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hellvst · 2 days ago

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OFFSEASON – quinn hughes

featuring ; quinn hughes x fmc (sydney gray)

✮⋆˙ warning & content ; swearing

✮⋆˙ word count ; 4.1k

✮⋆˙ previous chapter – series masterlist – next chapter

a/n ; hey...it's been over a month oops! was in a bit of a writer's block, but i'm here now. i am not abandoning this lol, i have a lot of ideas planned for this fic :D not proofread! happy reading <3

CHAPTER SEVEN

SYDNEY

Note to self: No matter how desperate a coworker asked you to fill in for them on a Saturday, don’t do it.

I hadn’t planned on working today. The weekends were my days off, but Micah–one of the other instructors at the studio–had texted me this morning, practically begging me to cover for her classes because she had an emergency.

The moment I stepped inside the studio, I was met with a full day of back-to-back sessions that absolutely drained me.

Although, that was all my fault–I probably should have refused the moment she asked–considering Micah was notorious for her heavy workload. We have been coworkers for a while now and she promised to make it up to me someday, so a part of me didn’t mind it.

Now, exhausted, I finally made it home. I was quick to drop all my things onto the floor and had barely made it to my living room. My muscles ached, although the quiet hum of my apartment was a welcoming contrast to the loud and constant chatter in the studio.

I caught a moment to breathe–before my thoughts were instantly flooded with the session with Quinn earlier in the week. It was like a loop replaying in my head constantly. I could’ve easily shut them out, but no, it was easier said than done.

After I had embarrassingly fallen on top of him, I tried not to let it get to my head before the next session. But strangely enough, the following Thursday had felt like a regular routine between us.

He came in as he always did, we stretched, and we talked during the session. A lot.

I had introduced Quinn to a different style of Pilates such as Cadillac Pilates, a bit of a challenge at first since the new equipment–the straps and bars–had intimidated him.

But he was determined–I’ll give him that–almost stubborn in his refusal to back down from a challenge. To no surprise, by the end of the session, he had managed to hold his own.

I had to admit, seeing his drive to improve was oddly satisfying.

After getting comfortable on my couch and sinking deeper into the cushions, the weight of my eyelids were getting the better of me. Just when I was about to fully shut my eyes, my phone buzzed. A text from Diane.

‘On my way over. #readytogetfuckedup’

I groaned, tilting my head back against the pillows.

I hadn’t forgotten about Diane’s birthday, but I hoped Diane might. Unlikely, though, she had been talking about it all week. Her birthday had been lingering in the back of my mind all day, but I’d barely had time to process it with training sessions and classes, it became a fleeting thought.

We had unofficial plans–or rather, Diane told me what we were doing later in the night.

Going to the club and getting absolutely fucking wasted.

A page taken straight from Phoebe’s playbook. Diane and Phoebe lived by the same philosophy of go out and have fun.

It honestly concerned me how similar they were–like Diane was the younger version of Phoebe. If I didn’t know any better, I’d believe that they were related.

I sighed, staring at the text.

I wasn’t against clubbing. Not entirely, it wasn’t my scene. But I would be lying if I had said that I hadn’t stepped foot in a nightclub before.

There were several occasions that I had been dragged out of my own will–losing a bet to Diane, celebrating milestones or birthdays, losing more bets to Diane. I was horrible at rock paper scissors.

I wasn’t much of a drinker either, but I never shied away from drinking games or an opportunity to dance when the music was good. And if I was being honest, sometimes Diane and Phoebe were right–it was fun.

Before I could reply to Diane, my phone buzzed again. This time with an incoming video call. Simon.

Why was he calling?

Then again, I haven’t heard from him in over a week. I promised not to bug him, knowing that he had a lot on his plate with Cassie and the baby. I told him to update me whenever he could, I just wasn’t expecting him to call this late.

“Hey, what’s up?” I answered.

Simon’s face filled the screen, then the camera shifted to show a tiny bundle in his arm. “Look who’s here. Syd, I’d like you to meet your niece.”

I sat up straight, my eyes going wide. My heart melted immediately. “Oh my God–Simon!” I cooed at the screen, voice softening. “Hi, sweet baby girl. Simon, she’s beautiful.”

The baby stirred slightly but remained asleep, her cute little nose scrunching, her tiny face peaceful as she rested against Simon’s arms, and my chest instantly tightened with warmth. Simon was finally a father.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

My brother offered a smile before looking at the baby. “Her name is Stella.”

Wait. I paused at the realization. “Stella? As in our grandmother?”

He nodded and smiled down at his daughter. “Funny story actually. Cassie was sleeping when the nurses gave me the birth certificate to fill out, and I was so set on naming my kid after me somehow. But then, I thought of Grandma Stella, and it just felt…right.”

I let out a small laugh. Of course, he’d name his own daughter while Cassie was asleep. I wasn’t sure if I was more concerned or impressed that Cassie had let that slide.

But the name was only fitting, perfect even. Our grandmother had been a significant part of our childhood. Despite our parents introducing us to our respective sports on the ice. Grandma Stella was the person who taught both Simon and I how to skate.

The tears threatened to fall, but I blinked them away just in time. Although, my brother couldn’t miss an opportunity to tease me. “Don’t get all emotional on me now, Syd.”

“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes at him before I let one tear escape. “That’s really beautiful, Simon. But–” I frowned at him when I took note of what he said earlier. “–you filled out the paperwork without consulting Cassie?”

Simon let out a soft chuckle. “Don’t worry. When she woke up and found out, she ended up loving it. It was perfect.”

I smiled, shaking my head at him. “It really is. Grandma would’ve loved that and would’ve loved to meet her.”

Our grandmother was my absolute world. She was everything you could ask for–sweet, kind, caring–most of all, very supportive of her grandchildren. She couldn’t make it to all of my competitions, or Simon’s games, but she still cheered us on from the sidelines even if she was ill and had already passed years ago.

Simon’s voice broke through my thoughts before I could reminisce. “Sorry I’ve been MIA recently. This past week has been crazy, and I barely touched my phone. But, I should’ve at least texted you.”

“It’s alright,” I said. “I figured you were busy with everything that was going on.”

Simon nodded, gently setting down Stella into her crib. “Mom and Dad are already on a flight out to San Diego.”

“Oh, really? That’s great.” The ‘enthusiastic’ tone in my voice wasn’t necessarily believable, Simon didn’t miss that either.

“Have you talked to them?” He asked, watching my reaction carefully. “Mom was asking about you. I thought you said you already spoke with her.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I haven’t spoken to our parents much lately. I was so caught up in work and life that I let it slip my mind. But if I were being honest, there was more to it than that.

My relationship with my mom was fine–we still talk every now and then–but with my dad, it was different. Simon was his pride and joy, the son that made him proud and made his dreams come true–making it to the NHL. Meanwhile, we hadn’t been the same since my accident.

I had been his talented figure-skater daughter he was once proud of. Now, I was just his daughter, and that didn’t seem to be enough.

“No, not yet. I’ll call her soon.” I answered back vaguely.

It was enough to let it go by Simon, he knew he was walking around eggshells just by mentioning it the first time.

He was well aware of our family dynamic over the years, and we had a few conversations about it. Simon had always encouraged me many times to talk to our dad about the problem, and I appreciated that he cared strongly about making amends, but he didn’t understand how hard it was.

I wasn’t ready for that, at least not right now.

So my brother didn’t push any further. “Alright. Just making sure.” He paused before shifting gears and letting out a deep exhale. “So, why didn’t you tell me that the cross-training program was still happening?”

Shit.

“I didn’t want to bother you. You had more important things going on, and I figured–”

“Figured what?” Simon cut in, his voice slightly sharper now. “That I’d rather hear it from someone else? Because that’s exactly what happened. I had to find out from the guys instead of hearing it from you first. You’re my sister, Syd. And that sucks.”

Guilt rested heavily on my chest, like it was about to crush me. “I’m sorry. I just…didn’t want you to explode or freak out when you heard about it.”

He sighed, knowing I was completely right about that given his reaction. “Well, too late for that. When JT told me, I was about to lose my fucking mind. To the point that I was debating on booking a flight back to Vancouver to give Tocchet hell for continuing the sessions.”

I snorted. It was exactly how I called it–my brother proving me right yet again, he’s always been so dramatic.

“So, how’s it going? Have you been making Hughes work? I sure hope you are.” He said.

“Yeah, you could say that.” I tried to play it off. “But, he’s surviving and doing much better than I expected.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I wanted to hear, Syd. Perhaps ‘no, he’s doing terrible,’ or ‘no, he’s the worst student I’ve had.’”

I shook my head at him. “I would much rather have him cooperating and trying his best, than him not trying at all, Simon. If anything, I think he’s doing better than you would have if you were still here.”

“Ouch, that one hurt,” he grimaced playfully. “But I am glad he’s not giving you a hard time, because if he was then I would’ve–”

“Simon.”

“What? I’m being serious, Syd. I would rather fly back to Vancouver than let you deal with Hughes alone. Especially when he’s…”

I blinked. “Especially when he’s what?”

What if he found out about the incident at the studio? He definitely knows that I was in Quinn’s car and drove me. What if he found out that a part of me actually liked training with Quinn. Simon was going to kill both of us.

“Especially when he’s such a dick,” Simon said after hesitating for a second. “He’s such a teacher’s pet, so don’t ease up on him just because he’s keeping up. Also, don’t let his pretty face get to you. I haven’t seen him with any girls yet, but how would I know? He and his brothers are popular with them, so probably gets with girls all the time and–”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’ve heard enough, Si.” I stopped him before he continued to spout out things that probably weren’t true at all, or could be, who knows?

I let out a loose breath out my lungs. Good, he didn’t know about the media incident.

“Remind me again–” he started. “–you still don’t have a thing for hockey guys, correct?”

Now that caught me way off guard by the way I almost choked on air. Where was this coming from?

I narrowed my eyes at him. “No? Why are you even asking–”

“Nothing. Just making sure that Hughes has zero chances with you.”

My body almost leaped out of my couch after hearing those words from my brother’s mouth. The last few times Simon had talked about Quinn, I barely knew him. Now, after spending time with him, I wasn’t sure that was entirely true anymore.

Quinn wasn’t at all what Simon painted him to be, he was quite the opposite.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind,” Simon added, “because if you did, I swear, I’m going to end him. Seriously-”

“God, Simon.” I groaned, I wasn’t about to talk about my dating life with my brother. “I am not looking to date anyone right now. It’s not a good time.”

“Good, let's keep it that way.” His expression seemed to relax, like a weight lifted off his shoulders. But, he believed me–I hoped. He nodded but then suddenly frowned. “That still doesn’t explain why that prick left me on read after my texts.”

Texts?

Well, that definitely piqued my interest. “Wait, what texts?”

“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“Simon. What. Texts?”

Before he could even answer, a constant knocking sound at my door. I already knew who it was–she was the only one who ever knocked on my door like a drum.

“Who’s that?” Simon’s overprotective instincts kicked in.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s just Diane.”

I made my way over to the door and sure enough, Diane bursted through it. “Let’s get partying! Wait–” she eyed me up and down. “–why aren’t you ready?”

I glanced down at myself, I was still in my studio clothes, sweaty, no makeup, looked completely burnt out. Definitely not club-ready opposed to Diane’s attire–tight black mini dress, hair that was styled to perfection, and a vibrant red lipstick smeared on her lips.

“I just got home from work,” I sighed at her. “Do we really have to go?”

“Where are you going?” Simon butts in, his skepticism was practically palpable through the screen. I almost forgot he was still on video call for a second.

Before I could answer, Diane beat me to it, bringing her face to the screen to see Simon. “Hey, Simon. It’s my birthday, so we’re heading to the club. Can you convince your sister to come with me, she seems pissy today…”

“Excuse me,” I gave her a look. “I’m standing right here.”

Simon let out a chuckle. “You should go. It’s her birthday after all, Syd.”

They were both right. But more surprised with my brother’s instant support. He would be barking at me for even considering going to the club–just like the other time. He practically wouldn’t let me out the door.

I struggled to find the words, but there was no reason to refuse Diane. I wouldn't miss my friend’s special day just because I was tired or didn’t feel like going–then I would be a shitty friend for that.

“Okay, okay. Give me a few minutes to get dressed.” I caved in.

Diane squealed in my eyes and clapped her hands together excitedly.

I quickly said my goodbyes to my brother on my phone, and made sure he would give updates to me whenever he could before ending the call.

I looked over to Diane, a very mischievous expression written across her face. “Oh, we’re going to make you look so hot tonight.”

I rolled my eyes before she dragged me towards my closet, raiding it without asking, and began looking for something to wear. She had suggested a few dresses–which I forgot I owned–and I quickly shut it down, saying they were too revealing for the occasion.

As Diane was working through my wardrobe, I was lost in my own thoughts as I couldn’t help but revisit what Simon had said earlier: Just making sure Hughes has zero chances with you.

I thought about it for a brief moment.

And I wasn’t sure if I could say that was still true.

Diane and I agreed if this was the night we were getting absolutely fucked up, there was no way in hell either of us were driving.

It might’ve been the smartest decision we made tonight.

The Uber ride to The Inferno mostly consisted with Diane’s excitement, her voice buzzing with anticipation. Majority of the time I just nodded along, my mind was too preoccupied with what the rest of the night could spiral into. And they weren't necessarily good things.

I should’ve known better than to let Diane pick my outfit. The moment we stepped out of the car, a gust of wind sent a shiver down my spine, and I tugged at the material of my thin dress. I regretted my decision entirely.

The city was alive, buzzing with the kind of energy that only a Saturday night could bring. Bright neon lights glowed, illuminating the crowded streets as groups of people filed into nightclubs and bars, so eager to drown themselves the only way they knew how–in alcohol and music.

The Inferno stood center of it all, one of the hottest new clubs in downtown Vancouver. Its name alone promised chaos. I would know, considering this wasn’t my first rodeo here.

The line outside stretched far, but Diane barely seemed to notice.

She bounced on her heels, gripping my arm ever so tightly. “This is going to be the best night ever.”

I wasn’t so sure of that.

Once the bouncer checked our IDs and waved us through, we walked down a long hallway leading to the main doors. With each step, the pulse of music grew stronger and stronger, vibrating through my bones.

As soon as we stepped inside, we were hit with an explosion of sound and light.

The Inferno was infamous for its massive, open-concept that it was hard to believe a nightclub like this existed–that you would only find in the lively cities like Vegas or Florida.

There were two sleek bars on either side, a second-floor balcony overlooking the entire club, and the center filled with booths and couches for those who wanted a more chillaxing scene–to escape the chaos.

The real action, though, was further back, where the dance floor stretched beneath flashing strobes and a DJ booth commanded the large crowd of people.

Diane’s fingers wrapped around my wrist as she dragged me straight to the bar. “First round’s on me!” she shouted over the blaring music.

I slid into one of the empty stools next to her, my gaze flicking across the sea of people. There were way more bodies packed in here than the last time we came. The heat, the scent of booze mixed with expensive cologne and perfume–it was intoxicating and overwhelming all at once.

“Don’t you think there are more people here than last time?” I asked, shifting on my seat uncomfortably.

Diane barely glanced around before dismissing my concern with a shrug. “I don’t think so. Seems about the same to me.”

Of course she’d say that. Diane didn’t have a care in the world right now–she just wanted to get shitfaced.

She wouldn’t let me ever stop her from doing so, especially when she turned to the bartender, and ordered two shots. He sent down the glasses, I immediately recognized the bottle he began pouring in front of us.

“Tequila?” I winced. “We won’t make it home in one piece, Di.”

Diane rolled her eyes, lifting her shot glass. “Syd, it’s my birthday today. So for the love of God, take the shot.”

She glared at me, waiting. I hesitated, glancing down at the golden liquid.

I thought about it. Taking this shot would be the beginning of a very, very bad–or possibly great–decision. Either way, there was no turning back. It’s my friend’s birthday after all. Don’t ruin it for her.

With a sigh, I clinked my glass against hers. “Cheers to turning twenty-four.”

We downed the shots in one go, the burn racing down my throat. I hissed, shaking my head. “I forgot how much I hated this.”

Diane only laughed, knowing what we both got ourselves into. She tapped the counter for another round. “It’s going to be a long night, Syd. I hope you’re ready for it.”

I was definitely not ready.

By the time we hit our fourth–or was it fifth?–I could feel the alcohol settling in my system, warm and intoxicating. My limbs were lighter, my movements became more sluggish, and my heartbeat thundered faster.

I thought I had a higher tolerance for booze, I didn’t remember being this much of a lightweight. And soon enough, five shots turned into eight and I was starting to feel incredibly drunk.

Diane, naturally, was in her element, feeding off the energy of the club, throwing back drinks like water. At some point, we found a group of strangers to drink with, all of them laughing and clinking glasses as I raised mine–very out of character for me to do so.

“Everyone, it’s my best friend Diane’s birthday today!” I shouted, my voice louder than I intended at the group circling us by the bar. “I want everyone here to wish her a happy birthday!”

“Happy birthday Diane!” The group cheered, and we all easily tipped back another shot.

Moments have gone by as I chatted with a few girls by the bar, while slipping in another glass.

Until a familiar song blasted through the speakers, and my eyes lit up. My body reacted a lot faster before my brain had even processed it–I wanted to dance.

I turned to Diane, only to find her head resting on the bar’s counter, her eyes barely open.

“Diane, I love this song! Come dance with me, please?” I shook her shoulder, trying to get her to move.

She groaned, lifting her head just enough to meet my gaze. “I’m not really feeling good right now.”

I frowned at her. “But you were the one who said to have fun tonight. That’s what I’m trying to do, silly.”

“I did,” she laughed, though it was much weaker now. “But now that I’m on the fucking verge of throwing up, I think I might tap out.”

I let out a deep sigh, glancing at the packed dance floor. The energy was electrifying, the kind of moment I wouldn’t want to waste. “I’m having such a good time, but it would be even better if you danced with me.”

“And I’m so glad that you are enjoying yourself. I wouldn’t want to be the reason you aren’t.” Diane gave me a sleepy smile. “I’ll watch you from here. Now, go dance–I know you love this song.”

I hesitated, giving her a look before nodding anyways. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t miss this song for the world.

“Okay, but don’t die.”

“No promises.”

She sent me off, shooing me away from her as I weaved through the crowd. I found my way to the center of the dance floor, singing–more like screaming from the top of our lungs–with a few girls surrounding me to the song Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado.

The beat pulsed beneath my feet, and I let myself go, moving fluidly and effortlessly with the music–like there was nobody else in the room. My body swayed, arms raised, my hair swinging side to side as I lost myself in the moment.

It felt good, better than I had in a long while.

Then a pair of hands landed on my hips.

I froze instantly. Then I turned my head just enough to see a man. Tall, smirking, and too fucking close.

“Hey, get your hands off me!” I stepped away from him.

He leaned in closer, voice smooth. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You looked so hot while you were dancing, I’m just trying to have fun here.”

Almost immediately, panic and disgust clawed its way up my spine. “I said, get the fuck away from me! Fucking creep.”

He didn’t listen. His hands reached for me again, and this time–I smacked them away. My eyes flicked to his, only to find his gaze burning through my skull. Oh fuck, he didn’t like that.

I tried to step back, but he followed. The more I moved, the gap between us closed, the smaller my world became as bodies pressed around me. I was starting to feel trapped, my body has never felt more stuck and unable to move.

But then I hit something–no, more like someone. A hard, unmoving chest.

I turned, ready to push away whoever the fuck it was, until my eyes widened when I met his familiar green orbs.

Quinn.

“She said to get the fuck away from her,” his voice was cold and sharp. “And I think it’s best that you do that. Now.”

#quinn hughes #quinn hughes x oc #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes x reader #vancouver canucks #nhl #nhl imagine #jack hughes #luke hughes #qh43

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reality-warp · 3 days ago

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A word from Rella concerning AI, binding and selling fics, and Book 3 of Rávamë's Bane

Hey folks,

I’m treating this post as a bit of a blanket PSA for all those who read my work and follow me here, but I’ll also be copying the message over to AO3 once Book 3 of Rávamë's Bane goes up. Before anyone gets spooked, all is well, I am well, and I’m still happily working on the first 5 chapters of Amabilis Insania. However there are a few glaring subjects that have sprung up in the fandom space that I can’t really ignore. The fanfic community as a whole has changed a lot in the past decade I've been part of it, and given some of the unpleasant stuff I’ve seen going on in just the past year, I wanted to cover some housekeeping points ahead of posting the next RB book.

1.) Please don’t ever bind and sell fanfics. Profiting from fanfiction in any way is completely illegal, and puts the entire community at risk. I’m lucky enough that I’m a relatively small fish in the fanfic pond, so no one has sold bound copies of my story specifically (that I know of). However, I know several folks who have had their work bound and sold without their knowledge, and have had to take their fics down completely to stop it happening (which royally sucks). If you see any fanfics being sold on sites like Etsy, please do report them — they are absolutely not supposed to be there. And if you want a bound copy of a fic for personal use, I'd really encourage you to learn to bind them yourself. There's a tonne of tutorials out there, it’s pretty fun and easy to learn (I picked it up in a couple of weeks) and it doesn’t take as many materials as you’d imagine. Side note: I have made typesets of LM and CM for myself and friends, but honestly, I’m reluctant to share them publicly now given all the above. That said, if you really want a copy of LM or CM for personal use only, you can message me directly on Tumblr and I can maybe look into making a watermarked version to share on request.

2.) In light of the recent news that AO3 was scraped to create a generative AI dataset, I’ve decided I’ll only be posting the final RB book to AO3 from now on. On top of that, all my fics will be restricted to users with AO3 accounts only. I really don’t want to do this as it cuts off guest users from enjoying the story too, but for now it’s the only way to protect my work from being scrapped again. I don’t believe this will be a one-time occurrence given how carelessly AI is being used right now, and I feel very strongly that no one’s work should be used in model training without their consent.

The vast majority of you in my comments, asks and kudos are genuinely wonderful, and I’m so damned grateful that you aren’t a part of the issues above. However, with all that in mind, let me be absolutely clear just for the public record…

!!TRLD: This Is The Important Bit!! You do not, and will never have my consent to: - use any of my writing in generative AI (this includes making AI-generated fanworks, or scraping my fics for training AI models) - bind and sell any of my fanfics (profiting from fanfiction is completely illegal, and puts it at risk for us all) - profit in any way from any of my work that I have publicly shared online (this includes putting my fics on recommendation lists behind paywalls, or selling my fics in the form of typesets or bound copies)

If you do any variation of the above despite knowing the risk it poses to the entire fanfic community, I respectfully hope you spend the rest of your life in clothes that smell damp no matter how much you run them through the dryer.

To the rest of you; a genuine thank you for making the community what it is. And thank you for making the RB comments section specifically such a joyful place to be.

I promise my next post/update will be less grim.

Until then,

Rella x

#rella loves her readers #mine #fanfic #ai #selling fanfics #i really wish I didn't have to post this #ravame's bane trilogy #ravamë's bane #lapsus memoriae #compos mentis #amabilis insania

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greenlings · 3 days ago

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follow up to my last post because ive spent way too long thinking about this since 1-800-gotham suddenly unlocked the batman obsession i had somehow managed to lock up for several years

no one asked for this. but. funny aftg/batfam crossover fics someone else should write so i don't have to

neil's uncle gets into some shit with jason during his red hood days. jason shows up as the red hood and badgers neil about it. (don't ask me the reason i don't know)

andrew had a foster family in crime alley. jason and him met when they were kids. drama ensues when they meet again years later.

jeremy gets dragged to a gala for his family. he ends up meeting the waynes. dick and him really hit it off because they've got some parallels with their characterizations

jeremy can't take jean to his team right away and calls in a favor with dick, or wymack calls in a favor with bruce who he knows and approves of for some reason, and jean ends up getting adopted by the waynes. i kept trying to imagine him with jason but honestly he's a black haired blue-eyed adjacent orphan there was only one man he'd end up with and its bruce. (ive thought way too much on this one to the point it might need a separate post HELP)

dan used to do sex work in gotham's crime alley. she interacts with red hood over a few different periods of time.

jason and kevin bonding over literature and history at some point because they go hand-in-hand

steph, cass, and renee in a room together. that's it. that's the post. i want to see what they'd do when left up to their own devices. we can throw dan in for bonus points

mamma mia plot where kevin can't figure out if wymack or bruce was his dad. hilarity ensues

al ghuls somehow buy jean (and possibly neil and kevin) from the moriyamas. talia takes one look at jean and co and sends them off to gotham with damian. you could probably make an argument for any of them staying with the al ghuls but this is a pretty funny explanation for them getting taken in by the waynes

andrew gets fostered by a family in gotham two, electric boogaloo, but this time it's the waynes. chaos, trauma, and drama ensues depending on when exactly this takes place and what his relationship with aaron is then, if they've even met yet.

the really funny part is that all of these, save for probably the last two, could all happen in the SAME exact fic, just from POVs and different chapters

#all for the game #aftg #kevin day #neil josten #andrew minyard #jean moreau #batman #batfam #bruce wayne #jason todd #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #jeremy knox #david wymack #danielle wilds #talia al ghul

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sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth · 2 days ago

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Are you now or have you ever been (Sam Winchester x female reader)

Fic masterlist

Previous chapter ⏐ Next chapter

Chapter 4 - The Wall

It’s late the next morning when you’re walking down the main street of Lebanon, Sam on one side and a large plastic bag hanging from your hand on the other. In it are a few shirts, pairs of jeans, socks, underwear, toiletries. You’re already wearing a thick winter jacket and a pair of black boots, since you couldn’t stand wearing the too large, worn-out hiking boots that you’ve been wearing for a second longer.

“Zombies?” you ask.

“Real,” Sam replies.

“Dragons?”

“Real,” Sam says, briefly stepping to the side to let an older woman pass. “But they’re not huge scaly snakes, they’re just…guys.” You think for a second, looking at the ground in front of you and you nearly miss the door to the diner, but then you follow Sam in.

“What about,” you say, spotting Dean sitting in a booth farther down, “giant humanoid spiders?” Sam chuckles.

“Not real,” he says, then makes a face, “though there is something called Arachne.” You sigh as you reach the booth and slip in, putting the bag on the bench next to you.

“Do I want to know?” you ask up at Sam before he sits next to you after a moment of hesitation.

“Do you want to know what?” Dean asks, not looking up from his phone.

“Arachne,” Sam explains, adjusting his jacket before he reaches for a menu. Dean looks up, directly at you.

“You don’t wanna know,” he says, looks down again. Sam shakes his head, then pushes the menu towards you.

“Oh, coffee’s fine,” you say as you're taking off your jacket, but Sam frowns at you in that way he does, the way you’ve seen him do several times even though you’ve only known him for a day.

“You must be starving,” he observes, and yes, you are, there is a humongous, uncomfortable hole in your stomach, but it’s only half as big as the hole you just burned into Sam’s wallet by buying all the stuff you did. You went for the cheapest things, everything from the sales rack, but it’s still a considerable purchase. Adding breakfast to that is just a little more than your pride can take.

As if sensing your hesitation, Sam inclines his head towards you.

“You really should eat,” he says.

“Waffles are good,” Dean says, still looking at and typing on his phone. You hesitate for a moment, then reach for the menu.

“I’m gonna totally pay you back,” you say, then quickly add: “No idea how, but I will. I promise.” Sam smiles gently.

“It’s fine, really,” he says.

“Not like it’s our money,” Dean mumbles, then looks up at Sam, as if looking for permission, then at you, before he adds: “Credit card fraud. Victimless crime.” You look from Dean to Sam, who makes a face like he’s trying to say his brother’s not wrong, but he knows how it sounds. An awkward laugh leaves you.

“Guess hunting doesn’t pay,” you say and Sam smiles again, looks down at his own menu. You have just enough time to read the words Fluffy pancakes with bacon and maple syrup and get your mouth salivating, when Dean drops the phone, rubs his hand over his eyes.

“Castiel’s on his way,” he says. “Should be here in a couple of hours.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam asks, and you think he sounds a little worried. Dean seems oblivious to it, throws his brother a pained look.

“He learned how to use emojis,” he says. “Well, he’s using them. Not sure he knows what they mean.” Sam scoffs, then looks back at the menu.

“What’s a… Castiel?” you ask, careful. Sam chuckles while Dean raises his eyebrows.

“Great question,” he mutters in reply.

“He’s a friend of ours,” Sam explains. “An angel.” You nod slowly.

“Right,” you say, “and I’m guessing in this context that doesn’t mean he’s nice to animals and always tips.” Sam smiles before he answers, but then turns serious.

“He can help us find out what happened to you,” he says. “Maybe work on getting your memory back.”

Remembering who you are. It doesn’t sound like a bad thing, even though the concept of another stranger who looks at you like he knows you isn’t too thrilling. Just then the waitress comes over to take your orders.

“Waffles for me,” you say as you pass the menu to her, making Dean wink at you and click his tongue.

Sam finds you in your room – or what he already thinks of as your room – with the door ajar. He still raises his hand to knock when he sees you’re folding your new clothes, putting them into the dresser. His hand stills midair for a second as he watches you, before he remembers himself, raps his knuckles against the door. You look up, smile when you see it’s him.

“You got everything you need?” he asks. You look at your dresser, the clothes still strewn over it.

“I think so,” you reply, then look back at him. “I really am gonna pay you b—”

“You really don’t have to worry about that,” Sam interrupts you and you press your lips together. Sam’s quiet for a second, the normality of the moment making his heart feel like it’s about to burst out of his chest. Then he catches himself.

“I made some more coffee, if you want any,” he says, gesticulating behind him to indicate the kitchen. You nod.

“I think if I have more coffee I’m gonna be climbing the walls,” you say and Sam chuckles. He suppresses the need to point out that you had a tendency to drink coffee late into the day, making you toss and turn and twitch in the night sometimes. He remembers how he would wrap his arm around you to still you and you always promised to never do it again.

Just then, there’s a bang of a metal door closing, and then Dean yelling down the corridor. Sounds like Cas is here.

Sam notices you’re walking next to him until you enter the library, but then slightly drop behind him. It’s an unconscious move, he guesses, but he turns to you anyway.

“It’s okay,” he says and when he turns back, the angel is just walking into the room.

“Dean, Sam,” he says with a smile, and Dean walks up to him, the two hug briefly, before Sam moves up and hugs the shorter man as well. When they separate, he sees Castiel look your way, a softly sweet look on his face as he moves towards you, extends his hand. You take it and he shakes it.

“I know you don’t remember who I am,” Castiel says, “but it is really good to see you.” He extends his other hand and wraps it around yours as well before he lets go. It’s an oddly intimate gesture for him, but Sam finds himself thinking that if anyone understands what it’s like not to know who he is, it’s Castiel.

“Thanks,” you reply, and you don’t seem as freaked out as you could be, which Sam counts as a win.

“So,” you say into the silence, an awkward grin dancing on your lips. “You’re… an angel?” Castiel nods, then extends his arms a little, looks down himself.

“Not quite up to what I used to be,” he replies and you only nod politely, probably no idea what he means.

“Gotta say,” you continue, “I always imagined you guys as fat babies sitting on clouds.” Dean snorts and you look embarrassed, but Castiel smiles kindly.

“Those do exist,” he only says and you look at the floor, maybe to stop yourself from continuing to ramble. Sam could kiss you for it.

There’s a few seconds of quiet, before Castiel speaks again.

“Sam and Dean told you that I would examine you?” he asks and your eyes shoot up, go wide.

“Not examine,” Sam quickly cuts in, taking a step closer. “That sounds completely wrong.” You nod quickly.

“Oh, okay,” you say, voice worried.

“I am gonna need to touch your face,” Castiel adds and Sam raises a hand, shoots Dean, who’s chuckling, a deadly look.

“Making it worse, Cas,” Sam says and the angel closes his mouth.

The guy in the trench coat – Castiel, the angel – sits you down on one of the chairs in the library and then tugs up his sleeves a little.

“You shouldn’t feel anything,” he says and you nod. You’re nervous, because you don’t know what’s going to happen, and the fact that he says you shouldn’t feel anything makes you feel like you will definitely feel something.

Castiel lays the index and middle finger of each hand on your temples. He has an earnest face and looks perpetually worried, even when he’s smiling, but now he closes his eyes, seems to concentrate. You wonder if you should close your eyes too. Surely he would have told you if that was necessary?

There’s a slight pressure, suddenly, as if you’re going through a tunnel, a pop in your ear that makes you blink and then Castiel pulls back his hands, opens his eyes and straightens. He looks at you, what you think is confusion washing over his face.

“Anything?” you hear Sam ask and you look over at him. He’s been sweet and positive all day, but you could sense him getting nervous once the angel arrived. Funny, you think. You barely know him but already you feel like you can read him like a book. It helps that he seems to wear every feeling or emotion on his face, unable to hide any of it.

Dean, on the other hand, has been somewhat quiet ever since last night. You wonder if he thinks you left because of what he said over dinner, about your mother. You hope you didn’t make him feel like he needs to walk on eggshells around you. Maybe you need to talk to him.

Castiel sighs, shakes his head a little.

“Someone has definitely tempered with her memories,” he says, and then slightly turns to Sam. “There’s a… a wall.” You watch as Sam’s raised eyebrows drop and he clenches his jaw. Whatever Castiel just mentioned means something to him. It means nothing to you.

“A wall?” you ask, trying to draw Castiel’s attention back to you. If he knows what’s going on with you, you want to know too.

“Yes,” he says, focusing back on you. “There’s a wall between your consciousness and your memories of Hell.” He shakes his head again, looks almost pained. “But it’s too high. A construct like this can hide specific memories, but the fact that you don’t remember anything…” He tapers off and you wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t.

“So can’t you just get rid of it?” you ask, and whatever it is that you said makes the three men shift, all of them tensing a little. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so unnerving.

“Someone had to build this wall,” Castiel explains, talking slowly, and you’re not sure if he’s doing it to make sure you can keep up or if that is just how he talks. “I can only guess at their motivation, but they did it for a reason.” You blink at him, still not understanding. It’s Dean who speaks up, though.

“The memories from Hell,” he says. “Remembering the kind of stuff that happened to you there, it can have…consequences.” His gaze flicks towards you, then away again. “The human mind isn’t really made to deal with that kind of stuff.”

Oh, you think. You haven’t really given much thought to what the brothers revealed to you, that you’ve been to Hell. The idea is too abstract, too otherworldly to even consider it. But yeah, it’s probably not a cakewalk, now that you think about it. Hellfire, eternal damnation. You frown at your own thoughts.

“So what, it just stays up?” you ask, feeling the edges of desperation claw at the thought that you will just remain the way you are, not knowing anyone or anything.

“Unless you scratch at it too much,” Sam says. He has his arms crossed in front of his chest, head lowered but is looking at you. “That’s what I did. It… didn’t end well.” You think about what he says for a second, barely noticing the shameful look Castiel throws at the floor, and you’re about to ask what exactly he means, before your mind catches on something else.

“Wait,” you say, blinking. “Does that mean you’ve been to Hell too?” Sam presses his lips together, then nods and a second later, Dean raises his hand to indicate that he, too, has spent time there. You look up at Castiel from where you’re sitting and he looks a little bashful.

“I spent a year in Purgatory,” he says and you can’t help the slightly unhinged chuckle leaving you.

“There I go thinking I was special,” you mumble. What in the world are these people you’ve ended up with? Is this really who you spent your days with, lived with? These broken, traumatized people, and you chief among them?

Dean steps forward, dragging you from your thoughts.

“So what do we know that can pull someone out of Hell and build mind walls?” he asks, looking between Castiel and Sam.

“Death, of course,” Castiel says, and his face is serious. “And there’s only one other creature that can do both of these things.” You frown up at him, and he turns back to you.

“An angel.”

Gadreel expects the Winchesters to find you but not as quickly as they do. He’s mildly impressed before he wonders if it might be sheer dumb luck. It doesn’t matter, though. You’re back with them, which is what he wanted.

He follows you to Kansas, always keeping his distance. The brothers are good hunters, and it wouldn’t do that they discover him on their trail. Seeing the bunker again, even from the outside, makes him clench his jaw and squeeze his hand into a fist. He doesn’t like to remember what happened here. It fills him with shame.

He is about to leave when he sees you walk out of the bunker again. He stops, watches. He sees Sam, standing behind you, worried look on his face, the only one he seems to wear these days, but then Sam goes inside and leaves you. Gadreel doesn’t understand, doesn’t like that you are standing out there, still in the clothes he brought you, arms wrapped around you, shivering against the wind.

When you start walking, he follows, keeps lots of distance between the two of you. You make it into town, and Gadreel can see you are shaking from the cold, the tip of your nose turning red.

Why would Sam let you leave? Let you walk away into the winter afternoon? Gadreel’s never been cold, but he’s heard it’s very uncomfortable. Sam is supposed to look after you. Did Gadreel fundamentally misunderstand something here?

When you sit at the bus station, you look around like a scared child. You read the names on the buses coming in and every single one of them seems to confuse and upset you more. This wasn’t what he had in mind when he carried you out into that field, laid you on the ground. He expected you to be taken care of.

He almost does it then, almost walks up to you. Offers you his jacket, maybe gets one of the steaming drinks the people around you are holding in their hands. He has just about made up his mind when a car pulls up and he sees Sam behind the steering wheel.

So Gadreel watches while Sam walks up to you, approaches you like one would approach a skittish animal. Eventually, you leave with him. Good, Gadreel thinks. He’s happy. This is a good thing.

He turns and leaves. You’re safe now.

You grab a book from one of the shelves and sit with it, scanning the pages, shaking your head and frowning every few minutes. Sam watches you, which is why he misses whatever Dean says to him.

“Sam,” his older brother says and drags him from his thoughts. Sam turns to see Dean and Castiel looking at him expectantly.

“Did you hear what Cas said?” Dean asks, reproachfully, like he’s never not listened to anyone in his entire life. Castiel is kinder, and when he sees Sam was, in fact, not listening, he repeats himself.

“The wall is sturdy,” he says, looking between the brothers. “A convenient side effect of it being built so high. It’s unlikely to crumble easily, so I don’t think it’s dangerous for her to stay with you two.” Sam nods.

“Good,” he says, no emotion in his voice. It is good. He doesn’t know what he would have done if keeping you around would have risked breaking the wall. He wants you to remember yourself, your life, him. But whoever built that wall might have saved you. And if it’s between being around you or risk you going mad from the memories of the torture you experienced, Sam wouldn’t hesitate for a second to stay as far away from you as possible. So it’s good, that the wall is sturdy, that you can be around Sam and Dean without constant risk of destroying it. It means he can keep an eye on you.

It also means you’ll never remember him. Will never remember the days and nights you spent together, the life you shared. Will never remember how once, years ago, long before what you had turned from friendship into love, you made him pinkie promise that the two of you would always talk to each other, would always be there for each other. That you would be each other’s person to share all the darkness with, so you wouldn’t have to carry it on your own.

It has to be enough, Sam tells himself, that you’re alive and well. It has to be. He feels like a real piece of shit for the tug of sadness he feels in his chest despite these good news.

You look up then, almost as if you can tell he’s thinking about you. You scratch at your nose before you clear your throat.

“I don’t know if anyone ever told you guys this,” you say, “but it’s rude to talk about someone like they’re not there.” Sam scoffs, opens his mouth to answer, but Dean’s quicker.

“Don’t worry, okay?” he says. “Just figuring out the small print.” Sam’s eyes shoot over at his brother, anger immediately boiling in his chest. It’s not a lie, not really, but it comes so naturally to Dean, to want to keep you out of the discussion of your own well-being, to give you only half the picture.

Just like you’re doing, Sam catches himself thinking. Just like he’s only telling you half the truth, hiding what you were to each other. He’ll need to tell you, at some point. He will. He just wants you to get settled first, experience some sense of normality before ripping it from you again.

“Castiel says it’s safe for you to stay here,” Sam explains, not missing the sideways look he gets from Dean for undermining what he said just a second ago. “It’s not going to affect the wall.” You nod, face thoughtful, like you’re trying to keep up.

“Okay, that’s cool,” you say, then shrug as a small smile spreads over your face. “Cause this place isn’t half bad if you, you know, have absolutely nowhere else to go.”

And just the way you used to, while the words themselves are a little biting, you manage to say it in a way that’s kind. Manage to take the venom out of any uncomfortable facts, make it softer. It’s why you were always good with witnesses. You managed to confront them with the truth while catching them when they fell.

“Cas,” Sam says, breaking himself out of his thoughts and turning to the angel. “Any traces left that might tell us who did this?” Castiel manages to incline his head before Dean steps in.

“Why do you care, man?” he asks, looking at Sam. “What good is it gonna do to find who did this?” Sam raises his hands in incredulity.

“We need to know who it was,” he replies, voice challenging. “If someone’s pulling souls from Hell, we need to know what is going on. And did you forget what Crowley said? About coming to collect?” Dean actually rolls his eyes.

“Forget about Crowley,” he replies. “The mopey bastard’s just talking out of his ass, he’s not gonna do anything. He’s too busy feeling his feelings.” Sam can’t help but scoff, earning him a mean look from Dean.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, not sorry at all, “but showing up and possessing half a town worth of people doesn’t exactly make me think he’s just gonna forget about this.” Dean opens his mouth, then closes it again. He looks away, a humorless smile going over his face.

“You know what?” he says, looking at Sam again. “You wanna find who did this, go right ahead. But it’s poking the bear, if you ask me.” With that, Dean walks out of the library towards the kitchen. Sam looks after him before he notices the awkward silence left behind by his brother. He quickly looks at you, who’s studying him wide-eyed, and then at Castiel, that ever knowing look on his face.

“I’ll be right back,” Sam mumbles, and leaves the room after Dean. You slowly let the breath you’ve been holding out between your lips as Castiel turns to you.

“Don’t take it personally,” Castiel says, stepping closer to you, laying his hands on the back of the chair opposite you. “They are… going through something.” You nod slowly.

“Yeah, I kind of got that,” you reply, looking after Sam. Then you turn back to the angel. “What happened?” Castiel thinks about not telling you, but the truth is, if you are going to live here with Sam and Dean, you deserve to know. He pulls out the chair and with a deep sigh sits in it.

“Sam was unwell,” Castiel explains in that slow, considerate way he has. “He was dying. And Dean allowed an angel called Gadreel to possess him to save his life, but he kept it from Sam.” You frown, trying to wrap your head around what the man in front of you is telling you.

“So there was someone else living inside of him?” you ask, trying to put the pieces together with what little you know about this world. “Like a stowaway?” Castiel tilts his head.

“That is actually a perfect description of it,” he says and his heart warms when he sees you smile a proud smile.

“But,” he continues, “things went wrong. People died. The angel killed a young man named Kevin Tran. He was a friend.” Castiel now wears a sad expression on his face.

“And he did that… using Sam’s body? This Gadreel guy?” you conclude and Castiel nods. You take a deep breath. “Jesus. That's terrible.”

The two of you sit there in silence for a moment, while both of you think, Castiel about the boy who died and you about another puzzle piece that you have just collected. You’re staring into the middle distance when you speak again.

“Why would anyone want to live like this?” you ask, voice far away, but Castiel looks up at you. You blink, return the look. “I mean, everything I’ve heard… torture, death, pain. It all sounds…” You don’t need to finish saying what it sounds like.

Castiel leans forward on both arms, hands interlocking on the table while he searches your face.

“There are good things, too,” he says, and he’s not sure if he’s trying to convince you or himself. With the angel factions fighting each other right now, it’s hard to see the silver lining, as Dean would say. But Castiel believes thoroughly in the good in things. The good in you.

“There are countless people you’ve helped,” he says, and you look away from him, almost embarrassed at this fact you don’t remember. “Lives you’ve changed, for the better. Sam and Dean, they were born into this life, but you chose it. You saw that good needed to be done, and you did it.” Castiel smiles sadly at you. “You gave your life to make sure that Sam could keep fighting. That is incredibly brave.”

You need to swallow. You look down at the table, blink, hoping to control your expression. You didn’t know. Chewing on your lip, you look back at Castiel.

“I don’t feel particularly brave right now,” you say and Castiel can see the tears in your eyes, the slight flare of your nostrils that tells him you are holding back tears.

“Maybe you don’t,” he says, “but you are.”

Sam is sitting in the library, book opened before him but his eyes are only scanning the page, he’s not really reading.

Castiel left a few hours ago. He has his own battles to fight right now. Dean’s locked himself in his room to sulk and you went to bed. Sam saw what the day took out of you. You were quiet when he returned to the library, after barely avoiding a shouting match with Dean in the kitchen.

He can’t seem to shut his brain up, so he does what he always does. Settle down, laptop and books close by, focus on something he can solve, something he can do. Like trying to find clues about who brought you back.

But tonight, he can’t concentrate. His thoughts keep going back to you. Almost compulsively he goes over everything you’ve said, everything you’ve done. The way you move, the way you look at him or at others. He realizes he’s trying to absorb all of it, like he still expects you to disappear again any second.

Sam looks up when he hears soft footsteps, and at the sight of you he smiles.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks and you return the smile, carefully.

“Yeah,” you reply. “There’s so much going on. I just can’t stop my thoughts from racing.” Sam leans back in his chair, tries to act casual like you standing there now doesn’t feel like you’ve walked right out of his head into the room.

“You want some tea? That might help,” he asks.

You stop a few feet away from him, hands interlocked in front of you, looking unsure. It’s interesting. Sam doesn’t remember many times of ever seeing you unsure or insecure. You seem to be thinking about his offer.

“Would I…” you start, then continue: “Would I usually drink tea? To fall asleep?” Sam can’t help but chuckle at your question and at himself a little bit.

“No, you weren’t much of a tea drinker,” he responds.

“What would I drink?” you ask, voice curious. Sam tilts his head.

“Whiskey, maybe,” he replies, making you nod.

“Can I have that then?” you ask. Sam smiles back at you, at your careful probing at yourself.

“Of course,” he replies. He gets up, walks over to the bar cart and pours you a drink. Behind him, he can hear you pull out one of the chairs and sit down. He turns, and you’re watching him. It’s striking to see you sitting there. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

He’s just putting down the tumbler when you speak up.

“Join me?” you ask and when Sam looks back at you, you’re studying him carefully. Sam nods, then picks up the tumbler again, pours a second glass. He takes both, walks back to the table.

“Here you go,” he says as he passes you the glass, then sits down in the chair he just vacated. You thank him with a nod, then bring the glass up to your nose. Smell it before taking a careful sip. Sam does the same.

“Definitely better than tea,” you conclude when you lower the glass and Sam breathes a laugh through his nose. You point at the mess of papers and books before him. “What are you reading?” Sam looks at the table, takes a deep breath and sighs.

“Records of people coming back from Hell,” he says. “Maybe find some clues about what happened.” When he looks back at you, he’s surprised to see you looking at him again. Watching him like you’re trying to make sense of something.

“Can I ask you something?” you say.

“Of course,” Sam responds, confused by your serious tone.

“And I want you to be honest with me,” you say and Sam nods. You look away before you continue, as if you’re unsure how to say what you want to say, or need to build up the courage. When your eyes finally land on Sam again, there’s an intensity in them that nearly takes his breath away.

“Did I die to save your life?” you ask and Sam feels a wave of cold go over him. He looks down, and a second wave, this one of shame, goes through him. Shame that he was caught in this lie, when he had every intention to tell you the truth at some point.

“Dean or Cas?” he asks before looking back at you.

“Castiel,” you answer, then quickly add: “He didn’t say it on purpose. He was being really sweet, actually, and just sort of… mentioned it.” Sam nods at your words.

“Yes,” he finally says, and despite the fact that you’re sitting in front of him, the pain of talking about it, of remembering what you did is overwhelming. “You sold your soul so that I wouldn’t go crazy from my memories of Hell.” He hears you inhale as you digest this information. You’re quiet for a minute and Sam doesn’t continue, lets you take the information as it comes. But then you speak up again.

“Sam,” you say, and your voice is impossibly soft. “Were we in love?”

Sam looks at you, his heart going a hundred miles an hour. Your expression is attentive, if maybe a little nervous. He needs to swallow before he can even think about answering.

“Yes,” he more breathes than says. He watches you take in his answer.

“And were we… together?” you ask and Sam needs to force himself to nod. If this is too quick, if this is the moment all of this becomes too much for you, he will never forgive himself.

“Yes,” he says again, quietly. You blink, gaze moving from him to the table while you breathe in and out slowly. It’s out there now, and Sam has no idea if that’s good or bad, but then you look back at him, your gaze going over his face as if you’re trying to look for something. Like you’re trying to remember him. Then you look into his eyes and Sam returns your gaze while the two of you simply sit there for a moment.

All too soon you look away, lean back in your chair. You take another sip of your drink, press your lips together.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you ask then.

“Because I didn’t want to freak you out,” Sam admits, looking at the amber liquid in his glass. “You just came back, all of this is new to you, I thought knowing that we were… that to each other would… I thought it would make you uncomfortable.”

And that word, uncomfortable, is so clear in its meaning that Sam can’t help but think of the two of you together, his hand brushing your hair out of your face when you leaned in to touch your face to his, or the same hand resting high on your chest when you lay next to each other, still naked and out of breath and Sam couldn’t help but look at you, stare at you. You’d giggle at him, tell him to stop being a weirdo but always pulled him in for a kiss after. How difficult it was for you to be seen like that, have him watch you. Like you couldn’t combine what he saw with what you saw in yourself.

You nod your understanding, but there seem to be more questions on your mind.

“Were we…” you start, then pivot. “Was it serious, what we had? I mean…” You shrug, the right words escaping you. Where on the relationship spectrum does sacrifice life for each other fall?

“Yes,” Sam replies, but he also needs to correct himself, because that answer does not cover half of what it was you were to each other. “But it was so much more than that… It was everything…”

Sam stops himself, looks back at you. He wants to tell you, wants you to know what you mean to him but if the plan was not to freak you out, he’s failing horribly at it. But you need to know the truth, so he pushes forward.

“You were everything to me,” he says, and you look shy at his admission, but not freaked out. Curious, maybe.

“This must be really hard for you,” you reply, and it’s not what Sam expected at all. He frowns at you, and you elaborate. “Me not remembering, I mean.” The fact that you would even consider this makes Sam feel a lump in his throat.

“No, it’s…” he continues, shakes his head at himself. “I mean, it is what it is. You were dead. I thought I lost you forever.” He takes a quick breath, steals himself. “And now you’re here. And even if you don’t remember anything, I’m so happy you are.”

You actually look surprised at that. At the fact that Sam could simply be happy to have you back. But it’s the truth, no matter how much the rest of it hurts. Emboldened by your reaction Sam continues, finishes his thought.

“Because just having you around again,” he concludes, “it changes everything.”

“Wow,” you say after a few seconds. “I think I get it.” Sam blinks at you.

“Get what?” he asks. You look shy for a second before you push yourself to continue.

“Why I was in love with you,” you say, a small placating smile on your face. Sam’s heart sings. He can’t help it. When your face turns serious again, he sits up a little to show you he’s listening.

“For all of this to work,” you say and Sam listens intently, “for me to… be here, I need you to be honest with me.” Sam nods like an eager student willing to do anything to get out of trouble.

“Of course,” he says. “I promise.”

“And one more thing,” you add and Sam will say yes to anything, he doesn’t care, just so long as you stay around.

“I want to learn how to hunt.”

#supernatural #spn #fanfic #sam winchester #gadreel #spn fanfic #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester x you #gadreel x reader #gadreel x you #are you now or have you ever been #aynohyeb

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olivevermore · 3 days ago

Text

I'm working on a longer Outsiders fic and will probably only start posting in earnest once it's almost complete. That said, here's chapter 1, hmu if you have thoughts, opinions, ideas, hcs, etc

Fic summary: The Curtis parents die when Darry is 17, Soda is 13, and Ponyboy is 11. They get split up by the foster care system and Darry fights to get them back when he turns 18.

Chapter 1

It all happened so fast. Darry had thought that catastrophic bad news would make time feel slower, but instead it seemed as though time had rushed on without him.

He was wearing a worn blue tshirt when the cops came. Even now, Darry could recall the feeling of the fabric. He’d planned on asking his mother how to stich up the rip in the seam. Now he never would. When he heard the knock at the front door, he’d been wondering how long he could use his birthday as an excuse to avoid doing the dishes. Then everything had begun to move too quickly.

His parents were gone, they said. As the oldest of the remaining family, he was needed to identify the bodies. He had seen a body before, but it was different seeing his parents like that. He still felt frozen when he told his brothers, Soda dissolving into tears while Ponyboy glanced between the cops and his brothers, confused. Darry thought he’d hugged them, but maybe he imagined that to make himself feel better. Social services had arrived before dawn of the next morning, though Darry couldn’t pinpoint the time any better than that.

The boys each packed a bag quickly. Soda cried the whole time. By the time they had finished packing, Ponyboy was in tears as well. Darry did his best to make sure they each had everything they would need, though he was sure he’d forgotten something. The social worker drove the three brothers to a bleak building and left them waiting in a room with a few chairs and ugly carpet. A woman brought muffins in at some point, but they were left untouched.

For the past several months, Ponyboy had been trying to convince his brothers and their friends that he was tough like them. But sitting in the sterile room, he gave up all pretense and fell asleep with his head in his oldest brother’s lap, curled on his side. Darry sat quietly, running his hand in circles on Pony’s back in a fumbling imitation of his parents. His other hand held tightly to Soda’s, as the thirteen year old huddled in the chair on his left, having cried himself to sleep.

The social worker returned, informing the boys as they rubbed at their eyes, that emergency placements had been found for each of them. She said they would be separated as none of the families on the emergency list could handle more than one person at a time. This supposedly meant they might end up together when they were placed more permanently, but in the game of life, the boys were dealt a bad hand.

Darry would remain local, while Sodapop and Ponyboy would be roughly a thirty minute drive away in opposite directions. The boys were given a few minutes to say goodbye to each other before the younger two each left for their new homes. Darry was led to an office where he filled paperwork to accept government management of the property until his eighteenth birthday and to start making arrangements for the funeral.

The seventeen year old stared out the car window, watching the buildings glide by, picking over his memories of the last few days. He’d been arguing that he should be allowed to drive himself to a party at the house of a teammate while his parents had discouraged the notion saying he was too inexperienced of a driver to be driving late, especially not if he drank. At the time, he felt underestimated, but now, he found himself feeling more and more helpless. If he could go back to that night now, he wouldn’t be mad at his parents. He wouldn’t yell at them or call them strict. He would welcome the opportunity to spend the night with his family, eating popcorn and watching I Love Lucy reruns while they added their own narration and jokes. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have sulked for so long in his room and he wouldn’t have taken half an episode to join into the jokes.

True to her word, the social worker stopped the car at a house only a few streets away from the Curtis house. The house didn’t look too bad. The paint was peeling and the porch was slightly warped with water damage, but that wasn’t uncommon among houses on the East side. Darrel climbed out of the car, following the social worker up the walk. His anxiety rose higher as they waited. The door opened and the boy found himself looking at a middle aged woman, her hair swept away from her face and wrinkles around her eyes, already smiling at him.

“Ah, you must be Darrel Curtis! Come in, dear,” The woman stepped back to open the door further, “Ms Williams, it’s good to see you. Why don’t you both come into the kitchen, I’ve got water on for tea.”

“I’m afraid I can only stay long enough to get Darrel here settled, I do have other children to check in on. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs Connors.” Ms Williams said apologetically.

The older woman waved her away. “No need to worry, dear. I understand. Thank you for bringing the boy. You’ll be here next week, won’t you?”

Ms Williams nodded, “I should be back on Wednesday with an update on the future placement situation.” She turned toward Darry. “Darrel, I’ll leave you my number in case anything comes up. Is there anything you need from me now?”

The boy shifted his grip on his backpack strap. “Is there any way I can get in contact with my brothers?”

The woman’s gaze softened. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about that right now, but I can probably pass along a message if you have anything you want me to tell them? Or I could take a letter the next time I'm here if you want some time to think about it.”

Darry agreed to have a letter ready then and the social worker disappeared down the walk.

The front door closed. The sound felt so final, so unlike the casual coming and going of everyday life.

“Well, let’s get you situated, Darrel. Your room will be upstairs.” Mrs Connors led him upstairs to the room before returning to the kitchen to give him space while he organized his things.

Darry unpacked his few belongings quickly. He had chosen his clothing in a rush, but he’d remembered to pack a few extra belongings, including a book he’d been reading recently, as well as a notebook and a few pens. As he moved to set the notebook beside the bed, he thought better of it and flipped the notebook open, searching for a page from a few months earlier.

Just before the beginning of the schoolyear, the whole family had taken a trip to a quiet strip of the Arkansas River. They’d packed fishing equipment and swimsuits and a full spread for lunch. Ponyboy had only recently turned 11 and had attempted to fish without any luck. Finally, he had quit and left to find entertainment elsewhere. Quickly realizing he hadn’t brought any sort of activity along with them, he then sat sulking near the supplies they’d brought along. Eventually, Darry had thought to offer Pony his notebook, letting him use a few pages to draw.

Looking over the pictures six months later, Darry was thankful he’d offered it up. Pony had drawn each family member on their own, though Darry knew they’d stuck close to each other for most of the day. Despite his age, the younger boy had managed to communicate the identities of each person. Darry wished his younger brother had thought to draw a self portrait. He wished they hadn’t been separated so he wouldn’t need to rely on a 11 year old’s drawing to remember the faces of his closest family members.

His gaze drifted to the pictures of his parents and his mind quickly recalled the last time he‘d seen them alive, watching them leave, smiling, promising to be home before the boys finished the game they were playing. The door had closed, and Soda had suggested they hurry and finish the game, in order to tease their parents over how long they’d been gone. Darry laughed and told his brother that they didn’t have to actually finish the game, they’d simply clean everything up when they saw the car pull into the driveway. Ponyboy claimed it would be lying and Darry reassured him that lying didn’t count when it was for a joke.

It didn’t seem so funny now. Though now he wished he’d gotten the opportunity to at least make the joke. Their parents would have laughed all the same. It didn’t matter if it was a dumb trick or that Pony would probably have ruined it by admitting what they’d done immediately. He simply wished they were still all together.

Darry wiped at his eyes and moved to go back downstairs. He made it to the top of the stairs before he registered voices and paused.

“-upstairs. Obviously shaken, the poor dear.” Mrs Connors.

“Should I check on him, you think?” A man’s voice. Mr Connors, Darry assumed.

“You needn’t bother. Dinner’ll be ready before long, we can call him then. Chances are, he’ll be down soon enough either way.”

Darry took a deep breath before making his way downstairs.

The older couple turned towards the doorway in synchronization as Darry stepped into view.

“Oh, Darrel, this is my husband, George.”

Darry shook hands with the man.

“Terribly sorry about what’s happened, young man.”

Darry nodded, unsure of what to say.

“Why don’t we get you some supper...”

Darry shifted. “Um, I hope you wouldn’t mind excusing me. I’m afraid I don’t feel like eating and I’m not very good company.”

“Oh, honey, I understand. Is there anything I can get for you?” Mrs Connors inquired.

“Could I possibly get the phone number so I can let my brothers know how to contact me?”

“Oh, certainly, dear. George can get that for you right now,” her husband shuffled out of the room, “and I’ll get you a plate of chicken and rice to take with you, and you can eat later if you feel up to it.”

Darry thanked her and returned upstairs with a plate and a phone number. He sat on the bed, making notes of what to say to his brothers before drafting a full letter to each of them.

Hours later, Darry set aside the papers and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. He hoped his brothers were okay.

#the outsiders #ao3 #the outsiders 1983 #the outsiders movie #ao3 writer #darry curtis #olive's outsiders fic #ponyboy curtis #sodapop curtis #writing #the curtis brothers #ponyboy michael curtis #darrel curtis #steve randle #two bit matthews #two bit mathews

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lagunaseca2013 · 2 months ago

Note

how does pecco tell his parents that he's pregnant in the teen pregnancy au? how awkward is the eventual valentino safe sex talk for both luca and pecco? Do they eventually have another kid way later in life luca unintentionally having kids that have the same age gap as him and valentino?

hi anon! this ask honestly got me to open a google doc for this thing which is more than I can say for half the wips I’ve talked about here lmao. as always things kind of got away from me so I hope I’ve answered your questions but tbh I feverishly wrote half of this in the actual tumblr app bc I was so inspired so. apologies if it’s not that good! but cheers <3

—

“Pecco?” Carola picks up on the fourth ring of his ninth attempted call. She sounds groggy and confused, like she’s just woken up, probably because— “It’s four AM,” she groans, “you just woke me up. What’s wrong?”

Pecco swallows against the lump in his throat, the words getting stuck in his mouth. He can’t think of a single thing to say, though he’d spent the entire five-hour drive to Turin agonizing about it. In his defense, he couldn’t really do his best thinking when he kept having to pull over to throw up. Most of the time he wasn’t dry heaving on the side of the road, he’d spent going 200kph and trying not to have a panic attack.

He’s breathing heavily, trying desperately not to burst into tears again. Pecco knows if he’s silent for much longer, Carola will either hang up or call the firing squad, the best big sister ever, even if his skin is crawling, just thinking about facing her right now. In his. . . .state.

“I’m outside,” he croaks, finally, his voice sore from disuse and crying and, god, so much throwing up. “But I forgot to bring my keys.”

Carola is silent for a moment, but he can hear her taking slow, steady breaths through the crackle of the line. “Stay there, I have to turn off the alarm for the gate.”

—

His mama nearly has an aneurysm when he slinks down the stairs, late in the morning. He’d slept tucked into the corner between Carola’s bed and the wall like he hadn’t since—well, probably before he moved to Pesaro. Or hit puberty, whichever came first. After his sister had tugged the explanation out of him, she’d refused to let him go to sleep alone. They'd huddled together under her soft floral sheets and she’d pressed a curious hand to the slight swell of his belly that he couldn’t even really look at without getting nauseous, an expression of wonder on her face that he hadn’t yet encountered from anyone who knew about the—

“Francesco!” His mama interrupts his downward spiral, pressing two warm hands against his cheeks. “Is that Valentino not feeding you properly? You have to come sit down and eat, eat piccolo! You’ve gotten too thin!”

For once, his stomach doesn’t rebel at the plate of brioche, and his mom happily flits around the kitchen tidying up in the way she does when she’s trying to figure out how to approach a conversation. She frowns when he pushes away the espresso she’d left for him, and asks for warm milk, but carefully hasn’t asked him what the hell he’s doing here, why he hadn’t told them he was coming home. Why he’d shown up in the middle of the night and couldn’t bring himself to face her. Since he was little, Pecco has always been. . . .different, when it came to emotional matters, and his mama had learned long ago to let him come to her when he was ready.

Pecco doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready for the conversation they’re about to have. In fact, he barely gets down half a slice of bread before he’s running to the bathroom, hacking it all back up, the thing inside him rejecting it all anyway. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until his mama pulls him in, rubbing soothing circles into his back and reaching up to brush tears off his cheek. “Oh, bambino,” she sighs, heavy with concern. “What’s going on?”

—

He’d insisted on waiting for his papa and Carola to return, mostly because he was pretty sure he was only going to be able to handle the conversation once, and he really needed his sister’s support to even attempt it. His mama had fussed over him for the rest of the day, forcing him back into bed with bowls of broth he’d thankfully been able to keep down. She’d even taken his temperature, humming thoughtfully when it was perfectly normal, though Pecco thought, uncomfortably, that they both sort-of knew he wasn’t that kind of sick.

Unfortunately, crushing Carola’s hands like a lifeline and staring back at his deeply concerned parents, it feels even worse than he’d imagined.

His papa is the first to break the silence. “Francesco,” he says, slowly, like he’s afraid Pecco might bolt if he’s too loud. “What’s wrong, piccolo?”

Pecco swallows hard, his fingers trembling where they grip Carola’s. He feels like a child again, sitting at this very table, confessing to crashing his scooter into the neighbor’s mailbox when he was fifteen. But this is so, so much worse.

“I—” He chokes on the word, his throat tight. His mama’s face is open, patient but worried, while his papa frowns, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Carola wriggles one of her hands out of his deathgrip to pet the curls at his nape reassuringly.

“I’m pregnant,” he finally blurts out.

They all freeze for a moment, pure disbelief. His mama’s breath catches audibly, her eyes widening in shock. His papa blinks at him like he’s misheard.

The silence stretches unbearably. Pecco’s heart is hammering so hard he thinks he might actually pass out. There's a high possibility he's going to throw up again.

“Scusa?” His papa’s voice is strangled.

Pecco licks his lips, his mouth dry. “I’m pregnant.” His voice wavers slightly, but the words come out clearer this time. “I found out a few weeks ago.”

His mama makes a soft noise, pressing a hand to her mouth, her eyes shining with something unreadable. “Oh, Francesco. . . .”

His papa, on the other hand, looks confused and concerned. “But—how? That’s not possible, that’s not—you were tested, at birth, they said—you were not. . . .” He gestures vaguely, like he’s searching for an explanation in the air.

Pecco shrugs weakly. “Turns out I am.”

Silence again, Pecco's shoulders are tensed up nearly to his ears. Carola's free hand grips the back of his neck firmly, like she thinks he'll try to make a run for it.

Then, suddenly, his mama’s chair scrapes against the floor as she stands. For a split second, Pecco braces himself for yelling, but instead she kneels down, pulling him into her arms. “Oh, bambino mio,” she murmurs, her voice thick with emotion. “You must have been so scared.”

As soon as she says it, Pecco finally shatters. He crumples into her, sobs tearing from his chest, months of anxiety and fear draining out of him all at once. His mama holds him tightly, rubbing soothing circles against his back, whispering soft reassurances into his hair.

Carola reaches over, rubbing his shoulder, and even his papa, still looking completely out of his depth, awkwardly places a hand on his back.

“It’s going to be okay bambino,” his mama says firmly, pulling back just enough to cup his face. “We’ll figure this out together.”

Pecco sniffles, his breath hitching. He’s exhausted, terrified, still fucking nauseous, but for the first time in weeks the knot in his chest loosens, just a little.

—

It’s terribly hard to focus on what Valentino is saying when Luca looks this good, Pecco realizes with dawning horror, the third time he zones out of the lecture, staring at Luca’s hands. His long fingers are folded neatly in his lap, the perfect picture of proper and respectful, if Pecco couldn't see that he was still sporting a semi under the table.

In their defense, Valentino had walked into the apartment unannounced in the syrupy hour after lunch, but before Pecco’s third daily nap, when he had the best chance of seducing Luca into messing around on the couch. He’d then decided, seven and a half months into the unplanned pregnancy, that catching his brother with his hand up Pecco’s stretched out tshirt was cause for the safe sex talk he’d been “meaning to get around to” for the last five years.

Valentino, completely oblivious—or maybe just choosing to ignore the heavy tension radiating between them—leans forward, elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands together like he’s about to deliver the most important race strategy briefing of his entire life. Pecco wonders, idly, if this is what he looks like when Uccio shows him “telemetry” on his iPad.

“Look, I get it,” he says, nodding sagely. “You’re young, you’re in love, you’re horny—”

Pecco makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. Luca chokes on his own spit.

Valentino waves them off and keeps going. “But you clearly haven’t been careful enough, considering. . . .” he gestures vaguely at Pecco’s belly, which is currently both peeking humiliatingly out the bottom of his tshirt and pressing up against the edge of the table.

Pecco glares. He knows he's gotten huge recently, and he's been feeling particularly sensitive about it. “Wow, grazie, Vale. Really, I hadn't noticed.”

Luca, to his credit, looks genuinely sheepish. “It’s not like we didn’t try to be careful,” he mumbles, scratching at the back of his neck. “We didn't know Pecco was a carrier.” Pecco feels his face heat up at the reminder.

Valentino levels them both with a sharp look. “Clearly, you didn’t try hard enough. Even if Pecco hadn't been a carrier, it is still the safest to use a condom!”

Luca groans, tipping his head back against the couch. “Mio Dio, if this is your way of giving us the condom talk, you’re about seven months too late.”

Valentino ignores him, finally in the rhythm of his tirade. It's an interesting look on him, considering it's usually Uccio who attempts any kind of lecturing about the behavior of the Academy. “You know, there are many ways to be safe. Barriers, timing, communication—”

Pecco shoots Luca a sidelong glance. Luca, who is still, inexplicably, half-hard in his boxers. Luca, who just an hour ago had been shoving his tongue down Pecco's throat against the couch cushions, murmuring things that had absolutely not been about barriers or communication. Things much more aligned with how they'd ended up here in the first place.

Pecco swallows hard. This is kind of his second worst-nightmare, just below getting knocked up mid-season on the list. He hasn't even let himself think about how Valentino said they were, jesus, in love, and neither of them even protested it. Pecco has been in love with Luca for as long as he can remember, but he's always known Luca just saw him as a friend. Luca, of course, is just having sex with him out of convenience.

Meanwhile, Valentino is on a roll. “And don’t think that just because you’re already—” another vague hand-waving gesture at Pecco’s belly. It's kind of amazing that they're this far along, and he's in his thirties, and can't bring himself to say it. “—That you shouldn’t still be careful. Pregnancy hormones can make you want to go at it like rabbits, but you need to be mindful of—”

Pecco shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and his gigantic belly jostles the table enough to knock over the sad vase of dead flowers he'd gotten Luca for Father's Day. He's spent approximately ten minutes in one position, so his back aches enough to make him want to scream. “I am not listening to this anymore.”

Valentino raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “You think I wanted to be here?” He throws his hands up dramatically. “You think I enjoy this? But I’m responsible for both of you!”

“Vale,” Luca interrupts, desperate. “We get it. Be careful, use protection, don’t fuck up again. Lesson learned. Can we please never talk about this again?”

He squints at them for a long moment, weighing his options, then sighs, rubbing his temples. “Fine. But if I find out you’ve been reckless again,” he points an accusatory finger between them.

Luca glares. “What, you’ll ground us?” He gestures at Pecco's belly. “Bit late for that.”

Valentino pinches the bridge of his nose. “I am just trying to make sure you know how to have safe sex,” he sighs. “I don't want either of you to have to sacrifice more than you already have because of another—” he stops himself, just in time, but Pecco knows he was going to say, what he was going to call their baby. A mistake. He sees it reflected back in his eyes, in everyone’s eyes, lately. His skin crawls every time he visits the ranch, seeing Mig and Franky’s looks of pity. Nicolo’s barely-hidden derision. Bez hasn’t been able to look him in the eyes since he started showing for real, months ago.

The second Valentino finally leaves, after he gives them the dish of food from Stefania that he had come to deliver in the first place, an excruciating round of hugs, and a parting shot about prenatal vitamins, somehow managing to keep his set of keys in the rush to kick him out—Pecco lets his head thunk onto Luca's shoulder with a dramatic groan.

“I will never forgive you for giving him a key. We aren't having sex again until you get it back from him!”

Luca snorts, reaching over to place a warm palm over the silver of belly not covered by the tshirt. “You say that now, tesoro.”

Pecco lifts his head up, raising an eyebrow.

Luca smirks. “Where were we?”

#sorry for cheesy mom dialogue btw #i have whatever the opposite of an italian mom is #the nicest and also only pet name she has for me is literally ‘puppy’ so i really was just relying on stereotypes for pecco’s mom lol #also like. i so rarely respond to asks w actual writing im like a little nervous about it lol #very sorry i didn't end up writing about their second kid........my honest answer is i haven't decided if they have one yet lol #ALSO i am aware of how severe the em dash abuse is in these scenes #believe it or not i am absolutely working on it #i just like it…….. — is my friend :((#anyway #anon mail #fic talk #pecco/luca #man this probably means i should make a tags for this fic right #teen pregnancy au #lol #my writing #happy #wip wednesday #i guess lol #pecco bagnaia #luca marini #motogp fic #ummmm am i missing anything important

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mechazushi · 5 months ago

Text

Heart-To-Heart {A Kaiju Number 8 Short story.}

[Warning: Major Character Death] [Warning: Depictions of Gore]

It was a long drive back to the First Division base. It felt even longer since you could feel everyone collectively reeling from the news. It hadn't hit the front-liners just yet. The higher ups were waiting to see just how many were going to come back from the fight alive first. Mina and Soshiro couldn't bring themselves to tell Reno or Kikoru just yet either. They knew something was off when they rushed their friend into an armored truck as soon as the dust settled. They were just going to have to writhe in a lack of understanding for a little while longer. At least, just until the captain and vice captain could get a better understanding of what Kafka; or, they guess in this new situation, Kaiju Number 8, was now.

"You seem to have developed a new staring problem." Hoshina observed bitterly.

Him and his captain were riding in the back of a mostly empty armored box truck. Other than them, there was what was to be assumed to be what remained of Kafka. That being just... the kaiju itself. It wasn't clear what had happened to Kafka after the end of the fight, but that's why they were in here. Although, neither of them felt like getting a head start on questioning.

"Apologies. It's just... you, remind us... of someone. Someone... we miss." Kaiju Number 8 spoke as it cocked its head to the side, it's sight not leaving the commander's face.

It was strapped to a metal chair again, similar to the one they had placed their friend in three months prior. It's voice wasn't the same as Kafka's anymore. Even when Kafka was in his Kaiju form, you could still hear it and tell it was still Kafka, even if it had developed a deeper tone and a rolling grumble. Now... there was nothing of that jolly voice left. It sounded more like listening to a stadium of people talking in unison behind a closed door. It was almost hard to listen too... in more ways than one.

"We? All I see is the one knucklehead." Hoshina retaliated, his voice unchanging. A brief pause was filled with a low, clicking growl. Almost like thunder rolling over mountains.

"Was that a purr? He fucking purrs now?" Hoshina thought as he continued to return the stare down the Kaiju was giving back.

"Looks like... we, won't miss... him... for much... longer." Kaiju Number 8 said with an uncanny level of hope in its voice. It was an odd sight watching the kaiju speak. It moved its mouth like it was talking, but the movement didn't match the words themselves.

"We. You keep saying we. Why is that?." Mina spoke up for the first time since they entered the vehicle. They watched the kaiju as it took its time coming up with an answer.

"We are... gone. All gone. We are now... shame. Regret... Fear. Rage...Revenge." Kaiju Number 8 said cryptically.

"Well, that wasn't exactly helpful." Mina thought.

"Revenge? Against what?" Hoshina questioned on his turn.

"To finish... what we started. To kill... Kill all Kaiju." It said as it's voice became more threatening, dropping in tone and developing a deeper growl.

A harsh, wheezing laugh came from the vice captain as he got up to walk around the container.

"Great. The damn thing's turned you worse than a mindless, killing dog." He muttered to himself as he was turned away from both of them.

"Hoshina." Mina said with a warning tone, having heard what he had said very clearly.

"Oh, don't act like you're being okay about this! How is anyone going to be okay about this? How's he okay about this?" Hoshina suddenly became very shrill and his movements became exaggerated despite him still feeling the toll the back-to-back fights had put on him, "This is Kafka we're talking about! Or, well, at least it was Kafka."

"Our host... is still here." the kaiju interrupted, "He has joined... the others." There was a weighty pause as the information settled into the commanders.

"Is there... a way to bring him back?" Mina cautiously questioned, trying to not let her hope betray her tone.

"He was presented... a choice. To heal his own heart... and walk away. Or to let it become... our new core." It spoke longer now, gaining speed as well as confidence while it acclimated to it's new state. That harsh laugh rang out again from Hoshina's bruised lips as he tried to not shake his head at the absurdity.

"Why am I not surprised. Ohhh, I should have seen this coming." He sighed as he gently rubbed his face, "He didn't have to do any of this. I had that fight handled." the vice captain continued to mutter as he paced the metal box. This earned a disappointed look from his captain and a curious head tilt from the strapped down Kaiju.

"Oh, don't give me that look." Hoshina said quickly.

"You said he's... that Kafka is still around. Do you think that... it's possible he can hear us?" Mina continued to question cautiously, her heart quietly grasping at any straws that Kafka could have a chance. A chance to understand, to come back to them, or anything that would assuage the pain she felt in her chest, she didn't know.

"He can... He is." the Kaiju answered. Mina tried to prepare a statement, something that could have be reassuring to the both of them at the moment, but the words were killed on her tongue as Hoshina stomped over to their altered friend and slapped a hand on one of the metal arm cuffs while he rudely pointed his finger at it's chest.

"Good. Then that self-sacrificing, one-percent lump of dead weight can hear in great detail about how I'm going to jump down your throat and drag his hairy ass back into the sunlight the second the option seems viable." Hoshina was growling and practically frothing at the mouth by the time he finished his tirade. He took a deep and shuddering breath as he stared the unflinching Kaiju down before calmly turning his head to side-eye his captain.

"You've picked one hell of a friend, captain." he said, his tone unfortunately still harboring misplaced resentment. Mina's normally unflinching face cracked as her brows furrowed and her lips pinched as she got up from her seat.

"You're the one that wanted him on the force." her voice was dark and deceptively even as Hoshina rose to meet her eyes.

"You might want to rethink your tone, captain." He said, trying not to spit it back in her face. The tension in the air pulled tighter and tighter behind the sound of the road noise, only to be cut short as the Kaiju in the room spoke up.

"Kafka... Were you and Kafka... friends?" It asked softly. The two of them turned to face it with puzzled expressions.

"Did having him melt into your little hive mind not already clue you in to that?" Hoshina scoffed.

"It did." The kaiju answered.

"Then why ask?" Mina questioned slowly, becoming deeply curious as well as a little worried for the answer.

"He felt he had... lost the honor." it said as it's white pupils flicked away sympathetically, "He had... broken his promise."

Hoshina shook his head a little at the answer, not understanding completely what that would mean to Mina. He was already aware at this point that her and Kafka were childhood friends, but without any deeper knowledge as to what that friendship meant to each other, he just felt left out of the loop. What ended up grabbing his attention was a shallow, rattling breathing next to him. He turned to look at his captain and saw an emerging and disheartening marvel. Mina seemed to be on the verge of tears. Lips quivering and tears threatening to spill from her shocked eyes.

"Hadn't he?" the kaiju asked, tilting it's head again.

The final nail in the coffin it seemed. Mina spun around on her heels and sprinted to the container's reinforced doors as she put her finger up to her ear comm.

"Stop the vehicle." She commanded, her voice not betraying an ounce of what she felt at the time.

A brief pause was held before she commanded again, this time screaming the order into the comm. Hoshina quickly widened his stance against the force of the truck breaking suddenly.

"Mina?" Her voice captain called out as he watched the back doors fly open and his captain hop down and out of the vehicle.

He tried to rush forward and catch up to her, only for the doors to be slammed back in his face before he could leave. He banged his fist on the metal for a moment, hoping for someone to open them back up. All he felt was the truck rumbling back to life and continuing down the road. He shook his head in disbelief and concern, not knowing why his captain reacted like that.

"Do you believe... that this is not a good price... to pay?" that infinitely echoing voice rang out from the back of the truck.

"What?" Hoshina spat, not understanding the question.

"You continue to fight against... what has already been decided. Do you think that... this form... was not a good price... to pay?" It spoke slowly, not in intentional mockery, to be sure, but it felt like it to Hoshina.

"Pay? Pay for what?" he shouted back.

"No more lost lives... No more shattered families... No more broken promises." It spoke, leaving the idea open ended. It didn't need to expand further anyway. Hoshina got the idea pretty well as he calmed down.

The only thing worse than a predictable friend, was knowing how predictable you were yourself. Because Hoshina asked himself the same hypothetical question and found himself coming to the same answer. A heart for a core... a thousand times over.

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"Epidermis breached. Eight, you're up!" Soshiro called as he leapt back from the entry wound he caused in their newest threat.

Some sort of bastard child of the Meraki Kaiju a year earlier. It hadn't developed Number Nine's shape shifting abilities or possessed any way of speaking, but it damn sure inherited its intelligence. Emerging without warning in the northern part of Japan, it made it clear it still had an ax to grind. A writhing mass of acidic smelling meat, tentacles, and eyeballs, it looked the part to start a spaghetti monster themed cult.

Kaiju Number Eight made a mad dash from the sidelines, focusing solely on getting to the gaping wound the Vice Captain had started. Getting to the weeping slash, it pried the edges of it apart with as much force as it could muster, sending violent arterial sprays of acid around, over, and behind it. From then, it was just a fury of movement. Strong claws ripping and yanking large chunks of hazardous flesh from the threatening mass of black and sending it away from them so it could dig ever further to its center. An example of perfectly honed equilibrium comprised of streamlined intent and raw berserker rage. A flicker of bright, webbed strings of multi-colored light let it know that its destination had been reached. Quickly scrapping the muscle around the core, the Kaiju noticed that the monster had picked up another thing from its progenitor; a hard-light barrier around the core.

"Core two of three located. Beginning demolition." Eight called out loud enough to be picked up by its custom ear comm.

"Core sighting confirmed. Begin neutralization." Okonogi had said on the other end of the link.

It reared back its fist as it felt the thruster tubes in its forearm slide out and into position. It waited for the jets to build up sufficient pressure before letting it send its fist rocketing forward to the shield with each punch.

First hit.

Second hit.

Third hit. Shields gone.

Fourth hit.

Fifth hit. Core shattered.

"Energy readings dropped. Core Destroyed! Good work Kaf-I mean, Eight!" Okonogi let out a reserved cheer as she read out the information at her station.

That wasn't the only surprise the monster had in store it seemed. Just as Eight turned to launch itself out of the slowly enclosing wound, a barbed tentacle shot out from behind the broken core and propelled through its chest with enough force to send its body flying out and down the street. When the tentacle stopped moving, Eight's body flew off of it, feeling the barbs rip through its flesh as it tumbled through the air. Eight hit the asphalt, hard. Would have sent any ordinary officer unconscious with a concussion even if they had the suit's shield. It felt itself rolling down the street and over the harsh edge of a curb. With the wind knocked out of it's lungs and the very obvious sign that it's blood was pouring out from its chest, it made the now monumental effort to prop itself against a solid surface and take a mental rundown of the damage. Bringing a clawed hand to its chest, it made the devastating discovery.

"Well... shit."

On the other side of the offending mass of destruction was Mina and Narumi, tag-teaming their attacks to crack the first layer of the Kaiju. Dodging the slashing appendages coming for them left and right, they felt they weren't any closer to breaking its resistant shell. The fight had been going on for so long that the both of them could feel their fortitude percentage dropping with every twitch of muscle. Out of nowhere, Mina saw her vice captain drop from the air in front of them and plunge the sword in his suit's tail to cut a deep gash in the beast top-to-bottom.

"Heard ya'll were having some trouble." Hoshina panted with a bloody and cocky grin.

"Hoshina! You're supposed to watch Eight's back!" Mina yelled as she shifted her cannon's muzzle away from him.

"Kafka got his mission handled. He should be on his way." Hoshina replied as he dashed in a circle around her, dicing up any tentacles shooting out her way.

"About that! Eight's vitals just dropped off the map!" Okonogi cried in panic, watching the screens turn red.

The captain and her vice immediately looked to each other as their faces turned to shock. Okonogi could only watch as she witnessed everyone's vitals go haywire at the news. Mina could just barely bring herself out of her nightmarish thoughts and leveled her cannon at the kaiju's gaping wound, making sure it stayed open a little longer.

"Go to him! Me and the Bowl-cut Bastard can handle this!" Narumi cried as he fought off his own barrage of barbed obstacles.

Mina looked over to her vice as he reassured her with a quick nod before jumping into the fray with Narumi. She whistled hard and loud, calling her faithful tiger to her aid. She leaped onto its back and held on tight while they tracked down their fallen comrade, trying not to think the worst.

Back on the other side, Eight had managed to prop itself against a shockingly still intact dumpster next to one of the few miraculously standing buildings this close to the fight. Black rivulets of blood trailed behind it and stained its path to false safety. A jagged tunnel had been left behind from the tentacle's blow, acting as the main source of agony and fear for its health. This kind of an injury wouldn't normally be a problem, even the acid melting away at his chest wouldn't have raised any concern. It's healed from worse before, but not this time. No, this time was a problem as it could feel where the barbs had ripped and shredded its way through its core and the acid making quick work of whatever was left to touch.

Inside the dark, flesh textured walls of their mind, Kafka's presence manifested as a battered and broken soldier. Redder blood leaked from various gashes on his face and body. Dark, angry bruises littered his sore chest and limbs. Outside of the pain, he mostly felt numb. At most, a dull ache in his chest where his heart-turned-core would have been. He turned to one of the other presences in his mindscape, the samurai soldier that held his powers before him, and smiled a weak smile. He couldn't tell if the samurai was as badly battered as he was, but he could tell in the way he held his chest they at least felt the same pain. Kafka chuckled raspingly as he turned and shuffled toward the last being in the brain, the big Kaiju bug that held all the power, and painfully shambled his way over to it.

"So... Was that a damn good last run or what?" Kafka playfully mocked as he carefully settled himself to the floor, leaning back against the equally battered Kaiju bug.

"No... We're not finished. We have to finish the fight!" The samurai shouted wheeling around to Kafka, still clutching his chest.

"Can't do that if there's no more fight left in us, Papaw. Face it... We're fucked." Kafka panted from the pain as it spread more viciously and his muscles released its tension.

"How dare you call yourself an officer! There are still lives on the line back there!" the samurai angrily shouted at him.

"AND HOW DO YOU EXPECT US TO CONTINUE WITHOUT ANOTHER FUCKIN' CORE, HUH?" Kafka screamed back with more rage than the samurai could ever express.

There was a lot of words that both of them wanted to say, things to be said in anger and fear, in hopelessness and tiredness. But they were getting tired themselves, feeling the energy being sapped from their muscles and the warmth being leached at the same rate as their blood. There was no denying that this... this was it. No more hearts for cores, no second chances, no turning back the clock. Kafka never got to feel what it was like to be by Mina's side. The Samurai won't get to see other people live a life without fear from otherworldly threats. The kaiju that made all this possible will never know what a quiet mind could have felt like.

"But we got close though, didn't we?" Kafka softly begged, "Tell me we got close, Papaw."

The samurai looked down for a moment, seeming to think his response over, before looking away entirely.

"Even if one fails to reach the moon, one still lies among the stars." He finally said, still not looking back.

Kafka gave a soft smile in return, leaning his head back as his head grew heavy with a lead-like feeling. He knew he didn't mean it, but appreciated the effort anyway.

"And not a night sky to be seen." Kafka muttered to himself as the dark started to overtake his sight.

Something in the back of his mind wouldn't let him rest completely, however. He could sense something coming closer and moving in rapidly. He could tell it was a kaiju, but a smaller one giving off an abnormal but familiar signature. Mina's tiger, no doubt bringing its owner along with it.

"Shit. Can't let Mina see us like this." Kafka groaned painfully as he tried to stand both inside and outside the body, "She doesn't need to see this."

The samurai just eyed his mental roommate from the unchanging confines of his mask and made no move to help the struggling Kafka up to his feet. In their mind's eye, they watched as Mina dismounted and bolted forward to their devastatingly injured remains. Her voice was muffled, but they could definitely sense the distress in her tone as she dropped to her knees by their side.

"Oh God! Nonono, KAFKA!" Mina cried as she harshly dropped to her knees beside his still body. She brought up a hand to its chest wanting to slow the profuse bleeding, only to feel the massive opening staying warm through the power of the acid alone. It became all too clear to her that at this moment... that her friend couldn't be salvaged

"Mina... please. You need to go." Eight muttered out as more blood dripped from its teeth.

"No, Kafka, this can't be it! Not like this. I can't lose you again." Mina's eyes rained its tears freely, taking advantage of their privacy to stop holding back in this vulnerable moment.

She could barely hear the sounds of the on going battle in front of them through her wet sniffling and ragged coughing. She held on tight to its chest and shoulder, trying to focus her thoughts away from another time. An earlier time where this had happened before, where she lost the last pieces of her long gone friend. Her cheeks were hot with anguish as she bowed her head against its shoulder, thinking of any and all prayers she could think of. She didn't want this moment to finish and take the last shreds of hope she had with his passing.

Back in the dark passages of their mind, Kafka had only managed to drag himself to his hands and knees as he tried to speak to Mina. He barely had enough strength to keep himself upright, let alone to project his voice out of the confines of his mind. The samurai just stood still as it quietly watched this all go down.

"Mina... Mina I'm so sorry *cough* for everything... I... I know this is going to be hard... but I know that... you can be strong-" Kafka coughed again and almost landed on his face from exhaustion. Planting his trembling arms as firmly as possible underneath him, he tried to look over at the samurai standing next to him.

"For fuck's sake, Papaw! Can you help me up sometime today, please?" He called out as he managed to lean back onto his legs somewhat.

He watched as the samurai continued to ignore him, not even bothering to look his way. As Kafka busied himself with finding the strength within him to push Mina away in any way he could, he missed the telltale sound of a sword being pulled out of its sheath. As Kafka got off of one knee, he felt something hard and sharp push its way through the back of his neck and out of his mouth. He instantly felt all of his limbs going numb in that second and all of his weight being carried by what was shoved through his neck.

As the sword pulled itself back out, Kafka felt warm trickles of his blood start running down the back of his throat. He couldn't swallow the blood into a different direction and could only feel it all sliding right into his lungs, making him choke reflexively. As he fell onto his face, he felt the growing pain from the wound grow from the back of his head and slowly turn into the worst, practically splitting headache he had ever felt before now. Feeling his body twitching from the numbness and his lungs quaking in the fight against being able to breathe, he just laid there and saw his Ancestor flick his sword and clean it on his sleeve before placing it back into the sheath. Had Kafka not been choking on his own blood or had enough feeling in any of his limbs, he would have certainly returned the favor. What happened instead was the feeling of the floor opening up underneath him and dropping him down into that familiar, watery, bottomless pit in their shared conscious, eyes and mind growing darker the further down he drifted.

Back up top, his Ancestor took control of the body and started talking to the grieving Mina.

"Mina..." He called out.

"Kafka? Kafka, are you still with me?" Mina cried out desperately as she continued to hold the body close.

"We need... another heart." He asked, trying to stretch out whatever remaining willpower he had left to finish his request.

"A heart?" Mina questioned in the interlude, slowly gaining control over her tears.

"Yes... Another heart... for another core." He finished, hoping for Mina to understand what he was asking of her.

"A... a heart." Mina reiterated as the request she began to realize what was being asked of her, "I-I can't... I can't ask something like that from anyone..."

"You don't have to ask... If they're not here to question..." He answered, hoping he wouldn't have to spell it out further than that.

Mina's eyes grew wide as the tears threatened to spill over again. He was asking for her to drag over an already dead body? Just to continue fighting? Warning lights went off in her head as this ask dawned on her. Kafka would never ask for something like this, it was too underhanded. But then again... Maybe this wasn't Kafka talking anymore. Maybe Kafka was gone, and it was whoever made Eight was talking now. It had to have been, because Kafka's hate for the Kaijus was never deep enough to warrant this.

Still... some part of Mina refused to give up on him. Even if he wasn't the one talking right now, Eight was all she had left of her friend. Mina was strong, she led the forces, she joined the Division because of Kafka. She had watched him struggle year after year to catch up to her, falling back to square one every time. This Kaiju helped him on his last chance to get his foot in the door, and she hated to admit that it was probably the biggest reason as to how he managed to stay this long.

It wasn't the only reason, however. If the Kaiju helped him physically, his promise to her helped him in every other way. All he wanted was to be by her side, and even after every roadblock and setback and debilitating snag he hit, he got to this moment... this fight, and it was the closest he had ever gotten to fulfilling it. But one can't be expected to carry that kind of fight alone. She knew that well enough after blitzing through the ranks to Captain. At some point, a hand needs to be extended, a branch to hold on to, a sign that this isn't a one sided fight. That someone else wants what they want too, and wants to see that dream realized for them... with them. It took both of her hands to muscle the slackened arm up to her chest and placed the bloodied and acid-stained hand over her own heart.

"Take mine... You can take mine." She said, her voice betrayed no cracks, only a solitary hiccup.

"Mina... no. Anyone else..." The ancestor argued, knowing well enough that this would hurt more than just Mina.

"Well, you're not getting anyone else, goddamnit!" Mina screamed, " I've wanted too damn long for you to be by my side and watching you sacrifice everything on the dotted line, just for it all to stop here! I'm tired of waiting. I'm done waiting."

She placed her head back on its shoulder, waiting for it to decide. She worried that she took too long and that there wasn't any life left within it to finish the task. Eight found enough strength to bring his head over to the top of her's and lightly placed his closed mouth on it. For he had no lips to kiss away her fears, or a voice left to reassure her that everything would be okay. All it could give was a low, throaty rumble as her tears fell down like a storm.

'I'm sorry... for everything.' It thought.

A loud squelching noise was heard in tandem with a dull ache suddenly spreading out in her chest. Mina looked down and could see that Eight's hand had pushed itself through the barriers of her suit and was now being drenched in warm rivers of red blood. Her lungs spasmed irregularly as that dull ache started to feel more and more staticy. As she coughed, she felt a little spurt of blood splatter out of her mouth. Eight waited for her eyes to roll into the back of her head and for her body to grow limp before he sucked her heart out of her chest. Warmth began to travel down its arm and flowed freely into the rest of its body. It shed one lone black tear as the cavity in its chest began to close up.

Soshiro and Narumi's fight with the Daikaiju had gotten only a little further than nowhere in the time that Mina had left them. Soshiro had managed to keep the wound that he had made earlier open and could only stand by and watch as Narumi ventured inside it while slicing his way deeper in. A weighty moment had passed before he saw that back of Narumi's suit being propelled toward him at unbelievable speed. The two of them made contact and were sent flying backwards. Hoshina took his own fair share of damage as he ended up getting abruptly sandwiched between a broken piece of a stone wall and the full weight of Narumi in his numbered suit and weapon.

"Augh! What the hell, Narumi?" Hoshina cried out in pain as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Damn thing must have learned from the last two times we hit its core! It tried to skewer me with a tentacle and launch me backwards. I managed to deflect it with my weapon, but Jesus! That acid stings!" Narumi yelled as he shifted off of Hoshina's lap, trying to use his now ruined jacket to wipe off the rest of the acidic blood from the suit.

Hoshina tried to get back onto his feet, but could only manage to slowly shift himself onto a knee. Bracing himself against the wall, he leveled his one undamaged eye toward the hulking monstrosity before them. He panted heavily as he weighed his options, finding all of them to be far from satisfactory plans to finish this brutal beast once and for all. Still, no one could rest until that thing was put down for good.

"Get up Narumi." Hoshina growled through his pain, "We need to finish this." Narumi just squinted up at him with a question on his mind, before deciding that the smack talk back wasn't worth the effort. As they propped themselves to their feet as best they could, an unearthly voice came over the ear comms.

"Hoshina. Narumi. Stand down and head to safety." the voice commanded with easy authority.

Hoshina peered his head over the chunk of wall first. Off in the distance he saw a slim figure walking towards them. The sound of metal dragging over asphalt matched the sight of the stilted silhouette and its heavy looking object it brought with them. He grabbed Narumi by the shoulder and dragged them both off to the side of the street to hide behind more rubble. Leaning against a shattered chunk of roadblock, Hoshina watched with great interest as the figure got closer and closer. The sound of metal being dragged got replaced with the sound of metal being loudly pried apart, sheets and gears popping and buckling under great pressure. He studied the new arrival as best he could from his distance and made one startling discovery after another.

The being that approached looked almost like Eight and carried Mina's cannon. Only now that cannon had looked like it was caught in a tangle of thick, black, jungle vines that had wound itself into every part of the complex machine. The body that was connected to the cannon looked very different from what he remembered as well. Eight looked taller, leaner, and not as wide. And he certainly knew that Eight didn't have a full head of long black hair.

Narumi watched the new figure as well, but was focused on a very specific part of them. He watched the new kaiju open one set of eyes, then a second set below that, then a third set above them both. It only got stranger as he saw the borders of the eye's sockets stretch and lengthen out to the borders of the other eyes. Once the edges touched, the sides popped open and the eyes melded into each other, forming one long, glowing, teal band extending across the width of its face.

The tentacles on its arm had finished their job of weaving their way through the cannon and lifted the whole mess level with its target, the Kaiju everyone had been fighting. Hoshina watched on in slowly dawning horror as he heard the voice on the comms match to the movement of the teeth on the new Kaiju warrior in front of them.

"All should know better than to be caught in their Captain's line of fire."

Inside the mind of the new beast, Kafka could feel his mind turning on to a sense of alertness. It almost felt like waking up from a paralyzing nightmare. As he blinked his eyes and got them to focus, he tried to recall what had sent him sprawling over the floor in his own mind. His memories slowly worked their way forward from the moment he entered the fray, to when he felt the acidic sting of the tentacle pierce his core. He rolled onto his side and brought up a hand to rub his face, trying to dislodge anything more important or at least relevant. Even moving around in his listless state, he could instantly tell he felt different. His arms didn't feel sore or bruised, his chest had lost its weighty pain that had settled deep in his core. His core. If that had been broken, then how was he still able to think? As Kafka landed on his back and pushed himself up onto his hands, a deep, reverberating thump rattled in his chest as more recent memories started to crop up.

The fight. The killing shot. Crawling away to hide his shameful death. Mina... Oh gods, Mina! She found him, and... and... His Ancestor, the samurai. What did he do to him? Kafka felt his chest tighten as his breathing became labored and ragged, quick puffs of angry air sucking its way past his teeth. He shot up to his feet quickly, the lack of pain making him all the more angry at the thought of his Ancestor committing some atrocity that somehow fixed this. His only reasoning for this being that if it wasn't supposed to be a bad decision, then why bother silencing Kafka at all?

"WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed out into the vast space of his mind, "FACE ME AND EXPLAIN, YOU COWARD!"

Kafka made a slow turn, viciously eyeing down any shadow in the dark recesses of his mind that could have been his murderer's form. Spying a dark shape off in the distance behind him, he turned and ran toward it, thinking it to be the samurai. As he got closer and closer, it became very clear that this new person wasn't the samurai. His Ancestor didn't have a flowing curtain of black hair, nor did it wear a defense force suit. He slowed down his pace for a second, becoming worried and praying that his mind had just decided to play a cruel joke on him, now of all times.

"Mina?" Kafka hesitantly called out, a thousand prayers for salvation from this fear echoed in his heart.

He watched on in horror as the familiar shade turned to the sound of its name and faced him with shock in her eyes. He picked up speed again, this time not with intent to maim and harm, but to approach this mirage of agony faster with the hopes that he'll just run right through it.

"No. No, no, no, nononono, MINA!" He cried as he got close enough to see that this wasn't a horrible joke, but a nightmare made flesh.

Carelessly plowing right into her, Kafka held her tight as they fell to the softly giving floor. Sobs racked his ribs and shuddered his lungs as he scrambled to his hands and knees. His hands roughly busied themselves with pulling her onto his lap and brushing strands of hair out of her face, chanting that simple word over and over. They slowed as the realization of this, of her physically being in his mind really meant, began to chip away at his already war-torn heart. He could feel himself rocking back and forth, cradling Mina's warm body close to him as he looked into her unbothered expression with his being stained with a flood of tears. He supposed it was him trying to bring comfort to Mina, but as her gentle hand placed itself on his cheek and stroked with her thumb, he knew that this was all to comfort him.

"No, Mina why? Why would you do this? You had to have known, right? I would never ask you to do this, you had to have known that it wasn't me! Why, Mina? You didn't have to do this." He whispered

Kafka could barely get the words out over the snot and bile building up in his throat. His tears soaked his cheeks and fell like rain onto Mina's hand. His face felt like it was on fire as he sniffed hard and tried to clear his throat. Holding her in his hands made any attempt of composure in vain as it just reaffirmed to him that what was done was irreversible. The Third Division lost its captain, but it certainly didn't feel like he had gained back his friend. He tried to restrain his violent sobs as he felt her arms tighten around his neck, pulling his body down over and closer to Mina. His arms tightened in return as he felt the other hand come up to play soothingly in his hair, the other rubbing gentle circles over his spine.

"My heart... was already yours." She whispered into the crook of his thick neck, the vibrations of the words sending small shockwaves through his torso.

All Kafka could bring himself to do was cry. Cry and scream and cry again until his voice became shot and he had no more tears to shed. Hands forever tight around his new heart.

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(Some thoughts I had while writing this that won't fit into tags well)

Real quick, I just wanna mention that this is based off of a recent theory that I developed after reading chapter 118 and its that Kn8' true power isn't that fact that he's a shape shifter, or that he's got super strength or a sonic screech or anything else.

His true power is that he can turn hearts into cores, indirectly making itself partially immortal. (we could be immortals, immortals...)

So I see the end of this story going one of two ways:

One: Once the Third Division finds out what happened, they all come to a mutual agreement that they want their hearts cryogenically frozen after death so that Kaiju Number 8 is forever supplied with back-up cores. This ending kinda gives off this lovecraftian feel where in the future, Kaiju Number 8 stops being considered a Kaiju at some point and is more of an amalgamation of undying spirits that haunt the base forevermore.

Two: Kafka pulls a Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. He fights against Papaw first and then proceeds to fight and kill every soul that inhabits his core, ultimately evicting the collective consciousness that made his powers in the first place and distills it into himself. The only better way I think I can explain this is "Imagine Venom bonding to Eddie and then something happening to Eddie, causing Venom to sort of... recreate Eddie. But it's just Venom, so now it's like if Venom was his own host." Kafka is now Kafka, the parasite, and the Kaiju all at once. (He also somehow figures out a way to spit Mina out into her own body so she's fine.)

He's not a human that can turn into a Kaiju or the other way around. By Legal Definition he is, technically, the first, true, Human Kaiju.

#Honestly... I feel like this isn't my best work.#I think its because I rushed this a little bit #I just wanted to get this idea out there before the next chapter dropped.#because I didn't want it to change/influence how I wanted this to turn out #And I know that its a month between chapters but I really didn't want to take a month on a short story.#also I've got several other fics I want done AND I've got a poll about to wrap up soon so I wanted to be done before that as well.#could be seen as platonic or romantic #me personally #The second Hoshina recovers mentally from this ordeal they fucking nasty.#You thought this was a KafMina fic #But it was I! A KAFHOSHIMINA FIC!!!!!!#sorry for the overuse of the pronoun It #I refused to call Kafka's potential new form He/Him or They/Them on grounds that -#One: Kaiju (in this world) most likely don't have gender #And Two: Kafka is so many people now and I would like to not accept that it's JUST men in there.#A lot of people could have felt the same emotions and could have been in contact with parasitic Kaiju material.#Statistically there should have been AT LEAST one woman in the mix. (Before now)#That and I think it helps dehumanize Kafka a lot since he's technically not even Kafka any more.#Kaiju-Mina to any higher-ups: Look at me. I am the Captain now.#would they even let her is the question.#kaiju no.8 #kaiju no. 8 #kaiju number 8 #kaiju no 8 #kaiju n8 #kaiju no. eight #kaijuu no. 8 #kaijuu 8 gou #kaijuu number 8 #kafka hibino

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