#this lyric has a death grip on me

[epicthemusicalstuff]

“Don’t thank me friend, you very may well die”

[geiszleib]

for my quarjake fans, please listen to the song "twilight" by bôa. and please talk to me about this ship cause I'm going insane.

lyrics analysis below!

lyrics of importance:

- "you feel the same way that I do for you, about her" (with her being neytiri, quaritch feels for jake how jake feels for neytiri)

- "and you're feeling / and you're hungry for her / and you don't understand it / but you know you haven't planned it" (jake unexpectedly falling for neytiri)

- "your feelings and mine are all lonely / and dawn comes, you're there lying with me / and you reach out to touch me / but I am in the twilight"

- "and you know I love you, but you know that / there's nothing you can do about it / because you love her / and you still want me" (jake being conflicted about loving neytiri but still wanting quaritch)

- "if I could be her/ but I'm not her and she's not me /and you're somewhere different / on a different planet" (while they are on the same planet, quaritch feels as if jake is on another planet because of how he's trying to separate himself & how quaritch still has a human mindset. no matter what, he can't be neytiri, but even then, jake will always love him)

[sxndxyy]

my ocs my gay little guyss

thee one with two black piercings on his ears and no pupils is psi

cat with star pupils is jamie

nervous tall cat with Pinkerton shirt is jenny

and cat with deezer shirt and star peircing is alex!! glad to be back

[lucyvsky]

girls when you only get lonely when you read the charts

[bee-the-whovian]

"And if you knew that you are the one who gives me strength, if you saw yourself like I do...

If there's shadows in your heart when you're weak, I'll light the road in neon...

So give me a reason to lighten the dark, why would you hide when I love every part of you?"

[von-eldritch]

“I’m older than the golden rule, but we can say I’m new.”

[thatsdemko]

love affair- a.leclerc & c.leclerc

masterlist

requested: n

pairings: Arthur leclerc x gasly!fem!reader & Charles leclerc x gasly!fem!reader

warnings: nsfw + not intended for minors + mentions of nudity + mentions of oral (f receiving)

a/n: mwahahaha I love creating chaos 😌 also the lyrics are from 5sos! I am well aware none of these men(and the beautiful y/n) are not English! it’s just part of the lyrics! this has zero to do with my previous Arthur x gasly!reader fic! feedback is always appreciated xx

《 the following content is not intended for minors. 》

It started on a weekend in May

I was looking for attention, needed intervention

his beautiful green eyes are glued to your body as you move across the hot sand of the beach. you begged your brother to pull over so you could take a dip, cool off, you said.

maybe it was your plan to get him to look, you were never going to say. but you felt those eyes in the passenger seat, he watched your breasts bounce up and down as you jog up to the car, the water that’s left on your tan legs glisten in the sun.

“don’t get your wet bottoms on my seats!” Pierre calls out as you dance around the hot pavement, Charles throws his jacket over the leather before you slip in.

“thank you, Charles.” you reach behind the seats pressing a friendly kiss to your brothers best friends cheek, Pierre groans trying to wipe the ends of your wet hair off the leather.

he watches you collapse against the burning black leather seats. little does he know that in exactly six hours he’d be crammed up in the back eating you out. he’d be shoving his hard cock into your swollen pussy, his hand gripping your throat while you choke his name.

Before I knew it, it was serious

Dragged me out the bar to the back seat of her car

TWELVE HOURS EARLIER

you think you’re the only one awake. you still tip toe around the creaking old floors, you’re in nothing but your brothers old alpha tauri shirt and a pair of an ex boyfriends boxers. when you make your way into the living room you half expect to see someone else awake.

“my my, is this a sight to see.” Charles smirks, chuckle escaping his lips. he’s never seen in anything other than a tight shirt and a pair of bottoms that are way too short. even when you were kids your style was far similar to what it is now.

“oh fuck off,” you mumble slipping next to him on the love seat, and he extends the blanket over into your lap. two of you now watching whatever old black and white movie was on.

“can’t sleep?” he asks, voice in a hushed tone watching your body settle into the seats, thigh quickly brushing his before you pulled away. he can’t help but feel the nervousness scatter his stomach.

“not with my brother snoring in the other room.” you roll your eyes, as much as you love Pierre, his nostrils were the death of you every time you take this summer trip.

“why don’t you sleep in my room? Arthur doesn’t snore. we can swap beds.” he suggests, and you almost laugh knowing he doesn’t want to spend his nights in your pink and white wallpapered bedroom. as much as you know he’s in touch with his feminine side, you’re sure he won’t last the night with the pink colors mocking him.

“that or we could just piss Arthur off, have Pierre sleep in your room.” you suggest and he nods. the silence and crackling of the old film are what occupies the air, it’s almost unfamiliar to you both. this room was always full of laughter and joy, you hate hearing it so dead.

“why don’t you just sleep in my bed with me?” he’s half serious, the sleep deprivation was doing most of his talking right now. when he looks you in the eyes he doesn’t expect you to say yes, but you do. now you’re wrapped in his white linen sheets and the cool breeze from his window blows into your face.

you’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t wish this was something more. part of you woke up because you knew he was down there shirtless lounging around in nothing but his tiny shorts. you’re not sure if it’s your own sleep deprivation convincing you that you needed him, but will you be thankful in twenty four hours for what god brings you.

NOW

“sleep well?” Arthur watches you nearly stumble down the stairs into the living room. you’re practically limping, it’s obvious you either hurt yourself at the club or whoever left all those hickeys on your neck left you disoriented.

“something like that.” you wave him off heading into the kitchen where the smell of bacon, eggs, and toast are coming from. your mouth is watering you’re so hungry, you almost don’t even catch your brothers glare while you scarf down two plates of food.

“do I even want to know?” he asks, fork gesturing to the purple and yellow bruises that scatter your neck. he can’t even look at you, he’s disgusted by whoever the man was that left his marking. little does he know the man is his best friend who just entered the kitchen mumbling his late good mornings.

“where were you for our run? I knocked on your door five times.” Lorenzo shoves a plate of food into his brothers chest half caring that some of the egg fell on to the floor. he’s disappointed in his younger brothers lack of motivation and discipline.

“I overslept.” Charles lies. that’s partially true, but while Lorenzo was knocking on his door at five in the morning, you were giving him a good morning treat before his run. he claims it to have been the best way to wake up, it’s why he skipped the run.

Pierre nearly chokes on his dry toast when he sees the nail marks against his friends back. they are still fresh and bright red, he’s surprised Arthur didn’t say a single thing when he walked by.

“and somebody was worried about not getting something this trip.”

“oh wow,” Arthur barely touches one of the marks on his back, it earns a hiss from Charles as he tries to swat the younger man to move along, “these are going to leave quite the mark for awhile.”

you try to hide the red hue that’s floating across your face. you’re lucky all of them are too focused on the nail marks and the details of his wild night. you didn’t expect them to be so obvious, but the acrylics were still fresh from the other day and sharper than you expected them to be.

“would you see her again?” Lorenzo asks sliding into the chair next to Pierre. the question brought you a wave of nausea, you get up instantly once he sits down. there’s no way you’ll be able to hear the truth or the lie. either way you know you crossed a line, and seeing Charles in that setting once more wasn’t an option for you.

“yeah, I would.”

—

“you don’t own a single thing that doesn’t compliment you, huh?” he takes your hand in his allowing you to twirl and show off the tight body con dress.

you shrug, sheepish smile spreading across your lips, “you like it?” you’re not sure what’s provoked you to ask, but he just nods tongue licking his bottom lip watching you saunter on over to find a pair of high heels to match.

his eyes trail after your body, it’s like he’s never seen an ass and a pair of tits as good as yours. everything about you demanded his, hell anybody’s, attention. every inch of you screamed perfection, it’s impossible for a man to look away, and right now it’s impossible for him.

“what’s on your mind, leclerc?” you bend down to pick up your black high heels and move to a chair to slide them on. he’s right at the edge of the coffee table doing it for you instead. his fingers pull the little string through the hoops, finger tips grazing your legs.

“you.” he says, watching you slide your leg off his thigh and stand up adjusting the dress down your thighs. his eyes follow your body with lust, you swear you’ve never seen a man wrapped around your finger so quickly.

you’re smiling, he’s so pure, you think to yourself, as you use your index finger to tilt his chin upwards, “I’m thinking of you too, Arthur.” you bend down, head dipping to press your lips against his. they’re sweet and soft just like he imagined them to be, he practically moans at the delicacy.

he runs his hands up and down your body, you don’t mind that they linger a little too long on your ass, you think it’s adorable how excited he is. little does he know he’d have you sucking on his swollen cock in the public restroom of the bar. you’d be on your knees listening to him moan your name and later that evening he’d be asking if he was just as good as the guy from last night.

he’d then take you to that same car, and just like his brother, his hard cock would be entering your throbbing pussy each stroke full of passion and intimacy. you could melt at how careful the leclerc’s take their sexual activities.

you can’t tell him who’s better, there’s no clear winner. but god forbid you would never tell him the man before him was his own brother.

When the lights go out, she's all I ever think about

The picture burning in my brain, kissing in the rain

I can't forget, my English love affair

[djarincore]

a sacrifice in your name

SUMMARY: A paladin's oath means everything to them—but not to Simon, not when it comes to you.

ALTERNATIVELY: Simon sacrifices his oath to save you.

TAGS: oathbreaker!ghost, f!reader, DND!au, smut, angst, hurt/comfort, nondiscript violence, implied minor character death(s), Simon can lift reader, special villain guest appearance by Graves, body worship, cock warming, WC: 3.2k

A/N: a little what if scenario for vengeance paladin!Simon, who will always choose you over everyone else no matter the cost. and yes, the title is another sleep token lyric...

thank you to @/saradika-graphics for the dividers!

You wake to dim woods, a full moon overhead, and arms firmly encircled around your waist. The world bounces and sways in your bleary vision with a persistent ache pounding through your head.

Memories of the past few hours are a rapid flash of reds and oranges, sounds of crackling, splintering wood, and terrified screams echoing through the night. The bone-chilling fear of death seems to still freeze your sore muscles.

Now, as you slowly regain your senses, you realize you're riding atop a horse somewhere deep in unfamiliar woods in nothing but your night gown. The figure, whose arms encircle your body, grips the reins in front of you. Their own weight almost sags against yours. A helmet rests against your shoulder.

Icy fear crawls back through your body. You wish you can remember or get a clue as to where you were, but it is too dark and the horse is no longer on a path. The best you can do is escape, run, somewhere far from this stranger.

You jerk forward and claw at their arms, but you're blocked by leather vambraces. The stranger pull you closer to their chest, trapping your arms against your body.

“Let me go,” you plead. The stranger scrambles to restrain you and reign in the horse, who has become spooked by your cries. “Please!”

“Shh, you're safe,” a familiar voice soothes. It's grated, rough. Simon. “It's alright.”

Your body sags into his, but your heart still pounds. Your thoughts are mush in your head as you try to piece them together.

“What happened?”

The last thing you can recall is smoke and flames, raiders breaking down your door, and the blunt end of a sword bashing your temple.

Your query is followed by thick silence. A dark cloud of confusion hangs over you and Simon doesn't seem to want to offer any guidance.

“Simon?” You attempt to turn, but he holds you tighter, almost forcing the air from your lungs. And then, you realize he's trembling.

Simon, who was the pillar of strength, never trembled, never showed an ounce of fear. You grew worried.

“Don't,” he says quietly. “Just rest. We’ll be at an inn soon.”

A pit sinks in your stomach. An inn, but not your inn. If your fragmented memory serves you correctly, your inn is ash. The home and business your family-owned for generations was gone in a single night.

All the fight and adrenaline drains out of your body, leaving you weak and exhausted. You shut your eyes and lean against Simon, allowing tears to fall freely in the dark.

The neighboring town’s inn is small, cold, decorated with the heads of different animals and sharp weapons mounted on the walls. You hate it. There is no fireplace, no warmth, or life—nothing like your inn, your home.

You stare into the glassy eyes of a deer hanging above the owner. Your blank expression stares back in the reflection.

The owner is a bony, severe-looking man whose slimy gaze clings to you alone. Even as you cower behind Simon the man’s hunger makes you shudder.

You stare into the glassy eyes of a deer hanging above the owner instead. Your blank expression stares back in the reflection.

“A bath for her.” Simon tosses an extra silver piece onto the counter.

You're covered in soot with a trail of dried blood running down your temple and a small cut on your neck.

The owner perks up. “Do you require any assistance washing?”

You can't help but cringe at his words and wrap your arms around yourself.

Simon’s hand darts over the counter to grab the man by the scruff of his neck and slam his face onto the counter.

“Shut the fuck up,” he barks, “and get it ready. Or I'll spill your fucking guts on the floor and you can wash that up instead.”

The man whimpers and you can't find it in you to feel bad for him. But you do worry. Simon always makes a point to keep his violence away from you.

His fury wasn't a sight you saw often. You only know the beginnings and ends of it. The deep breaths as he tried to control himself and keep his temper in check or the bloodied knuckles and split lips.

“Yes, yes, right away,” the man stammers.

Simon doesn't let up. You see the fingers of his pointed gauntlets curl tighter, forcing a choked gasp from the man.

“Mercy,” the man pleads, voice wavering on the edge of tears.

Finally, Simon flings the man back and he stumbles to catch himself from hitting the wall. Scampering off, the man disappears around the corner.

Simon heaves a sigh, bordering on frustration and exhaustion. His shoulders are tense and when you reach a hand out to touch his arm, he doesn't look at you. He hasn't since you woke up on his horse. His helmet being on didn't help either.

You desperately want to know what he is thinking. Simon was never a talker, but his eyes were always more expressive than his words.

His arm wraps around you, bringing you into his chest. Your cheek rests against his chest plate. The metal is cool against your skin. Your arms wrap around his waist in turn.

You want to ask him so many questions, but now isn't the time. You want to think he’ll explain everything soon, but his tension doesn't reassure you.

He holds you in silence until the owner returns.

The man's gaze doesn't fall anywhere near you this time. The bloodshot, green eyes stay firmly on Simon as he stumbles over his words and let's you know the bath is ready.

Simon takes your hand and leads you around the corner. The narrow hallway has a wooden staircase built into the left and leads further down to an open door. You can see the tub inside, a towel draped over a wooden chair beside it.

The washroom is a simple room with a basin and a chair. There's a standing mirror tucked in the corner you use to look at the grime covering your body. Your face is gaunt, a shell of yourself. Your fingers ghost over the frown you fear will become permanent.

Simon shuts the door and moves behind you like a pillar, poised to support your unsteady legs. “Off,” he commands with a low voice, brushing the strap of your nightgown off your shoulder.

Your clothes slip off easily and Simon guides you into the tub. The water is lukewarm at best and you curl your knees to your chest to conserve heat.

“Will you tell me what happened now?” Your question is quiet.

He runs a cloth over your shoulders.

“Raiders,” he all but spits.

“What of everyone else?”

“Gone.”

Your brows furrow. You just couldn't believe you were the only one to make it out. Your heart breaks for all the people who were lost.

“And the raiders?”

No doubt Simon made short work of those bastards. He always did.

Simon wrings the towel out and extends his hand. “Come on. Out before you get cold.”

You're redressed in your nightgown but not satisfied.

He leads the two of you up to your room for the night. There's a wooden bed tucked in the corner and a dresser beside it with an oil lamp. You grimace at the sheets which are covered in a layer of dust. You pull them off the bed and toss them to the floor.

Simon begins the quiet routine of shedding his armor at the door. It almost feels like you're back home. His helmet comes off first and rests on the dresser.

Finally, you can see the tight furrowed brows, the downcast eyes, and tense jaw he wears. There is a quiet conflict raging behind his tired eyes. He looks exhausted and beaten to the core. He leans his sword against the wall, places his gauntlets on the dresser, chest plate and greaves beside it.

You watch as each piece comes off, searching for signs of injury. He never returns to you without scars or bruises for you to fuss over. But piece by piece, his clothes are free of blood and his body doesn't tense from sudden movements.

No sign of injuries should be reassuring, but it only adds more questions.

“Are you okay?” Your hands run down his chest to rest on his abdomen.

He's quiet for a moment, tense beneath your hand, before he mutters a curt, “Fine.”

Simon takes your hands and guides you back onto the bed. He leans over you, forcing your neck to crane back. A hand cradles your cheek, caressing your cheekbone with his thumb, as his lips lower to ghost over yours.

You want to ask him more questions—ones he won't answer, he can't answer—but he stops you short.

Simon captures your lips in a desperate kiss. He kisses you with a hunger that he needs satiated. His hands cup either side of your face, always gentle.

When he pulls away there's something missing from his gaze, replaced with a despair that stretches beyond you.

“Simon…”

“Not tonight,” he whispers.

He never liked to talk about his missions, the evils he faced all in the name of upholding his oath. And you never forced him to, simply doing your best to provide him comfort in other ways. You gave him a home to return to, open arms to fall into, and loved him completely. But, the hollow look on his face warns you of something terrible, something that can't be healed.

He brings himself to his knees, head hung in quiet repentance. His lips press against your knee. Then his hands snake up, pushing your nightgown past your thighs.

You grab his hands before he can reveal anymore, but he is insistent.

He looks up between your thighs like you alone can offer him salvation for whatever sin is consuming him whole.

“I need you,” he pleads. “Let me have you.”

Simon doesn't wait for your response before he’s rising once again to push you against the bed. When his lips meet yours, it's fierce and demanding. His body cages you and you're helpless to refuse as he knees your legs open.

Simon’s rough hands explore the soft curve of your body. Your hands caresses the slender curve of his neck and into the silk strands of his hair while his thumb traces random patterns on your stomach before dipping below the waist of your panties. His fingers skim lower and lower, and you squirm when the dull ache between your thighs grows stronger.

The pads of his finger meet your sensitive clit for the first time and rub slowly. Your body seizes around him, thighs clamping around his, and your arms wrap around his neck to ground yourself around the sensation.

The way he gazes upon you so reverently, like a goddess worthy of his devotion, nearly makes tears spill down your cheeks. You let out a gasp as the pleasure in your stomach grows stronger.

Your hips move against his hand, demanding more. When his hand moves away to tug at your gown, you pout.

“Off,” he commands.

Nothing needs to be said twice, not with Simon. You pull your dress off, freeing yourself to the darkness and his roaming eyes. Your nipples are pert against the cold air. His calloused hands glide over your waist, mapping every inch and curve of your body to commit you to memory.

“My beautiful girl,” he whispers in awe. His hand cups your breast as he lays kisses across your chest. Between each kiss he says, “You’re mine.”

You feel yourself blossom beneath his reverent touch and words. You lift your hips to let him pull your underwear off. His hands slide up your calves, over your thighs, and eventually one settles over your mound. You arch into his touch. A sigh leaves your lips as he runs his finger through your slick folds.

Two fingers are thrust into you without warning. Your breath is caught in your chest as you clench around him. His fingers work inside of you, pulling sweet moans from your lips, until you come undone.

Simon lifts your limp body against him as he settles on the bed with his back against the wall. You lay against his chest, face buried in his neck, as a wave of exhaustion hits you. The traumatic night is finally catching up with you.

As you come down from your orgasm and your eyes grow heavy, he pulls his cock free and positions you above him.

You attempt to shift your hips down to take him, but he stops you with a gentle squeeze of your hips.

“I've got you. Just relax.”

Simon eases you down on his cock, stretching you open. You want to squirm, to move, to please him the same way he did for you.

“Just stay here,” he says, his breath heavy in your ear. His hands cling to you as he shifts your bodies against the pillows. You feel the stir of him in you and involuntarily clench. He groans, burying his face into your neck to regain control of himself. “Let me feel you.”

You stay in each other's arms until your breaths fall steady. The closeness, his warmth, is a comfort you relish. Your home may be gone, but you still have Simon.

And, for now, it is all you need.

Simon waits for you to fall asleep first, cradled against his chest, before he allows himself to feel guilt wash over him. The weight threatens to drown him and he clings onto you like a raft.

He leans his head against the wall, staring at the water-stained ceiling. A veil of unshed tears blurs his vision. “Forgive me,” he whispers.

To who and for what, he doesn't know. He just hopes those words are enough to make the ache fade—it doesn't.

He allows himself to fully recall the entire night before he found you, before it all fell to shit.

Simon returned to ruin.

He saw the plume of smoke in the distance and hoped it wasn't real, but it was. Your town was engulfed in flames, glowing in the dark as bright as day, burning in his eyes like hellfire.

He moved through rubble, mind swimming with dread, to find you at the center of town, bound and unconscious. There were men surrounding you who wore a familiar coat of arms.

Graves, the pain in his side who never seemed to just disappear, was standing in the center of it all. Simon had faced his men before, but never Graves in person.

Simon would have caught on to the strangeness of the situation if not for the fury boiling in his blood.

Simon knew what he had to do—kill him, make him suffer. His oath wouldn't allow his evil to continue any further.

Gods, he hated the cocky grin on his face.

“There you are,” Graves called out like he was greeting an old friend.

“What the fuck do you want?” Simon’s sword was already unsheathed, ready to taste blood.

“To teach you not to fuck with me.”

Simon almost barks out a laugh. He raised his sword toward the challenge. Not one of Graves’ men moved to help defuse the situation.

“Go ahead and do as your oath commands—kill me.” Graves stood proud, arms spread wide.

Simon took a step further.

“But if you kill me, your girl dies too.”

A henchman hauled you up and placed a dagger at your throat.

Simon, for once, faltered. The sword in his hand trembled. He tried to steal himself but found he couldn't catch his breath.

He couldn't kill Graves and reach you in time. And he was sure if he made any move to save you, you'd be dead already.

“If you don’t kill me, I'll let you leave with her. Make your choice.”

So that was the game.

“Fuck you,” Simon spat. “I don't know ‘er.”

Graves ignored the bluff. Something in his smile told Simon, he saw right through his bullshit. “Go ahead and be a hero, Ghost.”

“I'm not a hero.”

He scoffed at the word. Destroy evil by any means necessary. His tenant echoed in his mind. Any means necessary.

He was far from a hero. A hero didn't turn a blind eye to those in need to pursue evil. He left behind innocent's far more times than he can count in the name of his oath.

Would you become one of the souls he sacrificed too?

Ever since he lost his family and took up his oath, he couldn't allow himself to feel emotions like guilt, sorrow, or fear, less it made him weaker to deliver the vengeance he swore to uphold.

But, you were his new family, the love he found amidst his violent wandering. He couldn't lose the safety and warmth that you were.

No matter what he chose, you or his oath, he would lose a part of himself.

Simon wanted to plunge his sword into Graves’ chest and be rid of the man and his impossible choice and that fucking smug smile. He wanted to destroy his very existence, so not even the strongest magic or God could piece him back together. He knew the world would be better off without him. He knew it deeply.

Yet, Simon lowered his sword and made his choice to condemn the world.

“I knew you were a selfish one.”

“Give her to me.”

Graves waved his hand and you were dropped. Simon caught you before you could touch the ground. He wrapped his arms tight around you, shielding you from the world.

“Fuck with me again and I won't wait for you to save her.”

Simon gritted his teeth but didn't say a thing. He kept his eyes on you. There was a cut on your neck where the blade was, shallow enough to draw a sliver of blood, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Fighting Graves would mean your death. Simon didn't care if he died, but he would never risk you. All he could do was lift you up and walk away.

Each step away from that ruined town he felt a piece himself slip further into the dark, remaining in the wreckage. His limbs lost feeling; his chest constricted.

A rope pulled inside his chest, urging him back to finish his duty. But, his feet dragged against the force to continue forward.

When Simon stepped over the town's threshold, the rope snapped. He was left with cold, empty despair.

Simon held you because that was all he could do as he left behind the destruction and his oath. At least he still had you.

He condemned the town’s survivors to death and allowed evil to escape the wrath of punishment—and he would do it all again to save you.

He will tell you of his selfishness in the morning. But, for now, he will hold your bare form tighter against his chest, closer to his heart, convincing himself you will fill the piece of himself that will never return.

But the void is boundless. It is echoes of flame and terror, shame and guilt, and a haunting voice calling to him in the dark.

“Oathbreaker, what have you done?”

[starry-bi-sky]

sO i got to part two of the daniel jason todd fenton au :)

>:) word count 8k+

So, first, taglist for folks who asked for it: @blep-23 @mikyapixie @isnt-that-grape @randomenglishmajor @illryiannightmare @the-navistar-carol

SECOND: this part needs a trigger/content warning list: - CW Mild Swearing - CW Slight Psychological Horror - ^ CW mild depictions of being haunted by your own ghost/death flag and not realizing it (other people do though) - CW Brief Emetophobia (Danny throws up during a second nightmare) - CW Danny has nightmares of dying - except its of Jason Todd's warehouse death. It's not explicit but it's implied - TW Mild mentions of perceived Blood - TW Depictions of Corpses (first is non-descript, and then second one is slightly more descript but its not anything uh, super descriptive) - TW Mild description of burns (the descriptive part above) - TW Depictions of Panic Attacks (Danny's nightmares)

I mentioned that this au was inspired by a song lyric from Jann's 'Gladiator' here is that line:

I know your addiction's attention, Let's start a show Is it everything and more than you were hoping for? Show us something we ain't never seen before

The day after Danny meets himself, he's downstairs having breakfast in the dining room with the rest of the family, listening idly in on their conversations. Tim Drake is talking about something about Wayne Industries with Mr. Wayne - and wasn't that a startling surprise to learn the first time? - and Damian was slyly trying to feed Ace under the table. Duke Thomas was mid conversation with Cass, much of it audibly one-sided as Cass swaps between ASL and verbal speech.

(Danny comes across her a fair few amount of times in Wayne Manor. The first time was in the library. She hands him a book about planets, smiles, and walks away.)

(He hasn't talked much to Duke Thomas yet, but he plans to - he seems cool. They just haven't had the time to run into each other yet. Danny might just have to corner him, he thinks.)

And finally Dick Grayson on his left, his Dick Grayson, was talking away with the other Dick Grayson - who had stopped by from Bludhaven for the morning for his day off. He was a cop, ew. They were comparing lives, specifically college lives. There wasn’t much to talk about in their childhood, it seems. Danny was quietly listening in. 

(They both gave their Bruces headaches as children, apparently. Climbing the chandeliers and sliding down the staircase banisters. Flips and tricks only a child raised by the circus could do.) 

All-in-all, a very quiet morning, Danny thinks. That is, until the other Dick Grayson turns to him and goes; "I'm sure you've been asked already, but what do your parents do, Mini Jay?"

Danny squints at him, and releases his grip on his spoon to raise a pointed finger. "First off: only my Dick Grayson can call me Jay, you have your own." He says, slightly playful and nodding to Dick - oh that was going to get confusing, fast. He should come up with a nickname for one of them, probably - "And second: you're the second person to ask me that, actually. Jason - er, myself? - asked me yesterday. My parents are ectologists."

Apparently, mentioning that he met himself is a set of magic words, because the whole table stops what they're doing, and Danny's half-sinking back into his chair when all eyes turn to him in varying degrees of surprise. Dick - Richard, he’s going to call him Richard - looks at him with wide eyes and furrowed, confused brows. "You saw Jason?"

(Danny sends Bruce a confused look, but he's not paying attention - looking at everyone else with threaded eyebrows and a faint frown. Well, at least Danny isn't the only one confused by the reaction.)

(What a comfort.) 

"I guess that nickname is a dimensional constant." He mutters under his breath, and straightens up, eyeing the room warily. It... doesn't bode well to him that the Waynes were surprised by his other self's appearance -- was hisself estranged from the family?

...He hopes that doesn't happen in his world. Dick and Bruce may not be his adoptive family, but he likes them quite a lot. He wants to stay in contact with them when they get home.

"Yeah, he was in the library." He says, frowning at Richard Grayson. "He was sitting in my armchair." He supposes it was Jason's armchair first -- god, that was so weird to refer to himself in third person. "We talked for a little bit, and he asked me what my parents did. They're ectologists, by the way."

He turns to Mister Wayne and tilts his head, "Did you really not know that he was here?" He asks, narrowing his eyes. He wouldn't expect Richard to know, he doesn't live here. But Mister Wayne looks just as surprised, perhaps even a little remorseful.

(There’s a pit in his stomach that’s growing bigger.)

(His neck burns with a new pair of eyes, ones that he can’t see.) 

Mr. Wayne looks thoughtful for a moment, and then carefully, he goes; "Jason is rather... independent. He comes and goes from the manor when he feels like it." And the way he speaks sounds like he was choosing his words carefully. Danny suppresses the shiver of unease.

Something was not well in this house. Something unspoken was haunting the air. 

(Jason would know about hauntings, wouldn’t he?) 

He hopes history won't repeat itself, he likes Bruce quite a lot.

"...Alright," he says after a moment of silence, not hiding his wariness as he slowly turns back to Richard. His eyes flick towards Bruce, and then to Ricard. "Anyway, my parents are ectologists, as I've said for the third time now."

Richard, for his effort, takes the topic change easily, and his surprise shifts into one of curiosity - as does everyone else. (Did Danny really not mention what his parents did? Even Dick and Bruce look intrigued.) "That's... new." Richard says lightly, Danny commends him for the way he sounds non-judgmental. "What are ectologists?"

Danny quirks a dry half-smile, and deadpans; "Studiers of all things dead and afterlife."

...And there is that reaction again. A ripple of surprise and intrigue that spreads throughout the room as everyone looks at him, like a bunch of cats perking up their ears. 

On the other side of the table, Damian scoffs quietly, a sound much like the one Jason - the other one - did when Danny told him. Danny's eyes snap over to him in an instant, he stares at him, trying to study him. Why that reaction - again? 

He lets himself frown, briefly, before addressing Richard again. "Everyone just calls them ghost hunters, but the 'official' term is ectologists." He drawls, air-quoting the word 'official' with his fingers as he rolls his eyes. "They've been obsessed with ghosts since college. We even have a lab in the basement, and they keep liquid ectoplasm samples in the fridge."

Danny's been in the lab a handful of times, he and Jazz both have, either to clean it as part of their chores, or to listen to a lecture from their parents for their newest invention. The lab is cool, kinda, but Danny thinks it wouldn't look out of place in any evil lair of a Rogue with a doctorate. 

…He’s glad that the Fentons weren’t stationed in Gotham. They would have blown up a street. He’s surprised they haven’t already. 

"Ectoplasm?" Dick asks, leaning over to catch Danny's eye. Almost by instinct now Danny smiles at him, and then nods.

"Mom and dad say it's the stuff that makes ghosts." He explains, leaning back against his seat, his arms crossing. "It's invisible in its natural state, and it makes up everything. Kinda like the Force from Star Wars, or just, matter in general."

That cracks a few quiet, laugh-like sounds through the dining room. Danny halves a smile again, a swelling of pride in his chest that lingers for a moment. "My parents say that when ectoplasm condenses enough in one area, it can start taking on visible properties," he continues, "they say that ghosts are just the memories and emotions of a dying person or animal being imprinted on a concentration of ectoplasm, and that the ghost itself isn't actually the person or animal, just matter trying to mimic it."

Which Danny guesses makes sense, even if the way they talk about ghosts made him really uncomfortable. His parents insisted that ghosts weren't actually people, but he just couldn't shake the idea that they were. How close to ‘human’ does something get before they actually are? 

Well, no, that wasn’t fair. Superman wasn’t human, and yet everyone treated him like he was. Let him rephrase himself:

How human-like must something get before they are considered as such? Before they’re considered sapient and sentient, and real?  

"That's... quite interesting." Someone says, and Danny turns to see Bruce leaning his elbows against the table and putting his chin on threaded fingers. He looks genuinely engrossed in what Danny's said, and pride once again leaks into his heart. "You mentioned they kept ectoplasm in a liquified state in their... fridge?"

"Oh yeah," Danny says, putting his full attention to Bruce, "it's crazy. They keep little test tube racks in the freezer full of liquid ectoplasm, and it's this - uh - glowing, bright green stuff. It used to be the weirdest thing in the house."

(From his peripherals, Danny notices the room tense up again at his description — and he bites back the urge to slow his talking down and narrow his eyes. Suspicious. Suspicious. The Waynes weren’t scientists - why do they react to something like they are?)

(Nobody knows what ectoplasm is. To the scientific world, it's an unconfirmed theory of a state of matter. Why do the Waynes act like they know what it is?)

(Danny is not stupid. Even if his scientific family makes him feel like it, sometimes.) 

Bruce gives him this half-tilted, confused smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. "Used to be?"

Danny opens his mouth, the answer already on the tip of his tongue -- and then he freezes. His jaw clicks shut as he frowns. Should he say what his parents' latest pet project was? Surely, surely, it would be fine? Their inventions never work - and a life-sized portal is just another thing on his parents' crazy ideas list.

His teeth sink into his bottom lip, chewing on the skin as he rolls the answer over in his head. ...Surely, it would be fine. His face turns in hesitance, and his shoulders scrunch and twist to his ears, like he's about to admit something that could get him grounded by his parents.

"They... may, or may not, be building an inter-dimensional portal in the basement?" His voice steadily pitches upward nervously the longer he speaks. By the time he finishes, his voice is close to a squeaky pitch.

There is a horrified silence that follows him, sitting in the air so still-like that Danny could hear the whoosh of a pin drop. He should have expected that, nervously surveying the ranging horrified expressions on the Wayne family's faces. "...I promise they're harmless... to the living." He hesitates, "Mostly."

Bruce stares at him for a long moment. "Mostly?" He repeats, his brows arched high and pinched together. Danny cringes back a little.

"Dad's a little clumsy, that's all." He says, shrugging with a helpless smile. It doesn't help, he thinks, and the silence is strangling. Sitting up, he's a little frantic to add; "I really, really, doubt it's going to work, Bruce. Their inventions never do. Mom and dad built a mini portal in college and it didn't work either!" There's a moment of silence following him, before he quietly adds, wincing, "It- it did hospitalize the guy who was helping them, though."

He only heard about that when he asked his parents about the portal - it was still in production when they picked him up. Jack Fenton claimed it was safe as safe could be - they’d make sure that the ‘college’ instance never happened again.

Bruce - both Bruces actually - looked vaguely ill at the thought. Mister Wayne’s face was blank, his face sunk into his folded hands, and Bruce’s stare burned into Danny, intense like concentrated fire. 

Danny for some reason - either through his panicked urge to make things better, or through temporary insanity - laughs forcibly. "The worst thing that could happen is that the portal could explode, but that never happens."

Next to him, Dick makes a stressed sound. "That's not better, Jay." He forces out. He looks even more horrified.

Danny sucks on his bottom lip for a long beat. Then lets out a breath.

"Yeah, I know." Danny sighs, deep and long while his shoulders slump. He watches the room for a moment, with their various stony-like expressions, and looks back at the very concerned-looking Bruce. "But Bruce, I swear it's fine. Nothing's gonna happen, please don't call the Justice League on my parents. They really are harmless."

Bruce looks conflicted.

"I was being dramatic when I said the portal could explode, it won't." He continues, giving Bruce what Jazz has called his 'cheating puppy eyes'. "My parents are eccentric about their line of work, but they understand lab safety. They'd never do anything to put me and Jazz in danger."

...Actively or on purpose, that is.

He and Bruce stare each other down. One second, two seconds; what feels like thirty seconds pass in silence before Bruce relents, sighing deeply and uncannily dad-like. He drags a hand down his face, and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "When we get back to our universe, you are giving me your phone number so you can contact me if anything happens."

Danny beams, nodding hurriedly. "Thank you, Buzz."

Bruce isn't able to hide his smile - small as it was - quickly enough. "You're welcome, Danny."

—-----

Danny has a nightmare that night. He doesn't remember most of it. There's a ticking sound, and high laughter, and there is a thumping heartbeat in his ears. Everything is dark and he is in agonizing pain.

He wakes up in paralyzing terror, a scream lodged in the back of his throat. His head pounds like a concussion and there is a shallowing ache in his ribs, like someone's kicked him, and kicked him, and kicked him until all air has been knocked from his lungs. He can't breathe.

Danny's hands scrabble for his throat, and even though he can hear himself gasping for air, it doesn't feel like he's taking any of it in. There is no relief in the action, no reassurance, and everything is so hot. He kicks at his blankets, his panic growing higher as they tangle around his legs.

He needs-

He needs--

He needs to move. He needs to get up. He needs to free himself. He needs to prove that he's not dying. He feels like he's dying. He feels like he's burning. There are tears swelling in his eyes as he finally gets the blankets off his feet, and he rolls - quite literally - out of bed.

He tries to catch himself, he does. But he doesn't. He hits the floor with a heavy thud and can hardly bring himself to care -- he catches himself on his elbows, and the sting it causes makes him feel worse. The air is knocked out of his chest again. 

The ground is cold though, blessedly cold. And before Danny can realize this, he lifts his head and, disoriented, looks for the door. It's too dark, it's too dark. His head swivels blindly in search of it. He needs to get out, he needs to escape. 

"Bruce." He croaks, still trying to force air down into his lungs. His call comes out raspy, weak, and hot tears blur his vision.

"Dick." He tries instead when a minute passes and no one comes, and he thinks he can finally start breathing. No one comes to find him - his voice is too quiet to wake anyone up. The tears in his eyes bubble and pop, and stream down his face.

He makes a distressed noise. "Jazz?" He whispers, his voice shaky and uneven with an encompassing want for his sister. It's nearly been a month since they got here. He wants Jazz.

No one hears him. He's alone.

God, he doesn't want to be alone. Please don't make him be alone.

Danny eventually gets himself calmed down. But he is curled up on the floor, trembling with the lingering traces of fear from whatever dream had woken up. His fingers dig painfully into his arms, leaving crescent-moon indents by his nails. The contents of the nightmare are already fading further into his mind, slipping out of his hands like water. Like ash.

He feels no need to chase after it.

The back of his shirt is damp with sweat, and in between the trembling he is also shivering, goosebumps lacing up his arms. His eyes have adjusted to the dark, and he stares with wide, crying eyes at the side of his bed. His breath comes out in short, shaky pants.

He doesn't know how long he lays there, trying to comprehend what happened as his mind still hangs onto the edge of the dreamworld. It feels like there is something in the room with him, crawling along the walls.

Danny forces himself to get up, and the sudden standing makes his vision blacken and swim as blood rushes to his head. He stumbles, slightly, and lurches halfway across the room for the light switch.

He squints as the room is drenched in light, chasing away the lingering paranoia in the back of his brain. He is still shaking. His head still hurts. He still looks, wide eyed, around the room for anything out of place.

There is none.

But he still feels unsafe. He needs- he needs to find someone, or go somewhere else. He grabs a firm pillow off the bed, and leaves.

(He ends up in the library alone. He turns on the lights and grabs a book Dick recommended to him, and he curls up tight in his armchair. He ends up falling asleep just as the sun is rising.)

(He doesn't tell anyone about the nightmare.)

-

Progress in getting the three of them back to their home dimension is slow. Dimension Hopping is a rare experience, and what update Bruce gets he relays back to Danny and Dick: they're trying to figure out a way to send them back safely, from the exact time they disappeared, and to find what dimension they're from. It's complicated magic.

It's been three weeks. 

Danny, for one, is getting homesick. He misses Jazz, Sam, and Tucker terribly, and his parents. Bruce and Dick are great, really, and Danny kinda wants to keep in touch with them after they return to their own world, but they aren't replacements of his sister and friends.

His nightmare from a few days ago still haunt his steps. He closes eyes, and that high-pitched laughter and blood-rushed pounding burns itself his ears and fills a level of unseen terror into his heart. Danny thinks that if he was hit with Scarecrow's fear gas, this is what it would feel like.

He tries to avoid falling asleep by reading in his room, by stargazing, but the place sets him on edge; an unsettling reminder of that nightmare. So he goes to the library when it gets too much, he's run into Bruce twice now doing it, and they both do reading.

Danny thinks Bruce can suspect something is up with him, but he doesn't want to tell him about that nightmare. Dick either, for that matter. He just wants to forget it.

They spend afternoons in the gym, they have it mostly to themselves - Tim Drake is at Wayne Industries, Damian Wayne is at school, so is Duke Thompson, and Cassandra Cain is... doing whatever she does during the day. Danny's not totally sure.

Dick in that time, tries showing Danny how to be more flexible. He says he's a fast learner, but Danny knows he's been slacking lately with his lack of sleep.

There isn't much they can do outside of the manor - Bruce and Dick can't go outside because they'll catch the attention of the paparazzi, and they are both significantly younger than their counterparts, and Danny isn't allowed out without a chaperone.

Which has its own unique set of problems because rumors could rapidly start if he's seen with any of the Waynes multiple times. The paparazzi aren’t dumb enough… okay, most — some — of them aren’t dumb enough to make a tabloid claiming there’s a new Wayne kid just because they see the Waynes interacting with one kid, one time. Multiple times however? That’s another story. And, he has the same issue as Bruce and Dick - he's a baby-faced Jason Todd. Who is Bruce Wayne's adoptive son in this world. He could be recognized. 

And how do you explain a tiny Jason Todd to a world where Jason Todd is a full grown man?

So all three of them are... stuck inside, so to speak. And making do with what they can. Danny spends most of his morning and early noon with Dick, and then they both separate after to have time to themselves before dinner.

Bruce is in one of the studies, doing... something. Danny's not sure and he keeps forgetting to ask.

--

Dick likes Danny - Jason? - Jay. Danny said that he can call him Jason, and he doesn't protest to being called Jay. 

Point is: he likes Jay. He's a delightful kid to be around; he's funny, and clever, even if he doesn't realize it himself. And Dick's a little upset that Jay isn't his brother in his world, he would've loved to have him around the manor. He probably would have visited more if he was around.

Something that he and Bruce were still slowly trying to fix...

He likes spending time with him - getting to teach him his acrobatic tricks was not something he expected, but he loves showing Jay how to do them. He thinks this is probably how Bruce felt when he was training Dick how to be Robin, all those years ago.

Speaking of which, Dick was still not over the Robin jacket that Jay wore. The origins of it weren't the best - Jay started wearing it to take back the insult the other kids at his school were throwing at him - but isn't that what part of what being Robin was about? 

Cheesy, he knows. But his point still stands.

He thinks that if he had to pass the Robin title down to anyone, it would be Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton. Or perhaps just Jason Fenton-Todd? Jay doesn’t seem all that attached to the name Danny. 

(“Mom and dad just started calling me it when they picked me up.” Danny — Jay shrugged when Dick asked him about it, the two of them swinging from bar to bar. “I wasn’t tellin’ ‘em my name at the time, so they gave me a new one.”) 

If he had met Jason before the Fentons had, Dick thinks maybe he would have adopted him instead. And what would that future look like? Would he have been able to, when he had to go to college and classes? Would he have been able to keep going out at night, and keep that secret to himself? 

He’ll never know, he supposes. 

“I think that’s it for today.” Dick says, swinging off the jungle gym and landing on the mats with a cat-like thump. Behind him, Jay groans, and drops with a less graceful thud as Dick stretches out his spine. There’s a satisfying pop-pop-pop of his back as he leans back. 

He turns, and sees Jay going for his water bottle. He looks tired — from what, Dick doesn’t know. But there are dark bags under his eyes and a sleep-distracted look on his face. He’s been distracted, and their lessons have been suffering from it. 

Dick wants to know what’s bothering him, but Jay hasn’t said anything, and Dick doesn’t know what he could say to make it better. 

“I can still keep going.” Jason insists, but he tiredly slumps over to grab his water, and straightens up sluggishly. It’s probably not a lie, but anything Dick shows him he doubts that Jay will retain it. “You don’t have to stop.”

“Oh but I want to.” Dick says, walking over to grab his own water. “I’m human too you know—” and Jay snorts at him with a grumbled ‘doubt it’. “—so I also need my breaks.” 

“With the way you can bend I really don’t think so.” Jason mutters, eyeing him up and down. Dick laughs quietly and takes a long sip of his water. “Seriously, circus boy, what do they feed you? Actually - what did they feed myself?”

Dick’s laughter doubles as Jay’s eyes grow wide and wild, his head shaking with spasming arms. “No, seriously! I don’t know if you’ve seen the other me yet, Dick, but he- he’s fucking huge!” He exclaims, and jumps as high as he can as his arms try to make a silhouette above his head. “I- I’m almost as big as Jack Fenton, and we’re not even biologically related! I don’t know where he got that much height to him, ‘cause- ‘cause Willis, that drunk bastard, was never that big!” 

Dick hasn’t seen the elusive other Jason Todd, and he’s been so curious about him. Both he and Bruce have — especially considering that everyone else doesn’t seem to want to tell them about him. He tried stopping his other self to ask about Jason Todd of his world, and his other self just said that he was his little brother and the second robin, and that he did a lot of his own stuff. 

It was a whole bunch of fucking nothing. And he and Bruce were growing suspicious about it. They hadn’t thought of it before because, well, they were busy adjusting to being in a new world and trying to figure out a way back. And then Jason was never really brought up, but neither was Dick Grayson unless Dick asked about it, and he didn’t think to ask about Jason Todd before.

It was all just strange.

But Jay’s exclamation over the size of himself distracts Dick long enough that he forces himself to put the mystery of Jason Todd on the backburner for now. “I’ll- I’ll have to see him for myself, Jaybird.” He says when his laughter subsides, and he straightens up. 

“Seriously,” Jay stresses, and he starts to make his way towards the gym door. “He’s fucking massive, Dick. Built like a brick shithouse.” 

Dick almost starts laughing again, “Where did you even learn that phrase?” 

Jay rolls his shoulders back and grins at him slyly, “I read.” He says, and it’s so clearly not how he learned that word that Dick barks out a laugh. 

They reach the door, and Jay holds the door open as Dick reaches for the light switch. He looks behind him, surveying the room quickly to make sure that there’s nothing they could have left on the floor, before turning off the lights.

Bright green eyes stare at him from the mirror. Right where Jay is standing. 

In an instant, the lights are back on. Dick’s heart has been kickstarted into fifth gear, suddenly and loudly racing in his chest as he darts his head around the room. It was only two seconds, perhaps only even one, but fear has been shot like an adrenaline needle into Dick’s veins. An inhuman, skyrocketing fear alike to Scarecrow’s fear gas. 

What was that?

What was that?

WHAT WAS THAT?  

But there’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There is only Jason where the eyes were. 

From the mirror’s reflection, Jason turns his head — he hadn’t been looking at Dick, he hadn’t been looking at Dick — and stares up at him. There is confusion written on his face as he glances up at Dick, and then at the mirror. He meets his eyes - Jason’s blue, blue, not green, eyes — and Dick forces himself to look away from the mirror and down at Jay.

“What was that for?” Jay asks him, perfectly normal and perfectly confused. 

Dick feels like he just ran a marathon. He’s panting, he doesn’t know why, and he forces himself to sound like he wasn’t as he wets his lips and furrows his brows. “I thought I saw something.” He says, frowning. 

He didn’t think. He did. He did. 

What did he see? 

It was standing where Jay was. Those eyes. Those green-green eyes. It was where Jay was. He forces himself to shake his head, his frown deepening, unsettled. Jason peers around him as if to see what he had, and Dick puts a hand on his chest, stopping him. “It was nothing, let's go.” 

He turns Jay around, and ignores his bewildered look. That lighthearted mood he had earlier has plummeted, replaced with an eerie paranoia as he takes the door from Jason’s hand and flicks the lights back off. 

When he looks over his shoulder at the mirror, there’s nothing there. 

—------------

Danny has another nightmare. It’s the same one. It’s dark again. That high pitched laughter fills his ears. The ticking is louder, louder, louder. It’s counting down, but to what - he can’t see — he can’t see what it’s counting down to. 

There is still so much pain. His head hurts, his body hurts. He has a body now, he can remember he has a body. He’s in so much pain. He looks down at his hands and pooling around his knees is a bloody yellow cape, it’s torn and bloody and his hands are bloody and torn and he’s wearing green gloves. 

He wakes up just before the ticking stops. He doesn’t know how he knows that the ticking stops. 

Danny rolls over and hangs himself sideways off the bed, gasping for air that doesn’t come. He wants to scream again, to shriek with such terror that it sends everyone in the manor running into his room. He doesn’t, he can’t, he has no mouth and he must scream. 

Danny gasps for air instead, and then dry heaves until he throws up onto the floor. His head is spinning with the fadings of a dream-made concussion, again. His chest hurts deeper, more, it’s no longer shallow and as if someone was sitting on his chest, like someone had beat him in the stomach and chest and head.  

He feels like he’s choking. He is, he’s choking on what bile he can’t get out of his throat, and he forces himself to swallow it back down. He’s crying, he realizes, and dragging in air down into his lungs to the point it hurts. 

What is going on? He thinks through the haze in his mind. With what lucidity he has he brings a hand to his head to make sure he’s not bleeding. His palm swipes against sticky skin, and all that comes back is sweat. He’s not bleeding. He feels like he is. 

Make it stop. His inner mind wails as he finally, finally, starts to calm down again. He’s still crying. The tears burn down his cheeks, and he absently sticks out his tongue and licks the ones that gather at his lips away. He wipes at his face again, and when he looks at his hands, all he sees is skin.

He’s not wearing gloves. 

His hands reach for his back, and grasp his sweat-soaked shirt instead. He’s not wearing a cape. It soothes him, just a little bit. But not enough to keep him feeling safe. 

Danny peers over the side of the bed, and through his dark-adjusted eyes he sees the sitting puddle of throw-up on the floor. He cringes, sniffling. He can’t keep that there. He needs to — he needs to clean that up. 

Alfred must be sleeping by now — what time is it? He doesn’t know. He can’t wake him up. Where does Alfred keep the cleaning supplies? 

Danny throws his legs over the side — they’re not broken, he thinks dazedly — why would he think they’re broken? — and he stumbles to the door. He avoids, somehow, the sick.

(He passes by a mirrored vanity on his way to the door. He doesn’t see his reflection staring at him with green-green eyes. He doesn’t see those eyes following him.) 

He runs into Bruce in the hallway. He should have guessed it so. Danny freezes in his tracks, fear shooting up into his throat as Bruce turns towards him, already a smile pulling on the older man’s face. 

It drops immediately when he sees him. It twists down, and his face burrows into concern. “What’s wrong?” He asks, and Bruce is kneeling before him before Danny can blink. He looks worried. Danny must look awful then.

(He does. He looks pale as a ghost, and his face is splotchy red and shiny with tears.) 

Danny blinks at him numbly, trying to get his thoughts in order. Bruce’s hands are on his shoulders, Danny throws his hands over them, squeezing the knuckles and blinking widely. “I had-” he licks his lips, “a- uh, nightmare. And then I threw up.”

Fuck, he feels like a toddler. His eyes burn with embarrassed tears. He’s fucking thirteen. He’s not a baby. But he feels like a little kid going to their parent’s room. Bruce isn’t even his dad. He shouldn’t feel this way. 

But Bruce doesn’t make fun of him, or scold him, and Danny didn’t really expect him to, but the concern that melts over his face as his eyes soften makes him feel all warm and fuzzy anyways. “Okay,” Bruce says, expression softened but no less worried, and stands up. “Okay, we can go find Alfred then.” 

Danny’s lips press together, uneven and wobbling. “Please don’t.” He says before he can stop himself, and his voice cracks. He feels like such a baby. “I can clean it myself. We don’t have to wake him up.” 

“Do you even know where the cleaning supplies are, chum?” Bruce asks, and in the dark hallway he can see him raise an eyebrow. Danny’s lips press tighter together. He doesn’t. But he can find it. 

They wake up Alfred. Dany feels like shit the entire time. 

“I’m sorry.” He croaks as he follows Alfred and Bruce down the hallway with a mop and a bucket. He’s so embarrassed. He’s going to cry again, and he hates it. “I can do it, Mister Pennyworth. Please.” 

“You sound,” Mister Pennyworth starts, his voice soft, “just like young Master Jason when he started living here.” He turns to throw Danny an endeared smile, and Danny thinks it’s supposed to make him feel better. It does, a little bit, and it also makes him feel worse. 

“I am Jason.” He says, and tears spill down his face again. He is Jason. That’s his name. It’s not Danny, it never has been. The time he’s been here has slowly been pointing that out to him. He may be Fenton, but he’s not Danny. 

Alfred gets it all cleaned up, and Bruce sticks with him after he leaves. Danny’s grateful and resentful of it — hasn’t he embarrassed himself enough tonight? 

Bruce leads him to the library, a funny parallel to the first time. “We can ask Mister Wayne —” Bruce’s face scrunches up slightly, and Danny laughs under his breath. At least he’s not the only one still weirded out by it. “— about getting you a new room tomorrow.” 

Danny sniffs dryly, “How’d you know?” He didn’t think it was obvious that he didn’t want to go to sleep in his room. Bruce smiles knowingly at him, sadly, and they both sit down in the lounge chair next to the fireplace. It sits across from Danny’s armchair.

“I know a thing or two about nightmares.” He says softly.

Oh. 

Yeah.

That’s right. His parents. 

He probably had nightmares about that. 

Danny looks away from him, his eyes drop to his hands. His bare, non-bloody hands. He leans into Bruce’s side. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” He mumbles. He doesn’t want to talk about dying. Or what he thought was dying.  

“And you don’t have to.” Bruce says, slinging one arm around him and slumping against the curve of the chair. Danny reluctantly follows his falling, and finds himself trapped between the back of the chair and Bruce’s side. His ear is pressed to Bruce’s heartbeat. “We can just sit here, and talk about something else.” 

Danny blinks at the empty fireplace. “Okay. Tell me about films again.” 

Bruce’s fingers dig gently into his hair, and scratch slowly against his scalp. “Okay, Danny.” 

Danny frowns. “And don’t call me Danny. It’s Jason.” 

He doesn’t look up to see Bruce’s smile, but he can hear it as the man thumbs over the shell of his ear. “Okay, Jason.” 

(Danny falls asleep halfway through Bruce’s telling of the history of the Grey Ghost. Bruce knows by the way his breathing slows into a steady rhythm and his eyes don’t open.) 

(He smiles for mite a moment, before it drops and his eyes turn to the bookshelf in the corner. Standing there is a small black figure, with two burning green eyes.) 

(They stare at each other for a long, long minute, Bruce’s heart rising slowly. The figure tilts its head, and disappears. Bruce doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.) 

—-------

Danny stares down Bruce. Bruce stares him down back. It’s morning. It’s breakfast. Everyone is at the table eating, and he and Bruce are having a silent staring contest. Danny has to ask Mister Wayne about moving to a new room, he thought he would be able to do so after breakfast. 

(Who was he kidding? He wasn’t going to ask at all - why bother Mister Wayne about something he can get over?) 

(Bruce, apparently, wasn’t having it. With that stupid knowing look on his face.) 

But Bruce wants it to be now. Danny narrows his eyes at him, and Bruce raises an eyebrow back. Dick Grayson, his world, was going to notice soon. He was sitting next to Bruce this morning. That traitor. 

If you don’t do it, I will. Bruce’s face says. Bastard. Danny was going to take away his Jason rights.

Danny’s the first to relent, pressing his lips together into an annoyed, thin line, before he lets out a silent sigh and turns to Mister Wayne. “Mister Wayne?” He says, cringing slightly when Mister Wayne looks up at him - as with most of the room. 

“Yes, Danny?” 

He spares one last look at Bruce, who nods curtly at him, and Danny throws him one last annoyed look before turning back to Mister Wayne. “Would it, uh, be fine if I changed rooms?” He asks. 

Mister Wayne tilts his head, slightly, to the side with a look of interest. “You can, but what brought this up? Is everything okay?”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Danny was expecting that question. He glares at Bruce from the corner of his eye. And then smiles shakily at Mister Wayne. “Um, uh, yeah. Everything’s fine— it’s just, it’s stupid. Some, some stupid nightmares keeping me up.” 

Mister Wayne’s brows furrow, and Dick looks concerned from Danny’s peripherals. “It’s not stupid, you can change your room. I’m sorry you’ve been having nightmares.”

He doesn’t even ask what they’re about. Bruce didn’t either — he thinks he would’ve, maybe — but fuck, jeez. Danny laughs uncomfortably, scratching his jaw. “Yeah- um, thanks. It sucks.” He just barely stops himself from blurting out that he was dreaming that he was dying.

That was not a can he wanted to open. They would have questions, he knows they would, and he doesn’t want to think about it. The image of his bloody, torn hands are already seared into his mind. 

Everyone goes back to eating.

(Dick keeps looking up at him with a shadow of a frown on his face, like he’s keeping an eye on him. Quick enough that Danny doesn’t notice it. Bruce does, and watches his son from the corner of his eye.)

(Danny doesn’t see it, but his reflection turns its head. And peers around the back of its chair. Its eye burns green and it stares at Dick. The next time Dick looks up, it catches his eye.)

(He doesn’t straighten up, he forces himself not to react. He just keeps staring at it, his breath locked in his lungs, his limbs filling with a low, buzzing static. He doesn’t know what it is. It’s terrifying him.)

(The reflection doesn’t react to him, but its eyes seem to… glitch. And an eye appears next to it, and another one appears in a line. The pupils slowly turn to look… at Danny.)

(The window begins to crack.)

“JaSON!” Dick suddenly yells, standing up so abruptly that his chair falls back and slams against the ground with an echoing bang. Danny jerks back in surprise, and stares at Dick, who looks at him with equally wide eyes. 

Dick looks like he’s seen a ghost, his face pale as a sheet. He looks ill. He’s panting, there’s a sheen going over his forehead, like he’s just run a mile. But he’s gripping the table like he may just vault over it.

And everyone is looking at them both once again. Bruce looks incredibly concerned. 

“I— what?” Danny says, pushing his back into the chair as far as he could go. 

Dick blinks, and heaves a breath. Like whatever trance he was in was just… snapped out of. His brows furrow, and he moves, suddenly, peering over Danny like he’s trying to look around him. Left, right, and over, and then back again. 

“You—” he pauses, breathing in, “you looked like you were about to disappear.” 

Danny stares at him in disbelief. And he looks behind him, laughing nervously. There’s nothing there but his own reflection in the smooth glass window. “What- what kind of fucking—” he turns back around to look at Dick. “Why would you say that?” 

“There was something in the window.” Dick says immediately, and Danny is immediately rising to his feet and rushing around the table. Nope - nope, nope, fuck that. He’s by him and Bruce in an instant, as the other Waynes stand up and turn to the window as well.

Dick’s arms are around him the moment he’s within reach, tugging him into his side as one hand presses down against his chest, keeping him close. Dick hasn’t taken his eyes off the window, brows furrowed and serious. 

Everyone looks so serious. It’s freaking him out a little bit. 

“What was your nightmare about, Jay?” Dick asks when he finally tears his eyes away from the window and looks down at him. He’s got a protective hold on him, something so similar to Jazz whenever their parents set something on fire upstairs. 

Danny swallows dryly — does he have to say it? Saying it might bring him back to it, and he doesn’t want to go back to it. Twice was enough for him. “I was dying.” He admits anyways, and regrets it immediately when half a dozen heads all snap to look at him. 

In a panic, his mouth runs. “I was- I don’t remember anything- I just, it was dark and I was in pain and-” He presses his lips together, “I— I was in so much pain. There was this laughter—” Laughter. Familiar laughter now that he thinks about it. From the news. Danny’s lips curl downwards, and he whispers to himself, “Joker?”

“Joker?” Dick repeats, his voice hard. When Danny looks up, his face is unrecognizably stern. “You had a dream that the Joker was killing you?” 

“I— no— yes?” Frustration bleeds into his chest, fear pooling up his throat as the nightmare pulls on the edge of his memory. “I don’t fucking know. I didn’t see anything, all I heard was ticking and that stupid laughter. And I was bleeding, and I was wearing this yellow fucking cape, and- and I was dying.” 

He pulls himself away from Dick, his breathing picking up. “I just- I was— there was this ticking sound and I woke up before it stopped, and I- I don’t know why I knew it was about to stop — but I know that when the ticking stops something bad was going to happen— and it was just a nightmare.” 

Danny grits his teeth, and looks back up at Dick, forcing himself to calm down before he works himself into a panic. “It was just a fucking nightmare, Dick.” He says forcibly, and then he marches out of the room to the library. 

His appetite’s been ruined. 

—---------

Danny’s — Jason’s — asleep next to him. Bruce would think it was sweet if it weren’t for the fact that Jason’s been having nightmares about dying of all things. Nightmares that weren’t, he suspects, completely unfounded. 

His other self looked ill in the face as Jason marched out of the room that morning after Dick’s outburst. Outburst. That’s all he can think to call it even if it sounds juvenile. Like it was unfounded as Jason’s nightmare. 

His other self has been hiding something from him. Something about Jason Todd of this world, who he hasn’t seen at all since they arrived, but Danny — Jason — has. He would’ve thought the other Todd was a ghost if his other world’s… children… hadn’t confirmed seeing and knowing him recently. 

(That was something he still hasn’t fully comprehended. Children, plural? He adopts more after Dick? He has a biological son?) 

He’d be interrogating his other self on this if Jason wasn’t asleep next to him. It would be remarkably easy, as they were all sitting in the living room for the afternoon. All his other children were vigilantes, he wouldn’t need to keep pretenses.

But Jason is asleep next to him, and he doesn’t know. So he resolves to staring holes into his other self’s head, who was going through documents. A case, he bets. His other self doesn’t pay him any mind, but Bruce knows he knows that he’s staring at him. 

(“What have you been keeping from me?” He growls the moment Jason is out of the dining room, rising to his feet. The look on his other self meant that he knew something about those nightmares that Bruce didn’t. 

His other self looks at him, “Nothing that concerns your world.” He says, all of the kids looked tense as well, but now they were staring between the both of them like a fight would break out. 

“Bullshit.” Dick snaps before Bruce can speak, he walks around him and points an accusing finger at his other self. “You looked like you saw a ghost when Jaybird said he was dreaming of the Joker killing him. You know something.”

He did not tell them anything.) 

Whatever it was that his other self was hiding, Bruce would find out before they went back to their world. This concerned him, and it concerned Jason’s safety. If he wasn’t safe and his other self knew something about it, Bruce would be furious. 

Jason’s ragged gasp cut through the air like a knife, and Bruce’s gaze snapped down to his face as the boy’s eyes flew open and he jerked sharply. Jason’s hands were latched onto his shirt before Bruce could react, his nails dragging into his skin like he was trying to claw himself up.

It was another nightmare. Jason was clawing at him, trying to sit himself up while jagged, awful sounding gasps filled the air. He wasn’t looking at Bruce, he wasn’t looking at anything, his eyes glazed over like he was still trapped in the nightmare. 

Bruce wrapped his arms around the small boy and pulled them both down onto the ground, ignoring his other children standing up and looking at them until he had Jay in a cradle. 

The boy was still gasping for air, hyperventilating. His hands drop from Bruce’s shirt and scratch at his throat, his arms forming an ‘x’ while he tilts his head back and desperately tries to draw in oxygen. Bruce tilts his head back up with his hand, and leans him against his shoulder. 

“Breathe.” He murmurs, pushing damp black curls out of Jay’s face. It was a poor command - Jason’s eyes were squeezed shut and his face scrunched in pain, Bruce doesn’t think he can even hear him. “You’re safe.” 

“Bruce.” Dick hisses into his ear, and Bruce doesn’t look at him. He grunts to let his son know he heard him. “The mirror.” 

Bruce’s eyes fly up.

There was a floor length mirror sitting in front of the couch. A mirror that Bruce was conveniently, coincidentally, sitting in front of. A mirror that should have been working as all mirrors do. 

A mirror that, instead of showing Bruce his reflection back as he was, showed him in his Batman suit. Jason was in his arms, but in a torn, bloody uniform. A uniform that looked like a Robin suit. Jason - his Jason - wasn’t a Robin. But here he was, dressed as one, his black-yellow cape pooling beneath him and covered in blood. 

The Jason in the mirror, the Robin, wasn’t breathing. His head lolled over Bruce’s arm lifelessly. 

Bruce’s heart skids to a stop, and he looks back down. Jason was still breathing, his hyperventilating was beginning to slow, but he was breathing. The pained crease of his face was softening, even as his brows were still furrowed. 

When Bruce looks back up at the mirror, the reflection has changed. It wasn’t back to normal, Jason was just in a different suit. He was wearing a white hazmat suit now, and he was burned, horribly. The suit was melted to his skin in patches around his body in black, charred splotches, what wasn’t burned was torn, and the skin he could see was cauterized. The only part of him that was bleeding was his head, and it soaked his black hair red. What of his face he could see, there were bright green lightning figures going up his neck, burning the skin around where it glows. 

The mirror cracks down the middle, severing Jason from Bruce. 

He forces himself to look down, terrified to see the reflection a reality right in front of him. But Jason was alive, uninjured, and breathing quietly. Bruce presses two fingers to his throat, and feels a steady pulsepoint thumping against the pads of his fingers.

Jason’s eyes open and blue stares up at him.  

When Bruce looks up at the mirror, the reflection is back to normal.  

[trashmouth-richie]

master list

Eddie x fem! reader

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS ⚠️

Absolutely no minors, gtfo. Hopefully everyone has read the warning post from earlier this week regarding this chapter. it is extremely dark themed.

Heavy violence

References to past rape/ assault

Blood, gore

Domestic violence

Somnaphilia

Character death etc

A/N: please know your limits. I love you and let’s get into this chapter so we can move on.

The brown popcorn bag spun lazily in the microwave like an oily inflating balloon. The steady hum of the appliance kept you company as the countdown to the sad supper ticked to an end. The cheerful ding springing you from the staring contest you were having with the counter top. 

  The small radio you had purchased was sitting on the counter, the soft belt of Linger by The Cranberries was playing for what seemed like the tenth time today and you couldn’t help but feel the lyrics in your blood. 

  Unaware of anything out of the ordinary. A typical night after working at the bar. Showering and throwing on a pair of pajama shorts, tucked next to the pair of Eddie’s boxer briefs you had found last week. 

  After investigating why the washer banged all to hell when even the smallest of loads were in it, wedged tight under the plastic agitator were his underwear. 

  And you’d be a fool to say you hadn’t broken down and sobbed in the basement on the discovery. 

  You dried them and folded them neatly next to your delicates. The same drawer that held the worn and tarnished pig ring he gave you as a Christmas gift, and the envelope full of cash. 

  The water works started again. 

  Hot tears flooding your eyes, the simple act made you feel like he was home with you. But the nightmare always continued.

  You missed him so much. 

  “But you always really knew

I just want to be with you

  If you were a tiny bit more awake you might have caught that the door to the garage was locked even though you had no memory of locking it yourself. 

  ..And I'm in so deep

You know I'm such a fool for you

You got me wrapped around your finger

  Rustling the steaming bag from the microwave with burnt finger tips, you toss it on the counter hastily. Sucking your fingers into your mouth to dull the stinging redness away.

  Do you have to let it linger?

  And maybe it was then that if you weren’t busy nursing the premature burns, you would have noticed the odd set of keys on the counter next to the mail, pushed to the side by the buttery bag of popcorn. 

  Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?

  Bending at the waist to the lower cabinet you reach around for the smooth plastic of the yellow popcorn bowl. Upon standing you feel dizzy. You hear it before you feel it, the loud thwap of something heavy against the back of your head. The pain is searing and turns your vision to black. You’re passed out before your head even hits the floor. 

  (1987)

  The November air whipped into reddened skin, striking out any heat you had left in the confinements of the peach sweater you borrowed from Nancy on your frozen walk to Forest Hills Trailer Park. 

  It happened again. 

  And this time it wasn’t an accident, no matter how much he begged, no matter how many times he said he was sorry. 

  He hit you with a closed fist. 

  You weren’t flirting with Dustin. He was your friend. Way before Chad had taken any interest in you. Most of your friends were guys, besides El and Max, and even though Nancy Wheeler was older and more popular— you considered her a friend too. 

  When she left for college this past fall, she insisted on making her room more stylish to your liking. And she never once minded the twin beds you both slept in, a night stand between them. 

  But when Mike sat next to you at lunch and was going over notes from Kensington’s class, Chad’s mind twisted it into Mike hitting on you. Which led to Chad hitting on you, but instead of compliments and doting behavior— he drug you out to his car, a bony grip on the back of your neck.

  He screamed at you with every vein protruding from his tan skin. Voice hoarse and throat stretched tight. 

  Apparently you were fucking people behind his back. Even though you were a virgin. The town whore! He had yelled loud for even some of the teachers to hear, all turning a blind eye to the obvious domestic abuse happening on school grounds. 

  Explaining yourself only made it worse. 

  He slapped your face hard when you opened your mouth to interrupt him. And when you stood your ground and raised your chin to him, calm and steadily telling him to go fuck himself, he swung a fist into your eye. 

  And that’s when you left. 

  His apologies trailing behind you and caught in the gut of wind to travel far away from your ears. He wouldn’t follow you, he had appearances at school to keep up. 

  Much easier to tell Aaron and Sean that you got your period and were being crazy then explain why he had left school.

  The gravel crunched beneath your feet, frozen from the last winter storm and holding pockets of ice amongst the rocks. 

  Pale blue and still holding the old television lawn ornament, you sighed audible when Eddie’s van was parked outside of the aluminum sided trailer. 

  You hadn’t seen him since graduation last May. The night Chrissy’s extra curricular activities with Rick finally came out when they were caught fucking in the shower upstairs, at Steve’s house. Both sporting pricked arms with needle marks. 

  A broken hearted Eddie drank all night long and puked into the hot tub.

  Your quickened steps up to the concrete stairs and a shaky broken knock on the screen door have you stepping back waiting for the door to open, awaiting Eddie’s stupid grin waiting on the other side. 

-

  Living with Eddie you had no reason to be afraid. Many nights the front door was left unlocked. And maybe it was out of habit. Maybe you had left it unlatched tonight too. 

  It would explain how he was there now. 

  Hovering over you, his blond hair coined perfectly slicked to the side, slightly feathered back with thick styling gel. A Ralph Lauren polo with the logo on the left chest. His cologne reeked of some designer brand, making your stomach queasy.

  The only difference between those years ago and now was that he had a small dusting of a flesh colored mustache wiggled on his sweaty lip. Same maniacal inky blacks to his blown pupils, laced with the piercing blue. 

  The realization ices your veins and stings your eyes with angry tears. 

  Chad Cunningham was in your home, his body over yours as you're pinned beneath him, the smell of iron invading your nose. Looking around with wild eyes you see the crimson streaks from the linoleum in the kitchen to the carpet where you are laying. Your head thumping with the rhythm of bloody drops against the fibers of the worm carpet.

  “Been a long time hasn’t it, honey bun?” 

  An eternity wouldn’t have been enough. 

  Pressing his body into yours, you can feel the stiffness of his starched shirt as you try to will your arms to fight him away. He chuckles at your feeble attempts to push him off.

  His weight presses deeper into you as he lowers his mouth to your lips, squeezing your face he almost sings,  “Told you I’d see you soon.” 

  His lips are harshly planted into yours, feeling like jagged rocks against your soft waters.

  “Fuck,” he groans, hard against your thigh. “just like I remember. I’ve missed you.” 

  The clink of his belt unthreading from the loops of his khakis finally renders your senses. But you wait with calculated timing. 

  Leaning back, he stares into your face with a quizzical expression burrowed deep on his brow. “What’s the frown for? Don’t you miss me? Aren’t you happy to see me?” 

  Evident that his delusions still ran deep, it’s showtime. You would survive this. One good hit, that's all it would take. 

  Pushing yourself up gently, your head is swimming with nausea and the steady dripping tick of blood down the back of your neck. 

  Placing a shaky hand to his cheek he moves into your hand, the same way Eddie had that night, your stomach somersaults at the memory. 

  When his eyes shut, you turn your fingers into a clawed position, and scrape the flesh from the corner of his eye down to his lip. 

  It happens quickly and with your blurred vision and pounding head it feels like it’s all in slow motion. He wasn’t expecting it. 

  A kick to his ribs hurt your bare feet probably more than it injured him but you needed the extra time to escape into your room. 

  The phone feels cool against your cheek, and weighs heavy on your shoulder when you realize it’s dead. The plan of you running in here, dialing 9-1-1 and holding him off until they came was foiled. 

  “BITCH! You can’t hide from me!” 

  Knowing you only have seconds before he finds you, you 

frantically look around for something to defend yourself with. Searching eyes land on the window. 

  Just need to get out and run to Mr. Griffin’s house. 

  Fingers on the frame you yank upwards, palms digging into the wired screen, pushing it out.

  Throwing your leg out into the darkness of the night, you’re one step closer to being safe. One step closer to ending this night of horrors before it could begin. 

  The noise of splintering wood and the crack of a door being snapped from its hinges join your erratic breath and piercing screams— a monstrous reel of symphonic sound. 

  Chad twists a thick fist into your scalp, freeing the hair from its follicles in a sickening pop as you scratch your nails into the window sill, trying to hold on.

  He’s stronger than you, no different than years before. And when your body crumbles onto the floor with a squelching thud, splinters of lacquered wood and nails that once held the door in place, pierce into your exposed skin. 

  But that is minor league compared to the shattering pain delivered from his fist into your face as he straddles you.

  “Think you can hide away with that freak from me?!” He rocks his closed hand into your other cheek, this time clipping your eye with a gold wedding band.  

  Your cries fall on deaf ears. Tears stinging and trying to drip from your swelling eyelids. 

  “Honey bun,” he purrs into your ear, “don’t tell me you’re that fucking stupid to think I wouldn’t find you.”

  His fingers move to brush your hair from your face, and he holds your head in place when you try to bite at his fingers. 

  His wicked smile could make the devil’s scaly skin crawl. 

  “Such a dumb whore, forgetting I have eyes and ears all over this town.” Placing his grabby fingers on his breasts, he continues, “Aaron and Sean may not be the brightest candles on the cake but they are loyal.” 

  Aaron…Sean. 

  You rack your brain for any recollection of those names.  and it finally clicks. Chad’s friends in high school, following him around like he was the King. A snap of his fingers and they’d move like henchmen. Fighting anyone who got in his way, putting themselves at risk just to say they had a friend from a rich family. 

  The realization swims in your eyes and scares your tears dry. 

  “No.”

  “Pieced it together huh?” Chad laughs wildly. “They work..” he grunts, hips rutting against you, pinching your perked nipples in his tight grasp, his fingernails digging through your shirt around the delicate skin, making you squeal, “..with the freak!” 

  His deranged cackle doubles when you yell out in pain. 

  “Small town bosses don’t lock their offices, and it was too easy for Aaron to find your address, even easier to find out that Eddie had left your ass here, unguarded, alone, waiting for someone to save you, and honey bun here I am!” 

  His sick twisted smile oozes fear further into your gut, brooding and feeding on any small amount of joy you had left. 

  “You need a fucking psychiatrist.”

  “Such harsh words for that sweet mouth, but don’t worry!” he reassures, eyes wide with delight and a psychotic expression on his face as he brings his voice low and secret-like, “I won’t kill you yet, the boys are looking for Munson and when they find him…” he lowers himself to kiss your lips, sliding his tongue against the split flesh. 

  “Fuck!” He bellows, licking his lips savoring your taste on his tongue, “when they find him they’re gonna bring him here, and it’ll be arranged to look like the freak killed you and then himself.. a lover’s quarrel gone bad.” 

  He rubs his face and grunts again at the warbled wails you let out, squeezing your breasts and bucking into your clothed crotch. “Goddamn,” he groans, his eyes rolling into his head at the sound of your cries, getting off on your distorted face, “I just couldn’t help myself, had to come here and do this first. One last goodbye.”

  You’d rather be dead at this point. You wish he’d kill you now and get it over with. But the thought of Eddie seeing your lifeless body haunted you. And you stop crying when his hands close around the hollow of your throat. 

  “Gonna be mine, one last time honeybun?”

  “Fuck you,” you croak beneath his hands on your throat.

  You’re weak and running out of time. Rolling your tongue against your teeth and cheeks, harboring a mixture of saliva and blood you wait until Chad is leaning over you, and when he’s close enough you spit the concoction into his face.

  Chad bellers out, letting go of your throat and standing abruptly to wipe his face. The split second he’s distracted you try to crawl away, but he kicks you down. 

  Delivering several soccer styled strikes into your stomach, his voice spewing insults with every jab of his white Nikes into your body.

  A raging shock of fury paints his face.

  “What did I tell you hmm? If I can’t have you— no one can!” You scream loud when his shoe propels into your crotch, shocking your pelvis with burning heat. 

  All noise is void when he rolls you over and crashes down on your beaten body, clobbering your tear and blood streaked face, blow after blow.  Your eyes are swelling shut and you’re surprised when you see Eddie’s face, before your eyes shut. 

  It feels like home. 

  -1987-

  The warm smile you missed so much was not there to greet you. A cold calloused “what?” finds you instead. 

  “Eddie?” you ask with a scratchy throat, clearing it once, twice, to answer him against the wind. 

  Grumbling and stomping in the trailer is heard. Along with two separate giggles. 

  The door is yanked hard inward revealing a version of Eddie Munson you’d never seen before. His skin was sunken in on his cheeks, dark circles rimmed his eyes. His once soft features were sharp and lackluster, brooding with ashy shadows and skin that looked like it hadn’t seen sunlight in months. 

  He looked gaunt and hallowed out, his ribs poking against the cindery color of his skin. The warm whiskey eyes that once danced when he laughed were now gaping blacked marbled, polar and dull. 

  He speaks but you are too busy holding your breath from the stench of rotting clothes and unwashed bodies. 

  Stumbling over an apology for not hearing him, you are startled when he barks back,  “I said, what the fuck are you doing here, Tooty?” 

  You look to the floor and notice he’s wearing a heavily stained sock with a hole in the toe, the other foot bare, next to a pair of work boots are three pairs of women’s shoes:, heels, keds, and pink reeboks. Your toes wiggle in your worn converse. 

  “I’m.. I uh..” 

  Eddie rolls his eyes, “oh for fucks sake spit it out! You selling raffle tickets or something for school? Pep team need new Pom-poms? Or maybe the chess club is looking for a new board?” 

  Shock stealing your speech you stand on frigid feet digging your fingers into the yarn on the Nancy’s sweater. Tears bite your lashes and fall on cold cheeks. 

  Eddie! Where’s your lighter? A sultry voice coos, padding feet getting closer to the threshold. 

  “Listen kid, I’m fucking busy, I don’t have time to haul you around because twiddle dick and dum forgot you at the gas station again.” 

  He has barely looked at you since you got there. The guy who held more merit to you than your own brother was gone. 

  When you wipe your eyes on the sleeve of your sweater  he lets out an exaggerated groan. 

  He thrusts dirty fingers into his sweatpants pockets. Pulling out a perfectly rolled twenty dollar bill, he flattens it smooth. He smears his finger along the length of the bill, collecting remnants of a fine white powder, which is quickly shoved into his greedy mouth and rubbed on his gums like he’s brushing his teeth. 

  “Here,” he grunts, shoving the drugged money into your pocket, avoiding your eyes at all cost, “now get lost.” 

  The blinds on the door are still swinging as you stand there dumbstruck and watery eyed. Low voices are murmured through the thin walls as a lighter flicks and sizzles.

  Who was that baby? 

  Nobody. 

  And that’s exactly who you were to everyone you knew, nobody. 

  And ironically enough— that’s exactly who you could rely on. 

  One thing was for certain: Eddie Munson was a stranger to you. 

  The tears fell harder on the shameful walk back to Chad. But you weren’t sure if you were crying harder because of the sudden loss you felt from an old friend or because of the pain in your eye.  

-

  Heart hammering in his chest, Eddie jiggles the door handle, it’s locked and he panics and realizes he still has his key. Fumbling with the key ring, Eddie finds the short brass one and unlocks the door. 

  The sight of the mostly empty house is jarring, causing his stomach to drop , a small recliner rests in the living room where his couch once sat. Wine is spilled from the kitchen to the living room, smeared like it was swept poorly with a mop. 

  You never drank wine.

  Maybe you started drinking heavily after he left. He did. It only made sense. 

But a second glance at the claret colored stain embedded into the carpet and his worst fear was realized. 

  Blood.

  The sound of something wet and thwacking settles into his bones and shakes his spine. Someone was hurting you.

  Heavy docs lead him to the corner of the house, your room and his old room. Where his door was intact, yours was shattered. Like Jack Torrance took his ax to it in The Shining. Stepping on cracked wood, Eddie sees the most horrific thing he’s ever been a witness too. 

  And suddenly he’s six years old again, helpless. Watching a woman he loved lose a battle she didn’t even know she was in. But instead of his mother’s lifeless body crumbled by his father’s feet, instead of her dark curly hair matted with pooling blood and a gaping bullet hole— It’s you underneath a guy he doesn’t recognize.

  Your face is battered and covered in blood, the once plush lips he held so warmly between his own were split and slack. Your eyes were swollen, lacking any shine to them they normally held. 

  His eyes connect with yours for a brief second, and when they close he doesn’t know if they will open again. 

  Fury radiates through his entire body, masking the pain of heartache at the sight of you slipping from him. 

  Before he can acknowledge the thought of you being gone, he lunges at the catalog Dad dressed asshole. Knocking him off your body and landing on top of him, colliding into your dresser. The tangle of body parts wrestling for purchase tumble into the hall. Ringed fists land home on every surface of this guy's face, and when he stops to take a breath— he realizes the face he is hitting is Chad Cunningham’s.

  How did he find you? Had he been stalking you both since that day at the grocery store?

  Didn’t matter all that he cared about was throwing this mother fucker the biggest ass kicking of his life, and he wouldn’t stop until either Chad or himself was dead.

  “I’ve waited years for this day,” Chad spit, after getting a punch in when Eddie was in his own head, knocking Eddie’s jaw to bite down on his tongue, filling his mouth with blood immediately. “Trailer trash Munson finally came to play.”

  Taken by surprise, Chad shoves Eddie from him and stands up, looking through the doorway at your limp body. 

  Eddie stands slow, using the bathroom doorknob to help, he reaches for the knife kept in his back pocket. 

  Chad spins to face Eddie, his hair sweaty and face ballooning out from Eddie’s rings. “You should have left my girl alone Munson, would have saved your uncle the heartache.”

  Eddie flicks the blade open on the knife, grip tight around it, he breathes through his nose his throat tight and stretching around his words, his leather jacket creaking when he moves his neck around in a stretch, confident in his delivery, “she’s not yours.” 

  The hysterical laugh that leaves Chad’s lungs could resemble bats screeching in the night, he’d make a great clown in a haunted house. 

  “Dead or alive whether I’m married or not— she’ll always be mine.”

  Like alley cats, they stare each other down, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

  Chad licks his lips and looks your way again, “listen, I get it, she’s hot. And that tight little pussy..” he licks his lips and grabs himself over his denim jeans, stained with your blood.

  Eddie’s blood is boiling, he’s seconds away from snapping but trying to hold it together long enough to make a perfect attack.

  Chad leans forward, gesturing a mockery secret with his hand held around his mouth, “It’s even better when she’s fighting you,” he inhales deep, like he’s wishing he was in a past memory, “screaming really tightens her right up.”

  Knife out, Eddie charges forward. And is struck dumb when the knife is kicked from his hand. Another kick this time to the chest that he wasn’t expecting sends him stumbling into the living room, air gone from his lungs. Chad follows and swings into his diaphragm making Eddie choke out on nothing, gasping for air. 

  “Oh come on, Munson,” Chad taunted, leaning down to kiss Eddie’s cheek, “Thought you would have some trailer park moves to throw at me.”

  Raising a heavy boot, Eddie stomps on Chad’s toes, and mule kicks his kneecaps. A ringed fist meets his cheek, adding another forming bruise to his winter tan skin. Shoving him backwards into the counter in the kitchen, the cabinet doors bust on the impact. 

  The punches Eddie is landing have his knuckles bloody and swelling but he doesn’t care. Each punch is a testament for the years you held yourself together, acted like nothing bad was going on, when in reality you were experiencing hell on Earth and he never knew. 

  This was his payback. His way of righting a wrong. A wrong that should have never even began.

  He doesn’t know what he was hit with just that he was stumbling backwards again. Temple throbbing and without reaching up he knows he’s bleeding. His back hitting the corner of the fridge he slides down onto the linoleum.

  His head is heavy and his vision blinded with hazy clouds of black and white. He hears Chad but doesn’t see him, just feels his head being slammed in the fridge and a grip in his hair. 

  “Could have saved your uncle funeral costs you stupid bastard… clearly you don’t care about him, or Tooty for that matter, leaving her all alone like that,” Chad sucks through his teeth, splitting blood onto Eddie’s shirt, “thought the raccoons usually stuck together.”

  He chuckles low and slams Eddie’s head one more time with such force it leaves a dent in the fridge. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he says, straightening his shirt, walking towards your room , “my girl is waiting.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Eddie roars, pushing himself up to stand with all his might. Pounding head and nausea thick in his mouth. Raising his head he looks at Chad with blurry sight, trying to see clearly. His voice is low, catching his breath and taking all of his strength to utter out the words. Balancing around the mark of deranged, “I’ll fucking kill you.”  

  Chad swivels on his heels, head cocked at Eddie, he grabs under his chin holding it firmly in place. His breath fanning over Eddie’s cheeks and he smiles maniacally, blood painting his teeth. 

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” A heavy fist to the gut has Eddie doubled over. Gripping the counter with white knuckles and wet blood smeared fingertips. 

  He had failed again. He wasn’t able to stop his own father from killing his mother. And now Chad was on his way to desecrate your lifeless body. He’s a fuck up and a failure. 

  Always. 

  A low guttural choking sound breeches Eddie’s ears. And he turns to see you covered in your own blood, barely standing and wielding a bat with nails protruding from every which way. 

  The nails are claret colored and dripping thick drops onto the carpet, fibers of Chad’s jeans hang in shreds from the sharp edges. A scant look towards Eddie and your eyes swim with relief and mourning. 

  He’s here. Blood is smeared down his lips and his hands look tight and swollen. 

  But he’s alive. And so are you.

  Eddie’s vision is doubled and he blinks rapidly unaware if he is seeing you or not. He swallows hard and almost chokes on tears.

  But that is short lived.

  And it happens fast. 

  The yelling rage from Chad’s lungs over power your screams. His hands are tight around your throat before you can blink, your spine snapping into the nearest wall, feet dangling off the ground. 

  Haziness bleeds into your eyes and your breath is expelled from screaming— now gone when your windpipe is crushing like a pixie stick under Chad’s grip. 

  Desperate to fight back you jam your thumbs into his eyes. Victor Creel style like the Urban Legends passed down that you were told as kids. 

  If you were going to die, at least he would be blind, a forever reminder of this day etched, literally, into his face. 

  You prayed Eddie would know how much you loved him.  

  Should have’s taking over the last puffs of oxygen in your brain, popping like bubbles. 

  Should have told him sooner. 

  Should have said it every day. 

  Should have kissed him more. 

  Should have let him love you. 

  The guilt wraps around your mind as the cold hands of death welcome you. But you’re not afraid. Knowing Chad always kept good on his word, Eddie would join you in the afterlife.

  Hand in hand. 

  Strolling along the pinked cotton candy clouds and the pearly gates. 

  You are his and he is yours. 

  Lovers together finally at last. 

  The last breath on your lips is a silent devotion to him. 

  I love you, Eddie.

-

a/n: my asks are always open ♥️

[thisisourlovestory]

Safe and Sound

Finnick Odair x reader soulmate AU

Summary: you are a victor from district 4. The Quarter Quell has just been announced. How will you cope with the turn of events coming your way.

Word count- 2.8k

Chapter 1

I woke up early on the day of the reaping. Blinking awake slowly, head spinning from the effects of what even Haymitch from district 12 would class as too much alcohol, not that I’d really ever spoken to him, just from observation. I shuffled into my fluffy slippers and stumbled over to the table in the middle of my kitchen. Sitting down heavily, I groaned as lightning shot through my head and I scrubbed a hand across my face, reaching out to grab a glass of water and downing it in one gulp. Once my head stopped spinning I made myself a cup of coffee, mixing in milk and spooning in an inordinate amount of sugar, I made my way outside and sat on a chair, sipping the too sweet mixture from time to time, hands curled around the mug as I gazed out at the sunrise. Pinks and purples blended together, swirling with orange hues as it got lighter with every passing second. The sun rose above the horizon, bathing me in golden light as I breathed in the fresh air, letting go of all my fears and doubts for a moment to just take in the beauty of the world around me.

The trees swaying gently in the breeze, leaves rustling, songbirds chirping. One landed on my shoulder, twittering a joyful tune in my ear. I tapped my foot to the rhythm, singing quietly, whispering lyrics swept away by the wind. A ringing of the bell snapped me out of it, a harsh reminder of reality, of the games. I gave a grim smile and walked back inside, swigging back the last drops of my drink. Once back in the house I filled up the bathtub with steaming hot water, drizzling some scented oil in it and immediately stepping in. The water burned my skin, turning it red and raw, irritating the cuts on my feet as they stung and I hissed in a vague degree of pain. I grabbed a cloth and scrubbed my body viciously, stripping it of any dead skin and dirt that had collected over the past few days as I had moped around the house just waiting. My hands grabbed a bottle and I poured the contents onto my hair, scraping my nails across my scalp, rinsing it, then tipping a bottle of conditioner into it, massaging the smooth pink substance into my hair, making it smell like honeysuckle, sweet and overpowering.

I drained the bathtub and stepped out, wrapping myself in a fluffy towel. I picked through my clothes, discarding some to one side and placing others over the mirror in my room. I ended up with three options and I frowned as I assessed them. I didn't want something that would make me seem weak, but I still needed to portray the innocence of a child that the Capitol loved me for. Eventually, I settled for a light green dress that fell just above my knees, I studied myself closely, the dress clung to my upper half but flared out at the waist, the loose sleeves covering the mark on my wrist. I smiled at my reflection in the mirror, it was perfect; for a second I looked like a girl. A normal girl who hadn't been affected by witnessing death, who got to live a happy ordinary life with her family. And for just that one second I wished selfishly with all my heart that I could be with the person the universe chose for me, because he loved me. I snapped out of my daze and stared into the mirror, light reflecting off the surface and bouncing around my room. I turned away and face planted on my bed, the mattress muffling my scream of anger. My fingers gripped the sheets tightly, refusing to let go for a second as my breathing quickened and tears pricked my eyes. Now is not the time to cry, I berated myself silently, my nose still buried in the bed. Now was the time to stand up and show that I was not afraid, that they could throw anything at me and I would come back stronger. I sniffled slightly, sitting back up and dangling my legs off the bed as I wiped away a few stray tears. I gazed at my reflection again. So different from the confident girl I had been before, now a pathetic weakling, if that's what a few minutes could do to me then I hated to see what damage hours or days could inflict on me.

I heard people talking outside and moved silently to the window.

“Don't worry, it’ll all be fine.” I knew that voice.

“But what if I get reaped,” I knew that one as well, “I can't go back in there.” I peaked out to see Finnick and Annie, engrossed in conversation.

“I promise I won't let anything happen to you,” Finnick continued, gripping her arms and staring at her, “I promise.”

I smiled sadly at the sight, it hurt a little, it always did but I was happy for them. I truly was. I couldn't let my feelings get in the way of their romance, it was quite clear to me that they belonged together, the universe makes mistakes and it seemed like he and I were one of them. They walked back into his house and I stepped back into my own room, closing the window behind myself and trapping the cold air inside. Shivering, I picked out a white knitted cardigan and pulled it on, the soft fabric providing a thin layer of warmth from the chill. The clock on my wall struck 11, I breathed out deeply and walked downstairs, slipping on a pair of beige sandals, tying the brown leather just around my ankle in a bow. Taking a last look around my house I trailed a hand along some of the pictures lining the walls, photos of my mum and I smiling and laughing together from when I was little. It seemed so long ago now, I was no longer a child and my mum was no longer alive. My hand finished on the last picture, the most recent, one I had snapped a couple of years ago of Finnick and I. It was one of the last times I had spoken to him, before Annie. It had been after a particularly nasty nightmare and he had cooked breakfast, pancakes with syrup. He smiled as I got the sticky substance on my cheek and wiped it away with his thumb. I had laughed and held the camera up, both of us smiling widely as my finger pressed down to take the shot.

It was a reminder of happier times, as happy as they could be at least. I made to step out the door but I remembered something at the last second. My shoes. My ballet shoes. If I was going back then I wanted them as my token. Granted they weren't the pair I had the first time, those had long since worn out, but that didn't change the way every new pair of shoes made me feel. What they made me remember.

I had been 4 when I first decided I wanted to dance. I had seen the Mayor's daughter wearing a pair of ballet shoes and dancing in the garden with them on. I immediately fell in love, and ran home to my mother, so excited I talked about them for hours. Every day from then on I would go and watch the girl dance, I would copy her movements until I could do each and every one with the drop of a hat. Then one day a few years later they caught me watching. They had beat me black and blue and sent me running home crying, knees scraped and clothes torn. My mother had comforted me, singing a lullaby as she rocked me to sleep. The next day I woke up to a pile of books on the table and a box topped with a ribbon. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion but my mother smiled gently and nudged me forwards.

“Open it,” she said, “I think you’ll like it.” My eyes widened as I opened the books, there were pages upon pages of text, instructions, they were tattered and dirty but they taught me everything I knew about ballet. How to do the steps, how to strengthen my body and become more flexible, how to fully immerse myself in the dance and feel the music. Then I turned my attention to the package. I ripped the ribbon off and was greeted with a pair of ballet shoes. Slightly worn and ripped but in my eyes they were perfect. I shrieked in excitement and threw my arms around my mother as she caught me laughing.

“Calm down little bird,” she said, ”it's an early birthday present. And besides,” she continued a mischievous glint in her eyes, “I want free tickets to all your shows.”

I nodded my head, pulling away to look at her.

“Do you think I can actually do it?” I asked innocently. Her gaze became serious.

“You have nothing to prove to them, little bird, you hear me. But they will always look down on you, so you can either let them or you can prove that you are more than what they see.” She paused for a second, “You can do it my little bird, and you will be incredible.” I burrowed into her and she wrapped a soft blanket around us, cradling me like I was a baby again. She passed me the packaging and I lifted the shoes out, holding them carefully, as if the slightest move could break them. My thin fingers traced along the fabric, smoothing the heel over and tapping on the box, grinning in delight at the hollow sound it made.

“Go on,” my mother encouraged, “try them.”

I scrambled to the floor and pulled the shoes on, they were a bit loose but I simply tied the ribbons as tightly as possible and tucked the knot in. I stared down at them as I stood there, they were so beautiful and delicate. I wobbled onto the tips of them, my feet pointed, balancing on the very ends of my toes. My mother clapped as I walked around the small living room in them, being ever so careful to not slip over and ruin them. When I finally took them off, my feet had little blisters on them, I didn't care. I would endure anything to prove myself, to show that I wasn't just another district girl. I went to bed the happiest I'd ever been that night. My mother stroking my hair as I drifted into the dreamworld, filled with thoughts of dancing and performing where everything was perfect.

In the present I shook myself out of my reminiscing and grabbed a pair of the shoes, ribbons dangling loose, tucking them into a small bag and slinging it over my shoulder, I slammed the front door behind myself and strode out of victor's village, down the gravel track to the town. The sharp stones cut my bare feet in pinpricks and I winced, regretting my choice of footwear.

A light breeze brushed against my face and I pulled two pearl hair grips out of my bag, twisting the front strands of my hair and pinning them up together. As I walked, I was surrounded by nature, trees filled with green leaves and song birds, beautiful flowers the colours of jewels, fluffy clouds overhead. I breathed in the fresh air just before I reached town, something took hold in me and I twirled, laughing as the skirt of the dress flew out in a circle, it swished around me as I revelled in a moment of happiness, dancing around like a child, spinning wildly, leaping in the air with my arms spread wide for a final minute of joy. My cheeks flushed as I walked past the peacekeepers who had witnessed my outburst, they stood still, guarding the entrance to town. Making sure no one could escape. I made my way to the justice building, ignoring the looks people threw my way. Disgust, worry, pity a few of them among thousands. I strode to the desk where I had to register.

“Name.” The peacekeeper asked.

“Y/N Y/L/N.” I answered, holding out my arm for them to take my blood.

They gestured to the stage and I made my way up, taking in the thousands of faces looking up at me. Children probably grateful they wouldn't have to worry this year, parents glad they wouldn't have to lose another child yet. I look to the side at Annie and Mags, both deep in conversation as if they hadn't even noticed my arrival. Mags hugged her reassuringly and my heart cracked a little, wishing I had someone to comfort me like that. I turned back to stare at the wooden floor of the stage remembering the last time I stood here seven years ago after my name had been called.

I had been shaking like a leaf, terrified as I stuttered how old I was. The looks of pity sent my way by everyone and the horrified look on my mothers face as I had walked up escorted by peacekeepers. Lysander read off the boy's name but I couldn't hear anything, my heart pounding in my ears. I had kept my head down as I was led to a room for my last goodbyes. My mother rushed in and held me close as I cried and she wiped my tears then held my face in her hands and told me.

“You fight little bird. You hide and then you fight, you understand. You come home to me, I'll be waiting.” Then she pushed my pointe shoes into my arms and kissed me on the forehead before she was led out, giving me one last smile as I gripped the shoes. Then I was taken to the train and we were on our way to the Capitol

I smiled prettily for the Capitol, shyly answering any of their questions. ‘Yes I was a bit nervous’, ‘I loved to dance’, ‘Of course I could give them a tiny demonstration’, ‘I would try to win, for my mother but I had never known my father’. That got their attention, the poor little girl from district 4, no father, only a mother who she loved dearly, more than her own life. So when I got into the arena I did what mother told me, I hid and I fought and I got out but when I came home she wasn't waiting for me. She was gone. They told me it was an illness, one that was untreatable. So she was gone and I was left alone. I often thought I would have been better off dead. At least then I'd be with her.

All went silent and I was pushed out of my thoughts as our escort walked onto the stage, dressed outlandishly as always in the flashiest colours and cuts of fabric.

“Welcome all to the Quarter Quell,” he starts, “Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favour.” The usual video starts to play and I roll my eyes as I hear the words ‘War, terrible war’. It's the same every year, a montage and voiceover which has no purpose anymore. We know what happened, we know what's happening now and we really don't need to be reminded of it. After what seems like an age the clip ends and Lysander claps excitedly, he’s the only one and the noise rings in my ears.

“I get goosebumps every time,” he gushes cheerfully,”It just gets me every time. And now for the moment you've all been waiting for, it is time to choose our tributes for this very special year. First the boys,” He walks over to the huge bowl containing one small piece of paper and dramatically dips his hand in. He picks up the paper and unfolds it painfully slowly. “Finnick Odair.” He announces and I have to fight back a cry as he steps forwards, waving and smiling at the cameras, my fingers itching at my wrist as the mark burns from the close proximity to him. Lysander grins almost maniacally as he congratulates him on this honour. Patting him on the back and exclaiming how exciting this will be

“And now time for the ladies.” He says and walks over to the other bowl with three pieces of paper in. I stand nervously, twisting my hands in the sleeves of my jumper as he reaches in and waves his hand around for a minute before plucking a piece out. He shakes it in front of him and unfolds it as slowly as the first one. I breathe shakily, in out, in out. He reads the name off the slip of paper.

“Annie Cresta!”

Taglist:

@nekee-lilac02 @hinata7346 @bambikitten @the-lonely-abyss

If you want to be added to the taglist let me know and I’ll add you to the next part!

[corvennite]

—⛥ ROCKSTAR ABBY'🎸

headcanons w/fem! reader

I'm writing a fic about it so stay tuned, these are just some ideas that popped up in my head.

cw: nsfw (smut), kinda enemies to ??, voyeur, fingering, female masturbation, phone sex, nude pics, possessive behavior (kinda toxic Abby lol), lesbian sex, p in v (strap on), degrading, edging, overstimulation, lots of teasing, rope bunny, gagging, senses depravation, ghosting. Let me know if I forgot something.

All right so for context, you and Abby do not get along very well since you both know each other, she always had been very stubborn and proud always thinking she's better than anyone (bc she is 🤭) and it got in her head mostly after she started her band. Your friends had always been supportive towards her since you were the only one with problems, they didn't mind much, always dealing and putting up with your attitude when she was mentioned or asked to go out with the group (which was a bit frequtently). Even if you both despised each other, more you than her, there was this oddly weird sexual tension between you two every time a word was exchanged. That's how I think she would be if somehow you managed to get closer to her.

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

(sfw)

⛧ I think she would be an extreme tease, always making jokes and playing around with you;

⛧ she'd put into effort to know your tastes, what you enjoy, favorite music (so she could learn and play), shows, moves, books, etc;

⛧ even if she jokes a lot with you and sometimes she can be a lil mean, she's the only one who can do it;

⛧ she would be a bit of an asshole with the people you go out/hook up with, since she's a bit jealous but would die first than admit it;

⛧ Abby would be overprotective towards you, any guy with a wrong mind and action be sure she would beat them to death without your knowledge;

⛧ she's a good listener, even if it doesn't look like she hears all your bullshit and puts up with it;

⛧ I think she would try to teach you a thing or two around the guitar, however, she would mock you a lot during it;

⛧ would always have you backstage or nearby during the shows;

⛧ asks your opinion (indirectly) on the songs and medleys;

⛧ probably made some demo music thinking about you;

⛧ would never say it but, she gets less nervous when you're around while she's on stage, when she can see you;

⛧ would treat you like a fan despite hour 'hate' towards her, is just her way to provoke you;

⛧ gives you one of the official band merchan before even start to sell it;

⛧ doesn't let any other band member be too close to you, they're her friends but she wants you all to herself;

⛧ she would be very troubled if you got lost around the shows so she always leave her guards keeping an eye on you;

⛧ she probably let you sign one of her guitars on a playful conversation you both had, she never took it off though;

⛧ gave you a necklace with one of her favorite guitar pick.

(nsfw)

⛧ okay so, she would be always dominant at least at the beginning, never submitting for you, sometimes she would get a bit weak if you topped;

⛧ this woman is a guitarrist so she's very skilled with her fingers;

⛧ she would edge you for hours after a show, or even before, inside the dressing room or in the van while heading back;

⛧ her hands would be always over you, gripping around your waist, hips, thighs, ass and even teasing around nearby your clothed core;

⛧ her favorite thing to do is to go down on you while you're reading some lyrics you helped her out with, or, some she made to you (the dirtiest shit she wrote) without your knowledge;

⛧ Abby would definitely finger fuck you while she's recording a song, making some of your moans be the background of it;

⛧ she has a shameless polaroid of you only in her jacket and laced panties, her fingers around the sides pulling a bit down revealing your hip bone, she keeps on her wallet;

⛧ she makes you ride her thigh as she write new lyrics or talks to her manager thru the phone;

⛧ boot humping while she plays the guitar;

⛧ she has those collars around your neck with spikes and a metal circle to hold onto, she enjoys pulling it randomly;

⛧ Abby is a bit too shameless sometimes, if there's another person around the studio she doesn't mind, she touches your pussy until you're begging for her to stop and even so, she'll mock you and ask why you're whining out of no where;

⛧ whenever she's away on tour, she makes you take pics of your body and send to her, most of them with her jacket on or t-shirt;

⛧ she enjoys phone sex a lot, putting you on line making you touch yourself while she's needy for you or even turn into a video call where she can watch you play with your pussy;

⛧ when she gets jealous she gets real jealous, fuckin' you so hard with her 8 inch strap you can see stars, she doesn't care much if you're crying or if it's hurting, she'll take you bent over her desk;

⛧ Abby enjoys gagging you with your own panties, sometimes underwear she buys for you and rips it off afterwards;

⛧ makes you gag and almost pass out on her strap she proudly calls it her own cock;

⛧ despite enjoying the strap, she much more prefer to use her mouth and fingers, the tongue piercing making you see stars when it rubs against your clit;

⛧ she goes totally off fuckin you for the first time, the tension was too much and you were just so pretty with those tight clothes she couldn't resist, even if she hated you so much;

⛧ Abby wouldn't speak with you after your first time, leading into a fight you picked up being stubborn and then, you being all spread out with your eyes covered and her fingers edging you for hours;

⛧ she likes to tie you up, how pretty you look with red ropes around your wrists, thighs, ankles, chest, everywhere she can put them, she just loves it. maybe it will even be a cover of one of her new albums;

⛧ you're not the only girl in her life, a rockstar like herself has a couple share of groupies and even if she's over possessive with you, the same behavior coming from someone she could only toy with makes her kind mad;

⛧ she loves watching you touching yourself, she always makes you do it but then slaps your hand off when she sees you're ready to cum, the way you back arch and toes curl, how you look so beautiful trying to reach spots only she can get, she gets so damn turned on;

⛧ while fuckin, she will call you the most degrading names, it's not a lie, after all you are her little slut and shameless harlot, the doll she enjoys to break and the bitch who swore she hates her sooo damn much.

[rainecreatesstuff]

AS A HUGE FAN OF BOTH FITPAC+HADESTOWN UR AU IS MAKING ME FEEL <3 NORMAL <3333 who would be orpheus / who'd be euridyce?

okokokokok hear me out here

fit as eurydice, disillusioned with the world and taught to always have your own back, take things as they are, if something’s too good to be true then it’s not.

pac as orpheus, bright-eyed and determined, sees the world for what it could be and wants to make that real.

You know how the song goes.

Fit falling in love with Pac in the spring, things are warm and good and food comes easy. Watching his son play carelessly and laugh and sing. Listening to Pac’s visions of the future and hearing his song, and believing in him full heartedly. They wed in summer, laughter and wine falling from their lips during their first kiss as husbands.

Summer leaves early and faster than ever. Pac focuses harder on writing his song. Ramón is starting to complain about the hunger. It’s cold. Fit loves Pac more than anything. He can handle the hunger, he can handle the cold, he can handle being alone. He can’t handle his baby boy going hungry.

He leaves one day to buy, to find, to steal some food, some firewood, anything to keep his boy warm. He gets caught in a storm. Death approaches him and offers to keep him and Ramón safe and warm and fed. If it had been just him, maybe… but Death’s voice is deep and warm, and the coal mine calls with promises of heat, and the canary follows.

You know how the song goes.

A lot can happen behind closed doors. Fit is not naive. He is hungry. He is cold, and he is lonely. But he is not naive. He signs his life away. Ramón, his baby, is safe. Has no stake to his name.

Pac descends from his office, and the fire is out. Blankets lay on the couch untouched, no coats hang from the coatrack. There is a lonely pair of shoes at the door.

He searches and searches and yells and screams for his husband and filho. The Traveller finally comes to him when he has screamed his throat raw. Rattlesnakes are meant to hibernate during winter. Regardless, he sees his love with the twin wounds left by fangs.

He asks to join them. The Traveller offers a different route. He takes it. He plays his song, he plays it loudly and clearly and with his lyrics he calls to his amô and his filho. He calls to Death and Spring and he cries his sorrows to them. His pain brings Spring to tears and his regret brings Death to movement.

Ramón runs to him the moment they see each other. They cry and hug and Pac will never let his boy go again.

Fit, his love, his muse, is held back by the chains of Death. Pac pleads again with Death. Fit crumbles and cries. Pac twitches as he tries to reach out but can’t.

Death loosens his grip on the chains and Fit collapses into Pac. There is a moment of pure relief and joy and clarity. Fit and Pac are together with their boy between them again. They make each other promises, fix the ones they made as their vows, and begin to rebuild what fell apart so fast the first time. It is warm and safe and it is love.

The moment is short-lived. Death’s voice calls out. The canary flinches towards it.

You know how the song goes.

Ramón is allowed to hold his hand as he leads them out. There is no claim on his life. He never should have been there in the first place.

Fit is not so lucky.

They are steps away. The cold breeze hits Pac’s face from the end of their ascent.

You know how the song ends.

[reds-writings]

okay so you begging for more old rust prompts has timed really well with my need for old rust fics and the last two you wrote (and also joni mitchell’s music being put back on spotify, thank god) but i was wondering if you could potentially write something along the lines of prompt #8 on the fluff pt 2 prompt list (sharing a kiss while cleaning a wound — potentially after the beer fail lol) but yeah the lyrics from the chorus of case of you really just made me think of our reader and old rust despite it all:

Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine You taste so bitter and so sweet Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling And I would still be on my feet Oh, I would still be on my feet

i love joni mitchell oh my goodnes. you are a genius anon!!

 By the following morning, it turned out Rust did indeed manage to agitate his stitches with his late-night tumble. The line of your brow was set hard in concentration as you prodded at the gash with as much gingerly precision as you could conjure. He tried his damnedest not to flinch given you’d already fallen into enough of a tizzy over the whole ordeal and didn’t need your nerves driven up the wall any further. He loathed the feeling of being any sort of burden towards you but after the stern talking to you laid out on him he had no choice but to sit without another self-deprecating word. 

“You’re gonna be the death of me one day I swear it.” You huffed out a breath as you wiped away any remnants of dried blood clean from his skin. 

He tried not to bristle visibly at the remark, reminding himself that you didn’t really mean it in the literal sense. Though, with his severe lack of desire for taking care of himself and your incessant need to make sure he didn’t succeed in giving up once and for all there had been plenty of close calls over the years where his brashness could’ve taken you out for good. Another factoid in the sea of many that he tortured himself with time and time again.

The dulcet tones of Joni Mitchell came from the older-than-dirt record player you hadn’t had the heart to ever get rid of after all this time as you carried out your worry-warting on the Texan. You remember you used to joke about the lyrics of Case of You eerily pertaining to Rust’s presence in your life way back then. He didn’t think himself anything close to holy but that was beside the point. No matter where he went off to, a piece of his soul had undoubtedly been melded with yours to the point of no possible undoing. There was no scrubbing him clean from the recesses of your mind or the deep-set cracks of your weary heart. 

God knows you tried with all you had when everything went to shit. 

You’d have to throw the sheets in the laundry once you were done but it was more than likely a lost cause with the array of staining from his soiled bandages that had taken residence throughout the night. You could run out in a bit to get some new ones in town. That or you’d have to test if he could finally make it up the stairs to your room without being too winded. 

Satisfied with your work, you stood to your full height and finished wrapping up a clean set of bandages around his torso. Not much had changed about him physically, maybe he was a little softer around the edges but that did nothing to smother the fire his presence lit in you without fail. Marty could whinge on and on about how Rust looked now but he was just as tragically beautiful to you as he’d always been. Your eyes met and you couldn’t help but melt a little. He was here. He was okay. You just had to keep reminding yourself. 

Bringing up a hand to tuck some hair behind his ear you leaned in to press your lips to his. First, shortly then with the second press, you deepened it a bit more. A large palm came to grip loosely at the back of your neck in reciprocation and you could’ve seeped through the floor then and there. Your kisses transferred to stamp themselves beneath his eye, then his cheekbone, making their way up to his hairline so you could embrace him for a moment longer. 

With a shuddering exhale, his body released any remaining tension it had as he let himself bask in the warmth of your affection. You leaned back to look at him once more,

“I gotta hop to town real quick. Getcha some new sheets and a couple of other things. Think you can steer from bein' accident-prone for an hour or two?” 

Rust tsked and shook his head slightly, “Can’t say.”

“Does that mean you wanna try makin’ it to the truck today? Would probably do you good to get some air and actual sunshine. Pallid don’t suit you none-” You dodged his incoming pinch. His predictable knee-jerk response to your playful ribbing was as old as time. It never truly annoyed him as much as he played it up. He'd selfishly rather have you this way and happy than keeping yourself at a distance forever.

“I’d be inclined to try should you be quiet.” He half-snarked and you scoffed in mock offense. 

“I’m a delight. Ask anyone-"

“Mhm.” 

“You’re being quite rude to the woman nursing you back to health and that I can’t abide. Lest you wanna try gettin’ dressed on your own without topplin' over.” You started to take some steps away, an empty threat of leaving him in his place.

No other snipe followed, just an outstretched hand after a stubborn moment or two. You snickered as you helped him off the kitchen counter and to his room so that you could set out for the day’s endeavors. 

[last-words-ofashootingstar]

Don't make me beg

February Filth Fest : Day Nine

Song Mingi x fem reader

a/n: *taste by danceracha intensifies* (i know the lyrics are "don't make me bad" but like cmon- it's don't make me beg)

"I'm addicted to you, Momma."

✫彡wordcount: 1.5k

(>ᴗ•)genre:

smut w/o plot

ಠ_ಠwarning/contents:

not edited, oral fixation, zero build up, baby boy mingi cause i just cannot help it, bed humping, overstim, hand holding, very light degradation, big dumb mingi(❤️‍🩹), light nipple play, pet names(baby,honey, baby boy & momma, love), lots of references to Taste

tags: @cherryxsang @k-drizzle

SMUT UNDER CUT MDNI

"Baby," you cry out, slapping at his arms which keep your writhing hips in place for him. "Mingi, you have to breathe, Honey! Give us a break, good god!"

You feel him mumble something against your sensitive clit, grabbing his hoodies sleeve and tugging on it as he begins laving his flat tongue over it. "Mingi!" You whine, cunt clenching around nothing as he pushes you towards your second orgasm of the night with nothing but his mouth. "Baby, you have to slow down!"

"Don't wanna stop," he can barely speak up as he keeps his lips on you. "Want you to feel my love."

"I feel it, fucks sake!" You laugh, hand raking though his hair and locking eyes with him as he devours your pussy. "I feel it... I feel i-fuck... wow." The look on his face as his eyes flutter shut has you falling in love all over again. He looks so content. So happy with his face stuffed between your thighs. "Baby, I c- I'm gonna cum."

When your words register in his mushy brain, he reaches up one of his hands up from their death grip on your hips and rests it gently between your ribs. You take it up in both of yours, trapping it tightly as he closes his lips around your bud.

He revels on the way you moan for him as he sucks, opening his eyes to watch as he pushes you over the edge. To watch the face he's become addicted to. The one you make when he throws you into an ecstasy only he can give you.

Your brows screwed up, mouth parted by a whimper of his name, chest rising and falling as waves of pleasure spread through your body. It spurs him on- the way he can feel and taste your release on his tongue.

You have to physically pull him away as your body begins to shake in overstimulation, holding him by his dyed hair as he opens his eyes in confusion as to why he's not tasting you anymore. When he sees your trembling legs, the way you hold his fingers so roughly they loose color, it dawns on him.

"Fuck," he sighs, slowly going to lay his head on your quivering thigh, eyes unable to look away from your soaked pussy. "M'sorry, Momma... can't help myself." He whispers as he licks up the essence of you left on his swollen lips. "Can't help it."

"Starting to think we need a safe word for me," you joke as you pet his head, "c'mere, Baby Boy." You sit up slowly and he scoots up to rest beside you against the headboard.

You grab him the bottle of water from the bedside and open it up for him, giving him a chaste kiss to his forehead before handing it over. "Thank you," he gulps it up greedily, before stopping abruptly. "It's gonna wash you away," he pouts.

"Awe," you coo, "you really love my taste, don't you?"

"Yes," he admits, holding his hand over yours which cradles his flushed face. "I'm addicted to you, Momma."

You narrow the gap between you and capture his lips in a kiss, tasting yourself on him briefly before you pull away and rest your forehead on his. Your breaths collide, sharing oxygen as you both breath deeply. "Drink up, Baby." You tap his cheek gently and turn away to grab your bottle. "Gonna need to stay hydrated if you want to keep this up."

"I can keep going?" He asks, clearly excited as he sits up on his knees and is already moving back down the bed.

"Ah, ah, ah!" You snatch up his hoodie string and stop him in his tracks. "I said drink. Let me have a break, Baby, you made me cum twice in like ten minutes. Did you even realize that?"

He shakes his head and crawls into your hold as you open your arms. He doesn't even realize how needy he's become until his clothed cock meets your wet, warm cunt. He whines as your hands trail under his hoodie and shirt, stripping them off together and setting them down next to you. You lean up and kiss his peck, making him shiver.

You lean back and drink up your water, wrapping your legs around his back with a smirk. "Love, I want to keep going," he pleads, grinding down on you lightly to emphasize his eagerness. "Makes me feel so good when I eat you out... makes me so hard."

"Drink your water," you demand nonchalantly, tossing your empty bottle. "Now, or you won't get anything."He takes it from you the next second, all but chugging it before throwing it to join yours.

He grabs at your ankles behind his back and whines helplessly when you lock them around him. "Momma, please, let me..." You chuckle at him, running you hands up his naked chest, pausing at his nipples to circle them. "Please!"

"So greedy, Honey."

"Please, don't make me beg..."

You hum, pretend to think. "I want... I want you to beg." When he does nothing but look down at you dumbly, you emphasize, "beg for my pussy."

He wails out, "Love, please. I need to feel you on my tongue, I need to taste you, I need it! Please, Momma, please, please, ple-" His voice trails off as his eyes follow your hand to open the beside drawer. You pull out a headband and tug him down by his neck. "Wha..."

You unlock your legs form around him and his body moves before his mind tells it to. "Now that I can see that pretty face, get to work."

He does. He dives in sloppily, licking and kissing your cunt and worshiping you like you are a Goddess. "Thank you, Momma." He leaves a fat kiss to your clit. "Thank you." He licks up with a pointed tongue. "Love it so much." He swirls it around your hole. "Love you so much." His hips grind down on the bed. "Fucking love you." He goes on and on, praising you and your pussy as he eats it up like a man starved, slowly rambling into nonsense.

"Baby," he looks up at the sound of your voice, finding that you have your hands reaches out towards his. He slides them up from your thighs and grabs onto them as he suckles at you. You hold them at either side of your hips, smiling as he squeezes rhythmically. "You're going all dumb, Baby Boy. We can't have that, right?" He shakes his head against you, making you both laugh and moan. "Just look at me, Baby."

He keeps his eyes focused on yours- trying his best to pick up on every little twitch and moan and bite of your lip to keep himself from going crazy. He grinds his hips down on the bed whenever you let out a particularly sweet moan, almost like he's rewarding himself for making you feel good.

When you start to moan out more and more praises to him, he can't help how his eyes shut tightly as his gut tightens, moaning against you: like he's experiencing as much pleasure as you are.

"Mingi, stop," you order. His tongue stills inside you, looking up with doe eyes. "That's enough."

He pulls away with a whine, slowly releasing your hands and crawling up with a pout. "Don't worry, Sweet Boy. There's always more time for that. Right now," you reach between you as he cages you under him. "You're humping the bed like a little whore. You must really love making me feel good, huh? Must love making me cum. So selfless, baby." You slowly rub over his hard bulge, bringing him closer with a leg over his hip. "Let Momma make you feel good? Let me give you a reward?"

He lays down wordless and watches with glazed eyes as you straddle him. You cup his face, leaving a trail of kisses down his chest before you pause at his nipple and leave a kitten lick, laughing at how his hips roll up into you. "So worked up, Honey."

He didn't even notice until you'd taken over, but he's incredibly horny. He was so focused on you, making you feel like a Goddess. He didn't even realize his cock was painfully hard. He was just focused on making you feel like he does when you love on him. He didn't realize how much he loved eating you out. He can't get enough. He wants more. More, and more, until he can't breath. Until he can't remember the taste of anything besides you. That would be his ultimate rewards. "Love... I know what my reward can be."

"What's that, Baby?"

"Sit on my face."

"Jesus, Mingi!"

[the-guilty-writer]

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Request from anon: Spencer x daughter!reader (like 19/20) after the JJ confession she like storms into the BAU to confront her and basically is really mad that she told him that whilst married

“He told me, about the date. I was too young but I just remember him crying.”

“You don’t get to do that, you don’t get to choose when he matters to you and when he doesn’t. You don’t get to tell him something like that knowing you have a family and he only has me. It was a shitty thing to do. You’re so f****** selfish”

Sorry I went off I just hate that scene it was so pointless hahha

But I need some protective daughter!!!!

Spencer Reid x daughter!reader

Summary: After you hear about JJ's feelings towards your dad, you tell her the truth about how you feel about her too... and it's not friendly.

A/N: This is basically just the reader yelling… I’ll let you guys imagine how the conversation afterwards might go (this will not have a part 2). I changed the dialogue a bit to have it make more sense but kept it the same for the most part. This is also unintentionally Taylor Swift inspired. The lyric just fit so I put it in.

CW: Spoilers for S15, swearing, reader is kinda really mean to JJ (it's understandable thought)

---

Trying to find a part of me you didn't take up Gave you too much but it wasn't enough But I'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts -Taylor Swift, Death by a Thousand Cuts

---

It was a conversation that you were sure you weren’t supposed to hear… honestly, it was a conversation that your Aunt Penny wasn’t supposed to hear either. You were on your weekly phone call with her when she told you about it… what JJ had said to your dad. Well, she didn’t exactly tell you as much as you could tell something was off and then you pressed until she spilled.

At first you had kept your composure- simply saying goodbye to Penny. You’d driven peacefully from your college campus to the BAU. You were pleasant while going through the security check. It wasn’t until the elevator indicated you’d reached the sixth floor of the building that your vision went red, anger burning inside you like a fire that was burning at the edge of its confinement, blood boiling in your ears.

You stepped out of the elevator and went straight through the glass doors, not even bothering to say hello to Agent Anderson as you passed him in the hall. The team was in the bullpen, all at their prospective desks, calmly working on files when you marched your storm of anger right through the office.

“You bitch!” Your voice was filled with fury as you seemingly hurdled yourself towards JJ’s desk. “You selfish little-”

Luke grabbed you hard before you could swing your fists in the direction of the blonde woman you once would have trusted with your life. You strained against the man holding you. The sounds of voices filled the bullpen and agents were getting out of their seats but no one bothered to reach for a side arm. You weren’t a real threat.

But you didn’t need a gun to kill someone.

“(Y/N)-” Your dad’s voice stuck out to you. “What happened?”

You looked at your dad for only a split second before turning your head to meet JJ’s gaze. Both of you knew what happened. You stopped your struggle against Alvez and he loosened his grip, letting you go, but your eyes never left JJ’s.

“If there’s something you need to talk about, you can do it in my office,” Emily offered, but in your feeling of anger you didn’t want help from the woman who faked her death, leaving you and your dad to mourn her only to find out she was alive seven months later.

“How could you?” The fury was beginning to taste bitter with sadness. “How could you do this to my dad? How could you do this to Will and Henry and Micheal-”

JJ cut you off. She was calmer than you, but just as loud. “You don’t get to bring my family into this-”

“Yes I do!” you screamed. “Because I actually give a shit about people! Because for ten years Will took care of me while you guys were out on cases and Henry brought me to show and tell as his older sister when he was in kindergarten and my name was one of Micheal’s first words! So yes- I do get to bring your family into this because I care about them. I care that someone loves them because that’s what they deserve! They don’t deserve to have a wife and a mother who tells another man that she’s always loved him- especially when that man is their godfather! You don’t get to say things like that when you had the chance to do it fifteen years ago!”

JJ’s eyes were filled with tears. Her voice was meek as she spoke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really?” Your laugh was humorless and dry. “Because I do. I was only four at the time, but he told me about the date. I was too young to understand what was truly going on but I just remember him crying. You had your chance, JJ. You had a choice and you decided against my dad. He’s always cared about you. You could have at least told him that he mattered.”

“Your dad matters to me-”

“No!” you cut her off this time. “You don’t get to do that- you don’t get to choose when he matters to you and when he doesn’t. You don’t get to tell him something like that knowing you have a family and he has me. It was a shitty thing to do. You’re so fucking selfish. You hurt everyone who cares about you and you don’t even see it because you’re too busy making sure everything goes the way you want it to. Fifteen years ago you made a choice and you sure as hell don't get to go back on it and damage everyone around you, especially not my dad.”

The bullpen was silent, the venom in your words lingering in the air. Having said what you needed to, you turned away and walked back towards the glass doors. Before you pushed against them, you stopped and turned to glance back.

The entire team was staring at you, utterly bewildered by the events that had just transpired. The only one who wasn’t looking at you was JJ- her eyes averted from the person who had called her out on all her bullshit, every mistake she had made, every insecurity she had now out and open for everyone to see.

And some malicious part of you was happy she was in pain.

“You know,” your voice was calm now, “my mother was a bitch, but at least she was kind enough to break my dad’s heart and leave. But you, JJ? There isn't a single part of our family- our lives- that you didn't touch. You've taken everything and it's stil not enough for you, so the rest of us have to suffer death by a thousand cuts.”

Without another word you pushed open the doors and left.