#/j do not look at it its a mess and its probably worse then the og show

[sethdomain]

why did they make chloe sound so boring in all the newer season, erm boo

[of-solitude-past-and-present]

Hidden in the Sands (Yandere!Naga!Kunikuzushi)

Warnings: Character Death (not reader, not kuni), Some Gore (description of a corpse), Injury (of reader), Monster AU, implied semi-cannibalism (he isn't human but close enough), some blood (mostly not reader's, a little is kuni's), biting, venom, graphic description of venom effects (used on reader non-lethally), kuni-typical insults, venom effects are made up, kuni tries to kill you (at first but doesn't follow through), reader has a semi-near-death experience, threats, kidnapping, imprisonment, nonconsensual touching (SFW ofc), general yandere themes, kunibaby is Not Nice but it's okay because he's hot, reader goes through the wringer... if you prefer soft yandere, this is probably not for you. loosely based on a rp I did with a friend.

Sorry I lied about the rook and sebek HCs. I have Sebek's pretty much done I think, but Rook remains an enigma. Might post them separately, idk.

Kuni's appearance is inspired by the desert horned viper. If the formatting seems a little weird at any point, it's because tumblr messed it up when I copy/pasted it here. Might fix it later.

6.5k words or so.

The Desert of Hadramaveth.

You haven't been here before. You thought the rest of the desert was bad, between the heat which was "enough to melt a mist flower but not really" (paraphrased from a certain fox friend) and the unforgiving terrain.

This was worse, with its near-constant sandstorms. This was the second one today, and you had only just left the Tanit camp. In other areas of the desert, you were begging for a reprieve from the sun, but here, you were almost begging for it back if it meant you didn't have to worry about getting sand in your eyes and throat. It was almost, almost enough to make you consider turning around and dropping the commission.

"Do you want to hear a dry joke?"

If it weren't for your friend here, you probably would. Unfortunately, you can't turn back now that you've gotten his hopes up. The most you can do is slump your shoulders and sigh, suffocating under the endless heat, what little you could see of the sun, and what you knew was coming next.

"Sure, I'll bite."

A large, beaming grin spread across Sanad's face, and you braced yourself.

"A desert."

"That's terrible."

"Oh, come on! It's funny and you know it!"

"Does that even count as a proper j-"

You paused, looking up at the sky. In the distance, you could see a large, beige cloud. Again?

"We need to find shelter. There's a sandstorm coming."

"Well, looks like we're in luck. Where isn't shelter?" he responded.

It was true. You and Sanad were somewhere just north of the Tanit Camps, near Wadi Al-Majuj. Ahead of the both of you was the entrance to a deep canyon, lined with ancient ruins. According to the map, it was called Pairidaeza Canyon. Behind you, there was another entrance to a different canyon, and according to your map, if you went back a ways and to the right, there'd be a third one.

"Come on, let's go! I need to look through these for my thesis!" He rushed, running ahead of you.

"Careful!" you called out. "There might be bandits down there."

He immediately slowed to a stop, sheepishly turning around to move back to his place next to you.

"On second thought, take your time. Just make sure there's nobody else in there."

You chuckle, already starting a reasonable pace down the steep slope into the canyon. "Thought so. Just a reminder, we're leaving immediately once the sandstorm ends, unless we find who or what we're looking for."

Right. What you were looking for. Recently, small groups of travelers and even large caravans were being attacked. Most of the attacks occurred between the Tanit Camp and around the Passage of Ghouls. A few supplies were usually stolen, but that wasn't the worst part.

A few days later, the rotting corpse of one of the travelers or nomads would be found, half-eaten and with a twin set of puncture marks in their throat. Any useful supplies would be missing, but oddly enough, the mora was almost never taken.

Normally, you'd assume that maybe it was just a deranged serial killer, and either the bodies were eaten by wild animals or the culprit was worse than you thought. But it was strange. What serial killer had fangs like that? And if it was a wild animal, what use would they have for supplies like bedrolls and first aid kits?

The survivors usually all said the same thing; they were caught out in the middle of a sandstorm, and all they heard was a scream or shout before one of their friends disappeared. When the body was found, some key survival supplies would be missing as well. When a caravan was attacked, some supplies (and occasionally people) would even be snatched right off the backs of the desert sumpter beasts.

Hence why you and your friend Sanad were out here to crack this strange case. Mostly you, though, since Sanad only wanted to take a gander at the desert ruins for some Akademiya thing. You'd probably have gone alone (or at least tried to, before you decided the mora wasn't worth it) but when he heard that you were going to this section of the desert, he insisted on coming for his thesis or something like that. He helped pay for the trip, and he was paying you personally, so you had no reason to refuse. He was your friend, and good company to boot, even if he was a little bit skittish.

"Well, that might be possible... but you said you didn't even know if the culprit was a person, didn't you?" he inquired, as the both of you passed the first of the ruins in the canyon.

You sighed. "Yeah, I told you all about that already."

A glimmer of excitement appeared in his eyes. "Well, I've been thinking since then, and I remembered this old desert legend! Have you heard of nagas?"

"Nagas?" you parroted.

"Yes, nagas!" He nodded his head. "They're an ancient race of ferocious half-human half-snake people that supposedly existed during the reign of King Deshret. Apparently they were equal parts revered and feared, as wise and strong beings."

You raised a somewhat skeptical brow. "I thought you didn't believe in legends?"

He laughed. "The Akademiya has declared them to be just baseless nonsense, so of course I don't think they actually exist. I just think it's very interesting, and it technically matches what we know..." He trails off, looking around in awe.

"If you want to look around, you can. Tell me if you see or hear anything."

You didn't need to tell him twice. With a rushed "thanks!" and a wave, he was practically bouncing up what probably used to be a set of stairs to a higher level within the ruins, off to your left. In the meantime, you'll look around, see if you can find anything interesting.

You looked up and around, spinning on your heels. From what you've seen of the canyon so far, it's just a straight corridor with partially collapsed stone ruins on both sides, and a fallen wooden bridge that once connected them. You can see several ways to climb up higher and explore the ancient stone buildings, including the way up that Sanad went.

You and Sanad are pretty deep into the canyon at this point, and you have to crane your head just to see the top. As you do this, you notice just how many floors there are in the ruins. Some have crumbled so much they seem almost completely inaccessible. They're so high up, you can't see anything on them from your angle at the bottom.

There's just so many places to hide. The realization makes you tense up a little. Maybe you should have gone up with him.

It's so strange though. The complicated ruins, numerous hiding places, and the nearby water would make this place an ideal camping spot for bandits and thieves. But so far, you haven't seen hide or hair of anyone else. Not even an abandoned camp.

Until somewhere in the ruins, you hear an odd sound. It's hard to make out, and it sounds so much like the normal shifting sand that you almost brush it off as a natural sound in the canyon. But you hear stone crumbling and rocks falling, and you look up, seeing something move on the side of a ledge too far above you to check. It's close enough that some of the rocks hit the ground next to you. You squint, watching the ledge, waiting for whatever it was to move again, but the sound stops. The hair on your neck stands on end–from what, you aren't sure. Sanad is even closer to the source of the sound than you are, but not far away at all. Just out of sight. Was it from him? Or someone watching him?

Or are they watching you?

You're not sure, and you'll check just in case. Sanad doesn't have anything to defend himself with except for a dagger. Without another thought, you surge up the stone steps, hand subconsciously finding its place on the pommel of your sword. When you get up there, you see him standing with a hand on his chin, studying some old glowing contraption you've never seen before.

"Did you hear that?" you ask, breathing just a little heavier than normal.

He turns to you somewhat incredulously, just as fine as ever. "Hear what? I haven't heard anything. Are you alright?"

You calm down a little bit, letting your hand fall from your sword. "I'm fine. I was just worried about you. Didn't you hear that noise? I saw something move up there." You look up at the ledge the rocks came from. You don't see any way to get up there that's safe.

The sand is starting to pour in harder through the massive gap in the canyon ceiling, and the wind is beginning to howl. You and Sanad are slowly being dusted in sand.

"You're a little on edge. Relax! A sandstorm is starting and the wind and sand probably just knocked a few rocks into the canyon or something. It happens all the time." He flashed you a reassuring smile, turning back to... whatever those were on the wall. They're shaped somewhat like bowls, and as sand pours into them, sand also pours out a hole in the side into another one of them. You're not the researcher here, so you ignore it.

You let go of some of the tension in your shoulders, letting out a held breath. "Alright, sorry for bothering you then. Just so you know, if the sandstorm gets any worse, we'll be moving deeper into the canyon to get out of the sand."

He turns back to you, somewhat pleading. "But can't I stay? I'm not the one looking for the guy, so you don't need me to come with you, right?"

You expected this, just as you expect that he'll be the one choosing to come with you after what you say next. "Yeah, you could, but if something happens I probably won't be able to hear it if I'm down there."

He freezes, grimacing a bit. "Alright, alright. Let me know when you move on."

As expected.

You chuckle at him with a lopsided smile, turning back to go down the ramp. He was probably right. It seemed like such a silly thing to panic over. Of course sand and rocks would shift and fall in the desert during a sandstorm. That's probably all you saw. You're glad you brought Sanad along and not some other stuck-up researcher who would have made fun of you for it.

When you reach the bottom again, you turn your attention to the ground. Aside from the sounds of the howling wind and pouring sand, you can hear water dripping as it coalesces into the wide but shallow puddle in front of you. That's not what interests you, though.

There's a long indentation in the sand, about as wide as you are, as if something had been dragged through. It extends further into the cave, where the ground becomes rockier and the track disappears.

You crouch down to inspect them further. Chances are, it's probably a large haul of supplies that was too big to properly carry. This place is the perfect hideout for thieves and bandits, so it would be worthwhile to investigate. If you're lucky, it might be the bandit you're looking for.

The canyon starts to darken, so much so that you now have trouble making out the edges of the track. Most of the sunlight that filtered in through the top has disappeared behind a haze. The sound of howling wind grows louder, and the hiss of pouring sand all around you is almost deafening. You've had quite enough of the sand raining on and around you, so you call out for Sanad to come back. It doesn't take him long to come rushing back down the way he came.

"We're heading deeper in to wait out the rest of it," you explain.

He sends a longing look back at where he had come from. "Alright... I see," he concedes, with a dejected slump of his shoulders.

You'll humor him. "Did you find anything interesting?"

He instantly brightens up, excited to talk about whatever he found. "Yes! It's this interesting mechanism that fills with sand. I read about it in a textbook once! It can be opened and closed, but I couldn't figure out how to. I've heard if you can fill them as they were intended to be, you can get treasure from them!"

You two begin moving deeper into the canyon, and you send him a teasing smile. "With the way you're talking, I'd almost think you're the adventurer here."

He shudders. "I could never. At least, not as a full time job. You encounter monsters all the time, don't you?"

"They're not so difficult to deal with, once you're used to seeing them."

"That is not at all reassuring!" He stops to let out a breath. "No, I just want the free mora. Trips like these are expensive."

You sigh. "Well, if you want to, we can at least take a crack at it together on the way out of here."

His eyes light up again. "That's wonderful! We can even split the rewards if we manage to solve it!"

"No more than an hour, though," you warn. "With all the sandstorms, we don't have the time to waste."

"Aww, fair enough." A moment of silence passes, and he turns back to you. "Oh, I almost forgot to ask you! Did you find anything interesting?"

You think back, and the only thing that comes to mind are the tracks.

"Well, a little bit behind us, I found these drag marks. Like someone had dragged a big bag or something, I couldn't tell what."

"Drag marks? Oh, so maybe it really is a naga after all."

You turn to him in exasperation. "Didn't you just say you didn't believe in them? Besides, why'd you even tell me about them if you don't think they exist?"

He laughs. "I'm kidding! I only told you mostly because I wanted to. But I have a more realistic theory too!"

"Really now?" You raised a skeptical brow.

He turns to you, faking a gasp in faux offense. "Why are you looking at me like that? Of course I do! I don't study at the Akademiya for nothing!"

You chuckle. "Oh, go on then. Don't keep me waiting."

"What if the culprit keeps a snake around? Think about it, at the price of a little food, they'd get an unlimited supply of p–Hey! Don't laugh at me! It's not as ridiculous as it sounds!"

Apparently you weren't as good at hiding your snickers as you thought. "No, no, I'm not laughing at you. I was just imagining it in my head. From what I heard, it would have to be a pretty big one based on the size of the puncture wounds and the distance between the fangs."

He crossed his arms, looking away. Guess he didn't quite believe you. "It's not THAT unbelievable, especially in comparison to the naga theory... Haven't you seen the street performers with the snakes in Port Ormos?"

You hold your hands out in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay, you're right, I'm sorry. But your theory doesn't explain everything–what about the half-eaten bodies part? And they almost never take mora either... besides, the street performers use nonvenomous snakes."

"I guess it would be risky, but in theory, venomous snakes can be trained too! Desert dwellers tend to be... fearless. Though..." He puts a hand to his chin in contemplation, looking down. "I'm not quite sure about that other part either. Though it's not as if cannibalism was ever off the table, there's always the chance it was just wild animals that found the body after. As for mora... maybe it's someone who never gets the chance to spend it anyway?"

"Like, a recluse or something?" you pipe up.

"Yeah, exactly! Someone who's completely self-sufficient, who doesn't need to deal with other people to survive. Makes enough sense. They probably get everything they need from the people they're attacking."

At this point, the both of you are up to your ankles in water. The canyon is fairly wide at the bottom and grows so much narrower towards the top that very little sand makes it through, so you take the liberty of brushing as much of it off of you as possible. The both of you pass the last of the stone ruins. Up ahead is just bare, mostly untouched canyon. It's damp enough to support an amount of greenery that seemed a little out of place in the desert. You can still hear the wind howl, but it's a bit quieter here.

You and Sanad pass an opening in the wall to your right, leading to a dead end with a fairly deep pool and what looked to be a crumbled stone bridge.

"Your theory is a little... out there, but some of it definitely makes a good deal of sense."

"It's an early hypothesis! We'll revise it as we find more evidence."

You roll your eyes a bit. "It's alright, I'm not judging you."

You look around again. There's plenty of dry places to stop and rest without worrying about sand, so this should be an adequate place to wait it out.

"Why don't we stop here?"

"Not yet!" Sanad points further into the cave, where it opens up some more, with a rock jutting out of the center of the room, surrounded on one side by a shallow stream of water. "I can see more ruins in there! You can stop there and I can keep looking around."

You sigh, for what felt like the hundredth time. As much as you wanted to rest, it wasn't far away at all. "Alright. But we're still going back to that mechanism immediately once the sandstorm is over."

"I know, I kn–"

From an entrance to another path to your right came a blur, barreling right at Sanad. You have barely enough time to shove him behind you and out of its way before it stops in front of you both, dark claws bared.

Now that you can get a look at it, you realize it's a scarred, shirtless man with a dark head of hair, sharp indigo eyes, and... two pale, straight horns? Looking down, he doesn't have a pair of legs, but a sand-colored snakelike tail with rough scales. Even without the rest of his tail, which was hidden behind him, he's quite literally twice your size.

A naga?

He sneers at your sword as you pull it from your sheath, showing off a long pair of fangs. "A little short, isn't it?" He hisses. "Good luck with that."

"Sanad, get back!" You cry, holding your sword out in front of you threateningly. The naga seemed more amused than anything, simply starting to circle. Watching.

While you backed up to keep the naga from getting between you and Sanad, he hurriedly ran far back the way the both of you came, staying just close enough to watch the both of you.

Without warning, the naga lunged forward, one claw-tipped hand reaching out to swipe at you. You swung your sword at his arm, but missed, just barely grazing his side. Still, it was enough to force him back. He brushed over the superficial wound with one hand, smearing what little blood came from it, taking a look.

You stand there, adrenaline pumping through your veins, unsure of what to do. His reach was almost as long as yours, even though you were the one with the sword. This has to be who you're looking for, but you're beginning to think that you should've brought more people.

When he looks back at you, that cruel sneer is still set in his face, but a glint of annoyance is now present in his eyes.

"Lucky hit. Don't count on it happening again."

He doesn't hesitate, rushing forward immediately. You swing again, but it's too early, and he barely has to slow down before he's coming at you again. He's so close now that he grabs your shoulder, claws digging in hard enough to draw blood, shoving you down. In a blind panic, you're forced to adjust your grip on your sword so that you can bring your arm back and stab into his tail.

Before you even realize what's happened, you're on the ground, wind knocked out of your lungs. The arm that had held your sword is pinned to the ground by one of his hands, the other still holding onto your shoulder. You wheeze pathetically while he leans down and slides his fangs into your throat.

Your sword had bounced off of his scales, barely even leaving a mark.

The first thing you feel in your throat is pain, followed by an overwhelming numbing sensation, only interrupted by pins and needles. He chuckles as you thrash around in his hold, your free hand trying to push him off. The sensation is spreading, from your shoulder down even to your fingertips. The only thing you can do is let out a pained groan.

The pressure, from anything, from his hands on you to your own as you push and hit him, hurts. Like everything that touches you only pushes those pins and needles deeper into your skin. It's this feeling that finally makes you go limp in his hold, giving in. It gives you the chance to look up, focus on anything but him, and see that Sanad has long since abandoned you. Lucky bastard.

You hope that he gets away, at least. Even as the half-snake thing on you pulls away to hold your face in one hand, forcing you to look at him.

"Seems your little friend didn't care for you as much as you cared for him. Don't worry. I'll do you a favor and make sure he gets what's coming to him." You manage to focus on his face, smeared with your blood and that same, ever-present sneer, but with something else behind it. Something vindictive.

You grit your teeth. It stung, even though you knew it was the only reasonable thing for Sanad to do.

It's petty, and it won't do you any favors, but you lift your arm and slap him across the face as hard as you can. The impact alone sends shocks of pain down your arm, but he barely even moves.

Instead, he laughs in your face, dark amusement flitting across his hauntingly beautiful features. "What was that? A love tap? After everything, I'm surprised you can even try." He leans in closer still, your noses almost touching.

"I'm sure you feel proud of yourself, don't you? Good job! I might just leave you for last, then."

Without another word, he dashes off to find Sanad, and all you can do is pray the snake isn't successful. After all, what's a pampered Akademiya researcher to do against a man-eating monster?

You try to stand, but a bone-deep exhaustion pulls at your limbs. You can only get halfway up before your vision starts to go dark and you collapse onto the ground in a graceless heap. The pressure still hurts, a strange buzzing sensation rising alongside the needles and numbness. All you can do to help it is curl onto your side, minimizing your contact with the ground.

You lay there for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness for who knows how long. The pain is fading slightly, but you're not sure if it only feels that way because you're getting used to it.

Maybe you're dying.

A chill goes down your spine at the thought, and you do your best to dismiss it. It isn't hard, not when your thoughts are interrupted by a terrified, blood-curdling scream cut too short to be natural.

It brings you back to your senses. You keep listening, but you can't hear any more noises over the constant sounds of the canyon. Dripping water, falling sand, and the howling wind.

If that was Sanad, then since you're already deep within the snake's den, it must be only a matter of time before he gets back...

You're pushing yourself back on your feet before you know it, another rush of adrenaline supporting you. To do what, you're not sure. If you couldn't win before, you certainly can't now. But you're already running as best you can to where you saw Sanad go, though it's more of a relatively fast half-stumble than anything else. Everything still hurts, and beneath the venom you can start to feel your muscles ache too, but if you focus on moving it isn't unbearable.

You forgot your sword. You'd turn back to get it, but even with the adrenaline your limbs feel like lead, and your sword arm is so weak you don't think you could do more than carry it anyway.

You've just reached the ruins again, and looking around at all the nooks and crannies gives you the idea to hide. As sluggish and unarmed as you are, you can't fight anyway. Maybe if you hide long enough, he'll go away. Sanad might still be alive, if you can make it to him.

You don't know how long you were laying there, but if you could hear Sanad, they couldn't have gotten far. That fact is a double-edged sword, you realize. It's been a while since you heard his scream, and if the naga was coming back then it wouldn't be long until you saw him. You don't have much time.

You stagger your way as fast as you can manage to your right. You don't see anywhere to hide down at the bottom, but there are plenty of places above. It's so much harder than walking on flat ground, but you force yourself up a wooden ramp onto a stone platform. There aren't a variety of places to hide here, either, but you don't have the energy to go up any higher.

You hear the water below you being disturbed, in a way too constant to be footsteps, and you quickly duck forward to avoid being seen. You don't dare look, instead opting to slowly move towards a large stone statue to your right, as quietly as possible. With one look back to make sure he hadn't come up to check, you hide behind the stone dais that the statue rested on.

You take a breather, listening for any more sounds. You can't hear the water being disturbed anymore, but the thought of moving alone is both terrifying and exhausting. If you wait too long and he finds you gone, he'll probably come back to look for you. On the other hand, if you leave too early and he hears you...

With this in mind, you rest a few minutes more. The wind is slowing down, and there's less sand in the air than there was when you and Sanad first came through, so the sandstorm has likely stopped. At least the naga won't have that going for him too, once you and Sanad leave.

You'd stay longer, but the anxiety eats at you. It's only a matter of time until the naga comes back, and you don't know what condition Sanad is in.

You get up on shaking legs, your body begging you to sit back down and rest more. You know better, so you force yourself forward, looking over the ledge to make sure he isn't nearby.

You stumble back down the wooden ramp, turning to continue down the path to the exit. You have to stick to the sides of the path, where the sand is highest, just to make sure nobody can hear the sounds of splashing water.

Sanad can't be too far off now. Maybe he'll be in the same state you are, and you both can return to the Tanit camp and get help. You still have your pack on you, but the only thing that might be useful soon is the small first aid kit and the knife.

You really hope you won't need the knife.

Just in case, you pull it out of your pack and put in in your pocket. You're out of the water now, but you've come to a steep hill. The only way out is up. You hope you can make it.

You grit your teeth, sweat dripping down the side of your face as you force yourself up the incline. Onward and upward, you think bitterly. The overused phrase "ad astra abyssosque" parroted endlessly by everyone else at the Adventurer's Guild comes to mind. You never thought you'd make it to the stars or abyss to begin with, but you didn't think your journey would end so soon, either.

Your muscles burn with exhaustion, and you think you can feel the numbness slowly spreading further into your legs. Still, you continue upwards, at a much slower pace, even as you almost collapse a few times.

You come up to a point where the hill flattens out for a short distance. You're panting from the exertion, and you almost breathe a sigh of relief until you see what's in front of you.

"Sanad!"

Before you know it, you've staggered forward to collapse at his side. He's lying face-down on the ground in a small pool of his own blood.

You turn him over, tears pricking at your eyes, praying his condition wasn't as bad as it seemed. His head lolled to the side, face pale and eyes empty, unmoving. The blood, on the ground and splattered all over the front of his Akademiya robes, still dripped from the massive tear in his neck. It looked like a set of claws had dug into his skin and tore off the front of his throat.

Your breath hitches, and you fall backwards, dropping his body. Tears well up in your eyes. Why hadn't he done the same to you? Why did he do so much worse to-

"So, so loyal. Like a dog running to protect its master. You're adorable, really, even if you're a little late."

You freeze, only turning your head to look over your shoulder at him. He's slowly approaching, a condescending smirk on his lips. Half-dried blood covers one of his hands.

"There's no need to mourn. He was pathetic. Did you know that he only cared enough to fight when it was his life on the line?" He looked distant for a moment, before looking at you with something almost soft in his eyes. It disappeared so fast, you'd almost think you had imagined it, the condescending smirk and mock pity sliding to cover his face once more. "You poor thing. You're better off without him. No need to thank me."

You blink away the tears, an idea coming to mind. You couldn't overpower or outrun him, so there's only one possible option for you. "You're a... you're a lying bastard! What else was he going to do?" You yelled at him, pushing yourself up on unsteady legs to face him, backing over your friend's body.

"Humans are untrustworthy," he croons, following after you. His eyes don't leave you even once. He's sizing you up, and with nothing more than a moment of contemplation, his smirk widens and a victorious glint appears in his narrowed eyes. "He was using you. Once you were no longer useful to him, he discarded you. It's pretty naive to think he left you with any other thought in mind."

You don't dignify that with a response, continuing to back up. One of your hands almost moves down to your pocket, where your knife is hidden, but you stop it before he sees.

Your heel hits the sharp incline behind you, where the hill keeps going, and you fall backwards and hit the ground. A derisive snort comes from the snake.

"I've decided what I'm going to do with you. It's much better than what I did to your friend, here. You should thank me, really." He towers over you, leaning down to your level, setting a hand down on the ground next to you. Your hand twitches for your knife.

He watches you for a moment, a quiet, breathy laugh leaving his lips at your frozen state. All you do is stare at him, shaking from the adrenaline. Finally, his other hand comes up to rest on the nape of your neck, pushing you closer to him. You can feel the sticky blood on his fingers.

His eyes glimmer with excitement, and he continues while your hand slowly drifts to your pocket. "You're just helpless. I think I'm going to keep you with me, like a little p-"

You thrust your knife at him, landing a hit on his side while he lurches away. Your blood runs cold. It should have been buried hilt-deep, but instead all you've done is leave a bleeding gash. It's not quite superficial, but it won't stop him, and you know you won't be able to land another.

His lips curl in a snarl as you scramble backwards up the hill. You turn, and start running, but adrenaline can only carry you so far. You feel almost like you're in a nightmare, fully conscious and trying to run but unable to move at any pace that could possibly save you.

It only takes a moment for a large hand to wrap around your ankle, dragging you underneath him. Your face hits the ground and your hands scrabble for purchase, but the dirt and sand only give way beneath your fingers. His other hand finds the wrist with the knife, squeezing tightly enough that you can feel the pain, even underneath the lingering numb, buzzing sensation. You can't feel your hand well enough to keep holding onto the knife. The pins and needles return, and tears prick at your eyes.

He knocks the knife far away from you and flips you over to look at him, dark eyes still burning with anger. "You're alive only because I let you live. Did you really think trying that was smart? Did you finally get it all out of your system, or do you want to try again?"

You try to speak, but the words get caught on the lump in your throat. A hand slams on the ground next to you, and you shrink in on yourself.

"Well?" A glimmer of satisfaction appeared in his eyes, even as his lip curled in a mixture of amusement and contempt. "I'm waiting."

It's all you can do to croak out a few apologies and look away, unable to stand his stare.

A deep chuckle resonates from his chest, and his other face grips your jaw, forcing you to look at him again. "Good enough," he croons. "Looks like it won't be so bad for you, then."

"What? What won't?" you whimper. His hand lets go of your face, drifting down to encircle your neck. Your hands instinctively wrap around his wrist, silently begging him not to squeeze.

That little mocking smile on his face widens. His hand tightens a little, and you panic for a second, but it doesn't go any further. Instead, his eyes grow distant, thinking.

They brighten up again, an idea coming to mind. He laughs quietly to himself, pulling his other hand off the ground and trailing it down your leg. "You can call me... Kunikuzushi. I think I know what I'm going to do with you now."

"Please don't hurt me," you plead, vision blurring with tears. He doesn't even look at you, instead watching his hand as he grabs your calf and pulls it up. "It's a little late for that," he hums, adjusting his grip to hold onto your ankle instead. His fingers are long enough to wrap fully around it and then some.

"I can't watch you all the time, and I need to buy myself enough time to get something to restrain you with... besides, you deserve this anyhow."

You were about to ask him what he meant by that, but with a distressing amount of ease, he twisted your ankle to the side hard enough that you could hear the pop. The pins and needles returned to that area full-force, the buzzing and numbing sensations right behind it. It didn't hurt that much, though. You could feel an ache beneath it all, but it didn't hurt as much as it should have. You were sure you could still walk on it.

Until you looked down, where it was still in his hand, twisted so far to the side that you weren't sure it would ever be the same again. It doesn't hurt that much, but your shoulders still shake and you still start to cry.

"There, there," he murmurs, dropping your ankle to stroke your hair. He leans down lower, a smile a little too sharp to be soft on his lips. "You'll be okay. I wouldn't get a pet if I couldn't take care of it."

You try to push him away. You know you need to do something about your ankle, but he only presses closer, resting more of his weight on you so thay you can't see it anymore. "It's a bit too late for that now, don't you think?" he whispers, leaning in to press his lips against yours, too eager and with too much teeth. You flail a bit, trying to push him off, but he only chuckles into the kiss, biting your lip hard enough to draw blood. An arm wraps around your waist, pushing you closer.

It feels like an eternity, but soon he's sweeping you up and slinging you over his shoulder. He turns around to go back down into the canyon, and you watch Sanad's corpse disappear over the hill.

This time, you can feel him rumble with the force of his laugh.

"I'm going to have so much fun with you."

[mydetheturk]

Title: I Don't Want You to Leave (Will You Hold My Hand?) Author: mydetheturk Rating: T+, bordering on M,so we'll call it M for uh. mildly graphic depictions of how much pain Vash is in. Word Count: 6,730 Warnings: Vash spends a lot of time in pain in this one, Vash has Chronic Pain and it messes with his head, There's a handful of implied and understated "wolfwood has been fucked up" moments as well. If there's anything else I probably should have warned about, let me know and I'll update the post.

Summary: Vash knows, intimately, when the seasons change and there are going to be storms. He tries to avoid being in places where the seasonal lightning storms can turn into water storms, but he isn't always successful. He's lucky this year, in that he has people who care so much about him.

~~

Author's Note: This would normally be going up on AO3, but I'm still waiting for our wife (AO3) to return from the war (Dealing with the DDoS attack), so y'all get to read it here on tumblr. (and if i have to, i will make a dreamwidth/unearth my fanfiction.net account so its a little easier to read. You'll be updated on that.)

This is for @mashwoodweek's Day Two! the prompt I chose was "Seasons," the title is from Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" (feat. Mary J. Bilge).

Enjoy.

~~~

Seasons don't truly exist on No Man's Land. It's hot year round, but people argue about which times of year are worse. Hot, hotter, lightning, and sandstorm are the generally accepted "seasons,” if one deigns to use the term at all. It's easy to track the passing of the days through the weeks and the months, so long as one can track them. Vash has long since given up on tracking individual days, letting the sands wash over him in an endless loop. It's easier for him to notice when the seasons shift; not necessarily between hot and hotter, but between those and the times of the year when lightning and sandstorms are more common.

His body aches, between his prosthetic and all of the scars and metal plates and how he's missing the cartilage in one of his knees. Vash has noticed Meryl gets snippy when the rare storm has rolled in during the off-season, and this is his first lightning season with Meryl and Wolfwood together.

(Right after Wolfwood found him again didn't count – the season was almost over by that point and Vash's memories of them before July were shattered into pieces. The season after is the hottest part of the year, where Vash learned exactly how far Wolfwood pushes himself, even in the heat, to keep Vash and Meryl safe and alive. The sound of a glass ampule shattering is one that haunts Vash in his dreams, when he dreams.)

So Vash knows, intimately, when storms will be rolling in, sand or lightning. He suspects Meryl knows too, can see the pinching of her brow and the way she rubs at her eyes, even if she often doesn't quite realize it until it's too late.

“There's a storm coming,” Vash says, staring out the window of the truck. There's not a cloud in the sky, but Vash knows. There's a pressure in the air that wasn't quite there an hour ago, a hint of something in the way the sands roll off the endless dunes.

Wolfwood sits up, scanning the horizon. “You sure?” he asks. His tone isn't quite disbelieving, because he knows, even more intimately than Meryl, what Vash is. (Vash had spooked him once, bolting upright from a nightmare of July. Wolfwood had been twitching in his sleep, and Vash had hovered his hand over Wolfwood's shoulder, and Wolfwood had woken. Vash's speed had been the only thing to save him from a barely-conscious Wolfwood lashing out. When Vash tried to question him about it, Wolfwood had looked at him with haunted eyes and said he looked like Knives. Vash has never asked, and he probably won't, but he avoids looking at himself in the mirror for a reason.)

“Yes,” Vash states.

Meryl nods. “Alright. Should we push on to the next town or do you guys think we should find a place to hunker down?” She's already got the pinched look in the corners of her eyes, just visible behind her sunglasses.

Vash's knee, the one missing its cartilage, is the first thing to hurt when lightning storms roll through. He taps his fingers against it, thinking while Wolfwood grabs the map and does some math.

“It'll probably be another day or so before it hits this area,” Vash says. The pain will radiate outwards, and the deepest scars will start hurting next. “A town would be nice.”

Meryl's grip tightens minutely on the steering wheel. Wolfwood moves his fingers against the map, picking out coordinates.

“I think we might make it to the next town before then,” Wolfwood says. “If we drive through the night.”

Meryl bares her teeth at the windshield and Vash grimaces. He can't drive, and if he's timed it right, by the time the suns set and night has fallen, Meryl won't be able to any more.

“Don't give me that, Shortstack, Blondie. I can drive.”

“Last time you drove you crashed the truck!” Meryl snaps back.

“How was I supposed to know fucking Zazie was going to show up like that! I don't control the shit they do!” Wolfwood protests.

Meryl slows the truck to a stop and throws it in park so she can bang her head against the wheel a couple of times.

"Ah! Meryl!” Vash leans forward and pulls her back from the wheel, readjusting her sunglasses.

"Fine. Nick can drive. Don't crash the truck,” Meryl says. She's making a face like she thinks she's going to regret letting Wolfwood drive.

"We'll pull over at sunsdown and make the switch then, yeah?” Vash suggests. Meryl sighs and gets the truck started again. She nods, though, a frown on her lips and her brows furrowed. She doesn't mind when Wolfwood drives the bike, but he's the only one of the three who can glide Angelina between the dunes with both Vash and Meryl, the sidecar, and the Punisher at once and not crash her. But the truck is her baby, was Roberto’s before July. It’s one of the few things she has left of her mentor.

“Works for me.” Wolfwood settles in to nap until sunsdown, his (Vash's old) sunglasses shading his eyes. His breathing evens out, steadies as he drifts into sleep until Meryl will come to a stop in a few hours.

“Go until you need to rest, yeah?” Vash says quietly, once he's reasonably sure Wolfwood's out for the afternoon. “Don't push yourself too hard. If we have to stop sooner, we can.”

“It's fine, Vash,” Meryl says. She smiles at him in the rear view. “If we come across a way station, we can make the switch there. Sound good?”

Vash nods. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Clouds start drifting across the sky as they drive on. The ache in Vash's bones slowly starts to deepen, and he makes a hissing noise when Meryl hits a particularly rough patch of rock and sand.

”Sorry,” she says, eyes soft in the mirror.

”It's fine,” Vash replies. It's not as bad as it could be – not as bad as it will be, in just a few more hours time. Human painkillers don't have much of an effect on him, only make him irritable and paranoid. The only thing that really kills the pain is heat, whether that be from a soak in a hot bath or from being trapped under blankets by Meryl and Wolfwood. Mostly from Wolfwood, if Vash is honest with himself – something about the experiments Wolfwood has gone through leave him burning hotter than the average human. Not as hot as Vash should run, nor as hot as one of Vash's sisters, but far warmer than Meryl.

Another hour passes, the suns starting to settle low in the sky. A way station sits on the horizon, and Meryl angles the truck for it.

”Careful waking him,” she says. Like Vash needs the warning.

Vash places his hand on Wolfwood's shoulder, slowly adding pressure. Wolfwood wakes with a jolt anyway. He doesn't come up swinging, the way he has in the past, but he does startle, smacking his head against the window.

Vash pulls his hand back, murmuring quietly. “We're in the truck, Wolfwood. We're coming up to a way station.”

It still takes a moment for Wolfwood to blink himself fully conscious. There'd been an incident while Vash was Eriks, one that neither Wolfwood nor Meryl would talk about. Meryl because she doesn't know the details, and Wolfwood because even now he holds his cards close to his chest. There's something different about the ampules that Wolfwood still doesn't talk about. Vash hasn't had the heart to take one and crack it open to inspect it.

Wolfwood sleeps deeper now, though, if he thinks he's somewhere the Eye can't touch.

So, the truck, mostly.

“How late's it?” Wolfwood asks. His voice is a little slurred, raspy with sleep.

Vash smiles, glancing at Meryl in the mirror and seeing her eyes crinkle with her own smile. “The parent sun should set here in about an hour.”

Wolfwood hums, stretches out. His back crackles against the seat. “Great. Could use a bit to walk around.”

“Another couple minutes,” Meryl says in the front seat. She presses the fingers of one hand to her eye and smooths out her brow. From the one movement alone, Vash knows Meryl's starting to feel the shift in pressure. He can feel it in his stump now as well.

Wolfwood is fully awake by the time they pull in at the way station, Meryl pulling the truck up to a charger. It's got enough to get them to the next town, but it's always good to recharge the truck when they find a way station.

“Gonna take a bit,” Meryl says. “Wanna get some supplies while we're here?”

“We should probably get dinner so Wolfwood doesn't have to catch us some worms again,” Vash teases. Meryl makes a face that Wolfwood snickers at while he lights up a cigarette.

His deep sigh at the first inhale pokes something brittle in Vash's heart. Smoke filters away from Wolfwood as he goes from the truck to the little store of the way station. Vash catches that he'd grabbed their canteens to refill while inside. Its sweet of him to remember.

Meryl stretches out and makes her way inside as well, while Vash watches them both.

He loves them. They love him, refuse to leave his side despite everything.

With a soft smile, Vash pours himself out of the truck. There's an ache in his hips that he hadn't realized had started up, and he stumbles slightly. They're the only ones at the way station right now, and Vash is glad for the lack of witnesses to his fumble.

The sooner they can get to a town with an inn, the better.

Inside, Vash finds Meryl and Wolfwood debating the merits of the various shelf stable and easily snackable foods in the way station's shelves. They're doing it surprisingly quietly for them; he's used to them being much louder about it. Wolfwood's the one with a basket in hand; the canteens have been slung over Meryl's shoulders. The way she's walking, Wolfwood must have filled them first thing.

Good man.

Vash drapes himself over Wolfwood's back and makes a noise deep in his chest. Wolfwood absently reaches back and pets Vash's hair as he continues to debate with Meryl.

“I'm telling you, the red ones taste better,” he says. He's holding a pack of gummy candy. It looks like straws, and there's a little bit of something crystallized on the outside.

“They're too sweet,” Meryl responds. “The black ones are better.”

“You think I like that bitter crap?” Wolfwood makes a face, his nose crinkling cutely.

Vash reaches around and grabs a handful of both types to inspect them. The red ones are coated in sugar crystals, but the black ones have salt on them. He didn't think anywhere outside Sanforrd made the black ones like that.

“I like them both,” he says.

Both of them stare at Vash. They're still not used to him expressing the things he likes and doesn't like. Meryl lights up though, and Wolfwood softens under Vash's weight.

“We'll get some of both, then,” Meryl decides. She grabs a small bag and scoops a handful of black straws into it, handing it to Vash, who drops his own into the bag as well. She does the same with the red ones, and Vash hands the bag to Wolfwood, who clutches the bag tightly. “We should grab more suckers too, Nick,” Meryl points out.

“Way ahead of you, shortie,” Wolfwood says. He's already moving to grab another bag to stick suckers in. Vash lets him drift away.

Vash has noticed as they've traveled together that Wolfwood doesn't like bitter things – he prefers sweet, and prefers sour to sweet, even. Meryl is the one that likes bitter foods despite how the taste makes her nose crinkle. She's cute like that.

They continue drifting through the way station, all three of them idly watched by the station's manager behind the counter. Vash enjoys watching Meryl and Wolfwood debate. He really doesn't have many preferences, other than the occasional head shake when one of them presents something for his opinion. Most of the proteins are repackaged worm or thoma, and Vash doesn't care which he gets, when he's eating. He does prefer thoma jerky, however, and he's pleased to see that one of them has placed a couple of packages in the basket for him. Meryl's the pickiest eater of the three of them, but it's alright. Vash also doesn't see the point of snatching worm larva from the air and crunching on it raw.

He'll leave that to Wolfwood.

The truck is long-charged by the time they finish in the way station, laden down with enough to keep them going through the night and into the next day if they have to. Vash sets their prizes down in the back seat, Wolfwood’s bag of suckers and gummy red sticks in the front while Wolfwood inspects the truck and Meryl unhooks it from the charging station. Vash is riding in the back; the passenger’s seat won’t give him enough room to stretch out properly.

Meryl keeps touching her face and smoothing out her eyebrows absently. Vash can feel the ache in his bones and he keeps having to dodge Wolfwood's concerned looks. Meryl hasn't caught on just yet, but Wolfwood has. Vash watched the way his brows twitched and his eyes narrowed when he put all the pieces together.

Wolfwood knows. From what Vash has seen, Wolfwood doesn't get the aches from lightning storms, the rare one or two that've occurred outside the season. Sandstorms get him down, putting his hackles up and making him more leery of everything around him. Vash isn't quite sure if it's his body aching or if it's the sound of sand blowing against everything, but the sandstorm season they've spent together already has Vash's heart aching for him.

“Who wants shotgun?” Wolfwood asks, sliding into the driver's seat of the truck. “Or are you both holing up in the back?” He grumbles a bit as he adjusts the seat. “Jesus, Shortstack, how do you even fit in here?”

“Not all of us have legs a mile long, Nick,” Meryl deadpans. She's smirking a little though. She likes how long Wolfwood's legs are. She likes draping herself over them when they all share a bed before they actually turn in for the night, if they've found a motel to crash at.

Meryl would drape herself all over Vash's legs too, but she claims he's too bony in the joints. Vash is longer and slightly broader in the shoulders than Wolfwood, but Wolfwood does have more mass. Vash has conceded the point.

She climbs into the back with Vash today, though, scooting into the middle and up against Vash's side.

“Drive, chauffeur,” Meryl says. She says it with a giggle and Vash nuzzles his face into her hair.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wolfwood says. There's a smile in his eyes behind the sunglasses, though, when Vash catches them in the mirror.

The parent sun has set by the time they get moving again, and the child isn't far behind. Only one of the moons is full tonight, the others in various states of waxing and waning. This far out in the sand wastes, there aren't many radio stations to catch. Vash and Meryl share a glance when the static hissing quietly through the truck's radio catches a station and Wolfwood changes it within a few words.

EOM? Meryl draws on Vash's thigh.

MAYBE, Vash traces back on Meryl's hand. It's one of those things Wolfwood either won't or can't talk about.

Meryl keeps pressing at her eyes and the movement has extended to her temples.

“You should rest, Meryl,” Vash says.

“I'm fine,” Meryl says. “My eyes are bothering me, is all. I think the drive was a lot today.”

“Passenger's side pocket has a bottle of painkillers, shortie,” Wolfwood pipes up from the front seat. “Gonna storm, remember?”

Meryl blinks, and Vash watches the wheels turn in the light of one moon. “Oh. How did I forget? How do I always forget?”

The pressure difference of a storm rolling through wears her out, and Meryl's too stubborn to give in at first. Wolfwood had first hand experience after July. Two lightning seasons worth of experience, and three seasons worth of sandstorms.

Vash feels like an outsider at Wolfwood's words, but there's nothing to be done. They looked after each other for two years, trying to find any indication that he was still alive.

Vash is grateful for it.

He is grateful for it. Really. He is.

The heartbroken way Wolfwood had given him his Colt back is another feature of his dreams, soft and broken and so, so apologetic. Like he desperately didn't want to pull Vash back into life on the run but couldn't stay with Granny and Lina himself. There are people relying on Wolfwood, more than just Vash and Meryl. Vash has seen the envelopes he sends back to December and Hopeland with Meryl's reports. He hasn't tried to convince them to swing back to Hopeland, but Vash knows Wolfwood would like to go back.

Meryl leans up and forward, reaching into the passenger's side and rummaging around in it. Vash steadies her, hand on her waist while she leans.

“Got it,” Meryl says, and Vash pulls her back. She twists the cap off after squinting at it. Meryl's nose crinkles. “This is the stuff that makes me sleep, isn't it?” she asks.

Wolfwood waves a hand. “Maybe. I just grabbed whatever.”

Vash peers over her shoulder at the bottle. The moons give off just enough light for him to see, even if Meryl's thumb has Wolfwood's handwriting covered.

Meryl sighs, making Wolfwood scoff. “You need it anyway.” He reaches back and pokes at them. Vash taps Wolfwood's finger with one of his own. “Take your meds and get some sleep. You too, Spikey.”

Grumbling, Meryl grabs one of the canteens and takes two of the little pills.

“I'll keep you company for a while longer, Wolfwood,” Vash says.

Wolfwood withdraws his hand and rummages in the passenger's seat for a sucker. Meryl's given him enough of an earful over smoking in the truck.

“Do what you want,” Wolfwood says. His attention drifts back to the sands.

The truck rumbles easily under Vash, and Meryl snuggles into his coat.

(It's not his original SEEDS Project coat from Luida and Brad, though it is from Home. Their first “mission” after finding Vash again had to drag him Home to get him checked out. Vash had gotten a new coat then; no matter how hard Wolfwood and Meryl had scrubbed, they couldn't get the original coat clean and red again.

Wolfwood had taken to wearing it alongside Vash's darkened shooting glasses, and it soothed something in Vash's heart seeing it. Wolfwood didn't wear it all the time, but the fact remained.)

Meryl grumbles a little bit; she soothes and starts drifting as Vash pets her hair. The tightness in her eyes fades as she drifts away into sleep on Vash.

Vash drifts in and out as well, jerking into full wakefulness at one point when Wolfwood brings the truck to a stop. His leg had fallen asleep and off the back set, jolting pain up his leg.

Vash's gasp of pain has Wolfwood looking at him over his shoulder. “Sorry,” Wolfwood explains, “I need to stretch out. We'll start up again in a few.”

“Time's it?” Vash asks. He presses the heel of his palm down his thigh, hoping the pressure will help with the ache.

“Late. Early? Parent sun’ll probably be rising after a while, if the clouds aren't too thick.” Wolfwood gets out of the truck, easing the door closed so he doesn't wake Meryl. Vash watches as he lights up a cigarette, flipping his lighter instinctively as he does. Wolfwood paces back and forth for a bit while he smokes and stretches out his back and shoulders. If Vash listens hard enough, when Wolfwood stretches his arms up and over his shoulders and leans backward, he can hear Wolfwood's vertebrae pop against one another. Vash has run his flesh and bone hand up Wolfwood's back and has an intimate knowledge of those vertebrae.

There are more than there should be.

Wolfwood finishes his cigarette surprisingly quickly, getting back in the truck after just one.

“Everything okay?” Vash asks.

“Just wanna get to the next town before the storms roll through,” Wolfwood says in a rare bout of honesty.

He tries.

Vash loves him for it.

Wolfwood makes a face back at Vash in the mirror. “Go back to fucking sleep, Blondie. We've still got another couple hours, probably.”

“Alright, alright.” Vash can't seem to kill the smile on his face, though. He hides his smile in Meryl's hair, peering at Wolfwood over her. Meryl snuffles and snuggles in closer, and Vash isn't sure how his chest plate is comfortable for her.

It's dark now, properly dark, now that Vash processes it. Wolfwood has the glasses off, and the moons have either fallen or the clouds have rolled in thicker. Vash rumbles a purr deep in his chest and closes his eyes. Meryl's weight is comforting.

He drifts again to the sound of Wolfwood humming.

When Vash opens his eyes again, his whole body aches. It's settled in deep, and Vash makes a noise as he eases himself upward. Meryl's no longer on him, having migrated to the front seat at some point. They must have stopped after Vash drifted off, deeper than he thought.

“Hey sleepyhead,” Wolfwood says. The sunglasses are back on his face. Vash quietly mourns losing seeing his eyes. “How're you feeling?”

Vash blinks and thinks about it. “Sore,” is what he says. Its a bit of an understatement.

Meryl hums and leans over the center console to look at him. She's also wearing sunglasses, but he can see how she's managed to bruise under her eyes by pressing at them. “Yeah, me too.”

Vash finally puts a word to what he's been seeing. “How's your head?” he asks.

“I'm being stabbed in the eyes and the thought of driving is making me feel sick,” Meryl says. “Even with the good pills, I feel like someone's stabbing me in the temples with a dull knife.”

It's a bad one, then. Vash leans forward slightly and taps their heads together.

He hums at her, a low tone in his throat that he's only heard out of another Plant a brief handful of times. Another Plant was trying to soothe him while she was fading. The other times had been at Home, while hiding in the Plant Chamber of the ship; the other Plants sensed his upset and sang for him.

“How much further?” Vash asks. The words come out of his mouth with a rumble and Meryl blinks at him from behind her sunglasses.

“Not sure. Parent sun should be up, but the cloud cover's pretty thick. We might be in town a couple days,” Wolfwood says. He nudges Meryl back into the seat so he can get at the gear shift.

Vash agrees with that statement. The pain will likely knock him down for at least one of those days and he's going to need to take off his prosthetic.

Blinking out the window, Vash sees what Wolfwood means. This season, at least in this area, might be incredibly active. Vash hasn't been through here in a couple of decades; not at this time of year anyway.

They might need to leave sooner rather than later, once Vash and Meryl are recovered well enough. Wolfwood's going to have to be their main point of contact while they're in town. Rain is slightly more common in lightning season, but still rare, and Vash’s body disagrees with rain.

“Sooner would be better,” Vash says, laying back. He can't quite stretch out fully, but he can get his feet up on the window frame so he's on his back. Meryl coos at him; there's a tired note to it, though.

Vash dozes again to the sound of Wolfwood humming and Meryl messing with the radio. She finally settles on a station that's playing music, someone singing with a guitar. Wolfwood hums along with the song, fingers gently tapping to the beat.

“It's not a sin if it don't make me cry,” Wolfwood croons under his breath. Vash idly wishes he could hear Wolfwood sing for real as he lets the movement of the truck rock him to sleep again.

Vash wakes as the truck pulls to a stop. The pain eclipses his body, but there are points from where the pain radiates the most. His (lack of) arm, the chest plate, the knee where his cartilage is just gone.

“We made it to town,” Meryl says quietly. She's peering at him from over the back of the front seat. “Nick's going in and getting us a room. He's gonna try to get one with a bathroom, if they have one.”

Vash grunts slightly, his breath rattling. It's not the injury rattle, though it is pained.

“Just a bit longer, Vash,” Meryl says. “Nick should be out soon.” She reaches over the center console and takes Vash's hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over the back. His glove prevents skin-to-skin contact but for his index and pinky, but she's never really seemed to care. Vash thinks he loves that about her.

True to Meryl's word, Wolfwood comes back out of the building soon after.

He leans against the back door of the truck, breathing deeply a couple of times before he opens it. “Got a room for a couple of days,” he says. “Its not much, only one bed, but there's a private bathroom. It sounds like it might even have a tub we can use.” Wolfwood reaches out and pets Meryl's hair briefly.

He's worried and bad at showing it. Vash rattles a weak purr at him. Wolfwood strokes Vash's cheek from nose to ear.

“I'll get you two settled, then the truck moved. Shortstack, you good to walk?”

“Yeah. Might take a minute if there's stairs though.”

“Convinced them to give us a first floor room. Didn't want to risk you two with anything higher up.”

Vash loves him. Wolfwood claims he's not kind and then he does this? Liar.

Meryl gets out of the truck and shoves her sunglasses as far up her face as she can. She's got her shoulders hunched up and her jacket around her shoulders, the collar flipped up to hide some of her face and block out extra light. Vash lets Wolfwood slide him out of the truck into his arms to carry Vash bridal style. Vash swallows heavily, and Wolfwood murmurs something against his forehead. Vash doesn't quite hear it over the grinding of his joints, but he tries to get his arm around Wolfwood's neck anyway. Not that he needs to – Wolfwood can carry Vash with no problems even easier than he slings the Punisher around.

Wolfwood kicks the door closed behind him once he's got Vash safe in his arms. Meryl makes a cranky noise but goes inside first, holding the inn's door open for them. Vash process the fact that the innkeeper calls Wolfwood Padre but doesn't get much more as a wave of pain cramps up his leg.

“Easy, angel,” Wolfwood murmurs.

“Soon,” Vash mumbles. “It's gonna storm soon.”

The wind is kicking up – Vash curls his body as he can and presses his face into Wolfwood's throat. He's always hated this season, tries to avoid the parts of No Man's Land that are in it whenever he can. The storms that flare up out of season he can handle – most of them are over quickly. When the seasons – and Vash uses the word loosely – change, Vash knows intimately. Especially when he's gone into an area where the season's already moved in. The red sands should have tipped him off when he spotted them two days before, but all he'd thought about at the time was a flash of memory he didn't realize he'd lost.

Vash thinks Meryl leads them through the inn to the room the innkeeper lent them, but the next little while is a blur, tucked into Wolfwood's throat as he is. He'll probably have markings from Wolfwood's rosary on his face when he emerges, Vash thinks with a horrible giggle. It's better than the Plant markings that show up. Had he lost Meryl and Wolfwood that day on the sandsteamer, Vash wouldn't have blamed them.

Another pulse of pain, sharper than the way his stump pulses with his heartbeat. Vash might make a noise. He's not terribly sure. Tears leak out of the corners of his eyes, and a gentle hand wipes them away. The size of the fingers indicate Meryl. They're small and delicate, calloused in a different way from Wolfwood's, from Vash's own.

Wolfwood gently deposits Vash on the bed and disappears through one of the doors for a moment when Vash cracks open his eyes. The sound of water hits Vash's ears and he shudders a breath. “’sit hot?” he slurs.

“Nick's checking, Vash,” Meryl says. He thinks she says that, anyway. He's not sure he hears her properly over the sound of the now-howling wind. He lets her manhandle him slightly to get his coat off, lets her take off his shooting glasses and place them delicately on the bedside table. He can hear the click of that just fine, but the shape of the words from his own partner's voice? Clearly not.

He flinches when she moves to take off his prosthetic, eyes half-lidded and heat spreading from the end. She doesn't need to be doing this, he thinks, she's already hurting and feeling terrible.

Someone starts petting his hair, and Vash leans into the touch. This, he can handle at the moment. A second set of hands joins in, carefully getting Vash's shirt off him. Vash sucks in a slightly panicked breath, but he knows those hands. They're Nico’s.

“We've got you, Vash,” Nico says. “I ain't letting anyone take you away again.”

This time, he lets them take off his arm. Nico unhooks Vash’s gun belt, slides the leather from around his waist and thigh. He doesn't crack a joke or anything about it, which means Vash looks as bad as he feels. One of them gets Vash's boots, and Nico disappears for a moment. Meryl wrestles with Vash's pants, and Vash helps where he can. Trying to get his leg to bend is impossible, though, and she slides the pants off his legs. Vash gasps, but Meryl's seen him like this before.

The wind howls, and all Vash can hear is the sound of his fluid pulsing in his ears over the burning of rubble and the crashing of ships. It's bad, then.

A hand on his shoulder has Vash flinching back, grabbing it in his own and squeezing. Blinking fiercely, Vash focuses his vision on Nico, who just looks at him with too soft eyes. Too soft for Vash to deserve.

“Easy, Angel,” Nico says again.

“Nico,” Vash rasps. He lets go of Nico's arm and reaches out with his hand.

Nico comes easily, tucking Vash under his chin and into his chest. “I'm here.”

“Meryl?”

A small body leans against Vash's back. “I'm here too,” Meryl says. Vash slowly calms down.

“Sorry,” Vash mumbles eventually. Meryl shakes her head into Vash's shoulder blades and Nico snorts softly into Vash's hair. Vash is trapped, but not in danger.

“Storm rolled in faster than any of us thought,” Nico says. Vash can hear it now, over Nico and Meryl's steady pulses. It's not a regular lightning storm; there's rain too. It could be flooding where they were an hour or two ago.

“It's why my head is so bad,” Meryl says. Her lips tickle against Vash's spine.

“And pro'ly why you're such a wreck,” Nico adds. He trails his fingers up and down Vash's side.

Vash just nods. Okay. That's... that's fine.

“Lemme get you up,” Nico says, and Meryl pulls back a little. Vash sways slightly as he sits up on his own, and Nico's hand doesn't leave his shoulder even as Nico stands up off the bed. “Water should still be hot, but you like it hotter'n we do anyway.”

Vash blinks a couple of times as he sluggishly processes this. “That sounds... good.” Meryl slides off the bed beside Vash, her hands hovering around his waist, just above his underwear.

“May I...?” she trails off. She's always trailed off if she's asking to take off his underwear, and she's always asked.

“I don't think I can bend?” Vash offers. He instinctively tips his head slightly and the movement twinges the nerves and tendons and muscles down his back. He hadn't forgotten about that particular injury – it just wasn’t as prominent until right now.

Meryl presses a soft kiss to Vash's sternum, and her hands settle on the waistband of his underwear, peeling them off carefully. Nico holds Vash steady as he steps up and out, hissing as Vash tries to bend his knee and fails. They end up on the pile that Vash dimly recognizes as his clothes.

Nico carefully manhandles Vash into the bathroom, where there's a tub of still-steaming water waiting for him. Vash could cry. Vash might, in fact, be crying. He's making awkward hiccupy noises, anyway.

“I got ya, I got ya,” Nico says. He scoops Vash up and carefully deposits him in the tub. It's an old clawfoot, big and deep enough for Vash to stretch out near-fully in the water.

It's deliciously hot, and he sinks in shoulder deep. The heat is already sinking into his body, almost too much before his muscles start to relax. Vash groans as his locking muscles and joints unlock. It's almost painful, but in the opposite direction of actual pain.

Vash makes a curious noise when Nico pets his hair. Not even the deep rumble of thunder covering up Nico's words could prevent Vash from staying in the tub and Vash makes a protesting noise and sinks down almost nose deep. Nico chuckles and kisses Vash's forehead.

Nico leaves Vash in the bathroom to soak in the heat. Vash stares at the door for a while before he slowly raises up so his mouth's not in the water any longer. He can just hear someone – Nico, by the footsteps – walking around in the other room.

With a heavy sigh, Vash tips his head back against the head of the tub. The heat is helping. He dozes in the tub; the storm raging outside can't chase him out of it now.

The door creaks open and Vash sluggishly blinks his eyes a few times so he can see.

Wolfwood is at the door, stripped down to his shirtsleeves. He's shoeless and as Vash roves his eyes up and down over Wolfwood's frame, he notices little things missing. His sleeve garters, his shoulder holsters, his belt – all are missing from Wolfwood's body. Vash is a little too tired to parse much more at the moment though.

Wolfwood looks softer than usual, dressed down and not on alert for once.

He pads in to check on Vash. “Hey angel,” Wolfwood says. “How you feeling?”

“Hi yourself,” Vash responds. “Warmer. Better than before. Doesn't hurt nearly as much.”

Wolfwood smiles, one of the real soft ones that Vash loves.

“Good. Shorty's out like a light again. Head's still killing her.” Wolfwood sits on a bucket beside the tub that Vash hadn't noticed before. “Gonna wash your hair, alright? Since you're already in here.”

Vash narrows his eyes a smidge at the uncharacteristic generosity. Wolfwood's been extra sweet the last day, and if Vash had more energy it would be putting him on edge. As it is, Vash wouldn't mind if Wolfwood washed his hair. Wolfwood shouldn't, but its not like Vash can stop him.

“Fine,” Vash says. Wolfwood's smile turns more tender.

“Good. I managed to charm the innkeeper out of some soap. It's not half bad, either.” Wolfwood rolls up his shirtsleeves. “I'm gonna get a cup and the soap. I'll be back in a minute, sweetheart.” Wolfwood tips Vash's face up with his fingertips and gives him a careful upside-down kiss. Wolfwood disappears out the door but he returns just as fast, a cup and a bar of soap in his hands and his sleeve garters back on his arms.

“Could've taken off your shirt,” Vash says. He doesn't mind, really. The garters only emphasize Wolfwood's muscle in a tease that Wolfwood usually plays up.

“Not just yet, pretty thing,” Wolfwood replies. “Don't think you'll be up to anything frisky by the time I'm done with you, anyway.” He's got a slight smirk playing on his lips.

Jerk.

Wolfwood combs his fingers through Vash's hair a couple of times and fills the cup with water. It's still warm on Vash's skin, and Vash sighs deeply at the touch. Wolfwood scratches lightly as he works the soap into a lather in Vash's hair, making Vash flutter his eyes closed and a low purr escape from his slightly parted lips. Despite how he's ached the last day, this is nice.

Vash lets Nico manhandle him so he can wash Vash's hair, carefully working his fingers through the dusty strands. Nico's humming that song from this morning, the one from the car. The humming dies off, and Vash makes an inquisitive noise. “Gotta rinse out your hair, sweetheart,” Nico says. “Lean forward for me?” Vash tips forward; from the corner of his eye he sees Nico scoop the cup through the water so he can pour it over Vash's head. The motion repeats a few times as Nico rinses out the soap and the sand and anything else Vash might have in his hair. Nico runs his thumbs up and down the back of Vash's neck a few times. Vash moans a little bit when Nico rubs out a particularly tense knot; he knows he's going to get teased by the tone of Nico's half-snort.

“Gettin' you all worn out and I ain't even got you in bed yet, sweetheart,” Nico teases.

“Don't be mean,” Vash whines. All he wants now is to curl up with his two favorite people and sleep off what aches remain.

Nico's lips press against the top of Vash's spine in a gentle kiss. They're slightly chapped – Nico must have worried himself sick over Vash and Meryl being down.

“Let's get you out of the tub, yeah?” Nico says. The skin where he's pressing his lips to tingles under his touch.

Vash leans back up with some crackling, but there's less pain overall. Nico guides Vash out of the tub, helping him stand and drying him off with a soft, worn towel. Vash's sleep clothes are already in the bathroom, much to his surprise. Nico'd been ready whenever Vash was, apparently. Slowly, Nico helps him dress; Vash is worn out by the time they're done and the sound of the storm still going outside is distant. Nico scoops Vash up in his arms again, back in the bridal carry from earlier to take Vash to the bed where Meryl has long since fallen asleep in. Nico makes sure to deposit Vash behind Meryl where he can lay with his full arm free. Vash presses himself in against Meryl's back, arm slinging around her waist.

“Coming to bed?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Nah. Gonna be up a while yet.” Nico throws a lightweight sheet over the two of them. Meryl snuffles down into it in her sleep, tucking up against Vash. “Rest. I want you full up if we have to run out of town if someone realizes who we are.” Nico strokes Vash's hair again and goes to the door, where Vash can hear him messing with the Punisher.

Vash will rest. When he's done, he'll make Nico rest. If he can't, Meryl will. Vash closes his eyes to the sound of Nico cleaning his gun, the storm on its way out, and Meryl's soft snores. He might not sleep again, but he will rest.

[cruesuffix]

Maybe to add on, Mick also vents to Nikki about his alcohol problem. A bit hesitant at first because he knows Nikki isn't usually the person to talk about addictions but y'know. He talks about how 'fat' it's making him, how he feels so disgusted with himself. Nikki consoling him, but, oh no, the dam breaks, Mick is crying, talking about how worthless he feels. But don't worry, Nikki's there! Nikki holds him, pets his hair, rubs his back, gently shushing him till he calms down

woah anon… are you peering inside my brain rn?? /j i swear i have a very vaguely similar idea lingering in my notes app from months ago! (great minds think alike as they say and also… i just love scenarios like these what can i say!)

i think about a scenario like this every so often… it’s probably why im so weirdly attached to girls era crue. like i know that was the bands collective mental breakdown but… its just so interesting to me. ughhh poor mick hesitating to talk to anyone about his problems because like… in his head he’s thinking ‘well it’s not as bad as what nikki’s got going on!’ like, he’s not doing hard drugs so who cares if he can’t go onstage without at least six shots of vodka? still, it weighs on him, he can’t help but hate what he sees in the mirror, and it messing with his confidence. but alas, he still doesn’t think he’s as bad as the terror twins on a night off, so he puts it off and only gets worse.

then finally during that small window of time where nikki briefly gets sober while on tour, mick finally makes a point to go talk to him. of course in his head he’s just thinking of venting a bit about it and hoping that’ll help him out a bit. maybe if he’s lucky, nikki will give him some advice, tell him how he’s managing to stay sober and then he can go back to his hotel room and… not drink. then when he’s in nikkis hotel room, he just lets lose. talking about how disgusting he feels, how he can’t even look in the mirror cause he knows he “looks bad.” how he can’t believe how far he let himself go and even talking about it is starting to make him feel worse. and then he’s starting to get emotional… probably because he had started drinking before he even got to nikki so now he can’t even stop himself from crying.

this of course, scares the hell out of nikki, he’s probably never seen mick cry at this point. so he’s just kinda frozen a bit before he kicks into gear and starts consoling him. maybe he tries to be nice and tells him he isn’t fat and that he doesn’t look “that bad.” but mick wouldn’t have any of that. he’d tell nikki to stop lying, and that they both “have eyes.” he can’t stop calling himself worthless and ugly, and nikki kind of has to take him by the shoulders and tell him to stop saying that. then; he’s just pulling him into a hug and rubbing his back and just letting him sob a bit. nikki would just keep telling him all the things he’s saying aren’t true and that in his eyes he’s beautiful. trying to hush him and reassuring him that everything’s fine.

maybe once micks calmed down, they have a more productive conversation and nikki tried to give him some advice… that, let’s be real, both of them are going to forget about within a week. and nikki’s still trying to convince mick that he doesn’t look that bad, and that he’s exaggerating how “bad” it really is. mick still doesn’t really believe him, but he’ll let himself be pet and consoled and told he’s not ugly or fat. (also bonus points if they fall asleep together at one point with nikki just cradling mick in his arms.)

UGHHHHH now i’m going to replay the last ask and this one in my head over and over now so i can go beddy bye! anon this one was just as amazing as your last one i love it i love it i love it!!!!

[causenessus]

GOOD MORNING 🗣️🗣️ i know its like 6 something am but we're gonna ignore that bc i physically cannot fall back asleep (curse insomnia)!! make sure you eat enough today and drink water! idk when you're gonna answer this ask but im assuming at nighttime like usual so dont forget to take your meds 🙂‍↕️

omg recently ive been having matcha a concerning amount like i went to an asian store like a WEEK ago and now like every day im making something with it... it's probably fine though?? i wasnt even a big matcha enthusiast before but i remembered seeing a post from you and literally all it said was matcha break and i was like "hm! that sounds pretty good tbh now i want matcha." so here i am, after buying matcha. addiction isn't pretty/j

ANYWAY when i was trying to fall asleep i randomly remembered when u put up a shelf and accidentally messed up a tag on your post about it😭 i think it said something like "if you're rintarou suna i don't care" and when i read it i was like oo that's not! and then u reblogged it with the correction BUT APPARENTLY IM THE EXCEPTION ‼️ i think we got married under that post LMAOAOAO so i remembered all of that when i was trying to fall asleep and then i js started laughing it was so stupid omg,, pushed back my sleeping like 15 minutes but it was worth it bc it was funny

SO ITS MY FIRST DAY BACK TO SCHOOL TODAY OH MY GOSH 😨 itll probably fine im just dramatic but theres sm people i do NOT wanna see. like keep them far away from me or ill flip my shit type of not wanna see 🥰 so thats always fun yk! we're in this together now ness 🙂‍↕️

HAVE A GOOD DAY!! <333

HELLO HELLO SAV!!! i'm sorry for how long it took me to answer your ask </33 PLEASE MAKE SURE TO EAT AND DRINK AND TAKE YOUR MEDS AS WELL!! THANK YOU SO MUCH LOVE <3

matcha addictions are really not pretty LMAO for my wallet or anything else but honestly i love it!! and i'm so happy to have converted you!!! they're super super good i actually love that their bitter and honestly i will drink any matcha no matter if it's sweet or unsweetened 😭😭 my addiction is so bad that i even drink like two a day usually but at least....it's energizing...!!!!! so i hope you're enjoying your matchas <33

AND LMAO THE WAY I BURST OUT LAUGHING ABOUT THAT STORY YOU WERE REMEMBERING 😭😭😭 I'M GLAD TO HAVE MADE YOU LAUGH BC THAT WAS NOT A PRETTY MOMENT WE DEF GOT MARRIED UNDER THAT POST!! <33333 but i went back to like read my post twirling my hairs like "omg i love suna so much 🥰" and then reread the post like "OMG HOLD ON WAIT I SAID I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT HIM </3" but he knows i meant well 😔😔 and i corrected it in the end!!

AND I TOTALLY GET IT YOU'RE NOT DRAMATIC AT ALL!! THAT'S HOW I FEEL LIKE 24/7 LIKE YES I'VE BEEN BACK IN SCHOOL FOR A WEEK and still everyday i wake up like "man i am not looking forward to seeing these people today" like they never get better </3 in fact, they get worse 💀 I HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT DAY!!! AND LUCKILY IT'S FRIDAY SO I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND AS WELL!! AND GET TO REST A LITTLE BEFORE THIS NEXT WEEK STARTS </3

[shkika]

I'm starting to think this is making yur wrist WORSE with all the typing /lhj also also also type as long as you'd like its so fun reading it all

Anyway that makes a lot of sense actually like.,.,,..wow man rainworld is really?? Sad when you think about it god

I wonder if moon felt any sort of obligation to be how she was towards fp aside from being the big sister etc, like maybe bc he was built to like carry her population something like that I think its silly how she spoke so badly of the ancients but then when fp ends up doing something she's so much more like understanding I guess it shows how much she does really care

Maybe her anger is driven more towards what she could have done herself alongside being mainky the ancients..She seems the type imo like......maybe she should have started the communications faster or maybe if she had done more he wouldnt have felt the need to work with the rot in the first place or maybe that she didnt even really figure something was terribly terribly wrong in the first place?? Itd be cool I think if she was only so patient with fp actually like...... she was faster to stop forgiving with other iterators or anything really, but I think as you said way earlier she'd just be a little passive aggressive or something and that'd be enough for her probably

I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THE ROT BEING GOSSIP MATERIAL that must've messed pebbles up like so so SOO bad. Like first off he failed he did what he never wanted to do and then it just gets spread around?? As conversation?? Like wow. Wow wow wow thanks I guess. Ok.

Speaking of suns too I wonder do they regret telling pebbles (someone highly impressionable at this point in time and someone looking for ADVICE) the whole bug situation, like it feels as if they were kind of just venting out some of their own frustrations rather than truly truly meaning it but then again suns is such an odd creature why are you so mean to this guy he looks up to you so much be NORMAL

On a much lighter note though his intrigue(special interest/j) with the history and like poetry the ancients had is so silly I think I wonder would he have ever rambled about it to others like more in depth than what he tells artificer

Hopefully not!! I really need these lazy hands to work!! bahah

I’m having fun you’re aall good ^^

I have a lot of hcs about Moon I’d like to explore in an ask blog I hopefully open soon >> especially her relationship with ancients, her group and five pebbles in particular hoopefully. She’s a really mild person, because of the way she carries herself, but has a lot to her character. At least I like to hc her that way!

She does feel responsibility over Pebbles, but I doubt she ever blames herself for the situation which they ended up in. I also doubt the responsibility felt forced to her!

Or well I at least enjoy the hc that she loves thinking herself as a big sister! She likes to dote on people and help out when she can. Though her approach does end up being one where she holds your hand a lot (not for proud iterators oops!!!!)

Also passive agressive moon…? yes…. just yes. we deal with anger by looking at you wrong bahahah

The rot was gossip material it is very upsetting!! but a little funny! Not to mention how iterators reffered to Pebbles I found myself snickering. “The near Looks to the Moon” like alright sheesh. People also tried to contact poor Pebbles i think! Not just his local group! Imagine how stressful that is.

Suns feels like that one nihilistic atheist guy with a big ego who overshares his opinions a lot and thinks the world sucks and has like unchecked anxiety.

But that’s probably just me hehe. I think Suns and Pebbles had fun being hateful little goons and then Srs dropped his depressing opinions which.. aren’t even fully wrong. Isn’t it sad. Pebbles ended up exactly in the way which srs described. Something he was so afraid of he gave himself the rot over </3

Suns is a silly goon to me. A critter I contain in my jar.

And yes!! I’d love to know what more Pebbles has to say about art and culture! Mmmm more content please yum yum!! His painting analysis was super cute.

[valarianflood]

Deleted Snippet / Writer Insight

So I don't know if anyone else does this but this is how I write:

I just blob out aproximations and gysts and then beautify later. That means that scenes can get deleted but still be a hodgepodge of shit spelling and no gramar. In other words, heres a snipped I decided to cut from my Smug Bastard series before it got made pretty.

Three think they should just say fuck the work we’ll take it and you dont work we dont pay and our guy can fix it. But can he? Ratch doesnt have the equipment that g does. 

Whatcha thinkin

J huh

G look to r youve got this puzzled look. Whatcha wondering?

R well… know g wouldnt want it cause they want teh business but maybe not do the work. Just wondering if our mechanic would be more qualified. 

G kind of offended

R like, if our mechanic would do a better job

G youre not doin yourself anyfavours kid. 

R stutters

G you mean if hed know what he was doing more than a random person you met yesterday.

R yeah… but benign realistic im not sure- realize saying doesnt have the stuff makes no sense

G not sure…

No response, nicely take your tiem dude, im gonna start pulling out fabric and fluff from where i can.

J what are you doing

R i dont wanna sound rude! 

M you already did

R ik i just ugh

J youre thinking of ratchet

R yeah, liek should we try to ge toptimsu to him? Grinder isnt a cybertronian medic

M how would we do that, its not like we can have ratchet show up with a stretcher

R oh yeah! 

J m confuse why happy

R to grinder im sorry for being rude, im jsut anxious about prime. Whiel our mechanic is a specialist in our vehicles theres no way to get him- prime- to the shop without making the damage worse. Jerk ina after thought, plus wee dont have a huge machine liek you do to fix his frame. 

M hhshhh ooh yeah, idk how ra- look at g remember introduced yesterday how ratchet would do that

J its probably freak him out too much to even get started

M truuuuueee

G apology accepted and dont worry it wasnt rude. Liek you said, anxiety cando that. Mess with your tone. Happens to em all the time. Hes welcome to coem downa nd help out er take the lead even,

R yeah thats not really gonna be possible.

G shrug no worries

[ignyxdaughter]

𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈 - 𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐒

(𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 /𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐤𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐳𝐨𝐯𝐚 𝐱 𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐨𝐧)

MASTERLIST

READ ON WATTPAD

A/N: Hey, everyone! How are you? Firstly, I want to apologize for the long delay. I let you down by making you wait for just a chapter, so I came back with two — one for today and another for tomorrow. I hope you enjoy them. Also, although not posting, I have seen and read and reread every note of yours. These were literally the motivations that took me back to writing, so thank you to everyone who's been reading, liking and commenting in the fic! I can't express in words how much you are important to me! Finally, I was gone for a while due to personal reasons. Honestly, I was a mess and, because of that, had to take some time for myself. But I am better now and have found pleasure in writing again! I think all I want to say is: take care of yourselves — mental health is really important — and remember that you are special; you are beautiful and perfect just the way you are💕

A/N: The Darkling's memories which have Baghra are made with quotes from "The Demon in the Wood", so it totally belongs to Leigh Bardugo!

A/N: English is not my first language. I’m gonna mix the books and the tv show to make the story line clearer (I read soc, the grisha trilogy and its tales). I don’t own Shadow and Bone and TO/Legacies characters; they’re, respectively, Leigh Bardugo, L. J. Smith and Julie Plec. Also, this is how I think the Darkling is,and some of the events will be changed due to the story's course!

word count: 4942

warnings: mentions of suicide attempts, self harm, death and witch hunt

────────── ★ ★ ★ ──────────

The shock on her face increases, for once not knowing what to do. Katherine can only stare at The Darkling as he talks. She hears a few accusations — truths — about her killing Malyen Oretsev, but doesn't pay attention to any of that, since the thought that occupies her head is that everything is not making sense. Kirigan created the Shadow Fold, he's The Black Heretic; he surely was chased by many otkazat'sya in his life, including tsar Anastas guards, and seen with his own eyes other Grishas fighting against each other for survival and then brutally dying. It's impossible that he hasn't seen any change in Ravka after the creation of the Unsea, that he hasn't seen his country beginning to have more peace and haven for his people. So why does he have the desire to end the Fold?

Only an idiot would want that, and she knows that Kirigan isn't one.

"Do you have something to say about all of this?" The witch is able to finally hear clearly an entire sentence from him. She blinks a few times to concentrate on the General's stern face and look at the dark brown eyes that are fuming with rage.

"What really is your plan?"

"The one that you possibly ruined forever?!" He yells at her, all his patience gone.

"Anastasia said that Ravka before the Fold's creation was a complete disgrace." Katherine blatantly ignores him. "Supernaturals and Grishas lived in dread of being accused of practicing small science or magic, of getting persecuted, tortured and killed. Or worse, of having someone they love find that destiny!"

The Darkling clenches his jaw in indignation. Katherine is close to discovering his true intentions, and he doesn't know what her reaction will be, because expanding the Unsea would probably break magical balance, which she so fiercely protects. "Who's that woman?"

"Someone older and cleverer than you and I. But she doesn't matter to this conversation. What matters is her saying: that the Fold reduced the number of mortals defying and sentencing our people, and even protects Ravka from the war against the Fjerdan and the Shu Han." She approaches him with a pointing finger. "Your creation, Kirigan." The woman pokes her finger on his chest, which slightly pushes him backwards. "Your bloody creation did that! So why fucking end it?!"

"You ruined my plan!"

"The plan that would bring disgrace into my people again? Yes, I ruined it, and thank the Ancestors that I did it!"

"My plan would strengthen Ravka!"

She chuckles. "Oh, yes, by giving all the power to an inexperienced lightscum."

Lightscum, as if Alina's power was something to be disgusted about.

Of course, the General heard from Genya and the Sun Summoner of how cold Ms. Anya, the handmaiden, was towards the latter. They used to say that she seemed annoyed whenever Alina was close and never talked to her unless she asked something. For a brief moment, he recalls a conversation with the younger woman in which she said that Ms. Anya had never shared a smile with her and was only second to Baghra in rudeness because she hadn't beaten her with a stick... yet.

At the time, The Darkling thought the issue was jealousy or contempt over a Grisha. However, now he knows that it can't be the latter, since Katherine is a witch, but at the same time, the first option doesn't seem right. The shadow singer's voice at the mention of Alina was of grudge instead of anger, and this isn't typical of jealousy.

Now it was his turn to let out a small mocking laugh. "You really think I would give all the power to her?"

"Of course you would! Her light blinds you till it destroys you! That's what they are: traitors."

"Alina is too young to have the mind to betray her kind." Kirigan has to gather all of his strength to not ask all the questions he wants the answers to. Of why Katherine truly killed Malyen Oretsev and why the name 'lightscum' for who has the power of light, of what happened to her when she was taken away from him, of how she got here and discovered he is The Black Heretic... He truly wants to know the witch, all of her; body, heart and soul. But there's a specific question that his whole being screams for an immediate answer — he wishes to look at her eyes and say 'are you alright?'. However, he feels it'll be better to wait until Katherine blurts out everything that's inside her head to then fulfill his desire.

Cheshire told him this morning to listen to her before acting, and that's what he'll do. After all, to gain this woman, he has to understand her.

"She hadn't been with her kind until a few months ago! No matter how much time she spends with Grisha, she will always prefer the mortals because they were who raised her!" Katherine's last string of patience runs out. Without being aware of her uncontrollable behavior, she starts yelling in rage, every concealed thought of hers pleading to be freed. "And even if that weren't the case, she would be capable of treason because that's how lightscums are: fucking snobs who only care about themselves. For you to have a glimpse of how much they lack character, they have a habit of stealing other lightscums' power for themselves, so that they are more powerful and have no competition in the way. I've never known one worthy of loyalty, mainly because everyone I've given the slightest bit of trust has stabbed me in the back!"

"I'm sure Alina is not like that."

"Stop defending her!" The General raises his eyebrows as she shouts in english, the shadows in the woods increasing and turning the place darker with all the fury she's feeling. Wrath took her completely, till the point she cannot control her powers and translate her words into ravkan. "I am a trickle in the middle of a river of them and they took every inch of happiness I have had from the beginning! My lightscums breeders used to beat me until I lost conscience, and those two wenches that were born along with me used to call me horrendous names. Years after I left and found a family, they took some of them from me. I know that because the man who whipped my back uncountable times was the lightscum who helped in the plan to kill my aunt, my uncle and my father. MY BLOODY FATHER!"

The Darkling's heart clenches in his chest while hearing these confessions; his mind, a mix of sadness and anger. Sadness for knowing how much Katherine has been hurt in life, and anger for those who dared to do that to her. These feelings only increase when he sees tears wetting her eyes. A stab in his guts would be better than witnessing these beautiful light green orbs full of sorrow.

"He was the only one who never judged me, and they killed him." Her knees give way to the freezing floor, weak from having to hold the weight of a heartache that was stuck inside her for decades, centuries, even. "I tried—" She takes a deep shaking breath to recompose herself, but fails miserably. "I tried to meet other lightscums, but they always betrayed me. The result was countless assassination attempts and lovers and friends approaching me out of interest only to turn their backs on me after I didn't give them influence in the Supernatural community."

"Katherine—"

"After so much effort for nothing, I concluded that they are scums! All of them, no matter what!" Finally, she faces him, which makes him see how wounded she still is with these horrible events. Saints, if he had the power to go back in time to kill everyone who helped on breaking Katherine, he would gladly do it. "You want to know why I killed your tracker? Because I'm fucking TIRED! I'm tired of being mistreated for having shadows. I'm tired of being replaced by a lightscum and seeing others live the consequences of their actions. But you know what I'm really tired of? To see my people suffering."

A shiver runs down through the witch's spine by what she is going to say next, for once, not caring about the Shadow Summoner's rejection. After all, she was classified as second place the moment when he choses Alina over her. Now, the only things that matter to Katherine are regaining Agatha's memories and protecting the Supernaturals and herself from two certain Grishas.

The Darkling, because he is the person who Katherine has fallen for and the mind behind the plan of destroying the Unsea. And Alina, because she is the puppet that will concret the plan.

"So don't expect me to do nothing when their safety is threatened." Her voice fails a little from physical and emotional exhaustion. "I will do everything in my power to leave this Fold intact and let that lightscum away from an amplifier. If you want to give her the Morozova stag, the sea whip and the firebird for her to produce magic, you'll have to pass through me. And believe when I say that my shadows are loyal, and will always protect me."

A fragment of her still screams to be freed — the one who wants to ask why would he destroy his greatest creation — but she conceals that part inside of her. It's not the time to question that, not yet.

Shock is expressed all over in the General's face. His dark brown eyes are widened; his eyebrows, raised; his mouth, slightly agape. He thinks of all the ways the witch could have discovered this, until he concludes that the most accurates options are through confidential conversations in the Little Palace or by rummaging through his chambers. However, none of them make sense. The first, because Kirigan never shared with anyone the plan to go after the other two amplifiers; the second, because he is sure that Katherine has only been in his room once, and on that day she was reading a page which had notes only about the Morozova's stag and, on the corner of it, the name 'hanging tree' was alone, without any explanation underneath it.

The Darkling opens his mouth to demand how she found out his intentions, but closes it as soon as he remembers the first time they had a real conversation. He woke up earlier to return those ludicrous books in Norse runes to the Little Palace's library just to then see 'Ms. Anya' carefully reading the Latin titles. Though what really caught his attention that day was the old red book on her hands, one with a worn cover and light brown pages from its use.

Katherine read the Istorii Sankt'ya. His Istorii Sankt'ya, which later he found out that she made notes on its final page. Katherine's wisdom, however, never seems to fail him, since all the scratches were written in Norse runes. So even if he wants to read it — and the Saints know how he tried —, he can't, because he doesn't understand the language.

He has to urgently find a translator as soon as he gets back to the Little Palace.

"My book."

The witch scoffs by hearing the realization in his voice. "I'm not a fool that cannot see through the images, Kirigan. The page with the Morozova stag, the sea whip and the firebird was opened on my lap as I learned about amplifiers. It took me a single look to question what would happen if a Grisha had more than one."

"Have you told—" He stops when she shakes her head, his heart racing as fast as a horse as she speaks again.

"Nature didn't make Grishas' body to handle magic. Even if they manage to practice it, they can't control it. You must know that." With her jaw, Katherine points at the Fold behind her. "Did it hurt when you did it? Had you felt you were going to die in agony?"

He takes a deep breath, as if the action would encourage him to confess. Finally, after what seemed like eternity, The Darkling says: "Yes."

Her answer is a simple nod, while her eyes fall to the ground in shame. "I've broken many magical balances in my life. All of them hurted, and in all of them I begged to die." Kirigan can feel his heart clenching as she tells him the truth, not wanting to imagine her in a breakdown worse than now. "I'm not proud of these moments, but they were from a time when I couldn't stand breathing anymore. Have you ever felt that? The need to just... end it all and rest forever."

He thought that so many times, but the most remarkable one was when tsar Anastas' guards murdered Luda in front of him.

He wants to say that to Katherine, to guarantee that she's not insane to have such thoughts, but he knows that only his experience won't prove anything to her. Therefore, instead of exposing his feelings, he states: "It's impossible to be an immortal and not think of that. You're not alone."

This makes the witch go into a trance, remembering all the times she tried to end herself. Silent tears run down her face as she realizes that she's had these sick thoughts for ages and that in no time they seem to go away. Of course, she also has good memories, but they are useless when sorrow gnaws at her, especially when it's related to her father. Elijah Mikaelson was the most special person in Katherine Morris' life; he gave her a home, a family, made her feel loved and comfortable with her own powers. His death made Katherine lose any sanity that kept her on her feet. No matter how many times the shadow singer tries to forget, she will always remember that the first magical balance she broke was while practicing necromancy in hopes of bringing her dad back. She almost died during the countless experiments, and actually succeeded in resurrecting some people, but never her father, nor her uncle Klaus or her aunt Hayley. Since they died, their bodies were nothing more than ashes running through the wind. If only these ashes were kept on an urn, maybe she could make another successful necromancy.

But they aren't, so these Mikaelsons will continue dead and the witch will have to deal with grief for eternity. However, there is still a place where she can reunite with them: afterlife. It didn't take long since Katherine started her attempts to end herself.

The woman looks at her forearms, at the permanent thin white lines she made in order to stop the grief and intrusive thoughts. "You sure?" Her voice trembles and her heart clenches by remembering such a dark period of her life.

"I am." The General reassures her with a soothing tone, wanting to calm her and prevent another breakdown.

Taking her silence as a cue, Kirigan moves his fingers and summons a tiny shadow. The small piece of darkness floats around his hand before he guides it towards Katherine.

The air in her lungs is gone as soon as she feels something putting a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes look at her side to discover what has done this, but has no success, since the shadow is long gone. However, she faces the Grisha in front of her just in time to see him summoning another piece of darkness. He doesn't break eye contact as he releases the shadow to repeat the action with another dark brown lock of hers. The corner of his lips are twisted in an almost imperceptible smile. Almost.

"You're not alone, Katherine, and even if you were once, I won't let that happen again."

"You aren't able to do that."

"I am. But for that to happen, you have to let me in." Kirigan notices the darkness in the woods slowly coming back to normal, letting him see the place clearer. This is a sign that his plan is working. Calming Katherine down to then approach and hold her was indeed the right path to follow. "Let me know you and I'll let you know me. That way you will never be alone anymore."

The woman gives him a small smile when his shadow slightly touches her face, the tension on her shoulders instantly vanishing. It felt so good and relieving that she wants him to feel the same. Katherine then conjures a small piece of darkness and releases it towards him, making it circle his face.

The Darkling chuckles a little, enchanted by seeing his equal using her powers, and his heart skips a beat when she says: "You're not alone either, Kirigan."

The General wants nothing but to be close to her and hold her in his arms right now, however, he knows that the witch will easily be shocked if he does that without warning. So he slowly approaches her, analyzing her confused expression till he carefully sits by her side on the freezing snow. Kirigan makes sure that Katherine can predict every movement of his so that, if she gets upset, she can stop him. But she doesn't move, not even an inch away from him. The woman just observes as he unbutton his black cloak and cautiously places it on her shoulders, the heavy clothing instantly warming her cold body. Yet it's not only her body that is warmed with Kirigan's gesture, since her heart almost melts to see such tenderness coming from the most feared man in the country.

Then, without looking away from the witch's beautiful light green eyes, he whispers: "I don't want to end the Fold."

Katherine swears that she literally felt the air leaving her lungs. "W-What?"

He raises a hand at her, a silent request for her to listen to him without making any interruptions. She looks at him expectantly, ready to hear everything with as much attention as possible. So he tells her all: how he spent his whole life hiding with his mother, moving from village to village without even having a chance to interact properly with those his own age. The General lets out a rueful laugh as he briefly reveals his childhood fear of forgetting his real name, as each season both he and Baghra had a new identity.

'It's my own name I'm afraid of forgetting', he used to say to Baghra, and she would always tap his chest and draw the letter A on it. A of Aleksander.

'Your true name is written here', she would suddenly speak softly. 'Tattooed on your heart. You don't let just anyone read it.'

And he believed her in that till nowadays. Even not needing to hide his true nature anymore, he still conceals his birth name from the world. It's his most well kept secret; no one but he and his mother knows the truth. However, he is willing to extend this secret to one more person just for the incessant desire to hear Katherine say 'Aleksander'. Just the thought of hearing her calm voice calling to him makes his whole body shiver with lust.

Kirigan also tells the witch of his attempts to peacefully end prejudice against Grishas, that the formation of the Second Army was just that. With a heavy heart, the General also mentions Luda, a lover from centuries ago who he planned to run away with, but unfortunately was murdered before his eyes by royal soldiers.

Finally, The Darkling reveals that the famous story of the Black Heretic is partially true. He indeed tried to create his own army using merzost, but the motive wasn't out of thirst for power, but for revenge; resentment towards the injustice against Grishas and the desire to make a safe place for his people was all that crossed his mind at the moment. He always had that dream. Luda's death was just the push that made him fulfill it once and for all.

"The Fold protects my people from persecution and from the war." Kirigan lets out a tired sigh. "If I destroy it, I will doom them."

There's a moment of silence between Katherine and him, the quick and meaningless thoughts hammering the witch's head, who tries to put together all the pieces of the puzzle. After failing miserably, she has the courage to say her doubts out loud. "So what do you want to do? Why do you need to amplify Alina's power?"

The General's dark brown eyes meet her light green ones. "You're clever enough to find out, Katherine." She frowns, confused. "Why would I need to use merzost on the Fold?"

You ruined my plan! He yelled at her in rage. My plan would strengthen Ravka!

You really think I would give all the power to her? Kirigan let out a mocking laugh after she said that Alina would wield all magical power if she had three amplifiers.

Alina is too young to have the mind to betray her kind. He brushed Katherine's argument off as if he was sure that the Sun Summoner would never be able to challenge him, as if she wouldn't have the courage nor the strength.

I don't want to end the Fold.

A shiver runs down the shadow singer's spine as she realizes The Darkling's true purpose. Her gaze towards him transforms into shock. She opens her mouth, only to close it later due to shock. After a minute, she finds herself able to shake her head, almost pleading that her hypothesis isn't real. "No."

He only nods to her in response, glad that her wise mind discovered his intention without him needing to speak it out loud. "Yes."

"You want to expand it."

"It will protect my people even more."

"But you'll be hated by the mortals. You'll create another hunt. Grishas will be persecuted again, Kirigan, and so will be my people."

"I will have the power to stop them. No one, not even the tsar and the First Army, will dare to confront us."

"And what will happen to the Grishas that oppose you, who will prefer the Ravka of now instead of your idealization?"

"That won't happen."

"It's stupid of you to not even consider that not everyone thinks the same." Katherine grabs him by his black shirt lapels, wanting to shake him in order to bring sense to his body. "The majority of your army is young! They haven't lived the terror that Ravka once was. They hate the Black Heretic and live in the utopia of a better world without the Fold! If they see you attempting to expand it, Kirigan, they will witness a magical imbalance! They will fear you and your reign, and soon, start a revolution."

"I will be powerful enough to stop them."

"Power is good, but you must know when to stop wielding it, because it will destroy you if you have more than you're able to control."

He shakes his head in disbelief, his mind scolding himself for never seeing the possibility of his plan failing. "No, you are wrong."

"No, you are wrong!" She tightens the grip on his lapels, forcing him to look at her eyes more deeply. "You will destroy everything with that plan of yours. You want power? Take it in the most discreet way!"

"There's no discreet way, Katherine!" The Darkling abruptly separates them, standing up and running a hand through his dark hair. Saints, he's becoming frustrated! "Your people are free; they don't obey anyone because they hide themselves from the otkazat'sya. But mine will only be safe once that fucking tsar is gone!"

"Then do a bloody coup!" The witch shouts while standing up to face the General properly. "If you want the Lantsovs gone, make powerful alliances and discreetly turn people against them. The Second Army is already not fond of them. The Grishas just need a little more to finally hate them fiercely." She slowly approaches him without breaking eye contact. "You are stronger than the king's army; can easily take them down. So why not invest in this coup, which will unite and strengthen your Grishas, instead of expanding the Fold, which will destroy all conquests you've already achieved for your people?"

The woods now are almost without light, exasperated shadows of both Kirigan and Katherine darkening the place. However, the latter slowly fades away as the witch takes deep breaths to calm herself down. The silence between the two equals is tense, but the woman's sharp voice cut it like a blade.

"Find me when you give up that insane plan of yours and your brain finally comes back to your head."

The Darkling's dark brown eyes follow her as she walks towards a tree's shadow and, without looking back, enters it. After a moment, he goes to the same tree and tries to feel her in the darkness, but she's gone. Katherine has literally teleported herself through shadows.

────────── ★ ★ ★ ──────────

3 days later — Os Alta, Ravka

He can't sleep.

Tonight's the third night since his argument with Katherine, and also the third night in a row when he finds himself pacing around his room instead of sleeping. He is exhausted, mentally and physically; the witch has made a place in his head without permission. All he can think about are subjects that include her. Is she alright? What happened to her when she was taken away from him that day? Will she ever come back? Is her plan really better than his? Is expanding the Fold indeed worth it?

Finishing his glass of kvas in an only sip, Kirigan suddenly gives up to fight his needs. He abruptly picks a paper and a feather on his messy desk — full of research about magical imbalances and historical revolutions — and writes the message that will make Katherine search him. It's short, yet meaningful. The witch will certainly understand it.

The General slams the feather on the desk and looks around his room, carefully analyzing each shadow inside of it. When there's no sign of any movement, he finally speaks: "I know you are here! Appear now and deliver this message to her!"

The shadow of one of the armchairs near the fireplace moves in answer. Soon, a certain dark creature shows up to him, its big sharpy smile widening by seeing the paper on The Darkling's hand.

"I need to speak to her." With heavy steps, he approaches the monstrous figure. "Make her come to me no matter what, Cheshire."

The paper is taken away from his grip by the shadow, which nods in response before disappearing again. Kirigan makes his way to pour another glass of kvas and comes back to his bed, which is full of books and papers. He spends this night in the same way he did on the other two: by searching for more information about The Handler and rereading countless times the contract he made with Katherine, both of their names now stained with their dried blood.

[technicalknockout]

i think a big fucking reason why ko and tko cant really be friends is how concerned ko is with how others think of him. and how others treat tko is a major contributer to ko's own inability to accept himself OR tko. because hes afraid of what the consequences will be.

and like. tko is generally violent a LOT of the time, but its in reaction rather than him just being like That.

there is ONE instance of him being violent of his own accord (his debut) which i find somewhat wrong, and hes still reacting in that instance to other peoples actions! hes reacting to people refusing to see him as his own person (which for tko, is one of the Worse things ever) and disregarding his autonomy (another thing tko regards as one of the worst things ever). and lets mention the fact that up to this point he was literally fucking stuck in a cage (WHICH AGAIN IS ONE OF THE WORST THINGS EVER TO HIM) and not ever allowed out. along with the fact that he probably didnt even Intend for things to go as out of hand as they did. (by reference of OTHER power battles)

and NONE of his actions cause permanent damage to anyone. violence in ok ko is not treated that seriously.

now i could analyze every other situation in as much detail but im going to keep up to season 3 short. in mystery science fair 201x he was once again responding to awful terrible treatment AND TRYING TO FUCKING PROTECT KO! someone at this point who he fucking hates. and in youre in control he straight up does nothing wrong. he doesnt attack anyone who isnt the boxbaby and enid & rad CHOSE TO FOLLOW HIM. thats their own damn fault. also rad can literally fly using his telekinesis he wouldve been fine. dark plaza he was literally just fucking defending himself. he didnt show any real signs that he was going to mess with the plan.

now season 3 is like. tko rules for one IS VERY MINOR even without the context. and with the context its like. tko is a traumatized kid who lacks any real support and is hated by practically everyone around him. AND WHAT HE DID WAS ABLE TO BE CLEANED UP IN *LESS* THAN AN HOUR.

now the other things. its again. tko is a abused and traumatized kid who LACKS ANY FUCKING SUPPORT and is hated by so many people. of course he took shadowys deal. shadowy actually called him by his name (something that SHOULDNT BE SPECIAL) and offered him actual understanding and support. so of course he did that. THAT AND HOW HES EXPERIENCED A BETRAYAL THAT IS THE WORST THING EVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so its like. without context his actions do look bad but within context (and how, up until season 3, they cause zero permanent damage to anyone) its like. hes a traumatized kid with zero real support system. how he acts should not be treated as something that isnt in reaction to other things. im the number 1 tko defender. he did nothing wrong to me <3 (he did do things wrong but i understand him and if you blame him for anything ill fucking get you /j about the fucking getting you part)

YES. not saying the stuff tko did was FINE but it wasnt out of nowhere, he literally could not do any better, and i completely understand why he is the way he is. one thing about tko is that he sees his actions as justified, he's just reacting to how others treat him or ko and tbh he should. and even the entire murder thing in lftte was a result of shadowy being the awful person he is, leaving tko feeling betrayed and abandoned by the only person he thought actually cared about him. Conclusion drag tko to therapy

[celestialvexation-arch]

hi this is the anon before who said their only criticism for tmc was the timeline, but after al3x’s recent twitter qna i suddenly have a few others things i want to say about this series that i’m not sure where to share so i’m going to dump it in your inbox if that’s ok <3

anyway first things first i just want to say i love tmc, it’s one of my favorite analog horror series, i love the characters and the aesthetic, i love getting on discord to watch the newest videos with my friends, but even as my favorite series i’m still willing to criticism it (excluding the timeline thats already a mess). 

and lately i’ve been thinking about it after rewatching the latest video a few times and seeing other content creators react to it, i’ve just now realized that the series… doesn’t scare me anymore? maybe its because i’ve been watching it for a while, but probably not because the old videos still ruin my insomnia after i watch them tgouivrfi but aside from that ever since vol4 was released i just haven’t gotten scared by anything presented in the new videos at least once.

like the latest video didn’t give any horror vibes for me especially when adam namedropped god like ok cool (although i did love the sarah+evelin interactions we were given and hope there’ll be more of that duo), and the diary thing just idk its interesting but meh. this is just my opinion tho i hope no one attacks me for it

then i saw al3x say in his qna that vol1 was his least favorite video overall and tbh that… kinda makes me sad? because i still love that video since it still frightens me to this day, and seeing him not like it and make a new version that had some good parts removed + make it less scary just ehh this series really isn’t as frightening to me as it used to be…

its probably because of everything that’s gone with crewdela, with gab3 being fired and the community being infested with minors who want to sanitize horror (and a certain person in the crew who shall not be named) so this is just the end result…

but at the end of the day this is al3x’s series and he’s free to do what he wants with it and i will be seated for vol5, its still an interesting series to watch at the end of the day but just not as scary for me.

anyway sorry for traumadumping LOL /j

ohyah, you're free to info dump w/e thoughts you got! :3

i was honestly in the same boat as you, where tmc used to be my top series of all time cause of the usage of religion here, instead of the cookie cutter aesthetic of haunted animatronics or aliens invading the earth. while rlly not scary to me overall, the unsettling nature behind was enough to spook me!

however, as you've mentioned, it just stopped being scary overall when not only god was namedropped like that but....the intrigue around the series was just gone when "gabriel" revealed who he rlly is after all this time. the reveal happened way too soon, and using the usual "THE DEVIL WAS BEHIND IT ALLLLL" is just eh :/ could have made it where it could have been something else puppeting the body of the archangel gabriel??

and tbh, with how much lore and attention is given to emo fuck ( adam lmao ) here, it's feeling more and more like a damn soap drama that your grandparents would watch lmao nothing rlly horrifying, unsettling, or even violating in the sense that it's supposed to be intimate given the core concept that used to be present in early vids ( there's a reason why intimacy and religion tends to go hand in hand )

all the biblical horror flies out the window when we're seemingly supposed to care about adam here -- i honestly don't give a shit about the guy atp lmao i was here to watch some actual frightening shit, not...this

yeah, alex has mentioned several times that vol 1 wasn't his fave but goddamn, did he just...rlly made the scare factor and nostalgic elements even worse. nothing there to grasp you except "LOOK! THE ANIMATION IMPROVED!! :OOO"

those are my thoughts there lmao x3

[clerkgamma16]

Gamma staggers into storeroom and leans against a wall, their remaining hand covering the stump that is their shoulder, doing nothing to stymie the bleeding and simply getting covered in a mixture of blood and slime.

They sit down with their back against the wall and inject themselves with a dose of pink Enkephalin to dull the pain. The exposed slime shudders and swells in response.

"This… should have happened sooner… in the end I never did cause anything but problems… even from day one…"

Gamma sighs, and brings their hand away from their shoulder, looking down at the red-stained sludge covering their fingers.

"…Perhaps things would have worked out better for the facility if those clowns had killed me right away and I got replaced with another clerk…"

Pink slime starts to trickle down their cheeks

"They probably wouldn't have eaten an abnormality, or if they did they'd probably have the good sense to die quickly and not keep making things worse. They wouldn't have enabled Rue and put the whole facility in danger. They wouldn't have used HaLynn, in fact they would probably never have befriended them… would have been better for him if I never did…"

Gamma starts to slump as the bloodloss gets more and more severe, their eyes closing…

"…well it's the last day now, so I guess the least I can do is die before I cause any more problems…"

Only to slowly open their eyes again, looking as if they are listening to something as the wounds in their body start to get filled in with slime, halting the bleeding

"What… do you mean?…"

Gamma goes silent for several seconds, before a strange smile comes over them.

"I… see… you only wanted to keep me safe… all this time…"

They reach inside their vest, bringing out several syringes of pure slime

"I can't do anything on my own... I was a fool to try..."

Gamma starts to inject the syringes into themselves, and ever so slowly the lost portions of their body regrow, not as flesh but as pink slime.

"If only I had accepted this earlier... maybe I could have been h..lping ke..p ev...yone e..se s..fe ..nst..ad of ca..ing pr....lems..."

They have run out of syringes, but it doesn't matter, the slime spreads on its own, consuming and replacing even healthy tissue.

"Kee… ev...yone s..fe… j…st l…e yo… k..pt m.. s....e…"

Gamma's form swells in size and becomes hunched over, eventually becoming nearly unrecognizable if it wasn't for a tuft of slime where their hair used to be.

"............"

Their new bulk shudders and begins to move, leaving the storeroom and immediately running into a Clerk, killing them without hesitation. Moments later a small slime, identical to the one that started this mess, is following Gamma into the facility.

[milkyway-writing]

It Could be Worse?

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ship: Remus/Virgil/Janus (Could be read as romantic or platonic)

TWs: A mild NSFW joke involving Janus's name made by Remus

-

Janus knew she had gone too far. Knew that Roman hated being compared to his brother. That’s why she said it, in the heat of the moment. She had been vulnerable with her name and was immediately got made fun of, so she lashed out. Of course, that didn’t make it acceptable by any means. But that led her here, to Remus’s room.

Janus knocked on the door, knowing Remus was probably working on some project or another. She fiddled with her sleeve, anxiously running her fingers over the patch of scales on her arm.

There was clattering from inside the room until the door opened, Remus leaning precariously against the doorframe.

Janus could see past him into the room, where she saw Virgil sprawled out on the floor, idly looking over at them.

“So…? Whatcha need, Snakey?” Remus looked down at her, its head tilted curiously.

Janus paused, thinking over her choices, before nodding softly to herself. She would drop the lying for this, it was important enough. “I need to talk to you two, please. Something… not extraordinary happened, and I think it’s best if you hear an explanation of things from me before you hear it from Roman, because I fucked up majorly.” Remus seemed to pick up on the urgency and underlying upset in her voice, gently beckoning her into the room.

Virgil sat up, having been listening in to the conversation, sat up from the floor, pushing his headphones down around his neck.

“What’d you do? Can’t be that bad, can it?” Remus asked as Janus sat on the bed.

“Oh, it can be. I may or may not have compared Roman to you, called you the evil twin, and maybe possibly said that I wouldn’t be able to tell you two apart if you didn’t have a mustache. And I also tole Roman, Patton, and Thomas my name, which went about as well with your brother as stabbing someone with a plastic spoon.” Janus hissed the last bit, almost bitterly.

Virgil winced. “There have to be worse things that could happen."

Janus looked up at Virgil, a doubtful look on her face. “Like what?”

Virgil paused, obviously trying to think of an example. "Um. Something."

Remus hummed. “I have one, he could’ve mispronounced your name on purpose, on top of all that, J-anu-”

Janus hissed softly. “Okay first off, rude. Second off, don’t you dare continue that sentence.”

Virgil snorted softly. “Yeah, okay, that might be a bit worse.”

Janus sighed. “Yeah, but like… I fucked up. And I don’t think apologizing would fix it. I mean, I’m not exactly a ‘beacon of truth’, as Virgil puts it. And I haven’t done anything for him to trust me. I hurt him.”

Remus nodded. “Yeah, you messed up a lot. But, it’s not unfixable. Give him time, maybe let me talk to him some. Let him get the anger out of his system, then be honest. Apologize, and do things to fix shit. Stop using him to get your way. Leave him be, and let him decide if he wants to trust you or not. Worse comes to worst he decides not to, and you leave him alone.”

Janus pondered that for a moment before nodding. “...Alright. I’ll try that, I guess.”

Virgil tilted his head. “You can’t just try, Jan. You have to do it. You can’t just do it part way, or try to fake it. You have to want to do it, and make things better.”

“I do! I didn’t want to hurt him!” Janus huffed.

Virgil seemed unimpressed, raising his eyebrow. Xe seemed fully aware that Janus wasn’t telling the truth.

After a few moments of silence, Janus huffed again, a complaining tone apparent in her voice. “...Okay, I meant to hurt him, but I don’t want to hurt him further.”

Virgil nodded and softened, seemingly satisfied with that answer. “Okay, good. Then you need to work not to make the same mistakes, and if you mess up, own it.”

Janus looked mildly uncomfortable upon being told to own her mistakes but nodded anyways. “Okay. I can do that.”

Remus smiled a little. “Good, I’m glad. Now, wanna see what we were working on?”

Janus nodded, a small smile spreading across her face. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

[blogforwritinggenshin]

Hey hate to bother you but would you consider doing an aether x male reader where the reader is setting a boundary (preferably that there not comfortable with kissing) and aether telling him that its fine if he’s not comfortable with that and comforting him? If not that’s fine thank you for your time!!^^ i love your writing have a good rest of your day/night <3

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Characters: Aether

Pairings: Aether x male!Reader

Warnings: none :)

Word count: 370

Synopsis: Your name and request are making me think you might like Aether. But that's just a hunch. /j

Also it’s no bother at all! This is such a cute ask! Hehe thank you so much! I hope you have a good day/night too ^-^

You were over the moon when Aether and you got together. You were so ecstatic that you forgot all about telling him anything else. So when he leaned in to give you a kiss you yelped and jumped away. Your blood pressure instantly went up, and you anxiously looked at him. He looked so confused and hurt making the guilt inside of you worse. 

“I– I’m sorry. Are you okay?” He looked at you with concerned eyes. His hand instinctively raises, wanting to reach out, but keeping its distance. 

Your heart pounds as you try to think of a way to explain your actions. You’re overwhelmed by the situation. You ruined the moment. Aether must think you’re a mess. He probably doesn’t even want you as his boyfriend now. Not if you’re going to be pathetically freaked out by a simple kiss! 

You feel like curling up in a ball and hiding. 

“Hey,” his calm voice reaches your ears, “it’s okay. I should have asked first. It’s okay if we don’t kiss right now. Let’s just take things slow.” He gives you a gentle smile, and your heart clenches. You don’t deserve this man. He’s so caring and sweet. Even from the beginning when you two met and you were so anxious and wary of him. He gave you room to breathe, to think, to grow and trust him. 

You nod slowly. 

“Thank you. I… I’m sorry. I’m not ready for some things just yet. B-but! I promise, I want to be with you!” You’re quick to somehow prove you’re not trying to back out of this relationship. You want– no. You need him in your life. Your heart would break if you two couldn’t be together. 

“Of course. I don’t want you to be stressed or uncomfortable. I love you,” the way he says that has you swooning. You smile instantly. 

“I love you too,” you say happily. Aether always seems to know what to say to help you feel better. 

“Do you want to hold hands and go for a walk? Just the two of us?”

He looks hopeful again. You love the way he smiles. You nod quickly and grasp his hand. 

“Of course. I’d love to.”

[babyboibucky]

Salt, Sugar and Viruses

Pairing: Office!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You’ve been secretly making coffee for Bucky at the office.

Word Count: 1,962

Warnings: Two idiots just doing idiot things

A/N: This was done in a haste so I kinda hate it lol but I can’t get this story out of my head and thanks to @bitchassbucky for pushing me to write a full fic of this 🥰 luv u 🥺

MAIN MASTERLIST

"You have a crush on Barnes' grumpy ass?!" Sam choked out.

You angrily hushed him and frantically looked around the pantry to make sure that your secret was still safe. Fortunately, only you, Sam and Nat were inside having your respective afternoon breaks.

"What? He's nice. And cute." you told Sam as you stirred your coffee, smiling to yourself at the thought of your office crush, Bucky.

"How'd you even meet him, he works all the way at the IT department." Sam asked.

Nat snorted recalling the encounters she witnessed for the past few months. Some of which were unintentional but most of them? You had carefully planned out just so you could come up with an excuse to request for Bucky's assistance.

"She might have gotten viruses in her computer once...or twice. Or thrice." Nat teased.

The first time you met Bucky was when most of your files suddenly got corrupted. It was hella embarrassing because you didn't know shit about how computers worked and well, you've been illegally downloading torrents since the office's internet connection was a gift from the internet gods. Without a doubt, your computer was a nest for viruses.

Bucky showed up in your floor that morning and you almost sunk into your seat from shame. You'd heard the IT Department complain about everybody else in the office messing up their computer systems. When you turned around, Bucky greeted you with a charming smile and soft hello. You could still remember how he felt when he stayed behind you as you sat on your chair, bending over to take your mouse in his hand.

God, he smelled so good you almost turned your head to nuzzle your face into his neck.

He was very soft-spoken you realized; Bucky was kind enough to walk you through the process and to be honest, you couldn't recall a damn thing he said. Something about firewalls? And shields? Whatever, you didn't really listen. You just stared at Bucky as he explained everything, solving your problem in less than fifteen minutes.

Since then, your crush for Bucky grew bigger. You'd entered the elevator together a couple of times, shared small conversations that made your heart flutter. When those little moments didn't seem enough, you started your devious plan to fuck up your computer a bit. By the third time Bucky fixed your computer, he was already comfortable enough to tease you for being a "virus magnet".

"Hello? Young lady, come back to earth." Sam snapped his finger right in front of your face, interrupting your thoughts.

You clicked your tongue at him and swatted his hand away. "If you ever tell this to anyone, Wilson. You are dead." you warned, poinitng a finger at him.

Sam rolled his eyes, "It's so unfair how he's kind to you. Last time I requested for his assistance he got all smug and grumpy at me." he complained.

Nat shook her head in amusment, "That's because you've been downloading porn. You know the IT department can access our browser histories, right?"

You choked on your coffe, "WHAT?!"

Nat narrowed her eyes at you, "You been up to no good for you to react like that?"

You faceplamed, "I've been stalking his Facebook account."

Sam chortled, "What are you, in high school? Jesus, calm down. You're gonna be fine. Why don't you just tell him you like him?"

You made a face, "I'm not Nat to have the guts to do that."

Nat hummed, bringing her mug to the sink to wash it. "Why don't you start by making him coffee?"

"I don't know how he likes his coffee."

You received a pointed look from both your friends. You groaned in defeat, "Okay, fine. I know how Bucky likes his coffee."

Nat smirked, "Stalker."

-

Bucky always arrived in the office half an hour before nine in the morning. This gives him time to settle into his cubicle, buy a sandwich at the stall downstairs and to make himself a cup of coffee. It was his daily routine and upon going back to his desk after buying his breakfast sandwich, Bucky was surprised to see a cup of newly brewed coffee on his desk.

He looked around but there were no signs of anyone. There wasn't even a note of some sort. Carefully, he brought the cup to his face and inhaled its scent. Shrugging, he took a tiny sip.

-

"How's the little secret admirer doing?" Nat asked, grabbing a chair and sitting down beside you.

You deadpanned, "I've been leaving him his coffee for an entire week now and nothing's happened yet."

Nat frowned, "Are you kidding me? Why would you expect for something to happen when you haven't been leaving any clues?" she said.

"I'm shy, okay?! Maybe I should hide somewhere, check for his reaction. See whether I have a chance." you shrugged.

It was stupid of you to leave the coffee on Bucky's desk. You never stayed to wait for him. You just left it there without a note or anything that would even give him a clue about you and your little crush on him. You knew the reason why, of course. You were afraid of rejection. Sometimes, you'd feel like you have a chance with him since he was always so kind and warm to you. Not to mention, everyone in the office knows him to be grumpy but around you, he was totally the opposite of that.

But then again, maybe he was just nice to you because you were nice to him too.

-

One morning after leaving Bucky his coffee, you finally decided to leave him a note. You ran back to your cubicle to get a post-it and a pen. Before you could even walk around your desk, you spotted Bucky headed over to the pantry, the cup of coffee in his hand.

"Fuck, okay. Maybe I should just directly ask him out?" you thought to yourself.

You quickly followed Bucky into the pantry and almost whined when you saw that Sam was inside as well. You widened your eyes at him, signalling for him to leave but Sam was preoccupied on observing Bucky who seemed to be in a bad mood.

"Rough morning?" Sam just had to ask as you awkwardly stood by the doorway, finding the right timing to butt in.

Bucky's forehead creased as he let out a huff, "Rough weeks, actually." he answered.

You opened your mouth to say something comforting, wanting to lift Bucky's spirits up but he turned around and glanced at you and then back to Sam.

"Does anyone hate me in this office?" Bucky asked.

You and Sam exchanged looks, both of utter confusion before shaking your heads in unison. "Why'd you ask?" Sam asked.

Bucky lifted the cup of coffee that you made, "Someone's been making me coffee." he stated.

You cleared your throat, "...is it bad?" you asked.

Bucky made a face, "Terrible actually."

Ouch.

"I mean, the first time I saw it I was actually flattered. And then I took a sip and it's just...salty." Bucky said, pouring the coffee into the sink before throwing it into the bin.

Sam's head snapped towards your direction, his face almost red from biting back a laugh. Your face heated up at the realization that you've been putting salt into Bucky's coffee instead of sugar. All this time. You wanted to disappear right then and there. And Sam had to be the one to witness your huge failure.

"I thought it was a mistake since the next day, there was another coffee on my desk. I tried it out and it's still salty. It lasted a week, you guys. And I was dumb enough to keep on tasting it in hopes that it might have been a genuine mistake. But now I'm starting to think that someone hates me that much to fuck my coffee up." Bucky explained, face scrunched up into a mixture of irritation and curiosity.

Sam failed to stifle his laughter and exploded, "Funniest shit I've ever heard." he told Bucky before standing up and making his way to the door where you stood.

Your face was red and if the salt and sugar mishap was already humiliating enough, Sam decided to make things even worse for you.

"You really need to check the labels before pouring shit into his coffee." and with that, Sam gave your shoulder a squeeze before leaving the pantry.

Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath and tried to calm yourself. When you opened them, Bucky was staring at you with an expression you couldn't paint.

"Did you...were you the one leaving me coffee?" he asked.

You secretly pinched yourself in the arm to check whether you were just dreaming. Fuck, you hoped you were having a nightmare but the pain that you felt made it clear that you totally fucked up.

You nodded in embarrassment.

"You hate me that much?" Bucky asked in disbelief, as if he was offended that out of all people, it had to be you.

You quickly shook your head, "No, God no! I just...it's because I..." you stammered, trying to find the courage to spit out the words you've been dying to tell Bucky.

Bucky tilted his head, "Because you...?" he urged.

Your hands balled into fists as you let out another deep breath. Bucky probably hates you right now, but whatever. This was your only chance and to hell, you were going to confess.

"Because I like you?"

You didn't think that Bucky's confused look could even turn more...well, confused. But he was looking at you incredulously as though you've grown a second head, or a third head.

"You like me so you decided to put salt in my coffee?" he asked again.

You honestly didn't know who sounded even more stupid now, you or Bucky. Because if he still didn't understand what was going on, he was dense as fuck.

"No!" you explained. "I wanted to make you a decent cup of coffee but I guess I was too careless and didn't realize that I've been putting in salt instead of sugar." you said.

Bucky didn't say anything after that. He just stared at you, but he didn't seem confused anymore. If any, he looked like he was processing the entire situation.

"You like me." he stated again.

Will your embarrassment ever end?!

"Yes, Bucky. And I messed up my chance and you know what? I'm just going to show myself out and leave you alone." you told him and forced a fake grin before attempting to walk out.

A hand gripped your wrist, pulling you back into the pantry. This time, Bucky was the one who looked embarrassed.

"I might have...done something pretty stupid too." he said, avoiding your gaze as he rubbed the back of his neck.

You eyed him suspiciously, "What do you mean?"

"I uhh...I did something to your computer...the day before you requested for my assistance for the first time." Bucky admitted shyly.

It was your turn to get muddled at Bucky's confession. "But why?" you asked.

Bucky offered a shy smile, "Because I've been seeing you around the building and thought you were cute."

And then everything clicked. It was a light bulb moment for the both of you.

"Oh. Ohhh okay. I see." you said before suddenly breaking into laughter.

Bucky joined you and scratched his head, "I guess we're both idiots." he said, placing his hands inside his pockets as he stared at you.

"This went...way more interesting than I thought." you said with a nod.

There was a pause before you decided to speak up, "So, do you want coffee?"

Bucky beamed at you as he nodded, "As long as you'll use sugar this time."

-

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[not-your-chosen]

sah1x1s​:

@prosiyat Santiago and da kiddos

Pope grimaced at the mess in the kitchen, glad that it wasn’t his house they were doing this in because j e s u s, Frankie was not gonna believe- well… actually, it was Santi.

He might believe the fact that he decided to help the kids make a special dinner for Frankie that Santiago’s mother had made for Frankie way back when they had first met and she was still alive that Fish just went nuts for.

He had mentioned it the other day and immediately the kiddos demanded that they had to learn how to make it for Fish and well, to be honest? Santi wouldn’t say no to having that for dinner either.

So with a slightly wrinkled nose, he sighed and looked at Ory with a small shrug. “He’s going to love the food so much, maybe he won’t even notice the… you know… all of this?” With a gesture towards the fucked up kitchen, he looked at Roe with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

“When does he come home again?” Rowena turns, looking at Eli, who was checking his texts to approximate an arrival time. “ehh... Probably in five.” Amanda moves to tie up her hair, before handing an extra hair tie to Ory. 

“Ive cleaned worse. Five minutes is just enough time.” Amanda nods at the others, then at Santi. Then, all the kids descended on the mess of a kitchen, Oryanna putting bones and scraps in their bins in the freezer, Rowena taking all the fresh food out to the dining table, Elliot donning the hot pink gloves of sink cleaning and Amanda putting away myriads of spices and pantry items they dug out... Controlled Chaos at its finest.

Elliot throws off the gloves as soon as the door unlocked, ‘done.’ he mutters as he joins the kids perfectly staged around the table and the fresh steaming food.

@prosiyat Santiago and da kiddos

Pope grimaced at the mess in the kitchen, glad that it wasn't his house they were doing this in because j e s u s, Frankie was not gonna believe- well... actually, it was Santi.

He might believe the fact that he decided to help the kids make a special dinner for Frankie that Santiago's mother had made for Frankie way back when they had first met and she was still alive that Fish just went nuts for.

He had mentioned it the other day and immediately the kiddos demanded that they had to learn how to make it for Fish and well, to be honest? Santi wouldn't say no to having that for dinner either.

So with a slightly wrinkled nose, he sighed and looked at Ory with a small shrug. "He's going to love the food so much, maybe he won't even notice the... you know... all of this?" With a gesture towards the fucked up kitchen, he looked at Roe with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

[screamin-abt-haikyuu]

Asahi accidentally tells you his feelings in front of the entire team (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1! I would suggest reading it first before proceeding!

Asahi accidently blurted out the L-word as Y/N was rushing out of the club room. He does not know if Y/N heard him. But the entire Karasuno VBC did. Is the gentle giant going to get through this without crying dying making a mess?

Asahi x gn! reader || Sfw Genre: Comedy and fluff at the end Word Count: 1.5k+

The entire Karasuno team is looking at Asahi in stunned silence. They all heard him say he loves you. 

However (fortunately or unfortunately for him), you did not really hear what he said. The entire club’s eyes are glued to the club room’s open windows as they watch you sprint away, eager to make it in time for your movie.

Asahi’s eyes are open wide and he keeps opening and closing his mouth but no words are coming out, he is simply gaping like a fish and making incomprehensible noises. His face is so red and hot that one could make their entire breakfast on it. 

Asahi: I-I-I d-didn’t m-mean t-t-to s- NOYA?! TANAKA?! WHY ARE YOU CRYING?!?!

Noya: *in between sobs* Asahi-san, you have grown up so fast!

Tanaka: *loud noises that seem to indicate agreement with Noya* *violent sobbing*

Suga intervened: Oi, you two, stop it! Your cries might catch Y/N’s attention.

Meanwhile, Hinata has run over and climbed on to the club room’s window and is now shouting live updates of your whereabouts. 

“Uwaaaah Asahi-san, I do not think Y/N-san heard you. I can see them running towards the gates.”

Kageyama kicks Hinata, “BOKE, don’t shout their name from the open window, they might hear you, you BOKE!”

“BAKA, Kageyama, you don’t have to kick me, I am only trying to help!”

At this point, Tanaka and Noya are rolling on the floor and crying violently, Kageyama and Hinata are trying to kill each other while Suga and Daichi try to separate them. Asahi is staring at the floor, wishing for a hole to open up and swallow him. The rest of the team is just standing around in silence, trying to absorb the mess that has happened in the last 30 seconds. 

So, you know, a usual day at the Karasuno Volleyball Club.

This is what is going on in Asahi’s mind right now:

“It’s certainly a relief that Y/N did not hear me. Or did they?!?!? and they just pretended to ignore me so they wouldn’t have to answer?!?!?! After all, it has only been 4 months, I do not expect them to love me so soon. What if this scares them off?? If they really did not hear me, that would have been great if the entire team hadn’t heard me say it. And knowing these people, I am sure Y/N will know about this before tomorrow. WHAT IF THEY HEARD ME AND THEY FREAKED OUT AND RAN OFF AND WILL NEVER COME BACK? -” and on and on it went.

"Uh-Oh”

Suga’s words snap Asahi out of his overthinking trance (good timing, I should say, because at this point he is seriously considering shifting to India and becoming a monk). He looks up to see Suga looking out the window. He pales.

//~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What have you been doing since you ran out?

“Shit, I’m going to be late if I walk there. I will have to run if I want to make it in time. The theatre is not that far, though, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

These are the thoughts going through your head as you sprint away from the club room. As you are running, your mind wanders back to Asahi (as it usually does). You have a tendency to replay every moment with him in your mind and you are thinking back to the conversation that had just taken place. Asahi had looked so cute when you were handing him his hairband. You couldn’t wait to see him tonight and you had told him that as you had run out of the room. And it seems so had he-

And then it registers. 

Wait-

//~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A very loud -WHAT?! resounded through the room. It was your voice. And even though it came from the outside, it felt like the entire room shuddered. The sound sent chills through Asahi’s spine and he started quaking in his shoes.

Suga: Uh Asahi, you have probably already realized this but Y/N seems to be running back in this directio-

The club room’s door slams open with such force that it makes everyone jump. You stand at the doorway, panting loudly, with the most incredulous expression on your face.

Asahi is dead now. I am sorry to say but his soul has left his body and it will not be returning. Let’s all come together to pray for his peaceful departure.

You look at Asahi. His face has drained entirely of its colour and he looks ready to pass out. You can almost see steam coming out of his ears as he stares at you in absolute horror. 

“D-did you j-just say you love me?” you manage to gasp out your question as you try to steady your breathing.

Asahi is dead, Y/N, dead people do not speak. 

He is shaking as you walk towards him. The expressions on his and teammates’ faces have already answered your question.

Even though Asahi is terrified out of his mind, he is trying to read your expression. How he chooses to answer right now is probably going to make or break your relationship. 

In between all the confusion on your face, he sees a hint of something else in your eyes: Hope.

You stop in front of him. You ask him the same question again, but much more calmly this time now that your breathing has somewhat normalized.

As he continues to try to read your expression, he realizes you are not mad at him. Instead, there is a slight earnestness in you. He calms down a bit.

“Y-yes.” he says, barely meeting your eyes.

“Do you really mean it? Or was it just a slip of your tongue?” you ask, hopeful, but also bracing yourself for the worst. What’s worse is that this is all happening in front of PEOPLE and all of their eyes are on you both. This is bound to make Asahi want to nope out of here. But the damage is already done and all you can do right now is wait for him to answer.

“I- I mean it (your heart soars for a second) but- (aaaand there it comes crashing back down).”

Asahi’s eyes are back to looking at the floor now and his fists are clenched. 

“but this...this is not how I wanted to tell you. I wanted to make it special for you. But I fucked this up too.”

You did not know what you were expecting him to say but this was certainly not it. Your eyes widen in surprise.

“And I- I understand if you do not feel the same way. Or if you want to b-break up with m-me.”

His voice cracks at the last sentence and even though he’s looking down, it’s not hard to figure out that he is holding back tears. 

“Special for me?” you say as you close the distance between you and him. You use your hands to cup his face and tilt his head up so that he is looking at you. His eyes are full of tears that threaten to fall at any second. 

“The only thing I need for it to be special for me is YOU. I do not care about where you said it, or how you said it. I just care that you said it. That’s the most special thing you could have done for me. You are the only thing I want and need. Everything else is just secondary.”

You wipe away a tear that has fallen from his eyes. 

“However, to make things even: I, L/N Y/N, standing here at Karasuno High School, in the Volleyball Club Room, surrounded by the weirdest audience ever, (why are Tanaka and Noya hugging and crying?? Why does Hinata seem to be in the middle of pantsing Kageyama??), would like to tell you, Azumane Asahi, that I love you too.” You kiss Asahi on his forehead, rubbing comforting circles on his back and give him a big smile. “Was that special enough for you?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, as he throws his arms around you and pulls you in for a short but passionate kiss (something he has never done in public before). His tears are now freely falling but he smiles the biggest smile at you and everything he wants to say to you, all the love and gratitude he has for you, you can see in his eyes. “I love you” he whispers as he loosens his hold on you. 

“I love you too. Can’t wait to see you tonight.” 

You are horribly late for your movie but you don’t care anymore. However, you do know it is important for your boyfriend (WHO LOVES YOU BACK!!) to focus on volleyball. So, you use the movie to excuse yourself and you finally walk out of the room, with the biggest smile on your face. You cannot help but laugh as his teammates almost blow the roof off the place with all their yelling and cheering for him as soon as you leave. 

Suffice it to say that even though you did “see” the movie, you still have no idea what it was about.

FIN

HOPE YOU ENJOYED

Oh my god I finished it. 

This was so enjoyable to write for me I cannot. I don’t think it was too bad for a first attempt??? I’m???

Please do not repost without permission.

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