#turns back around and there is a puddle of viscera behind me]

[ch-am]

they had no right making him this babygirl after such a traumatic experience

[blindmagdalena]

i'm thinking about john killing someone in front of his s/o, but that was about to kill them so his violent is seem a protectiveness. to be seem bloody and not be feared....

18+ 2.7k homelander x reader, established relationship, gore, blood, morally grey reader? shower sex, fingering, praise kink, breast play, dirty talk, rough sex, count down, needy/possessive/yandere HL, reader is nondescript with f!anatomy.

Homelander is breathing shallowly, eyes wide—wild—blood dripping from his chin and from the stray strands of hair that fell forward when he lunged. He's elbow deep in a man's sternum, and his other hand is wrapped tight around his broken neck, the bones like fragments of glass poking out from beneath rapidly cooling skin.

It all happened in an instant. One second, the man currently in his hands was grabbing you by the hair, a knife swinging wildly towards your throat, and the next he was dangling from Homelander's grasp, heart slowing against his knuckles.

He laughs through his teeth, licking his lips reflexively. The blood is sour, contaminated with god knows what, but that hardly takes away from the thrill of the moment.

It's been a while since he held the gaze of someone whose life he just claimed. Long enough that he forgets where he is, and who he's with.

He drops the man to the ground like a wet sack of potatoes, innards spilling out from the hole his arm leaves behind. In the man's hand, Homelander sees something that sets his teeth on fucking edge: strands of your hair ripped from your scalp in that limp, dead palm.

"You stupid motherfucker," he growls through a crooked sickly smile, lifting his boot to crush the hand like it were nothing more than an insect. The man's heart has long since stopped, but the rapid pound of another is still loud in his ears.

Yours.

Slowly, he turns around to look at you. You're cradling your skull where you'd been grabbed, tears gathering in your wide glassy eyes, the shock of it all catching up to you. You're staring intently at the corpse, watching blood pooling out from beneath it.

You've never looked at him with fear in your eyes before, but that's precisely what he sees when your eyes meet his. It makes him bristle internally. What was he supposed to do? You were in danger, and the way you screamed will follow him into his nightmares.

He could have lost you just now. You could be the one soaking in a puddle of your own blood, losing your life to the press of nothing more than a flimsy metal blade. While Homelander has always been logically aware of your humanity and the tender vulnerability that entails, nothing has ever put it so viscerally in the forefront of his mind as a freak incident coming so close to erasing you from his life.

He did what he had to. You'll understand. You have to understand.

"Hey," he says, hands raised to you placatingly, as if coaxing a spooked wild animal. The blood just makes his crimson gloves look glossy. He blocks your view of the body. "Hey, it's alright."

Your terror is palpable in the race of your heart and the sour smell of adrenaline coursing through you.

He reaches for you with the hand that isn't drenched in viscera, but before he can take hold, you beat him to the punch, throwing yourself into his arms, your own wrapping tight around his middle, hands clasping together beneath his cape.

Caught off guard, Homelander's arms hover awkwardly for a beat before he returns your embrace. He'd been certain that he was the source of your fear after a display like that.

"He just-he tried to kill me," you rasp, tears overflowing, spilling down your cheeks, wetting his suit further. "Yeah, yeah he sure did. S'alright, he's not gonna hurt you again," he coos, stroking your back with one bloodied hand, the other cupping the back of your neck. He kisses the top of your head as you cry, working the shock and fear from your system. "Ssshhh, shhshh."

Looking over his shoulder once, he lifts you up into his arms and takes off gently into the night sky, keeping you gathered close as he flies, carrying you far away from the mess spilled all over the pavement.

Not his problem. His focus is you.

With your face buried in the crook of his neck, he can feel your tears rolling down into the collar of his suit, can smell the sea salt sweetness of them. He's never let you see that side of him before. When the shock wears off, will you see the moment for what it was?

Will you realize how much he enjoyed it?

Landing on his balcony, your arms are still tight around his neck. Neither of you have said a word since take off. He's not sure where your head is, other than the fact your racing heart has slowed to a more natural—albeit still nervous—patter.

Inside, he sets you down gently on your feet. Your balance wavers, and he settles you with his hands on your hips, staining your clothing with smears of dark blood.

He's almost afraid of breaking the tenuous quiet, but he needs to know where your head is. When you glance away, are you looking towards the door, planning your escape?

His hands tighten reflexively on your hips, and your eyes spring back up to meet his.

"You okay?" He asks quietly, warily.

"Yeah," you say, though it's hardly convincing.

"You're in shock," he says, touching the side of your face. Enough of the blood has been wiped on your clothes that it doesn't transfer much to your skin. "You remember what happened?"

Maybe your distress will leave you malleable enough for him to shape the incident just right. Make sure that you remember first and foremost that- "You saved me," you say, cutting his thoughts short. "That man was trying to hurt me, and you... you saved me."

His brows lift, surprised to hear you say it first. "Yeah. Course I did."

"You were so..." You trail off, gaze moving along his features.

Apprehension prickles from his spine all the way up to the back of his neck. He's accustomed to being scolded for his brutality by Madelyn, or looked on with thinly veiled disgust by Maeve.

They're both long gone from his life now, yet he finds himself waiting with bated breath for your response, his throat tight under the gripping hands of the ghosts of his past.

"Amazing," you exhale, banishing his specters with the sweeping wind of your breath. "God, I've never been that scared in my life, but you reacted so fast. No one has ever protected me like you do," you say, cupping his blood spattered face in your palms, smearing it into thin pink swaths across his skin with your thumbs.

He breaks into a slow, pleased smile. "Well, you've never been with anyone like me before."

"No," you agree. He can still feel a slight tremor in your hands, your body still coming down from the adrenaline high. "And I never will."

That strokes his ego deliciously. He likes the finality in your voice, the dreamy way you're looking at him, even as the smell of blood hangs heavily in the air. He almost kisses you before he remembers he's got the blood of some random thug all over his face.

"I need a shower," he says, lips close enough that his breath teases yours.

"Me too. Guess we'll have to share," you say, feigning resignation.

He grins. "Uh oh."

In the bathroom, Homelander makes quick work of undressing, but you're faster. You're already in the large shower, steaming water pouring down from above. He steps in with you, letting the water wash over you both. The water turns pink as it carries the blood away, and then sudsy as you both soap and shampoo the mess of the day from you bodies.

Once he's rinsed, he slips in behind you, wrapping his arms around you and nuzzling into the crook of your neck. "I love you," he says at your ear, trailing kisses down to the lobe, to your neck. He loves the feel of goosebumps rising against his lips.

"I love you, too," you respond as you have a thousand times before. Maybe more. He stopped counting when he was sure you'd never stop.

"How much?" He prompts, hungry for more. Your praise and assurance after a moment of such uncertainty has only made him desperate for more. He wants to wring more pretty words of admiration from you, hear more of just how good he is to you.

He can't help but color your answer with a slip of his hand between your thighs, toying with your clit.

The touch earns a shivering sigh from you. "So much. More than I can stand sometimes," you say, leaning your head back against his shoulder.

"I thought you'd be scared of me after seeing what you saw... What I'm capable of," he murmurs, pillowing the reminder with deft, wet fingers. "Are you?"

You shake your head. "No, m'not, mmm... You'd never hurt me," you say, breath hitching as his fingers slip in further, fingertips stroking the lips of your pussy.

"Never," he echoes, his other hand slotting over your throat just to feel each noise you make. He pulls you back flush to his body, presses his hardening cock to the curve of your ass with his a shaky groan. "I liked it," you admit quieter, moaning when he slides his middle finger inside you. The confession stirs something primal in him, makes him growl out a rough little noise against your skin, grinding his cock into you.

"I wanted to rip his fucking guts out for touching you," he says, working another finger into you, savoring the slick, velvet feel of you around them. "For trying to take you from me." His words make your cunt quiver. He can't help himself, has to pull them from you just to taste you, sucking the nectarine sweet flavor from his fingers, rolling his tongue between them, hungry for every ounce of it.

He moans around his own fingers when you reach back and take his cock firmly in your hand, jerking him slowly. "I want you inside me," you say, your legs spreading slightly, back arching into him. "Touch me until yours is the only one I remember."

Fuck. Yes, that he can do.

You let go of his cock, and he wraps an arm around your waist, guiding himself between your wet, soft thighs. You close your legs, earning a breathy noise from him as he rocks between them, the warm, wet heat of your cunt a tease along the top of his cock.

"Take me," he murmurs fervently at your ear. "Wanna be in you, feel you, fuck you, make your pussy mine."

Shuddering against him, you reach down between your legs. Pressing your fingers to the underside of his cock, you push it up as he moves forward, the thick head of it catching on your entrance and splitting you open in one long, slow thrust.

Christ, you're so fucking tight. He can feel your muscles contracting, flexing, pulling him deeper. Your cunt feels made for him.

No one will ever take you away from him.

His right hand goes across your chest, cupping your left breast and rolling your nipple between his thumb and index finger while he braces you tighter to him. He rolls his hips slowly at first, relishing the tight, slippery pull of your cunt before he begins to pick up a proper pace.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" He grits out, the slap of naked skin against skin loud in the shower. "Tell me how good it feels."

"Feels like being fucked by the fucking sun," you moan, gripping his arms, useless for anything other than taking his cock when he holds you like this. "Hot, you're so hot inside me, and I can feel... I can feel you holding back, it's like you're vibrating," you say, voice catching with every solid thrust. "It's like... it's like getting as much as I can take from something so much bigger than me."

He doesn't know what he expected to hear, but it isn't that. The idea that you can feel the true gravity of his power behind each restrained thrust drives him wild, makes him want to give you more, but he knows he can't. Not without breaking you. Sweet, frail, human thing that you are.

If he could, he would break you apart, fuck you until you fall to pieces in his hands, and then he would put every single fragment back where it belongs, but he can't. If he breaks you, he will lose you.

He needs you to survive him.

"Fuck, fuck," he rasps, holding you that slight bit tighter, lifting you nearly off your feet as he arches his back, lifting and dropping you onto every thrust of his hips. "M'gonna come," he says, voice reedy. "Come with me, let me feel you. I know you're close, can fuckin' feel it. Touch yourself for me, sweetheart."

Immediately, you drop a hand to your clit, the tips of your fingers brushing where he's pounding into you. The touch must be electric because you jolt against him. "I am, I am," you whine, rubbing yourself, the pleasure making you squirm.

"M'gonna count us down, alright? And you, mmmgh, you're gonna come with me," he says, already fighting to hold himself back. Your cunt is only getting tighter the closer to release you get, making it hard for him to stay focused.

"Five... four," he manages to say, desperately holding onto his final tethers of control. You're beyond speech now, reduced to nothing more than desperate, needy noises as you finger your clit, not even bothering to try and hold yourself up while Homelander mercilessly bounces you on his cock,

"Three... two..." His words are strained, balls drawn up tight, cock throbbing in the slick grip of your cunt. He needs to come so bad it makes his toes curl, but he won't let go until he feels you coming undone.

"One..."

One, two, three more thrusts, and you're screaming his name, knees curling up, your whole body tightening like a vice. The spasm of your orgasm rips his clean out of him, has him gasping into the crook of your neck.

He comes so hard his vision goes white, every movement halting, his focus purely on the ardent pounds of his cock emptying deep inside you, flooding you so thoroughly that the excess spill back down his shaft, his balls, mingling with the hot water and making him shiver from head to toe.

When he can, he takes in a deep, shuddering breath, easing his hold on you, though not by much. You're all but limp in his arms, panting, head lolled back against his shoulder. He lets the water run on the two of you a little while longer, savoring the aftershocks of your release before gingerly slipping out of you.

Carefully, he rubs the water between your thighs, tenderly cleaning you, kissing your neck, your shoulder.

"That was..." You trail off, words half slurred, and then you just laugh softly, the marvel clear in your voice.

He laughs, too, his own voice frayed. "Sure was."

The two of you put as much effort as it takes to get dry before making your way to bed, slipping beneath the cool sheets and rapidly warming them with your bodies, Homelander's in particular. He's always run hot, and you seem extra appreciative for it tonight, wrapping your arms around his waist and snuggling into his arms.

"I love you," you mumble sweetly.

Homelander draws the covers up over your shoulders before slipping his arm around you, drawing you into the warm, safe circle of his arms. "And I love you," he purrs, gently rolling his knuckles up and down your back.

You look peaceful, he thinks, watching as you begin to drift to sleep. He's sure it helps that he wore you out so thoroughly, but still, he'd anticipated that the shock of the evening would still have you worked up. It could be that you're still processing, that the trauma will return in nightmares that follow you into the night.

Maybe the threat of a rat simply makes less of an impact when you're cradled in the jaws of a lion.

Regardless, should you sleep fitfully or peacefully, he will be here.

No force in this would can keep him from you.

[eddieandbird]

Part 18 - Songs Don't Work

Part 17 | Eddie & Bird | Part 19

Dove looked in the mirror in just her skin-toned underwear and bra. The smile she had for Eddie fell as she went over the details of her appearance. She had lost her petite figure over the days of takeout dinners and late-night binges. Her poor sleep schedule carved deep dark circles under her eyes. Her brown roots were overgrown and peaking through her blonde hair due to her neglect of dying it. Her shaky hands traveled to every imperfection she hated.

“Maybe Dad was right… I do have to start doing something about this,” Dove said quietly to herself.

“Of course I’m right,” she heard her dad’s voice and it startled her.

“Dad?” She asked, walking closer to her floor length mirror.

“Dove, you should listen to me more,” Dad appeared behind her. His posture was hunched and he wore his favorite sweater vest and khakis that she remembered, only now they were covered in dark blood. Dove turned around to see that there was nothing actually behind her. 

“What the hell?” She walked around cautiously.

“Dove!” a familiar ominous voice barked. She turned around again to find the horrid vision of her Dad now stuck in the mirror where her reflection should be. This time his eyes were a glossy white and there was a foamy drool hanging from his mouth. “You need to take care of your body, or you’ll end up like me,” Dad lifted his shirt to reveal his intestines and other organs starting to spill out of him. He took his hand and shoved it into the viscera, making violent squelching noises.

“Eddie!” Dove screamed. “Eddie, help me!”

“Dove!” She heard his voice but it was muffled.

“Dove, help me,” Dad reached out his hand, beginning to come out of the mirror. Dove let out a high pitched scream as she fell backwards onto the floor. She moved both of her arms to shield her eyes.

“Dove! Dove, are you okay?” Eddie’s scream was heard outside her door. Dove uncovered her eyes to see Eddie bursting through the door. “Oh my god, you’re naked! I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry,” He said as he closed his eyes and blushed heavily. He was hating the thought of Dove thinking he was a creep. Without opening his eyes, he knelt down and helped Dove up from the floor. She quickly grabbed her bathrobe hanging from the back of her door and wrapped it around her.

“Sorry! You can open your eyes now,” She held onto his right hand.

“Are you okay? What the hell happened?” Eddie worried as he looked at her. He pushed her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead.

“I had one of those stupid visions again,” she crossed her arms and sat on her bed, trying to regulate her breathing.

“Did you not hear your radio?” Eddie sat next to her, examining her body for injuries.

“I did, I heard it the whole time… It didn’t snap me out of it,” Dove frowned. She rested her head on his shoulder. Eddie was bouncing his leg, thinking about his next move.

“This isn’t good. The others need to come right now,” He stood up, shaking his head. “Go finish getting ready, I have to call them,” He ordered.

~

At their cabin, Eleven was napping in her room while Hopper watched a Western movie on their couch. She was tossing and turning, lost in a nightmare.

Eleven was walking around an unfamiliar place in the Upside Down. Her eyes were on the floor, watching her feet carefully step around what looked like hundreds of bat wings, heads, and bodies. She noticed a group of bat body parts that started to lead into a trail. As she followed the path, the sound of heavy breathing and thunder could be heard. The trail finally ended at a lifeless Eddie Munson.

“Eddie?” she asked, crouching down to look closer at him. His skin was grey and his eyes were glossed over. His body lay in a puddle of blood.

“He can’t hear you,” A booming voice in the sky called down. “This will be his fate… and soon it will be yours too”

Eleven screamed as she woke up. Hopper rushed over to her room to see what was going on.

“El, are you okay?” He sat beside her, his hand on her chest, trying to calm her breathing.

“I had a vision of Eddie…” she whispered. They both were startled as the phone began to ring.

“Hello?” Hopper answered.

“Hey Hop, it’s Eddie,” Eddie was on the other line, pacing Dove’s kitchen.

“What’s going on?” he asked without taking his eyes off of El.

“I don’t know, but Dove just got another vision and I’m starting to get really worried,” he sighed.

“Stay there, contact the others. We’ll be there soon,” Hopper hung up.

[lurkerwithcomputer]

A Dangerous Dinner

A/N: Hinami's darker character development while she was in Aogiri, between OG Tokyo Ghoul and TG:RE, has always been really intriguing to me. So I thought I'd explore what she could've been up to, especially since she has noticeably less qualms about killing in TG:RE.

Her heart hammers in her chest, as fast as her footsteps, fear chills her mind as the fall air seeping through her clothes chills her body. Boots pound behind her. The building protests, creaking in ways only audible to her - she blots out the sound, eyes narrowing behind her mask. She looks left - right - a dead-end hallway, no windows. The building is double brick. Even so. She could smash her way through. Her kagune has the strength, her armor-plated liquid muscle, spear point and myriad blades can tear through plaster, wood, and even double brick.

But.

She's tired. She's hungry. She's cold. The usual spots to find suicides haven't turned up a single rancid corpse. The chill in her bones makes her want warmth, the gnawing in her stomach makes her think about food - 37 degrees Celsius and still twitching. And maybe she's tired of being a good girl.

Or at least, the "good girl" they saw me as. And wasn't that what I wanted to escape?

The same kagune that could smash a path to freedom through the walls can also smash and tear through quinque steel, bone and flesh. She turns around as two people in white coats move to block the hallway, their briefcases bringing with them the stench of preservative chemicals and stale kagune flesh.

Doves.

The two soft clicks, in unison, of the button on the briefcase handle seem far louder than anything else. Quinques glint faintly in the dim light and dusty air. Her back clenches.

She lashes out, cracking and gouging pieces of plaster from the walls. Her rinkaku tentacles look deceptively slow as they unfurl - but the tips slice the air like whips. The one closest to her raises his sword-shaped quinque to block. He looks confident that I'm slow.

Quinque steel fractures with a high, piercing screech.

The wet crunch of tearing flesh and breaking bone quickly follows.

Warm blood splashes onto her face.

From the crumpling body, more gushes and spurts, then pours, then spills, pooling across the floorboards. Stray viscera falls amid the crimson puddle with a wet, heavy schlop. The gore steams faintly in the cold air, and the rich smell of organs fills the room.

She inhales like drinking the scent. Some of the chill deep in her body fades.

She can't deny what she wants - not here, not now, not with the scent and taste of warm blood filling her up. Not to throw herself headfirst into violence, almost drunk on it, like Eto does - although some small, awful part of her envies Eto for that - but to push back against herself. Loosen the heavy, tight jacket of self-restraint she's worn since childhood.

The other one backs away, sweat visible on his face, the acrid tang of stress and fear wafting from him - and only now is she aware of the warm swipe of her tongue, dipping into the splatter on her face. She tastes the thick salt and metal, still warm, underpinned by the waxy, burnt-coffee taste of the dark lipstick she wears as part of her disguise. She can hear his heartbeat, drumming a rhythm of adrenaline-laced terror.

The sound tugs at her mind.

Her pulse quickens, her muscles clench - then relax just a fraction. Something in her belly pushes out the compassion for someone faced with gruesome death, because she is a predator, and her former hunter now smells like prey. She swallows a mouthful of excess saliva.

He screams as he lunges - less coordinated than Naki on no sleep and no coffee, some part of her distantly notes. One leaf of her koukaku shields curls in close to block, axe quinque digging into the surface - she can hear a pneumatic hiss from the weapon, and feels the wriggle of her kagune shifting to absorb the blow - and recoiling back out. She catches his head between her kagune and the wall.

Bone cracks and crunches, the impact a dull thud against her kagune. His quinque clatters to the floor.

She smells it, before she sees it or feels the gooey warmth on the blunt end of her upper-right leaf. The heavy, cloyingly sweet scent of fat and nerve fluid. She curls it back toward her face, and reaches out to gather up the grey matter on her kagune into a handful of flesh. It's cooled, just a bit, by the short exposure to the air, yet warmed by her touch - a very strange sensation on her tongue. It's sweet and rich, and the taste of it finally chases away the clammy dregs of feeling cold.

She pulls the body closer, digging her fingers into the split in the skull, prying the rough bone apart with a creaky crack. She scoops out the brain, tugging it off the spine with a liquid ripping sound and feeling under her fingertips. Fluid runs off her hands like warm water.

She holds the brain with one hand, carefully - any organ is feather-light to her, but her hand is slippery and there's only so many ways to hold it without crushing it any further. Her other hand raises to her lips, drinking blood and fluid from where it's pooled shallowly in her palm.

A chest-deep, satisfied sigh huffs out, between licking her fingers.

Salt, metal and sweetness taste amazing together. It's a powerful reminder of why she made friends with Tsukiyama before.

[star-going-supernova]

Prompt:

Glitchtrap looking at the smashed vr Google's as ness holds a crowbar over it's bleeding body

Ness: your done you sick freak

Glitchtrap: or maybe...your still in...maybe we both are

Didn’t feel like writing a real tragedy today, so there’s a bit of a twist from the original prompt. Warning for some implied gore. 

The One Who Runs the Show

Vanessa pulled the plug from the wall with a cry of desperate urgency. The headache-inducing distortion cut out, leaving blessed silence in its wake, and her shoulders slumped with relief. Leaning against the leg of the desk she was halfway under, she closed her eyes and merely breathed for a moment. 

It was over. Glitchtrap or whatever he was called was gone. For good. 

Shakily climbing to her feet, Vanessa hurried out of the room and returned to the main floor of the pizzaplex. “Gregory!” she called. “Gregory, I did it!” 

The pizzaplex was oddly quiet and still. The innumerable STAFF bots that had infested nearly every part of the building had vanished. The music had stopped. Even the mixed background noise—the whine of lights, the hum of the AC, the countless mechanical systems running at all times—was gone. 

Stopping at the entrance to the utterly empty atrium, Vanessa frowned. She’d left Roxy and Chica here—they’d promised to wait for her. She called out for them, hearing her own voice echo back at her. 

“Guys, c’mon! This isn’t funny!” she called out, hands on her hips. 

With a great clunk, all the lights shut off, leaving her in complete, total darkness. Vanessa startled in place, fumbling for her flashlight. But it wasn’t where it should be, attached to her belt. A noise behind her had her whirling and stepping back. Instead of the click of tile beneath her shoe, she nearly slipped in a puddle of liquid. 

The overwhelming metallic smell of blood rose up around her, so strong it left her gagging and coughing. Rotting meat followed on its heels, creating a truly nauseating scent. 

“On the contrary,” a horrifyingly familiar voice said, making her freeze in place. “I think this is hilarious.”

“No,” she breathed. 

The lights came back on, blinding, but Vanessa wasn’t in the pizzaplex anymore. She stood on a small stage, faced with half a dozen spotlights. The room beyond was dingy and dark, with checkered tile floors and long tables sporting party hats. 

“Oh, yes. Foolish girl. I run this show,” Glitchtrap purred. “You… you are nothing but my puppet, my plaything.” 

Between blinks, he appeared in front of the stage, his false grin so wide. She flinched back, tripping to the floor with a little cry, and landed in the puddle she’d stepped in. When she raised her hands, they were covered in blood, dripping chunks of viscera. Her stomach churned. A scream caught in her throat.

“You thought you could destroy me?” he asked darkly, displeased. He laughed. “This is your hell now—and what I say goes. You’re trapped here, forever, with me.”

Glitchtrap stepped up onto the stage, and when Vanessa reflexively put her hands down to push herself farther away from him, her left hand landed in something squishy and still a little warm. 

She shrieked, throwing herself to the side. Eyes squeezed shut, she trembled and curled up, whispering her denial over and over. Vanessa clutched at her head, remembering too late what her hands were covered in.

“Don’t worry,” he continued, as though she wasn’t falling apart right in front of him. “I’ll let you out eventually.” She could hear his smile. “But only once you are broken beyond repair—only once I am all you know.” 

• • •

“Why are you watching that?” 

Vanessa glanced over her shoulder to see Gregory standing in the doorway behind her. Grimacing over being caught, she turned back to the computer screen. Glitchtrap was looming over what amounted to an NPC designed to look and act like a very meek Vanessa. 

Not what she’d expected to use her coding skills and game developer experience for, but she’d certainly been glad to have such tools at her disposal. 

“Just… making sure everything’s fine?” she offered as he came to stand at her side. 

Gregory huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t possibly still be paranoid that he’ll realize he’s the one trapped. It’s been more than five years, Ness. He’s too stupid to figure it out.” 

She’d been beyond paranoid for the first few months, but once it became clear that Glitchtrap had talked himself up far more than he deserved, she’d finally started to relax. 

“I was curious,” Vanessa finally admitted. “Five years—maybe something had changed.” 

“Has it?” 

They watched Glitchtrap drag digital!Vanessa toward a suit like his own. She struggled futilely.

“No,” the real Vanessa said. “Same old same old.”

“He’s not even creative about it,” Gregory complained. 

Snickering, Vanessa turned off the monitor before the springlocks in the suit could be set off. She stood, grumbling that Gregory was nearly as tall as she was. A few more years, and he’d surpass her, probably. “Did you need something?” 

“Uh, yeah, for us to get a move on.” Gregory pointedly tapped his watch—the same one Freddy had given him the night he was trapped in the pizzaplex. “Roxy’ll start the movie without us if we’re late, and then I’ll have to fight her.”

“You don’t have to.” 

“No, I do.” 

“Brat,” Vanessa said fondly, following him out of her home office. She easily put Glitchtrap out of her mind. She had better things to think about—let him be happy as a clam in his cage. 

She’d forget about him again for a while, and honestly, that felt like the real victory against a monster with an ego like his. Not that trapping him in a glorified video game without him even realizing wasn’t a victory on its own. 

this is comparable to Glitchtrap gloating about winning to a cardboard cutout, and i can’t stop laughing about it

[sharpnothashtag]

The Good Ship CrushWay, Chapter 61

All except Joy, Riker, and DeAnna pick up their phasers and fire on a different traitor.

Joy: Set phasers to kill!

They do so. After several sustained blasts, the traitors begin to phase and glitch out of existence. Once they are all gone, a white-hot light blinds the entire party. They all fall back, and what I can best describe as a puddle of goo approaches them.

Joy: (sitting up) Wha--? Goo: (many voices whispering as one) What have you done? Joy: I have betrayed the betrayers of time. I have avenged my father. Goo: The boh-GED as you knew them were history's traitors, but they weren't just traitors.

The Goo goes up into the sky and becomes The Mighty Nine. They spin around in the sky, and as they do, they transform. Ja'Rod-a caring, kind father; Rula-a fair judge; Intendant Kira-a generous lover; the rest show a softer side of themselves.

Joy: They still committed unspeakable atrocities. The Mighty Nine: No one acts alone. Joy: But, my father-- Brutus: Was just a spirit. Joy: No one is just anything. The Mighty Nine: Our point exactly.

The rest of the crew wakes. KJ walks up to Joy.

KJ: Joy, we're behind you. We'd do it again in a heartbeat. You got justice for your father. Joy: What I got was revenge, not justice. KJ: These people murdered your people in cold blood just because they thought they were a lower form of life. Joy: But they're people. KJ: (getting Joy to face her) Everyone is deeply flawed. That is not a sign of weakness. That is life. (addressing The Mighty Nine) They took a life to repay a life taken. That balances out. The Mighty Nine: (addressing Joy) Did you come here to kill Brutus? Joy: No. When we arrived, he was here, and it--just happened. KJ: Someone fired on our ship! They brought it down, onto the planet. Who shot us down? The Mighty Nine: We did. Wesley: What kind of weapon is that?! The Mighty Nine: It is fueled by our suns. Wesley: Is that why your suns are going supernova? The Mighty Nine: Yes. We realized too late. Joy: Will you please start over from the beginning? I want to understand.

The Goo comes back together as Goo and then, it forms into Joy's father.

Goo: Many years ago, Brutus, made to protect this world--this system by force, began killing spirits. He believed them to be inferior to the Kaanor hosts. Joy, your father was one of the many Brutus killed. (The Goo forms into Brutus again.) Brutus was a mighty, powerful being. Too powerful according to some. KJ: What about the others? Goo: There were no others. (Brutus becomes smaller, and the rest of the mighty nine are formed off of him.) Brutus divided himself into nine to watch over the nine planets in this system. The Kaanor developed a weapon using the power of their seven suns, and Brutus took advantage of that to bring you down here. Riker: (weakly) Starfleet sent me on a top secret, peaceful, undercover informational mission. Everyone had to think I was dead. Once my antenna fell off, Brutus was alerted. I was able to outrun him and send a message to the Captain, but then he found me and beat me senseless. Goo: He wanted to run a test on all of you. When you found Riker, Brutus wanted to see if there would be any negotiation. He didn't know about you, Joy. Joy: Then I killed him. And I got everyone else to kill the others. Q: (appearing out of nowhere, with frailty) and you have now become the first being in the history of all the universes to kill a Q. Picard: Brutus was a Q?! Q: There was only he and I. He was a part of me. Now there is no Q continuum. There is only me. Picard: No one to keep you in line?! Q: (sitting down on the ground) Yes. (slowly) I am alone. (to Patrick) I told you not to come! Patrick: I couldn't have known this was going to happen. Q: (screaming) DON'T YOU SEE?! I AM NOT WHOLE! (He turns to his side, and we see that he is literally half of himself--viscera and other things are hanging out of him. Riker vomits.) Patrick: (very freaked out) Beverly, isn't there anything you can do? Bev: (shocked, scanning) His physiology is too different from our own--I can't heal him. Patrick: Can you live like this? Q: No. I'm dying. And I'm afraid.

Picard, Riker, DeAnna, Beverly, KJ, Data, Daneel, and Wesley politely rise and walk back toward the ship. Patrick and Joy sit on either side of Q.

Joy: (gently) When I die, I sing this song--I'm not sure why, but I do. It's kind of comforting. Down in the valley, valley so low Hang your head over hear the wind blow Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind-- Q: (clearly in a great deal of pain, struggling to speak clearly) You sing it when you die because that was what your father sang when he died. He wanted you to hear his voice on the wind. When you die, you get to be close to him. Joy: (silently crying, singing softly) Hear the wind blow, dear. Hear the wind blow Hang your head over, hear the wind blow. Patrick: I'm here, Q. I'm holding you. Rest now. (tearing up) Go to Ian. They are waiting for you.

[eddienbird]

Part 18 - Songs Don't Work

Eddie & Bird [photo] Part 19

Dove looked in the mirror in just her skin-toned underwear and bra. The smile she had for Eddie fell as she went over the details of her appearance. She had lost her petite figure over the days of takeout dinners and late-night binges. Her poor sleep schedule carved deep dark circles under her eyes. Her brown roots were overgrown and peaking through her blonde hair due to her neglect of dying it. Her shaky hands traveled to every imperfection she hated.

“Maybe Dad was right… I do have to start doing something about this,” Dove said quietly to herself.

“Of course I’m right,” she heard her dad’s voice and it startled her.

“Dad?” She asked, walking closer to her floor length mirror.

“Dove, you should listen to me more,” Dad appeared behind her. His posture was hunched and he wore his favorite sweater vest and khakis that she remembered, only now they were covered in dark blood. Dove turned around to see that there was nothing actually behind her. 

“What the hell?” She walked around cautiously.

“Dove!” a familiar ominous voice barked. She turned around again to find the horrid vision of her Dad now stuck in the mirror where her reflection should be. This time his eyes were a glossy white and there was a foamy drool hanging from his mouth. “You need to take care of your body, or you’ll end up like me,” Dad lifted his shirt to reveal his intestines and other organs starting to spill out of him. He took his hand and shoved it into the viscera, making violent squelching noises.

“Eddie!” Dove screamed. “Eddie, help me!”

“Dove!” She heard his voice but it was muffled.

“Dove, help me,” Dad reached out his hand, beginning to come out of the mirror. Dove let out a high pitched scream as she fell backwards onto the floor. She moved both of her arms to shield her eyes.

“Dove! Dove, are you okay?” Eddie’s scream was heard outside her door. Dove uncovered her eyes to see Eddie bursting through the door. “Oh my god, you’re naked! I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry,” He said as he closed his eyes and blushed heavily. He was hating the thought of Dove thinking he was a creep. Without opening his eyes, he knelt down and helped Dove up from the floor. She quickly grabbed her bathrobe hanging from the back of her door and wrapped it around her.

“Sorry! You can open your eyes now,” She held onto his right hand.

“Are you okay? What the hell happened?” Eddie worried as he looked at her. He pushed her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead.

“I had one of those stupid visions again,” she crossed her arms and sat on her bed, trying to regulate her breathing.

“Did you not hear your radio?” Eddie sat next to her, examining her body for injuries.

“I did, I heard it the whole time… It didn’t snap me out of it,” Dove frowned. She rested her head on his shoulder. Eddie was bouncing his leg, thinking about his next move.

“This isn’t good. The others need to come right now,” He stood up, shaking his head. “Go finish getting ready, I have to call them,” He ordered.

~

At their cabin, Eleven was napping in her room while Hopper watched a Western movie on their couch. She was tossing and turning, lost in a nightmare.

Eleven was walking around an unfamiliar place in the Upside Down. Her eyes were on the floor, watching her feet carefully step around what looked like hundreds of bat wings, heads, and bodies. She noticed a group of bat body parts that started to lead into a trail. As she followed the path, the sound of heavy breathing and thunder could be heard. The trail finally ended at a lifeless Eddie Munson.

“Eddie?” she asked, crouching down to look closer at him. His skin was grey and his eyes were glossed over. His body lay in a puddle of blood.

“He can’t hear you,” A booming voice in the sky called down. “This will be his fate… and soon it will be yours too”

Eleven screamed as she woke up. Hopper rushed over to her room to see what was going on.

“El, are you okay?” He sat beside her, his hand on her chest, trying to calm her breathing.

“I had a vision of Eddie…” she whispered. They both were startled as the phone began to ring.

“Hello?” Hopper answered.

“Hey Hop, it’s Eddie,” Eddie was on the other line, pacing Dove’s kitchen.

“What’s going on?” he asked without taking his eyes off of El.

“I don’t know, but Dove just got another vision and I’m starting to get really worried,” he sighed.

“Stay there, contact the others. We’ll be there soon,” Hopper hung up.

[zandalarki]

Trading Fate

The journey to Icecrown had been long and filled with worry. Though Northrend had known peace since the fall of the Lich King, the frigid air carried an aura of unease. Whispers of the Banshee Queen’s own journey to Icecrown had spread, and as Dar’kran and his party travelled, they saw what fear her presence wrought. Warsong Hold had been on a tight lockdown, carefully vetting those who passed in and out. Taunka villages were walled shut, Braves patrolling around their perimeters in droves. The remnants of the Argent Crusade were on high alert, with sky patrols almost always overhead.

And yet, when word of her arrival at Icecrown Citadel came, none were prepared. The Banshee Queen and the swath of loyalists she held had stormed the Citadel, clashing with the Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade, and despite the united front, she slipped through their ranks, ascending the Citadel.

“She must mean ta’ take the helm fo’ herself.” Suggested Zul’jawa, “Ta become a new Lich Queen!” 

“Perhaps.” Murmured Dar’kran, as they wove their way through the carnage at the Citadel, his mind elsewhere. His son, Zugon, kept close. Despite his harsh upbringing, the boy showed no signs of fear or worry as they were faced with brutality all around.

The three of them made their way to the inner sanctum, where a lone Argent Crusader laid, mortally wounded at the Saronite Elevator. Dar’kran knelt beside him, placing a hand on his wounds and channeling some soothing waters. “I cannot save ya’, but I can make ya’ end painless, mon.” He rested another hand on the Crusader’s shoulder, locking eyes with him. He was a young Human, with sky blue eyes and a pitiful excuse for facial hair. He was but a boy, left to die in the most damned corner of the world. He deserved some peace. “Did ya’ see her? Da’ Banshee?” The man nodded, his bloodied hand gripping Dar’kran’s arm. “How many are wit’ her now?” He shook his head, a single bloody finger held high.

Fuck.

Dar’kran lowered the man’s hand to his chest, channeling some more soothing waters. As his eyes drifted back and his lids fell, he laid him flat before rising, turning his attention to the elevator. “Only one way to go now.”

They stepped on, and the magical elevator began to rise. Zugon teetered close to the edge, peering over it as they began to rise with a look of wonder on his face. Dar’kran smiled to his son, as he and Zul’jawa unloaded their packs and weapons. Zul’jawa held his chakrams with a grin, “So, ya’ t’ink she’s got a chance, mon?”

“A’h dunno, mon. Against da’ current guy? It be hard ta’ say.”

Zu’jawa hesitated for a moment, as he pulled a whetstone to sharpen the edges of his chakrams. “Ya’ t’ink we got a chance?”

“Absolutely.”

A maddening laugh echoed behind Dar’kran, one that only he could hear. “Dat’s pretty gooood, mon. Don’t want ya’ best bud t’inkin’ he walked into a hopeless situation now, eh?”

Bwonsamdi.

Dar’kran spoke to his patron Loa, only the two of them could hear. “I brought him because he be da’ most unpredictable fighta’ I know. You gonna see, he gonna be avoiding death like it be a party. He growled, as he wrapped his axes, infusing them with the power of the storm. Bwonsamdi kept on laughing.

“Ooh yah, mon. He gonna be dancin’ in his grave if ya’ ain’t careful.” His eyes flared to life for a moment, his tone shifting. “I need ya’ both ta’ be careful, ya’ hear? Dis one gonna cause all sorts o’ trouble if ya’ don’t.”

“Ya’ keep sayin’ dat an’ bein’ cryptic. Would be a lot nica’ if ya’ were straight wit’ me.” The old warrior grumbled.

“Trust me, mon. Ya’ don’t need nor want ta’ know more. It be above ya’ head! Just do what I need ya’ to do, and everyting will be alright” Dar’kran just grunted, hanging his axes from his side as he turned his attention away from his Patron and to his son instead.

“Zugon, c’mere.” He laid a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder, handing him a small ritual dagger. “Take dis an’ stay close behind me, ya’ hear? Only use it if ya’ need to.” The boy nodded, a brave look on his face. His tusks were finally starting to take shape. They lacked his father’s spiral, but had his mother’s hooked appearance. He loved that about his boy.

The elevator began to grind and whine as they neared it’s apex. The three held their weapons tight, Dar’kran and Zul’jawa ready to pounce the moment they reached the top and were met with whatever forces waited for them...

...

...

...

There was nothing there for them.

Before them was a single, long causeway. It’s entire stretch was strewn with the bodies of the fallen. Mostly of the undead, and few living. Blood, viscera, and an unholy stench invaded their nostrils as the three of them carefully stepped past the masses, Dar’kran and Zul’jawa testing corpses with their blades to make sure they weren’t faking it.

None so much as stirred.

“Did she really do all o’ dis?” whispered Zul’jawa, brushing his chakram’s against the shaft of an arrow protruding from the chest of a fallen Crusader.

“Aye.” Mumbled Dar’kran, scanning every inch of the causeway as they made their way. The purple haze of the Banshee’s arrows was unmistakable, it was her calling card. Corpse after corpse was decorated in them. One soul had been impaled upon the spikes adorning the guardrails. Another had both of his eyes shot out by arrows with a third sitting in his throat, painted with blood. 

The cold air began to cut deep, and Zul’jawa and Zugon began to shiver, with Zugon trying his best to shield his eyes from the blistering winds. In a split second, the young boy slipped on a slurry of snow and blood, his whole weight shifting to the side and practically over the guardrails. Dar’kran was there without a second thought, grabbing his son by the collar and hosting him back up and into a free arm. 

As Zugon clung to his father, shivering and with his heart beating at a million miles and hour, Dar’kran’s own heart stopped.

No. No. How?

As he looked over the edge where his son had nearly fallen, Dar’kran’s gaze met a massive maul caught on a ledge, adorned with the blood red imagery that was once so typical of Kor’kron weaponry. Beside it, shattered fragments of armor, a puddle of tainted blood, and an all too familiar scent.

Skullcrusha. 

He..he’s here. Was here. His presence was but only lingering...By the spirits, was he...finally..?

“Bwonsamdi?” Dar’kran called to his Patron, and the Loa of Death appeared to graciously.

“Watchu doin’, mon? Why ain’t ya’ movin’?

“Where is he?” he said coldly, he was done playing games.

“Dun look at me, mon. He ain’t my responsibility.”

“So, is he dead or not?”

“Bahhh!” the Death Loa scoffed, fading away, “Ya’ ain’t got time for stupid questions, mon. Get a move on, or it be both ou’ heads!”

That last part took him by surprise. As he continued to walk the causeway with Zugon in hand, he kept wondering. “Both ou’ heads?” What was the bastard talking about?

“Hey, mon! Look!” Zul’jawa pointed to an opening at the end of the causeway, “I t’ink we’re almost to the end!” Dar’kran snapped his attention back to the matter at hand and jogged to catch up, the three of them making it out from the open air and into the antechamber there at the end. Inside was another elevator, presumably to the top of Icecrown Citadel, and beside it an arcane teleportation rune. The two older trolls sighed for a moment, as they gazed up the rest of the elevator.

They were nearly there. Loud cracks and the howling winds of winter echoed above them. By the Loa...

“They already be goin’ at it...” Zul’jawa spoke in awe, swallowing a lump in his throat. Dar’kran recognized the fear in his voice and as he set down Zugon, saw the same quivering in his son. Dar’kran’s own gaze shifted upwards, then back to his son as he set him down and knelt down to his level.

“You gonna stay down here, aight? It be too dangerous for ya’ up there. But we’ll be fine. We’ll be back.” He cupped his son’s face for a moment. “I promise.” Zugon smiled, holding his father’s dagger tightly and nodded. Dar’kran then turned his attention back to Zul’jawa, the mon was wrapping trinkets and bijous around his arms and chakrams, whispering zandali incantations and prayers to himself. They were prepared to face what was likely doom...

*CRACK*

What the?

*CRACK* *CRACK*

Dar’kran began to sway, his head feeling foggy.

A deafening boom reverberated down from the peak of Icecrown Citadel and beyond. A pulse of energy unlike anything anyone had ever felt before swept through them all, and quite literally knocked Dar’kran on his back, clutching his chest.

By the spirits...”Zul!” he gasped, clutching his chest in agony.

His heart had stopped...What the hell had happened?

“Zul?!” He gasped out again, Zugon at his father’s side now with a look of terror and confusion on his face. Zul’jawa snapped out of it, hearing Dar’kran’s crys, he rushed to his battle-brother. Both he and Zugon looked down on Dar’kran with terror and confusion. Dar’kran scanned the area around them in a frenzy, scared and unsure of what was happening, then he saw him...

Bwonsamdi...

“I told ya’! Ya’ were too slow!” Screamed the Death Loa, this time for all the hear. Zugon and Zul’jawa leapt as the the Loa loomed over them all, specifically Dar’kran. “And now look at what she did? She broke everyting!” Life an’ Death are broken!”

“Ww..w-hat?” Dar’kran mumbled, his vision becoming dark.

“Da’ very magic that I used ta’ give ya’ dis stupid body back is all out o’ whack now. I got nothin!”

Dar’kran turned to face Zugon, who looked terrified beyond all reason. He still clutched that dagger closely. Dar’kran tried to say something, but he was too weak. He was..fading.

“An’ now, ya’ makin’ me need ya’ more then eva! Damn you, Dar’kran, fo’ makin’ me do dis!” Cried Bwonsamdi, who in a blink of an eye had snatched the dagger from Zugon.

No...please. Not my son...not for my failure.

White hot pierced the fog, and Dar’kran’s attention snapped back to center. In the center of his chest, Bwonsamdi had buried the dagger to the hilt. “We gonna be workin’ a lot closa’ together now, mon.” Hissed the Death Loa, who turned both himself and the dagger to smoke, flowing into Dar’kran.

Dar’kran’s heart did not beat. Yet he did not die. The fog was lifted, and yet he felt stronger than before. He rose slowly, and both Zul’jawa and Zugon looked at him with horror and confusion. “What just happened?”

“Oh, ya’ couldn’t tell, mon?” Echoed Bwonsamdi from..within Dar’kran?

“For now, we are one.”

[undertale-rho]

Multiverse Saga: Taken!Altertale - Chapter 5

Location: AlT-113 Time: 62 hours after emergence

Sans and Papyrus stood silently in the courtyard, six rectangular holes surrounding them. At the bottom of each hole lay a grey coffin.

"Say, Papyrus..." Sans said after a few minutes. "did you... ever learn the names of these kids?"

Papyrus shook his head. "Did you?"

Sans remained silent.

The two skeletons returned to giving a reverent silence for the bodies they now buried.

"Hey bro, go ahead and head back to Elysium. I'd... like a moment alone." Sans said.

"But what about replacing the dirt?" Papyrus asked.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry."

Papyrus considered his brother carefully. After a minute, he sighed.

"Alright. See you soon." Papyrus walked back along the street, back to the Mount Hot tramway.

Sans continued to stand in the middle of the courtyard for a few minutes more. Eventually, he brought up his hands and, using magic, moved the six great piles of dirt back into their holes, entombing the coffins. Once done, he stepped over to a nearby bench and took a seat.

"May you all find rest, wherever you may be now..." Sans mumbled. After a few minutes, he himself found rest.

Sans shot to attention as a great, thunderous noise engulfed him; a noise quickly followed by a color-inverting wave that shot through him as well. After a few seconds, color returned to what it was. Sans stood up from the bench only to be brought down to his knees by a sudden and great pain within his head.

Clutching his head tightly for what seemed like forever, his pain was cut through by the sounds of bells ringing from above. Craning his head, Sans caught sight of the great floating rock hovering near the crest of the mountain.

"The bells!" he said. "But why... why are they ringing? What's going on?"

Carefully, Sans got to his feet, the pain in his head still gnawing at him.

"I gotta... get to Elysium." he said, stumbling forward.

It wasn't any good. It felt like, with every step, a great pressure was somehow squeezing the air from his body. A few more steps and he collapsed back to the ground.

Laying there, a thought occurred to him. Propping himself up a bit, Sans focused his magic into the air around him. In the next moment, he grabbed the air with his magic and thrust it towards him, which had a similar effect to taking a fresh breath of air after lying at the bottom of a pool for a few minutes.

"What?" Sans said, staring at his hand. "I haven't had to do this in... centuries..." his thoughts then drifted to the pain in his head. "No way... has the Curse been... reversed? That must mean this is..." he placed his hand against his head. "this is hunger."

The sound of bells re-entered his mind. Refocusing, Sans took another breath and stood back up.

"A mystery for later. Now, I need to reach Elysium. I need to know why those bells are ringing."

Sans stood back up and began running through the city. Along the way, he passed many people who were clutching their gut in pain, wandering the streets trying to figure out what happened, or both. After nearly an hour of navigating the streets and getting lost more than a few times, he finally managed to get to the street that would lead him to the Mount Hot tramway; a lifting station that would take him up the face of the mountain.

Looking up towards the summit when he reached the station, a tiny speck seemed to be drifting from the summit, past the brick of Helios Station, and up towards Elysium.

What was that? Sans thought as he stepped into the car.

Speeding up towards the MTT Resort, the car quickly managed to lift Sans from the base to the top in no time, safely latching to the bay within. When the door opened, Sans simply froze with horror of the sight of the lobby. Blood caked the floor, walls, and ceiling as though some deranged painter wanted to redecorate.

Stepping into the lobby, his eyes quickly caught sight of a familiar form.

Undyne, or at least her headless corpse. Her head lay nearby, its singular eye contracted tightly. The smell that permeated the room was nauseating.

Approaching Undyne's limp form, Sans saw a black smudge nearby, along with smeared blood. Following the trail of smeared blood, he quickly found bloody footprints leading all the way from the back entrance from the MTT Resort to Helios Station. Taking a closer look at the footprints, he saw that they were made by a creature with paws of sorts. Definitely plantigrade, though with pads and fur.

"Toriel?" Sans muttered. "No... please tell me these aren't Toriel's."

Sans followed the footprints into Helios Station, through the teleporter, across the control room, and into the Elysium elevator. Sans's mind raced horribly, torturing him with what might have happened. When the elevator arrived in Elysium, he exited the car and followed the footprints again, all the way to the Judgement Hall, where there was a smear and more blood. Next to the puddle decorating the center of the Hall, Sans spotted a small, white, bony something. Seeing it, his heart sank, and he ran past the puddle, following the rest of the footprints, completely unaware that there was another set following the first.

Reaching the throne room, Sans first spotted his brother, Papyrus, sitting on his throne with his skull sitting in his lap. Down at his feet was what he sought.

Toriel; lying in a puddle of blood at the foot of the throne.

"TORIEL!!!" he shouted, sprinting to her, and picking her up, shaking her in a feeble attempt to awaken her in the process.

"Tori, come on, wake up." Sans continued to say, carefully shaking her body.

Just as despair took hold and started to burrow within Sans, Toriel's pink eyes cracked open.

"Toriel!" Sans said, instantly filled with relief, hugging the smaller goat-Monster.

"S... Sans...?" Toriel worked out.

"I'm here, it's okay." Sans consoled.

"N... no... no it's not okay." Toriel broke from Sans's embrace. "Sans, you need to run."

"Wh... what? No!"

"Sans, please. Get out of—" Toriel spotted a sickly figure standing just behind Sans, then screamed in terror.

Sans turned to look at what had frightened Toriel so greatly when a sudden pain shot through his skull, and everything went dark.

Sans's body collapsed to the ground, the upper half of his skull flying through the air, throwing viscera and blood all across the throne room.

The bloody Sans laughed maniacally at the fountain of scarlet liquid that spewed from the lower portion of Sans's skull.

"BEAUTIFUL!" Sans shouted, still laughing.

Toriel crawled back towards her Sans's corpse, dumb-struck at his new appearance and the blood that soaked the tile floor of the throne room.

"No..." she mouthed, unable to find her voice. "No, this can't..." tears crawled out of her eyes. After a few more seconds, the laughter of the bloody Sans once again reached her ears. She glared up at him.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" she demanded to know. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!?!"

Sans's maniacal laughter ceased, and he looked, menacingly, back at Toriel. A grin stretched even more across his skeletal face.

"I am Infected." he declared. "Lord of Madness!"

Toriel's defiant will broke as she glared at him, and she began to crawl away. Infected caught up with her in just a few strides and stabbed Toriel in the leg with the corner of his axe.

Toriel screamed as a wave of pain engulfed her leg, the cold metal of Infected's axe burning the greatest of all.

Infected, with his free hand, grabbed Toriel by the throat and pinned her to the ground.

"They were friends of yours, weren't they, Toriel." Infected said. "Undyne. Papyrus. Sans." he laughed again. "All your friends. All now dead."

Toriel struggled against Infected's grasp, but Infected quelled that with a twist of his axe. Infected laughed again as Toriel screamed in agony.

"You." he said. "You're perfect." Infected licked his teeth upon saying that.

Toriel, seeing this, was completely and utterly filled with fear. Fight kicking in instead of flight, she moved to summon another skull to blast the skeleton with, but before it could fully manifest, Infected hit Toriel over the head with the butt of his axe, knocking her out cold.

Continuing his laughter, Infected picked the goat-Monster up by her throat and dragged her back across the throne room and, eventually, out of Elysium itself.

Hours later, Toriel awoke, finding herself strapped horizontally to a cold metal table, completely naked. Looking down at herself, she saw that even her fur had been shaved off, leaving her white skin completely exposed. Rattling against the leather that bound her, she eventually moved to use magic as a means of escape. Almost as soon as she tried, a great burning pain erupted within her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." the familiar raspy voice said from the surrounding darkness.

Toriel looked around the room. It looked like an operating room, one below Alphys's laboratory, in fact. The rest of the room was dark, but Toriel could tell that her table was directly in the center. While searching, she found her captor—Infected—watching her from nearby, walking around the table. Remembering her nakedness, she looked away.

"If you're going to defile me, why don't you just get it over with." she said.

Infected stopped moving and looked down at her. Toriel expected him to say that he already had.

"I may be a murderer, a torturer, a villain, but I have standards, thank you very much." Infected spat at Toriel's face.

"Besides," Infected then said, "raping you wouldn't be as fun as what's truly in store for you. But before we get to that, I brought somebody who wanted desperately to see you."

Toriel's eyes widened a bit.

"Who?" she asked.

"Your brother."

"Gory is here!? Where? Let me see him!"

Infected raised his arm and dropped Asgore's head onto her chest. The point at which the neck should be attached to the rest of the body was sealed off, so it didn't ooze blood onto her chest.

Toriel stared down at it. Asgore's eyes were still tight with shock. Suddenly, Infected's bony hands grabbed the sides of Toriel's face and slammed her head back down, his face directly over her's.

"YES!!!" Infected shouted. "THAT'S PERFECT! THAT'S THE FACE I WANTED TO SEE!!!!!" Infected laughed maniacally again. When he calmed back down, he looked her right in the eyes again.

"What say we find out what other facial contortions we can work out of you, yes?" Infected said, pulling a scalpel from a nearby tray. "Does right now work for you, because right now is perfect for me." he brought the scalpel right over Toriel's right eye. "Now, don't move, or this will hurt a lot more."

Seeing the scalpel, Toriel began breathing heavier and heavier. Doing her best to keep her eye as still as possible, screams overtook all sounds in the world when the tip of the blade pierced her lens.

Taken!Altertale : Dark Dawn

Previous Underearth Prologue First of this book Next

[justjessame]

Hellfire and Angelic Grace Chapter 3

THREE DAYS LATER

Lilana was stretching behind the bar. It was still early, so there weren’t too many customers, even for the last day of Spring Break. She was trying to get rid of a knot in her neck, but everything she was trying wasn’t working, and she really needed to do inventory today.

“You look tense,” a deep voice said from a seat at the bar. She looked up into green eyes, and smiled.

“Not tense,” she answered, trying again to roll her neck and get the cramp to release. “Fell asleep at my desk last night, and now, my fucking neck feels like it’s been in a vice.” She groaned, putting down her clipboard and clasping her hands before stretching them above her head. She was rewarded with a crack in her tight shoulder, but her neck still fucking hurt.

Dean watched as her t-shirt, loose but not long, rose to show a swatch of skin at her midsection when she stretched her arms high. He swallowed hard, thinking her skin must be soft and had to fight a moan. Her shirt was low cut, clearly utilizing her assets to her advantage, but she looked comfortable too. She was wearing shorts today, and her feet were in flip flops.

“Slept here?” He asked, forcing his eyes on her face, and happy to see her eyes were closed as she kept working to get her neck back to full force. He knew she’d slept here, his dad had camped in the damn truck next door after all. “Now why would you do that?”

Li-Li smiled as she opened her eyes, wondering who this attentive stranger was, but thinking he was harmless. “Balancing the books. It’s not the most stimulating activity.” She nodded at his beer bottle. “Ready for another?” He shook his head and took a sip. “I’m Li-Li, by the way, owner of this shipwreck of a bar.”

Dean smiled and held out his hand. “Dean Winchester.” Her hand touched his and he felt a charge run through him. Jesus, he thought, looking into her eyes. Her head was tilted as she held his hand, as though she felt it, but was trying to figure out what it meant. He pulled his hand away and ran it through his hair with a chuckle. “If you want, I could give your neck a try.” He didn’t know why he was offering, he sounded awkward and weird. Like Sam.

Li-Li shrugged and walked around to the other side of the bar. “Why not?” She asked, moving her loose hair out of the way. “Anything if it gets the kink out of there and I can go back to inventory without pain.”

Dean licked his lips and gently touched her skin. He could feel the tight spot immediately, as though it were a magnet to his hands. He kneaded her skin, working until the tightness left and feeling the charge rush through him with every contact. She moaned as the pain left her and his pants suddenly felt too tight. His mouth went dry and he thought about how she’d sound moaning his name. When he’d massaged the knot away, she turned around and he dropped his hands to the bar.

“Wow,” she sighed, rolling her shoulders and turning her head easily now. “Might have to keep you around, Dean.” She smiled up at him and licked her bottom lip. “You have magic hands.”

She walked back around the bar and picked up her clipboard again. “Anytime,” he finally answered almost breathlessly, the distance between them making it a bit easier to uncloud his mind. He took a long pull from his beer and she handed him another.

“On the house,” she said, moving back to her work. “And more than worth the price.” She winked at him and he gulped.

Dear Chuck, he thought, watching her move back and forth. Save him? More like trying to ruin his mental state. When it was Sam’s turn to take over the watch, Dean didn’t know if he was happy to leave or tortured by it. He rushed to the house Crowley provided for their use to take a LONG cold shower. He had a feeling the shower, the cold water, was going to become his constant companion after his time in her presence. He had to think that the King of Hell would kill him if he went so far as to act on the want he had for his daughter, and while she was hot, being tortured in Hell was not something he’d care to experience again.

 Sam couldn’t understand what happened to make Dean rush out like his hair was on fire, but as he took a seat at the same booth they’d sat in the first night in the bar, he found himself mesmerized by the sight of Lilana working the crowd again.

She was having a blast, or at least she looked like she was. Standing on the bar, she held the trigger of the soda gun and blasted the overheated coeds and frat boys with the water spray. Cheers and laughter followed as she hopped carefully down and helped her bartenders with orders. Tossing the bottles of liquor like an expert, she managed two drinks to each one they made.

After the crowd was caught up she started to walk away from the bar area, but was stopped by a tall blonde woman who pointed in his direction. Sam felt her green eyes laser focus on him and he wondered if he’d been made. She sashayed through the crowd to his table and he found himself unable to look away.

“Hi!” She said, sliding in across from him. “Ali, the manager of my fine establishment tells me you’re becoming a regular, so I thought I’d introduce myself.” Holding her hand out across the table, careful of his drink, she offered her name. “Li-Li Monahan, owner.”

Her smile made a knot form in his stomach. Taking her hand he felt a current run through him. Her head tilted to study him and he realized she felt it too. And, from the look on her face, she didn’t understand it any better than he did. “Sam Winchester.” He offered, not even noticing he used his real name.

“Winchester?” She asked, her head straightening. Her hand pulled from his and she strangely touched her neck. “Related to a ‘Dean’?” Li-Li’s eyebrow raised in curiosity.

Sam nodded, licking his lips nervously. “He’s my brother actually.” He looked away, taking a drink out of his glass. “He told me about this place.”

She squinted at him and wondered if Ali was right. If she was, then he’d been one of the “older guys” that had come in a couple nights ago. The ones that wanted to “worship at her altar”. Older, she scoffed to herself. He was maybe a year older than her and Ali, maybe. She had to fight an eye-roll. Seriously had to tell her best friend to start asking for IDs for all her hookups. “He told you about it? That’s strange, my manager told me she noticed the two of you in here for the first time together, just three nights ago.”

Sam wanted to smack his head on the table in front of him. Shit, they’d been noticed. “He told me he read about you guys on TripAdvisor.” He offered lamely. “So we came in together, and both liked it so much.” Chuck, throw me a damn bone here.

Li-Li chuckled. “Sure, ok.” She leaned a little forward, her breasts squeezing together and sitting almost on top of the table. “Just don’t be a weird stalker, please?” She grinned and slid back out of the booth. “Have a nice night, Sam Winchester.”

He watched as her hips swayed as she walked away. Closing his eyes, he tried to get the image of her breasts looking like a feast on the table top in front of him. If Crowley had any idea he was even entertaining those kinds of ideas, well, he’d be a puddle of blood and viscera on the floor.

 John was in the parking lot, waiting for her to end the day. He watched as she locked up and glanced at his watch. It was nearly four in the morning. She kept late hours, and she kept early hours. Dean had told him she was the one to open the bar every day so far. How she was maintaining that kind of schedule and still look like-

He closed his eyes, opening them when he heard her car start. Stop thinking about how she looked, you idiot, he told himself. Willing down the rush of lust he felt when he so much as glanced at the younger woman. Pulling out a safe distance behind her and keeping her in sight for the drive to her house, he settled in to the spot he’d picked as his on that first night. He picked up his journal once he watched her carefully get inside.

For the hundredth time, he wished he could confer with ANYONE in the hunter community about what Lilana could possibly BE. He knew he couldn’t. From what he had found out from careful sleuthing and snooping, she was innocent. Her businesses were on the up and up. She gave heavily to charity, she paid her employees well. She was a good- well he didn’t know what she was, but she was good.

He was letting his boys do the interior watch. He felt like he’d stick out like a sore thumb in her bar, especially this week. Old, grizzled men do not go into bars down here during Spring Break unless they’re perverts. At least that was the excuse he was using with Dean and Sam. Inside, John was worried that he’d show too much interest and scare the shit out of her.

Scare the shit out of her and get the King of Hell pissed off. He’d had enough bad luck with demons, having Crowley want his blood would be one thing too many. And so, while Dean and Sam got some rest, he’d sit outside watching from a careful distance. It didn’t always stop the thoughts from intruding. Like how her mouth would taste, what her voice sounded like, how her skin would feel. He fought them like Hell, but they’d rush in when he least expected them. And he’d feel the tightness, a tightness he hadn’t really truly felt since Mary.

When the pressure built, he’d get out of the truck and walk down the street, past her house. Then back to the truck. He could see the house Crowley put them in from his spot, but since they were protecting her he couldn’t make himself watch from there. He knew his boys watched during the night, but he felt that he HAD to be here. Nearer, even if it was nowhere near enough.

 HELL: THAT SAME DAY/NIGHT

Crowley felt concerned. He wasn’t finding time to keep up with the Winchesters while they were watching Lilana and he was twitching with the need for an update. Surely they’d call him if there was danger? Wouldn’t they?

He was having problems concentrating on the meeting he was currently sitting through. What were these idiots babbling on about? He tried to focus, but all he could see was his daughter. Happy, vibrant, and so unlike her mother. At least unlike her mother at the end. He flinched at the thought of those final moments. Since Li-Li, as he knew she preferred to be called, had lost the humans he’d chosen to raise her, every time he tried to rest he felt forced to relive it.

If his eyes closed for more than a few seconds, he was back in the house he’d thought had enough protection to keep Abigail from the attention of the angels. He watched as she gave birth to the fruits of their love, a tiny precious bundle of a baby girl who wailed as soon as the air touched her. It had been as though she knew how dangerous the world would be for her. He heard Abigail’s voice, urging him that he didn’t know just how truly dangerous it would be for their little one. Telling him that she would be like a magnet for any and all supernatural beasts. Making him promise to keep her safe, to hide her among humans, to find the Winchesters when she was found. Binding him to the promise, and then her voice had changed. Gone was the quiet, breathy voice he knew her for and in its place came her divine one. She told him that in their protection their daughter would truly bloom, and in repayment her love and Grace would save them in return. Save them from the horrors that hollowed them and ruled them. Then, coming back to herself, Crowley watched as terror flowed over her face and without another word she burned away. Completely gone, with Lilana wiggling in his arms, quiet as soon as her mother had begun to speak, he was broken by the loss of Abigail.

He would blink himself back to wherever he was once the memory was over. Allowing it to loop would be even more torture, more pain. He’d been able to control his temper with whomever was in his presence at the time. Unless, of course, they’d noticed he had fade out and away from them. That kind of knowledge would be dangerous to his daughter. That kind of knowledge could be shared. If they noticed, and he was always able to tell, then the consequences were harsh. He’d raze Hell to keep Lilana safe. He’d raze the world.

[setaripendragon]

Never Simple - Chapter 1

Okay! This is... this one is kind of ridiculous. So, I watched Venom a couple of weeks ago, figuring, you know, I was already neck-deep in the soul-bond tentacle-porn on Ao3, I ought to at least see the source material, even if I expected to find it kind of cringey. (Given that everyone also raved about Ragnarok, and I actually couldn’t watch it because of the cringe, I had reason to worry, but) I absolutely loved it. There was only one moment of genuine cringe, right at the beginning, and from there on, it was, as the internet had assured me, a beautiful, ridiculous rom-com XD Why am I talking about Venom on a story tagged with FMA? Because I’ve spent the last two weeks crossing Venom over with everything. Skyfall, Torchwood, Elementary, Teen Wolf, and, thanks to @furisca, FullMetal Alchemist. So yeah, I have plans for this story (so many fix-it style plans), but I have no idea if I’m going to manage to write them all, where this story is actually going, or how I’m going to end it, but... have the first insane 5K I wrote in an inspired delirium anyway. (Warnings: Character death, severe illness and seizures, sort of body horror? I tried not to make it too gory, but I also had some fun trying to evoke that skin-crawly horror feel, so, yeah.)

Teacher had called it making a deal with the devil, but Ed didn’t believe in any sort of god or devil or anything like that. Alchemy was science, and it was simple. Knowledge was power. The more you knew, the more you could do. If you knew how the pieces fit together, you could twist them and shape them into anything you liked. That was how alchemy worked.

And, sure, the human body was complicated – massively, incredibly, bewilderingly complicated – but it wasn’t unknowable. The knowledge was there, in the very fact that those molecules, those atoms had come together in that way, in that form. The entire equation was there, written into their very existence. Which meant that with enough knowledge, they could fix their mum.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Mum had been sick for years, and no one could tell her what was wrong. She’d tried to hide it at first, but that hadn’t lasted. They might have been young, but they weren’t stupid. They were actually pretty fucking smart, if Ed did say so himself.

It had taken them years of study, of plumbing the depths of alchemy and human biology, but Ed was pretty sure they had their answer at last. Ed had found it in a footnote in one of their deadbeat dad’s journals. In the one explaining the very basics of alchemy. Jotted in the margin of the basic explanation that Ed could recite by heart; Alchemy is the science of understanding the structure of matter, breaking it down, then reconstructing it as something else.

Always, always, they’d been taught, understanding had to come first.

The note in dad’s journal said otherwise.

Deconstruction came first. Understanding only came from taking a thing and pulling it apart to see how it worked.

It was dangerous, of course. Ed understood that. Physically, you could pull a thing apart, and the only negative consequence would be not being able to put it back together again. Pulling a thing apart with alchemy? If you couldn’t understand it quickly enough, thoroughly enough, the backlash would be devastating. They certainly weren’t going to try in on Mum without testing it first.

At least, that was the plan, until Ed sent Al to get them a few drops of Mum’s blood while he double checked their array, and before a minute had gone by, Al screamed; “BROTHER!” Ed dropped the book he was holding, uncaring as to its fate as he rushed upstairs, a horrible sort of anticipatory dread coiling slow and sickening inside him.

Sure enough, when he joined Al in their mum’s room, it wasn’t hard to see why Al had screamed. Mum was- Ed couldn’t think the word, but she was perfectly still, sprawled limply with her eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, glassy and empty, one arm flung out like she’d been trying to reach for something on the night-stand, and just… switched off half way through the motion.

Ed’s head filled with a litany of denial, and he just stood there, dumbfounded with horror and the terrible creeping certainty that they were too late. Beside him, Al let out a wretched sob, almost a wail, and Ed snapped back into the present. “No.” He said, but this time, it was full of determination and ferocity. “We can still do this.” He announced, startling Al. “Get some chalk, we’re going to have to redraw the array up here.” Ed didn’t think he could handle trying to carry Mum down to the basement like this.

“B-Brother?” Al stammered.

“Chalk!” Ed repeated, and finally saw understanding, hope, and then determination fill his brother’s eyes, too. With a nod, Al bolted out of the room. Ed took the moments he was gone to go and… and check. He tentatively wrapped his hand around Mum’s wrist and pressed his fingers to her pulse. She was still warm, but there was no movement under his fingertips, no pulse.

That knowledge nearly broke him, would have broken him if it hadn’t been for the array all planned out and plotted in the back of his mind. They could do this. They had to. Al returned, breathless and brandishing a whole box of chalks, and they set to work. It took them a while, because the array was so stupidly complicated, and every minute that slipped by was another minute that dragged their mother further and further away from them.

They had to push the bed out of the way to finish it, and then, once it was done, they were forced to face the fact that they needed to move their mother into the center of the array. After sharing a dismayed look with Al, Ed set his jaw, and set to it, stubbornly ignoring the horrible fact of how lifeless the body in his arms was. It wouldn’t be that way for long.

And then it was ready.

“This is going to work, Al.” Ed asserted. Al nodded, eyes burning just as fiercely as Ed’s, and grabbed Ed’s hand, gripping tightly, desperately. Ed squeezed back reassuringly, then let go so he could kneel beside their array. Al followed his lead and, in unison, they reached out and pressed their hands to the edge of the circle, activating their array. Actinic light spilled out as energy crackled through the lines they’d etched painstakingly across the floor of the basement, the force of it whipping their hair about their heads and tugging at their clothes.

The world came apart at the seems.

“Foolish little alchemist.”

Ed jumped, looking around, but there was nothing. Just an endless expanse of pristine white nothingness, stretching out into infinity. He turned around again, and jumped again, because he could have sworn there was nothing there, before, but now? Now he found himself looking up at a huge stone door, etched with a strangely branching tree. “Who- who’s there? Where are you? Where am I?!” Ed blurted out, peering around the sides of the great stone door, but there was only more nothingness beyond it.

“I’m so glad you asked!” The voice responded, but it didn’t sound glad. It sounded bitter. It sounded like Ed did, when he was forced to talk about dad. “I am nothing, and everything. The universe, and the void. I am, and so you are. I am Truth.” Ed spun around again, as the voice seemed to coalesce behind him, and he saw-

He stumbled backwards until his back hit the stone door, incomprehension sending him recoiling. The thing in front of him looked almost human. Two arms, two legs, a head, all in the right places, but wrong. There was no definition, no features, no solidity, just a writhing, amorphous mass of white-on-white that was only barely managing a paltry attempt at a human form. It grinned at him, showing off teeth that would have looked more at home on a piranha than a human, and waved a not-hand at the nothingness around them. “And this, little alchemist, is me.”

A deep, groaning crack reverberated out from behind Ed, and terror seized him. Every fibre of his being was telling him to run, to run and not look back for a second, but he couldn’t help it, he had to know what was there, so he turned, slowly, forcing himself to move one inch at a time, until he could see, out of the corner of his eye, what was behind the door.

Ed screamed.

He tried to scramble backwards, all the while keep his eyes on the incomprehensible writhing mass of strangely geometric viscera teeming and seething within the stone archway. Before he had gone more than two steps, though, his back hit something solid, with just a hint of give to it. Like flesh, but not, too slick, too fluid. He froze. Even the air in his lungs froze.

Two not-hands came up beside his head. He could see them moving just on the edges of his vision, curling round, closing in, and panic stole all rational thought from his mind. “I thought this was what you wanted, you arrogant little shit.” The not human thing behind him crooned, as those hands pressed over his face.

This time, it was Ed that came apart at the seams.

The worst part? The worst part was that he could feel it. He could taste it. Every molecule that broke away from the whole, every atom that was wrenched out of alignment. He knew by taste-feel-weight-texture-vibration what they were and what they did and how they fit. Right down to the plasma in his blood and the bacteria in his intestines, the bile in his liver and the mucous in his lungs. The electricity in his brain and all the little chemicals that strung the whole lot together into a functioning whole. He could feel membranes he hadn’t even known were there, knew the entire topographical structure of his lungs, felt every synapse in his brain as it was taken apart and shown to him. As he was vivisected all the way down to his atoms, until he was nothing more than biological mush. Just a puddle of writhing ooze on a blank white canvas.

And then he was whole again. Whole and gasping for breath as every nerve in his body tingled with visceral euphoria at being together and coherent again. “W-w-wha…” He tried to speak, to ask, to understand, but he couldn’t stop shaking long enough to get the words out.

“Equivalent exchange, little alchemist.” The voice said right into Ed’s ear from where it was standing directly behind him, breathing on his neck. All the hair on his body stood up on end, and he lurched away and around, wanting that thing and it’s teeth where he could see them-

It looked like Alphonse.

Al’s golden hair and Al’s hazel eyes and Al’s button nose and a mouth full of razors in a jagged crescent, splitting his face in two. “You opened the gate. You came here, in your arrogance, to take something from me, and you thought there wouldn’t be consequences?” It demanded, furious and vicious and smug.

“NO!” Ed screamed. He lunged forwards, grabbing the thing that was wearing his brother by the shoulders and shaking it. “GIVE HIM BACK! ALPHONSE!”

The world slipped away and slid back into place, a moment of vertigo and the nothingness was filled in. Ed wasn’t standing, he was half-lying, half-kneeling over Alphonse’s limp form sprawled across their basement floor. He looked like he was sleeping, no sign of those awful teeth or the horror sealed behind a huge stone door except for the way Ed could still half remember what his own brain tasted like.

“A-Al?” Ed breathed, unable to make his voice any louder with the horrible, terrible fear surging through him. Al’s shoulders shifted beneath his hands, moving with the suddenly rapid rise and fall of his chest. “Al?!” Ed called, stronger, more urgent, but the only response he got was not from Al.

There was a gurgling gasp from the center of the array. Ed’s head snapped up, breath caught somewhere in his throat, to stare at Mum. She was moving. She shuddered and arched until her back cleared the floor. “Mum?!” Ed called, not quite willing to let go of Al just yet, but still desperately wanting confirmation that all that horror had been worth it.

Instead, what he got was discordant, reverberating laughter spilling out of his mother’s mouth. Jagged fangs bloomed behind her open lips, and when her eyes opened, they were opalescent white from lid to lid, and getting larger. They spilled out over the edges of her eyelids, while crystalline blue oozed out of her pores, crawling over her skin.

“No…!” Ed breathed, hope turning sour in a heartbeat.

The thing that wasn’t really his mother zeroed in on him, head twisting too far to be natural, and whole body contorting in ways that made Ed want to vomit. “Yes!” She – it – crooned, and the worst part was Ed thought he could almost hear his mother’s voice under the distortion. The monster laughed again, and lunged. Ed didn’t even see it coming, just registered that it was starting to move, and then the next thing he knew, he was pinned to the floor with a monster that used to be his mother looming over him, maw gaping wide and getting closer. “Mum?” Ed begged, even though he had no idea if his mum was even still alive – alive again – in there. “Mum, p-please don’t-!”

The monster paused, jerked forwards – making Ed flinch – only to suddenly fling itself backwards, back into the array. “No.” That was Mum’s voice, ragged and hoarse, but entirely and only Mum’s voice. Ed sobbed before he could stop himself. “You won’t have my boys-! Will. Hungry-! Over my dead body!”

Ed flinched at the words, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the way Mum screamed next, thrashing and convulsing in jerky, jittering motions. There was a crack, followed by another, and then several more in quick succession as Mum’s limbs twisted themselves into unnatural shapes, bones splintering and tearing skin, spilling blood. One last, violent flail was cut short when her head hit the ground with a terrible crunch, and she – it – went still, the blue sinking away back under the skin as the red spilled out, leaving Mum looking like a contortionist’s nightmare, and entirely lifeless once again.

Ed choked on a sob, but his grief was put on hold when Al let out a pained, confused groan. He couldn’t stand – his legs were shaking too much to support his weight, so he half-crawled, half-shuffled back over to his brother’s side, and patted his cheek. Al’s face screwed up, even as his mouth opened on panting breaths. A mouth full of normal, boring, perfectly human teeth.

He cast half a glance over his shoulder towards the… thing in the middle of the array, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at it head on before a shudder overtook him and he looked away. Al didn’t need those nightmares as well, he decided, and carefully pulled his brother up and around so his back was towards the middle of the room and they were facing the door.

Al lurched, and for a moment Ed was afraid he was going to fall, but all he did was lean over and throw up weakly onto the floor, one hand slapping down to support himself on an arm that shook violently. “Shit, Al-” Ed choked out, throwing an arm around Al’s shoulders just in time to keep him from collapsing face-first into the pool of his own vomit. Al made an unhappy noise, and dropped his head onto Ed’s shoulder. Ed flinched, because the bare skin of Al’s cheek was burning to the touch, and he could feel that even through his t-shirt. “Oh, fuck-” Ed didn’t need the echoes of everything Truth had shown him to know that that? Wasn’t a good sign.

“B-broth…” Al mumbled weakly, sounding just as tired and pained as Mum did- used to- That was not a comparison Ed wanted to make right now, so he shut that thought down hard. He also tried not to think about how what he desperately wanted to do right now was scream for his mum and have her come soothe them and fix everything, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because she was dead, and- He shook the thoughts off with a hiccuped back sob, and focused on getting Al out of the room before he came to enough to notice-

Al managed to coordinate his feet enough to be moderately helpful in walking to their bedroom, where Ed tucked him into bed, and Al promptly passed out. Which was good, because Ed knew he couldn’t hold it together much longer. He half stumbled down the stairs and called the only other person he could think of to turn to for help.

“Rockbell Automail.”

“G-granny? Al’s sick.” Ed said, and then choked. It was hard to keep the desperate, panicked sobs in now that he’d said it out loud.

“Edward?” Granny asked sharply.

Ed sobbed once, and then forced it back down, because he needed to be strong, for fuck’s sake. Needed to keep his shit together long enough to get Al the help he needed. “Al’s sick.” He said again, because he couldn’t manage more than that. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be right there.” Granny promised, and then hung up.

Ed put the phone down with a clatter, and went to check on Al again, only to find him peering blearily at Ed from under the arm he’d flung over his face. “Al?” Ed breathed, relief tinged with desperation. “Al, are you okay?”

“C’n I… food?” He asked plaintively, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow again. “M’hungry.”

“Yeah! Yeah, sure.” Ed agreed. Honestly, he would have agreed to just about anything Al asked for, right now. He hurried down to the kitchen and frantically searched for something healthy that wouldn’t need a lot of preparation time. He settled on grabbing an apple for now, and filling a jug with water, and brought them up to Al. “Got you some water as well.” He explained, unnecessarily, as he put them on the bedside table. He poured a glass of water, and helped Al drink it, because his hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady by himself.

Truthfully, Ed’s hands weren’t doing much better, but between them, they managed to get more of the water into Al than on him. Then Ed offered him the apple. Al just about snatched it and sank his teeth into it with alarming voracity. He didn’t stop until the whole thing was gone, core and all. “Al…?” Ed asked tentatively, holding himself very still, uncomfortable visions of a different set of teeth swimming hazily in his mind.

“Brother?” Al echoed, a touch of a tremor in his voice.

Shit. Ed needed to pull himself together, before his freak out made Al freak out. He tried for a smile, and knew it must have fell miles short when Al’s face crumpled. “I guess you’d like another one, huh?” He asked, pulling bravado over the top of his uncertainty.

Al licked his lips. “Somethin’…” He began hopefully. “Some… some of the… th’meat stew?”

“Sure.” Ed agreed. Reheating the stew didn’t take very long, and soon he was back at Al’s side, helping him sit up so he could eat. He got half way through it before his eyes widened and he shoved the bowl towards Ed, turning where he sat so that when he threw up, it ended up on the floor instead of in his lap. “Shit.” Ed said, because what the hell else could he say?

Al looked up, distress writ large across his face, his eyes pleading as they found Ed. “What’s- what’s wrong with m-me?” He asked desperately.

“I don’t know.” Ed admitted, even though he didn’t want to. He now knew exactly how fragile the human body was, what a delicate balance it hung in. There were just too many ways for it to go wrong, and it wasn’t as if the remnants of his knowledge of his own internal workings meant he had any hope of figuring out what was wrong with Al’s.

“What happened?” Al asked next, which wasn’t a very reassuring question.

“I don’t know.” Ed said again, a little more desperately.

Al looked at him with wide, tentative eyes. “Did- Did we- Is Mum…?” He stammered, not quite daring to hope.

It broke Ed’s heart, and his face crumpled up before he could stop it, his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. It was awful, to watch that barely-there hope drain out of Al’s face to be replaced by the agony of grief. He started to cry, weak but unstoppable, and that just set Ed off, too, years of anxious grief pouring out of them all at once.

Ed pulled himself together first, when he heard Granny open the door and come stomping up the stairs. Al didn’t bother. Granny stopped in the doorway to take them in, and Ed looked over at her with a mixture of desperation and defiance. Granny just clicked her tongue at him. “Go get a mop, pipsqueak.” She  ordered, stepping inside and depositing her doctor’s bag on the end of Al’s bed.

Ed hopped up, glad for something to do. “He- he threw up twice.” He said, just before he left. “And he’s got a fever.”

“It’s probably just a bad stomach bug.” Granny assured him.

It could be that, or an infection, or the flu, or any number of his organs could be fucking up, like his appendix or his kidney or his pancreas. Maybe he hit his head and Ed didn’t notice and now he’s bleeding in his brain. Ed stared at her for a long moment, knowing that she could see just how not reassured he was by his expression, before he went to go get the mop.

He cleaned up their room, but even though he knew he ought to, he just couldn’t bring himself to go clean up Mum’s room, too. The memory of what she’d looked like after that- that thing was done with her flashed through his mind and he shuddered on a belated wave of horror, curling his arms around himself and focusing, desperately, on Granny fussing over Al. She was frowning, though, which only made Ed feel worse. “Granny?” He asked, wanting some answers, instead of this nameless, shapeless terror.

Granny glanced at him, then pursed her lips. “I think it’d be best if you boys came to stay at the clinic for a little while, so I can keep an eye on Al. It looks like an infection, which means antibiotics should clear it up, but just to be on the safe side.”

“Okay.” Ed agreed, even though he didn’t like the way Granny said it. He did actually kind of like the idea of not being in this house anymore, with the prickling awareness of what had happened in the other room constantly looming over his head. So he went to bundle Al out of bed and coax him into walking down to Winry’s house, while Granny bustled about getting a few clothes and their over-night stuff together for them.

“Ed…?” Granny called from upstairs once Ed had gotten Al to the front door. She sounded perturbed, but like she was trying to hide it so as not to upset him.

“Yeah?” Ed called back.

“Where’s your mother?”

Ed flinched, memory replaying, and no, no stop it. “In-” He choked, swallowed down the sob. “In her room.”

“No. She’s not.” Granny informed him, tone going sharp.

Ed jolted, looked to Al. Al looked back, frightened and bewildered, but he nodded hesitantly, and let go of the grip he had on Ed’s arm so that Ed could bolt back up the stairs. Granny moved out of his way, and he shoved into Mum’s room even though he really, really didn’t want to. The array was still there, half obscured by a few puddles of half-congealed- something. Not blood. It didn’t smell clean enough to be blood. Just… dead tissue. decomposing biological matter.

The memory of what Truth had done to him came back to him so vividly, so viscerally, that for a moment, Ed was half convinced he was going to simply collapse into his component parts and ooze away through the floorboards. “I-” He choked, unable to shape words through the guilt strangling his insides. “I th-think she dis-dissolved.”

“Dissolved?”

“She was- She wasn’t- We were just trying to- to bring her back, to fix it, but-” Ed shook his head, not wanting to go anywhere near the memory of what had happened.

Granny sighed, long and slow, heavy with her own grief. “Alright, back downstairs with you. Come on. I’ll come back to clean this all up later.” She continued to ramble a stream of reassuring nonsense at him as she chivvied him back downstairs and out of the house. Ed stuck close to Al’s side the whole way, but now that Al was moving, he seemed to be a little better.

Right up until they were standing on the Rockbell’s front porch, and Al just crumpled. Ed didn’t manage to grab him in time, but fell to his knees beside his brother as Al convulsed where he was lying, twitching and spasming like- like- Ed reached out to grab hold of Al in a desperate, useless attempt to try and help, but Granny barked “Don’t!” at him, and he recoiled.

“Why not? He’s-”

“He’s having a seizure, don’t try to hold him still.” Granny informed him briskly. She leaned over and tucked her balled up apron under Al’s head, and then, just… waited.

“There has to be something-!” Ed choked out. Granny just shook her head, leaving Ed to stew in terrified helplessness until Al stopped convulsing and went limp.

“Winry!” Granny called. “Come on, let’s get him inside.” She instructed, and Ed leapt to help pick Al up. Winry appeared in the doorway and gasped, but then her expression set and she moved to help without a single moment of hesitation or distress. Ed was absurdly grateful, because he didn’t think he could handle her upset on top of his own.

They carried Al into the patient room on the ground floor, and then Ed parked himself by his brother’s bedside and refused to be moved. Granny tried to convince him to take one of the guest beds that were semi-permanently reserved for him and Al anyway, but Ed just glared at her, mulish and silent, until she threw her hands in the air and stalked off to get some antibiotics for Al.

Sitting vigil by Al’s bedside was awful, but Ed couldn’t bring himself to move. It was quiet, especially when Winry gave up keeping him company and went to bed, which gave Ed’s brain plenty of space to spin over everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong in such a short space of time. He thought he might have slept at some point, folded over with his head on his arms on the side of Al’s bed, because that was the only explanation for why he jolted awake in a panic some time later.

The night blurred into the next day. Al woke up enough to eat, which was good, because he was clearly starving, going by how much he ate, but he didn’t seem to be fully aware of where he was or what was going on, and then he went right back to sleep. His fever went up even higher, and Granny made noises about maybe trying a different – stronger – antibiotic.

Maybe if Ed had slept better, he would have thought better of it, but in his wound up state of sleep-deprived anxiety, he threw caution to the winds. He knew, at least in theory, what was supposed to be in the human body, and what wasn’t. It shouldn’t be too hard to draw out an array that would kill the infection without doing Al any real harm.

He snuck out of the patient room and found a spare bit of chalk he or Al must have left lying around the last time they were here, and snuck back into Al’s room. He hovered for a moment by the bed, eyeing the available space, and then turned to crouch down. Before he could, though, a hand shot out and caught his wrist in a bruising grip. Ed yelped and turned to stare at Al, who was glaring at him in uncharacteristic anger.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!” The thing that was wearing Al’s face demanded.

Ed choked, wrenching his arm out of it’s grip. Or trying to, because no matter how he wrenched or twisted, he couldn’t get free. “So it is you!” Ed snarled, glaring right back. “Leave him alone! Let him go!” He demanded, furious and despairing.

“We cannot.”

Ed felt as if his chest was caving in under the weight of that simple statement. He sobbed once, twice, and bowed his head over where Al’s – not Al’s – hand was still wrapped around his arm. “Why?” He asked wretchedly. “Why- We did it together, we- it was my idea, so why are you punishing him but not me? Why didn’t you take me instead? You should have taken me instead!” He wailed, begged.

Truth yanked him down, so brutal and sudden that Ed stumbled and fell against the side of the bed, finding himself staring into familiar eyes made alien by the burning ferocity behind them. “Do you mean that?” It demanded, sharp and desperate.

Ed blinked at Al – at Truth – utterly bewildered by the sudden shift from coldly indifferent to blazing intensity. “Of course! He’s my brother, I’d do anything to keep him safe.” He swore. “You can take everything from me, so long as Al’s okay.”

“We cannot reverse all the damage, but without me, he will recover in time.” It informed him, which was so much better than the alternative that Ed didn’t even hesitate to nod. Something moved against his wrist, and when he looked, he saw tendrils, white and writhing and entirely too reminiscent of that place, spilling out of Al’s skin and seeping into Ed’s. The moment the last tendril detached from Al, he went boneless. Ed yelped in horror and scrambled to catch Al’s hand and check his pulse.

It was still there, and when Ed held very still and quiet, he could hear Al breathing, soft and steady. He slumped, all the way down to the floor, and pressed his head against the side of the mattress, trying not to cry and failing.

We need food.

Ed jumped, and looked around, but Truth hadn’t manifested anywhere, except… except inside him. “Fuck you. I’m not leaving Al.” He muttered to himself, relaxing again. And then something other than himself rolled his eyes. “Fuck. You.” Ed growled again, trembling finely and not relaxed at all anymore. If that thing could move his body without his permission…

Deal with the devil, indeed.

[jamesbucksiclebarnes]

Rating: Mature

Chapter List: [1] | [2] | [3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [7] | [8] | [9] | [10] | [11] | [12] | [13] | [14]

[AO3 Link] | [Fic Page]

Tag List: @crossbowking

SERIES SUMMARY:

"Not human. She was not human. They all knew it. Could almost feel it, but couldn't make sense of it. That was why they were afraid. Not because of what she used to be Before. But because of what she was now."

Having found herself serving as the right-hand to the Governor for too long, Synnove le Jacques does her best to make things right with the people of the Prison. Stuck beside her partner in crime, her irritatingly obnoxious and hideously problematic best friend, Merle, she does her best to fight back against the monster she has let the Governor become.

CHAPTER TITLE: The Sorrow of Crimson.

Biters were everywhere.

Not in dense packs but spread out through the unkept fields surrounding the feed store, wading mindlessly through the long grass. The sounds of their gargled moans were the only thing louder than my ragged breaths as they echoed around my head in time with my heartbeat.

I’d paused long enough that Daryl had managed to catch up to me. He jogged to a stop by my side, looking out into the field through the thin line of trees in front of us. At this proximity, I could hear his heartbeat, too. It was thundering almost louder than mine.

Without a word, he pulled his crossbow from his shoulder just as I unsheathed the two knives from my belt loops, and we both stepped forward into the field.

I walked almost in a trance. Daryl seemed to do the same.

We disposed of whatever biter came within reaching distance, barely blinking through the process as we approached the abandoned feed store. The silence that echoed within the building made my throat tighten.

The two of us made our way to the front of the building, dispatching biters as we went without barely thinking about it. Daryl had forgone the crossbow at this point, wielding his bowie knife instead as he stepped up the small series of steps at the front of the feed store. The metal and wood roller door was partially open. I reached out and grabbed Daryl’s shoulder out of instinct, pulling him back half a step so I could enter the dark room first.

He gave me an odd look and opened his mouth as if he intended to argue, but I shook my head, lifting a hand to extend a finger before my lips.

The moment I entered the room, I smelt it. Metallic and sweet, fresh enough to taste. I swallowed back against the rising trepidation taking root at the base of my throat and stepped further into the room. The glistening puddle was instantly noticeable, though it was obscured, as if something had been dragged through it.

I heard Daryl take a quick inhale when he saw it. The sound made my heart stutter in my chest, but I forced myself to ignore it and continue on. Blood trailed through the interior of the rundown shack, fading the further along it went, until it all but disappeared at the edge of the doorframe across the room from the entryway.

I made myself take a deep inhale through my nose, wishing that I’d had more time to discover more about what I was, to learn how to sort through my senses. All I could tell from the smell was that the blood was human. I couldn’t tell who it came from. Everyone had a distinct smell, I knew that, and it was supposed to translate to the blood, too. But I couldn’t sort through the different levels of the smell, couldn’t take it apart and analyse it like so many of my kind could do. It was just human blood to me. Which was almost worse than knowing with certainty to whom it belonged.

Daryl and I continued silently through the shack until we reached the opposite door. It was left ajar, parted far enough from the frame that we could both slip through without touching it.

Stepping onto the creaking wooden platform at the back of the shack, I reached out to gesture for Daryl to stop. Biters had gathered this side of the feed store, too, and some of them had turned in our direction at the sound of my booted foot against the loud, settling wood beneath me.

There was a car sitting in the middle of the field, a blue one I didn’t recognise. I knew it hadn’t been there two days ago. The door was open and biters were mingling nearby, shuffling around the car in mindless circles.

I could smell that tang of blood even stronger now. Some of it was coming from the biters, that I knew, but there was a secondary layer, a fresher, sweeter smell beneath. It belonged to than one human. That I could tell.

The biters that had looked toward us at the sound of creaking wood were distracted by others of their kind, turning away in order to follow behind them like undead sheep.

Gingerly, I stepped down from the platform, my footsteps silent as I continued to wade my way through the long grass. Daryl followed behind me for a few steps before fanning off to the side.

We walked through the long grass, keeping pace with one another despite our distance, until I felt a sickening sense of… something. Whatever it was, it stopped me dead in my tracks, so sudden and powerful it was as if I’d struck a wall.

In front of me, there lay a body. The long grass was shorter here, having been trampled by the nearby car and what I could only guess was the shuffling feed of biters. It was low enough that I could see the body, lying on its back, staring blankly up at the sky. I recognised the face. It was Sean.

But that hadn’t been what had brought me to such a sudden, dreaded halt. No.

What had stopped me was the face of the biter hovering over him.

Blood and viscera dangled from between lips, teeth moving up and down as it ground the flesh between them. His eyes were still bright and blue, but they were clouded, dead and empty of anything and everything that had made him human.

The breath in my lungs left me in a strangled gasp-like sound, my chest constricting in on itself as if someone had launched a fucking jackhammer at me.

From behind me, I heard the sound of his crossbow hit the floor as Daryl’s breath left him suddenly, as if he’d just been struck in the gut. He stumbled forward a few steps, his breath shaken, and came to an unsteady halt a few paces in front of me as the biter hovering over Sean’s body lifted its head.

“No,” Daryl whispered, pleading and broken, shaking his head in disbelief. “No.”

I couldn’t move. My feet were frozen in place, weighed down by my sinking heart as I watched Daryl’s shoulders begin to shake. I could hear the sobs that shook him, could feel them as if they were my own.

Merle’s corpse rose to its feet. Unsteadily, he began to move forward. Towards Daryl. Towards his brother.

My eyes stung as I tried to swallow past that sharp, painful feeling in my throat, my chest aching with the sheer effort it took to keep my sobs to myself.

Daryl didn’t bother trying. His entire body shook with the force of his cries as he watched the thing that had once been his brother stumbling toward him, growling and gurgling through the blood and flesh stuck in its teeth.

Daryl’s knife was still clutched in his hand, but he didn’t raise it. Not until Merle’s body was almost on top of him, teeth snapping together as he reached for his brothers’ neck. Daryl pushed him back with a broken, heart-shattering, “No!”

Merle’s corpse moved forward again.

Daryl pushed him back.

Again and again, each time more painful and harder to watch, until suddenly, Daryl exploded. He pushed Merle’s body so hard, the thing stumbled to the grassy ground, and he fell to his knees atop it, straddling the remains of his brother as he shoved the tip of the bowie knife through its chest, its neck, and finally, its head.

But he didn’t stop. He kept thrusting the knife down, again and again, his voice breaking with each cry that escaped him.

Something inside me snapped back into motion. I don’t know what and I don’t know how, but I was able to move my feet, walking forwards until I was close enough to reach out for his shoulder.

“Daryl…” My voice was hoarse. It didn’t even sound like me. “Daryl, stop.”

He didn’t.

“Daryl,” I pleaded softly. He either didn’t hear me or didn’t care.

I stepped forward, reaching out with both hands to catch his arms before he could thrust downward again. My strength thankfully counteracted the force behind his downward motion, bringing him effectively to a stop. I used my grip to lift him slightly, dragging him backward and away from his brother’s body. He let me, carrying himself a few paces back before his knees gave out.

The two of us fell to the ground, him partially in my lap with my arms half around his shoulders. His body still shook, near silent sobs rattling in his chest as he let his body go lax, leaning back into my chest, the top of his head just beneath my chin. I tightened my arms around him, letting his arms go in order to hold him in a solid embrace as he cried. His bloodied hands came up to grip my forearms so tightly his almost-non-existent nails bit into my skin.

It was as if I were fighting a war within myself. The need for my own tears to spill was almost overpowering. I struggled to keep then down, my neck and jaw tensing with the effort. In fact, I was pretty sure I was almost crushing Daryl with how hard I was squeezing him, but he didn’t seem to neither notice nor mind.

We sat like that for longer than I’ll readily admit. The biters around us were shuffling closer and closer. I waited until they were uncomfortably close before saying anything.

My voice sounded as if I’d swallowed an entire forty-dollar roll of sandpaper.

“Daryl. We have to go.”

His sobs had quietened slightly a few minutes earlier and now he just sat, staring into space, gripping onto my arm with shaking hands.

I began to unwind them, ignoring the sting from the crescent shaped cuts in my skin as I used my knee to move him slightly into an upright position. “Come on. We’ve got to move. I’m not above carrying your ass out of here.”

I began to pull my legs out fully from beneath him, pushing myself up into a standing position whilst helping him as he finally gained enough strength to rise to his own feet.

He kept his grip on me for a few seconds and I gave him as much time as I could to solidify himself before I had to push him forward. The biters were within reaching distance and I didn’t think letting him loose on them would be as cathartic for him as it would likely be for me.

Barely managing a step between the biters, I reached down to collect Daryl’s fallen crossbow before quickly dashing back to his side. I kept him steady for a few steps before his brain seemed to stutter to a start and he began to move of his own accord. Needlessly, I stayed close by him, running barely a few paces behind until we were well within the safety of the trees.

#

The anger set in quickly.

As so often happened, the hollow, sorrowful feeling in my chest began to grow sharp, until it felt as if a white-hot hand was gripping me from the inside. My blood began to boil inside my veins, growing in intensity the longer I walked behind Daryl’s hunched form.

I could tell, almost from the set of his shoulders alone, that the same thing was happening inside him. With each step, each harsh breath, his grief twisted and morphed. By the time we’d made it back to the road, the sweat on his skin was basically evaporating beneath the intensity of his anger.

I would have attempted to calm him down, had I not made a prisoner of myself with the same mindset.

The Governor had done this. I knew it as much as I knew Merle was gone. The Governor had killed him. There was no doubt. No trying to reason or think logically. It was a truth I knew almost instinctively.

And Daryl did, too.

Had he not been with me, I may have walked all the way back to Woodbury at that exact moment. I could have made it inside without being noticed. I could have found Philip easily, by sound or smell alone. All I could picture was shoving a knife through his throat or grabbing his head between my bare hands and twisting it slowly until his vertebra cracked and crumbled, rupturing the spinal column encased within. He didn’t deserve to go quickly. A day ago, I would have said differently. Given the chance, I would have ended him painlessly, even after everything. His mind had deteriorated but he had been a good man, once. He had been corrupted by grief and the undeniable draw of power. The loss of his daughter and his position over others had warped his mind beyond recognition. I understood that I was as much to blame for that as he was. The knowledge of my own place in his story of decent from good man to the ego-centric, power-hungry killer was not something I took lightly. It filled me with a deep sense of guilt, though logically I knew there had been no way for me to know that this is where things would end up. Still. I should have stopped him sooner. Should have peeled back my own ego to see the reality, even if it had knocked me from my own pedestal.

Now, because of my arrogance, Merle was dead. Daryl had lost a brother. I had lost a friend.

And, if I had to take my own guilt and anger out on one person, why not let it be the man who put the bullet in his chest?

[moderndayportia]

12 Days of KakaSaku

Day 2: Dove

Rating: Teen Words: 1,300

Dove followed the red trail through the pristine snow. No footsteps directed her path—he was obviously using chakra to cushion his feet. Dove didn’t bother as her sandals crunched through the icy drifts, following drops of his blood like a trail of bread crumbs.

Quick, panicked breaths steamed out the sides of her mask, which was pure white and unadorned. She hadn’t earned her marks yet.

The path led her a mile through a forest of old trees, their naked limbs reaching for the winter-bleached sky, barren and stark.  The trail was growing thicker and more pronounced—bright pebbles of red showing her the way. She came upon a clearing and immediately knew something had happened here. The snow was disturbed and chaotic: two pairs of tracks from feet digging in for traction, a bloody kunai, more blood smeared here and there. The smell of ozone lingered thick in the bitter chill of the air.

She found a body. A dead enemy. Female, mid-20s. A gaping hole through her chest.

As she suspected, he had been injured and pursued. And then a battle, swift and deadly, had happened. Dove ignored the quickly cooling body of the missing nin and spun in a circle. There.

Bloody footsteps led away in uneven intervals. Dove started to run, her feet stirring up the trail and making it even more distinct. She prayed it was her teammates and not her enemies that found it.

She saw him then.

500 meters away, body hunched against a tree, his chin against his chest. A puddle of warm blood was melting through the snow.

“Shit,” she hissed and rushed to fall to her knees in front of him. Her hands glowed emerald bright as they pressed over the large gash bisecting his torso.

Hound stirred and groaned, his head rocking left to right as he pulled himself backwards from unconsciousness.

“I got you, Hound,” Dove whispered and pressed harder to staunch the hot flow of blood and viscera over her palms.

A little grunt of pain trembled through his body and he lifted his head to blearily watch her face. “Were you followed?” he asked, his voice gritty and weak. A wet cough rattled from beneath his distinct ANBU mask.

“No, Sir,” she answered quickly, continuing to work with intense focus. The gash was large. But the blood loss was worse.

“The team?” he questioned.

“Engaging two combatants to the West, Sir.”

He nodded then stayed quiet, letting her concentrate on her work. She focused on stopping the bleeding, rebuilding the tissue around his organs, and indulged in a few bursts of chakra targeted at his endocrine gland to release endorphins and stymie his intense pain.

His breaths were shallow and rushed, his pulse underneath her hands thready.

“Calm down,” she whispered.

“Un,” he answered, reaching a shaking hand up to pull the Hound mask from his face and drop it to the ground.

Dove bit her lip and peeked up at him. She knew it was against protocol, and didn’t want to think about what it signaled that he was breaking it.

Under one mask was another. He shakily reached for it too.

“What are you doing?” she hissed with anxiety. “Stop!”

He gave a stiff, breathless laugh as he hooked a finger under the cloth mask and pulled it down. The side of his mouth was smeared with blood, and he rubbed the back of his hand across his lips before letting it weakly fall to his side.

A sharp breeze tumbled through the clearing, stirring through his hair and whipping up snow into the air around them.

Dove was stunned. The chakra continued to pour from her hands as she knit together his rent flesh with automated practice, but her eyes were locked on the pale expanse of skin now exposed to the bitter sting of winter cold. “Why?” she asked fearfully.

A scornful smile pulled at one corner of his bloodied lip and a shuddering breath escaped his mouth. His face was so beautiful but vulnerable. The familiar need to protect him boiled hotter in her gut. “I’d rather you not see it for the first time on my corpse.” “Don’t—You can’t say that, Sir. You’re going to be fine.”

He smiled at her softly and the glow of her chakra illuminated two little dips of dimples she had never even imagined. He reached a hand out to brush the porcelain cheek of her mask. His blood smeared across the pure expanse. “If you follow me down this path, you will eventually.” His fingers curled under the rim of her mask and he tugged it off her face. “Sakura….”

He dropped her mask into the snow besides his and wilted backwards, leaning fully into the tree. A pained cough choked from his throat again, and she could see his teeth grit together, two strangely sharp canines bared. “Or I’ll be seeing your corpse,” he labored out.

A few moments of barren silence fell between them. Sakura stimulated his marrow to encourage blood production as the pale skin sealed closed underneath her fingertips. She tried hard to keep her emotions under control, but when she looked up, her eyes were cloudy with tears. “I don’t want that,” she whispered, pulling back her shaking hands from the now closed wound.

A rattling chuckle escaped from Kakashi’s throat. “Me neither.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he sighed heavily. “Say it.”

She understood. So much of what happened between them went unsaid, but he needed to hear this.

“Please,” he implored, voice weighted with vulnerability. Sakura looked down at her hands, marred with his blood and turned to wipe them along the clean snow. She turned back towards him and steeled herself, before locking her gaze with his. “I resign,” she said, clearly, simply. The tension in his shoulders released. “Accepted,” he nodded.

The invisible wall that had been taking up the space between them for the months since she joined the program seemed to fracture and crumble away. Of course he hadn’t wanted her to join. He’d gone back in only to keep an eye on her. And then she’d been placed on his team and the burden of her subordination had dragged on them both.

She smiled at him weakly as he studied her with unsaid hope. Sakura pulled a roll of bandages from her hip pouch. “Can you sit forward,” she asked, retreating back behind a wall of professionalism. He grunted as she helped him lean into her. She tugged up his destroyed shirt, and wound a long roll of bandage around his waist.

Where was his cloak? she wondered. He must be freezing.

Kakashi’s head fell to rest against her shoulder as she worked. His downy hair brushed softly against her blushing cheeks.

She finished her work and then whispered “Okay,” but Kakashi didn’t move.

Instead his arms wrapped around her from behind, puling her more tightly against him into an ecompassing embrace.

“Are you cold?” Sakura asked hesitantly as her body tensed.

“No,” he answered simply, his lips coming to brush against the shell of his ear. He simply sat there and held her close, as if waiting.

Sakura’s eyes were wide with the possibilities. She stared at the bark of the tree behind him and tried to decide what to do.

“Kakashi—” she started, unsure.

“Sakura,” he said, his voice deep and comforting. His warm presence rolled around her.

This was right. This was so right.

Her hands slowly came up to wrap around his back, and Kakashi sighed and relaxed against her.

They held each other for a long time.  Though surrounded by the cold and the blood and the danger, they both relished in the warmth and gentleness of the frozen moment.

That’s how their teammates found them a while later.

As they regrouped and headed home toward Konoha, toward new beginnings, Kakashi leaned against Sakura’s shoulder, letting her take some of his burden. A soft snow began to fall, covering up all of the blood he left behind.

[everything-lobotomy-corporation]

Worries & Welfare ::Chesed x Reader::

-Chapter 1-

This is a heavily modified AU. Sephirah are human, CEO has a daughter, PS you’re the daughter. I’m making stuff up at this point, I hope other people like it.

He tracked a small bit of blood behind him as he walked, trudging through the puddles of blood and bile and bits of viscera. The man ran a hand through his blue hair, letting out a tough sigh as he named off every single mangled body that he passed. He tried to imagine them walking triumphantly behind them, telling him the news and keeping him up to date with the abnormalities. He almost managed to smile, even though the top of his shoe knocked an eye ball out of his path. He took in a shaky breath. If only he had a coffee right now. The smell was overwhelming and it had only been a few hours since the incident. The remainders of teams were rounding up the few escaped abnormalities left. Nothing remained in his department. The Sephirah sighed, his eyes darting back and forth at the twisted faces of corpses he passed.

"Sefirot meeting. now." He heard. He didn't bother to stop walking or turn around, still shambling down the hall just as slowly as before. "Chesed," He heard sternly. "I need you to come with me."

"Yesod, I'm busy." He finally answered, putting his hands in his pockets. " Go bother someone else."

"Angela needs to speak to all of us on the CEO's behalf." The purple haired man said once more. He seemed a bit steamed, gritting his teeth as he spoke. "It's in your best interest to show up."

"I'll get there. Let me grieve in peace." Chesed said firmly, finally glaring over his shoulder at the man. Yesod scoffed, not bothering any longer and simply walking away.Chesed stayed for a bit longer, the sound of light chanting still ringing in his memory as he took in the carnage around him. He didn't want to be here any longer. He thought he prepared himself for this. Maybe not well enough.

Chesed arrived in the meeting room, noting that he was the 5th one to arrive. He smiled, taking a seat next to the twins and kicking back in his chair with a fresh cup of coffee in his right hand. At the end of the table sat you. Chesed couldn't help but smile wider to see you. The CEO didn't let his daughter deal with such affairs quite normally, so it was a joy to see him prepping you for the position of manager. Angela stood to your right, informing you in her robotic way of your basic duties and such.

"Sorry I'm late." Said the man with the olive hair, making the female twin to Chesed's right let out a low groan.

"Why don't you take your job seriously!?"

"Lisa, Not today-"

"No, Netzach, Not in here." Angela quickly warned, hearing the man enter. "She is referred to as Tiphereth in a professional setting."

"That makes it hard as fuck to differentiate between them." Netzach said under his breath, taking a seat beside Chesed. They smiled at each other. "I can call you by your name right, Danny boy?"

" Shut up, Giovanni." Chesed joked under his breath, making sure not to be heard by Angela. It seemed that she turned her focus back to you. Chesed liked the name he was given. Much more so than Daniel. Sephirah's weren't allowed to go by their real names, which was weird for the twins but mostly no one complained. A few more people entered the room but Chesed didn't turn to look, still watching you thumb through paperwork, trying to figure out what was what.

"Everyone, Thank you for coming." Angela started. The doors closed almost on cue, putting a few of the more meek sefirot on edge. "Now. As I'm sure you all are aware, we suffered a massive breach 4 hours ago that we have, only 20 minutes ago, gotten under control." While her voice sounded calm, everyone winced at the surely scathing intentions. "The breach started in the Security Department."

"Big shocker." The female Tiphereth said under her breath. She didn't really care who heard and Netzach sunk lower in his chair after hearing his department on blast. Chesed offered him a weak smile, hoping he wasn't discouraged.

"Because of this over 100 employee's are now dead." Angela continued, " The entirety of Welfare team, including clerks, is dead."

"Ouch," Started the Snarky red head across the table. "Chesed how could you let them all die?" He pursed his lips, moving to take a sip of coffee only to notice that his hand was shaking. He seemed surprised, trying his best to remain calm.

"Sephirah Chesed."

"Yes, Ma'am." He answered quickly. Angela looked pleased with that, at least. She looked through some papers for a moment, handing a few off to you, who looked very confused sitting at the head of the table.

"With your team dead, we may have to move abnormalities and close your department until we can hire some replacements." He simply nodded. He didn't really want to hear that but at this point there was nothing he could do. Until you spoke.

"Why?" Your question was simple yet the room sat in silence. You almost felt stupid, all those eyes on you. You leaned back a little in your fancy chair, biting your lip. Reluctantly, you explained. "I've seen departments run with only a couple people."

"It's possible," Angela started, "but Chesed has some very dangerous abnormalities in his department. We cannot entrust one person to handle them all."

"I have an idea," the raven haired woman spoke, the tone of her voice dragging along.

"Yes, Binah?"

"Swap his out with a couple of simple ones from other departments. Give him some easy ones and he'll be able to handle the job on his own. If we take Welfare team out of commission totally then we'd be losing a lot of energy production."

"I do not believe Chesed could handle his entire department on his own." Angela said flatly. Chesed felt a sting but quickly spoke up.

"I can handle it. We need the energy production."

"What if I help?" You asked, the entire room looking at you again, a couple of themes snickering. Angela seemed shocked, holding a hand to where a heart would be. "I needed field experience anyway."

"I meant more of from a Sefirot perspective. Sefirots do not normally go into abnormality chambers. Chesed is only doing it because he has no team." She clarified, "I would never send you in there-"

"I want to help!" You insisted, making Chesed smile. "I know it could be dangerous but isn't that what this whole line of work is like? I want to get to know this place from an employee's perspective!" Angela just blinked, staring at you with disbelief. She looked back to Chesed, who just shrugged.

"... um... very well... I will try and fill his team quickly then.. in the mean time. Chesed.. get acquainted with your new... 'team member' ."

[junkyardlynx]

Ch. 3

The stench of death rolled out in thick, cloying waves as we stepped inside. The sanctuary’s design consisted of a long hallway leading into the safe room proper, and the reason for that was simple. It was a choke point to funnel the enemy into one confined space, turning a hallway into a killing field. The automated magical defenses had bisected, burnt, bludgeoned and blasted apart what looked to be dozens of bodies.

Human bodies.

A wave of nausea rose in my throat. I swallowed it down and knelt by a severed head, it’s eyes glassy and accusatory. My hand trailed over it’s sunken cheek, running over a thin line of scar tissue that pulsed weakly with fading magical energy. Index finger following the design, I heaved a disgusted sigh and stood back up.

“Thralls. Deplorable.”

Sarisa’s voice split the murky atmosphere. It was laden with revulsion and tinged with pity, which mirrored my sentiments. As a practitioner of the necromantic arts, I held a special hatred for those that bent the mind of living creatures into thralldom. We raise the bodies of the dead, but only after seeing the spirits off in a proper manner, allowing them their deserved rest, returning them to the cycle. Thralls had their very minds and souls sundered and no rest would find their spirits without the intervention of a skilled necromancer or shaman. Like myself.

“…I’ll watch your back, Jeal.” Sarisa whispered quietly, and I nodded an affirmation of thanks.

I extended my right arm and splayed my fingers out. Exhaling slowly, I sent tendrils of magic into the earth and began to inhale, the physical realm fading further with every moment. The world bathed itself in ghostly ripples as a chill permeated my body - the spiritual realm knew that the warmth of life did not belong on this side. I would make it recognize my authority over such matters.

I emanated a wave of energy through the tendrils anchoring me to the ground, and the world seemed to recoil in horror as I parted the veil. The hazy shapes of the spiritual realm solidified, replacing ripples with bodies. They rose like wilted flowers under a healing rain, piecing themselves back together.

They screamed.

The scream of the damned, the broken and the violated tore through spiritual and physical space, threatening to rip Sarisa and I apart. A lesser mage would be undone. We were not lesser. Thunderous crackles of red lightning splashed from underneath my feet, snaking out to shackle the ghosts by the throat. Their mouths taped, but there was no sound.

“Sleep, children of man. Return to ash and silence.” My voice laced with sovereign power, they acknowledged my command. Such was the nature of overwhelming force. The anguish left their forms and their bodies slackened as stillness settled in the room. A moment - perhaps a minute, perhaps an hour - passed and their forms dissolved into the ether as the red lightning crackled out of existence. I relinquished my grip on the spiritual world and slipped back into the physical plane.

"Good job, Kel'thuzad."

Come on, dude. I hate that nickname. Why is that everyone's go-to Necromancer nickname? Never should have skipped school to play Warcraft with her and Thomas.

My senses reminded me of the carnage that remained as I rejoined my body proper. I closed my right hand, still extended, and swept it to the right. From somewhere between here and nowhere, a cataclysmic wave of fire appeared and swallowed the broken bodies. Only ash and silence remained as promised. Rolling my shoulders, I stepped back and looked at Sarisa.

"You're not mad about the Kel'thuzad thing, right?"

"Maybe I'll find a cow's skull and wear it as a hat next time."

I nodded with a sort of crooked smile, jerking my thumb down the hall to indicate that we should continue.

“So those thralls were used to exhaust the defenses in your safe house. I suppose that's the only way to get fifty healthy men to throw themselves at a deathtrap, other than the promise of money or a blushing bride. Next time you need to count on there being more than fifty people, obviously. What a rookie mistake.”

We approached the heavily warded door that lead to my sanctuary. The only problems being that the wards had been deactivated and the handle was snapped off, with the door melted shut. You know. Minor things. Misplace your keys, forget to brush your teeth, find your magical sanctum invaded. A basic Tuesday. Closing my eyes, I reached my senses out into the room before us, searching for any magical presences. There were four, and they were strong, but apparently unaware.

I kicked the door apart, metal screeching as it separated from fused metal. Reaching my hand into a black and red void, I pulled my lance from the Wound and immediately thrust it forward. It found purchase in cloth and flesh, and a distinctly human scream filled my ears. With the lance still stuck through the body of one invader, I shifted my weight to my right foot and pushed off the ground, narrowly avoiding a blade of condensed wind. An abyssal heat soaked my brain as I heard a grunt of exertion from Sarisa, who had been glanced by the arc of the wind.

Rational thought left me. I had a reputation for calm and collected behavior, but it wasn’t like I didn’t feel and didn’t ache. It wasn’t like I was happy to leave my mother and father to an unknown fate. It wasn’t like I accepted any of this as righteous or good. It sure wasn’t like I’d let anyone hurt someone I cared about. Especially not her. You fill a cup too full and-

With an almost inhuman roar, I discharged pure magical energy through my lance as I came down from my leap. The struggling mage thrashed wildly, wracked with pain before his body literally exploded, sending crackling viscera across my study. Without pause, my weapon stabbed into the earth and I used it as a pole to vault in the direction of Sarisa and her current attacker. With no weapon in hand, I formed a blade of pure malice, giving my anger physical form as a dagger, ripping into the man’s side. As I jerked it upwards and felt the hot blood on my hands and face, I registered the appearances of the invaders with an almost detatched curiosity, as if I was an observer to this one-sided carnage and nothing else.

40s to 50s. Male. No hair. Brown eyes. Short, peppered goatee. White shirt, brown slacks. Currently in eighteen pieces.

30s to early 40s. Female. Blonde bob cut. Mole on neck. Blue eyes. Athletic track uniform, red. Screaming at six pieces of 40s to 50s male.

Late 20s to early 30s. Male. Crew cut. Five o'clock shadow. Brown eyes. White shirt, brown slacks. Clawing at the ethereal blade in his side. No longer clawing. Head missing. On the ground.

Late 20s to early 30s. Female. Shoulder length black hair. Frameless glasses. Green eyes. Grey pencil skirt, blue blouse. Casting a barrage of wi-

My mind swallowed the photographic details in that same abyssal rage from before as I dropped to one knee, my right hand flung out, crafting a barrier from ether. I had channeled a large amount of magic today, between the casting of Xiyir from miles away and quelling the anguished dead, and so my nerves screamed at me for rest. Thankfully, the mage was weaker, and the blades of wind scattered on my aegis, allowing Sarisa to follow up. She kicked off the earth and traced a graceful arc past the mage, arms trailing almost lazily behind her. A series of wet thuds brought two hands and the top of a skull covered in black hair to the ground. One final thud followed soon after.

Recognizing that the only enemy left was reduced to a sniveling puddle of fear, the black heat leaked from my brain and cold calm took over. Pulling my lance from the earth, I cut a Wound and placed it back inside as Sarisa and I approached the woman on the floor. Sarisa’s injured hip had stopped bleeding, and it was then that I realized she had decapitated the man attacking her the moment after I cut into his side. She rotated her wrist and a thin wire wrapped back around it, returning to it's form as a simple bracelet. Man, I forgot how deadly she was with that wire. Made my rage feel silly and pointless. We came to be side by side in front of the bob cut blonde, who was scrambling backwards madly.

“You people are fucking crazy! Stay away!”

"You forced your way into my sanctum at the cost of some fifty-three people. I don't think you get to say that."

Her voice was desperate, but it was familiar. As her palm landed in a pool of fresh blood, she slipped, and her head slammed into the concrete, directly underneath one of the dim incandescent bulbs. It only took a moment to recognize who she - and the others by association - really was.

Sarisa took action before I did, grasping the collar of the woman’s track suit and hauling her to her feet. With a rough shove, the sole survivor  found herself trapped. A choked sob wracked her body as she failed to meet our gaze.

“Miss Lewis, I believe you and the rest of the teachers are - were? - trespassing. I doubt this is an intervention about our school work, so you should probably inform Jeal and I about the situation. Quickly. Calmly. Kindly?” Sarisa’s voice was molten gold being poured over the volleyball coach’s head. She gasped an assent and rambled for a moment before beginning to speak. I'm sure Sarisa felt the same sense of emptiness that I did. Everything was going to hell today. Probably quite literally.

Steeling our hearts, we leaned in to listen.

[malarkis]

Mercy

As requested by a dear friend of my, here’s an old fic I wrote about Willhelm and a few other familiar faces from the usual militia lot. I hope you all enjoy ; u ;

The sound of gunfire and canons blasted through the canvas walls of the medical tent as the two surgeons and their assistants rushed about, aiding to the wounded and the dying.  The men ran about, cutting and stitching as fast as their hands and minds could fathom, but sadly not as fast as the injured were being carried in by the minute.  The medical tent was just as much hell as the battle that raged outside.  Blood puddled on cots and soil, filling the air with its pungent, metallic miasma.  It was more than most could bare, but Percy and Willhelm did all in their power to make it work.

Usually, the two men would’ve worked separately.  Though equals in their field, the two were far from companions outside of their professional work.  A slight rivalry bloomed between them, no doubt stemming from their opposing work methods.  Willhelm was methodical and organized, although a bit too rigid in the eyes of his more radical colleague.  Much to Willhelm’s dismay, Percy was more unorthodox in his ways.  He was a brilliant man, that much the other would admit, but far too much of a maverick in his field.  The two butted heads endlessly, and they were more than thankful when their commanding officer agreed to let them work separately - Percy for the higher ups and Willhelm for the cavalrymen.  Today, however, was an exception. The sweat dripped off of  Willhelm’s forehead as he put the final stitch on yet another wounded soldier.  “Alright, take him away. Next”, he ordered, wiping away the beads of sweat that blurred his vision. The younger of the two chuckled. He barely even glanced up from his work, yet his colleague’s frenzy was as palpable as the bloody mess that lay in his hands. “Losing steam eh, Dr.Blackwood?”, he chortled. “You know, I can always take one off your hands for you. Lighten the load, perhaps?”

Willhelm rolled his eyes at the other man’s irritatingly nonchalant demeanor. He admired him for his ability to handle situations with dire stress, but he also wished he could do so quietly.  “As much as I appreciate your assistance, Dr.Hewlett”, he sighed, wiping his hands on a bloodstained rag. “I suggest you keep your paws to yourself, if you wish to keep them.” Percy guffawed as he signaled for the officer he was working on to be sent off. “Well they did warn me you were a genius with a scalpel and saw.  The offer still stands though. All this stress can’t be easy for you, old man.” A patient each was set upon their operating tables, groaning and bleeding. This was no time for levity. Willhelm simply scowled before returning to his work. “Bloody maverick.”

—————————

Hours passed and still the influx of patients continued to travel in and out of the medical tent.  There had been a slight lull accompanying news of the British forces finally taking the offensive and advancing a few meters northbound.  Nonetheless, the surgeons’ work was far from over.

A flood of wounded officers had found their way into Percy’s skillful hands, but like any surgeon, no matter the skill, he only had two. He kept his cool, but Willhelm could see a slight panic beginning to breach the surface. “Eating your words yet?” Willhelm smirked as he watched the other man toil over two patients. “You know it’s never too late. My hands are free. I could lighten the load, perhaps?”, he asked, parroting Percy’s earlier quip.

Percy felt his cheek twitch. “Well, Dr.Blackwood”, he spoke through a strained smile, taking off his spectacles as to wipe them of sweat and blood.  “That’s very kind of you to offer. Yet a tad bit unoriginal, don’t you think?” The older man chuckled. He couldn’t help but take even a little pleasure from the other’s chagrin. It seems even the great Percival Hewlett’s pageantries and medical prowess had their limits. “Come now, Dr.Hewlett”, he chided. “There’s no need to be shy.” One of the officer’s squirmed as he went under the needle. “P-perhaps Dr.Blackwood’s right”, he whinged. “Th-think of the othe-“ “I would consider it highly unwise, Mr.Parker, to question the authority of the man who holds your life in his very hands”, Percy cut off the officer with his usual strange brand of saccharine apathy. “Or in this case, your limb. Now please, do hold still.” His strange grin made the man shiver. The canons sounded off yet again, making the ground shake and the tent walls shiver.  Percy did all he could to hone himself in, to buckle down, to drown out all the chaos, all the din.  It was easy, or at least it was most of the time. Yet again, today proved to be another exception.  With aching wrists and tired eyes, the man set down his medical scissors with a defeated sigh. Willhelm simply watched, his brow raised expectantly. “Well, Dr. Blackwood. Today’s your lucky day”, the younger of the two finally admitted. “It seems I’m feeling quite generous.” The other couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s this? Am I sensing a sliver of humanity in the great Dr.Hewlett?” “Yes, well, don’t go getting used to it”, Percy retorted. He bowed his head as he focused on his work once more. “The next officer that walks through that tent is yours, Blackwood.” True enough it took no longer than ten minutes for three new patients - two officers and a private - to be lobbed into the already crowded quarters. The higher ups were split amongst the surgeons, an Officer Richards limping over to Percy’s side of the tent, while an Officer Daniels clung to his bloodied sleeve as he trudged over to Willhelm’s end.  A fourth member to the injured party joined them as well, his bespattered kilt swaying stiffly as the blood upon it began to dry. “Jesus Christ, Paddy”, Willhelm exclaimed, recognizing the man. His dark eyes shot quickly to the bloodied apparel. “Don’t tell me-“ “I appreciate the concern, Doc”, the other man panted as he practically dragged his wounded companion. “But it is not my blood. The boy. It’s the boy.” “Yes, well place him on the bench-“ “I would but I don’t think the lad’ll make it if I tried.” The young soldier groaned, his lips quivering as he clutched onto the darkened stain that continued to spread down the front of his coat. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a sputter of blood. “Christ Almighty! Get him to the table. The table! Get him on it now!”, Willhelm roared over the panic. He turned swiftly, catching one of his assistants by the arm as they were about to run past. “Bandages. I need bandages, clean ones. More of them. Understood?” Percy watched silently as the other man scurried away. His usual chatter may have ceased, but his curiosity was far from ebbed. With a huff and a grunt, the young soldier was lifted onto the operating table, whimpering in pain at even the slightest movement brought onto his wounded form. Such a sign didn’t bode well. “Alright. Let’s have a look now.” Carefully, Willhelm began to take the soldier’s hand off of his gut and peeled away the blood-soaked jacket flap. “Easy now. Let’s just-“ “How dare you!”, the officer bellowed from behind him. “You put him before me?! I was here first!” “You both came at the same time, Officer Daniels”, Willhelm said over his shoulder, not even turning to look at the man. “Now if you would please wait your tu-“ “Don’t you dare turn your back to me! I’m an officer!” “Yes and I am very much aware of that. I am sure your regiment will fair fine without you even for a moment. From the sounds of it, they already are.” The man’s brows raised in shock. How dare he! How dare anyone speak to him in such contempt!  “If we lose this bloody battle because of you-“ “And if we this boy loses his bloody life because of you, then what, Officer Daniels?!”, Willhelm bellowed as he spun around to finally face the nuisance of a man. “Now answer me this and answer me quick because I have another man’s life in my hands! Can you walk?”

“Y-yes.” “Are you breathing?”

“Of course I’m-“ “Do you have a bullet lodged anywhere?” “N-no-“ “Well then, what seems to be the problem?”, Willhelm challenged Daniels. His snide tone was far from appreciated. “Are you blind? I fell off my damn horse and now my wrist-“ “Yes, the thing looks broken. Fractured at most. Now if you please excuse me, I have a man with a hole the size of St.James in his guts! I’m sure you can tell which is more dire, considering that it was your wrist that broke and not your brain.” Daniels couldn’t believe the gall of this doctor! Who did he think was? He sat there, seething as he watched the doctor walk away. “Y-you…m-my superiors will hear of this! This will not go unnoticed, Doctor Blackwood! Mark my words!” “Well, that’s if he has any tongue to tell them with”, Willhelm grumbled as he reached for his forceps. “Aye, steady on now, Will”, Paddy warned. “Believe me, there are several things I’d love to teach that man, he’s a right bugger, he is. Though might I suggest we keep things rather untroubled. For the boy’s sake.” A boy indeed. Willhelm couldn’t help but feel the twisting pang of guilt as he gazed down at the young man. He was young, too young to be here.  “He should be at home. Working. Studying”, the doctor thought to himself. His mind wandered for a moment to his students. Then to his son. Good god, the boy looked so much like him - the dark hair and eyes, the slope to his nose. Now, Willhelm was a professional, a man of method and rules. Hardly did he ever let anything move him in such a way. He was acquainted with death and accustomed to blood and pain, much more so than he would like to admit. But this, this broke him. “Well?”, Paddy asked, taking Willhelm out of his subconscious. “What do you reckon, Doc? What’s the damage?” The doctor looked at his friend, but gave no answer. With his forceps and scissors he cut away at the bloodied cloth, revealing a gaping void of viscera and tissue. The boy had been shot in the stomach. It was only a matter of time before the acids and bile began spreading throughout his body and causing an unbearably painful death. And who knows how long it had taken for them to get back to the medical tent. Willhelm had to make a decision and fast. “I-I…I need time”, he faltered. “I just need a little time.” “I’m afraid we don’t have much of it, Doc.”

More blood came up from the young man’s mouth, the dark liquid dripping down his chin and mingling with the viscera that already dampened his uniform. He could not speak nor scream, yet the flurry of fear and panic that shown in his eyes rang clear as the gunshots outside. His cheeks grew wet with tears and blood as his hand gripped onto the fabric of Willhelm’s sleeve. “Steady on, steady on lad”, Paddy comforted the boy, holding him still as he shook with each cough, “Will, we’ve got to do something! Now!” A thousand remedies ran through the doctor’s already frantic mind, and yet none deemed themselves helpful to the cause. The blood was already traveling up to the boy’s throat, the bile and acids of his stomach surely making it hard to breath. The pain, oh Christ ,the pain in the young man’s eyes. Willhelm grabbed a nearby bottle of laudanum and uncorked it. He poured the ruby liquid into the soldier’s mouth while his other hand supported his head. “Will…”, Paddy said, staring in horror. And yet he kept going. The bottle was down to half its content. “Will.” A third. “Willhelm!” A quarter. “Dr.Blackwood!”, Percy’s voice yelled from across the room. Willlhelm stopped, his hands shaking as he put down the tinted bottle. The boy’s grip upon his sleeve had grown limp. He was dead. The doctor’s gaze travelled about the tent, gathering the unnerved glances of those around him. “I-I….I need to…wash my hands…excuse me”, he slurred before turning the other way and walking out of the tent. “Please excuse me.” Paddy, Percy, and the officers simply stared in silent shock at what they had just seen. “He killed him…”, Daniels murmured. “He bloody killed him…” ————————— Percy leaned against the post of the nearby tent, the light emanating from behind him casting long shadows onto the cold ground. The night air had grown silent and still. Only the scent of gunpowder remained as a reminder of the recent battle and victory they had accomplished but a few hours ago. The quiet only amplified the shouting coming from the nearby officer’s tent.

He listened intently, gathering whatever he could from the muffled voices. “So”, Paddy sighed, taking his place beside Percy. The flickering lamplight only accentuated the worry upon his already weathered features. “Officer Daniels really did it eh? Bloody bastard can’t even keep his own boots clean, yet he can keep his word on this?” An exhale drifted from the doctor’s lips and turned to vapor. “Apparently.” The two stood still, the muffled screaming being the only other sound than the groaning of the wounded. “Did he really do it though?”, Paddy asked, his eyes fixated on the glowing tent. “Did he truly kill the boy?” “In a sense, yes. But not to the extent of which most would think.” “Aye, but do they know that?”, the Scotsman said, gesturing to the tent. Pushing himself from the beam, Percy chuckled cooly. “They will. Soon enough.” ————————— “An outrage! This is an absolute outrage!”, Commanding Officer Wesley Péche yelled from behind his desk. “Out of all the people in this company that I expected this sort of buggery from, it definitely wasn’t from you, Dr.Blackwood!” Willhelm stood silently at the front of the desk. He was usually not one to back down from a heated debate, but tonight he could barely even look at the man before him. Instead, his gaze remained fixated on a small scratch engraved onto the dark wood. “I appreciate your trust, Sir-“ “Yes, well it doesn’t seem much like it! You’ve made a mockery of it! And absolute mockery! I hand picked you myself, do you know that?! The college had recommended me your superior, Dr. Langley, but I specifically chose you. Do you want to know why, Dr.Blackwood?” “If I could please explain-“ “Because they told me of your skill, your competence, and most importantly your compliance to the oath you took when you became a surgeon!”, Wesley continued, his hazel eyes glowing with rage in the lamplight. “I thought you proficient in understanding the importance of obedience to the rules. Perhaps I was mistaken.” Though older by a great many years, Willhelm couldn’t help but feel as if he were a young child being scolded by its parent. He clenched his fists tightly, opening and closing them as he took a deep breath. “Sir, with all due respect-“ “No! No!”, the other cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “I don’t want to hear it! Daniels told me quite enough! Not only did you waste an entire bottle of laudanum, a provision that we are in low supply of, but you ignored an officer his right to medical care. And let us not forget the biggest error of all, you-“ “Good evening, Officer Péche”, Percy interrupted as he lifted the flap of the tent. “Forgive the intrusion, but we are needing Dr.Blackwood back in the medical tent. Some of the patients are getting a little fussy.” Wesley scowled. He was already upset enough at one surgeon, he did not need the irksome company of the more confounding of the two at the moment. “Yes, well I am not done with him, Dr.Hewlett. As you can see, I am having a discussion-“ “Ahh! Well then perhaps I could be of assistance?”, Percy offered, fully stepping into Wesley's quarters. The officer blinked. “I don’t see how-“ “Well considering the misdeeds and accusations that are being speculated around the camp concerning our dear Dr.Blackwood, I thought I may shed some light on the situation. I did witness the entire ordeal, after all.” Willhelm held his breath. What on earth was his colleague up to? “W-well…I…I guess, that’s alright…”, Wesley considered, turning his gaze away from the other doctor. Percy always had a habit of making him feel uncomfortable whenever he was in his presence. He would have readily shooed him out of his quarters, but what other choice did he have? The only other witnesses to the incident were Paddy and Officer Richards, the two being unreliable due to their close relations to Blackwood and their injured state, respectively. As much as Percy was far from winning any favors in Wesley’s book, something hardly ever earned by anyone according to the men, the doctor  had always seemed rather neutral to most situations. Eerily so. Neither was he close to Blackwood in any sort of the sense. “Fine. Fine. I’ll allow it.” “Perfect. Do carry on, Officer Péche”, Percy said with his usual saccharine nonchalance as he lowered himself down onto a nearby chair. Willhelm stared in horror at the other doctor. Christ, this was it. He was doomed. “As I was saying”, Wesley continued, clearing his throat. “Firstly, you ignored an officer, when according to him and other witnesses, you had promised to ‘lighten Dr.Hewlett’s load’.” “Sir, I-“ “Secondly, you not only used an entire bottle of laudanum, but wasted it-“ “Correction”, Percy said from across the desk. “Not all of it. The bottle still had over a quarter left.” Wesley glowered, his lips drawing to a thin line before he resumed his monologue. “But wasted it entirely on one man. One man! A bottle can serve almost three men if I am not mistaken. Am I Dr.Blackwood?”

“No. No, sir.” “And worst of all, you readily poured the contents of said bottle down the throat of your own patient! Choking him from the reports of the others!” A shot of guilt tore through Willhelm’s gut. “I…Sir, I didn’t intend to kill the boy-“ “Well you most certainly did, according to those present!” “I only meant mercy-“ “Mercy?! By forcing a bottle down his throat!?” “He was in great pain, Sir! There was no other way!” “If I may? Gentlemen?”, Percy interrupted yet again as he stood form his seat and took his place in front of the desk. “I would like to give my own account of this afternoon’s situation.” Wesley hesitated for a moment, feeling a strange prickle as he sat under the fair-haired doctor’s expectant gaze. “If you must…” “Thank you”, he replied with a smile. “Now, I must say that the first two accusations are sadly true. Dr.Blackwood did ignore Officer Daniels’ request, and procured a bottle of laudanum from the already dwindling supply.” “Exactly. Therefore-“ “But he did not do so without reason.” Percy squared his shoulders and calmly placed his hands behind his back, as if he was ready to lecture in front of a class. It irked Wesley to no end. Willhelm shot the other doctor a nervous glance. “Dr.Hewlett, I don’t think-“ “Hush now, I believe Officer Péche has give me the podium, so to speak”, he replied with an ensured grin. “You see, in the medical world, rank does not outweigh the dire need of medical attention. A title and commission, though magnificent in their own right, does not outrank a giant gash across someone’s chest, for example. Though the two patients did arrive at the same time, Officer Daniels’ injury was far more inferior to that of the young private.” “Well I think that’s rathe-“ “Don’t tell me, Officer Péche, that if you were to walk into the tent with, let us say, a fractured shin, yet have your good friend - what’s his name? Harold?” The officer’s ears reddened. “Harold lay bleeding to death on another cot, you would use your rank to get ahead?” Wesley froze, his face looking like a strange cross between a scowl and a grimace. He was never one who enjoyed being scrutinized, much more so when it was he who was supposed to be doing the probing. “Alright. Alright, fine! But that still doesn’t account for what happened to the private. I should have you tried for murder, Dr.Blackwood.” Willhelm felt his blood run cold. “Murder?!”, he exclaimed. “Sir, you cannot be serious!” “All the witnesses said Dr.Blackwood gave the boy a high dosage of laudanum-“ “As a means of mercy, no doubt”, Percy explained. “May I ask you, Officer Péche, if you know the Hippocratic Oath?”

“I-it’s an oath recited by doctors and surgeons as a means of pledging allegiance to their cause and calling. I’m not that stupi-“ “Yes, but do you know the words?”

The officer simply huffed as he leaned back into his chair. “No…no, I don’t.” Obviously delighted by this, Percy prattled on. “Well, then I should enlighten you!” “Please don-“ “It’s quite long, but I shall get to the stanzas that ring quite profound. At least for this situation they do.” Willhelm swallowed hard. He was already in the thick of things earlier on, and now he was just completely lost as to where Dr.Hewlett planned on taking this whole spiel. He simply braced for the worst. “How about you, Dr.Blackwood?”, the other doctor inquired as he turned to his colleague. “Do you remember the third and fourth stanzas of the oath? I’m sure you recall.” “Err, yes”, Willhelm complied, shaking himself out of his stupor. “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.” An awkward silence emanated throughout the tent as the older doctor finished his recitation. Wesley simply stared in confusion. “I don’t see how-“

“I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required. Warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug”, Percy parroted. “In other words, Officer Péche, Dr.Blackwood did nothing else but his job.” Willhelm turned to the man beside him, his eyes wide behind their spectacles. “The boy was dying, and in a lot of excruciating pain from the looks of it. I may not have been by his side, but even I could see that nothing could be done for him. The laudanum allowed him even a moments peace in his time of agony. He would have died sooner or later, quite slowly and painfully if I may add. All Dr.Blackwood did was ensure his comfort as he left this world.”

The older doctor couldn’t help but stare in shock at the man before him, his mouth slightly agape. Had his ears deceived him? Had Percy truly defended him?  He quickly pressed his lips together and returned his attention to the officer. Wesley sat with his elbows propped on the desk, his nine fingers knit together as he pondered over Dr.Hewlett’s words. After a few moments, his eyes peered up at the two men before him as he reached a decision. “I will readily admit that I know not of the medical world nor its rules and regulations, but I do know of my own rules. The rules of the military. I am afraid there are some things that cannot go without consequence. I am sure you understand, Dr.Blackwood.” A sinking feeling ran deep through Willhelm as he accepted his fate. “Yes. I do, sir.” “Which is why you will be given a warning…” The doctor raised his gaze. “Sir…” “I am a reasonable man. You will receive a warning for misconduct towards an officer, and the amount equivalent to the bottle of laudanum used shall be taken from your pay.” Willhelm blinked.  “A-and what of the boy?” “Gather his belongings and give them to his best mate. Tell them to give them to his family. That is all. Goodnight, gentlemen.” A wave of shock and disbelief surged through the older doctor. Or perhaps it was the sudden depletion of his adrenaline. “Well now that that’s finished, I believe it is time to take our leave”, Percy announced as he lead his colleague out of the tent, but not before turning to the commanding officer once more. “Thank you for time, Officer Péche. Perhaps I may repay you with a check up. I do believe you are due one in the upcoming days. How is your finger, by the way?” Wesley froze and simply occupied himself with a map that lay in front of him. “I..err..p-please just go. There are things I must attend to now. I said goodnight, gentlemen.”

A wicked smile played upon the younger doctor’s lips as they exited the tent and into the cool night air. The slight layer of frost upon the soil crunched beneath their boots as the two men made their way back to the medical area.

“I know I said we needed you back at your station, but I highly suggest you get some rest, Dr.Blackwood”, Percy chuckled. “You had quite the day.”

Willhelm, still fazed by what had just happened, stopped in his tracks and stared incredulously at his colleague. “I…I don’t understand”, he muttered, his warm breath making small puffs of vapor in the night air. “I know we are not the closest of comrades, far from it in fact. And yet…you defended me. I was clearly in the wrong, and yet you insisted..” Percy halted as well. “That may be so”, he said, turning to Willhelm with his signature grin. “But I’m not heartless.”

The older of two stood silently, his legs refusing to work. Or perhaps it was the heavy burden upon his shoulders that soldered him into his place in the frosty ground. “Dr.Hewlett”, he called out. “I…you must understand. I have blood on my hands. A boy’s blood rests upon my hands, and this time I fear a rag and some hot water won’t do…” “Don’t we all?”, the other chuckled. “We are surgeons after all.” “But would you have done the same? W-would you have…put him out of his misery?”

“No”, the other said a-matter-of-factly. “Which is why I applaud you. There is little in this world that I wouldn’t do. I guess you’ve bested me in that, Dr.Blackwood. Congratulations.”

Willhelm tried to fathom something to say, but nothing surfaced except another puff of vapor. “I would say I owe you my gratitude”, he finally admitted. “Though I do not think that is enough, Dr.Hewlett. Lord knows what I would have in store for me had you not stepped in. I…thank you.”

“Like I told you, I was feeling quite generous today”, the other replied. “As you were, in your own right.” A bitter chuckle leapt from Willhelm’s mouth. “Generous? In what? Laudanum? Death?” Percy smiled once more before turning on his heel and lifting the flap of the medical tent. “Mercy, Dr.Blackwood. Mercy.” —————————