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olet-lucernam · 11 months ago

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A Hollow Promise [14] chapter iii, part ii

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

chapter summary : loki's return to asgard becomes imminent, and his guard shows her hand.

recommended listening : last resort and spa, battle tapes

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Loki stared at her in disbelief.

“What?”

“Can you forgive m-”

“Darling, why in the world would you need my forgiveness?” He asked incredulously.

“Because I left you there.” Her voice was choked and rigid. “I didn’t save you. I could have pulled you out, taken you away- it would have been so easy- but I didn’t, I left you there, with them- and even if I had my reasons, even if I’m almost certain that I made the right choice in the long term, you still have the right to be-”

“You returned the Tesseract to SHIELD,” Loki reminded her, “you knew that I would use it-”

“After months,” she stressed, “I could have gotten you out so much sooner-”

“You made the right decision.”

Loki spoke with pure, clear authority, surprising himself with how easily the declaration came, how easy it was to acknowledge it.

It was instinct, to act upon the least charitable interpretation of anyone’s actions, imagining the hidden knife to better guard against the possibility- a symptom of packaging away his hurt into silence for centuries, refusing to let anyone see him bleed, even as he watched the injuries accumulate into scars, unanswered and untreated.

But her willingness to accept that she may have wronged him, her pain at the thought of it, her resolve to take any resentment he might hold against her, was a balm he never could have expected.

I hurt you, and I’m sorry. It was simple, and powerful.

“You made the right decision, the best decision, in that moment, under those circumstances. You made the decision I would have wanted you to make,” Loki reiterated, stepping forward to trap her in his gaze. “And even if you hadn’t, you would never need ask forgiveness from me. I could never accept it. Not when you might feel obliged to return it.”

She gave a short, sharp exhalation from between her teeth, like a spit of sparks, somewhere between exasperated and resigned.

“Except it’s too late. I already have,” she said. “Not on anyone else’s behalf. Not for everything that you’ve done. But for me, I’ve forgiven you.”

Loki’s mouth tightened.

“I might hurt you again,” he warned her.

“I know that.”

“I cannot promise that I won’t-”

“And neither can I,” she admitted. “I can’t promise I’ll never hurt you, by action or inaction. And you can’t promise that you’ll forgive me for it if I do. There are no guarantees, here. There never have been.”

Loki bit into the side of his tongue, molars clamping down into the flesh.

“One day,” he forced himself to say, “my actions may mean more to you than they do now. In that new light, you may no longer wish to forgive me.”

So do not give me something that you might one day take back.

For a moment, she simply looked at him, a hand resting at the base of her throat, a fingertip dragging along the line of her clavicle.

“Why would they mean more?”

She knew.

She must know, Loki realised. If not for a certainty, then by now she suspected something that cut close to the truth.

“No guarantees,” Loki murmured, “but shall we strike a bargain?”

She arched an eyebrow.

“You have my attention, prince. What do you want- and what will you give me?”

Loki breathed out a smile, closing in on her with another step, darkly predatory.

“Give yourself to me,” he said, soft as a whisper in the nave of an empty cathedral, “and I will give you what you seek.”

Her expression flickered, like the flame at a charred wick struggling to remain alight.

She sighed, as though the air had been pushed out of her lungs by a hydraulic press.

“It’s a good deal. A steal. But that’s a hollow promise, my prince,” she said, her vapid smile carrying the weariness of dried tears. “As you said- no guarantees. Even if I believe you, and even if I’m right too, we don’t know that you’ll be able to return. No one can know that. Not even me.”

The corner of Loki’s mouth curved.

“I thought that the promise of hollowness is that it can be filled.”

She blinked.

Then she let up a broken laugh, genuine mirth cracked by a near-sob, like the skies clearing after a violent squall.

“Ah. Alright.” She tipped her head back, her capitulating smile as dazzlingly brilliant as the sun striking into his eyes. “Alright, I deserved that.”

Loki swept his thumb across the corrugated cardboard holder of the coffee cup, imagining it to be the curve of her cheekbone.

“I am no witch, darling. I do not speak prophecies,” Loki said, sombre. “I am stating my intentions, as they are now, and as I intend to remain. A contract, a transaction of trust. A promise is a vessel. To either be shattered, or be filled.”

She laughed airlessly.

“A promise is a vessel? I like that,” she said distractedly. “Strange. I think I read a poem like that somewhere.” Her fingers folded below her lower lip. “How did it- what was it again? A promise is a vessel- the phrasing was very similar-”

A chill doused through Loki, as though he had swallowed a mouthful of something cold.

“Ah- something like- love is a sharp knife-”

“Love is a dagger,” Loki responded without thinking.

She snapped her fingers, lighting up, hazel eyes sparked like cinders.

“Yes! That was it. Love is a dagger- and, ah- trust is the- I can’t remember the rest, but I know that I know it-”

The words spilled out of him.

“Love is a dagger. Poised above a tender-beating heart To plunge deep, killing it at the root A clean, bloodless strike – Or else a weapon wielded from afar. With shallow glancing strikes, feinting taunts, A death of a thousand cuts.

You will find yourself, captive, in its reflection Embraced by its sheen, made lovelier By this mirrored devotion – Beautiful, until its keen edge brings you to bleed Tangible, until you reach for it, and it dissipates Nothing but a breathtaking lie.

Love is a dagger. And trust is –”

Loki faltered, his voice failing.

Like a pool of sunlight deepening and lengthening with a passing hour, he watched the recognition track across her, as she gathered up the unfinished threads.

“And trust is the heartbeat pressing earnest into its sting. It is a held breath. It is the province of fools Upon which no wisdom can prevail. I unlock the cage of my ribs; my heart to be slaughtered Or devoured. Or else given away to a falsehood. Accepting whatever end my beloved may me bring.

Thy love is a dagger? Why, then –”

She wavered on the final line.

“Why then. My love be its sheath,” she murmured, her gaze unseeing.

Her fingers had unconsciously tucked past the dip of her neckline, to press into her sternum, as though to staunch a bleeding wound.

Loki’s arm ached with a flare of mana, rustling against the leather of his sleeve and vambrace like tattered silk and the heat-warp of flame.

“It’s a conversation.” She stated, hand still clamped against soft flesh and hard bone. “You can hear it in the way the pattern changes. Two voices. Call and reply. The first is- a scholar. A poet. A diplomat. Clean lines, smooth cadence. Unrehearsed, but confident, sketching out a loose rhythm in the moment. The second voice is- raw. It tries to match the first voice, to reply to it, but it can’t finesse itself to fit the structure. So it breaks into enjambed lines, caesura, spills over on that last line into almost triple. And that final couplet- it gives up entirely. It says what it means. Monosyllabic, simple, and unequivocal. Clumsy. Earnest. Nothing left but truth.”

Her observations, no matter how brief the glance, cut as deep as ever.

It was a familiar terror.

“The heartbeat pressing earnest into its sting,” she echoed. Slowly, she withdrew her hand from her collar, looking down at her open palm. “I wonder who she’s talking about.”

Loki supressed a flinch.

She lifted her eyes to him, fingers loosely curled, steady as the sun.

“I think I want to take your deal,” she said softly, her gaze brimming with question. “But- I’m still not certain what you really want from me.”

Ah.

Is it my turn?

He had asked for a part of her heart. It was only fair that he offered a section of his own, in return.

Loki cast his answer obliquely, the truth through a familiar lens.

“There is an old fairytale, known across the Nine. Even Midgard has a version of it. Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne.”

“East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” she translated swiftly. “I know that story. My father read it to me when I was little. It was always one of my favourites. Although, I once asked him if he thought the heroine only fell in love with the white bear after she discovered he was a beautiful prince.”

Loki canted his head. “Oh? And what did he say?”

“That I was very cynical. I told him that was his fault.”

Loki exhaled a quiet laugh, and she grinned back playfully.

“Asgardian versions usually make her affection evident long before the candle incident. Some adaptations will recast it as her motive- wishing to prove that she would adore her beloved even if he were a grotesque monster.” Tapping at the coffee cup with his index finger, he took another measured step towards the glass, comfortably closing the last of the space between them. “The tale is sometimes called The Labours of Sigyn, for its heroine. Across the Nine, the name is often used to signify one who remains constant in love- going to great lengths to ensure their beloved’s happiness, even when the object of their affections seems far beyond their reach.”

There was a ripple of recognition in her expression, glinting in the new tension in the curve of her eyes.

“Ah. In the same way that a Romeo is an ardent romantic, a Sigyn is- faithful.”

“Precisely.”

She flipped her hand into herself. and tapped a finger against her breastbone.

“Fidelity.” She shifted into a wry moue. “How- dull. Not much of a defining virtue.”

“I beg to differ.” Loki replied, swift as a sword stroke. “There is nothing more exhilarating than fidelity. To hold another’s heart completely- you will never know where their limit lies. You will never know the extent of what they are willing to do. You will never fully anticipate them, even while possessing a fragment of their soul. To be so loved, so utterly wanted, is- horrifying.”

A subtle glow seemed to gather underneath her skin, tracing her lower lip with a single fingertip.

“Horrifying.”

They both wielded the word as though it belonged in the same breath as romance or pulchritude, illecebrous or affettuoso.

Her eyes met his, incalescent, and malleable as gold.

“You know. A palace that lies east of the sun and west of the moon- it almost sounds like the way the ancients might have described the realm of Asgard.”

Loki tried for a smirk, but knew that it softened too much with relief to carry the full effect.

“Are you going to travel on the North Wind to rescue me from my captors, darling?”

“If it proves necessary, yes.”

It was as though she didn’t even pause to think, except her tone implied that she had thought it through, thoroughly, repeatedly.

“It shouldn’t,” he assured her insouciantly, even as a delighted warmth burned through him. Loki didn’t know which was more concerning- the thought of her taking up arms and hunting Thanos across the stars, or arriving at the gates of the Asgardian palace to bargain for him back. “I ought to be able to find my way back to you without you needing to bribe a cruel princess and clean tallow stains from a shirt.”

“I can actually get tallow out of linen, you know.”

Loki frowned slightly. “Really?”

“It’s just fat. All you need is something to break down the triglycerides- an alkali. White ash and water, turn it into a crude soap, rinse.” She flicked out a hand dismissively. “Easy.”

Loki stifled a laugh. There was a slight preen in her demeanour, as though pleased to give a solution to the riddle.

“At least we have a contingency plan,” he teased.

“What exactly do you think I was doing last night, kjære prins?”

His mood dimmed at the reminder of what he had selfishly burdened her with.

“I stand corrected.” Loki paused, and bought the coffee cup to his mouth, concealing his trepidation behind its rim, pulse fluttering. “Would you really storm Asgard’s gates to rescue me?”

She looked embarrassed, head dipping.

“At this point, do you have to ask?”

Loki hummed musingly. “Considering that evasive answer, darling, I may begin to question whether-”

“Yes,” she said, half-hiding behind her hair, her blush setting a glow in the gold of her skin. “I would.”

And isn’t that terrifying.

Terrifying, and thrilling, and sufficient to make his own heart feel inadequate- even as he felt the urge to test it, to challenge the claim, to press until he could find its breaking point as it shattered under his hand and proved false, appeasing the part of him that refused to fully believe it.

“Tell me a story.”

Loki was jolted from his thoughts by the quiet entreaty.

“A story?”

“I read somewhere, that it was amongst your titles,” she said. “God of Mischief, of Lies, of Chaos- and of Stories. So-” She paused, and lifted one shoulder, arms folded in around her midriff. “Before you go. Give me a story?”

It was easy enough, to hear what lay beneath it.

We don’t have much time left. Distract me. Distract us.

Pretend, for the both of us, because I can’t.

Make me believe you. Give me something to help me wait.

“What would you like to hear, beloved?”

She swilled her flask, a tension gathering across the bridge of her nose.

“The Asgardian version of East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” she said quietly. “I ought to know how the story goes.” She smiled, tentative and valiant as a new blossom. “Don’t you think?”

It was a conversation of a thousand implicit, hollow promises, stacked together like empty glass jars.

Another hollow promise, another empty jar, and it might all come crashing down, and shatter into shrapnel.

“Yes. I suppose you should.”

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reinhartroleplays · 2 years ago

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I posted 2,108 times in 2022

123 posts created (6%)

1,985 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sprousehart-x

@scratchtovoid

@bryceyoung

@lindsayerins

@femalestunning

I tagged 2,108 of my posts in 2022

#tv: riverdale - 244 posts

#fc: lili reinhart - 244 posts

#likes - 170 posts

#tv: degrassi - 156 posts

#about me - 152 posts

#fc: nina dobrev - 119 posts

#words - 90 posts

#ch: betty cooper - 90 posts

#ship: bughead - 71 posts

#ch: jughead jones - 66 posts

Longest Tag: 104 characters

#like apparently even if i’m stuck here till friday i have to go in and work my normal hours saturday????

My Top Posts in 2022:

I’ve been going back and forth on posting this because one, I’m not in the Hollywood group scene anymore and two, was it really worth my while to spend energy writing this? Ultimately, I decided with yes because I believe it’s important to know who is in your tags and why this group/this player is banned from most (if not all) groups and why it’s a constant merry go round with her.

I first met Lindsay in a Hollywood group and she seemed kind enough. She consistently praised my characters, messaged me to give compliments, asked to plot and I thought she was genuine. I thought nothing of the endless supply of nice words until I came across accounts with the same character…almost shockingly similar to mine. Tags were copied/reblogs were copied/and even plots were copied. I called her out on it, she apologized, and I thought we could move on. This happened for several years with not only me but other accounts. She’d always apologize, promise she’d never do it again…and then repeat the process. It seemed like she didn’t have an original bone in her body. Unfortunately, this was a time where the concept of “receipts” wasn’t a thing so I never took screenshots but there’s multiple members of the rpc that could back me up.

She’s been banned from multiple groups for either pressuring members to do pregnancy storylines (she seems to have an obsession with them), or making up fake histories just to give her character children or applies as a pregnant fc so she can play a pregnancy plot. In a Hollywood group I was an admin in, she requested a pregnancy plot and then we came to find out she had never even asked her partner for permission. She’s also been banned for inconsistent activity. She’ll join a group, make one starter, come back for ask memes, and then go inactive….and then repeat the process. She’s also aware she’s been banned from the groups and still tries to apply under an alias. Multiple Hollywood rp groups can also vouch for that.

And while this may not matter to some, it matters to me: she’s told a friend that she wouldn’t be interested in doing a f/f ship because she doesn’t play characters “that way”. She’s applied for openly bisexual characters and then claimed they “prefer men”. She’s made multiple posts about how she is “pro-life” and it’s apparent she’s a Trump supporter. Again - maybe not a big deal to anyone else but for me, that tells me exactly the kind of person she is.

Again - I’m not in this scene anymore. This really doesn’t effect me in one way or the other. But I just thought the community should know her history and the kind of person she has proven herself to be. Here is another PSA written about her. (Please note that in response to this PSA, the writer was blocked and then the original post was deleted rather than her owning up and apologizing)

Here are the aliases she normally goes by - Marie, A, L, M and she likes to apply mostly for Lili Reinhart face claims (a good majority of the Riverdale fcs), Sophie Turner, Selena Gomez, Zoe Sugg, Hilary Duff, Troian Bellisario, Lucy Hale, Gigi Hadid, etc.

11 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

if ned cheated on his wife, then love really is dead. like. what the fu k

12 notes - Posted September 27, 2022

i’m not excusing for what ned did - his behavior was disgusting and toxic and i’m glad he was kicked out of the try guys

but for the longest time, he was my favorite. i bought his color in the try guys shirts. i never thought his “my wife” bit was obnoxious and i enjoyed how much he shared of his family. (ariel continues to be my queen) i thought he was funny, he was clearly smart and i think a lot of the business was due in thanks to him.

to read that everybody hated him all along and that the try guys are glad to have him gone and nobody liked him to begin with blows my mind. was i his only fan or was i just oblivious to all of his apparent red flags? again- not defending him, not saying he shouldn’t have consequences, just saying it’s been crazy to see that literally nobody was sad to see him go.

46 notes - Posted October 3, 2022

lili really said nah i’m not gonna shut up and you know what, good for her.

54 notes - Posted August 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

idc what roberto or anyone says - bughead is forever top tier because it is CANON that betty willed jughead back alive simply by saying “don’t leave me, jug”, killed archie to save the universe and jughead RISKED UNIVERSES EXPLODING simply so betty could live.

your otp could never.

107 notes - Posted August 2, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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whatiremembered · 1 year ago

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It’s hard quitting anything you’ve been doing the most of your time.

It’s hard to change. To be reborn as someone you were not yesterday. But there is this light at the end of the tunnel that keeps pulling me forward.

I’m trying to let go. Not to cling to anything to let it happen. But it’s been slow. Birth usually is.

I talk to god all the time. It’s been all that feels right to do lately, but I’ve also felt like I’ve come unmoored from the practical realities of what I’m doing with my life in this world.

I’ve been out of work for three weeks, and have a good prospect.

I’ve been stuck on in this still limbo of inaction. The crush of disappointment from losing work, though to be honest, the work had long since vanished and I was collection a check for nothing, which is its own sort of torture.

It has not been easy, but I know it has been necessary. I have surrendered to god’s path and it is the only way I know anymore.

I know it will lead me to the promise land, because there are moments when I know I am already there. That they path is the promise land. That this is god’s kingdom. Whose else could it be? What else is existences? What could it be but the kingdom of god? If god exists, and I don’t see how else anything could exist, then this world is his kingdom and it is good.

But surely it is broken. We all see that don’t we? But is it the world that is broken, or our vision that is fractured?

My perception of the world is imperfect. It has always felt so. I could never focus on what was right in front of me. I believe god has fixed that and that is what allows these words to flow from my fingers as I type. But beyond that, all of us struggle to see the world for the wonder that it is. The language we use to communicate to on another skews our vision and forces us to perceive in fragments.

Only god’s vision is whole, because it is god who sees through all of us at once.

This is a new beginning. Sitting here in the sun on November the 6th, I am at home in God’s kingdom.

I feel both alive and dead and reborn again and again.

It is almost too much to bear.

#struggle #god #redemption

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nightlightrequested · 2 years ago

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I’m gonna be honest I just thought of the absolute most saddest tragic au idea and I am this close to making an absolute wreck of Wikus

Dot points of angst idea

- Christopher has a direct sibling we shall call Dave

-wikus thanks to Dave becomes apart of the District prawn community less known for his human origins but more for his creativity towards art that young poleepkwa enjoy playing with or gifting to others which along with his overall organisation ability helps the district minorly

-wikus arrives on poleepkwa home world, promised they will no longer be subjected to the horrid likes of earth, it’s very stressed or emphasised that it will not be like it was on earth

- the earth touched poleepkwa get set up in a little mini town to help reintergration

-wikus lives with Dave

- not long after establishing themselves Christopher along with a vehicle and armoured poleepkwa

- the rescued poleepkwa are a little bit suspicious which turns into slight panic as Wikus after a quick word with Christopher is escorted quiet rudely into the vehicle

- slight panic turns into larger panic as Dave comes home to see wikus be put in the truck and driven off, he tries to give chase but it’s a truck so you know obviously it’s not gonna turn out well

-Dave demands Christopher to help get Wikus back to which Christopher explains he already did complete his part of a promise and Wikus was being “treated”

- treated means horribly experimented on, as it turns out Humans dna isn’t as flexible or adaptive as the poleepkwa or other aliens because there’s not enough substance for his prawn body to convert to human, nor will his human dna become compatible with substitute martial

-the scientists aren’t really your average government scientists and are really just doing shit as a paid for comeuppance on the human race via proxy to poor wikus,

-Christopher doesn’t realise the extent till he is surprised with a pair of eyes in a jar, a lab friend declaring about how Christopher should have a trophy for his actions

-Dave now coming out of the house for the first time since loosing wikus goes to see Christopher to ask about Wikus

-Dave meets now grown Cj who decides to wait for Christopher in his office together, where Buddy then notices a familiar pair of eyes

-one horrific reaction later and government meeting it comes to light that one shady prawn organised to inact revenge onto Wikus under the guise of treatment

- the rescued earth poleepkwa loose trust in home now because even they lie about not being like earth yet did horrble things to someone they deemed different

-wikus is dead and buddy might have well as died as well because they were really close “friends”

No escape from government conspiracy just move from one lying abusive government to another less abusive but also does harm government

(Dave isn’t the red poleepkwa I’ve been drawing but could if I feel like it)

#District 9 #Day dreaming to sad songs is a bad idea tbf was much more dramatic in my head

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sugusshi · 2 years ago

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Hello it is i, zee, who finally rises from the dead 💀

I just wanna apologize for basically going inactive without notice, but life is kicking my ass so i don’t have much spoons to be on tumblr or most social media tbh.

I know i’ve been missing a ton of shit, and i’m so behind on reading everybody’s amazing works sobs, but i will get on that soon!! This week is still gonna be very busy as my younger brother graduates 8th grade (I FEEL OLD) and this weekend is his celebration for that and entering a good high school. So I still won’t be semi-active until like another week or two, but at least now I’m at least leaving some type of notice 😩

Apologies again, but if you do wanna chat and stuff, I am active on discord dms! For everyone that has tagged me in stuff, I will get to it, promise!!! I just wanna take my time in reading it cause all your stuff is always so amazing ;u;

Anyway, I miss and love you all and i hope you all have an amazing day!!! ♡

#the queen speaks | ♛#i miss you guys sobs #please bear with me in the meantime tho #especially entries for my collab #I wanna give all your works my rapt attention once I’m more active again #kiss kiss

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katnissmellarkkk · 3 years ago

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Hiiii, so I decided to continue my combing through the books for random specific Everlark related content series. This one is Katniss and Peeta taking care of each other. This is Part One and only includes stuff from the first book because it was getting too long. 😭😅. Anyways, hope y’all enjoy.

I gently unzip his jacket, unbutton his shirt and ease them off him. His undershirt is so plastered into his wounds I have to cut it away with my knife and drench him again to work it loose. He’s badly bruised with a long burn across his chest and four tracker jacker stings, if you count the one under his ear. But I feel a bit better. This much I can fix. I decide to take care of his upper body first, to alleviate some pain, before I tackle whatever damage Cato did to his leg.

Since treating his wounds seems pointless when he’s lying in what’s become a mud puddle, I manage to prop him up against a boulder. He sits there, uncomplaining, while I wash away all the traces of dirt from his hair and skin. His flesh is very pale in the sunlight and he no longer looks strong and stocky. I have to dig the stingers out of his tracker jacker lumps, which causes him to wince, but the minute I apply the leaves he sighs in relief. While he dries in the sun, I wash his filthy shirt and jacket and spread them over boulders. Then I apply the burn cream to his chest. This is when I notice how hot his skin is becoming. The layer of mud and the bottles of water have disguised the fact that he’s burning with fever. I dig through the first-aid kit I got from the boy from District 1 and find pills that reduce your temperature.

“Swallow these,” I tell him, and he obediently takes the medicine. “You must be hungry.”

“Not really. It’s funny, I haven’t been hungry for days,” says Peeta. In fact, when I offer him groosling, he wrinkles his nose at it and turns away. That’s when I know how sick he is.

“Peeta, we need to get some food in you,” I insist.

“It’ll just come right back up,” he says. The best I can do is to get him to eat a few bits of dried apple. “Thanks. I’m much better, really. Can I sleep now, Katniss?” he asks.

“Soon,” I promise. “I need to look at your leg first.” Trying to be as gentle as I can, I remove his boots, his socks, and then very slowly inch his pants off of him.

I scoot my square of plastic under him so I can wash down the rest of him. With each bottle I pour over him, the worse the wound looks. The rest of his lower body has fared pretty well, just one tracker jacker sting and a few small burns that I treat quickly. But the gash on his leg . . . what on earth can I do for that?

I know the tracker jacker leaves draw out infection, so I start with those. Within minutes of pressing the handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg.

“What next, Dr. Everdeen?” he asks.

“Maybe I’ll put some of the burn ointment on it. I think it helps with infection anyway. And wrap it up?” I say. I do and the whole thing seems a lot more manageable, covered in clean white cotton.

I help him dress, leaving his feet bare so we can walk in the water, and pull him upright. His face drains of color the moment he puts weight on his leg. “Come on. You can do this.”

But he can’t. Not for long anyway. We make it about fifty yards downstream, with him propped up by my shoulder, and I can tell he’s going to black out. I sit him on the bank, push his head between his knees, and pat his back awkwardly as I survey the area.

When Peeta’s able to stand, I half-guide, half-carry him up to the cave. Really, I’d like to look around for a better place, but this one will have to do because my ally is shot. Paper white, panting, and, even though it’s only just cooling off, he’s shivering.

I cover the floor of the cave with a layer of pine needles, unroll my sleeping bag, and tuck him into it. I get a couple of pills and some water into him when he’s not noticing, but he refuses to eat even the fruit. Then he just lies there, his eyes trained on my face as I build a sort of blind out of vines to conceal the mouth of the cave.

I check his forehead and find it burning and dry. I don’t know what to do. Leave him in the bag and hope the excessive heat breaks the fever? Take him out and hope the night air cools him off? I end up just dampening a strip of bandage and placing it on his forehead.

I spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Peeta, refreshing the bandage.

Peeta sits beside me, leaning against the wall, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes trained on the world outside. “Go to sleep,” he says softly. His hand brushes the loose strands of my hair off my forehead. Unlike the staged kisses and caresses so far, this gesture seems natural and comforting. I don’t want him to stop and he doesn’t. He’s still stroking my hair when I fall asleep.

I give him more fever pills and stand over him while he drinks first one, then a second quart of water. Then I tend to his minor wounds, the burns, the stings, which are showing improvement.

Peeta’s stretched out on top of the sleeping bag in the shade of the rocks. Although he brightens a bit when I come in, it’s clear he feels miserable. I put cool cloths on his head, but they warm up almost as soon as they touch his skin.

I sit back on my heels and look at him with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction. A stray berry stains his chin and I wipe it away. “Who can’t lie, Peeta?” I say, even though he can’t hear me.

I gingerly lift my hand to my head and find it bandaged. This simple gesture leaves me weak and dizzy. Peeta holds a bottle to my lips and I drink thirstily.

He doesn’t seem angry about my tricking him, drugging him, and running off to the feast. Maybe I’m just too beat-up and I’ll hear about it later when I’m stronger. But for the moment, he’s all gentleness.

“You need to eat. I’ll go hunting soon,” I say.

“Not too soon, all right?” he says. “You just let me take care of you for a while.”

Peeta feeds me bites of groosling and raisins and makes me drink plenty of water. He rubs some warmth back into my feet and wraps them in his jacket before tucking the sleeping bag back up around my chin.

Rain drips through several holes in the ceiling, but Peeta has built a sort of canopy over my head and upper body by wedging the square of plastic into the rocks above me.

“I think your wound is bleeding again. Come on, lie down, it’s bedtime anyway,” he says.

My socks are dry enough to wear now. I make Peeta put his jacket back on. The damp cold seems to cut right down to my bones, so he must be half frozen. I insist on taking the first watch, too, although neither of us think it’s likely anyone will come in this weather. But he won’t agree unless I’m in the bag, too, and I’m shivering so hard that it’s pointless to object. In stark contrast to two nights ago, when I felt Peeta was a million miles away, I’m struck by his immediacy now. As we settle in, he pulls my head down to use his arm as a pillow; the other rests protectively over me even when he goes to sleep. No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else’s arms have made me feel this safe.

I set a good dinner out, but halfway through Peeta begins to nod off. After days of inactivity, the hunt has taken its toll. I order him into the sleeping bag and set aside the rest of his food for when he wakes. He drops off immediately. I pull the sleeping bag up to his chin and kiss his forehead, not for the audience, but for me. Because I’m so grateful that he’s still here, not dead by the stream as I’d thought.

Although I’m shaking in the biting wind, I rip off my jacket, remove my shirt, and zip back into the jacket as swiftly as possible. That brief exposure sets my teeth chattering beyond control.

Peeta’s face is gray in the pale moonlight. I make him lie down before I probe his wound. Warm, slippery blood runs over my fingers. A bandage will not be enough. I’ve seen my mother tie a tourniquet a handful of times and try to replicate it. I cut free a sleeve from my shirt, wrap it twice around his leg just under his knee, and tie a half knot. I don’t have a stick, so I take my remaining arrow and insert it in the knot, twisting it as tightly as I dare. It’s risky business — Peeta may end up losing his leg — but when I weigh this against him losing his life, what alternative do I have? I bandage the wound in the rest of my shirt and lie down with him.

“Are you cold?” he asks. He unzips his jacket and I press against him as he fastens it around me. It’s a bit warmer, sharing our body heat inside my double layer of jackets, but the night is young. The temperature will continue to drop. Even now I can feel the Cornucopia, which burned so when I first climbed it, slowly turning to ice.

“Cato may win this thing yet,” I whisper to Peeta.

“Don’t you believe it,” he says, pulling up my hood, but he’s shaking harder than I am.

Somehow, we make it back to the lake. I scoop up a handful of the cold water for Peeta and bring a second to my lips.

The hovercraft materializes overhead and two ladders drop, only there’s no way I’m letting go of Peeta. I keep one arm around him as I help him up, and we each place a foot on the first rung of the ladder.

“It’s my fault,” I say. “Because I used that tourniquet.”

“Yes, it’s your fault I’m alive,” says Peeta.

“He’s right,” says Caesar. “He’d have bled to death for sure without it.”

I guess this is true, but I can’t help feeling upset about it to the extent that I’m afraid I might cry and then I remember everyone in the country is watching me so I just bury my face in Peeta’s shirt. It takes them a couple of minutes to coax me back out because it’s better in the shirt, where no one can see me, and when I do come out, Caesar backs off questioning me so I can recover.

#everlark #thg #hunger games #Peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #the hunger games #honestly they’re so cute both little caretakers #also love that Katniss is just constantly like let me feed you more medicine and food #and Peeta is concerned with wrapping her up and keeping her warm #hmmm wonder if that has any individual character significance for each other them #each of them I meant #sorry long post y’all #I tried to cut it down I did I just didn’t wanna miss anything which i doubtlessly did anyway #also this whole thing is making me wonder where is their toilet???? where are they peeing all this water they’re making each other drink????#bookcomb ♥️🔎

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growing-yet-into-magic · 3 years ago

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Meet the Witch🔮🃏🕯

✨4-6-2022 ✨

Personal Name: [REDACTED] Just call me Growing, it’s more familiar online anyhow

Pronouns: He/Him, They/Them, She/Her or any others in any order, most people just gender me on sight so 🤷🏽‍♀️ I don’t get many choices honestly

Age: post-college, but not in my 30s quite yet

Season: Autumn and Spring. I enjoy walking weather now.

Where: NJ, somehow

None of you get to see my face on the whole because online people started being real weird to a college friend of mine when she posted her face on tumblr (this was 2015?) and quite frankly I’m not about that. You can gaze upon this post as long as you promise not to be freaking weird. When I am a grown professional nerd who needs social media this may change! Maybe. Don’t hold me to it. I’ve avoided LinkedIn for TOO LONG (ง'̀-'́)ง

Magical Interests: Ancestral Practices, Cartomancy, Witchcraft research as an art/profession (I’m mid MLS), Tea, divination, folk healing/Herbalism

Some of my favorite blogs!!:

@upthewitchypunx @breelandwalker @afrocentric-divination @ancestralmedicinemagic @north-of-annwn @whichwitchami @hillbillyoracle @lazywitchling @thewitchofthenorsetrilogy @therestlesswitch @tarotio @thetwistedrope @mudanglife @madamehearthwitch @heatherwitch @tarotio @therootwitch @witches-ofcolor @hyruleoctoling @angiethewitch @tieras @will-o-the-witch @cunningcelt @lazywitchling @maddiviner @serpentandthreads @windvexer @teawiththegods

Real talk I copy pasted old tag games tag to try and keep as many mentioned people as possible but I know I forgot some people please forgive me. And some blogs are inactive so...idk be nice and scroll kindly.

Fun facts:

I only learned DND because my boss told me to under pain of death

I once fully almost died in Iceland and when I got back to my aunt she was like “I placed an international call just so that I could have the priest pray with me while you were up there” so everyone thank Mom’s Sister that I am still alive to blog today

I am perhaps the only exclusive expert on cult-exposing literature in my branch. which is not a competitive position. No one is fighting me on it or anything.

Once the Circle got real fucking haunted on Beltane but that’s another story

OH I’m one of the founding members of the Circle of Solitary Sirens! It’s very small, we formed in college, but we do have a charter for growth and expansion in the future so I would love if we added in members one day. I want us to thrive.

I have a Bachelor’s in Psych and a minor in Critical Sexuality Studies, which I capped off with an hour and a half presentation on the sexualization of dead women and the feminine role in death *jazz hands*

Was a girl scout and then a 4Her, not bad for a suburbs kid

no but real talk the 4H to librarian pipeline is real fucking real in this town

Carnegie hall performer twice overrrr no I can’t read sheet music and that has never stopped me!

This is my only social media platform. I deleted tiktok.

One of my favorite authors is @/tamorapierce and I would love to write something that made me feel as strongly as she made me feel as a child

Find me @growing-yet-into-being to see pictures of images

Find me @blank-pages-and-bad-ideas to read words I sometimes write

Find me @growing-yet-into-mundanity to see the stuff I reblog onto basically a junk blog for any interest that isn’t witchcraft. Lots of Danny Phantom. Think my ao3 is somewhere there.

I have a storygraph account here, again, please do not be weird. I have been getting so many funky anons in the last couple months that I am more worried than usual. You have to be signed in to see the profile.

Thank you @baduhennasraven and thank you @cauldron-chatter! This was fun!

#tag games #growing’s nonsense #long post

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galactic-magick · 4 years ago

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Back from the Dead: Victor Stone/Cyborg x Reader

Summary: You were dating Victor before the accident, and as far as you know he’s dead; until you receive a cryptic message.

Words: 800+

Warnings: mentions of death, light angst?

Author’s Notes: I said I might write some Justice League x Reader since there doesn’t seem to be much/if any yet, and I got this idea after watching it again. I’m probably going to be opening my requests again soon so if anyone likes this I’m definitely open to writing more for him and the rest of the league :)

Taglist: @candid-confetti @nattygee

Every day you regret not going to that game, maybe you could’ve seen him one last time.

It’s not like it was a normal occurrence for you either. You saw how much it hurt him every time his father didn’t show up, so you came to as many games as you could to support him.

But the one time you couldn’t make it, was the night he was lost from you forever.

You bury your face into your pillow, wanting to scream but not wanting to wake anyone else up. You haven’t been able to sleep well in months, yet another thing that’s killing you from the inside out.

You hear your phone buzz, which seems odd since you always silence it.

Grabbing it and propping yourself up on your elbows, you squint at the screen and see an odd notification. You blink a few times to adjust your eyes from the dark, and you finally read the words:

Victor has sent you his location.

And another a few seconds later:

Meet me here. I’ll explain everything.

Your hand slams onto your mouth, and you sit up rapidly, your phone falling onto the floor.

It must just be a wrong number, right? Or his number was inactive long enough that it was given to someone else? Maybe a kid into prank texts?

You try to take some deep breaths to calm yourself down, but you can’t get the possibility out of your head.

What if it’s really him somehow?

You pick up your phone to check the location, only to find it’s in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it’s just a scam, or worse, someone trying to kidnap you by getting you away from society and anyone who could save you.

But with the small chance it really is him, wouldn’t you regret it if you didn’t go at all?

Yes.

You’re done living in regret.

You throw off your covers and get dressed, packing a few defense items just in case. You get in the car and drive, desperately gripping the wheel to stop yourself from shaking.

When you get out, you realize it’s not as in the middle of nowhere as you thought. You’ve been here, actually.

It’s one of the community football fields usually used by the kids teams, and Victor was an assistant coach for them for a couple summers. He was always so good with them, and you’d usually come watch the practices and bring the kids snacks. You’d forgotten about it, lost in all the memories you’ve been trying to push down in order to move forward.

“Y/N?”

You turn around to see a tall man with bright red light coming through his chest and face, lightly disguised with a hoodie. You scream, stumbling back.

“Who are you?!”

“Y/N, please-“ his voice is deep and echoes, but there’s something familiar about it. “Please. Just…let me explain,”

He takes off his hood, ridding the shadows from his face.

You gasp.

It’s him. It’s undoubtedly him. Half his head is covered in metal, but it’s him.

You step forward slowly, lifting your hand and brushing your fingers down the flesh side of his face. He kisses your palm, and tears fill your eyes.

“I thought you were dead,” you exhale, choking back a cry.

“I was,” he shakes his head. “My father…he brought me back using alien technology. But it turned me into this,” he cringes, looking away from you. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you and tell you I was alive sooner. I just…I didn’t think you’d want me anymore,”

“Why wouldn’t I want you anymore?” you turn his face back to you. “You’re all I’ve wanted since the day I thought you were gone,”

He smiles, but shivers away your touch, “You shouldn’t. I’m not even a person anymore. I’m more machine than man. I’m a monster,”

“Says who?” you ask. “I saw the news, Victor. They talked about a cyborg man in a team of heroes that saved the world. That was you, wasn’t it? I don’t think a true monster would do something like that,”

“It was,” he nods. “But…I’m still not the same,”

“Can I see?”

He hesitantly nods again, and you take his hand, intertwining your fingers with his mechanical ones. You’d expect them to be cold, but they’re not. You feel along all the smooth plates and the gaps.

Your fingers brush across the other side of his face, moving down his neck and his chest. Unzipping the hoodie slightly, you place your hand over the red light and look back up at him.

“You’re still handsome,”

“Really?”

You laugh, “You really thought some tech would scare me away?”

“I did, yeah,” he chuckles. “So you’re really not scared of me?”

“Nope,” you agree. “Just…maybe don’t come up behind me like that again,”

“No promises,”

#justice league #zack snyder’s justice league #justice league x reader #victor stone x reader #cyborg x reader #victor stone #cyborg

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thewalkingdead-imagines · 4 years ago

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TWD - Negan Imagine ~ “Here’s Negan”

Imagine for the 22nd episode of season 10

Summary: Until they can find their way back to one another, both Negan and the Reader have to deal with the ghosts of their pasts and overcome present threats that try to rob them of their future in Alexandria

Leaves rustled underneath Negan’s feet as he moved through the thick undergrowth of the forest, only stopping as he watched Carol kneel down for a second to pull a dead rabbit out of its trap, the first success of this little hunting trip. “Hey, I just wanted to thank you for getting me the hell out of there for a bit. I mean you may have noticed things with Maggie and I are a little bit tense”, he spoke up, clearing his throat as he thought back to yet another encounter with her earlier today during his reconstruction shift by the woodhouses. She hadn’t said anything, as usual, but if looks could kill, fuck, he’d be as dead as mutton right now. Carol only nodded as she got back on her feet, without looking just once at him as she kept on strolling. ”I don’t mind being lay little Negan for a bit but hell, there’s only so far I can go to get out of her way”, Negan started back up, adjusting the bag on his shoulder as they moved out of the darkness of the forest onto more open woodland that was covered with with a couple scattered bushes. He was trying to lead this conversation into a direction without directly going at it like a bull at the gate, hoping that this would give him better chances but Carol either didn’t want or didn’t get the clues he’d been throwing into their rather one-sided conversations since they’d stepped out of the gates of Alexandria. They still had a deal, and she still hadn’t done her part. A thick sigh left his lips as he looked over at her, before he started back up, for yet another, but more offensive try. “You know I was thinking maybe you put in a word for me”, he said, careful not to trip as he moved over the grassy, overgrow ground,”Let’s move things over at least kinda get the ball rolling. Given our recent history, I kinda figured you owe me that much, right?” Nothing. She didn’t say anything, not even the slightest peep and instead moved straight towards a shabby looking cabin at the end of the clearing, leaving him startled for a moment as he stared in between her and the small house. "You know this place?”, he called out as she kept walking, not turning back to look at him and instead just hummed in agreement. A small but frustrated groan fell from his lips as he sped up his steps to catch up with her, trying to figure out what she was up to and what that cabin had to do with it until she stopped right on its porch and let the door swing open for him to look inside. He should’ve known. Fuck he should’ve known that she hadn’t taken him on this trip here because of the goodness of her heart, she had a plan all along and that plan was to get him out of Alexandria. For good. “I see you went ahead and moved me in”, it left his lips with a scoff as he stepped inside the cabin and looked at the boxes that stood in the middle of the room, filled with his belongings while his leather jacket was thrown over a rocking chair right next to them. This was like a bad dream, a fucking bad dream that he just wanted to wake up from. ”I’m sorry. The council voted to banish you”, Carol’s voice ripped his eyes from the boxes and darted them at her as she shrugged her shoulders slightly She wasn’t sorry. Nor did the council vote to banish him. This was bullshit. He’d been right there when Gabey had told his wife about the council’s inactivity during his trip with Aaron, he’d been right there when he’d assured the both of them that no decisions would be made about him as long as they were gone. She was trying to feed him steaming hot bullshit. “What you want just isn’t gonna happen, it’s not possible”, Carol said, the tone in her voice pretty much the same as the one a nanny would use with a clueless, dumb kid,”I know it’s not what I promised but given our less recent history? It’s better than you deserve.” The corner of her lips quirked up as she looked at him, while a part of him was still not fully getting that this here was happening right now. For nearly two weeks he’d been living and working in Alexandria like anybody else, doing his part to build it back up without any problems. And now this shit was happening out of the blue, trying to tear the life with his wife from him that he’d just reached. Looking at the woman in front of him he furrowed his brows, trying to test the waters first and see what she’d do if he’d start to debunk these lies of hers. “Did the council really banish me or is this more of a Carol seizing the reigns kind of situation?”, he started, but instead of an answer, Carol merely started to smile, a condescending and nearly wicked look in her eyes as she tilted her head a little and looked at him before she strutted past him and pushed the dead animal into his hands. “It’s rabbits for you.” “You really didn’t think this through”, Negan called out as she moved to the door, louder now as he could feel the anger starting to boil slowly but surely up in him. This whole shit wasn’t just about his own ass, Carol was pulling his wife into this bullshit too and this was where he drew the line. She’d been happy during these last two weeks, so damn happy to finally gain a bit of the life she’d always dreamed of having with him and he wasn’t gonna let Carol ruin that happiness of hers merely because she thought it was her place to decide over his fate. “My wife’s part of the council”, he said, a humorless chuckle leaving his lips as he could see her stopping in her tracks,”If any decision like that would’ve been made, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d see her raise hell in that little makeshift church right now.” With that he could see her turning around to him, just enough to look at him, not more. “Oh and-”, he called out, snipping fingers in an overdramatic fashion,”When Gabey left with Aaron, he made sure to tell her the council’s inactive for the time being. There was no fucking vote.” She’d been busted, clearly and he could tell that she didn’t plan for him to pull out arguments like these, but much to his annoyance, it didn’t seem to bother her. The look on her face was the same, nearly indifferent, as if she didn’t care about it. “So if I’m supposed to stay here, what’s gonna happen with her?”, Negan called out as he stepped onto the porch, closing the distance as she shrugged her shoulders. “She’s gonna have to decide.” “She’s one of the only doctors left in Alexandria”, it left his lips with a scoff, the anger now starting to let his body tingle as the indifference in Carol’s voice nearly drove him wild,”She’s gonna choose me. You really wanna risk losing another doc just so you can pull your little solo act here?” “I know what I’m doing”, she just said instead of giving him a true answer, before she turned around to strut towards the edge of the clearing ,”She’s gonna find out. Then we’ll see.” “Carol”, it rumbled through Negan’s trembling chest, up his throat that started to tighten the more anger and desperation boiled up in him as he stepped down the porch. Trying to follow her, he took long steps over the overgrown ground, his heart hammering in his chest before Carol’s hand suddenly fell onto the hunting knife on her belt. “Goodbye Negan”, she called out as her hand wrapped around the knife’s handle to send him a clear warning sign,”Do not try something dumb and do not follow me back.” And with that, she vanished in the thicket of the forest, leaving him to stand there like an abandoned dog while his mind was torn on what to do now.

“How’s the book going?”, you heard Steve’s voice sound through to you as he moved back into the infirmary’s main room, merely some new towels in his hands as he strolled closer. “Pretty good actually”, you said as you nodded down to Negan’s anniversary gift and looked over the dried burdock leaf that he’d glued onto one side and your notes about the medical herb that were already starting to cover the page beside it, “Really starting to look like a handbook.” “Good, I can really use that. Your handwriting is much easier to read than those notes of Siddiq, the info is gold but wow, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a messier handwriting”, Steve said with a soft chuckle, though you could clearly still hear the same sadness sound through it you felt anytime you realized that your friend was gone. A bittersweet look fell between your notebook and Siddiq’s notes that laid right next to it, that had helped you on every step of the way to fill this book up. Slowly you started to nod, about to reply to Steve before a mixture of loud voices made your glance shoot up. “We got an emergency”, you could hear a voice call out, stressed and full of panic before you saw the reason for this turmoil that made your mood switch up from one moment to another. Hanging in between a group of four people that carried him as well as they could hung Carter, barely conscious while a large piece of metal protruded his leg that was covered in dark red blood. “He fell from a ladder on one of the broken pipes”, you could hear one of them say entirely out of breath as they pushed inside and the first thick splatters of blood fell onto the floor in the very moment you rushed towards them. “We need help, now.” Negan’s fingertips were digging into the worn down wood of the windowsill, his eyes staring out at the forest while his mind was running wild. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He didn’t wanna head back, run into Carol and find himself with a knife sticking into his damn back. Fuck knew what she’d actually do but he sure as shit wouldn’t risk it, not after the way she’d betrayed his ass just now. Sighing he started to walk through the shabby cabin, trying to find just anything to do with himself. There was no way his wife would be here anytime soon, even if she’d hear about Carol’s new plan as soon as she’d arrive back at Alexandria, and he highly doubted that. This place was still far out and he was stuck here now. “Fuck this”, he growled, kicking against the rocking chair that was still filled with his belongings even though he felt like a tantrum throwing toddler the moment his foot met the wood. He was fucking stuck here. Gulping thickly he moved in to take his leather jacket into his hands, run his fingers over the smooth leather as he stared down at it, gulping thickly as his eyes found the marks Lucille’s wire had left here years ago. Looking at them still gave him a bitter feeling. To this day he still didn’t know where she was, no idea what had happed to her after Rick had taken her from his patient’s room in the infirmary. He had no clue if she was somewhere locked away in Alexandria as his wife still hypothesized or if she’d really fallen off that wagon during a weapon transport as Michonne had tried to sell him once...he didn’t know. Gulping thickly he ran his fingers over the marks, thinking back to the last time he’d held her on that goddamn hill that had decided over his fate and merely the memory of it kicked off another range of thoughts. Could they have brought her back there? Was that a possibility? He’d made up his theories over the year in lonely moments down in that cell, without taking any of them all to serious to not let them fuck with his head but the more he thought about it now, the more it seemed like an actual possibility. Rick had always been a nostalgic fucker, he could see him going back there and placing his Lucille at the place he’d slashed his throat and ended the war only to tie up loose ends, only to put some kind of symbolic end to it and give himself another piece of peace after Carl’s death. He could give it a try, right? Just to keep his mind occupied and pass the time until he could make any other decisions for his future. If his wife would even arrive here today, she wouldn’t do so soon, so even if it would just keep him busy instead of actually bring his bat back, this was worth a try, right?

Blood, so much blood. For way too long if felt like you only saw red everywhere you looked. Carter’s leg, the bandages, the cot and the floor until you finally saw Steve’s blood covered hands handing you the last bit of tape to secure the edge of the thick bandage that was wrapped around the leg, marking the end of this ordeal. it took yet another while until you were sure that Carter was stable and the next shift started that finally displace you before you could wash the blood off your hands and stumble outside, plummet down onto the bench that leaned against the wall. Sighing thickly propped your elbows onto your knees, trying to get yourself to realize that you were done for today and were allowed to relax now before you saw Steve moving outside, two glasses of water in his hands. “Thought we could use a bit of a refreshment”, he said, a tired tone in his voice as he stretched one of the glasses towards you. “Thank you”, you mumbled with an exhausted smile, taking the glass from his hand before he let himself fall next to you and sighed deeply. “God I’m glad our shift is over now”, he said, relief swinging through his voice as you took a sip of your water and leaned back against the cushion of the bench,”Can’t wait to go home, eat some dinner with Daniel and then take a big nap.” “Mhmm...sounds like a good plan”, you said, taking another gulp of the water before a small chuckle fell from your lips,”Negan and I found have that DVD collection in our house and honestly, I just wanna out whatever in that console, plunge down on the couch and just shut my brain out.” A sigh left your lips, exhausted but content as you already looked forward to the moment you’d be able to cuddle up against him and switch this bench for the comfy couch. ”Just relax and watch some kinda show, even though I’ll probably fall asleep while I’m at it tho”, you mumbled, a soft yawn leaving your lips as you heard Steve humming in agreement. ”I like that plan too”, he said as you glimpsed over at him and saw him throwing you an exhausted but cheerful look,”Think I’m gonna have to lend one or two DVDs of yours some time, we’ve been rewatching the same stuff for way too long now.” ”Well you’re always welcome to stop by and take a peek at ‘em”, you chuckled, moving in to take your last sip while a small laugh fell from Steve’s lips. “You bet!” With his hands tightly wrapped around the handle of the shovel he’d luckily found in the back of that cabin, Negan found himself standing on the side of the hill, digging into the soil over and over again. There were already holes scattered all around him, with none if them leading to Lucille, nor any clue about her. A thick sigh fell from his lips as he turned his head towards the sound of a walker groan in the distance, faint and barely audible but he could see that dirty fucker shuffling at the foot of the hill, awfully slow and thankfully lonely. That asshole wouldn’t be a problem for him for a while. Turning back around he squinted his eyes slightly, keeping them from being dazzled by sinking sun that started to vanish behind the hill’s top, before his eyes fell on the glimmering glass window that was still hung up on the tree, just as it had years ago, still missing the same shard of colorful glass that Rick had used to slash his jugular with. With a thick gulp Negan looked back down, not all too excited about the memories that started to flood his mind all over again, so instead of spending another moment thinking about the events that had happened here, he dug his shovel back into the soil, hoisting a large piece out of it before a disappointed sound fell from his lips. Again, nothing. “Fuck this”, he growled to himself, staring angrily at the ground below him. Why the fuck was he even so upset? Chances were low that she was actually here, he knew that and still he found himself frustrated. Clearing his throat he strolled along the hill’s side, a little further upward as he gave himself three more chances and then he’d head back to the cabin. Chance 1? Nothing, he just split a poor damn rainworm in half. Chance 2? Nothing again, hole was as empty as a dumb fuck’s head. Chance 3?...still, nothing. “Fuck”, Negan spat out, his hand tightening around the handle, a frustrated groan falling from his lips as he angrily slammed the shovel’s edge into the soil. But instead of the usual shuffling sound, a dull one echoed through the air, letting him flinch and shoot his glance down into the grass as his hands went back to work lickety split. This could be anything, fucking anything but this could also be...it was her. It was really her. The barbed wire peaked out of the grass, slightly detached from the wood that was laying there in the ground, just enough dug out for him to clearly see the bat “Holy fuck”, Negan chocked out as he started to carefully rise her out of the soil, his eyes turning wide as he let the shovel fall and leaned down to carefully pick her up. “Ricky you nostalgic fucker”, Negan mumbled, though his throat was already tightening as he glimpsed down at the bat that had once brought him through this world. He couldn’t believe his eyes for another moment while his thumb ran along the worn down wood that had once been smooth and shiny. He could feel his nose tingling slightly as some tears blurred his view, the mere feeling of holding the bat and the view of her in his hands enough to overwhelm him for a moment. “Oh my-”, it left his lips as he gulped the thick lump in his throat down, turning the bat softly in his hands to get a good look of her. Nature had taken its toll on her, but the bat was still the same, it still gave him the very same warm and safe feeling after all this time. It was still her. A small sniffle let his lips as he stared down at it and felt the heaviness of the emotions she carried wash over him, nearly putting him into a bubble of memories before the groaning of the walker that had shuffled at the hill’s foot earlier got louder. Turning around he saw the dead asshole stumbling closer up the hill while a small grin grew on his face as he rocked Lucille in his hands and held her up like he’d done it thousands of times before. “C’mere fucker”, Negan mumbled, adjusting his posture a little before the walker reached him and he swung Lucille up before rushing her down in a smooth but harsh motion, right against the walker’s skull. A groan fell from his lips as he could see the walker starting to sink to his feet, just as he lunged out one more time and bashed Lucille into the rotting skull, but instead of the squelching sound of flesh, a dull one drowned it that made his heart sink from one moment to another. “No...no”, he gasped, staring down at his broken bat....at his broken Lucille. She hadn’t only lost her top part, she was split down her length, only held together by the rusted barbed wire at this point and his hands that started to tremble more the longer he looked at her broken parts. One moment ago he’d been basking in the joy of finally finding her again and now, now he could feel the lump in his throat growing again as he stared down at the broken bat. From joy to grief in one moment, from relief to regret in the other. “Fuck”, it left his lips with a defeated sound, his eyes welling over with tears as he could feel a dull, pressuring pain spreading over his body, tightening its grasp on him as he fell to his knees and felt the first tear rolling down his cheek as he weighed the broken Lucille in his hands. Could this day become any worse?

The sun was already starting to vanish behind the skyline of the trees as you finally found yourself heading towards Negan’s workplace by the walls, ready to pick him up and just get yourselves home. ”Hey”, you called out with a tired smile as you finally reached the woodhouses and could see Barbara and Daniel still working outside, though you couldn’t spot Negan yet. ”Hey, is Carter doing fine?”, Daniel asked as he stepped from the porch of the house, leaning himself against the wall as you gave him a quick nod. ”Yeah, took a bit but we’ve got him wrapped up now. He just needs to rest”, you said as you moved closer over the grassy ground and nodded towards the cabin’s door. ”Negan’s inside?” ”Nah”, Daniel said, shaking his head as you glanced confused at him,”Went out with Carol a couple hours ago to hunt. Saw her back around here earlier though, he’s probably already at your home.” ”Ah okay. Thank you”, you started to nod again before you made your way back to the road, not questioning that hunting trip all too much though it surprised you a bit that Carol had decided to take him along with her, mostly because she’d been avoiding the both of you during the last while. Instead of waisting your thoughts any longer on the trip you hurried down the street, just eager to get home, relax and hear Negan talk a bout his day. Finally, you moved up the porch stairs of your home, already trying to peek inside and see if Negan was standing by the stove and cooking something but as you stepped inside, you found the living room and kitchen empty. ”Negan? I’m home”, you called out, moving towards the hallway as your only remaining guess was that he had simply just showered and didn’t hear you yet up in your bathroom or was so exhausted that he’d laid down for a quick nap. Moving up the stairs who tried to hear if you could hear him moving around, but instead of footsteps or a rustling sounds you heard nothing but complete silence. “Negan?”, you quietly asked as you opened the door of your bedroom, a part of you nearly waiting to see him sprawled out and snoozing on the bed but as you moved inside, your confusion got doubled. The bed was completely empty, the same way you’d left it this morning but your closet stood open, the bunch of shirts and pants that usually laid stocked up next to your clothes gone. ”What the-”, it fell from your lips, cut off by your confusion as you moved towards the closet and looked at his Negan’s nearly empty spot. Not all was gone, a bit of his clothes way left, some boxer shorts, a couple white shits and some sweatpants but that was it. More confusion flooded your head with every second you stared longer at the opened door, trying to piece the parts of this puzzle together even though you didn’t even have merely enough of them to make sense of this. Negan wouldn’t leave, that was an option that you could exclude from the very first moment on but you still didn’t know what to think and what Negan’s absence and his missing clothes meant, before it slowly started to trickle down on you and a bitter suspicion washed over you. If anyone had to know something about this, it had to be the last person he’d been seen with. Feeling your heart starting to hammer in your chest you rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping over your own feet as you moved down the hallway and back into your living room. Your eyes were roaming over the room as you hurried through it, as if they were trying to pick more pieces to this puzzle on your way out and from one moment to another, they did. Next to the vase of flowers on your dinner table laid a folded up piece of paper that you hadn’t even noticed when you’d first stepped back into your home, a piece of paper that looked like a map as soon as you got closer. Still filled with confusion and tension you grabbed it, unfolding it with quick movements only to feel a wave of nausea wash over you as soon as you saw the cross that marked a spot on the paper and the note underneath it that confirmed your suspicion. “Negan has been banished from Alexandria. Marked spot shows the cabin’s he’s residing at from now on.”

Nausea, anger, fear and desperation turned into a toxic cocktail within your body as you found yourself rushing down the street, clasping tightly onto the map while your eyes were fixated at the brownstones in front of you, blending out anything and anyone else on the road. Your breath was heavy, your body trembling and nearly cramped up with suspense while the growing anger made your body heat up to the point that made it feel like it was on fire while you stormed into the first brownstone’s hallway, heading up the flight of stairs with heavy, fast steps towards Carol’s apartment. She’d done it again. A fucking solo act. You just knew it. And this time she’d gone way too far and she’d pay for that. Banging against the door of her apartment you could feel the side of your hand starting to heat up as it met the wood over and over again until you finally heard footsteps inside that finally stopped right in front of you and the squeaking of the opening door echoed through the staircase. “What is this?!”, you snapped the moment you saw her face, holding up the map in your hand as you glared at her,”What the fuck did you do?” “I did what I had to do”, she said, the tone in her voice indifferent but firm, not at all bothered by your reaction as if she’d already known that you’d come to her place earlier or later. “Are you kidding me?!”, you called out, feeling your voice starting to tremble as the anger within you started to become more and more the longer you had to look at her. “This wasn’t a situation that could stay the same any longer”, she merely said, in the very same tone as before ,”i did what was necessary to not let it escalate.” With that, she tried to close the door on you only for your flat hand to push harshly against the wood, letting it flip open again as you could feel it boiling within you. First she pulled this shit, then acted as if what she was in the right and now she tried to fob you off. “No, no you didn’t”, you snapped, moving forward to push into her apartment so she couldn’t even try to close the door again ,”Your job was to hold up to your end of the bargain. You told me you’d do it.” “Things don’t always work out the way we want them to”, she said, a lecturing tone in her voice, almost as if she was talking to a child instead of an adult,”You should know that by now.” Staring at her you could feel your whole body tense up, could feel an anger seeping into your body that you hadn’t felt before, an anger that got you worked up, an anger that was fueled by the frustration of unfairness over the years, an anger that was emotionally loaded with your urge to protect your husband and the life you’d just gained. The life that was threatened by the reckless act of the woman in front of you that looked at you with an indifference that drove you wild. “You fucking bitch”, you spat out, your self control starting to leave your body as you closed the distance between the both of you and could hear your trembling voice starting to become louder. “You’ve had Negan do your goddamn dirty work, risk his damn life and kill that skinfreak and instead of doing the goddamn bare minimum of laying in a good fucking word for him you had the goddamn audacity to go into our home, go through his stuff and lead him outside under a goddamn pretext”, you yelled out, heavy breaths shaking through your chest as you glared down at her,”You took the fucking easy way out! Like always.” “I did him a favor”, she dared to say, so firm and cold that you could feel the suspense in your body starting to skyrocket,”Maggie would have killed him at some point if I wouldn’t have brought him outside.” “Stop with that fucking bullshit!”, you snapped, stepping closer towards her as she still didn’t even flinch once,”You did yourself a favor. Maggie won’t do shit to him, not on my watch, nor if you would’ve done your part of the deal. You just did this shit so you don’t have to show some responsibility for your actions for fucking once.” “I stand with my decision”, she said the moment your voice hushed, a condescending smile starting to spread over her lips as she tilted her head and looked at you,”And I will not change it. We all have to deal with our own shit and so do you.” There’s this certain moment when anger gets so intense it puts a person into a trance, the type of anger that swallows someone up, puts a bubble around them and turns them from a seething volcano into one that is seconds away from erupting. And right now, that was happening to you. You couldn’t see clear anymore, your view a blur, the map fallen from your hands that were balled so tightly your knuckles turned white while your head was clouded with rage that just needed one little more push to kick you off the eruption. And Carol gave that kick to you, with one small sentence. ”And considering what he’s done in the past he got better than he deserved.” A dull but loud sound echoed through the air as your fist meet her jaw, fast and hard enough to make her stumble back for a moment while your hands were already wrapping around her throat, not tight enough to choke her but tight enough to get a hold on her to push her into the nearest wall. “Considering what he’s done?!”, you screamed, your hands still wrapped around her throat as you glared wide eyes down at her,“What he’s fucking done?!” For the first time she didn’t say anything, her eyes were staring into the emptiness, unwilling to meet yours at first before your grasp tightened just enough to finally make her look into your face. “He saved our fucking asses. He did the shit you couldn’t get done!”, you yelled, your voice still trembling, near before breaking and only held up by the anger that had finally found its valve,”All you’ve done lately is get people killed!” For the first time since you’d stepped into this apartment you saw a stirring in her eyes while your own started to fill with tears, blurring your glance as your voice kept screaming at her. “Stop with the fucking solo acts! Fucking stop ruining the lives of everyone around you!” Just then you slowly started to come back as the anger started to become replaced with the fear and sadness that simmered underneath the rage. Your hands fell of her throat as you stepped back, staring at your shaking right hand whose knuckles were flushed in a bright red from the lunge you’d taken at her. Sniffles started to fall from your lips as the first tears rolled down your cheeks, your emotions still so strong that they were keeping your whole body under control. “I’m sick of this”, you felt it rolling quietly from your trembling lips as more tears fell from your eyes and the build up frustration got the best of you. For a moment there, you were almost scared of yourself, of how much that anger had taken hold of you, of how it had pushed through your usual levelheadedness, something that hadn’t happened quite like this before but you’ve just had enough, of the constant fears, of the constant playing with Negan’s life and the hypocrisy that you had to face from the same people over and over again. You weren’t sorry for what you did. You were actually glad you’d finally put her in her place. Sniffing you looked back up, gulping thickly as you saw her leaning against the wall, staring at you at you, an odd mix of coldness and shock in her eyes as you reached for the map on the ground and glared one last time over at her. “I will come back with my husband and you’ll hold up to the end of the deal or I swear to god I’ll raise hell.” Fire was burning in the small fireplace of the cabin, lightening up the room that was becoming darker and darker with every passing moment. The flames ate away at the chops of wood, its warm light illuminating up the glass in his hands that was filled up with some whiskey he’d found tucked away in one of the counters. Shuffling over the small stool by the fire he tried to get as comfortable as he could, huffing to himself as his eyes swayed from Lucille that laid propped up against the wall next to the fireplace over into the flames. How the fuck did he get to this point? Where exactly did he go wrong to end up sitting here on that fucking hard stool that made his ass hurt, staring into the flames while the only thing that was there to keep him company him in these moments was that damn whiskey in his glass?

The sun was already gone and the dusk was starting to flow into the night when you found yourself walking away from Alexandria, a small backpack buckled around your shoulders and a hunting knife in one hand, the map in your other. Going out now was dangerous and you knew it but you couldn’t care less, nor did you have much of a choice. Staying was no option, you had to find Negan, better earlier than later and make sure to reverse whatever Carol had brought about. Fuck knows what else she’d told him that she might have withheld from you. You were still on edge, still completely filled up with tension that kept a tight hold on your body while you did your very best to stay focused and not run into a group of dead fucks. A shivering breath fell from your lips, turning into a cloud of steam the moment you breathed it out as you could feel the cold of the approaching night starting to sneak up on you, slipping underneath your jacket while your cold hands were clasping onto your knife. Moving up you flipped on the small pocket flashlight that was dangling on one of the belts of your backpack and moved the map to make sure that you were still following the right route. Squinting your eyes your glance roamed over the paper, trying to get a grip of it before you folded it back up, switched the flashlight off and slowly moved down the blacktop to follow a narrow, nearly overgrown path into the forest, hoping that the moonlight would be enough to guide you. Step by step you found yourself halting and looking at the map, catching your thoughts and worries feeding away at your concentration that in turn fueled the frustration that was still reigning within you. By now, you should have already reached the stream that ran closeby the marked spot on the map, but neither did you hear flowing water anywhere near you, nor did you know exactly anymore if you were on the right track. “Shit”, you grumbled to yourself as you stared at the map, half mad at the whole situation, half mad at yourself for not getting your shit together before the sudden sound of groans made your glance shoot up. In a knee-jerk reaction you shut the small light back off and reached for a tighter grasp on your knife, looking around yourself before you caught a group of six or seven walkers wandering through the woods. Squeezing your mouth shut you tried to stay quiet, avoid attracting the dead as you slowly stepped back, trying to let the shadow of the trees shield you from being spotted before you heard a loud crack as a dried branch broke beneath your shoe. “Damnit”, you whispered to yourself, gulping thickly as you watched the walkers turn their head towards you, snarling as they spotted your figure and started to stumble into your direction. There was no way you could take them on now without putting yourself too much at risk, in the middle of the night, with your head filled up with emotions that worked against your concentration and an exhausted mind that was trying to press in on you whenever it possibly could. This was not a fight you should take on, not now. Turning around you started to move further into the dark, trying to put distance between yourself and the dead to hide out behind a tree and wait for them to pass. The thick undergrowth made it hard for you to move quick and made you more careful to not trip and get yourself into even bigger problems. With every step it felt like you could hear the groans continuously echoing through the dark while your heart started to speed up again and pumped against your chest, so loud you could nearly hear it pounding in your ears. Glimpsing behind yourself you couldn’t see them anymore, enough for you to figure that they wouldn’t be able to see you either and with a bunch of more steps you moved to your left and rounded the nearest, thickest tree to brace yourself tightly against its stem to be out of view for the dead. Gulping thickly you tried to keep your fastening breath under control as your eyes kept on roaming over the dim lit forest, your position not allowing you to see any of the walkers but instead only hear them as they started to come closer. The groans got louder and louder, mixing with the sound of their shuffling steps as you kept your body tightly pressed against the tree and tried to calm your heavy breathing down, telling yourself that this was all you had to do until you could go back to searching for that damn cabin. For a moment, you could feel yourself tense up again as you heard them starting to pass you, merely a bunch of meters past your spot before their groans slowly started to become quieter, and were only a quiet sound in the distance a small while later. Finally, you allowed yourself to let out a thick sigh and close your eyes for a moment, trying to get your concentration back on and continue your search for the cabin. Pushing yourself away from the stem you moved forwards, trying to figure out how far you’d moved from your original spot as you walked as quietly as you could back into your old direction, still holding tightly onto the map and your knife before a gasp left your lips as you felt a cold hand grabbing your ankle and a low, nearly inaudible groan echoed through the air. The sudden grasp was harsh and strong enough to make you lose your balance and fall to the hard ground, a painfilled groan falling through your lips as the fall made a stinging pain rush up from your rump up your back. Panicking you glanced up, watching as a severely decayed walker tried to peel itself from the spot by the tree it had grown attached to, its nearly entirely destroyed jaw hanging from its skull along with its rotting tongue that kept it from making sounds any louder than a hum. “Shit”, you growled, kicking towards the dead to make it lose its grasp on your ankle while it suddenly lunged towards you as it detached itself with one last push from the moss overgrown tree. Gasping you could feel it landing above you, its dead hands grasping you as it tried to snap forward, its disgusting stench rising up your nose as you could feel your survival instincts kicking in and mixing with the built up frustration, as well as with the anger and the distress Carol had brought over you earlier. Glaring into the dead eyes of the walker you rushed your knife up, aiming for its head as you’d done it with thousands of walkers before, but instead of seeing the blade dig into its skull, the walker’s arm reached up in the very same moment and made the blade sink into its flesh while it kept on snapping at you. From one second to another the frustration filled your whole head again, fueling the rage that had never truly calmed down within you as you let out a frustrated groan and pushed the dead with all your strength off of your body. “Fuck you, you fucking asshole”, you growled out, ripping the blade out of the dead’s arm as you kept it caged beneath you, hearing its snapping sounds in the very moment you let the blade rush down with all of your strength into the rotting skull. But instead of stopping there you could feel the tension and all those pent up emotions taking you over, clasping onto you as as they filled your head and made the knife stab over and over again into the walker’s head while emotion fueled memories rushed through your head. The constant fear to lose Negan while he was gone, the happiness you’d felt to finally get a life with him you’d always wished for and now, having it nearly torn away from you again just because one fucking person would rather go on and try to fuck up your lives all over again instead of doing the bare goddamn minimum she’d promised to do. And now, instead of being cuddled up on the couch with Negan in your home, you were in the middle of the dark fucking woods, trying to smooth out the fucking disaster Carol had kicked off again, with no fucking clue where you actually were, hanging over a fucking walker that had nearly tried to kill your ass. Over and over again your knife rushed down into the skull, your mind anywhere but actually here, as pants erupted your whole body and made you shake while your heart pumped up your throat. And just then as you pulled your knife once more out of the destroyed skull you realized that you were crying again, sobbing actually as you fell back off the dead onto the ground and stared at what you’d just done. ”Fuck”, it left your trembling lips as you could feel your heartbeat pounding in your ears while more hot tears streamed down your face and blurred your vision. Sniffling you looked up at the stars to calm yourself down and avoid looking at the defaced corpse beside you, letting your glance move from one star to another as your heart and your breath finally started to slow down again. And just then, just as you couldn’t hear your heartbeat in your ears anymore, you could suddenly hear the soft rushing of flowing water nearby that made you prick up your ears. Scrambling to your feet you moved up and followed the sound, hoping that this wasn’t a sick game your mind was playing with you. Brushing your tears off your face you moved closer, step by step and careful to not get yourself into any other tricky situation until a burden seemed to fall right off your shoulders as you peeked through the trees and finally saw the flowing water glistening in the dim moon light. You’d found it, you’d fucking found it. And now, you just needed to find Negan. Time passed and he still didn’t have an answer to his questions and he knew deep down he’d never truly get them. A shivering breath fell from his lips as he stared into his emptying whiskey glass, closing his eyes for a moment as he pinched the bridge of his nose and gulped thickly. Maybe his wife wouldn’t even show up today here anymore, maybe something happened that made her stay longer at the infirmary and she didn’t even know yet about this whole thing. Regardless of what had truly went down she wasn’t here, and it was starting to eat away at him, just the bare thought of what she must feel as soon as she’d find out. She deserved that life they’d been living lately, that life that could come as close to that apple pie life as a life in the damn apocalypse could. She deserved every single part of it, regardless of it was merely being able to wake up in a warm, cozy bed in the morning or to lay outside in the garden to watch the sunset turn the sky into a ray of pretty colors without a worry in the world. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was on his way to pull the woman he loved once more into his misery. Shivering and clasping onto his glass he found himself glimpsing at Lucille, at the barbed wire and the broken wood that broke his heart all over again. He hadn’t been able to give her the life she deserved to live, and now the same thing was about to happen with (Y/N) too, all over again. Maybe he just didn’t deserve to have his happy end. He’d been such a fucking asshole, such a goddamn fucking asshole that never deserved for Lucille to put up with him the way she did after everything that had happened after he lost his job. He could still way too vividly remember the anger he’d felt after that asshole had gotten him fired, that goddamn asshole from that bar that had provoked him, snarled at Lucille and then came at him so he’d simply lost it and beat him into the ground. He could blame that fucker all he wanted for provoking him, for coming at him, for making him lose his job at the school, for suing him and making his Lucille pay for the fucking hospital bills because he couldn’t anymore, but he couldn’t blame him for the decisions he’d made after. Losing his job and being put on prohibition for this bullshit had made him fall into a deep hole, one that he hadn’t been able to crawl out from, one that had turned him into a fucking undeserving bastard. A bastard that hadn’t known how to get back on his feet. A bastard that had gone as far to cheat on his wife with her goddamn friend just to make himself feel appreciated in some sick way. A bastard that hadn’t gone to pick her up from her MRI because he was busy fucking said friend. A bastard that needed to see her throw the chemo brochures right onto the table in front of him and tell him she had cancer to finally turn his life around. He was still ashamed of himself, so fucking ashamed of the things he’d done back then and nothing, nothing that he’d done after had made him feel like he’d been able to make up for the shit he’d done before. Sniffling, Negan found himself shifting over the stool, his eyes filled with tears as he stared at the bat and felt his trembling fingers fumble on the glass in his hands, trying to distract himself from the memories that started to flood his head and torture him. He’d fought like hell to make up for the shit he’d done, he’d fought like hell to keep her going as this hell of a world had broken loose in the midst of her treatment, finding bag after bag for her chemo and teach himself how to administer it. He’d tried to keep her spirits high and brought her this bunch of wigs he’d found on a run in an abandoned shop, he tried his best to keep their generator going and free of the dead so they could watch movies even if killing walkers freaked the shit out of him back then, he’d tried to sing their song to her and hold her in the freezing nights that made her nausea usually worse. He’d tried to be a good husband. He’d tried to be the man she deserved and not give up even when things had taken their turn for the worse and that fucking generator had shut down in the middle of the night and made them lose the last bags of useable chemo supplies. He could still remember their last conversation that day, how she’d told him that she’d known about his affair all along, how she’d known that he’d stopped and never talked to her again after her diagnosis, how she wanted him to know that he’d made up for it and that he could stop pushing himself now. He could remember how she’d asked him to stay, how she asked him to give up searching for new chemo supplies and just be with her when she went. He could remember how she told him that it was time for him to move on without her and instead, do her fighting for her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her and he couldn’t bear letting her go. So he went out again. It took weeks of searching until he found the medical RV of Laura and her father, and it took yet another run in with a fucking gang of biker pigs until he could finally drive home with the chemo bags and bring them too her only to find out that after everything, he’d been too late. She was already gone. ODed, with a bag over her head, a belt around her neck that tied her to the bed so she couldn’t lunge at him and “Please don’t leave me like this” written over the door. She’d killed herself while he was gone, while he was gone out there searching for supplies when he should’ve just listened to her. She shouldn’t have died there with that fucking plastic bag over her head, she should’ve been able to fall peacefully asleep in his arms and drift off into an eternal sleep. And after everything, he couldn’t even go through with taking her down, he just couldn’t bring himself to dive a knife into her and instead he ended up trying to stun his grief with alcohol until he took the last resort and set his home on fire, hoping it would take her down and fulfill her last wish. He’d always wanted to make things better with (Y/N). From the moment on he found himself falling for her he wanted to make sure that he’d make things right this time and again, he’d failed. He didn’t get to give her the life she deserved, instead, she was stuck with him for years in that cell, giving him more than he could ever give her back and each time he thought about it, it felt like god played a sick game with him. Here you go have a second chance at love, but beware, you won’t be able to do things right now either. This fucking cabin, this fucking situation was the living proof of it and he didn’t know how to cope with it, how to cope with the fucking possibility that he was part of the reason their life would be destroyed again after it seemed like they‘d finally been able to settle down into a more peaceful life. Wincing Negan could feel himself erupting in more tears as he felt the empty glass fall with a dull thud from his hands onto the wooden floor, echoing through his head as a whimper fell from his trembling lips as his mind drifted to something that had whirled through it far more than once during the last weeks. Something (Y/N) had said to him after he’d melted down and asked her how she’d been able to fall in love with him back at the start, something Lucille had said to him when he’d asked her in tears how why she’d put up with him even after everything he’d done. “I already saw the man in you that you are right now”, were (Y/N)’s words, so hauntingly similar to the words Lucille had told him this one night that it made a shudder run down his back any time he thought of it. How in hell did he deserve for two women to fall in love with him and see something in him that he’d never been able to grasp? How did he deserve for those two women to love him so deeply they’d stick with him through anything and never lose their faith in him? How the fuck did he deserve that? Sniffling, Negan looked into the flames, the fire only a blur of red and orange before he reached up to brush the tears off his cheeks and run his hand down his face to keep himself from losing it entirely. Trembling he dried his tears with the sleeve of his shirt, sighing deeply as he glimpsed back at the fireplace only to flinch up in the very same moment as he heard the squeaking wood door open behind him and heard the voice he’d been dying to hear for hours. “Negan?” Your voice was faint and careful as you said his name and stepped into the cabin, watching as Negan turned around from his spot by the fireplace with a relieved but still startled look on his face. “Hey”, you could hear him say, his voice strained and thick with emotion as he stumbled towards you and just then gave you a chance to see his slightly reddened eyes, the exhausted look on his face and the slight wetness that was still daubing his cheeks. But before you could say anything he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you tightly into his embrace, cradling you against his chest while his trembling body pressed up against yours. You only hugged him back without saying anything yet, cuddling into him to finally feeling his warmth enclosing you after the turmoil that you’d been through until you’d finally found this place. And then slowly, very slowly Negan started to loosen his grasp on you, before he backed just enough away to look down at you and run his glance over your face, as if he was trying to check if you were fine. “Are you okay?”, it instead fell from your lips as you reached up to softly stroke over his wet cheek, a worried look pressing in over your face as he slowly started to nod. “I’m much better now that you’re here”, he mumbled, leaning in to press a soft, nearly delicate kiss over your lips before a small sniffle left his lips and you glimpsed for the first time away from him and through the room that was only enlightened by the small fire. Carol had truly given her all, putting two full baskets of Negan’s belongings into this cabin, along with his leather jacket that hung over a rocking chair by the windows and something else that suddenly caught your eye, something that leaned against the wall by the fireplace and nearly made you believe your mind was playing tricks on you. “What-”, it left your lips as you stared at the bat, furrowing your brows in utter surprise as your glance stayed stuck on it,”Is that Lucille?” A soft sigh fell from Negan’s lips as grasped your jaw gently, just enough so he’d get you to look at him before he gulped thickly and nodded towards the spot by the fireplace. “Let’s just sit down for a moment, okay?” Mere minutes later you found yourself sitting on a small stool next to Negan by the fire, listening to him as he talked about how this day had played out for him. How Carol had lead him into the woods, how he had gone back to the hill of the war to see if he could find Lucille and how she broke just mere moments after he found her. From moment to moment you could find your eyes hooked on the broken bat, still not quite believing that she’d been there all this time while you’d searched all of Alexandria for her, so confident in the thought that they’d actually hid her somewhere around town. “When did you find out?”, you heard Negan say, ripping your glance from Lucille and back at him. “Around sunset? I was longer than planned at the infirmary”, you said, gulping thickly as you shuffled a little over the stool below you,”Carter fell on a broken pipe and we just...we just took some time until we had him all fixed up and then when I wanted to go pick you up from the woodhouses...Daniel told me that you’d gone out with Carol to hunt earlier but that he’d seen her around again.” A thick sigh fell from your lips as you glanced down for a moment, shrugging your shoulders softly before your eyes met his again. “So I guessed you’d already be back home and when I got there I just found our closet open, with some of your stuff gone and that damn map on the dinner table”, you mumbled, nodding towards the map that laid along with the backpack next to your stool. “I didn’t take off right away”, you added, letting out a huff as the mere thought of it put some new tension right back onto you,”Paid Carol a visit before and I just-...I lost it.” With that, Negan’s brows perked up, half curious, half worried as you sighed quietly and shrugged softly. “I may or may not have punched her and pushed her into a wall...by her throat.” “You did what?”, you heard Negan say, something that could even come close to a chuckle fell from his lips as he still looked with perked brows at you, clearly waiting for you to go on. “Wouldn’t say I’m proud of it... can’t remember the last time I blew a fuse like that-”, you said, stopping yourself as you could feel yourself getting worked up again though you surely didn’t want that to happen now all over again,”But the things she said-...how she said them. She smiled into my damn face while she said it, so fucking demeaning and full of ignorance...I just-” “Yeah, can imagine that”, Negan said as soon as your voice broke off, nodding as he clenched his jaw slightly ,”Pulled the same attitude here.” “And then she said on top of it all that you got better than you deserve with this cabin here and it just clicked”, you said with another sigh, before a thick gulp travelled down your throat as Negan reached out for your hand to take it into his, squeezing it softly as you could feel your emotions starting to well up again. “After everything, you deserve so, so much more”, you said, brushing your thumb over the back of his hand while you could see Negan’s eyes softening,”You deserve the damn world.” With that, his reddened eyes started to fill back up with tears and a thick gulp travelled down his throat as his hand grasped yours tighter and a small sniffle fell from his lips. “You do, Baby...you do”, he choked out, trying to keep his voice up by all means as his glance feel in between the bat and you, his eyes blurred with tears as you shuffled closer towards him,”You do. Lucille did. And I-...I don’t know how I got so lucky to hit the jackpot twice.” It didn’t take more than that for your emotions to get the best of you again and fill your eyes with tears as well and boil all those feelings that had whirled through you back up, while Negan shook his head as the first tears fell from his eyes. “I just-...you put all these years up with me being in that damn cell, you went through so much pain because of me and for all these fucking years I couldn’t give you the life you deserved till those last two weeks happened and now whatever we just got is gone again and I-”, he sniffled, his voice thick with emotion as he shook his head and glanced at the bat, “I couldn’t give Lucille the life she deserved, I couldn’t even keep the world and that fucking cancer from hurting her and then-” Tears kept falling down his face as his eyes were hooked on your intertwined hands, sniffles falling from his lips as his grasp on your hand got a little tighter. “And then when I fell in love with you I just-”, he winced, a shaking breath falling from his lips as he gulped thickly,”I vowed to myself to protect you and take care of you no matter the fucking cost. I just wanted to finally make things right and instead I fucked everything up all over again.” You only shook your head, unable to say something as a thick lump started to grow in your throat again and you could feel yourself hurting just listening to him. You’ve had these type of conversations before but this time, with these circumstances it just hurt so much more to see him beating himself up. “All I want is give you that damn apple pie life. In that house, with movies every damn night, with dinners together, and someday with kids that can run through that house and play in that backyard and drive us crazy...and it fucking destroys me that I can’t..that I’m the fucking reason you can’t have that.” “That’s not true”, you shook your head as you felt the first tears roll down your cheeks, “We can have that and we will, also because you ripped your ass off for it. You’ve always bent over backwards to make me happy.” A shivering breath fell from your lips as you moved in closer, trying to ensure that he was looking at you as you reached out for him and cupped his face softly with your free hand. “Just because things didn’t always work out the way we wanted them to doesn’t mean that you made me any less happy and I don’t ever want you to think again that you failed at that...You’ve been the best husband I could ever wish for. I need you to finally believe me when I say that”, you choked out, sniffling as you gave his hand a soft squeeze,”Just as much as I need you to finally believe the things Lucille said to you. She told you you made up, you made sure to make her last months as peaceful and happy as you could within this hell of a world...so you don’t deserve to keep on beating yourself up about it.” Negan choked up as you referred back to the things he’d once told you, still holding on to you as you looked with tearful eyes at him. “I just need you to realize that as long as I got you I’m happy, no matter where we are, no fucking matter if it’s in a cell or a nice home.” You made sure to keep his glance, trying to make sure that your message reached him before your thumb swiped softly over his skin while you tried to swallow down the bigger lump that was growing in your throat again. “I’m so proud of you...I’m so damn proud of the man you’ve been for me for all these years”, you said, smiling through the tears at him as another sniffle fell from your lips and your eyes glimpsed at the bat for a short moment,”And I know she’d be too.” Tears glistened in Negan’s eyes as a shivering hum rumbled up his chest and he grasped your hand tighter, just as you kept on fighting against that lump in your throat to bring out the last thing you needed him to hear. “So we will take your things first thing in the morning and walk back to Alexandria and settle back down into that home where we two belong”, you said your trembling voice almost breaking off as you leaned in closer to him,”No one is going to take that away from us again. Not Carol, not Maggie, not anybody.” Slowly, Negan started to nod, reaching up to take your hand from his cheek to press a kiss over its back while your eyes fell on the bat that still leaned against the wall. “We can take her with us, y’know? Find a nice place in the house”, you said with a sniffle, only to slowly see Negan starting to shake his head. “I think...I think I need to say goodbye”, he mumbled, gulping thickly as his eyes roamed over the broken bat before they fell back on you,”She wanted me to move on without her and do her fighting for her...so I’m finally gonna do that...I’m gonna burn her and then..fuck then we’ll walk home and I’ll keep on fighting for our future. I think she’d want that too.” Slowly, you started to nod and felt Negan press another kiss over the back of your hand, still holding onto you, still shivering as he stared at the bat while it started to dim on you that this was something he had to do alone. He had to say goodbye on his own. So slowly, you moved up from your spot on the stool, loosened your grasp on his hand and instead leaned down to press a kiss onto his forehead while our hand caressed softly over the side of his face. “Just call for me when you need me back in here”, you mumbled as Negan visibly got tense before he started to nod, but still kept a hold on you for another moment, as if he needed your closeness a little longer to prepare himself. As soon as his grasp loosened and you knew he was ready you quietly moved out of the house and let yourself fall onto the porch’s stairs, where you soon heard Negan’s voice rumble through the air, still filled heavily with emotions but firm enough to not break as he spoke up. “I’m sorry that I left you...I was a coward. I couldn’t face the pain of losing you so I ran away...and then I made myself not feel anything because I didn’t want to feel the shame...I’m sorry that you went out like that, I should have been there. I’m sorry that I named a stupid baseball bat after you...and I’m sorry for the all pain I put you through...I still miss you”, you heard his voice say, so clear that you could hear him forcing himself to keep going even though he could barely hold himself back, so filled with emotion and pain that it broke your heart all over again. “I promise, I’m gonna do your fighting for you”, you heard him say, breaking at the end before the sound of rustling wood could be heard and you knew that he’d laid her into the flames. Only seconds passed until you heard him calling your name, the same shivering tone stuck in it as you hurried back into the cabin and watched him standing by the fireplace, with tears in his eyes while Lucille laid within the flames that slowly ate away at her wood. He was gulping heavily, new tears already falling from his eyes as you moved in to hug him tightly and felt him wrapping his arms back around you within mere milliseconds. “I love you, so much”, he mumbled into your hair, cradling you against his body while sniffles fell from his lips and trembles still shook through him. “I love you too”, you mumbled back, cuddling against him as he held tightly onto you and didn’t dare to loosen his embrace just once before another sniffling sigh fell from his lips. “I hope Lucille’s up there in heaven and has found someone who makes her just as happy as you make me”, Negan mumbled shakily into your hair, cradling you closer as you nodded softly against him, so touched all over again that you felt new tears welling up into your eyes. “I’m sure she has”, you mumbled, only able to bring these few words out before your throat tightened and made you voice break off again while Negan rocked you gently in his arms, keeping you safely locked in his embrace until the world finally started to feel at peace around you. Tomorrow would be a new day. Tomorrow would be the start of a new life as soon as you’d walk through Alexandria’s gates, defying any of Carol’s plans, defying anyone that still doubted you, defying your past to pave your way to the future that you both wanted. You would keep on fighting for it, side by side like it you’d always done, and how it would always be. You and him, an unbeatable team.

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ibijau · 3 years ago

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Counterfeit AU pt6 / On AO3

Meng Yao makes himself useful after losing his job, and discovers something unexpected

Names are funny things, Meng Yao thinks as he stares at the sheet of paper in his hand.

Funny things indeed.

After everything that went down in the Hanshi, it's Beastie that saves Meng Yao from himself.

Left to his own devices, he would have either wallowed in misery, or waste time proving to himself that everything that happened wasn't his fault, the way he knows he's done in other lives. But when he comes home after having his past lives thrown into his face and losing a job he loves, Beastie’s mother corners him just as he puts his key into his lock. Her daughter is on school holiday, she explains, and was supposed to be looked after by a friend with children of a similar age. But one of the children came down with something contagious, so the whole plan fell through, and the poor woman now desperately needs help finding someone to look after her daughter.

She’s not asking for Meng Yao to play the babysitter, but he knows so many people, he has so many connections, maybe he could pull a favour somewhere, help her out again.

“I can take care of her for a few days,” Meng Yao offers without thinking. “I’m jobless as of today.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! What happened?”

“My employer died,” Meng Yao replies, which is close enough to the truth. He doesn’t think Nie Huaisang will continue using his Shanzi alias after this, and they’ll never meet again. He might as well be dead. “I don’t plan on looking for a new job right away, so I can babysit for a while, it’s no big deal.”

She tries to insist that he doesn’t need to be doing that, but quickly agrees after some reassurance that Meng Yao doesn’t mind. She looks so relieved she could cry as she says she’ll drop Beastie in the morning. Meng Yao smiles, certain that his mother would be proud of him for doing what’s right.

Having Beastie around is definitely the best choice he could have made. She’s a good kid, but she’s also high energy and needs to be entertained, which means he doesn’t get to think too much about how much he misses Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen.

They watch movies together, as they’ve always done when he picked her up after school. They go for walks to a nearby park, and once to a museum to look at old armours and swords. He buys Beastie a fake sword, though they agree to keep it at his place, since her mother already despairs that she so strongly favours boy’s toys. In fact, Meng Yao ends up just spoiling that little girl, the way he would have loved someone to do for him when he was her age. He even has Nie Huaisang’s console repaired so she can play on it, instead of selling it as he’d intended.

The video games are a big hit with her. She’s particularly in love with the same game Nie Huaisang spent too many hours on, that weird little terraforming thing which Meng Yao can’t see the appeal of. He liked that it made Nie Huaisang happy. He likes that it also makes Beastie happy, and that she’s very careful not to ruin the work previously put into it, focused instead on maintaining it and planting flowers

“It looks like home,” she explains when Meng Yao asks about that, and lifts the console for him to see.

It doesn’t look like a homely place, he thinks, and more like a military fortress right out of a wuxia drama. But Meng Yao doesn’t get to make that remark, because his phone vibrates, demanding his attention. Beastie, sitting crossed legs on some cushion on the floor, goes back to watering virtual flowers, while Meng Yao checks some news from his bank account. A lump sum has been sent to him, a good deal more than his usual salary, coming from an account registered under a name he doesn’t recognise.

It has been a week since he was fired.

Nie Huaisang kept his promise.

It really is over.

Not that Meng Yao really doubted it. Nie Huaisang has many faults but indecision has never been one, though he’s always been good at pretending otherwise. Once his choice is made he toys with expectations but rarely ever changes his mind.

Rarely, of course, isn’t never. Meng Yao, foolishly, hoped to be one of those few exceptions.

Those new zeroes on his bank account feel like a divorce, and he never even got a honeymoon.

That night, Meng Yao allows himself a few hours to wallow in misery, after Beastie went back to her mother. He is only human, and it does feel good to eat take-away in front of a cheesy romance. The film's hero doesn't get the girl, who was dead all along. Meng Yao cries, even though he's seen that movie before.

By morning, he's in control again, and takes Beastie to the park so she can run around in the sun, and scare pigeons with her sword.

Those holidays are all great fun, until Beastie’s mother reminds them that she has homework to do.

Beastie is a clever kid, there’s no doubt about it, but she doesn’t much like doing her homework, least of all when she feels she could be playing. It takes all of Meng Yao’s negotiation skills to get her to even look at her school books, and he almost resorts to bribery to make her pick up a pencil. But she works hard once she starts, and Meng Yao, wanting to encourage her, sits with her at the kitchen table to update his resume. Beastie will go back to class soon, and inactivity just isn’t in his temper.

When Beastie is done with her work, she gets permission to put on whatever movie she likes while Meng Yao checks what she’s done in case it needs correcting.

But when he picks up the sheet of simple maths she’s expected to give her teacher on monday, all Meng Yao sees is her name.

It’s really funny. He knows her name of course, though he hasn’t heard it in a while. Even her mother took up to calling her Beastie after he nicknamed her that. It just fits her so well, that active little girl who prefers trousers over dresses because they're easier to move in and always wants to play at fighting. She’s a real little monster, and Meng Yao loves her like that. She’s just Beastie.

But according to the homework she’s spent the afternoon on, she’s also Nie Mingjue.

It could just be a coincidence. Names are funny like that, they pop up in unexpected places, they get forgotten and reused. Perhaps in another life, Meng Yao would have just dismissed it as a random incident.

In another life, he wouldn’t have been called Meng Yao.

It’s the first time this happens since that first life they all shared. He’s Meng Yao again, Lan Xichen bears his old name too, and now he’s found a Nie Mingjue, hiding right under his nose. A Nie Mingjue who likes fighting, and claims that her toy sword is actually a sabre, and who always insists a lot on things being fair, even when Meng Yao tries to give her the biggest share of a food she likes.

It can’t be a coincidence.

Meng Yao needs to tell someone.

He needs to tell Nie Huaisang.

He tries, of course, and without surprise his former employer’s number has been terminated. He has the same luck trying to send an email. Nie Huaisang might as well never have existed. Meng Yao feels helpless, torn between tears and laughter. After spending centuries looking for his brother, Nie Huaisang just might have lost his chance due to being so damn dramatic. Serves him right, Meng Yao thinks, still bitter about being discarded so easily, and never getting a chance to see if things might work better in this life.

Bitterness doesn’t last. Meng Yao cares about Nie Huaisang, more than he should if he were a little smarter, and he knows how important finding his brother again would be for him. And if Nie Huaisang can’t be directly contacted, there’s always indirect ways.

It’s not that Meng Yao misses Lan Xichen, he tells himself that night, when Beastie is back with his mother and he starts writing a long text message on his phone. Well, it’s not just that, anyway. He does miss Lan Xichen, sweet and funny and so eager when talking about art. But more importantly, Lan Xichen probably has access to Lan Wangji, who clearly must know how to contact Nie Huaisang.

Texting Lan Xichen is a strategic choice.

The way Meng Yao's heart jumps inside his chest when Lan Xichen immediately replies is… it's strategic too. He's just glad that his plan is working.

How have you been? :)

I could have been worse. I've just realised something and I think it concerns you. I've told you about that kid I babysit, haven't I?

Little Beastie? Is she okay? D:

She's Nie Mingjue.

This time, the answer isn't immediate. Meng Yao stares nervously at his phone, wondering if Lan Xichen thinks he's lying, or planning something. Considering their first life, who could blame him?

But after a few minutes, his phone vibrates again.

Sorry, I dropped my phone and couldn't get it back from under the couch. Are you sure?? (⊙ˍ⊙)

It all fits. You could come meet her if you want. But it's him, I'm sure.

Did you tell Nie Huaisang???

I can't contact him. Are you in touch with Lan Wangji? Maybe he can warn him.

I have his number, I just texted him! I'll keep you updated! It's so wonderful if it's da-ge!! Can I really meet him? ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Her*?

I'll send you my address. If you can come tomorrow, she'll be there.

Are you sure? I don't think da-ge would still want me around. (≧﹏ ≦)

Meng Yao gives that question the consideration it deserves. It's not an unfair worry to have, and he'd be wondering the same if he hadn't known Beastie for so long.

I literally killed him, and he killed me. If she had to hate anyone it'd be me, but we get along great. We're no longer the same people we used to be. It's the same for her.

If you're sure, then I'll come! (❁´w`❁)

Meng Yao is very sure indeed.

So Lan Xichen comes.

It's odd to invite someone to his flat. It's a small place, a bit messy, full of trinkets and DVDs that Meng Yao would never admit to owning, not with the image he wants to create. He's always avoided guests. But having Lan Xichen over is as rewarding as it is terrifying. Lan Xichen brought some charming little cakes, as if he's visiting someone important, and he smiles at the sight of a movie poster on the wall, confessing he watched it so often as a teenager that the tape broke one day.

"It's my favourite too!" Beastie exclaims. "Meng-ge has it, you know! Can we watch it now?"

Normally, Meng Yao would point out that it's a little rude to ask that when they have a guest. But he can see that Lan Xichen is nervous and unsure how to act around Nie Mingjue, and maybe a movie will let them all relax.

In the end, they spend a pleasant afternoon, the three of them. Once Lan Xichen stops worrying that the Nie Mingjue of old will appear and shout at him for getting him killed, he starts chatting with Beastie about her favourite movies, what she's learning in school, what she wants to be when she grows up. She's very happy to answer, and very impressed when he explains he's a teacher, even though she's finding it hard to accept that most of his students are fully adult.

And when Beastie is back with her mother, Lan Xichen lingers for a while, tempted by the offer of Meng Yao's favourite takeaway.

“It’s amazing how much like him she is,” Lan Xichen says as they sit on the sofa to wait for the food to arrive. “It’s the first time he reincarnates, you know. At least, Wangji told me they’d never found any trace of him before.”

Guilt shoots through Meng Yao. It’s his fault if Nie Mingjue’s soul was so fractured it took him this long to be reborn. Or at least, it’s the fault of someone he was, once, which is nearly the same, and yet completely different. Meng Yao has learned from living and dying several times, and he’s lucky enough to live in a kinder world than Jin Guangyao did. It helps.

“She’s also different from him, though,” Lan Xichen continues, moving just a little closer, until they’re almost touching.

“We’ll, for starters she’s a kid,” Meng Yao points out, wondering if he should take the other man’s hand. If this had happened before the Hanshi, he would have, but he’s not sure where they stand now.

“It’s not just that. In that first life, I knew da-ge as a child too and he was…” Lan Xichen sighs and makes a vague hand gesture. “He was a lot. Way too serious sometimes. We all were, I suppose, but him most of all. The Nie tended to grow fast, to compensate for dying young. I’m… I’m glad that he gets to properly be a child this time. That she gets to be a child.”

“The world has changed,” Meng Yao says, finding the courage at last to brush his fingers against Lan Xichen’s. “Things aren’t always easy but they’re… easier, I suppose.”

Lan Xichen’s returns that touch, gentle and careful as always. This, too, is easier now than it was back then. It’s not easy, but there’s less pressure to conform, less demands to be good dutiful sons, and just a little more space to be their own people, to make their own choices.

Maybe in their next life they’ll meet again and it’ll be even easier to be like this. But even now, Meng Yao is ready to take the chances that his past self wouldn’t have dared to dream of. He leans toward Lan Xichen, hoping to kiss him, but a knock on the door interrupts them and he jumps to his feet to go get their food. The delivery man looks at him a little funny, but makes no comment. If Meng Yao is half as red as Lan Xichen, he deserves those odd looks.

Nothing happens again that night. The moment has passed, and after eating, Lan Xichen has to go home because he has engagements the day after that he can’t cancel.

It's not a date that night, no more than any of their previous encounters were.

It's not a date then, but next time, when Lan Xichen invites him to a restaurant, Meng Yao is informed in no unclear terms that this is, in fact, a date. They go see a movie after, and Meng Yao gets to kiss one of the two most handsome men in the world.

Life is good.

Life is really good, and yet Meng Yao wants more.

In spite of their efforts, Lan Xichen and him can't get in touch with Nie Huaisang to inform him that his brother has finally reincarnated. Even Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are getting worried. From what they told Lan Xichen they haven't had any contact with him since the day they picked him up at the Hanshi.

"They say he's done that before," Lan Xichen tells him. "They think he'll return in a decade or two, maybe a little longer. Time is hard for immortals, they lose track easily."

That's all very well for them, but Meng Yao doesn't have a few decades to waste, and neither does Nie Mingjue. They're not immortals. One bad illness, a reckless driver, just tripping in the stairs, and it's all over until they reincarnate again, and Meng Yao is done with missed chances.

If he can't directly get in touch with Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao can make a few discreet calls to former buyers, and advise them to get their purchase asserted again, just in case. He makes sure to only contact people who bought legitimate artworks of course. He wants to make a wave, not get in trouble. If Meng Yao knows Nie Huaisang even half as well as he thinks he does, then even in hiding Nie Huaisang will be checking what’s happening in the world of art collectors, and he’ll hear about some of his buyers suddenly becoming fearful of fakes.

It’s a little mean perhaps, when Nie Huaisang is so proud of his counterfeits, but kindness has never been Meng Yao’s greatest quality.

Besides, it works.

One afternoon, when Meng Yao is alone at home, checking a job offer that he’s probably going to reject because he deserves better, there’s a knock on the door. Meng Yao considers ignoring it, but some of his elderly neighbours have been coming to ask for help with their phones or whatever new fancy blender their kids got them to make life easier. Usually, five minutes of easy work means free homemade food for his next meal, which is always a great deal.

When he opens the door, there’s a very old man waiting in the corridor alright, but free food is probably out of the question.

“Well, I’m here,” Nie Huaisang says. “Whatever is going on, it’d better be important.”

#xisangyao #xiyao #sangyao #xisang #counterfeit au #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes

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haloshornsinkstains · 4 years ago

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Mine [Tomura Shigaraki]

This is a bit different from most of my other writing I think? Read the content warnings. It’s not as fluffy as a lot of my other writing. It was just an idea that wouldn’t go away and I finally got it all written out.

Sorry I haven’t updated much this week, first week back at work has been rough. Always open for requests though, especially headcanons or thirsts/drabbles atm.

CW: Omegaverse (Alpha!Shigaraki, Omega!Reader), female reader, NSFW, dubcon , blood, violence, kidnapping

Distressed omegas were meant to be a cowering, whimpering mess. They were meant to be easy to control, to comply subserviently with an Alpha, or even a Beta, in order to remedy whatever situation had them in such a state. Distressed omegas were most certainly not meant to be snarling, snapping and occasionally sending ripples of electricity and broken earth out at their captors. Which is exactly what you were doing.

It was supposed to be an easy job, scope the place out, report back on your findings. The place was not, according to all the previous intel, supposed to be a hideout for one of the most notorious villain groups in all Japan. But just your luck, that was exactly what it was. You’d expected to die, honestly, when the small blonde had appeared out of nowhere. Maybe dying would have been the better option, rather than being tied up and surrounded by the League. You weren’t even entirely sure why you weren’t dead, she’d mumbled something about your scent and in a blurry series of events you’d found yourself here, growling at their leader as he crouched before you, easily recognisable with the hand obscuring his face.

“Can someone tell me why we have a distressed omega in the middle of our floor?” He rasped, taking his eyes away from you for a moment to scan the group. “We caught her sneaking around!” Toga grinned, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Right. So why is she here and not, say, dead?” Shigaraki growled, before whipping his head back to you, nose wrinkled. “And will you stop that? You smell terrible.” You merely snarled in response. You knew your distress tinged your natural scent with a sour note that wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t as if you could control the feeling given your current predicament. “Um, boss, we do have her tied up. It’s probably not entirely her fault.” “Spinny is right. She smelled so good before~” Toga beamed. You snorted. “She’s bleeding, of course you thought she smelled good.” “Not like that! The blood smelled good, but she smelled right before she started bleeding. Then she smelled better~” Tomura sighed, shifting forwards towards you to try and see what the beta girl meant. You shuffled backwards, baring your teeth at him in a snarl, sparks skittering off your skin towards him. Tomura snarled back, sharp canines glinting from between chapped lips in a clear threat. “Stop it! I could just kill you you know?” He glanced over his shoulder, missing the way your body drooped in poorly hidden hurt at his next words. “You just had to bring a broken omega didn’t you brat?” Broken. You’d heard that before. No one wanted an omega who snarled and snapped back, instead of submitting at the drop of a hat. Omegas were supposed to be subservient. Motherly. They were supposed to have supportive roles. You were none of those, topped with an offensive type quirk, you weren’t what anyone would look for in an omega mate. You were broken, by their standards. “Stop. Calm down.” You reacted immediately to the new Alpha voice, your body relaxing against your own will, every fibre of your being racing to obey the alpha’s command. You turned your head to scowl at the man who’d pulled such a dirty trick, stupid Alpha’s and their stupid ability to make Omega’s obey. A scarred face grinned back at you, Dabi you realised, another strong Alpha - had to be to make you submit like that when you were so riled up. “You could’ve done that too you know creep, threatening her wasn’t going to make her any less distressed.” He huffed. “You’re the worst Alpha I’ve ever met.” Tomura scowled, scratching at his neck. “You must not spend much time with yourself.” Dabi huffed a laugh, leaning against the wall behind you. You could feel his eyes burning into the back of your neck, clearly watching for you to make some move to attack as Tomura shifted closer. His scent was getting stronger, too much so to just account for his proximity. He was trying to calm you, you realised belatedly, a hand twitching near his neck as if he didn’t dare scratch at the damaged glands further. It took a moment for the scent to really hit you, your eyes going wide and panicked as your body reacted, the urge to fling yourself towards him and flee warring between each other and leaving your frozen in place. You shook your head as a needy whine bubbled from your throat unbidden. Tomura fell backwards, brows pinched together in what you thought was a similar kind of distress. In a panic you tried to focus on a different scent, anything to push the scent of dusty rooms and decaying leaves and belonging from your nose. Your head whipped to Dabi behind you, breathing deeply through your nose. He was another Alpha, surely his scent should do something to mask Tomura’s, but the smoke and spice was far too faint to cover whatever the other Alpha had pumped through the room. Noticing your gaze Dabi just offered a lazy shrug, tilting his head slightly with a smug smirk. The burn scars that covered his neck must have messed with his scent glands, which also explained the tang of burnt flesh you got from him. The Betas weren’t doing much either, and everyone smelled faintly of blood, including you. With another needy whine you gave up and focused hard on the floor, trying not to breathe more than strictly necessary. The world around you blurred and faded as you fought every instinct in you screaming to reach out to the Alpha and bare your neck to his teeth. 'Stupid body, stop it. I'm better than this, I've met plenty of strong Alphas before.' 'But none of them smelled like that. Good enough to make you react like this' your traitorous mind whispered back. 'Screw that. I am not my secondary gender. I'm a hero. I don't roll over for anyone, and certainly not an infamous villain. No matter how good he smells…' 'Smells like mate. Your Alpha.' '...mate. No!'. You snarled into the floor, not quite sure when you’d shifted position like this. You vaguely registered the shuffle of feet, Tomura had stood and moved away at some point, and the low rasp of orders. "Spinner, go put her somewhere." "Okay? Uh, where?" "Anywhere but here." A door slammed and you felt yourself being lifted, heated over a shoulder. Spinner you guessed, he smelled weird, even under the blood and soft scent that marks him as part of the pack. His smell was dry, like sand and tanned leather and something reptilliant you couldn't place. He jostled you slightly as he moved down some stairs, making you hiss at him in irritation. He growled back, finally dumping you in a small cellar, your hands still tied.

“What was that all about?” Toga asked, spinning a knife in her hands. “You can’t guess?” Dabi sighed. “Do you know anything?” Toga just shrugged, humming to herself. “I know how to stab people.” “From the omega’s reaction I’d say she smelled a mate.” Compress sighed. “I’m sure you can piece together who from the reaction.” “Oh. Oh. Maybe that’s why she smelled so nice before.” Dabi shrugged. “What did she smell like before? I only got the sour distressed smell, and… well.” Toga winced, the sour smell had been unpleasant sure, but the strange musk after it hadn’t been so bad. It reminded her of how things smelled after she got to play with blood. “She smelled good, like thunderstorms and old things. A bit like the bar when we first got here, except with more lightning.” “That explains it. Creepy hands McGee is going to be a child about it though.” Dabi hummed. “You should have more faith in our leader.” Dabi shot Compress a disbelieving look and shook his head. “This is going to be a pain.”

You weren’t sure how long you’d been trapped in their cellar. Two days maybe, if they were bringing you three meals a day, longer if not and well… three meals a day seemed a little too generous for the group of villains. Yet no one had come to find you, probably assumed you were dead you reasoned, but the abandonment stung somewhere deep in your chest. You’d smelled your mate several times since you’d been captured too, lurking outside the door but never coming any further. Each time the battle with your instincts got harder, the omega inside you begging to call out, to crawl to the door and beg for him to come in. Occasionally small whimpers would slip past your lips, ones that you would scold yourself for, but worse was the answering growl that sometimes came from the other side of the door. Low and possessive and filled with a promise of something both dangerous and so, so tempting. Those times it was even harder to stay back, your body trembling from the effort of staying still. You didn’t want him, not logically, he was dangerous and cruel and evil. Everything opposed to what you worked for in life. But your traitorous body smelled a mate, the first one you’d met since high school, and it wanted him so badly it ached.

Meanwhile Dabi was getting more and more frustrated, nothing was happening with the League while their boss was fixated on their captive, and while he didn’t really care about the League’s goals where they diverged from his own, the inactivity was boring the others and their restlessness was driving him insane. That and the constant growling of the other Alpha made his hackles rise, part of him he thought he’d buried long ago wanting to fight over the omega. It was stupid and he hated it, so it needed to be solved, and he knew just the thing to kick Shigaraki into action.

You snapped awake from a fitful sleep as you heard the door to the cellar opening. A traitorous part of your mind hoping it would be your mate. Instead the faint smell of burning caught you nose and you huffed, turning away from the other Alpha. You heard a growl from behind you but ignored it, pulling the blanket around you protectively. “Go away.” There was a rough laugh. “I don’t think so little Omega. All this pining is getting annoying.” You huffed. “There is no pining. But if you’re here to kill me just get it over with, this cellar smells terrible.” “Tempting but no” he grabbed your shoulders, flipping you onto your back in one swift motion “I’ve got a much better plan.” Your body tensed up, preparing to fight whatever this asshole planned to do to you, despite the power-dampening bands they’d locked onto your wrists. You pulled your legs up, closing them tightly, ready to kick him away. But Dabi was deceptively strong, pinning your legs down with one arm as his other grabbed something from his coat pocket, binding it over your nose and mouth. A gag, you thought at first, ready to scream for help that probably wouldn’t come as soon. But then the smell hit you, your eyes going wide and panicked. It was his smell, dusty and decaying and enough to set all of your nerves on fire. You thrashed on the bed, tossing your head around and trying to get it off, get away from the intoxicating scent, but Dabi had a hand pressed hard against your throat. “Behave.” You froze with a whimper that you hated yourself for. “Good Omega. Now, we just need to wait until your heat kicks in and this’ll all be over.” You struggled weakly again, your heat hadn’t been very far off when you first broke in here anyway, the overwhelming scent of Alpha, of Mate, would only bring it on faster. And with Dabi pressing down on your neck you felt you might pass out before you could get the clothing off you. Everything was hazy and the blood was pounding in your ears as the edges of your vision darkened.

Dabi sighed, climbing off you and sniffing the air. Beneath the sour sting of distress he could smell the sweetness and thick musk that signalled an impending heat. A couple hours and you’d be in full heat he figured, plenty of time to convince the creep to get down here and trap him in here with you. Dabi figured he’d either kill you, fuck you and then kill you or (and it was probably the least likely) actually claim you as a mate and stop this ridiculous moping. Maybe having an omega around the place would be useful, you were supposed to be good at looking after people and all that shit and god knows these idiots need it. Now he just had to convince the creep to actually enter the cellar.

In the end it was easier than he thought. All he had to do was suggest you were in some kind of danger and some long dormant Alpha instincts seemed to kick in, sending Shigaraki darting into the cellar before his brain could catch up with what he was doing. With a satisfied bark of laughter Dabi slammed the door shut again, banking on the boss’ instincts kicking in before he could think of disintegrate the door with his quirk. Sliding the lock shut he turned to address the door, raising his voice so he could be heard inside. “We’re all sick of your nonsense, so either fuck or kill each other. I don’t care.” You were staring wide eyed at Shigaraki from your makeshift blanket nest, a sheen of sweat making your skin almost glow in the dim light. The room stank with the scent of your heat, sickly sweet and tinged with ozone. For his part Shiagraki had pressed himself back against the door, staring at you as if you were about to pounce on him and eat him alive. Though, in his defence, your instincts were screaming at you to do exactly that. In a way it was almost funny, that something so simple could reduce someone so powerful to panic like this, but you knew how dangerous that could be at the same time, how easily he could kill you. You tried to growl at him, but it came out more like a needy whimper, a ripple of pain running through your body. You knew it was only a matter of time before he lost control, maybe it was better to just get it over with… the way your body was screaming at you was getting harder to ignore too. Before you realised what was happening you had started to crawl towards him, his snarl the only thing that snapped you out of the heat daze and made you stop. “Stay back.” You froze, studying him carefully. He was trembling, a thin sheen of sweat covering his face, his hands frozen into claws on the floor, pinkies raised. So it was getting to him faster than you bargained for. Great. “I’m trying!” You hissed. “Try harder!” You narrowed your eyes, a snarl escaping your lips. “Screw you.” He answered with a growl, deep and low in his throat, the sound making you whine and press yourself to the floor on instinct, hips raised in the air. In the few seconds it took you to realise what you were doing something in Tomura snapped, the scent of your heat and the submissive mating position sparking every instinct in his body. In a flash you’re trapped beneath him, feeling the solid press of his length against your ass. He’s trembling, barely restrained as he ruts against your clothing. It’s sweet, in a twisted way, that he’s this far gone but still trying to hold on to a thread of control, to wait for your consent. And with him pressed so close, his intoxicating scent filling your nostrils, you know you can’t hold off much longer. Each time you try to say no it comes out as whine, your heat growing stronger with each passing heartbeat. “Please.” It comes out as a whine, but your hips rocking back against his is more than enough to tell him what you want.

His fingers scrabbled at your pants, careful to keep his pinkie away from the clothes even in this state. You heard the groan as he saw the mess of slick sticking to your underwear, you could feel it starting to run down your legs, the smell almost overwhelming. You heard more fabric rustle before you felt him pressing against you, felt the quiver in his body as he stilled with his head just pressing at your entrance. You whined, low and needy, bucking your hips back against him again, knees pressed together by your hastily tugged down clothes and chest cold against the floor. Behind you he growls, hips bucking forwards with enough force to almost push you over. His body folded over yours, hands pressed against the floor, away from you. A small thing, but it speaks volumes about his unwillingness to hurt you, that the bond of knowing you’re mates has stuck with him too. It’s the last coherent thought you have before your brain is completely overcome with a haze of lust, devoid of any thoughts except how good his cock feels inside you, hard and heavy rubbing along your inner walls. Your hands scrabble against the floor as he bucks up into you, pressing against a spot on your insides with every thrust that makes you see stars, his breath a series of harsh pants in your ears. There’s no dirty talk, no indication how much he’s enjoying this aside from the occasional ‘fuck’ or low moan. You could feel his knot pressing against your entrance, stretching you a little more with each thrust, brushing against your clit and pushing you closer and closer to your release. You knew anyone who passed would be able to hear your wanton moans and whimpers through the door, too lost in pleasure to control your volume. “Please. Please knot me Alpha, mate.” You whined, rocking back against him. “Need you.” There was a low chuckle from above you, dark and twisted. “Lost all your fight little omega? How pitiful.” You whined, clenching down around him. It was all it took for him to thrust hard once more, his knot pushing past your outer ring and locking itself inside you. The sudden pressure tipped you over the edge, spasming around his dick, barely aware as he made a final few shallow thrusts before groaning and tipping over the edge himself, filling you with his warm come. The pain of his teeth latching onto your neck, the sharpened canines piercing through the bond mark, was enough to bring you out of your daze. “Mine.” Locked together you could feel his tongue lapping at the wound, cleaning the blood and soothing the sting of the bite. You tried not to struggle, worried the movement would anger him, even as you could hear the mutterings of ‘mine, my omega’ against your skin. With the worst of your heat sated right now you could almost think clearly again, despite the stretch of his knot inside you firing all kinds of signals inside your body. You’d allowed yourself to be claimed by one of the biggest villains in Japan, in a dingy basement against a cold stone floor. He’d bitten you and marked you as his. There was no way they were going to let you out of there now, no matter how much you begged or used your ‘omega charms’ on them. You were trapped. At least the claim would offer you some protection from the others, or so you hoped.

What on earth had you gotten yourself into?

#my writing #my hero academia #bnha #shigaraki tomura #league of villains #omegaverse #shigaraki x reader #female!reader #f!reader #alpha!shigaraki #dubcon #halo.writes #halo.afterdark

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