#'cuts that are painful without being mortal wounds'

[lesbianneopolitan]

Whenever I do small research of crime stuff for my headcanons, I swear it’s only for that, for research purposes

[aquaticmercy]

My Own Soul’s Warning

Summary : You, an immortal being, falls in love with the very mortal Bucky Barnes. You would do anything for him, even if it meant you had to strike a deal with Death herself.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Violence, death, trauma, mentions of sex (not graphic), cursing. Rio Vidal makes an appearance. Angst with a happy ending. Fluff!!!!

Word count : 6.3k

Note : This fic was inspired by Agatha and Rio, though this has a much happier ending. Reader is the Spirit of Suffering, an immortal entity who shows herself to people in extreme physical and emotional suffering to help ease the pain. The title is inspired by the Killers song of the same name. The fic started in the 1940s and ends after FATWS. Enjoy!

The sequel to this story is out now!

Bucky x Spirit of Suffering!reader masterlist

The first time Bucky saw you, it was 1942. He was in the trenches, under the dim moonlight of Germany.

He was supposed to be Sergeant James Barnes, fighting to defend his country. But then? He was only selfishly fighting for his own life. 

The air was thick with the stench of mud, sweat, and blood. The world around him felt like a prison of haze and darkness— machine guns firing in the distance, the rumble of explosions shaking the ground underneath him. 

He knew it only took one mistake, one slip up, and this is how he would die.

He was tired beyond anything he’d ever felt before, his body crumbling after days without sleep. His body ached from wounds he hadn’t couldn’t treat— the infirmary was crowded, too crowded to even see the ‘small’ gushing cut on his forearm that didn’t feel so small right now. 

But he could take the physical pain. It was the gnawing fear that was the hardest to bear, creeping over him, curling around his ribs like a rope, tightening until it hurt to breathe.

Then, through the smoke and shadows, he saw you. 

You were just a figure at first, standing a few yards away. You were cloaked in the same darkness that had swallowed up his world. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed that you didn’t quite belong.

You were almost radiant, the flickering light from the fire catching on something otherworldly in your gaze. Bullets flew past you, going through your being as if you were only made of smoke.

You were watching him, silent and still. Your expression was carefully neutral, a warmth in your eyes that cut through the cold surrounding him.

He blinked, half-believing you were just a figment of his exhaustion.

When he opened his eyes again, you were still there, a steady presence in the middle of the chaos. Bucky felt a strange sense of peace swallow him, like the world had gone silent in the space between his heartbeat and your gaze. 

You didn’t say a word, but you didn’t need to. Just being there, in a place where everything was twisted and brutal and so fucking wrong, you felt like a sliver of peace in this nightmare that was wartime. 

Something deep in his gut told him that he wasn’t meant to understand who, or rather what, you were. And yet, he felt safer at the mere presence of you. Before he could reach out to test if you were real, you were gone— slipping away into the dark like a ghost.

—

The next time he saw you was when he was half-dead, bleeding out in the snow after the fall from the train. The pain was more than unbearable, raw and sharp and insufferable. His nerves burned, radiating from every shattered bone, every freezing inch of his numb skin. 

His vision blurred, the sky above flickering in and out of view as his mind faded in and out of consciousness. He wondered if this was going to be his death, a slow and dramatic fade to black he only ever saw in the movies Steve dragged him to.

Then he saw you again, standing in the snow.

The sight of you jolted him back to consciousness, just enough to cling to the edge of the living world. This time, there was no mistaking the look on your face— a look of concern. 

For a moment, he thought you must be an angel coming to collect him. 

You must be. 

There you were, silently watching him with that same expression of warmth he’d seen in the trenches.

He struggled to sit up to get a better look at you, every little movement sent pain shooting through him. Finally, he slumped back to the snow in defeat, breathing hard. 

“What are you doing here?” His voice was hoarse, nearly swallowed up by the howling wind.

The cold, harsh winter wasn’t a place for someone who looked as fragile as you, he thought.

You carefully took a step closer, as if unwilling to disturb him. There was a slight curve to your lips, something that could have been a smile but wasn’t quite, as you looked down at him. “I’m looking out for someone.”

He swallowed a strange lump in his throat, the sharp tang of fear and curiosity contrasting the cold bite of the freezing air. “Who?” His voice cracked, barely audible.

“You,” you said, your voice as quiet as a prayer.

It was such a simple answer, but it hit him like a wave. In the midst of all the pain, he suddenly felt relief. 

The hurt eased, the cold stung a little less.

He didn’t know if you were a dream, a ghost, or something beyond his understanding. But at that moment, he didn’t care. All that mattered was that you were there, that you had come for him. That he wasn’t alone. 

As his vision started to fade again and the darkness crept back, he realised you didn't leave any footprints in the snow. 

—

Bucky didn’t know why you kept showing up. 

Over the years, he felt your presence like his own shadow, drifting through the Hydra bases, the laboratories, the dark corners of the cell they kept him in between missions. The world around him was cold and sterile, a cage of steel where hope had no place, no right to exist.

Still, he saw you, quiet and watchful, a silhouette in the dim light. 

He would catch glimpses of you while the scientists strapped him to machines, the hum of needles piercing his flesh. You were there, watching over him, as they shocked cold electricity through his veins. Each time, his eyes would land on you, and you’d watch him from the far corner of the room, with that same calm, steady gaze.

Everytime his eyes locked on yours, the pain eased, even if only a little.

It became easier to take the torture.

It became easier to find rest.

Over time, Hydra erased his memories. 

Soon, he forgot his life. He forgot the people who used to love him, who grieved for him when he was lost. 

But he had never forgotten you. 

Maybe it was the first sign that you weren’t quite human.

One night, after a particularly brutal round of reprogramming, he saw you again, this time closer than ever before. 

You stood by his bedside, where he lay in the dark, barely clinging to sanity. He blinked, pain searing in his throat. He tried to reach for you, fingers trembling, and felt nothing.

“Where did you come from?” he whispered, his voice rough and broken, as he felt that comfort once again. 

The comfort he only had with you.

A soft smile touched your lips, something gentle and knowing. You were a light in the darkness of his fractured mind. “Far, far away from here.”

He closed his eyes, trying to etch your face to his memory, certain that if he did, he could take some small fragment of comfort back into the waking nightmare that was his brutal reality.

You knew, by the way his life was going, that you were going to see Bucky more and more.

It was the nature of your job, to look out for people like him.

After the next couple of visits, he started talking to you more and more— whenever he was left alone with his thoughts, whenever the pain or the hollow emptiness crept too close, he would search for you. 

And you’d be there, listening to the murmured secrets he’d never told another soul. 

He told himself you weren’t real, that he was just losing his grip on sanity, conjuring a kind face to stave off the horror. But that didn’t stop him from craving your presence.

—

Years later, he’d managed to break free of Hydra’s grip. He had carved out a life hiding in the far reaches of the world when he saw you again, as if you’d followed him through every corner of hell he’d tried to escape.

Romania was quiet, the kind of place where he could keep to himself. He had a run down studio apartment where the days blurred by and the silence was almost peaceful. 

Yet in that solitude, you appeared again, lingering in the shadow of an alleyway, or standing just beyond his view on quiet, empty streets. He’d catch your gaze through crowds when he was most alone, and he’d feel an overwhelming sense of calm, an unexplainable rush he could only have with you. 

It was on one of those quiet evenings, when he was washing dishes, that he saw you again, watching him from across the room. He stared, wiping his hands absently on the dish towel, still unsure if he was simply dreaming.

He called out in that soft voice of his, almost a whisper.

“Thank you for being here.” It was a simple admission, but it was true.

You tilted your head, that familiar gentleness in your eyes. “Always.” He replied.

The suffering he had recently was different— it wasnt physical as it usually was. It was an isolated sense of longing that broke the deepest parts of his heart, one that he couldn't quite heal himself.

Your warm and steady voice anchored him to the present. For the first time, he didn’t try to tell himself that you were a figment of his imagination. For just a moment, he let himself believe that you were standing there, real and alive, not just an invention of his lonely mind. 

And even as you disappeared, slipping away into the shadows, the feeling of your presence lingered, filling the emptiness around him.

—

The last rays of Wakanda’s sun slipped over the treetops, bathing everything in a warm, honeyed light that somehow reached even into the white-walled lab where Bucky was preparing himself for a long, cold sleep. 

He looked around, his gaze fixing on the distant horizon, the soft sounds of Shuri and the lab assistants moving in the background. 

He could feel his heart pounding. He was terrified, the horror clawing into him, even though he knew that this was the right decision. He knew that it was the safest thing for him to do— to go back in the ice until his trigger words could be removed.

It didn't stop the instinctive dread of being shut away again, though.

And then he saw you, standing behind a desk. He didn’t know how you’d gotten there, or if anyone else could even see you.

But there you were, just as you’d been so many times before, giving him a piece of calm he didn't quite understand.

For a long moment, he said nothing. He only looked at you. 

Somehow, you looked more real in this light, more human than he’d ever seen you before. Still, you had that hint of almost supernatural haze. He took a deep breath, feeling safer by the second, now that you were here.

“Will you be here when I wake up?” he asked, the words coming out like a whispered plea. He didn’t expect you to answer, not really.

His heart beat quicker as he waited, hoping you wouldn’t vanish as quickly this time.

You just smiled, that same soft, knowing smile you’d given him in the darkest hours of his life.

You nodded, “Only if you need me.”

The warmth of your words lingered in his mind as he took one last look at you. He felt the tension in his chest loosen, just enough to let him breathe again. He laid down, a feeling of peace settling over him. 

He closed his eyes, holding the memory of you close, feeling the faint impression of your smile stay with him as he drifted into the dark.

—

The next time he saw you, it was in the middle of another waking nightmare—the battlefield of Wakanda, chaos erupting in every direction as the forces of Thanos closed in. Bucky was fighting on pure instinct, his body moving with an instinct he’d learned in war. He drew on more and more on his Hydra training and sheer luck. 

After Thanos snapped, he saw you again. You were standing behind Steve, amongst the trees.

For the first time, your expression was not calm. You looked terrified. Your eyes, usually so steady, were wide, your face pale as you looked at him with a horror he’d never seen from you before.

Something inside him understood. He knew, even before the feeling swept over him—a strange tingling, a disintegration at the frayed edges of his body—that he was about to be turned to dust.

He tried to reach out, to touch you, to ask if he’d see you on the other side, but before he could say a word, he felt himself fade, slipping into nothingness, his best friend’s name the last thing he uttered.

—

When he returned—when the world pieced itself back together after five long years—he felt the dread of loneliness again. 

You came, though it felt like you carried a deeper sadness in your gaze than before. It was as if you had… missed him.

When Steve left, when Bucky watched his best friend walk away, disappearing into a life they’d both only dreamed of, he felt the emptiness he had left in his wake.

He stood there, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, feeling a hollow emptiness settle inside him, knowing he’d lost something irreplaceable, something that could never be returned when Steve decided to live a life he always wanted.

Then he saw you again, just a few steps next to him. He almost didn’t dare to look, afraid that you’d vanish if he did. When he finally turned, there you were, as calm as you’d always been, watching him with that familiar warmth and understanding.

“You’re not alone,” you murmured, your voice so gentle it felt like a medicine to the sickness of his soul.

He swallowed hard, nodding as he looked down. He tried to keep his composure, though he failed. 

He couldn’t bring himself to ask you who you truly were, if you truly knew the depth of what he’d lost, if you understood the kind of grief that was now carved so deeply inside him.

And you did. Grief was a human suffering, after all.

You stayed there, silent, a quiet witness to his pain as you offered a supernatural solace. 

—

Over the years that followed, you'd show up when the loneliness clawed too deep, when the nightmares took hold or when the silence of his apartment was too much to bear on his own. 

He started talking to you more than ever before.

When the silence weighed heavy on him, he’d glance into the shadows, almost expecting you to appear. And, as if by some unspoken agreement, you’d arrive just in time.

Yet, you never came too close. You stayed at a distance, as if you were made of something too fragile for this world. Bucky never minded, though. He had learned early on that pressing you for answers, for explanations, only ended with your departure. So he stopped asking them. He started accepting your presence as a gift he wasn’t meant to understand.

You were simply…there, steady and unchanging, offering comfort and warmth in a way no one else could. 

He’d tell you things he wouldn’t dare tell anyone else—confessions that clawed up from the darkest corners of his mind, memories from the days he wished he could erase. You would listen, without judgement, without a flicker of fear or revulsion. Your presence only ever brought you peace.

In those quiet, lonely moments, he came to rely on you, to look for you in the shadows. You were a silent companion in his darkest hours. And though he never stopped wondering who you truly were, he let himself believe, if only a little, that he had someone, that you were real enough to him.

—

One night, after a long silence had fallen between you, he confessed something.

“You know,” he said, his voice thick with sorrow and exhaustion, “I don’t… I don’t think you’re real.” He tried to smile, but it was faint. It was hollow. “I think to you’re just… my mind is playing tricks on me. I think I needed someone so badly that I made you up.”

He was laying himself bare. Raw. Vulnerable.

He was almost afraid to look at you, afraid that if he did, you would disappear, proving his confession true. Then, he forced himself to meet your eyes, searching for any sign of reaction.

You didn’t flinch, didn’t deny it. 

You only looked back at him with that same soft understanding.

“You’re just…” he murmured, trailing off. “You’re the most beautiful person I could imagine, someone I must have conjured to… to keep me from losing my mind.” He laughed bitterly, rubbing a hand over his face, not quite meeting your gaze. “Because no one like you would actually be here. Would actually want to be with someone as broken as me.”

He waited, his heart beating harshly. Part of him hoping you’d break the illusion, that you’d tell him he was wrong, that you were real. 

Faint sadness flickered in your eyes. “Suffering has never broken you before,” you said, “It will not break you now.” 

You didn’t confirm his fears, but you didn’t deny them either. 

That quiet, ambiguous acceptance soothed him more than any promise could have.

He let the questions go, even though they lingered in the back of his mind. 

He came to understand that perhaps it didn’t matter if you were real or not. He only needed you.

—

It was the dead of night, and Bucky was trembling.

He had woken up in cold sweat, the remnants of his nightmare gripping him like icy chains. He sat up, pressing his hands to his face, trying to push away the memories that refused to fade, the fractured images of a past that haunted him even in sleep. He swallowed, his voice rough, almost a whisper, as he murmured into the dark.

“Where are you?” he rasped, his voice thick with desperation. “Please, come back.” His heart pounded, his words barely a breath as he called for you, “Come back to me.”

He let his head fall into his hands, feeling so fucking foolish. 

He should've known.

He should’ve known that after all this time, he was still calling for a ghost, for a figment of his imagination, for someone he’d conjured out of pure, pathetic loneliness. 

As his breathing slowed, he felt something shift in the quiet corners of his room. A familiar warmth settled over him, gentle and comforting. He raised his head, and there you were, standing just a few feet away.

For a long moment, he simply stared, disbelief and wonder filling his stare. You looked more solid than he’d ever seen you before, as if reality had woven itself around you.

Light no longer passed through you. Your footsteps made thudding sounds on the ground. You tripped over a couple of the steps, as if learning how to walk with legs for the first time.

You moved closer towards him.

Seeing him so shaken, so desperately calling for you, had drawn you out in a way that felt irreversible. His cry was a pull too strong to resist. 

Gently, you reached out, your fingertips brushing his cheeks, tracing the faint stubble along his jaw, the warmth of his skin grounding you in this physical form. 

It was wrong for an immortal entity as ancient as you to take human form— you felt weaker, and your grasp on the unknown faltered. You knew, when you inevitably had to return to your ethereal form, that you would be exhausted. That it would hurt.

But after nearly a century of watching over James Buchanan Barnes, you had to know what his skin felt like.

His breath hitched at your touch. Slowly, his hands rose, trembling, to cover yours, pressing your palms to his face as if he was afraid you might disappear.

He blinked, eyes wide, searching your face. “You’re… real,” he breathed, his voice barely a whisper, an astonished relief flooding his eyes. “I can feel you.”

You nodded, letting your hands cradle his face, your thumbs softly brushing over his cheekbones. For a while, you stayed like that, letting his mind settle on the reality of you. 

“Who… who are you?” His voice was filled with awe. His gaze locked onto yours, desperate for answers.

You took a steady breath— and it felt off, like you had to learn it. 

You had never needed to breathe before. But now, you needed it as much as you needed him. 

You knew that him knowing what you were wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“I am the Spirit of Suffering,” you said quietly, your voice as soft as the night around you. “I ease the pain of those who suffer, showing myself to those who need me most. For eons, I’ve been drawn to pain, to sorrow. But… I’ve never been drawn to someone like you.”

His brow furrowed, confusion mingling with a sense of awe as he processed your words. He searched your face, as if trying to reconcile the warmth of your touch with the truth.

“You’ve been watching over me?” he murmured, struggling to fully grasp the revelation. 

You nodded, the truth spinning between you like a fragile thread. “Yes,” you admitted, your voice gentle, almost a whisper. “Every time you were in pain, it was my job to be there. The natural forces would not let me stop what happened to you, James, but I could keep you company, share the weight of your sorrow.”

He closed his eyes, his hands still covering yours. His grip on you tightened, trying to anchor himself to this moment. “So all those times I thought I was imagining you…”

“You weren’t,” you said softly, your gaze unwavering. 

He took a shaky breath.

You sat on the bed next to him, feeling the softness of bedsheets for the first time in your eternal existence.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, James.” Your hand drifted down to cover his heart, feeling its steady beat beneath your palm. “In all the lifetimes I’ve witnessed, through all the suffering I’ve felt, I’ve seen people become monsters, lose themselves to pain and suffering. But you… you never let it consume you. No matter how much they took from you, no matter how much you suffered, there’s still kindness in you.” You smiled, a flicker of admiration in your gaze. “You were the first person to show me that suffering doesn’t have to destroy.”

Bucky’s throat tightened. He reached up, his fingers brushing a strand of your hair behind your ear.

His touch was fleeting, as if he still couldn’t believe you were real. He searched your face, seeing the depth of who you truly  were. He saw your boundless compassion, the centuries, maybe millenia, of understanding that lingered in your gaze. 

You had been more than a dream, more than a figment of his imagination.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice filled with a sincere gratitude, “for helping.” 

As you looked at him, you realised just how much he needed you. And perhaps just how much you needed him.

—

Every night that he called for you, you’d be there for him, sacrificing your eternal strength just for a moment.

Just before the dawn’s first light, you’d pull away from Bucky’s life and disappear, dissolving back into the unknown.

You always lingered as long as you could, your human heart aching at the thought of leaving him alone again. But still, you slipped away, returning to your role as the silent companion of suffering, never able to stay beyond a few hours.

But Bucky kept calling for you.

Sometimes he’d wake from a nightmare, his voice rough with sleep and fear, calling you like a prayer, like you were the only thing anchoring him to this world. Sometimes he’d simply whisper into the dark, reaching out with an open hand, searching for your touch.

And each time, you answered. Despite the strain it placed on you, the unnatural weight of becoming flesh and blood for him, you would come back. You took on human form again and again, letting him feel the warmth of your hands. You told yourself that you could bear it, that his comfort was worth any mortal pain that your immortal spirit had to carry.

One night, in a moment of weakness, as you sat together on the edge of his bed, he looked at you with an intensity that made you feel as if your duties had disappeared. 

The silence stretched, and you could see what his eyes carried. The tenderness, the gratitude, the fierce need for you. He lifted a hand, gently brushing his fingers along your cheek. The softness of his touch reverberated through your flesh and blood. You were suddenly made aware that you had a beating heart as it was pounding against your fragile ribcage.

Before you could process the feeling, he leaned in and kissed you.

It was gentle, soft as a whisper, but it set something inside you alight, a sensation you’d never known before. 

You had seen humanity’s love from a distance, had watched the joy and heartbreak it could bring, but this… this was something beyond mere understanding. His lips were warm and real against yours, the taste of him grounding you in this fleeting human form in a way that felt both exhilarating and terrifying.

For a moment, you were frozen, feeling his heartbeat under your fingertips, the rhythm steady, grounding. And then, almost instinctively, you kissed him back. You leaned into him, feeling the depth of his sorrow and his hope in that single, shared breath. 

Every inch of you felt alive, pulled into his gravity, the intensity of this moment overwhelming every human sense you didn't think you’d ever experience.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours. “I’ve waited so long to feel this,” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. “To feel you like this.”

You felt a swell of emotion like a lightning strike— something so unfamiliar and impossible to ignore. You were a spirit who had known only of pain and how to relieve it, who had wandered the world in search of suffering to ease, yet this—this was something else entirely. This was desire, love—all foreign feelings that made you want to stay, to linger in his arms a little longer.

But dawn was coming, as it always did. Despite the ache in your chest, you knew you had to go. The world was waiting; and others needed you, too. 

With one last touch, your fingers brushing along his cheek, memorising the feeling of his skin.

You slipped away, dissolving back into the unseen, feeling his absence as if it were a physical wound.

—

It became a brutal cycle.

Every morning you would go, and every other night, when he called, you returned. Each time, the kiss lingered in your memory, the softness of his lips, the rush of your pulse, the racing of a heart that should not be yours to feel. It left you longing, yearning, pulling you back to him over and over, until every time you left felt like you were tearing yourself apart.

And though you slipped away at dawn, leaving Bucky alone with the shadows, you knew that a part of you stayed, lingering there beside him, just waiting for night to fall again so you could return to him.

One night, Bucky reached for you. His touch was gentle and filled with a hunger that was new to you. 

Tonight, he had a human desire for you that you had only observed in passing. His fingers entwined with yours, rough and warm, pulling you closer with a care that sent a strange warmth rushing through you. You sensed a gravity between you, one that seemed to draw every part of your physical form into his orbit, a sensation you never could have understood in your ethereal form.

As he guided you towards his bed, his gaze stayed on yours, searching and vulnerable, as though asking for permission. You felt a flicker of understanding in his silence, a human fragility and need that made your heart—this temporary, fragile, human heart—beat a little faster. 

You nodded.

When he leaned in to kiss you, the sensation was breathtaking, as it always was. 

That night, he showed you the depths of human pleasure, the way mortal love could break open walls so high so intensely that the shockwave that came after felt endless. Every caress of his hands, every whisper against your skin, seared into you like a brand.

Bucky gave you something new, grounding you in sensations you didn’t know were possible. In his arms, your physical senses were overwhelmed by the beauty and ache of human desire.

With each touch, each shared breath, he showed you parts of himself he had never shown anyone in a long, long time.

And as he moved with you, every boundary between the known and unknown seemed to dissolve, leaving only the two of you, bound in a shared, silent understanding that felt more ethereal than anything you’ve ever encountered.

When it was over, he held you close, his fingers tracing soft, slow patterns across your skin.

“I love you,” he murmured, his voice filled with wonder— it was the truth. His eyes met yours, laying his heart bare for you to do whatever you pleased with it. To cherish or to break, he really didn’t care, as long as you were the one holding onto it. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I do.”

In those words, you finally understood humanity’s deepest, truest suffering—the need to love and be loved.

For eons, you had only known suffering, solitude. The burden of easing pain without truly being seen, without knowing love in its purest form. But with Bucky, it was different.

“I love you too, James,” you whispered. It was a confession, as much a promise as it was a revelation. And you meant it. You felt a love that was boundless, stretching far beyond what this temporary human form of yours could contain.

Days passed, and each night, he would pull you close, his touch tender, his words gentle. His love was a constant that anchored you in this fragile, borrowed form. But each morning, as the first light crept over the horizon, you would pull yourself away, fading back into the shadows. 

Every time you left, you saw the ache in his eyes, a silent plea that grew more desperate with each parting.

—

One night, after holding you in silence, you felt Bucky suffered more than he ever did before.

You felt the sorrow, and even you couldn't calm him down from this desperate longing that had fragmented his heart into a million pieces— it was knowledge that you couldn’t truly be his and that he couldn’t truly be yours that had caused this pain. It was knowing that, as long as you were immortal, you couldn’t possibly belong to a mortal man.

“Please stay,” he whispered, his hands shaking as they held you. “Don’t go. I can’t… I can’t keep saying goodbye. I don’t want to only see you in fragments of stolen time.” He squeezed you. His eyes were filled with a raw, desperate longing. “I want you here— with me. Always.”

You reached out, placing a hand on his cheek. You wanted to say yes, to let yourself stay, to finally surrender to this love and the peace it offered. But you knew better than anyone of your nature. You were bound to the suffering of others, woven into the fabric of pain that had defined you for a long, long time.

“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice barely audible, the words breaking as you forced them out. “I want to, more than anything. But I… I’m not meant to stay. There are others who need me.”

A flash of pain crossed his face, and he closed his eyes, trying to swallow the heartache that threatened to bury him. He nodded, though you could see struggle that lingered in the lines on his face.

“Just stay a little longer tonight,” he murmured, his voice tight, a bittersweet smile forming on his lips.

And so you held him a little longer, feeling the fragility of this human connection, the knowing that you would have to let him go. You stayed with him until the stars faded from the sky, until the dawn began to creep over the horizon. And as you finally pulled away, slipping back into the shadows, you felt a piece of yourself break, a piece that would always belong to him, no matter how far you wandered.

—

One day, as Bucky’s heart prepared to stop beating, you stood by him, devastated.

You were there as a phantom, feeling his soul slip through your fingers as he lay on the concrete after a mission gone wrong. He was unconscious, his life hanging by a thread as he fought to come back from the edge. In all the centuries of comforting humanity, you had never felt such fear, such desperation. 

While you watched him, fragile and fading away, you felt something shatter deep within you.

His breath was shallow— his fate uncertain. He would only have minutes to live. 

But you couldn’t lose him. 

So you made a choice that you had once thought impossible. 

With a heavy heart, you turned and sought out the one being who held the power to intervene: Rio Vidal, Death herself.

Death came to you quietly when you summoned her to the darkness neither of you occupied. She moved with an eternal calm, her presence as vast and ancient as the stars. She looked at you, her dark eyes filled with the weight of ages that rivalled your own. Her stare was neither evil nor kind. 

You knew that she'd already understood why you called for her. 

“Don’t take him,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “Not now.” You were pathetic, desperation rising in frantically— a desperation that followed you into your ethereal form, an ache that you hadn’t known could exist in your immortal heart. “For the first time, I’ve found someone… someone I love. I can’t lose him.”

Rio regarded you quietly, her expression unreadable. She had seen countless souls come and go. She had met lovers, warriors, and spirits alike, each bargaining for one more breath, one more chance. But she had also never seen you — Suffering herself— here, pleading for a life. You, who had roamed the earth for centuries without attachment, a solitary being who moved through suffering like water, soothing but never bound. 

To see you now, so deeply connected, intrigued her.

Perhaps, she gave you a chance because she once felt this way, too.

“What would you give?” she asked softly, sheathing back her blade.

The answer rose in you, going again your own soul’s warning. 

“I’d give my immortality,” you replied without a second thought. “One day, you can take my soul, too. Just let me live beside him for as long as he has. Let me trade eternity for a single lifetime with him.”

Rio was silent for a long time, her gaze thoughtful, searching. 

“Do you understand what you’re offering?” she asked, her voice a blend of curiosity and pity. “To become mortal is to surrender everything you have known—the ability to exist beyond pain and beyond time itself. You would feel suffering as they do, you would face the limitations of flesh as they do.”

"I’m sure.” you nodded with nothing but conviction, “I would rather face an end, rather give up everything, than live without him for a single moment."

Rio studied you one last time, her stare as vast as the void between stars. Then, slowly, she inclined her head, a flicker of respect in her eyes. 

"When he is gone, I will come for you, too." Her voice softened just a little. "Cherish this life. It is not easily won."

When she vanished, you felt the world shift around you, felt your soul ground itself in ways it never had before. Your body solidified, your senses sharpened, and you felt, for the first time, the steady permanent rhythm of a heartbeat pulsing within your chest. 

You were no longer the Spirit of Suffering, bound to pain and sorrow. You, now permanently, were flesh and blood– human in every sense. 

And for the first time in forever, you felt real— mortal, permanently.

—

Bucky was recovering, weak but alive.

When you knocked on his door, he opened it, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw you standing there, no longer a fleeting vision that appeared in his room.

You walked all the way here, your barefoot aching from the harshness of the concrete.

You were solid, as real as he was, standing on his doorstep with tears in your eyes.

He had never seen you cry before. He wasn't even sure if you could.

"You're… you’re here," he whispered, reaching out as if to touch you, to be certain that you were truly there. His fingers brushed your cheek, feeling the warmth of your skin, and his hand lingered there, his thumb tracing along your cheekbone as if committing this moment to memory. “You feel different,” he murmured, awe in his voice. 

“I’m here to stay,” you said, voice brimming with love you could barely contain, your own hand lifting to cover his. 

He let out a shaky breath, and his eyes searched yours, filling with a warmth and disbelief so deep that it mirrored your own. He pulled you into his arms, holding you as though afraid you might vanish again.

But you didn’t. 

You were here, bathed in sunlight, and real.

You melted into his embrace, feeling the thrumming of his veins against yours, knowing that, finally, your heart would beat alongside his for as long as time allowed.

-end 

Read the sequel to this story: Symptom of Life

I would love to explore this further! Maybe Bucky helps you find a name, maybe even pulls some strings to give you a fake birth certificate and ID. Maybe he realises that time is fleeting and has a courthouse wedding with you ASAP.

Maybe Bucky introduces you to Sam as his wife, and he realises that he’s seen you before, when Riley got shot out of the sky.

Maybe Bucky introduces you to the Thunderbolts* as his wife, and they all would have seen you before, at some point in their life:

Yelena would have seen you when she stood over Nat’s memorial.

Alexei would have seen you when he got separated from his girls for the first time.

John would’ve seen you when he killed that flag smasher with Cap’s shield, grieving Lemar.

Ava would have seen you when she was a kid, phasing out in and out uncontrollably in extreme pain.

Antonia would’ve seen you when the bomb blew on her face.

Or maybe I could explore more of how it affects you. How you now have human guilt to live with, knowing there’s no one out there anymore easing human suffering. Now, you also have to deal with your own human suffering.

Maybe people keep recognising you, keep pointing you out as if they’ve seen a ghost because you once came to them in a time of need.

Maybe you keep your powers? Maybe I should explore how those powers would manifest in a human body?

Anyway, let me know if you’re interested in any of these ideas and I might write them!

[twooftheluckyones]

Cult of the Lamb: Luck of the Lamb Part 4: Reap the Whirlwind

The physical body does not exist within the afterlife, instead the land is inhabited by the souls of the dead or departed. Resurrection repairs the mortal coil, but godly wounds ceaselessly weep. Thus, a god cannot survive death without the healing properties of a conduit crown. Despite this many have tried, though normally its not someone else's power keeping them clinging to the margins of life. A power now bonded through the sheer force of will to share a lonely throne. ~Previous/Next~ ~Start~ ~~~~ Story Segment Under Cut ~~~~

Rage. Betrayal. Vengeance.

Their fight filled the afterlife with destruction and violence. Two gods wrestling for the key to their power. Blade and blood met flame and fury.

Narinder was an old god, powerful beyond measure even in his imprisonment. He had commanded life and death, and weilded curses effortlessly. Una would not be the first god he'd killed.

Yet fate had other plans.

She crackled with divine energy, dancing around his attacks effortlessly.

Lucky.

It felt like ages, and yet before he knew it, it was over. Her blade, made of his crown, plunged into his chest, and his eldritch form crumbled. A god defeated, reduced to nothing.

And then...

Pain. Nothing but searing hot, agonizing pain. Narinder felt lost in a sea of torment, his body suddenly awash with screaming flesh. Through burning nerves he distantly noticed the world around him felt different, the brittle bone meal landscape of the gateway gone. Instead, he felt stone, grass, and chill air against his skin. His eyes felt like hot coals shoved in their sockets, and even trying to open them felt like a dagger to the skull. The sensations were nothing but a candle to the raging inferno of suffering. In another time, he wondered if this was what the mortals he damned in the afterlife felt like. Perhaps that was his fate now. Eternal pain. Fitting. Yet as he laid there, squirming weakly in the depths of agony, something approached. "Nrdnr?! Hly Shtt!" Muffled words reached his ears, soft hands scrambling over his skin. Some demonic tormentor, come to perpetuate or relish in his state? "Hld Stlll! Fgk Fgk!" It was impossible to think over the agony, and they pushed away his hands as he feebly tried to fend them off. The cold ground under him suddenly felt warm and sticky, the silken robes he wore suddenly wet with something. "Hre! Ths iz phor thg baain." His attacker grabbed his head, shoving some vial of something against his lips. The biter oily fluid hit the back of his throat, a spasm of coughs making his body jerk and flail, each one feeling like barbed wire was being flossed through his bones. This really was hell. Hands yanked his tattered robes off, exposing his skin to the cold air. Some kind of cloth wrapped around his arms, pulled tight against the angry nerves. More on his chest, pushed against the spaces in his ribs where an echo of betrayal now bled. Two betrayals. Twice now he'd trusted and lost for it. At least the last time he hadn't been alive to feel what dying was like. "Hold still! Where did all this blood come from?!" A sudden calmness entered his mind, and the fire of agony faded into a foggy, numb abyss. Narinder opened his eyes. Stars met him, the half moon's pale light shining down. He tilted his head up, the movement feeling like lifting a boulder. Some figure hunched over him, their hands covered in inky black liquid as they quickly unrolled another bandage and began wrapping it around his chest. Almost instantly the white fabric turned black. The fog around his head grew thicker, eyes fluttering heavily as consciousness became fleeting and fickle. The figure glanced at him, red meeting red. Despite his injuries, Narinder still possessed enough strength to recognize them.

"Narinder," Una's voice poured with grief. "I'm so sorry, please just hold on. Its going to be okay."

Another empty deceitful lie. "Una..." he muttered, voice a mere whisper through his scratchy and weak throat. "Narinder?" Her eyes wept a river of tears, the guilt in her words echoed across her face. The traitorous eye of his former crown gazed down from atop her head, watching with unending apathy. Rage bloomed in his oozing chest, a small surge of fury granting him some measure of energy. He summoned all of his remaining power, defiance filling his fading mind. "Fuck you." Darkness.

[allmightluver]

These photos especially hurt me.

The face he makes when he’s told he isn’t needed anymore. Something he’s known for a long time. He KNOWS he shouldn’t be alive, and that he’s only a burden to everyone now; especially Deku.

The face of heartbreak. Of understanding Deku’s position. He understands more than anyone possibly could. He held the world up by himself for over 40 years. I know how you feel. I know it feels to want to protect everyone, especially those closest to you. And the only way to do so is to leave them behind. Distance and Isolate yourself completely so you can’t get too attached to anyone. Because if you do, and the villains find out, it would feel impossible to live on knowing it was your fault they died. Because you endangered them by just being around them. Loving them. It’s only now, that I’ve allowed myself to live, that I can see how wrong I was to believe that. You shouldn’t have to suffer the same way I did. I can’t let you!

When he falls to the ground, he first lands on his torso. Which feels significant given the mortal wound there, as well how the normal pain in his side has moved to his chest. And even though the pain of having a misshapen, broken body can be extremely debilitating, the pain he now feels is absolutely unbearable.

The bento box. Sure it’s wasted food. But the fact that kills me is how lovingly he made it himself for his boy. Imagine him in their makeshift shelter, which may just be an abandoned building or apartment, carefully using the best ingredients he could find, to make a meal and feed his overworked son. The son he’s more than just a little worried about. It’s all he can think about.

But he busies himself preparing the rice, keeping an eye on the meat to be thoroughly cooked but not burnt, and then cutting it into small strips so his boy can easily grab it with his chopsticks while on the move without having to worry about cutting it himself. Protein. That’s what Deku needs most. And vegetables to keep his strength up. Everything is prepared as perfectly as possible in the short amount of time he has between following Deku to every villain attack.

He already knows the boy isn’t eating on his own. He did the same when he was a hero. Sometimes going for days without a proper meal in order to Protect. Toshi didn’t have anyone to help him with this, save for the few years Nighteye was with him. And that’s why he knows exactly what Deku needs.

After meticulously putting together the food in the bento box, he wraps it his signature bunny cloth…only to have Deku reject not only the meal, but HIM as well. Watching the boy walk away from him raises a memory of himself doing the same to Nighteye in the hospital. He now knows how Nighteye felt when he turned his back on him. Nighteye had left, unable to watch him slowly kill himself.

But Toshi can’t leave. Deku is all. He. Has. The only reason he’s still alive.

And yet, the food he prepared for his boy, the love he put into it to nourish him, ends up spilt. Splattered in the mud. Ruined. Rejected. Wasted…The food too.

And this final scene. Seeing this was so painful in the manga. I imaged he was crying, or trying not to. And my heart ached just thinking about it. But finally being able to hear it, to hear that yes, he is in fact crying, audibly, for the first time without holding himself back…that’s what finally shattered me.

[moodymisty]

Getting it in at the last minute hopefully, but one thing that's on the brain is Chapter Serfs, the mortals who do a collection of jobs on fortress monasteries and are devoted to certain chapters. They're treated a whole range of ways depending on the chapter from "worse than slaves" to "members of the family". I've read somewhere that the Raven Guard treat their Serfs surprisingly well given they're all Spooky Scary, but I wanna know what you think!

Also on the brain is a serf worrying about her Raven Guard battle brother constantly, and being extremely gentle and doting on him because like... Look at him, being a space marine seems like an extremely painful existence.

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's note: This is a cute idea, and I want to write more Raven Guard. I hope you enjoy this little snippet!

Relationships: Unnamed Raven Guard/Gn!Reader (could be read platonic or very slightly romantic if you really squinted)

Warnings: Mentions of wounds like burns, Your astartes being apathetic about the whole thing

You almost have everything you think you'll need, looking over the spread of materials along the small table. If you've forgotten anything you hope he'll be as forgiving as the last times; As he always is.

The Raven's Valour has moored at Deliverance and you know his arrival is imminent; You'll finally be able to see him again. It's been months and while you serve the other Raven Guard with nothing but respect, there's something about your Raven Guard that is special. That has his arrival stirring your stomach.

It's become harder to even sleep without him nearby. You sleep in his private quarters with him- many of the serfs tending to higher rank Raven Guard do. The reasoning seems to be so you're always available to serve them, but too many of them seem to just like their serf's company to make it an excuse that doesn’t get doubted for a moment.

You hear the door open and quickly turn, spotting his wide shoulders and dark hair. Moments later however, you see that on areas not covered by his robes is what looks to be burns of some kind; Mostly chemical. It has that distinctive look, compared to a burn from a flame. He has other jagged cuts as well, but the burns are the most dramatic and eye catching.

"What happened?"

You say surprised, watching him sit down on the small bed and push his robes off his back. You can see his back is almost burned, and even though he has no reaction there isn't any way the cloth of his robes against his skin hadn't hurt.

You can also see the sores and dents where his armor weighed on him; in the weeks of nonstop use.

"We encountered heretics worshiping Nurgle. There were far more than expected, and they’ve learned new tricks."

He says little more than that, which doesn't surprise you. He isn't very talkative, particularly about these sorts of things. You presume his mission didn't go well if what little he gave was any indicator.

"I, I'm going to go get some things to help you, I'll be right back."

You quickly rush to grab any of the things you think will help, though much of it is more so for the humans around Deliverance than the astartes. The general consensus is they simply deal with the pain until it stops- that using healing solutions is a waste unless needed to preserve their life. you don't want him stay like this. He deserves more for protecting humanity; For protecting you.

"Here. This should help all of this heal."

You expected him to resist you, but you're surprised when he doesn't. You crawl onto the small bed and get behind him, holding your materials in your lap. He lets you come closer and apply medicine to all of his wounds, careful around the interface ports lining his back and shoulders. They run all along his back, digging directly into his spinal cord. They’re surrounded by old scars, and you fear it’ll hurt if you aren’t gentle.

You brush some burn cream over the massive one spanning his shoulder blade and he shifts, causing you to pull away for a moment.

"I'm sorry if this hurts, my lord."

He grunts at you, and you don't quite know if he's just responding, or scolding you for the use of title. Either way you eventually continue, but far more cautious.

You continue tending to his wounds, cleaning them and applying medicine to speed up his already incredibly fast healing. You know he doesn’t need it; But you know it will at least help. He's silent almost the entire time, until he turns to look at you over his shoulder.

"I can hear you thinking." You look up from his wounded shoulderblade.

You're thinking that he deserves better than this; To not be in pain, and treated like a weapon to be thrust at the enemy, and then be left in pain he's been trained to ignore. Or at least refuse to show.

"Sorry," Is all you can mutter, however. He looks at you for a moment longer, and you notice his dark eyes flicker around your face before he turns back around.

Once his wounds are as well as you can make them you rake your fingers through his black hair, until it's untangled enough to pull it back. Once you're finished, he looks towards towards the top of his bed. His hand tugs the thin fabric draping over it.

"You slept in it," He says bluntly and out of the blue, catching you red handed. You're still kneeling on the bed behind him, wringing your hands.

"I couldn't sleep one night. I was worried since the Raven's Valour was gone longer than you'd said it would be." He turns, and you notice a very small smile on his face.

"Do not worry about me so much." You look away, and you don't know why your eyes suddenly feel so watery.

"If I don't, then who else will?"

His small smile stays, but you notice something change in his look that you can't quite place.

And before you have a chance to even try he reaches a hand up, and rustles the top of your head. Afterwards, he cups your jaw with the same hand and keeps you facing him.

Don't worry little raven, I'll be fine."

[the-light-finds-its-way]

Imagine that when a Guardian is risen for the first time, the only scar they bear is if they were killed by some unnatural force. If they're shot, they are left with a bullet wound. If they're stabbed, they're left with a stab wound.

One Human, he is risen by his Ghost as a Titan. Armor is fabricated onto his body, so he doesn't see what he looks like beneath. No less, the man fights his way through as per his Ghost's instructions, and makes his way to the Tower.

It's there that Shaxx brings him to the armory, and gives him some better armor to wear.

As the new Titan takes off what he wears, his bare torso shows.

Lord Shaxx nods, pointing to the man's chest. "Those are brave scars you bear, new Light. Wear them with pride and honor."

The Titan looks down at his chest. Beneath the breastbone, one long thin scar stretches from beneath his left arm to beneath his right, as though open once to cut away something within. He doesn't know what this scar is from, only that he apparently died getting it.

No less, the Titan armors up, and then spends the day training, practicing with his newfound Titan powers. He's a brute, with immense fury and strength, as any Titan would be. When done for the day, he goes to a small food stand in the Tower to grab a bite to eat. There are open terminals, which he makes his way toward, then begins searching.

"Lower breastbone scar" is what he searches for.

The results show up in mass quantities. All of them are about transgender FTM top surgery, and general gender affirming care.

The man next searches "transgender FTM". Once more the results give copious amounts of information. He sees that transgender is defined as somebody who was born differently than they feel their true gender is. They can choose to transition however they wish, or not at all.

Looking at his chest, knowing the scar is beneath his armor, the man's heart sinks, beats slowing near to a halt. He grips the terminal as his mind swarms with thoughts, and tears fill his eyes.

He never got to live as himself. He went for top surgery to fix a body that was his and make it liveable. And he never made it for whatever reason. He died during surgery. And he never got to live his life as himself.

The man breaks down sobbing, unable to handle this realization.

Why? Why couldn't he have lived his life as himself? Why did he have to die? Why—

The man types into the terminal what Guardians are. He sees they are people who once lived as mortals, but have died and been chosen by a Ghost to be risen, and live once more as defenders of the universe. These Guardians are wiped clean of their memories entirely. They remember basic functions, like breathing, eating, sleeping, speaking, and so on. But the reason why they maintain no memories is unknown. However, Guardians themselves say it's for one reason, and one reason only.

Guardians make their own destiny.

The man looks at himself. He looks at the terminal and his search on transness. Many trans people speak online about their anguish, rage, and sorrow, directed at themselves for being born "wrong", and that this anguish follows them forever until death. They cannot be free of it so easily.

But the man remembers none of this. He doesn't remember any self-hate, any self deprecation. He is, to himself, a man. Just a man without memories of pain and sorrow. Though he now feels this anger because he could not live his life as himself before, he thinks.

He is free of pain and self loathing. He is free of his past. He does not remember his life before being risen as his male self. He has no regrets or anger toward his past, only such feelings directed at the universe. But he thinks for a moment, about Guardians and destiny, that he is free of his past to create a new legacy of his own. And it's there he realizes it all.

He died during surgery, and was risen to live free as himself. Free of pain. Free of sorrow. Free of everything bad. He is free to live. Just live. Nothing holding him back. He is free.

The man's tears stop, and he looks at himself again. Finally, he smiles, his arms reaching around him as he holds his own body gently. With love.

He may not know who he was, but he doesn't want to. Deadnames stay dead. Dead selves stay dead. And in their place, he lives. A man. Through and through, not a doubt in his mind. And he will create a new destiny for himself as such.

[sunflowersandforgetmenots]

Congratulations on your engagement!! I was thinking that Kassandra and 8 would be an interesting fic :) Don’t feel like you have to write one though if it doesn’t float your boat!

Thank you so much! I'm very excited! I might post updates on how things are going when we get further in the engagement! Also CONGRATS ON BEING MY FIRST ASK BACK LET'S GOOOOOOO!!!

Summary: In a world where the gods blessed mortals with the ability to find their soulmates through matching wounds and scars, Kassandra has always felt immense guilt for her bloody job.

Pairing: Kassandra x Reader

Genre: Soulmate; No Smut

Potential TW: Blood, wounds, scarring, intentional scarring of a soulmate

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Kassandra never noticed the small cuts and bruises on her body. She was a mercenary, a life of injuries great and small was something she would always be used to. So when papercuts and bruises on the hips and shins appeared, she never took notice, never really wondered which ones were from her soulmate. Some who asked found that selfish, that she never worried over which of the injuries weren’t hers, that her soulmate was out there in pain and she had little care. 

But they never saw the big picture. 

Kassandra never cared about which ones were her soulmate’s, not because she was selfish, but because she hated that every injury that was hers appeared on whoever was her destined. Did she lie awake scared some nights, worried that the medium sized wound in her leg was actually much larger on Kassandra? Did she trace her fingers over scars that branded Kassandra, hating that they marred her skin just as much? It made her ache, deep in her soul, that she was causing pain and injury. Yet she couldn’t stop. Fighting was in her bones, carried over from the darkness of that spartan night on the mountain. It was her living. She had lives to support. Surely, hopefully, because her soulmate’s wounds never hurt her when they appeared, her own simply marked the skin, never harming the softness that she was surely destroying. 

Then, she learned the truth. In the market, a hot summer evening on the docks of Kephallonia, Kassandra watched as a woman bent in half, screaming in pain as her soulmate carved his name over and over into her arm. It wasn’t uncommon, branding your own skin with marks to ensure that you would find each other, but most people just do a small scar. A burn somewhere. A scar through the eyebrow. Something lasting that wouldn’t hurt much, but be noticable. Later, the woman praised the gods for her husband’s foresight, but the image of that woman, terrified and crying out in pain as the blood dripped down her arm onto the wooden docks stayed with Kassandra, haunting her nights and her mornings.

Now, the worries became nightmares. A woman, beautiful as the morning sun, gentle as the midnight moon, screaming and sobbing in pain as a spear wound appeared in her side. Claw marks raking down her face. Her eye bleeding as Kassandra’s own was impaled. Such extremes would never happen, the mercenary tried to remind herself, the gods had made it so your destined would never suffer that much from the injuries you face. And still, the dreams would haunt her. 

So she learned. Dodging became her speciality, arrows barely grazed her now, she could catch thrown spears with ease. Eventually, the wounds on her body became more bruises, something she came to live with, though Kassandra desired not a single spot on her future love’s body, no more. Now, their lives could be spent without pain, and only laughter and passion. 

Then, one night on the Adrestia as they sailed past Athens, Kassandra was woken up with a tearing pain across her upper left bicep, trailing down to her wrist in a slow, meticulous motion. She sat up with a startled cry, half expecting some wild creature set upon her by a rival or the Cult to be attacking her. A dagger flashes in the moonlight, swinging wildly for a second only to be met with air and the silence of the sea night. Barnabas wakes with her, shouting in response for the rest of the crew. Only a few stir, used to the nightmares of their crewmates after what they’ve seen after following her across the Greek world. 

“Barnabas? There’s nothing…” She pants, her hair messy from her restless sleep. 

“Aye, there’s nothing Captain.” Her first mate says, rising to his feet to come to her aide. “You were the one who woke me up- By the Gods! Your arm!” 

She looks down, eyes widening as her arm shone with blood, dark and messy in a way that she’s used to after a fight with a wild beast. And then the pain hits her. It’s nothing she’s not used to, but the absence of any attacker aboard her ships grounds her in a reality more painful than most anything she’s ever experienced. 

“No… this isn’t my injury to bear.” Kassandra croaks out, voice hoarse. “She’s been hurt.” And verbalizing that, even to a silent, concerned Barnabas and barely awake Herodotos, is easily the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

—------------------------------------

It was months later that Kassandra finally realized what happened to her soulmate that fateful night. It had taken Barnabas a week to convince Kassandra that searching every town in Greece would take much longer than they had time for and that her soulmate wasn’t dead because of the bruises and calluses on her fingers left by a weaver’s work. So, she just kept an eye out for any woman with the same deep scars tracing down the muscle of her arm. 

And she found her. 

A beautiful maiden, laughing with a customer at her simple booth in an Argos market, a laugh that Kassandra could swear she’s heard in her dreams, and she had the same scar carving into her skin. Left bicep, all the way down her wrist. A part of her felt pain over it. The real thing, right there, something that caused someone so lovely so much pain, was the only reason she knew it was her. 

The maiden turned, ready to greet Kassandra as a new customer, then stopped, staring at her face with a very clear look of awe. Before she could stop herself, Kassandra reached out, touching the very end of the jagged mark. 

“Tell me… I’ve wondered so long, how did you come to bear this pain?” 

At first, the woman who Kassandra loved before this day looked embarrassed, then, recognition. Her own eyes trailed over the mercenary’s left arm, shock and relief gathering in dazzling eyes as she matches their scar together. 

“You’ll be so infuriated with me.” She mumbled. Kassandra nearly burst into laughter. She had caused her so much pain before, such a scare would never make her angry. Not if it came from her. “But I tripped down a hill.”

The laugh that Kassandra was holding back ripped out of her. What a woman.

[ravencincaide]

Flirting With Death 

Summary:  “Osamu,- You naughty boy. You’re so impa–” There was more than one reason why Dazai wished to die. He’d pray for it over and over again, and yet each time he’d only get a glimpse of his home before he was torn back into his mortal existence. Until next time, next encounter.. 

Pairing: Reader x Dazai

Inspired by Art of Seduction prompt 4: Away from home 

Warnings: Hint at death/suicide (it’s Dazai- c’mon!), mention of physical hurt, light mention of drugs, light angst/ hurt-comfort. 

Dazais body did not hurt.

Each breath felt light and airy; no pain from cracked ribs or gunshot wounds which reminded him of their existence. No sore skin picked, cut and prodded that screamed at him in protest.  No suffocating weight over his chest, or drowsiness from drugs. Both of his eyes worked, his gaze locked onto the water; the ocean waves which gently swooshed against the beach almost touching the bottom of his dress-shoes half buried in the sand. 

Inches away a little crab crawled past him; it had buried itself in the sand just in time to avoid the oncoming wave and the very real risk of being washed away by the gentle swoosh of it. After the wave retreated the little sea creature was nowhere to be seen. Was the crab even still there? 

Dazai reached a hand out in the direction of where he last saw the animal- then froze as his gaze landed on the familiar bandages which stretched from the tips of his fingers and further under his coat. Around his arms, his torso and up to his neck. Without any aches and pains he hadn’t even noticed their presence. Until now. And yet the moment he saw them, he felt his mood sour. The light almost fluffy feeling in his chest was replaced with a pang of anxiety and disappointment. Their existence meant he wasn’t actually dead. 

What a pity. 

Dazai heaved a sigh and ran a bandaged hand through his hair. Then paused mid action as he heard steps behind him a distance away. He listened as they shifted closer, the gentle swoosh of clothes and shifting sands; sounds which sent shivers up and down his spine. Unfamiliar emotion curled in the pit of his stomach. Eyes burning, heart hammering. Each breath felt light- yet heavy all at once. Nothing hurt yet he couldn’t get enough air. 

“ Osamu-” 

The voice- that voice- made his breath hitch. He spun on his heel, Dazai began running, sprinting as if someone was dangling death and everything he cherished right in front of him. The cloaked figure was just a few paces- yet to him- it felt like he had run an eternity. 

“- You naughty boy. You’re so impa–”  the words stopped making sense in his head; his mind focused on getting closer and closer. Until he launched his body forward, threw himself and the figure awkwardly into the sand. Crawled up until he could reach, Dazai ripped the hood away just as the first tears spilled from his eyes. 

It was you. 

Just like Dazai remembered; your eyes, your face, your nose, your hair. You were older than your last encounter yet still exactly the same. His heart clenched painfully and he leaned forward, studied every inch of your surprised expression, salvaged each puff of warm breath on his skin. The way tears rolled down your cheeks before they dropped into the sand. His tears. He wanted to scream and be quiet; to jump up and run around the beach and to stay right there and hold you close. To be closer; closer and closer. 

A quiet sob, masked by a hiccup tore through his chest. And your surprised expression took on a kinder look, lips shifting from parted and into a gentle smile. Those lips- before Dazai fully registered it, his lips wore on top of yours, messy and clumsily. An awkward combination of  tongue and teeth. Not sexy at all. But he didn’t care, his heart fluttered and ached in his chest at your taste. And soared when you kissed him back, your hands moving to brush careful fingers through his hair. Finally, his mind grew silent. 

At that moment, the only thing Dazai wished for was that he was dead. That he was truly and honestly dead. He had never wished for that as much as in that moment. That way he could stay here with you. 

Forever. 

“ Osamu you know it’s not the case-” you broke the kiss first, mumbling words he didn’t want to hear. He tried to kiss you again, to make you silent. Just another one, just one more, and just one more. An hour- a second more was all he craved. All he begged for. 

Yet when you pushed him back, his body followed your touch. Flopping down beside you into the warm sand which enveloped him like a hug. Unsurprisingly it didn’t bring him any comfort.  Dazai dropped an arm over his eyes. “ Why?” was all he choked out before his sobs tore through his body, his shoulders shook with every agonizing tear that rolled down his eyes. Why would you make him go back there? To force him to suffer through a human existence. 

He heard you shift, felt your touch and helped you maneuver his body however you wanted. Like a doll- a puppet with its strings cut loose. Dazai felt his head land into something soft- your lap. Then the gentle thread of your fingers through his hair. They paused to massage his scalp then brushed them through the thick strands. Your scent filled Dazai’s senses, inadvertently it calmed him down until he just laid there. Salvaged the moment. Your touch was the only thing that kept him grounded. 

“ You know, you’re an awful kisser” your voice, the lighthearted playful tone, made his lips tug upwards into a smile. 

“ What would you know about kisses?” Dazai shot back instinctively, peeking an eye out from under his arm just to catch sight of your huff and eyeroll. 

“ Enough to know you don’t kiss with teeth!”  

“ Teeth? Don’t know what you’re talking about” he lied as he moved to sit up. 

Dazai’s hand reached up and rested on your cheek, bringing your face closer until your forehead rested against his own. Amber eyes stared into yours, saying so much and so little all at once. Slowly Dazai blinked them shut, a sigh escaped his lips. His breath- coffee and alcohol which a boy his age shouldn’t be drinking filled your senses. A silent plea in them not to make him go back.Just once, just make an exception. 

For him.

Dazai heard you sigh; yet still prayed you’d change your mind. All the while he knew you were too much of a sucker for rules to do that. As your hand rested on his cheek, your thumb brushed the remaining wetness away, he had his answer. 

“Osamu, I told you we’d meet when you’re old. My love until then..” your voice made his heart clench painfully. The thought of another goodbye hurt him more than any stab- or bullet-wound ever could. The kind of ache that went beyond reason, beyond pride. 

If he knew it would make a difference, Dazai would get on his knees and beg. 

But he knew it wouldn’t. Not now, not yet. Leaned forward he brought his lips back to yours. He kept a hand behind your neck, massaging it with his fingers. This kiss was just as messy and inexperienced as the first one but he didn’t care. All he could think about was your taste; sweet like pomegranate, bitter like chocolate. 

The feeling of you so close to him. The sensation of one hand on his shoulder, and the second one rested on top of his, fingers interlocked in the sand. Each kiss was a kiss hello, each breath between a mournful goodbye. Mixing tastes together until Dazai was certain he wouldn’t forget. 

A flavor he would always seek out. 

“Next time we meet you better become a better kisser” you teased, your smile shaky and not quite matching the confident tone. Eyes glossy, lips raw. Your hand shook on top of his, and Dazai gripped it tighter. Holding on, even as he felt the sensation fade. 

“ I will; I promise you my Belladonna. And then I’ll teach you all about it.” Dazai’s voice was quiet, gentle, his fingers brushing your hair out of your face. Trailed out your features, under your eyes. Ghosted one final time over your lips before dropping away.  

“ I’m gonna hold you to it” 

The light warm sensation, the airy freedom faded into agonizing pain. Each nerve-ending, each cell screamed at him in agony. In protest. His mind was a hazy mess of drugs and sedatives that barely dulled the physical torture. And yet it could not compare to the agony in his chest- the heartache that out ached each and every physical wound on his beaten, mortal body. A body that just would not die; a body that kept getting up over and over again. Day in and day out.  Much to his dismay.  

“Tell me Dazai, why is it you wish to die?”

“ Lets turn that question around. Is there really any value to this thing we call ‘living’?”

Author note: I hope you enjoyed this fic or in the very least tolerated it enough not to hate me for it. I had hoped to manage to write the other prompts in the series before publishing this one but life kinda got in the way. So please enjoy this while I go get my ass kicked by school.

Until next time. Like this work and want more? Check out Raven's Masterlist

©ravencincaide 2024. Do not copy/repost/translate or spread my work(s) without my explicit permission. If you see any of my work(s) reposted/copied anywhere else without my consent, please inform me!

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

Adularescence

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 Characters: Dame Aylin/Isobel Thorm Length: ~2700 words Rating: T, for canon-typical violence and implied sexual content

Summary: Dame Aylin is returned to the fold of time, and so also to the sensations of the world.

A quick little something that grew out of a bunch of warmups and noodling from the past week or so, and me challenging myself to do a ficlet with zero dialogue. Also I just love Aylin.

Also on AO3.

---

Adularescence

It starts with loss. 

The mounting tension of her fate balancing on a knife's edge culminates in her would-be murderer's hand on her shoulder. Barely-felt and fleeting, it takes away with it the weight of a century. A lessening so sudden Aylin falls to hands and knees, catching herself before hitting the cold, rough ground of her prison fully - a drearily familiar concept, by now.

The claws that have dug deep into her for so long she has forgotten to feel them loosen and fall away, becoming almost disquieting in their absence. The sickly glow of the runes of her cage fades into dull, washed-out grey. The hideous leeching pull on her very soul melts and trickles away, until there is nothing there at all.

Into the void left behind comes the rush of her Mother's moonlight, bathing her, reaching her, the long-denied answer to so many snatched-away prayers. With it, her armour, encasing and enveloping and hiding. Gone the chill and chafe of rags, their place taken by steel so cool and solid it makes itself felt even through a thick layer of wool and gambeson. Perfectly moulded to her, mobile and uncannily light and weighty with the heft of duty all at once. But hers and hers alone.

Then, the grip of her sword in her hand. Cast away into the shadows, once; torn from her hold and kicked away by Ketheric's boot. Its touch is the touch of purpose and meaning, belonging nowhere else but at her side. Missing for a century like a limb.

And wings--

How it is possible to feel as if they were cramped and aching even when they were absent, stolen from her, Aylin does not know. But the relief of being able to stretch them out at long last is bone-deep and luxurious. Even the howling, churning miasma of the Shadowfell whispering over the feathers is a delight.

There is a split-second sliver of trepidation that she will not remember how, but it is banished by the familiar plunge in her stomach as she launches upwards - and soars. It does not take conscious thought to recall exactly how to catch the currents of air beneath her, when to beat and when to coast and when to dive. It is hers and it is writ into her very being, carved and set far deeper than the gold.

The exhilaration foaming up her throat is cut off only by the scalding rage that mounts and mounts and mounts as she takes in the full scope of what was done to the land and its people, as she charges to her promised reckoning.

-

The dull ache of long-idle muscles shoots insistently down her back after the strain of that brief flight to the top of Moonrise. It is joined soon enough by the familiar burn in her arms from wielding her sword without respite or mercy for far longer than any mortal champion ever could have. 

And yet, even the pain is welcome, for it is not Ketheric's, but her own. There is the bite of blades and spells, the rhythm of battle, the strikes of weapons she can see and account for and brace for - no more tensing and curling in anticipation of unseen assailants and undeserved, unearned wounds. No more shadowy whispers in her ear the moment she dared let her guard down even a notch, no more bones broken and shattered without ever feeling the impact. No thieving knives dripping with malicious intent. No, these blows she could repay tenfold, should her foes outmanoeuvre her enough to ever land them. 

It ends with the crunch of skull under her boot, with tenacious residue gumming up her sabatons as they sink into soft matter, over and over until all of it is one unrecognisable mass. Until he is as unrecognisable as he'd made Moonrise, as he'd made Reithwin, as he'd made her.

Soot and blood and grime drip down to her lips and bathe her tongue in pungent bitterness as she proclaims her fealty to her newfound allies. But now that Aylin has washed over her foes like a tidal wave, violent and inexorable, she thinks - prays - she might once more come to know the taste of peace, as well.

-

It is difficult to pick individual voices out of the clamour. The newly recaptured audience hall of Moonrise Towers, where Ketheric Thorm set himself upon a throne of treachery and corruption and purloined power, is nothing like the deafening silence and howling storm of the Shadowfell. But in the midst of it all--

"Aylin."

One voice rises above all others, even when it is softer than any of them. The one voice Aylin longs to hear, and the one voice she feared was to forever stay in the realm of reminiscence and fantasy.

But then… Isobel. Her hand on Aylin's chin and cheek as she kneels before this wonder and wages a raging battle against disbelief. An unfamiliar chill permeates the leather of Isobel's gloves and sinks into Aylin's skin. And she would curse the thin fabric for the impudence of attempting to separate them even now, but all is driven from her when Isobel's arms come around her and she is pulled close into an embrace. Soft hair tickling her face, lips pressed against her own - all the simple sensations Aylin once came dangerously close to taking for granted. Richer and more magnificent than any dream could ever hope to be.

She is lost, enraptured by the sight and feel of Isobel alive and in her arms and on her lips and--

Aylin barely notices someone thrusting a goblet of wine into her hands. A celebration has begun amongst the ghoulish, deathly decor that had invaded Moonrise; a haphazard, makeshift affair, with the wounded patched up and enemy remains hastily removed.

Isobel laughs, pressed close against her side; soft, bittersweet, with a slightly concerning rasp at the end. But there is true joy to be found in the world once more, finally, finally, and so Aylin simply smiles back, the gold lines pulling oddly on the corner of her mouth and on her bottom lip, and clinks their mismatched goblets together.

She takes a sip - the first thing other than blood or steel or Isobel to touch her lips in a century. Flavour bursts on her tongue like sharpened memory, shards digging in.

It is the same vintage she drank during that final supper, when Ketheric and Balthazar called her back from blazing some vengeful trail or another, in the absence of Isobel. When they discussed the purpose of their summons with her over a cup and a light repast.

She did not eat much - and now, she recalls, neither did they; perhaps because guilt already brewed and churned in their traitorous guts, even as they played at hospitality and broke bread with her. Or perhaps it was fear of her and her Mother and the inevitable divine retribution they knew would find them, after the unspeakable transgressions they planned. But Aylin's own still-fresh wounds, the feeling of her heart having been pulled from her chest, made indulging a distant thought. Still, she'd had that cup, finished it to its dregs, before launching to her feet and insisting they mount their rescue immediately. Playing right into their hands. 

Aylin sets the full goblet on a nearby table. It is too sour to bear.

-

The moonlight scoured the worst of a century's worth of filth from her, but there was more still to cleanse. Black ichor from the necromancers' puppets, the blood of the sea of cultists, then her own, and Ketheric's… Undesirable battle trophies all, with vile fluids from the mind flayer nest and the brain itself, sticky and viscous, melding with Myrkul's bonedust into a horror Aylin is eager to be rid of.

She does not divest herself of her armour by dismissing it, this time. She takes it off slowly and laboriously, piece by piece, and sets it in a corner of the room to catch the glint of candle and firelight handsomely, reassuringly present in vivid blue and silver.

A bowlful of lukewarm water, a rag, and a bar of plain soap are not the perfumed luxuries or moon-bound hot springs her Mother's temples liked to greet her with, but tonight Aylin is prepared to call them the best thing she has felt on her skin.

Until the light sting and fresh-scrubbed feeling they've left behind is joined by Isobel's fingers - no gloves, at last - so achingly tender, so unthinkably careful and gentle and kind that they are a balm unto themselves, no healing incantation required. 

The smell of autumncrocus fills Isobel's room in the inn; it is a wonder how a single basket of half-dried blooms is enough to permeate every corner of the place. The bright fire crackles merrily as they lie before it, ensconced in a nest of Isobel's making. 

There is no warmth or colour in the Shadowfell, and everything brought into it is leeched away and lost between one breath and the next. Within an hour of their retreat to the upstairs sanctuary, a century-old storm of shivers dislodged itself from somewhere deep within Aylin, and refused to let go of her. Isobel responded by stripping the bed of its contents, emptying the cabinets and the wardrobes in her hunt for every scrap of fabric, then bundling all of it and the both of them close to the fireplace. 

Clean, safe, warm, cherished - Aylin feels a singularly stubborn burning crawl up her throat, and, for the first time in a very long time, she feels hot tears roll down her cheeks. They trickle down her throat, following a golden crack along her jugular. The joy is overwhelming. She would almost name it painful.

Isobel, pressed against her side in quiet, stalwart adoration, is oddly cold herself - it is impossible not to notice. Not as cold as the last time Aylin held her in her arms and wept over her, no - and would that she could scrub that stain from her memory as she'd just scoured her skin! Neither of them are unscathed, but both of them are here, and more than that even Aylin, fearless, would fear asking for.

The sheets Isobel has pulled from the bed are aged, rough linen, the blankets are musty and moth-eaten, and the pillows are lumpy, but finding fault with them is the furthest thing from Aylin's mind. Silken finery woven in Argentil, magicked-up celestial feather-filled duvets to sink into - there would be time and opportunity to revisit them once more.

Now, however, there are yearned-for kisses so familiar and so new; there is plush, pliant flesh and skin that seems stretched tauter over ribs than she remembers. A soft stomach and hips rising to meet her, the silk of damp curls, and then rich, encompassing, breathtaking, slick heat. And the heavenly music she has coaxed from beloved lips before as she will do again and again and again and again. A miracle in itself.

Pleasure eventually settles into the ache of a body long-unused being put into motion, under strain, and run to its limit. But it is also the welcome ache of everything within her that is responsible for feeling happiness, every one of the long-dormant particles or organs or limbs that make her up in this mortal, material plane. Just as unused and just as rusty.

As the evening rolls on, the fire needs to be fed - and so, they both decide, do they. Aylin is shrugging on an almost-large-enough robe and preparing to set off in search of sustenance, when a knock sounds on the door. When she opens it, there is nobody there, but a tray with a meal enough for two has been left just to the side of the entrance to their room - theirs! What a thought to wrap a restless mind around!

Isobel, for her part, does not seem terribly surprised. Aylin feels her mild curiosity and vast desire to know and share every bit of time she has missed with her beloved take a step back as they sit down to eat. The slide of the first warm bite of food down her throat and into her belly is, Moonmother forgive her, divine. The salty tang and the slightly bitter aftertaste, the sharpness of some unnamed spice, then overwhelming sweetness coating her tongue.

Aylin is ravenous. Isobel nibbles at her dinner and laughs at her antics, but this, too, is bittersweet enough to subside earlier than Aylin would have wanted it to.

Isobel is exhausted, grieved, overwhelmed - and though Aylin would prefer not to close her eyes and miss another moment of her precious presence, she follows the gentle tug on her arm, and lies down in their pile of blankets once more. Isobel lies behind her, wraps her entire small form around her, and does not let go even as sleep claims her quickly. Prone, bonelessly languid, unarmoured, Aylin cannot imagine feeling safer.

-

Aylin sleeps and does not dream. She had her doubts that she ever would again.

But now, perhaps, the grounding touch of something soft, something warm, something ticklish… something, is more than enough. Anything that isn't cold hard rock, enveloped in the blurred sense of unreality that blankets everything in the Shadowfell. A realm of absence and denial unfit for her in so many ways, least of all that Dame Aylin has never been a creature wont to deny herself. Indeed, it is not in her Mother's doctrine at all. Life is to be lived in all its fullness. The Moonmaiden's gaze is generous with blessings, widely encompassing and permissive above all else.

Perhaps, Aylin has contemplated, this was one of the reasons she was born and sent to Faerûn, a part of her destined duties - to experience. Touch and taste and hear and listen, perceive in all possible ways. And then act, decisive, resolute, informed. When her Mother, separate, remote in her realm, could not, for all her reach. And her avatars and embodiments always under Shar's threat, preciously rare and short-lived. 

What rouses her fully from her contemplative doze is the searing sensation of a beam of sunlight pouring into the room and onto her skin. With it comes a sound that she hasn't heard in so long it takes her a moment to place: birdsong. Trilling chirps and whistles, from somewhere right outside their window.

Morning is a new phenomenon in these lands - Isobel's wide-eyed sleep-addled gaze confirms as much when she shifts awake, tangled up in covers as much as in her beloved. And Aylin - she is a creature of light, to be sure, and it should not bother her. But it is her Mother's soft, silver twilight that embraces her. And it has been a century. For all her glorious divine heritage, her eyes grow damp and itchy when confronted with the full, harsh might of the sun, and Aylin grits her teeth and blinks frustration away quickly.

From a gnawing doubt that it was all a dream that could be snatched away like smoke on the wind, to the point of there being too much reality to handle. After a century of nothing, suddenly there is everything. For a moment, Aylin feels a twinge of fear that she will be like a starving woman at a feast, sick after the first morsel.

But hers is no mere mortal constitution. Her body was purpose-made just as the rest of her; it is built to match the challenges of eternity.

Aylin draws a deep breath of air freshly cleansed of shadows, and perseveres.

[synnthamonsugar]

DESTINYTOBER: Day 14 - Grief

Read it on AO3

. . .

Joining Eris for lessons on stasis has become a ritual for Zavala, one he looks forward to each week despite both the physical strain on his once-light enhanced body and the emotions their lines of discussion typically invoke. 

"I'd thought about life without Targe, more often than I want to admit." Zavala says when they take a break from sparring and the conversation turns to loss and moving forward. "When I begged him to bring Hakim back; when he said no, that he couldn't, that he wouldn't even if he could . . . I fantasized about killing him. Ending all of this, living out my days as a mortal. It's foolhardy to say, but I thought I would feel free. Instead I feel —"

He grasps in the dark for the right words to describe the indescribable, and comes up empty handed.

"Empty?" Eris offers, gently.

Zavala thinks about it. After a moment, he agrees: "Yes."

"To lose your Light is to suffer an amputation. To have a piece of yourself torn away in such an unexpected manner is a trauma both physical and emotional. A shock to the very core of your being." 

Zavala glances at the soulfire beneath Eris' veil. He no longer heeds the rumors that she made a deal with Crota's brood, that her face is the manifestation of irrevocable corruption; he hasn't for a very long time, and is embarrassed he ever entertained the idea. But he thinks about being tempted by The Witness, and somehow the other, whispered, story — that Eris cut out her human eyes and replaced them with those of the hive — becomes more frightening. How easy it'd been to be swayed by temptation in a moment of desperation. How hard it must have been for Eris to lose another part of herself, at her own hands, after the deaths of her Ghost and Fireteam.

"Although the phantom pains will persist, the wounds will close. You will learn to adapt to it. Life can never be exactly the same as it was before, but it can be good. Some of the greatest joys — certainly, my proudest accomplishments — have happened since losing my Light. There is no reason to expect different from you." 

He lifts his gloved hand to her right gauntlet, with an experimental pat. Rests it there when she doesn't move away. "I appreciate that, Eris."

The corners of her mouth upturn ever so slightly. The ghost of a smile disappears almost as quickly.

"Even though you get used to lightlessness … I fear you'll never stop missing your Ghost. They are a part of us, yes, and the place where they are ripped away will heal with time. But as our companions, our soul-mates —" her voice, usually so composed, quavers enough to send a spike of alarm through Zavala, "— there will always be a hollow in our heart in their shape."

Zavala thinks about how fraught his relationship with Targe was. How, even after every pain, every betrayal, he was willing to sacrifice himself for his Guardian's life. 

He simply says, "I only wish I'd told him how much I cared about him."

"Neither Brya nor Targe would have laid down their lives for us if they hadn't known."

He wipes the tears away from the corners of his eyes. She clasps his hand, a gesture he reciprocates. 

"The pain, the questions, and the doubts will always be there. But you will grow around it, and I'll be here as you do."

[blackrosesandwhump]

Whump Prompts 100: Immortal Whumpee Aesthetic

Feel free to reblog with any additions you might have. :)

CW: death, suicide reference, torture, implied vivisection, implied gore, experimentation, begging for death

Realizing that immortality is actually a terrible, inescapable curse

The despair of knowing that everyone they care about will die, leaving them completely alone

Being passed down from generation to generation, gaining more scars and wounds as the years go by

Or, always healing...on the outside. The inside is a completely different story...

Experiencing firsthand how torture methods have changed through the ages

Experiencing something (drowning, hanging, etc.) that should kill them over and over again, because, you know, they can't die

Tremendous guilt over always surviving no matter what happens to everyone around them

Intentionally working the most dangerous jobs because, you know, they can't die

Being afraid that their secret will scare people away

Cutting themselves off from everyone so they don't have to experience the pain of losing someone

Being captured, then abandoned somewhere where no one will ever find them, and having to endure eons of isolation and darkness

REMEMBERING THEIR OWN PREVIOUS DEATHS

Being able to endure extremes: temperature, air, water, etc. Imagine an immortal whumpee as a scuba diver or an astronaut...

Used as a test subject for all kinds of experiments, because, you know, they can't die

Or, being used for med students to practice on. How better to learn how a heart works than by watching it in action?

Suffering the same level of pain as an ordinary mortal, but without the escape of eventual death

How does it feel to be drained of blood and still be alive?

Feeling less like themselves, less sane, every time they come back from the dead

Suicide for convenience, because they'll just come back to life no matter what

How does it feel to regrew an organ, or a severed limb?

BEGGING FOR DEATH, EVEN THOUGH DEATH IS IMPOSSIBLE

[dracocheesecake]

What do you think Kai would do with a protective s/o? Like, does the all supreme warlord really need protection? Not really. Is she on his power level/fighting skill? Absolutely not, the thought’s nearly laughable (or at least, probably laughable to Kai anyways). But if anyone so much as poses half a threat to the bull, is she going to start going off into as much a war mode as she can muster to defend him? Yea, without a second thought.

I just think its funny, it’s like having a guard dog but you’re a navy seal and the guard dog in question is just like a very feisty chihuahua.

Oh my goodness this is a hilarious/adorable thought. Especially if we're going with Spirit Warrior Kai- an immortal- and a mortal s/o it becomes even more so. X'D Kai would definitely find it amusing andadorable, to say the least.

Now if we're going with warlord mortal Kai, then it's still an incredibly hilarious situation. Oogway cracking jokes about Kai's little "bodyguard". Kai would probably give her the title "lapdog", or "gnat". I can just imagine they're in a meeting with another general- a loose ally of sorts- and when the conversation gets more heated she starts hurling threats and insults the other general's way, while Kai's leaning back smirking the entire time. "You might want to be nicer to me. I could sic her on you."

She'll probably try to take care of whatever cuts and scrapes he accumulates, too, all while scolding him for being stupid...

No, no, hold it-drabble incoming:

"Do you think you're immortal?" She snapped, cleaning what many would have thought a small scratch on the bull's hide (especially the bull himself), but to her was a wound as severe as anything. Kai's ear twitched in her direction, and then he looked over his shoulder at her.

"What answer would make you more angry?" He asked, smirking.

She slapped his back, and he chuffed in amusement.

"Stop being stupid! What if you're wounded even worse next time?"

Kai shrugged, undoing some of her work- she was no healer, and the peeling bandages showed her painful efforts- vain in attempt, but not sentiment.

"No one has managed it so far."

She snorted in disgust, and the noise buried the worried sob that had actually been building; his arrogance was a danger, not only to his soldiers but his physical being. He really did think he was immortal. Still, for his sake she held herself together, focusing on her work.

She patched up the rest of the cuts and patted his back again. "Now go get some rest. You'll need it if you're going to lead the march tomorrow. We'll be crossing enemy lines, soon."

Kai rolled his eyes. "As if I need a wetnurse," he grumbled. There were notes of affection in his tone, though, poking through the exasperation, and despite his objections he obeyed.

She waited for his breath to even out, and then she reached forward and brushed her fingertips against one of the scars tracing across his ribs. Then another one, on his chest- and there!- A nick on his throat she had missed.

Kai was an excellent fighter, he was right, he didn't need her protection- but she thought about all the ways he could be hurt, about how his own carelessness could kill him, and tears welled in her eyes, knowing she could only do so little to protect him. One of Kai's hands reached up, clasping around her wrist, and she quickly blinked her tears away. She perked up as his eyes opened and steeled her voice.

"Sorry," she said, "I was just checking these scratches. I didn't mean to wake you."

Kai watched her for a moment, his eyes searching hers. Then his grip and gaze softened.

"...Does it bother you that much?" He asked.

She couldn't contain herself anymore. That spark-bright rage that had been known to jump to General Kai's defense the moment anyone even thought to cast him a ill glance now turned against him. Hot tears, now flooding over the dam of her restraint, poured down her cheeks.

"Of course!" She cried, "Do you know how hard it is, watching you march out to battle every day, you being as stupid and arrogant as you are, when I can't do anything to protect you? Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be so weak?"

She may have barked much more such things at him, half unintelligible through her rageful sobs; she couldn't remember. She couldn't even remember exactly when he had taken her in his arms, or when she had finally lost her breath. All she knew was that she was now sobbing straight into his chest.

Kai just held her for a long while, and then he sighed, shrugging. "I told you that it's hard to care for me. Just ask Oogway."

That only made her more angry, and she sobbed even more. Kai must have realized his mistake, because he then continued, his tone turning slightly more apologetic, urgently so:

"-Not that I don't care! I'm not that stupid, or ungrateful...It's just...It's- you're only-"

She glared up at him, and Kai groaned, cursing, probably loud enough for the occupants of the nearest circle of tents to have heard it and woken from their sleep.

"I'm not trying to- I mean, I just- I don't...Dammit."

Kai held her closer, so much closer that it almost squeezed the breath from her, but then his grip relaxed. He snorted and then released her- but only to cup her face in his hands. His shoulders hunched somewhat, his attempt to make eye-contact on her level.

"I get it, you care about me, for some reason-stupid choice, really- and trying to look after me makes you feel better...but you're only a gnat."

He sighed and pressed his forehead against hers.

"Even so...thank you. For everything...And I will try to be more careful, if it means you won't go into hysterics and scare away all of me and Oogway's allies, or yell at me after every battle."

And then that smirk returned, though a little less mean-spirited than before; but she understood his meaning. Her tears dried, and she smiled a little. Then she reached forward and nipped at him, making him grin and lean away.

"You better!" She snapped, "Or else I'll do more than yell at you!- And you know General Hayou had it coming!"

Kai raised his brows. "He just sneezed in my direction."

"He could have made you sick! He deserved to get chewed out."

Kai snorted in amusement and leaned back onto his cot, pillowing his head on his hands. "I don't get sick. Besides, if it ever came to an actual fight, I think I can handle him."

"He's a crocodile almost twice your size, you arrogant cow!- See, this is why you need me!"

"What? To nibble the ankles of all my enemies?"

"Shut up and get some sleep!"

"You know- maybe we should put you on the front lines tomorrow, instead- you could glare at Fenhua's army, and they'll probably take off running. Would save us a lot of trouble."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "If they know what's good for them, they'll take one look at you and take off running- knowing that I'm right behind you, and knowing what I'll do if they even touch a single strand of your fur."

"What? Nibble their ankles? So scary!"

"And worse."

Kai laughed, finally settling himself down and closing his eyes. "I don't doubt it."

[mimiriko]

𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐑(𝐒) | 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔

✰ tags :: 1.8k. fluff. (scene heavily inspired by song of achilles by madeline miller) ✰ notes :: reupload! gojo gets injured for the 1st time and is dramatic (pacing is off don’t jump me i can’t look at this anymore)

He can't think. Can't move without grunting. Can't stop his shoulders from sagging.

He drags himself with slipping energy, through the streets and crossing roads, head low and absentminded to traffic. A throbbing headache pounds at his temple and he stops—eyes fluttering, sucking in a gulp of air— and continues. Orange-lit streets single out his winter hair, shades the outline of his figure with iridescent dust surrounding him. Too pretty, an Apollo like beauty.

A final three ascending steps, uniform knocks on your familiar door, soft clicks of the lock—and he's rewarded with the sight of you. Tousled hair, bleary eyes sharpening with recognition.

It’s primal, etched into him, the necessity to see you. Your face, presence, aura, flesh and bone. There’s not a point in the history of your friendship where it blossomed to life. No gradual descent to his state of want, no easing into the fact that his feet take him to you on default.

He doesn’t remember being a 1st year in highschool and painfully yearning like this. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year he’d been more and more attached to your bone. Always friendly, like two cats hooking their tails together. But not like this. Never like this.

The memories, full of smooth faces and honey smiles, never had the hunger that tinted his lenses like right now.

You blink. "You're…bleeding.”

The words feel fuzzy. "Yeah. Hey.”

Your lower lip gets hitched up by a canine, nibbling. You decide upon opening the door wider and stepping out of the way. Scattered lamps catch his marble-cut jaw, defining the bones and the blue and purple beneath his glass skin. His eyes dull and bare without his glasses, the skin underneath sunken. Tight uniform dirty and creased, hair flat with wisps of his fringe sticking to his forehead.

(An intent to project a tragedy, you would’ve joked if not for the heaviness around him. It’s like the air around him became denser, clumped together, looking at him through a layer of thick viscosity.)

He offers a slanted smile.

Waves of pain shoot down his spine, the wound across his arm charing his nerves. He clamps his hand down to apply pressure, giving modicum comfort. Warm rouge oozes out of the crevice of his fingers, dripping to his elbow and dropping on your hardwood floor as he trails behind you, heading straight to the living room. It's quiet.

"Sho will, um, kill me if I wake her at this time, and I thought you would be staying up again so I came here.”

Your back is his only view, no gateway to your face or how you feel. It gives him a surge to talk more. "Y’know if a wound is severe enough, you can bleed to death in minutes. I take offence, you don't look so worried."

He's met with nothing.

(Faintly, he feels something shift between his ribcage. His divinity chipped off. Another jump down to the mortal realm.)

A weak squeak almost leaves his mouth when you turn on your heel, looking at him dead in the eye. "'I’ll get the med kit; wait here for me, okay? Keep the pressure on that."

He dips his head in compliance. Not a wobble of your lower lip or a hitch of breath in sight—you looked calm, reassuring. But an undercurrent of emotion, thick and raw, behind your voice makes itself known. A slip in your act of strength, laying down the grief that resides in your throat. The knowledge of it existing, the sorrow, is like a needle to his skin. Impossible to ignore.

Then it hits: exhaustion. It splinters his resolve, lowers his smile. He wishes the duo of talk and taunt would work as it would normally. The familiar barrier he brings up every sunrise— creating a foundation, laying the bricks, adding cement one by one until the top of his heart is covered— is falling apart.

For, what might be the first time in his life, he had been struck. On his arm, and light bruises forming on his back.

And if it isn’t for the muffled pads of your sock-clad feet coming out of the bathroom, motioning him to sit on the couch with a hand that trembles lightly, it could have worked. He could have been stitched back to life and left with immeasurable shame and a wink.

Your dexterous fingers peeled his hand away from the cut, crimson hand falling on your lap without resistance. Fresh beads of blood spill and he kisses his teeth at the cold air burning the spilt skin. A metallic, bitter taste coats his tongue, molars aching as he clenches his jaw harder, swallowing and wincing at his throat constricting.

Gentle touches work to clean the infected area with saline solution, your attention flickering to his face—a mixture of pain and strained indifference on his waxy features— and back down.

"D'you wanna take a shower after this?"

A hum escapes his throat. "Not really, why?"

"It’ll make you feel better." One hand clutching the antibiotic ointment, the other goes up to his cheek, wiping a speck of grime.

The gaze that falls on you becomes lovesick, "You calling me smelly?"

"Maybe. Then I can finally snoop and see what you do to keep your hair so fluffy."

The flow of the conversation, light and airy and completely juxtapositional—it charms him. The choice of your tone, hushed and kind. Legs brushing as you sit. Wiping the red away with no disgust. It’s done with precision, an intent to be soothing for him.

In the early hours of mornings, or late hours of the night, he becomes a ball of emotion, a soft egg yolk of sensitivity.

He remembers how you were the whole day; replays your actions driven by kindness to the people least deserving; smiles to himself at the people flocked to your side. Your basin of love manages to catch him in it as well, cradling him underneath your collarbones when he assumes there mustn’t be any space for him left.

He remembers everything.

Hey, your shoelaces are undone. Hold on, I’ll do them; you might fall.

He never noticed. Or cared. He wouldn’t fall from it. But you crouched down anyway.

You sure it won’t be too much for you?

It was the first thing you had said to him, after he went off on a tangent about the new line of missions he’d been assigned. He had been part agony; part joking.

Nah, it’s what I've been born for.

A crazed part of him searched for answers, hints, anything to reveal the venom in your intentions. That you’re no different from the higher ups, that you’re equal to the plastic love his parents gave. He never spoke of his conspiracies out loud, fearing that to question such a beautiful soul in his life would cause you to vanish, like winter in the desert.

Yo, the new Super Mario Bros game is out. Wanna play?

It’d been released for over a week now, and his hair was still damp from the shower he took after coming back from assignments. In fact, he had been buzzing, jittery with impatience to get his hands on it.

A gloss overpowers the sleep in his eyes, and the ignored growls of his stomach roars with delight watching you return to his room, placing bowls of sizzling ramen next to the nintendo’s.

It was a dream he’d only ever wanted to come home to.

Another memory surfaces: roughly a few years ago, a group of students—juniors, he assumed—went up to the bench you were slouched on, covered in homework. They giggled, asked if you or him remembered them, twisting the ends of their plaid skirts with smiles.

Your face shone with recognition, sweet and lovely.

Ah, Ayaka, Momo—

The girls’ smile brightened.

—Sakura and Keiko, right? From last month?

They replied with affirmation. In a school-girl manner, quick and full of life, they expressed their thanks. For helping them.

When they left, you filled in the blanks. They’re the group we escorted out of that building, from the whole ceiling curse fiasco.

How d’you still remember their names?

You laugh. They’re good people.

He finishes the last equation of his work, and fishes for the box of pocky sticks in his bag. Still, it’s easier if they only remember us.

How many times have you proved that you’re an angel on land? Without wings or a halo, but possessing the divinity just like the rest. How many times has he stomped the thought away, before coming to the point where he is now?

He studies you in the ambient light of your living room. “I’ll never share my hair secrets, but if you wanted to see me naked you could've just asked. I’ll strip for you, y’know?”

"I know." The light permeating from you, warm hands on his cold arm, wrapping a gauze with blood stained nails, it's comforting. Grounding.

Little strokes on his covered flesh, travelling down to his wrist then palm, holding his fingers and giving attention to each one, caressing his knuckles to his nail plate.

Even now, distracting him from pain and duty, you do it so well.

“Tell me one hero,” he blurts.

You smile lopsided at the mood switch. “Icarus.”

“Was he happy?”

“Err, no.”

He nods. “Give me another.”

“Odysseus.”

He snickers at the choice of Greek mythology. “Was he happy?”

You skim through it in your mind, and shake your head.

He tips his face forward, pressing his nose against yours. Smiling, radiant, eager. You missed this. “Let me tell you something.”

“Go ahead.” And he brings his mouth to the shell of your ear, ghosting the grain of his lips on your skin.

“I’ll be the first one-” he bites your earlobe and looks back at you- “I’ll be the first happy hero.”

Nothing can eclipse the constellations in his eyes, forming little hearts. You’re sure he sees the same thing in yours. “Ask me why.”

“Why?”

He pauses, pink dust on his cheeks. “Because I have you.”

“Because you have me,” you echo, tasting the words on your tongue.

It’s silent. The wound on his arm forgotten.

”C’mon hero, let’s get the bath running,” you say, pulling him up to his feet, “you can wear my clothes after.”

© mimiriko 2022, all rights reserved. [ interaction heavily appreciated! i’m emotional ab this fic ]

[visionsofmagic]

could you write heimdall falling for a midgard human reader and him being really protective over them 🥰

heimdall x midgard&human!reader

[masterlist]

tags: fluff, injury, wound, healing, protective!heimdall, kissing, touching. enjoy!

wc: dunno, but not so long.

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heimdall never mind your presence in the asgard even though you were a mortal; a midgard human who was in all-Father's service thanks to high-quality medical treatment you give to aesir gods and goddess by using a high level magic. being a mortal didn't make you weak, it made you powerful. you were indeed a mortal who would die in some day, one of the things that make heimdall so protective of you, but it didn't mean you were invisible to eyes. no, everyone in asgard knew you, they knew how you treated wounds and pain with your delicate hands.

in the first years that felt like ages were normal. he was joking with you wherever he saw you, you were teasing to him whenever he came to your treatment place, asking if he needed a medic like anyone could hit him.

that was making him angry in that days but slowly, he understood how he enjoyed your presence, hearing your teasing since there wasn't so many individuals who could tease him without thinking its consequences, seeing how your delicate and beautiful hands working fastly and strongly.

you were a strong woman indeed but because of being in love with you, his protective side increased from day to day, 'till it made both of you realize it like the sunlight.

you remembered how you asked him about this after a certain day. in that day, you were trying to heal an outsider god, probably from vanaheim, who had a bad chest injury. vanaheim and asgard were enemies but sometimes they came to here to find health. odin was giving them home in their own realms since he was trying to show his peace supporter side.

why you were in the asgard was complex. you didn't like odin that much, no, but indeed you loved heimdall who became your beloved with time.

as this stranger entered to your working room, you were talking with heimdall who came to you intentionally but acting like he didn't realize how he ended there.

one valkyrie helped man to reach the room and the moment he entered with a bloddy shirt on, you gently cut the conversation with heimdall and rushed towards the man.

whenever you saw someone in pain, your heart was shaking because of feeling so bad. no matter who they were, you felt the same.

so, when you saw the man in pain, moaning lowly, hardly finding his place on the bed you designed for patients. valkyrie left the room as she saw heimdall after giving the information about the man's wound, how he got that and where he got that. she even told where he was from.

after hearing vanaheim, heimdall suddenly came to your side as you kneeled down to bed's level in order to do a better treatment for the man's wound as you picked up his shirt's edges.

"sir," you said, trying to take man's attention, "you need to take this off I am afraid."

he nodded silently, getting a little up to remove his shirt, tossing it to floor, closing his eyes in pure pain.

the wound was occurred because of a magic - magic that had poison in it.

working on his wound, touching his build chest, you heard heimdall's voice behind you.

"do you need to touch that?" he was referring to your hands on the man's chest, traveling around it to break the magic firstly. he didn't like when you both interacted a dangerous magic with poison in it and touched another man even if it meant for medical care.

"don't. he needs a treatment now. we can speak later."

giving him an angry look, you turned to the man again as his eyes began to open slowly, feeling better after you broke the spell.

taking a deep breath, you began to heal the open wound that created by a sharp sword as valkyrie said before. your hands were traveling on man's chest when his hands suddenly held your wrists roughly, making you cry in sudden pain you felt.

before you or the man say something, heimdall's sword found its way on the man's neck, speaking with a deep and dangerous voice, he said, "leave her or I will cut your head."

the man who looked so confused and afraid left your wrists slowly, breathing deeply.

as your hands found their freedom, you gently touched heimdall's shoulder. "it's okay. he is in shock. it's understandable. so, take back the sword."

heimdall's angry purple eyes looked at him for a few times before putting his sword back in his place, taking a step back to give you a space to finish your treatment.

you told the man how he ended in here while giving him last treatments he needed.

he nodded, looking at your hands shyly, "I am sorry."

giving a little smile, you said, "It's okay. now rest in here for some time. when this blue marks on your chest dissappear, you can leave." getting up, you gave him a bottle that had some herbs in it to boost his health. "take this and drink it before getting up. the wound will heal with time."

he nodded, taking the bottle. "I am glad for your help. thank you -"

"y/n." you said.

"thank you y/n."

then he closed his eyes to rest without sleeping.

you turned to heimdall who was watching you in pure annoyance. he never liked how you treated outsider. he didn't trust them. whenever there was an outsider you had to heal, he was being so protective over you. but, this had to be talked between you two. so, you held his hand, knowing very well he would let you - maybe letting you only even to touch him openly, then, you walked 'till you reached your personal room that was close to the your working room but had two corridors between.

closing the door behind, you turned to heimdall who began to play with your medical supplies one by one like he didn't know why you came to here, like he didn't read your mind at all.

"heimdall." you said, standing right behind his back, leaving just an inch to touch him. he turned his head a little, making you see his side profile which was looking so attractive and good. his purple eyes traveled on your face as you touched his shoulder with your chin, making your faces standing so close to each other.

it was so good to be able to looking at his eyes this close.

"why are you doing this? I am not all-father, you know it. you need your protection, not me."

you left his shoulder, going to your bed that had a high level, reaching till your knees. sitting on it, you heard heimdall's low voice.

"no." he said, approaching you. "no." he said again, more sure this time.

"what?" you asked the moment he reached your bed, standing right in front of you. when his stomach were on your eye level, his hand touched your cheek, lifting your head higher to make you make a contact with his eyes that made your heart warming and beating faster.

"I need to protect you too." he said, slowly caressing your lips with his thumb, making you close your eyes. "not only all-father has a space in my heart."

a question hit your mind, creating a huge blow that was full of hope and happiness; was he confessing his love?

"I couldn't imagine how much you would meant for me, but, here we are sweetheart; you are being in my heart with a huge space."

yes, he definitely was!

you opened your eyes to see his smiling one. heimdall who was cocky, the only one you had in asgard, in your life, confessed his love - he had a love for you.

not believing this, you tried to say," heimdall - "

then, he kneeled down, connecting your lips together with a joy that he brought with it, transferring it from his lips to your heart.

moaning shyly, your hands placed on his shoulders, pulling him closer. you realized how you waited for this moment - for so long. you really love him before he even realized your presence. you loved every detail he had. you loved how you waited for him to visit you in your room, every one of them, and you loved how he treated you differently than others, closer and further.

so, when you finally had him, it took a great time to leave him.

when you broke the kiss finally, he smirked, not leaving your side, being close still.

"I love you." you said, feeling a huge joy. "I love you entirely heimdall."

"I know sweetie, I know."

taking deep breaths, you asked, "so that's why you were so protective, huh?"

"about time your brain works cutie."

slapping his shoulder, you rolled your eyes, "how you can expect me to understand your, well, complex behavior."

"I can end every man's, woman's, creature's life that has a threat to your being. I kill thousands just for you - just for knowing you are safe and well. is it the complex behavior, huh, dummy?"

smiling to him, you held his golden hair, caressing it gently," now you talk, huh, cocky?"

he left a smirk lastly before kissing you again, "and now, I will act."

this was the last thing you remembered from that day, following with lots of unholy things with it.

since that day, heimdall always found his way to sneak into your rooms to well, doing lovely and nasty things while protecting you from everyone, having a protective behavior with the love he felt for you in his heart.

the end.

🍰

[mando-fando]

Celestial Bodies

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x F!Reader

Words: 1.6k

Warnings: none, I don’t think. Allusions to loss/death

Summary: Miguel gains the attention of someone unexpected

OR

The one where you get a happily ever after.

Miguel was doing what he did best: work.

After the incident with Miles, some of the spider people decided to leave HQ altogether. He simply told himself that he didn’t need them. He could do it on his own.

Miguel stood high in the sky, aggressively typing and researching to discover where Morales had wound up. He had been at it for hours when an angelic voice boomed through the silence of his lab.

“Miguel O’Hara,” the voice said.

He whipped around, fangs bared and talons raised. But he saw no one. He looked around, perplexed.

“Lyla, scan for intruders,” he said as he crouched into a defensive stance.

“I’ve disabled all your trinkets.” The voice called again. His head was on a swivel. He couldn’t see anyone, smell anyone, or hear anyone.

“Who’s there?!” He growled.

A moment passed and the air began to shimmer and swirl. A figure started materializing, taking the shape of what could only be described as a goddess. Light surrounded her astoundingly beautiful face, and suddenly, Miguel was eye level with an unfathomably breathtaking creature.

He couldn’t find his words, but she seemed to sense his confusion. She floated toward his frozen figure.

A calmness washed over Miguel as he watched her with wide eyes.

“You surprised me, Miguel. You’re a credit to your species. Jumping between dimensions is something we didn’t anticipate from mortals.” She still floated before him. She glimmered in the darkness of his lab.

Miguel opened his mouth to speak, but she continued talking.

“And, after doing your own damage, you took on the Herculean task of maintaining and protecting the life of everyone in every dimension. There isn’t just one world on your shoulders, there are trillions.”

She gave him a look of sympathy.

“The multiverse is far too incomprehensible for human minds. You’ve only seen a minute number of possibilities, but they’re quite literally endless. Look,”

She gestured an elegant hand into the air and showed a super cut of thousands of universes Miguel had never known about. The differences were impossible to describe. He watched with curiosity.

“You’ve piqued my interest. Watching you cross universes for the chance at happiness was touching.”

The image changed to a scene between Miguel and Gabriella, one he’d only been able to watch in his memories. He took a step towards it as pain and longing wrenched his gut.

“That sadness you feel… it is so profound. There is one one loss that I have witnessed that matches your own.”

She let him watch for a few more moments. She watched the tears and hurt flash across his face. The being played every moment that Miguel had experienced with Gabriella. She let him revel in the happiness and the mourning.

The goddess waved her hand again, stopping the compilation before it got to its grisly end.

“I have a proposal for you, to ease that sense of pain.”

Miguel swallowed hard. All of the emotions from his endeavor to Gabriella’s universe sat heavy on his broad chest. He looked at the being expectantly.

“You have another half, eons away in a part of the multiverse you’ve never encountered. Let me show you…”

In a nanosecond, Miguel and the being were standing in an office of a corporate building. The walls were grey, the industrial carpet was worn down from the years, and the cherry wood desk and credenza were chipped and scratched in a few places.

No one sat behind the desk.

“Why-“ Miguel began to ask. The words evaporated from his mouth when you walked in the door and sat behind the desk with a handful of papers.

He had never seen you before, but he felt a strange sense of familiarity. He felt like he was home when he stared at your face.

Miguel concluded that the ethereal being must have had a way to watch your universe without you detecting his presence. You sat and typed on your computer as if you were alone.

“Her name is (Y/N).” The goddess looked at Miguel. “She’s what you humans call a ‘soulmate.’”

Miguel continued to watch you work diligently. You picked up the phone and called what he assumed was a client of yours, and your voice sounded luscious and smooth.

Everything about you seemed perfect. He couldn’t believe someone like you existed.

“This one is married to her dimension’s version of you.” The goddess waved her hand, and Miguel watched the scene change to a beachside wedding.

You stood at the altar with your version of Miguel, smiling at him as if he hung the stars in the sky.

A flash of jealousy went through him.

“Do not fret. I simply love this version of your wedding. It’s serene.” The goddess smiled as she watched the scene play out before her.

After watching the bride and groom kiss, she spoke up again. “There are hundreds of versions of her. I have a few favorites.”

Miguel blinked and found himself standing in a high rise apartment in an alternative version of Nueva York. You were sat at the kitchen table flipping through a book when there was a tap on the glass.

Miguel followed your gaze and saw a version of himself sticking to the window. He must have gotten his powers in a different way in this universe.

You ran over excitedly and opened your balcony door. The alternate version of him swung into the door and pulled you into an endearing hug. He felt his heart clench.

The sound of feet pattered down the hall. Miguel looked around and saw a little boy, no older than 3, running as fast as his legs could carry him.

The alternate version of Miguel closed the distance quickly and pulled his little boy into the hug. The family looked whole and safe.

“I enjoy this one as well, but let me show you my favorite version of her. The one whom you belong to.”

Miguel looked up into an inky black sky littered with stars. It was so dark that he wouldn’t have been able to see if it weren’t for his enhanced vision.

“Sadness has always been my favorite mortal emotion. It’s so much more powerful than love, or anger. Humans will do almost anything to get away from it.”

The goddess’s gaze landed on you.

Miguel realized that you were in the desert, sat at the edge of a rock on a hiking trail. Your feet dangled above a gaping valley.

He waited for whatever version of himself was going to show up. He waited longer, and Miguel suddenly got the feeling that you were alone.

Your face was melancholic as you stared down at the cavern beneath you. You turned your head up towards the stars and sighed. An involuntary sob wracked your body as you took in the constellations.

“What…what happened to her?” He whispered.

“The same thing that happened to you. She found a version of herself that was happier, and tried to wedge her way in. She lost it all.”

The words hung in the air. You were the only person throughout all of time and space that knew an inkling of how he felt. The guilt, the mourning, the self loathing. He knew in his bones that you felt it too.

He felt his heart surrender to you. He loved you, irrevocably and undeniably.

“I was hoping you’d feel that way,” the goddess said.

You were gone. He was standing back on the platform in his lab.

“What happened?! I thought you said-“

“There are some things to discuss, Miguel.” The goddess took on a serious tone. “I can unite the two of you. You will both be happy. But, you’re no longer permitted to mess with other universes. It’s a power too great for any mortal.”

“I can’t abandon my mission. The fabric of the multiverse is damaged, I’m the only one who can repair it.” Miguel was irate.

“That’s not true. I can repair it. I created it.” The goddess said matter-of-factly. “I will clean up this mess. And I can return your genetic makeup to the way it used to be.” She snapped her fingers.

A strange feeling enveloped Miguel. He no longer felt like a block of steel. He studied his hand and tried to extend his claws or his talons, but nothing came. He was simply a man.

He looked up at her with a dazed expression.

“I will unite the two of you in her universe. Superheroes do not exist, nor can they. It’s a violation of the laws of physics.”

“It will damage the-“ Miguel started.

“It will not. As I said, I created the fabric of these dimensions. I can stitch you into the story, there will be no harm done. You have my word.”

Miguel stared down at his feet.

“Just tell me when you’re ready.” The goddess said.

He looked around for a long moment and thought back to your face. Soulmates. He remembered the glint of sadness on your face.

“I’m ready.”

Fatigue washed over him like a tidal wave. He felt his legs collapse beneath him. The world became black.

You stirred in your bed, half asleep. A large arm reached across your body and pulled you into its warm embrace.

“Good morning, Miguel.” You whispered. You’d been waiting for him. You knew he’d come.

“Good morning, amor.” He caressed your hair.

You nuzzled into his chest and felt the turmoil settle in your body. You didn’t know what you did for a celestial being to take pity on you, but you’d do it one million times over if it ended with you holding your soulmate in your arms for the rest of your days.

[bubblespalace]

The Accords (Reader Insert Ver)

CHAPTER 1

“Fuck it.”

You ran at the demon with full intensity, not a regard for your safety in mind. The demon growled like a dangerous bear, slashing at her with his sharp-clawed hand. You skillfully dodged quickly, adrenaline running through your veins while you fought hard and well. Your (h/c) hair whipped in your face as you slid underneath the monster's legs, tightening your grip on your powerful angel blade as you made a slash against the demon's inner thigh.

The creature wailed in agony, clutching its wound as the raven-black blood dripped to the ground, and the leaves and dirt sizzled as the substance made contact. It delivered a swift hit to your stomach, causing you to be knocked back into a tree.

As a Shadowhunter, you barely screamed. You groaned, winced, and gasped, but never screamed. There was something weak about it to you. You couldn't stand weakness, it was a bad quality for a Nephilim. You were a child of an angel, not some mortal like Vampires and Werewolves alike accused you of being. You glared at the demon with your piercing (E/C) eyes, you had disabled it enough. The cut on its leg was burning away like there was acid on it. 

All you had to do now was decapitate it and you could move on to her next mission.

You charged, like a bull who had just seen red. Your angel blade glowed a bright white, feeding off your own power. You twirled, your hair whipping at her face in the wind once again as you swung your blade at the demon's neck. You buried your blade into the skin of its neck and it howled, but not before it pierced your shoulder with its claws. You forced your blade through the remains of its neck, causing its ugly head to drop to the ground, the blood splashing up on your black dress. You gasped, feeling the pain in your shoulder. Quickly, you yanked the claw out of your shoulder. “Damn it.” You muttered regretfully.

You touched the wound gently, wincing when you saw it. It was deep, if it had gone through even an inch more, it would have been fully through your flesh and bone. Habitually, you reached for your stele to heal herself; but when you felt your empty pocket, you remembered you lost it in battle with a few Moloch demons back in New York. You cursed under your breath, knowing it was going to be very difficult to keep fighting like this. If only The Clave would let you take a break.

Maybe you could stop by the closest Shadowhunter Institute, they would have the supplies you needed to go on. However, it might get you into a bad place with The Clave. They wouldn't like you taking a break when there were so many more demons to kill.

You tried to stop yourself from focusing on the searing pain in your shoulder by busying yourself with reading the overview for your next mission. You scrolled through your texts from the Leaders of The Nephilim, only to find they were sending you back to her home country for a mission that would take some time.

Now you seldom felt emotions. In Shadowhunter training, they teach young children to never feel fear, dread, or even happiness. They want their young to become fighting machines as quickly as possible. A Shadowhunter's life is very hard. They are either always fighting for others, or trying to serve The Clave as well as they can. But when you saw you were going back home for two whole weeks, you were overcome with joy. You cracked a genuine smile, something you haven't done in a while now.

It made you almost forget about the pain in your shoulder. You touched it lightly again, still smiling. The woman decided she could go on, it wasn't as though the wound was fatal. You could heal mortally for once, it would be worth it to go back to (Y/C) again.

You walked through the forest, keeping your posture straight so you could fool humans into thinking you weren't injured. The Glamour Rune you put on yourself so you could be unseen must have worn out by now, and without the stele, you couldn't put another one on yourself. You trudged painfully to a gas station, looking for medical supplies and possibly a snack to hold you over for a while. You haven’t had the time to eat, or even sleep for almost a week since you have been so busy fighting and killing every demon you could. Your body was accustomed to not getting enough rest or food after so long going without either. 

Pulling on the door handle of the gas station, you stepped inside. Your black boots made a clicking noise as you walked across the tile floor and down the aisle, it drew the attention of a man in one of the food aisles.

He had straight, messy red hair like it hadn't been brushed in days. He didn't care very much about his appearance, You could tell from the state of his school uniform he was wearing, but it didn't put a damper on how attractive he was. The man had beautiful green eyes that were as shiny as emeralds, they seemed to bore into you with curiosity and, what she thought was slight attraction was enticing. The bone structure on this man was absolutely gorgeous. You had to stop yourself from staring at him, redirecting your attention to the minor medical supplies that were stocked on the shelves.

You grabbed a pack of bandages and a small bottle of disinfectant, holding them both in one hand as you paced to the small food section to grab something you could afford to buy. Shadowhunters out in the field only got a small amount of money to spend every month, it was supposed to be enough to pay for food every once in a while. Your allowance has always been a little less than everyone else's though. Since you were near the top of the best warriors they had, you were expected to not need such things as much.

When you pinched a pack of Instant Noodles in between your index and thumb, you heard the door to the bathroom open. A blonde girl wearing a pink top and brown shorts walked out and walked timidly to the red-haired man. They spoke, but you didn't understand much because although you could read very well, you couldn't speak Japanese. The red-haired man seemed almost hostile to the blonde though, through both speech and movements.

Maybe you should call this man out? He seems to treat her like she's his prisoner, and you've never been one to put up with men like that. However, this really isn't your business, maybe you should leave them alone?

Time to choose: