at the white carpet. It was so clean, so fresh. If it weren’t for the small grey diamonds patterning the material, it would have looked nearly identical to the government floors.

This office was much brighter than the one she used in inpatient. Much cleaner, and the sofa was more comfortable too. Yet Danny couldn’t help but have a sudden urge to walk straight out the door.

If only he could.

“Danny?” she asked, her voice softening. 

He sighed, jabbing a finger into the stress ball. “My dad made hot dogs.”

“Right, and do you remember what happened after he made hot dogs?”

He wanted to forget. 

It was bad enough before, with the nurses and his parents constantly going over his meal plan and the stupid protein shakes. But now that everyone was at least vaguely aware that Danny may have had some stupid experience around food and that he may have accidentally brought that home with him and he might be failing to hide it from everyone close to him?

He did not want to get put on a meal plan again.

Maybe he could convince Tucker to pick up some Nasty Burger for them. If he ate it in front of his parents, surely that would get them off his back. That was a normal teen thing, right? He did that before everything changed. That sounded like a good plan.

Danny glanced up at the therapist, the suggestion ready to leave his lips, but faltered. She was looking at him expectantly. She’d asked him a question about dinner, hadn’t she?

“Uh…” Danny squinted at the stress ball, trying to remember the question. 

A part of his mind tried to recall what the Nasty Burger tasted like, but he couldn’t remember. It was good, he knew that much. He used to eat there all the time, but now he couldn’t remember.

What if he didn’t like their food anymore? What if it smelled wrong and he couldn’t eat it? The Nasty Burger was a normal teen thing, so if he couldn’t eat it then that would make him abnormal which was the exact thing he was trying to avoid with this plan.

This was a disaster. He knew he was going to fail at eating the Nasty Burger. Why did he think he could do this? He was too much of a mess of a person to even think of eating a burger.

Not a person, remember? You’re just a—

“I’m not,” Danny whispered. “Shut up.”

“Yeah?”

Danny dropped the stress ball into his lap. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, trying to fight off whatever game his brain was about to play, before groaning and burying his head into his hands.

“Take your time, Danny. Deep breaths.”

Right, he needed to breathe.

In...and out…

In...and out…

He was fine.

“Are you alright?”

Danny nodded, rocking back and forth in his chair ever so slightly. He was fine. He was fine. 

He allowed the silence in the therapist’s office to stretch a bit further, focusing on calming his racing heart and embracing the dark, silent parts of his mind. They were his safe havens, the parts of his brain that he could lock himself into to escape the ugly memories of the government facility.

His brain felt like swimming in a hurricane with no land in sight. But every once in a while, he managed to spot the eye in the storm, and sometimes he could even fight the riptides just long enough to swim to safety.

He was fine.

“It’s stupid anyway.”

“What is?”

“This. Me. Everything...dinner.”

“Why do you think it’s stupid?”

He shook his head. “The whole thing...it’s so dumb. I don’t…”

The therapist didn’t say anything. Vaguely, Danny could hear the click of her pen, but he couldn’t hear the familiar scratching of the pen on the clipboard. 

She must have been waiting for something, Danny realized. 

This was the perfect opportunity. Dinner last night had been a complete and utter disaster. He had already been on edge courtesy of the white van—which now he was almost positive he was such a paranoid idiot because it was probably just a news van—and then the next thing he knew he was curled up in the bathroom trying to fight off the smell of processed meat that was attacking his home. 

He could have told the therapist right then and there. She knew about the dissection, about the night he tried to escape, about the nights he’d spent locked in his dark, damp cell, shivering, desperately trying to cling to the memories of his family and friends because he knew—or he thought—that those memories were all he’d have left of them.

And suddenly, he wanted so badly to tell her because what was worse than being ripped open and torn apart? What could possibly be worse than being electrocuted and dragged away from his family? What could be worse than hearing gunshots and not knowing for weeks after if the Guys in White had actually shot and killed his family?

It was all so screwed up. He was so tired of the panic, of the pain, of the lapses in his memory and the freaking therapies and the chest pain that never seemed to go away. This was his life now and he was exhausted.

This was the only part of his captivity that he hadn’t told her. He could end all this secrecy right now. She could help him.

He looked up at her, and there she sat with her blonde, curly hair clipped back, revealing a patient smile paired with her signature soft, grey eyes. Her legs were crossed, and in her hands, she held her clipboard and pen. She was here, radiating kindness and a judgment-free environment where Danny was sure he could reveal exactly what the hell was going on without worrying about seeing that horrified face he saw from his mother or Jazz during family therapy.

She could help him. He just had to say it.

“I…” He took a shuddering breath, dropping his eyes back to his lap where the green stress ball still rested. “Um…”

Say it.

“I…”

Say it.

“In the...in the…”

SAY IT.

“...”

Why couldn’t he say it?

He glanced up again and she was still sitting as patient as before. She was waiting for him, because she trusted him to tell her what was wrong, and he wouldn’t say it.

Because he couldn’t.

Because he was weak. 

Because Operative O did train him, just like he had promised he would.

And worst of all, Danny had let him. He knew exactly what Operative O was trying to do, and he’d let it happen. He hadn’t tried to fight him off at all, and he hadn’t eaten the granola bars when asked. He could have easily avoided all of this, but he didn’t. Because he knew, and Operative O knew, that Danny deserved it.

“I don’t know.”

The therapist hummed in response. “Food can be just as powerful of a weapon as a knife. It can be used against us as a means for control. And then sometimes, we may take that trauma home with us. Do you feel like the Guys in White used food to control you?”

“Of course they did,” Danny snapped. What did she think the entire meal plan was for?

“Can you think of a time where they did this? It can be any time that jumps out to you.”

Danny frowned, rolling the stress ball around in his lap. If he outright refused to answer, then she would tell his parents and they would start crying again and would threaten to send him back to inpatient. And after yesterday, he was already on thin ice. 

So he would have to give an answer, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

“They were mad that I had to use IVs,” he started. “So they tried to force feed me.”

“That must have been really scary.”

“Yeah…” His throat tightened, and his eyes started to burn.

“Can you tell me about it a little?”

No.

“Uhh…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “By that point, everything just hurt so much. I don’t really...I can’t…”

“What was hurting?”

He hugged his torso. “My back, mostly. My arm too. Ribs. That was before...before when they—with my chest, you know. I didn’t have that then. There was time in between my back and that.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.” He was starting to feel hazy. Things were blurring together, and he didn’t know if the tingles in his chest were a sign of his pain medication wearing off or if they were just a part of a distant memory.

“Did the smell of the hot dogs bring you back to that place?”

“Kinda. I don’t know. It shouldn’t have.”

“Why do you think that?”

Danny pressed a hand to his chest. The tingles were starting to get worse, and Danny tried to remember if he had taken his medication that morning. 

He had to have taken it. His mother controlled his medication, per doctor orders, and she always made him take it with breakfast.

But the tingles in his chest were starting to feel like fire licking at his skin, and even when he tried to smother the fire with his fingers, it only seemed to grow worse. 

It didn’t matter, he would get more medication soon. He just had to grit his teeth and bear it until then.

He was fine.

“Danny, what’s on your mind?”

Danny flinched, and once again, he was made aware that he was still sitting across from his therapist who seemed to have an unlimited supply of patience for his bullshit. 

He glanced up at the clock. They still had a half hour left of this session.

“Yeah.”

What were they talking about again?

---

The phone lit up, illuminating the dark room.

Danny wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting on his bed, staring out the window at the stars speckled against the sky. It was a clear night, a full moon. It would have been perfect for a flight if he could. If he didn’t have this chip in his neck.

He ignored the phone. Whoever was trying to contact him would have to wait. The night was too perfect, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gazed out at the stars.

It was so serene. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was outside, floating face up towards the Milky Way. But he wasn’t going to close his eyes and imagine that, because it wasn’t real. And he didn’t know when he would even get that opportunity again, if ever.

And besides, if he closed his eyes, how would he look up at the stars?

His phone went dim, leaving him once again submerged in the darkness of the night.

The stars were too far away. Maybe if he tried, he might be able to at least drag himself onto his roof.

But what if he couldn’t? Did he even want to try, knowing he was likely to fail? Would he be able to handle that kind of defeat?

It was no use. He would just have to ask his parents to take the chip out in the morning. Surely they had safety-proofed the lab by now, hadn’t they? If they were so worried about Danny being hurt? It must have been a top priority for them.

But then why hadn’t they done that during the two months Danny had been in and out of the hospitals? Why wait?

Unless…

Stop it. 

It was preposterous to think that his parents would lie to him about this. After all, what was the point of keeping Phantom locked up? They knew it was hurting him to be separated from his ghost core for so long. Surely they were going to take the chip out as soon as possible.

Right?

The phone lit up again, snapping Danny out of his thoughts. Whoever was trying to contact him this late could certainly wait till morning. If Danny hadn’t picked up the first time, then what made them think he was going to answer now?  

He snatched the stupid device off his nightstand, fully intending on shutting the damn thing off, but froze. There, displayed perfectly on the caller ID, was the name of someone he hadn’t thought about in months:

Vlad Masters

His blood ran cold. Vlad? Why him? Why now? As far as Danny knew, he’d kept his distance since the court case. Of course, Danny had known that he was the one financing the entire lawsuit—Danny wasn’t an idiot—but he assumed it was either Vlad’s attempt at either reconciling his own stupid guilt or, the more likely scenario, that it was Vlad’s way of making sure the Guys in White couldn’t keep their grimy little hands on Danny’s halfa biology. 

Either way, Danny assumed that Vlad would have enough tact to know to stay the hell away from him.

But Vlad was never one to uphold unspoken boundaries, now was he?

Danny’s finger lingered over the end call button just a moment too long.

Although his stay with the government had changed him, his poor decision-making skills and teenage impulsiveness had unfortunately survived these past few months.

Danny jabbed the answer button and whipped the phone up to his ear.

“What do you want, Plasmius?”

---

As always thank you so much to @imekitty for beta-ing this fic. If you like this fic, check out her fics on ffn, they are very angsty and brilliantly written!

Thanks for reading!

---

<previous / next>

[willadisastercry]

Retrieval mission gone horribly wrong: nearly everyone is whumped...

tw: discussion of blood, breathing difficulties, impalement, loss of conciousness, discussion of the aftermath of an explosion

The mission should’ve been simple. All they had to do was blend in, which meant no armor, only concealed bayards. Everybody knew the deal, Pidge has the tablet that tracts the artifact, the rest follow and protect Pidge who retrieves said artifact. They were supposed to get in and out quickly, to not leave time to dawdle, or room for error. And most importantly, not get caught. But the entire team was off that day, leaving little that went according to plan and multiple members of the group badly injured and in need of tending. It didn’t matter if it was a lack of focus or proper intel... but who was left to save them?

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Hunk had refused to enter the crudely lit corridor and watched in horror as his teammates were enveloped into darkness aside from the shrinking green and red and grey glows of their bayards.

The vibes were just off, he’d argued in protest since the power hadn’t wavered once when they combed the previous floor. We don’t have our suits and cannot afford to blindly walk into an ambush with only our bayards. Not to mention, there is not a single guard around—absolutely nothing to protect this artifact located down a dark and mysterious hallway, does not mean go and check it out anyway?!

But Pidge’s radar confirmed the signal was emitting from just a couples yards ahead and the other boys couldn’t argue with that.

“You don’t have to come with us, bud.”

“Yea, don’t sweat it...”

“...we gotta get moving.”

They were already running short on time for the estimated window of opportunity to retrieve the artifact they were tracking before the security system rebooted. They just couldn’t pass up the chance, but Hunk also just wasn’t going to be caught dead following them down there.

“I guess I’ll cover you on this end...”

There was nothing on his end though. Not a single thing.

He relished in the steady influx of their voices discussing what they saw over the coms. Nothing for a while, Lance stepping on Pidge’s heel, Keith bonking his bayard on the wall accidentally and it scaring them, Pidge saying they were closing in on the artifact. But immediately after they started closing in the clear stream became crackled and unintelligible.

Hunk wanted to throw up, he knew something had gone really really wrong when their coms went down completely but Shiro and Allura could still be heard urging everyone to move faster, that they wouldn’t be able to hold the attention of their defense fleet much longer.

They had drawn the patrol fleets’ fire and were serving as a distraction for nearly thirty dobashes now, their lions had taken a substantial amount of damage and wouldn’t hold up much longer.

“Guys?! Pidge, come in! Lance? Keith? ANYONE?!”

“Yelling! In my ear! Why are we yelling?”

“Shit—yeah, hi Shiro. So... Keith, Lance and Pidge followed the signal down this sketchy hallway, but I didn’t go because it looks like the type of hallway you get murdered in—I shouldn’t say that, but it looks like that. It’s pitch black, zero visibility, I can’t see them at all. Man it felt so wrong down there! I knew something was up, I felt bad about not going with them but I couldn’t, I couldn’t go, something wasn’t right!”

“Hunk! Focus! I need you to calm down and tell me you’re exact location, better yet send it to me.”

“Gosh—okay, yeah, I can focus. I can—“

But Shiro never got to calm Hunk down enough to have him even describe where he was because his end of the coms went out and was replaced with a similar static.

“Crap, Allura I’ve got to go in and help them,” Shiro stated as he sprayed the battle ships with a hail of fire before stealing the castle away.

“I’m coming, guys,” Shiro assured even though they likely couldn’t hear him.

Allura stayed back to draw base’s defensive fighters away and then get them off her tail while Coran cloaked the castle. Once they were out of range, Shiro used their last drop ship to bypass the planets defenses while they were still distracted and landed on the base near Pidge’s green lion.

Shiro had no idea what he’d be walking into when he tracked the artifact on the server Pidge created to identify quintessence.

He sure didn’t think he’d first find a passed out Hunk at the beginning of said sketchy hallway with a heavy plume of smoke billowing from it. His forehead bleeding pretty significantly and he didn’t stir when Shiro shook him.

“Fuck,” he breathed as he lugged the larger boy up by his arms and draped him over his back, using their combined momentum to keep them both upright as he trudged into the thick smoke and dense darkness of the sketchy hallway.

It was so dark he couldn’t see five feet in front of him, but it wouldn’t have mattered with the smoke anyway, the only reason he remembered it was there was how it filled and sat heavy in his lungs.

He called out hoarsely. But nothing for the longest time until he followed the blinking light from the server and turned the corner.

The first thing he heard was heavy breathing. He called out, but no one responded. His glowing hand casting a vague purple sheen that illuminated his path slightly and allowed him just enough visibility to not to eat shit over the debris that littered the floor.

There had been an explosion.

Hunk had been right. There was no one guarding the suspicious hallway with the precious artifact because the guard was the spooky hallway itself.

Shiro slowed and began scanning the entire width of the hallway as he moved, looking for the first sign of life or anything that looked like it would set off a bomb, but wasn’t too worried about that since his team had obviously made it that far without...

He forced any thought about what he might stumble upon when he found them out of his head. All he needed to focus on was finding them in the first place, which got a little tricky when the hallway forked. The server wasn’t precise enough to pinpoint the difference of fifteen feet accurately. So he stopped altogether now and called out again.

He heard nothing for second, but then he heard wheezing, the strangled rattle of someone’s chest working and darted down the right most corridor.

Before he turned down the next corridor he was stopped dead in his tracks when his purple hand illuminated a shaggy haired form crumpled around the corner of the wall. Keith.

He knelt down and grabbed the shuddering boy’s shoulders. His raspy breathing was what he’d been hearing. He refrained from rolling him onto his back to check for further damage because it was peppered with shards of metal, so instead he assured him that he was safe now and that he’d come back for him once he checked on everyone else. Keith only grunted.

Shiro let Hunk down next to Keith and activated his hand once more to begin scouring the hallway.

He called out again, and this time someone responded. Shiro took off on a weary trot as he followed the weak response, he told them to keep talking as he scanned the floor, very aware of each skinny twist of metal that looked remotely like an arm or a leg until he actually saw a leg attached to one. Lance.

Lance was on his side, his shoulder tucked unnaturally under him, with the tip of a jagged wrench of metal sticking into the fleshy part of his thigh.

“I’m okay,” he huffed as Shiro eyed him worriedly, “I just can’t get up. My shoulder is done for but the bleeding on my leg has sort of stopped or slowed at least, it’s not even that deep it’s just very securely in there.”

“Okay, do you think you can stand?”

Lance laughed dubiously, but extended his uninjured arm out to Shiro anyway.

“That was not at all convincing, but I guess we’ll find out... hook your arm around my neck, yeah just like that, now I’m going to brace your bad arm against your side so nothing moves weird and you’re going to put weight on your good leg... on three, one—three!”

As soon as Shiro hoisted Lance up he nearly topppled back over with the wave of excruciating pain that washed over him, he yelped and writhed as he breathed through it, his legs wobbling while he gripped Shiro’s shirt to keep himself upright.

From what Shiro could tell as he carefully manuevered his arms around Lance’s waist and good arm to keep him from falling, his shoulder appeared to be very much dislocated. But it was now safely clutched against his side, so any jostling of it would be awful, but no further damage would be made.

Lance took a shakey breath and stepped back, giving himself a second to sus out if he could make do with his bad leg. A fresh gush of dark red welled around the shard protruding from his thigh and dribbled slowly down his leg. He grimaced, but it carried his weight.

Shiro’s heart sank. An explosion like this wouldn’t have hurt his team as badly if they were wearing their armor, not just the under suit. It was his order, to be discreet. This was his fault.

“Hey, I’ll live. Pidge was father down, she was closer to this explosion,” Lance mused as he leaned heavily on the wall while he made his way forward.

“There were like several. Keith got the brunt of the first one, is he okay?”

“Uh, ish. I had Hunk with me, he’s out so I left him with Keith.”

“Shit...”

“I know, usually takes a lot more to take out the big—“

“No, look.”

Lance pointed to Pidge with the light of his bayard. She was slumped against the wall and looked like she was mostly okay asides from being unconscious, that is if you didn’t mention the glistening pool of blood below her.

Shiro rushed forward and his stomach turned. Only when he got close did he realize that the entire right side of her body was torn up by metal debris.

A lot were minor knicks, but there was one particularly jagged gash in her side that was likely the source of all the blood.

“Pidge? Hey, you with us?!”

The smaller teammate hummed when Shiro shook them.

“I’m gonna get you out of here, okay? This probably won’t feel good, I’m sorry.”

Shiro lifted up Pidge’s limp form effortlessly, ignoring her pained cries as he held her against his chest so that her head rested on his shoulder, one arm clutching the back of her thighs and the other free to help Lance limp back to the rest of the team.

Hunk was responding by the time they got back. A large hand pressed firmly on Keith’s arm as his chest worked, his breath ragged and his lungs wheezing while he breathed through the thick smoke. Shiro made a mental note that he probably had some other injuries to his chest that were making him so susceptible to the effects of smoke inhalation.

“Okay, Hunk how you doing? Can you walk?”

“I ‘on know,” he slurred, “pro’ly.”

“I can help him. You get the mullet, he’s not looking too hot.”

Lance hefted a dazed Hunk to his feet with his uninjured arm. He swayed, but Lance steadied him.

Shiro knelt beside Keith, balancing Pidge on one side while he probbed his stomach.

“Anything hurt over here?”

“No, agh! Not really, mostly my chest... and my back,” he groaned through labored breaths.

“Good, hold on to me,” he postured before pressing the boys hips against his own and bringing him up with him.

Keith’s breath hitched as he adjusted to the new orientation, but he got his feet under him and clutched Shiro’s shoulder before doubling over. He was almost retching like he was going to be sick, but he just couldn’t breathe.

Hunk who was hanging on Lance held out his arm for him to grasp and he did, grateful for the extra support while he struggled to fill his lungs.

“Easy, Keith. Just relax. I know it hurts, but we have to get back to the Castle. We’ll fix you up soon you just gotta work with us for now,” Shiro soothed, dragging him along sluggishly.

“Shi— o— iro— Shiro? Shiro can you hear me?”

As they moved farther and farther away from the artifact, the coms grew clearer until they could hear Allura’s voice distinct and worried.

“We’re here Princess, we’re all here,” Lance answered.

They heard Allura let out a sigh she tried to repress, she didn’t even know she was holding her breath.

“Are the paladins alright?”

“Uh...”

“Ish.”

“Should I patch Coran in and tell him to prepare a pod?”

Pidge let out a particularly pointed whine as Shiro shifted her so she wouldn’t slip lower, his moving also tweaked something for Keith who moaned a very deep and crackly ‘ouch’.

Shiro eyed the darkened expanse of Lance’s thigh, Hunk’s wavering balance.

“Have him prepare a few... just to be safe.”

“Oh dear, alright.”

They had to move quickly but carefully. Shiro had never tread so lightly during an escape except for now when he was toting two very injured and in pain paladins. He moved even quicker when he realized that Keith had gone from only clutching at his shoulder to leaning entirely into his side, his feet at times merely dragging along. Shiro’s grip on his hip pressing it against his own was uncomfortable for them both but there was no other area untouched on his upper body for him to lug him by.

Lance and Hunk made their own way together, swaying and stumbling the entire time. Lance’s leg had pretty much stopped bleeding, the metal protruding from it effectively staunching it for now, but the damage around it grew more and more apparent. His muscles felt both excruciatingly taut and achingly loose as they squelched around the piercing metal.

It would altogether buckle beneath him every now and again, leaving Hunk mostly holding up Lance but relying on him to reorient himself when his head ached so bad that his vision blurred. Hunk was always careful of his shoulder when he’d stop and hang on him, Lance’s bad arm remaining clutched tightly against his side and out of the way anyway.

“We’re almost to Green, come on buddy,” he said as he urged the larger boy forward, practically hoping now.

No one really knew how they made it out without getting stopped, but the robotic foot soliders seemed to only take into account that the perpetrators who set off the explosions would be running, not hobbling.

Green’s whines were present in everyone’s head with Pidge’s conciousness wavering, the jaws of the smaller lion opening up as soon as they neared.

My paladin! Green lion save paladin! Green lion fly paladin to castle!

“We’ve got her, Green. You just get us back and we’ll do the rest,” Shiro assured, settling down on the ground of the cockpit with Pidge between his legs, her back against his chest so he could put pressure on the gash in her side.

He had guided Keith to his knees where he then practically pitched forward onto his stomach.

Looking at the wounds on his back with some of the metal bits still sticking out in better lighting made Shiro want to hurl.

Then again holding Pidge’s insides in place also made him want to hurl but that was why she was positioned the way she was, so he didn’t have to see it.

Her breathing was fast but it was better than Keith’s. Every now and then she’d make a pained sound and he would just whisper in her ear that she was safe and she would calm down soon after.

And then he’d take her pulse. It had gotten slightly weaker but he could still feel it.

Lance had lowered himself to the ground slowly but his good leg was tired and cramping from the effort of getting out of there and so the descent down was anything less than smooth, his legs giving and his back hitting against the wall. It jarred his shoulder so badly he was wailing.

Hunk held his hands against his ears when Lance screamed out, he hated the fact that his friend was in pain but the shrillness of his cries sent stabbing pains into his skull where a pulsing welt had been growing. There had been an explosion at every key checkpoint on the way to the artifact, including the entrance he was supposed to be covering.

When the wave of nausea and blinding pain subsided, Hunk placed his hand on top of Lance’s who didn’t have the energy to tighten around it while he clenched his teeth together, hissing as every movement Green made only hurt him further.

Keith could sympathize.

The only option was for him was to lay on his stomach, shifting his weight to the side of his ribs that hurt less was all he could do. He could feel every one of Green’s movements reverberating in his chest, riling up every bit of hurt that was now present and dialing it to well past ten.

He just wheezed through most of it, the smoke from the explosion still thick and heavy in his throat, but when his lungs ached so bad he couldn’t help but cough it made his bruised and broken ribs hit the ground and his vision whited out several times.

It wasn’t until one fit racked his body so badly he coughed up a bit of blood that hands were on him pulling him to his knees and putting his head between his legs so he could calm down enough to breathe.

“Hey, Green? Please hurry...”

[greyfongschemmenti]

Under Pressure 9|15

FryeArcana

Chapter 9

Trust and Suspicions

Summary:

You have to decide whether to take Mako's word or believe Lin. You start to make your own thoughts and investigation on the culture center explosion. How will you take it and will you be able to figure it out.

The plan is in place while you’re standing beside Mako and Asami, watching her workers place dummy crates onto one of Varrick’s ship. “the ships all loaded. Let’s get this sting operation going.” You’re about to start walking to the ship when Mako stops you “not yet, we need extra manpower.” You turn around and face them “who do you have in mind?” Asami looks at Mako “what about Korra? No better muscle than the Avatar.” You quickly look at Mako and speak up “I don’t think Korra is around” Mako nods “yeah, actually, she’s, um—she’s out of town right now.” He eyes you before looking down. Asami glances at the both of you “everything okay with you and Korra?” Mako brushes her off “yeah, yeah. Forget about Korra. I’ll talk to Bolin.”  You look at Asami and rub the back of your neck you see Mako is far away now before you lean over to Asami “they broke up, but you didn’t hear that from me” “what? Why didn’t he say something?” she looks at you and you shrug “they had a big fight at the station. Maybe he’s not ready to talk about it” you frown before you wave her goodbye “I gotta go handle some stuff at the office. Make sure I stay doing my normal routine and not bring any suspicion to the Chief. If there are any updates let me know.” You wave again as you walk away to the station.

*

           You walk up towards the desks of officers when Lin calls for you “Lieutenant if you can step into my office.” all the officers look at you and start murmuring. You gulp as you look down and make your way to her office, closing the door behind you taking a seat across from her. “Yes, chief?”

“you have any update on this case. Raiko is on my ass on finding the culprits” she groans as he pinches the bridge of her nose. “you’re guess is as good as mind, although…” you trail off and Lin looks up “what?” she snaps. You try to ease into it inhaling deeply “I think Mako might be on to something.” Lin groans out loudly “not this shit again… You’re not seriously believing Mako, right? It’s so far stretched”.

“I get that, but he’s doing more detective work than Lu and Gang.” You grip the arms of the chair sitting up. “that’s not Mako’s job to begin with” she snaps as she starts to glare at you raising her tone. “then who else is going to do the job!” you stand up out of the chair getting heated to Lin’s stubbornness on not wanting to listen to you “Lu and Gang are two lazy fools that don’t want to do anything. I’m grasping at straws here and Mako is the only one who has any sort of idea on what happened that night! He witnessed a man run out the direction from the building and drop that remote control. Which is what set off the explosives. That same sequence happened on Varrick’s ship during the theft--.” Lin jumps out of her chair and slams her palms on the desk “you better watch your tone with me, lieutenant.”

You put your hands on the edge of her desk and lean in to face her “you want progress on this case. I want this case solved just as fast as you do, Chief, but you don’t want to listen to Mako or trust what he has to say.” You glare at her and she snarls not liking, “what does Mako have to do with the case?” she barks out “You assigned me to put Mako down as MY shadow. I have a built a partnership with him. One that has built with trust and believing oneself while out on the field. I’ve kept quiet throughout this whole Mako butting in at the wrong times but I’m going to finally add my input. We’re supposed to trust each other on the force especially by the time we move up and get partners. How are we supposed to do that if we’re just bashing the rookies down, he’s showing interest and dedicating himself to solve this case but what are we really doing if we’re just going to brush him off.” You slam a hand down on the desk then stand up straight and pace the room. “So who does super-cop Mako think is responsible” Lin exasperate amusing you for a second as she drops down at her chair folding her arms. You sigh deeply as you rub your temple before you tell Lin Mako’s theory, “The guy Mako identified is a member of the Agni Kai Triad. He believes the triad was hired to bomb the cultural center during the peace march. We have no clue yet on who hired them, but Mako is adamant that it wasn’t the Northerners.” you put your arms behind your back as you look at Lin and she eyes you “This has Northerners written all over it. No one else would benefit from seeing the center bombed and ambush a ship war provisions. Yet, you believe him?” she says irritated and frustrated at this whole situation. “you took me back on the force because you trust my judgement, perception and intuition. Something is telling me to trust him. Call it a gut feeling. Mako hasn’t failed or disappointed us on the force,” Lin rolls her eyes and rubs her face “I’m not going to have my mind changed because you have a “gut feeling”” she groans out. “we’re not getting any closer just arguing here. I’m going to go find new leads” You sigh “I agree” she snaps as you walk over to the door putting your hand on the knob you stop for a second “All I’m saying since Amon, Mako has earned some trust. You’re usually always right, but this once… you may be wrong, Lin” you look back at her, your eyes softening before you open the door and walk out the office, head out the station. Getting ready for the night, you planned to change and take a taxi to the docks. It’s now or never, you have to prove to Lin and to yourself that Mako might be right after all.

*

“So when you asked for help you really got help from the Triple Threats” you lean on the railing as you look down at the water as you kick a small pebble off and watch it get lost in the clash of waves. “they’re all I could think of, plus they owed me a favor” he said, and you roll your eyes “I just hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces. Sorry I’m not trusting to triad members” you mumble while you eye two-toed ping as you tug on your jacket collar. You should’ve layered more clothes on after you changed from work. The wind is really cold in this area. “I used to work for them” Mako commented and you nod “yeah, I remember, but you did it to survive. You don’t do it anymore. They choose to do it.” You look out into the dark horizon, not a sight of light. You let the silence take over around you as the ship makes it way along the route where Varrick’s ship was on until Mako comments “this is right around the area where the attacks happened. So we should keep our eyes peeled and stay quiet.” Two Toed Ping starts rambling a bunch of nonsense and you lean your head down letting a groan escape your lips. Mako turns to Ping “Two Toed Ping, please” he stops then proceeds to ask Mako “so what’s it like dating the avatar?” both you and Mako sigh as you step away and go sit on a nearby bench. Imma let him handle that. You try to block out of the conversation and keep your eyes peel, your mind races back to that conversation you had with Lin. In the background you hear Ping calling out to Viper and Shady Shin about how disbelief he is that Mako was the one who broke up with Korra. You smirk and silently laugh hearing them tease Mako then look away crossing your arms, it’s been a while and so far and nothing. Maybe this whole thing is a bust.

Another 30 minutes of no action happening out here in the middle of the water you turn to Mako “you ever thought about cutting them off” you ask Ping as he shows you and Mako his toes and how he got his nickname “they’re my lucky toes”. Mako groans as he paces around and stops “wait, guys. do you hear that?” you look around then back at him “I mean besides the chatter and the waves clashing against the ship. Nope. Nothing. Just like the last past hour.” You huff as you slouch against the wall of the ship. Mako groans “Ah! What’s taking so long?” Ping chills back and puts his arms behind his head like he has no care “you just gotta relax, like me. sit back, knock your boots off enjoy the sound of the waves”. Mako growls “I’m gonna check out around the ship” Mako walks away leaving you with Ping “did Mako really break up with Korra or is that a bunch of phooey?” he leans over to you and you scoot over before getting up “that’s what he said, didn’t he” you walk over to the railings and look down at the waves. “I’m gonna go for a walk I’ll be back” you notify Pin as you walk down along the railings as Ping waves you off dozing into a nap. You keep walking as a hand comes out from a corner and pulls you towards them you’re about to fight them when Mako puts a finger on his mouth signaling to stay quiet. You gain your footing and stand “what’s wrong?” you whisper “I just overheard Shady Shin and Viper. We’ve been double-crossed. We have to get off this ship” Your eyes widen at the realization “who the hell would do that?” you whisper as you both start to run in the direction of the speed boats. You get stopped by the triad “where do you two think you’re going?” Viper smirks Mako grunts as he throws a fire punch at the men and you jump over the railing into the speed boat starting it up while Mako cuts the ropes. You slam on the accelerator and gun it back to the city while Mako fire bends at the two speed boats. You try to keep the boat steady to help Mako until Viper starts to waterbend large shards of ice out of the water and you start dodging “hang on!” you yell out as you start to maneuver around them. You think you’ve gained enough space between them when you’re suddenly sent up into the air by a large waterspout of water. “Holy shh….” You scream out you metal bend the seatbelts around you and Mako to prevent the both of you to fly off from the boat. You grab on tightly on the steering wheel feeling your stomach turn as you come crashing down. Making sure to keep control you land back on the water and continue on nearing closer to the City. You can see the city skyline coming nearer, “Almost there!” you see several other ships in the horizon and maneuver around them, Mako turns around “They’re getting closer!”. “not for long, grab on to something” you grip on steering wheel as you see two ships crossing each other and you narrow your eyes calculating the right time to turn and get in between the two ships. “watch out!” Mako scream you yell back “I got this! You worry about Viper and his men!” switch gears and speed off. Mako looks back “Nice job! One down, one to go.”  “yeah but where’s--“You swerve avoiding colliding into Viper who came from a different direction you try to gain control of the boat trying to prevent it from tipping over. The boat stalls out and you try to get it started back up “Mako, the boat, we’re stalled!” Viper collides into your boat head on and Mako fights off with Viper while you run and jump over to the other boat tearing off a piece of metal from their boat and wrapping it around the driver trapping him on the steering wheel. You look back at Mako who got knocked back into the seats of the boat and you snarl running over to Viper and jump over kicking him down on his back before throwing him back in his boat. You jump over the windshield and try starting up the boat as it sputters out until it finally roars to life, you switch gears and time it right to send the boat to dive into the building coming up fast. You swerve to your right avoiding collision and drive off along the harbor. As you and Mako watch the boat crash into a warehouse “so any ideas?” you yell out “someone paid the triple threats to keep us distracted.” You grimace “distracted from what? Did you offer them anything?” you look over at Mako before turning back to the water ahead. “Asami offered some vehicles and stuff….Asami…we gotta check out the Future Industries warehouse!” Mako yells as he holds onto the edge of the boat. You nod and make your way.

*

You call Asami using a nearby phone and tell her to hurry to the warehouse. You walk over to the light switch and turn it on, it finally illuminates the now empty warehouse. Your jaw drops as you ball your fists “whoever paid the triple threats stole everything.” Mako comments “I can’t believe we fell for this” you look down your eyes tearing up. Mako puts his hand on your shoulder “I’m sorry, y/n. This is my fault; it was my idea.” Asami runs over to the both of you and stops abruptly as she sees the scene behind the two of you and her eyes widen. You look at her and your eyes water “Asami…I’m sorry” Mako explains everything that happened and Asami looks in horror “I’m ruined…my company…it’s over…” she looks down in defeat. “we should check your other warehouses. Maybe they didn’t have time to hit them all.” He tries to give Asami some hope. Asami’s shoulders lower as some tears start to form at the corner of her eyes “you don’t understand. Everything I had was in here.” “we have to search the place for evidence. If I can find a lead…” he goes off trying to think of a plan “Just stop. We’ve failed, Mako” you beg him as you turn around your back away from the warehouse heading towards the dock in front of the building leaving Mako and Asami alone together. “it doesn’t matter anymore” Asami says quietly. “we can figure this out.” He quickly interjects “it’s over. I give up” she looks down admitting defeat. Mako turns to Asami and looks into her eyes “well, I’m not giving up on you.” Asami looks up with tears in her eyes, looking into Mako’s eyes and leans in giving him a kiss. You turn around and watch the kiss unfold gasping Asami steps back “sorry, I—” Mako looks around awkwardly “uh…it’s—it’s okay.um…anyways…I gotta run. I’m gonna find out who did this, with y/n’s help, and I know just who to ask.”  

*

Asami offers to give you a ride home you offer to drive and stay the night at her estate. She refused, wanting to be left alone. You sighed and nodded understanding and bid farewell as you step out of her car waving her goodbye as you head up to your place. You shower getting rid of the harbor smell off of you and change into some fresh clothes. You remember Lin and look at the clock it’s 1 in the morning you grab your uniform jacket. You walk over to bowl and grab your keys and get on your bike, speeding over to Lin’s place. You look over and knock on the door not getting an answer. She’s probably still back at the station. You get back on your bike and head over to the station.

           You walk up inside the station almost bared besides the two officers at the entrance and a couple of officers at their desk sleeping. You quietly walk past them and knock on Lin’s door “yes, who is it” you open the door and call out to her “Chief” she looks up quickly putting her glasses down motioning you to step inside. You walk in and close the door behind you. “where have you been?” she asks eyeing you suspiciously “I was investigating on the case.” you’re just now coming back? You should’ve just gone home.” she looks down at the paperwork “no, after I was done I went over to Future Industries trying to help Asami with her company troubles.” You explain then stop “I checked to see if you were home, but I forgot I was looking for Lin Beifong, so I came to her real home” you teased. “after our discussion in the office you just left without another word. Wondered if it would be a repeat of last time” she muttered you shake your head “whatever happens at work stays at work.” You approached her as you pulled a seat to sit at the side of her desk. “Plus, if I know anything about you… I figured you wouldn’t sleep or try to rest until you’re closer to solving this case. So maybe… you wouldn’t mind my help.” you lean over at her as you look into her eyes putting your hand on top of hers. Lin gives you a soft smile “that’s your job, lieutenant”. You smirk and rolls your eyes “yes, chief” you playfully salute then grab a file and start rereading the reports.

           After half an hour you set down a cup of coffee in front of Lin while you take a sip out of yours and get back to reading your notes before looking up

“there is something that keeps gnawing my mind.” You speak as you close your file looking out at nothing

“what is it?” Lin looks over at you

“Varrick” you mutter

“Varrick?, What about him?” she says coolly as she flips a page

“His indifference about losing a ship was just weird, don’t you think?” you arch your eyebrows as you think back to that scene in the interrogation room.

“Varrick has plenty of shipping boats, he owns a global shipping enterprise” Lin mutters back.

“Well yeah, exactly. He was transporting materials that he could profit and lost it. Yet he showed no anger or frustration after three attacks occurred in the same week. Most businesses would be furious if they lost potential profit. Isn’t that a bit peculiar?…unless” you stand and slowly walk to the window looking out at the empty low lit square.

“unless?” Lin perked up looking over to where you walked off to.

“unless Varrick purposely blew up his own ships…” you turn around to face her

“you’re seriously not proposing that Varrick destroyed his own ships for what?” she takes her glasses off and sets it down on the desk as she turns her chair to face you.

“I know that sounds preposterous but is it really that crazy?” you step towards her

“why would Varrick blow up his own ships. Like you mentioned he wouldn’t want to lose a potential profit if he’s getting money from his deal with Future Industries”

“yeah you’re right…” you trail off as you look back over out the window and let Lin go back to her paperwork.

“you’re sound like a conspiracy theorist like Mako” she jokes

You smile at her but slowly frown at your thoughts

*

You’re lying back in Lin’s bed with her sleeping beside you. You’re both exhausted with staying in the office so late but even though your eyes feel heavy you’re unable to sleep. Your mind won’t stop thinking back on your suspicions about Varrick. Lin stirs and turns over on her other side shifting her body as she scoots over so she can rest her head on your chest putting her hand on your chest. You put your hand over hers and curl your thumb around her finger as you kiss her forehead watching her sink down comfortably and go back into a peaceful sleep. You smile enjoying watching Lin sleep then look up at the ceiling going back to your thoughts. The only people that knew about that sting operation was you, Asami, Mako and Varrick. You’re obviously not it, Asami would never do that to her own company. Mako…you don’t trust he would betray Asami like that or that he would drag you down like that, so that just leaves…Varrick. But why… ‘he wouldn’t want to lose a potential profit if he’s getting money from his deal with Future Industries’ Lin’s voice replays in your mind. You analyze that for a moment, Varrick wouldn’t be trying to overtake and gain control of Future Industries, would he? He wouldn’t play that dirty, right?

[sylvanfreckles]

For the Greater Good (Whumptober 2020)

Day nine, a little short and a little weird. Trying to get back on schedule after a difficult week.

Summary: “And it’s my job to protect you! So would you stop trying to throw your life away and just let me?”

* * *

“Down!” Dean shoved Sam to the ground and opened fire on the mercenaries that came around the corner.

Sam half-crawled into cover, tugging the control panel for the complex's electrical system with him. “Once the timer is set we're gonna have thirty seconds to clear the building,” he called over his shoulder.

It should have been an easy task. Break into high-security building, rescue captive humans, destroy computer systems. These guys were hunters gone rogue, taking in runaways under the pretense of giving them a home and a purpose only to experiment on them with monster DNA. Trying to create the perfect soldier.

But they'd gone too far. Most the kids hadn't survived the experiment, and the few they could save were outside with Cas as the angel tried to stabilize them. Now that they had been found out, the rogue hunters and their mercenaries were scrambling to evacuate as much of the equipment and data as they could. They had one shot to destroy the whole thing before these guys started over somewhere else.

Jack slid across the floor, face covered in soot and dirt. “I connected the tanks like you said,” he told Sam, a little breathlessly.

“Great,” Sam tried to smile, but had to focus on the wiring work in front of him. He had to set it up to detonate remotely so they wouldn't be caught in the blast, but they couldn't give it much time or the mercenaries might disable the detonator.

“Phone!” Sam called, snagging Dean's phone out of the air almost on reflex. He stripped off the back cover and connected wires between the battery port and headphone jack, which would cause the spark they needed to set off the timer. “That's it, let's go!”

Sam tugged Jack to his feet and bolted for the door, one hand on the kid's back to keep him doubled over. Dean was behind them, still covering them, taking potshots at anyone who stuck their head around a doorway. “Come on!” He snagged Jack's arm and tugged him along, sprinting down the rough corridor to the set of stairs. “When you setting it off?”

“Next landing,” Sam panted behind him. They'd been doing way too much running today. “Then we have thirty seconds to-”

“To get outside, yeah, I know,” Dean shot back. “All right, move it, come on,” he paused on the landing, shoving Jack ahead of them down the hall a little way. “Sammy?”

Sam nodded and dialed Dean's phone. He waited, knowing the first ring would signal the connection to the bomb...but the call went straight to voicemail. He stared at his brother in shock, then redialed.

“What's wrong?” Jack asked.

“I-I dunno,” Sam shook the phone, as though that would help the connection. “It's not going through.”

Dean swore and dug his fingers into his hair. Jack, face serene, squeezed between them to head back down the stairs. “I'll take care of it.”

“The hell you will,” Dean snapped, yanking the kid back. “What are you talking about?”

Jack stared up at him with wide, sad eyes. “I have a lot to make up for.”

“No, Jack, we'll figure something else out,” Sam replied. “We have the grenade launcher, right?”

“There isn't enough time,” Jack said. “It's all right, Sam. This is all right.”

“This isn't how we settle things,” Dean announced. He held up his fist, cocking an eyebrow at Sam.

“Dude, no, we are not gonna rock-paper-scissors for who sets off the bomb!”

“We don't have time to draw straws, Sammy!” Dean shook his head. “It's only fair.

Sam stared in disbelief, but Jack held a fist out like Dean. “It's only fair,” he repeated.

Dean smiled and rested his free hand on Jack's shoulder...then struck him in the face with his closed fist so that the kid went down like a sack of bricks.

“Dean!” Sam caught Jack on the way down, hefting the kid up, dismayed to see his nose already gushing blood.

“No time, Sammy,” Dean rested one hand on Sam's arm briefly. “Get him out of here.”

“Dean!” Sam could only stare as his brother pelted back down the stairs, into the hail of gunfire, to activate the detonator himself. He wouldn't be able to get out in time, he'd go down with the building itself. Tears were already filling Sam's eyes as he hoisted Jack over his shoulder and sprinted down the long hall to the emergency exit, where Cas had taken all the captives out.

The sun was incongruously bright for the tragedy that was about to unfold. Sam stumbled into the light, bending over his knees to drop Jack onto the ground.

“Sam?” Cas was at his side in an instant, holding him up, staring between Sam and Jack in bewilderment. “What happened? Where's Dean?”

“He's...” Sam gestured to the building behind him. He couldn't get the words out, couldn't say it. Dean had stayed behind, had thrown himself down on the line so the rest of them could escape.

Cas stared down the long hall, as still as a stone. “Dean,” he growled out, and Sam looked up in surprised to see that there was fury rather than grief contorting the angel's face.

Then Cas was gone, a swirl of trench coat vanishing down the corridor into the heart of the building.

* * *

Dean ducked from cover to cover down the hall, picking off a couple of the gunmen who had followed them toward the exit. Maybe he didn't have Sammy's technical proficiency, but he could twist a couple of wires together and duck for cover. This wasn't how he'd wanted it to end—he'd been thinking cold beer and warm sand—but some of those kids hadn't even been sixteen yet. If he had to go out like this, taking the sons of bitches that were torturing and killing children wasn't a bad way to do it.

He rolled through the doorway to the control room, rising up to one knee to fire into the men gathered around Sam's detonation device. They disconnected the phone, and now he saw the timer Sam had rigged up on the floor as well.

Okay. No time to duck for cover.

“Dean!”

“Get out of here, Cas!” he bellowed as he dove for the wires. Sure, the explosion probably wouldn't harm an angel, but digging back out of the rubble would be a bitch.

He grabbed the detonation wires, kicked another man in the face, and curled around himself as he touched the wires together. Deeper in the building, the giant nitrogen tanks that kept the monsters in stasis began to blow, one after the other. The floor was shaking beneath him and the men were yelling and running in panic, but he knew there was no more time.

Dean had to wonder if Billie had seen this one coming.

Then, suddenly, Cas was bending over him, pulling Dean up and against his own body, tucking the hunter's head beneath his chin. There was a shimmer in the air around them, and the half-visible shadows of giant, skeletal wings arched out and above and around them.

He stared up, eyes wide, as plaster and beams rained down while the walls and ceiling collapsed, only to be repelled within an inch of the faint barrier above them. Cas was holding him with almost bruising strength, surrounding him with physical and metaphysical protection.

Dean held on as the building shook itself apart, unable to tear his eyes from the shadowy arches of Cas's wings. They looked ragged and twisted, but in that moment in the shelter of his best friend's wings he had never felt more protected.

“Cas?” he whispered, almost reverent, as the debris piled up around them, leaving an small pocket of air were Cas's wings were sheltering them.

Cas made a low sound in his throat that was almost a growl. Then, with a flex of his mangled wings the rubble around them exploded outward like they were the epicenter of another bomb. Fallen beams and machinery had twisted into impossible shapes due to the angel's power, fires had been blown out in an instant, and all around them was the eerie silence of the earth after a thunderstorm.

Their clothes weren't even dusty.

Dean tried to push away from Cas so he could stand up, but the angel merely tightened his grip. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Cas ground out.

“What?” He tried to look up at his friend, but Cas still had him tucked in so tightly he couldn't see more than the angel's collarbone. “You know we had to blow this place, Cas.”

“But why you?”

Dean snorted. “Did you think I was gonna let the kid do it?”

“Why didn't you wait for me?”

Further arguments died on Dean's tongue. Cas's voice was still tight with anger, his body practically vibrating with rage. “We were running out of time,” he managed to protest weakly.

“I would have been fast enough to detonate the explosives, and I would not have been harmed when the building collapsed,” Cas replied. This close Dean could feel the angel's shaky inhale, and he realized that Cas wasn't furious...he was distressed.

“I wasn't thinking, man, I'm sorry,” Dean gently patted at one of Cas's arms. “I just had to stop Jack before he threw his life away. I just...it's my job, right? Gotta protect Jack and Sammy, and...and those kids.”

“And it's my job to protect you!” Cas said, pulling away from Dean to look him in the eye. “So would you stop trying to throw your life away and just let me?”

There were tears in Cas's eyes. Dean rested one hand on his friend's shoulder but just couldn't find the words to say. “I don't....” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, unable to look at the pain in Cas's face any longer. “I'll try,” Dean finally offered weakly.

Cas's shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. “Thank you.”

[chloca-cola]

Bear Witness Chap 3

Oh poor Leon when will stop torturing you???

TW: Swearing, that's all

Pairings: LeonxReader

Word count: 1,173

~~~~~~~~

"Even though what you did for me the other day was touching, I'm still gonna utilize this." Leon stated, tapping the GPS device on your ankle as you pouted, arms folded over your chest tightly, very sullen that you're basically a prisoner now. 

      "I do not like Miss Hunnigan." You stated, puffing a strand of your hair from your face, jaw set in annoyance, feeling completely betrayed by someone you didn't even know. Leon chuckled, finally feeling like he may have the upper hand here for once, and he plopped his ass next to you on the couch, holding his phone up at eye level to you.

       "See that little blinking dot," he asked, pointing at the screen, smiling deviously at you, talking to you as if you were a five year old. "That's you (y/n). I will know your every move now." You huffed, looking away from the phone, tightening your crossed arms to your chest more.

       "Even though that sounds kinky, I'm mad at you too, Agent Kennedy." Leon just laughed, patting your shoulder, leaning forward to pick up the remote, tossing his phone onto the coffee table.

        "You'll get over it, Princess." Was he reply as he began to channel surf, and you reluctantly looked at the screen out of the corner of your eye, not wanting to give in so easily, but he paused on your favorite movie that you hadn't seen in years. An internal war raged inside you, but you quickly snatched the remote from him to keep him from changing the channel. You pulled a throw pillow onto your lap and hugged it to your chest, as you nestled into the couch more.

         "This is such a great movie. I think you'll appreciate it, my dude." Leon smiled at you, also nestling down into the couch, reaching out, he tapped the back of your hand gently to get your attention, his fingers lingering on your skin.

         "Told ya you'd get over it." He teased and you gave him a playful smile, shrugging.

         "What can I say, Leon? It seems I can't stay mad at you. Unless, of course, you don't pay attention to the damn movie!" You say sternly, poking his cheek and turning his face to the TV screen. You smile at him as he watched the movie, seeming to be getting into it. You couldn't lie to yourself anymore, you felt feelings budding for Leon. You'd been cooped up in this swanky condo for a handful of days now, and the fact that he hadn't asked to be reassigned really made you like him. Perkins had been in the room with you for 10 minutes and had given up.

         Here Leon is, watching a movie with you, starting to tease you back which you absolutely adored, and a warm fuzzy feeling pooled in your stomach.

         "You're missing the movie." You hadn't even realized Leon was now looking at you and you blushed, turning your attention to the TV, sinking down into the couch, hoping you could disappear. 

         Leon stretched as the credits rolled and turned his face to you to admit that it had been a great movie to see you were fast asleep. You looked so peaceful, face completely relaxed and he couldn't help but wonder if everyone looked so much younger when they're asleep. Hesitantly, not wanting to wake you, he gently ran his fingers through your hair, brushing it back from your face. You stirred and he froze, but all you did was leaned over on him, nuzzling into his bicep, humming contentedly.

          He continued to watch you sleep, not daring to move in fear he would wake you up, when his phone vibrates violently on the coffee table, scaring you awake and you sat up quickly.

         "I gotta take this, sorry." Leon mumbled, leaving the room to take the call, hoping you would just drift back off to sleep. "What's up Hunnigan?"

        "Alan Reicherman still hasn't been located, Leon. He wasn't where he last known location was and he hasn't resurfaced yet." Leon grunted, sitting down on the edge of his bed. "How did (y/n) like her new ankle bracelet?" Hinnigan quipped and Leon got a soft smile on his face, his shoulders relaxing as he remembers the pouty look you were giving him earlier.

        "She was pretty upset." Hunnigan blinked, cocking her head, her eyebrow quirked. 

        "Leon...you're not...getting feelings for her, are you?" His face flushed red and he shook his head.

         "W-what?" He sputtered indignantly, clearly flustered by Hunnigan's question. "Why would you think that?" She sighed softly, adjusting her glasses. 

         "Leon...you can't-"

         "And I'm not, problem solved, Hunnigan." He answered a little more convincingly than before. She released a resigned sigh, not completely sure he was telling the truth, never having seen him smile so warmly at a memory.

       "Ok Leon." She conceded. "I'll call you as soon as I get more information." She disconnected the call, and Leon hung his head, his hands dangling between his legs, his elbows resting on his thighs.

        "Hunnigan doesn't miss anything. That's annoying too." He mumbled to himself, before dragging himself off the bed to check on you in the living room, and of course; you weren't there. "Son of a bitch!" Leon cursed loudly, moving to the kitchen to see if you were sitting on the floor again, but no, you weren't there either. "(Y/n) you better just be messing with me right now!" He listened for laughter, still nothing.

       He unlocked the screen of his phone and pulled up the GPS locator and seen your blinking light in the park across the street from the condo. He grabbed his jacket and keys to the door and ran out of the room.

        Leon followed the trail to where the GPS showed you to be, but upon arriving at the bench next to the scenic little pond, you weren't there either. He scratched his head, turning in a circle to see if you were hiding anywhere.

       "This thing busted?" He asked himself, tapping the screen, when a soft honking sound came from behind him. He turned to see a goose with the ankle monitor in his beak. He blinked, before chuckling softly, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He doesn't even know where to begin to figure out how you got it off of your leg. "But where have you gone, (y/n)?" He inquired, anxiety filling the pit of his stomach. He knows that Alan could be anywhere right now.

        Leon took a step closer to the foul, who honked more angrily at him, and Leon held up his hands in a placating manner.

         "I just want that thing in your mouth. God, I'm talking to a damn bird." He then just reached out his hand to take it from the goose, another angrier honk and the goose charged at him. Leon let out a yelping noise, turned and started running.

~~~

         Leon slammed open the door leading to your shared condo, face covered in dirt, his jacket also smeared with mud, hair a mess with leaves and twigs sticking out in random directions to find you sitting indian style on the couch, a wedge of quesadilla in your mouth. You swallow the laughter building in you as you looked him over. He glared at you as he reached up and pulled a single twig from his hair.

        "Hey, buddy, what happened to you?" You couldn't hide the humor in your tone as you sat the food back onto your plate.

        "How'd you get that ankle monitor off?" You grin at him, putting on your best 'wise sage' face.

        "Ahhh, young grasshopper. A master never tells." You reach out and pick up the drink on the table, holding it up towards him. "I got you this Baja Blast Freeze if it makes you feel better." Leon was still glaring as he picked more debris from his hair and trying to straighten it back out.

        "It doesn't." You roll your eyes at him, shaking the drink at him.

        "Come on, Leon, it's bomb ass, I swear. Just try it!" He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, sighing, placing his hands on his hips.

        "Fine." He finally agrees, coming to sit next to you on the couch, taking the drink and sipping it. He nodded approval, shrugging a shoulder. "Why don't you seem to be taking this seriously?" He finally asks and you hum in response. You swallowed your mouthful of food, looking at him with a serious expression, your guard finally down and he could see the real fear in them now.

         "I'm scared, ok, Leon? I really am. I can't just let darkness close in on me. I want to live, not hide away. Alan...he was using my blood to test out his fucking viruses. I...just want to feel normal again. I get to do that with you…" He looked away from you, mulling over your words.

        "Is it easy?" His voice was quiet, and you could see that he was looking back into his own past, at something you knew nothing about. You reach out and brush his mop of bands from his face, pulling out a leaf he missed.

        "Nothing ever is." You answered honestly, giving him a weak smile when he looked back at you. "Helps when your protector looks hot as fuck too." You compliment, trying to lighten the mood again. Leon eyes studied yours, feeling like he was trying to stare into your soul. You both leaned towards each other, your heartbeat was quickening the closer you got to his lips.

        His breath was warm as it fanned over your mouth, his lips brushing against yours, and his phone rang, causing you both to jump back away from one another. 

        "Yes, Hunnigan?" Leon answered gruffly, and you waved as you took another bite of your dinner.

        "I just got your message about needing another monitor?" You giggled at her confused expression, and even Leon chuckled. 

         "Yeah, uh, a goose took the other one." 

         "A. Goose. Took. The. Other. One." She repeated each word slowly, her face a mixture of confusion and aggravation. She removed her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose, and Leon nodded.

        "But, don't worry about the monitor. It didn't work the first time, I'm not trying it again." She replaced her glasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose with her index finger.

        "You know, Leon...I think it's easier to deal with bioterrorism. And I'm sending another one." She states, causing you both to laugh, as she ended the call. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

@mitsuintheworks @kezikatescribbling @imagineleonkennedy @disneymarina @locus-desperatus @nthevalkyrie

[inkribbon796]

Loose Lips, Sink Ships

Summary: Secrets, secrets, never tell . . . Secrets, secrets, just as well. Sometimes secrets are harmless, like the fact that Roman has a chronic case of losing the remotes and they don’t actually grow wings. But for Virgil and some of the other heroes, they’re a bit more serious. Too bad the Jims have no sense of the words: “keep out”.

A/N: No ships were harmed in the revealing of secrets. Just Virgil’s peace of mind. ALSO! Just wanted to put it out there I’m really glad I didn’t commit to a name for Deceit, might come out with a bonus fic this weekend for Deceit, cause I’ve got Sanders Sides on the brain.

Marvin would always swear up and down that it was an accident.

The magician had always been good at brewing potions. They took time, and Marvin prided himself on the fact that he could succeed where others failed, or even weren’t so good at. So of course he could make about any type of potion that wasn’t necessarily “above board” to make. I.E: love potions and truth serums. Both of which didn’t last nearly as long as fiction liked to say they lasted for.

However, when the Jims walked into a relatively packed common room with a huge grin, everyone knew something was up with them.

Eric, Patton, Virgil, and Randall were all watching a movie, a little bit of downtime before Patton and Virgil stepped back out. King was in the kitchen arguing about the coffee maker with Ethan and Roman. And Jackie, who was just watching the room, took one look at the Jims and thought, “Oh no, what are they up to this time?”.

“Party’s in the house!” RJ screamed and threw the glass potion he’d been hiding behind his back onto the floor. It smashed into pieces and quickly began to fill up the space.

A silvery smoke instantly flooded the room, more smoke than could have possibly fit inside that little glass orb.

Everyone in the lobby area began coughing, the smoke physically forcing them to breath it in. Jackie used his super speed to open the door and force the smoke out into the open air.

“Fook!” Jackie coughed, “what was that?”

“Not a glitter bomb,” RJ shrugged.

“I thought the label said it was a glitter bomb,” CJ agreed.

“Yeh fookers are mad,” Jackie spat. “Where’d you even get it?”

“Marvin’s study,” CJ answered. “He was working on something else.”

“Then why’d you take it?” Anxiety shouted. “What even was that thing?”

Both of the Jim Twins looked at each other, and then shrugged at the same time.

“Helpful,” Virgil glared at them.

“Okay, so we gotta figure out what it does,” Patton added. “Do you think it’s going to hurt anyone outside?”

“Nah, it was starting to dissipate when it hit the air outside,” Jackie said, zipping over to check outside for a second “Yep, coast’s all clear.”

Patton let out a sigh of relief, “Okay, that’s good.

“Maybe we could ask Marvin,” Randall asked.

“Good idea,” the Jim twins began at almost the same time. “We’ll go find him.”

Then they looked at each other with confusion.

“Nah uh,” Ethan walked over. “I don’t trust the two of you with shit. I’m coming with.”

Once the three of them were gone, Roman commented, “What if it only works on twins. Oh no! Will I be forced to share a mind with Remus again.”

“Shoot me,” Virgil groaned.

“No, you don’t really mean that do you?” Patton asked in concern.

“Of course not,” Virgil said. “It just slipped out.”

Patton looked relieved, and then tears started prickling his eyes, “Oh good, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Then Patton raced over and wrapped his arms around Virgil, the more anxious Side stiffening up like a cat that had been suddenly picked up.

“Come on, Pat, let me go,” Virgil struggled.

“Why don’t I ever get a hug from you?” Roman complained.

Jackie had his head in one of his hands, his phone starting to ring for Marvin. He was getting impatient, even more so when Marvin didn’t answer him. “Come on, we need to figure out what we got hit with.”

Marvin walked in with Ethan and the twins, and Jackie immediately stomped over to him.

“Hey Marv, what the hell?” Jackie spat. “What’d they steal?”

“I can’t tell just by the color ‘a smoke,” Marvin defended heatedly. “Has anyone suddenly tried making out.”

“No,” Eric said. “I ha-ve a b-b-oy-friend now, and . . . I don’t want to cheat on him. I’ve . . . I’ve never had a boy-friend before and—”

“Eric,” Marvin called out. “Breathe.”

“Is it Illy?” Roman’s attention hyper focused on Eric. “Did he call back? Tell me.”

“Illinois?” King balked. “Why the hell you are dating that asshole?”

“He’s not an asshole, he’s a sweetheart,” Eric began tearing up.

“He put slugs in my bed,” King dismissed. “He’s a nut job who got crazier the older he got and the closer he got to Dad.”

“Is it the same Illinois that works for Dark?” Virgil spoke up. “King’s right, he’s crazy.”

“He’s not!” Eric began crying.

“Hey, quit making ‘em cry, assholes,” Randall shouted back.

Magic suddenly seized all of them, Marvin taking control of the situation. “Hey,” Marvin called out. “Okay, it’s either a truth potion, or someone aerosolized my supply of Whiskey.”

“What were you doing with a truth potion?” Jackie demanded. “Did you give it to those two fookers?”

“No,” Marvin scoffed. “Those two would steal the clothes off my back if it meant pulling a prank.”

“We totally would,” CJ smiled, fist bumping with his brother; both of them which huge proud smiles.

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t try something,” Jackie reminded.

“I didn’t drug yeh, an’ it’ll wear off anywhere from an hour ta about a day, ‘pends on the dose.”

“A whole day!” Jackie was practically screeching.

“Depends on the dose,” Marvin answered. “But as long as no one’s got some deep dark secret you all should be fine.”

Anxiety let out a nervous scream.

Kay laughed nervously, “Everyone already knows mine.”

Patton began sobbing, whatever he was saying almost indecipherable.

“Well that’s great,” Marvin groaned.

“Why did yah even have that potion?” Jackie asked, still glaring at Marvin. “Probably didn’t mean for us ta get it though.”

“I made it ages ago an’ didn’t want ta risk it by flushing it down the drain,” Marvin spat. “Just get e’eryone comfortable, I’ll see if I can whip an antidote up.”

“Thanks, asshole,” Jackie spat. Then he looked a little surprised. “Dammit, that was supposed to stay in my head.”

“Well ‘til the potion wears off, it’s not. Keep everyone who was affected here,” Marvin sighed. “I’ll make some calls.”

Jackie nodded, thanking Marvin in-between cursing at him.

Keeping themselves in the lobby they tried not to insult each other the best they could. Eric was mostly calmed down, only  snapping at King who snapped back. It was fun for everyone to see the normally timid Eric snapping at someone.

However Patton was lying in the middle of the floor, staring at the ceiling. Virgil and Roman were on either side of him. King and Jackie were on the sofa and both the Jim’s were piled into a bean bag chair. Eric has gone to his room to sleep everything off, Randall taking him there.

“Do you ever think that your life’s a lie?” Patton mumbled out loud. “That no matter how many times you fuse, and how hard you try to be a good person, someone can just scoop out everything that makes you a good person and put in something else.”

Roman stared at him. “Like what?”

“I think I was replaced with another Patton, that your Patton is in my world, and I’m here,” Patton began to ramble. “But I wanna be a good person, I wanna be a good person so bad it hurts.”

“You are a good guy, Pat,” Roman said, cuddling up next to him.

“No, I’m a bad person,” Patton said in-between sobbing, his voice choking up. “I worked with Dark, I’ve watched people die.”

“You never worked with Dark, you’re been with the other Sides the whole time,” Anxiety told him. “I would have recognized you.”

“Then why do I have all these awful memories in my head that won’t go away,” Patton sat up, looking desperately at Virgil. Whether or not he was looking for reassurance or someone to validate his claims was unknown. “They only go away when I fuse. When I was Thomas last time they went away for months.”

Anxiety seemed to be thinking on Patton’s words, “It must be Arthur, he must be doing that to you. He’s forcing you to think that way.”

“Who’s Arthur?” Patton asked.

“Arthur’s dead,” King interrupted. “He bled out on an operating table in front of me. How many times do I keep having to repeat that.”

“What do you mean he’s dead, he can’t be,” Virgil responded. “He’s been keeping Dark from taking over the base.”

“Nah that’s Host and J.J, the two of them keep Dark out,” Roman bragged. “Dark’s always been trying to get into the base but it wasn’t until the Host joined that J.J got some help.”

“I knew he was a liar!” Anxiety shouted.

“Who?” Roman asked. “Dee?”

“Dark!” Anxiety answered. “Oh no.”

“He lies about a lot of stuff,” King agreed. “He once told me we couldn’t get a pet, and then he got himself a cat and named it after himself. I just wanted a puppy.”

“That’s so sad,” Patton told him, rolling over to prop his chin up on his palms. “Least you got a kitty.”

“For a couple days,” King dismissed. Then he paused, “Hey Vee, how’d you even hear about Artie? Everyone in the network uses nicknames.”

Virgil felt the words coming, like an out of control freight train with broken brakes. He grabbed at his throat. “He told me to look for him.”

“Who?” King asked. “Artie?”

“I don’t want to do it, I have talked with him since,” Virgil said, everyone was staring at him.. “You have to believe me, I didn’t believe it, I’m not spying on you, I promise!”

“I believe you,” Patton told him. “You don’t have to talk to him ever again.”

“What kind of spy doesn’t report on the people he’s spying on?” Jack agreed.

“You’re not mad?” Virge asked, daring to hope that somehow he was getting out of this alive. “Even if I was a bad guy?”

King laughed, “You think that’s bad, I’m hiding out from my old man because he would probably kill me if he ever saw me again.”

“Who’s your dad?” Randall asked.

“Dark,” King said, before slapping his hand over his mouth. “Oh no, Host’s gonna kill me.”

“What!?” About half of the heroes in the room shouted. Virgil stared at King.

“You’re not Arthur,” Virgil said out loud, his filter completely destroyed by the truth dust.

“Nah, that’s one of my siblings,” King was staring at his hands. “Host, Bim, Yan, me, Illy, Yancy, and . . .”

Then he stared at his hands, “Huh, weren’t there seven of us?”

“Was that Arthur?” Virgil asked.

“Nah, I already counted him,” King dismissed, waving at Virgil’s direction. “Sides, Artie’s kinda dead, except in the ways that probably matter. You all lucked out, you guys didn’t have to babysit him.”

RJ, who was almost falling asleep with CJ snapped away, almost dragging him and his camera over to have it almost pressed into King’s face. “This sounds like a story.”

King stared at the camera in fear, “Is that live? Please tell me it’s not live.”

“The Jim Twins should make sure it doesn’t see the light of day,” the Host announced himself.

“Host, there’s a truth spray in the air!” King called out desperately as the Host walked closer.

“Even if it was still the air, the Host’s narrations have him dictate his mind anyways,” the seer reminded.

“Oh yeah,” King’s mouth formed a thin line. “You really got the short end didn’t you?”

The Host just stared at him. “The King of the Squirrels should take a nap before he incriminates himself any further.”

“What if I did?” King somehow looked halfway between apologetic and not even a little remorseful. “Like, what if I messed up, bad?”

“The Host noticed,” the seer frowned at him.

“Nah, it was bad,” King frowned. “The one thing you told me not to do, I did it.”

“The Host can see the future, he doesn’t need a replay,” the Host reminded curtly.

“Do you hate me?” King asked sadly. “You probably do, right?”

The Host sat down on the couch next to his adopted brother, his expression softening, “The Host has never hated King.”

“Did Artie?” King was staring at his hands.

“No the Author did not hate King either,” the Host told him “He was angry and dangerous, but he did not hate his adopted family.”

King looked sad, “Oh, that sucks. Cause you were an asshole and I always felt bad about not being nicer.”

“King should save his sympathy,” Host decided. “The Author did not deserve it.”

“You did,” King told him. “You were in there, an’ I should’a been nicer.”

“So you’re Arthur then?” Virgil asked, narrowing his eyes in concentration. “Probably should have called that.”

“King and his friends should sleep,” Host told him, as his words began to curl around the room and people began dropping one by one to sleep. “Everything will be better after you sleep.”

They slept, making it easier for the minds to clear even if each of their dreams were a little more unusual and potion-fueled than usual. Marvin was able to lift the spell by the time they woke up, leaving an uncomfortable atmosphere in the potion’s wake.

[breanime]

Heartworm (Part One)

Guess who got her internet baaccccck! This gal! So @songtoyou sent me this request and I IMMEDIATELY started getting ideas. This could be up to or past 5 parts, I don’t even know! It all depends if you guys like it and want more! This is kind of a soft re-imagining of season 2.

Request:  How about instead of Billy going to his stupid psychiatrists place to seek refuge, he goes to the home of a girl who he was in a serious relationship with. Like, this girl is the only person Billy could ever see himself settling down with. However, once he got money, status, and power from Rawlins he pushed her to the side and eventually dropped her from his life. But once she sees the state Billy is in and how sad, scared and alone he is she wants to help him.

Part One is based on Halsey’s Without Me, particularly these lyrics:  

Found you when your heart was broke I filled your cup until it overflowed Took it so far to keep you close (Keep you close) I was afraid to leave you on your own

I said I'd catch you if you fall And if they laugh, then fuck 'em all (All) And then I got you off your knees Put you right back on your feet Just so you can take advantage of me

*gif not mine* (I gotta stop using this gif lol)

You stood frozen in your living room, eyes glued on the TV. The news was saying that Billy, your Billy, was a murderous traitor and a danger to society. You watched as they showed footage of Billy’s apartment up in flames. They said he bombed it himself after killing a handful of Homeland Security agents, they also said that he hired mercenaries for his Anvil staff. The government seized his assets. He shot Curtis in the shoulder. He knew about Frank’s family. He set them up to be killed. Billy. Your Billy.

Except he wasn’t your Billy anymore; he hadn’t been your Billy for three years. You sat down on the couch, legs numb with shock, as you took in what the newscaster was saying about your ex-boyfriend, the only man you’ve ever loved. They flashed a picture of him on the screen. The caption read: “Armed and Dangerous, Do Not Approach”. The newscaster was saying something about Homeland and Frank going after Billy, but it was all starting to sound like white noise to you. Your mind said to get out of town and run until it was all over, but your heart wanted to reminisce, wanted to remind you why you even cared in the first place.

“…and I’m gonna have a Rolls Royce,” Billy said, one arm behind his head and the other wrapped around your waist, “I’m gonna drive it to meetings, rich assholes love a power play.”

You smiled up at Billy, you loved listening to his grand plans for the future. “Are you gonna be a pocket square kind of rich asshole or a ‘Maureen, hold my calls’ kind of rich asshole?”

“Mm,” Billy pulled you closer to his naked chest, “I’m gonna be a pocket square kind of asshole,” he answered, “that’s the best way to run a business.”

“Of course,” you agreed, snuggling up against him, “you’re gonna be a big shot. And I’m gonna have to make an appointment with Maureen just to see you.”

Billy tsked and put a finger on your chin, lifting your face so you were eye-to-eye. “That ain’t never gonna happen,” his dark eyes bore into yours, “I’ll always have time for you.”

You smiled and pressed your lips against his. You felt Billy’s arms tighten around you, lifting you up until you were laying on top of him. You kissed him again, slowly parting your lips, inviting his tongue into your waiting mouth. His eyes were heavy-lidded with lust when you pulled back. You rubbed your nose against his. “I love you.”

His smile made your chest heave with adoration. “I love you too, Y/N.” He kissed you again. “I promise I’m gonna make you proud one day, baby. I’m gonna get us outta this shit hole and out you somewhere nice, where you belong.”

You shrugged. Money and status meant a lot to Billy, meant success, but you were happy enough where you were. Yeah, your apartment was kind of small, and yeah, the heat stopped working every few months, but you’d lived in worst places. Besides, you had Billy. He made you so unbelievably happy; you could have lived in a cave—as long as Billy was with you, you’d be fine. “You know I’m already proud of you,” you told him, “You’ve accomplished so much already.”

“Mm,” Billy kissed the top of your head, “I can do more.” He kissed your nose. “I’m gonna get this security shit together.” He kissed your right eyelid. “I’m gonna get us a place uptown.” He kissed your left eyelid. “And I’m gonna make it so you don’t ever have to work again.” You sighed as he kissed your cheek next. “I ain’t gonna let anyone look down on us anymore.” He kissed your other cheek. “I’m gonna make you so happy, baby.” You felt yourself melt when he finally kissed you on the lips. “I’m gonna take care of us…

…I’m gonna take care of you.”

You turned the TV off, cradling the remote to your chest. You felt your breath getting shallower and casually recognized your erratic heartbeat. You didn’t know what to do. You believed the news—you weren’t sure about the details, but you knew Billy well enough to know that he would do anything for power. You had seen the change that money bought him firsthand, and you didn’t like it at all. You thought about calling Curtis, but you didn’t want to bother him. He was probably up to his neck in cops and paperwork and…Homeland Security, apparently. You wondered how it came to this. Frank was alive. Billy was a wanted man. Curtis was wounded. And you…were alone.

You spent the night on the couch, too numb and confused to get up. You dreamt of Billy and woke up shivering. You got up and made yourself a cup of coffee. Your phone was on the counter, and you frowned as you picked it up. You had missed calls from your mom, your best friend, your boss, and your sister. You had no desire to speak to any of them. You also had a call and voicemail message from an unknown number. Hitting the speaker button, you played the message.

“You’re gonna hear some things on the news.” Billy. “They’re true. I…I did all those things they say I have. By the time you get this message, I’m either gonna be on the run or dead.” It sounded like he took a breath before continuing. “I wanted to see you before I go, but…that’s not gonna happen. So just… Just know that I…” A sigh. “…I think about you all the time. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, a lot of bad choices, done a lot of shitty things, but… I only regret one thing: letting you go. I wish… I should have fought for you more. I should have…” There was some shuffling, and you thought Billy might have put the phone down for a moment. “Listen, they’re gonna say a lot of things about me, and people are gonna try to tell you that I’m heartless and evil, but I want you to remember…You loved me once. You’re the only one I could ever be honest with, the only person in this world who knows who I am. Just… Remember that. And… I’m sorry, Y/N. Goodbye.”

You stood in your kitchen and listened to Billy’s message for at least another 30 minutes. By the time you went back to the couch and turned the TV on, Billy was pronounced near-death and was being kept under constant surveillance at the hospital. Frank Castle was said to be ‘in the wind’ and Anvil was being torn down and all the profits split up. The news interviewed a medical professional about the chances of Billy making any kind of recovery. They predicted he would be dead in six months.

You turned the TV off and wept.

It had been nearly a year since everything went down with Billy. The coverage for Billy’s case had pretty much stopped after a month, and people were onto the next scandal now. Curtis had stopped by your place and told you that Frank left town. The visit had been brief, but he told you what Billy had done—confirming what you’d heard on the news—and said that his orders had come from someone named Rawlins. Rawlins, you understood, was dead. Curtis had word from Frank to tell you that he had been given a new identity by the government and was going to hit the road for a while. When you asked why he’d want you to know that, Curtis had just said: “you needed to know it was over”. You should have felt anger, or pity or sadness but… you felt nothing. You had been operating on auto-pilot, swimming in a thick fog of numbness, since Billy had been arrested. The last thing you could remember feeling, really feeling, was a deep and intense sorrow when you listened to Billy’s message. He had broken your heart, left you, and then revealed himself to be a monster and you…You were just tired.

“I don’t know what you want me to say Y/N,” Billy’s back was to you. You had barged into his office at Anvil, demanding to see him, but now that you were there… The way he was talking to you was cold and detached. His stance was rigid, his focus was on the recruits below him, not on you. This Billy—CEO Billy—was not what you had signed up for.

“I want you to say you’re sorry,” you said, “I want you to say you care.” Billy didn’t say anything. You clenched your fists. “Look at me, Billy.”

He turned. He was wearing an expensive three-piece suit and his hair was impeccably cut. His eyes, the eyes you loved, the eyes that looked at you with such care and affection, were hollow.

“What happened to you?” You asked, looking him up and down with disgust. “You never come home, you barely spend any time with me—”

“What do you want, Y/N?” He said, irritation clear in his voice. “I’m busy. I’m working. I’m trying to afford the penthouse we live in and the car you drive.”

“I bought my own car,” you reminded him, eyes narrowed as you glared at him, “And I work, too, but I make time for the people I love.”

Billy sighed, rolling his shoulders. “I told you, you don’t have to work.”

You sighed then. He was missing the point. “Billy,” you tried again, “I’m tired of this. I can’t keep being an afterthought for you. I need you.” You tried to look in his eyes, but he avoided your gaze. “I miss you.”

Billy walked over to you and put a hand on your waist. He pulled you towards him and kissed you. “I miss you, too,” his voice was husky as he moved his lips to your neck, “I know I’ve been working a lot lately, but we’re so close…”

You closed your eyes. You wanted to have a conversation, but it was hard to think of words—let alone form any—with his mouth on your skin. “Will you come home tonight?” You asked, breath short and voice heavy with lust.

“Mm hmm,” his hand slid to your ass as he kissed you again, “I’m gonna be all yours tonight.” He licked into your mouth and smiled when you moaned.

You felt his hardness pressing against your front and you deepened the kiss. “I don’t know if I can wait that long,” you whispered.

Billy chuckled and released you from his grip. You glared as you watched him walk over to his desk. He pressed a button on his phone and leaned over to speak. “Hold all my calls,” he ordered, smirking over at you, “I don’t want any calls or interruptions for the next hour.” He walked past you and you heard him lock the door behind you. His eyes were gleaming when he turned back to you and he looked like himself, like your Billy, again. His smile made your heart skip a beat. “Take your clothes off, baby. I want to spend some time with you.”

You sat up with a start. It had been months since you’d last dreamt of Billy. You looked around you and cursed under your breath. You had fallen asleep on the couch. No wonder you were off. You hadn’t been able to have a full night’s rest without sleep aids since…since Billy had left that message on your phone. If you didn’t take a pill before you went to bed, you would dream about Billy. You didn’t want to dream about him, you wanted to ignore the ache in your chest and the emptiness in your life and just… Get over it. Get over him. You felt a headache coming on, so you shuffled to the bathroom for a quick shower before bed.

Your mind kept going back to Billy as you got ready for bed; you remembered the strain in his voice in the message he left you, how he used to laugh when you stuck your cold feet on his back, the way he stared down at you as he shifted inside you, driving you wild. You could see his eyes, dark and expressive and so full of love when he looked at you, every time you closed your eyes. You gave up on sleep and went back to the couch, deciding to just spend the night watching horrible night time TV until you could get Billy out of your head.

You were finally getting into the Real Housewives marathon you had been watching when you heard a knock on your door. You glanced at your phone: it was 11 pm. Who the hell would be at your door at this time? You grabbed your phone in case you needed to call the police and stood on your tip-toes to look into the peephole. Your mouth fell open at the same time your phone hit the floor with a dull thump.

Billy Russo was standing in the hallway of your apartment. And he was covered in blood.

*************************************************************************************

I have the next two parts locked and loaded! Pleaaase comment and let me know if you want the rest. The more feedback I get, the more I update! Thanks for reading, and may Billian be with you.

BTW, I got the title from this “emotion that’s hard to describe word”:  Heartworm: a relationship or friendship that you can’t get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

TAGLIST: @delicatelilyflower @doneobrien @ladyblablabla @banditthewriter @something-tofightfor  @starsfragments @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme @hisgirlwednesdayaddams@fictionwillneverdie @maria-beretta @sadnessxvodka @ymariejp @sunnycolors @moonlightsay @its-all-o-kay @damagelove @keyeluh @itsmylife98 @funerals-with-cake @littlemermaidprobz @teacuplotus @king4thesirens @mrsjaxtellerfan @thebabblingbook @tartelette-aux-fraises @madamrogers  @charlylama @iaintnofurry​ @k-buggz2001​ @whitewolfslittlesilverfox @drinix @elanor-of-imladris @floralpeaceofmind

[ivedonestranger]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Teen Titans (Animated Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Jinx/Wally West, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r Characters: Dick Grayson, Garfield Logan, Victor Stone, Raven (DCU), Jinx (DCU), Karen Traviss, Wally West Additional Tags: Halloween, Teen Titans Horor, Temporary Character Death, Blood and Violence Summary:

Robin just wanted a vacation day before the Halloween crimes. It was not what he got when a broken communication of Beast Boy brought him back to the tower.

------------

Robin raced as fast as his motorcycle would take him towards the rising T-shaped tower in the bay. His day off before the Halloween rush of criminality had been cut short by the frantic calls from Beast Boy. He had no clue what he meant do the broken signal barely got through the words' crazy', 'raven,' 'monsters,' and 'blood.' His heart pounded in his chest as he flew through the streets, finally making his way to the bridge that connected the tower to the mainland. He screeched to a halt to find it shut. That was not how he left it when he had embarked on his day off earlier.

Richard Grayson slammed his fist on the remote on his bike, but nothing happened. A quick change showed that the frequency was not being accepted anymore.

'Shit!' he thought to himself as he kicked the stand down and got off his bike to examine the hardened shell that protected the outside panel from the weather. He found the secret button and popped it open to see the computer inside. The entire system was blinking lockdown in bold, threatening, red letters.

The boy wonder tried his password, but the system immediately refused it. Someone had changed the codes of the entire system. Only one person in the tower had that know-how, and it did not make sense Cyborg locking him out.

A buzz of wings appeared behind him, and Robin spun to see Bumblebee alight in full combat guard pattern yellow and black. The helmet she was wearing recessed back into the neck bracer she wore. Kid Flash appeared beside her while a certain pink-haired girl in a black dressing and multicolored stockings trotted in beside them.

"We heard the alert," Karen said looking up at the tower.

"And what is she doing here?" Robin asked looking at Jinx.

"Tryin' to help," Jinx shot back. "When the high and mighty Teen Titan tower goes into lockdown, The HIVE is more worried than you."

"She's with me, Robin," Kid Flash said with a grin. "You can trust her."

"Pfft, you wish I was with you," Jinx said with a snort, but a quirk to her mouth was apparent.

"Any idea what's going on?" Robin asked.

"Nah," Bumblebee said, stepping up and examining the computer panel. "We just got Beast Boy's message that some sort of monster has gotten loose in the tower, and they were locking the facility down."

"You heard more than me," Robin said, frowning. "They came overall broken and static."

"The code?" Kid Flash asked, zipping to the door.

"Cyborg seems to have reset the whole system," Robin mused, rubbing his chin and trying to think. "We're not holding any artifacts or anything like that. What type of monsters could they be referring to?"

They all looked at him, and Robin raised an eyebrow. The mixture of bemusement and sheer surprise at his statement told him he had missed something.

"What?"

"Ummmm….you got a half-demon in there and tomorrow is Halloween night. Don't her powers get a bit wonky around this time?"

"That's a myth," Robin said sharply. "And I doubt Raven lost control of her powers. She's been much better since her father's defeat."

"And yet here we are not able to get into home, sweet home," Jinx mused.

Robin turned back. His gut was churning at the suggestion they had made. Had Raven somehow lost it? If she did, what were they going to do?

"We need to get in and find out what's going on before we start making assumptions," Robin said with finality. "How?"

"I gotta an idea," Jinx said with a smirk. "Hey, flash. Come, give me a kiss."

Wally's grin grew brighter, and he zipped over to her. As he was about to stop, Jinx sidestepped, and he caught her tow and stumbled. Wally tried to overcompensate but wound up running into Bumblebee, who fell forward, was caught by Robin, who then fell back and hit the encased pipe protect the wiring to the security system. The stunner attached to Robin's best misfired injecting the system. With a scream of protest, the system reset, and the door slid open.

"JINX!" Bumblebee and Robin said at the same time.

"Hey! Bad luck isn't pretty, but it gets the job done." Jinx said with a shrug as she marched through the gate.

"Does that mean I can't kiss you?" Kid flash asked mournfully.

"Ya can kiss my ass," Jinx said with the middle finger over her shoulder.

"I can do that too."

"Wally," Robin said with a roll of his eyes as Jinx giggled and a flush to her gray cheeks.

"And here I thought we grew out of our childish shenanigans," Karen muttered as she activated her helmet and the rest of her suit.

"Never," Wally laughed as he took off to catch up with the Pinkette.

Robin did a mental check off all the equipment on his belt. He had only stopped two crimes on his day off and was still stocked for the most part. Smoke bombs, birderangs, and a few reloads of his wrist tasers and grapple gun. He was not going to leave anything to chance.

It took a few minutes to cross the bridge on foot, but they soon came to the large bay doors that were re-enforced concrete and steel. The entire computer system was shut down here, so Robin's only thought was the side door. It still had power but was on back up system.

The air had taken on a sense of lethality he could not explain, as if life had stayed out of the Titan's property and only death awaited inside. The door, fortunately, had not been repaired from the last time Cyborg had tried to upgrade it and wound up frying the entire system. A placed miniature explosive was enough to shatter the metal lock and swing the door open.

"Alright, We play it careful and don't take anything for granted," Bumblebee started. "We don't know what we're facing. Could be an enemy or could be a rogue titan."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Robin said, irritated. "My team isn't going to go berserk."

No one responded, but he did pick up on some sorrowful and pitying expressions. Why did it feel like he was out of the loop on this?

"Switch communicators to Frequency E-22. Encryption modulating is phase 2. That way, we can be sure of our transmissions being secure," Robin said as he adjusted it in his communicator. He remote linked it to the Bluetooth earbud he pulled out of one of his belt's compartments and placed it in his ear.

"Jinx and Wally, your team one." Bumblebee said. "Sweep towards the Titan's rooms and see if you can find anyone."

The two grinned at each other, and Bumblebee frowned. "And keep your clothes on, you two."

"We'll try," Wally said as he led Jinx towards the first set of steps.

"Main room?" Karen inquired, and Robin nodded. They had to get to the computer systems and figure out what was going on wrong. Moving to the second flight of stairs near the dead elevators, Robin and Bumblebee began to make the climb slowly, and dread began to fill him.

A smell had begun to permeate the building. A bouquet of rot and iron. He had smelled it before in Gotham. Blood. And a lot of it.

"What the hell is that smell?" Bumblebee asked with a crinkle of her nose.

"Blood," Robin growled. "A lot of it."

Pushing open the stair door to the floor that held their conference rooms and living room, Robin was assailed with the smell. He looked about in the emergency lightning and saw dark stains trailing about and all over the floor.

"Oh, god!" Bumblebee gasped as she covered her mouth to block the stench. "This is a massacre."

"ROBIN!"

The voice peeled out, and Robin drew his bo staff ready to strike. Running towards him through the darkened hallway was the willowy form he could recognize anywhere.

"Starfire!" he called to her. He caught her and held back a gasp. Her hair was matted in dark red blood, her clothes were a shamble, and there was a look of terror in her eyes.

"Robin! You must flee! She is too powerful!" Starfire gasped out.

"Starfire, where is everyone? Where is Cyborg?"

"He was going to try to call the Justice League or Doom Patrol. I have not seen him since!"

Her breath was coming in short gasps, and her eyes were wide looking about.

"And beast boy, where is beast Boy?"

Robin watched as the wide eyes grew even bigger, and she randomly gestured about. "Here, and here. he's all over the walls." She sobbed. "You're stepping in him."

"Oh, god!" Bumblebee said, moving away, trying not to retch.

"Who did this? Who did this!" Robin yelled.

A low, lilting laugh emanated from deep down the darkened hallways, and Starfire squealed in fright. Lashing out of the darkness was a black tendril of energy that wrapped around the girl's middle and ripped her free of Robin's grasp.

"Starfire!" Robin screamed.

"Save yourself!" she cried back in a sob as the tendril. Her scream was silenced by a terrifying crunch and squishing sound.

"Oh, god, it's Raven," Bumblebee said pacing.

"Nnno…." Robin tried to say, but his mouth had gone dry. The sticky stuff was his friend Garfield, and the horrible sound had to be the beautiful Tamaranian coming to a gruesome end. Robin frowned and charged forward bostaff ready. Bumblebee made a grab to stop him, but she missed. She went around the corner and found the hallway empty except for a large red sticky puddle on the floor. He knelt down, trying to keep the rage inside. He gently touched the pool wishing somehow he could have saved her. He found a strange black seed stuck to his hand.

"What did you find?"

"A watermelon seed," Robin said with a grimace. "Beast Boy loved spitting these everywhere. We've been cleaning these up for weeks."

"We...we need to get to the control room," Robin said firmly. He had to agree with her now. Raven had lost it.

For the next five minutes, they crept slowly through the blood splattered walls and the blinking lights. The emergency power had slowly begun to fade.

They came to the cavernous rooms and found it empty. Nobody was there. Robin strode over quickly and activated the computers. The readout showed him that outside communication was down and also the ability to scan the building. He did find that the fried network still held footage from the last few hours in it's backup memory.

"Do you...do you want to watch?" Bumblebee asked in a horrified surprise as he queued up the code.

"We have to."

The first clip stamped four hours ago began. The room was bright, and they were all in the living room together. Cyborg was tinkering on something in his lap, Starfire was playing a video game with beast Boy, and Robin was leaning back on the couch with a grin.

"I'm gonna enjoy this day off, you guys," Robin was saying. "Gonna go do some stuff I've been meaning to do for a while."

"Pfft, I wouldn't go out in the evening," Beast Boy responded as he focused on the Tamaranian who had gotten a bit too good at the Lethal Punching II. "You heard the stories about ghosts and monsters that come out around Halloween."

"Just stories," Robin laughed.

Raven moved past the back of the couch silently with a book up in front of her. He had not realized she had been that close to him as he was focusing on his friends.

"Really?" Cyborg said with a wry expression. "Darkseid and his parademons? Zatanna and that other dude and their fight against the underworld. Trigon of all things."

"Not the same thing," Robin said. "Plus, we can handle what they throw at us."

"You ain't' scared?"

"I never get scared."

"Not even Raven?"

Robin laughed. "Like I said, not even Raven. Goth chicks dig me."

The three who could see him rolled their eyes.

It was at that point he noted Raven by the teapot who shuddered and doubled over quietly. He saw the black tendrils lick at the bottom of her cloak before they receded.

How did they miss that? Raven had some sort of spasm, but everybody kept going on with their lives as if nothing had changed or happened. He queued up the next video and braced himself. It was an hour and a half ago, 20 minutes before the call.

The scene was the same, except everybody had moved. Starfire was now watching Cyborg work while Beast Boy was playing Mega Monkeys XI. Raven had returned but was standing in a darkened hallway, bracing herself between the door jamb watching everybody.

"Oh, hey, Rae Rae," Beast Boy said, noticing her when he got up to get a soda.

"I…." Robin heard her voice come through thick and modulating. "I need meat."

"Umm…." Beast Boy said, faltering. "I think Cyborg has some leftover meatballs."

"I want it….fresh," Raven said, a tone of ravenous delight filling her voice.

"Uh….Cy….dude... Raven's acting weird."

Cyborg had stood while Starfire took up a flanking position putting Raven in the middle of the triangle they formed. Raven was now breathing hard, her body shuddering as if it could not get enough air.

"Raven-"

The shriek that followed was painful and terrifying. Raven had thrown back her hood, and he could make out the glowing four red eyes and the small rows of serrated teeth as her demon side manifested. The tendrils of onyx colored power shot out striking Starfire and Cyborg, sending them flying while Beast Boy scrambled away. Raven leaped at him, taking him to the ground and began to chomp down on his arm.

Beast Boy began to scream. "DUDE! SHE'S TRYING TO EAT ME!"

Cyborg lunged and tore Raven away, blood covering her mouth and running down the corners of her lips. A crazed grin was on her face as she turned and tried to bite Cyborg. He hurled her away, and Starfire helped Beast Boy up.

The footage cut, and it began a darkened room. The timestamp was 20 minutes ago, and all he could make out was Raven, sans cloak covered with blood standing in the center of the room. She was breathing heavily, and she was staring right at the camera, her four red eyes watching it with glee. It was almost as if she was looking right back at him, knowing he would watch the footage. In a blink, her entire face filled the camera.

Bumblebee and Robin fell back at the freeze-frame of Raven's gore covered face in the camera lens.

"SHIT!" Bumblebee squealed as she fell flat on her back. "That girl's terrifying."

"That confirms it," Robin said with a growl. "Raven's lost it."

"What do we do?"

"We need to stop her. Capture her or put her down," Robin muttered, pulling out the devices and changing their settings for a much more powerful foe.

The communicators crackled to life, and the two jumped again.

"Robin, Bumblee! 22nd floor! Raven's gone full demon!"

"Retreat!" Robin roared. "You're no match for her."

"She's got Jinx, I can't leave her, get here as fast as you can."

"Wally!" Bumblebee called, but the device went silent.

"We need to move. Now!"

When the elevator opened, both Robin and Bumblebee had their weapons pointed forward. The hallway was empty and dark. Only their flashlights illuminating ahead. They crept slowly forward as Robin thought about what he was going to do. He had to stop her, but he did not want to kill her. Even though it appeared she had murdered their teammates, the boy wonder was not yet ready to rule her out as a lost cause.

"We gotta do something," Bumblee was saying quietly. "We can't hold back, Robin. She's gonna get us too."

"We can't just-"

"There!"

Robin and Bumblebee looked ahead and saw that their flashlight illuminated a standing form. As they slowly grew closer, they saw the svelte form of Jinx though it appeared she had been through hell. She was facing away but was wearing her skirt with torn leggings and no top except for her gray bra. Her hair was tousled and matted.

"Jinx?" Robin called softly, but the girl didn't turn. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Jinx!"

The girl turned, her eyes white and rolled in her head, her mouth opens in sheer terror. Blood ran down from her mangled throat, and she collapsed gurgling in his arms.

"It's a trap!" Bumblebee cried panicked, looking around. A body came hurling out of the dark, catching the female superhero and throwing her to the ground. Wally's bloodstained corpse weighed her down.

Strolling out of the darkness and into the light was the blood-soaked form of Raven. Her red eyes were glowing, and he could see the serrated teeth in an evil grin.

"I wanted to do so much to her, but she wouldn't play," Raven cooed. "So, I ripped her throat out."

Robin fell back, crawling backward while holding Jinx in his arms. Bumblebee pushed Kid Flash's body off and was about to fire her gun when a black tendril shot out, grabbed her, and a sharp crack filled the hallway. Karen's lifeless body hit the floor beside Grayson.

"Just you and me now, Robin," Raven said with a smirk. "I'm in a...lecherous mood. Wanna entertain me? I might let you live."

"What happened to you, Raven?" Robin said.

"I decided to be what I am."

"How could you-"

"you're not going to take me up on my offer?" Raven said with a sigh. "Oh, well. I'll wait for the next male heroes that come to investigate the tower's silence."

The black tendrils shot out of the darkness and grabbed hold of him. They lifted him in the air, and Robin braced for the inevitable.

"Now, there is one thing I want you to remember, Robin," Raven cooed in his ear. "never EVER say that I can't scare you."

A grin broke across her face as she gently set him down on his feet.

"Ummm….what?"

He was blinded as the lights of the tower snapped back on, and he saw blood-covered Raven but a smile and usual amethyst eyes looking back at him. She was the small, demure girl he knew and not the demon he had seen in the videos.

"What...what is going on?" Robin asked, trying to breathe and figure out why he was still alive.

"Yous got played, DUDE!" screeched a voice from down the hallways in peels of laughter. Robin looked around confused and down at the corpses of Jinx and Bumblebee that were inexplicably pulling themselves to their feet. Each was laughing with silent mirth.

"I can't believe you," Jinx said as she leaned on Bumblebee with laughter. "You coped a feel while I was dead. You're a pervert."

"I was trying to save you!" Robin exploded.

"No groping my girl, Robin," Kid Flash said, walking over and slapping his friend on his back.

Joining him in the hallway laughing and hugging him was Starfire, still matted and covered in blood, but she kissed him on the forehead.

"You silly gnup narp, You should never challenge friend Raven,"

It was at that moment that it all kicked in.

"This was a prank?"

"Best prank in the world!" Cyborg said, exiting the elevator and holding on one of the master remotes for the tower. "When you once said that Raven couldn't scare you, she decided that you need to learn a bit of humility."

"This...this was your idea?" Robin asked incredulously as the relief flowed through him.

Raven was putting on her cloak that Starfire handed her. She simply met his eyes, and he knew the answer without her saying. Robin braced himself on the wall as his friends held him up.

"Starfire...I heard you die," he said, trying to pull himself together.

"That was me squishing a melon of water."

"I thought the game was up when you found the seeds," Bumblebee said. "Thank goodness for your overactive imagination."

"And Raven made sure that we act out everything in front of the camera, knowing you'd find it," Cyborg said. "She's a little mastermind herself."

Robin's friends were fine, and he had fallen for a prank. He was just relieved to have them. He wrapped an arm around Star and Beast Boy and pulled them close. He laughed to cover up his tears of happiness.

"I'll never take you guys for granted again," he said with a smile. "Raven got me fair and square. She's the scariest thing on Halloween."

"Thank you," she murmured, pulling out a book from her cloak.

"Now, if you all don't mind. You have a tower to clean while I go back to my reading."

---------

Like it? Please leave a review here or on your favorite fanfic site. 

FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13409164/1/The-Halloween-Spirit

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020168

[entro-writes]

Every Road Home: Chapter 2 Flash Gordon.

A Prime All Might x Reader Fic

A week had passed since you had picked up your DVD of the original Batman movie. You sit huddled again on your couch, watching Adam West fluster around in his underwear-clad superhero suit, a comically large, paper mâché bomb held high above his head. He dodges nuns, a baby carriage, a marching band Then turns tail towards the sea, a flock of (clearly not wooden) ducks bob below. He looks around, exasperated.

“Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!” you say together with Mr. West. You smile.

You glance over to the lone DVD placed neatly on your shelf. Flash Gordon. You had reasoned that when you had first left the second-hand DVD shop that you had accidentally grabbed his DVD instead of your own. He must have totally forgotten to trade it with you when he brought you yours.

Several times you thought about bringing his DVD back to him, but you hadn’t seen him since. You had tucked yourself away, back to the comfort and safety of your apartment as if nothing had happened.

But still, the gentle yet strong laughter of his flitted through your thoughts. Maybe if you went back to the DVD store and left it there for him…no…you couldn’t bear seeing that cashier again. What if you waited on the spot where you had met—ridiculous as if he’d come back to that spot for no reason. You snort at your own train of thought, maybe a “Lost and Found” poster reading, “Found. One of the most gaudy, over-acted movies ever made (otherwise known as Flash Gordon), seeking ridiculously tall blonde to pick it up.”

Your phone buzzes.

You pick up the glowing screen and see it’s a text from your younger sister, Louise.

Not long ago, your sister had gone to New York, working there as a design artist for a new small-scale company that was making suits for heroes. Pride blossomed in your chest at the memory, she was incredibly talented and was definitely going places in life. You unlock your phone and read the message:

L: Hey you. What are you up to? 😊

You type back.

Saving the world, as usual. Just kidding. Still here. What about you?

In the blink of an eye she responds.

L: We have a new client! She’s so cool, her quirk gives her cat-like abilities and features, so I gotta work around those, designing this one will be SOOO much fun!!!! :0

Another few seconds.

L: …you know, I miss you a lot. I worry about you too. ☹

You bite your lip.

L: I know you’ve been going through a lot, the anxiety, depression, and stuff but…you need to get out of there. Go places. Meet people.

You type back.

Yeah. I wish I could. But I can’t.

Tears well up in your eyes. You feel so pitiful the way you are now. You put your phone down, ready to fall back into another pit of depression when it buzzes again.

L: I’ve got it! Why don’t you come and live with me here in New York?!

Your eyes widen.

What?! Really?!

L: No ur too much of a nerd LOL. Yeah of course you dummy! Just think of it!! The two of us, sharing a flat, taking on the big apple. We party! We geek out! Maybe you get out to the streets and meet a handsome stranger? ;)

You roll your eyes but a smile paints your face. Your heart thrums with excitement, But…

Then the usual feeling of intense dread takes over. New York is a massive city. With lots of noise and smell and worst of all…People. Even with your sister at your side you would be terrified, and you knew that all too well. Too many eyes watching you, too many heartbeats in one place.

Too many unsaid thoughts for you to accidentally pick up.

You shiver, the corners of your mind returning to that sickeningly familiar static. You try to breathe. Your thumb hovers over the keypad of your phone.

I can’t do it, it’s too much. It’s not like can afford it anyway.

You put down your phone. The screen glows again but you don’t read your sister’s reply. You curl yourself up into a ball on your couch. Coward. Stupid. Worthless. Pathetic. You feel your insides get tense, you clench your teeth. You taste salt on your lips as your eyes drip. You lay there and let yourself cry in silence for a long time.

You take a deep breath and wipe your damp face with your shirt.

You need…something.

You will yourself hard enough that you stand up. You grab a clean pair of socks, your shoes, your purse. You head towards your front door when you stop. You turn to look at the shelf and the lonely DVD sitting there. The memory of reassuring laughter fills your mind. You shove the DVD in your purse and walk outside.

The day is sweltering, once again but you know you have to be outside to tame your feelings. You don’t know where you are going so you wander around, past the neighborhood park with its scalding metal slide and rusty swings. All empty. You stop at the drinking fountain for a sip of room temperature water before wiping your face with your sleeve and moving on. You walk through a small cul-de-sac. The lawns vacant of all life except for a lawn gnome or two. A dog barks. Flies buzz around the trashcans set out for pick up. You walk. You’re already parched again. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth. A cold soda sounds pretty good. There’s a gas station across the road.

You look both ways and step off to cross the street when everything seems to move both faster than the eye and slow motion at once.

The screeching of tires. The stench of burned rubber. The crunching of a bumper plate.

You cover your head with your hands, unable to put together a final thought when…

It stops.

You look up, confused when you see a long blue cape flutter around you. An impossibly tall man—no—hero stands between you and the vehicle that had nearly made you roadkill. His hands made massive dents in the front of the red convertible…he had stopped it with his bare hands and stood like it was nothing at all. He glances down at you with a familiar smile.

“Are you quite alright?”

You nod wordlessly.

He drops the car with a heavy clang, the two occupants shrieking in surprise.

“I think you’ve had quite enough of the joyride, you two. First my best friend’s car and now you nearly crushed this young lady. Turn yourselves in peacefully and no one will get hurt.”

The woman at the wheel has rat-like features, long teeth and whiskers, only made less attractive as she spits at the pavement before grabbing the man next to her, hopping out of the car and running for it.

The hero turns to pursue the two of them when the man lifted what looked like a remote detonator with his hand. The hero skids to a stop, instantly putting together the situation before leaping back towards you.

“GET DOWN.”

No sooner had he reached you then the car exploded, rattling the earth beneath your feet and shocking your eardrums. You carefully opened your eyes, finding that the hero had grasped you and tumbled you both over to the sidewalk. He has you cradled in his muscular arms, you feel his chest rise and fall once. He carefully unwraps you from his cape before dusting the debris from his shoulders and his V shaped bangs.

“Today isn’t turning out how you planned, I can imagine.” He says with a laugh.

Everything clicks.

He’s the same man you ran into that day at the DVD store.

You swallow hard and reach for your purse “I, uh—”

“Sorry, miss, but those two criminals are not far and I have to put a stop to this madness. We can talk later.” He turns and looks around, searching the area.

Your mouth opens and shuts like a fish.

The only building nearby is the gas station. He rushes in and you hear a loud clattering and a woman’s shout. You can’t help but get closer. You peer inside and see the fluorescent lights flicker. The hero stands silent. Listening. The floor erupts beneath him and he flips out of the way. Out from the earth comes the rat-faced woman, she had used her claws to dig underground. She swipes at his face, he dodges, yet his cheek gets sliced in the process. He sweeps his leg under her, knocking her off balance and she falls. He takes the opportunity and pounces on top of her, pinning her arms behind her back. In the flickering lights you see him pull out a pair of handcuffs.

The two of them walk out the still working sliding door of the gas station. The woman grimaces at you, her lip swollen and split from her fall.

The hero stares her down, an intensity to his ever-present smile. “I will find your accomplice, Ms. Johnson, either now or later. Tell me where he is and it’ll be better for the both of you.”

Suddenly static crackled in your head once again, causing your head to throb. You looked around. It was neither the woman nor the hero.

A piece of cloth came down from an air vent behind the two of them.

“—Bastard”

“BEHIND YOU!” you shout.

He hero spun around in a split second, his hand grasping the cloth in his hand as it wriggles with a life of its own. He tugs and the air vent brakes with a sharp twang, a pile of what looked like bandages fell to the ground.

“There you are, Mr. Threadborne.” The hero says as he pulls him closer with a jerk.

The pile of bandages comes to life and wraps itself together in the shape of a man. He snarls at the hero before offering his hands in defeat. The hero puts him in another pair of cuffs, one, you noticed, has a different design than the woman’s.

“Gauze Threadborne and Prairie Johnson, how lucky can a guy be to catch both you villains at once?” he laughs heartily.

He glances down at you, looking like he has something to say when you both hear sirens approaching. A pair of police cars swerve into the gas station. Four officers walk out and greet the hero before he explains the situation.

“These two were driving down this street, speeding in a stolen car, as usual when they nearly ran into this young lady. Luckily, I arrived on time to stop them. They unfortunately made a brief escape, taking advantage of a remote detonator that was held next to the engine of the stolen car. I tailed them to this gas station, the man employed here escaped without issue. We fought, and, thanks to this young lady, I was able to apprehend them both.”

The manner in which he says all this sounds much more professional than how he had spoken to you before.

The ratty woman, Prairie, screeches, cutting through their conversation. “I ain’t gettin’ inside that clunker, ‘specially not without my baby cakes in there with me!”

“Oh, sweetie pie don’t you fret,” coos the bandage man, Gauze. “We gon’ be together soon enough, don’t you worry your pretty little head.” He turns to the hero “…an’ when we get on the streets again, I’m gunna show this prick that was no way to treat my girl.” He hisses, his hollow eyes staring daggers.

The hero, meanwhile, looks totally oblivious to his threat. He smiles pleasantly at the police officer as he shakes his hand.

“Thanks for your help, All Might.” The officer says, adjusting his cap before climbing into his car. The officers take the criminals and speed off just as fast as they came.

The hero, apparently named All Might, peers down at you with a question in his bright blue eyes. You clear your throat once more.

“I-I um, think this is yours.” You hand him his copy of Flash Gordon.

This was going to be longer but, I think this is an ok length. Don’t wanna overdo it!

~Entro-pie