#He’s like ‘what? Ma loves you’

[princessstevemunson]

All this talk about shovel talks and nothing about Claudia Henderson. Like where’s her giving steddie shovel talks?

Claudia is eternally grateful to Eddie for saving her Dusty’s life, but she sees the pain her boys were both in after his sacrifice. She hears the screams at night from Dustin’s room. She watches as he either radios whoever was sitting with Eddie—usually Steve—or calls if the person doesn’t have a radio. Always asking for updates in the morning. Making sure the other boy is still there. Still alive.

Steve on the other hand is hiding his pain as he always does. She still sees Steve sitting vigil at the young man’s bed when she comes to bring real food and good coffee to Steve, Wanye and occasionally Dustin’s middle school science teacher Mr. Clarke. She sees the way Steve took extra care washing the other’s vest. All under a guise of being a good friend and not wanting Eddie to wake up alone.

When Eddie starts tagging along with Steve to their dinners occasionally she slowly watches as the two go from friends to pining to something else entirely. It’s when she’s certain that Eddie and Steve have become EddieandSteve that she starts doing it.

She would never give a shovel talk to Eddie. Steve’s a grown man, and can protect his own heart, but she’s already seen the pain Eddie had unwilling caused him. She’s seen the way Steve held the metalhead’s vest as it was his anchor to this world. She knew Eddie would never cause him pain like that again, but that doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun scaring Eddie.

It starts innocently enough, she’s just sharing fun facts.

“Did you know,” she says to Eddie while Steve and Dustin are clearing the table, “that pigs can eat a human body. It can take some time, but sixteen pigs can do it in about eight minutes actually.”

She hides her smile as the younger squirms uncomfortably and replies “um, no I didn’t know that.”

She didn’t think anyone else but Eddie heard her, but she was wrong. Dustin says something about remembering going to Claudia’s cousin’s farm shortly after his dad left them, and thinking it had pigs. She had an even harder hiding her smile after Eddie went as white as a ghost with that information.

She continues to give Eddie little fun facts like that, and one time confirming that Eddie is in fact allergic to cinnamon, because she’d hate to forget that when baking him something.

She’d never ever be the cause of Dustin and Steve’s pain, or give her new found friends Wayne and Scott the panic she had in spring break not knowing where her Dusty was, but she does like seeing Eddie squirm on occasion.

[thetomorrowshow]

intruder

backstory of why jimmy and scott moved out of the super neighborhood in my empires superpowers au!

cw: murder (in SELF-DEFENSE) of an unnamed character, blood/violence, like a decent bit of it, injury, dissociation

~

Scott’s been missing for two days.

Scott’s been missing for two days, and Jimmy isn’t going to wait around doing nothing.

The news had come in the form of a knock on the front door, around 3pm on the first day. Jimmy doesn’t officially live at Scott’s house, but he spends a fair amount of time there, and now he pushes back from the kitchen table and heads to the front door, snapping on the mask that hangs on a hook by the entrance.

“Oh, hi, TJ!” Blossom says when he opens the door to find her on the step, flowers actively winding around in her hair. “Is Major around?”

Jimmy frowns, checks his watch. “Um, he left for work this morning, around eight? He shouldn’t be back until four, at the earliest.”

Why would Blossom be asking him this? Don’t they all have some sort of hero group chat?

“Are you sure?” Blossom’s smile drops. “Did he say he was headed somewhere else?”

“Just to work,” says Jimmy. “Why? What’s up?”

 Blossom bites her lip, the flowers in her hair wilting. “He never showed,” she says. “He isn’t responding to messages.”

That’s enough for Jimmy to shut the door and run back to the table, grabbing his cell phone. Then he returns, pulling it open again. Blossom is still there, looking a little surprised.

Jimmy pulls up his contacts, clicks on the one labeled ‘scott :) - super’ and hits call.

“You’ve reached Major, I’m probably winning a battle right now. Send me a text and I’ll get back to you when I have a moment.”

Straight to voicemail.

That can’t be good.

“Try the Mad King,” Jimmy tells her. “I’m still working until four, but keep me updated. Do you have my number?”

But Blossom never texts him any news.

And Joel tells him, that night, that Scott’s officially missing, and they’re moving Jimmy to a safehouse.

So it isn’t even 8pm when Jimmy finds himself in a small apartment downtown, the dim light of the setting sun half-illuminating the single room.

And Jimmy stays there all night, staring at his phone, as his worry crescendos over and over again, blowing out lightbulbs and spoiling food can by can.

They still haven’t found him in the morning.

Jimmy can do nothing but sit, alone, in this cheap, unused apartment of Joel’s, waiting for some message that his boyfriend has been found.

But there’s nothing, and Jimmy isn’t going to wait around doing nothing when Scott could be getting tortured right now.

Because that’s it, really. When Jimmy went missing, it was because some horrid, insane villain kidnapped him and ran experiments on him and treated him like an animal—

One of the blades on the floor fan comes off, crashing to the bottom of the fan cage.

Jimmy takes a deep breath.

He can’t continue to sit here on the ragged carpet (because there’s no furniture other than a single folding chair and a mattress) while Scott could be going through the exact same things that he had been subjected to.

Or worse, he thinks, pushing back a sickening memory.

So Jimmy packs up his little backpack that he hasn’t actually unpacked yet except to get his toothbrush, grabs the mask he’d left on the kitchen counter (which he balls up and shoves in the pocket of his jeans), and leaves, ready to find Scott.

Where does Scott usually go first?

He covers all of the city, but rarely ventures away from the most densely populated areas. Downtown is one of his favorites to frequent, as well as the pier.

Good thing Jimmy knows downtown like the back of his hand.

He catches the bus like it’s second nature, the schedule practically tattooed on the inside of his eyelids (despite the fact that he rarely rode the bus for fear of causing an accident. He learned it in case anyone ever asked him the bus schedule). He hasn’t spent much time out and about on his own, but he can get around and he’s lived with Lizzie long enough to know how to go somewhere by himself. That doesn’t mean he isn’t careful: he sits at the back of the bus with his back pressed against the window and watches everyone, careful to sort them into threat categories and keep tabs on everyone.

It’s exhausting. It always is.

It isn’t long at all before he leaves the bus at one of Scott’s favorite places—right across the way from the elementary school. Scott heads here first thing most mornings, keeping an eye on the children as they arrive at school.

The mask is scrunched uncomfortably in Jimmy’s pocket. He wishes he could put it on. He hates going out in public—not without at least a baseball cap.

It feels like everyone at this park is watching him.

Any of them could be in league with whoever took Scott. Any of them could have been one of the thugs that worked for Xornoth. Any of them could be someone he hurt in the past.

Every time someone walks past him, Jimmy automatically tenses. That woman could attack him. That man could crush his skull. That child could be a distraction. That man could grab him and pull him into an alley.

Jimmy shoves his hands in his hoodie’s pocket so that he doesn’t have to look at how they tremble. This is why he doesn’t go places alone. This is why he works from home right now.

This is why people need to not get kidnapped. Specifically the people that can help him not panic about being kidnapped.

Right, now, does he usually patrol around the school? Or just wait out front and watch the kids go in?

If he was Scott, what would he do?

Scott would probably patrol. He likes to be moving, likes to show off his skills.

So Jimmy hikes out of the park and crosses the road to the school, following the sidewalk all around the building.

On one side is an alley between some run-down apartments, and Jimmy passes through, keeping a close eye on anything out of place. Any knocked-over trash cans, any smears of dirt or dried blood on buildings, anything that could be the signs of a struggle.

He feels more and more anxious the further down he goes, swallowing back the thrumming of his power within him, the scar at the base of his skull burning.

He can’t cause an accident here. He's next to an elementary school, he can’t risk it.

Can he?

What accidents can he cause here?

Jimmy’s never really reached out with his powers before on purpose—not in a long time, not in a searching way.

But his powers can cause terrible things to happen, things as far away as inside the school, and if his power can know that there’s things that far away to ruin, then can’t he know, too?

So he reaches out into the surrounding buildings.

There are a lot of people here.

That’s the first thing he feels.

There’s hundreds of children in the school, and one of these buildings is an apartment complex, and Jimmy can’t see them or even really sense them? He just . . . knows that they’re there, in some kind of . . . sixth sense?

There are so many other things that he knows are there, but can’t verbalize. He simply knows, to an overwhelming degree, the contents of everything around and maybe there’s a reason he’s never done this before because he thinks he’s going to be sick—

“TJ!”

Jimmy flinches, hears something crash in the distance. He wheels around—this could be it this is the moment he’s kidnapped—, only to find fWhip standing at the mouth of the alley.

“Why are you out and about?” fWhip asks, moseying over, hands in his pockets. “Don’t you usually stay home from the cool parties?”

Right. He knows fWhip. Kind of. fWhip is nice, right? He helped save him.

Jimmy isn’t wearing his mask. Which is fine. It’s fine to not be wearing it, because fWhip recognized him anyways and his secret identity isn’t contingent on a mask anymore.

“Um, I’m looking for Major,” he says, head still spinning a bit. “He usually goes here every morning, and nobody saw him for his whole shift, so if he got kidnapped it was probably near—”

“Wait, Major’s missing?”

Jimmy frowns. “Yeah, did you not hear? He disappeared yesterday.”

fWhip checks over his shoulder, adjusts his goggles. “Okay. Not good. And if Major’s missing, why aren’t you in a safehouse?”

“Well, I was,” Jinmy says, looking down at his feet. How has he been caught already? He just barely left!

“But you couldn’t stick around when Major could be . . . being tortured?” guesses fWhip.

Jimmy shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah,” he says dejectedly. “But I can go back. The Mad King would—”

“Nah, don’t do that. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to. Do you need help looking?”

And before Jimmy can so much as process what he’s said, fWhip is reaching up to the window in the building beside them, testing the latch and finding it open.

“Let’s check out this place,” he suggests, shoving the window open and grabbing the sill, pushing himself up and into the window in an impressive show of upper-body strength.

Jimmy blinks.

He didn’t expect to be joined in his search.

Let alone by fWhip.

“Okay, nobody’s here,” fWhip calls out the window. “You coming?”

“Is there a door?” Jimmy asks halfheartedly.

fWhip shrugs.

Jimmy sighs, grips the windowsill (a bit lower for him than it had been for fWhip), and heaves himself up, legs kicking for purchase on the wall and arms trembling under his weight.

He falls back once, arm scraping a bit against the sill, then manages to pull himself up the second time, his ribcage pressed in painfully against the windowsill, where he hangs for a moment before tipping over and landing in a heap on the other side.

“Try to roll when you come in,” fWhip advises as Jimmy picks himself up. “It’s easier. And way more cool.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jimmy grumbles, brushing the copious streaks of dust off his hoodie.

“So we’re looking at an abandoned first floor of some office building, I think,” fWhip says, flipping a switch on his goggles. “See anything?”

Jimmy looks around. It’s a fairly large space, the concrete ground scarred by the torn-up carpet (some of which still lies in an awkward heap against a wall), a single dead office chair sitting in the middle of the room. Otherwise, there’s some brightly-colored papers in a corner, and—

The front door slams open.

“TJ,” comes a suspicious and familiar voice.

The Mad King is standing in the doorway.

“Rats,” fWhip says, frowning. “Did you follow me?”

“You and Mythics are always up to no good,” Joel tells him dismissively, before turning back to Jimmy, arms crossed. “Why are you here?”

“Um . . . looking for Major?” Jimmy tries.

Joel raises an eyebrow. “With fWhip? Come on, TJ, if you were going to break house arrest it should’ve been with someone respectable.”

“Hey!”

“Come on, back to the safehouse.”

“But—”

“TJ,” Joel says firmly. “We aren’t arguing about this. I’ll keep looking for Major, yeah? You need—”

“But I, I can help!” Jimmy insists. This isn’t fair, he shouldn’t be locked up when his boyfriend could be going through the worst experiences of his life—

“Jimmy,” Joel grits out. fWhip makes a ‘yikes’ face, turns to start going through the neon papers in the corner.

“Since Major has been kidnapped, they will want to get the people he cares about the most—you,” Joel stresses. “They will want to hurt you to get him to give up whatever information they’re looking for. That’s why—”

“I know, I know, but I can defend myself,” argues Jimmy. “It’s—it’s Sc—I mean, it’s Major. I have to help. And I know—”

“You’re helping by staying safe,” says Joel. “I’m not arguing about this, okay?”

“Who would have a bake sale and then put the signs in an abandoned building?” fWhip murmurs, examining one of the said signs.

Which is stupid.

This is stupid.

How does Joel expect him to just sit there?

How can he tell Jimmy to go hide and let Scott get hurt?

But there’s no point in fighting this.

“Maybe there’s some way you can help from the apartment, okay?” Joel says placatingly, and Jimmy rolls his eyes.

“Sure. Fine, take me back, officer.”

“Don’t get an attitude with me, young man,” Joel warns, sputtering jokingly, but Jimmy’s stomach squirms just the slightest bit.

He’s not a child.

“fWhip, I’ll be back here in half an hour, okay?” Joel says. “Let me know if you find anything.”

Then he strides out the door, Jimmy reluctantly following along behind.

-

Joel finds Scott the next day.

It’s a small place, a closed mechanic shop, near the East side of the city, where this particular gang of villains decided to keep him.

Joel finds him by checking the security footage of the elementary school. He sees, in the corner of one of the cameras, a couple of neon signs hanging on the side of the building fWhip and Jimmy had broken into.

Backing it up a little bit, Joel finds the car that carried the people who hung up the signs (something they did several hours before dawn).

And when he tracks down that car, he finds Scott.

Jimmy receives the text that Scott’s been found and instantly calls Lizzie, begging her for a ride home. Lizzie agrees, and when Joel and Scott come through the front door, Jimmy is there waiting, a frozen pizza in the oven.

Jimmy drops everything, his stress releasing in a little burst of power that crashes his phone and knocks all the cushions off the sofa, hurrying toward Scott.

Scott looks absolutely exhausted. His suit is torn here and there, his hair tangled and greasy, his eyelids drooping. But he gives Jimmy a small smile and acquiesces to a gentle hug.

“Glad you’re safe,” Scott murmurs. “I was worried.”

Jimmy chuckles, pitched a little high with nerves. “You were worried? Imagine my state!”

Scott pulls away, plants a small kiss on Jimmy’s lips before tugging off his mask, mouth twisting in a grimace.

There’s a large bruise on his cheek, and a small line of them down his jaw, but he otherwise doesn’t seem to be in very bad condition. Still, Jimmy frets, hands twisting anxiously.

“Where are you hurt? Do you need to get checked out? You really should go to the hospital, just in—”

“I’m fine,” Scott cuts him off. “Just some bruises. It’s all right.”

Even so, Scott stands there patiently, as Jimmy takes in every part of him.

He seems to be telling the truth. Nothing looks broken or like it’s bleeding too badly. He’s holding himself a little gingerly, though, that could be a broken rib—

Jimmy prods at his chest and Scott steps back, hands over himself.

“It’s not broken,” Scott says, teeth gritted. “Joel already tried it. Just a deep bruise.”

“Probably the worst kidnappers I’ve ever seen,” Joel calls from the kitchen, where he’d gone after pushing past the two of them in the hall. “Didn’t even know how to torture him properly.”

Torture? “Scott, I’m so sorry—do you need anything? Should I schedule you a therapy appointment?”

Scott bursts out laughing. “Thank you, baby,” he says. “I’m fine. I promise. Just tired.”

“And an idiot,” adds Joel. “How’d you manage to get kidnapped by such an incompetent lot?”

“Their signs said homemade croissants,” Scott moans, walking into the kitchen as if nothing ever happened (though his arm is still wrapped around his ribs). “You know I love supporting small local businesses.”

“’Twas your downfall,” Joel intones, snickering. “Sorry, mate.”

Jimmy follows awkwardly, not entirely sure how to behave.

Scott’s . . . fine?

He hadn’t even considered that as an outcome. He hadn’t dared to think that Scott might return without severe injuries, without being traumatized by the torture and greatly needing help returning to the real world.

Like Jimmy had been.

He doesn’t know what he can even do.

How can he help Scott when Scott doesn’t need help?

So Jimmy just kind of hovers, near Scott, as he sits there and eats pizza and jokes a little with Joel.

Then Scott leaves to go shower, and Joel shoots Jimmy a sympathetic smile.

“He’s fine,” Joel assures him. “He may be a bit clumsy for a while—his hands were zip-tied pretty tightly together—but he’s really fine.”

It’s hard to believe him.

But Jimmy just nods and resolves to not treat Scott strangely. He’s fine, after all.

If he’s fine, then so is Jimmy.

-

That night, there’s something wrong.

Jimmy wakes up quite suddenly, the odd sixth sense that he’d probed at the other day ringing with the notice that something is off.

He doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know what’s changed in their surroundings, but he knows that it’s not quite right and he needs to be aware of it.

Jimmy blinks open his eyes, glances over to Scott to reassure himself that his partner is safely there.

And leaning over Scott, a knife gleaming in their hand and poised above Scott’s chest, is a person dressed in black.

Jimmy reacts immediately.

He dives over Scott, knocking the man’s arm just as he sinks the knife down—Scott wakes with a cry of pain, the knife carving a jagged line in his chest and up his shoulder as the man is knocked off course.

Jimmy rolls off of Scott, faces the intruder for a brief second.

The intruder spits out a curse, then barrels into Jimmy, brandishing his knife.

Jimmy moves on instinct. He grapples with the man, twists his wrist with the knife—the man slashes at him, but Jimmy twists further until his grip loosens on the hilt, and then he takes the knife.

He spent hours and days and weeks training with Xornoth in knife work and he knows exactly how to attack to injure, which spots are the most painful without being fatal. He stabs the knife into the attacker’s upper arm, then into his side when he howls and twists away, and Jimmy can’t help but show off a bit as he flips the knife to his other hand and drives it into the man’s knee.

The intruder falls to his knees, and Jimmy’s head is pounding with the adrenaline, and he can’t move his focus from taking this man out entirely because he tried to kill Scott—

Jimmy spins around to be behind the man, hands on his throat—the man grabs at his wrists, nails scrabbling against his skin—and sends a burst of power out.

Under his sweaty palms, knife still tucked between the fingers of his right hand, Jimmy feels the man’s neck break. Not just the bone: his vocal cords snap—his muscles fall loose—his throat collapses, and so does the man, falling heavily to the carpet.

Jimmy stands there, panting.

Scott wheezes in pain.

Jimmy fumbles on the bedside table, grabs Scott’s hero phone with fingers slick with blood. He presses the emergency button on the side, holds it down for a solid five seconds.

Then he drops it back on the table, opens one of the drawers to pull out Scott’s mask.

“Jimmy,” Scott gasps, sitting up, clutching his arm over the slash in his shirt. “Are—are you okay?”

Jimmy nods, then he clicks on the bedside lamp, bathing the room in low, yellow light, and surveys Scott.

There’s a sheen of sweat over Scott’s bruised face, his eyes pained and confused (and concerned, and very very worried), but Jimmy barely registers that as his eyes find the wound.

His nightshirt is soaked in blood, spreading out from the slash, and it only takes one glance at the wound for Jimmy to know that it needs a professional to take a look at it. He doesn’t know near enough about injuries to know anything other than that it looks bad.

He leans over Scott (Scott flinches back) and pulls the mask over his face, carefully holding the knife pointed away from him. His hair catches a bit in the eyeholes and Jimmy doesn’t do anything about it.

"Major?" calls a voice from below, and Jimmy spins around, knife held out, as he hears the stairs creak with running footsteps. Was there back-up? No matter. There won’t be, soon.

A pajama-clad Blossom pushes open the door from where it's half-open (Scott always closes the door when they go to bed), her hands flying to her mouth when she takes in the scene. "Oh my gosh—Major, TJ, what happened? Should I call an ambulance? I'll call one—"

"Hello? Is everything okay?"

More footsteps, then Gem appears, mask pulled over tangled hair.

"Hi, we need an ambulance—the address—"

"What happened?" Gem says, echoing Blossom's words as Blossom turns away, one hand covering the ear not pressed to her phone.

Scott pushes himself up further, grimacing. "Intruder," he manages, nodding toward the body on the floor. Gem glances at it, before her eyes fix on Jimmy.

"TJ, sit down—where are you hurt? Where do you guys keep your first aid kit?"

"It's not my blood," Jimmy says, his voice too loud in his ears. He gestures with the knife toward the motionless body, the neck appearing kind of . . . squashed. "I'm fine. Check Major."

"Shoot, the attacker," Gem mutters. "Blossom, tell them that there's two or three people that need—"

"He's dead," Jimmy interrupts. "Don't worry about him. Check Major."

Gem blinks.

Meets Jimmy's eyes.

"Okay," she says after a moment. "I'll check Major. Did you kill him?"

Jimmy swallows.

"He was attacking us," he says stiffly. "He stabbed Major. I acted in self-defense."

Gem moves around and climbs onto Jimmy's empty side of the bed, still keeping an eye on him even as she checks out Scott, pulling away his shirt and asking quiet questions (to which Scott responds, his breath shallow and words faltering).

"The ambulance should be here soon," Blossom says, moving toward the foot of the bed. "TJ, you're covered in blood—set that knife down, let me help you."

"It's not my blood," Jimmy says again. "I'm fine."

"Okay, then—"

"You help Major," Gem says, slipping off the bed and coming back over. "I'll help TJ wash up. C'mon."

Numbly, Jimmy follows her out of the room, checking over his shoulder to make sure Scott is okay. Scott waves him on with the hand that isn’t held to his chest, and Jimmy continues down the hall, into the bathroom.

"We'll have to make this quick," Gem says. "Sit down. And give me that knife."

Jimmy doesn't want to give her the knife. He pulls it back to his chest when she reaches for it, thumbs the blade protectively.

"I need the knife to give it to Major, so that when the police get here we can have a convincing story without you in it. Make sense?"

After considering, Jimmy nods. It makes sense.

And that means he needs to not be here.

He hands over the knife. "I killed him," he says. "If they ask, Major stabbed him three times. Then he fell and broke his neck."

Gem shakes her head. "Okay. Wow. Okay. You know we don't normally kill people, right? Never mind. I'll go give this to Major."

Jimmy glances in the mirror as she steps past. There's blood spattered across his face, more in splashes on his nightshirt and shorts and arms. His eyes, cold and wide, peer back at him out of his pale face.

He needs to get out of here.

Gem returns after two or three minutes, handing Jimmy a jacket (one of Scott’s, he distantly notices).

"Zip that up over the blood, rinse off your hands, and let's go," she says. "We'll head to my place. Blossom will ride with Major in the ambulance. It doesn't look too bad, so he should be okay."

Jimmy obeys, letting Gem turn on the water so he can stick his hands under the cold spray.

For a moment, he's back there—just trying to scrub the blood off his hands from his first intentional murder in the sink with the broken handle.

Then he blinks, looking down at the sink, at the red running off his hands.

"Good enough. Let's go."

-

Joel joins them in Gem's dark kitchen after about two hours, stripping off a pair of gloves. He's fully dressed in his supersuit, his hair unbrushed and his posture stooped, looking more exhausted than ever.

"Gem, you have anything caffeinated?" Joel asks, opening a cupboard.

"Yeah, there's a pot of coffee already made. Mugs are in the left cupboard."

Jimmy watches as Joel finds a mug, fills it up with coffee, and then takes a swig of it black.

"Thanks," he says, face scrunching up at the taste. Joel doesn't like black coffee. Jimmy knows that. He always adds cream and sugar.

"Major's okay," Joel informs them, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table to sit across from them.

Jimmy's been here more or less in silence for the past hour and a half, staring at the wooden table. When they'd first come in, Gem had sent him to wash his hands and arms and face better than he had before, but there's nothing they can do about his sleepclothes, so he's just been sitting here in a blood-spattered t-shirt for a while. Gem had joined him after pulling a hoodie over her pajamas and starting the coffee maker, and has since sat beside him, working on a crossword puzzle.

"Major's okay, he and Blossom are at the hospital now. The intruder was pronounced dead on site. Major identified him as one of the men who kidnapped him."

Jimmy doesn't feel anything.

No sense of satisfaction at knowing that the man truly deserved it, no fear at how close they had been to getting killed, no guilt for his actions.

Nothing.

"TJ," Joel says hesitantly, "how are you doing?"

Jimmy shrugs.

He's still covered in the blood of the man he murdered.

"They say killing is like riding a bike," Jimmy says after a long pause. "You never quite forget how to do it."

Gem sighs. Joel winces.

"Right. Well, we don't really kill people, as a general rule. It's kind of, like, against the law."

The law.

As if the law applies to heroes and villains.

Jimmy's not really sure which one he is right now.

Neither, probably. Which means the law should apply to him, even if it hasn’t stuck in the past.

"I've never really been one to follow the law," Jimmy says.

"Sure, but as a person—"

He isn't a person. If anything was to prove that fact, it would be tonight. He hadn’t thought, he’d just acted, and even now the first feeling that he can even register is the feeling of not feeling. He isn’t a person.

He's a weapon.

He's a pet.

That's the word that triggers his therapy brain.

"I'm in a bad headspace," Jimmy interrupts Joel, using words that he'd rehearsed with Nora. "I don't feel like a person right now. I might be dissociating."

"We have to talk about this," Joel insists. "We can't run away from hard conversations—"

"I promised I would never kill again," Jimmy whispers, and, ah. There’s the panic. Detached and not quite real, but panic nonetheless. "I can't escape it. I'm not—I can't. I'm a weapon, I was made to be a weapon, I—"

"Stop that right now," says Joel firmly. "You are a person, and you just saved someone from being killed. It was self-defense, not mindless."

Jimmy almost laughs, because to some extent, it was mindless. He acted entirely on instinct, following the training Xornoth had given him, whether or not it was self-defense.

He doesn't like hurting people.

He never wanted to go back to being a villain.

It's not even that he's upset about killing that specific man. Screw that man, he tried to kill his boyfriend.

He's really just afraid that now that he's killed one person, he'll keep doing it. It isn’t like anyone can stop him. Nobody can stop him, not even himself, and he wouldn’t even care if his current state has anything to say about it.

"TJ," Gem says carefully, "why did you kill that man?"

Jimmy frowns. Why? "To protect Major."

"Do you have any desire to kill people outside of defense?"

Does he?

He's never had the desire to kill.

Not even when he was getting rewarded for it. Killing was something he did to survive, to escape severe punishment, or accidentally.

And here, he killed to protect. To save his boyfriend. He didn't get any satisfaction out of it. He certainly didn't enjoy it. He doesn't want to do it again.

That cuts through the foggy panic in his mind, the fear that he might keep going, that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

"No," he says, then stronger, "no. I never want to kill. I hate it. I only do it when I have to."

Joel lets out a breath of relief. "Thank goodness. Okay, next issue. You and Major clearly aren't safe here. Do you want to try to stick it out, or should we start moving you two as soon as possible?"

Jimmy hadn't even thought about it.

Of course they aren't safe here—he hadn't been safe alone, when Scott was kidnapped and he had to be moved to the safehouse. Why did he think that things would magically change just because Scott was here? Every villain in the city knows where they live. The rest of the gang that kidnapped Scott could show up on their doorstep at any time, even more angry than before.

Anyone could show up at any time.

Jimmy doesn't feel as secure as he used to feel, surrounded by superheroes as they are.

"We'll move," Jimmy decides. "As soon as Major is back, we're moving. It just isn't safe here."

They’ll move.

Then he’ll deal with this numbness.

-

"Hey!" Jimmy calls, running into the kitchen. "No! You aren't allowed to lift anything more than ten pounds, put that down!"

Scott sighs with an over-dramatic roll of his eyes, sets the box back on the counter. "It's not that heavy. And it doesn't even hurt right now."

"Just because it doesn't hurt doesn't mean it isn't injured, Mister," Jimmy tells him. "You don't want to pull out your stitches."

"You haven't let me help at all. Pearl already handled the actual heavy stuff, let me do something."

Jimmy shakes his head and picks up the box. "That's your own fault for getting stabbed right before we moved."

"We're moving because I got stabbed," Scott points out. "It's not like any of this was planned."

"You should have thought about that before you got stabbed, then."

Scott groans, then reluctantly laughs. "I guess I should have. Can I at least drive?"

Jimmy lets out a very put-upon sigh. "I suppose, since I don't have a driver's license, you can be allowed to drive. But only if you behave yourself."

Scott giggles again. "You're adorable," he says fondly. "You know I'm the Primary Protector of the city, right? I don't think you'd be able to stop me."

"And I killed a man last week," counters Jimmy. "I don't think you want to be on my bad side."

"Oh," Scott says after a moment. "Are we joking about this now?"

Jimmy shrugs. "We're in the laugh-or-cry stage. I'm trying to laugh about it right now."

Scott looks at him. Really, truly, looks at him.

Then he laughs. Just a little bit, but still a laugh.

"I love you," he says. "I'll help you hide the body next time."

Jimmy laughs a little, too, but Scott pauses.

"There . . . isn't going to be a next time, right?" he asks uncertainly.

"Oh, absolutely not. Not unless it's entirely necessary."

Scott nods several times. "Good," he says. “Yep. Cool.”

Jimmy turns back toward the door, box in his arms, and waits until he’s out of the house to huff, shaking his head (though a smile plays on his lips).

They’re okay.

He pushes away the numb feeling that threatens to seep into his brain and thinks and remembers and knows that they’re okay.

That’s good enough for him.

[dukeofthomas]

"Angry robin" "violent robin" "misbehaving robin" shut up and accept my alternative; spunky Robin. Determined and head strong, can out-stubborn the Batman, has a strong moral-backbone and does what he thinks is right regardless of what anybody else says, Robin. Jason who was sassy and quippy and made crude jokes with a smile on his face. Jason who hid in Bruce's cape and whispered gossip to him. Jason who, if Bruce refused him something, could keep bothering endlessly until Bruce caved. And also dramatic Jason. If Bruce tells him no, it becomes a whole theatrical show; a monologue, a narration, embellishments, and falling onto the floor in his grief upon the fact his cruel father has denied him once again.

(Jason who has suffered through abuse and homelessness and poverty and starvation, who is the Fight out of Fight or Flight, who's built up defenses and walls and when pushed and triggered responds with the thing that's always protected him; anger. He's sweet and kind and funny, and when he sees a pimp hitting a prostitute he gets furious and responds with violence.)

[sleep-nurse]

alas, my submission for the duel is ready

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDTHIS IS SO GOOD

[hanzajesthanza]

Bez krwi nie ma wampira. Jest to substancja, która decyduje o jego istnieniu, podobnie jak o istnieniu człowieka. Without blood there is no vampire. It is this substance which determines his existence, just as it does the existence of a human.

Maria Janion. "6. Krew i ciało," in Wampir: Biografia symboliczna. ("6. Blood and body," in Vampire: A Symbolic Biography.)

[dbphantom]

Hate having adhd went to go work on my fallout modpack, got distracted while going to disable the steam overlay, ended up in the points shop, went to go edit my profile, decided to change my pfp, found a buried folder I forgot existed, found some old Veneer art I forgot existed, spent 45 minutes looking at all the old photos, STILL HAVE NOT TOGGLED ONE SIMPLE OPTION THAT SHOULD'VE TAKEN 30 SECONDS AT MOST

[lesbiansanemi]

I am so fucking sick of living with my roommate and his fuck ass boyfriend. Also watching my roommate burn every single one of his (already rather minimal, I might add) bridges for this guy is also kind of painful but also his relationship with me is one of said bridges so I'm almost past the point of even feeling bad for him lmao

[caterpillarinacave]

my world has been flipped over

[sorenlionheart]

i am dangerously close to making my own interpretation of superman

[wackyattack]

Can't believe Clark had an outfit without the funky red underwear, his mom saw it and said absolutely not, and he really allowed that to happen

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober 24 - Radiation Posioning

title: all days come down to one clear pane

fandom: hermitcraft

cw: hospital setting, possibly terminal illness

~

“Well, hey there, Bdubs,” Beef greets cheerfully, tightening the ties on his apron. “Here for another round of TCG?”

Bdubs doesn’t respond right away. He stares at Beef for a long moment, standing several feet away, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Hey, Beef?” he says eventually.

There’s something . . . something not quite right about the look in Bdubs’s big eyes. A dull, unfocused quality, like he isn’t all there.

“Yeah?”

“Did we eat something funny, last night?” asks Bdubs. “Because I’ve been feeling . . . not good.”

The NHO had grabbed dinner together the night before, and while it had been fairly cheap, greasy food, Beef’s been feeling all right. Out of all of them, Bdubs has one of the strongest stomachs. It would be weird for him to have a reaction, out of all of them.

“How so?”

Bdubs’s dull eyes dart from right to left. “I threw up,” he says. “Twice.”

Beef hums. “Well, I’ve been feeling fine. Did you ask Etho and Doc?”

“No.”

“Are you feeling sick any other way?”

Bdubs considers that question, his head tilting slightly to the side. “I’m . . . my body hurts,” he says, after a moment of consideration. “Like, aches. Is that normal?”

“It sounds like it could be a flu,” Beef says, taking a subtle step back. “Maybe you should go lie down.”

“I just had the flu a couple weeks ago,” Bdubs argues. “I feel . . . I dunno. I haven’t been feeling great all day, I’ve been kind of sick, but I was okay last night—”

His words speed up, voice louder and louder as he speaks, and one hand snakes out of his pocket and up to his hair, where it starts pulling. Beef grimaces—they’ve been trying to break Bdubs of his hair-pulling habit for years, but it always creeps back. Before he can mention it, though, his hand comes away.

With a tuft of hair.

Bdubs—

He wasn’t pulling too hard, was he? He just kind of pulled a little bit. He shouldn’t have been able to pull out a whole tuft of his own hair, like a dog blowing out its coat.

Bdubs doesn’t seem to notice. He lets the hair fall to the ground, runs his hand over his head. There’s some other thin patches, Beef notices, and that worries him just as much as the bandage wrapped around Bdubs’s hand.

Why is it bandaged?

“—been weird,” Bdubs says, “and I don’t like it.”

“Why don’t you lie down,” Beef suggests again. He forces his voice to be as calm as possible. He doesn’t want to freak out Bdubs, as strangely as he’s acting. “You can use my bed. I’ll bring you something to drink, okay?”

Bdubs frowns, but nods his agreement. He heads off in the direction of Beef’s bed, his bandaged hand still buried in his hair.

Beef watches him go for a moment, then pulls out his communicator.

There’s something very, very wrong about Bdubs. He’s going to need some help.

-

“When did this start?” Doc asks, examining Bdubs’s hand.

It looks bad. It looks really bad, from Beef’s point of view.

His left hand, now bereft of wrappings, doesn’t quite look like a hand. Well, it’s the right shape and everything, but his skin is just . . . wrong. Peeled-away and reddened, the fresh skin under the peeled back of his hand bubbly with blisters. The skin around the patch is discolored, several shades lighter than Bdubs’s usual pigment.

Bdubs shrugs. “I dunno. Um, it’s been kinda getting worse all week.”

“And you didn’t say something?” Doc says, shocked.

“I thought it would get better!”

“Goodness, Bdubs,” Xisuma says. “You can’t dig into a radiation site and expect to just get better.”

“When did you first enter the site, again?”

Bdubs’s face scrunches up; his eyes still hold that glassy look to them. “Um . . . two weeks ago? I haven’t been back since, promise.”

Two weeks ago.

Beef doesn’t know much about radiation poisoning, but if Bdubs made contact with it two weeks ago, how is it that only now he’s realized something’s wrong?

“We’ll have to take him off-world,” Xisuma’s murmuring. “Get him a proper doctor.”

Doc, usually quite defensive of his doctorate, doesn’t argue. He just drags a suitcase out from under Bdubs’s bed and cracks it open, dumping out whatever he finds within. Then he takes it over to Bdubs’s wardrobe, starts throwing random articles of clothing into it.

“I’ll come with,” Beef volunteers, and Xisuma nods gratefully toward him.

Then, because Beef is not just going to come with for the day, he leaves as well, donning a pair of elytra and flying back to his own base.

By the way Doc was packing, he thought that this was going to be a long stay.

Beef will stay with him. And then he’ll bring Bdubs home, and everything will be okay.

-

Bdubs gets sick on day two of his hospital stay.

The staff hadn’t quite known what to do with him—they’d never had a patient with ARS, and they’d had to call in a specialist from another world. That specialist had taken one look at the hospital room—Bdubs on the bed, Beef sitting beside him, Doc pressed against the window and Xisuma taking the forefront—and had immediately ushered them all out.

“His immune system is destroyed right now,” she’d scolded, sending them to the room next door to don protective gowns and masks and gloves. “We can’t risk him getting sick.”

Bdubs had watched them go, uncharacteristically quiet.

The doctor was right. His immune system was destroyed. He wakes up with a chest cough on the second day, and by that afternoon his temperature has climbed to feverish heights.

Beef doesn’t know what to do. He isn’t sick—he quarantined for twenty-four hours and tested negative for every illness in the book, just to be able to sit with Bdubs. He’d expected it to be pretty chill—maybe he could get some drawing done, talk with his friend about any remaining plans for what was left of the season.

Now he sits further away than he would have liked, over in the seat by the window, watching as Bdubs’s chest rises and falls weakly under his hospital gown.

They’re going to intubate him soon if he doesn’t start getting more oxygen. Whatever this bug is has ravaged his lungs in the brief time he’s been ill with it, making his body even weaker and more susceptible to the radiation devastating his cells from the inside.

He doesn’t even look like himself. Bdubs’s hair is more patchy than before, what remains limp and unbrushed. His face is scruffy, bags under his eyes oily, his closed eyes fluttering now and then. The hospital gown fits loosely around him, his entire collarbone showing in an unwelcome display of vulnerability. His right arm is hooked up to a pouch of fluids and pain medication, the occasional click from the IV stand breaking the silence.

He doesn’t look a thing like how Bdubs is supposed to look. It’s like the life has been drained out of him as steadily as the IV drips into his bloodstream.

“Zedaph’s going to be jealous,” Beef says after a long moment, trying anything to make the scene less wrong.

The only sign that Bdubs has heard him is a tiny cough.

“I think he was, like, looking for radiation. And you found it on accident. He’ll probably do a Zedvancement on you when you get back.”

That gets a huff of a laugh. Bdubs doesn’t open his eyes.

Beef bites his lip. “Doing any better than this morning?”

Bdubs’s throat works. “A bit,” he rasps, voice barely there. This triggers a couple more coughs, his frame shaking.

They’re probably going to intubate him. They don’t want to, afraid that he’ll struggle to get off oxygen if they put him on it, but this is only the first day of illness and they’re already discussing it. Unless he gets better overnight, Bdubs is going to end up with a tube down his throat.

He looks so weak.

They’ve determined that he came in contact with the radioactive material about twenty-five days ago. He’s moving out of what they called the ‘latent period’, and the loss of hair means that he’s had higher exposure than they would have liked.

They said that his chance of survival is around 50%.

That is way, way too low. Probably lower with the illness that he’s caught. Beef sat in the window seat for about an hour as Bdubs napped and calculated possible percentages—with a mean of 50, if one assumed that each illness was one standard deviation below the mean, and say the standard deviation was 12—maybe even bigger—

Well, with that model, Bdubs’s chance of survival is 38%.

And with each passing hour, Beef can’t help but think that Bdubs’s score gets lower and lower.

-

They do end up intubating him. It helps him get through the cold that’s ravaging his system, but he’s too weak to get off supplemental oxygen afterwards. Beef is the only Hermit allowed to visit, and only dressed to the nines in PPE.

“You’ll be back in business in no time,” Scar says over a video call. Scar in particular is banned from visiting, even just to drop something off. “You’ve been lotioning your nose? That cannula will give you nosebleeds like nothing before!”

“Yeah,” Bdubs manages. “And then they don’t stop bleeding.”

His blood isn’t clotting very well. He’s had three nosebleeds so far, and every one of them has been an emergency.

The specialist doesn’t say it, but if he keeps bleeding, Bdubs’s chances of survival will keep dropping.

“When are you coming back?” asks Scar. Bdubs shrugs. His arm is getting tired of holding up the communicator, Beef can tell.

“Dunno. When the radiation runs out. And then I have to do . . . more things.”

“Bone marrow transfusions, blood transfusions,” Beef calls. He hears Scar make a humming sound.

“Sounds fun.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you need anything, let us know, okay? I’ve still got some cookies around somewhere—”

“Not Elven Surprise—”

“Oh, no, no, no, that probably wouldn’t be very nice at all! But I’ll see what I can do.”

Bdubs nods, clearly worn out, and Beef stands, taking the communicator from him and leaving the room.

He glances back into the room as he closes the door. Bdubs’s eyes are already closed, his head slumped on his shoulder.

Once he’s in the hall, Beef looks down at the screen. Scar’s face is staring up at him, naked concern painted all over it.

“He doesn’t look so good,” Scar says.

Beef shrugs. “He’s right on track for recovery.”

It’s what he’s told everybody who tried to come visit, or called. He told Ren that the doctor said it’ll be a long time, but he should be okay. He told Etho that they put him on oxygen as a caution, not a necesity. He told Doc that Bdubs spent all afternoon chattering about his next build.

He smiled and lied through his teeth to everyone, and he can and will do it again.

But Scar sighs. “I can take the truth, Beef.”

And Beef breaks down.

“He couldn’t afford to get sick,” he chokes out, his throat suddenly thick, tears already spilling from his eyes. “I—sorry, man, I don’t usually—but—before he got sick, he only had, like, a fifty percent chance—and now it’s worse—”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.”

“He might not make it,” Beef says, ugly and raw and heartbreaking. “I don’t know what—I don’t know what to tell everyone, it shouldn’t be me here, it should be Etho or Pungence or—”

“Nobody could do it better than you,” Scar tells him. “You’ve got this, dude. We’re all here for you.”

Logically, Beef knows that’s true.

But he’s the only one here. He only sees the others briefly, when they stop by to drop off food or clothes—and even then, he doesn’t talk to them. He sees them from the opposite end of the hallway (he sometimes helps Bdubs into a wheelchair and pushes him to the door of his room just to wave at their friends, at Ren and Pearl and Xisuma or whoever else stopped by) or waves to them from the window, and that’s it.

“What do I do?” he whispers after a long moment. He grabs a tissue from the nearby nurse’s station (and the nurse gives him a sympathetic half-smile), uses it to dab at his eyes.

“Just keep trying, man. I know Bdubs appreciates it. We all do.” Scar sighs, an edge of laughter to the sound. “If I could hug you right now, I would.”

Beef chuckles wetly. “Then I’d have to put on all new plastic. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Scar smiles. “Yeah. An imaginary one, then.”

Even imaginary, Beef supposes, Scar hugs are the best.

-

“You’ll pull through,” Beef whispers, Bdubs’s limp hand held in his own.

He doesn’t know if he’s talking to his friend or to himself.

Bdubs has barely been conscious for the past three days. Beef has ignored every buzz of his communicator since he first took a turn for the worse, ever since he came down with another fever.

“We’ve already done two months. We can’t just give up now.”

He’s been awake for going on forty-eight hours now, but he can’t sleep.

He can’t leave Bdubs.

He doesn’t get that choice, though, as just a half hour later, Bdubs’s heart monitor starts beeping incessantly, and then there’s people flooding the room and Beef is escorted out.

Then he sits on the tile floor of the hallway and sobs into his knees.

-

Intubation doesn’t look good on Bdubs a second time.

-

Every single day is a fight.

Beef starts being honest with Xisuma, trusting him to spread the word around Hermitcraft. Bdubs isn’t doing well, but the doctors are hopeful. He got sick again. They have to take treatment slower. He’s off oxygen during the day. He’s back on it. He can’t keep food down. He was able to take a short walk today. He loves the potted plant. His scans aren’t looking good. They’re adjusting the treatment plan. He wants pictures of everyone’s builds. He slept all day. He still can’t keep food down. They’re bringing in a therapist to talk to them both.

It’s after the last message that Xisuma again suggests they take turns staying with Bdubs. Beef is resistant to the idea at first, but Bdubs’s doctor says it would be fine with proper PPE, so he relents.

He doesn’t really sleep, the nights he spends away. It isn’t right to be on Hermitcraft, his bedroom devoid of the clicking of the IV and the clunking of the heart monitor.

“We’ve got it,” Xisuma reassures him. “Rest.”

But Beef can’t do anything without thinking of Bdubs and how he isn’t here, so he continues to assume the main responsibility of being there for him, through the ups and downs and fights that follow.

Right up to the end.

-

“That’s the last one?”

Those are the first words out of Bdubs’s mouth when he wakes up, mumbled and half-formed, his eyes not even quite open.

“The last round of conditioning,” Beef reassures him, squeezing his arm. “Then you have the transplant next week.”

“Then we go home.”

“Then we stay a couple more weeks to make sure it works.”

“And then.” “And then we go home, yep.”

A smile quirks Bdubs’s lips. “I miss it.”

“I know, bud.”

It’s been eight months.

Eight of the most touch-and-go, harrowing months that Beef has ever endured.

“You can keep sleeping,” Beef says, releasing his grip to just pat Bdubs’s arm. “Etho’s not taking my place for another couple hours.”

It’s almost over. Just the bone marrow transplant, then an observation period, then home. Six months of recovery from the radiation poisoning, then two months of conditioning to prepare his body to receive the bone marrow transplant.

Then now.

Then home.

The doctor had been nothing short of jubilant when it became clear that Bdubs was going to pull through. She had repeatedly told Bdubs how proud she was, how he withstood the odds and came out on the other side.

It was a 25% chance of survival, in the most dire moments. Despite a couple of scares early on, everything went as well as could be hoped for—the medication, the skin graft, the conditioning. It was terrifying, and still is (there are still far too many things that can go wrong), but Beef doesn’t shoulder the weight of it alone anymore. Over the past months, every other Hermit (bar Scar) has sat with Bdubs for at least a day. When no one could take his place, they brought him food and games and called to share stories.

Beef just sat with his friend whenever he could, as he had from day one.

Just as he is now, his hand still resting on Bdubs’s arm.

Beef smiles.

Bdubs, already asleep, snores.

Just a few more weeks. Then home.

[donde-el-diablo-parquea-la-moto]

Just personal thoughts about Bobby's... Goodbye today.

[todayisafridaynight]

the mine thirst from the previous anons my god y'all need a whole ass water tank HDHWJE

good morning tumblr today's broadcast is brought to you by Why Is Yoshitaka Mine So Fucking Pretty

[cripplepunkbarbarian]

My feelings on the finale in general are incredibly mixed because there were certain things I REALLY LOVED but probably a near equal amount of things that super put me off lol

[lokilickedme]

Don’t mess with workers in stores.  Just don’t.  You get rude with us while asking us where something is and we will give you very detailed directions to precisely where your item is NOT and you will find yourself so far back inside the bowels of the store that you’ll never find your way out.  We also know where to go while you’re doing that so that you can never find us again and we have a network of co-workers who will swear to you that no one by that name has ever worked here

.

[sillypilled-friendcel]

"what do you know about drinking" "what do you know about smoking" "what do you know about weed" "what do you know about drugs" you do not know me or my life!!!!!!