#Oh well :(

[inlovewithl3vi]

It wasn’t uncommon for Diavolo to walk into the HOL for no reason. Sometimes he just got bored of wanted to visit Lucifer and would just walk over.

What was uncommon was the fact that it was completely quiet in the house. There was no fighting, no talking, not even the sound of someone’s footsteps.

At first you might think nobody was home, but the lights were on and the door was unlocked. He walks around for a minute or two before walking into the living room and finding Lucifer, Mammon, Levi, and Satan sitting together.

Of course it’s a surprising sight, you’d expect two fights to be happening at the same time not to mention the fact that Levi was actually out of his room for once.

“Ah there you all are. It’s more quiet in here than at the castle for once!”

He’s immediately shushed by Mammon

“MCs asleep! Do ya want them to wake up and kill us?”

Dia stares at them blankly. Surely a human can’t be that scary… until Lucifer speaks up.

“The last time Asmo woke them accidentally he wasn’t the same for a week… he still won’t talk about what happened”

Eventually Diavolo just nods and sits down, joining them in their silence now more afraid of the human he chose to bring.

[choas232]

You get injured. G/N! Reader x Steb

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

Summary: What was supposed to be a simple club raid goes horribly, horribly wrong. No use of Y/N, neutral terms and they/them is used to refer the reader. I try to be as vague as possible surrounding their anatomy. Set in episode three, season 2, just before and around the Jinx and Vi fight scene. Hurt & some comfort. ANGRY reader as suggested by @f0xtr0x.

CWs: Panic attack. Profanity. Violence. Use of alcohol. Suggestive themes. Vi and Caitlyn are briefly implied to be sleeping together. Nudity. Once again, canon typical Enforcer bigotry.  Mild emetophobia (one, two lines. both breif). Anatomically incorrect injuries. Reader is a bitter individual who needs to go to therapy!!!

Word count: 5.1k

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

You’re alone.

The floor is hard against your spine, your attacker’s bloody lip bubbling down onto your face as they snarl above you. Your own lips are stained with it; as rose red as their lipstick, your bruised cheek as electric blue as the eyeshadow smeared across their face.

They tear your goggles from your face first. Harsh, fingers clashing against the soft skin surrounding them. Your eyes scream, reddened and raw against the hulking shape of the grey— the thick and almost palatable fog surrounding you two. A thin film over your eyes settles, milky and blurry and does not leave you as you thrash.

Their movements are clumsy and feral, blinded by the grey as they go for your mask.

There is a beat to the madness, one you clutch after and hold deep into you. It reverberates, even as panic flairs through you— you grab their skull in yours, and your fingers slide through hair slick with blood and sweat before you find a grip and slam them down onto the beer, plastic, glitter and vomit-stained floorboards.

Their skull makes a sickening crunch, one you hear above the awful club hit, the reverbing beat and your screaming mind.

One thing you can kindly say about Zaunites— they are as persistent as cockroaches.

They heave, pushing themselves back up inelegantly, their fingers gripping your shoulders hard enough the bruise. Cradled against them like a lover, you slam them back down. Once. Twice. The third time they choke. You wedge your knee into their stomach, and they wheeze, a rattling sound from low in their stomach as they inhale Grey.

Underneath you, they heave. For a brief second, panting, you pause, watching the blood on your face dribble over theirs, smear their makeup further.

A knife slots into your back.

The moment is slow, at first. You feel it clink against bone, your feel your flesh pushing against it. You breathe once, and the pain flares bright and bold, a hot flash of white and then you are screaming—

Their hands find your mask and tiredly, eyes red, blurred and unseeing, they pull. They pull and you heave, the choking air spilling into your lungs, slathering itself over your airways.

The lights flash above you. Your blood drips through your uniform, staining their oily fluoro mesh shirt.

The woman behind you, knife still lodged into your stomach, kicks you off them harshly. You hit the floor with a crack. She weakly lunges for them, pulling them away, and then she is on you. You both inhale Grey. You both inhale sickness. Her movement, rough against you, presses the knife further into you.

Her hands are on your throat.

You are going to die on this floor.

Did Caitlyn send you here as you continued your hunt of flashes of blue, pink and a memory of a revolution knowing you would die here? You were always going to be a piece of a game larger than the whole of you— but the sting reverberates through you like the beat of the godawful club music.

When you were fifteen, thinking you owned the world, thinking nobody could hurt you because you could hurt them harder, did the world think, you are digging your own grave?

You can’t breathe.

When you were thirteen, did the Enforcer in her neat uniform hand you a pamphlet thinking, this is my rose on your grave, this is my lit candle?

You can’t breathe.

When you were ten years old, brawling on the golden streets of Piltover, did your opponent know you would die like this? Bloody and dirtied, dressed in your finest as you knocked out his teeth, did he slump down, thinking, good fucking riddance?

Good fucking riddance. Good fucking riddance— your anger is blinding. You will not die like this. You scream. You scream but nothing comes out against the weight of her hands, the Grey, the air sucked out of your lungs.

(You are alone, with her. The grief is heavy in you, almost as heavy as the fluttering of  the oxygen deprived heart in your chest. Are you supposed to be alone? Was there ever somebody else…)

You try to spit on the woman, but all your saliva does is dribble down your face.

A memory, on the edges of your mind. Brown eyes— a streak of orange hair— frills, scales… you grasp for the revelation, but it never comes, or maybe the darkness swallows it before it can. There is something you are forgetting about. There is something— someone forgetting about you… what were you sad about?

The darkness swallows your rambling, and for a brief moment, you cannot feel her hands around your neck.

You cannot feel anything at all.

A shield.

—gleaming against the fog as it pushes your attacker’s neck down into the floorboards with a crack. Screaming— the second person’s, you think, as they stumble backwards.

Loris. It’s Loris. Loris, staring at her splayed-out body. Maddie— Maddie above you, the spinning spotlights hitting her like an angel as she hauls you up. The hand that feeds and the hand that strikes resemble one another. You flinch as she speaks, her words blurring in your ears. You can barely hear. Your mind is so heavy— the weight of it hauling you down.

Somebody else. You are somewhere else. Blue— blue eyes. Thin lips, twisted downwards, ears pressed to the sides of his head. That upsets you, though you do not remember why. He props you on your side, your lungs heaving, the hole in your back— the gaping wound weeping.

“You left me.” You slur, and then you throw up over his clean, polished Enforcer boots.

࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

You remember now.

A simple club raid. A lousy place situated somewhere close enough to the surface that it had some credit, or at least enough credit that your little target felt the need to stop by. Or maybe Jinx didn’t. Maybe this was just another dead end, and you were barking and snapping at shadows like you had been the past couple of weeks, no closer to capturing her.

That dullard poster— her blown open eyes, blue braids flowing behind her. You saw it when you closed your eyes. How much longer, you wondered, storming in the club, gun clutched in your hands. How much longer until this blows the fuck up in our faces?

It was simple. It was supposed to be simple.

You had a plan— Vi take the front along with Loris, Commander Kiramman trail behind with her rifle, and you Maddie and Steb fill in the gaps left. Stick together. In and out.

Until they left you.

Steb was beside you. Maddie was gone, that was fine, it was fine, you trusted her intellect and pure dog-like devotion to the cause to not impale herself open the nearest bar tap. You watched as your teal-haired friend slammed his baton down, the following crack.

How could such a cruel action be so undeniably gentle in nature? His face was serious, stern. The swing was even, calm, aiming to incapacitate rather than kill. He was no vicious butcher, nothing like the likes of you. How was it that he made every action he took look so… heroic, like the posters they shoved into your hands, like the propaganda you hastily swallowed.

He allows himself to see them as humans and treat them as such, even in his mercilessness. You thought to yourself, very quietly. You could not do that. You could not acknowledge what they are— you cannot. Even thinking of it…

The moment your enemy is more than your enemy is the moment your guilt wraps its arms around you, peels back your skin to reveal your flesh.

Maybe this was your tragic mistake. Seeking to rationalize for a moment and not villainize.

That is why you allowed yourself, foolishly, to be separated, to not shoot first when the Zaunite hurled themself at you. You called out to Steb, but he was already gone, and you shoved them off you and then you were alone, stumbling around in the grey— the gun clutched in your hand suddenly feeling like a children’s toy. Screaming, flashing lights, music— your downfall was that through it all you could selfishly think about was that swing, that gentle movement as he swung down…

You don’t remember how it happened.

Just that it hurt.

࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

You wake with a pounding head and a franticly beating heart.

Take stock of your surroundings. You are in a room. A single, double bed, occupies most of the space, on which you are situated on. There are two bedside tables. There is a counter. The walls are furnished with what looks like cheaply printed artworks, paint slathered over cracks and crumpling bricks, implying this is a cheap motel of sorts. An open window next to the window lets a faint breeze fan your face, cooling the sweat sticking to your limbs and the fever burning low in your chest.

Most worrying of all, your enforcer uniform has been discarded of, leaving you in your slacks and a thin undershirt.

Somebody is writing, a pen scratching against paper in the background. You try to move your head to glance at them, but your temple feels like a brick is being taken to it.

Access damage. Experimentally, you stretch out a finger. Most of your body is simply cramped, some bruised. The movement ends when you crane your neck, and the bruises flare, causing you to shift and in turn hit your back. You try to shriek, but all that comes out is a moan. A pathetic, mewling sound.

The writing stops.

Footsteps, light and even against what sounds like wooden floorboards.

You hate that you recognise them as his.

Steb peers down at you, his frills flaring out for a brief moment before squishing flat against his cheekbones. He’s not in uniform, rather a form fitting long sleeved white shirt, and long dark pants. It's alarming, and although you've witnessed him take a similar form this entire week, you don't think you'll ever get used to the lack of uniform.

Form and take a course of action. “Where the fuck am I?” You scrap the words off the sore surface of your throat. Lord, it feels like somebody has taken a cheese grater to your gullet.

He reaches out a questioning hand towards you, and after a brief pause in which you say nothing, he moves to gently prop you against the bedframe. Out the window, the reaches of upper Zaun stretch out to meet your gaze.

Still in Zaun. Still hunting.

You try to peer closer, take further stock, but dizzily, your head lolls forward with a rush of pain.

Lightly, he puts a hand on your shoulder, and you snap back to attention. There’s a sheet of paper clutched in his other hand, one which he carefully pushes into your hands. Struggling to read with your bleary, red-stained eyes, you squint.

INCIDENT REPORT. The finely printed title reads. The space underneath is dotted with questions,  all of which are neatly filled in, even space between each carefully stencilled letter. Reporting officer: Steb’s full name. Rank: Junior officer, for him. Then, your rank. Issued—

Two days. You were out of commission for two days. You can’t remember the last time you even slept a full eight hours— and here you were, sleeping for two whole days.

Hurriedly, you skim read the rest of the form.

Mild bruising to ribs, bruising to back, severe stab wound in back (no spinal injuries), injury to throat, damage to eyes and throat caused by the grey. 

Compensation requested—

“Why are you showing me this?” It sounds harsher then intended, bitterness settling low in your gut. Perhaps it’s the intimacy, how gross and sweaty you are in your underclothes, or perhaps it’s how his hand is still on your shoulder that makes you snap.

You should brush it away, push him off of you. Pretend this never happened. You don’t.

He looks away, very briefly, and then turning the paper on its front, he places it upon the bedside table. Digging his fingers into his pocket, his pen slots in his hands once more. You listen as he quietly scribbles.

He places the paper before you, tapping the pen on the words he wants you to read.

I’M SORRY.

Sorry for what? You almost say, but it feels like a confession. How little you are accustomed to being apologised to, of all things. The meat does not apologize to the butcher.

You shake your head, ignoring how the movement makes you dizzy and how he flinches, pre-emptively moving to steady you. “Just…" You splay out a hand, waving him away. "...help me understand.”

He swallows, a small movement as he sits down on the bed beside you. His hands neatly fold themselves in his lap. You notice, somewhat dizzily, how his usually neatly slicked back hair is loose today, falling over his scalp in such a way as you can still see the comb lines. Something has been worrying him.

“Where is Kiramman? Or Maddie? Or anybody?” There’s a lapse in his polite posture. His head lolls down, his eyes sweeping the floor, his lips pursing and then he’s back, looking at you. It’s enough to know there’s some tension behind the question.

With a careful hand, he points towards the city.

“They just left?”

He shakes his head, running a hand up to prod his hair into submission as he does.

“Well. Clearly, they did.”

He sighs, probably realizing the need to verbally communicate is growing, and then fixes you with a look that would make any lesser Enforcer squirm.

Don't be difficult.

But you are no lesser Enforcer. You are hand-picked, trained, and a member of Kiramman's strike team.

(Loris's entry was questionable but you ignore that in favour of hyping yourself up.)

Perhaps that was the wrong train of thought to go down, because you stumble. Instead of coolly meeting his gaze, you land on a childish glare, and you've lost before the wrinkles that line his mouth make an appearance.

(Those goddamned wrinkles...)

You lean back, trying to cross your arms. Instead, you hit your back against the wooden headrest of the bed, sucking air between your teeth.

Knowing your position and purposely being difficult, you ask, words stained with pain, “Who took off my clothes?”

He reaches over, barely breaking eye contact with you for a second, to grasp the paper, scribbling down  the words hastily. YOU HAD A FEVER AND ACCESS WAS NEEDED TO YOUR BACK.

A dull sense of joy grapples with you at the faint stress of his words, the smudged full stop. "That doesn't answer my question. Stop dodging it. Who?" you ask, knowing very well who did.

He gestures at himself.

Victory doesn't cradle you in its arm faster than visions of him unclothing you. Those linger. Those sink low in your gut and do not leave you.

“...When will they be back?” You choke out. He mimes a sun setting.

Shit. God, being alone with him is killing you.

Defeated, finally, you slump down.

"God fucking dammit." You mutter. Usually, you would receive a somewhat lecturing look from this, but he ignores you in favour of skim reading the paper and walking back to his prior place, where medical equipment is splayed out on the counter.

You've just dozed off when he returns, sitting back down, a cup of water and a small white pill in hand. "I'm not a child." You say frowning, but you take the glass from him anyways (do your fingers brush? no. see? dealing with this maturely) and you swallow the pill with a quick gulp.

Why are you still mad? A small part of you whispers. He apologized. Perhaps you're mad just for the sake of it. He understands that, you think. (you hope)

You just need to stop thinking about it. (Alone. Their hands settle over your goggles. You deserve this, you think, very distantly.)

You just need to wait for the medicine to settle in your stomach. Sinking, lower and lower in an ocean of it's own. Ocean? Blue. His eyes are blue. Baby blue—

You just need to stop thinking about him. Him? God, what are you to him? You will always be the butcher. You will always be the blood dribbling down their lower lip. You will always be a pawn. Hero, propaganda posters... he holds the baton and brings it down like the sword of a knight.

You just need to breathe.

Steb is over you before you can think. He's thinking about your bruised ribs, isn't he? When you gape and heave. The damage it might have caused. Is this your ribs, heaving? Puncturing a lung, rupturing a nerve? Are you dying? “I— I can’t—"

You can't breathe. You can feel their hands tightening around your throat. You can feel their blood dribbling down your cheek. You want to reach up to wipe it up, but do not, too scared of hurting yourself in the process.

Steb reaches over, and gently dabs at it with a tissue. You flinch as his fingers near your cheek, anticipating a blow, but none comes. He wipes the substance away gently. His skin, soft, embroidered with little sequined scales, brushes your cheek.

He pulls away. It's just snot. Saliva. Tears.

Are you crying?

Shame boils in your stomach. You. You are crying?

“I— I need a shower—” you need to snap out of it. You try to push yourself off the bed, but stumble. He’s already there, one arm wrapping around your back to support you. You do not look at him. You cannot bare to. You already know his pity will not cleanse you.

He leads you to the bathroom, the tiles cool against your bare feet. He settles you against the grimy counter, before taking a step back. Hovering. Waiting. For what? An explanation?

You feel like a voyeur watching him, finally, even as he meets your gaze. You will always be watching him across your post, the frills on his eyes flaring, his big, doleful blue eyes. You will always be watching the ark of his arms  as he swings down, the gleam of the baton.

 "Do you need to wash me too, now? Just fuck off." You rasp.

He leaves, and you let him.

You lock the door behind him.

࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

Later, you hear voices— Maddie, Loris, Caitlyn, Vi.

You do not shower. Instead, you sit on the shower tiles and try to steady your rasping breathing. Each inhale hurts, bruised flesh and achy ribs snapping and scraping, and all you can feel is that blood, dripping down your face.

Loris visits you. He brings the gift of a flask, sitting beside you. He does not ask why you  haven't showered, or why you find yourself on the tiled floor. You hate the kindness in his eyes. You hate the fact you know he will not leave.

The alcohol burns your ruined throat, at first. Then, you feel nothing at all.

Your shame cannot purify you. You already know that. But marinating in it allows, at least, you to bend it into something malleable. Something useable.

You ask him why they left you, passed out in a motel. “There was some… contention on it.” His mouth moves oddly around the words, almost like it tries to swallow them. You get the feeling he is repeating something somebody else said. You frown, and he pats your shoulder, gently. “Your guy wanted to stay with you, and we needed a break anyways. Caitlyn had a new lead. Disagreements.”

You try not to think about, 'your guy,'

Eventually, you push him out, listening as his voice joins those in the adjoining room. You hear him, Vi, and Caitlyn's footsteps as they leave, not some time later.

Take stock of your surroundings. You are in a shower. The tap is not on. The tiles are cool against your flesh. You are wearing a loose undershirt and undergarments. There is nobody in the room with you, but you can hear somebody outside speaking loosely. Maddie.

Access damage.  There is bruising to your ribs and throat. You feel dizzy. You feel childish. You are drunk. Your are in love with somebody who is too good for you. You are always alone. You are beginning to doubt it is external forces leading you to always being alone.

You think you might be wrong. You think you might be wrong about a lot of things.

Form and take a course of action.

You probably need to finally take a shower.

Quickly, you discard of your garments, throwing them out to litter the counter. The relatively easy part done, you claw and grip the smooth tiled walls around you as you stumble to your feet. Your head spins, and you taste blood, harsh and wet on your tongue as you clumsily grapple for the handle, jerking it sideways. Freezing water cascades down to sear your sensitive skin.

You shriek, and hastily, you spin the handle the other way. A somewhat habitable temperature sprinkles from the nozzle, and finally, you stand, swaying under it.

Why did you do this again? Your head pounds, dizziness settling over each crinkle and curve of  your brain and refusing to give itself  a home elsewhere. The alcohol helps it.

 Maybe you should sit down again. You don't. Instead, you lean against the wall, feeling each small start of pain as you breathe in and out. In and out, in... out...

Three, rapid consecutive knocks erupt from the doors place. Your fellow enforcer. Come to check on you after you shrieked like a cat in heat, perhaps.

There is a small pause as they wait for a response, one that drags on, before the door slowly creaks open, slow enough that you could call out if you so wish.

You don't.

He carefully pushes a long, slender teal arm through the gap, his hand pushing outwards to let you know it's him.

You already know, though. You recognised the knocks. How pathetic is that?

"Come in." You croak. He obliges, pulling his hand back, opening the door and carefully, like you are a spooked animal, stepping forward. The burst of teal is garish against the off-white tiles.

He’s not looking at you. It’s polite. You’re unclothed, after all. But you find yourself rather wishing he would as his eyes meet the empty bottle on the counter. A reminder of your exploits with Loris.

His expression changes, subtly. You’re too fucked up to make it out.

You’re looking at him, trying to carve the emotions you know are there out of the lines in his face, when you’re suddenly falling. Your knees hit the tiles with a crack, and you suck in air through your teeth, groaning.

He’s already on you before you have time to process the rapidly blooming bruises from your fall, swinging the shower door open. There’s a lapse, a pause, as he struggles to navigate helping you while not manhandling your drunken naked body, before he’s tilting your head up, glancing down at you, the tiles.

“I’m fineee.” You wave him off, batting his hand away. “All good. All good.”

You swear the look he fixes you with is worse than the pounding of your head.

“Oh, come on. All high and mighty, now?” You grimace. He sighs, still crouched before you. Faint stray droplets splatter across the fins lining his cheeks, and they flicker, shimmering under the cheap motel lights. In your woozy state, you cannot but stare in wonder.

He shifts.

“Don’t leave.” You quickly push out, perhaps sterner than intended. “I’m injured. I might die.” He swallows. You continue. “I— I’m sorry I yelled at you, earlier. I didn’t mean it.”

Carefully, he mimes calming you down, waving his hands out. Then, he shifts so his position is more comfortable looking, more permanent looking.

You almost collapse in relief.

Social etiquette demands you avert your gaze, pretend like you aren’t leaning over to watch him, his little micro expressions, his baby-blue eyes blinking, his second set of eyelids… whoever decided that shit was a rule probably never met him.

“Wash my hair?” You murmur. Is that odd? Are you allowed to ask that?

Conflict dances behind his eyes. You brace for a gentle rejection, and surprise yourself when he, forgoing removing his clothes, climbs in to sit beside you. The water continues to cascade down, though he doesn’t seem to mind.

The shampoo bottles, little cheap things, sit neatly on the floor beside you. He leans over, taking one in his hands and slathering it over his fingers. You lean against him, feeling him stiffen. His muscles lose their tension when you begin the speak, your words slurring into one another.

“God. Calm yourself, fish man. I’m not gonna to tear your face off. I’ve thought about it, though. Don’t get too comfortable.”

You bark a laugh, turning your head towards him. Your faces are close enough that you feel his breathing, warm against your wet skin, before he, gently, mind you, grips your head in his hands and turns you forward.

Fair enough.

Coconut, something rich and creamy, and the faintest hit of orange, drips through your scalp, cool, but not uncomfortably cool, against your skin. It’s nice. His fingers are careful, as always, and you can’t help your mind wondering towards them tugging.

Trying to push the thoughts away from your traitorous mind, you start to stumble over your words. “I think I’m going insane. Really. Jinx’s tricks. Kiramman on my ass. Fucking politics. A curse to live in interesting times, huh?”

God, you are a chatty drunk.

“They’re all worried about civil war, infighting, and shit. I… This isn’t what I signed up for.” Your voice is quieter, now. Too quiet, for your liking. “This… the threat was… it was never…”

You hope he cannot hear you. You know he can.

"Do you think we're doing the wrong thing? We're hunting them like dogs." You say, finally. He hums, his fingers gently massaging the shampoo into your hair before letting you go. You find yourself missing the contact.

Carefully, the lines thick and smooth against the precipitation, he stencils his words against the glass shower frame. YOUNG. STILL TIME.

“I’m young? You’re just like— like thirty? Late twenties? I think? You’re not old.” You drunkenly slur. Is that what he thinks of you? An overeager, ambitious youth? Is that why he cares? Is that why he’s washing your hair?

He smiles, you think, making a small noise. It’s such an odd sight you turn, and almost accidently push yourselves together with your drunken reflexes. He’s tall enough that you don’t smash faces, but your forehead grazes his lips, the warmth of him seeping into you.

He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. Flickers of a smile still dance in his eyes. “Forward. Right, right. Right.”

You turn forwards.

A long pause.

“…does it get easier? I just… I don’t think I’m doing the right thing. The future is so murky, like this fucking grey, and I— I don’t know how much more of it I want to inhale trying to see.”

He doesn’t reply. You’re about to start talking again, maybe turn around again, when you feel it.

He hesitantly, very gently, presses his forehead to your shoulder blade. You feel his skin. You feel his breath, low and hot on your back.

He angles his head up, until his mouth gently pushes against the crook of your skin.

You think you hear him kiss the curve.

“Oh.” You say, very simply and very stupidly.

A moment passes, one you should probably fill. You do not. His warmth leaves you, and then he’s back to washing your hair, massaging the shampoo out of your hair like he didn’t just shatter and then rebuild your heart in your chest.

You take initiative. Your professors back at school always said it was your best trait, after all. You turn, and cradling his skull in your hands, you shift. The soft stubble growing out of the shaved sides he hasn’t been able to maintain brushes against your palms.

“Everybody leaves me. You won’t, right? Leave me?” He nods, and you see something else dip into his expression. Perhaps the realization of your circumstances, how vulnerable you are, drunk, naked and depressed. He's always been such the gentlemen. You hate it.

He gently pries your hands off of him. Fear spikes through you. He cannot leave. He cannot leave, not yet. You grapple for the conditioner bottle. "Hey, come on. You're not done yet, are you?"

He does not leave. What he does is so, so much worse.

He takes the bottle from you and continues. His movement is gentle. His movement is soft. You’ve watched him beat somebody within an inch of their life. You’ve watched him handle a rifle with even-precision. You’ve watched him, stoic and calm under pressure that would have you crawling into your skin.

And yet his hands are still tender.

You don’t know how long you sit there, his fingers threading through your hair, and then you’re up, shivering. A warm towel is promptly wrapped around you. Everything blurs, spins. You don’t think you’ve ever been so tired in your life.

"Goodnight." He whispers to you, his fingers lingering on your shoulder. When did you get here? Pillows, cradling you, the hard motel mattress beneath you…

His hands are gentle, and you are so very wanting, but he still leaves, and you still let him.

࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

You wake remembering every moment of the night before you and hating it.

The open windows breeze carries the cities air, thick with smog, cigarettes, and chatter, into the room. Sleepily, you watch the sunlight flicker across the bedsheets, before you heave yourself up, taking stock of your area.

Maddie is gently snoring beside you, her red hair splayed out around her, uniform discarded. Loris is on the floor, obviously having been kicked out during the night. (You don’t want to think about why your glorious leader and her adoring, yet scary dog might object to company. Grossssssss.)

And Steb. Steb is across from you, wrangling with his clothes. The same shirt from last night, the white, long-sleeved one, is draped across the window to dry, along with his pants. Always the early bird.

You meet his eyes.

He nods once, very gently, before pointing beside you to the bedside table. A glass of water. Pills for your headache.

You take them gratefully and yearn.

࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

You will not be letting them leave. Not again. Not Steb, not Maddie, not Loris, not even Vi and Caitlynn. Not now when you know how far you can fall; how hard you can scrape rock-bottom.

You will not be alone again.

࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

Notes:

oh… haha, act 3 happened and i let’s just say… you will be letting them leave ao9jioehfihrfioerhfierfhrfi Suggest any ideas you may have!!! Part two of chatty reader coming next. No more angst!!! AND MORE KISSING (or will I write another 3000 words of yearning… this is my curse)

@skyetheseagull, who asked to be tagged.

thank you all for the kind words! I read and cherish them all

[fizxie-pop]

"Macaque!"

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"Hey, bud!"

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"You're a peach."

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Got the pair of texts from an lmk fanfic, it was such a cute small string of dialogue that I had to draw it.

[johanna-swann]

Okay, but how about an angsty thanksgiving intervention? They have a friendsgiving thingy a couple of days before or after the actual holiday at the Madney house. I imagine Maddie, Chim, Hen, Karen, all their kids and Buck are there. Eddie is in El Paso for the holiday and Bobby and Athena are busy with something else, idk. (I feel like having Bobby there would prevent a lot of the drama, so for reasons he can't be there.)

But Chimney (with Maddie's approval) also invites Tommy - except Tommy doesn't know this is a family event [tm], he thinks Chim just invited him over to hang out. Drink some beer, watch a movie maybe.

And Tommy thinks: "I should probably go, Howie's been my friend for almost 20 years now. I can handle hanging out with an old friend for a night, even if he happens to me ex's brother-in-law. It'll be good for me." But he's completely and utterly unprepared and not ready to run into Buck again so soon, much less in a context that oh so loudly screams "family" and thus represents everything Tommy always wanted and never had. It's an ocean's worth of salt in a fresh wound.

Buck on the other hand doesn't know Tommy's coming to the friendsgiving either. He just prepared a shit ton of food and figured spending time with his family will be a good distraction from the break-up. He hasn't hung out with Hen and Karen in a while and he's looking forward to having all the kids around. Who can mope about a stupid ex when the noise is drowned out by giggling and laughing children running around?

Chim and Maddie hoped that their plan might help Buck and Tommy to at least find some closure or maybe even get them talking to each other again. Either way, at least everyone gets a good, home-cooked meal and some quality time with friends out of it, right?

But then they're suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with each other when neither of them is ready. Buck has barely begun to even process the break-up. Let's be honest, the baking thing has been more of a distraction from thinking about Tommy than a coping mechanism to work through his feelings. He's still a little bit in denial and Tommy crashing his safe-space catapults him into the anger/depression stage.

Tommy could've dealt with a movie night with Chim, could've even coped with having Maddie and Jee-Yun there, but an entire ass family holiday? Avoiding eye contact, forcing smiles, faking normal for hours while pretending he isn't still putting the pieces of his own heart back together? Knowing he will go home alone with the fresh reminder of what he will never truly have and get to keep?

So Tommy awkwardly excuses himself and maybe Buck throws in a bitter: "Yeah, leave. You're good at that." And maybe in an attempt to de-escalate - or at least move the escalation out of earshot from the kids - Maddie suggests they talk outside. But outside they just stare at each other, not knowing what to say. Tommy apologises again, saying he'll just leave and let Buck enjoy the evening.

"It's fine", Buck says: "I think I'll leave too, actually." And Tommy lays into him about how he shouldn't spend the holiday alone when he can just go back inside and be with his family, he shouldn't be sitting in his empty loft when he could play with Jee-Yun or catch up with Karen instead.

Buck finally gets angry about what happened, but he hasn't put his thoughts in order yet, can't put into words what he feels yet. He also feels ambushed and a wee bit manipulated. So he just bites out: "Oh right, I forgot. You're the expert on what I should and shouldn't be doing. God forbid I decide for myself what I want", walks over to his car and drives off.

Tommy sits in his car for a little bit, then he goes home too. Maddie and Chimney feel bad. After they tried to encourage Buck to move on a bit too soon, they overcorrected in the opposite direction and it blew up in their faces. Maddie tries to call Buck, but he's turned off his phone. Chimney tries to reach out to Tommy, but his text sits there delivered, unread and stays unanswered.

Tommy ends up sitting on his couch, crying and staring at the tv which he hasn't even bothered to turn on and Buck spends hours pacing in his kitchen, alternating between wanting to yell at Tommy for breaking up with him in the first place and deleting his number so he'll never even be tempted to talk to him again.

So they all end up spending the friendsgiving evening in varying degrees of misery.

(Maddie, Chimney and Buck patch things up almost immediately. They bring him breakfast the next morning and apologise for springing this on him without warning. He accepts the apology, he knows they meant well and it was actually a nice thing that they tried to include Tommy despite the break-up. He wants Tommy to be happy. Really, he wants Tommy to find whatever he thinks Buck couldn't give him. He hopes Tommy one day finds a man who won't make him run the opposite direction. He wants Tommy to feel good about himself and to have a life full of friends and family and people who he can call his. Eventually. Right now, he admits, he selfishly wants Tommy to feel a bit shit. He hopes Tommy is hurting at least as much as he is. He hopes Tommy's favourite basketball team loses every game of the season. He hopes one of Tommy's coworkers says the q-word and jinxes them for a full 24 hours shift. Buck doesn't know when he started crying, but Chim and Maddie are there for him and they spend most of the day together.)

(Chimney also apologises to Tommy. They don't really talk about it, Tommy doesn't want to. He'd rather listen to Howie gush about becoming a dad again, talk about the next pick-up game and ignore the elephant in the room. It's easy to slip back into the casual friendship, the conversations that are full of movie dialogues and references, the bragging and comparing of batshit calls they've worked in the past 20 years. They don't hang out at Howie's house, they either go to Tommy's or meet at a bar. But Tommy is relieved he at least got to keep this.)

(Buck and Tommy run into each other again a few weeks later. It's the second christmas day, Buck is invited to hang out with the Diaz family. Christopher has agreed to come to LA for a week - a trial run of sorts to help him and Eddie figure out what comes next - and they're all going to spend the day at tía Pepa's. Buck is picking up some groceries on his way there and who does he meet in the canned foods isle? Buck doesn't really know what comes over him, but he suggest they should hang out together while Chris and Eddie are here. All four of them. Eddie was Tommy's friend before they ever went out after all and so was Chimney. Plus, they're all firefighters. They're bound to run into each other again sooner or later, it'd be childish to be hung up on the past. Tommy says yes.)

(They start talking to each other more after that. Not very often, not consistently, not about their break-up. But they talk. It starts with texting and hanging out in group settings. Then the phone calls start. At first just small ones, "it'll be quicker than texting" calls, "I'm ellbows deep in foccacia dough" and "broke my hand on call yesterday, so quite literally can't text" calls. Then they start hanging out one on one again. Neither of them has ever stayed friends with an ex before. Is it supposed to feel like this? Is Tommy's laugh still supposed to make Buck's heart skip a beat like this? Is Evan's soft smile still supposed to melt Tommy's insides like this?)

(They get back together in March. It's not preceded by a big and dramatic event. There's no "life or death" situation, no traumatic incident to make them realise that "tomorrow isn't promised, no awkward jealousy over a new partner. It's just another movie nigh. Buck falls asleep with his head on Tommy's shoulder and Tommy doesn't even think about it before running his fingers through Evan's curls. Buck wakes up as the credits start rolling. He shifts a little, looks up at Tommy, but he doesn't move away. The kiss is soft and chaste and they leave it at that one kiss. Buck doesn't move to the bedroom with Tommy, but he does crash on Tommy's couch. They talk in the morning. They talk about being all in but taking it slow anyway, they talk about crushes and admiration and love and the difference between all three, they finally talk about the break-up. They keep it a secret for a little while. Call it precaution or payback for Chimney's attempt at meddling.)

(They make it three weeks. Then Tommy surprises Buck at his loft and they forget that not only was Eddie supposed to come over, Eddie also has his own key. They never live it down for as long as they're alive.)

[iamchaos1234]

[pecan-jelly]

Cytherea The First; Seventh Saint to the King Undying

[ikemenomegas]

@animeomegas This post crossed my dash and I immediately thought of you with cockblock sasuke headcanons haha. Itachi might be exasperated at worst and desperately horny at best during that time, thinking he understands and Sasuke will too when he's older. But I love the idea of Itachi who is sorely mistaken, has pups by the time Sasuke is courting, and is just like this. Suddenly extremely concerned for Sasuke's modesty, "are they making you wear that?" when Sasuke wears something revealing, tries to be nice because he knows Sasuke wouldn't accept someone he's not already serious about, but Itachi's eye is sort of twitching and his alpha has their second child in their arms and are staring at him like "are you okay?" when they have a second alone at a family dinner. He realizes Sasuke might be having extramarital sex and accidentally squeezes a chicken too hard when he's carrying it around in the garden and gets screamed at by a hen - not like Itachi didn't also, but Itachi was already practically married by then! and is his stupid cute little brother being safe? is it possible to be sneaky about taking him to the doctor to get checked out?

Itachi might be a little insufferable during Sasuke's teenage emo/goth rebellion too. Like he learns how to make clothes specifically because he knows Sasuke will wear anything Itachi gets him and they're all cute bulky sweaters or comfortable traditional robes. Sasuke mostly wears them around his house or when he's visiting Itachi, but it lets Itachi delude himself into some semblance of imagining Sasuke dresses like that most of the time instead of being bare chest out in the streets.

Ooh! and maybe part of Sasuke's courting story is running into his future alpha on the way back to his family's home from Itachi's house and he gets flustered and embarrassed at how obviously adorable they find him in sweater paws instead of his current off-both-shoulders, no juban, open-down-to-the-navel uniform.

[littleredridingnerd]

I like fantasy/folklore/mythology, but I also love science. Little red riding hood was my favorite grimms tale sooo, yeah...

USERNAME LORE GIVE IT TO ME NOW YOU ALL

[truth-01001001-liar]

out and about today so i scribbled a tiny vivec on my phone :]

[nyaar0n]

could you please draw aaron falling asleep studying?

he's exhausted 😔

[battiegutz]

recharge

[matthewsgospel]

@nawtae

"I guess I never really faced my fears before"

[clownsr]

Merry Christmas!

[bluesicle]

digital art is kinda draining 4 me,,,

(rambling in the tags ↓↓↓)

[call-me-chips]

Me: Ok I think that's enough scrolling on Tumblr for now. I should probably check my emails

*gets out of tumblr*

*opens Tumblr again*

Me: . . . . . wait.

[differentglittertimemachine]

My weirdest theory about u is:

(Drumroll please)

(Pause while I think of something, I don’t think much in general so I don’t have anything on the backburner)

That you can do some wicked karate moves cause you’re = 😎

Reblog this post to ask mutuals to tell you their weirdest theory about u