#I would have cleaned this up more but The Vision ordered me to draw it

[aplaceinthedark]

Chapter Three: An Unfamiliar Face On An All Black Screen

Word Count: 3.2k+

CW: supernatural themes, lucid nightmares

This is RPF, and thus will contain real people, but names and events will be changed. If this bothers you too much, then please leave.

Some chapters will have flashbacks and will be marked as such.

A/n: A promise is a promise

Dividers by me

I SCREAMED AS THEY dragged me down the hallway. I screamed as they carried me down the stairs. I screamed as we wove through bookshelves; the Site’s and then the Grey’s. I only stopped screaming when my voice gave out as they slammed me onto a table. 

"Hold her down,” the First Eye said. I would recognize her voice anywhere. It still haunted me all these years later. I didn't have to look at her to see her in my mind’s eye.

"You've disobeyed my orders for the last time, Mab,” she said. Her hands curled over my shoulders, her long nails digging into my skin as they pierced the fabric of my borrowed shirt. She pushed me down as she hissed, "And for that, you must suffer the final consequence.” 

I was trying to scream out "No!” as I heard her dark emerald robes whisper along the Grey’s floors. She was about to leave. 

“Bring him in," she said as she left the room. 

I knew that soon my darkness would be swooping in to save me. It would burst from my body, impaling those that held me down, and then cocoon me until Noah came in to bring me back to baseline reality. 

But I was still pleading hoarsely, reaching out to these people I had thought were my friends, but their faces were as cold as stone as they held me down. 

Where were my shadows?

A final, primal scream erupted from me, but I didn't feel the coolness of shade that was supposed to accompany it. I tried to draw it out, but it was like there wasn't anything to draw from. Like I was a normal human. 

This wasn't right. 

I heard the door open, and a figure stepped into my line of vision. Except it wasn't the Serpent in human form that loomed over me. 

“Hello, Mab,” Noah said. 

I jolted awake, my lungs trying desperately to draw in air as if I was about to scream. I sat up quickly, my hand coming up to my chest as if I could soothe my heart by touch. Then I looked down. My hands were mercifully free of black smudges.

As I came back to the waking world, I realized the sirens I was hearing was actually my tab, alerting me of an incoming video call. And the caller was– 

"ECHO, accept,” I croaked out. As I reached for the tab to bring it in my field of vision, the video feed engaged. 

“Mab! Are you alright?” Dustin asked, his face filling with relief. 

It might have just been his panic, but Dustin looked more exhausted than usual. His dark hair on the top of his head was messy, and the usually clean shaven sides of his head were growing out. His perpetual stubble was almost at beard level. Even the BMI embedded under the skin of his temple looked dimmer.

“I’m… fine,” I finally choked out. “Better now, thanks to you.” 

“I saw that you had tried to contact me, but I only just got your messages,” he said. “When you didn't immediately answer, I thought that Altef got a hold of you.” 

My stomach twisted at his words. “No, I was just sleeping,” I admitted. 

“Sleeping? Is it nighttime where you are? Where are you?” he demanded. 

“Nowhere near the UK, that's for sure," I said. I propped my tab up on the standard-issue side table, freeing up both of my hands. "I got reassigned to Site-6.” 

"That's–" Dustin’s eyes went unfocused behind his glasses. “Eastern standard time. But why did you get assigned there?” 

"Best guess is that this is where the Department of Ontokinetics is headquartered, and someone in charge finally trusts me to not destroy reality,” I said bitterly. 

“Knowing this organization? Probably not.” 

I checked the time. “Are you just now getting back to Two?”

“No, I’ve been back for almost an hour. I was on my way to the nursery when I passed by your usual haunt,” he said. The soft pulse of the BMI was soothing to watch, and I found myself  relaxing from the panic I had woken up with. Flashes of my nightmare reminded me why I had repeatedly tried to reach Dustin.

“And the idiots at Site-4 fucked up the aic integration, so I'm back at Two to get a new seed for them. You create the world’s first Fourth-class artificial intelligence and suddenly everybody wants one,” Dustin sighed. I jumped when I realized I had tuned out his aic talk. “You okay, Mab?”

I groaned softly. “No..." I took a deep breath. “They assigned me to an Assessment Team."

“Hey, that's not so bad. You'll see more of the world like you wanted. Sure, there’s more fieldwork, and therefore more danger, but–” 

“I saw Noah,” I blurted out. 

Dustin stopped mid-sentence, going quiet. After a few agonizing seconds, he whispered, “The Noah?”

I nodded. “He’s my Team Leader.”

He was quiet for a few minutes more. I blurted out, “What do I do?”

“Mab, not to be the Debby Downer you know and love me for," he said, “but… there’s nothing you really can do." 

I groaned louder this time. "Dustiiiiiiiiiin…” 

“I know, I know. But it's true.” He sighed. “If there’s one thing I love about you, it’s your ability to make something good out of a bad situation.” 

My heart ached. “I wish you were here, Boots," I mumbled. 

“I know you do. It's my devilishly handsome face and my amazing charm,” he said, earning a chuckle from me. 

“Well, since I know you’re not dying under immense pressure from a reality gravity well, I’m gonna let you get back to sleep,” he said.

"Promise me you'll eat lunch today?" I asked.

“I, Dustin Paul Bates, Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering, Astrophysics, and AI Intelligence, solemnly swear to eat Site-2’s horrible turkey sandwiches," he said, even going as far as to hold up his hand. It made me smile, even as I felt the tears well up. 

“Good morning, Dusty," I said. 

"It'll be okay, Mab,” he smiled. “Good night.”

The screen went black, and the face replacing Dustin's made me let out a sob. 

I really hated starting over.

“One iced lavender oatmilk latte.” 

I was startled when a cup of coffee was placed on my desk by a tattooed hand. I slid the cup closer and took the lid off to peer into it. 

“It’s not poisoned,” Matt said. “Jolly’s too nice to poison someone’s coffee.”

“I know, it’s just… Is this coffee?” I asked. When I had replied to Jolly’s message of “Would you like coffee?”, I thought he would get me black coffee. The only thing I really recognized out of all those words he had said was ‘lavender’.

“You said to get whatever suited you,” Jolly said as he sat at his desk.

I took a sip and was surprised it tasted… good. “Thank you,” I said.

“Do you hear that?” Jolly turned towards Matt and Nick. “She actually thanks me for getting coffee.”

I ducked behind my screen, making it opaque. I peered over at the other side of the room, where two desks say empty again. Maybe I would be spared Noah’s presence today.

ECHO’s notification chimed, drawing my attention to the corner of the screen where it floated. Tapping it once, a picture appeared. It was of a half-eaten sandwich, and a hand flipping it off. I took another sip to hide my smile.

“It’s good, isn’t it?”

I looked up to see Nick going back and forth in his chair. I nodded, and he grinned. “Looks like you were right, Jolls.”

“I’m always right.”

“Do we just sit around like this all day?” I asked.

“We’re on downtime, so yes,” Matt said. “Noah’s debriefing the chief now, and I’ll find out the next course of action probably next week.”

“So what do you do with downtime?” I asked.

“Train mostly. Being an Assessment Team is hard work,” Nick said, now fully spinning in his chair.

“Says the guy just sitting around,” Matt muttered.

“What did you do in your downtime at Two?” Jolly asked, cutting off Nick’s retort, judging by the way his eyes narrowed.

“I… didn’t really have downtime,” I said sheepishly. “I worked in the NExUS Archives from sunup to sundown, with hardly any breaks.” Most of that was my own fault, because I never really had anything to do.

Nick and Matt looked so horrified, it was almost comical. But Jolly tilted his head. “Then what would you like to do for downtime?”

I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Read.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that Level Three looked the same after five years, but I was.

To an average person, it would look like your average library. Five floors with lots of shelves, and tons of books. But to someone in the anomalous world, this entire space would be abnormal. Especially if they knew the inside was bigger than the outside.

I used to think that this place hoarded its knowledge; that it didn’t want humanity to know the secrets of the universe. Of course, that had been dogma drilled into me by the Truth of Orobos, but even now I still believed that some things shouldn’t be kept secret.

And now… now it just reminded me of how my life had started.

Jolly had taken me down here, and basically set me loose. “Stay here as long as you like. Sleep here, if you want. Just check in to the office every morning so we know you’re still alive,” he had told me. And with a wink, he left me to my own devices.

He was my new favorite person now.

I had hardly known where to start. I knew where to avoid, but that was one small section out of countless others. In the end, I just went to where the guides said was the astronomy section.

As I ascended the stairs, I passed several GRAVE Security Guards. I hurried along, keeping my head down to avoid looking at their visors. It seemed like there was an increased amount of them. Maybe that was my fault.

When I finally reached my destination on the fourth level, I breathed a sigh of relief that the section was empty. A part of me wished I could take a picture and send it to Dustin, but I know the security would never let the signal pass the Site’s walls, even if it was being sent to another Site.

Back in the Grey Library, I had an infinite amount of books at my fingertips. Every book written in every universe was contained there. While I’m sure I was not banned from it and could go there if I wished, I felt… scared to. Like if I took one step in there, the Truth could find me.

The Truth of Orobos.

I shook my head. No, they couldn’t find me here. That Way had to have been sealed after my arrival. There was no way the UPA would leave a hold in their defenses. And I was now under the UPA’s jurisdiction, so there would be hell to pay if they kidnapped me. Again.

I brushed my fingers over the books’ spines. Some looked so new, they could’ve gone straight from print to shelf this morning. Others were dusty and almost crumbling. I smiled. It was like a miniature version of the home I once had.

None of the books called to me. I slipped further down the shelf, trying to find something that would catch my eye. But no, no title or cover pulled me in. I sighed. Maybe they had a fiction section. 

I was on my way downstairs when I looked across the library to see a familiar section. I stopped, gripping the rail tightly as I realized that the Way to the Grey Library had to be around where I was now, if I remembered correctly. Peering around, I didn't see any human eyes - I knew the ubiquitous eye of the UPA was always watching. I then slipped down a few bookshelves until I found the spot.

There was a tapestry covering it now. Looking around again, I walked up to it and peeked behind the cloth. And found… nothing. No magical doorway, just a blank wall. It definitely was new; there was a faint line where I could see the new met the old. I even rapped twice on the wall. Nothing.

I was safe. 

I let out the breath I had been holding, and let the tapestry return to its proper place. It was a nice piece of art, at least. I recognized some of the figures and landmarks on it. Adam, Lilith, their three sons, seven faeries to represent the seven sidhe races, even the Yeren which were long extinct. And in the middle of them stood the Tree of Knowledge, and wrapped around the base was the Serpent, Orobos.

“It's pretty good for mundane art.”

I whipped around. Noah leaned against a bookshelf. I hadn't even heard him sneak up behind me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same question. Visiting the scene of the crime?” 

“No crime was committed–” I snapped my mouth shut when I saw his grin. “I was just making sure.”

The corners of his mouth fell. Something in his face made him look… soft, which made me wary. “They won't come for you.”

“Obviously, I can see that.” I waved a hand behind me.

“I meant in general. I don't let anything happen to anyone on my team.”

My team. “I didn't ask to be on your team.”

“Neither did I, but here you are. Again.”

The universe works in mysterious ways, but you can control the universe. That's what the Director of NExUS and Site-2 used to say to me. Before she died. 

“What are you doing here, really?” I asked again.

“Jolly told me you were down here, and I had to come get you to debrief you on our team's mission. It just so happens that you're predictable.”

“Are you kidding me–” My voice had risen with my temper, but was cut off when Noah put a gloved finger to his mouth. He was wearing only one for some reason.

“I'm teasing, princess,” he said. “Come on,  you need to learn what Bad Omens is all about.”

“I know about the team's mission,” I said. “The team specializes in investigating and dealing with aggressive and or threatening religion-based anomalies.”

“Isn't that our mission verbatim?” he asked. 

“Yes.” I crossed my arms over my chest. When he arched an eyebrow, I huffed. “I have a good memory.”

“Yeah, I saw that in your profile,” he said. His tone made me want to smack him. “But you don't know what you're really getting into.”

“Fine.” I brushed past him, walking towards the stairs. 

I could have sworn I heard him mutter something obscene under his breath, but the only thing I actually heard was “help me.”

“It’s called Akiva radiation,” Nicholas said.

“I’m aware,” I said. I rested my chin on my steepled fingers. “It’s similar to Hume particles.”

Nicholas bobbed his head back and forth in a so-so motion. “Akiva interacts with Humes and EVE, even though it doesn’t have any particles to measure. Akiva has the ability to affect reality by altering it.”

“The more belief someone has, the more radiation they… radiate,” Noah said.

“As a task force that was created by the Department of Theology and the Division of Tactical Theology, we observe and assess anomalies so they can be researched and maybe even killed,” Jolly said.

“If you can kill it, then it isn’t a god,” I said, scanning the screen behind Nicholas.

“True, there are some Type Blacks that can be taken down,” Noah said, using the designation for demi-deific humanoids.

“And Hume particles can change to Akiva–”

“Enough about the science stuff,” Nick said. I could practically hear his eyes rolling from behind me. “Get to the big finale.”

Nicholas sighed. “I was getting there,” he said flatly. “Currently, we’ve been pulled in to help with Project Septead.”

“Seven?” I curiously asked.

Nicholas nodded. “A few of the Septead have been discovered, but right now we’re focused on the Nameless One.”

“I’ve never heard of this pantheon,” I admitted.

“Not many have. The first mention of them were discovered in some anomalous city in the dunes of Saudi Arabia,” Jolly said, crossing his arms over his chest and bringing his leg up over his knee. “The initiative… didn’t end well.”

“It was some time ago. Like… fifty years ago?” Nicholas said.

“Forty. But it doesn’t matter to our current job,” Noah said. “The head of task forces here, Colonel Sumerian, said that in less than a month, a conclave will be assembling in order to discuss where the project will be heading, and we need to bring something to their table.”

“Less than a month?” Nick gaped. “How the hell are we supposed to find something in less than one month?”

“We have the findings from Brazil. There’s something in there.” Noah’s dark eyes slid from Nick to me. “And I’m positive our newest Researcher will help us find it.”

I fought the strong urge to sigh out loud. “That’s why you needed me? To help you read?” I asked.

All eyes in the room turned on me. “What do you mean?” Noah asked.

“You pulled me onto your team so you could have someone do all your paperwork, is that it?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I had no say in your reassignment. You know that,” he said. “And you’d better watch your tone with me.”

“Or what?” I snapped at him.

Suddenly, he was in front of my desk, towering over me. “Because as you so eloquently put last night, we’re teammates. Except I’m your team leader, and you will obey a direct order.”

Something in my body quaked like a bad muscle memory, and I cast my gaze down. “Yes, sir,” I said, just loud enough to be heard. I then stood up and quickly moved to the door.

I was halfway out when my name being called made me halt. I turned around, one hand on the door handle. Not as stiff, but still not as jovial as he was down in the Archives, Noah simply said, “I’ll send you the files.”

I nodded once, slipping out into the hall. When the door was shut completely, I walked as I pulled out my tab.

“ECHO, please put me on the request list to be transferred,” I said quietly.

“ARE YOU SURE? THE AVERAGE WAIT TIME TO HEAR BACK FROM THE OFFICE OF–”

“Just do it,” I said, the words coming out in a rushed breath.

There was a moment of silence from the AI. I happened to look down at my tab, seeing ECHO’s orb blink twice, almost like it was considering disobeying me. But as I turned the corner that Jolly had shown me, I heard its acknowledgement. “REQUEST SENT.”

As I found myself back between the stacks of books on Level Three again, I heard ECHO’s four-note tone. I checked my messages, and my heart dropped.

REQUEST DENIED

tysm for reading! If you enjoyed this, please reblog. Next chapter coming soon.

Featured Creatures

@ladyveronikawrites @deathblacksmoke  @roley-poley-foley @sitkowski @darksigns-exe @baddestomens @comforting-madness @nojoyontheburn @shilohrosechicken @lilhobgobbler

[solo-walker]

Afterwards

Links to Part 1 and Part 2

[deadhands69]

Lights. Camera. Action?

When y/n keeps ending up in every porn trope imaginable, how will the league of villains react?  crack w/adult situations, language gn/afab reader Four short stories featuring: Tomura Shigaraki, Suichi Iguchi (Spinner), and Touya Todoroki (Dabi)

Stuck in the Washing Machine (feat. Tomura Shigaraki)

This laundry day has not gone as planned. You were almost done. A basket full of clean, fresh laundry warm out of the dryer. All of your chores finished before noon! 

Then you see it: one last sock clinging to the back of the drum. 

Naturally, you lean in to pull it out. Should be simple, right? Unfortunately not. 

When you back up to pull yourself out, you hit your head in the process and your hair gets caught in one of the screws. 

“Fucking piece of shit,” you mumble, cursing the old appliance for existing. 

Well, you'll just have to untangle it, right? Easier said than done. You can't quite see where you're caught since it's so close to your scalp. In addition to that, you can't move your arms far enough in this position to do much of anything. 

You're stuck.

Then you hear it: footsteps. Deus ex machina; you're saved! 

“Hey,” your yells echo back at you, nearly painfully. “Can you help me?”

“What?” Tomura Shigaraki’s sleepy voice drawls from the hallway before you hear his footsteps approaching. 

“I'm stuck,” you mumble, slightly ashamed of your situation.

“How the fuck did you manage that,” his gravely voice projects down at you, sounding…hot. You try to block the thought from your mind, there are more pressing matters at hand.

“Wow, you're actually stuck in there,” he says, barely hiding his amusement. 

Yeah, he definitely sounds hot today. You're not sure what got you in this mood. Was it something you ate? Didn't eat? Maybe you're ovulating. In any case, suddenly you're desperate for him. If fucking someone's voice was on the table, you'd be first in line. Shit, you need to pull yourself together. 

“Can you help?” you say a little more suggestively, arching your back to give him a view of the tiny shorts you threw on this morning.

“Uh, I can try.” You listen as his footsteps grow closer until you can see his sweat pant clad legs in what little peripheral vision you have. 

He pulls out his phone for the flashlight, reaching his hands as far into the dryer as he can get. The closeness only spurs you on. With as much motion as you're capable of, you lean into his leg, rubbing your hip against him like a cat. 

“Can you hold still?” he groans, voice still sending a thrill through you. 

“Need you,” you moan, feeling drunk on your own arousal. 

“I know you do. There's no way you're getting this untangled on your own.” 

In the corner of your eye, a piece of metal flashes as he pulls it from his pocket. This draws you back to reality, but only barely. 

“Wait,” you exclaim, “is that a knife?”

“Well, I'm not about to decay your head. Just hold still, I've almost got it.”

The clatter of the knife and dull sound of your hair being sliced reverberate around you. Suddenly, you're free. 

Standing up, you stretch for a moment. When you turn to look at Shigaraki, he hands you a chunk of your hair. Confused, you accept it. Great, first you were stuck now you've had an impromptu haircut. That's nice.

Maybe this morning doesn't have to be all bad though. 

“Since you saved me,” you lay it on thick, gripping his bicep, “is there anything I can do to thank you?”

“Yeah,” he yawns then considers for a moment, “since you're offering, can you throw my clothes in the dryer? And try not to get yourself stuck again,” he calls out from the doorway as he leaves. 

Pizza Delivery Boy (feat. Spinner)

It was just here yesterday, you think while ripping apart your bedroom to find your wallet. If you would have checked earlier, you could have ordered from somewhere that let you pay with a saved card online or Venmo. Unfortunately, the best pizza place in your neighborhood has a strict cash only policy. By the time you realized you couldn’t find the money, the order was already in the oven and it was too late to cancel.

Your phone dings from under a pile of clothes. It’s one of your friends letting you know you left your wallet in her car last night; she'll drop it off after work late tonight. You switch apps to the delivery page. The status bar on your the screen ticks forward, indicating that the driver, ‘Spinner’, is on the way. Not that those are ever correct, but it gives you some vague idea of how little time you have left.

You pull up the couch cushions and search for change under the bed. The yield of your efforts still leaves you just short. Fuck.

With a screech of tires, followed by the light crunch of a vehicle hitting a curb, you're alerted to his presence. You rush to the door, watching through the peephole. The driver climbs out of his car with one hand carrying your pizza and the other flipping his magenta hair out of his face. The world briefly morphs into an old music video, it's like everything is in slow motion.

He’s cute. Really cute.

Maybe there’s another way you could pay for it.

“Hi, uh Spinner!” You answer the door with a bounce, suddenly feeling shy but you push through it. “So, here’s the thing. My friend has my wallet and I’m coming up short on cash. Surely there’s something I could do to make up for it?”

“Oh,” he says, processing what you’ve just said. He’s never had to deal with this on a delivery before.

“When’s your lunch break?” you ask in the most alluring voice you can manage.

“It’s now,” he says nonchalantly. “Well, it's soon. Right after I finish your delivery.”

“You wanna stick around,” you run your hands over his arm, pulling at the sleeve of his leather jacket. “I’m sure there’s some other way to make up for the rest of the bill.”

“Yeah, I’d be down to split it. You picked my favorite toppings and I need to get lunch anyways,” he says, moving into your living room to make himself at home.

As the two of you are eating, you keep glancing up at his face for signs he might be interested in more. Unfortunately, you got yourself pretty worked up in anticipation of trying to seduce him and you’re finding it nearly impossible to turn that off.

“So,” you muse, “after this. You still have like twenty minutes or so, right?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I thought I could do something for you,” you lean into his shoulder, “you know, to make up for it?” 

“Oh, it’s really not a big deal. I had to get lunch anyways,” he says, “but if you want I could stick around for a bit. I think I know what you're getting at.”

He scoots and closer to the center of the couch near you and takes off his heavy jacket. “You know, I really appreciate it too. It's always so hard to unwind in the middle of the work day.”

Just as you're about to reach for his belt buckle, he leans past you – grabbing an n64 controller from the table. 

“You want to be Mario or Luigi?” he asks with a huge smile.

The two of you proceed to play the most awkward session of Super Mario Bros of your life, jumping down pipes when you wish he was sliding into yours. When he leaves, he asks for your number, exclaiming how great it is to have a good "video game bro" to hang out with during the day now.

Walked In On (feat. Dabi)

It’s been a long day and you finally get a moment to yourself. All you want is to unwind, what better way to do that than an orgasm? Jumping in the shower, you set the water temp just right. Your favorite music is playing and you relax into it. You finally find the perfect angle for the shower head when–

BANG!

Suddenly the door crashes open and your roommate Dabi barges in.

You stifle a moan for long enough to yell, “hey, I’m in here!” It’s no use though - he’s already in the room, digging through the medicine cabinet.

“Well, there’s only one bathroom and you’re hogging it. Besides,” he adds, “the only Tylenol in the house is in here.” That’s not true, you think to yourself, but it doesn’t matter: he ruined it. 

Or, maybe he didn’t.

Through the clear plastic shower curtain, you can make out his frame. Maybe you’re just turned on, but he’s pretty hot. And you’ve only been in here for five minutes, at most, he had to have timed it on purpose. It's almost like he wants to be in here with you. 

“Heyyy, Dabi,” you breathe, hoping he hears the longing in your voice and gets the hint it’s okay to join you from that alone.

“Yeah?” he asks, shaking some pills out of a bottle before drinking straight out of the faucet. 

“Can you give me some help in here?”

“What, did you get something caught in the drain or something? Because last time that was fucking disgu–”

“No, nothing like that,” you reply quickly, hoping to derail that thought before it gets too far. How is he not getting it, he’s the one who walked in here? “I mean, you came in at a very specific time.”

“Oh, that. If you needed me to get you tampons, you could have just said so. Not like I don't have a mom and sister. Yeah, I'll head to the store. We're out of paper towels so I need to go anyway.”

Good to know, but that's still not what you meant. 

“No,” you say exasperated, “that's not the help I'm asking for. Do you want to get in the shower with me?”

You aren't sure how you could make it more obvious than that, surely he has to understand now. 

He yanks the shower curtain back, startling you. But, now that he's here… his arms glisten with the drops of water splashing onto him from the shower. You notice the perfect line of his jaw, leaning in to kiss him.

Unfortunately for you, Dabi's attention is still elsewhere as he searches the ceiling. He moves, not noticing your advances.

“Is there a bug or something? That's what you needed help with in here, right?”

“There’s not a bug, I just thought maybe you’d want to take a shower with me.”

“Oh, yeah. That water bill was insane last month,” Dabi says, his face relaxing now that he thinks he understands. “I showered this morning though.”

He closes the curtain on you, turning to head out the door. “Plus,” he adds, “I wouldn’t want it to be weird for you to have to see my dick or anything.” 

Weird? That's exactly what you want. You finish your shower quickly and spend the rest of the evening hiding in your bedroom.

Casting Couch (feat. all three)

After months without so much as being called back, you jumped at the first job interview you landed. It’s at a seedy bar on the side of town you don’t usually visit, but that’s not a deal breaker. 

When you arrive, a polite man with some sort of smoke quirk greets you at the bar before taking you to a back room.

“Right this way,” he says, holding the door to the hallway. “They’re all back here waiting for you.”

“They? How many people are interviewing me?”

“Just the three of them, they like to work together on matters such as this.” He pushes open another door to a small room and gestures for you to sit on the couch across from the three men. They all perk up as soon as they see you and begin asking questions.

“So how much experience do you have?” asks the man with shaggy blue hair sitting across from you.

“How flexible are you in tough situations?” adds the one with the gecko quirk.

Then the darker haired man chimes in with, “how available can you make yourself?” 

It’s all so familiar.

The three attractive men across from you. The leather couch. All of the suggestive questions they’ve been asking. You’ve heard of interviews like this. With how long it’s taken you to find work, you’ll happily play along. Looking at the three of them, you’re even excited for it.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” you say, taking off your sweater.

“Right now?” asks the blue haired one, looking more confused than you expected.

“Yeah, you want to see what I can do, right?” you reply provocatively.

“Yeah, but,” adds the one with nose piercings, “there’s not enough room in here.” The others nod in agreement.

At that statement, you wonder what kind of crazy shit you’ve gotten yourself into. Curiosity gets the best of you though and you push forward. Whatever it is, you still need the job.

“Then aren’t you going to take me somewhere else?”

“Yeah, you might want to put your sweater on though. It’s pretty cold out,” the man with the fuschia hair replies. Reluctantly, you throw your sweater back on, knowing you’ll just be peeling it off again in a little while.

“Well, lead the way!” you say excited at the prospect of a potential job and the opportunity to sleep with three of the most attractive men you’ve ever seen in your life. 

The four of you exit through the bar, the man at the counter waves knowingly. You exit, walking a few blocks down the sidewalk and turning to cut through a park. You must be going to one of their apartments. Abruptly, they stop in the middle of the field and turn to you.

“Now’s your time to shine,” the darker haired man nudges you.

“R-right here?” you ask.

“Yeah, this looks like a good place,” states the one with scars on his lip and eye. Again, the others nod in agreement. 

“But there are people...” you whisper, glancing at the busy playground nearby.

“Oh, these people aren’t bothered by anything,” starts the scaled man. “No one in this neighborhood is. Just keep it over here and they’ll mind their own business. Dabi comes down here and does this by himself all the time,” he adds, pointing at the man next to him. Dabi looks pretty proud of himself.

“Huh,” you consider, “well, if you say it’s okay. Maybe we can go behind the gazebo or something.”

“You shy or something?” asks the man who you now know as Dabi. 

“Yeah, something like that. I’ve just never done this before. Not like this, at least."

"Weird, but okay," says the one with blue hair.

The four of you walk behind the gazebo where you take your shirt off and they promptly ask if you are having heat flashes and need medical attention.

Needless to say, you did not get that job.

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[us3rnam3-r3dact3d]

the world (it burns through me)

Chapter 28: Angel, Sweetheart, Darlin'

Ao3 | 4.5k Words | Angel, Sweetheart, and Darlin's POVs

Angel would know their husband anywhere. The world isn't right when Asher isn't smiling. David says goodbye. Sweetheart has their teeth around the problem. Milo's betrayal blossoms. Porter gives advice on a clean murder. Darling is ready for this to be over. Sam proposes.

TW: Medical stuff, blood and injury, smoke inhalation, intubation, mentions of death, grief, arguments and conflict, murderous intent.

Everything went fuzzy after the bathtub, and you were pretty grateful for that fact when it came down to it. A fire slowly encroaching on you as you laid helplessly and bled… that was a vision you didn’t want to visit you in your dreams. 

What you remembered was heat and smoke and the pound of palms on your chest. Everything was strange and muddled, the twist of fingers in your skin, the ground pressed into your back. You were lost in the movement and burn of your surroundings, but you knew Davey was there the minute his hands were on you. You would know your husband’s touch no matter how lost you found yourself. You would feel him pressing gentle pleas like compressions into your rib cage until it cracked under the pressure. 

Things shifted back into focus bit by bit. You managed to open your eyes to a light like nothing else, bright and cold and sterile. You groaned but it didn’t escape your throat. Someone spoke over you and Davey responded, but you couldn’t make out the words. You still had one foot in unconsciousness, even as Davey dragged you back from the brink. 

More words, hands on your face, not Davey’s, covered in rubber and freezing fucking cold. Something pressed against your jaw and them forced its way into your mouth. Plastic slid into your throat. 

Intubation. That was not a good sign. 

Your mind and body reconnected inside the hospital. Pain slammed into you, certain and unrelenting. You couldn’t deny it, couldn’t escape it. You struggled against your own body, throat flexing around the tube inside of it, as hands pressed down on your chest and hips to keep you steady. You wanted to comply, to do as the paramedic said, to calm down, calm down, to be a good patient, but you didn’t have much choice at the moment. The pain was impossible, and the only response that was appropriate was to thrash against it like a snake with the head cut off. 

Someone had done compressions. There was a tube in your throat. Dying gasps. 

You’d put it in writing in your twenties. You didn’t want to live on machines. You didn’t want a ventilator to be in the same fucking room as you, let alone breathe for you. So if they couldn’t straighten this shit out, this was it. 

It would be okay. Davey would be okay. This would shatter him for a few years, but he was not alone. 

Please, you tried to say, but your voice was choked and missing, please, Ash. Take care of him. Take care of him. 

Davey’s hands were still on you, planted on your chest, unrelenting. There was shouting by many strange voices. Orders given and followed. Doctors and nurses surged around you as you blinked your eyes open. 

“Sir, you should say goodbye.” One of the doctors instructed while cutting the remains of your shirt to free up your chest. Somebody attached sensors to your battered skin. 

“What?” David snapped, fingers flexing against your ribs. “What are you talking about?” 

“This will be very intensive surgery. We recommend you take a moment before they go into the operating room.” The doctor replied. David’s face went red, and he looked like he might start screaming again. 

Asher appeared like an answer to your prayers, soot smeared across his cheek.

“Hey, guys,” Ash raised his voice, drawing attention in the way only a leader could, “I know time is of the essence, but can we slow down for a sec?” Movement slowed, voices silenced. Ash turned to Davey. “Say goodbye.” Ash ordered. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. So say goodbye.” 

Davey turned to you, his dark eyes wide and wet, plain terror spread across his features.

Davey had known his mother was Navajo for all his life, but he hadn’t started learning about that part of him until after he met you. You were given the chance to watch as he unraveled the complex webs of his relationship with his culture. You watched him learn his language, bit by bit from distant cousins. You watched him grow his hair out. You learned to tie his tsiiyééł.

He had told you once, in the middle of your endless curious questions, that there wasn’t really a word in Diné bizaad for ‘goodbye.’ He said that it was too final, too much of an ending. The closest thing he had translated more closely to ‘alright then- see you later.’ 

“Hágoónee,” he said anyway, finality in his tone, an ending spread across his features. You blinked up at him, smoke choking out your voice, bruise and blood pressing into your head and chest. 

Alright then. 

You watched as he was shuffled away, as the doctors descended on you from all sides, smothering out every other sense with the smell of rubbing alcohol and hunter green scrubs. You couldn’t see Davey anymore, but you blinked your goodbye into the sterile ceiling. 

See you later. 

When you came back to yourself, the first thing you were aware of was a pounding ache in the back of your throat. You swallowed, uninhibited. No tube. Thank God. Davey had been going crazy lately, and you were afraid, somewhere in the depths of you, that he would override your medical directive and put you on a machine just to keep from losing you. 

You could see the haze of lights through your closed eyelids, and you could hear the buzz of fluorescents and the beep of machines. Still in the hospital, it seemed. 

“You need a break.” It was Asher’s voice, hushed and gentle. There was another person, too. A gentle drag of breath. Davey. You would know your husband’s heavy sigh anywhere. “Some food. Some sleep. A shower.” 

“I’m fine, Ash.” Davey replied. He sounded so tired, right back on the defense. Asher, though, was better at this than you were. He had been unwinding Davey’s bullshit for the entirety of their shared lives. 

“No,” Asher said, voice quirking at the end like he was teasing, “you are not. Your spouse is lying in a hospital bed after surviving one of the worst house fires we’ve ever seen. So I seriously can’t imagine how in the world you could be okay. But you are not helping yourself by perching over their bedside like a freaking gargoyle. So go get a cup of vending machine coffee and breathe for a few minutes.” 

Another sigh. A chair creaking. Footsteps receding. 

It took you a few minutes to gain back control of your muscles, but when you did, you turned your head, neck twinging, and cracked your eyes open. Asher was still at the door, staring down the hall, his face uncharacteristically severe. The world just didn’t seem right when Asher wasn’t smiling.

You opened your mouth and only air came out, a rush of cracking lips and lungs. Asher’s head spun around, eyes wide. 

“Oh my God!” He barked, tripping over himself to get to your bedside. “Oh my God!” He said again as he paused over you, hands hovering. You managed to gain control of your right arm and waved towards the water cup that was sitting on the rolling bedside table. Asher snatched it and helped to guide the straw to your mouth. As you tensed to sit up, pain sparked through your chest. You gulped down water anyway, brow furrowing. 

You cleared your throat, swallowed as the straw retreated. 

“Hey, girl,” you croaked, your voice barely a whisper. Asher laughed. The world righted itself. 

“Hey,” he replied. His smile stayed but tears sprung to his eyes. “Hey.” Just when you thought he was about to cry, a shadow cut through the light from the hallway. 

Davey looked tired. Worn down, more accurately. The smell of house fire accompanied him. The cup of vending machine coffee that was in his hand crashed to the floor. 

“Angel,” he breathed. Tears sprang to your eyes at the sight of him. The terror of the situation slammed into you all at once. You couldn’t catch your breath. You squeezed your eyes shut, hoping that, if you couldn’t see Davey staring at you like you’d just risen from the grave, you could go back to the numbness you’d woken up into. 

Hands framed your throat and face. You would know your husband’s touch, eyes closed or dying or hyperventilating from delayed shock. 

“It’s okay,” Davey’s voice sucked up your attention, grounded you in your spot. “I’m here. I’m here, Angel, I’ve got you.” 

You focused in on that voice, that low rumble, and let it drown out the drill of your heart monitor and the chatter of nurses rushing to check on you at the news that you were awake. Fuck everything else, your husband was telling you that everything would be alright. 

Despite yourself, despite your instincts, despite the thrum of pain in your chest, you believed him. 

__

You were spending far more time inside of Dahlia General than you were comfortable with lately, and the cafeteria food wasn’t getting any better. You poked half-heartedly with your plastic fork at the cold coffee cake that Milo had snagged from the overnight cart for you. He was sat across from you, his eyes downcast. He still smelled like smoke. Colm paced the length of the deserted cafeteria, phone to his ear, as he coordinated with the team on the ground outside the Shaw house and his detectives at the station. 

“Quinn’s little friend ratted out a few more hidey holes,” Colm stepped back towards your little rickety table, slipping his phone back into his coat pocket. “And I’m sure we’ll get more out of him in the next few days.” 

“Please remember,” you said into your coffee cake as you broke it apart with your fork, layer by layer, “that Ben is a victim in this scenario too. No untoward interrogation techniques.” 

“He set you up,” Milo pipped up. He sipped at his vending machine coffee and winced like he did with every swallow. Snob. “So, he’s a fucking asshole and whatever you want to do to him is fine by me.” He raised his styrofoam cup to Colm in cheers. 

“Quinn tortured him.” You said. “He put Ben through the same things he put Trouble through. Let’s not forget that someone we care about could have turned out similarly. Ben is somebody’s son. So let’s talk about him like he’s a human being.” 

Silence from both Greers. It was a familiar speech to you, something you had to repeat to cops often enough it was almost passionless at this point. Or perhaps that was due to how exhausted you were. 

In truth, the sight of Ben’s face still brought a spark of anger and dread to the forefront of your mind. His features, daring to look apologetic, had been the last shred of safety you’d known before Quinn carved you up. It was burned into your mind, and when Colm told you that Ben had been picked up and charged with accessory to attempted murder, you felt sick satisfaction churn in your stomach like bile. 

Milo cleared his throat.

“So we got more places to flush out?” He asked. Colm nodded.

“And they’re awake,” Colm said, “so once I can take their statement, I’ll have more information.” You let out a sharp sigh. 

“Thank God,” Milo breathed, “I thought David… you know.” 

“That kid can’t take another loss.” 

“Don’t question them tonight.” You said. “We’ll bother them in the morning. Let them both rest some.” 

“Every second counts in this.” Colm protested. You set down your fork and stood, rolled your shoulders back. 

“I don’t intend to waste them.” You huffed. “I need those addresses.” Both Greers stared at you, mouths similarly agape.

“No,” Milo said at the same time Colm said:

“Not on your own!” 

Always the challenge with them. You snagged your phone from your pocket and started typing out a message as you finished addressing them. 

“Ansel is already at the first location, I’ll meet him there.” You brushed your curls from your face. “You’re right, Colm, we have limited time, and I’m wasting it here, easing your anxieties. Please find a way to handle those on your own.” 

You left your coffee cake on the table and turned to the winding corridors of the hospital. You knew them well by now, and you paced through the hallway steadily. 

You were a bloodhound and you had his scent. You had your teeth around his fucking throat and you just needed to bite. 

Milo caught up to you halfway to the guest parking lot. 

“Hey!” He snapped, grabbing your shoulder. You bit back a wince as the skin on your stomach protested to the strange movement. The knots of scar tissue were firming and growing stiff. Your body rejected small twists and tugs on the skin with tight discomfort, sometimes jolting you with pain you couldn’t ignore. It was inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst, catching you at the worst times. You really had to get that dealt with. 

“I’ve gotta go,” you murmured. Teeth around the problem, if you lost the scent he’d slip away. He had been slipping away from you for months. Enough. You were ending this tonight, you were putting him behind bars tonight. 

“Sweetheart,” Milo’s voice called to you, pulled you from your singular focus. He was a liability to your work. When he commanded your attention, he got it, no matter what else needed it. “Slow down. Talk to me, please!”

“I am not letting him get away with this.” You hissed. “David built that house from the fucking foundation. They almost-” you choked around the words. Tears burned at the back of your eyes and you growled in frustration. “He almost killed my friend tonight and I am taking him in for it. He’s going to face a jury and I’m going to lay out every crime he’s committed and he’s going to fucking fry!” 

You’d raised your voice more than you intended. A handful of hospital employees were glancing your way as they carried on with their business. Milo stared at you for a long, tense moment. 

“California got rid of the death penalty in 2019.” He finally said. 

“That was an executive order from the Governor.” You seethed. “Not legislation. So that could change.” 

You didn’t believe in capital punishment before Quinn Fox. You also didn’t understand why people had the urge to kill before him. But now, with scar tissue pounding with your pulse and your friend nearly dead a few floors up, you got it. The pleasure of killing twitched in your muscles. You wanted to introduce Quinn Fox to his fate personally. You wanted to wrap your hands around his throat and squeeze. You wanted to watch the burn in his eyes go out. 

“What is this guy doing to you?” Milo asked. His face held the ingredients of betrayal. You swallowed.

“Guys like Quinn Fox have always been out there, Milo.” You said. “Serial killers and rapists and child molesters. This one just happened to hit close to home. He’s not doing anything to me, this is the world I live in! This is the shit I worry about! The shit I wanted to keep at bay but they just keep coming!”

“Baby-”

“Everytime one goes behind bars there’s ten more! Like fucking roaches, they just keep popping up! And I’m doing what, exactly? Following around cheating spouses? Investigating insurance fraud? Waste of my fucking time! I blew it in the force and now I’m being fucking wasted while these guys are killing people!”

“Hold on, can you-”

“But I can take care of this. I can take care of him.” Milo went silent as your hatred quieted. You felt it bouncing around in your core. It kept you going, kept your body moving even as it begged to stop. 

“You’re gonna get yourself killed.” Milo said it softly, as though it were already true. 

“Then I’ll take him with me.” 

Betrayal blossomed fully across his features. 

It was better this way. If you burned out on this case, it would be easier for him. If he was pissed, the grief would pass him by. You turned and kept walking, hand pressed into your stomach. The pulse of your scars kept you centered, focused. 

“So I guess all that talk about forever was bullshit.” His voice was quiet when he spoke again, but you still heard it over the pound of your heart. 

You didn’t turn back to look at him. You didn’t have to. When you closed your eyes, it was always him; his face smiling back at yours as he spun you around the empty living room of your house. As you each agreed that you didn’t need rings. That you didn’t need a marriage certificate to show what you meant to each other. That you both knew what forever looked like. 

You swallowed. Teeth around the problem. You’d bite down and be done with it. Forever could wait until then. 

You kept walking. 

__

You had second degree burns on six percent of your body, and Dr. McDreamy was peeling back necrotic skin and debris from the patches across your back. 

You were no stranger to burns, and despite your wealth of experience surrounding injuries of all kinds, you maintained that burn debridement was the most painful experience a human could endure. You’d seen grown men scream and cry during them, chief among them being Gabriel Shaw. 

Of course, that didn’t mean much. Gabriel Shaw cried during sad movies. Gabriel Shaw cried when he thought a bit too hard about how much his son had grown. Gabriel Shaw cried when a baby was just a bit too cute. He might have been a big and burly firefighter, but what he was at his core was a cry baby, and a proud one at that. 

You didn’t cry. You didn’t scream. You gripped your hands into fists so hard your too-long nails cut into your palms. You pressed them in and out of the crescent wounds, let that ground you, pull your mind away from the feeling of being skinned. 

“Almost done here,” McDreamy spoke for the first time since he’d greeted you on his way into the room. As chatty and casual as he had been upon your first meeting, he was equally quiet and reserved now. He must have sensed how volatile you were at the moment. 

You didn’t reply. You closed your eyes. You ran through your plan one more time. 

You knew a guy who could get you a gun in three hours. You’d call him as soon as you were done here. It would be registered stolen, so nobody else would be implicated. You’d contact Quinn, ask him to meet you back at the Moonbound. Tell him he'd proven his point and he could have you. Maybe you would get lucky and it would work twice. You’d kill him as soon as he walked through the door. Someone would hear the gunshot, but you’d call the cops yourself just to be safe. Maybe laying out his own abuses would help you in court and you’d get off easy, maybe you’d rot in a cell for the rest of your life. You weren’t sure whether you cared which eventuality came to pass. 

Either way, this would be over. You just needed this to be over. 

“I can feel you brooding.” you could hear the shit-eating grin in McDreamy’s voice. “I know this is unpleasant, but don’t plot my murder for helping you.” 

“Not yours.” You growled. You knew it was stupid to announce your plans, but you couldn’t help it. It had been your intent all along, when you’d started looking for Quinn with more purpose. He needed to die. He needed to die for what he had done to you. He needed to die for what he was yet to do. He would hurt people, your people, other people, until he was dead. He was in perpetual motion, always toiling away at the object of his obsession until they broke and he got bored. But you had never broken. Maybe that was why he had fixated so fiercely onto you, so fiercely that he tried to destroy everything around you. 

Mission accomplished. He had broken you. What you were certain he hadn’t bet on, however, was that you were much more dangerous in pieces than you were whole. 

“If I may suggest,” Porter said from behind you. His tweezers dropped into his metal tray. Something cold smeared across your back. “A syringe full of air. Stick it in a vein, empty it. Once the air bubble circulates and reaches the heart… cardiac arrest. Bloodless. Clean. It’ll look like a heart attack and no one will ever need to know.” 

You twisted, surprised. He had that answer ready real quick. 

There was a knock on the exam room door. It cracked open a second later. Sam stepped in, his face drawn. 

“Hey,” he said softly. He ran his eyes over you, taking in the burns. Those brown eyes flicked from you to Porter. 

“Second degree.” Porter reported. “Six percent. Debrided, and I’ve started in on the silver sulfadiazine.” He stepped around you and flashed Sam a white-toothed smile. “Care to finish up for me, Dr. Collins?” 

“Don’t call me that.” Sam sneered. “Go. I got it. Please check in-”

“Already done.” Porter snapped off his gloves and snagged a chart from the counter above the scrub station. He handed it over and made his way out of the room. “If either of you need anything,” he said, his front half stuck through the doorway, “you have my number.” The door clicked closed.

Sam flipped through the chart ravenously. He shook his head, tutting softly before letting out a sharp breath. 

“Are…” you swallowed and tried to take the bite out of your voice, “are they okay?” Sam glanced up at you. 

“Um…” he shook his head, “they’re alive and all their parts are attached.”

“I guess that’s something.” You sighed. 

“Broken sternum,” Sam said, “which was what their surgery was concerning. That’s bound to be from the compressions. Usually that break doesn’t require surgical intervention, but in combination with the three broken ribs on their right side, we had to go in and maintain the structure of their chest.” He swallowed. “Alexis supervised and made sure their cardio thoracic system was intact. All good there. They… okay, respiratory arrest at the scene was due to smoke inhalation. The cardiac arrest was due to lack of oxygenation. They lost enough air that their heart couldn’t pump anymore.” 

“I know what oxygenation is.” You snapped. You closed your eyes. He didn’t deserve this. Sam, to his credit, acted as though you’d never opened your mouth. 

“We’re treating the smoke inhalation with an oxygen drip. They were intubated at the scene but indicated in a medical directive they didn’t want to be ventilated. They’re responding well on just the drip and we’ll make adjustments as needed. No carbon dioxide poisoning, that would have been the primary concern. That’s good, that bodes well.” He flipped a page. “Damn.” He sighed. 

“What?” You looked up, hungry for what had surprised him. 

“Their arms were bound, right?” He asked, brown eyes meeting yours. You nodded. “They were cut on the scene. Sometimes, when circulation has been cut off and you suddenly reintroduce it, patients can develop something called compartment syndrome. The blood rushes back into the limb and causes it to swell. By the time they got to the hospital, it was pretty bad, no time for a clean release of pressure. Our orthopedic surgeon was concerned we were too late and noted that he recommended amputation of both arms at the elbow but…” Sam shook his head. “Alexis wouldn’t let him. She and Porter performed simultaneous fasciotomies. Two seven inch incisions down both forearms. That… that’ll be a bitch to heal and we don’t know if they lost function in their arms yet. We’ll just have to wait.” 

You puffed out a breath. It was bad. Really fucking bad. Sam nodded and closed the chart.

“Sammy,” you croaked. When you heard your own voice, you realized from the tone of it that you were going to cry. “I can’t keep doing this.” 

“He can’t do this forever,” Sam said softly, 

“He’ll keep hurting people,” you whispered. You weren’t angry anymore and you couldn’t pretend to be. “I’ve gotta-” you swallowed a wounded sound. “I can’t just wait for him to stop. He’ll outlast me.” 

“What do you wanna do?” He asked. He was closer now, his hand sliding along the back of your neck, cradling your head. 

“I want to kill him.” You said softly. No anger. No pretense. Just factual intention. 

Sam was quiet for a very long time. He pressed his lips to the crown of your head. 

“I will not lose you to this.” He said, and it sounded like a vow. 

“I think…” you shook your head, rubbing your awkward buzz cut into his face. He breathed you in, smoke and all, “I don’t think you ever had me. I think he’s been… holding me hostage.”

“Bullshit.” He withdrew before kneeling, knees on the creaky metal step up on the exam table, looking up at you from between your knees. It was his turn to be angry. “Bullshit! Are you kidding me? You are not some half person who’s been torn apart by this mother fucker. Now you say you want him dead, and that tells me you’re about to do something real stupid. I don’t blame you one bit. But a judge is gonna take one look at you and throw you in a cell somewhere. No. I will not have it. You want him dead, I’ll kill him.”

“Sammy,” you breathed, “that’s romantic and all-” 

“Well thank you, I am a charmer.” 

“Sammy.” 

“Stay with me.” He said. He rose to lock his arms around you, avoiding the burns on your back. “Stay with me. I won’t lose you. I can’t lose you to this.” 

“Okay.” You relented. You were so tired. You wanted this over with. And you knew that if you left him to his own devices, Quinn would keep coming. Eventually, he would come for Sam. He would try to force you to choose him or he would kill Sam to drive the final nail in the coffin. 

But Sam begged you to stay on his knees and sounded like he was proposing marriage. When you closed your eyes, you could envision lips wrapped around the words I do. That image was enough, for now. You would kill Quinn whenever he came and hold on to that image as long as you could. 

“I love you.” you said, and it didn’t whiter in your mouth. “I love you. I love you.”

Once you started, you couldn’t stop.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Muddled Waters 2

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Part of the Sweet and Spicy AU

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, blood, violence,, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: your boss has a dangerous secret.

Character: Nick Fowler (mob au)

Please comment and reblog if it’s not too much. I always love getting to chat about these stories and hearing all your ideas! You all are wonderful and loved.

Your shift goes as usual. You make drinks to order and bring them out to the tables, or to set in the windows set into the walls of the private rooms. Those are for the more exclusive patrons, the ones who remain mostly faceless. The Sapphire is as close to a speakasy as you’d find in this century.

As you bring out a single scotch and place it on the ledge of the order window, a voice intone from the other side.

“Pardon me,” the English lilt wafts through, “your boss wouldn’t happen to be in house?”

You pull back your hand and consider the question. The customers in the rooms never talk to you. No thank yous, no pleases, no special orders. Those all come through the screen in the back which lists their demands; no olives, extra salt, double vodka...

“No, sir, I’m sorry, he’s not in,” you reply.

“Pity,” he remarks and a hand reaches to take the glass. “You will let him know I was here. In Room Four.”

“I’ll mention it. Would there be a name I should give him?”

“He will know,” he returns and footsteps scuff away from the window. Right.

You’re somewhat used to the cryptic. As nice as Nick can be, he isn’t always straightforward. The establishment does give you reason to bat an eye but for the most part, your pay stubs keep your gaze in the other direction.

You return to the kitchen and work at cleaning the used glasses brought by the singular busboy. You don’t know his name and he doesn’t talk. He always has earbuds in and only puts bins of dishes in the wash tray.

To say the operation is minimal is an understatement. Yet there is never more demand than you can meet. It makes you wonder how Nick breaks even with such a limited audience. Especially with the grade of ingredients he gets in. You never worked at a bar that didn’t water down their liquor now and again.

The night comes to an end and the lights dim as the bar closes up. The busboy clears the rooms and locks the front door. You leave the glasses in sparkling rows on the shelves and a bin of dishcloths to have washed the next day. You place away a few stray bottles then wipe down the counters.

“You’re here late,” Nick’s voice startles you and you hiss, looking up at him from the edge of your vision.

“Cleaning up,” you say and toss the cloth with the rest. “Just finishing now.”

“Mm,” he nods and hooks his thumbs in his belt loops, “you wouldn’t happen to have time to make me something, would ya? I’ll keep it simple.”

You withhold a sigh. Or maybe a yawn. Your eyes tingle and you shrug, “sure, what do you want?”

“Rye and coke,” he answers as he approaches the island and crosses his arms over the top, leaning on the stainless steel.

You swiftly gather everything you need and put together the simple drink. You set it before him and return all you disturbed back to its rightful place. You face him as he raises the glass and considers the dark elixir.

“Oh, er, someone asked for you,” you untie your apron and fold it over the bin meant for tomorrow’s laundry.

“Someone did? Was she pretty?” He winks.

You shake your head, “no. It was a man. He was in Room Four. That’s what he told me to tell you.”

“Room Four,” he repeats and puts the brim to his lips, taking a slow draw. His cheeks dimple before he pulls it away. “Noted.”

You nod at his strange reaction. Almost none at all. You check the time and drag your hands over your head.

“Well, I’m going to head home,” you say, “if that’s okay?”

“Quitting time,” he says coolly, his eyes stuck on the cabinet, a squiggle in his forehead. “Go on, get some sleep, sweetheart.”

“You too,” you shoot back. “Look like you need it.”

You pass him and he stands, turning to watch you, “hey, what does that mean?”

“Nothing, just... look tired.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he scoffs.

You go through to the backroom and grab your jacket and purse. It’s not really a strange night. A few out-of-the-ordinary occurrences, but nothing worrying. The man in Room Four and Nick’s late-night appearance; it’s not really a pattern.

You glance back at the kitchen door before you leave. You head out the back and walk down the next street. You approach your car parked by the curb, the rush hour jam keeping you from finding a closer spot. You take out your keys and they jangle loudly as your footsteps echo.

As you shove your keys into the slot, you’re suddenly taken off your feet, a blunt force jarring your wrist as your fingers catch in the keyring. You hit the ground with wheeze and roll across the stray pebbles as you hug your chest. You can’t breathe.

“Look, honey,” the British voice hisses through the night, “I didn’t wanna bring you into this but I needa send a message.” A figure straddles you on their knees, holding you down by your neck. “Not much, you’ll live...” you hear a metallic shing, “bit of blood is all.”

You feel a piercing pain just below your neck, right at the small dip of your collar bone. You cry out as the metal slices down your chest and easily through your shirt. Your skin parts with the fabric as you vibrate in agony.

“Get... off,” you cough out as you regain your breath. “Please...”

“Shh, honey,” he takes the knife away and smears his hand over your chest, your warm blood spreading under his rough palm, “I just want him to see you painted up nice for him.” He drags his hand over your face, the metallic scent staining your nose and lips. “Mm, you are a pretty thing, too.”

The man wiggles his hips lasciviously before he pushes himself off of you. He stands and you cover your ragged skin with your hands and whine, sobs rising from the pain hewn into your flesh. There’s a noise, something distant, maybe a door, and the man’s silhouette strolls off, whistling into the night.

Another set of footfalls approach you as you writhe on the ground. You don’t understand what happened. Why did that man do this to you? You can’t move. You can’t think. You just can’t.

The street light flickers as someone steps around the front of your car.

“Shit,” Nick rushes over and falls to his knees beside you, “shit, sweetheart, I shouldn’t have let you come out here alone. I shoulda knew...”

“Why?” You babble as your blood seeps between your fingers, “why, Nick?”

You squeeze your eyes shut and bawl. He slides his arms under you and lifts you as you exclaim. He hushes you as he holds you against his chest.

“It hurts,” you whimper.

“I got you, sweetheart,” he rasps, “I got you.”

[kinglivv]

Leaving Her

Kate Stewart x g!n reader

Summary: When you and Kate’s relationship gets rocky, you run away with the Doctor. Four months later, your run in with the Toymaker forces you to confront each other.

Warnings: None

A/N: because not enough attention is paid to the fact that kate uses guns now ALL the time

You find her outside, smoking.

“I thought you’d quit.” You state.

“Yeah well,” she taps away the ash, “we all have our vices.”

You don’t really want to be out here on the helipad with Kate. It’s raining for one, and you’d been managing quite successfully to avoid being left alone with her. However, as the adrenaline of day wore off, you found yourself in desperate need to get out of the command room. The walls were closing in and you hadn’t breathed fresh air in 12 hours.

And there she is.

She’s a vision against the London skyline, blonde hair still somehow perfectly neat and brown eyes still longing, threatening to draw you in.

You remind yourself that you hate her.

You stand next to her for a few silent moments, leaving a healthy distance between you as you regard the view over London.

“You didn’t visit,” she says suddenly.

“Why would I?”

“I just thought…” Kate shakes her head, refusing to look and you and taking another puff. She waves a hand exasperatedly, “It was like you were there one day and gone the next.”

“There was a bit more build up to it than that and you bloody well know it,” you snort. “Late at the office every night. Cancelling our anniversary trip. Forgetting my birthday. It may as well been you who upped and disappeared.”

“You’ve seen my work here. You think I can just abandon it?” she snaps, waving to the building behind. The wind whips around you and her words are carried away.

“You have a second in command, Kate,” you snap back, “You’re allowed to delegate. Have an actual life outside your job.” You want to smack your head against a wall. Months apart and here you were, back again having the same argument you’d had a million times before.

“You knew this wasn’t a normal nine to five when you got with me.”

“Yeah but you changed, Kate,” you almost yell. “Look at you. Where’s the woman who used to take me out to dinner every Friday? Where’s the woman who used to drive me out to the countryside to stargaze? You’re a workaholic.”

“You don’t get to come in here and lecture me after running away with her for the last four months.” She spits.

And there it is. Laid bare. How nights sleeping on the sofa, endless arguments and weeks worrying she was having an affair had culminated in you taking up the Doctor’s invite to travel with her. It was her smile, her humour, her energy, her short blonde hair and brown eyes. If you squinted, the Doctor could be anyone you wanted her to be. You’d packed a bag and left not only your Kate but your planet. It felt like no where was far away enough.

And now the Doctor had regenerated, replaced by someone you didn’t quite recognise anymore, and that had only given you more time to think about all you’d left behind.

“The divorce papers arrived, by the way.” she breaks the silence, “Do you want me to sign them?”

That’s another punch to the gut. Distantly, it strikes you that you haven’t been home in so long that you hadn’t checked your mail. You opt not to answer her.

Neither of you say anything for a moment. Voices carry over from inside the command deck, presumably Ibrahim issuing clean-up orders or the Doctor catching up with his old friends. You shiver in the cold of the helipad. Horns honk in the streets below.

“Since when did you use guns?” You ask quietly, because the silence is agony.

It was something that had been bugging you the minute you got off the TARDIS. Kate Lethbridge Stewart, the woman who was supposed to be reforming UNIT, leading with science and not weapons, had been so eager to whip out a side piece the minute there had been any hint of danger. You’d flinched when she’d so breezily ordered her men to open fire, as if it were a well-rehearsed, familiar line. The woman you’d married had abhorred violence.

Her cigarette struggles in the rain, and she curses under her breath, pulling out her lighter. You watch her, really watch her for the first time that day. You notice the deeper crow lines around her eyes, the hair that isn’t as cropped as she usually preferred it.

“It’s practical,” she eventually offers as explanation.

“I seem to remember you saying you dragged UNIT kicking and screaming to get them to put down their guns.”

“UNIT is a military operation. We’ve always used guns.”

“Yeah but I mean you, Kate.” You reply, “That handgun is new.” You glance at it holstered on her hip.

She shifts self-consciously, shrugging so that her blazer falls over it, obscuring it from your view. It’s a nice blazer. New you think, and it suits her very well. You blink, trying not to get distracted by her figure or that strong hand clutching the cigarette.

“The Colonel and I thought it would be wise for me to carry one after the Cyberman siege on our old office.”

“The one you blew up?”

“Yes,” she laughs bitterly.

“Why now?” You argue, “You’ve seen off the Zygons, the Master, Sontarons. Why start carrying a weapon now?”

She twists her wedding ring. She’s still wearing it you realise, and you look down at your naked fingers in unexpected guilt.

“They tried to convert me,” she confesses. “They were this close to managing it and I only just got away. Had me tied to the chair and everything.”

Your breath catches in your throat. You stare at her, this women who you knew inside and out, who you had dedicated the last three years of your life to. This woman who had seen you cry and laugh. This woman who held you in bed at night and this woman who you had run from. You want to reach out to her, to promise her she’s safe.

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

“Didn’t know how,” she shrugs. “Kind of worst case scenario, isn’t it? Nothing compares to a cyberman.”

You silently agree with her. Of all the monsters in the universe you’d come across, none could strike fear into you quite like the metallic, robotic Cybermen could. There was nothing more violating than the prospect of having your emotions stripped away and your body turned into fodder.

“I think I started working longer to stop thinking about it,” she adds. “I mean, there was the big clean-up operation afterwards which took a lot of time, and after that I just found it easier to not stop.”

Shame floods your body. All this time she’d been hurting and you’d abandoned her. You can’t help yourself, you slide an arm around her waist, and then another, pressing your front to her back and burying your face into her shoulder. She still fits in your embrace perfectly, and her hand - the one that isn’t clutching the fag like a rubber ring - cautiously reaches to cover yours.

“I’m sorry Kate,” you murmur. “I should’ve known. I shouldn’t have left you.”

“No,” you feel her shake her head, “God I hate you for it but leaving me forced me look at things. I haven’t been good to you. I am a workaholic. And somewhere along the line I stopped being a wife.”

You blink back tears and press a kiss to her jaw.

“Don’t sign the papers,” you whisper.

[night-vipers]

Stubborn

Summary: Returning to the safe house after a mission gone wrong, tension is high between you and the lieutenant. To make matters worse, you got injured. You don't want to piss Ghost off anymore than he already is so you try to hide it but your lieutenant is very observant

Warnings: Minor Injury Detail

Trudging along through the forest, following Ghost's large strides, I could almost bite the tension in the air. The mission wasn't meant to go down the way it did. Not a single word had been said since leaving the mission area and it was making me feel worse about the whole situation.

"Keep up" Ghost spat, looking over his shoulder at me. I held my side as I picked up the pace, pulling my hand away I saw the deep stain of red on my skin. When I get to the safehouse I need to patch myself up quick or I was going to have bigger problems than Ghost being pissed at me.

After another painful mile of speed walking and silence we arrive at the safehouse. I don't notice Ghost has stopped walking until I am yanked back by my shirt collar. The jolt sends a wave of pain through me and I grimace, hand going to my side. "What the hell" I say through gritted teeth.

"Stay here while I clear the house" he says, voice dripping in annoyance. His eyes flicker to the hand on my side then back to my face before he lets go of my collar. Drawing his pistol he enters the house slowly. After a few minutes he appears in the doorway and gives me the look to come inside. I finally let go the breath I had been subconsciously holding and headed in.

The house is vacant but clean despite cobwebs gathering in the corners of the ceiling and a musky smell. The safehouse had obviously not been used for a very long time. I remove my armour and set my gear down on the ground. I hurry to clean myself up in the bathroom, but Ghost's body stands in the way.

"Next time, you follow my orders. You don't go rouge, you could have got us both killed" he says sternly, staring me down.

"Ha, that's rich considering I just saved your ass out there" I scoff, he was so infuriating and rude.

"You disobeyed a direct order to stay back" he growled, eyes boring into my soul.

"And if I didn't, you'd have a bullet through your skull right now so how about a little thanks" I spat. He grabs my arm and whips me around to face him when I try to push past him. This time, he notices my discomfort as I grimace at the physical contact. He glances down and sees the red stain on my palm as well as my pale complexion and the faint sheen of sweat covering my hairline.

"Are you injured?" he asked, voice softening. He releases his grip on my arm and watches me closely waiting for my response.

"I'm fine" I mutter abruptly. Pausing for a moment, I sigh with relief as I push past him into the bathroom locking the door behind me. As I lift up my shirt, I expose the large gash in my side that needs stitching. I could manage, but it would be tough to do it alone

Ghost, in the meantime, slumped down on the couch and massaged the bridge of his nose. He was more angry with himself for losing control and putting you in danger than he was with you. He hates upsetting you and feels responsible for everything. I made an effort to clean the wound, but it's in an awkward location, and the pain kept making me nauseous. My vision goes hazy as I apply some cleaning alcohol to the wound. I try to support myself on the counter, but I don't hold it hard enough, falling to my knees with a clatter.

Ghost hears this and is at the bathroom door in an instant, he tries to open it but it's locked "Y/N are you okay, open the door!" he says rattling the door knob. You manage to reach up and flick the lock open, he is inside in an instant and on his knees next to you. "Jesus Christ" he says as he examines the wound. Scooping you up quickly he carries you to the sofa and lays you down gently.

"I'm fine, I just need a minute" I mumble trying to sit up but his large hand pushes me back down and holds me there for a moment. His eye's telling me to stay down without his mouth ever moving, I know that look and I know better than to challenge it. He pulls a medkit out of his bag and sits beside me, inspecting the wound with a gentleness he doesn't show often.

"When were you planning on telling me about this?" he questioned with a cold tone that contrasted his actions as he gently cleaned my wound ready to stitch it up.

"I wasn't going to, didn't want to give you another reason to chew my ass off" I respond, wincing slightly as he began to stitch my wound. He continued and the pain was getting worse, I tried to withstand it but it was making me lightheaded so I reached out to him "Fuck, please hang on a second" I said through gritted teeth, he halted his movements and sighed.

"I know it hurts, I'm nearly done" he said softly, his hand holding mine for a moment as his thumb rubbed my fingers. I took a deep breath and nodded for him to carry on. After a few more minutes of pain he was finally done and he pulled my top back down and put away his supplies. The stress and pain had taken it's toll on me and I felt like I could sleep for days but I was pulled out of my tiredness by something I had never heard before.

"I'm sorry" Ghost muttered, sitting on the floor beside where I lay. "I took my anger out on you and that wasn't fair" he continued, looking down at the floor. I chuckle lightly and reach out, resting my hand on his forearm. His head snaps up at the touch but his eyes are not the cold orbs they usually are, they're almost confused.

"Don't be, it's okay." I say giving him a tired smile "Just trust me, I'm not a rookie. I want you to know I'll have your back as long as you have mine" I continue, giving his arm a squeeze. I hear a faint chuckle from him and then his hand on top of mine.

"I'll try to remember that, just don't disobey anymore orders and stop being so damn stubborn all the time" he says in a light-hearted tone. I laugh and give him a weak salute, quickly followed by a yawn as the day takes it's toll on my body. He notices my tiredness and stands, pulling a blanket over my body and gives me a soft look.

"Get some rest y/n, I'll keep you safe" he says, cupping my cheek gently. I give him another soft smile and nod as I let my eyes flutter closed, drifting into a deep sleep knowing the dynamic of our relationship had been changed for the better from here on out.

[alaskan-wallflower]

You asked for Curtis bros and you shall receive 🤭

-Chronically bad vision. All of them. And I think it goes " Ignores it->Contacts-Glasses" in that order (Oldest to youngest)

-They all enjoy different types of art, and will support eachother constantly in the matter. I also believe it goes painting/sewing->doodling/drawing->Writing (same order)

-Ponyboy makes good money when he's older and is able to send Darry into a very early retirement 🥲

-Darry gets a father's day breakfast in bed every year. Even if he isn't their father, they want to appreciate him in some way+ also honor the tradition they had with their actual dad when he was alive.

-Whenever Darry shows up to parent/teacher meetings or just any school event he gets hit on by all the moms, and Ponyboy is absolutely MORTIFIED. Darry thinks it's funny and sometimes he plays into it a little. Just to irk pony more.

-Introvert(good with people)->Extrovert(Bad with people)->Ambivert. (same order)

-I like to think Soda introduced Dally to the gang, and that both Pony and Darry thought they were dating, and were like "It's alright if you...ya know. but..him?" Soda had to defend his life against these allegations but everyone ended up liking salt a whole lot anyway.

-The Curtis Brothers have "family meetings" where it's just the three of them sitting around a table and complaining about each other for like twenty minutes straight 😭 sometimes other members of gang will be there and when they try to speak during the meeting, all three of the brothers will turn on them.

-Soda spent two whole days being consoled and comforted because he was crying over some dumb broad(it was Steve) and I think both Darry and Ponyboy knew this but to make Soda feel better they'd just stick with the lie.

-Darry can cook, and Ponyboy can bake and soda does a damn good job with the dishes so sometimes when they're all feeling up for it, meals are heavenly. Dinner, then dessert, then a movie.

-They're all super competitive, so everything's a competition. Who can brush their teeth the fastest, who can finish their meals faster, who can get to the car first.

-Ponyboy loves books and reading, as we've come to learn, so his optimal gift for any holiday or event is just books. His Christmas list? Books he wants. He enjoys this because it's inexpensive, good entertainment, easily attainable, and something he actually enjoys.

-When soda and Darry were little(Pony was just a baby) they would blame everything on pony 😭 stuff on the wall? How'd pony get a marker? A mess in the kitchen? Who left pony alone? This backfired once pony was old enough to speak and started rating them out for every conceivable thing they could do, even when they werent doing anything wrong. "Mama, Darry got himself a glass of water." "Mama, Sodas coloring. What? No not on the wall. Just in his notebook but,"

-Never Cries->Cries over everything->Cries when it matters(Same order)

-If Darry comes home after a hard day and Pony and Soda knew it was a hard day, sometimes there will be a bath drawn and a nice clean house and a half-decent dinner on the table. They really care about him but it's so hard to show it.

-Thats all. Have a nice day :')

(nearly accidentally posted this w/out anything attached NO)

but OHHH YES-i ate this upppp thank you!

the three definitely make everything a competition, they totally do. they’re just boys lmao also pony with glasses UGHHHH I NEED TO DRAW ITTT-y’all need to stop diving me art ideas (don’t it’s actually really fun and keeps art block away-but also i love how the fandom just agrees soda is a huge crybaby-them blaming everything on baby pony is so real, pony doesn’t even know how to write and soda has clear ink on his hands from drawing on the walls and all fingers go to pony who’s probably sitting there drooling on himself because he’s 1 😭 also the moms fully being 20-30+ his. senior is so funny to me because they’ll ask for his age and he’s like ‘i’m 20’ and they’re like 😨”-also them being artsy AHH-you’re gonna make me fall more in love with those dumbasses

these are incredible in my gosh-thank youuuu!! if anyone else has any hcs they wanna share my inbox is WIDE open!

[0nlythrowharrybeaux]

A contradictory one, 5 and angsty!! 🤣

Warnings: Descriptions of a deep depressive episode and it's effects on daily life.

Harry felt so absolutely helpless when you were like this. He knew that you were going through a lot and were deeply depressed, but he didn't know how bad. You'd been friends for a while and he knew that this was something that you struggled with occasionally and right now you were in a really bad place and he just wanted to make contact, maybe go out for a coffee or even just have a meal at yours to ensure you were alive and then he'd go.

You felt bad because you had dodged his calls and texts for weeks now because you were ashamed of the condition you were in. You would always respond days later when he'd ask to hang out or just let your phone ring when you'd see his name light up your screen. You knew he meant well, but you didn't want anyone to see you like this, especially him. Your home was dark and cold, you had probably been in the same clothes all week and the last time you had a shower was 4 days ago. You were hungry, but had no energy to cook the groceries you'd had delivered the week before. They were probably spoiled by now. Your garbage was stacked with take out containers and you just couldn't bare the thought of having to walk down the hall to dump the bag down the garbage chute. You knew your kitchen sink was stacked with mugs of unfinished tea, and your clean laundry was just stacked up on a corner of your bed. You just felt so sluggish and low and down. You couldn't do anything. When your doorbell rang you groaned and stood, you were expecting your lunch order.

You dragged your feet through your apartment, already dreading the sunlight that would surely assault your vision when you opened up the door.

"Hey." you heard Harry's voice as you squinted to try and see him.

"What're you doing here?" you asked him with a frown.

"I came to check on you because you've been avoiding me for weeks! You've left me on read since Tuesday!" he reminded you.

"To be fair I'm leaving everyone on read, H." you assured your friend with a faint smile that definitely didn't reach your eyes.

"Even more cause for me to check if you're alive." he said and then sighed.

"Can I come in?" he asked you and you shook your head.

"No." you said immediately.

"I promise I won't overstay, brought you some stuff." he said as he raised his shoulder to draw your attention to his tote and as you looked over it you could see a bouquet of tulips peeking out of the back.

"It's not that I'm not happy to see you. S'just...everything's really untidy and I just...I don't want you to see me like this, OK?" you said and he nodded.

"It's alright, I understand. I've been there." he assured you and you sighed, "I just want to help, love." he said to you.

"I know...I know everyone wants to help but like...I can't do anything right now and I-"

"You don't have to do anything. You just get back in bed and pass out if you want. I got you some actual good noise cancelling headphone because the ones you have suck." he said and you smiled at him and shook your head, "Just let me be here with you for a little bit." he appealed. You weighed the options out in your mind and well, you did want someone to just be with you... but you were embarrassed...and well, you just pushed yourself to get over it as you nodded.

"OK." you finally agreed and he smiled, "Just...don't judge...remember this place how I usually have it." you said and he smiled.

"I'd never judge you." he assured you and you smiled at him, you knew it was true.

"Thanks." you said softly before you let him inside. It was impossible not to notice how messy everything actually was the deeper he went into your flat. It made him sad for you. He'd definitely been in a depression where he was in this condition. Where everything seemed impossible. It was really awful and demoralizing. "I don't want to take you to my room...s'a disaster." you explained.

"That's alright. Let's set this down first." he suggested and you nodded as you guided him over to your little dining table. It was stacked up with mail but nothing more. "These are obviously for you." he said as he carefully pulled out the bouquet of pink and yellow tulips and handed them to you.

"They're lovely, thank you." you hummed and he smiled.

"Course. And I brought you peanut m&m's, hot Cheetos but baked for obvious health reasons," he added and you giggled, "And I made some zucchini bread as well." he said with a grin, he knew you loved his zucchini bread, "I also brought you a bath bomb that I personally loved when I got it." he shared and you smiled, "And then the lady at the store also up-sold me into getting you two more bath bombs and a neck pillow for your tub." he said and you shook your head as he pulled the paper baggy out of his tote, "She gave me the most popular ones they have." he explained and then pulled out the pillow.

"Well thank you, I appreciate it." You thanked him and while you were initially caught off guard, you were glad that he had dropped by. It was nice to talk to someone and be distracted from all of the negativity that was clouding your mind. You knew that there were far better things for Harry to be doing with his time, so you felt even more grateful for his time and attention. After chatting for about half an hour you actually had shared your lunch with him and he persuaded you to talk a walk with him around your apartment complex just to help "get your food down" before he left you to it. But of course, the sunlight and light breeze did wonders for your mood.

"Can we just...sit for a second?" you asked him before you turned around to get back to your building and he nodded. You both sat on a bench by the little path and you closed your eyes and exhaled slowly. Harry just stayed silent, but close to you, his warmth beside you made the moment feel more wholesome. It'd been at least a week since you'd gone outside. It was just so emotional and you couldn't help it as your eyes teared up. When you felt Harry's hand squeeze yours you inhaled sharply. "I'm OK, I promise. It's just been a while since I've managed to come out." you explained as you blinked away your tears.

"It's alright." he assured you. After another 10 minutes or so you started walking back slowly in silence. And when you got back to your door he was planning on just grabbing his things and going.

"H-harry, do you maybe wanna stay over? If you don't have plans!" you added, "We could set up a little fort in the living room and watch movies or a show? I'm sure I can manage to at least fold my laundry with supervision." you said and he nodded and smiled.

"Yeah, of course." he agreed and you smiled.

"Alright, just ummm make yourself at home. I'm think I'm just gonna have a shower." you said, more than ready to make use of the surge of energy that little walk gave you.

"Probably a bath too, yeah?" he asked.

"I don't want to leave you alone for too long." you explained.

"S'alright. I brought a book." he assured you.

"Positive?" you asked him again and he nodded.

"S'why I brought the stuff, so you can relax a little."

"OK, thank you. I swear, I won't be more than an hour." you said and he chuckled.

"It's alright, take you time. " he assured you and you smiled and thanked him before you headed off with a couple of the things he'd bought for you.

*******

Harry was more than happy that you'd elected to take the headphones with you, probably to listen to music while you had a bath. But while you showered he decided that he'd tidy up your kitchen quickly and efficiently. He washed your mugs and threw out anything spoiled in your fridge, and wiped down the counters, swept, and mopped even if you hadn't really cooked, and when he finished that he went to throw out your garbage. He even took to dusting around your apartment, staying out of your room like you'd asked.

When you finally came out to change you put all of your clean clothes in the hamper to fold it while you hung out. You set it down where Harry was in the living room watching TV now.

"Feel better?"

"Much better." you hummed and he smiled, "Just gonna grab some water." you said and hurried off and you audibly gasped as you walked into your kitchen. You hurried back out to the living room, "Harry!"

"What?" he asked nonchalantly and you pouted as your eyes glazed over with tears.

"You shouldn't have." you sniffled and he stood and hugged you tight.

"I wanted to. Told you, I've been through this before, love. And I know that while you don't have the energy to fix it, seeing it all messy and whatnot makes you feel even worse about yourself...it's this awful cycle that just...makes you feel really bad and it's just something small honestly, I'm sorry if I overstepped I just-"

"Thank you." you cried in his arms and he smiled sympathetically as he hugged you a bit tighter. You had honestly been feeling so alone, but were so ashamed to let anyone see you like this. It was easy to avoid people or to pretend like everything was fine when you'd have your work meetings over zoom. This was a nice interruption to your pattern as as you hugged him you decided that you would not be sleeping in the living room. You could clean your room a bit as well and be comfortable for the night.

Once you'd calmed down you decided to wash your bedding and tidy up a bit and you even let Harry vacuum your bedroom while you folded your laundry. With help, these tasks didn't feel draining. It was also that all the nice things he'd done for you today were helping you feel a bit better.

As you laid together in bed that night you talked about a lot of things until Harry fell asleep. Unfortunately, you'd been battling some insomnia, it was a common symptom with your depression, so it took you a little bit longer, but when he turned into your side pulled you against him instead of fighting it you just relaxed into his hold until you also fell asleep. You woke up exactly the same way, with him cuddling you close. And while you knew that you were nowhere near the end of this depressive episode, you felt hopeful that slowly and surely, things would start to get better.

READ MORE PICTURE PROMPT BLURBS HERE!

[takendruid]

Apologies for all the ranting I’m about to do. This is the ramblings of an autistic guy who’s been overstimulated by being outside for like 10 hours, and also is running on 6 hours of sleep.

I want to draw Aimi (my oc) and Overhaul, but I’m so tired right now. It’s 10pm (almost 11 actually now, I’ve been writing this for over 30 minutes). I cannot draw them otherwise I will get sucked into drawing for 6 fucking hours.

This is my OC btw, just for quick context.

I want. To draw Aimi and Kai. After Kai and Lady Nagant are arrested. And Kai is so broken,, and has finally (maybe) been able to see his father, and also perhaps apologised in some form to Eri. The heroes know Aimi was close to Kai, and that she’s the only person that’s technically innocent but still kind of complicit in his crimes. But because she’s a sane person who denounced his abuse of a literal child, and left him because of it, (and also because he’s quirkless) the heroes are like “maybe. Maybe this woman can actually help him. Somewhat.”

So they bring Kai to Aimi, and he is a broken man. She is heartbroken by the state of him, and all she wants to do is help him (and hold him, but she doesn’t. She respects his boundaries). The heroes are like “being in prison, and also being physically disabled, kind of broke him? Mentally? So can we entrust you to take care of him and maybe rehabilitate him. He will be on house arrest, and there will be a hero on alert if he ever tries anything. But can we trust him to you?” And Aimi is like “yes. But also. Can I build him prosthetics?? He’s quirkless, so he’s essentially harmless (but stretching the definition)”.

Heroes say yes. She builds him prosthetics.

I just. I want to draw them together so bad.

I don’t know if anyone would care about this, but people seemed to really want to know more about her, and see more of her. I’m gonna draw them again soon. I just,, I’m so fucking tired. I’ve been out all day today, and got 6 hours of sleep.

They mean so much to me. I can’t.

He’s still like,, mad germophobe. And she also has OCD, so she gets it and doesn’t judge him at all for his anxiety over her house being a bit messy. Their anxiety rivals each other, just over different things entirely. But also,, she’s a mechanic, so it’s also kind of hard for her to keep her house entirely clean, because she’s always doing shit and accidentally leaving the house a mess. But Kai gets on her case about it because “it’s dirty” and “it could attract bugs”

Taken try not to project onto every brown-haired OC he ever has challenge: Impossible. (The OCD part, not the amputee part.)

Overhaul cares about her so much in my silly little head, and the reason he could care about her so much is because she’s quirkless and “isn’t infected with hero sickness”. Also because she supported his desire for a quirkless world until he decided to bring a child into the fray, and torture and abuse a child. A YOUNG child. Aimi, reasonably, disagreed with that (as shown above) and left the Shie Hassaikai. He was so goal-focused and tunnel visioned that he immediately dropped the one person he genuinely cared about besides Chrono and his dad, and didn’t realise the consequences of his actions until it was too late and she had gone from his life. But he decided it was fine and a necessary sacrifice in order to move forwards, especially since he had other people to help him. But he missed her so greatly, but never let anyone know. Chrono caught on, but never pushed. All that mattered to Overhaul was his goal of a quirkless world, and then he could have Aimi back, not realising she would have hated him because he had tortured a little girl in order to get there.

These two had meant to much to me years ago, but I ended up leaving them behind since 1) I never gave Aimi a proper design all those years ago, and 2) I fell out of my BNHA hyperfixation. But me and my now ex-friend ended up associating this song with them:

This song is so them, please believe me guys. I swear I’m not insane. Specifically, SPECIFICALLY, this song is from Kai’s perspective

LIKE LOOK AT IT THAT’S SO THEM I’m insane. And tired. God please help me. Someone tell me to go to bed. If anyone read all the way this far and actually cares about my insane ramblings, tell me to go to bed. I’m so tired. But I love Aimi and Kai. I love them so much. They mean so much to me. The fact people have been loving them on here and saying they want more content has reminded me how much these two mean to me. I just needed to scream about them, and maybe someone will care and read all this.

Fun fact, Aimi didn’t used to be an amputee! But she’s always been a mechanic. Like she literally had her own agency at one point (I used to RP with my ex-friend my BNHA OCs, that’s how I got so attached to them). Aimi and Kai also had a kid, but that’s so OOC for Kai, I could never now. It would be so funny if he’s not even asexual, for so many reasons I won’t explain but you guys probably get. He probably is asexual (and he’s probably aromantic as well. I’m not projecting, I swear. Look at that silly man), and also probably very sex repulsed. Now I am projecting, but FUCKING LOOK AT HIM /ref.

Kai and Aimi would kiss on the lips and the lips only. That (autistic) OCD sex-repulsed asexual man would hurl at the thought of tongue being included. Me too, buddy. But also it would probably take a very long time for Kai to get to a point where he’s okay with even kissing on the lips.

Oh my god projecting onto this silly man has somehow helped me mentally disconnect him from my abuser somewhat. Accidental maybe trauma dump time? He looks like my abuser, so that’s mainly why I just abandoned Aimi. Because him looking like my abuser won out over me just loving him because of his character. But me going “yeah he’s autistic. He has OCD. He’s also asexual sex-repulsed, and probably aromantic too but let’s not talk about that” has helped. YAY healing!! It’s funny because my projection here isn’t just me being like “I love you, let me make you like me” my HCs are based on actual source material. I personally don’t fuck with characters being OOC, I like my HCs to be in-character. But that’s just a me thing :3

I need. To shut up now. It’s actually 11pm. But anyway. I’m gonna draw Aimi and Kai soon. Thank you to anyone (if anyone) who read this, reading the insane (not actually. I’m not insane, I’m just autistic and silly and tired) ramblings of me. I’m gonna make a Kaimi playlist because I love them. I’ll probably post it.

[lottiesnotebook]

Hiiiiii 👋 happy DADWC

For Surana/Anora from the F+tM list: my body was bruised and set alight

- asexualtabris 💜

Ooh more Melia/Anora? Truly Femslash February is a Blessed Month. These two have such a wild dynamic in my heart, I love them so much. Also sorry-not-sorry, this turned out unhinged and angsty and I love it.

Anora Mac Tir/Melia Surana, angst, whump, choking, yearning, toxic girlies

@asexualtabris | @dadrunkwriting

only if for a night

The knock at the door comes just as Melia is ready to sink into the steaming waters of the bath. All she wants in the world is to scrub Loghain Mac Tir's blood from her skin, to soak the bruises she will not allow Wynne to heal, not yet. She should carry the marks of what she's done on her skin a little longer. She wants nothing less than to see Anora Mac Tir slip through the door, but this is her palace, and Melia supposes that if the queen wishes to slit her throat in her bath, nobody has the right to gainsay her.

Anora does not draw a knife, though, or threaten her. She pauses, her back pressed to the door, blinking.

"Do you have no other clothing?"

It is not the question she anticipates, from a woman who's father she killed mere hours ago, and she cannot look at her. She cannot look at silk-soft, lovely Anora, with her pale hair and dark eyes and soft hands, while her father's blood still stains her hands.

"This is all I was permitted to take with me when I left the Circle, Your Majesty," she admits. "You should- I do not wish you to see me like this."

She'd thought- she'd hoped, after their time cooped up in Eamon's estate, they might be something like friends. She would not like to think of Alistair- Alistair who'd once, so briefly been hers- wedding anyone she could not at least call a friend, and Anora had been- Anora Mac Tir was like a princess in a storybook, lovely and fierce and with a streak of ruthlessness Melia almost envied.

Even now, killing did not come easy to her, and she had never killed anyone she could have shown mercy to before. She would never forget how Loghain had looked through her to his daughter, as she'd struck his head from his shoulders. She could not remember her own father, but even so, something about his expression had haunted her. She did not want to see its counterpart in his daughter's eyes, the ghost of a love she had never known, and killed anyway.

She does not want to hear her next words: "Unacceptable," she says, brusquely. "I will have some clean things sent for you."

"You should not concern yourself with-"

"I am your Queen, am I not? It is not for you to tell me what I should concern myself with." She hears her move closer, slippered feet padding across the rug, but she does not lift her gaze from the floorboards, even as her feet appear in her field of vision. They are such dainty feet, she thinks, tucked into embroidered slippers that have never touched dirt since they were made. She used to wear such slippers, when she was a girl in a tower. When she was still innocent.

"Will you not look at me, Melia Surana?" Her voice is soft, and that frightens her most of all.

"Are you ordering me to?"

"Perhaps I am." She hooks a finger beneath Melia's chin, forces her to meet her eyes. "You killed my father, after I begged you to show mercy."

She swallows. "I did." Grief has reddened Anora's eyes, blotched her cheeks, but done nothing to change her wondrous, terrible beauty. "I- could not spare him."

"It did not look like that to me. When a man is on his knees before you-"

"Not a man," she interrupts. "Your father. If I killed him, there were a thousand crimes that I could have called it justice for: the slavers he sent to the Alienage, the spy he sent to poison Arl Eamon, the assassins he sent to cut my throat, for the crime of surviving Ostagar. If I spared him..."

"If you spared him?"

She wants nothing more than to look away. She cannot look away. "If I spared him, my queen, it would have only been for the love I bear you."

She does not mean to say it, does not know, till she says it, that it is true, and the look it brings into Anora's eyes sickens and shames her.

Her soft, pale hand slips from Melia's jaw to grip her throat, though she cannot press down quite hard enough to choke her. "Do not lie to me."

"I am not lying," she says, "Ask Zevran Arainai, or the Antivan Crows. The contract is not complete, after all. You would be within your rights to ask for your money's worth. I would not stop you."

"Not about that." There is something burning in the pits of her dark eyes, something Melia cannot name. "You do not love me."

"Who could not love you, Anora Mac Tir?"

Her hand tightens, an almost-bruising pressure, and Melia realises that the burning thing reflected in Anora's gaze is herself. There are far worse ways to burn.

[jtavington]

The other Gelphie project

Not sure if I want to keep this. Thoughts?

“Elphie?”

Elphaba whipped around. She’d crouched into a defensive stance with power dancing on her fingers and an incantation on her lips before she’d even fully turned around. Before she could process that there was only one person in the world that called her Elphie.

Goodness suited Glinda, Elphaba thought stupidly. The diamonds encircling her throat and the crown atop her head seemed to amend their own light amid the faint red glow of the Wizard’s contraptions. She was a storybook princess given flesh and form. Her skirts swept the floor, a pale perfect Emerald. Her golden hair been swept up and pinned with a jeweled hairpiece to accentuate the pale curve of her neck. Most of all, though there was a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. It to admitted its own light, so bright in Elphaba’s fevered that she couldn’t look directly at it.

“Elphie?” Glinda repeated. She crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps. They years had taken the last of her youthful roundness and given back sharp, elegant cheekbones. The only blemish in her carefully crafted perfection was the faint line between her brows, as if her face had spent most of the last five years in a painful scrunch.

Manicured hands reached for her. Elphaba shuddered. The years had not been nearly as kind to her. Her skin was more like a lizard’s than ever before, not just green but rough and scaly from the elements and lack of care. She’d been so foolish to believe this woman who still smelled violence and cleaned soap would have ever endured the life of a fugitive.

“What are you doing here? If anyone discoverates you…”

She had to fix what she’d done to the Monkeys. She’d enslaved them as surely as if she’d held the whip herself. There would never be a better night to sneak into the palace than when the entire city was distracted by the engagement of Glinda the Good and the Captain of the Guard. That was what she’d told Nessa’s, and it was the truth.

The ring glimmered just beyond her field of vision.

Words died in her throat as they held each other. If they didn’t speak, perhaps this moment would be frozen in crystal. The two of them alone together and no Monkeys screaming. No guards even now rushing to find her. No Dillamond, more goat than Goat, wandering the halls. No tomorrows that would rush on with Elphaba fighting a war she couldn’t win just to save one more person and Glinda and Fiyero promising each other forever.

The thud of boots and the chambering echoed in the room. Time had not stopped. Elphaba pulled away to see Fiyero leveling a gun at her. He seemed even more the prince than at Shiz in his dress uniform. His eyes had never been so cold. Elphaba swallowed. She’d never really imagined having to fight either of them. There’d been a wall in her mind between Fiyero, the boy who’d helped her save the Cub and who’d dazzled her with how much he cared under that dissolute exterior and Captain Tigelaar whose job it was to capture or kill her. “Bring me water,” he barked to the guards. “As much as you can carry. It’s the only thing that might hurt her.”

“Sir?”

“I give you an order!”

Glinda that him questioningly. “Dearest?” Her fingers threaded with Elphaba’s even if she motioned him to come closer. As if she could draw the three of them together the way they had been at Shiz.

The guards ran to do their captain’s bidding. The three of them were alone for the first time since she’d left Shiz Fiyero didn’t lower the gun. Her power congealed and used towards her hands only in fits and starts. Glinda’s grip on her tightened. “Don’t hurt him Elphie. He would never hurt you.”

She didn’t want to. Oz, she didn’t want to. They were supposed to be three links in a chain bound together no matter the time or distance. EFG, one after the other. But she had already faltered once tonight. She wouldn’t do so again. Someone had to make sure no more else would suffer like Doctor Dillamomd.

One heartbeat. Two. But then Fiyero lowered his gun. “It’s good to see you, Elphaba.” His smile was the same: boyish, mischievous, and just the slightest bit rueful. “I assume you’re responsible for that commotion with the Monkeys.”

“You know me. I am a commotion.” Her gaze fell to the stylized OZ emblazoned on his armband. “What now?”

He closed the distance between them in a single bound. He grabbed Elphaba’s with his free hand. “Now we get out of here.”

“What?” Elphaba and Glinda said at the same time.

“I only joined the guard to make sure I found you before they did.” His blue eyes shone with something she thought she would never see in them: conviction. “What’s happening in Oz is wrong. Wicked, even. I want to fight your fight.”

Glinda stiffened and disentangled herself from Elphaba. “Excuse us,” she said through gritted teeth and grabbed Fiyero by the arm so hard that her knuckles went white. “Are you out of your mind?” she rasped.

His smile slipped. “We spent all these years missing her. You even more than me. We can be with her now. You don’t have to settle for the adoration of people who don’t even know you, Glinda.”

The world slipped sideways. Elphaba had done her best not to think about the clock tower for the last five years, but she was suddenly back there with the wind in her hair and Glinda’s lips less than a breath away. They’d almost kissed. Glinda had almost gotten on the broom. Almost counted for very little, she’d told herself. Glinda had made her choice, and so had Elphaba. But here Fiyero was offering to wind back the clock. Better than that. Offering a trio of the three people who loved each other more than anything against the world. It was sweet, naïve, and it utterly enthralling fantasy. “I can’t ask you to throw away your lives,” she said, hoping against hope that they would anyway.

“Right! We can’t leave all this. Let’s go back to the party, dearest. We can smooth things over with the Wizard in the morning. Oh, don’t worry, he owes me. We’ll have you rehabilitated before you can say “apology tour.”

“No.”

Glinda didn’t seem to hear her. She held out her left hand ever so slightly. “The man owes me a huge favor, so it won’t matter what ruckus you because tonight if he wants this engagement to go through. I—”

“Glinda!” Glinda stared at her mouth agape, but at least she had stopped prattling. “I will never work that man again. He locked Doctor Dillamond ‘s for Oz knows how long and now he can’t speak.” It had only been an hour ago that she had seen him penned like a livestock animal. She was being too kind. They had stolen more than his words. They had stolen his mind, his memories of her. They had come as close as it was possible to making him into an animal. They had tried to make him not a person. The lights flickered. “I will fight him until the day I die. I will never go back.”

Glinda paled. “Doctor Dillamond? No. They wouldn’t. They told me he had to be stopped from causing this court but they wouldn’t—"  Her face froze, and then slowly, as if each muscle was being directed individually her expression became one of pleading concern. “Listen to yourself. Oz, look at yourself. You’re talking about fighting an entire country. You will die if you don’t surrender.”

“Then I die.” The words came out calmer than she felt, but there was nothing else she could say. Even if it were futile to resist, she knew the truth. She couldn’t sit quietly in a palace eating sweets and helping the Wizard eradicate an entire group of people. “Some things are worse than death.”

“No they aren’t!” Glinda’s skin flushed an ugly shade of red, not just on her face but on the visible skin of her neck and collarbone. Her eyes shone as she seized both of Elphaba’s hands. Her nails dug into Elphaba’s palms hard enough to hurt. “Because it’s death! We stop living, Elphie, and we don’t get to hear the nice things other people say about us. Not that they will because people have been hating Animals for longer than any of us have been alive. It can’t be changed anyway, so why not go along to get along? Why not have the nice things?” She caressed Elphaba’s cheek once more, slowly and with deliberate intent. “Power means freedom.”

Air fled Elphaba’s lungs as if she’d been hit in the chest. The way Glinda’s thumb stroked along the lines of her face made clear what sort of freedom she offered. Her gaze wandered involuntarily to Fiyero who didn’t seem shocked or affronted that his fiancée was offering herself to another woman on the night of their engagement party. And it wasn’t the cheap transactions one found so often in certain quarters of the city or at Shiz. Glinda would be the devoted, affectionate lover of her dreams, glorying in allowing herself Elphaba at last.

As long as Elphaba was willing to sacrifice everything that made her herself.

Glinda’s touch burned like acid.  Elphaba shoved her away with a hiss. “How dare you?”, she whispered. There had always been a part of her that had hoped that Glinda would one day become braver than she knew. Her guilt had allowed her to defy all her friends at the Ozdust and it had bloomed into something wonderful. There was real goodness in her behind that sugary sweetness and obsession with how other people saw her. Someday she would become not Glinda the Good, but Glinda the Great.

The scales had fallen from her eyes. There was no greatness or even real virtue in Glinda. She was a frightened selfish child who would pervert and twist anything as long as it brought her comfort and pleasure. “My congratulations on your engagement, Your Goodness”

Elphie—“

“I’m still leaving with you,” Fiyero said. He rushed toward her, gun in hand. “We have to hurry. My men will be back any moment.”

“You can’t do this, Fiyero. We had an agreement.” Glinda’s indignation crumpled. The light went out of her and even her crown seemed dull like an old theater prop. A pang of pity lodged itself in Elphaba’s chest. There was nothing but a frightened girl beneath all that finery, one who would have led a quiet comfortable life in ordinary times, but had had the misfortune to love the extraordinary. “Don’t leave me alone.”

Glinda’s cries echoed long after Fiyero had pulled Elphaba into the night.

[sionisjaune]

🎁 & honestly literally anything heist au but especially george??

you're soooo sweet, and i hope you have the nicest holiday break 💕

🎁mutuals get ficlets for the holidays!🎁

A Rothko. George has always wanted a Rothko. In his most secret fantasies the Rothko is properly his, mounted on the wall of his imaginary climate-controlled personal vault, but he feels almost satisfied just running his hands over the canvas, feeling the slight texture of smoothed-over oil through his gloves. 

“Orange and Yellow,” he breathes, careful not to mar the painting with the humidity of his breath. “Who did you snatch this from?” he asks Alex. Alex has his arms crossed smugly, one hip propped against the table George is examining the Rothko on. 

“It was a more challenging take than just a snatch, Georgie,” says Alex, puffing his chest out. “Picture me in one of those harnesses, lowering myself through a laser grid. With those ridiculous green dark vision goggles. It was proper heist shit.” 

George can’t help but choke on a little laugh imagining it. He pictures Alex’s skinny limbs spread like a spider, descending from the ceiling, pictures him back-flipping and somersaulting through red cartoon lasers, ducking behind plinths and slicing canvases from frames. 

“Just kidding,” says Alex. “It was way more embarrassing than that. The guard dogs almost took my leg off when I was slipping out. Luckily I had leftover treats.” 

George smiles, running his palm over the edge of the canvas, checking the condition, drawing up a mental tally of what the painting will fetch at the right kind of auction. Toto might even want this one for his collection—then George could visit it every day and think about Alex’s clever hands pilfering it from unappreciative owners. He pictures Alex hand-feeding giant, snarling Dobermans leftover treats in order to get away, the Rothko tucked under his arm. The image is less James Bond and more quintessentially Alex. 

“Blimey,” says George. “I shouldn’t be expecting the police to descend on my apartment and lock you away, should I?” 

“I got away clean,” says Alex. “Barely,” he adds, ruffling his own hair. “So how much will this pain in the ass fetch me?” 

George pinches his lips, finishing the math in his head. “Ten million. Minus a bit for the trouble of selling on the black market. But you’ll turn a profit.” 

Alex’s eyes go wide like they usually do when George mentions a sum so large. It’s barely anything to George, who appraises hundreds of millions of pounds of paper and canvas and paint each day, but watching Alex react always makes him remember the value of the materials beneath his hands. It’s unthinkable, sometimes, that the items George touches are anything other than colour and texture and coded meaning. It’s impossible to believe that they’ll be traded for something as banal as money. 

“Not bad,” says Alex, shaking his head. His hands twitch at his sides, almost as though he wants to touch the painting too. He looks like he’s wondering the exact opposite of George, perplexed by the amount of cash a collector will fork over for two blotchy rectangles. 

“You know,” says Alex, while George is snapping his gloves off and tossing them away. “I’m actually going to miss this one once it’s sold.” George arches an eyebrow at him, curious. “It kind of reminds me of you,” Alex explains. “You know. Square.” Alex laughs at his own joke, and George laughs too, even though the joke is a little bit mean. Alex’s laughter is just so infectious, red-faced and wheezing. 

“Thanks for that,” says George, cheeks aching. 

“Thank you, mate,” says Alex, nudging George in the side. Soon he’ll be running out of George’s apartment, the Rothko covered and tucked cautiously under his arm. George will miss them both. “Nobody else I would trust with this. Best in the business.” 

[thatboreddrake]

Final Parting:

So, was thinking about my hc on how Yura and Eleonora's fight went down and wanted to get it down on paper. Dragonhearted canon, but no spoilers for that story as far as I know. So yeah, here we go:

Eleonora twisted her blade, and her opponent’s labored breathing drowning into a murmur as he began to choke on his own blood. She planted one foot in the small of his back and kicked him to the ground, withdrawing her blade in one stroke. She looked down in disgust as he crawled forward, desperate to reclaim his bloody mace. She knew the Beast’s Claw would not bleed out from his many wounds; her blade’s enchantment of flame saw to that. Nonetheless, she had pierced his heart and the damage was done. Surely, he could not last much longer. His pathetic struggle was interrupted by a coughing fit that left the brown hood which concealed his face stained red with his own blood. Eleonora jabbed her poleblade into his foot, pinning it to the ground. Instead of a cry of pain, the man grunted and continued pulling himself forward, even as the blade seared his flesh.

Eleonora scowled. “Why continue to fight, dog? Your goddess cannot hear your cries for help. Your Golden Order has fallen. Truly, would you not find peace in the release of death?”

Magnus scoffed, and his body was wracked with another coughing fit. “You bloody heretics see naught past your own hedonistic desires. I seek not redemption, nor peace, nor the pity of some far-off deity. I wish only to guard what good is left in this world by purging you and your traitorous ilk.”

Eleonora roared a retort, her voice deepened by draconic might. “CALL ME A TRAITOR, WOULD YOU?! SHORT-SIGHTED FOOL! I WAS A KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN ORDER! I FOUGHT THEIR WARS! KILLED THEIR ENEMIES! AND WHEN WE HAD OUTLIVED OUR USEFULNESS, THE GOLDEN ORDER CAST US ASIDE! BRANDED US AS VILE APOSTATES, FIT ONLY TO BE HUNTED DOWN AND EXTERMINATED! IT WAS THE GOLDEN ORDER WHICH BETRAYED ME!”

In her rage, Eleonora pulled her blade from the ground, giving her opponent a crucial opening. Bringing the claw seal to his lips, Magnus whispered a short incantation. Stones from the floor of the church rose from the ground and flew towards the Drake Knight’s helmet. Instinctively, she brought her arm up to shield her eyes. In that moment, Magnus seized his blood-stained morningstar.

“You know not how deceived you have been. May the Erdtree have mercy on you in the next life, for I shall show none in this one.”

With that, Magnus gripped his weapon in both hands and swung for his adversary’s helm, hoping to end the fight in one final strike. Unfortunately for him, he misjudged how quickly she would recover from his diversion. Eleonora sidestepped and spun her poleblade in a wide arc, severing Magnus’ hands at the wrists. They, along with his mace, fell harmlessly to the ground, and the stoic cleric screamed. It was a horrendous sound, more akin to the dying roar of some great beast than the pained cries of a man. Eleonora betrayed no reaction to the sound, for she had seen more than her share of bloodshed in her lifetime. In any case, it wouldn’t do to draw so much attention, especially so close to Leyndell’s outer walls. She stepped forward and ended his suffering in one clean stroke that separated his head from his shoulders. Eleonora sighed.

That’s another one of Varre’s messes taken care of.

Rumor was that a certain Blue Sentinel was wreaking havoc on the whole operation. Nerijus was missing in action. Varre hadn’t heard from Konrad in more than a month. Not that a lack of communication was odd for the solitary raven, but this was too long even for him. Of course Okina checked in occasionally, but he wasn’t exactly the most cooperative sort. So, of course, the job of sorting out Varre’s issues fell to her. She knew full well who the source of the trouble was, but she wasn’t exactly keen on seeing him again. Not yet anyway. Something drew her vision to the statue at the head of the church. The marble white statue of the Golden Order’s goddess would’ve towered over any congregation. The spray from Eleonora’s most recent kill had stained the lower portions red with blood, yet it had not nearly reached to the statue’s outstretched arms.

Flaming typical. You wade through the blood of enemies and sycophants but refuse to get your own hands dirty. Easier to cast aside a tool than atone for one’s own sins, eh?

A footstep crunched on leaves at the temple’s entrance. Eleonora wheeled around, anticipating some unfortunate Lordsworn. The sight that greeted her eyes instead instantly drained all color from her face.

No. Not him. Not now. I need more time. I’m so close!

The wanderer kept his sword sheathed as he approached. His brown cloak billowed in the breeze, and an iron basket concealed his face. It was him, no doubt about it. The specter from her past, come back to haunt her. A righteous blade, come to judge her for her transgressions. Her foe. Her friend. Her curse. Her love. Her greatest regret. Her only comfort.

“Yura. Why have you come?”

He continued walking. “I have come to bring you home, Nora.”

Unbidden, tears began to stream from her eyes. How long had it been since she had heard that name? “That’s not possible. I can’t go back. You don’t know the things I’ve done. How could you ever forgive what I have become?”

Yura stopped, mere yards away from the woman he had once called his wife. “I know well the path which you have walked. I knew it from the day you left to walk it. But please, Nora, I don’t have much time left. I feel as though I am being eaten from the inside. Allow me to make this right. Let me help you cleanse the cessblood!”

Yura withdrew a red orb from within his robe. Though Eleonora knew not its nature, she recognized it as a crystal tear of the Erdtree.

Eleonora choked back her sobs, anger creeping into her voice. “And if I do? If I take this prospective cure, what then? The lives I’ve taken would have been for naught! I am still no closer to purging the dragon. Would you spare the lives of strangers, just to watch me die as a true monster? For that is what your ‘cure’ would condemn me to!”

Yura sighed. “I feared that you would answer as such. Then you leave me no choice. If you will not allow me to purge your cessblood, then I will do what I must.”

In one motion, Yura stowed the crystal tear and drew the Nagakiba from its scabbard.

Eleonora looked at him in shock. “You would draw your weapon on me, my love? Years ago I begged you to kill me, that I might be free of this burden! Yet you refused! And now, when all I need is for you to forget me, you would take my life instead?”

Yura assumed a fighting stance, his sword level over his head. “I seek not the death of you, the woman I love, but the death of the monster you have become.”

Eleonora scowled. “Well then, I shall fight for the right to survive, as I always have! Have at you.”

Yura lunged forward, his sword sweeping a downward arc towards her sword hand. Eleonora deftly dodged backwards, answering with a strike of her own. Yura kept his feet planted and parried her poleblade to the side. Rather than exploiting the opening to strike at her side, he instead retreated two steps, using his slightly greater reach as a natural guard. Roaring, Eleonora charged at him, her blade sweeping long arcs on either side of her body to guard against a counterattack. The two exchanged blow after blow, neither able to gain the upper hand over the other. The warriors had fought side by side for decades, and each knew the other’s fighting style by heart. So long as Yura maintained his distance, Eleonora knew she would be unable to end the fight. However, utilizing her greater strength to her advantage, she forced Yura to be constantly on the defense.

Something is off about his style. He’s being far more defensive than usual.

Eleonora taunted her opponent. “Looking to end the fight in one blow, are you? You would do well to not underestimate so, Yu.”

Yura maintained his composure, keeping his distance. “On the contrary, Nora. I do not wish to inflict unnecessary suffering. One blow is all I shall need.”

The Drake Knight roared back. “Such unwarranted arrogance! Or do your old eyes not perceive that it is you being driven back?”

Yura continued to calmly parry his opponent’s vicious flurry. “Look not to individual battles for the result of a war. If the leader is removed, will not an army collapse?”

The head then, or the heart. You’ve given yourself away, Yu.

Eleonora redoubled her assault, certain to keep a close guard over the more vital areas. While she couldn’t rule out that he may try to end the fight via decapitation, she guessed that the former Loremaster would not risk triggering a wyrm transformation. Thus, logically, he would seek to pierce her heart, killing her and her dragons in one fell swoop. Eleonora determined she was not going to let that happen. She had given up too much in the pursuit of life to simply lay down and die now. Besides, if she died, then she had no guarantee that Varre would keep his promise. She had to stay alive.

Flame of Irassax, come forth!

The dragon’s head grew from the small of her back, enveloping her own helmet. The flames burned grass and scorched brick as they poured forth, but Yura rolled underneath the worst of it. Eleonora scowled and came at Yura with a renewed fury.

“I’m giving you this one last chance, Yu. Walk away, please. Forget me and leave me to my fate.”

Even under the iron kasa, Eleonora could see the pain in his eyes. “I cannot do that, Eleonora. Your slaughter cannot continue unabated. As your comrade, your husband, your friend, I cannot allow you to continue in this way.”

Tears once more flowed down her face even as she struck to kill the one she loved most. “Then you shall die, as have all the others who have challenged me. Would that you had chosen a different course.”

Eleonora feinted towards his head, then redirected to strike towards his midsection. Yura ignored the feint. But instead of keeping his guard up, he swept his sword downwards so as to disarm her. The Drake Knight was the quicker blade, however, and the air was once again filled with a pungent odor as her blade burned through flesh, blood, and cloth alike. Yura grunted and dropped the Nagakiba, all strength gone in his arms. Eleonora instantly dropped her weapon and caught Yura underneath the arms. She removed both of their helmets, for she wished to look him in the eye one last time.

She saw that his cheeks mirrored hers, stained with tears as they were. “Why? Why must you be so obstinate? Why sacrifice so much for the life of those you would never meet? Would it not have been better had you simply killed me when I requested it?”

Yura cupped her cheek with his left hand, and she placed her right hand on top of it. He felt he could enjoy this sight for all eternity, for her skin was clear of scales and her eyes were once more a piercing blue. “I will tell you now as I told you then. I could never harm you, dragon of my heart.”

Before Eleonora could process what he meant by that, he grabbed her right hand with his left. He pulled it into the space between them, as his right hand unsheathed a concealed wakizashi from his cloak. In one motion, he severed the finger which marked her as a Pureblood Knight, otherwise known as a Bloody Finger. Eleonora looked down, too shocked to speak or even cry in pain. Of course, blood magic combined with draconic power had already closed the wound, but the ramifications of such an act went beyond personal injury.

“Yu, do you have any idea what you’ve just done?!”

Yura coughed up a mouthful of blood. Deep within his pupils, Eleonora swore she saw a glimmer of yellow. “I’ve sliced the finger off. Please, please, Eleonora, yield to the cessblood no longer. Do not stain the immaculacy of your sword, your flesh, your fire…”

[simplethoughtlesslife]

ended the day at 1.4k cals, which feels good for how much i got done today. i hope i find an opportunity to weigh tomorrow but we'll see. i had sweets for the first time in a week and while they were tasty i got sick of them quickly. everything changes and so will i.

I'm excited as well to do my stomach measurement after a good night's sleep to see where i end up tomorrow. it would be good if i was at 31. but maintaining 31.5 is good enough. i realized i had a waist of 23.5-26 for over 10 years, and only went over it very recently, in the last 3 years. so it's super possible to get it all back and get back in shape. people get out of shape all the time! this is a big fall away from normal for me, but everyone has a big lapse once. luckily, these last 40lbs especially are more recent. my stretch marks aren't too severe, and i'm still young. as long as i commit to the fit body and lifestyle i want this year, it's nothing lost. i'll go back to modeling, dancing and being an artist on top of my day job. i'll find more and more opportunity to create and live life to the fullest! choosing a path is the first step.

I'm excited for holiday dinners this year, and feeling my best. i'm excited to take photos and be creative. i'm excited to feel cute at the beach and for my swimsuits to fit. I'm excited for pride.

for pride, i want to try to shave off the first like 30lbs. 2 months and 30lbs isn't impossible. it's a huge goal but not impossible. i could definitely feel a bit less urgent then, and keep my momentum for the rest of summer. getting back into shape is no joke, and i'll suffer for 3 months or so, feeling sore and tired. but if i do it right, commit, make time, find opportunities to work out and move my body more, i can definitely see definitive results.

i have to keep reminding myself that consistency is not even hard. it only takes showing up. I've shown up every day for the career change i wanted for 5 straight years. and now i can show up for myself for 1 year, and get the physique i want. i want to see my mean mug come back, to shave my head and like myself more. i want to trust the person i carry into the room. i can do this. just try and do. it's fun since this workplace only sees me every few months. everyone at remote jobs are fit because they choose to be. i can be fat if i wanted to, and it wouldn't change anything, but i have to make a choice for myself and i have.

back to pride goals, i'm going to work abs and legs the most. steps are hard to get because they take so long. but i guess if i feel better this week i can try running. we'll be moving into our new place starting off with some cleaning this week, so that'll be a ton of effort in itself. i have to remember that everything is a choice. there's no need to concede because my partner wants to order something. there's no need to concede because of what other people are doing.

i am my own person. i draw the line where i want it to be.

my partners friend offered to help us move. it reminds me how much i want to put in the effort to make new friends and fill my time with my own new people. i'm tired of doing things on everyone else's terms. it's silly. i want to live a life of fun and luxury and interest. i want to try new things and be daring. i am so brave, but normally it means other people want to hide behind me. but no one needs to know my next move. not even my partner. I'm going to do so much in the next 2 years and change my life and fall back into the path i promised myself I'd live in this city. i'll be invited to events and recognized often. i'll get to know a new crowd of people who naturally see my talent and vision and support me in developing it further. my creative side will bloom. i will have poise and be graceful and fall naturally into a new routine of friends and acquaintances. the people who saw me and recognized me will see me again and be thrilled. i have it still. i can be everything i want to be. it's pouring out of me, available to me. ready to be seen again. i will master this version of myself and make it permanent.

shit happens. we all fall off our game, but my time to drive forward begins right now. i will be relentless, i will be the person of my dreams.

[fairy-mewmew]

January Review

Okay, so I'm getting pretty close to the end of the month. I think I've done pretty good for January. I haven't done everything on my vision board, but I feel pretty close to it. I think I did a pretty good job and the visuals helped out a ton.

This was my monthly goals spread. I thought it would be so cute to draw everything out and really visualize what I wanted to do for myself this month. I'm really proud of this spread and referred back to it often. This is so unheard of me to. I really do only visit entries in my journals if they look pretty, so I have to draw them out in order to keep goals.

I did all of the candles I have set and I am hoping to finish up my last candle by the end of this month. I feel that once I have the chicken done, everything really will just be do damn easy. Though, I haven't fixed any pillar candles that I can remember off the top of my head. Maybe one reversal candle, but I just burn through my 7 day candles really slowly now. They usually take a month or so. It doesn't help that all my ritual oils went bad. I've been meaning to remake them with jojoba oil so they have a longer shelf time, but it's just getting around to it. Might even rework my oil recipes. I think I'll have to make oils one of my goals for next month.

I've cooked a green curry this month and I'm so proud of myself. I really did just have to cook more simple things. I feel that once I let go of being perfect and cooking from scratch, I didn't feel as scared to cook. I still haven't cooked a whole bunch but I look forward to making so many more delicious things. Also, I made pink Buldak taste absolutely amazing. I'm proud of myself for that! I think next month I want to make one recipe a week minimum. My boyfriend and I have designated a day for us to go out on a date, why can't I do one to make a super yummy meal from (kinda) scratch once a week.

My boyfriend is on a diet/ work out regime, so I've been working out at least once a week. It makes me so happy to know that I'm actually getting a work out in, even if I'm just starting off with it once a week. I'm pretty happy with at least once a week. Sometime we do more, but once a week really does bring me joy. I never thought I would have ever been this consistent with working out. I'll have to keep it up!

My boyfriend and I have been really making progress on cleaning and organizing our room. It finally feels like a cozy room that we can truly rest in. There are a still a few more things we need to organize in the room, but damn does it look good! I'm so proud of us. And while we have a lot of things to organize in such a small space, I'm feeling good about it. I'm so excited for that gaming pc we just got. Can't wait to get everything set up and pretty! I'm really going to feel like a gamer girl! Ehehehe! So next month will be dedicated to

As far as making art goes, I did not make any jewelry. I just couldn't bring myself to sculpt. I really was not feeling it. I did make some 7 day candles though! I'll have to post pictures and talk about it later. I also just did not work too much on my website. I really do like the ease of using Tumblr to blog. It's just so easy and streamline. Might use my website for more finished projects and things. I still love coding though and I want to get a lot better at it. I also have so many ideas for my site I want to implement, but I am just going to need a lot more time and knowledge to work on it. Can't wait show y'all when I really get something running. But for now, I just want to focus on Tumblr and maybe Tik Tok/ Youtube.

Okay, and I know I said I wanted to start a Youtube account, but I have yet to do it. It was honestly just a big leap for me and I am not ready for that type of commitment yet. I have been posting reels on Instagram though and that's been a ton of fun. Just raw, unedited yaps. It's such a good time! Think I might try making tik toks and transitioning into YouTube. Also, I've been on the fence about what to focus on or if I should just go off and yap about whatever. It's easy to make a billion blogs on here about all my different things and interest, but not so much when it comes to making a social media account. I don't want to keep up with all those emails. Regardless, I just want to be a pretty girl who talks about whatever makes her happy. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Okay, I've been putting off sending out my pen pal mail. BUUUT I've been exploring journal styles though. I really want the new ipad mini, but I took of the dingy case on my ipad and I fell back in love with it. I really do think that I should try digital journaling. Gives me more resources to work with and I think it would be so fun!

February Goals Draft

Just a little reference when I start planning my February Goals

Work on all my Tumblr Blogs

Try Tik Tok/ YouTube content

Remake ritual oils

Stock Etsy Shop consistently

Make a shop newsletter

Cook a meal out of my cookbooks once a week

Clean the house

Set up gamer PC

Go through massage textbook

Try digital journaling

Put on a super cute fit at least once a week (including make up)

Read through books

Play through games

Work on ancestor veneration and protection (maybe post my journal??)

Make 3 products a week for the shop

Send my pen pals their letter, rip