#The Flames that Burn|Dr Strange AU | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chimcess · 5 days

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Nachash || jhs (Prologue)

Pairing: Hoseok x Reader (ft. Taehyung) Genre: Supernatural AU, Demon!Hoseok, Doctor!Reader, Smut, One night stand, Angst, Horror AU, Incubus! Hoseok, 90s AU, Yandere!AU (that's putting it lightly) Rating: 18+ (don’t interact if you’re a minor) Word Count: 6.6k+ Summary: After losing both of her parents, Y/N decided to sell her home in Florida and move back to New York City, a place she barely remembers despite having lived in Harlem for a decade. Her reality begins to blur as she loses track of dreams and waking life. At the center of this confusion is Hoseok, a sweet man who gives her an eerie sense of déjà vu. She can't shake the feeling that Hoseok isn't who he claims to be, and she's haunted by a strange bar that keeps appearing in her nightmares. Warnings: Wet dreams, explicit sexual contact in those dreams, graphic violence, hard dom Hoseok, demon Hobi acting like the horrible creature he is, emotional manipulation, DEATH, alcohol consumption, sexual harassment (brief), dream manipulation, stalking, vampire mind control, asshole Hobi (seriously), morally grey Taehyung, morally grey vampires in general, vampire bar, use of pagers because this is the early 90s (I have pager code translations at the bottom of the page), lots of cursing, vaginal fingering, pussy slapping, multiple orgasms, sadistic Hoseok, death by sex in her dreams, did I mention how horrible of a person this Hobi is?, mans is an obsessive stalker, and this is just the prologue because Tumblr's new rules are weird and don't make sense, let me know if I missed anything... A/N: I've had to split this into two seperate parts since Tumblr does not allow posts over a certain line count anymore (boo!), so I'm giving you guys the beginning section first! This entire story will be based in the 90s and will have a lot of pretty dark elements attachted to it. I really wanted to force myself to write a character that is so out of my wheelhouse it made me uncomfortable-- and that's exactly who incubus Hoseok is in this one. Happy Halloween everyone!

Next Part to be released 10/31 || Released early on AO3: here

August 1992

My bones cracked, the sound echoing through the sterile silence, and I struggled to catch my breath. A thin layer of sweat clung to my skin, and I patted myself down to make sure I was still awake, still alive. Slowly, the panic subsided as I took in my surroundings. The bright fluorescent lights above made my eyes ache, but their harsh glow was a strange comfort. I was still in the hospital. The bed beneath me creaked as I sighed and flopped back down.

The nightmares had been haunting me for a while now. I couldn’t pinpoint when the first one came, but it had been two months since they turned sexual. The worst ones hit during my 24-hour shifts, as if my mind was playing some twisted game. There was always a man—always the same man—with golden eyes that glowed in the darkness. His skin was soft, supple, and disturbingly perfect.

Even when I closed my eyes, his perfect face flashed in the darkness behind my eyelids. It always ended the same way. I would climax, my body thrashing violently, only to look up and see his skin peeling away, ashes raining down, with fire slipping through the cracks. My own body would begin to burn, and I’d scream in horror as his once-perfect face revealed a skull with flames and black smoke oozing out. I would wake up just as his skeletal hand reached for my throat. The scenario changed, but the ending never did.

Sighing, I fumbled around for my phone. When I found it under my pillow, alongside my watch, I realized that I was due back in twenty minutes. I groaned. There was no going back to sleep now. I carefully climbed off my bunk, trying to remain as quiet as possible. Dr. Boseman was fast asleep, blissfully unaware of my nightly torment. She still had another hour before she had to return to the floor. I didn’t bother looking in the mirror. The ER was filled with messy doctors, and I would be no exception. Slipping my shoes back on and shrugging on my white coat, I quickly put on my lanyard and left the little room.

It had been a relatively slow night. We all knew better than to say the dreaded “Q” word, but that didn’t mean we weren’t aware of the unusual silence. The most excitement we had was a car accident victim, and he would survive. My attending physician, Dr. Kepler, was at the nurse’s station laughing with some of the nurses.

“Morning, Doc,” came Shannon’s voice, the night custodian.

“Hey, Shan, how are you?” I smiled at the elderly woman.

“I’m fine. About to clean some bathrooms.”

“Good luck with that,” I waved, knowing the small talk was over.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll need it.”

Dr. Kepler smiled when I was close enough to talk. He was a handsome man with broad shoulders and pearly white teeth. I knew better, though. He had a bad habit of cheating on his wife with residents. He had never shown any interest in me, most likely because I never treated him differently. Some of the girls were too friendly with him and lost their professionalism, and he took advantage of that. As much as he disgusted me, I had to admit he was one hell of a doctor.

“Dr. L/N,” he greeted.

“Evening, Dr. Kepler,” I replied. “How’s it going, Angie?”

The tech beamed at me. She had started working at the hospital around the same time I had begun my residency, and we made fast friends. On quiet days like this, the two of us would sit at the desk and shoot the shit. She gave me a little wink.

“Oh, you know, paperwork and stuff,” she replied.

“One of those days?”

“When isn’t it?” She rolled her eyes.

“I feel your pain,” Kepler forced his way into our conversation. He was dreadfully boring, so I chose to ignore him whenever this happened. Typically, he would realize no one was paying attention to him and leave. “I had to help out in L&D tonight, and let me tell you, I am glad I did not go that route. Couldn’t imagine having to deal with hysterical females all day.”

I grimaced. He was such a pig. Angie rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut. If she spoke up, he would never leave. A few nurses gave half-hearted replies, and I caught the eyes of Issic, one of the nurse practitioners who helped out in the emergency room. Normally so well-behaved and soft-spoken, the large, teddy-bear-like man glowered at the doctor. If looks could kill, I could not say Dr. Kepler would be dead, but I had to admit he would be majorly hurt. Still, no one called him out on the gross comments. We never did.

“I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Dr. Kepler bid us goodbye, his rant about how stupid specialties other than cardiology are.

Angie twisted her nose in disgust once his back was turned. She disliked him more than I did. He made obvious advances toward her, something that made her and everyone else at the station uncomfortable, but there was not much we could do. I told her to report him for sexual harassment, but she never did. Nor did anybody else. I had never noticed how little we stood up for ourselves before.

“Glad he’s gone,” Mariah, an RN, commented.

“Creep,” another tech said.

“Anyway,” Angie did not acknowledge them. “I’m going out for drinks with some of the other nurses. You want to come?”

“Where at?” I checked my watch. I would have to begin my pre-rounds soon.

“This new bar Dauphine. Selene went a few weeks back with some friends of hers.”

“I’m not in the club scene,” I reminded her.

I knew Selene, not well, but I did know her. We met at Angie’s Christmas party last year along with a few of her other friends. I had left early but not before Selene had started to bump and grind with anyone she could get her hands on. This included Jeon Jungkook, the local wack-job-false-prophet-wannabe-fortuneteller and my cousin’s boyfriend. The two ended up having sex in the back of his Impala where said cousin found them in the middle of the act. Jungkook said it was his “destiny.” Selene simply laughed and was right back on his lap. I did not care much for her after that.

“There are only certain rooms like that. The main area is like a lounge. She said it was chill until they went dancing.”

I hummed. It had been a while since I had gone out. Maybe it would be a nice distraction, especially with the weird dreams I’d been having.

“When?” Angie smiled wide. She knew she had won me over.

“Thursday. I made sure to get a day you weren’t on call.”

And then my watch began beeping, signaling my return to work. Angie pouted her bottom lip out and batted her eyelashes. I smiled and shook my head.

“Duty calls,” I turned around and began walking away. “See you Thursday,” I called behind me.

“Fuck,” I sighed, throwing my head back.

“You’re so wet,” the man groaned, releasing my clit.

I squirmed underneath him, legs shaking, and breathing erratic. The man chuckled darkly, sticking a third finger in. I cried out once more.

“You’re such a fucking slut,” he rasped before slapping my right breast.

I screamed, the pain and pleasure mixing so many times tonight that I could no longer discern the two. He slapped the other side. Tears fell from my eyes.

“I’m going to take my time with you,” his voice felt further away than it had before.

His fingers were gone, and I whined. I hardly recognized the person I had become. Never had I begged for a man’s touch or wanted rough sex. I knew he could do anything to me, and I would not complain. I knew that he knew that as well. I also knew that he loved it. A sharp, painful slap was delivered to my already aching pussy. Another scream.

“And when I’m done,” slap, “I’m going to devour you.”

And I came undone for the third time.

I adjusted my dress again, feeling its snugness a little too keenly. It had been ages since I’d gone out, and Angie’s insistence on looking “sexy” felt like a cruel joke. Most of my wardrobe consisted of scrubs and old college hoodies, so my little black dress, tucked away in the back of my closet, had to do. Back when I was nineteen, it had fit like a glove. Now, it clung to my newer curves, which weren’t so new anymore. Should I change?

Groaning, I fell back on my bed. What am I doing? If Angie were here, she’d tell me to stop acting like “such a virgin” and laugh. She always laughed hardest at her own jokes. According to her, being with less than three guys by age twenty-three was unheard of. The fact that I was pushing thirty and had only been with two was some sort of medical anomaly to her. The virgin jokes had been annoying at first, but I’d learned that was just Angie’s sense of humor. Childish, yes, but she was likable enough to forgive it.

I sat up and looked at myself in the mirror again. The dress looked good, better than I expected. So why the apprehension? Struggling to pinpoint the source of my anxiety, I finally gave up. I threw on a leather jacket and started putting on the finishing touches to my look. I was meeting everyone at the club since Angie lived on the other side of town. She had kindly offered to pay for my cab. After texting her that I was ready, I slipped on a pair of black boots and stepped outside to wait for my ride.

The night was cold, unusually so for August, even for New York. Adjusting to the climate had been tough. Originally from Jersey, my family had moved to Florida when I was a child. I’d gone to Tulane for undergrad and then moved to New York for med school. After graduating from Columbia two years ago, I started my residency at Harlem Hospital Center. I was planning to stay for my ICU fellowship.

A gust of wind ruffled my clothes, and for a moment, I swore I felt phantom hands caress my hips. The sensation sent a shiver down my spine. My mind was still on edge from the nightmares. Last night’s had been particularly vivid: horns had sprouted from his head before he ripped a chunk of my breast out with his teeth, blood dripping onto my sheets as my screams echoed off the walls.

My phone rang, its sharp tone startling me. Angela had pressured me into getting a cellphone a few months ago, and I was still getting used to the intrusion. Handy at times, sure, but mostly an annoyance. The bulky Nokia was far too cumbersome.

“You in the car yet? The driver’s name is Jimin.”

As she said it, a pair of headlights turned the corner, and the car slowed down.

“About to get in now,” I said, eager to hang up. The assumption that I was wealthy because I had a cellphone always embarrassed me.

“God, I’m so excited to see you!” Angie squealed, the sounds of the club already drowning her out. I regretted agreeing to come out. “The password is Conti. Whatever that means.”

I smiled. “It’s a street name in New Orleans.”

The car pulled up to the curb, and I quickly opened the door.

“I’m about to get in the cab,” I said, buckling up. “I’ll see you in a bit, Ang.”

“Page me when you get here!”

The ride was quiet. The driver greeted me, asked for my name, then lapsed into silence. Soft R&B played in the background. To distract myself, I sent a quick message to my mom and listened to the driver quietly singing along. He had a nice voice. Just as we pulled up, TLC came on, and I felt a pang of disappointment that I wouldn’t get to hear him sing along. I thanked him before getting out. Jimin drove off seconds after I closed the door with a polite ‘goodnight.’

The alleyway leading to the club was less intimidating than I’d expected. Angie’s description of a long, red-lit path had conjured far worse images in my mind. The lights were bright enough to see by, and the walk was short. Voices drifted from outside the club, easing some of my tension. Maybe the rumors were just that—rumors.

Dauphine had a reputation for attracting the town’s freaks. Drugs, alcohol, sex parties that ended in blood-splattered walls, and people who went in but never came out. The rumors spiraled out of control after Namjoon Kim was found dead outside. Typical media frenzy—no one cared when ten prostitutes went missing, but a rich CEO gets shot, and it’s front-page news. I rolled my eyes. Some things never change.

A group of friends stopped talking as I approached, and apprehension churned in my gut. Bile rose in my throat, but I forced it down. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. Their presence was enough to leave me shaking. One of them snickered, and I shivered. Without even glancing at them, I knew they’d be terrifying. The bouncer opened the peephole in the door.

“Conti,” I said, my voice harsh.

The door opened seconds later, and I practically ran inside, shoving past the bouncer without much care. He didn’t seem to mind my rudeness. Without their eyes on me, I could finally breathe. I paged Angie to let her know I was here.

Angela: 110 307

Angela: 209

Y/N: 08

I shoved my pager back into my bag and started navigating the maze of the bar. The nurse had been right; it was more subdued than I had imagined. Red and black dominated the color scheme, with large sofas and booths scattered about. Neon signs pointed to the restrooms, and the place was pleasantly devoid of orgies or bloodbaths. I felt a wave of relief—no strobe lights, no thrumming dance floors.

A few minutes later, I found the bar. Only one man was seated there, engaged in a tender conversation with the bartender. She caressed his cheek, and I melted at the sight. It was heartwarming to see such affection in a place rumored to be so dangerous. I doubted many would be comfortable with their partner working in a place as infamous as this.

Respecting their privacy, I took a seat a few stools away and picked up a small drink menu. Angie was nowhere in sight. I stifled a laugh; the menu was a mix of classic cocktails and blood types listed underneath each one. For a place as notorious as this, I hadn't expected it to be a vampire-themed bar. I was already excited to see the dance floor. Themed bars in New Orleans had always been a blast during my Tulane days.

"Good evening," the bartender's voice was silky smooth.

I smiled. "Hi."

"What can I get for you?"

Suppressing a grin, I said, "I'll have a dirty martini. Shot of O negative."

The chuckle slipped out before I could stop it. The bartender smirked, her skin glistening under the red lights. The man at the other end of the bar looked at me, his eyes wide, before bursting into loud laughter. Eyes turned towards us, the sensation making my skin crawl, but I stayed composed. The bartender leaned in closer.

"Are you okay with cherry liqueur?"

I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

She laughed. "Then you don't want that shot, babe."

I nodded, glancing at my nails. Where was Angie? Rolling my eyes, I groaned. She’d probably run into some guy and forgotten about me. I straightened up, trying to see over the tall booths scattered about. No sign of her blonde head anywhere. With a sigh, I gave up. She’d show up eventually.

"Looking for someone?" The bartender slid my drink over.

"Oh," I clutched my chest, startled. "Just a friend of mine. She got here earlier but I can't find her. She said she’d come get me."

"I might’ve seen her." Her brows knitted in concern.

"She’s tall," I gestured, "really skinny. Blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s wearing a blue sequin dress."

The bartender nodded. "Yeah, I saw her and a couple of girls head to the back. She ran off with a guy not too long ago."

I groaned. Of course, she did. I must have missed her on my way in. Sinking into my chair, I threw back my martini, ripping the olive off the toothpick. My annoyance was palpable. I tried calling her, but there was no response.

Y/N: 420

Y/N: 3011

After a few more failed attempts, I paged Monica, another tech from the hospital I was close with. I used her last name; there were too many Monicas to keep track of. Her code number was written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.

Y/N: 221

"Hey," the bartender called out.

She seemed hesitant to speak. I felt a pang of guilt for making her uncomfortable. She probably thought her tip was on the line. I willed myself to calm down.

"Sorry about that."

"No worries," she replied, waving me off. "Just… be careful. We get some characters in here. I’ll keep an eye out for your friend."

I smiled at her. "Thanks."

"Anytime. If you need anything, just ask for 'Bootsy,'" she winked before taking my empty glass and returning to her boyfriend.

My pager buzzed.

Everson: 419

I rolled my eyes. I hated technology outside of medical settings. Pagers were useless for meaningful conversation. Luckily, Monica carried her cell everywhere, flaunting her family’s wealth. Her phone was much nicer than mine.

"Hey babe!" She shouted over the music.

"Angie left," I spoke louder than necessary, hoping she could hear. "The bartender saw her leave with a guy."

Monica laughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. We were too different to get along beyond pleasantries.

"Go Ang!" She giggled drunkenly. "We’re all in the back."

I rolled my eyes. "It’s my first time here."

"Bar, take a right, walk straight until you see a bunch of doors."

"What’s the entrance look like? Everything looks the same here."

"The door is black with a purple bead hanging off the handle," she hiccuped, then burped. "The lights around it are really red."

Annoyed, I shoved my phone into my purse and slid off my chair. The long hallway was daunting. This part of the bar was dimly lit and far more unsettling. Unlike the eyes on my back earlier, there was no one here. The jazz music faded, and I fought back a shiver. This place was creepy.

I went to the end of the hall only to find it empty. No door, no beads, nothing. Monica had given me the wrong directions. As frustrated as I was, I couldn’t be too upset with her. She had no idea what she was talking about and already had a few drinks in her system. My anger towards Angela only grew. I sent her another text, seething, and started to wander again, hunting for the elusive door.

The nurse was right; this place was a labyrinth. High ceilings and narrow passages could make even the most fearless person feel claustrophobic. I had to hold my breath when the walls seemed to close in. Aimlessly, I roamed, still finding nothing. The longer I walked, the more convinced I became that this lounge had been a catacomb at some point. From the outside, it didn't look nearly this expansive. My heels clicked loudly in the eerie silence. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I glanced around nervously.

"How the hell do you get lost in a bar?" I cursed myself, turning back the way I came. The bartender was nice enough; maybe she could help.

"It's a lounge, sha," a voice said behind me.

I screamed, flinching, and spun around, losing my footing. I grabbed the wall, but the impact scraped my arm against the rough bricks. The person offered a hand, but I ignored it, picking myself up and glaring at the stranger.

He was gorgeous—tall, slender, with broad shoulders and lean muscles under a white button-down shirt. His hands, large with long, piano fingers, slid back into his pants pockets. His doe eyes sparkled with amusement, and his grin was wide and boxy.

"My apologies," his voice was honeyed. "I didn't mean to startle you."

I kept glaring. "Startle? You nearly gave me a heart attack."

He snickered before his eyes fixed on my arm. "You're bleeding."

I looked at my shoulder, noticing the rip in my jacket and the blood seeping out. Throwing my hands up in exasperation, I yelled, feeling tears welling up. Tonight had been a disaster from the start—the dress, the people outside, Angie ditching me. Every part of it felt like a waste of time. I should just go home.

"Are you okay, sha?" he asked, gently touching my arm.

I laughed bitterly. "Does it look like it?"

"No, you look upset."

"Great detective work, Captain Obvious," I snapped, rolling my eyes and yanking my arm away. "And it’s pronounced cher, not sha."

He stepped back, his smile never faltering. He seemed amused, which I found odd, but I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t like him. He was creepy, even in his beauty, and his eyes reminded me of the group outside. Yet, my feet felt rooted to the ground, as if frozen in fear.

"No, cher, it's sha where I’m from."

I sniffled. "Louisiana, huh?"

"Born in France, but my family moved to New Orleans when I was young. I learned Kouri-Vini from a trumpet player in the French Quarter."

Embarrassed by my outburst, I nodded. Trust me to correct the grammar of a Frenchman. The night’s mood soured further, all my hopes for a good time dashed. Still, I couldn't deny a strange attraction to the stranger. His presence, unsettling yet warm, invited me to stay.

"You looked lost."

"I am. Trying to find my friends, but I have no idea where to go. They said 'the back,' like that’s helpful. I’ve been wandering for at least thirty minutes."

He placed a thoughtful finger on his chin. "You really shouldn’t walk around alone," he warned. "There are a lot of unsavory characters here."

"Are you an Anne Rice character or something?" I scratched my shoulder, wincing at the sting. "Why are you talking like that? It’s weird."

"Should I apologize?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Not if you can get me back to the bar."

He laughed. "I believe that can be arranged."

"You're doing it again." This time, we laughed together.

The walk back was shorter than I’d expected. He moved silently, with perfect posture, his perfection unsettling. Too symmetrical, too beautiful, and far too polite for someone who looked younger than me. As the jazz music grew louder, I learned he played the saxophone and trumpet for years in New Orleans. He opened his first bar, Midnight Moon, a few years ago and moved to New York City to branch out.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked.

"I’m a resident."

"Doctor," he whistled. "Very impressive."

"Not as impressive as being a rich, successful CEO in your twenties."

He laughed loudly, drawing a few looks. On cue, I lowered my head, feeling strange. Normally confident, here I felt the need to stay unseen, their eyes on me unnerving.

"What’s your name?" he asked, surprising me.

"Y/N," I answered, meeting his gaze.

He smiled, dazzling and unsettling. "I'm Taehyung."

"Nice to meet you, Taehyung," I said, my heart racing.

His eyes were a strange color, almost black with flecks of red under the lights. They were beautiful, but the spell broke, and I looked away again, feeling uneasy.

“There’s someone here who wants to see you,” Taehyung said, his voice rasping, almost angry. “But I don’t want to share you yet.”

I sucked in a breath, startled by his proximity. He had moved closer until we were chest to chest. I breathed him in—freesias and honey. My mouth watered, but I stepped back with effort. Taehyung didn’t follow.

“It’s probably my friend,” I said, noticing the bartender’s boyfriend staring. “We were supposed to meet here.”

“Y/N,” Taehyung’s eyes locked onto mine. “Remember what I said about unsavory characters.”

I nodded, dazed, as he brushed my hair behind my ear.

“Don’t leave with it, sha,” he whispered, sending a shiver up my spine.

I was too stunned to respond. Whatever Taehyung had said flew over my head as I placed my hand on the cheek he kissed. The skin still tingled where he had touched. When I looked up, he was gone. I spun in a circle, but there was no sign of the man anywhere. I made eye contact with the guy at the bar again and felt uncomfortable going up to him. He was frowning at me.

Taehyung had said someone was waiting for me, and the only person I could think of was Angie. She must have decided to come back after seeing my messages. Her hookup must have been lackluster if she came all the way back here. I chuckled to myself and finally walked to the bar. It would be fun to drink and talk shit. Then we could finally meet up with Monica and the girls, and my night could start looking up.

Angela was nowhere in sight when I got to the bar. The same man was still looking at me, as was the bartender. A new figure sat in my chair. It was another man by the looks of it, judging by their shoulders and haircut. I continued my search for Angela but still came up empty-handed. She was just looking for me.

"Looking for something?" the bartender asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, the guy I was with said someone was looking for me. Have you seen her?"

She pursed her lips and glanced at the other man. "Can't say I have. Taehyung was probably confused."

My shoulders dropped in defeat. Again, I was left stranded. I should probably just go home and call it a night. A small voice told me to go and find Taehyung. He had said he didn’t want to share me. How had he known someone was waiting for me?

I couldn’t think about it for too long, as if my mind wouldn’t let me. I thought about him, his perfect face, and how beautiful he was. His eyes, eyes I could not recall the color of for the life of me, staring down at me. His voice, a gentle purr in my ear beckoning me closer. A draft startled me out of my daydream and I realized I wanted to leave.

I sighed. "I think I’m going to head out then."

I swore I saw relief wash over her face. Her lips had been tight when I came back around, but she gave me a small, genuine grin. Probably some asshole customer. Every place has them, even a luxurious one. Her shoulders stiffened when the other man raised his arm. Her boyfriend’s hands clenched. That guy must be the douche.

"Bourbon." Oh, yeah, definitely a tool.

I rolled my eyes and did not think before taking a seat at the bar. I could at least distract her. She frowned at me and continued making his drink.

"Thought you were leaving?"

"I could get another drink before I go." I smiled at her.

"Dirty martini for the lady," the mystery man said.

My heart stopped. His face... My mouth dropped open at the sight of him. My dream man. He was sitting right in front of me. Every detail, every line and curve were the same. Even the mole on his lip was there. Just like Taehyung, it was hard to look into his eyes, but I knew they would be the same. I couldn’t remember what they looked like, but I was certain they shined a gentle, soft gold in the dark.

"You do like them dirty, right?" He grinned.

I couldn’t respond for a few moments. The resemblance was uncanny. The anxiety Taehyung’s presence had given me was nothing compared to this. It felt like an elephant had sat on my chest while every nerve in my body screamed at me to run. And just like Taehyung, I found myself unable to move. I found that I did not want to. I welcomed the feeling.

"How did you know that?" I asked, still in awe.

"I overheard you earlier. Was going to buy you one then but you left before I could."

I swallowed my thickening saliva. It was hard to get down. Every part of me wanted to run. My body begged to get away from him, but it also yearned to be near him. I was alight in every way possible, and the confusion was hard to wrap my head around. Do I stay or do I go? As if he could read my mind, the man reached out and ran a finger over the top of my hand. Electricity shot through my body, and it burned where he had touched.

"Have a drink with me."

"Okay," I whispered, hypnotized by his voice.

The bartender placed my drink in front of me before going back to her side of the bar, like she was trying to stay as far away from the man as possible. I knew his name, it was on the tip of my tongue, but I was insane to think it was even possible. He was a stranger, and there was no possible way he was my dream man. The two just looked similar. In my dreams, his eyes were gold, and his skin was much paler and sickly. I glanced at his hands and relaxed even further. In my dreams, the man had scars over every inch of his body.

"I’m Hoseok, by the way." He smiled at me, and I quivered.

There was something off about his teeth. His canines were too sharp. In fact, all of his teeth were. They were so white they almost glowed in the red lights. Too perfect. Everything about him was. I scooted away from him and angled my legs toward the bartender. I wanted to leave again. I wanted to get away from him. I had been right about his name.

I took a nervous sip of my drink. Why had I sat down in the first place? At the moment, it had seemed like the right thing to do, but now I felt conflicted. Had I really wanted to stay? It surely felt that way at the time. Now, I wanted to go home, and my body language was clear. Still, I could not stand up and walk away. Still, I took another sip and curled away from him without moving.

"Are you okay? You seem tense."

I nodded too quickly and enthusiastically to ever be taken seriously. Hoseok seemed amused by this, just as he had been smirking at my squirming moments before. He was unsettling. Maybe it was his resemblance to the monster from my dreams that had me on edge. Yes, I thought, that had to be the reason.

"Bad night," I replied, my hands shaking. I quickly finished my drink and stood up. Hoseok smiled at me. "Thanks for the drink. I’ll be going now."

"See you soon, Y/N."

I was so focused on leaving the bar, I did not hear the slip of his tongue. I had never told him my name. That night, after I got home, I dreamt of Hoseok killing me again. The next day, Angela never showed up for work, never answered my messages. No one else had heard from her either.

Her body was found mutilated and tortured in a motel room a few blocks away from Dauphine the following morning. My dreams began to include her in them. She cried for me to help her, blamed me for her death, and even laughed as I got my throat ripped out. I was never able to focus anymore and was blessed that my residency program finished only four months later.

After graduation, the dreams stopped. I stayed with my parents for the summer, played in the Florida sun, and decided against going back to New York for my fellowship. Instead, I chose to stay in Tallahassee and start my career. It was safe there. He was gone. A few years later, I left for Jacksonville, and my paranoia had started to fade.

Years had gone by, and my memories of his face began to escape me. His name was nothing more than a gentle whisper in the deepest pits of my mind. Even then, saying that would be an overstatement. My return to New York was in the wake of my mother’s death. My dad had passed away a few years prior, and our vacation home in Harlem, the same place I lived in so many years ago, had become prime real estate. I got a fellowship through Columbia upon my return. Life was looking up despite my grief, and I was ready to start a new venture in my medical career.

That was the beginning of my eventual end. I had cheated death all those years ago. Angela was my replacement, though I had no idea at the time. That thing knew she was waiting for me. It knew she would not let me out of her sight, so it took care of the problem. My fear gave it power, and it indulged itself in my torture. When I came back, it knew.

This time, I would not be lucky. Nothing and no one would get in its way. Soon, all memories of that night vanished. Angela’s name escaped me first, then her face, and finally what happened to her. Dauphine and its never-ending halls were gone. The thing that sat at the bar made sure of that before making his next move.

It was mid-October when he came back into my life, all memories of his face wiped from my mind, and his game really started. My death would be his favorite. A death he rejoiced in for years to come only to be disappointed that nothing lived up to that night.

Things like Hoseok lived for the chase, and I proved to be his greatest target.

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sidecarghost · 3 years

Text

Cas buys a Sexy Painting of Dean

Destiel Modern AU fluff inspired from post about clueless art collector that bought a huge painting of Dean Winchester and the Impala.

Castiel purchases the painting of the beautiful man leaning against a muscle car from the artist Crowley. Crowley gouges him on the price but that is not of import to Castiel. He would have paid any price the artist requested to be the exclusive owner of the painting of the beautiful man.

Castiel hangs the piece above his tv. And he finds himself drawn into gazing into the green eyes of the man in the painting over and over again. Then strange things begin to happen in Castiel’s home that elude any rational explanation. In the morning, Castiel finds his coffee mug filled with freshly ground and brewed coffee. Castiel also finds his lacy underwear have been pulled out from storage bins and placed on the top of his other underwear in his dresser drawers. And in the evening, when Castiel lies down in his bed his blanket wraps tight around him, even though he never reaches for it.

Castiel knows he should find his household objects becoming sentient or being moved by an incorporeal presence disturbing, but it does not disturb him at all. If anything, Castiel is comforted and feels more confident and at ease than he has in a long time. The attention and care fills an ache in Castiel he never knew was there. So he looks forward to his blanket clinging to him like an octopus, and he snuggles right back into it whenever it reaches for him. And Castiel hums his approval over the coffee that has prepared itself for his consumption.

***

And Castiel lets the tv turn on to episodes of Dr. Sexy at random times and puts his work away to watch the trashy show. He feels laughter over jokes he doesn’t understand. And the laughter feels joyful so he smiles. A few times a joke lands for Castiel and he will chuckle, when that happens the other laughter becomes even stronger, as though responding to the joy of a shared joke. Castiel enjoys his new friend too much to be afraid of him, and because he thinks his friend would like it, Castiel falls into the habit of wearing his lacy panties (that had magically moved out of storage) around the apartment without bothering to put anything else on.

When Castiel is working in the office, he finds himself longing to be home. He feels alive again once he crosses the threshold into his apartment. As he hangs up his trench coat and removes his shoes, his phone’s music app turns on and a Taylor Swift song begins to play. Castiel sings along, because he’s familiar with the song and he wants to show off that he knows the words of the chorus to the song his friend had picked.

Castiel finds dinner already prepared and set out on the table. After Castiel takes a seat at the table, his phone buzzes and Cas picks it up to read the screen. An unknown number has texted him, and the message says “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable eating dinner without those itchy clothes on?” Castiel smirks and texts back a string of emojis to his friend. His friend has bubbles appear and disappear a few times. Finally a response comes through saying, “Buddy, I have no idea what any of that means.” Castiel smiles over the message, changes out of his suit, and into a pair of lacy orange panties. Castiel assigns the unknown number to a new contact in his phone that he names “Friend,” then he savors his every bite of the meal and makes sure to praise his friend’s cooking skill.

Castiel has been watching the gradual change that had been occurring to the man in the painting. The unreadable expression of the man has softened by now, and he looks happy and peaceful. Castiel wonders if he has lost his mind, or if his painting is much more than just oil and canvas. An magical force that could move things invisibly was one thing, but what if his friend was someone he could touch, hold, or love. Castiel never believed in the occult before, but it was something his brother Gabriel seemed to believe in. So he thought he’d start his research from the previously ignored ramblings of Gabriel’s texts.

Castiel scrolls through texts from his brother to find a certain TikTok video he remembers his brother sending him. There had been a ghost haunting a house, and some people got Internet famous for uploading their bizarre video of confronting the spirit. Castiel finds the ghost haunting TikTok video and clicks through to find out more about the people that posted it.

Castiel learns that the content creators of the video call themselves the Ghostfacers. In other videos, they describe many of the signs of a potential haunting that Castiel has experienced. The video describes how some times ghosts remain tethered to the world of the living through cursed objects, and the longer Castiel watches the more he believes that his painting could be such a cursed object. Castiel clicks through more videos until he reaches one where the Ghostfacers advise anyone being haunted to burn the cursed object and send the ghost on to the afterlife.

Castiel stares at his phone for a long time after that last video. He is lost in thought for a long enough time that the remnants of daylight have faded and the cityscape glows in defiance of the darkened sky. Castiel is not a spiritual person, and he has never been sentimental before. But Castiel feels like the painting, cursed or not, is very special to him. He feels a profound bond to the green-eyed man. Castiel would sooner engulf his own body in flames than burn that painting.

Castiel approaches the painting worrying that he may have caused the man in the painting anxiety, if he had been listening to the videos on his phone. Castiel stares into the green eyes that appear to seek his own out, then Castiel presses his lips to the canvas and loses himself in a heated kiss with the man in the painting.

#Destiel fic #spn modern au #human castiel #Ghost Dean Winchester #gumbelievable writes #Destiel fluff

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wheredidhiseyebrowsgo · 4 years

Text

@matt-boyd04‘s Favorite Fics

(or ten of them anyway)

I want to know what your favorite fics are so I can read new stuff! We hope you find something new here to read. I can’t wait for some of these. If you want to submit please send me an IM. Happy reading!

hope is the thing with feathers by ShanaStoryteller

(1/1 | 28,959 | Teen | Sterek)

Stiles is ten when he saves the Hales from their burning home and Derek from a wolfsbane bullet, and this establishes a pattern that seem to continue indefinitely.

"Then he's facing a burning home, and he wraps the hood of his sweatshirt around his mouth before he pushes the door open and steps inside. There's Mr. Hale asleep - he hopes asleep - on the couch, next to - Stiles thinks that's his brother but there are so many Hales, who can keep track. He rushes over and starts shaking him, can see the rise and fall of the man's chest so he knows he's alive, but he's not waking up. He shoves away his hood so he can shout, "Mr. Hale! You have to get up, there's a fire! Mr. Hale, get up!" Nothing, he's not even twitching, both of them taking in deep even breaths like they're having the most peaceful of rests, and Stiles is going to cry. "Wake up, wake up, wake up!" There's a moment, where all Stiles can hear is the blood rushing in his ears and not the roar of the flames or the creak of wood, then with a violent, silent pop it's all back and both of the men are gasping awake, eyes open and jumping to their feet. "

The Not So Beauty to Your Beast by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

(1/1 | 64,487 | Mature | Sterek)

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski?”

All eyes instantly turned to Stiles and he felt his stomach drop. They’d taken his dad. They’d actually taken his dad and were here to tell him so.

“Yeah?” he asked in a small voice, feeling ready to be sick.

The second he spoke, two of the four regular guards moved through the rows, the lead guard speaking.

“By order of his Grace Peter Hale, you have been selected to begin your employ under the royal house of Hale.”

Wait.

What?

A Little Lost by exclamation

(32/32 | 73,366 | Mature | Sterek)

A magical accident sends Stiles back in time. Now he's stuck in New York, living with Derek and Laura, and the only way to get back to his own time is to learn to use magic. Meanwhile, he must figure out how much he can tell them about their future. Can he warn them about the dangers they face? Can he change his own past?

And can he trust the creature known as Bookworm, who seems to know him better than he knows himself?

Blood is (Not) Thicker Than Water by Anxiety_Baker02

(13/13 | 78,000 | Teen | Sterek)

Stiles hasn’t seen his extended family in years- mostly because they’re assholes. His cousins bully him relentlessly, and his aunts and uncles aren’t much better. So when he hears that they’re coming out for a family reunion, he’s understandably upset. He knows the next week is going to be hell, and it’s made worse when a new pack shows up, vowing revenge on their pack.

Cathedrals by KarasuYurei, KouriArashi

(17/17 | 78,639 | Teen | Sterek | Shadowhunters Crossover)

After the events with Deucalion and Jennifer Blake, Derek goes on a search for his biological family. He, Stiles, and Cora head to New York City to try to find the family he doesn’t remember. It turns out that there was a lot to his adoption that he never knew.

Didn’t See That Coming by knittersrevolt

(43/43 | 83,838 | Explicit | Sterek)

Stiles leaves Beacon Hills in the dust after he catches his husband cheating on him.

He finds his way to New York where he starts working for the Hale House Nursery, accidentally adopts a werewolf baby (through no fault of his own thank-you-very-much), and somehow starts training to be an Exorcist Emissary. So, in general, life was going good.

Then he hears that demons have found their way into his hometown. Can he face his inner demons and go back to save the day?

Dirty Little Secret by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

(2/2 | 91,001 | Explicit | Sterek)

“Holy shit, this is a date!” he blurted out, turning back to Derek wide-eyed. “This is a date! You intended for this to be a date, this was supposed to be a date!” He figured if he said it enough times, maybe he would believe it, but so far, no dice.

Derek was scowling again—seriously, did he want wrinkles?—but he just reached into one of the bags and pulled out a burger, checking what was written on the foil in sharpie before handing it over to Stiles.

“Of course it’s a date, what did you think this was?”

Love Thy Neighbor...He’s Hot by Triangulum

(3/3 | 117,105 | Not Rated | Sterek)

Derek and Laura seriously lucked out with Stiles as their neighbor. Yeah he can be loud, but he keeps it to normal hours, and he brings them food, they have movie nights, he's so beautiful, and okay, Derek might be pining. The only problem is, Stiles has a girlfriend. And Derek HATES her.

The one where Derek and Laura live next door to Stiles, and Derek has a completely out of control crush. A Sterek as neighbors one shot AU that got wildly out of control.

Teen Sorcerer by G8rguy

(26/26 | 168,346 | Not Rated | Sterek | Doctor Strange crossover)

Stiles Stilinski is tired. Tired of being ignored and forgotten once the research is done. After defeating Gerard and freeing Jackson from the Kanima he thought things would improve but somehow it got worse. Derek is focused on building his pack which includes the newly rescued Erica and Boyd, freed after Allison realized her grandfather was nutso, and the freed Jackson who narrowly avoided being shipped overseas by his parents. Scott is focused on his neverending relationship drama with Allison and his new best bud Isaac. Left alone more often than not, Stiles feels everyone is moving on without him so he looks for his own path.

When Deaton is unable to help him with his Spark he looks elsewhere and finds others who help him along until he finds himself meditating in his room and is surprised by an Astral form that shows up. Unknowing attracting the attention of the new Sorcerer Supreme, Stiles discovers that he might be able to not only help Dr. Strange, but he just might find out how he can protect both his home and those jerks in what he considers his pack - whether Mr. Hale or Mr. McCall consider him or not.

You’re stronger than you know by Littleredridinghunter

(15/15 | 234,195 | Not Rated | Sterek)

Set at the end of season 2, Stiles survives his encounter with Gerard and his goons, but it isn't easy.

The pack are letting him down again, his dad is not speaking to him, his life is just generally falling apart.

Until he has to get a bronze dagger to kill a siren and his whole world gets flipped on it's head!

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #magic!stiles #stiles kicked out of pack #angst #submission

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crystalninjaphoenix · 3 years

Text

Together

A Stitched Story (END)

JSE Fanfic

Man...this is it. The last one. That’s...wow. This was an AU three years in the writing, and with this, it’s over. I just...wow. I’m gonna need to just think about that for a second. Maybe wait a bit before starting something new. Anyway, this is basically wrapping everything up, taking care of all the final plot points and loose ends. There are emotional moments, including one big one, but...wow. I just have to keep saying that over and over again, it’s all I feel. The boys are settling down. Finally. Man, they’ve earned it.

Tagging @septic-dr-schneep for inspiring this AU with this post.

Taglist (finally): @bupine @violet--majesty @ari-trash

It was surprisingly sunny, for an autumn day. Busy, too. Cars rushed through the streets, and pedestrians populated the pavement. Jameson shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare as he peered around a street corner and saw their destination. We’re almost there. One more block, he said, tapping the message out in Morse code on a nearby lamppost.

“Good, I hope we are not late,” Schneep replied. “What time is it?”

JJ checked the clock on his phone. 1:25. Do you think it’s already over?

“Possibly. In any case, it would be better to be early.” Schneep turned the corner, speeding up, running his cane over the sidewalk to check for cracks. JJ hurried to catch up. “Chase would be upset if we are not there.”

He’ll be fine, JJ said reassuringly, now tapping the message on Schneep’s arm. But I suppose we can make haste.

The two of them soon arrived at their destination, turning into the hospital parking lot and walking towards the building’s front entrance. “Oh! I think he is here, yes?” Schneep said.

Yes, I can see him. JJ waved. Chase was standing outside the glass doors, bouncing on his feet and scanning the area. He had his usual bandanna and cap, but was wearing a new sweater, one that the others had given him as a group birthday present to make up for missing it a few months ago, and an old backpack Stacy had lent him. Once he saw JJ waving he smiled, and waved back.

“Ha! Knew it. I am getting good at this,” Schneep said proudly. “If only sensing souls could help with telling apart the toothpaste and burn cream.”

JJ laughed, muffled as usual, and the two of them hurried across the parking lot. Chase ran up to meet them at the edge of the sidewalk. “Hey guys!” he said. “Good to see you.”

“Good to see you too,” Schneep said lightheartedly. “Well, well? Did everything go fine?”

“Oh, uh, mostly.” Chase rolled up the sleeves of his sweater. He wasn’t wearing his wristbands. Instead, there were white bandages. “She managed to get the ones on my wrists off, but said she didn’t want to risk messing with the one on my neck. It’s close to an artery or something? I don’t know, it was some complicated medical stuff.”

“Ah. That is too bad,” Schneep said sadly. Jameson shook his head sympathetically. “But it is glad to hear some of the stitches are gone. I told you that Darla was good. Trustworthy, too. She will not tell anyone.”

“If you say so, doc.” Pulling his sleeves down, Chase turned to JJ. “Are you sure you don’t want to try? I mean, it’s a lot more inconvenient for you than it is for me.”

JJ hesitated, then nodded. I am fine, he signed. I’ve gotten used to it, and yes, there are many downsides, but considering what happened last week, I think it is good enough.

“Man. If you’re really sure,” Chase said reluctantly. “They’re already a bit looser, right? Maybe whatever magic’s making them hard to cut through will fade over time.”

“Wait, Jameson, did you bring up last week?” Schneep whacked JJ’s legs with his cane. “I said that you should not try yourself! Things could go wrong!” He paused. “But everything is fine, right?”

Yes, it was a shallow cut, JJ said. Your scissors are pretty sharp.

“I know. They are not normal, and I am starting to think they were always supposed to be weapons.” Schneep sighed. “Well, I am putting them away soon.”

JJ and Chase exchanged a significant look. “You’re gonna put them away?” Chase repeated.

Schneep nodded. “If I need them again, it won’t be hard to pull them out.”

In the month since they’d finally gotten rid of the strings, Schneep had kept carrying the scissors around. Just in case, he’d said. Just in case those glowing green strands of black magic managed to worm their way back into the world. But the past month had been quiet. Busy in other ways, but nothing had appeared to attack any of them. So maybe ‘just in case’ wasn’t going to come. Maybe it would be fine to leave them at home. Or, well, in whatever pocket dimension they came from.

“If you’re sure, doc,” Chase said. “A-anyway, it’s a bit past 1:30. We should hurry, or we’ll be late to meet up with the others. You guys walked here? C’mon, there’s a bus stop across the street.”

We’d definitely be on time if you drove us, JJ said teasingly.

“Hey, I can’t be blamed for not having a car.”

Ask Stacy.

“Nah, it’s fine. I should practice a bit before I do any serious driving, anyway. It’s been a while.”

“You took the bus here?” Schneep asked, puzzled. “But what about people sitting next to you?”

“It’s okay, I just put the backpack next to me. And it’s alright if it’s you guys.” Chase stepped off the sidewalk curb and onto the parking lot asphalt. “Now let’s go.”

The bus ride was short, and soon the three of them were getting off at a stop outside a small restaurant—or, more of a cafe, really. Despite being near lunchtime, the place was almost empty when they walked in. Soft piano music was playing over a speaker system, and a chalk signboard near the front entrance read “Please Seat Yourselves” with a hand-drawn smiley face. Chase read the sign out loud, and the three of them spotted the rest of the group, sitting at a table in the corner of the dining area, right by a window.

Jack had looked up at the sound of the bell chiming when the door opened. “Hey, they’re here,” he said to the other two sitting at the table.

“Huh? Oh, good.” Jackie was turning the menu over and over, listening to the sound of the laminated paper against the air. Marvin didn’t say anything. His head was leaning against the glass of the window, eyes closed, a pair of earbuds blocking out most sound. But he did make a small sound of acknowledgement.

“Hey guys.” Chase arrived first, taking the chair across from Marvin, next to the wall. Schneep and JJ took the next two. “Did you already order?”

“No, I told the waiter that we were waiting for people,” Jack explained. “But, more importantly, how’d it go? Are they gone?”

“Wrists are.” Chase once again pulled back his sleeves. For a moment, Jackie glanced at the bandages on his wrists, then bit his lip and looked away. “Apparently the neck stitches are too close to an artery or something. She didn’t want to mess with it.”

“Shit. Well, two out of three’s not bad,” Jack said.

“Jack, my friend, how are the repairs going?” Schneep asked.

“Pretty good, I think. The walls just got repainted, and the living room has new chairs and stuff. Still a long way to go.” Jack laughed. “Honestly I’m just glad that the water and Internet didn’t go out.”

Are the police still talking to you? JJ asked.

“No, not really. You guys?”

The other three all shook their heads. Dealing with the police had been...complicated. They had to, of course. They couldn’t just go back to their old lives without people asking “what the hell happened to you?!”JJ had it the easiest, in a way. Nobody had reported him missing, which was a bit sad when he thought about it, and all the regular patrons of his shop had assumed it closed down. Jack and Chase had more difficulty, since they were pretty public figures. The moment Jack had uploaded a video explaining he was back, the Internet had gone up in flames wondering where he’d been.

In the end, they all decided on the same story. It was pretty lame, as Chase often said, but it worked. They all just lied and said they didn’t remember anything. Weird stitches on Chase’s wrists and neck? Nope. Scars all over Jack’s body? Don’t know what happened there. Schneep losing an entire sense and gaining weird scars that looked like tears dripping from his eyes? No idea, officer. The police had prodded them, but eventually given up, essentially leaving the case unsolved and concluding it was a strange psychological phenomenon. The case would go down in history, but nobody would know the truth.

Of course, when it came to Marvin and Jackie coming back to life, things were going to be a bit difficult. Fortunately, they had magic on their side.

“Have any of you heard from Yvonne?” Jack asked, sliding each of them a menu.

“Dude, why would she talk to me? I’m the least magical person here,” Chase said.

Not since she offered to help, JJ added.

Schneep merely shook his head and picked up the menu. “Oh! They actually have—”

“Yeah, I explained the situation when the waiter came over and he gave me a Braille copy,” Jack explained. “Anyway, she called me the other day. Says that the records should be all fixed now.”

“I still say that can’t be legal,” Chase muttered.

“It’s not.” Everyone jumped, a bit surprised to hear Marvin talk. He didn’t move from his position against the window or open his eyes, but he did continue. “She’s not really into stuff being legal, you know. Normal laws or magic laws. Always thought they got in the way, that...that...her. That...name.”

“Yvonne.” Jackie gently bumped Marvin’s shoulder with his own.

“Right.”

Jack gave the others a meaningful look. Memory issues. One of the lingering side effects Marvin and Jackie were dealing with. They could forget something in seconds. Jackie had taken to writing things down, if not with an actual pen and paper, then by finger-spelling it on his hand over and over. Marvin just sort of let it happen, only writing down the really important stuff. “Anyway, it’s all fixed,” Jack continued, looking back over at the other two. “You guys can...y’know, start doing stuff again. When you want. Move out, if you feel like it.”

“Thanks,” Jackie said. He sounded oddly reluctant. Marvin didn’t even bother to answer.

Chase cleared his throat. “Speaking of moving out, Schneep, did you get your apartment back yet?”

Schneep scowled. “I am so close. The stupid building owner is still insisting on keeping it all preserved, and I say, ‘for what?!’ You are clearly not going to sell it, if everything is still how it is when I was living there. So just let me live in! The police do not care anymore, anyway, so there is no crime scene!”

He probably liked the idea of having a flat where someone who disappeared lived, JJ suggested. It lends a bit of mystery and gives the building a reputation. People might want to move in because of that.

“Well he will still have it! I will just be actually there!” Schneep folded his arms and leaned back in the chair. “Ugh. Jamie, I like you, but your guest room is tiny.”

JJ gave a huff of a laugh. Sorry, Hen. I’d never really needed one before so I didn’t hear any complaints.

“Oh, Chase, what about you? How’s the house search coming?” Jack asked.

“Fine.” Chase shrugged. “I got a few to look at. Y’know Stacy doesn’t seem to mind me staying over. I was surprised, given how she, um...wanted to move out so much a few years ago.”

“Well, things change,” Jack said cheerfully.

“Yeah. I guess that’s an upside of this, we’re, like...friends.” Chase said the word in a tone of bewildered, but welcomed, happiness. The way someone would react to hearing good news that they’d thought was no longer an option. “Again, I mean. A-and I don’t think it’s gonna go further, but...still.”

“That’s great, my friend.” Schneep patted the back of Chase’s hand.

“Yeah, that’s great!” Jackie repeated, suddenly enthusiastic. “So, like, we should order food, right?”

“Oh right.” Jack nodded. “Hang on.” He stood up, looking towards the back of the restaurant where the door to the kitchen was. A waiter was walking out at that moment, and caught sight of the group, quickly indicating he’d be right there. “Oh, nice. I was confused, really, if like this was the type of place where people would come over or if we had to go up there.” Jack sat back down and picked up the menu. “We should go all out. This is a celebration.”

I think I can get a drink, JJ signed slowly.

“Really?” Jack asked, surprised.

Yes, I think the stitches have loosened up enough for that, JJ said more confidently. A small straw or a bit of liquid. Just so long as nobody’s looking when I take off my mask.

“Awesome, man,” Chase said cheerfully. “Honestly, this place looked good on the website. We should get a lot.”

“Celebration,” Schneep repeated, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, that sounds wonderful. Celebration lunch.”

And for most of them, it was just that, wonderful. They were meeting up again, the last of their troubles were ending. Things were looking up.

But a corner of the table was a bit gloomier. Jackie and Marvin were pretty quiet all throughout the lunch. Neither of them ate that much. Marvin kept his eyes closed or looking down at his plate, and Jackie paid more attention to the salt and pepper shakers than anything else. Once the lunch was over and after everyone said their goodbyes, they followed Jack back to his apartment, where they were staying, and drifted off to separate activities. A book for Marvin, an old laptop for Jackie.

They never once said anything to each other.

— — — — — — —

Ignisa: a spell to conjure fire.

Marvin read the simple command word over and over, repeating it mentally. Ignisa. Ignisa. It was one of the simplest spells out there, and one of the first ones he learned. He could visualize the page of the book he read it in. He remembered it. Really, he did. Most of the time. For the occasions that he didn’t he’d written down the command and what it did on a spare bit of paper.

“Ignisa,” he whispered, staring down at his hands, cupped as if to hold water. He sat in the center of the floor in the spare bedroom, as far away from furniture as possible. “Ignisa. Ig-NI-sa. IG-ni-sa. Ig-ni-SA.” Yet, no matter how many times he repeated it, no matter how he pronounced it or how loud he spoke it, no matter how much he concentrated on the feeling of fire bursting forth in his hands...there wasn’t even a spark.

“Fuck.” Marvin gave up, burying his face in his hands. He squeezed his eyes to contain tears of frustration, but he still let one or two sobs slip out. Why couldn’t he do anything? No fire, no lights, no telekinesis. All the magic he remembered was useless. The only spell that sort of worked was teleportation, in fact he actually found it easier now than it used to be, but he couldn’t quite control it. If he was lucky, he’d end up close to where he wanted to be, and if he was unlucky, he teleported to the middle of the sky twenty miles away. That...hadn’t been a fun evening.

There were only a few spells that worked perfectly for him. Taking a few deep breaths, Marvin lifted his head up, and pressed his hands close together, palm to palm. Slowly, he pulled them away from each other. In the space between them were blue glowing threads of magic, which got longer the farther apart his hands got. If he wanted, he could use these strings like a weapon, grabbing things, pinning them to the wall, and maybe with practice he could use them to swing, like some sort of discount magical Spider-Man. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want anything to do with these. Scowling, Marvin brushed his hands together, and the strings disappeared.

Someone knocked on the door, and Marvin yelped in surprise. He quickly got to his feet. “Wh-who is it?”

“It’s Jack,” a voice said. “Can I come in?”

“Um...sure.”

Jack opened the door, poking his head in through the gap. “Hey Jackie’s making noodles for dinner. Do you want any?”

Did he? Marvin wasn’t really hungry. He didn’t really feel hungry that often anymore. Or maybe he did, and just couldn’t recognize the feeling. Jackie was the same way, but that didn’t stop him from trying to eat. After a bit, Marvin decided it would probably be better safe than sorry. “...Sure.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him.” Jack hesitated. “Do you...want anything? Need anything?”

Marvin hesitated. He glanced over at Jack before looking away. Wait, why was one of Jack’s eyes a slightly different shade of blue? When had that—oh. Right. “No.”

“Alright...if you’re sure,” Jack said reluctantly. “Come out whenever you’re ready.” And with that, he left.

Just in time, too. Marvin backed up until his legs hit the edge of the bed. Immediately, he fell back onto the mattress, pressing his hands against his eyes. “Stop thinking about it,” he said to himself. “Stop thinking about it, stop it, stop.” That only seemed to make it worse. Images flashed in his head, leftover memories that weren’t his, but also were, and were also Jackie’s and someone else’s. The others called him Anti. Anti’s memories. They would pop up whenever something triggered them, and that ‘something’ was usually one of the others. Right now, the memories were about Jack, about what happened to his eye. Marvin could hear himself—no, Anti—laughing.

Shaking, Marvin slowly stood up again, staggering across the room to the door. Why was it that sometimes, his balance just didn’t work? Why was he so clumsy now? He grabbed the doorknob but didn’t open it, just pressing his forehead into the wood. These were the consequences for his actions. The memories, the problems with his magic, the lack of balance. It was all his fault. If he hadn’t gotten into his head that trying the transference spell would be fine, that not telling Jackie wouldn’t cause any problems...It hadn’t even been about helping people, like how Jackie probably wanted to, he just wanted to see if he could do it, to see if he could increase his power. And he caused everything. So this was his punishment. Served him right.

— — — — — — —

“Marvin says he wants dinner,” Jack said, leaning into the kitchen/dining room.

“Okay,” Jackie said cheerfully, grabbing another bowl from the cabinet. It was easy, since that particular cabinet was missing its door. It would probably stay that way for a while, too, since with all the other repairs the apartment required it wasn’t a high enough priority. Jackie set the bowl on the counter next to two others, then looked over at the pot of water. It wasn’t steaming or boiling. Did he forget to turn the heat on? He tapped the edge of the burner under the pot.

“Jackie!” Jack gasped.

“Oh, it’s fine, it’s not on,” Jackie assured him. “I was just checking.”

“You mean you didn’t know if it was on?!”

“It probably wasn’t.” Jackie looked up to see the dial hadn’t been turned. Oh. He probably could have looked at the dial before touching the burner. Well, whatever. He reached over and turned the dial to the 7 mark.

“Please be careful,” Jack said, looking nervous. “You could get hurt.”

“I am being careful,” Jackie said. It didn’t really matter, anyway. He was having trouble feeling pain lately. Or...most things, actually. It was weird, he was a bit numb. Not by too much, but enough to be noticeable, to know that he hadn’t been like that before. Marvin was just the opposite, nowadays he was constantly being overwhelmed with the texture and feel of things. But he was always more sensitive to sensations than the rest of them.

“Well, be even more careful,” Jack insisted. He backed out of the kitchen. “I’m gonna, uh, hang out in the living room. Tell me if you need anything.”

“Okay,” Jackie nodded. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Alright.” Jack hesitated for a second before turning away and leaving.

Everything was fine. Jack really didn’t need to worry, Jackie had everything covered. Making food was easy, really. It was something that he did all the time. The process was automatic, especially for making pasta. Just wait for a bit, occasionally stirring, then drain the water. It was all good. This was a normal thing that normal people did. Things were normal.

Of course, Jackie knew that every single thing he’d just thought to himself was a lie. But it was easier to pretend. Sometimes he pretended so hard that it felt like he was watching a movie filmed in the first-person, instead of actually existing in this body.

Oh, it was happening now, actually. Jackie watched as his hand pulled open the cutlery drawer and took out a long spoon. Then the hand started stirring the pasta in the pot. It was starting to get hot now. There was steam. How hot was it? The other hand reached forward and—

“Shit!” Jackie snapped back to reality, pulling his hand away from the side of the metal pot. “Ah. Fuck.” He looked down. The skin of his fingers was a bit red and tender. He opened and closed his fist a few times to help the leftover burning feeling fade away.

“Is everything okay?” Jack was back, apparently having heard Jackie shout. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, just brushed against the side,” Jackie explained.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Well...okay, then.” Jack reluctantly backed out of view.

Everything was fine. Oh look, the pasta was suddenly done. Time had just flown past. Jackie poured the pasta into the strainer and then scooped it into the bowls. Marvin showed up, and then Jack, and they all ate in silence, after which Jack excused himself to go back to his recording room to do some editing. The moment he’d replaced all the broken computer parts, he’d gone back to making videos, though not nearly as frequently as before. That was...nice. Nice that he could do that.

Jackie wondered what he was supposed to do now. Not just for the rest of the day, but...for the rest of ever. He wanted things to be fine, to be normal, and he was pretty good at pretending they were. But they. Just. Weren’t. He couldn’t find the energy to start looking for a job, or for a new apartment, or even for new clothes. But at the same time, he didn’t want to keep borrowing from Jack. He didn’t want to just stay in place, but he couldn’t move forward.

At one point, he’d thought about going back out onto the streets. He didn’t know what happened to his old super suit, but he could make a new one. Then that train of thought had immediately crashed to a halt with a flash of memory. Not his, but also his. Anti’s. A memory with so much pain in it, and feeling glad at that pain. Somehow triumphantly vindicated to see suffering. No. Someone like that couldn’t be a hero.

So things continued. The same things. Every day.

Everything was fine.

— — — — — — —

Time passed. Autumn progressed, and it became cooler as September blended into October. Jack kept fixing up the apartment, and it was beginning to look good as new. Schneep finally convinced the building owner to let him back into his place, and so he moved out of JJ’s building. Chase was still having trouble finding a house, but he was glad to spend more time with Lily and Moira, absolutely doting on the two of them. Business at JJ’s shop started to pick up again, though he had to get used to carrying around a notepad since most customers didn’t know sign language.

Jackie and Marvin stayed where they were.

One night, a storm rolled over the city. Rain pounded the ground, thunder rumbled in the distance, and nobody went out of their houses. That night, Marvin went into the apartment’s bathroom and pressed his face against the small window to watch the storm. There wasn’t much to see. The glass was cloudy for privacy. But there was water running down the other side, droplets racing each other to the bottom.

Then there was a flash, and a fork of lightning split the window in half. A second later came the thunder. Marvin heard someone gasp, and jumped, spinning around to see Jackie standing in the open bathroom doorway. “Oh. Sorry,” Jackie muttered. “I just saw the lights on in here and—nevermind.”

Marvin just looked at him for a bit, then turned back to the window. Jackie stood there for a moment, then started to turn away.

“Jackie?”

He stopped at the sound of Marvin’s quiet voice. “Yeah?”

“Are we...bad people?”

Jackie didn’t answer, and that was an answer on its own.

“Should we...be here?”

“What do you mean?” Jackie asked.

Marvin started pulling at his fingers. “Just...what if something...happens?”

Jackie paled. “I-it’ll be okay. It’s all okay.”

“Okay.”

Neither of them moved. Then, quietly, Jackie admitted something. “I don’t want to be here.”

“You don’t?” Marvin finally turned around.

“I don’t think I should,” Jackie whispered. “Just...everyone is nice to us. But we...hurt them. Or, kind of us. I mean, he was still us, right?”

Marvin nodded. “I remember doing it.”

“Me too.”

“He can’t come back, though. Right?”

“I mean...no,” Jackie said slowly. “But what if we...what if something happens?” He echoed Marvin’s own words back at him.

Marvin was silent for a moment. “I don’t want to be here, either.”

“Should we leave?”

“What would we do?”

“I don’t know.” Jackie glanced down the hall, towards Jack’s bedroom. “But they’re...good people. And we’re.... We don’t...” He trailed off.

Another crack of thunder.

“Should we leave a note?” Marvin asked.

“No. They can figure it out. Should we stay together?”

“Maybe at first.”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, the power in the apartment building went out. Jack left his bedroom, holding a flashlight. “Hey guys? The storm knocked the lights out. You okay?”

No answer. Not surprising, Jackie and Marvin could be pretty quiet. So Jack went to look for them.

But...they weren’t there. Not in the spare bedroom, not in the bathroom, not in the kitchen, not in the living room. “Guys?” he called, voice rising in worry. “Guys?!”

Still no answer. Swearing under his breath, Jack went back to his bedroom and picked up his phone from where he’d left it. He opened up the group chat and sent a message.

Jackie and Marvin are gone. I think they’ve left.

— — — — — — —

It was still storming when they got off the bus to look around. With the rain pouring down, it was hard to make out details of anything. There were the vague, tall shapes of buildings, the long stretches of clear roads and sidewalks...but everything else was a bit cloudy. “We should’ve brought an umbrella,” Marvin said, trying to shield himself from the rain by covering his head with his arms. It didn’t work.

“I didn’t think he had one,” Jackie said, peering through the falling water. “Do you want my jacket?”

“No, I’m fine.” Marvin shivered.

“I...okay, if you’re sure you’re alright,” Jackie said reluctantly. “Here, there’s a street sign over on that corner.” He walked up to the sign, Marvin trailing after him. “Uh...Everwood Lane. I...I don’t remember where that is. Do you?”

“No,” Marvin admitted. They hadn’t really had much of a plan, had they? Just up and left, trusting they’d figure it out in the moment. Saw a bus stopping at a nearby station, and hopped aboard, pretending to swipe bus passes so the driver, who wasn’t really paying any attention, wouldn’t notice. Then they’d gotten off at random, once they realized they’d been sitting in the bus for a while and they had to be far away by then. Why had they thought any of that would be a good idea? Why had he just gone along with it?

“Well, uh. Let’s get inside.” Jackie pressed on, now walking up to the entrance of the nearest building. “Maybe we can ask someone in there, and it’ll be dry.” See? This would work out.

Luckily, that building turned out to be open, and they stepped into a front hall. It looked nice, but was completely empty. The only things of note were the pair of elevators, the door labelled ‘Stairwell,’ another unlabelled door, and a directory on a sign attached to the wall.

“No one’s here,” Marvin muttered.

“Someone has to be here, everything’s on.” Jackie scanned the directory. The building was nine floors tall, plus the ground floor, and every floor was listed as belonging to some business, each with operating hours attached. “Uh...what time is it?”

“...I don’t remember,” Marvin said. “And there’s no clock here. And we don’t have phones.”

“It’s fine, we’ll—we’ll just check around,” Jackie said optimistically. He walked over to the unmarked door and grabbed the handle, starting to push it open. Only to stop short when the door wouldn’t budge. Locked. Okay. That was fine. There were more options. Jackie turned around. “C’mon, we’ll take the lifts.”

“Mm-hmm.” Marvin nodded, following him to the elevators.

The elevator arrived, doors sliding open, and the two of them stepped in. “Right, we’ll just start with the first floor,” Jackie said, pressing the button. He waited for a few seconds, but the elevator wasn’t moving. The button hadn’t lit up. “Um...” He pressed it again. Then a couple more times. Then he tried the other buttons, pushing them hard.

“There’s a card reader attached,” Marvin pointed out, nodding towards a black box mounted on the elevator’s panel. “I don’t think it’ll work without the right card.”

“Oh.” Jackie was momentarily at a loss, but then he recovered. They just had to keep moving. That’s all. “I guess we’ll take the stairs, then.”

The stairwell was tall, white, and empty, metal stairs spiralling upwards with only a railing keeping the people walking up and down from falling off. Jackie led the way, climbing up the stairs quickly with Marvin a bit behind. But there was no luck. All the doors that led into the floors were blocked by the same card readers as in the elevators. Just in case, Jackie still tried to open them, both pushing and pulling, but to no avail. So they just kept climbing, stopping at every story so Jackie could try the doors with increasing desperation, while Marvin watched him with increasing annoyance.

Until finally, they reached the last door, this one labelled ‘Roof Access.’ Surprisingly, this one didn’t have a card reader. Jackie hesitated, then pushed it open, letting in a spray of rain from the storm outside.

“Okay, this was useless,” Marvin said. “Let’s—”

“Well, maybe there’s someone outside,” Jackie suggested.

“In the rain?”

But Jackie was already heading out, pulling on his hood as he stepped into the storm.

Of course there wasn’t anyone there. Disregarding the misery of the weather, it was hard to see anything, including the railing that marked the edge of the roof. It would be dangerous to be up there. But Jackie still walked forward, looking around, until he eventually found that railing along the edge, grabbing the rain-slicked metal to orient himself.

“No one’s here!” Marvin shouted over a clap of thunder. He’d followed Jackie out onto the roof and was now standing about an arm’s length behind him, looking extremely unhappy about the whole situation. “Let’s go!”

“Right.” Jackie nodded. “We’ll just—just try another building, and ask where we are.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll—we’ll get a hotel.”

“How will we pay for it?”

“Uh...okay, not a hotel. We’ll...find our way to someone’s house, o-or something, and ask if we can stay.”

“What if no one lets us in?”

“We’ll—we’ll find an empty building.” Jackie grasped desperately at a way to salvage this situation, a way that wouldn’t involve them going back. He wasn’t even sure he could find his way back; he’d forgotten Jack’s address somewhere on the way. “Yeah. And then we’ll go to sleep, and in the morning, figure out a better plan. Yeah! It’s fine. Everything will be fi—”

“Everything will not be fucking fine, Jackie!” Marvin suddenly burst out. “This was a terrible idea! Why did we think to do this?! Why did I go along with it?! It’s raining, there’s lightning, we’re lost, my clothes are wet which I hate more than murder, and you’re being delusional!”

“I—I am being optimistic!” Jackie spluttered, letting go of the railing so he could face Marvin head-on. “I am trying to make the best of a difficult situation—”

“We shouldn’t even be out here!” Marvin interrupted. Another crack of thunder rang throughout the sky, even louder than before. “You suggested this! Why’d you suggest it?”

“Well, why did you ask if we should’ve been staying with the others if you weren’t prepared to leave?” Jackie countered. “You didn’t have to come with me! You didn’t have to go out at all!”

“Oh yeah, what was I going to do, tell Jack and the others, ‘sorry, I don’t know where they went, they said they were leaving and I thought that was alright’? No!”

“You could’ve convinced me to stay!” Jackie shouted. “You could’ve shot it down when I said it! But you went along, so you must have wanted to leave, too!”

“I—yeah, but it was more of a vague thing!” Marvin protested. “A what-if! I didn’t expect us to go right then!”

Jackie grabbed Marvin by the shirt. “Then why did you leave?! Why did we leave?! Why did we want to leave?!”

The sky lit up a brilliant white, electricity crashing. A bolt of lightning had hit a lightning rod attached to the building’s roof, only a room’s width away from the two of them. Sparks flew. Marvin screamed. Jackie instinctively covered him, hugging him tight to his chest and bending over. The sound was deafening, thunder right next to their heads, and even after it faded their ears echoed with the remains of it.

“Holy shit!” Jackie gasped, blinking the brilliant light from his eyes. His eyes...which were now glowing. The left was bright green, the right an equally bright red. Marvin’s were also glowing, though his right eye was the green one, and the other one was blue. “That was—oh my god. Marvin, are you okay?”

Marvin didn’t answer for a moment. He just stared at the lightning rod, still faintly glowing from being struck. And then...he let out a quiet sob.

“M...Marvin?” Jackie took a closer look at him, and realized his face wasn’t just wet from the rain. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s fucking not,” Marvin cried. “All I could think about while we were walking up those stairs—all I could think about were the memories, the—you know the ones, the—I wasn’t even there, I was somewhere else. I hate this. I hate this! I hate what’s happened to me! I hate that it’s my fault!”

“Your fault?!” Jackie repeated.

“My stupid fucking selfish spell,” Marvin sobbed. “It’s all because of that! Everything happened because of that! Of course I should’ve realized, if the things I did after the spell were—were like that, then of course! Of course I’m a horrible fucking person that wouldn’t care about what that spell might do!”

“Marvin—”

“And you’re just going around acting like everything is alright!” Marvin said, jabbing a finger into Jackie’s chest. “You just like—like nothing happened, you keep saying everything is fine, it might be for you, but it’s not for me! No it’s fine, it doesn’t matter!”

“I just want everything to move on, Marvin!” Jackie said, grasping Marvin’s upper arms and pulling him close. “Everything has to be fine, but it’s not, so I have to pretend it is! Because if I stop pretending, all I can think about is what I’ve done. Every time I look at the others, I remember how I hurt them! Every time I look at you, I remember how I killed you!”

Silence, and the sound of rain.

“I didn’t...didn’t know you felt that way,” Marvin said, barely audible.

“I didn’t know you did, either,” Jackie whispered.

“That’s ironic, isn’t it?” Marvin commented dully. “Aren’t we connected now? Aren’t our souls all...mixed up with each other?”

“Yeah...” Jackie nodded. “Yeah.”

The two of them stared at each other. Eyes wide, hearts pounding, breathing heavy. Letting themselves be rained on. Until—

The door to the rooftop burst open, and a couple flashlight beams fell onto the two of them.

“Marv!”

“Jackie!”

“My friends!”

It was the others. All of them. Chase was in front with Jack close behind, then Schneep in the back holding onto Jameson’s arm for extra support. “Are you two okay?!” Chase asked.

“What happened?!” Jack added.

Is everything alright? JJ signed.

“Why did you go?” Schneep said.

Jackie took a step backwards, letting go of Marvin, who was too in shock to even notice. “You guys...h-how’d you find us?”

“JJ did,” Chase explained.

Luckily the tracking spell still works, JJ said. How did you two even get here? It’s the other side of town!

“I...we took the bus,” Jackie said numbly. “How—why are you here?”

“We came to find you, of course!” Schneep said, as if it was obvious.

“Why?” Marvin asked quietly.

“What?! Because you’re our friends!” Chase said, gaping. “If you leave to go out with no note, no anything, in the middle of a thunderstorm—” Thunder rumbled in the distance as if to prove his point. “—and without any way for anyone to contact you, anything could have happened! We were so fucking worried!”

“...why?” Marvin repeated.

“You’re our friends,” Jack reiterated. “We care about you. What if you got hurt? That would be—fuck. I-I don’t even want to think about it.”

Jackie felt tears in his eyes, and he let them slip out, hidden by the rain. “But—but it was going to be better this way.”

“Better? Better?!” Schneep repeated incredulously. “No no no no no no, we went through so much to see you again. You cannot just disappear! And less expect us to be fine with it!”

“But...w-we—I—I hurt you!” Jackie blurted out. “So much! I mean, look at yourselves! You still have the scars!”

“That wasn’t you,” Chase said gently, slowly approaching. “That was Anti.”

“Well, Anti was us.”

“Anti was two parts you guys and, like, seventeen parts black magic,” Chase said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It feels like it,” Marvin muttered. “You’d say the same if you remembered doing it.”

“What if something happens?” Jackie said, his voice hushed. “What if we...while we’re around you guys, what if we...hurt you? Th-there’s a possibility, right? As long as we’re around.”

Jack’s next question was soft, almost unheard through the rain. “You don’t want to hurt anyone, right?”

“No!” Jackie said, aghast. Marvin shook his head furiously.

“Then you won’t,” Jack said firmly. “I mean, sure, there will be accidents. But you can’t run from everyone because you’re afraid you might hurt them. A life like that would be so lonely. We trust you. Both of you. And you trust us. That’s what friendship’s built on, isn’t it? Trust.”

Jackie fell silent. The four of them stood firm, agreeing with Jack’s sentiment. Did they...really want them to stay?

“We don’t—” Marvin stammered. “I-I-I don’t—we’re—I’m—not...the type of person...who should have friends.”

“What?” Jack asked, shocked.

“You’re all so nice, a-and good,” Marvin said. “We...I don’t...deserve you.”

“That is ridiculous,” Schneep said. “Marvin, and Jackie, you are both some of the best friends I ever had, and the same goes for everyone else.”

“We’re not...good people,” Marvin said desperately. “If we were Anti, we can’t have been. Good people wouldn’t become...that. A-and you’re all just saying it ‘cause you’re friends.”

Can I say something? JJ, who’d been waiting on the sidelines, finally spoke up. Look, I barely know either of you. I’m new to all this. But I can tell that neither of you are bad people. Flawed, yes, but so is everyone. Chase said that Anti was mostly black magic, and he’s right. You can’t be blamed for what that entity did; its perception was warped and broken. You two are nice, you seem smart, you’re friendly to others. You are not bad people.

“Look, I know, it’s hard to accept that you deserve nice things,” Chase jumped in. “But you do. You want to step away from friends and good things because you think you’re not worthy. It’s gonna be hard to accept that you are. But that’s why we’re here, okay? To help you accept that.”

“And to point out when you need something,” Schneep added. “Something that you think is above you. I swear, I will fight every single bad thought you have, anything that tells you that you do not deserve all the care and love that you do.”

Jack laughed a bit. “Yeah. We all will.”

Both of them were crying, and despite the falling rain, it was quite obvious. Marvin reached over and grabbed Jackie’s hand, pulling him close. “I...I’m sorry,” he choked out.

Jackie nodded. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice rasping. “I...we should...I’m going to go back. Are you going to?”

“Yeah. I’m going back, too.”

Jackie nodded again, then let go of Marvin’s hand. He took a deep breath, and walked over to join the others.

Marvin shivered. The rain was starting to feel even colder than it had before. But as he carefully stepped towards the group, it felt a bit warmer.

The moment the two were close, the remaining four huddled around them. Hands were held and tears were shed, slowly joining together in a tight group hug. Everyone kept saying how proud they were of them, how happy they were to have them back, how much they loved them. And more tears leaked out, though of a different sort of emotion altogether. They were so caught up in the moment that they didn’t even notice the rain until they headed back down the stairs.

And as the six headed home, the storm started to lessen.

— — — — — — —

“Can’t believe it’s actually snowing,” Jack muttered, brushing white flakes off his coat. “It never snows here.”

“I like it.” Jackie looked around, taking in the white blanket covering the park, then up at the sky. “Everything looks all clean. I like how the snow is all smooth.”

“Mm. Won’t be for long.” Jack pointed. The two of them were content to sit at a picnic table, sheltered from the snowfall by a nearby tree. But some ways away, two girls were running through the snow, pelting their dad with snowballs. Chase was laughing. It was good to see. Lily tripped over something in the snow, and he bent over to help her up. “There’s gonna be so many footprints when they’re done with it.”

“Aw.” Jackie frowned, pulling his coat closer. He didn’t really feel the cold, but it still affected him, so he had to make sure to dress appropriately for any weather. “Hey...when will the others be here? Do you think they forgot we were going to meet up?”

“I don’t—wait.” Jack paused. “Nope, there they are.”

A car pulled into the nearby lot, and three people stepped out. JJ recently got his license, so he and Chase had become the chauffeurs of the group. He looked around, then waved at the others, turning back to point them out to Marvin and Schneep. The three headed over, and Jack and Jackie made room for them at the table.

“It is so cold!” Schneep immediately started complaining. “There is going to be so much ice later, it is awful!”

“Oh shush, you like having cold weather so you can have warm drinks and stuff,” Marvin said.

“Okay, yes, but that is inside, where I cannot risk the chance of slipping,” Schneep griped.

JJ laughed. Speaking of warm drinks. He pulled his backpack off and rifled through it, taking out a couple thermoses. I thought if we were going to be meeting up out here, we should keep hot.

“Oh nice!” Jack grabbed one with his name written on the side in sharpie. “What’s this?”

Tea and coffee. And hot chocolate for the kids, JJ explained.

“Sweet,” Jackie said, leaning over to grab one as well.

“So, uh...” Jack cleared his throat, and turned to Marvin. “How’d it go?”

Marvin leaned back, rocking slightly on the picnic bench. “Good, I think. I mean, it’s just the first session, but...it was a good sign, I guess.”

“Hey, uh, Marv?” Jackie said. “I...forgot the address.”

“Oh. Right. It’s uh...Hang on a moment.” Marvin pulled out his phone, opening up the notes. “547 Norwich, on the east side. You can’t miss it, there’s a big sign with ‘Riverwood Counseling” on the front. You’re, uh...going soon?”

“Next week.” Jackie copied the address into his own phone. “‘M a bit nervous,” he mumbled.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Schneep said encouragingly. “They are very good, very reputable. And if things are not working, they will transfer you to someone new without any charge.”

Jackie smiled a bit. “Well, I guess if you guys trust them.”

At that moment, Chase and the girls got tired of their snowball fight and came over to the table. “Hi!” Lily said brightly. “Ooooh, what’s that?”

“It’s a thermos,” Moira explained to her sister. “They’re for hot things like soup. And hot chocolate.”

“Well, would you look at that? There are two with your names on them,” Chase said brightly. “Here you go. JJ, you brought them, right?”

JJ nodded. Cocoa for them. And this one has some tea for you.

“Oh sweet! Thanks, Jays.”

It had been a few months, and the group had decided to meet up for some casual catching up. Chase had finally gotten a new house, just a rental but he hoped to find one for himself eventually. Schneep had started taking online classes. Since he couldn’t exactly continue his surgeon profession he decided to go back and find something else to do. He was particularly interested in physics, and he was convinced that it could explain how his new magic worked. Jack’s apartment was almost entirely repaired, and the Internet had finally settled down about his disappearance. JJ’s shop was picking up business again.

And Marvin and Jackie? Well, they’d found themselves a new place. A small townhouse, just big enough for both of them, part of a row of houses with connected walls. At first, they’d debated whether or not to continue living together or to live separately, but eventually decided on the former. After all, they still had problems, with memory and movement, and more, and decided it would be easier to live with someone who could help out. They were still working on finding new jobs. Jackie wanted something active, and Marvin wanted something quiet. The search was slow going, but they were making do. Jackie had been particularly bored at night, but didn’t want to go out and try being a vigilante again. Maybe eventually. Marvin was still relearning how to use his magic, and was teaching Jackie how to, as well, given Jackie’s new abilities.

The group had been talking for about half an hour when suddenly Moira tugged on the edge of Chase’s coat. “Dad? Who’s that? She’s been staring at us.”

Chase looked over towards where Moira was pointing, and his eyes widened. “Guys. Look who it is,” he said quietly.

The others all glanced in the same direction. “Shi—oh no,” Jack muttered. “It’s that—that magician. Delyth.”

JJ sighed. Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time.

“Who?” Marvin asked.

“She’s with the, uh, the magic police,” Jack explained.

“Oh fu—” Marvin quickly ducked his head, deliberately not looking over to where Delyth was standing, casually leaning against a tree.

“Should we talk to her?” Chase asked.

“I think so,” Schneep said. He paused, then stood up. “I will.”

“Wait, no, she’s coming over here!” Jackie gasped.

There was a sudden flurry of activity as the group tried to act casually, pretending they hadn’t seen her and weren’t keeping an eye on her as she walked over. Until eventually, they couldn’t pretend any longer.

Delyth stopped next to the table. “So...it is you,” she said slowly. “You know, you gave us one hell of a scare when you disappeared.”

“Hey, language,” Chase said, indicating the two small girls sitting next to him.

“Oh. Sorry.” Delyth paused. “We were looking for you, but it was like you all just...disappeared. Correct me if I’m wrong, but was a certain other magician helping with that?” Nobody answered. They weren’t about to throw Yvonne under the bus. Delyth shook her head. “Never should’ve given her access to ABIM systems,” she muttered.

“Did you want something?” Schneep asked.

“Hmm...well, no, not really.” Delyth looked them over, making eye contact with each. “You know, the ABIM is pretty busy. If a case hasn’t been active for two months, it’s deemed low priority, provided there’s no significant danger. If four months pass, we have to permanently shelve it, until there’s evidence for it becoming active again. Marked as unsolved, and people tend to forget about it.” She looked down at her watch. “Well, I have to go. It’s been nice seeing you all again. It’s been, what, five months?” After a moment, she nodded towards Jackie and Marvin. “Glad to see it all worked out. Goodbye.”

The group remained mostly silent as she left, though Jack muttered a quiet “goodbye” and JJ waved as Delyth disappeared into a car in the parking lot and drove away. Then, once she was gone, Chase turned to the others. “What was that about?”

I think that was her saying the magicians won’t bother us, JJ signed, a bit in awe.

“Oh thank god,” Marvin breathed. “I don’t want to be on their bad side anymore. No more magic police, thank you very much.”

“She could have been a bit more direct with it, though,” Jackie added.

Jack just laughed. “Wow. So, I guess that’s the last we’ll see of her, then?”

“Provided nothing else strange happens to us,” Schneep pointed out.

“Well, I hope it doesn’t. I’ve had enough strangeness for my entire life.”

So...is it over, then? JJ asked slowly.

“Dad, what was that about?” Lily asked. “Who was that? What did she mean?” Moira nodded, agreeing with all the questions.

“Oh, it’s a bit complicated.” Chase pulled his daughter close and gave her a quick hug. “But it’s nothing to worry about anymore. I’ll explain when you’re older.”

“I guess it’s over,” Jackie repeated.

“Yeah...guess so,” Jack agreed.

Time went on, as it always does. The group ended their get-together shortly after, parting ways for a short while. After a few more months, the strange disappearances faded into local legend, with people speculating what happened but nobody getting close to the truth that was only known to a small group of six friends. Magic remained, side effects lingered, but they settled back into their place, becoming the new normal.

Still, none of them forgot what happened to them for those three years. It would be hard not to. They had scars to prove it, and some memories would never fade. But the past was the past. And together, they moved on, looking forward to the future.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #septic egos au #jacksepticeye au #jameson jackson #dr schneeplestein #chase brody #jackieboy man #marvin the magnificent #brigid writes fanfiction #the stitched septics #stitchedstories

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river--glass · 4 years

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Reylo Fic Recommendations: Monster Edition

In honor of Spooky Season, I wanted to make a list of fics in which one or both of them are more than human. Cryptids and creatures and monsters galore. (This one is for you, monsterfuckers.)

Demons

Count the Rings by Lachesisgrimm (olga_theodora). (E, Modern, 63K) When camping with her friends, Rey jokingly decides to marry a tree thats rumored to hold the spirit of a trapped man. Spoiler alert, the legends were true. Featuring accidental marriage, demon deals, and soft soft demon Ben. Sure there’s some angst and danger but this is mostly sweet and wonderful and Rey having dreams come true.

The Hand That Feeds by persimmone. (E, Victorian, 46K) Rey has managed to avoid unwanted male attention for thirty years, until the opening of a mysterious artifact burdens her with an accidental husband. Luckily, her new consort is not the average man. Or better, he's not... human. Featuring eldritch abomination Kylo who is so sweetly in awe and reverent of human Rey despite being powerful and older than the universe. And who also has... a tentacle form.

All The Ashes by neonheartbeat. (E, Modern, 37K) Rey, living in a terrible Brooklyn apartment and desperate to escape, posts a Craiglist ad as a half-joke seeking a marriage of convenience to just get the hell out of the country. It's unexpectedly answered by a mysterious Romanian count. Featuring soft monster Kylo, good friend Hux, and beauty and the beast elements. I loved this soft Kylo and thirsty Rey.

I Will Always Find You by kuresoto. (E, Modern, 24K) Featuring Lilith!Rey and Lucifer!Kylo. I love this. They fuck like monsters (and as monsters!) and Rey is the queen of hell and they're so viciously in love. Read It!!

Deliciously by @secretreylotrash. (E, Colonial, 18K) Puritan/Salem Witch Trials/The VVitch Inspired. Witches, demon Kylo, orgies, death... This was WILD.

The Devil’s Lucky Number by Avdal. (E, Modern, 10K) Pure smut. Demon Kylo shows up out of the blue for the sole purpose of making rey orgasm. It’s what she deserves.

The Devil You Know by KyloTrashForever. (E, Modern, 10K) In which Ben finds out the hard way that he shouldn’t play with old magic. AKA, lucky bastard dumb college student Ben accidentally summons himself a succubus girlfriend.

The Demon Within Me by Avdal. (E, Modern, 8K) Shameless demon Kylo smut.

Come To Me In The Clearing And There We Shall Dance by QueenOfCarrotFlowers @leofgyth . (E, 1600′s, 5K) She had been hoping he would find her - her only friend. Kylo. She supposes he’s a demon, or a devil, or one of the heathen gods, but she's never worked up the nerve to ask him and he has not volunteered that information.

Proposal by AKyloDarkly. (E, 4K) Lilith!Rey and Lucifer!Kylo.

Mercy by bunilicious. (E, Victorian, 3K) A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/Demon AU. AKA, Rey is thirsty for her demon husband and refuses to wait any longer.

Mothman/Mothlo

For Love of a Flame by thewayofthetrashcompactor. (E, Fantasy, 8K) The shadowy Order has advanced across the forest, bringing darkness in their wake. Rey is hungry and desperate, willing to face the Order themselves to steal back what they've taken from the land. What she finds there is not what she expects. Fairies/mothpeople! Weird! I’m into it!

Drawn to the Light of Your Burning Sorrows by Kyriadamorte. (M, Modern, 7K) Mothman Ben! Curious outcast Rey! This was the first mothlo fic I ever saw. Me when I saw this fic: Mothlo? Mothman Reylo?? God and Ryan Johnson have truly abandoned this fandom. Me after this fic: Mothman Kylo is the best boy and bring on the cryptids.

Macrolepidoptera by ceciliasheplin. (E, Modern, 3K) Rey runs after her Mothman to show him how much she loves him. Nothing like a 3K word fic that hits you in the feels at the same time that it’s giving you mothman smut filth. This fandom is magical.

Nature Spirits

Oh Autumn, Oh Teakettle, Oh Grace by diasterisms. (E, Modern, 31K) Ben Solo didn’t believe in dryads, until one snagged his coats and freed herself. She’s pure bliss and magic and he is captivated. If she has to go 2000 miles back to her tree, he might as well drive her there. Dryad Rey/smitten human Ben road trip! What a lovely fic!

Looking For a Breath of Life by Fighter_for_Solo. (T, Fantasy, 18K) Featuring Elf Prince Ben and human hunter Rey! A really delightful story.

I met you once — ( In a dream ) by persopilliankore. (E, Fantasy, 10K). Where Ben and Rey are soulmates and Ben is more than meets the eye.

Fearless by KyloTrashForever. (E, Fantasy, 6K) Featuring tree Ent Kylo and the softest tentacle porn you’ll ever read.

Sea Creatures. Mermaids, Selkies, OctaKylo, oh my!

Beyond the Veil by dachenbritta. (M, Modern, 40K). Deep within the waters of the Oregon coast, a lone mermaid longs for the man she's watched for years. Her wish of joining him comes true but comes at a cost. This was hilarious and emotional and such a great read.

Sirens by SageMcMage. (E, Fantasy, 21K) In which Merman Ben tries to woo Mermaid Rey by little gifts on her doorstep. Adorable!

Yn Beisht Kione by Melusine11 @hellomelusine . (E, Modern, 5K) They say a beast roams the sea. Protecting a treasure long hidden in the Headland's caves. Some say it is the soul of a man killed by pirates to protect that treasure. Sailors have been known to throw casks of rum at the beast in the hopes of placating it, so they don't get eaten and can pass in peace. Most people though, don't believe he exists, and Rey is about to find out how wrong they all are.

I Found You by Kyoloren. (T, Fantasy, 5K) In which scavenger mermaid Rey finds a strange black T-shaped object in her waters on Kef Bir and is determined to return it to its owner. Mermaid Rey!Cute little fish people soulmates!

Octopussy by KyloTrashForever. (E, Modern, 5K) Three brothers at the beach plus one horny sea monster equals a lot of holes being filled. Smutty monster filth, no need to look for a deeper meaning than that. You like tentacle porn? Here ya go.

Live by the Sea, Love by the Tide by Twin_Kitten. (E, Fantasy, 4K) Rey and a few other mermaids escape the clutches of Unkar, and stumble into the territory of another pod of mermaids. Ben's pod. Soft caretaking mermaid Ben!

Where the Blue of the Sea Meets the Sky by HarpiaHarpyja @thisgarbagepicker . (T-E, Fantasy) A Short delightful little series featuring Selkie Ben and explorer Rey! I seriously cannot say enough good things about this author, do yourself a favor and go read EVERYTHING she’s ever written.

Tentacle Dick (that’s it that’s the plot)

Damnably Unbecoming by cuddlesome. (E, Canon-verse crack, 5K)

Froot (i've been saving all my summers for you) by kuresoto. (E, Canon-verse crack, 4K)

Vampires

In The Dark by KyloTrashForever. (E, Modern, 44K) A Dark Shadows AU!! It’s not “finished”, but it ends well where it is! Featuring vampire Ben who is very sorry about drinking blood and human Rey who is even thirstier than he is.

A Little Death (Goes a Long Way) by crossingwinter. (E, Modern, 23K) A Vampire & A/B/O AU. Weird and dark but I am here for it.

The Lioness by Lilia_ula. (E, Fantasy, 13K) Rey goes bravely to her death after being chosen as the village sacrifice, but upon meeting the beast things don’t go as planned. I love to see Reylo fics where they both revel in who they are and what they are together. Fascinating.

Beneath the Pale Moonlight by bunilicious. (E, Historical Recency, 15K) A fluffy fic about vampire Ben falling hard for Rey!

The Curious Case of the Aquarist and the Vanishing Walrus by radioactivesaltghoul. (T, Modern, 6K) Rey loves spending time in the walrus enclosure at the aquarium she works at.Ben is a vampire with an unusual ability. This is bizarre and wonderful and just such a fun read. I think about this fic daily.

Werewolves

we decided not to kill the wolves (we wanted to be wolves) by crossingwinter. (E, Fantasy, 32K) A pack of wolves lives in the woods to the north of Raddus and as winter looms, they have their eyes set on Leia Organa’s stronghold. Rey may be new to Raddus, but she’s not about to do nothing while it may be in danger. And besides, Poe must be exaggerating about wolves the size of bears. She’s not afraid of monsters.

Howl by monsterleadmehome. (E, modern, 2K) When Ben Solo is trying to earn Eagle Scout status, he spends a night alone in the woods. A chance encounter with a werewolf girl named Rey leaves an impression. Ten years later, he runs into her again and this time, they're all grown up.

#reylo #reylo fic rec #reylo fic recs #monster fucker #not even sorry #i use the term monsterfucker with nothing but love #we don't kink shame here #you want tentacles? I got tentacles #reylo monster fics

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anubislover · 4 years

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Flash Fic #3 “Fix: Law x Hawkins”

(Modern AU request by @shambledsurgeon for Law to “fix” Hawkins’ tarot deck)

Basil Hawkins should have known that no good could come from accepting a deck of tarot cards from his roommate, even as a birthday present. Dr. Trafalgar Law was not a man to be trusted, and he’d never shown any respect towards…well, anything, really, but especially his craft. So he merely nodded his thanks and put it aside, refusing to open them in front of his guests and giving Law the satisfaction of seeing his reaction to whatever the gift really was.

He managed to wait an entire week before finally succumbing to curiosity, sitting in the middle of the apartment living room to attempt a casual prediction regarding how the day would go.

Immediately, he knew there was something…off about this deck.

For starters, the top card proclaimed itself to be An Unhinged Ferris Wheel Rolling Towards the Sea, complete with rather detailed and stylistic artwork depicting just that. Shuffling through the cards, he found similar strange, utterly wrong replacements to the traditional tarot; Judge Judy, Flying Sex Snakes, The Homosexual Agenda, and Spectacular Abs.

The last of these displayed the unmistakable tattoos of his roommate above said abs, and he found himself admiring the definition and detail the artist had put in perhaps a little too long. As annoying and arrogant as he was, there was no denying that Law did, in fact, have some truly spectacular abs. And a roguish, sinful grin. And glittering gold eyes that reminded him of a flickering candle flame…

No! He was supposed to be annoyed at the sarcastic doctor, not musing over how physically attractive he was!

The next card was quite helpful with that, and Hawkins’ mouth turned downwards into an even more severe frown when he drew Repression, the man depicted in the artwork bearing an undeniable resemblance to himself. The one behind it, Being A Motherfucking Sorcerer, was also clearly him, surrounded by candles, reading a set of tarot cards while Faust lay across his lap.

Utterly confused, he tried to determine what the actual fuck his irritating roommate had given him, when he recalled a ridiculous and rather obscene game he’d been dragged into playing at Bonney’s birthday party two weeks before.

At that moment, Law walked into the living room, home after a long shift at the hospital. Upon seeing Hawkins’ flabbergasted and annoyed expression, he flashed his trademark smug smirk and leaned against the doorframe, visibly pleased with himself. “So. Finally decided to break in your present, Magician-ya?” he drawled.

“…how did you even find a Cards Against Humanity tarot deck?”

“Commissioned it off Etsy.”

“I see. And why do these two,” he held up Repression and Being A Motherfucking Sorcerer, “look like me?”

“I think that should be obvious. The first one stands for The Hermit and the other is The Magician.” He strolled over and pulled a little booklet out of the box, flipping it open to show that each card, as ridiculous as their new names and images were, all represented legitimate tarot cards.

Hawkins’ lips pursed, trying to figure out whether he should be furious at the disrespect done to his craft or impressed at the effort and planning Law’d put into this. This could not have been a simple endeavor, and to have it done in time for his birthday meant he had been planning it for a while. And the artwork was very good. He might have to ask for the artist’s shop and see what else was available.

Despite the book in front of him, he stared up at Law and asked bluntly, “What are Spectacular Abs supposed to represent?”

“Six of Swords.”

“…I suppose ‘emotional baggage’ and ‘unresolved issues’ is quite fitting for you,” he replied with a snort, the faintest hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

Gold eyes blinked owlishly, as if caught off-guard by the slight show of amusement. “Huh. Guess it is, though I’d picked it because of my six-pack abs of steel.”

“What card did The Homosexual Agenda replace?”

“The Lovers.”

Pinching his brow, he asked the question that really burned within him. “Trafalgar, why did you do this?”

“Because I have my own homosexual agenda.”

“Pardon?”

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, he replied, “I’m asking you out, dumbass. You wanna grab dinner?”

For a moment, Hawkins merely stared at him, jaw slack in disbelief, just the faintest hint of a blush coloring his cheeks, before at last uttering, “Why couldn’t you just ask me out like a normal person?”

As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he replied, “Because I knew you’d consult your cards if I did, and I wasn’t going to let my dating life be decided by hocus-pocus or pieces of paper.” Law offered his hand to help Hawkins up from the couch, adding, “Whether it’s a yes or no, I respect your decision—I just want it to be your decision.”

That was…honestly rather sweet of him, in his own weird, asshole way. All that time, money, effort, and planning, just so he could ask him out while still being willing to accept rejection?

Putting down the cards, Hawkins grabbed the tattooed hand firmly. “Fine. But only if you promise to never mess with my cards again.”

A dangerously attractive grin flashed across his lips, and Hawkins was suddenly positive that he’d find Law’s face on whatever card had replaced The Devil. “Well damn, there goes my marriage proposal plan.”

@vannahfanfics @krystull @ninhaoma-ya

#writing challenge #One Piece Fanfiction #lawkins #trafalgar D. Water Law #Basil Hawkins #trafalgar law #op fanfiction #op fanfic #one piece shipping #one piece modern au #modern au #tarot cards #cards against humanity #and they were roommates #so glad i got this written before tonight's episode

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lov3nerdstuff · 5 years

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Perfect Illusions

~Doctor Hiddleston AU~

*Tom Hiddleston x reader*

Oneshot

Words: 6.2k

Summary: You're an intern at the most reknown hospital in your city, when you run into Dr. Hiddleston for the first time. Over the months of your work together you develop a close friendship, but when you help him through a rough time, you realize that you might be feeling more for him than just friendship... way more. And when he invites you over to his place for some necessary distraction, you know that this will either end very well or very badly for both of you.

A.N.: Requested by @foodthatsgoodforyoursoul who wanted Tom in scrubs! Here we go 😁 Also, I have absolutely no clue about the medical professions or about working at a hospital, so pls don't kill me if I got the facts wrong. We're all here for sexy Tom in scrubs (and some cutie domestic Tom), so that's what you get from me! 💗✨

Also check out my Masterlist!

______________________________

You had been a medical intern in the most renowned hospital in your entire region for six months now, and those six months had been both heaven and hell to you. You were stationed in the surgical department, the pride of the entire hospital, and that meant impossible working hours, insufferable competitive thinking and ignorant (mostly male) colleagues. The department was large, gigantic even, and even after six months, you still hadn't met everyone you were working with, which honestly wasn't even entirely your own fault. Most doctors deemed themselves too important to talk to an intern, while most nurses just stuck to themselves. That had left you to being quite alone for about a month, until you had finally met the one person who half of the department loved for his impossible talent and knowledge, while the other half hated him for the very same reason. Thomas Hiddleston, renown surgeon and head of your department, and thus technically also your boss. But the day you had met, something had just clicked with the two of you, and you'd gotten along immediately. Since that day, work had become more fun for you, as both of you had at last found the one person you could actually be yourselves with. And over the course of the months, you had become something like friends. Work friends, at least. At first.

While mostly everyone addressed him solemnly by his last name, he had been quick to offer you to use his first name. And thus, you were maybe the only person in the entire hospital who was allowed to call him Tom. Somehow, you took a strange sense of pride in that.

He was the most brilliant thinker and an even better physician, precise to the impossible and knowledgeable even beyond. If you ever had any question at all, though you yourself were quite decent at the job as well, you would always come to him first and he would gladly help you out. Occasionally, he would actually come to YOU indeed, in seek of your opinion on something, or maybe just to give you an opportunity to practice. Anyway, he valued your opinion, your work and your presence and that maybe was the greatest compliment he could've made you.

Tom was a cheerful person, almost always smiling or laughing about something, if not trying to make you or his colleagues laugh as well. A real dork even, once one got to know him better, which surprisingly not many people bothered to do. They let themselves be blinded by his smiles like they were blinded by the crisp white of his scrubs… never bothering to look closer, to spot the small glimpses of shadow in his eyes. The speckles of something not quite so happy and cheerful, not as practiced and collected.

It had taken you a good three months to notice for the first time, admittedly, but you had noticed it at all and that's what you focused on. He had never talked much about his personal life, at least at first, nor about whatever it was that had the shadows on his face deepen from time to time and the rims of his eyes turn a little more red. Some days, you found that his curls were just slightly more disheveled, his smile a little more forced and his eyes a little less bright than usual. But you never had commented on it, not for the longest time, for despite the professional friendship you had built, you had known it wasn't your place to interfere in his affairs. Until a month ago, when at last your professional friendship had started to change slowly, to drift more into the array of a different kind of relationship. That's when things had started to get a little more messy, and a lot more interesting.

_______________

It had started out fairly ordinary in the beginning of your professional relationship, as mere brief acquaintances, when he had suddenly requested for specifically you to care for his patients before and after their surgery, and had allowed you to watch what he was doing whenever possible, sometimes let you assist him even. Much to the dismay of his colleagues, but he hadn't cared about them, and so you hadn't either.

Then, a few weeks later, he had actually left the sanctuary that was his office in order to have a chat with you over coffee, during your simultaneous break, and then made a habit of it to continue every single day. Sometimes that had been all you saw of him really, and other days you'd had more work together. Both was fun, even though you enjoyed his private company more and more and actually found yourself looking forward to coffee break as soon as your shift would start. That's when your work friendship had started, as a small planted seed on the soil of everybody else's refusal to deal with either of you.

Another few weeks later, he had asked you for the first time if you'd care to grab lunch together, in the highly modern cafeteria that still somehow didn't manage to make their food NOT taste like hospital chow. But his company had made up for that, by far even, and you had been surprised that he had actually wanted to sit with you, and only you. Nobody else had dared to sit down at your table, maybe because they feared him or maybe because they looked down on you… but Tom had let you know on that first day of shared lunch that you were actually the first person in years who bothered to sit with him. You'd laughed, thinking that must've been a joke, then frowned once the doubt had set in, and at last you had looked at him almost sadly upon the realization that he was being serious. You hadn't understood why people didn't want to sit with him, and you'd told him that much. He had smiled, a real and honest smile, and you had felt the tingles starting in the pit of your stomach for the first time. You had blamed it on the cafeteria's chow back then. That's when your work friendship had started to grow small buds, and even smaller roots.

As you had continued to have coffee and lunch together every day, he also had let you in on more of his work. Somehow your shifts had started falling together with his all the time, both at day and night, but you hadn't questioned how on earth he had been able to arrange that. He was the chief physician, medical director and all, and that surely came with its privileges. So you had happily spent hours upon hours in his office, going through reports and screenings together, and sometimes you would give your evaluation of them by accident, only for Tom to request you do it more often. The tingles had spread from the darkest part of your being right into the light, crawling up your arms and legs whenever he was around. That's when your work friendship had started growing more quickly, flourishing with the brightest ideas and happiest times during both your work days.

Eventually, especially during those impossibly long night shifts, you had come to talk about more meaningful things. About the big questions and the even bigger answers neither of you could really have shared with anyone else. You understood Tom on a level that was beyond collegial, beyond professional… and you felt likewise safe and understood by him. And so your tingles had spread throughout your entire being like wildfire, consuming your heart and mind eventually as they had your body. Your heart had started beating more quickly whenever Tom was around, and you had started working harder if only to somehow prove to him your worth. Not that you had needed to in the first place, he had always known how bright you were. That's when your friendship had become more of a real friendship, not one merely reduced to work and smalltalk. You had grown to admire him even more, and he had grown to admire you in return.

From that point on, close to the five month mark of your work together, you had become inseparable. He had started talking about more personal things, as had you, but he had always avoided to speak of his circumstances of living, and his relationship. You'd known that he had a girlfriend, and you had felt an unpleasant stinging in your heart whenever she had been mentioned (which luckily had happened only very rarely). Tom preferred hearing about your life and never had ceased to express his sincere interest in it, and you had gladly told him whatever he had wished to know. And while your friendship had gotten closer and closer, you had started to believe that you might be feeling more for Tom than simple friendship indeed. The tingling had turned more into a brightly burning flame, a yearning and a wish… you didn't allow yourself to admit what you wished for however. So you had just enjoyed the friendship, and both the work and private conversations, and hoped that you'd be fine.

And surprisingly, you were fine for the longest time. Not truly happy of course, but content enough with the very close friendship the two of you had. As long as Tom was happy, you would deal with absolutely anything to keep him that way.

But that was when things started to change yet again.

_______________

Tom was always putting on a happy face when working with others, and only in the comfort of your presence alone, he allowed for the mask to slip. Then he would tell you why he wasn't happy for real, maybe because he'd had a bad night, or a difficult patient, or another of those annoying talks with the financial department. You would usually comfort him by bringing him coffee, or chocolate, by buying him lunch, or by simply listening to what was on his mind. Occasionally, rarely, you would give him a hug if he really needed it, only for your heart to almost explode in equal joy and pain. You shouldn't be hugging him, shouldn't want to so badly, not when he had a girlfriend… not when you wanted to keep your feelings a secret. But sometimes he just needed the comfort, and that was more important to you than your own silly feelings. Somehow you had ended up always putting Tom first, and you didn't even mind it the least bit. You'd come to the lasting conclusion that you loved him, dearly, and if you could only express that by being the best friend possible to him, then that would be your way of fate.

That was until he started putting on a happy facade around you as well, brushing off your questions with a mere 'it's nothing' or 'I'm fine'. And yet, you could clearly tell that he wasn't. It continued like that for a couple days, a week, turning into two, with him clearly upset but refusing to admit that anything was wrong at all, until at last, on Friday afternoon close to the end of your last shift for the week, you had enough.

So you walked into his office, without knocking as he had instructed you, with the determination that you would make him talk. Screw work or professionalism… he was your friend, and he needed your help even if he didn't want to admit it. Tom never liked to impose his own problems onto other people, but today you would make him do just that.

"Alright, spill the tea." You started as you sat down in a chair, facing him with a calm expression.

"What?" He rose an eyebrow at you once he looked up from his documents, flipping them shut to place them on a high stack of folders.

"What's up with you?"

"Like I said, I'm perfectly fine, Y/n, I…"

"I don't believe you." You stated in the same calm, eyes not once leaving his. This time, you wouldn't let him off the hook.

"Well, that's your problem, not mine." He replied almost coldly, in a low grumble. "Believe what you want."

You merely rose an eyebrow at him in return, as he had just, even if unintentionally, proven your point. Tom in his normal mind would never snap at you, nor would he utter a single mean word towards anyone if not absolutely necessary. And never directed at you.

"Alright…" Tom finally sighed, closing his eyes as he rested his elbows on the wooden desk and his face in his hands. For a moment he stayed like that, silently, until he spoke up again. "It's not fine. I am not fine. Not by far…"

"Well, admitting it is a start to better things. I'm here to help you, Tom, always. You know that, right?" You spoke gently as you rose to your feet, stepped around the desk and sat down on the edge of it, right next to Tom, to place a reluctant hand on his shoulder. He sighed upon the touch, a pleasant sound lowly coming right from the depth of his chest, and you had to suppress the blush that threatened to tint your cheeks a deep crimson.

"I know…" He sighed under his breath. "You're way too good to me, Y/n… I don't deserve your kindness."

"Nonsense." You replied immediately, in a calming voice. "What's wrong?"

"Too much…"

"What can I do to help?" You asked instead of dwelling on your previous question. Making him feel better was way more important than knowing the reason behind his misery, at least for now. You'd first make sure he was feeling better, then kick the ass of whoever had him feeling so down.

Tom lifted his head from his hands and turned his face to look at you with a small, almost touched smile. "I don't know."

"Coffee?"

"No…"

"A hug?"

For a moment his lips parted as if he meant to speak, but simply remained still as he failed to form the right words. "Maybe later, alright?" He breathed at last.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you need." You smiled back, a feigned smile, ignoring the small sting his words left in your heart. But not only you could see beyond his facade, it worked both ways around.

Slowly, reluctantly almost, Tom placed his own hand on top of yours that was still resting on his shoulder, giving you a few seconds to pull back should you have wished so. You didn't, and once he realized that, he intertwined his fingers with yours and lifted both your hands off his shoulder to breath a feathery kiss to the back of your smaller hand. His eyes met yours, and your heart skipped multiple beats, then started racing like mad.

"Thank you, Y/n… for caring." He said quietly, with a small smile.

"Of course I care." You replied in a voice equally quiet, for you weren't sure you could keep it from breaking had you spoken any louder. "And I do want to make you feel better."

"I know…"

"It's a little difficult to, since I don't even know what exactly is wrong with you."

"I… I've had a few rather rough days. A lot to think about. And a lot of work in addition to that."

"Maybe some distraction would do you good then?"

"What are you thinking of?" He asked with a small chuckle and an honest smile for once, as he looked up at you in the barest hint of amusement.

"We could go out, tonight." You said before you could stop yourself, but then decided to just go with it and ignore the possible implications of your words. He might not even understand it as you asking him for a date, after all. No, he certainly wouldn't. "You know, we could go to a bar and have dinner and a few beers, or visit the movies and have a good laugh at one of those ridiculously exaggerated action films…"

Again, Tom gave you another sad half smile before he replied. He was still holding your hand, gently caressing your knuckles with his thumb. "Those are great ideas, really, but I'm afraid I couldn't stand being around people at the moment. Working with them has already been exhausting enough this week."

"Oh…" You breathed, yet again before your lips would seal, then continued on in a neutral voice. "That's alright, I completely understand… We really don't have to do anything, of course, it's perfectly fine…"

"No, I…" He interrupted you, looking down to the chaotic desk in front of him for a moment, then finally back up at you. "I would love to spend time with you… for distraction, and… yeah. But maybe instead of a bar and the movies, we could…" He stopped, frowning at you ever so slightly as his shoulders sank down a little.

"Do go on." You said encouragingly. "I'm down for anything, don't worry."

"Maybe we could cook at my place, and watch a movie after that…" He said quietly, almost as if he was afraid of speaking the words out loud. Now you actually did blush, a little. Tom had never invited you to his place, and neither had you ever invited him. You had gone out to a bar once before, with a couple colleagues to celebrate someone going into retirement, but that was it. That was every outside-of-work time you'd spent together.

"That sounds really great…" You replied with a shy half smile. "But… I'm a little scared I'll be fifth-wheeling the entire night."

"What?" Tom frowned at you in utter irritation, and you could feel the nervousness crawling up your back. Not for discomfort, but out of the fear that you would somehow insult Tom and thereby ruin everything.

"I… I'm not sure if your… girlfriend would like… me being around for… your… night in." You stumbled over your own words like you usually stumbled over your own feet. Communicating your thoughts was a maze of too many wrong paths that didn't allow turning back.

For a moment Tom's eyes widened in realization, then his face fell ever so slightly, and at last he caught himself again, showing a neutral expression. "Don't worry, she won't be around. How's seven for you?" And to emphasize his point, he gave you a smile that was neither feigned nor honest.

"Uh… seven is good." You replied a little slowly, then snapped out of your irritation (for the moment, at least). "I can go grocery shopping, if you'd like. I'm off my shift now, and my apartment is only five minutes away."

"That would be amazing. I still have to finish up a report, and I'd also like to clean my place a little before having you over." He replied with an honest smile now, giving your hand another squeeze before he finally let go. You missed his warmth immediately.

"What would you like to cook tonight?" You then asked to distract from your eyes giving away any hint of sadness at the loss of his touch.

"Surprise me." He grinned at you and the sparkle you adored so much, the spark you had missed for the last two weeks, finally returned to his eyes a short moment later. Your Tom was back at last.

______________

After you clocked out for the day and changed back into your streetwear, you biked the short way home to take a shower first of all. But even after that, your heart was still beating like crazy. You'd spend the entire evening with Tom, at his place… alone. Sure, the night shifts sometimes felt like one was entirely alone, but you'd never been alone for real. And the thing about his girlfriend still wouldn't leave your mind as you moved on to do your hair and get dressed. Would Tom get into trouble for inviting you over so spontaneously? You honestly didn't mind getting into trouble yourself, for you were doing this to make Tom feel better after a rough two weeks, but you worried if he would get into trouble. That's surely not something you wanted, but it was out of your control, and you could only hope that he would be alright.

Pushing the thought out of your head at last, you decided to wear something a little nicer than usual, but still comfortable enough to chill on the couch in. Sheer black tights, a body-hugging jersey dress that was both sexy and as comfortable as sweatpants, and a loose graphic tee on top, for just the dress might've been a little too… much. You were going to cook and chill after all, not go clubbing.

An hour later, you stood in front of Tom's door and knocked with one hand, while you balanced the giant bag with groceries in your arms. He really lived in one of the most expensive apartment buildings in the entire city, and you wondered just how much he must earn in his position in the hospital. Funny, you'd almost forgotten that he lived in an entirely different world than you did... He had a Portier and a penthouse, and you had six flights of stairs to your shared two-room apartment and too much debt from student loans.

Tom opened the door with a smile and a chuckle once he spotted the bag in your arms. "Hey Y/n…"

You returned the smile as you stepped into the apartment, letting him take the bag out of your hold for you to take off your jacket and shoes. "Hey… I hope I'm not too late."

"No, it's only three minutes after seven." He replied in amusement. "You're all good."

"I would've been here five minutes earlier, but the Portier refused to let me come up. I guess he doesn't see girls in Queen t-shirts all too often." You replied with the same amusement, as you followed behind Tom. The apartment really was incredible… open and probably bigger than anything you'd ever live in, but still cozy in a way. At the opposite side of the large room, you saw that the wall wasn't as much a wall as it was a window, overlooking the city and even the forest far off in the distance. Wow… what it must be like to live here. As you tore your eyes from the incredible view and the absolutely stunning living room, you finally looked around the kitchen you were just walking into. It was no less impressive, but you didn't really want to stare and thus looked back to Tom who placed the bag on a counter.

"What do you think of the place?" He asked without turning around.

"It's incredible… large, and probably a hell to keep tidy, but still… it seems very comfortable. Most penthouses in movies seem cold and clinical, but this… I like it." You smiled as you looked back through the open door towards the large windows in the distance.

"I would've loved to live in a smaller and less over the top place… but in my position, one has to fulfill certain expectations." He sighed.

"You do?" You frowned at him, turning around so you were facing him with your entire body again.

"Unfortunately." He shrugged. "But I tried to make the best of it."

"I think you did well." You smiled, and Tom did too. Then your eyes reverted to the bag of groceries. "So… I bought everything we need for dinner, then I got wine, ice cream, popcorn, tequila and lime."

"Tequila?" He rose an eyebrow at you in amusement as he moved to unpack the bag. "With lime?"

"Yup. Tequila because you looked like you need it, and lime because it's way better than lemon." You grinned, upon which the two of you moved to prepare your dinner together.

______________

While cooking, you already started on the first bottle of wine, which honestly only made cooking together just perfect. You listened to some music too, and sang along, occasionally dancing together while you waited for the oven or the microwave. Honestly, it was such a relief to see Tom laughing and enjoying himself after two weeks of gloom, and you wondered repeatedly how you should keep yourself from just acting like the lovesick puppy you were. His smile, his eyes sparkling like the stars themselves, the way he looked at you… hell, even seeing him in a t-shirt and jeans for once was doing things to your poor heart that you couldn't ignore, couldn't suppress. But you were happy, more than happy even.

By the time you had both finished your dinner and done the dishes (which you had insisted on helping with), you had finished the wine and decided to take a break. Neither of you wanted to ruin the night by getting all too tipsy, and you still wanted to watch a movie. You let Tom pick whatever he wanted to watch as you still marveled at the view you had of the city, now that it was dark outside but for the million lights far down below.

Then you both got comfortable on the couch, probably sitting way too close together for any means of appropriateness, but you also couldn't bring yourself to care. The heat of his body was scorching your side, crawling through the thin fabric of your clothing to create goosebumps all over your arms.

"Are you cold?" Tom asked a short moment later, as he noticed your shivers. Gods, if only he knew…

"I'm good." You returned with a small smile, but Tom still moved the slightest bit closer to you as he watched the ongoings in the tele, gently rubbing your arms, your shoulders, your neck… until his hand stilled on your upper arm furthest from him, holding you to his side tightly. You didn't even know what movie you were watching, and you were thirty minutes in.

You later found out that it was some kind of thriller, a rather scary one admittedly, and by the end of it you were shaking like dry leaves in the harsh wind of autumn. Still, the film had been amazing… and being curled into Tom's side for the entire duration of it had been even more amazing.

"Now you look like you need a tequila." Tom suddenly said once the movie had finished, pulling you out of your thoughts.

"Oh, well, yeah…" You chuckled, as you did what you thought to be the most appropriate, yet also the most painful: you scooted away, just a little, for more your heart couldn't bear. "The movie was scarier than expected."

"Very well then." He smiled at you, and stood up to prepare the drinks for both of you. "Do you want to watch another movie, or do you wish to go home?"

"Let's rephrase that: do you feel well enough now, or do you need me to distract you some more?" You returned as you watched him move around the kitchen in the distance. This was really something you could get used to, being like this, with him… but you shouldn't.

"Oh, I'm absolutely happy while you're around. I just doubt that I will be once you're gone." He called back with a small laugh that went straight to your gut. If he kept on saying things like that, your heart would explode by the time it was midnight. Maybe even earlier than that.

"So you would prefer for me to stay?" You questioned with a smile as you placed your chin on the backrest of the couch, watching him as he came walking towards you with the most breathtaking expression you'd ever seen on him. For once, he looked truly happy.

"Obviously!" He smiled as he set everything down on the coffee table. "If that would be alright with you…"

"Obviously…" You grinned back, taking the shot he was offering you with the feeling that this night would either end very well or very badly for both of you.

______________

Three shots and half a movie later, the sound of the clock on the wall hitting midnight made you jump rather badly. You'd watched another rather scary movie, and once again you had more and more curled into Tom's side without really meaning to. He had placed his hand on your knee that rested against his thigh a while back, and your shrieking at the clock's sudden noise made him grip onto your leg just a little too tightly as he jumped as well.

Your head whipped around for your wide, frightened eyes to meet his, and he looked back with the same freaked out expression… until a second later you both had to laugh out loud at each other's expression.

"Gods, that stupid clock…" You groaned with a chuckle, nudging him in the side with your entire body. Somehow, you didn't care to move away now, even if it would've been more appropriate. But he didn't seem to mind, as he merely smiled at you adoringly while the movie continued playing to your right.

"I really should be heading home… I can't imagine your girlfriend being all too happy about me still being here in the middle of the night." You blurted out before you could tell your mind to shut up. Darn alcohol… it blurred your filter, made it slow…

Tom's smile dropped immediately, and his eyebrows furrowed back into the weary frown he'd been wearing a lot over the last days. And yet, this time he actually looked at your eyes after a few seconds and sighed deeply. "She's not coming back, Y/n…"

"What?" Your eyebrows rose without your doing, and somehow his body heat seemed to feel so much more intense all of a sudden. Or was it your own skin heating up? "Is… is she on a business trip?"

Now Tom's eyes left yours again, as his head dropped back onto the backrest behind you, and he let out a desperate, and slightly bitter laugh while he stared up at the ceiling. "Oh, my lovely Y/n… You're such a genius and yet so enchantingly stupid sometimes."

"Thanks?" You tried, sending him a doubtful look. "I… Sorry?"

"Don't be." He sighed, then stilled for a moment as his face turned serious once more. "We… separated. At the beginning of the week, and she had her last belongings picked up this morning."

"Oh no…" You felt a veil of stone clinging onto your heart immediately, as the largest part of you felt sincere sadness for the man you loved. Even if technically this might've been good news, you could never be happy about it if he wasn't. "I'm so sorry Tom. I really am… Why didn't you tell me?"

"I…" He started, jaw clenching for a second before he finally sat up straighter, turning towards you so that you sat directly in front of each other, only a few inches apart. "I didn't want to worry you."

Slowly nodding, you still felt the tiniest bit hurt that he wouldn't tell you about something that important, especially if it was worrying him. "Did… did she leave you, or did you both decide to split? Is that why you were so sad over the last few weeks?"

Again, Tom sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. The muscles in his face seemed to tick in accordance with his thoughts, but you could wait. You would wait, for however long it would take. He was more than worth it, both as a friend and as the person you loved more than anything.

"I left her, actually." He finally replied, quietly but with a certain calm that brought goosebumps to your skin. What? "I left her, and she was absolutely…"

"Devastated?" You added in, hoping to complete his sentence.

"... indifferent." He finished instead, looking almost relieved at the words he spoke. You on the other hand simply felt confused, and obviously it showed, for he continued on a moment later. "She said 'whatever', took her Gucci bag and was out the door before I even finished my sentence. One day later a company came to pick up her things."

"Wow…" You breathed as your heart simply broke into a million pieces, lying shattered at his feet. "I… I don't even know how anyone could be so heartless."

"Well, I only ask myself why I lived with her for so long… We were nothing but strangers in the end."

"How long… were you together?"

"Three years."

"I'm sorry…"

"For the time we lived together, or that we split?" Tom asked almost a little bemusedly.

"That she hurt you." You replied honestly as your eyes fixed on his so intently that you were sure to see his soul behind the swirling storm of blue.

"She didn't hurt me, not really. Actually, she hasn't made me feel anything at all for the longest time." He shrugged while his gaze remained locked with yours. This was the most he had ever talked about his now passed relationship, and while it pained you to hear, you also wanted to know everything he was willing to share. Maybe that was masochistic of you, but you couldn't turn off your curiosity.

"What… what went wrong?" You asked quietly, and involuntarily scooted the smallest bit closer to him as your legs that you'd tugged under you started to go numb, urging you to cross them under you in a different way that mirrored his position.

"It wasn't love… It was a perfect illusion. I don't remember what drew me to her in the first place, but I start to believe that she was drawn more to my money than to me. And I merely was in love with the idea of being in love, and being loved."

"And… why did you break up with her just now, if you didn't even live with her anymore, only next to her? Why did it sadden you only now, and not last year, or next year?" You inquired, maybe a little more bravely with the alcohol still in your blood. "What happened, Tom?"

"You happened." He replied with a half smile that was equally shy as it was breathtaking, while his words did the rest to stun you. "At first I didn't know what was happening to me, I didn't realize… But two weeks ago, it hit me like a strike of lightning, and the revelation was…" And for once, Tom –the most eloquent person you had ever met– was at a loss for words.

"...Was what?" You asked quietly, lips parted as your chest rose and fell quickly as if you'd been running a marathon. Your heart definitely was beating that fast.

"It was the most intense thing I have ever felt, it still is, and I knew that I had been living a lie. I couldn't continue like that, not when all I wanted… was you, Y/n." He smiled as his deep velvet voice wrapped around your senses, his words dripping off his lips like the sweetest honey. Your breath caught in your throat and your eyes widened, studying his expression as it was only illuminated by the dim glow of the tele.

"Please say something…" He whispered softly, as his eyes turned into a wild mixture of hopeful and afraid.

"I… You… you want ME?" You breathed incredulously, shivering ever so slightly from the rush of pure adrenaline coursing through your blood. "But… why?"

"Because the realization that struck me so very intensely was the one that I am absolutely crazy about you." He said in a nervous laugh. "I… I love you so impossibly much that I cannot for the life of me imagine why it took me so long to understand that."

"But why on earth did that make you so sad?!" You questioned before you could think of a better thing to say, stones lifting off your shoulders and breaking the chains around your heart along the way.

"Gosh, I wasn't sad about it, I wasn't even sorry. I knew that I had to get out of this pretended relationship no matter what you feel for me, because now that I know just how much it is possible to love someone, I couldn't possibly be content with anything less. That's why I ended it. But that's not what troubled my mind for the past two weeks."

"And what did?"

"I was, am, simply afraid of what's going to happen now. You see, falling in love is a deeply scary thing, and a dangerous one as well if it endangers the friendship we have built. I… I simply was so torn if I should tell you, because I can't bear the thought of losing you and…"

He didn't get to say a single word more, for your lips shut him up in the best way possible. And from that point on, he knew that he didn't need to be afraid, that he didn't need to pretend anymore. You were all his to love and he could be yours in every way, every day, for as long as you would have him. And you definitely didn't plan on ever letting him go again.

For now he only pulled you into his lap as your lips met his over and over again for the sweetest affirmation of your love, and the promise of so much more yet to come.

_____________________________

General Tags:

@its-remy-not-ratatouille @wegingerangelica @thidls12333 @tomstoobeautiful @dreary-skies-stuff @averyhill4445 @wiczer @lotus-eyedindiangoddess @theweirdlunatic @caretheunicorn @kthemarsian @lady-of-lies @sadly-falling-through-wonderland @strawberrysandcream @noplacelikehome77 @theoneanna @mishaandthebrits @mygodisloki @i-am-a-mes @nonsensicalobsessions @exygon @hiddles-lobotomy @rjohnson1280 @annwhojumps @spookycatqueen @salempoe @headoverhiddleston @fanfiction-and-stress @createdfromblue @halszka-potter @thecreatiivecorner @themusingsofmany @inthemarvelvoid @from-hel-i-with-love @kinghiddlestonanddixon @scorpionchild81 @foodthatsgoodforyoursoul @crystal-28 @adefectivedetective @lokis-girl-in-mischief @booklover2929 @iamafangirl-fightme

I hope you enjoyed this guys! 😁💗✨ It was a little difficult for me to write at first, because I didn't know how to keep it in the hospital 😅 but I still hope it was any good ☺️ Toss a comment to your writer, oh valley of plenty 😉 and let me know if you want to be added to my tag list!

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston imagine #Loki #loki fanfic #loki x you #loki smut #loki odinson #loki of asgard #loki (marvel)#tom hiddleston x you #marvel imagine #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #doctor hiddleston #idk is that even a thing?

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vanillapie-80 · 5 years

Text

A Small Chat Between Faes

A short fic for my Dreamworks AU, sort of a slow burn redemption arc for Morgana.

Toothiana wasn't called The Tooth Fairy for nothing; granted she was one of the more tame faes being once human in her past life. It didn't mean that the guardian had never done anything wrong that was in her nature. Still, any trickery the fairy did was nothing compared to Morgan le Fay. Toothiana had heard all the trouble she had caused in the trollhunter's universe, definitely would've caught the guardians' attention if they originated there. But now the sorceress lives in the attic, refusing to go out and ignoring her own health that various people will take turns bringing food and water there. Today was Toothiana's turn, but she was also hoping to have a little chat with Morgana.

The guardian reached for the handle that was on the roof and flew down; pulling the stairs with her. Her fairies appeared and tried tugging their leader away, letting out worried squeaks. "Don't worry girls, I'll be fine." She reassured.

Toothiana grabbed the plate of food and zipped to the attic. It was dark and very cluttered, which is strange since no one has ever gone to their belongings here. The guardian search for a switch to turn the light but couldn't find it.

"Don't bother, the light bulb is dead." The fairy was startled by the sudden voice. From behind, a middle age woman with curly ginger hair walk past Toothiana with an annoyed glare. "How peculiar." Morgana muttered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I should be the only fae left in the world, unless you're not from my universe." The sorceress stated, almost sounding disappointed.

Toothiana flew left and right from a short distance as Morgana tried to get a good look her appearance. "I'm not, but it doesn't matter." The guardian remarked.

Morgana let out a bitter chuckle. " It doesn't?"

The guardian's eyes narrowed and quickly gave Morgana the plate of food. "No, I just came here to give you this, but you already knew that."

The sorceress rolled her eyes with a groan. "Please, I do not need any of your pity." Her emerald eyes stared at Toothiana with such hate that seemed to come out of nowhere.

She answered. " You know you're the only one who's making this more difficult."

Morgana laid down on an old couch with a smug expression. "Heroes, they all have different skins but share the same snake." Toothiana was quite confused by that analogy, but assumed that it wasn't good. "How long have you existed?"

"Around five hundred to four hundred years." The guardian responded, her arms crossed.

"That's not long for a fae."

"Well I wasn't born one."

Morgana tapped her finger to her lips. "So were human?"

Toothiana questioned Morgana's motive here. "Yes, but it's no longer important to me now." She could barely remember the memories from her past life, since it was all just a blur. "Now, let me ask you a question. Why are even here?"

The sorceress stayed quite as her confident attitude disappeared. "Alright then, let me clarify. Why are you here in this attic? I mean we still have a spare bedroom." Nothing still. "Or is because of Merlin?"

Morgana shoulders tensed as she looked at the guardian, a sense of resentment can be felt in the room. "How dare you speak of his name in front of me."

"If it makes you feel better, we kicked him out." Toothiana stated as an attempt to calm her down.

The sorceress got up from the couch and flew to Toothiana, looming above the guardian. "Oh is that so, then what shall you do with me? Did his champion never spoke of me?"

Toothiana quickly reached to Morgana's eye level, having stern expression. "Actually he did; Jim also said he was willing forgive you if you just own up to your mistakes and apologized to the people that were hurt, especially to Claire."

Morgana grabbed Toothiana by the arm and pulled the guardian close to her with a firm grip. "I don't owe that little impure anything." She hissed but the guardian showed no fear.

"These children were apart of the war you caused, and what about all the babies that were stolen from their families, what did you even hope to gain?" Toothiana continued despite the sorceress' magic starting to slowly burn her arms.

"That old man made it his goal to make my life miserable. Those imps were on his side despite everything he did!"

Toothiana couldn't take the pain anymore and pushed Morgana away and flew back. Her little fairies appeared, letting out worried chirping for her. "Don't worry." She whispered, watching tiny bit of her feathers falling from the burns.

"Don't you dare ignore me!" It seemed like the sorceress' calm demeanor disappeared and was replaced with raw anger.

"Why should I? After all you've done, because it's one thing to get revenge on someone, but it's another thing when that somehow leads you to ending the world." The guardian wanted to help her, but in order to do that, Morgana needed to learn the harsh truth.

The sorceress was shaking furiously; the flames that came out of her hands grew and she blasted at Toothiana's direction. "Get out!" She screamed.

The guardian didn't any time leaving the attic, it was obvious that she had overstayed her welcome. Toothiana slammed the door shut and heard a muffled BOOM, she sighed in frustration.

"Did she hurt you?" Claire asked, who standing behind Toothiana with an uneasy expression.

"I've dealt with worse." The guardian admitted with a tired smile. "Do you know where Dr. Lake might be?"

The teen nodded and the two silently walked in the hallways for a while.

"Why is Morgana still here?"

Toothiana looked at Claire. "Huh?"

"She's dangerous and horrible person, that witch wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone." Claire must have felt unsafe while Morgana was still here, maybe everyone else were on the same boat too.

"I know, but I'm trying to reason with her first. We did same with your Merlin." Toothiana remembered how stubborn the old wizard was, believing that he could do no wrong and belittling any person who would oppose him. "If Morgana fails to do that then she won't be here anymore."

To Claire, Toothiana was the opposite of Morgana. She acted sweet and gently, like a true mother. Her sole purpose is to protect children and help them remember the most important parts of their childhood. Sometimes Claire wished she was more open minded like Jim.

"Now how about you help an old lady like me find a doctor." Toothiana joked as a way to ease the tension, leaning on Claire dramatically.

Claire laughed and gently pushed her back. "You don't look that old." The teen knew that she was changing the subject, but maybe it was for the best.

Meanwhile in attic, Morgana watch the remaining flames of her outburst fade. She was offended by what Toothiana said. She didn't understand, no one did. It was all Merlin's fault, he was the reason for all of this. How come no one could see that? Then Morgana remembered what the trollhunter told her during the Eternal Night.

"What did I ever do to you?"

No, she wouldn't allow those ignorant people get to her. But there was doubt, no matter how small it was.

#trollhunters #rise of the guardians #tales of arcadia #toothiana #morgana #claire nuñez #dreamworks AU #vanilla writing

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l-sincline · 4 years

Text

Cybernetics- Cyberpunk!Sonic AU- Chapter 3

Amy Rose has been working tirelessly at her broken down booth for as long as she can imagine. Ever since Tails left their work to join forces with the revered hero of Mobius, ‘The Blue Blur’, she’s grown lonely and desperate to make her life exciting. A strange customer comes in one day asking her to fix his cyborg arm, what she didn’t know was that he would be the catalyst for a brand new life.

AO3 Tags:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Amy Rose/Shadow the Hedgehog, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Amy Rose (Sonic the Hedgehog), Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles “Tails” Prower, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik, Rouge the Bat, Whisper the Wolf, Cream the Rabbit, Knuckles the Echidna, Badnik (Sonic the Hedgehog), E-123 Omega, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Slow Burn, Partners in Crime

AO3 Link

Previous/Next

Amy struggled to follow her mystery customer that weaved through the crowd with ease, it was now no surprise to her that he had managed to sneak up on her the first time they’d met, he practically floated through the crowd. Ducking and weaving through the tightest of spaces and the closest of people, while she clumsily followed with quiet ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s. As she trailed behind him, she took this chance to take in the rest of his appearance in the light of the street lamps. His cloak was heavy, practical, and it was a deep gray with only a few tears and ragged edges. The only other thing she could really see at the moment we’re his shoes, and they looked about as mechanical as his arms. They looked heavy, but he seemed to have no problem walking in them despite their strange metal material. Maybe she’d ask about them if she got the chance, but he seemed to close up at any topic surrounding himself aside from when he’d told her his arms were custom made.

She’d been so focused on trying to figure out his shoes that she hadn’t noticed they’d traveled out of the outer ring of the city. Now, instead of dirty streets and flickering street lights accompanied by the mass of people, they walked among street lamps in better condition and shops with some neon signs flashing in the windows, there were even a few cars parked on the side of the road, though they weren’t as upper class as the cars she’d seen in magazines and they seemed to be quite old, perhaps from a time before Earth had come to attack Mobius. There were significantly less people milling about in the middle ring, and she finally found herself able to catch up to her mystery customer.

“I haven’t been to the middle ring in a long time- it seems like it’s cleaned up a bit more though. My friend works here now.” She started enthusiastically, wanting to have a conversation.

“Wouldn’t you be here more often to visit them then?” He opted to ask more about her friend, which deflated her slightly, but at least he was talking.

“Ah, well, I’m not allowed to know anything about where exactly he works and he’s constantly on call so... I can’t really just pop in and visit.”

“What’s he do?”

Amy paused, she doubted she was supposed to just go around spilling the beans that Tails was the Blue Blur’s personal mechanic, and thought she felt slightly bad to lie, she reminded herself that she would just be saying a partial truth, and that the mystery customer himself hadn’t exactly been spilling his guts to her either.

“He’s a mechanic too, just on call all the time instead of having working hours.”

“Privately hired then...” he responded, more to himself than to her, but she ‘hmm’ed in confirmation anyways.

After that, she chose to look around at the buildings they were walking past. A few bars, some convince stores, a reclaimed food place, and eventually they walked by a mechanics. The shop was large, and it had a neon sign in the front with the shops name- it was much nicer than her little booth, Amy could hardly imagine how nice it would be to work in the middle ring, and even past that how amazing it would be to work in the inner ring. Her thoughts were interrupted as she nearly bumped into the mystery customer.

“We’re here.” He gestured to the building they stood in front of.

It was a little rustic, made of brick, and without any windows showing the inside. A neon sign hung on the wall next to the entrance that read “Lions Den” in a bright blue.

“Looks real inviting.” Amy announced sarcastically, this seemed to get some sort of good reaction as he snorted quietly in response.

He stepped past her and opened the door, pushing it open wide enough for her to follow him in without having to touch the door. The inside was much different from the outside. She stood next to him in awe as he tried to wave over a waitress. It was slightly packed by all sorts of mobians, some cyborg some not. But the most impressive part of it was how it so easily echoed what she imagined the Inner Ring of the city looked like.

The tiles on the floor were mirrors, as was the ceiling that was lined with bright blue neon lights. The bar was plexiglass, back lit by more bright blue lights as the people at the bar drank neon drinks with straws that glowed in the black light. There were rounds tables that were dotted randomly throughout the large room, mobians sat at them and drank and ate happily, occasionally pointing at the large ProjScreens that took up some blank space on the wall, projecting a live game of whatever sport was currently going on in the Inner Ring. Booths lined the wall with the same flowing plexiglass, but the seats were made of some plastic-y, metallic material that shone in all the light.

Amy felt something smooth to the touch grab her arm and tug her in a different direction, and soon realized it was her mystery customer dragging her along to follow the waitress that was seating them. They got sat at a booth, and it was when she was handed a menu on a ProjScreen that she got to get a good look at the waitress. It was stunning, a fully automated Android was serving them. She mostly ever saw robots, ones with wheels that looked more old time-y, but the android in front of her had the exact same shape and build as your average Cat mobian. Her metal was a sleek black, and her eyes glowed blue as she handed the man across from Amy his ProjScreen menu before folding her hands behind her back once more. Her tail swished soundlessly, no metal grinding or clinking.

“May I get you both started with something to drink?” Even her voice seemed perfect.

“We’ll both have the Strawberry Lights.” He responded. “And some time to look over the menu, please.”

“Of course. I’ll be back with your drinks, shutting off your ProjScreen menu will alert me that you are ready to order.” She informed before turning and walking away, blending perfectly into the chaos of the bar as she went to get their drinks.

“Ordering for me?” Amy teased.

“Well, I’m paying, and I think it’s fun to guess what you’d like.” He shrugged, pushing her ProjScreen towards the wall so she wouldn’t be able to look at it as he swiped through the projections on his.

“Would it be out of line for me to ask if you plan on keeping your hood up the whole time?” She asked. He paused.

“...Yes.” He finally replied.

“Is there at least something I can call you?” Amy pressed, it was getting a bit strange to continue to call him her ‘mystery customer.’

“You can come up with something if you want.” He offered. “Seems fair, since I’m making a game out of ordering your food.”

Amy ‘hmm’ed in thought at this, quickly becoming distracted by her own thoughts as she ceased to listen to his muttering as he scrolled through the menu. Mystery customer was a no, she was trying to get away from that. Cloak boy? No, that was dumb. She could do some iteration on Cyborg but that was probably tacky, especially to a man who hid both his cyborg arms.

“Myst! Spelled with a Y to be cooler.” She suddenly announced proudly, crossing her arms over her chest with a smug smile.

She could feel his eyes boring into her own, before she could even worry that he thought she was strange again, he laughed and shook his head.

“Sure.” He relented, shutting down the ProjScreen menu.

Amy wasn’t sure what to say afterwards, so she was glad to see their waitress heading back over to them with two drinks in hand on a tray. She almost ‘ooh’ed out loud at the sight of them as the cat Android elegantly set them down on the table.

“You’re ready to order?” She asked as she reached over the table and collected the ProjScreen menu ‘Myst’ had put aside earlier before grabbing his as well and holding them gently.

“The flamed mango on the compact milk bread for her, and the enhanced beef stir fry for me.” He spoke loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the chatter of the restaurant.

“Of course, enjoy your drinks while you wait.” She bowed her head slightly before walking away.

Amy looked back to the drink and inspected in with interest. The bottom of it was bright pink, and it had a slushy like texture to it, the rest of the fancy glass was filled with what seemed to be some sort of clear soda, sitting at the bottom of the soda was a darker pink syrup that she assumed was strawberry flavored as well as the slushy. One strawberry was artfully poked onto the rim of the glass, and the metal straw poking out of the glass was also pink. She looked over to see ‘Myst’ using the straw to poke at the drink and stir it up, so she began to do the same. Eventually it got to a point where it seemed it would be fine to drink, so she did. She was first hit with the strawberry slushy, quickly followed by the strawberry infused soda- it was pretty good.

“Wow- good guess on the drink. I think I’ll be happy with the dinner then too.” She commented.

“I’m glad you like it, I don’t come here often but it’s what I usually get.” He replied.

“Really? You seem so dark and mysterious I’d assume you’d get like something squid ink based, honestly.”

“Squid ink doesn’t sit well with my stomach.” He defended incredulously. “Besides, you just said yourself that this is good.”

“Okay okay!” She giggled before taking another sip of the drink.

“So what was that woman talking about earlier? The prototype? For what?” He questioned suddenly.

Amy was unsure if this was his way of starting a conversation or if he was genuinely after this information. Did he have something against Whisper? The previous thoughts of how she knew nothing about him flooded back into her mind and worried her.

“Why? Do you know her?” She shot back, a bit more biting than she’d intended. He leaned back in the booth seat and shoot his head.

“No- sorry. I know I must seem untrustworthy to you, I was just curious. I don’t know who she is.” He replied, almost reading her like an open book. She took another small sip of her drink before responding again.

“Her name is Whisper, she’s a weapons mechanic. Ever since my work buddy left I’ve felt a little more vulnerable so I wanted to have something to defend myself with. I chatted with her a bit and put some units down for her to make me a prototype, she agreed that she would give me the prototype and let me finish it if I paid her extra.”

“Feeling vigilante-ish?” He asked, maybe she could even say he sneered.

“Gods no.” She responded. “I’m defending myself, that’s all. That’s more of Tail’s thing.” After the words of defense had spilled from her mouth, she zipped her lips into a straight line, she hadn’t meant to name drop.

“Tails...?” He echoed quietly, as if he was thinking about something.

“Yeah- he’s just a friend of mine, sorry, gosh, I shouldn’t have said his name as if you’d know anything about who he was.” She attempted a quick cover up with a bout of short, nervous laughter before covering up said nervous laughter with taking another, larger sip from her drink.

“It’s just an interesting name is all.” He responded calmly before reaching for his drink as well, clearly still thinking hard on something, which didn’t ease her nerves, but he at the very least seemed relaxed. “Can I ask more about the prototype?”

“Sure.” She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“What kind of weapon is it?”

“A collapsible hammer.” She started. “The hammer itself is hollow, so when I fold the handle away I can take out a strap and turn it into a side bag and store things in it, but even though it’s hollow it’ll be made out of a strong metal so it doesn’t break easily and can still hit hard.” Amy explained. She was pretty proud of her idea, though it was quite simple, she loved it dearly, and thought it had a touch of her personality and would work well for her since it could double as a heavy duty duffel bag.

“That’s creative.” He complimented. “I’ve never seen anything like that, it seems like it would work well for you.”

“Thanks- I designed it myself.” Amy smiled slightly and took another sip from her drink, the only other person who she’d told about her weapon was Whisper, who after being around weapons for many years was thoroughly unimpressed with its simplicity. It was nice to hear someone say her design was creative.

“Your food.” The cat waitress’ voice suddenly cut in, setting the two plates of food down on the table. “Enjoy your meal, I will be back to collect the units when you’ve signaled your done by pressing this-“ she gestured to a button at the top of the table. “-button.” She walked away just as elegantly and quietly as she’d arrived, and Amy’s attention was directed back to the table when she heard the clinking of utensils and ‘Myst’ declare, “Time to dig in.”

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #Amy Rose #My writing #fanfiction #sonic fanfiction #Shadamy #cyberpunk au

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specialpatientedna · 5 years

Text

This isn’t canon to my RP blog, but I thought I’d share a dark fanfic AU I’ve been working on for a retelling of Edna & Harvey: The Breakout. NOTE: this is only the first chapter and it’s not finished yet.

Outside, two children were playing. One, a shy and mostly quiet boy who often read books, kept a butterfly collection, collected stamps, but most of all, loved to follow the rules and do as he was told. The other was a girl no more than eight years old, who on the other hand, seemed to have a disdain for authority and rules, often finding ways to stir up mischief for the day. She played with firecrackers, smashed up her toys, tinkered with sharp objects, skipped school, blew up frogs in her backyard she’d catch, wandered abandoned buildings late at night while her father slept, but what really fascinated her, was fire.

The young girl loved to watch the flames dance around and crackle, it’s light so beautiful, bright, and hypnotic, consuming whatever it burned, the flames so full of life. She loved to burn wood, books, insects, toenail clippings, blades of grass, action figures, broken chair legs, leaves, trash cans, jars of old marmalade, broken old toys, scraps of clothing, marbles, bushes, almost anything within her reach. The girl wasn’t sure why or how she came to have this morbid fascination with fire, she just knew it was always there.

And so were those ugly and impulsive urges buried deep inside the back of her head that would worm it’s way up, turning into intrusive thoughts.

“Children! Dinner is ready!” a voice called from inside the house.

“Awww! But it’s too early dad!” the girl whined.

And she was just about to win at a game of marbles too. The boy stood up from the ground, picked up his bag of marbles, and ran up ahead, playfully laughing.

“Race you first!”

The girl brushed stray blades of grass and dirt from her skirt, picked up her half of the marbles that were left on the ground, grabbed her blue ragdoll rabbit she called Harvey, and began walking up the porch towards the backdoor.

“Oh boy!, oh boy!, oh boy! I can’t wait for the dessert Mattis will serve! All the cake! All the ice cream! And cookies! Yummy! Heehee!” an unusual and hyperactive voice giggled.

The girl’s violet eyes gazed at her ragdoll. There it was again, the voice that spoke through her rabbit. She smiled and hugged it close to her chest, it’s warm terrycloth feeling comforting. As a small child she always talked with her ragdoll rabbit Harvey, confiding in it whenever she needed to, seeking comfort when her father was busy working late night shifts again. One day when she was five years old, she was surprised to find her ragdoll had spoken back, greeting her cheerfully as if they had always known each other. The young girl felt she and Harvey were destined to be great friends, and they had remained close friends ever since. Laughing, playing, talking to one another, stirring up mischief together, cracking jokes, finding amusing ways to make her father swear, and, lighting fires.

The young girl opened the sliding glass door and stepped inside for dinner, gently shutting it closed behind her. The girl’s father, Mattis, had prepared an early dinner to welcome the boy and his father, Marcel, in their neighborhood, having just recently moved in. The girl took her seat, served her plate of food, and began to dig into her potato salad and sausage. Mattis and Marcel were busily blabbing about boring grown up topics the girl couldn’t be bothered to listen to, and the young boy was eagerly eating his sausages. The girl started to feel uneasy with a strange feeling in her gut, and a bizarre sense of deja vu.

“Hey! Edna! Alfred’s pretty boring, huh?” Harvey snickered as he sat in the young girl’s lap. “Shhh!” Edna shushed the ragdoll rabbit, glaring at him.

“Be quiet Harv, you know dad can’t see us talking, he’ll think I’m a loon.” “Sorry Edna...” Harvey apologized.

Alfred, Marcel, and Mattis looked up from their meal and stared at Edna with concern. Edna awkwardly stared back before her eyes slowly gazed over to her dinner plate again and she resumed eating her meal.

She felt like she was going to be sick.

Alfred, Marcel and Mattis went back to chatting away, but Edna could barely touch her food. She tried to listen in on the parent’s conversation but she couldn’t focus well. Their voices felt so distant, so far away.

“Hehehe! Edna!, Edna!, Edna! Look at this!” Harvey exclaimed in twisted delight.

Edna froze in her seat, but felt her arm slowly raise up over her head. When did she hold a glass of water? She didn’t remember grabbing it. Edna struggled to put it down, trying not to spill it all over Alfred.

“Harvey! PLEASE!” Edna angrily shouted, but it was too late.

It happened so fast. Her hand, as if being puppeted, attempted to pour the water all over Alfred, but spilled it all over her head and clothes instead. Everyone was now staring at her blankly.

“Is your daughter….always so maladjusted?” Dr. Marcel whispered.

“I’m so sorry for her behavior Dr. Marcel. Edna, go to your room.” Mattis scolded her sternly.

“But it wasn’t my fault!” Edna protested.

“Edna, I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”

Mattis reached in a cabinet, grabbing a bottle of prescription medicine. The label was marked as Chlorpromazine, for Edna Konrad.

Edna felt so humiliated, angry, and scared all at once as she tried hard to fight it, crying, shouting, struggling in her father’s tight grip as he grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to take her medicine before sending her off to her room. And then the world was spinning, pulling her away from consciousness.

She woke up in a cold sweat as her eyes opened in darkness. Gently, she pulled a thin white sheet off her and sat up. Where was she? What did these nightmares mean? Why was she in a locked bedroom in a hospital bed?

She wearily rubbed her eyes. Everything felt so confusing and disorienting. She moved her hand and felt around her bed before feeling a familiar soft material. Touching it, she picked it up, who turned out to be her ragdoll rabbit. At least she still had Harvey to get her through these awful nights. Edna softly stroked his blue terrycloth fur while humming to herself before she lied down in bed covering herself with her thin sheet, shifted into a comfortable position, and went back to sleep.

***********

Edna awoke at 5 AM the next morning to a needle rudely stuck in her arm as the nurse began drawing blood and taking samples, looking over test sheets and paperwork on her clipboard. Edna hadn’t slept well the night before and had dark circles under her eyes, her long violet hair an even bigger mess more than usual, those nightmares and odd visions plaguing her and still fresh on her mind. The nurse smiled sweetly, a genuine smile and turned to face her.

“Good morning Edna, how are you feeling today?” nurse Gretchen asked kindly.

Edna sat up in bed, clutching Harvey by the ears and hugged her knees. She didn’t look up at the nurse, but mumbled something the nurse couldn’t hear.

“It’s alright dear, we all have our bad days.” nurse Gretchen gently told Edna, soothing her like a mother would to her child.

Edna kept hugging her knees, rocking in her bed quietly, but turning to face the nurse, would slowly glance up at Gretchen now and then with one eye, still rocking herself holding on to Harvey with a tight grip. When she was finished getting Edna’s blood sample, nurse Gretchen cleaned and bandaged the wound, tending to it carefully. It reminded Edna of when she was a child and she scraped her knee after a kid pushed her at the playground, her mother Helene patching it up. The memory always felt comforting even though her mother vanished from her and Mattis’s life years ago when she was just five years old. Gretchen leaned against the wall and sighed.

“You know, I can’t even begin to imagine how you really feel. Losing your parents like that.. It must have been so awful for you, and so young. Eight years old..” the nurse murmured.

Edna stopped rocking. Still she spoke nothing, but she studied the nurse carefully with her eyes, moving her long violet locks of hair out of her face. She wanted to speak up, to say something, but she couldn’t find it in her to. Nurse Gretchen moved away from the wall and placed a hand on Edna’s head, gently rubbing the girl in comfort like she was her own daughter, if she had one.

Changing the subject to something more lighter, Gretchen said “Dr. Marcel will be seeing you in two hours, so try and get ready, okay? He’ll be taking you and the other patients to the cafeteria for breakfast. It’s free choice day, I know how much you like that. I’ll be on my way now dearie.”

Nurse Gretchen gathered her medical equipment and strolled out the room, shutting the door behind her, and Edna heard the lock click.

If anyone looked at her right now, they’d see Edna smiled for the first time in years.

***********

#✂️out of sanity (ooc post)#edna bricht aus #edna & harvey #edna and harvey

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brooklynislandgirl · 1 year

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"She's a 10, but she's the only reason purple glitter pens are still a thing." (Stephen)

Wait For It....||

...Says the man who had more watches than Imelda Marcos had shoes. But Beth doesn't say that out loud. She isn't the kind of person who will reply to a harmless bit of teasing with cruelty, and the only reason it even comes to mind is because in some ways she's as comfortable with Stephen as she ever was with her brother, which makes him distinct from everyone else she knows. The only other person she's now so free with is her hanai-sister. Instead, Beth laughs. It crinkles the corners of her nose and shows her teeth. Warmth in her tone and a little touch of shyness that has her glancing down. "Well, at least my notes are immaculate an' distinctive. Know who wrote dem jus' by glancing at da page." She never imagined those years ago when she left ~though perhaps if she were honest about the situation, it was more a running away from him, from her conflicted feelings on two different fronts, and largely herself~ that she would again be working with him side-by-side. And she especially never imagined that it would be outside of the surgical field, protecting sleepers from themselves and the threats beyond their mundane lives. Threats that by and large most of them never dreamed of before, and did not really know how to process even now when they had no other choice but to accept such things were real. From within the veil of her hair she offers Stephen an adoring glance, one that has never changed from the first moment she'd ever laid eyes on him. He'd held her rapt in the lecture hall, continued to captivate her with scalpel in hand, and now as he wove the lifeblood of the universe with incantations and relics, she's still mesmerised. But it only lasts for the length of a heartbeat before she turns back to the small gathering of students.

"But don't let that fool you," she says with achingly precise words. "Master Strange is also a ten, but everything he does comes with its own soundtrack." She uses that as the basis to launch into their shared lecture about foci; ritual tools and their ability to concentrate a magician's will into the working at hand.

#tangleweave #Sorcerer Supreme|Stephen Strange #Sphere Music|Stephen and Beth #The Flames that Burn|Dr Strange au #Brooklyn Stories|New York

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just-aina · 4 years

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Burnish AU time!

Credit to @conflagrationsstyle for brainstorming with me <3

Okay, so! Lemme explain some Headcanons first: Aside from whatever anime-logic physiological factors are needed for basic compatibility--starting with the Great World Burning & ending with the Parnassus Incident--the Promare had attached themselves to people who were experiencing times of crisis because they, themselves were in the same situation. They were just as Sad/Scared/Angry/Hurt as the people they bonded to.

And why wouldn’t they be? They were suddenly stuck on a new planet with no means of returning home/are effectively being tortured through their human host. They’re a very empathic species & without that emotional synchronization, it’s just not possible to become Burnish. So! By that logic, it’s entirely plausible to bond with Promare without it being this big, terrifying ordeal. It just wasn’t happening then because of the traumatic state of the world/Promare.

So, for my purposes in this AU, the return of the Promare--through whatever means (I’m leaving it open to interpretation, shh)--isn’t like it was the first time. It’s at least several months later, if not a full year or so. Long enough that no one expects it to happen. The Promare are still content from burning the local solar system. So far, nothing’s hurt them. However, it still benefits them to bond with humans. By themselves, they’re a wildfire. Together, they’re able to create so much more. Burn brighter. More effectively. Frankly, some portion of the population missed their human partners.

Naturally, the stronger Burnish/those closest to their Promare are the first to regain their powers/notice. So, people like Lio, Gueira, and Meis would be among those at the head of the line. Some aren’t able to resync at all--those whose attachment was weak to begin with, those who rejected their flames, or a few who’d been among the newly awakened Burnish right before the Promare went away. Needless to say, it causes a stir. Frankly, it’s a huge mess and no one can really agree whether it’s a good thing or not--not even among those who will eventually be dubbed the “Old” Burnish.

Because it’s not just them that Lights Up. It’s not as catastrophically fast as it was 30+ years ago, but here & there New Burnish begin awakening. It’s strange. It’s different than last time. Before, it was almost universally a matter of personal crisis; now, no one’s really sure what the contributing factor is. It almost feels random, but the only thing people can agree on was that they were fine before it happened--before they noticed the fire, the strange sensation surging through their body, the desire to burn.

This causes some internal tension among the Burnish. True, like any large group of people, there were always disagreements, differing viewpoints, etc. They weren’t all one voice. Yet, the disparity between this New generation of Burnish--who'd yet to feel the same level of suffering being Burnish had wrought under Kray (or people like him)--and the Old is evident. The world, itself, is still unsure of Burnish as a whole, but progress was being made to make amends. Slow progress... to be thrown into disarray.

And that’s about the state of things. The world just got even more complicated. Again. People are still trying to live, to heal, to rebuild. It’s exhausting.

TL;DR After the Promare return, Aina awakens as a Burnish, much to her confusion and general dismay. She doesn’t understand why now or why her, but it’s her life now. It’s an adventure in acceptance and learning how to handle her new powers... without giving herself away to the entire world. Maybe just a few friends? To start? Maybe some of the other Burnish, too, because she can’t do this by herself. Help.

#I'm home and can compile my thoughts #AU verse #headcanon

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hallodraws · 6 years

Text

Spells & Spiders (Part 1) | Peter Parker x Male!Reader

Wordcount: 1,700

Genre: Male!Witch!Reader x Peter Parker/Spider-Man | The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina x Marvel (MCU) AU Summary: “When Dr. Strange informs Tony that an unknown power seems to be rising in Greendale, Peter is sent on his first solo mission under the Avengers to locate the source. Thinking it could potentially be a weapon (or even an Infinity stone brought to Earth), it's agreed that Peter will go undercover to infiltrate the town to avoid drawing attention. While arriving in a new town brings with it new friends and new opportunities - the town of Greendale houses something far darker than anything the Avengers are prepared for.”

Warnings: None

Author’s Notes: Finally posted something again, I know! It’s been a while. I’ve just been busy putting off all my Christmas shopping. But I’ve been feeling inspired lately and I have a lot of stuff to post as we get closer to Christmas. I hope everyone is as excited as I am. Also, hope this chapter gets people excited, starting a new fic is always hard but I have a lot mapped out for this fic and really think you guys will have fun reading :) Next chapter we get some Peter ♡ Also, if you’d like to be on the tag list, just say so in a comment below!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 20th, OF THIS YEAR

Fire, ash, wood, and leaves are all you can smell. You lay there in the darkness for some time just inhaling the smoke that was all around you. You can't see it, but you know it's there. You can hear the crackling and breaking of scorched wood, you can taste the filth as ash coats the back of your throat, and you can still feel the heat on your skin. You want nothing more than you open your eyes and run as fast as you can away from whatever goes on around you, but you can't. Your body won't respond to your impulses. Try as you might, your eyes stay shut, your mouth remains sealed, and your body lays still as a stone.

At first, you think you're dreaming. It would be the perfect makings of a nightmare, after all. But soon enough, you begin to wonder if you're actually dead, and that this perhaps could be the afterlife. If it is, disappointment doesn't even begin to cover your feelings towards it. You try hard - so hard that it feels like your brain is splitting - desperately trying to remember what actions led to this very moment. But you can't. No matter how much effort you put into it, the memories of minutes, hours, days, and even months passed won't return. This revelation scares you more than any fire.

You feel something wet roll across your face. It's soft and slippery as it glides over your skin. You can't even begin to fathom what it is - but then it happens again. Over and over this unseen appendage slides across your cheek. You can feel your eyes twitch under your lids, your fingers start to tingle, and even your lips begin to part, letting cool Autumn air flow into your lungs. That's when you hear it, a bark - a loud dog's bark right against your ear. It frightens you, but it's also enough to jolt you from the ground.

Your eyes are finally open. You can feel them dart in every direction, not knowing where to look first. There's the wet feeling again, this time on your hand. You turn your head so fast you almost give yourself whiplash, but what you see surprises you.

It's a dog - a big dog in fact. You watch as this black Doberman licks your hand clean of any soot before he too takes notice of your gaze. He turns up, looking directly into your eyes. You can practically feel his stare burn into you, but the longer you look into the jet black eyes of the dog, you begin to feel something else. It starts as a light headache - gentle but prevalent - but then it turns into something more. Thoughts enter in and out of your mind, all of them disjointed and out of order, but one thing stands out amongst all else - a name.

"Z-Zeus...?" Your voice cracks as you speak the name as it constantly repeats in your head. The dog's ears perk up, his tongue flopping out of his mouth as he leans in to lick your cheek once more. Soon, other memories work their way to the front to connect the dots. It's his name. He's your dog, Zeus - your familiar, your friend, and your partner. Nothing else makes sense at this moment, your head still a jumbled mess of information. But Zeus doesn't give you time to ponder your predicament any longer. You watch as his ears lay back as he sets his sights behind you.

You turn to see what has his attention. As the smoke is carried away by the October breeze, you see it. No more than twenty feet away from you sits the skeleton of a house - charred and mangled by fire. The few flames that remain and the many cinders that coat the wooden beams are enough to cast a golden gleam on the trees behind it. You shakily get to your feet, Zeus standing protectively beside you.

The feeling comes again. You can feel thoughts, ideas, voices, and words go in and out of your head. It feels as though you're on a speeding train, actively trying to communicate with those who stand at the platform. You pick out small things, a word or memory here and there, but most is lost in an echo. After a few hazy minutes of it though, you finally make the connection.

"This... is my house." You whisper into the air. Zeus's paw pats at your foot. You turn to him, and somehow the look in his deep black eyes are enough to let you know that you are correct. This is your house - or perhaps it was your house. And now, it's gone.

It's strange. You feel... well, you're not sure how you feel. You look into the ash and actively know, everything you own is nothing more than dust at this point. But you don't grieve for any of it - simply because you can't remember any of it. That's when you get to thinking. Were you in this house alone? What about your parents?

That word sends a chill down your spine. Parents. Parents. No matter how many times you say, think, or scream those words, no memories come to you. You know you have parents, everyone does. But you can't remember their names, their faces, even their voices. What crosses your mind next makes you sick to your stomach. You don't miss them. You don't miss your own parents. How could you? You don't even know who they are. You can't miss something you don't recall ever having.

It's not the worry that hurts you - because you don't have any of that. It's guilt. You feel tremendously guilty. What kind of a son can't even remember his parents? What kind of son can't recall the face of the very woman who gave him life? Tears begin to stream down your face, and that makes the pain even worse, because no matter how many tears fall, no matter how many cries you let out into the dark, no matter how many times you smash your hands into your empty head - you can't remember anything.

You feel Zeus's body leave your side. He walks to the edge of the woods, standing motionless.

"Zeus?" You call out, but still, he doesn't move. Before you can call out a second time, you watch as your familar takes off into the darkness of the Greendale woods. You quickly sprint in after him, calling his name with every bound. You feel the warmth and light of the fire leave you as you venture deeper and deeper into the woods. Things grow dark very quickly, and if it weren't for Zeus's occasional bark into the night, you would've surely gotten lost by now. You watch his tale in the distance as your only guide, hoping you won't lose track.

"Where are you going?!" you scream out, your voice bouncing off the trees. Zeus responds with a quick bark and continues forward, leaping over every stone and branch in his way. You can barely keep up, the chill from the air making it hard to breathe. You wouldn't last much longer at this rate. You were just so exhausted - physically and mentally. And just when you feel your legs are about to give way beneath you, you see a light in the distance.

The trees break, and the moon shines brightly above you. You finally catch up the Zeus, who now sits patiently for you at the edge of the trees.

"W-What... the hell... was all that about?" you can barely catch your breath, speaking in segments through your still scorched throat. You begin to feel a bit light headed. Was it the running, the fire, or was it whatever was going on in your head? Regardless you found it difficult to stand on your own two legs anymore. Zeus noticed this as well and nudged you, quickly turning to face the source of light you saw through the trees.

There stood, in the center of the clearing, a large grey house. It sat there peacefully adorned with dozens of lit jack-o-lanterns across the deck. You saw as smoke puffed from the chimney and lights gleamed from almost every window. Not far from it was a sign, also illuminated.

"Spellman Mortuary. Funerals, rituals, and rites." you read aloud, trying to focus your vision just long enough to grasp maybe where it was Zeus led you. You could hear his feet sprint off again, this time in the direction of the house. You groan to yourself, unsure you could keep pace with him this time. But you didn't want to be alone - you felt alone enough. And Zeus was all you had for the time being.

So you rush after the dog the best you can, feeling woozier with every few feet, unsure you'd even make it to the house. You watch as your familiar makes it to the front door, barking loud enough to wake the whole town. You only have a few more feet to go, but your legs ache and begin to fold. You reach the bottom of the stairs when you finally drop. You try to keep yourself upright but you just can't. You're so tired - tired of running, of feeling guilty, of trying to remember, and of so much more. Your eyes slowly droop as your dog continues to bark at the front door, but It's not enough to keep you awake.

Soon, the sounds around you begin to drift, almost turning into echoes. You hear the front door open, and Zeus finally stops.

"Now where did you come from, beast?" a woman’s voice speaks to Zeus. You can't find the strength to look up and put a face to the voice. You hear Zeus shuffle down the deck steps to stand by your side once more.

"Oh my... Hilda, Sabrina! Come quick!" the voice calls out once more - the last thing you hear before you finally drift off, back into the quiet dark.

NEXT ▶ PART 2

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1-1snailxd-art · 5 years

Text

Elements of Love - Ending Version 1 - *SPOILERS*

ch 1 -- ch 2 -- ch 3

Only read if you’ve read chapter 3 and chosen this ending

Logan decides to go home

Hint - 💀

“I want to go home.”

Ethan and Remus were silenced by Logan’s sudden comment, the first he had spoken above a whisper since he revived Virgil. A smug grin spread across Ethan’s face as he watched Remus’s drop in defeat.

“Roman, help me get Virgil to the van.”

Remus watched in silence as Roman and Ethan took Virgil to the van, Patton guiding the air elemental that weakly followed. It was pointless to fight; the decision had been made; they would follow Ethan regardless of the severity of the situation. As Roman stepped out of the van, Remus moved over to speak to his brother one final time.

“I guess you’ll want your helmet back.” Roman offered the green helmet, but Remus pushed it back.

“Keep it. I need one of you to be safe at least.”

“Give Ethan a little credit, Dukey. He does actually care about me and my partners, unlike you.” He shoved the helmet into Remus’s chest with such force they stumbled back slightly.

“Whatever. Call me when you’re ready to face the truth.”

Remus shoved the helmet on his twin’s head and turned away before Roman could argue. As the van pulled away, Roman mounted his bike to follow; thankful the helmet concealed his tears.

**********************

Stepping out of the bathroom, Remus was shocked to pick up his phone from the kitchen table and find a voice message from Patton in his inbox. He hadn’t heard from the group since they parted ways at the fire 3 days ago and was worried what news Patton would bring. Putting the message on speaker, Remus sat down and feared the worse.

“Remus. It’s Patton…um…Roman is on his way to your place. Well…I think he is. C-can you call me…if he doesn’t. Thanks. Bye.”

An echoed knock at the door had Remus rushing to the front door to find Roman in tears on the front step. No words were exchanged as the twins embraced; silent sobs shaking the younger twin’s body. After a lengthy silence, Remus guided his brother inside, and they fell into the soft folds of the old brown couch. Regardless of past disagreements, the two were still family and Remus was glad to have his brother back; even if he wasn’t yet sure of the reason behind it.

Anton pushed the door to his apartment open and was shocked to find his roommate on the couch with…his roommates head on his lap?

“Remus? Why is there an uglier version of you on your lap?”

“Because I failed at teaching him the importance of makeup. Get my phone for me would you.”

“Hmm, don’t make a habit out of this.” He remarked, walking towards the kitchen and tossing the phone over the back of the couch so it landed on the cushion beside Remus. “You know how I feel about strange men on the couch.”

“Then why do you live with me?” Remus laughed, tapping out a message to Patton.

“You have good design taste and I find you aesthetically pleasing on the odd occasion. So, what’s with the double?” Anton tossed his black scarf aside and sat at the table with a glass of iced tea he prepared earlier.

“I’m about to find out.” Remus sighed, sliding his finger across his phones screen just as Patton’s call came through.

“Is Roman okay?”

Patton sounded so small on the other end, which only confirmed the man’s fears further.

“He’s asleep right now.”

“Th-Thank g-goodn-ness…” There were muffled voices in the background and Remus pressed the phone harder against his ear to try and hear what was said before he heard Patton yelling with a surprisingly firm tone. “Get out! I told you not to come near us again!”

“Patton? What’s wrong? Who’s there?”

The concern in Remus’s voice caused the tired man in his lap to stir; eyes slowly blinking open and staring at the space ahead. Heart heavy with betrayal and loss.

“…I’m fine. It was just Ethan. You were right Remus; we should have trusted you.”

“I…I didn’t want to be right in this way.” He admitted solemnly, looking down at his twin. “I hoped I would be wrong like usual; only seeing the worst in people.”

“Not this time.”

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in, Remus asked the question he knew he needed answered. “What happened, Patton?”

“You were right. Logan was…” Patton took a shaky breath in and composed himself before continuing. “Ethan said Virgil was physically fine. That he just needed time, but Logan wouldn’t leave his side. We…we trusted Ethan and left them alone, and then… he was gone … just. Gone.”

“Virgil didn’t make it.” Lowering his head, Remus watched as Roman slowly shook his head.

“Virgil’s in a coma in the hospital. Logan was gone before the ambulance arrived.”

Remus felt the colour drain from his face at their words; the revelation sitting heavy on his heart. He had been right; Logan had been keeping Virgil alive that day. If they’d gone to the hospital the pair would have been separated and their injuries would have been correctly treated; instead Logan had given everything he had to keep his partner alive.

Rising from the table, Anton moved to stand in front of the pair on the couch; neatly replacing his scarf as he moved.

“Come on Sad-ner twins, I’ll take you to the hospital. My car’s better than either of your scrapheaps on wheels.”

Ignoring the insult, Remus helped Roman up and the group headed out in a heavy silence.

*****************

I’d like to say this story had a happy ending, but not all stories do. Choices have consequences, and Logan chose to give up his life rather than risk going to a hospital. He was afraid. Afraid of the questions they would ask about him and his family. Afraid that they would be taken away like Ethan’s own children had been. He only wanted his family to be safe.

Virgil remained in a coma, leaving medical professionals baffled as to the cause. Patton and Roman visited their partner daily; secretly bending their elements in his presence in the hopes that they could encourage the energy to flow to him again.

Following Logan’s funeral, Ethan thought it best to leave town, but not before Remus confronted him.

“So, Dr. Horrible, was it worth it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ethan replied, shoving the last bag into the back of his car.

“Lying to them. How does it feel to have blood on your hands yet again?”

Ethan couldn’t make eye contact; keeping his head low, remorse causing his body to tremble.

“I never wanted this to happen.”

“Yeah, but you let it happen. Logan is dead and it’s unlikely Virgil will ever wake up either.” Visually wincing at each word, Ethan slowly turned to Remus as he continued to speak. “Your kids died because you knew nothing of their powers and you’ve pretty much done the same thing to my brother and his partners.”

“What? How did you-“

“I’m not as dumb as you think. I can research.”

“But you never told them. Why?”

“I’m not an idiot. I knew they would never believe my word alone.”

“So Logan’s blood is on your hands as much as mine!” Ethan snapped; quickly knocked back by Remus’s heated fist as it hit his cheek.

“Don’t you dare put his death on me!” Remus held clenched fists at his sides, steam emanating from between his fingers. “This is your final warning. Come anywhere near any of us again, and I won’t hold the flames back.”

The fury in Remus’s eyes was concerning enough, but the fact that he was creating heat without an external source was downright terrifying. Ethan nodded to accept the terms a quickly slid into the driver’s seat, pulling out of the driveway with Remus watching until it vanished from sight.

____________________________________

That was the end. Want to jump to another universe and try the other ending - CLICK HERE

Let me know your thoughts on this story and the ending. I’m just glad this project is finally done.

💜🐌

___________________________________

What else have I done:

The Shield to your Sword (WIP - A fantasy/magic au - Prinxiety (Royal Roman and orphan Virgil - they’ll admit to their love eventually), Virgil angst, non binary healer Logan, *spoiler* Patton, cursed Deceit and ridiculous Remus)

Libraries are for Meetings (ongoing WIP - Human/University au with Royality and developing Analogical. Slow burn and heavily focused on a grieving group of friends that Virgil slowly becomes a part of to better himself.)

And more….

Writing Master Post

Check out my other blog for random fandom reblogs and stuff @snail-giggles

#elements of love #elements of love ending 1 #major character death #death mention tw

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marshmallow-phd · 6 years

Text

The Wanderers

Sequel to The Experiments

Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller, experiment au

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Jongin

Summary: After escaping the hell that was EXO Applied Sciences, Jongin was lost. While some of his brothers were able to settle down, he was restless. And his powers were still growing. Never staying in place too long, Jongin and a few others have been watching their backs, knowing that there were people still out there, wanting to take them back. Someone is closing in and you, an innocent, are sucked into the world you never asked to be apart of….

Warning: none

Part: Prologue I 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I 15 I 16 I 17 I 18 I Final

The guards were now back up on their feet, but still dazed. Kyungsoo found an opening and took it. He ran at the guards, commandeering their guns and smashing them together. The pieces that crumpled to the ground wouldn’t be doing any damage ever again.

Next, Kyungsoo did the same to the guards’ head, effectively knocking them out where you couldn’t.

“Come on, (y/n)!”

Nodding, you ran after Kyungsoo back into the direction of the cells.

“We need to find some sort of control panel,” you told Kyungsoo, who didn’t really seem like he was listening. “Or maybe a nurse who-”

Kyungsoo smashed his fist into the keypad of Minseok’s cell and the door appeared, sliding open for the occupant to escape.

You threw your hands up. “Or we could do that. How did you know that would work?”

The superman shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

“Okay, then,”you motioned to the next cell. “Get to smashing.”

Kyungsoo threw you a look before heading over to Sehun’s cell.

“He’s not the only one who can be helpful,” Minseok smirked. Walking up to Baekhyun’s cell, he put his hand against the keypad. The moisture in the air began to crystalize, crackling and growing on the pad until the electronics in the system shorted out.

“Have you been able to do that this whole time?” you gaped.The more you learned about these boys and their powers, the more fascinated you were. You could almost understand Dr. Wang’s obsession with them. Almost.

Minseok shook his head. “No. In the beginning I was simply immune to the cold. This is something that’s only developed recently. Personally, I kinda like it.”

“You think that’s cool,” Baekhyun scoffed as he stepped into the hallway. “Check out what I learned to do.” He snapped his fingers and the lights above went out, leaving everyone in the dark.

“Baekhyun! Turn the lights back on!” you heard Jongdae yell.

The lights returned with another click of Baekhyun’s fingers and suddenly a body collided with you.

“Oh, thank god,” Jongin breathed into your ear. He pulled back, cupping your jaw as his eyes search you from head to toe.

“She didn’t do anything to me,” you told him. “Except patch me up a bit. And have a very strange heart-to-heart with me.”

Jongin frowned. “What did she tell you?”

You shrugged, “She just talked about the only reason she started the experiments was because of her son. He was a soldier that died.”

“That doesn’t excuse her actions,” he growled.

“I didn’t say it did.”

“This little reunion is cute and all,” Kris interjected, “but we need to get out of here before-” he cursed. “Too late.”

Hoards of guards emerged from both ends of the hallway, trapping everyone in.

“This feel familiar to anyone else?” Chanyeol grumbled.

“I hope this is the last time we experience this,” Yixing agreed.

You weren’t in on whatever they were talking about, but you had an inkling. Had Chanyeol meant the last time they escaped from EXO? Hopefully since last time they got away, you could all repeat the success.

Exactly how they made it out last time was something you would have to ask later as Jongin repositioned you so everyone else was covering you from every side.

“Try to stay out of the way,” Jongin whispered over his shoulder. “Just let us handle this.”

“Um, you were the one who told me to fight,” you hissed back to him.

“That was to get away from Dr. Wang when the rest of us were locked up,” he explained. “Now, let us protect you.”

“Just shut up and listen to him, (y/n),” Tao growled. You jumped a little at his harshness, but nodded.

Speaking of the devil, Dr. Wang made her way to the front of the group to your left.

“This is getting very tiring,” she retorted. “If you all get back into your cells, you’ll avoid punishment. Especially for (y/n).”

Not having any of that, Kris challenged, “If you just let us go, then no one will have to die today.”

A cackle from the other side of the room bounced off the walls, tearing your attention away from the scientist. Sergeant Kim had joined the little impromptu meeting along with Mr. Lim, pushing through to the front of the group on your right.

“Death is such a depressing subject, don’t you think?” Mr. Lim hummed. “Perhaps, we should change the topic to something more cheerful? Such as how far you boys have come? I see you’ve developed gifts well beyond what we could ever imagine. Perfect for what we’ve planned.”

Jongdae snorted. “If you think you’re going to use us to take over the world, I’d rearrange your plans.”

Mr. Lim laughed. “World domination? That’s a bit an old fashioned motive, don’t you think? To be the mastermind, these days, you have to be more creative.”

“So, then what do you want us for?” Minseok shouted.

“My business,” Mr. Lim replied simply. “Maybe you’ll eventually find out if you cooperate.”

“I’m not that curious, personally,” Sehun admitted. “Now, can we hurry this up? I’m in enough trouble with Nada as it is.”

“Agreed,” Kris snarled. “Let’s end this.”

Dr. Wang looked pained, as if she’d expected some other out come. “Please, don’t do this.”

“We have no choice,” Yixing said. “We have a right to our own lives. And we will fight for it.”

All the boys moved into stances that were on the offense. Something grew warm and you gasped when you found Chanyeol’s hands were on fire. Tao adjusted his stance to reflect that of a martial artist and blue sparks danced across Jongdae’s fingers.

This was going to be one hell of a fight.

Jongin could hear your heartbeat rising erratically. He wanted to run you out of there, get you away from the fight, but there was no time nor a way out that was clear. So all he could do was keep half of his attention on you and trust the others to do the same.

Kim was the first person to make a move, cocking his Taser gun and firing it randomly into the group. Whatever outcome he was expecting, it surely didn’t meet what came instead. Jongdae, ever so smug, snatched the Taser out of the air and started tossing it up and down as if it were a baseball, a smirk plainly on his lips.

“Now!” Kim yelled, furious.

The two groups of guards descended on them and from there on out it was chaos. Jongin, Kyungsoo, Tao, and Chanyeol flanked you on all sides, holding off anyone who might try to come to close. Screams erupted from the poor soul who decided to go after Chanyeol. Their entire chest as on fire, melting straight through the armor. The smell of burning flesh hit Jongin’s nose. He concentrated on breathing through his mouth and avoiding the punches of the guard in front of him.

Tao made swift work of whoever engaged him, having always been more naturally gifted in fighting hand to hand. Kyungsoo was throwing guards left and right, not bothering to engage them for long.

Jongin was thankful for his quick reflexes, able to dodge the highly trained punches and kicks of the idiot in front of him. But then a whimper from you momentarily distracted him. A flame from Chanyeol’s hands had landed on your arm. You were quick to put it out, but the skin was left red and bubbly.

Shit.

They were supposed to be protecting you, not adding to your injuries.

That worry for you was enough of an opening for his opponent to pick him up and throw him down to the ground, away from his post in protecting you. The guard straddled him and pinned his hands down to the floor. The asshole actually laughed like he’d accomplished something. His fatal mistake, however, was releasing one of Jongin’s hands to reach out and grab his Taser.

Taking the opportunity, Jongin grabbed the guard’s head and hit it against his own, knocking the guard out while he just simply shook it off. After pushing the guard away from him, he jumped to his feet, searching for you. He heard your scream before he found you. A frightening roar erupted from his throat.

Kim had gotten to you. Caught in his grip, you were at Kim’s mercy as he held tight onto your hair, keeping you at his feet.

“Alright, I’m done playing around.” Kim pulled a gun - not a Taser gun but one of powder and bullets - out from the holster on his hip and held to your head. “Get back in your cells or you say goodbye to your precious little girl here.”

Jongin leapt forward, not thinking about anything but getting to you, getting you out of danger and away from the psychopath. But he was in Kyungsoo’s cage, who’d wrapped Jongin in a vice so strong he couldn’t break free. No one moved, simply staring Kim down with mixed snarls and shocked faces.

“One,” Kim warned. “Two.” He cocked back the hammer of the gun. All of the hybrids were swaying in their spots, torn between fighting their way to freedom and saving your life.

Once Jongin caught your stare, you shook your head, implying for him not to save you. Visibly swallowing, you mouthed “I love you” before closing your eyes.

“Thr-”

Kim stopped before he could finish the word.

All around, time seemed to slow to a complete stop. The pace that everyone was moving around him made it seem like the enemy was frozen.

“What the hell?” Kyungsoo murmured behind him. In his shock, he let Jongin go. The latter started towards you, but Tao was already at your side, carefully removing Kim’s hand from your hair.

Tao pulled you up to your feet before wrapping you up in an embrace. It was a short one before Tao let you go and nudged you towards Jongin. Confused, you looked to Tao one last time before running straight to Jongin’s open arms.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Jongin whispered.

“But-”

Noticing what Tao was doing next, Jongin pulled you into his chest, not giving you the chance to turn around. Jongin watched as Tao rearranged Kim’s arm so the gun was now pointed at his own head. Then time continued on as normal.

“Three.” Bang!

You flinched at the sound and Kim fell to the ground, dead. Everyone stared at the sergeant, confounded as to what had just occurred. Holding you close, Jongin willed his power to work, to get you out and away from this violence. He tried to think of what happened back at the factory, what was going through his head at the time and how he was feeling. Saving you. That was all he could remember.

Crack.

Jongin let out a sigh of relief when he was no longer surrounded by guards and glass walls. They were in the woods by the jeep. He actually did it. Maybe now he could do it whenever he wanted. But that would have to wait for another time. All that mattered was you were safe.

But you were also crying. Out of fear or relief, he didn’t know.

“(y/n)?”

You leaned back just enough to look up at him. Then the corner of your lip lifted just smidge. “Is that future possible now?”

Jongin kissed your forehead. “It’s always been possible. But I have to go back and make it a definite.”

Nodding, you stepped back. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

Unable to resist, Jongin kissed you. “Stay here. We’ll come for you.”

Turning away from you, Jongin started walking back towards the mansion. On the third step, he teleported.

He arrived back to a mess. Several guards were still fighting his brothers. Sehun was doing an especially good job of holding his own. Now that you weren’t there to protect, no one was holding back.

Dr. Wang was injured somehow, most likely by a stray bullet. She was crawling on the floor as she held her stomach. Blood trickled out from between her fingers, staining her white lab coat. Jongin walked over to her, keeping his face composed and unsympathetic.

“This is your own fault,” he told Dr. Wang as he blocked her way to an unknown room. Probably a place that house medical supplies. Kneeling down, he narrowed his eyes. “If you’d just let us go, you might have lived a long life. Certainly not happy from what I’ve seen of you, but still.”

“Jongin,” she huffed, shifting to a sitting position.

Jongin felt his expression falter. Never had she ever called any of them by their names. They were simply numbers, subjects to her. He didn’t realize she even knew their real names.

“Help me, please,” she begged. Blood was pouring from her stomach at an alarming rate. She needed medical attention and soon.

“No.” Jongin straightened up to his feet. “I’m not Junmyeon. I won’t give you a chance to get out. Instead, I’m going to have you stay right there, bleeding out while you watch your precious research walk out of here, free. Hopefully for you, there’s no hell. If there is, then I’d hate to see where you end up.” He started to walk away, but Dr. Wang stopped him, grabbing his ankle.

“You’re not the revenge type, Jongin,” she huffed, struggling to breathe. “You’re the protector. The hero. Letting someone die out of anger isn’t who you are.”

“You almost killed the most important person to me on multiple occasions.” One last time, Jongin bent down, going so low that he was nearly nose to nose with the doctor. “Wanna bet?”

Wrenching his ankle free, Jongin walked away, smirking.

“Tao!” Kris yelled out, having taken out one of the last guards. “Can you do that again?”

Just a few feet away, Tao high kicked a guard, effectively finishing him off. “Do what?”

Kris ran to him. “The time thing!”

The younger one nodded. “Yeah, why?”

Pointing to Moo San, who was trying to sneak away, Kris gave his answer silently. Tao concentrated and once again, everything froze while they were able to walk around freely. Kris stalked towards the financier, picking up Kim’s stray gun on the way.

Moo San was pressed up against the wall, completely unaware of the manicing hybrid standing before him. After taking a deep breath, Kris raised the gun, aiming it right in the middle of Moo San’s forehead. Closing his eyes, Kris pulled the trigger.

Tao let time speed back up and Moo San slumped to the floor.

“Wow,” Baekhyun sighed. “That really just happened.”

Jongin looked to each of his brothers scattered across the hallway, intermixed with the unconscious bodies. Taking one last glance at Dr. Wang, he sighed at her limp, unmoving form. Her eyes were closed and her chest no longer moved from her lungs taking in air. She was dead as well.

“We’re free.”

#exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #exo hybrid!au #exo hybrid au #exo x fem reader #exo x fem!reader #kim jongin x reader #kai #d.o.#do kyungsoo

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