#10/10 if anything happens to her I will kill everyone in this game and then myself

[wavebiders]

I wasn't originally on the Baldur's Gate 3 romance options hype train, but I gotta say they really went off with making the "sweet soft dork" romance and the "complicated guarded woman slowly lets someone into her heart" romance one and the same

[vintage-vermin]

It's melancholic elf lass! Cheers for tagging me, this little picrew is fun!

Starting a new picrew chain because ASGDKFGLHSFA THIS IS SO CUTE

The link is below ^^

Tags:

@andytheoverthinker @def-not-kaz-brekker @chaosgremlinlivinginyourwalls @chatter-crow @moonysfavoritetoast @cazzythefrogking @finnslay @evee-refuses-to-die @lyionly-wants-to-die @jess-of-all-trades @saivamp and anyone else who wants to join!!!

[hazelfoureyes]

A Doe in Fall (part 10)

⟢HumanAlastor x FemaleBurlesquerReader - A Doe in Fall

A burlesquer with a penchant for conning men, you find your latest game interrupted when your next mark saves you from an aggressive fan— by killing him. The chance encounter left you curious, still half convinced you could complete your normal chase. Unbeknownst to you, you were the one being tracked.

Part 1 - Pretty in Red smut💦 Part 2 - Liar smut💦 Part 3 - A Tragedy smut💦 Part 4 - Enough Part 5 - Too Much Part 6 - Learning smut💦 Part 7 - Recognition smut💦 Part 8 - Trust sexual 🥵 Part 9 - Shiny Things Part 10 - Good Deeds 📍 Part 11 - Caught Part 12 - Eddie

Part 10 Good Deeds

Alastor takes you out as promised, but work/hobbies call him away. Not that you mind, you have your own hobbies to pick up.

「Warnings/Promises: Human Alastor x Fem!Reader, references to racial violence, reference to a word that’s now very much a slur, Hate for Aubrey, inaccurate portrayal of how easy it was to drink, oh yeah murder, mentions of a dismembered body, bloody shoes, physics hijinks with a corpse, these idiots in love, gators aaaaaye baby, domestic fluff?? Kind of?? Did I do it?!」

I think about Emmett Till often. Though his heinous murder came after the time this story is set, what happened to him wasn’t an isolated incident. So it is referenced here in a sense, because I can’t stop thinking about him when I think about racial violence in the south both what it looked like before and what it looks like now. I don’t say anything explicit and change the act, but it is still important to warn you. If you don’t know about the tragic death of Emmett, here’s a site with links to articles and essays. Be careful, it is awful and his deceased and battered face will come up on some links, as his mother wanted the world to see what they did to her baby. It’s an image I cannot forget and I rightfully shouldn’t. I know it’s off to have such a heavy topic before this love story but this case is the kind that would motivate such a killer as Alastor, and I don’t want to miss an opportunity to remind us of Emmett’s short life even if it’s done in a silly fanfic surrounded by nonsense. So forgive me for perhaps an odd real life addition, I’d be disappointed in myself for not addressing it when Emmett has been on my mind every time I think about the era someone like Alastor could have lived in. An era that did exist and people did live and suffer in.  An era not far removed from us, my father was alive when this happened.

Part 10 - Good Deeds

minors if you interact I will interpret that as a deep hate for me as a person so MDNI 👌🏼

“I’ve got to speak with the valet, go on ahead and find a table you like.” 

You didn’t want to do that at all, but knew Alastor wouldn’t ask if he didn’t want it. Well, he didn’t really ask, did he? He was certainly in his element, the shining and towering hotel every bit as pristine as his own public image.

It was as if every head in the room spun around to look at you. Everyone’s hair freshly styled, jewelry shiny and heavy, clothes immaculate. Your dress was lovely, no doubt, but no one looks at the elephant in her tutu at the circus and proclaims, “A ballerina!” This was, rather obviously, not your scene.

Alastor had presented the dress to you so sweetly, though. You woke up to find it hanging on the closet door hook, the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes. He had either waited for you to fall asleep to hang it or woken up before you for just the reason. It was red, his favorite color for you. The latest fashion, loose and straight. No corset. The neckline showcased a large, flat bow. 

“Partly a gift for me,” he had said as his hands slid down your sides when you had gotten dressed, “Such softness shouldn’t be hidden behind rigid boning.”

You settled into a large seashell shaped booth, the back coming up and over like you were the speck of sand yet to form into a pearl. The table was small, a glittering pattern under its shiny veneer. Everything was…glistening. Even the darkness past the windows seemed to be sparkling back at you. A few people turned to look you up and down, smiling and beginning to speak to their group before even turning back to them. 

You could wither, or bloom. So you learned back as if you were bored, legs crossed and feet gently shaking with anxiety or boredom, you hoped no one could sus out which. 

It was so odd. In your usual haunts, newcomers were greeted with curious smiles and maybe the tiniest suspicions. You were being picked apart to the bone by sharp stares and even sharper tongues, no matter how silent their jabs were to you. 

“They’re probably jealous.” Your head snapped up, when had Alastor made it in? “They look at you and know, ‘oh, that’s the kind of woman my husband would rather have a conversation with.’” You laughed, you absolutely could have stolen the attention and more from at least one of these women’s husbands.

“Perhaps they recognize these earrings, gone missing from their jewelry box earlier this year.”  You weren’t above accepting a woman’s stolen jewelry. It was her husband's fault anyway, might as well enjoy it. 

Alastor’s finger came to your chin, lifting your face further into the light, “Give em a good look, darling. I want them to eat their hearts out.” The blush that swept across your features was so fierce, the difference in temperature between your cheeks and your arms caused a chill to run down to your shins. He took a seat beside you, scooting up close and flashing that smile. A smile that had you chasing him into dark alleys and grabbing dead men by the ankles. 

A waiter came by, placing a drink in front of Alastor and asking what you’d like. You were so used to being in such spaces with the kind of men who answered for you that you didn’t reply immediately. When Alastor brought his drink to his lips, you realized it was you who was expected to speak. 

“Oh! A corpse reviver please.”

The man smiled and left with a nod. Alastor choked, hitting his chest with the fleshy part of his palm, “That was intentional, wasn’t it?”

You danced in your seat, “I’ve never been somewhere that has the stock for it that I was…allowed to order what I want.”

Alastor set his drink down and leaned back, shoulder pressing into yours teasingly, “I can’t imagine anyone disallowing you a thing.” With a sigh, you reminded him of the things you did to get your marks drunk and off their guard. You were surprised when he nodded like he remembered. “I saw that! You would sit so quietly on their laps. I remember thinking you were much more boring than you had initially made me believe.” You recoiled, and he shot you a look, “Who stalked who first, hm?” 

With a huff, you let it go. You weren’t actually sure the answer to that anyway. Focus let free from Alastor, you began to notice the looks were back. But no longer cutting into you, but wide and devouring. A few smiled at Alastor, some tipped their heads to him and offered a look of recognition. “Aren’t you popular.”

“I haven’t been out in awhile. They’re probably curious.” He took another sip, “Should be, atleast.”

A prideful smile slid up your face. You uselessly tried to mask it by licking your teeth. 

Something that happened when in public with Alastor that was unlike you was the tendency to become small. Not shrinking to provide him space; it was a turning in of your shoulders and touching of your knees in a subconscious effort to curl into a little ball of joy. Actively fighting the tug, you leaned back and opened your chest. An exercise in mental focus. 

“It’s weird. How you can be friends with my kind of people and….well, whatever is happening here.” Your hand waved at the room before you both. 

“My friendship with these people compared to our friends at the dives is…. A light bulb compared to a fire. One was manufactured to fit a need, one exists somewhat naturally.”

Tall and slim, body flat from collar bones to knees, a slip of a woman entered the room and you felt a shift in the atmosphere. Her hair was short and pitch black, fashionable to say the least. A few heads turned, a few upturned lips shifted into sneers. Side glances, hushed words, intentionally heard huffs. You turned to Alastor to find his face was as confused as your own. 

“Who is that?” You said it low, not knowing if she was friend or foe. 

“That would be Mrs. Aubrey Debreaux. Popular socialite and frequent hostess.” A sip of his drink, speaking about her like a character in a novel. “This icy reception is news to me though. She’s usually the life of the party.”

“She’s a real wet blanket now…Your circles seem really fickle. Always a bit of gossip.” You realized as soon as you said it that, well, that was the point. Alastor needed the gossip, and, well, he clearly enjoyed it.

“That’s what the wealthy do. Gossip and pretend the drama is as stressful as someone looking for their next meal.” Swirling his drink absentmindedly, his eyes followed Aubrey through the hotel bar. When you asked if he knew everyone there, he said it was his job to know people.

“Your job is in radio. You host a show, Alastor.” You laughed through your nose.

“Well, my other job.”

“I’d call that a passionate hobby.” Your hand came to rest half on his and half on the booth bench low and hidden, not wanting to monopolize, but he quickly took it and held it on the table. Another struggle to keep your shoulders from drawing inward.

The room moved on, forgetting you both were there and eventually about Aubrey too. Or so you had thought. When you drink was starting to mellow you, you turned to Alastor to admire the view. You’d come to enjoy that silence, the kind that only existed between people comfortable enough to know they didn’t need to entertain each other to enjoy each other’s company.

He was scanning the bar still, elbow on the table as he rested his chin there. From a distance of space or familiarity it could be seen as boredom. But up close and personal, you could see the wheels spinning behind his eyes.

“Golly, when in Rome!” Alastor hooted and grabbed you by the hand with one of his and carried his drink in the other, “Let’s go gossip. Bring your drink.”

He pulled you into a group of four people in a circle talking. They opened and let you both in, smiles warm. A clamor of excited ‘how long has it been’s, ‘how are you’s, and ‘you look well’s.

You’d expected him to ask for gossip like he’d said, but realized that’d be pretty conspicuous. Instead he waited, and when Aubrey passed by one of them rolled their eyes and he had his opportunity.

“What’s that look for?” He asked. 

Everyone got quiet and passed a glance between them. Finally a woman in a beaded dress and finger wave bob piped up.

“She reported a young boy touched her on the street.” Alastor watched Aubrey cycle through the groups as the friend spoke. “Grazed her hip with his hands, made a comment about white women as he did it.”

Alastor’s head whipped back around. “He got taken away that night.”

You gasped, hand coming to your mouth in sincere horror, “Just for touching her? Is he still in jail?” 

The woman’s lips pursed together, no one looking at you.

“Bless your heart. He didn’t touch her and he didn’t make it to the jailhouse, sugar.”

Suddenly the way everyone was looking everywhere but at each other sunk in. 

Panicked, you looked to Alastor. His expression was still, like the calm waters of a deep and foreboding bay. What horrors lie underneath? His tongue wiped across his teeth, and you reached out to take his drink from his hand. The action snapped him out of his daze for a second, expression softening a tad as he nodded a thank you.

If he shattered that glass now, people would remember. And when Aubrey went missing they may recall Alastor’s dramatic reaction. You knew his smiles intimately, the ones that were true and the ones that were illusions. The expressions of joy and the mask for his rage. The smile painted on his face now was nothing short of shallow.

You spent so many days in a bubble with Alastor, shielded by his grace or by the accepting and illegal circles you ran in that you sometimes forgot the reality of life. A dark privilege you hadn’t seen until you were the one looking naive for once. 

That’s right. The world was a bad place, of cruelty and injustice. Not just for you, or for parts of you, or for sides of you. Not just for women with smart mouths or a love of dance. No matter how safe the comfort of your friends and the dark halls you all commiserate in, no matter the like minds and mixed complexions of your peers, you were all just one cruel voice from being dragged into the night. Just a single accusation from being a whispered story in a glittering hotel bar. A headline no one would write. 

And some of you would be mourned more than others. 

You took a second, blinking rapidly to dry your eyes. 

“Apparently, she did it to get Hubert to leave his mistress’s apartment and come home.” A short man whose name you never got took a drag of his cigarette, “Worked. He’s been yapping all week about the state of New Orleans society and the importance of protecting the fairer among us.”

Alastor was quiet still, lips tight. You’d seen the photos in his home. You’d never discussed it, no need. Things can’t become normal if you’re always pointing them out. Plus, that was his piece to share. 

“Glad to see most of us here aren’t too keen to welcome her. I’d hate to have to find another bar.” Someone said, glancing around the room. “George just started making my martinis right.”

“Care to dance?” Alastor abruptly turned his entire body to you with a slick swivel on his heels.

You nodded, offering small polite goodbyes and setting your drinks back on the table before turning to him.

His open palm was outstretched and offering you a dance. You spread your hand over his and felt him hold you firmly before pulling you into him. 

He held you so close, much closer than anyone else on the dance floor. A scandalous lack of distance between you two. Quiet, Alastor’s eyes were distant. You were in front of him but he wasn’t seeing you. You let the song carry on a little longer for appearances before sighing into a smile.

“Why are we dancing when you have work to do? You have your tools.” Looking up at a man was rarely a view you enjoyed but the way his eyes slid down his nose and landed so sharply on you made it worth it. A look that said he’d devour you if he didn’t adore you so much. Your hand snaked behind his back to touch the hidden outline of this trusty little knife. He briefly wondered if this could be considered foreplay, the way he felt your hand on his lower back and running over his weapon. Much more intimate than he’d ever let anyone else be.

As your bodies swayed, the lights slid across the curve of his eyes and lit that bright honey brown color like a diamond twirling in the sun. The facets of his irises mesmerizing you. 

How terribly did you love him? 

How far would you fall for him?

“This would be a long one. You’d be waiting… could be a couple of hours. I need to be out of sight before she leaves.” A chill. Oh, you’d forgotten for a second, Alastor was a killer. He didn’t do it for ‘justice’ alone, he enjoyed what he did. Immensely. His voice had a note of giddiness and anger that didn’t mix well, but was oddly arousing. 

“Correction, I’d be dancing for hours. Drinking. Letting handsome men waste their money on me.” 

“Oh? Can they buy me a drink, too?”

You brought up your pointer finger, “You remind her of her humanity, and I’ll get a man to buy you a drink.” 

He linked his finger with yours. “I’ll need to give her special attention. She’s earned it.”

You loosely understood this wasn’t attention like you’d be given. This was attention that ran opposite affection. 

“I’m not here to be in your way, Alastor.” A quick kiss to your hand, one you hoped no one else saw. While no one here would be bothered by Brady, you still wanted to keep some semblance of confusion on what you two were to onlookers. 

His laugh was louder than you expected, a few heads turning, “Impossible. I’m always going wherever you are, dear.”

Would you never get up again?

“I’ll stay at the bar. If they close, I’ll just go to Beth’s.” Your fingers lingered in his, “Be careful. The best good deeds are done in the dark.”

A kiss to your nose. So gentle despite the topic. You could imagine it, the violent death of a woman. You could hear the sounds. Hers, his, the knife’s. A pang of guilt set in before you could remind yourself why this woman was going to die. A tiny smile settled on your face, he offered you a gentle command in return, “Understood, honey. Be safe.” 

You let him kiss your hand again and bow out of  the dance. You were doing it, it dawned on you as you watched him walk away. Truly kissing him goodbye at the door as he went off to work. The closest you’d ever gotten, atleast. 

He stopped by a group and said some quick goodbyes, apologies for leaving early, and left the hotel bar. 

You knew he had killed women before, Alastor was all for equality, but a part of you worried. Women tend to scream louder, and be heard more often, than men. A man screams and people just…keep walking. What would he do? Where would he do it?

With a sniffle, you let the jealousy of just what he would need to do to get her alone flutter away. Taking a seat back at your table, you sipped your drink and watched the others dance and chat. How odd, they could sway in such large places with big windows and bright lights with no fear of cops. Your scenes were dark, dusty, never seeing the sky. 

“He left ya?” One of the earlier women came by, someone you vaguely remember him nodding a ‘hello’ to at some point in the evening. 

Thankfully you were still quick on your feet. “Well, we came separately, of course we’d leave separately.”

A laughed, “Of course.” She leaned down, touching at your hair for a second, curiously, “Don’t hold your breath. But, it is nice he got you in here, huh? Must be a treat for you.” 

Your own laugh was just as abrupt as Alastor’s earlier, your hand coming to hide your smile. All you could muster was a nod. Yes, you stood out. Yes, you didn’t fit in with these people for many reasons. But, it wasn’t your first time in nice spaces. First time not pressed into a man who’d been made to believe he was more important the whole time, but still. 

It took two more drinks for Aubrey to leave. But there was a problem. As she was trying to bow out of the room, a man kept hooking his fingers under the loose belt of her boxy drop waist dress.

With practiced skill, you took note of where her eyes lingered on him, how her hand came to his arm but didn’t actually press him away. Not earnestly.

The pushy man saw it too, every little soft ‘no’ was a half ‘yes’. And Aubrey seemed to like that. It was almost ironic, given what she had done, how she egged on the younger man before her now by pretending she didn’t want him. His hand landed on her hip forcefully, her hand on his chest gingerly. He leaned in close, she pulled away barely.

The next act was the most classic to women of your era. The false exit.

Aubrey whispered something, he nodded eagerly and his many hands returned to himself.

She smiled at the back of everyone’s heads, as nearly no one would look her way, and she slipped out the doors.

You couldn’t stop yourself from shimmying as you slid from your booth. Barely a step away, you leaned back and grabbed the last sip in your glass. You swished it around your mouth like listerine, and swallowed it. Before you got too close, you pinched your cheeks until your eyes began to water.

You’d just found a way to make yourself useful.

“Whoopsie Daisy!” You giggled, shoulder colliding with the man’s chest as you stumbled past.

“Watch - ooh, hey,” the free hand that had come to keep you from getting closer quickly softened, curling around your waist. The same hand that’d just been on the socialite. You were sure to look up and sigh into him, your breath soaked in alcohol. “You okay, doll? Had a bit too much?”

With glassy eyes you nodded, closing them and letting your head nod lazily, “I lost my thing!” You laughed, hitting his chest.

“Your what? I happen to be a thing.” 

How quickly he forgot his target when easier to pick fruit appeared.

“No, silly!” A practiced hiccup, “my little…”

“Your little…?”

Your fingers wiggled in the direction of your hip.

“Purse!” A beaming grin. He asked if you needed help finding it. “Well, how else am I gonna get another drink!” The hand on your waist fell to your hip and slunk lower. 

“Oh well, I could help ya with that.” He leaned in, looking around first as if he had a secret, “I have a room upstairs.”

You tutted, “No no, I am a married woman!” He lifted your left hand, turning it over in a dramatic search for a ring. “Well, engaged…” you diverted your gaze. He lifted his hand to his brow then and scanned the room like a sailor to the horizon. “He’s working late.” You whined.

Why did his kind of man always want the taken woman? Did they think the chase was more meaningful then? Did they feel like they’d won some tug-of-war with an invisible, unaware opponent?

Maybe they were hardwired to hoard resources.

You let him seat you at the bar, and when he ordered you a drink you asked to know your savior’s name. William.

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Alastor was none the wiser, smoking a cigarette under the streetlamp just off to the side of the hotel awning. He didn’t smoke often before you, but he found the lure of sitting on the porch passing a pill between you both too hard to fight. And soon enough the habit grew from a drinking pastime to just… something to do with his hands.

As Aubrey appeared, waiting for her driver to retrieve the car, Alastor tossed the butt to the street and walked up on her.

“I’m quite cross with you, Aubrey.” His tone was smiling as his hand slid behind her neck and tugged her away from the safety and lights of the awning.

“Oh! Alastor, I’m actually waiting for my car.” She struggled to keep up with his pace in her heels, weakly pointing back to where the valet had stood earlier. She resisted a little, the palm on the nape of her neck silently shutting her down.

“Nonsense. We have business together.” Alastor let his hand fall to her upper arm as he yanked her into the closest side street. “I hear you’ve been a very bad girl.”

Aubrey huffed, pulling back against him once, then twice, but ultimately acquiesced when she could see his car down the street.

“Fine, you can drive me home then.” A misplaced giggle, her survival skills dulled by ego.

He tossed her roughly against the car, hand gripping her face tightly. She tried to say his name, but his hold was so firm her jaw was locked.

“You’re going to get into my car now.” Alastor’s eyes had lost their pupil, an expanse of a seemingly endless dark brown in the heavy shadows left by the lamp’s light. When he let her face go, she rolled her eyes and pulled open the back seat door.

That wasn’t what he had meant, not there, but he closed the door behind her and got into the driver’s seat. He hadn’t brought the tarp tonight, not expecting to need it, so maybe the backseat was his best option regardless.

When he pulled away, she reminded him he didn’t know her address.

“I’m not taking you home. I told you. I have a bone to pick with you.” Alastor found himself incapable of putting on a ruse for her. His patience was entirely lost in his unraveling anger.

“Oooh? A bone, you say. Well, well.” Aubrey leaned forward onto the front seat, hands snaking down his shoulders and chest so she could nip at his ear, “Finally letting me have a ride.”

He had to set his right hand in the darkness of his lap to hide the tremble, a disgusted rage manifesting in uncommon ways. 

As her fingers found the buttons of his waist coat, Alastor struggled to see the road in front of him. His vision was going white, and then red. His blood pressure was so high he was nearly blind. 

And when two hot fingers broached the small space between buttons of his dress shirt and touched the bare skin of his chest, the car came to an abrupt halt. The force threw her into the backseat. 

Alastor slammed the front seat door shut before opening the back and caging her in. “I can’t stand another second of your existence.” She crawled backward, making room for him. “I’m going to fucking kill you.” 

Aubrey settled her back against the opposite door, “Oh, the petit mort.”

His head hung low in frustration, a growled  “No, the big one.” as he raked his fingers through his hair to keep from punching his own car seat.

“So I’ve heard.” She pulled up the hem of her dress slowly.

“For fucks sake Aubrey! I’m not using double entendre!” His hands wrapped around her neck. “Must I really remind you of what wrongs you’ve committed?!”

A brief panic finally came, “Wrongs?? Excuse you.”

He could have sworn the snap in his brain had been audible to her as he lost his last bit of patience.

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“Excuse me.” You settled back into the seat, having taken a bathroom break to down some water in secret. You weren’t trying to actually end up blacked out.

“Anyway,  that's how we secured the riverside house.” William leaned into you. You tried to sip your drink and found it empty, having managed to finish it absentmindedly while he rambled on about himself earlier. As you stared at him you let your eyes lose focus and drift into plans for the morning. You’d like biscuits. Alastor had some sausage he’d picked up the other day, maybe a little gravy and some eggs. It’d be like a Sunday meal nice families ate after church. You assumed. Out of the peripheral of your daydream you saw him tap the bar twice and hold up two fingers. “Charge to 1033.” He said. With the clarity of someone who wasn’t pretending to be drunk you quickly held up three.

William shot you a confused look.

“One for my darling.” He made a show of looking around, the bartender pausing. You gave him a confirmation nod, “Three, please.”

“And is he in the room with us now, Helen? I’m beginning to think he’s imaginary.”

It seemed a fine enough name to give him.

“No! But I made a promise. Or…,” you returned the lean, head resting on his shoulder, “are three drinks a little steep for you?“ With a huff, he pulled out a pair of C notes and set them on the bar. The bartender nodded, reaching for the top shelf. You whistled at the sight. Too much money for the total seven drinks he’d ordered, if you weren’t somewhere Alastor frequented you’d have slipped them under the lip of your stockings when the man wasn’t looking. He was charging the room anyway, the large bills were just for show…

“One reviver for the miss, one brandy for the sir, and a rye whiskey neat for the beau.” The bartender set the drinks down on red napkins. The whiskey sat between you both, and after a beat you realized you hadn’t actually told him what to make for Alastor. And come to think of it, your last drink hadn’t been a reviver at all but a brandy ordered by William.

“Ya know I stood up another woman to help you,” he said it into your cheek, stealing your attention by breaking your line of thought. His arm around your shoulder curled to hold you closer, “Don’t I get a reward for that?”

His breath reeked of sickeningly sweet brandy, the taste sticking to the back of your throat. Your head tilted back so you could look at him down your nose, right hand coming to rest on his thigh.

The heat of his body was radiating through the fabric of his pants and made your stomach turn. How many hot and sweaty bodies had you had the pleasure and displeasure of touching?

A smirk painted your face, remembering seeing sweat sticking to Alastor’s forehead the last time he fucked you. What had you done for that reward? Ah right, the somehow shocking act of not withholding praise for how well planned out his greenhouse was. How impressive he was to you in so many ways. You could have lingered on that recollection, on how Alastor set down his coffee and kissed you. And how he didn’t stop until you were both left undone and flustered. But movement stirred away the pleasant memory to bring you back to an unpleasant reality.

His hand roamed down your arm, uncomfortably warm palm on your exposed skin. 

“Oh, I know you did.” You said.

William chuckled, absolutely no idea what you were talking about and not particularly giving a shit. “Did I mention I have a room here?”

“Ten thirty three.” You repeated. 

He looked genuinely shocked, “How’d you know that?” The man was absolutely mystified.

“I— you just…,” your mask slipped in the face of such abject stupidity, “Lucky guess.” William drank his brandy slowly, mentioning you should bet on the ponies together. You nodded. 

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Alastor didn’t care for strangulation. It took so much time and wasn’t particularly satisfying. No pleading, no screaming, no blood and gore. Just…. someone flailing beneath you and turning purple. Boring. 

He brought up the accusations before he began to squeeze, and her panic transformed to relief. “Oh that?” She tried to sit up, but he pushed her back down, “Are you really miffed at me about that?”

“Yes, Aubrey! You condemned an innocent child to a horrid death!” His hands loosened, all of his neurons firing off to feel pain in his own heart. 

She rolled her eyes, “I wouldn’t call them children. You seem so upset, hun. Did you have a mam-?”

The rest of the word was barely squeaked out of her, he couldn’t let her finish it. He wasn’t sure what face he made. But whatever it was, it scared her. The carefree way she’d been handling the interaction finally died, and he could register actual fear in her eyes then. 

But the rage just … withered. How many children had his mother loved and doted on before her last, much kinder position? How many Aubreys had she raised. It was nothing short of an overwhelmingly violent sadness that laced his finger together around her neck and tightened, the full weight of his body coming down to crush her airways. He wanted such sentiments to be smothered out of the world like the air in her lungs. If he killed enough, could he make a dent in their influence? He could try. For her. For his mother. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“Ya know, I could take real good care of you. If that’s what’s stopping you from coming upstairs.” 

With a deep breath, you gulped the drink halfway down. “Your fella doesn’t need to know. I could even get you your own place, you could wait for me there when he’s late with work. Have dinner ready. Slip off my shoes like a good girl.”

“Trust me; you’ve got a better chance of her smacking you with your shoes than slipping them off like a maid.” Alastor was resting his elbow on the bar behind you, head leaning on his hand. “Hey doll. That one mine?” He pointed at the glass.

“Oh? Alastor is the fiancé?,” William gave off a snide laugh as he was interrupted, Alastor standing up and walking to come between you two, “This guy?! Everyone knows he’s a frigid bitch. You must be a dive alley-cat if you’re—,” Alastor’s fist connected with the man’s jaw, eliciting a sickening crack. He needed both hands to keep himself from falling down with William as he was knocked back out of his bar stool. Alastor’s feet slipped on the spilt brandy, causing him to seize the stool for momentary support.

Alastor took the glass of whiskey with his non-dominant hand and downed it. He cooed, “Top shelf, Georgie?” The bartender nodded. “Good choice. Picked a worthy sucker, sweetheart. Ready to peel?”

You watched William try to stand, glass stuck to his palm. He did manage to get on his knees, shouting at the staff who stood motionless and unphased behind the counter. They didn’t say anything at all, oddly, until Alastor extended his swelling hand to you.

“Have a good evening, sir.”

Alastor flashed his signature smile and guided you out of the hotel bar. You only got a few steps before quickly running back and snatching one of the 100$ bills from the counter. William would’ve taken it back from the bar anyway. What a waste!

When a waiter offered Alastor a warm and familiar look you had to wonder, did people really not know what he did in the darkness of the New Orlean’s alleys? Did a part of them not feel some kind of debt to him? Or was he just painfully friendly when socializing?

“Just to be clear,” Alastor let the doorman open the lobby door, “It’s not the accusation of sex work that compelled me to sock him. It’s the implication you’d be cheap.” He waved the valet from the car and opened the door for you, “If you chose to sell your companionship at true worth, his daddy’s money couldn’t even buy him a kiss.”

“Aww,” you smiled at him through the thin windowpane, “Would you really be so cavalier about such a job if I did?”

“Would I? Gosh that’d make retirement much quicker for me.” He slid into the driver's seat and the door shut with a sharp ting. As he took hold of the wheel he reclined to let his hand settle behind you on the backrest, and then you three were off. 

“Oh by the way, Aubrey’s in the backseat.”

You turned slowly, first coming into view were her tiny, shining silver shoes. Your eyes kept traveling; stocking covered calves and then the bottom of her dress just past her knees.

Alastor’s coat draped over her torso and shoulders caused you to flit to him, confirming his jacket was gone, and back to her. 

Her face looked like that of a sleeping passenger. 

No blood.

When the car was a few blocks from the hotel, you leaned back and lifted the jacket. Her abdomen was clean, the white of her dress pristine. At first her neck seemed clear of cuts or abrasions until you rode past a streetlamp and a beam of light revealed the slowly forming collar of bruises.

Special attention.

For a hair of a moment you began to gently cover her again, before remembering her crimes and dropping it on her unceremoniously.

“Trunk not good enough for her?”

“Got interrupted. Booked it back to you.” He shook his head and patted the seat in tandem.

What luck that just as he felt sure she was too far gone for revival, he let go over her neck and sat up in time for someone to notice him. Fishing in his jacket draped over the seat, he found his cigarette case just as—

“What exactly are you two doing?” An officer was flashing his light through the passenger side back window.

Alastor froze, Aubrey motionless between his legs and a cigarette dangling unlit between his lips. “You startled me, officer! We were just canoodling. But she’s gone and fallen asleep before the main event.”

The officer’s brass light shone down but couldn’t reach the dead woman’s face past the shadow cast by the car door and glass. “She alright?”

Alastor’s eyes drifted down to the deceased socialite, “Truth be told sir, she’s had a bit too much of the giggle water.” Fishing your lighter from his waistcoat pocket, he lit this cigarette before setting the jacket over Aubrey like a gentleman.

“Alright y'all better get lost. Tell your moll this ain’t ladylike.” The officer tapped the window with his knuckle and when she didn’t stir just left with a huff.

Alastor was quick to leave the backseat and drive off, circling around at the next block to head back to the hotel.

“Is… everything alright?” You asked, very obviously concerned.

“Peachy! I just said we were necking before she passed out drunk.“ he leaned over and kissed your cheek, “Anything exciting on your end?”

Patting his leg you beamed up at him, “Always so quick on your feet! I don’t know why I worry so much.” His face lit up and you wanted nothing more than to launch into a praise filled rant that fueled his smile. But, you moved on to the question at hand. After a moment to think, you remembered ‘the best good deeds are done in the dark’. “Nope! Just got tipsy on William’s dime. An odd woman did touch my hair…,” you recounted every second, leaving out why you chose William, to Alastor. You hadn’t meant to, and he hadn’t actually asked, the evening’s events just seemed to flow out of you. The way he always added little comments and nodded made it feel like a conversation and not just you rambling. 

When the car was pulling into the driveway, you asked Alastor if you could drive it behind the house. Puzzled, he put it in park and let you sit between his legs. You started slowly, but quickly began to accelerate. As you approached the house you turned sharply to the left, right side tires ever so slightly leaving the ground. A sharp correction to the right to straighten out. One of his hands clutched you at the waist, the other gripping the seat.

He tried to form some kind of words but they came out a jumbled and panicked mash of sounds as you barreled toward the greenhouse. 

You slammed your foot on the brakes and Aubrey flew off the back seat and hit the floor with a loud thud.

“Ha!” You slapped the wheel, “I’ve been wanting to hear that sound the whole drive!” 

He used both arms now to squeeze you appreciatively, “You’re just the bee’s knees.” Alastor nuzzled into the back of your neck, truly feeling his heart flutter. You made him skip a beat. So many days and nights not even imagining such a pairing.

The best scenario he could think up was a partner who wouldn’t ask questions, who didn’t care to know, who was maybe a little too naive but otherwise capable. Even in his wildest dreams he hadn’t dared to think someone would exist who could support him.

And not just in the killing, which was a hurdle of course, but the other parts of him. The little sacrifices you made for him without complaint. 

What did he do for you, he worried. Your body was his on the occasions he wanted but never did you ask for him. You shared the housework equally. Yes he drove you around but your skills with the car were still new. Insignificant things, like making your coffee when he awoke first and waiting for you after work. With the detective still looking for connections, he couldn’t even properly introduce you or flaunt you around to his circles.

Like a flash of lightning taking down a tree, insecurity shook him. What on earth was keeping you there? Of all the people in New Orleans, how was he any more worth your time than the next?

If anything, he was nothing short of troublesome. His hold on you twisted from thankful to desperate.

Even the lovely evening out he had promised you, he’d left you alone in a strange place. A stranger had bought you more drinks than he had. 

“Would you like to go to the woods with me tonight? To dispose of Aubrey?” His lips swiped across the fabric of your dress as he said it.

The sudden advancement into his hobby took you by surprise. You hugged his arms against you, “Really? Are you sure?”

“If you don’t want to…”

“Is that what I said?”

“Well, no….”

“Don’t put words in my mouth! I absolutely want to go!” Your arms squeezed his.

He chuckled into your shoulder and gave your hip a pat, “Let me get her packaged up. You go rest your feet and I’ll come get you when I’m ready to go.”

You watched from the kitchen, the light he hung from the greenhouse ceiling setting the entire space aglow. When he finally emerged, his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows and his hair was falling into his face, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose before he could push it back into place. He waved from the porch, and when you made it out to him he was already pulling out small bundles.

“We’ll bury the pieces in separate places.” He dragged out a small trash tin with the lid already clapped down. “And this goes into the water.”

The packages were like Tommy’s, but smaller. They fit easily into the trunk, and beside them he snuggly fit the metal bucket.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The Ford was parked down a dirt road far from sight, taking a parcel at a time and a shovel, you followed him into the woods. 

You had to ask, why not just his land? Wasn’t that safer? Easier?

“Well, a skull found out here is easier to act shocked about than on my property.”

The ground was still soft, but you could imagine it was rock solid in winter. “Isn’t this dangerous? Aren’t you slowed down in the colder months?” You kept your eyes open wide, adjusting to the pitch black of the forest. The trees were too close and too full still to see the stars. But soon they’d brown and die, revealing the sky’s light. Revealing Alastor.

“Eh it’s mostly busy during mating season because the hunters come out in numbers. But in general I avoid being here in the very early morning hours.” He paused and you reached out for the shovel for your turn, “It’s not too bad overall.”

“They mate in fall. It’s almost fall now.” You widened your stance for balance and began to dig. 

“Yeeees but I’m not alone!” He chirped.

“Fine… just, don’t come out when I’m not able to join you. Just wait or, I don’t know, burn them or something.” You tried to dig fast, wanting to spare his injured hand another turn.

“Very ineffective, brings too much attention and the body never burns all the way. It’s still identifiable in many cases.” Alastor said it quickly, as he’d had nearly a lifetime to think of these things and test them. 

You huffed, “Well, fuck. Okay. Still.” You leaned over and offered your index finger, not looking at him as you did. He laughed before wiping his hand clean on his pants and hooking his with yours. 

A small scream erupted from you, startling him. Your short heel sunk into the dirt when you leaned to lock fingers. The sudden loss of balance startled you. “Sorry… flat shoes. I need flat shoes…these are gonna be the death of me.”

Alastor’s hand came to his heart, pounding in his chest, “Of us. My heart nearly stopped.”

You dug many holes, all of them quite small in radius, just wide enough to slip in what you needed to. After each was deep enough by some standard you didn’t know, he would untie the twine around the package and let the contents spill out and down into the little cylinderical pocket of dirt. 

The first package had her hands. Then next was her feet. Her arms in pieces and then later her legs. The hips, the chest and shoulders, and finally, her head. You were grateful for the darkness, not wanting to see her face now that it was no longer attached to her body. 

The brush was so thick and the woods so dense that you found it hard to distinguish the burial spots once they’d been filled in and covered up. He explained most people came out there with a purpose, not really noticing some disturbed dirt here and there. It’s not like they’re people sized.

“You’re just something else, ya know that?” You said it into the shadows and didn’t see him wince. But you somehow, accidentally, knew to clarify, “I’m always so impressed by your way of doing things. You’ve really thought it out well huh? I know I should worry less but it’s hard.”

Because of the shade you didn’t see the way his shoulders relaxed. You never made him regret your inclusion.

Alastor carried the bucket as you slowly made your way through the darkness. You could hear the sounds of bugs, though you couldn’t see any.  The water surprised you, his arm coming to stop you from walking into the bayou.

“In winter they’ll get really still, so I slow down then too. But we still have time, it’s not too cold yet for them.” He took off the lid, the smell of copper blossoming from the tin.

With practiced moves, he tossed the viscera as far as he could into the small inlet marsh of the river. 

Within seconds the water frothed and rolled with the snapping of powerful jaws.

“Gosh they’re so neat.” You said, reaching out into the darkness for his hand. You couldn’t see him looking at you as you watched the prehistoric animals dispose of his crimes.

He wanted to kiss you. To confess every little happiness you filled his formerly hollow chest with. But he held back. He knew better. He’d tried before, once. When he thought settling was better than nothing. It ended terribly. It was better to just exist beside you for as long as you’d entertain his company. If you knew, he thought, of all the futures he imagined with you, you’d just feel tied down by his hopes. You weren’t a small bird he could hold in his home. 

You promised to not get in his way. The least he could do was not cage you with his love. He wouldn’t hold you back.

“Alastor.”

“Yeah?” He said dreamily.

“I think… ” You fought the urge to scream at the sensation between your toes, “Aubrey dripped into my shoes.”

Alastor yanked the bucket away from you, the angle he haphazardly held at it with a single finger to hold your hand having caused the liquid remains to leak out.

“Ankle boots. Ankle boots, no heel.” You muttered, the shoe rinsed off in the water with a paranoid speed now squishing under your sole. The action was enough to draw attention to your shore, long and round snouts moving toward you in the night as you got rid of Aubrey. It was time to go. 

The drive home was dark and silent. The bucket and tarps rinsed with the gas can full of water he always kept in the oversized, custom built trunk. It had taken longer than you had realized, which just brought up renewed worry for his sleep schedule.

When you finally made it home and into the bedroom, he mumbled it was too late to shower. A coordinated grumble between you that you’d both just wash the sheets in the morning. Alastor sat on the end of the bed and bent down, your hand coming to his shoulder to stop him. 

Exhausted, aching, and quite confident you smelled of sweat coated dirt with the tiniest hint of dead Aubrey mixed with alive William (blood and brandy, respectively), you lowered yourself to your knees. You untied the waxed laces of the right shoe, made of a shiny brown leather, and slipped it off. 

Alastor felt his throat tighten as he had to blink to keep tears away. You always seemed to listen when he spoke. Really listened, even when he was just being playful. Another tiny sweetness piled onto the mountain you were currently burying him under. Another ounce of inadequacy tipped on his self measured scales.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Hush, I don’t have to do anything.” You said it and he laughed breathlessly knowing he’d heard it before and praying he’d hear it forever. “I want to.”

You set the left shoe beside the right. When you didn’t stand but instead stared at him patiently, Alastor undid his pants and lifted his hips to push them down. You folded them neatly beside his shoes. Feeling up his legs as if you couldn’t see them there in front of you, you found his sock garters. 

“Keep the socks, please. It’s getting chilly.” He undid his shirt and folded it on his lap. 

When he was in just his underwear and socks, you looked up at him and wondered if he knew. That this was the closest to expressing “I love you” you had ever been. The act itself perhaps far louder than any words could be.

Sitting back, he patted between his legs like he had in the car. As you sat, he undid the buttons down the back of your dress. Why were so many women’s clothing items made in a way that required two people?

In the mirror above the dresser you took in the sight. When the dress fell to your waist he kissed your shoulder and met you in the reflection.

“Quite a pretty couple, if I do say so myself.” He rested his chin where he had just kissed and smiled at you. “What did I do to deserve your attention?”

“Affection,” you corrected. “Aubrey got attention.” He nodded slightly. “I think it’s karma.” You watched his brow arch. “You’ve earned me. Whatever that means, or looks like. We were put together for a reason.”

It was the sappiest thing you’d ever said and a year ago you’d have laughed in someone’s face for saying it. If a character in a novel spewed it out in a confession you’d have closed the book. But you meant it. Every single word was part of the fact this was supposed to happen. The idea that any timeline existed where your paths never crossed gave you the shivers.

Alastor closed his eyes, exhaustion catching up quickly as comfort opened the door for it. That didn’t make any sense to him at all. Why would anyone, god or the devil, give him something good just for the sake of being a good thing. He was very plainly bad. There must be a catch. That fear he felt before, the fear of wanting something too much, reappeared. Turning its ugly head to him as if called by name. 

Why? He could feel something, someone, setting their sights on him. 

When he opened his eyes, you were there still, looking at him. A smile too sweet. He felt the compulsion to tell you to run. That if this was his karma, it would end the way he deserved. And he didn’t deserve happiness. He didn’t deserve you.

But instead he leaned down, lifted your dress, and unclamped your garters. He wanted to be selfish. He wanted to cling to what good he had now. Even knowing he couldn’t possibly get to keep it. His fingertips delighted in rolling down the delicate nylon. He watched the red stained end loosen around your toes, a mental note to burn them before he continued his undressing.

“Lift your hips, my love. I’ll get you all ready for bed.” As he pressed forward and bent into you so he could slip off the stockings he turned to look at the you in front of him, “And I’ll keep you warm.”

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ⋆Masterlist.ೃ࿔*:･

˖ ݁𖥔.Summoning the Horny Little Deer Cult.�� ݁ ˖

@eris-norwega @reath-solia @catticora , @angelicribbons , @xalygatorx

@cxrsedwxrlds , @nonetheartist , @tsunaki , @janchei , @moonmark98

, @readergirlstuff , @berry-demon , @chirimeimei , @fairyv-ice , @olive-frog ,

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, @a-case-of-attachment , @multifandomfanatic02 @watereddownmilk , @bontensbabygirl @smoky000

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@dontfuckbutimfab @breathlessaura , @aperfectidiot , @certainlygay , @jth12

[imbored1201]

Barca fem x reader

Beach day with everyone? Ideas: Mapi throws reader into reader, Lucy teaches reader how to play volleyball, volleyball comp between everyone?, alexia scolding reader for not applying more sunscreen, alexia being very mum basically, reader plays chicken, just beachy stuff! Not pressure I’m sure your busy writing just thought I’d suggest something

Beach Shenanigans

Barcelona Femeni x Teen Reader

Word Count: 1,330

 

You didn't want to be here, you would rather be using your day off to play video games, but you got dragged over here to the beach on a sunny day for team bonding.

You heavily despised Mapi right now since it was her idea in the first place, and she knew you didn't like her right now either. Considering the way she was grinning at you.

You glared at her the whole time, even when Alexia was putting sunscreen all over your face.

"Don't start with the attitude, Carino; have fun." Alexia tried, but you simply huffed and stormed far away from the team to make a sand castle. 

Before you could start and open your little sandcastle toy set Lucy bought you, it was snatched away. "Hey!" You looked up and rolled your eyes, Lucy. 

"Ona thinks she could beat me at volleyball, so we're playing a game, and I need five people." "I don't know how to play."

"Kid, I don't care, all you do is hit the ball and make sure it doesn't hit the ground. Now hurry up so I can get Ingrid and Fridolina. We need the tall girls; you go get Irene." You nodded as she ran into the water to where Frido and Ingrid were.

"Shit," you cursed when you saw Ona already talking to Irene. Lucy would kill you if you came back without her. Quickly thinking, you grabbed a rock and set it down in front of you, then sat down. 

"Ow!" You yelled, and Irene, of course, having that mom instinct, quickly turned to your direction. "Irene!" You yelled for her, and she was quick to run to you. "What happened?" She asked as she kneeled beside you. 

"I stubbed my toe because of this dumb rock," you pouted, and she patted your back. "You’re being dramatic again, aren't you?" She was already used to this; you did the exact same thing towards the end of training to get out of running. 

You nodded. "Lucy told me to ask you to be on our team for volleyball." Irene nodded as she helped you up and led you to where Lucy was with Frido and Ingrid, who were drying up now. 

You smirked as you turned around to where Ona was standing in disbelief and flipped her off. 

—————

The teams were settled; it was you, Lucy, Irene, Fridolina, and Ingrid against Ona, Salma, Patri, Cata, and Pina. 

“Look, do what I’m doing,” you copied Lucy’s hands, “or you can spike it.” You tried to look like you understood what she was saying, but you didn’t. 

You didn't even hit the ball once. Mostly because, when you tried, Lucy would push you out of the way to get it. 

You guys did win, though. "Losers," you told Pina and Patri. "You didn't even do anything," Patri pointed out. "I still won though, and you two are still losers," you shrieked as they tried grabbing you and ran off. 

You went back to your old spot and went back to building sand castles, but of course, you couldn't get at least 10 minutes of peace. 

Mapi came running up to you and decided to tackle you. "Ew, Mapi, get off. Your all wet," she got off you and stood up. 

"Come on, let's go swimming." She jumped up and down like a child. You shook your head and threw the toy shovel straight at her face. 

"That's it!" you shrieked as she forced you up and threw you over her shoulder. "Mapi! No!" You yelled as she full-on sprinted to the water. "Yes!" She yelled back as she threw you into the water.

Ingrid quickly grabbed you to help you stand. "Mapi! You could have hurt her," she said as she patted your back. "She's fine." Mapi patted you on the head. "I didn't want to wet my hair," you whined.

"We're at the beach, Carino; have some fun, this is one of those rare moments where Alexia lets you leave her side," she had a point. 

"Only for a couple of minutes," Mapi nodded and grabbed you and suplexed you, getting another scolding from Ingrid. 

You were done after one last push from Mapi, you rushed out of the water. Mumbling curse words under your breath. 

"Bebe!" Alexia yelled for you. You put your innocent smile back on and walked over to her. She threw a towel at you and motioned for you to sit by her. 

When you saw the sunscreen, you tried leaving again, but she grabbed your arm. "You're going to get burned if you don't put more on, and I don't want you crying the whole day over being sunburnt," she ranted, applying sunscreen to your face. 

"Now go and behave," you nodded and pouted as you saw Patri and Pina over where your sandcastle was still in the process of being built, playing with the volleyball around it. 

"Hey!" You yelled as you ran over there to push them away. "Let's play monkey in the middle," Pina said. "No," you told them sternly, sitting down to build your sand castle. 

"Yes," Patri forced you to stand up. "Patri no," you whined, "yes, get it." She threw the ball to Pina, as you ran to get Pina, she threw it back to Patri. 

That made you mad; now you were determined to get that dumb ball and throw it far into the ocean. You tackled Patri, who laughed, and threw it to Pina. 

After six more dumb attempts at trying to get the ball, you gave up. "This isn't fair," you pointed out. "Don't be a sore loser," Patri teased.

"Let me build my sandcastle; I want to make a kingdom." They shook their heads and decided to start doing some keep-ups. Near your castle.

Again. Not even 10 minutes later. 

"Kid! Get over here!" You heard Fridolina yell at you. You groaned as Pina lost control of the volleyball, and it landed straight into your sandcastle. 

"Sorry!" She quickly said, and hid behind Patri. You grabbed the ball and threw it at Alexia, who was sun bathing now near the three of you.

Alexia sat up quickly and looked for the person who threw the ball. You quickly pointed to Pina and even pointed to your poor sandcastle. "Claudia! Ven aqui!" Alexia yelled, and you quickly stood up and ran to Fridolina.

"Yes," you told her, still standing far away from the water. "Get on my shoulders; we're going to show Mapi and Ingrid that just because they're a couple doesn't mean that they'll win every game together," Fridolina said, determined as she motioned for you to go closer to her. 

"But Mapi is way stronger than me," you said as Mapi was already climbing Ingrid's shoulders. "And you're a better cheater; come on, put that cheating mentality to the test." You nodded as you got into the water and onto Fridolina's shoulders.

You giggled as you shoved Ingrid's shoulder with your foot. "Hey!" She yelled as she stumbled back a bit. Mapi lost her balance and fell into the water. 

You and Frido cheered, and she jumped around with you. Mapi stood up and pushed you off. "Hey! Sore loser. Ingrid, control your girlfriend," you told the taller girl, spitting to get that disgusting salt water taste out of your mouth. 

"Rematch cheater," Mapi poked your stomach, and you shook your head. "I won fair and square; I get bragging rights; now I'm tired; goodbye," you told her, and rushed out of the water. 

Alexia gave you an amused look as you laid down on the towel next to her. "Mapi is a sore loser," you told her. "Maybe you're just a cheater," she said back. 

"I won fair and square." "Yeah, sure, pack up; we’re leaving.” You cheered and jumped up to pack everything up. 

For the next 4 months, Mapi and Ingrid did not hear the end of your little victory. 

[rileyglas]

The List ~Pt. 1 - Creation~

Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) x Reader

This is my first-time writing fanfic but I literally cannot get the stories out of my brain so…why not make everyone else suffer. This is part one of a story I’ve been rolling around some time. I feel setting a good foundation for the reader/main character is super important, so I PROMISE this story gets better. Be prepared for the usual angst, mystery (Alastor), sassiness (Lucifer), fluff, eventual smut (yes horny readers bear with me we need some plot), and of course 18+ because….it’s Hazbin what do you expect?

Summary: f!reader finds themselves in Hell. Unable to accept your horrible fate you make it a point to continue being a bright soul surrounded by the darkness of Hell. With some higher advice, you create a list of rules to live. A short list to keep out danger and continue helping the lower sinners of Pentagram City. It’s the ONLY way you can survive (right?). Your list begins to crumble when you start helping Lucifer’s daughter with some hotel and a dream to redeem the same sinners you want to protect.

**sentences in italics are internal thoughts of the reader

1.5k Words

Part 1 (You're on it!) Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5  Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.A Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

Rumor was all sinners would spawn in hell with attributes related to their life and (untimely) death. Your gift power was proof of that.

“Everyone get inside! Come on before the exorcists see you.” You hurry the last of the smaller sinners inside a building. It kills you to see such fear from the souls. “Lock the door. I'll lure them away.”

How foolish you were. Somehow a heart of gold followed you to these depths after death...ironic how even the nicest people end up in hell. God really does have his favorites I suppose.

But that foolishness led you to the best thing to happen to you, so you thought. Dodging through the streets, maneuvering, anything to lead the "angels" away from even the worst of sinners. Cursing praying for their safety. It was only your second extermination, but you already caught onto their game. It was all too easy to get around their sloppiness. Needing a breather, you weave around some cars and dive behind a dumpster. Idiots can't even keep track of my thickass? Pathetic!

A few moments pass as it grows quiet. Your breath begins to steady when the softest whimper catches your attention. As quietly (and non-threatening) as possible, you turn the corner to approach a crying dark mass curled on the ground. Seeing their blood pooling sends your stomach into flips. Not another one. Fearing the worst you gently reach out. “Hey hey...shhh..." you utter, feeling her wince ever so slightly. "No don't panic I'm here to help. Where are you hurt?"

The young girl slowly uncrumples herself to show her wound...a massive "X" sliced hips to neck. It was so deep you couldn't believe she was still breathing let alone even moving. Fuck she's lost too much blood. "Come here let me try to stop the bleeding" you lied. You knew she had no chance. But your chest hurt at the thought of her dying (again) alone in some shit alley. With the last of her strength she curled into you, her white hair tickling your face. She had her textured locks pulled back tightly and black horns accenting the top of her head. Her tired red eyes relaxed, slowly closing as she leaned into you. Such a beautiful girl falling to such a terrible fate. With one hand on part of her wound, you used your other to softly stroke her head. “I'm so sorry young one...just breathe in and know you're not alone.” As her breathing shallows you gently kiss her forehead, bidding her soul a gentle goodbye.

The second your lips touch her skin, pure fire floods through your veins. Every nerve in your body feeling ripped apart. You spasm from the pain, clenching onto the girls now limp body. Just when the pain starts misting your vision you see flashes of...pink? "What the fuck!!" You grit through your teeth. What felt like hours of pain was merely a few seconds and it quickly dissipated from your body as did the pink light. Shit shit shit, there’s no way the exorcist didn’t hear OR SEE that! You stay perfectly still...listening to the silence with your mind reeling over what just happened.

A gasp breaks the deafening silence, pulling you back to reality. The young girl jolted out of your arms, gasping in as much air as she could. Looking down you notice her wounds were gone, only dry blood and tattered cloth remained from the laceration. You look at each other in panic and shock.

After inspecting her stomach she snaps out of her daze, remembering you two were still not safe.

"It's too dangerous to stay out here. Come with me - we aren’t far from the safehouse. I am sure my mother will want to meet you."

You follow without hesitation. Trust has always been a weakness. As you make your way through the city, she explains how she was out collecting angelic weapons with her sister when they got separated. After getting cornered she just accepted her fate...then you found her. "The name is Clara by the way. Clara Carmine. I usually just go by CC though."

You never intended to get into the Overlord game. You were merely trying to make the best, quiet life in hell if that was even possible. Guess things change when you save the daughter of Hells most prestigious Overlord. Who could say no to being taken in and protected by THE Carmilla Carmine.

Carmilla immediately began preparing you after hearing of the power you possessed. The power to heal with touch...of course it’s not that easy…it required pure intensions, coming from a place of love. Who the hell (pun intended) wrote this cruel joke for a sinner? How did the lowest of low get given such power just a few short years after arriving? It was your most precious secret. It had to be. If anyone of ill will found out - and come on, it's Hell - your soul would have been the most sought after in the pride ring. You wouldn’t last a day. Carmilla was indebted to you for saving Clara, so she made a deal to give you protection and mentorship as repayment. The first of many deals you’d make in Hell, growing the power you held.

In the years you've been under Carmilla's watch, you created a short list of rules to keep yourself out of harm’s way -

1. Never trust another Overlord

2. Never tell a soul what (or how much) power you have

3. Never bring anyone too close

4. Never let your weaknesses show

It was a simple enough list that had worked for you so far.

You chose to make deals with those who needed protection or help while navigating the dangerous afterlife. In your deals each soul was bound to secrecy as to who you were and what you provided. Contract details and fine print were your specialty. Your soul count was the highest Carmilla had ever seen for someone so new, so merciful. She would often mention only one other sinner ever rose the ranks as quick though his methods were…less than savory. She never bothered to say who. Every Overlord meeting the rumors spread of some "Saving Grace" sinner making their way into powerful ranks. A shadow giving vile hope. But just as quick as those rumors appeared - they were put to rest when no new faces ever appeared. Of course you were there - you needed to attend for information just as much as the next guy, but you never sat as an Overlord. Carmilla granted you a place off to the side as "the help" to serve tea or make notes as needed. No one ever batted an eye to someone considered just a worker bee in Carmilla's hive.

Every meeting was the same, though it seemed unease was rising after each extermination. Six years had passed since you fell into this hellhole (har har). Another extermination, another meeting. Sitting in your designated corner, you twirl your pen as the Overlords began taking their seats. Might as well be invisible - but you preferred it that way. As your mind slightly wonders to less important things, the quiet buzz of conversations around you fades away from your ears.

"—yes I know I’ve been absent some time. I'm sure you've ALL been wondering!"

Your attention snaps back with the sound of this charming new voice. The demon was dressed to the nines - red suit jacket, gloves, freshly pressed slacks. Your already preoccupied mind raced. Who the hell is that? Where has he been? Why does he have that shit eating grin?

He must hold some power to be sitting here after all these years…

"Not really. But welcome back in any case."

That dismissal from Camilla was enough for you to put aside any questions you had of the demon. You knew this meeting would be tense. Can't afford distractions when you needed to be all ears. As you began writing you felt something in the pit of your stomach. Was someone staring at you? You try to shake the feeling when Velvette made her grand entrance. With a sigh and eye roll you set aside your notebook. God damn this woman, no respect, no couth. Gonna be a long one today.

The sinking feeling returns, this time you catch the culprit. The (new to you) demon Overlord is staring at you as if you’re the only one in the room. You make eye contact hoping he moves his gaze, but it only fuels the intensity on you. That smile never faltering. Your ears ring and static pricks your ear drums. Can I fuckin help you sir? Wait no, you're just the help. Lower sinners would never even dream of speaking to an Overlord like such. Thankfully the eye contact breaks when Velvette tosses the head of an exorcist on the table.

Ah I suppose this will be quite a fascinating meeting…

[the-invisible-foe]

what are some common misconceptions about pathologic characters that ur sick of seeing in fandom spaces

anon thank you for blessing me with this wonderful ask this fine day

i'm gonna keep it pretty short for daniil because i don't want this to become a defense post about him and i think i've already said all there is to say but literally can we stop mischaracterizing him to this degree? it's very obvious that daniil does care about the town and the people around him given that he keeps trying to help in any way he can even when he has nothing to personally gain by doing so. and unless you're going for all the 'i'm an asshole' options in his dialogue he's actually polite and even endearing at certain points? especially that considering that during his own route he's pretty much thugging it out on his own, if anything helping the other two playable characters instead of the other way round, but in the haruspex and chageling route he's the one you turn to for help when stuff gets tough. here's a post that includes some of his lines that illustrate this point. also the implication that he's some clueless asshole that doesn't know what he's doing while artemy is The Good Doctor That Saves Everyone TM is a horrible misreading of the story and the framing of the plot. the bachelor's route is specifically a story about a person who finds themselves in such a hostile setting that, despite their best efforts, is unable to find their footing and ultimately fails at everything they try to accomplish. by interpreting this aspect of the game as daniil himself being incompetent you have missed out one of the most major points this game is trying to make.

as for artemy, i partly blame this on the developers themselves and how they handled his p2 characterisation but i dont like how the grittier aspects of his character are ignored in favor of a loving father persona. artemy can be a huge dick in classic, as can all three playable characters and a big part of why i like his and daniils relationship so much is because they're both these cold, reserved, introverted guys but allow themselves to enjoy an easier dynamic between them. i think that aspect of their relationship doesn't really work if you hc artemy as someone who is kind and cheerful from the get go.

in a similar vein i also don't like how perceptions of clara often boil down to silly teenage girl who makes meta jokes when her character is so much more than that. people completely ignore the unflattering aspects of her character, like how self-righteous she really is. i mean she's literally making it up as she goes and yet she feels so confident in herself and her methods that she finds it acceptable to trick the only two doctors into a rivalry (and then sell them out to each other for supplies despite fully believing that they intend to kill each other). also, most of the time she is not as silly and impish as people make her out to be- that's mostly the changeling. in the moments when she is herself, clara is pretty depressed.

i also dont like anna angel slander because, is she a child murderer? yeah. was she also abducted as a child herself and found herself in an extremely difficult position at a very early age? also yeah. iirc correctly shes 18 in the game and the ace of diamonds events happened years prior so basically she was a child herself. not that its wrong to criticize child murder because obviously but the way some people speak about her is insane.

also this is completely hc based and of lesser importance than everything else but i have difficulty getting behind anything remotely kinky when it comes to burakhosky because to me they will always be the kind of couple that read in silence next to each other before falling asleep at the late hour of 10:30 pm.

[shanastoryteller]

Happy birthday!!!!

WWX identity shenanigans? Or anything!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

A-Qing is scared.

Everyone around her is dead.

Everyone except Xiao Xingchen and Chengmei.

She doesn't know what to do. Xiao Xingchen remarks at how strange and reclusive everyone in this town is and she nods and complains, saying she wants to go someplace a little more lively, but Chengmei insists he likes it here.

Xiao Xingchen is blind and can't tell that everyone around them is dead and A-Qing can't tell him because she's supposed to be blind too, because if she tries then Chengmei will discover the truth about her and she'll become just one more dead girl who can't do anything to help anyone.

There has to be something happening here, some spell or trick. Xiao Xingchen had smelled blood on the road but he doesn't seem to notice the air of decay or the way no one around them is breathing. Chengmei has done something to dull Xiao Xingchen's senses or addle his mind, has done something to him that he hasn't done to her.

It's important to her that people underestimate her. She's worked hard to be underestimated. But she's almost regretting it now - maybe it would be better to be walking around in ignorance, rather than having to smile and laugh and pretend that the walking corpses around them don't frighten her halfway into being a corpse herself.

She could leave. Chengmei doesn't care enough about her to stop her, she doesn't think, and maybe she could get some help. But what will happen to Xiao Xingchen while she's gone? What if Chengmei does something terrible to him? What if he takes Xiao Xingchen and leaves and by the time she comes back they're gone forever?

The thought is ever worse than her current situation, so she stays, and hopes one day she'll find an opening to get them to safety.

She's by the river, because the corpses seem to avoid running water, when she sees a woman she's never seen before walking through the mist. A-Qing squints, trying to make sense of what she's seeing as the woman heads in her direction. It makes her nervous, but the corpses have never hurt her before.

She's wearing pale blue robes and she's tall, for a woman, and almost too skinny. Her dark hair falls freely down her back but she has a strange ribbon wrapped around her forehead. A-Qing is trying to figure out what killed her, considering she lacks the puffy face of strangulation or and her robes are free from blood, when she notices a sword at the strange woman's side.

Terror shoots through her. A-Qing yanks her robes to her knees, getting ready to run, when the woman waves at her and shouts, "You there! You're alive, aren't you? Have you seen anyone else alive around here? He'd be this tall, in all white, very pretty?"

A-Qing freezes, mouth dropping open. The woman still has her tongue. Her eyes sting and she desperately tries to blink her tears away, worried if she loses sight of the woman in front her that she'll disappear completely.

This woman is alive. She's got a sword and she's smiling and she's asking for Xiao Xingchen, which means maybe she's a cultivator too, maybe she can save them from Chengmei's horrible games.

A-Qing throws herself at the woman, who in spite of her small stature doesn't so much as sway with the impact, and instead lays a warm hand against her back. "What's all this, then? What are you doing here with all this going on, anyway?" She rubs soothing circles into her back. "Hey, hey, don't cry! It's going to be okay. I may not look like much, but I'm pretty good with stuff like this."

She's warm. She's warm and alive and she's a cultivator and she's going to help.

A-Qing keeps her forehead pressed against the woman's chest and starts talking.

[catinasink]

greetings from the sink

am i in post limit jail? nope :3

school is taking away my joy n whismy i fear!! (aka. posting a lot less recently)

most recent edit: 10/24/24

im the one and only cat btw. if you even care.

also im the ultimate faggot btw

main shit

minor. (my birthday is november 8 :3c )

i go by cat and nico and pluto and neptune and siffrin and calypso mainly and you can call me any of those

it/any/ask :3c please :3c

unlabeled-ish polyam aspec faggot <3

dont call me your friend + no /p tonetag (im aplatonic :] )

no chain asks + no tag games + no donation asks please.

uhh no real dni? just no porn blogs follow me pls im a minor 👍

if i fit your dni criteria just like. block me or softblock me or smn idk

more

i post silly stuff (i rb a lot lol . i og post in the flavors of gaypost, sillypost, ventpost (sadly often), lyricpost, fandompost, etc etc. i also spam rb often)

i have two cats, kim and shego (or floorshitter); a sister (she/her); and the irls (as in real life people i know; i tend to use irl as a term to describe the people i am close to irl) i mention most are pb / pissboy (he/him), cherry (they/any), and eve (she/her)

pst timezone (usually)

scorpio sun saggitarius moon scorpio rising . ok yeah thats a fucking Lie the constellations have shifted but i cba to check again lol

i speak english + russian, learning german + hebrew

couple sideblogs, including @nymph-of-the-sea (rp blog for calypso from pjo) (no i never use it); @catinabath (for when im on post limit); two gimmick blogs; i definitely dont own @totallynotcatinasink; as well as @forehead-kiss-mutual-kill-polls :] a few others but ill keep those secret 💥

matching descs w @shrimpysstuff (shrimpy !!!) and banners w @homoashell (starr !!!)

i have three very lovely qpps mwah mwah <3 also a very dear spouse <3

i have an ao3 if that matters :]

discord server link :3 preferably join if youre around the age of a minor so everyone feels comfortable

literally just a cat in a sink btw

fandoms im in / rb from

warrior cats. i love em

will wood. hes so silly . is this a fandom idk

genshin impact. grhghrhgr

pjo. whoag

isat. save me isat

object shows. i like object shows. namely ii, hfjone, objectified, n bfdi

danganronpa. uhmmm yeah haha dont look at me

tags

most of my og posts: #cat's rambles

asks: #cat's asks

schoolposting: #cat's schoolposting

ventposting: #neptune is complaining again

lyricposting: #cat's lyricposting

art: #cat's art

music i write: #cat's lyrics

polls i make: #cat's polls

pics of my cat: #cat's cat

yearning sighhhh: #nico catinasink is yearning

queued or scheduled posts: #queue you

posts i write in my notes app: #drafts

submissions: #eris' submissions

the penis saga: #the penis saga

pissboy mentions: #my lovely pissboy

lightning anon: #lightning anon

blender anon: #cat's blender anon

rizzler anon: #rizzler anon

brain anon: #🧠 anon

pineapple anon: #pineapple anon

sparkle anon: #sparkle anon

mcchicken anon: #mcchicken anon

sink lore: #happenings of the sink

dreamscape nexus: #dreamscape nexus

posts i want to look at later: #fave

posts of mine that are more popular than others or i want to find em later: #save

i tend to only tag the following tws: sui, sh, ed / eating issues, and emetophobia pls lmk if i should tag anything else !!!

have a good day

[twst-kumi]

Twisted Maiden [Act I] CHAPTER 10

Writing a fight scene was harder than I thought, so I focused more on [Name]'s psyche and inner feelings during the moment. The next chapter will be the conclusion of [Act I].

Warning: non-implied mention of psychological abuse

[ACT I] CHAPTER 10

Everyone watched in horror as Neige’s magic was suddenly becoming unstable. He was muttering to himself like a madman. Tears in his eyes, he laughed bitterly before crying out loud. It's in a wretched scream that Neige's appearance changed. 

“_ Why… I'm perfect… I'm always perfect… so WHYY?

_ Neige!” 

[Name] screamed as the idol’s monster roared behind him. Seeing Vil hugging her in his chest, Neige was even more furious. It was like everything was crumbling under his feet. A screech resonated in the room as everything shook like in an earthquake.  It was way scarier than she thought. Unlike in the game who showed little to nothing, this was reality. It was horrible, [Name] could feel her stomach churn at the sight. That black gooish ink that suddenly escaped through his mouth, eyes, and ears, even the nose didn’t escape as his appearance changed. He looked like a shadow of himself. His fair skin was white almost like a corpse. The young girl was terrified, she couldn’t move an inch. 

“_[Name]! Come back to us [Name] we have to go!”

Vil pulled her with him as they escaped the room. Neige screamed, annoyed by the actor's interference. Behind them, Aurelius and the others followed them. This was way different from in-game. Far from the Overblotted Neige, Vil held her face. He looked deep into her eyes, as she looked terrified. Vil couldn’t imagine how traumatizing this could be for her. She was just a magicless girl far from her home, all alone. And this happens. 

“_Look at me, it’s alright. Everything will be alright [Name]. 

_Is he going to die? If this continues…”

Vil couldn’t bring himself to answer. From his knowledge, no one ever survived their overblot. Their magic will slowly deplete and the mage will die. He just held her in his arms, unable to say anything. [Name] felt powerless, it wasn’t like in the game. In fact, it was never explicitly shown how the overblot was dealt with. 

Overblot Neige floating behind them screeched as he threw whatever was around him. As everyone was taking cover, a rock hit her head. [Name] trembled as she looked at her bloody finger. Her head was ringing. Once again she was forced to face the hard truth, this was reality. She could die here. The gears in her brain were rolling as her primal instinct kicked in. She was wondering if killing Neige wasn’t better. She didn’t know if she could save him, she wasn’t sure she would be able to, this wasn’t a game where she could die and revive infinitely. This was reality. 

“_It’s not fair… I worked so hard…”

[Name] was brought back to reality by this soft whisper. Looking around she couldn’t find the source. It sounded like a child, sobbing and alone. 

“_It’s not fair… I did everything I was asked… so love me…”

The voice came from Neige, but also not really from him. It was difficult to explain, but the young girl was sure it came from somewhere within Neige. Looking at him, [Name] took a deep breath. She couldn’t say it was impossible to save him without trying. Observing his attack, she was able to notice two things. Neige looked like the overblot monster and his attack control was mostly plant-based. 

“_Pyro….

_What?

_WE MUST USE FIRE-TYPE SPELL!! IF WE USE THEM ON THAT MONSTER BEHIND, MAYBE WE CAN SAVE NEIGE!”

Vil looked at her surprised for a moment. She looked different from the fear-stricken behavior she had just now. She didn’t just look determined, but also ruthless in a way. This [Name] looked more real and dazzling than usual. The group decided to try and follow her suggestion. It was better than doing nothing. Ambrose and Makoa stood up getting in the front to protect the children. They were more experimented than the youngster so they knew it was their duty to protect them. 

“_Alright we will try it, but if things become too dangerous. I want you all to evacuate the dorm. Do you all understand?”

They all nodded before concentrating on the fight. Under the careful pointer of the young girl, it was strangely easier. Vil had a strange feeling of familiarity but couldn’t pinpoint where. The fight was long but with the teacher as support, they almost easily destroyed the monster. The glass head exploded shards and ink flew everywhere. 

***

Everything was black and gray as she looked around. She could hear the sound of sobbing somewhere. Walking toward it, she saw a young child hiding under a tree. He was holding a teddy bear in his arms. The child had clear white skin and jet-black hair. 

“_Are you alright?”

[Name] reached to touch the child. The minute her finger touched his shoulder, a strong light surrounded her. Looking around, she saw the child watching a show on TV. The young girl now could recognize the child, Neige. His eyes shined at the scene he was focused on the show. The woman behind him smiled and laughed softly. 

“_Do you love Vil-chan that much? 

_Yes, I looove Vil-chan!! I want to become like him!

_ Fufu, I’m sure you will become like him if you work hard.

_Really?”

The woman laughed looking at the child. [Name] smiled softly before the scene changed before her. Neige, still a child was in a studio. He looked tired, ready to collapse. The man in front of him, his teacher watched him with a smile. 

“_Come on, Neige. You will never be like your Idol if you don’t work hard.

_Will Vil notice me, if I work hard?

_Of course!”

Neige’s face sunken at his word. The child was obviously tired. It was easy to see, but that teacher still pushed it through. Shaken by the man, Neige forced himself to smile. He stood up and forced himself to return to the lesson. Every bridle of memories was the same. No matter what he did, they all said the same thing. “You will be loved if you work hard.” “Vil loves hard-working people.”

She could see how distressing it was for him when he noticed Vil despised him. He worked so hard only to be met with hate. Unconsciously, they conditioned him to be starved of affection. They used it as a way to “blackmail” him into working hard. So when the long-awaited reward turned out to be contempt, Neige was lost. At first, he told himself that it was because he didn’t work hard enough. Until [Name] appeared. 

It was strange to see how others perceived her. The young girl silently cringed as Neige's voice reverbed around her. 

In Neige’s eyes, [Name] was perfect. Everything she did, she did it flawlessly and easily. He knew he fell in love at first sight with her. “Wow, she looks like a princess. So pretty.” Neige said nothing but he agreed with the student who said that during the entrance ceremony. She must have been a princess in her past life, that was his only conclusion. Neige also felt a strange connection between them. Being recognized by such a perfect soul, he felt good. He wanted nothing more than to cling to it. And so he worked hard to look like he would be a perfect boyfriend. So one day when he confessed to her, he was sure she would accept his feelings. But things didn’t develop that way, and the culprit was Vil. The moment she walked on the set, Vil’s attention was on her. Like a moth to a light, like him, Vil was attracted to [Name]. Deep down, Neige felt jealous. Unlike him, she easily entered Vil’s circle, while he worked hard to be at his level only to be met with hate. And just as easily, Vil looked perfect by her side. Their chemistry worked well and Neige felt like he was losing the place he was working hard for. He didn’t know when this happened, but he knew something inside him was twisted. 

“_It’s my fault, I wasn’t good enough… I’m sorry.”

[Name] looked at Neige, he was sobbing his face buried in his knees. The young girl walked up to him. 

“_It’s not because you are not enough that I don’t love you. I do like you, but just not like you wanted. 

_I see, do you love Vil? 

_I like him.”

Neige smiled before standing up. He hugged her slowly before burying his head on her shoulder. 

“_I’m sorry, I hurt you.” 

[Name] looked at the red apple in her hand. It was red and ripe. She wondered how an apple could look so red and perfect. Surely it wasn’t natural. She wondered if it was poisoned as she took a bite. 

< previous. Next >

Tag

@cocomollo @owodi @illytian

[the-chessboard-is-personal]

ii s3 liveblog

I'm a bit sad rn so sorry if my reactions are bad this time

1 - I'm not supposed to relate to Balloon am I. y'know. the guy that did something bad in the recent past and now everyone hates them even though they're trying to change.. sigh. wHAT? h. how is he here?? HOW IS SHE HERE??? ...does MePhone look different from how he was in the first half of s2? it's been a bit since I watched that but I swear there's something different about him. oh, new intrthe island is alive. warp pipe.

2 - yup sure :) 👍 right okay BOW is glitching now. something to do with chairs and maybe she lost her memories? she was obsessed with chairs before she died, so..oh fuck I'm taking as many notes as Cabby huh

3 - oh I thought I had something to say about this one. sorry

4 - if the floor gets eliminated, how will that work? .yo WHAT is going on with candleMUMBO JUMBO CATCHPHRASE ... I. I don't think that's what polishing a screen does.?

5 - what if Box wins lol ..oh. wait there was no formal elimination, I guess that got replaced with Box being pulled this episode

6 - them ,,,,,they,both of them,, the cool(s) -> ☯

7 - well call me a camera because [screenshots the auras file]. . . . . . . . . . a. ..nobody knows about this joke yet but if I had a- uh. nickel. for every time a series I know about had a character named Bow with trigger words, I would have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice what is going on with Bow and chairs. HEY MARSHMALLOW TOO?? yes I will keep doing this strikethrough bit

8 - oh fuck I just realized. "iii" as in Inanimate Insanity Invitational but also as in 3 (roman numeral) because it's season 3. also just based on the title I have a bad feeling about this episode (<-half-right??) wait WHAT. MePhone what the fuck does that rnean. whhaaAAAA- oh. agdjhk s ghdclod damn it the commercial is pLOT RELEVANT. hhhhey quick question. how uh. how do we know that everyone's back in the right body..? like. there were some characters who weren't onscreen after they all died again. uhh

9 - th. this episode is probably not like. actually worse than the other ones or anything. but, with the bias I had already formed because I distrust people with the name of the one this episode is a collab with, some stress I was already feeling today before even starting this liveblog, something Balloon said at around 9:14, said pre-liveblog stress making me associate the whole "animation machine" thing (which is seen as bad) with something I like but everyone else hates, I personally have nothing good to say about it.

10 - why is Cabby gold. oh it's whoever has the Immunity Cookie. wait did Cabby forget about TBD because her file was burned??

11 - bat? pokemon. the game you're thinking of is pokemon. wait did he say backstab HOW DOES HE KNOW CANDLE SAW BETRAYAL?? ..yeah I was wondering how that would work

12 - I knew it. I knew Cabby would forget stuff that isn't in a file! urghhh can they Please vote out silver spoon already. he's not gonna WIN, right?? sorry. but I don't like him.

13 - oh the intro reflected Bot's change in appearance. neat! nononoononoNONOONNO GAUhokay. listen I know it's probably not going to happen but I really want YinYang to win. and holy shit that "for the rest of your life" was foreshadowing.

14 - okay off to a start that makes me want to punch something. okay. okay. it's not a real ad. good. HUH HE GLITCHED holy shit, damn uzumaki lookin rooms what is this /positive(?) ☯ 👈 GRIAN INSTINCT (which. to be fair, mood). p u r p l e . PURPLE ACKNOWLEDGED. WHAT WAS THAT! ohhh what the hell. you fuck off this INSTANT you silver shitface. ohh I hate him. I hate him more than I hate Cobs. ..does Cabby not have parents? SPLRINGY IS FAKE. SPRINGY IS A ROBOT OR SOMETHING MADE BY COBS I'M CALLING IT NOW. please please please kill the spoon kill the spoon plEASE- ARRGHHH

15 - seeing as the next episode has Blueberry in the thumbnail and is called The Great Bluish Bake Off, I have a slight prediction on who will win the rejoin. wait what. yeah I'm gonna be honest I don't think it was murder. NO NONONOONO DON'T NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAUGHHH,,,,,

16 - why....why am I finding Nickel so relatable. w h a t . now I've never had oatmeal raisin cookies, but I don't think they're the Number One Cause of global warming. I know it's a cartoon and awHAT THE HELL HE JUST DIED

(between 16 and 17) m. MePhone knows. MePhone knows what's going to happen when the season ends, doesn't he? that's why he doesn't want it to. that's why he's desperate. but the question remains, what does he know that the viewers don't?

17 - wait this episode is from 10 months ago. is- is the series not over? damn it! I prefer to binge watch stuff so I don't forget while waiting for new episodes. oh don't even fucking go there. 14:01 FUCK OFF.

(between 17 and 18) y'know I was trying to watch this to ESCAPE all the drama and discourse everyone hates me for. this just feels personal at this point. but hey, who cares about me, right? onto the next damn episode!

18 - there's another 4 under that 4. are they all 4s. ohhh noooo, what an inteeense moooooment. wow it's really fucking difficult to care right now.

19 - again final episode so I'll break this into sections. kinda

..,.Cabby..I think I understand a bit more about my own..situation because of Cabby. wait wait. "built" to? BUILT to?? HMMMMMM 4S is still here?? what ??? ? well at least the one that YinYang wanted to win won..!

and that's season 3 huh.

well. that was kinda filler? tbh?

and the message in episode 17 sucked- ..eh. hold on. I'm getting too angry over some discourse. I need a break from typing this.

okay after like half an hour I realized something. they were trying to win an award. I like AI art, but I don't think it should ever win any awards in competition with human art. the two are fundamentally different. I don't think there should be any competitions that have both, especially high prestige ones. that line at 14:0whatever was too far though.

my opinion is that human art and AI art are both art. but they're VERY different forms of art, and should probably be kept that way.

overall I liked the season. sure, YinYang didn't win and episodes 9 and 17 are...like that. but it's not that bad tbh.

probably gonna watch the rest of s2 tomorrow, but for now I just want to play minecraft.

[omgjayaaa]

there’s a lot of debate of which ninja is the most traumatized and I honestly can’t decide, so I’m gonna list all the trauma I remember. Feel free to add anymore I missed.

Kai

Parentless

raised his sister by himself and had to run a blacksmith shop as a teen to make ends meet

his sister got kidnapped

Got hit with snake venom and was high for awhile

got stuck in a collapsing volcano

the whole birthday human piñata thing

saw his brother explode (rip Zane)

ends up falling in love with a villain

loses his powers

gets tricked by said villain and almost destroys Lloyd with the power staff

gf turned into a snake

got teased about what happened to his parents

(still parentless)

fails to protect his possessed brother

is forced to fight said possessed brother

nearly drowns

gets swarmed by psycho fangirls (s6)

finds out his parents may be traitors

truly believes his parents are traitors and tries to stab them

father gets hit my the time punch

is forced to go back in time and watches Master Wu be lost to time

watches his best friend fall off the bounty and “die” (and literally can’t do a thing)

loses his powers (again)

gets thrown into a bunch of walls

literally has to summon his fire or everyone will DIE

watches everyone get turned to ice sculptures

Loses powers and gets turned into a cube o7

gets pelted with rocks

sister turns into the sea

gets in a car crash

turns into a Crystal zombie

oh, and he gets hit by a giant blast and thrown into the distance, then nearly gets killed by dragons.

Jay

Turns into a snake man

Gets tied up and nearly hit by a train

has a pointless love triangle where he breaks up with his best friend

literally resents him the whole time but is secretly sad

said best friend sacrifices himself and Jay has to watch him be thrown into the pit below rip

is adopted

Bio dad is dead (dead as hell)

bio mom is gone (who knows where)

he’s just motherless

Spider tries to eat him

literally gets tortured by a bunch of pirates

loses his ex gf to a super hot djinn

watches Nya die

is traumatized by even the mention of time travel (s7)

adoptive mom gets kidnapped

is so traumatized that he just becomes emotionally depleted and is okay with a dragon eating him???

watches best friend literally fall into a cloud of darkness and can’t even do anything

almost falls into lava

watches his whole family and gf get cubed

gets sacrificed to a sea beast (which isn’t technically real but still)

almost drowns

literally almost dies because water in lungs

gf turns into the sea

is depressed for awhile

grows a beard

Gets turned into a Crystal zombie

‼️‼️SPOILER‼️‼️amnesia

Cole

Mother died when he was a child

Which lead to a bad relationship with his father

ran away and climbed a mountain in his grief

nearly got killed by a dragon

got mind controlled and was forced to fight his friends/ninja brothers

had a weird love triangle

lost powers

sacrificed himself for Jay

turned into a ghosty boi

got kidnapped by the sons of Garmadon

falls off the bounty and nearly gets frozen in the oni cloud

feels so responsible for losing the travelers tea that he literally climbs up a snowy mountain without sleeves-

gets cubed in a video game

is attacked by a creature wearing his moms locket

no one believes him

despite all the crazy things that have happened

gets thrown to the bottom of the mountain

Gets in a car crash

crystal Zombie time

Zane

Fatherless

wandered for like 10 years-

had amnesia

everyone calls him “weird”

is actually a nindroid

bird robot dies several times

btw his dad is actually alive

falls in love with a robot girl

literally gives her half of his heart

sacrifices himself to protect those he loves and all of ninjago

is rebuilt only to be kidnapped

gf is scrapped and now lives in his head

dies again because smartphones aren’t real (s7)

nearly dies from being thrown off the cliff by someone who was essentially supposed to be himself

Had visions about his literal banishment

gets banished to the never realm

loses memories and is manipulated

commits mass genocide

nearly assassinated

Gets electric shocked and hooked up to power a giant machine

turns off emotions because of Nya becoming a mermaid

crystal zombie

literally locked in a imperium temple for years (but doesn’t remember a thing???)

Nya

Lost both her parents at a young age

was kidnapped

becomes samurai X because she wanted to help and the others wouldn’t let her

im not even going to talk about s3

gets hunted down by Chen’ forces

is actually the water ninja

unlocks her true potential before everyone can die

is forced to deal with misogyny at every turn because she’s the “girl ninja”

gets possessed by the spirit of Delara

dies

someone steals her samurai suit

her parents are alive

she watches her family and bf die

has to deal with survivors guilt when Cole “dies”

is forced to confront her powers once again in s12

gets cubed

watches her bf get flirted with and he doesn’t do anything

Becomes a Queen despite not wanting to???

watches bf get sacrificed

Misses her mom but she’s been gone so long things have changed

sacrifices herself to save Jay

turns into the sea

amnesia

is alive again but is separated from Jay once again (merge)

Lloyd

Mom left him at a boarding school as a baby

dad is evil

Is mistreated and opens a serpentine tomb

gets gatekeeped, gaslight and girlbossed by a purple snake

kidnapped

nearly dies because he’s forced to retrieve a fang blade

almost dies in a volcano

Hes destined to defeat his father btw

and fight him

Son vs father

loses his childhood to save his friends

mother is alive

has to fight his father and destroy the overlord

friend group breaks up after Zane dies

Recently redeemed father dies because Lloyd has to banish him to the cursed realm

gets possessed by his cousin

gets thrown into a river and nearly drowns

says a final goodbye to his father

gets really old

isnt old anymore

is forced into a leadership role and no one cares

falls in love with this really pretty, nice girl

oops

shes evil

she beats him up and brings his father back from the dead (only the evil part)

his father beats him up and leaves him for dead

watches family be crushed

is forced top into leadership again and confronts loss

fights his father one last time and defeats him narrowly

Is forced to work with and babysit his evil dad

is so traumatized by Harumi that his trust issues are heightened

distrusts a Wolf girl but works with her

she kisses him and then he leaves (for good?)

Is forced to fight video game Harumi and they kill each other (poetic but cruel)

is cubed

sneaks into Cole’s bedroom just to tell him how much he distrusts the new princess

sister gets turned into the sea

works at Starbucks?

his ex gf is alive and pissed

dad loves a plant more than him

father plays dead and Lloyd turns into a demon goat man

Gets separated from his whole family in the merge

gets a vision of his family’s grave

gets high, beats the shit out of some bad guys and passes out

probably traumatized after that

[fenricken]

You Keep Slipping From My Grasp 4/7

AO3

Ship: Spirit Halloween

first

prev

The rain fell heavily, washing the blood on the ground away as he stepped toward the woman. She was hunched over, sobbing, clutching her dead son to her chest. She glanced up at him as he approached, mouthing silent prayers.

“What happened here?” he asked, carefully ignoring the dead bodies around.

“They came… for a box my family has guarded for a long time. They killed my husband and my son, and they’ve taken my Catherine… They’ll torture her to make her speak its secrets. Please! Please, help her!”

She reached out a hand to him, imploringly. He crouched down to take it.

“I will.”

————

Danny stood before Clockwork, adjusting his new cowboy hat. Maddie and Jack stood behind Clockwork tinkering on the Fenton Omega Siphoner, and arguing over the aesthetics of the machine.

“I have already sent Dani out to help the Justice League locate Batman’s cape. Hopefully we should receive word on her success soon.” Clockwork began, “In the meantime, we do still need someone to make sure Batman doesn’t rush forward too quickly, lest he build up too much energy before we can stop him. Are you ready?”

“Always ready for bat-sitting duty. I’d hope he’s doing something  a bit calmer this time, but I suppose there’s no chance of that happening.” Danny responded, pointing to his hat.

Clockwork just gave his usual cryptic smile before opening a portal for Danny to step through.

————

“Roooooobin. Rooooooooobin.”

Tim whirled around, searching for the source of the noise.

“Oooh, new fit?” Poltergeist asked, stepping out of the shadows. “Ugly cowl, but I like the rest of it.”

Tim lowered his bo staff at her, readying himself for whatever chaotic ‘game’ she tried to rope him into this time.

“Your city’s on fire. You bats trying out some new defense mechanism or something? Like, you think no rogue would want to take over Gotham if it’s a pile of rubble and ash?” She turned in a circle, surveying the chaos Gotham was under.

“What do you want, Poltergeist?”

“Well, so like, Batman’s stuck in time, right? And-”

“How do you know that?!” Red Robin cut in. He had been struggling to convince everyone that Batman was still alive ever since he found those paintings on the walls of the Batcave. Suddenly, here was Poltergeist who seemed to know something about it, but he couldn’t trust her. She was unpredictable, and running into her could mean leaving with anything as benign yet uncomfortable as soaked socks or as irritating and hindering as being cursed to only speak dead languages for the next 3 days.

And things only got worse if she was tagging along with Klarion. Fortunately, he wasn’t in sight, so it's unlikely he was here with her.

“What do you want?”

She smiled slightly at him. “Oh! I want to get Batman back where he belongs before he dies or explodes everything.”

Explodes everything?

“I mean, Gotham’s got a grumpy quota and since you’re his mini-me I figured you’d start trying to take it on and that’d be so boring.” She raised her pointer fingers to the side of her head, imitating Batman’s cowl and adopted a nasally voice. “I don’t have time to play, Poltergeist. Gotham needs me. I have to go stalk Penguin, and then I need to go brood on my favorite gargoyle.”

“So you want to help me find Batman so that I will… be able to play with you?”

“Well, that, but also if he makes his way to the present day on his own, he’ll have built up enough of something called Omega Energy to make all of reality go ka-blooey, and I actually really like this universe. Top 10, easily.”

Tim held up his hand to stop the oncoming ramble while he compartmentalized.

First, Poltergeist knew Bruce was lost in the time stream and seemed to want to help.

Second, Bruce was making his way back to the present, and by doing so was becoming a living bomb

Third, Poltergeist is a multiversal being???

That last one can probably be ignored for now.

“If I were to let you help me find Batman, where do you suggest we start? I’ve been tracking down artifacts I think he’s left behind  to try and convince the Justice League to help us-”

“Psh. Justice League Shmustice League. My dad and my Nana and Pops are already working on it. We just need to find the cape he was sent back in time with for them. Besides, I can probably convince Wonder Woman to help us get the Justice Dorks to help out once we get the cape if we really need to.”

What.

“What?”

“My grandparents are building a thingy-thing to suck all the Omega Energy out of Batman so he’s not a bomb. My dad’s hanging out with him to keep him from dying or something, and we’re supposed to find his cape so we can safely yoink him out of the time stream.”

“I didn’t know you had parents??? What do they do while you’re here breaking things???”

Poltergeist shrugged “King things I guess. And I only have a dad.”

“King things???”

She rolled her eyes, “Anyway, Dad said he last saw Batman’s cape in the Batcave.”

“You didn’t answer my question, and I’m not taking you to the Batcave.”

Poltergeist landed on her feet, and stared at him with wide eyes. He stared back, caught in her gaze for what felt like an eternity, as he felt invisible fingers trickle up his spine. Whispers started low in his ears, building to a crescendo. It was getting too much to bear, until he broke eye contact and looked away. All of a sudden, it stopped. Tim heaved a big sigh.

“I’m… kinda fighting with the current Batman, so we’ll have to sneak in.”

She punched both arms into the air, “YES!”

Tim turned, flicking his cape and walking off, not waiting to see if she’d follow.

“Poltergeist, when this is over you are going to be answering my questions.”

He heard her blow a raspberry at his back, but kept walking.

————

He followed their trail easily enough, the rain trailing after him. As he reached his destination, men came out to fight him, readying pistols, but he made short work of them easily enough.

With his memory having returned in bits and pieces, it had been easy to fashion metal into bat shapes aerodynamic enough to hit true when thrown, and it was these he’d used to disarm the men.

These memories were useful. The ones of children with blurry faces less so, haunting him as they stayed just out of his complete grasp. A constant reminder of how lost and alone he was.

He steadily made his way to the headquarters, where he figured they were keeping Catherine. He whirled around, sensing someone approaching from behind. It was the man with white hair, again.

“Seems you’ve got this well enough in hand, but I hope you don’t mind if I’d tag along all the same.”

“Why?”

The white haired man smiled slightly. “Will you not believe that I just want to help you?”

He stared, unblinking and quiet. Memories from before had proven this a good method to get more information.

His target stared back, also quiet and unblinking. It wasn’t long before he started shifting, and not much longer before he finally spoke again. Under his breath, almost too quiet to hear, he muttered “Just like Dani, I swear…”

Louder, the man said, “I’ve not known you to be the kind of man to ever be on the wrong side of a cause. Whatever you’re up to, I just want to help.”

He squinted at the man, trying to find any evidence of a lie, but the man just appeared open and honest.

“No guns,” he says, before turning back around and leading the white haired man on towards the headquarters.

As they got closer, they noticed two men standing guard. He deployed smoke bombs to cover their approach, sneaking closer with his companion close behind. They were spotted, but the smoke did its work, scaring the two guards and allowing him and his companion to disappear from view again.

“How you gonna tell me there’s no such things as ghosts now???” One of them whimpered, apparently to his white-haired friend’s delight, as he broke out in giggles.

As the smoke continued to grow, he and his friend snuck around the two, tricking them into fighting each other.

He broke through into the offices in the back. They were unfortunately empty.

“Already gone!” He said, slamming a hand on the desk. His companion stood at the window.

“Not long though, look!”

When he spotted their carriage speeding away through the window, he knew he had to act quickly. He launched himself out of the window, and onto the tarp covering the wagon.

An explosion sounded behind him, but he focused on the task ahead of him. His friend always seemed to find his way back, so he’d have to trust he’d do it again.

The ensuing fight was nothing pretty, little more than mad scrambling as he fought to hold his balance, dodge bullets, and wrestle the men actually in the cart so he could get away with the Catherine and her family’s box.

Looking ahead, he saw they were quickly approaching the dock, and a man who was walking down it. Thinking quickly, he swung his body-weight around, tipping the wagon over and sending everyone sprawling. 

The man who had been at the dock had acted quickly, grabbing the young woman and holding her protectively behind him. He stood up, adding to the obstacles that stood protecting Catherine from her kidnappers. Only 3 men remained. From the snippets he heard as two of them fought, he figures the two fighting must’ve been the masterminds behind the plot and the third still in the distance was a gun-for-hire. Taking out his weapons of choice, he quickly dispatched the two men.

Catherine tugged on his cloak. He turned to face her, seeing that she had opened up the box, and was showing him what was inside.

It was Jack Valor’s journal.

He wanted to reach out–to see what Jack had added since they parted, but the gun-for-hire had caught up to them by then.

“My employers may have been dealt with, but I still have a reputation to uphold. Draw.”

He stood up straight, reaching for more of his weapon of choice. Over the shoulder of the gun-for-hire, he saw another man approaching quickly, white-haired. His friend.

A loud bang echoed, and he felt pain in his side. He stumbled, too close to the edge of the dock, and as he fell over he heard one last cry of ‘BAT–’.

And everything went dark.

————

Shit.

Shit. Shit. SHIT.

As if Batman stumbling towards the present through who-knows-when wasn’t bad enough, now he’s SHOT???

Danny quickly ripped a portal back to Clockwork’s lair.

“Please tell me you’ve almost got the machine ready.” Danny said after confirming his parents were in the room.

“Almost! Just one problem, sweetie…” His mom said, looking over at her husband so he’d finish.

“Batman needs to die. Or at least be very close to death!” Jack said, ending with a laugh.

“Basically, we can get this machine to suck out the Omega Energy, but it’s tightly bonded with Batman’s life energy, so it’s extremely risky unless we can find a way to diminish his life energy.”

Danny groaned, putting his face in his hands. “It’s just one thing after another! He’s just been shot. Would that bring him close enough?”

His dad tilted his head back and forth, considering. “Likely not, unless he was in a pretty bad way. In any case, we asked Sam and Tucker to take a look into it!”

“We’ve already found something, actually.” Sam said, having entered the room. Tucker followed behind her.

“There’s an herb that I was able to locate, which should slow his heart down to extreme levels, to the point his heartbeat would be pretty undetectable. Only problem is that his heart would have to be jump-started afterward by a great shock.”

“Clockwork let me take a closer look at his monitors into Batman’s original time and place, and I was able to determine that they have defibrillator technology that can administer an electrical shock needed to get his heart pumping again, as well as adrenaline injections in case we’d need the extra boost.” Tucker continued.

Maddie clapped her hands together. “Excellent! If we can get the Justice League to set up the anchor point on the Watchtower, we can pull Batman to that point and perform everything there! It’d probably work best to do it in his original time as well, to avoid any potential effects that could crop up from being in the wrong time when we remove the Omega Energy and try to stabilize his system.”

“Great, some good news.” Danny said, tension leaving his body. He turned to Clockwork, who had been quiet thus far. “How’s Dani’s work coming along? Will we be ready to proceed soon?”

“Dani and Red Robin have recovered Batman’s cape, and have moved it to the Watchtower. I believe Dani was able to recruit Wonder Woman’s help into getting the rest of the Justice League in line to receive Batman.”

 ————

“Red Robin! Did you seriously bring Poltergeist into the cave??? What were you thinking?”

Before Tim could reply, Poltergeist raised a hand to point at Dick-as-Batman.

“AAH! It’s the cops! Run!”

Poltergeist placed her hand on Tim’s shoulder, pulling him and the cape through the ceiling of the batcave and up in the open air of Gotham. As Tim caught sight of Wayne Manor his head whipped towards Poltergeist, hoping she wouldn’t make any connections.

She was staring at him, lips pressed together, looking a bit like a frog.

He was quiet, waiting for her to say something.

She blew a breath of air out, letting her lips buzz.

“Listen, you keep my secret, and I won’t tell anyone Batman’s secret id is some rich fruitloop.”

“...What secret?”

She pivoted them somewhere Southeast.

“That sometimes I can be responsible. Let’s go see Wonder Woman.”

AN:

It's definitely been longer than I had planned since the last update, rip.

Not going to lie, this is like my second ever fic and I definitely thought it'd be a bit easier to get back into the habit of writing. Thought I was making it easier on my self by strongly sticking to the plot of an existing story, but I think that's been an obstacle in and of itself.

Always a little worried that the language is a bit stuffy or things aren't being clear.

[applejuicefruit]

Hello! Could you write something with Kylian where, him and the reader are assumed to be dating because she comes to some of his games and sits with his family but they’ve never been see together other than that. After a match he goes up to his family and her and they kiss and he takes her onto the field. 🤍I like your writing it’s very sweet🤍

Hi 👋

Thank you for requesting! I really hope you like this⭐️

Not a secret anymore

Kylian and I, we’ve been dating for over a year now, but no one knew except our family and close friends.

We decided to keep it private mostly for my sanity, I didn’t want crazy fans insulting me because I was dating their favorite football player. Unfortunately these kind of things happen, especially if you’re dating a very famous person.

Second of all, Kylian is a very private person. We kept our relationship hidden from the media for over a year so I think we’ve been doing a great job.

Like every PSG match I attend I always sit with his family.

That made fans speculate.

Some of them think Kylian and I are dating, some of them think we’re just good friends.

The only times we’ve been seen together were when I was at the Stadium.

Just in the first half of the game Kylian scored and, of course, as a PSG supporter and as Kylian’s girlfriend I couldn’t help but celebrate along with his family. His mum hugged me so he did his brother. Some fans saw this interaction between the three of us and decided to film it and post it on instagram.

That’s the main reason I wanted to keep our relationship private.

The first 45 minutes of the game passed and PSG was winning.

I couldn’t be happier.

While I was waiting for the game to start again I decided to open Instagram to kill time.

I saw my notifications blowing up because some fan pages reposted the video.

I was reading through the comments and some of them were nice, others weren’t.

“Typical” I whispered so low no one could heard me.

A lot of people were trying to understand if Kylian and I were truly dating. Honestly I didn’t care, they had no proofs but I was worried something might came up. I don’t want his fans thinking I’m using him for fame and I also want to respect his privacy.

I decided to put down my phone and watched the game since I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t see the match has restarted.

Kylian scored.

Again.

The fans were going crazy.

I was going crazy.

I couldn’t contain my happiness.

The moment he scored he waved to where I was sitting. Some people assumed he was waving to his brother but I know it was directed at me.

Just 10 minutes after the game ends and PSG has won.

Everyone was celebrating.

Fans were screaming and singing and shouting and some of them were even crying too.

Kylian and his teammates were celebrating.

That’s when I saw him coming directly towards us.

I thought he wanted to celebrate with his family so I didn’t say anything.

Oh boy I was wrong.

He came up straight towards me and hugged me.

“Kylian what are you doing?” I whispered trying to maintain a straight face.

He didn’t respond.

Instead he kissed me.

In front of 60.000 people.

And more watching from home.

“Kylian stop what are you doing?” I asked a bit worried.

Maybe it was the adrenaline.

Maybe not.

“I’m kissing my girlfriend” he said kissing me again.

I couldn’t contain my excitement but I was a bit worried too.

“What about keeping it private Kyky?” I asked him using his favorite nickname.

“I don’t care, I don’t wanna hide it anymore…” he said between taking breaths “I want the world to know that I have the most unique girlfriend by my side” he said kissing my cheek.

“They are filming…” I whispered to him almost laughing.

“Let them film” he simply said back.

Then he took my hand.

I knew what he wanted to do.

But I tried to stop him.

“Kylian are you sure?”

He looked at me and nodded with his beautiful smile that made me fall in love.

He took me out in the field where all of his teammates were celebrating. Of course they already knew about us but they also knew about our privacy so most of them were shocked too.

The moment I was in the field I saw hundreds of photographers trying to come up to me and Kylian but his protective arms shielded me from them.

“You know we’re gonna be on every magazine tomorrow right?” I asked him smiling.

“I just hope they’re gonna post nice pictures” he winked at me and I couldn’t contain my laugh.

After the game we came straight home. He was so tired and I was so sweaty that I needed at least three showers.

“Can i join you?” he asked entering the bathroom while I was already in the shower.

“What if I say no?” I asked laughing

“I’ll join you anyway”

“Exactly” I already knew the answer.

He got in the shower with me and we spent the next 20 minutes just showering each other and showing us affection and love.

We got out and we went straight to bed. Both of us already tired from the long day we had.

I fell asleep with my head on his chest and his arms around me, like every single night.

When I woke up I decided to check my phone.

“Shit…” I whispered trying to not wake up Kylian.

He heard me tho.

“Bonjour” he said hugging me.

He was so clingy in the morning it made me thing I was taking care of a baby sometimes.

“What are you watching?” he asked still half asleep.

“My Instagram followers just went up from 200 to a million” I say to him looking weirdly at my phone “and they keep going up”

“That happens when you’re dating Kylian Mbappè” he said proudly.

I couldn’t help but laugh a bit.

“Just put your phone down and come back to sleep, it’s early” he said putting his head on my chest.

“It’s 10 am Kyky”

“Exactly, it’s early”

I smiled looking at him and went back to sleep.

Sometimes I couldn’t believe I had the most perfect guy on my side.

I just love him too much.

[notsostarvingartist]

Another DRDT theory about Rose because I love her but I’m worried that she’s too wholesome to be true. (DW this one is a bit shorter, also sorry that I’ve been gone for a year)

This one has to do with the motives so far. To this point, the motives for each chapter have completely aligned with the motives for Trigger Happy Havoc; first chapter: Something happened to your loved ones/people you care about. [The motive didn’t play into Xander’s murder at all, but it’s worth noting that MonoTV outright stated this was what their motive was going to be] The second chapter: secrets & blackmail. Now I think it’s very interesting, and intentional, that the motives are perfectly aligning with the THH motives (so far). And so, my first assumption is that Chapter 3 of Despair Time will mimic the first game as well. But then I remembered that the motive for Chapter 3 was $10 million dollars or something like that… and as a Rose Lacroix fan this IMMEDIATELY worried me. Because Rose is the only character, (possiblyyy other than Teruko) that we currently know of who would have a strong motivation to kill for money, especially millions of dollars. I say Teruko MIGHT only because she said she wouldn’t mind living in their facility due to money. She said that it’s hard living on her own and trying to make ends meet. Its established that Teruko does have SOME money struggles, but knowing her personality I don’t see her killing everyone for money.

Rose however, has been established to DESPERATELY need money. She put her family in millions of dollars of debt, and she feels guilty about it. Furthermore, she’s stated outright that’s she’s unhappy with how her life is right now, and she doesn’t get much enjoyment out of it. Now what could get Rose’s family out of debt and give Rose her creative freedom back? Oh. Yeah… When I put this together, I genuinely got really scared for Rose. She is such the clear standout to be tempted by a money motive, going off of the assumption that DRDT follows THH’s motives as it has been.

My only comforts that she won’t inevitably be the Chapter 3 culprit are A.) I’m not sure it’s in her personality to kill… especially after she’s been so traumatized in recent episodes from her photographic memory. I doubt she’d want that image in her head forever. B.) It seems a bit OBVIOUS that Rose would be the culprit if the motive is money. Like I said, she’s really the only character other than Teruko to have money problems as a part of her backstory, some of me feels like if the motive is money, Rose as the culprit would be too easy because she’s the only one other than the main character. But this is all just speculation and anxiety in my head ahahaha, Chapter 3 hasn’t even been announced yet, for all I know the motive could be completely different. I just wanted to share my thoughts now and see if anyone agrees or has anything to add. Thank you for reading ^_^

[qqueenofhades]

What are some of your other favourite medieval misconceptions? Everyone only ever wore shades of brown?

Other "favorite" medieval misconceptions, "favorite" here having the meaning of "cause my eye to start twitching uncontrollably and a red haze to descend" include:

Everyone in the Middle Ages was always dirty, miserable, and sad

Peasants worked all the time and were constantly on the verge of starving to death (bonus points if "all medieval people were peasants")

Everything was violent, bloody, and "barbaric"

People could expect to get gruesomely dismembered at all times and for any reason

Politics was exactly like Game of Thrones/Game of Thrones is an Accurate Representation of the Medieval World/pretty much anything whatsoever citing Game of Thrones as historical text

Everyone in medieval Europe was white, straight, cisgender, and Christian

Disabled people were ignored/destroyed/"put into asylums" (because the medieval era is exactly like Victorian England!) and/or had no recognition in their community and/or were just left to die

Queer people did not exist/were always persecuted/had no opportunities or framework to live/identify like "modern" people

"Medieval history" only refers to Europe and/or Europeans

Pretty much anything to do with the Vikings, whether in far right/white supremacy or Oooh The Vikings Were So Liberal

The all-powerful Catholic church completely controlled everyone's minds and everyone blindly obeyed them in all things until suddenly, one day the Renaissance happened! Yay!

The Renaissance suddenly gave women rights!

The Enlightenment suddenly gave women rights!

[Fill in the blank] suddenly gave women rights!

Evil historians are hiding the real truth of [insert marginalized group here] from you

The only thing medieval people cared about was religion and they were all religious zealots

Conversely: people were always desperately trying to break free from the church but they were constantly stopped from doing so because the church was, again, all-powerful

Women were silent, illiterate, uneducated, oppressed, and only ever expected to serve their husband/have endless babies/keep the house clean (which somehow coexists in their minds with "everything was dirty all the time")

Women always died in childbirth

Women did not have jobs, education, or any recognition in society

Women could never be rulers, warriors, or any other "male" job

Women could constantly expect to be raped and this was a normal and natural part of medieval society (bonus points if invoked to defend some modern "medieval" media as "historically accurate")

Women were constantly viewed as witches in the premodern era

Anything a woman did that was "unusual" would get her accused (and often killed) for witchcraft

There were no cosmetics, beauty standards, personal hygiene, etc., so people never combed their hair, dressed nicely, used makeup, washed, etc etc

Medieval people/society had no use for artists/art, literature, books, classics, or other high culture, because that was all instantly forgotten when Rome fell and nobody found it again until the Renaissance

Medieval people all died when they were thirty

Medieval people never traveled more than 10 miles from home

Medieval people never questioned their society/their place in the world/anything else; they just accepted their lot in life without complaint

Things have been a perfect straight line of progress ever since and modernity is "better"

Do I have some things to get off my chest here?

Maybe

You can't prove it

Shh

[thetomorrowshow]

response

empires superpowers au masterlist (not up to date)

this takes place about 10 months after the end of ‘poisoned rats’.

cw: past abuse, flashbacks, heavy dissociation, blood & injury

~

It’s on the news before it’s anywhere else, which is to say, everyone knows before Jimmy.

Lizzie texts him to ask him if he needs anything, and while it’s an odd message to receive out of the blue, Jimmy doesn’t mind it at all. Lizzie checks in occasionally, particularly after big life events, and it’s just nice to hear from her.

Then Joel texts the same thing, and Jimmy starts to feel that something’s wrong.

He only finds out by chance, though—he turns on the TV and it happens to be on the news, and just before he switches away, he sees the scrolling headline.

MAJOR DISAPPEARS AFTER FIGHT WITH THE ORACLE.

His stomach drops.

The clip starts playing moments later, some newscaster narrating it like a sports game, not like his partner’s life is on the line.

“So here we can see the Oracle grab Major—it’s barely contact, but anything goes with that villain—and then, while Major’s disoriented, he slams him into the ground.”

Jimmy watches, mouth slightly open, as Scott indeed is shoved into the asphalt with enough force to knock a few teeth out. He winces, old injuries twinging in sympathy. It doesn’t stop there, though—as Scott is grabbing at the Oracle’s legs, doing anything to pull himself back up, he goes suddenly limp, and the Oracle lands a terrible hit to Scott’s nose, sending blood spurting everywhere.

The Oracle grasps Scott by the hair, then, Scott’s arms flailing out, and slams his head into the road. Jimmy gasps, reaches out as if he can grab Scott through the screen. This is bad. Scott hasn’t had such a bad fight since Xornoth. The Oracle must be getting more powerful, or gotten more training recently or something, because last Jimmy knew he was a local menace, not actually a danger.

Jimmy almost can’t watch. His hands are up at his mouth, and he can’t tear his eyes from the screen as Scott stops trying to fight back and just tries to crawl away. He almost makes it—the Oracle grabs him by the cape, pulls him back as his fingers scrabble for purchase.

The Oracle drags him up, has him in a chokehold—it’s the perfect position to just kill him, he’s already too weak to do much and the Oracle could easily slip a knife from the folds of his clothing and slash Scott’s throat, but he doesn’t. He just holds him as Scott struggles, whacking at his grip with steadily clumsier arms. Scott stops moving after a moment, and Jimmy’s moving forward, toward the TV, he has to help—

Scott’s only gathering strength though, and moments later he manages to buck backward and throw the Oracle’s arms from around his neck. With a spray of ice on the road, Scott collapses and penguin slides down the hill and past the news van, throwing up a curved wall of ice to make a sharp turn to the right. He disappears from view entirely, and when the camera turns back to the Oracle, he’s gone.

It’s barely a minute-long clip, but it leaves Jimmy breathless in the worst way possible. He needs to find Scott, he needs to help him—he’s opening the front door before he even puts his mask on, only in socks and his gym clothes, he’s got to find him—

His phone buzzes, and without even thinking he answers, everything in him tensing at the thought that it could be Scott, it has to be Scott—

“Jimmy, where are you right now?”

Lizzie. His heart utterly sinks. “I’m—do you know where he is? I’m going out to find him—”

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah, yes, but I’m leaving—”

“Do not leave,” she tells him sternly. For the first time, Jimmy registers feedback from her end—as if she’s outside on a windy day, or standing on the pier. “Stay at home.”

“I have to find him,” says Jimmy, and he needs to grab his key—where is his key, it’s usually right on the hook by the door—

“Joel and I are sweeping the city, all right? You need to stay home.”

“I’m not scared,” Jimmy retorts. “I can fight, I will fight, I’ll kill the Oracle if I have to—”

“Jimmy.”

He stops, reluctantly, at her tone.

“You need to stay home right now, because if Scott is his usual stubborn self and doesn’t check himself into a hospital, he’s going to come to you,” she explains. “Now I need you to listen to me, all right?”

He sighs. He’s still burning with a need to get out there, find Scott, but she’s right. Unfortunately. He slams the front door shut, sighs even louder. “Yeah, fine. What is it.”

“Get towels you don’t care about,” she instructs. “I know you have a pack of rubber gloves somewhere, so get those and your first aid kit. Disinfect wherever you’re going to help him—I’d think the dining room table, but it’s your choice. Got all that?”

Jimmy’s already halfway to the closet for the first aid kit, grabbing some bleach-stained hand towels from the bathroom on the way. “Yeah. What else?”

“We’re most worried about a concussion here, so he might be confused—especially after fighting the Oracle. Help him know he’s safe and cared for. Maybe get something he’s familiar with to have near, to ground him?”

“Treat it like a flashback, got it.” Jimmy sets the first aid kit down on the table, runs back to their bedroom. He and Scott had gone on a Build-A-Bear date recently, and Scott had gotten the Frozen’s Elsa bear. That should do for grounding, hopefully.

He brings the bear (and after a thought, his own, a brown bear with roller skates) back to the dining room, then cracks open the rubbing alcohol from the first aid kit and starts rubbing down the table and one of the chairs.

“Take care of him, all right?” Lizzie says, sounding almost far away. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you with more updates. Text me if he shows up.”

Before he can even say goodbye, she hangs up.

Great. He just has to deal with this situation alone, then. Scott’s never been that badly injured since Jimmy’s been dating him—sure, there was the broken arm incident, but Scott had still won that fight. He’s never been so badly injured that he had to flee.

What if he doesn’t remember how to get home? It’s not like he’s lived here his whole life, it’s entirely possible that he gets lost on the way back. Jimmy needs to go looking for him, has to be out there to help—

From the office comes the sound of a window sliding open.

Jimmy drops the rag he’d been using to wipe down the table and sprints for the office.

Sure enough, Scott is there, one leg in the window, and looking absolutely awful.

He looks worse than he had on TV. The collar of his costume is drenched in blood, most of which seems to be stemming from his nose but there’s blood in his bright blue hair and dripping from his mouth and all over—

Blood, there’s so much blood and Jimmy’s not sure if its his own or his opponent’s but as he stares at it he feels nothing, nothing but hope that his master will reward him for being so good—

Scott grunts and Jimmy’s back in the present, but his feelings of detachment remain. He crosses the office to the window and wraps an arm under Scott’s armpit to pull him the rest of the way in (Scott cries out, but Jimmy ignores it), then puts his other arm at his knees and fully lifts his boyfriend up.

Scott’s almost too heavy to carry—sure, Jimmy’s been working out, but the deadweight of a muscular, six foot human isn’t anything that he’s used to. So he gathers all of his strength and hurries down the hallway before his arms can give out, carrying Scott to the dining room and settling him in the chair he’s prepared before cracking open the first aid kit.

Jimmy strips off his mask first, grimacing at the bruises already beginning to ring his eyes. Luckily, Jimmy’s set quite a few broken noses in his time, and he mutters a warning before jerking it back into place. Scott lets out another cry, muffled by Jimmy shoving a wad of cotton under his nose.

He holds it there for a few moments while he categorizes the other wounds. The head wound is probably most important—or rather, most dangerous. There’s scrapes and bruises in various places all over his body, visible through the tears in his costume. Red stains his lips, so Jimmy pries his mouth open—yep, missing tooth and bitten tongue. He knows Scott’s already got an implanted molar, but this is one of his front teeth, leaving a gaping hole in his mouth. That’s going to need some cosmetic surgery.

It’s not really a huge concern at the moment, though, so Jimmy moves on, rolling down the neck of Scott’s costume.

Sure enough, bruises are already blossoming around his throat. That’s not something Jimmy can take care of himself—he needs an x-ray to make sure nothing’s broken, probably. In fact, it would be better just to take Scott to the hospital right now.

One last thing to check—across the room, on the hook where he usually leaves it, is his key, a pocket flashlight attached to the key ring. Jimmy retrieves it, shines it in Scott’s eyes.

His pupils don’t dilate smoothly, and the left eye is slower than the right. That’s never good.

“Are you feeling disoriented?”

Scott blinks. “. . . yeah,” he rasps. Jimmy hands him his glass of water, gives him a napkin when he chokes on it.

“We’re going to the hospital,” he announces, clicking off the flashlight. “Put your mask back on, I’ll carry you to the car.”

Scott complies, hands moving slowly and shakily. “I—Jimmy?” he asks, voice small.

“Yeah?”

Scott sniffles. “I don’t feel well.” “That’s why we’re going to the hospital,” Jimmy tells him, voice utterly lacking emotion. He doesn’t feel much of anything, right now. “Do you want to bring anything?”

Scott looks around, blinking slowly. He points to the Elsa bear on the table. Jimmy nods, glances around for a moment before finding a reusable plastic grocery bag and stuffing the bear in it.

“You’ll have to leave it in the car, but that’s fine. Let’s go.”

Scott is, for the most part, complacent as Jimmy picks him up, wrapping his arm around Jimmy’s neck. Jimmy carries him out of the house and into the backseat of the car as quickly as possible, then ducks back inside to look for Scott’s thin work wallet, eventually finding it just outside the office window. He grabs it—it identifies Scott as Major, has his SuperInsurance card, and other necessary cards—then heads back out to the car, swinging into the driver’s seat and snapping a mask over his face. He tosses the bag with the bear in the backseat with Scott, then pulls out of the driveway.

The hands on the steering wheel don’t look like his, and it takes until Jimmy clicks on the turn signal at a stoplight to realize that he’s dissociated. In fact, he thinks he’s been out of it since he helped Scott inside. Come to think of it, he doesn’t remember doing anything to comfort Scott, calm instincts taking over to keep him from panicking.

A glance in his rearview mirror shows that Scott barely looks conscious. “Don’t fall asleep,” Jimmy snaps, and Scott jolts up, gasping, one hand clutching at his other arm. His other arm that looks mysteriously swollen, held carefully close to Scott’s body.

How had he focused so hard on the head wound that he hadn’t even noticed an injured arm? It’s clearly hurting Scott, and he had done nothing—

“Stay awake, okay? Talk to me. What are you feeling?”

“My arm hurts,” Scott manages. “I think—Jimmy, I think it’s broken again. I don’t—where are we going?”

“The hospital. Just hang tight, we’ll be there soon.”

They won’t be there soon. They’re still at least twenty minutes away. Scott had actually been closer to the hospital before he’d headed home, so he could’ve saved them both some time and gone straight there.

The hands that are definitely his but don’t look it tighten on the wheel. None of that matters right now. Right now he just needs to get Scott to somewhere for treatment.

It’s a tense drive, but Jimmy manages to stay levelheaded. He knows he’s speeding, so every cop car he passes he sends a burst of power out toward, hoping whatever accident it causes won’t be very dangerous.

He sees the signs for the hospital and cuts across three lanes of traffic to get into it. Once there, he pulls into a parking spot and looks up.

At the hospital.

The dissociation hits full-force.

It’s not the hospital, not the one where he was taken right after, but it’s still a hospital. It’s still tied to needles and blood and long hours on an exam table and distress and pain, and just looking at it makes his head all woozy.

His head presses against something hard. His hands go slack. He’s not sure where he is. He’s not sure what’s real.

It’s easier to believe that he’s asleep, easier to accept that none of this is real. He doesn’t even know what he doesn’t want to be real.

He’s not sure how long he floats there, feeling nothing but anxiety about how he’s feeling nothing. He doesn’t even register that there’s any sort of outside stimulation until he hears words, tinny and staticky.

“Jimmy? Hey, Jim, what’s happening? Talk to me.”

“I don’t know,” he thinks he says. “What’s happening?”

A sigh. “Scott says you just sort of zoned out. Do you know why?”

He’s not sure how to answer, so he doesn’t.

“Do you know where you are?”

“No,” he admits, because he doesn’t. He has no clue where he is or how he got here, and now that he’s realized that, the anxiety develops into panic.

“Look around, Jim. Tell me five things you can see.”

Five things—that’s a grounding exercise. Jimmy knows that’s a grounding exercise. He glances around. “There’s a steering wheel. Radio. A seat. I’m in the car.” It hits him like a train, the understanding that he was driving, and he can’t remember that he was driving, and he can’t remember why he was driving, but he’s in the car behind the steering wheel. “Um, asphalt. Parking lines.”

“Cool, four things you can touch?”

The hands in front of him don’t exactly look like his own. One of them lays itself on the steering wheel, and he’s not sure if it’s by his own instruction or not.

He’s sitting in the car, though, so he can assume some certain things. “The seat. The armrest. Um.”

“That’s good. Anything else?”

The voice sounds rushed. Jimmy cringes. He can’t really feel much, other than the awareness that a thing is touching him. Another sigh.

“Right, hand the phone back to Scott, okay? Scott, where are you?”

Is he holding something? He’s holding a phone, and that’s where the voice is coming from. Jimmy stares at it, not quite sure what he can do with it. “Hand it back to Scott,” he echoes.

“Jim’s really out of it, Scott, so can you just look out the window and tell us which hospital it is? Then Lizzie and I’ll be over.”

“It’s . . . United. You guys are coming here?”

“Yeah, well, it sounds like you two are being a bit dysfunctional right now. I’ll escort you and Lizzie’ll stay with Jimmy, and that way all bases are covered. Sound good?”

“I guess?”

It’s warm, Jimmy thinks. Like he’s lying next to a heater. At least it’s feeling something. He feels so detached, so out of his body, that he’s not sure of anything anymore.

He doesn’t hear any more speaking, and he’s not sure if that’s good or not. He just sort of . . . exists, less-than-present but not nonexistent.

At least, until there’s someone grabbing his arm.

He’s not exactly snapped back into his body, but he can see it now—someone heaving him out of the car, someone with pink hair, wrapping an arm around him and walking him to the other side of the car. It feels like he’s observing from above, knowing that it’s his body being moved but feeling no real attachment to it.

It all becomes foggy again as he’s set down in the passenger seat, but he manages to register something clicking and then the car moving. He doesn’t know how long the car moves, but at some point, there’s someone talking to him.

“Scott’s all right, you’re all right, everything is fine. Jimmy, are you with me?”

He tries to nod. He’s not sure if he does it properly.

“No, you’re not. Can you hold this?”

Something’s put in his hand. He doesn’t know what it is.

“Smell that, all right?”

He lifts it up to his nose. It smells sharp, citrus-y.

“What’s that smell like?”

“Oranges,” he answers dutifully.

“Keep your hand up, keep smelling it. Can you describe it?”

He sniffs it again. “Nice,” he eventually says. “Clean. Oranges, and lemons.”

“What does an orange taste like?”

He puts the thing in his mouth.

“No—! No, Jimmy, don’t eat that! That’s—that’s an air freshener, it’s not an orange! Please take it out of your mouth!”

It’s bitter, he thinks, as he obeys. Not like how oranges usually taste. Oranges usually taste sweet, a bit sour, and have all those stringy bits that you have to get off otherwise eating the segments aren’t worth it. It’s one of his favorite tastes, though; the fridge always has orange juice in it and there’s usually oranges on the table. Not just because they taste good, but because they’re decent tools for grounding. The peel has a strong smell and texture, and when you’re done peeling you can taste it.

This isn’t an orange. But it feels suspiciously like a grounding exercise. Why would he be doing grounding?

He blinks, looks up at Lizzie. She’s here. He doesn’t remember her getting here. “Am I dissociating?” he asks.

She laughs a little. “Yeah, I think you might be. Can you smell the air freshener again?”

It’s wet with his own saliva in his hand, but he raises it to his nose anyway. “I’m smelling the air freshener.”

“Good job. Don’t eat it.”

“Don’t eat the air freshener.”

“Smell it.”

“Smell it.”

“Yes.”

“It smells like orange.”

“Mhm.”

Jimmy closes his eyes and breathes in deep. It smells like orange, but not quite. More bitter than an actual orange. Like the way it tasted bitter. “Did I put an air freshener in my mouth?”

Lizzie laughs again. “You very much did. Are you back?”

“No,” he tells her, then goes back to smelling. He can smell something else on his hands, something just as familiar as an orange. Something clean, yet bad. Something that hurts.

“Jimmy, you’re crying. Can you keep smelling the air freshener? Lift your hand back up. What’s it smell like?”

He smells it. “Orange.”

“That’s right. Do you like it?”

“Do I like it.”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

Jimmy likes oranges, so it only makes sense for him to like this scent, right? But in the same way it tastes bad, he’s not sure that the smell of it can hold a candle to real oranges.

“I don’t know,” he says slowly.

“All right. What do you know?”

He sniffs the air freshener. “It smells like oranges. I’m holding it. It tastes bad. You’re here.”

“I’m here,” agrees Lizzie. “Do you want me to hold your hand?”

Jimmy frowns. “Holding the air freshener.”

“You have two hands.”

Oh. Right. He extends his other hand, Lizzie taking it in hers. Her hands are cool, but not nearly as cool as Scott’s. Her nails are pointy, brushing against his skin. The skin. Of the hand. It doesn’t look like his.

“I’m dissociating real bad, I think,” he murmurs. Lizzie’s hand grips his tighter.

“That’s all right. I’m here until you feel better.”

It’s a long time until Jimmy feels more like himself. When he fully becomes aware again, he’s sitting on his couch next to Lizzie, sharing some leftover pasta between them. He blinks at it, vaguely remembering the process it had taken to get him to eat it at all.

“I’m back, I think,” he says, blinking a couple of times. He licks his lips, tastes the pasta sauce there. 

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lizzie sighs in relief. “I was just going to try getting you to nap next, I was completely out of ideas.”

Jimmy laughs a little, thoughts still somewhat out of order from all the fog settled around his brain. “Norman usually helps. Did you get him?”

“Check your feet.”

He looks down. Sure enough, Norman is curled up on his feet, purring loudly.

Jimmy doesn’t remember much from the past—however long it’s been. He has bits and pieces of the drive home from the hospital, but he has no idea when Lizzie turned up or what happened to Scott.

Scott.

He jolts up, almost knocking his plate of pasta to the floor. “Scott,” he gasps out, “is he—did—”

“Scott’s fine,” Lizzie says placatingly, gesturing for him to relax. “Joel just texted me a few minutes ago. He got some stitches and they just finished his scans, they’re waiting on the results. They got him on some pretty good pain meds, I heard, so he’s doing fine.”

Reluctantly, Jimmy sits back, wringing his hands. Sure, Lizzie can tell him that Scott’s fine. But he hasn’t seen that, he doesn’t know for sure, all he knows is that he barely did anything to treat Scott’s wounds and then couldn’t even walk him into the hospital.

His head hurts.

“We can call him, maybe?” suggests Lizzie. Jimmy nods after a moment. That might help.

He sits in silence as she fiddles with her phone, doing who knows what. Every second that passes is another second that Jimmy doesn’t know how Scott’s doing.

Then Lizzie’s phone rings.

She answers, grimaces at the screen, then hands it over to Jimmy.

It’s a video call, and Scott’s there. His nose is properly bandaged, now, and Jimmy can see through the eyeholes in his mask that his eyes are puffy and bloodshot. There’s a large bandage along his jawline, and his split lip is actively bleeding. The ring of bruises around his throat is stark against the hospital gown.

He looks absolutely beautiful.

“Jimmy!” Scott cries, delighted, then sheepishly ducks his head when Joel shushes him offscreen. “Joel—sorry, the King says I can’t say your name.”

Jimmy chuckles, nerves quieting as he gazes at Scott. “That’s fine, Major. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” Scott admits. He shrugs. “My head hurts, but they put some good drugs in my arm and I can’t really feel it so that’s good!” He tips the screen to show an IV. Jimmy shudders and looks away.

When he looks back, Scott’s turned it back to his face, concern written all over it. “Are you okay? You were . . . uh, what’s the word. . . .”

“Dissociating,” Jimmy finishes.

“Yeah. That. Lizzie said it got really bad, but when we got to United, you just sorta . . . blanked out.”

Jimmy bites back a retort. He doesn’t actually want to be mean to Scott, especially not when he’s floating on pain drugs. He’s just exhausted and foggy from the dissociation. “I’m good, just worried about you. And maybe don’t say real names, yeah?”

“Oh. Right. Joel, how much longer?”

A sigh from offscreen. “Probably half an hour, maybe more. Done talking to your man?”

“J—the King wants his phone back,” Scott whispers. “Are you really okay? Do you need a nap?”

Jimmy can’t help but laugh. “I’ll go rest if you rest, yeah? Love you, keep annoying the Mad King.”

“I love you so much,” Scott says seriously. “I wanna kiss you right now, but I don’t wish you were here because that would be bad for you. So I can wait until we go home.”

Suddenly choked up, Jimmy manages a wave, which Scott sets the phone down to return. Then Jimmy passes it back to Lizzie, who exchanges a few words with Joel before hanging up.

Jimmy doesn’t go to bed. He curls up on the couch and turns on some episode of a 90s sitcom to watch in silence.

“You didn’t fail him,” Lizzie says during a commercial. “You did good.”

Jimmy sighs. “Lizzie, I was dissociating before I even helped him into the house. I didn’t call you, I didn’t actually do anything to help him, and I couldn’t even go into the hospital with him. I freaked out and couldn’t help when he needed me.”

“You fought a trauma response to assess your boyfriend’s injuries and were able to drive him to the hospital,” Lizzie counters. “You set his broken nose and kept your head, despite having triggers all around you. Not to mention, driving him to the hospital was probably the best choice you could’ve made—I don’t have a car, and Joel was halfway across the city. There was no way we could get him to help. You did everything you could.”

Jimmy doesn’t argue. He’s too tired. He just turns his attention back to the TV as the commercial break ends.

When Joel helps Scott in the house several hours later, Lizzie’s made pancakes for them all, and Jimmy’s set out plates and spreads. Scott eats a single pancake, eyelids heavy, before limping off for bed. Jimmy follows him, rearranges the pillows so that Scott’s newly-casted arm can be elevated.

“You’re gonna be here a while, mister,” Jimmy tells him, handing him an ice pack. “Doctor’s orders. A week of bed rest, all for you.”

“At least I can give you kisses,” Scott slurs, smiling the best he can with a split lip and swollen mouth. Jimmy giggles, stripping off his shirt and climbing into bed next to him.

“I think even kisses are gonna hurt, baby. It’s okay, though. You’ll be okay.”

Scott nods sleepily, eyes already closed. “Yeah. We both will be.”