#The spider situation was a bit much but it was so worth having nightmares every night since

[mandareeboo]

Unfinished Work #60: "Untitled" (Finished)

I never felt up to publishing this, but I've been rewatching BoJack and felt it'd be good to put here! A little goodbye to an old friend between Hollyhock and Diane.

Title: N/A

Summary: N/A

"Sorry about this," the horse said. "You're probably really busy with writer things."

"You wanna know what I was going to do before coming out on the porch to have a smoke and chat with you?" Diane asked dryly. "I was about ten seconds away from telling my husband I was going out onto the porch to have a smoke. It's not even half the inconvenience you think it is."

"Oh," she responded, and fell silent.

Diane let out a gust of lung cancer in a long, drawn-out sigh. Texas is pretty in postcards but hotter than the sun in person, with the added bonus of all sorts of creepy crawlies straight out of the official nightmare catalogue, but it's kind of nice? There's trees everywhere. Lots of open, bumpy land. The spider currently weaving its web a few feet from her isn't even venomous- it's an orb weaver of some sort. All in all, better than death.

It'd be nicer if her company talked, though.

"Let me guess," Diane prompted, making her jump. "You're Hollyhock, right?"

"Bojack told you about me?" Hollyhock asked, ignoring her question.

"He told all his friends about you. He was really excited to have family he didn't loathe with all his being."

"Oh," she repeated, softer this time.

"Relax, you're not gonna end up on his wiki page or anything. And, for what it's worth, I'm really happy to meet you in person. You're shorter than I thought you'd be."

Hollyhock looked at her hands, where her phone was situated, then back at Diane. "Bojack's told me about you, too. He talked a lot about a lot of things, but you especially."

"And that made you think I had answers?"

She shrugged helplessly.

Diane took another drag. "You want the truth? He's an asshole. Whatever you feel or suspect about him is absolutely vindicated."

"Yeah." she said. "But I miss him anyway. Isn't that... awful?"

"No? I don't think it is. I mean, the part that sucks about people is that they're more than just one thing. Sure, Bojack is a sleezy, emotionally-abusive jerk who's slept with almost every woman he's ever met, but he also sends stupid little text messages about stuff he saw on his drive home, and one time when he got drunk he sang the lollipop song and it was actually the prettiest thing ever, and he helps you pack even though he complains the whole time. He's all that shit."

"He once threw his mom's doll out a window."

"I know. He told me."

"He did?"

"He's always drunk-dialed me. Fifteen years now, and I'm his drunk-dial SOS." Diane considered her cigarette a moment. It was her first one of the day. A new record low. "I never met her, but I spoke to Beatrice twice- for his book."

"Oh, yeah, that thing. I never read it?"

"It sold alright, but it wasn't the next great American novel. Anyway, I called the retirement home to get a statement- got the phone number off of Bojack's long-time manager and friend Princess Carolyn- and called. This was before the dementia really ate up her brain- think, I dunno, almost nine years before you knew her- and she was still pretty sharp. I said, 'hi, this is Diane Nyguyen, I'm ghost-writing a novel about your son, Bojack' and she said, 'what, is he too lazy to write it himself'?"

Hollyhock winced. "Woof."

"Oh, I'm just getting started." Diane flicked some ash away. "We went in circles a bit, but eventually I laid it out for her. 'Mrs. Horseman', I said, 'I'm writing about your son's life, and as such I have called to see if you had any note-worthy stories or quotes you'd like to add'. She was pretty quiet for a minute. Then she said, 'sure, why not, I'm dying anyway. Might as well debase myself even more.' She told me all about her husband, Butterscotch-"

"Bojack never said much about him."

"There wasn't much to say, honestly. Bojack took after him and he always hated himself for it. Beatrice despised her husband for being unfaithful, bitter, and sexist. And she told me, 'now, put this in your little book, girl, and put it word-for-word. Bojack took after him, but he had the sense to be a bit quieter about it; which is a bit like saying the hissing roach is less disturbing to the eyes than the American one because it eats leaves instead of garbage. They're both insects, and they're both a waste of the paper their books were written on'." She paused. "Gotta say, she was damn eloquent."

Hollyhock winced again. "Double woof."

"It's the one story I never put into One Trick Pony. Not because I thought she'd regret saying it, or because it wouldn't fit the tone of the book, but because I knew it'd rip Bojack apart. Even back then, I was putting him above my own job. He has a way of worming into things like that." Diane stamped out the rest of the smoke, then pulled out another one. "I used to smoke like a freight train, but now it's only when I get worked up. Sorry about the second-hand."

Hollyhock was quiet again, but this time it was more pensive than anything else. "I... wrote him a letter. I actually don't even know if he read it, because he kept sending me voicemails telling me he would, but he never told me he did before I changed my number. I thought it'd be over. I thought I was moving on, but..."

"Moving on isn't the same as moving away," Diane said. "Trust me. I've packed houses before. But even now, I still find myself looking for him in the news, or thinking back to the good times we had."

"Mhmm. He tried to learn sports for me, you know? Because he wanted to cheer me on. And that still means a lot to me. But then I remember that interview, and I just... I just can't do it. I can't talk to someone who's done stuff like that."

"That's completely in your right! I know you're a grown-up, but you're still pretty young, you know? Bojack's in his fifties. His problems shouldn't be on anyone, but they especially shouldn't be on you."

"You won't tell him I came, will you? I know you're friends, but..."

"I think your definition of friendship is a bit different from us, kiddo. I mean, we haven't spoken in almost a year now. I just go see his movies, and he sends me long rambling reviews about my books, and we follow each other on social media."

"That feels like friendship," she concurred. "Mrs. Nyguyen?"

"God, don't. Diane."

"Diane. Did you and Bojack….?"

"Nope. But not because he didn't want to. I was dating when we first met, and married a good chunk of the time I lived in L.A. Now I'm married again. If I hadn't been... well, he would've tried, if nothing else."

"And you?"

She pursed her lips. "There was a time where I lived in his house and spent every day getting shitfaced drunk, and nothing skeevy happened. He'd come home, I'd be drunk and when was Bojack not drunk? We'd drink more and we'd watch reruns of Horsin' Around. I liked that. It wasn't healthy, but I liked it. And I liked him. I try not to think too hard about it, but... I dunno, honestly."

Hollyhock pulled her knees to her chest. "I came here hoping to find a way to stop missing him. Now I just miss him even more? I hate emotions."

Diane smiled. It was bittersweet. "Now you sound like a true Horseman."

[mlmxreader]

An Abandoned Hotel | Hugo Stiglitz x gn!reader

@inlovewithhugostiglitz asked: okay so i had an idea for a fic,, so it's hugo stiglitz x gn! reader with the prompt "you can sleep in my bed, it's fine" and they end up cuddling and the basterds find them, if u do this tysm 😭

summary: you and Hugo are impossible to keep apart.

tws: swearing

support your fanfic writers by reblogging what you read & enjoy

An abandoned hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere, only a handful of rooms were left untouched by the recent Nazi bombings, destroying countless homes and businesses, forcing people to flee or risk their lives being taken from them in a cruel and inhumane manner; the alleyways smelled of death and sadness.

No birds sang in the trees nearby, no snakes slithered in the grass, even spiders and woodlice seemed non-existent as you and the Basterds made your way through the hotel, hearts pounding and breath shaky; in the jaws of death just waiting for the mouth to snap shut and consume you all, hoping that at the very least, if you were to be swallowed by death itself, then maybe at least you could attempt to make it worth something, anything. Kill a few Nazis, at least. 

The world needed less Nazis. Bastard cunts deserved to die. 

But you made it in the end, and Aldo decided to tell everyone where they should sleep for the night; you couldn’t say you were surprised when he told you that you were bunking up with Hugo. The two of you had been dating for months, never went anywhere without the other - even if it was something small, like stopping to tie a shoelace, you were not able to be separated. Never.

You and Hugo couldn’t be separated even if Aldo had tried to, so it was only natural that he had assigned you to the same room; it wasn’t that bad, although it was impossibly cold, and you found yourself shivering as you put down your bag by the door, right next to his. Hugo didn’t seem to mind the cold, simply pulling back the scratchy and worn blanket, beating off the bits of debris and ash that had stuck to it, not even thinking as he left it there, turning to you with a slight frown. 

“Nicht perfekt, aber… nich schlecht,” he sounded like he was going to start apologising for it. 

You shook your head, licking your lips as you sighed and took a look at the blanket for a moment. “It’s fine - as long as it’s not a lumpy rock.”

Hugo dared to crack a small smile as he nodded curtly. “You can sleep in my bed, it’s fine.”

You couldn’t stop the laugh that left you, waiting for him to get beneath the blanket before you copied; the bed was too small for you to actually lie side by side, the way that you preferred, and as you were the last to get into it, you took the initiative. Moving around until you could lie on top of him, a little uncomfortable but not as bad as you had been before; it was, at least, bearable. You supposed that you could sleep like that.

“Is this comfortable enough for you?”

Hugo nodded, wrapping his arms around you lazily as he let out a quiet yawn; if he was honest, he would have slept anywhere and on anything so long as he had you there with him. It helped him much more than he could say, to have you near and to feel you there with him, it helped him a lot more than he was willing to admit; being able to calm down when he had nightmares, just by listening to your breath and feeling it against his skin. Being able to know that you were right there with him at all times, it helped.

He didn’t tell you, though, didn’t feel the need to as he knew somehow that you knew anyway, and he didn’t need to explain it much more than that; he was, however, still quite happy to snuggle into you and to feel you against him. A sense of somewhat normalcy washing over him as he sighed and allowed himself to relax a little bit; maybe you weren’t in a normal, domestic situation, but Hugo was comforted by the thought that, once the war was over, you would be doing this every night - in an actual, real, bed. 

You snuggled into him a little further, yawning against him as you closed your eyes and started to drift off, starting to actually doze off; depending entirely on who was on top, or who was nearest the exist, you and Hugo almost took turns to fall asleep first, as you didn’t want the other to feel unsafe or to feel as if they needed to stay up. Tonight, evidently, was your turn to drift off last, as you were on top this time, and you needed to stay awake for just a few moments longer. But once you were certain that Hugo was asleep, you finally let yourself go, going limp against him as you snuggled in as much as you could, holding onto him tightly. 

However, while you and Hugo were asleep, sound and away with the sweet clouds and the soft embrace of one another, the Basterds had taken a look around to see if they could find anything of worth - food, especially, was on their minds as they snooped and searched. It was Wicki and Donny and Aldo who were the ones to discover you and Hugo, looking amongst themselves for a moment; they silently debated who would be the one to say anything.

“Not me,” Donny shook his head. “I ain’t fuckin’ wakin’ up Hugo and (y/n).”

“I don’t want to either,” Wicki took a step towards the door. “(y/n) nearly killed me last time I woke Hugo up.”

Aldo put his hands on his lips as he sighed. “Damn inseparable, them two… but I don’t wanna wake ‘em neither.”

“I mean, they’re sound asleep,” Donny pointed out. “Maybe it’s best we leave ‘em.”

Wicki nodded in agreement. “It is best we leave them… we should go to the next room.”

Aldo took a look at you and Hugo, nodding in approval; he was always happy for you and Hugo, could never deny it, so he turned on his heel and moved towards the door. “Ar��ight, we’ll wake ‘em in the mornin’.”

[tightropeflea]

The Duffers were really out here this season catering specifically to me

[spilledkauffie]

Peter Parker x Chronically!illReader

again, these are based on some of my experiences, but everyone’s different || T/W: hospitals, pain, & med mention

for anon ❤︎

He figured it out pretty quick — while you don't want your chronic illness to define you, the people who know you will definitely know and Peter catches on pretty darn quick, maybe it's the "spider-sense." When you found out you were a little afraid he might not be as interested because sometimes situations and symptoms aren't always pretty or fun, and at times they're barely manageable. Yet, his response to you asking if he really wanted to get into it after figuring it out was shocking. "I love you," he stated, "and that's always going to be a part of you, right? So, I don't see it as anything more than a part of you, good days and bad days, I'll still love you. If you'll still love me, Spiderman and all." With a kiss to his cheek you smile, "it's always going to be a part of you, and I love you, so looks like we're stuck together."

Pick-ups — Peter is great at picking stuff up for you. If there’s anything you need that would help ease the pain / symptoms, the moment you mention it Peter is on it. // When you’re hanging out in his room, the moment you comment “I should have brought that with me-“ Peter’s jumping up and suiting up. “Why not just walk to the store?” You ask curiously, “I’ll be faster this way!” he says with a smile. “But you really think it’ll look very superhero of you if you get-“ / “I don’t care what other people think about what I’m getting, if it’ll help you, it’s always worth it.”

Staying home after a flare — Peter’s really cool about staying home. Since he’s not “mr popular” at school he’s a-okay with not being a part of every single activity at school, in fact he’s a bit of a homebody himself. You two spend time playing old Atari video games while Aunt May makes some snacks for the two of you while you attempt to beat him in asteroids. He also shows you all the cool tech for his suit and how he’s adjusting it / making upgrades. Sometimes Ned also comes over and you all work on a Lego collection together.

↳ Peter 100% lets you try out his spider-man gear when you’re having a down day. Sometimes he brings stuff to your room, like the mask and he lets you talk to Karen or he even brings the IronSpider and lets you se all the cool stuff inside, the different settings, modes etc. You've tried out the web-shooters a few times, but found it was incredibly hard to get off the walls and it just became a nightmare when you accidentally hit the ceiling fan.

Carry you — if you’re feeling fatigue Peter aways offers to carry you, no matter where you are or the situation. This includes swinging through downtown to get somewhere faster, or simply carrying you up the apartment stairs because a symptom hit you out of nowhere. Sometimes when you don't want to draw as much attention to the fact that you need some help, he'll just hook an arm through yours and let you support yourself against him; in other settings, like of trips and walks, he'll give you a piggy-back ride.

Medication reminders — you're pretty sure Peter has your medications down better than you do. He knows where you keep them at your place, where you keep them when you come over, and where he keeps an extra few in case you forget to bring it. He's also like clock-work if you have a pill-taking schedule. No matter what you're doing he gently reminds you that you should take your medicine, something that always shocks you is he doesn't say it in a condescending tone, he makes it sound totally normal, which helps you feel more comfortable with having to take a break and take something when need be.

He’s very sympathetic — while he doesn't know how the exact pain or symptoms feel, he knows what it's like to have different and unique things going on that no one else understands. That's a reason he always wants to be there for you, even if you just want to vent about the fact that you feel like no one sees your pain half the time, unless it's a major emergency, which then of course, when you don't want people to know, everyone seems to know and ask about it. Peter wants you to know that it’s a safe space to vent and talk about your feelings and how your feeling, even if it’s the same as you felt yesterday.

Doctor's appointments — Peter gets really nervous when you go to the doctor, he wants to be there, but knows he can’t always be there. However, he loves texting you while you’re in the waiting room, anything to keep your mind a little distracted while waiting. He’s a big fan of Snapchat, which results in some retry hilarious distractions for yourself. // You almost always call or FaceTime him with the results or just how the appointment went when you’re done.

Hospital visits — Aunt May and Peter visit you a lot when you're in the hospital. Aunt May brings you your favourite snacks and always makes sure to bring blankets, pillows, and anything else to make the room feel a little more like home. Peter also brings some familiar stuff, but most of all he just wants to spend time with you. He hates the idea of you being alone just waiting around for someone to come keep you company.

↳ in fact he hates the idea of you being alone so much that he's asked if he can stay overnight with you. The hospital says no, because he's not of age or relation status to do so. However, that doesn't stop him. After nightfall, Peter will scale the side of the hospital, find your room, and come in through the window. Naturally he brought his backpack with him, containing an extra blanket and pillow. Those nights are the best, because you wind up falling asleep in his arms. And even though the doctor give supi a weird look and asks if you had that hoodie on last night, it’s total worth it.

Lots and lots of affection — Peter loves doting on you physically, he wants you to know that you are loved and that you’re beautiful, no matter what your pain, flares, and bad days look like, you are loveable! He always greets you with a hug and loves holding your hand. He loves cuddling you or being cuddled by you, he’s a-okay with you being more dominant in the cuddle department, he just likes being close to you and feeling you near him. Other times when you want to be held he is absolutely going to comfort and cuddle the heck out of you—

↳ Peter’s dedicated to you, he’s in it for the long haul, so if that means cradling you because your shaking on the bathroom floor unsure of how your flare is going to behave to sitting with you (or outside and just beside you) while you take a bath, or staying with you in bed because you’re too tired, or hanging out on the sofa where you’ve made camp for the weekend, etc. He just wants to be with you.

[twiceasfrustrating]

I'm sorry if I already requested this of you I honestly have the memory of a walnut. But can I request headcannons of the boys + dia who find out MC has an emotionally abusive husband? Like fluff with some murder maybe?

thank you

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!

Characters: Lucifer (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Asmodeus (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Beelzebub (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Diavolo (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)

Additional Tags: abusive relationship mentioned, some are a bit murdery, I don't know how to write fluff for such a situation but I tried

A/N: If you are in an abusive situation in the USA and need to speak to someone, please call 1-800-799-7233. If you cannot call, you can also text “START” to 88788. If it is safe for you, you can also go to the website directly. Abuse takes many forms, but it is always about control.

Feel free to add the numbers/contact for other countries if you have them.

Lucifer

He got upset at MC once and they flinched when he yelled and they started apologizing like there was no tomorrow. That was how he found out something was wrong. They wouldn’t say anything, but he could tell that something was deeply wrong. Perhaps he had never noticed before the formation of their pact how MC shuddered around him whenever he got upset, but now he did.

He is very careful not to yell again and when he does he is quick to lower his voice the second MC shows distress, reassuring them that he is not angry at them and would not harm them. It sounds almost hollow after how he acted when they originally met, but he means it.

There was one time MC dropped a dish on the floor while cooking and it broke, spilling hot food everywhere. They started picking up the pieces in a hurry, not even paying attention to how the hot shards burned and cut up their hands.

Lucifer was quick to pick them up off the ground and tend to the fresh injuries, all while they kept apologizing and saying that they would clean it up as soon as they could and saying they would make something else. Lucifer forbade them from doing either and cleaned the mess himself. He did that a lot. Took care of their ‘mistakes’ and cared for them. They would almost believe he wasn't the same terrifying man they had first met.

It takes a long time for MC to get used to their new relationship with Lucifer and once they do they are far more comfortable and less skittish.

He is not pressuring the story out of them. He can wait, as difficult as it is, for them to open up. However, he is no fool. He knows who is to blame, and that man should be very afraid should Lucifer and he ever meet.

Mammon

MC always spoke so well of their husband when they first met the brothers. Mammon was actually jealous and wished MC would talk about him that way. They would always say how kind their husband was and how he loved them and how he wanted the best for them. It sounded like some kind of cheesy romance novel.

Things started to get weird though when he and MC started to get even closer. He would invite them out, only to hear “I don’t think my husband would like that” or “I shouldn’t be alone with you”. It was weird the first time, but it quickly became a pattern. A very worrying pattern. Mammon knew abuse when he saw it. He was the family butt monkey and a witch punching bag, after all.

The difference is that he’s a fallen angel that is used to such treatment and, as a demon, the things done to him do very little in the long run. Humans are far more fragile though; their minds, bodies, and hearts. And then Mammon started to hate MC’s husband with a passion that could not be matched.

He cared less about making that bastard pay and more about taking care of MC. Such treatment can ruin a person, especially good people like MC. He would do anything to show them that they deserved better than that man, whatever that eventually meant.

Leviathan

He and MC have a little too much in common for his taste. It is actually almost disgusting how little self-worth they seem to have, but he can also see how that was trained into them.

They play down their worth a lot: “It’s nothing”, “It could be better”, “I failed again”, etc. They never say anything positive about themself. They are really good at picking out their flaws, but almost incapable of pointing out their merits.

It goes against everything Levi believes in, but he has to start praising them since they won’t praise themself. He likes hanging out with them, the stuff they make is nice, they are a really quick learner. It feels weird to praise someone, but it’s nice to see MC start to feel a little better about all the things they do.

Although, he also has the mild thought of showing MC’s husband that there are more terrifying things in the world than the horrors a human is capable of. After all, Levi has seen the monsters that dwell in the deep; he is one of those monsters and there is a reason humans fear the darkest depths.

Satan

There are some wonderful upsides to being the avatar of wrath. Normally, Satan wouldn't be so crass as to give into them, but sometimes humanity is just so vile that he can't help himself.

One of those upsides is a mind filled to the brim with the instinctual desire to rip and tear anything he can get his hands on to pieces. It's an instinct he fights off constantly with his centuries of training and self-discovery, but just this once he doesn't mind becoming the beast he was born as.

MC's husband squeals like a stuck pig throughout the entire night, only the winds, spiders, and Satan being able to hear and appreciate the sound. And appreciate it he does, until the screaming stops and his hands are drenched with blood.

He really needs to get himself cleaned off before he sees MC again, otherwise they will be terrified. He needs to look his best when they come running to him worried about their missing husband. It’s sad how much they worry about him despite everything.

Asmodeus

MC was always so calm and docile when he wanted to spend time with them. He didn’t really get it at first but it was easier to dress them up and take them out, so he didn’t question it. At least, not until someone (read: Solomon) not so subtly pointed out that it is unusual for someone to be so passive, almost to the point of being doll-like.

Asmo didn’t believe it at first. How could anyone treat someone as sweet as MC so cruelly, especially someone that is supposed to love them? But from that day onward, his eyes were opened up and he started to notice things.

The way they didn’t put forth their own opinions and let him take the lead on everything, how they stuck close to him when they both went out, the subtle way their fingers reached out then drew back when they liked something.

“Do you like it?” He would ask and their response was “do you?”

It was so difficult to get them to start putting their own wants and desires above what they thought he’d like. When they showed interest in something, he would fawn all over it. If they liked something, he liked it too. He would buy them things they even glanced casually at, told them they were worthwhile and lovely, anything that other man would never say to them.

He tore them down so completely, but Asmo would work tirelessly to build them back up.

Beelzebub

He is the softest man in the world, and sometimes MC just lets things slip out. He’s very easy to open up to and they don’t think about what they say. He was the first person that they opened up to about what was happening to them.

Suffice it to say, Beel was shocked when they mentioned how terrified they were for the exchange program to end. Despite everything that they had been through over the past year, they didn’t want to go back.

Beel had only felt so powerless one other time in his life. He couldn’t go with them to protect them and they couldn’t stay in the Devildom forever to stay safe. It was painfully cruel just how much he couldn’t help them.

All he could do was hold them and listen to them get everything off of their chest, dreading the day that the exchange program would end.

MC has to hurry up and learn how to summon him, because he wants to keep them safe from that awful situation. He would never allow another person it the world to hurt them again.

Belphegor

Belphie likes exactly one human in the three realms and every other one is none of his concern. Or, they wouldn’t be his concern if it weren’t for the fact that the one human he cared about was the victim of this particular instance.

He’s not like some of his other brothers. He doesn’t do comfort and he isn’t the best at torture, prefering to get everything over with quickly so he doesn’t have to expend all the extra energy. But, for such a special occasion, he is more than willing to put in the effort.

Humans really do create their own worst fears. Their minds run a mile a minute and they have the strangest way of finding how their own terrors can overpower what little defenses they have.

He may not be able to touch MC’s husband, but he can certainly return every slight against his favorite human. Long, sleepless nights wracked with unending horrors that only that man can truly appreciate.

All the while, he will gladly hold MC when their own nightmares overtake them, trying to put their mind at ease for just this moment. How he wished that his powers could control the waking world as well as their dreams...

Diavolo

“Don’t go back.” It was the first time Diavolo had brought up the idea. It was one he had been considering for a long time, knowing that it was extreme given that MC was a human and had to live in the human realm. However, he couldn’t live with himself knowing the kind of life MC would return to once they left.

The shouting, the insults, discarding everything MC liked because their husband doesn’t care for it… Diavolo would never feel right knowing he sent someone dear to him back there.

He had the means to help them get literally anywhere but back to that man. Diavolo could help set them free from that life, even if they didn’t want to stay in the Devildom. He knew MC would have the support of everyone they had met.

All they had to do was say yes and he would move the Devildom itself to get them out of there.

[tmnt-obsessed-ace]

When The World Crumbles Chapter 8 Beatdown At Sunrise.

For as long as Raphael can remember, he was always the most impulsive of the four brothers.

When an idea popped into his head he had to act on it, no time to think it over, no time to find a better way to go about it. As soon as the idea was in his head he acted on it. Sometimes that was good, like in battle when plans went to shit and he had to move fast.

Other times however, it only caused more grief.

Like when that one New Yorker who would eventually become Spider Bites had the fucking audacity to call them 'Kung Fu Frogs.' record them and threaten to expose their entire existence to the world! Raphael had lost his temper, trying to counter every single insult that greasy fucker threw at them!

Because how dare that sleazeball insult his family?

However over the years his once incredibly short fuse had gotten longer and longer. The impulsiveness was fading away a little.

Ever since those months spent at the farmhouse…

However, the past week has been a nightmare from hell! The Kraang plotting another full scale invasion, Raphael and his brothers getting their asses beat six ways to Sunday for pretty much an entire week straight! They had barely got maybe two and a half hours worth of sleep between the four of them! They ran out of food and medical supplies, leaving them barely surviving. Then somehow they had ended up here in this backwards dimension while Kraang Prime is free to mutate Earth to her heart's delight!

Of course the problems didn't end! Then they split up, got chased by a killer animatronic, now when things were finally starting to look up other Donatello showed up ready to murder them for attacking his brother.

No, not murder them. Murder him.

And Raphael couldn't blame him one bit. If the roles were reversed he would probably be trying to tear the other turtle's head off by now.

Another plasma blast shot past the trio as they ran, trying to get away.

"Why is he so mad at us!" Michelangelo yelled, clinging to Donatello as he ran. The purple clad turtle looked at Raphael, a terrified and angry look in those russet brown eyes.

"Raphie over here decided it would be a great idea to attack Leonardo's counterpart." Donatello spat, sarcasm obvious in his voice. Michelangelo shot the red clad turtle a heated glare.

"Dude!"

"I know! I know I fucked up!" Raphael yelled back, nearly tripping and twisting his ankle again. "He can't follow us forever, we just have to find somewhere to hide!" Fear was obvious in his voice.

Raphael was scared, no…he was god damn terrified! His brothers' lives were on the line because he let his anger get the better of him, again! Because he screwed up! Again!

The other purple clad turtle fired the cannon again and again while laughing at their misery, with each blast coming closer and closer to hitting them.

Raphael threw a trash can at the cannon, trying to slow it down some. That did virtually nothing. Didn't even leave a scratch!

So the three turtles kept running while the furious thoughts in Raphael's head chased him around as well.

His mind kept replaying him tackling the young slider over and over, his sai pointed at the younger turtle's throat while threats spilled from his mouth.

He saw the fear in the poor turtle's eyes, the way he tried to squirm away. It made Raphael's stomach churn. Why did he do that? The kid didn't deserve that! Maybe if Leonardo had been with them that encounter would've ended differently.

If Leonardo had been there that encounter wouldn't have happened at all. Leonardo is calm, level headed even in the most stressful situations. The slider wouldn't have been tackled and the trio wouldn't be chased by his feral brother! Where was Leonardo anyway? Was he looking for them? Was he even ok?

"Raph!" Donatello shouted, snapping the older turtle out of his thoughts. "What do we do?" The other turtle was gaining on them. They dodged another blast, this one grazing the top of their shells.

"Over there!" Raphael pointed to a small playground, not the best thing in the world but there is a small fort for them to hide in. Raphael chucked his last smoke bomb, letting the violet smoke shield them from their pissed off attacker as they fled.

They quickly hid inside the fort. It was just big enough to shield all three of them.

Other Donatello was cussing up a storm, now searching for them. The plastic door and shutters of the fort were shut , leaving only thin cracks of light in the thick plastic building.

Michelangelo was quietly whimpering, Donatello was trying to catch his breath. Raphael quickly shushed them both, pulling them close to his chest as the cannon pulled up to the playground.

All three turtles held their breath, the only sounds that could be heard were their own rapid pulses. After several minutes, with the trio struggling to keep silent, they hoped other Donatello would leave and look elsewhere.

He did no such thing.

"There's no use hiding! I know you three are in there!" He shouted into what sounded like a megaphone. Where did he get a megaphone?

Raphael held up a finger to his lips, the two younger brothers nodding in sync.

"Do you actually think a cheap plastic fort will provide sufficient protection against a blast from a high powered laser canon?" The trio shared a look, this stupid thing wouldn't stand a chance against advanced alien technology.

"Dudes, we're goners!" Michelangelo whispered, clinging to Donatello, who was staring at Raphael with fearful eyes, they were so fucked.

Because Raphael lost his temper. Again.

He gulped, trying to think of a way to fix this. To get his brothers out of danger! Because that's what he's supposed to do as their older brother, keep them safe.

He pulled them close and squeezed them tightly. "No matter what happens you two stay here." Raphael whispered.

The red clad turtle stood up, ignoring the spike of pain from his ankle. The plastic door was pushed open and Raphael left the fort, much to his brothers' horror.

He held up his hands.

"Look I'm sorry-" Another blast narrowly missed him, scorching the roof of the fort "That I attacked your brother." He started, shifting his weight so that his bad ankle was barely touching the ground. Other Doantello scoffed, charging up his fancy new toy again.

The cannon was aimed directly at Raphael. He gulped and moved to the left so that the fort wasn't in the line of fire as well. The cannon fired, Raphael dodged and clambered behind a nearby playset. He climbed to the second level, glaring daggers at his younger brother's counterpart.

"Dude can you not try and blow me to bits for five fucking seconds!" The hooded turtle barked, three more blasts of hot plasma grazing him, leaving scorch marks behind.

"Hm let me think about that for a second-NO!" The other purple clad turtle yelled, firing more and more blasts with the cannon. And of course it would never run out of ammo, stupid Kraang technology.

"Then let's settle this!" Raphael cracked his knuckles. Another blast knocked him off the playset. Donatello and Michelangelo's screams rang in his ears as he fell to the ground, smacking his face into something metal. He stood up, his left eye was shut and starting to swell. He staggered a bit and glared at the other turtle. "Let's fight for real without your stupid damn cannon! What do you say?"

Other Donatello looked him up and down, eyes filled with anger and…concern? It was just a tiny little flicker but Raphael saw it clear as day.

That flicker quickly vanished as the other turtle pulled out his bō staff. Raphael pulled out his sais, shooting one last glance at his brothers peaking through the windows of the fort.

"Raph-"

"Stay there!" The two younger turtles were silenced by the yell. That sounded so much like Leonardo had said it. Full confidence leaving no room for argument. It made them shiver.

Raphael let out a battle cry, charging at the other turtle.

Purple light swirled around the bō staff, forming the head of a massive hammer. Other Donatello cackled and swung the hammer around, Raphael dodging with ease. He smirked and got in close, glaring up at this dramatic fucker before kicking him in the chest.

The purple clad turtle didn't have a chance to recover before Raphael jabbed his sais at the stranger. Not a single hit landed. Raphael was smacked away by the hammer, violet static buzzing from his body. He shrugged it off and kept going.

Donatello and Michelangelo could only watch helplessly as the two decked it out, exchanging blows and trying to dodge others. Raphael was playing defensive, keeping the other turtle away from the fort as much as possible.

"We gotta help him!" Michelangelo yelled, ducking down to avoid a burst of flames from his older brother. The smell of burnt plastic making him choke.

"How? We can barely move and you have a broken arm! Plus you don't have your weapons!" Donatello fired back, wincing as Raphael was knocked into a merry-go-round.

"I got an idea! Follow me Dee!" Michelangelo bolted out of the fort, racing towards a nearby swing set. Donatello gulped, dodging more flames and strange purple light as he staggered after the youngest.

Raphael knocked the purple clad turtle down, tackling him so he could pin him down with his sais. The bō staff was knocked a little bit away.

They were both panting for a moment, blood and sweat running down the hooded turtle's face.

"Get off of me or I swear to god I will tear out your entrails and boil them while you bleed out!" Other Donatello shouted, squirming under Raphael.

"Pft yeah right kid." Raphael rolled his eyes. He heard Donatello say way worse things when playing Minecraft before. The younger turtle growled, thrashing around like an animal.

More voices could be heard approaching. Other Donnie's brothers by the sounds of it.

"Ok look, how about we call it even and just start over?" Raphael asked, starting to get off his brother's counterpart.

"You absolute dumbass." The purple clad turtle said excitedly.

A smirk formed on other Donatello's face. It was a wide, wild smirk that truly made Raphael's blood run cold in his veins. In a split second he snatched his staff, a rocket forming on the end. He brutally slammed the rocket into the older turtle's stomach, sending him flying into the plastic walls of the fort hard enough to leave a crater.

Raphael slumped forward and groaned, a bit of blood dribbling from his mouth. Static electricity coursing through his body. He could barely move. The cannon was pointed at him again, all he could do was weakly raise his arms and hope that death would be quick.

"BOOYAKASHA!" Michelangelo yelled before a loud smack and a yelp echoed through the playground.

Raphael looked up, eyes wide.

Other Donatello was rubbing his jaw, staring at the furious Michelangelo standing before him. He was holding a damn swing from one of the swingsets! He swung it around, the other Donatello avoiding the metal seat that kept flying at his head.

"Holy shit! Go Mikey!" Raphael sputtered out as his Donatello came over, the backpack with the first aid kit in hand.

"Don't kill him Mikey!" Donatello called, the only response being a 'kay' from the orange clad turtle.

"He's really goin at it!" The red clad turtle slurred, watching as his younger brother used a damn swing as a weapon. It was heavier than his nunchaku so he was more or less swinging its weight around hoping it would hit. It was still fucking cool to watch.

"I just hope he doesn't further damage his arm by doing that." Donatello grabbed his brother and helped him stand, leading him away from the cannon while the two turtles were fighting. Once they were a safeish distance away Donatello turned to his older brother.

And smacked his fist on the top of his head. Just hard enough to hurt a little.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"This is the second time tonight you tried to pull a Leo." Donatello said, voice filled with worry and snark. "We already have one self sacrificial fool in the family, we don't need TWO!" Raphael ignored his brother's shouting and rolled his eyes.

"Ok I get it, don't take after Fearless!"

The cannon was knocked about by the pair dueling in the control seat. Other Donatello was slammed into the controls, activating the weapon.

A pink beam of plasma shot out of the nozzle.

Donatello and Raphael ducked to the ground, waiting for the blast to end. A choked gasp from Michelangelo made them look up. He pointed behind them, face going deathly pale.

Behind them was the backpack with the first aid kit. It had gotten knocked out of Donatello's hand by the plasma beam. Now it laid on the ground, nothing but a smoldering pile of ash.

Michelangelo fell to his knees, mouth wide open as he stared at the remains of the first aid kit.

After everything he went through to get the damn thing it just gets destroyed before they could use it? Tears rolled down his cheeks, emptiness filling his worn out body.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Raphael groaned.

"We just can't catch a break, can we?" Donatello asked, pulling his younger brother close.

"Great, now we have to replace the first aid kit, again! Leo's not gonna like this." The other purple clad turtle said, hopping down from the cannon. The trio of turtles all turned to him, murder in their eyes.

"Look it was an accident-"

"You seriously couldn't have let us have the damn first aid kit?" Raphael asked, somehow getting to his feet. The other two joined him.

The trio drew their weapons, summoning whatever little strength they had left. They were exhausted, covered in injuries, starving and about ready to bite it. But if they were going down, it might as well be in a blaze of glory. Their eyes became bright white narrow slits.

The other Mad Dogs surrounded other Donatello, weapons drawn and their ninpo shining.

"Are we seriously going to fight them?" Other Michelangelo asked, clearly not wanting to attack the injured trio.

"Afraid so Michael." Other Donatello raised his bō.

"But look at them! They can barely move!"

"Mikey's right, this feels a little cruel." Other Raphael chimed in, with mixed feelings about this whole situation. On one hand he did want to get some payback for Raphael threatening his brother. On the other hand he looked over every single gash, burn and bruise on the turtles' bodies. Did they actually deserve a smashing after all that?

Other Leonardo stepped forwards, sensing the hesitance from his team.

"Look, if you three drop your weapons now we won't hurt you." He said coolly.

The trio didn't answer, instead screaming as they attacked the four turtles. The four spared one glance and attacked as well. So much for surrendering. Weapons colliding and battle cries were yelled, all the while the sky grew filled with the brilliant hues of the early sunrise. A pretty sight compared to the brawl below.

Just like the brawl going down in a certain brownie factory.

Leonardo blocked the metal blade of the woman's staff yet again with his katana. He ducked behind one of the ovens, tuning out the kunoichi's shouts.

He chucked two shurikens at the woman, neither coming close to hitting her. That was fine, they were just distractions to try and slow her down.

"Just gotta find an exit and we'll be good to go!" He mumbled to himself, avoiding the sharp blade as it sliced through the air. His katana parried the blade, knocking it back so he had an opening. With a swing he almost brought his own blade down.

Key word being, almost.

The woman ducked down before springing back up, kicking Leonardo in his already bruised ribs. A wheeze escaped his mouth but he ignored it, racing through the building once again.

Dozens of vicious shrieks chased after him, followed by the woman's laughter. He ignored them.

After the invasion he grew familiar with tuning out screaming hordes, mind going completely blank. His body was fighting purely on muscle memory and instinct. The blue clad turtle didn't have any plans on winning this fight.

All he cared about was surviving.

He skirted to the left, dodging a metal pipe from one of the woman's brats. With a shove the girl was knocked to the ground while Leonardo kept running.

He ran inside a large room, every breath he took made his chest burn like fire was in his lungs. For a brief moment, everything was peaceful.

Leonardo looked out of the massive windows, the sky getting brighter and brighter. The dark blues of nighttime were fading away, lighter hues of blue and soft pinks and yellows took their place. He smiled, this was his golden ticket out of the crazy brownie factory.

Nothing else mattered, aside from getting the fuck out of here.

Just as he was about to leave, his sixth sense started blaring. Only a moment too late.

"For The Brownie Clan!" The woman yelled, swinging her weapon at Leonardo's legs, knocking him to the ground before attempting another swing. This one was aimed at his head.

He barely had a second to raise his katana, the clang of metal on metal echoing in his ears.

The blue clad turtle wheezed, trying to push the blade backwards. It was a pitiful attempt at best with how much his arms were trembling, begging for rest.

His entire body was begging for rest, vision heavily blurred and doubled. That didn't matter.

He didn't care.

The room was soon flooded with the girl scouts, all watching with blood thirsty eyes while they cheered the kunoichi, who was most likely their sensei, on.

He growled, squeezing his solid white eyes shut and somehow shoved the woman away, punching any of her minions that attacked him next. He had long since given up on not hurting the little hellions. The bruising bite mark on his leg is proof of that.

The hooded turtle staggered back to his feet, fighting past the aching of his bad leg pleading for a damn break. Blood dribbled from his mouth as his knuckles went white around the handle of his katana.

Somehow they had gotten to the highest level of the brownie factory, just below actually being on the roof itself.

"After all of that you're still going? Impressive!" The woman slung her hockey stick of death over her shoulder while her hordes of screaming girls surrounded them, blocking the exits. Leonardo was panting, wanting this to be over.

He was only vaguely aware of the sword in his hands, the laughing shrieks of the brats becoming muffled in his ears. His legs started to buckle. His eyes flickered to the windows, freedom was so close!

The woman charged him again, the blue clad turtle stumbling to dodge each blow. After several seconds he couldn't take it anymore.

"Ok enough!" He said, voice a strained rasp. He sheathed his katana and held up his hands. The girls all booed at him, clearly disappointed.

"You're actually surrendering?"

Leonardo nodded, feeling so stupid for doing this.

"You've won-" An electric chill raced down his spine with the speed of a comet. The very same chill he felt when he saw the glowing lights while looking for Michelangelo. Only this time it was so much stronger. Dark blue eyes widened, focusing on the windows. Beyond the glass was where he had to go.

The woman also looked towards the glass, confused.

"Whatcha lookin at?" She asked, trying to see what was so interesting.

In the distance a flash of light shone above the buildings.

Suddenly filled with renewed energy and growing determination Leonardo unsheathed his katana and sped towards the woman, the blade slashing at her shoulder. A streak of red was left behind.

She smirked.

"Atta boy! Let's finish our battle so that our lord of darkness will prosper once again!" And somehow they circled back to the long furby worship. Fantastic!

The blades collided once again, the determined look never leaving Leonardo's face. Somehow he was going to get out of here and find his brothers!

With a swing of his legs the kunoichi was knocked to the ground, her girl scouts glaring at him with furious looks.

Leonardo spared one last glance at the strange woman.

"You fought well, but now I have to go and find my brothers!" The holded turtle said with a surprising amount of conviction given how exhausted he was.

The woman snickered, standing up.

"Then go! Find your brothers and heal up quick for the next time we meet it will be a duel for the history books!"

"Ok bye!" Leonardo turned to leave when suddenly without warning, the woman shouted something that made his heart skip a beat, jumping into the air.

"GOONGALA!" The woman yelled, kicking Leonardo square in the chest. He was sent flying backwards through the window, frigid winds buffeting past him. He yanked on the cord, turtle glider opening. He flipped around, staring at the woman.

He only heard one person in his entire life say that dumb catchphrase.

Casey Jones.

Was this…Casey?

More flashes of light caught his attention, he'll have to deal with maybe Casey later.

Somehow, he knew that his brothers were in danger. He had to help them!

He zipped through the sky, the electric buzzing in his body serving as his guide to finally find his family.

When the three other Mad Dogs got to the park, they were expecting the other trio to be coming with them peacefully.

Ok maybe expecting wasn't the right word, more like hoping. Well Raph had been hoping that at least.

However, realistically, there would have been no chance of peace. After all it was Donnie that went after them. As soon as other Raph and other Donnie had booked it, Donnie unhooked his brand new cannon from the turtle tank and sped off before anyone could stop him.

He wanted to make them pay for threatening Leo.

So he fucking ditched them to go get vengence while the flaming Albearto kept trying to tear them apart.

Leo had knocked it into a portal, sending the metal monster elsewhere. It could be someone else's problem now. Afterwards it wasn't hard to find Donnie. Just had to follow the explosions.

Luckily they seemed to get there just in time to save Donnie a beat down.

Leo teleported behind his twin's counterpart, dodging every half assed attack from the taller turtle with ease.

"Man you are bad at this!" The slider taunted, blocking another swing with his katanas. The electricity crackled against the metal, yet it didn't electrocute him. Must be an added bonus of his swords being made from his very soul.

Other Donnie was also watching the sparking electricity, confusion written all over his face.

"What the? You should be seizing with electricity by now!" The turtle half shouted before Leo kicked him in the stomach, knocking him into the ground.

The turtle rolled over, getting back up and going at him once again.

"Well I'm not! Must be pretty shocking!" Leo said with his usual playful smirk. Other Donnie looked even more confused as his brain started to process the pun. However he didn't get the chance before getting smacked by Mikey's mystic chains.

Leo watched the other purple clad turtle screech as he was smacked around like a ragdoll. To his left, other Mikey was fighting Raph, trying to land hits on the red hologram. Raph hadn't gone nearly as big as he usually does and he was mostly playing defensive and blocking attacks.

Donnie however had no such restraint, locked in a vicious looking brawl with other Raph. Those two were about five seconds from wrestling on the ground. So naturally to make sure his twin doesn't either get pummeled or commits a felony, Leo joined in.

The slider's katanas sliced through the air, giving other Raph a split second to duck before he lost his head! With him distracted, Donnie's bō formed a hammerhead, whacking the short turtle away like a piñata.

Donnie smirked gleefully, swinging his hammer around. He raced after the red clad turtle, ready to pummel him into the dirt.

"Try not to kill him DeeDee!" Leo shouted, only getting a dramatic cackle in response. Leo rolled his eyes, turning his attention to other Mikey.

The shorter turtle glared daggers at him, the stolen swing in his hands ready to be used as a bludgeon yet again.

Other Mikey charged, quite literally swinging his weapon around trying to slam Leo. When the fight first started he was more or less just throwing his weight around but now it seems like he is actually getting a handle on his new weapon, each swing becoming more coordinated than the last.

That gave the slider an idea.

Another smirk spread across his face. Mikey caught a glimpse while helping Raph fight other Donnie.

"Leon-"

He rubbed his hands together, knocking other Mikey off his feet with the swipe of a leg.

The smirk grew wider, Raph and Donnie both glanced at their brother, already knowing what was happening.

"Leo now is not the time-"

"Nardo I swear to god I will revoke your older twin privileges-"

"Looks like you're finally getting the swing of things!" Leo said with a laugh. All eyes turned towards the blue clad turtle.

Raph, Donnie and Mikey groaned, while their counterparts were staring at him with disbelieving looks.

"Did…Did anybody else get the sudden inexplicable urge to shove him into a locker or was that just me?" Other Donnie asked.

Leo faked an offended gasp, his hand over his heart.

"Good job, I feel less bad about threatening you now." Other Raph retorted, shoving Donnie into a slide.

"Oh come on! That was good!" All six turtles shook their heads. Other Mikey did a so-so gesture with his hand.

Leo pouted, crossing his arms with a huff. Unfortunately that meant that he got hit by other Mikey's swing. He staggered to the ground, glaring at the shorter turtle.

And so the battle continued to rage on, with the other turtles getting more and more worn out the longer they fought. Their movements were getting uncoordinated and sloppy while also slowing down. They were at the end of their ropes.

The trio were thrown into the ground by Mikey's mystic chains, nearly slamming into each other.

They all looked up, Raph's red hologram form looming over them. Other Raph grabbed Mikey and Donnie's counterparts, holding them close. All three shut their eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

It never came.

"Alright thats enough, no more fighting." Raph said, looking at his younger brothers.

Mikey nodded, worry painted all over his normally happy face.

Donnie groaned but nodded as well, allowing the ninpo surrounding his staff to fade.

Leo took that as his cue to come over.

"Let's get you three back to the lair so we can patch you up and then find lame-o number four." He said coolly, already shifting into medic mode at the many, many wounds covering the trio's bodies.

How many of those were caused by the Mad Dogs?

Other Raphael shot him a death glare, holding his two siblings tighter.

"And how do we know you aren't going to kill us! Give me one god damn reason to believe a word that comes out of your fucking mouth!" The short red clad turtle yelled, pulling his brothers to their feet. Weapons drawn one last time.

"We don't want to hurt you!" Raph pleaded.

"Oh yeah, that was extremely obvious! How couldn't I have guessed that!" Other Donnie hissed, filled with that classic Donnie snark. At least that's a constant among the two purple clad turtles.

"Don't act like you didn't attack us first!" Donnie snapped back, loading three tranquilizer darts into his gun.

"Guys come on! You can't fight anymore!" Mikey pleaded, his counterpart mumbling something to his brothers.

Leo waved a hand at Donnie, stopping the softshell from his plan. Donnie sighed and lowered the tranq gun.

"We want to earn their trust!" Leo hissed before carefully approaching. They raised their weapons, their entire bodies trembling. "Look, we got off on the wrong foot here, so let's start over."

Other Mikey looked at his brothers, clutching his heavily swollen arm. "Maybe we should give them a chance?" He asked tiredly.

Other Donnie shrugged. "Raph what do you think?" The red clad turtle glared at Leo, eyes searching for any sign of a lie.

There was none.

The short turtle groaned.

Raph smiled a bit, just about to finally drop the hologram.

There was a horrible shrieking sound, like metal slamming through more metal.

All seven turtles were stunned to see the blade of a katana had gone through the hologram. The owner was another mutant turtle wearing a hood just like the dumbass trio. And he was also sporting half a billion injuries that made Leo cringe.

"LEO!" The trio of hooded turtles shouted, the pure joy and relief in their voices made the four turtles smile a bit.

That quickly changed when the katana was withdrawn and slashed across the surface of the hologram while other Leo flew by with some kind of glider.

"Oh come on we're done fighting!" Mikey yelled, dodging the merciless blade of the katana as it swung just over his head!

"He's not apparently!" The katana was sheathed, a bow and several arrows were pulled out of the quiver.

An arrow was drawn back and fired, narrowly missing Donnie's legs.

Several more arrows were fired, with the four turtles scrambling to avoid them all while other Leo's brother cheered him on from the ground.

Eventually the archer was out of arrows.

Other Leo flew back down, unsheathing his singular katana again. His solid white eyes focused on Leo and Leo alone.

"Hey its alright, we're the good guys!" Raph pleaded, having long since dropped the hologram. "Lets just go to the lair and get you all patched up!"

The hooded turtle ignored Raph entirely, standing before Leo.

It was a challenge.

One Leo couldn't refuse.

He cracked his knuckles and pulled out his twin katanas. "You wanna duel? Well who am I to refuse a chance to show off my mad skills!" Leo said with full confidence.

His counterpart said nothing, sword raised in an unsteady defensive motion.

"Are they actually doing this?" Raph asked.

"You know Nardo will take any chance to show off." Donnie pulled out his phone and pressed record, wanting to catch this on video.

Sensing the tension, the six other turtles all stood back, allowing the duo in blue to circle one another.

"Go easy on him Lee!" Mikey yelled.

"Kick his fucking ass all the way to New Jersey Leo!" Other Raph yelled, other Mikey and other Donnie shouting similar taunts.

"Alright shorty, here's the deal. If I win you and your brothers will come with us to the lair." Other Leo nodded, and for the first time he spoke.

"And if I win will you let us go?" His voice was raspy, cracking in an almost painful sounding way.

All seven turtles winced.

"Deal!"

They circled each other for a few more moments before Leo charged first, twin katanas striking his counterpart's singular one.

When Leo got close enough the white of his counterpart's eyes went away, revealing two dark blue eyes underneath.

There was fear, there was anger, there was the deep seated need to protect, there was love for his brothers. There was also…grief?

If he had to describe it, it was like staring into the eye of a hurricane. The calm only a false sense of hope while the racing winds and thundering rains grew closer and closer, promising destruction on anyone foolish enough to stick around.

Other Leo knocked him off, swinging at him with the practiced elegance and grace of a master. However it was also wild, desperate and exhausted which made every attack easy to dodge.

Blades kept colliding, the sky now bright as sunrise was almost upon them. Neither of the blue clad turtles gave a fuck. They just kept going and going.

However, no matter how much the hooded turtle fought it was obvious who the winner was going to be. Every swing of the blade was slower than the last, those blue eyes struggling to stay focused on Leo.

"Dude seriously just let us help you!" Leo whispered to his opponent.

Other Leo seemed to actually consider this, the weariness in his eyes made it clear that he didn't want to do this anymore either.

Before he could say anything, the sound of a vehicle rapidly approaching made all sixteen eyes turn to the road.

It looked like some kind of food truck, the driver a very pissed off mutant pig.

"MeatSweats? Again!" Raph shouted.

Donnie groaned and Mikey narrowed his eyes.

"Ok who is MeatSweats!" Other Donnie yelled anxiously.

"Cannibalistic mutant pig!" Other Mikey replied.

"What is wrong with this dimension!" Other Raph groaned.

Leo turned back to his counterpart, whose eyes were now wide as the truck got closer and closer.

As all the turtles drew their weapons again a single thought raced through their heads like a speeding bullet.

We are so screwed.

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Don’t Look! [Part 3]

<- Part 2 | Part 4 ->

Frederick Chilton x Reader

Once again, transformation AU by @we-are-all-just-a-bit-crazy, I’m just making a fic with it! (Going to try to wrap this series tomorrow; we’ll see if I can keep up the pace). Mutual pining + Chilton having trust issues. 

2,160 words

The door opened a crack, and Dr. Chilton’s eyes appeared, searching up and down the hallway. Your pulse quickened. Finally, you were going to get answers—some logical explanation for what you’d seen last night. At least you could show him support this time instead of leaving him trembling in the dark.

He seemed to be human again. You found yourself checking and rechecking the texture of his skin for lingering signs of spikes and swirling darkness. A chill ran down your spine at his proximity, like it did when you saw a spider. You wished it wouldn’t. You didn’t want to be afraid of spiders. You didn’t want to be afraid of him.

Finding the coast clear, Chilton opened the door another few inches and stepped out wearing your grey hoodie and sweatpants. His hair was a mess, the hood pulled down to hide it.

“I cannot be seen this way. If you need me, I shall be at home. You have my personal number. Please call Nightengale Restorations and have them fix the office. Tell them I will pay a fifteen percent bonus for having it done this week,” he prattled in his professional tone as if this were just another workplace matter. He walked away, a slight hitch to his swift gait, but turned after three steps and met your eyes. “Thank you,” he said.

***

There was no confrontation after that. Dr. Chilton resumed work the next day, and things simply went back to normal. That is to say: awkward silences, reading novels into every word, and the simmering tension of pretending everything was normal when, in fact, nothing had been resolved.

Questions burned in your eyes, but fear restrained your tongue. The answers would only make you more afraid, and so Chilton did not volunteer them.

You didn’t run away, but you didn’t ask, either. Chilton was satisfied that you were just as in denial as he was.

The daily routine went on exactly as it used to: you would arrive at 7:30 am, knock at his office door, hand him a coffee, and take the file of paperwork he wanted done that day. Only there was hesitation in your knock, and you waited for him to say, “Enter,” instead of sauntering in like you owned the place. He had you put the coffee down on his desk so you would not risk brushing his fingertips as you sometimes did. When you took the file, you stared at him like he might bite.

“That will be all,” he said, dismissing you before your stoic mask faltered and you showed your true disgust.

***

Chilton’s skin crawled beneath his suit from his arms to his feet, and his scar throbbed for the first time in weeks. Having Abel Gideon back under his care was disconcerting, but a necessary part of Will Graham’s therapy—or rather, another clue in the case Graham was building against Hannibal Lecter.

He was skeptical at first. Graham was a lunatic—a sociopathic manipulator. Delusional. Yet, even a sociopath could not fabricate such elaborate lies with that much sodium amytal running through his veins.

The nightmares would be worth it when he was the man famous for bringing down the Chesapeake Ripper.

“Hey.”

Chilton looked up, eyes rimmed with red from hours of staring at a computer screen, working late yet again. You held up a bag of takeout, a weak smile on your lips.

“Need a break?” you offered, moving to sit across from him at his desk. Everything in the office was tidied up—you had cleaned most of it yourself the day Chilton went home in your sweatpants. The damage wasn’t as bad as it looked. Most of the furniture was simply overturned, not broken. Only the antique in-wall shelving waited for professional repair.

“No. Thank you,” he said, waving away the food. His lips thinned wanly. “You may help yourself if you like.”

He was equally surprised and suspicious when you stayed, unpacking the container of vegetarian pesto tortellini. He watched hungrily as you lanced one with a plastic fork and brought it to your lips. His stomach growled.

“Are you alright?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, straightening defensively in his seat.

“With Gideon here. That must be difficult.”

“I manage.”

You chewed another pasta in silence. Finally, he couldn’t help it and grabbed the second fork, stealing a tortellini off your platter. It was rich and flavorful—a bit heavy on the salt, but obviously from a fine restaurant. He held the bite in his mouth. No strange aftertastes. He did not feel woozy after swallowing. There was always a chance you were willing to drug yourself to get to him if you had an accomplice waiting to spirit him away to some secret facility.

“All right,” he snapped, chair shooting back toward the wall as he stood. “What are you after?”

You gave a startled “Mmph?” around a mouthful of pesto.

“What is the catch? A price for your silence? Why are you here, bribing me with dinner?”

“I… I’m not—what? I was worried about you.”

“Unlikely, considering the circumstances. Tell me what you want.” His eyes locked onto you, cold and piercing.

“Fine!” you broke. “I want you to forgive me!”

“For what?” he sneered, half believing your words were a veiled threat.

“I’m sorry, OK? Please—what can I do to make up for it? I tried giving you space, but now you look at me like I’m going to kick you, or”—your eyes widened at the plate of food he only touched after you ate some—“poison you! I swear I never meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” he asked in an entirely softer tone. He sat back down, hunching forward across the desk to search your face.

Your head hung low, and you murmured quietly, “I know I didn’t handle it well. I should have left when you asked. Now I understand… you didn’t want anybody to see that. I invaded your privacy. And then I freaked out!” Your voice broke. “And I’ve been trying to… to make up for it. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but—dammit, I’m pushing you again! Sorry.”

The urge to hug you overwhelmed him. If there wasn’t a deliberately massive table in between you—meant to keep others at a distance—he would have hugged you.

“Are you not afraid?” For once, the broadness of his desk seemed obtrusive.

“I could never be afraid of you.”

Your arm crossed the divide, reaching for his hand. It touched, warm and easy, and gave a sympathetic squeeze that set his blood racing. Then it retracted, and his skin ached for the lost contact.

“I just got scared because I didn’t understand what was happening. I still don’t. Maybe I am still afraid, a little. But not because—! Please, just… tell me what that was. What happened to you?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. Eyes narrowing, he answered cagily, “First, what do you think you saw? Light can play tricks on the eye, especially after long hours in a morbid environment, possible exposure to hypnotic drugs… Let us be sure we are on the same page.”

“Are you seriously going to gaslight me now that we’re finally talking? I’m not an idiot. You still owe me those pants back!”

While he floundered for words, your eyes squeezed shut, and a hissing laugh burst from your nose. A red flush crept up his neck, under his shirt collar. It was inappropriate to laugh in this situation, but perhaps that was why it was so contagious—it had been too long since he’d seen you laugh, and even longer since he’d done so himself.

“Those cheap, scratchy, torture devices? Consider it a favor that I tossed them,” he quipped. (Forget the fact that he had been sleeping with his face buried in them for the past week and simply did not wish to return them before wringing them for every drop of your scent.)

“And yet you wore them, which means I saved your ass. Checkmate, doctor.”

“Please. It is barely a Vienna Gambit.”

Laughter felt foreign in his throat. It was soft, and only lasted a brief second, but it was cleansing. You smiled at him, rolling your eyes, and his soul lifted.

“Very well,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Ask your questions.”

Your eyes darted to the windows. Another late night. Stars appeared (the handful not blotted out by Baltimore’s light pollution). You chewed your bottom lip.

“Are you going to transform again?”

“Only on the night of the new moon, when twilight gives way to the black of night. No need to worry.”

“Just once a month, then? Werewolf rules?”

He shot an offended glare, though you weren’t wrong. “Sometimes two, near the aphelion. And during an eclipse. It… hates sunlight. Even the reflection of the sun. It wants to be in darkness.” The thought disturbed him—the way the beast called him to the shadows. He always fought it to stay indoors, locking himself away from any nocturnal roving. It frightened him what might happen if he gave in. The coppery taste of blood haunted his dreams.

“Then… would you transform if you went spelunking? You know, in a cave? Or a submarine?”

“I have not tried. A darkened room is not enough. I would not tempt it.”

You swallowed and thought. Your lips twitched, building to the important question: “Is it still you in there?”

“Yes. More impulsive—I would never have smashed the decor—but I am still there.” It brings my true self to the surface, he thought, but withheld this. A slimy, dangerous, unlovable wretch. He looked at you, sitting across from him in front of a container of food you brought to share, and wondered what you were doing there after seeing it. How could you bear to be near him?

“But you’re not going to… eat me or something?” You were embarrassed to ask, and he gave you a fittingly scathing glare.

“No. I would not eat you.” He stabbed a tortellini and popped it in his mouth.

“Then I want to see it.”

He choked.

“I want to get a better look. To wrap my head around it. Besides, it seemed painful—next time I could bring you a hot towel, or… a cold pack, or… I don’t know, some tea? An ibuprofen?”

“There is no next time. You were never supposed to see that in the first place.”

“Please? If it’s going to happen again in two weeks, I want to be there. Prepared this time.”

“This is not a zoo. I am not some freak show to be gawked at! What happened to you being sorry?”

“I just want to get to know you,” you answered, and your voice sounded so small his heart reeled. You snapped your head up, “I mean—I want to be there for you. You shouldn’t be alone.”

He scoffed, defensive again. “Why? Because I might do something dangerous? I am more than capable of controlling myself.”

“Because you deserve to be comforted when you’re in pain.”

Your words struck him like a nuclear bomb of basic human decency. Deserved? Comfort?

“Does anyone else know? Does anyone… take care of you when you change?”

Only his family knew, and they certainly did not take care of him. Bringing him that bag of clothing in the morning was the first time anyone had done something thoughtful for him—helped him with his condition. Even if you had run away at first, you wanted to be supportive. To know his dark side.

Why?

Was it possible? Did you feel the same way about him as he did about you? His hand still felt warm from where you had briefly touched it.

He had to admit, it was nice having someone be there for him. Even a small gesture like old, loose-fitting sweatpants in a bag made a world of difference. Or dinner at his desk. He imagined you pressing a steamed towel to his forehead, and he did not hate the idea—doting on him like a spa therapist, taking the edge off the pain as his hair fell out and skin split open. Or watching him become hideous. Vomiting at the sight of him. Losing all interest you might have had. Realizing it was a mistake to be there.

“Thank you for dinner,” he announced in curt, clipped syllables. “That will be all.”

“Frederick…” Your voice was low, personal. Pleading. He did not like how personal it was. How you were giving him everything he wanted, like you were baiting a trap.

“Fascinating as this must be for you, I still have work to do. Your shift ended an hour ago. Go home.”

“OK. Right. I’ll see you in the morning.”

You didn’t see him trembling as you left, clutching his hand over his fluttering heart.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

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[voiceless-terror]

all those sleep prompts are so killer and such big jon vibes!!! i would love to read anything on "- a character who refuses to share a sleeping space with anyone else, and it’s because he doesn’t want to disturb others/doesn’t want pity/is ashamed of his nightmares" with jon. bonus points if tim is involved and extra bonus points if tim also has experience with insomnia/nightmares, either himself or used to taking care of someone in his life with those issues...

Hey there! Here I am, finally writing the promised Jon/Tim that I should have written ages ago. Feels good to be on this train! I’ve placed this in pre-canon, when Jon and Tim are researchers and have just started dating. Hope you like!

“That was...really nice, Tim. Thank you.”

“Thank you? Jon, we split the check,” Tim throws an arm around his shoulder and it’s heavy and warm in all the right ways. “You know my policy on that. The person who asks you out pays the bill! Ergo, me.”

“I know, I know,” Jon relents under the pressure and burrows into Tim’s side. The wine’s gone to his head, he’s sure of it. Shouldn’t have had those three glasses. But the waiter was so attentive and Tim’s smile was infectious so he couldn’t help but say yes, of course, thank you, to every pour. “I just...I really enjoyed myself, is all.”

“I did too,” Tim’s voice goes to that soft, fond register he’s only just started using with Jon. Before it had been all gregarious charm, winks and nudges that he used interchangeably with friends and acquaintances alike. When Tim first asked him out, Jon thought he was joking; he rolled his eyes and went back to work, ignoring Tim’s look of hurt. Jon was used to practical jokes of this nature- he’s not exactly an attractive prospective partner, and several people have implied he was more trouble than he was worth. But a week later, on their usual coffee run, Tim offered to buy him dinner, his voice serious and shy and utterly unlike him. The look in his eyes was genuine and Jon had to say yes; who could refuse him, in the face of such sincerity?

It’s been a month and they’ve fallen into a sort of routine. Every week is a new spot- Tim’s a bit of a foodie, and he overheard him making a list of places with Sasha. It took up an entire page in his notebook, and Jon wonders if Tim will get sick of him before they finish it.

He stumbles on the sidewalk and Tim catches him with a steady hand on his waist. The cold air should be bracing but it is not; his dizziness increases two times over and it’s a long journey home. Tim knows this, which must lead to his next suggestion.

“You can spend the night at mine,” he says, voice purposefully light. Jon freezes. They hadn’t broached the topic yet, but he thinks Tim has some sort of idea. Rumors abound in research, after all. Tim must notice his nervousness because he stops walking, turning to face Jon with that same unbearable sincerity. 

“Nothing untoward, I promise,” Tim says, and Jon believes him. Tim hasn’t lied to him yet. “I just don’t feel comfortable putting you on the tube, and you’re a long way from home while I’m right around the corner.” Jon still doesn’t respond, so Tim continues. “No pressure, honestly. I could call you a cab, it’s not a big deal-”

“No, that’s-that’s too expensive.” Living in London is hard enough, especially on a researcher’s salary. But to spend the night at Tim’s, as innocent as it may be, fills him with dread. There’s a reason he lives alone. There’s a reason it took him almost a year before he stayed the night at Georgie’s.

Sleep has never been kind to him.

Jon has nightmares. Terrible, horrifying visions of make-believe that leave him screaming and crying and choking on his breath. Georgie had been about ready to call an ambulance the first time she witnessed it, but Jon was able to talk her down.

“These happen every night?” she’d asked, her face a mix of pity and concern. 

“Not every night,” he insisted. It was true. If he stayed up late, working himself to exhaustion, he could usually manage a dreamless sleep of at least five hours. But that came with its own difficulties; crankiness, irritability. It put a strain on most of his relationships. 

Tim, though- Tim is kind and understanding. Beneath the mask of sociability and flirtation lies a serious, determined person. Compassionate, loving, but in a quiet way and with small gestures. He makes lists. He puts in time. He asks Jon what he wants when they go out to eat and he doesn’t laugh or roll his eyes when Jon carries on for too long. 

“We can go to your place,” he whispers. “I-I think I’d like that.” Tim smiles and hooks an arm through his and Jon knows he’s made the right decision. Maybe tonight will be different. Maybe the wine will dull the terror that rules most of his life. The night is dark and Jon’s flat is cold and lonely. 

Tim’s flat, on the other hand, is warm and cozy. It’s neat and organized, but cluttered enough to give it personality and charm. There’s a couch calling his name and he answers it, practically collapsing in the cushions as Tim lets out a little laugh.

“No going to sleep yet,” he instructs and Jon can’t help but let out a groan. The warmth and safety of the spot and the closeness of Tim has suddenly made him comfortably tired, and he’d like to slip off to sleep in this pleasant haze. “Not until you’ve had some food and water. I’ve even got those crusty little granola bars you like so much.”

“They’re not crusty,” he grumbles, his voice stifled by a pillow. But he’s not in a fighting mood and his mind’s currently swimming with the fact that Tim stocked his favorite snack. 

“Very crusty, indeed,” Tim’s nudging him up into a sitting position and forcing water into his hands. “Drink up!”

“You’re very irritating, I hope you know,” Jon says as he leans his head onto Tim’s shoulder. Tim makes for a comfortable pillow. 

“Aw, you love it.” 

Maybe he does.

By the time he’s choked down the last of the bar, his eyes are fluttering and he can’t keep in his yawns. Tim puts a warm hand on his arm and it burns pleasantly as he pulls him up. “Time for bed, I think.”

The words startle Jon out of his haze and he blinks his eyes open, focusing on Tim’s gentle smile. “Er, I think-” he doesn’t want to disappoint the man, but he would rather be as cautious as possible. “I think it would be best if I slept out here.”

“On the couch?” Tim asks, his brow furrowing in confusion. “Oh- would you rather sleep alone?” Tim doesn’t seem too miffed about it, just confused, so Jon answers as honestly as he can.

“Yes.” He doesn’t want to, not really. But he needs to.

“Alright,” Tim agrees easily enough. “But you should take the bed, then. The sofa’s comfy but I know you have a bad back-”

“It’s fine for one night,” Jon responds. Forcing Tim to sleep on the sofa in his own flat seems terribly selfish.

“If you’re sure…”

“I am,” Jon assures, trying to convey his affection in a gentle smile. Tim returns it.

“I’ll just get you some sheets, then. Change of clothes, too.”

By the time Jon’s head hits the pillow, comfortably attired in Tim’s old joggers and t-shirt, he’s already half asleep. He thinks Tim’s already left the room but then he feels the warm pressure of a kiss to his forehead.

Perhaps he dreamed that, though.

__________

There’s a thread and it’s pulling Jon forward.

It’s not comfortable. Jon would rather stay here, in the library, surrounded by books and dim lights and knowledge he has control over. But there are whispers in the hallway, and someone’s telling him to go, go, go. 

And go he does. Down stairs, so many stairs, more stairs than the institute ought to have. There is something watching and something pulling; Jon is being split in two and somehow this is worse than actually seeing the spiders and the eyes that have haunted him all these years. This, he feels in his soul. Something is at stake.

There’s a door. This is how it always ends, you see- with a door. And Jon’s fist, small and childish and grubby, raises to knock against the wood. It echoes too many times as Jon tries to step back, get off this porch and out of this nightmare but it is too late, the deed is done and the door is opening and a single, spindly black leg creeps out of the door hello, Mr. Spider-

“Jon!”

There are limbs holding him but it’s not the many-legged creature of his nightmares- they’re familiar and strong even as he thrashes against them but someone is screaming and the sound is haunting and painful-

And it’s him. Jon wrenches his eyes open to find himself safe and sound, held in place by Tim’s arms. His heart continues to stutter and he wheezes- Tim’s got a hand on his back and a soothing murmur going.

“You’ve got to breathe, Jon. Slow.” Tim takes his shaking hand and puts it to his own chest. “Like this. In and out. There you go. Nice and slow.” The words are calm and practiced; Tim’s done this before, with someone else. As his heartbeat resumes a normal rhythm, he wonders who. 

There’s a hand on Jon’s face, gently wiping away tears he wasn’t aware he shed. Tim’s eyes are far-away, sort of, like he’s just going through the motions, slow and loving. “There we are,” he says as he finally meets Jon’s eyes. “Better now?”

“Y-Yes,” he croaks back. His hand is still gripping at Tim’s shirt but he doesn’t let go until the reality of the situation sets in. “Oh God- I’m- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you-”

“Is that why you slept out here?” Tim asks, his voice patient. “Does this happen a lot?”

“M-More than I care to admit.” Jon feels a sudden need to explain himself, to let Tim know he tries to keep it under control as best he can. “I’ve tried everything- tea, therapy, p-pills- it doesn’t work.” A note of frustration creeps into his voice. “Something doesn’t want me to sleep, I guess.”

“Just thought you were a workaholic, to be honest,” Tim pulls him into his side and Jon melts, the tension slowly leaving his body. “Should’ve known better. We work at the Magnus Institute, after all.” The laugh that comes from both of them is bitter. “D’you want to sleep in my bed, maybe? Just- just for company. I’ve been told that helps.”

“I-I don’t want to wake you.” The argument is weak and the both of them know it.

“You already have, love.” The endearment slips out unnoticed by Tim, but Jon hears it. “You’ll wake me either way, but I’d rather you didn’t wake up alone.”

“O-Oh.” There’s a lot of care in those words. Jon doesn’t know what to do with it, except agree. “Yes, I’ll- if, if you don’t mind-”

“Wouldn’t offer if I did.” He wouldn’t, Jon knows. Tim always means what he says when it comes to him.

So they curl up in his bed, an arm slung across Jon’s waist, his back to Tim’s chest. There are no spiders here, not in this bed that smells of dryer sheets and detergent and Tim. He’s almost asleep when the arm around his waist tightens suddenly.

“My brother always said the pressure helped. When he had bad dreams.” Jon opens his eyes.

Tim never mentioned a brother; it never came up in any of their conversations. Tim knows Jon is an only child, that he was brought up by his grandmother and had a lonely childhood. He didn’t realize, in all of their time together, that he knew so little of Tim’s own background, besides his publishing career.

Nobody liked to talk about what brought them to the Magnus Institute. It was like some unspoken rule, some shared trauma that somehow kept them all silent and apart.

“Your brother?” he whispers, turning over to see Tim’s face. Its dark, but he thinks he can see a brightness in Tim’s eyes like unshed tears. 

“Danny.” Tim says the name like he’s asking for forgiveness that Jon can’t give. He sees a tear drip down the man’s face and he reaches for it, just like Tim did before. “He was...he was my little brother. And he was so, so good.” Tim’s voice breaks and something in Jon breaks too. “And something took him from me.” His expression is hard but his hand reaches out to lovingly trace Jon’s face, as if trying to memorize its shape.

“I’m sorry,” Jon knows his apology is not enough, that it will never fill the gap in Tim’s heart. Instead, he finds words spilling from his lips, as if sharing his own pain will help too. “I-I saw someone get taken, once. I didn’t- I didn’t love them, but- but it was because of me.” Tim’s hand is in his hair, tucking a curl behind his ear as his voice wobbles. “It should’ve been me.” 

Tim draws him close and squeezes; Jon buries his face in the crook of his neck and inhales. “I’m glad it wasn’t you, Jon,” Tim whispers as he runs a hand down his back. “I’m glad it wasn’t you.” Jon isn’t Danny and Tim isn’t offering him absolution but it’s fine, for tonight.

Jon doesn’t dream.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27494077

[ilguna]

Anteric - Chapter Nine (f.o)

summary: secrets have more worth than you gave them credit for.

warnings; swearing. MURDER PLOT, MURDER, SUICIDE MENTION SEVERAL TIMES.

wc; 9.3k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

The next four days follow the same nightmarish pattern of facing your fears early in the morning, and then wielding a gun or a knife in the evening. You think that Caspian and Laurel are really testing fate by allowing a group of unstable teenagers near anything dangerous. 

Sure, all of you have to be prepared to be able to wield a gun and defend yourselves in hard situations. But you wouldn’t say that it’s the brightest idea ever, too. You’re not entirely convinced that some of your fears correspond to shooting directly after. The only exception in this case, would be the one where you’ve watched Finnick die.

Despite all of this, you think that you’re beginning to get a hang of the fear-facing, to the point where you’ve managed to increase your time to five minutes. While everyone else works hard to make their time smaller and smaller, you’ve been trying to go against the current to make yourself look less suspicious.

You’ve figured that it’s easier to calm yourself down once you realize which fear you’re in. It’s only the four that repeat themselves, being buried alive, watching someone bleed out and die, and being trapped in an enclosed space with spiders. The easiest of them being buried alive, mainly because it’s not as hands-on.

You’re not forced to save someone, drowning in their blood as you try to cover wounds that will only become insignificant in the end. As more and more appear on the other’s body, screwing your focus and making you forget that you’re in a simulation. And you aren’t aware of the fact that you have to keep moving around for as long as you can without being covered in the spiders.

With the coffin, there’s no imminent danger, no real threat is hanging above you, besides the sure. Sure, you’re being buried alive, the dirt will eventually end up suffocating you. Yet, it’s not chaotic. You’re not fighting anything, you’re just forced to sit in darkness, feign some fright for a while, and then you’re free. If you were being buried without the coffin, that might be a different story. But that isn’t your fear, the coffin is a detail for a reason.

The others don’t seem to be as lucky as you are. They’re stuck in the same loop of facing their fears, and not knowing what to do after. At least you can say that your nightmares aren’t making your skin crawl anymore. For them, they shake when someone asks what they’ve gone through, and wake up screaming at night.

However, there are a few of you who are outshining the others. And it seems to be the people who hadn’t done too well during the first stage of initiation that’re getting the hang of this one. Which is a shame, because their progress isn’t really going to pay off until the final stage, when they beat the rest.

The few that you’ve noticed are Sydney, Nestor and Cass. They act a little differently than the others do. Sydney and Nestor have always been laid back. You can’t really say the same for Cass, since you don’t know her as well. But they definitely have a different attitude when they go into the room, compared to someone like Thyme.

Then there are the people who are naturally good or bad at the simulations, and it’s typically hard to tell which is which. Like Laurel told you, your friends are close to the twenty minute range, and as far as you know, you’re the only outlier. You can always time people on your watch, but it’s not the same, not really.

Anyway, it’s been about four days since you’ve so much as glanced at Finnick in front of Thyme. It was a smart move to make, because she might have started off stiff, but she’s officially cooled down. She’ll still glare at you occasionally, then again she was doing that before the party, so it’s not a surprise or a change of routine.

Because of that, the only times you’ve gotten to talk to Finnick was in bits and pieces when Thyme wasn’t around. Which was practically never, considering that she attached to him like a parasite and doesn’t let go. You’d hardly be able to get a full sentence in before she came around again. Laurel wasn’t much help either, she didn’t give you any accidental golden chances either.

The more time passed, the more anxious you got over the fact that Finnick might have been thinking that you were backtracking. You were making no real effort to get alone time, not to mention you felt like your grasp was slipping. You said so yourself, you had Finnick in your hold. And leaving him with Thyme for four days all alone might change things.

In order to finally ease the stress that’s been eating away at you, you went ahead and sealed the leap of faith. It’s taken you four days to finally come to terms with the fact that you have to tell Finnick that you’re Divergent, whether you like it or not. You can tell yourself that it’s an unnecessary risk, and that he might already have some biased ideas somehow. But the truth is, you won’t know until you try.

A slight problem is you didn’t get to invite Finnick to the chasm before Laurel called you into the fear room. So, you had to ask Laurel for a favor, which was to call Finnick in next and send him through the second door in the room that will bring him to the dark hallway. It’ll be completely out of the way of Thyme, you won’t have to worry about accidentally running into her on the way to the chasm.

Fortunately for you, today you had to be locked in a coffin underground, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. You hope that the same goes for Finnick, because you really would like him to be in the right headspace before you go ahead and dump your biggest secret onto his shoulders. You don’t want it to end up being the last straw that does it.

You twist your wrist towards your face, making the watch light up in the hallway. If you’ve been tracking the time correctly, it’s coming in fifteen minutes. You should have another five to go, and even that might be an overestimation. 

You yawn, cracking your knuckles before getting to your feet. The last time you jumped out at Finnick from the wall, you scared him pretty bad, so you’re not entirely sure if there’s a way to get around it this time. There’s no lantern for you to steal from the wall, not that you’re sure if you’ll be able to do that, anyway.

About a minute or so later, the door finally opens. You emerge from the wall, standing off to the side of the hallway with your arms crossed. There’s just enough light from the room to light you up, so Finnick spots you easily. 

He has one hand reached up and placed over the spot where Laurel injects the serums. For a second, his eyebrows draw in like he’s confused, but then a smile slowly comes onto his face. You lean around Finnick to thank Laurel, she’s already holding a hand up, and then shoos you.

You hold out your hand for Finnick to take, and you watch as he takes it. You pull him along, he lets the door slip shut behind him with a gentle click. The hallway falls back into a pitch black, and you’re left to guide Finnick. You remember when it was the other way around, with you relying on him to warn you of where you step.

“What are we doing today?” he asks, “Another secret party?”

At the thought of your confession, an ache starts in your chest. If only it were something fun, “No, I think I’m going to tell you everything today.” With the exception of one thing, one little thing that doesn’t exactly have any connection to the blackmailing problem.

“Oh.” he says, you’re not sure you’d have anything to say in response to that, either.

The hallway finally splits into two, you head off to the right. It’s only a hundred or so more feet when you begin to hear the rushing water. You have to swallow to ease the growing tension in your throat. Finnick should be fine, you’ve known him a long time. He’ll give you a chance to explain yourself before judgement.

At least, you hope he will.

You let go of his hand in the doorway, continuing to your spot on your own. To the same place you stood last time you spoke to him. This time, you don’t lean against the railing. Knowing you, you’ll get caught up in the conversation and end up falling off backward.

Finnick resumes his spot across from you on the wall.

You have to remind yourself to take deep breaths, “I need you to listen all the way before you make any judgement calls, okay?”

You don’t want to look at him, this will be so much easier if you don’t look.

“Okay,” he agrees.

You know where to start, you’ve rehearsed this exact moment several times, thought up every single possibility. You found the best way to explain why, all you have to do is start speaking.

You swallow.

“It starts with the aptitude test,” you begin, eyes focused on the toe of your shoes. Is this too far back? No, it’s where the root lies, “Normally people get a straightforward result, but I got inconclusive.” you have to look at his face, it’s neutral besides his eyebrows, “Which means that I didn’t place for just one faction, I placed for three. Abnegation, Erudite and Dauntless.”

You pause for a moment, letting him process this. You feel like you’re speaking too slowly, he isn’t a baby. But this is new to him, right?

“How?” he asks, the confusion is setting in.

“Um,” you're hyper aware of your shaking hands, “Well, the choices in the aptitude test are supposed to eliminate a faction each stage. The cheese was for Amity, and the knife was for Dauntless. I chose the knife, so that’s a Dauntless oriented response. But I was vulnerable to the dog, which is Erudite thinking. Then I threw myself in front of the dog, bringing out Abnegation.

“Candor was ruled out when I didn’t tell the truth, and Erudite and Dauntless were brought up again when I posed some stupid question and stood up for myself. And technically it wasn’t a conditioned Abnegation response, either.” You lace your fingers together, “I hold equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless and Erudite. The term for it is Divergent.”

Now you hold your breath, watching the gears turn in his head. You’ll be patient, let him come to conclusions on his own. Maybe he’ll suddenly solve the Thyme problem on his own, only allowing you to fill the gaps. Maybe he won’t, and he’ll demand more information.

The silence is overwhelming, “My legal result is Abnegation.”

His eyes flicker to you, “Why do you say Divergent as if it’s a bad thing?”

You think you’ll cry, “Because I can be killed for it if people find out.” 

Finnick understands, you can tell by the way he goes rigid, “You’re not kidding?”

“No.” 

Please don’t start running. Please don’t have ill intentions. Please say that you’ll keep it a secret.

“Okay, I can understand why you’ve been like this,” he slumps slightly, a frown coming over his face.

You know what he’s thinking, “Finnick, don’t think that I don’t trust you,” you move forward a little, “I don’t…” you take another deep breath, “A lot of people know right now, and my worst nightmare has already happened.”

He’s still watching you, “Like what?”

A metallic taste spreads over your tongue, “You asked if Thyme said anything to me, and I said yes,” your throat is closing, “You remember that?”

He nods.

“Well, when our families came to visit, Mox and his small family came and visited me,” Finnick raises his eyebrows, he must’ve missed them, “Just before they left, Mox told me that Caspian knows I’m Divergent, and he’ll look out for me. Then he told me that these two stages of initiation are going to be easy, because of the way my brain works so I need to be careful not to get caught, whatever.

“I went to leave the area that we talked in, and Thyme had overheard everything.” Your eyes find Finnick’s face again.

And he is bright red, eyebrows turned down, “What did she say?”

“She said that if I don’t stay away from you, she’ll tell everyone I’m Divergent.”

He doesn’t move for a long moment, jawline becoming more obvious each time he grits his teeth. His eyes cast towards the path you have to take to get away from the chasm.

You feel like crying, this is the exact reaction you were looking for. Anger because the person that’s been playing sweetheart and hanging off his arm has secretly been blackmailing you for a week.

“Is that all?”

No.

“Yes.”

There’s something else that you need to tell him.

“Does she know that they’ll kill you for it?”

You shrug slightly, “It’s Thyme we’re talking about, do you really think she’d care about that?”

“Probably not.” he mumbles.

You scuff your shoe against the rocks, pressing your lips together. You should tell him, do it real quick to get it out of the way. You’ve already spoken about so much, what’s one more?

When you open your mouth, the words lodge themselves in your throat, refusing to move. You settle for sighing instead.

He catches this, raising his eyebrows, “What’s wrong? Is there something else?” 

Tell him.

“No, I told you everything.”

Finnick doesn’t lessen his gaze. 

Just tell him you like him.

You smile, he doesn’t smile back, continuing to wait.

You’ve told him so much already, what’s one more?

“Come on, (Y/n),”

What if he doesn’t feel the same?

Silence.

It’s a chance you have to take.

You clear your throat.

No, you’re going to ruin recently established peace.

“I just wanted to apologize for the final fight, is all.”

What a lie.

Finnick doesn’t believe you, he turns his head to the side a little.

You shrug again, “I didn’t want to bring it up because I don’t want to bring up things in the past if you aren’t bothered by them.” you play with your fingers, trying to figure where to go next. Then you realize that there is a problem that you left unsaid, “Ah, right, I remember now.

“Besides the obvious reason why I was mad at you, I realized something during the fight which made it a whole lot worse,” you rub the back of your neck, trying to ease the growing tension, “You--um--you see me as an equal, right? Cause for a second, I was convinced you thought of me as lesser and that doesn’t… sit right with me…”

Finnick’s got his eyebrows screwed in, “An equal?”

“Yeah, like we’re on the same level ground and I’m not in some ditch or whatever.”

His face twists, “I’m sorry, but shouldn’t this had been in the meaningless conversation the other day?”

You open your mouth, eyebrows in. Once he starts laughing, you snap your mouth shut.

“I’m kidding, of course we’re on the same page.” he grins, showing his teeth, “I mean, if we weren’t, we wouldn’t be friends, would we?”

You purse your lips, “I guess not.”

“You guess?” he laughs again, “Anyway, I don’t care about the fight. You won fair and square, even though you were definitely hyped up on adrenaline.”

You smile.

Finnick eyes the hallway for a moment, the humor slowly fading from his face, “So what are we going to do about Thyme?”

Your heart twists when you hear the word ‘we’, “There’s no real way to get her to shut up, Finnick. Unless we somehow make her get cut during stage three.” you clench your teeth, “All my ideas have been permanent and illegal.”

He nods, “I can see why.”

“It’s a lifelong thing she can hold over me.”

“You can always tell Caspian.”

“He already knows,” you lean your head back and watch as Finnick looks at you, “You know when you caught me that morning getting ready super early?”

Finnick nods.

“Yeah, well, the leaders of Dauntless and our trainers will eat breakfast way before everyone else so that they can discuss initiation and stuff. So I got Caspian away from them and told him about Thyme, and he said he can’t help me anymore because Thyme accused him of interfering so he really needs to back off.”

You crack a smile, “Actually, he told me that I should tell you the truth about everything and have you work with me to find some solution. The problem is that he can’t know what I want to do with her, and he told me not to be too brash but it’s not like I have a choice.”

“We,” Finnick corrects, “It’s not like we have a choice.”

You give him a soft smile, “Right, we.”

Finnick stretches, arms above his head, letting out a groan, “I’m going to go ahead and guess that your plan includes murder.”

“Honestly, it was my first thought when she made me agree to it on Visiting Day.”

“And I don’t really see any other option besides beating her up and throwing her to the streets, but she’ll just tell the factionless that you’re…” he doesn’t say the word, eyebrows furrowing, “...and that would be the end of it.”

“Yup.”

He makes a face, “We should probably think it over some more.”

“That works, I guess,” you check your watch, thirty minutes have passed since the beginning of the conversation, “Alright, you go ahead and go back, I’ll follow after you in a couple.”

“Sure,” he says.

You expect him to start into the hallway immediately, but he comes towards you instead. You lift your head from the wall, face twisting in confusion. He holds a hand out for you, you go ahead and take it, not entirely sure what he wants. Is he going to bring you somewhere?

No, he pulls you into him for a hug. His arms wrap around your back, underneath your arms. Immediately, your face feels like it’s on fire, heart pounding in your ears. It takes you a moment, but you hug him back, placing your ear against his chest, closing your eyes. The last time you hugged was before the Choosing Ceremony, when you weren’t sure if you’d see him ever again.

Your thought from earlier boomerangs back, much louder and begging this time for you to tell him that you have a crush on him. That you’ve had a crush on him for years, you just couldn’t say so before because of Abnegation ideals and how taboo a relationship is.

You can’t though. You’ve said too much today, told him everything on your list. This confession, the very last one, is not as significant as the rest. You can tell him some other time.

Finnick gives you a gentle squeeze, “Thank you for trusting me.” he murmurs.

You swallow the tightness in your throat, “I’ve always trusted you more than the rest.”

He moves away first, a smile on his face, “I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Yeah.” Why are you dizzy all of a sudden?

He leaves now, all you can do is place your hands on your head, fingers interlaced as you turn to the railing. There’s tears in your eyes, and you don’t even realize it until they’re rolling down your cheeks. You sniff, and then huff out a laugh, bringing your hands back down to wipe them off.

You and Finnick are okay.

It’s a thought that keeps running through your head over the next hour. You’re okay, there’s no need to worry anymore. And he thinks that your problems are his again, it’s a good sign. The hug really topped it off, but it’s also the thing that broke you. He must’ve known that you needed one.

You loosely wander back to the dorm, having had enough of the chasm for one day. You’re more than sure that everyone is done facing their fears now, so it should be safe for you to come back without any suspicion. When you reach the door, you softly push against the wood and slip through the crack that’s barely big enough.

You expect to see everyone off in their usual corners, maybe a few people napping because the daytime is the only time when they can sleep anymore, maybe a few people missing. You’re pleasantly surprised to see that everyone is gathered together around the chalkboard that had given the first stage’s rankings.

Caspian is standing within the half-circle, his eyes follow you on your way in, “Now that (Y/n) has finally made it, I can show you.”

A few people glance over their shoulders, none of them dirty looks except for Thyme. You ignore her, and Finnick, going to stand on the side of Blaire that’s away from them, as if he’s some sort of shield. In classic Blaire behavior, he slings his arm over your shoulder.

“Are these the rankings for stage two?” you ask.

“Progress report,” he says, “Caspian’s showing us where we’re at so that we’re prepared for stage three and how badly we need to improve before then.”

An uneasiness grows in your stomach, heart skipping. Everyone is about to see where you’re at, and how far ahead you are. And with Thyme’s accusation of Caspian interfering, this is not going to look good.

Your teeth sink into your cheek, right into the wound you carved up earlier when you were with Finnick. The warm taste of blood crosses over your tastebuds again, the pain sharp.

Caspian doesn’t say another word as he reaches up to hang the board on the designated nail. He stands in the way for a moment, blocking the view. Then, he shoots you a look before stepping aside, a silent warning that you are not as undercover as you’re supposed to be.

And he’s so right.

Your name is the first one on the list.

Your breath hitches, body rigid, eyes glued to the board, blood running from your face. Three minutes and forty-five seconds. This must be your time from the first fear simulation, and you are so incredibly grateful that your two minute one hadn’t been put up there. It would be a lot worse, then. Suddenly, the predator would become prey.

The person in second is, unsurprisingly, Finnick. He has nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds. There is a five minute gap between you two, and it is so significant that it makes your stomach twist.

Someone looks at you, you think it’s Eytelle. Judging by the corner of your eye, she is incredibly angry, compared to Blaire, who has a tight grip on your shoulder, shaking it to bring you back to life. You think it’s praise, you think that he’s excited for you.

His name is in the third slot.

You look past Blaire, eyes finding Finnick for comfort. He’s already looking at you, his lips are pressed together. Thyme could easily mistake this as displeasure towards you, good. To you, this looks like worry. You told him you had to be careful, and this does not look like careful.

When you look at Thyme, you can see her arm loop around his, pressing her body into his side. She doesn’t speak very loud, only enough for Finnick to hear. Unfortunately for her, in Abnegation you’re all used to the silence and working around it so that you don’t disturb the others.

“She’s cheating.”

You elbow Blaire slightly, trying to get his arm off of you, “Laurel warned you about accusing me of cheating already.”

The silence in the room is overcome by the blood rushing in your ears, body heating up. You’re tired of people saying that you’re cheating, Thyme, Ameer, now Eytelle. Is it so hard to believe that you can be in first place without cheating? That you don’t need help to get there?

Thyme looks over at you, face twisting until her mouth drops and her eyes widen. She looks at Caspian, shaking her head, “I didn’t even say anything!”

“Except you did.” Cass says, she’s standing further back than the rest of you. Which means she’s got a clear view of Thyme, “You mouthed it.”

“But I didn’t say it, there’s a difference.”

“So you’re admitting to it?” Caspian asks.

This is when Thyme pales, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Come with me.” Caspian starts towards the door, “Tomorrow’s a day off, don’t waste it.”

Thyme shoots you a nasty look on the way out.

The tension in the room doesn’t have time to grow, Blaire throws his arm back over your shoulder. You have to force a smile before you look at him, “Congrats.”

“Congrats to me?” Blaire’s laughing, the circle is beginning to form. They’re probably going to want to celebrate, “You’re in first!”

“I’m pretty sure (Y/n) meant to say, ‘Congrats for beating Lennox’.” Sydney laughs too, she’s in sixth, her hand is intertwined with Nestor, who holds the same smile. He’s placed in fifth.

Lennox makes a warning face at her, it’s playful. You can tell because he can’t keep the expression for very long before smiling. Lennox is in fourth. 

Trink, who’s in eighth place, is bouncing next to him, face suddenly lighting up, “Oh! That means that Lennox owes you his twenty points!”

Lennox lets out a groan, “No, don’t remind her!”

In order of first place to last, the list goes as follows: You, Finnick, Blaire, Lennox, Nestor, Sydney, Cass, Trink, Ameer, Mirza, Thyme, Allio, Eytelle, and Horace. The rankings from the first stage have definitely flipped. Allio was first, now he’s last. Eytelle’s isn’t all that surprising either, she nearly got cut on the last stage too. She was saved by Amos and Ossie.

There are fourteen of you. If Dauntless only accepts the top ten, then that means Thyme, Allio, Eytelle and Horace will immediately be cut. Which would partially solve the Thyme problem, only she would still know you’re Divergent and would be able to tell people later on,

When you look at Finnick, you think that he’s working on the same thought process.

“Well?” Sydney says, “Hand the points over, loser.”

Lennox punches her arm, “Shut--”

“Hey, Lennox,” you nudge him with your elbow, “You can just pay me five every month so I don’t run you dry.”

He stops, raising his eyebrows, “Are you sure?”

You shrug, “How else are we supposed to get celebratory tattoos today?”

Ameer and Mirza let out a whoop, leading the way out. They placed ninth and tenth, you’re not entirely sure if you'd be celebrating if you were them, but then again, they aren’t going to get cut. If they keep this up for the final stage, they’ll be golden. 

As expected, there are a couple of people that stay back, namely Eytelle and Allio, who are giving you dirty looks like Thyme normally does. Horace trails behind Ameer and Mirza since they’re refusing to leave him behind. You have to grab onto Finnick to make sure that he doesn’t stay here, either. 

“Hey Blaire!” You call, making him turn, “Finnick was wondering who you think the hottest leader out of all the factions is. He was thinking about Haymitch.”

“(Y/n)--?” Finnick strangles out, giving you an incredulous look. You flash him a smile, pushing him forward into Blaire.

“Really? I was thinking Mags.” Blaire snorts.

--

Even though it was risky, you and Finnick went ahead and got matching tattoos like a couple of idiots. It was a long process of trying to figure out a middle ground. You’d suggest something like the Abnegation logo and Finnick would look at you disgusted. Then he would suggest something vulgar, and it would be your turn to look at him like he was doing it on purpose.

Since it took a while, by the time you two made the decision, Blaire, Sydney and Nestor were the only three that were still willingly sitting with you. Lennox and Trink had disappeared sometime during the middle, Ameer, Mirza and Horace went to play a dangerous game near the Pit drop off. And Cass got distracted when she realized that her blonde hair was perfect for dying.

You can’t take all the credit for the tattoo idea, it really stemmed from Sydney and Nestor when they showed you theirs. If they stand side by side, with Nestor on the right and Sydney on the left, and lift up their shirts, they have a flutter of butterflies across their ribs that make a whole picture.

So, you and Finnick decided to get something like that, but a lot simpler. No color or shading, just the lining of two hands holding out their pinkies to make a promise. Yours is on your left shoulder, and Finnick’s is on his right. It can’t really be seen unless you force your shirt over, so there’s not a lot of risk.

Unless Finnick walks around shirtless, and someone catches a glimpse of your tattoo and Thyme somehow finds out and puts two and two together. However, you don’t see that happening any time soon. As far as you’re concerned, she’s completely oblivious to the planning that’s going on between you two.

You tie your hair in a knot at the back of your head, desperate to get it off the back of your neck. Next to you, Trink is twirling her hair around her finger like she always is. She’s also leaning into Lennox more than she usually does, so something definitely happened between them yesterday when they left.

Lennox seems to be making an effort to stick close to her, too. This morning, they had sat next to each other at breakfast, glued to the hip and refused to let anyone sit in the middle. It makes you think that they’ve officially started dating, but they’re not acting like it. Not like Sydney and Nestor.

Your eyes drag over to Finnick and Thyme, they’re sitting on the other side of the dining hall. She sits across from him, body turned so that she isn’t facing you. Finnick, on the other hand, has made sure that he can see you from where he sits. He’s not eating his lunch anymore, his cheek is cupped in one hand.

And his other is on his shoulder, where his new tattoo is.

You sit up a little straighter, wondering how long he’s been waiting for you to see. You and him decided to make a sign for if one wants to talk to the other, so that you two don’t have to keep waiting to talk to each other after fear facing. He suggested that putting your hand over the tattoo would be it, a telltale sign to go to the chasm after whatever you’re done doing.

Finnick briefly glances over, you go ahead and place your own hand over your shoulder, giving him a gentle nod before looking back at your friends. You need a way to get out, you’ve been sitting here, done with your lunch for a while. You’re sure that they’ll understand.

You place your hands onto the table, getting ready to push yourself up. This immediately catches Trink’s attention, she slowly tears her eyes from whatever Blaire is talking about, to look at you. Her eyebrows are raised, mouth parted.

“I’m going to disappear for a while,” you say, “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

Trink pouts for a moment, “Can you be back before dinner this time? I thought we could all sit around and play some Dauntless games.”

You shrug with one shoulder, “Sure, no problem. I’ll keep track of the time on my watch.”

She smiles, “Thank you.”

You say your goodbyes to the others, punching Blaire’s shoulder on the way out. 

You’re the first to escape the dining hall, taking your time when you walk to the chasm. There’s no question that you’ll be back before dinner. Only in your dreams will you be able to hang around Finnick for longer than thirty minutes at a time, anymore. On the off-chance that you stay behind for a while, Sydney and Nestor know where to find you.

You get halfway down the long hallway that drops off at your corner, when there’s a rapid sound of footsteps behind you. You raise your eyebrows, a smile on your face when you spot Finnick running at you. He holds his hands out, making a noise that’s a mix of a snarl and a snort.

You get it, you’re supposed to run away.

You play along, running down the hallway in the dark. It’s dangerous, you could trip and fall. But then again, your whole life has been dangerous since the moment you finalized your decision of joining Dauntless. On your first day you jumped from a moving train to a rooftop! You hung from the chasm bridge by your fingers! You ziplined face first off of a building! You’re Divergent, for fuck’s sake!

At this point, you’re beginning to think that danger could really be your middle name.

Your guys’ laughter echoes off the stone walls, you can see your little dip for the chasm coming up, preparing to throw yourself against the wall to avoid Finnick. He’s much quicker than you, his hands clamping around your upper arms as he pretends to roar.

Tears appear in your eyes, you wipe them away, “Okay, get off of me.”

Finnick’s still chuckling to himself when he goes to his far wall. He doesn’t stand, though, he sits down immediately. You go ahead and follow, criss-crossing your legs and placing your hands in the gap in the middle.

“So, what’d you call me here for?” you ask.

Finnick shrugs, “I just didn’t want to be around her anymore. She kept asking me if she thought you were cheating. I think she’s a little on edge now that you keep ranking on top.”

“I can’t help it,” you murmur.

“I know,” he says, his legs extended in front of him, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

You smile, “Have any ideas on how to solve the problem?”

He shakes his head, “I mean, at this rate she’ll probably get kicked out, but that isn’t what we’re looking for, right?”

You press your lips together, “It’s not realistic.”

“I figured as much, don’t worry.” he looks off to the side, “What if we blackmail her?”

You don’t answer him right away, “We don’t really have any leverage.”

“But if we trick her into it?” Finnick asks, sitting up, “Like, I could hint at getting rid of you from number one somehow, which will keep her in the top ten so she wouldn’t get cut.”

You try to hide your horror when you remember just how alike you and Finnick are. Sometimes you forget that you’ve been around each other for so long that you ultimately have the same brain. You could be thinking something, and he’d probably be able to guess what.

“I’m… not sure…” you manage to get out, “if I still want to be the--um--center of the danger...?”

Finnick doesn’t question you, nodding, “But it’s an idea.”

“I guess? How about we put that on the back burner and try again?”

Finnick gives you a funny smile, “I’m not sure if any of my other ideas will be as perfect as that one so bare with me.”

“Sure.”

And he’s right, once the two of you try brainstorming again, you’re not really coming out with any ideas that you like. You’d really like to go for the first one, but you’re not sure how Finnick would even lead her in that direction. You have no doubt that Thyme wouldn’t have any qualms about murdering you to get ahead. To her, that would be the perfect solution to keep you away from Finnick forever.

The real problem would be to frame her for thinking it up on her own without getting Finnick mixed in there somewhere. Also, there would need to be witnesses--other than you and Finnick--because it’s already known that you three aren’t exactly the best trio when you’re around each other. You could end up getting in trouble, Thyme could figure out that you’re working with Finnick, and it could end right there.

Finnick suggests accusing her of being Divergent, giving it a little spin. You shoot him down, explaining that your results had to be entered manually. Not to mention, she could always spin it back on you, and then the two of you could be taken away together. 

He’s not very quiet when he calls you a buzzkill.

You glance at your watch.

“Is time up?” Finnick asks.

“Is it that obvious?” you joke, beginning to get up, “We can always brainstorm tomorrow, it’s not like we don’t have a week until initiation ends.”

You stretch your arms above your head. Finnick gets to his feet too, sliding his hands into his pockets, “Before I go, I actually had something I wanted to tell you.”

“Yeah, sure,” you smile, leaning against the wall.

“I know we just started being okay again...” Finnick trails off suddenly, eyes fixated on something in the dark. You open your mouth, going to ask what he’s looking at, but he takes a hand out of his pocket, palm-down as if to tell you not to speak.

“Who are you talking to?”

You can feel your blood run cold.

Finnick moves forward, “I was practicing.”

You knew that going past thirty minutes would be a mistake, but you didn’t think that Thyme would come looking. Did she follow you guys? No, she would have come out a lot sooner. Then again, she waited until you found her to say anything about you being Divergent.

And there’s only two people that know this spot is yours. Which means that Thyme might have gone asking about Finnick, she came up with some excuse, and ended up here.

You close your eyes, tilting your head up to the ceiling, holding your breath.

“No, there was another voice, I heard it. Who are you talking to?” Thyme demands, her shoes are loud against the floor.

You look over to Finnick, who’s trying to walk towards her to make her backtrack. 

“It’s (Y/n), isn’t it?” she asks, her voice is getting closer.

“Thyme, no one is there,” Finnick says.

“Then prove it, move out of the way,” she presses her hands to his chest.

You scoot to the left, moving away as you exaggerate a nod. 

You two can trap her here, and figure out where to go from there. The more you think about murder, the more your heart skips. You can’t just kill her, someone will figure out that it’s you two that did it. Thyme goes looking for you two, who are known for hanging out together now, and she doesn’t come back?

You have to convince her not to say anything about you being Divergent. 

Finnick moves aside, allowing her to look for herself. His eyes lock with yours, lips pressed together into a tight line, shaking his head. He doesn’t know what you’re going to do, but he’s sure that it isn’t going to work. You wish he’d have a little more faith.

Thyme comes around the corner, arms crossed over her chest, mouth twisted into an angry mess. You reach out, grabbing her arm and throwing her towards the railing, trading spots with her. She catches herself on the railing with her hands. You used too much momentum, she could’ve fallen.

Finnick moves around you, standing on your right side. Thyme slowly turns around, eyes landing on you first, “You’re so fucking stupid.”

You stare at her, not saying anything. She goes to walk around Finnick, but he moves when she does. He’s not going to let her through, and she doesn’t understand this at first. Only when he mirrors her movements again, does she shoot a glare at him.

“Finnick, you don’t understand what she is,” Thyme’s voice changes significantly, from anger to softness, “I don’t know what she told you, but it wasn’t the truth.”

“So it’s not true that you’re blackmailing her?” Finnick asks plainly.

Thyme gapes for a moment, clearly not expecting him to outright say it.

“You’re not a very good actress,” you say, “you should work on being less transparent.”

Her eyes flicker to you, and she’s back to being pissed, “I told you what would happen if you came near him.”

“And I warned you about what would happen if you did this to me, Thyme.”

She doesn’t get it, you can tell by the way her face scrunches up. The more the gears turn, the more her face relaxes and she pales instead. You’re glad you’ll be able to see the terror in her eyes, the same terror you felt when you realized that she had heard about your secret.

“You won’t be able to kill me.” Her voice isn’t as smooth as it was before.

“What makes you think that?” you ask, tilting your head a bit, “You think that just because Finnick’s here, he’ll save you? If that were the case, he would’ve let you go by now, don’t you think?”

No comeback.

“What’s the plan?” Finnick asks, glancing at you.

“Don’t let her think for you, Finnick,” Thyme blurts, “You told me yourself that you hate  it when she’s in your head like this!” she reaches out for him, he takes a step back, “And now that it’s happening again, you’re just going to let it go?”

“I never said that.” Finnick suddenly snaps, “I said I hated it when she’s in her head, like she can’t tell me anything.”

You ignore the wrenching feeling in your heart. You need to focus.

“Did she tell you that she has Erudite tendencies?” Thyme asks, not a hint of regard in her tone.

You straighten up, because it’s decided. She just sealed her fate by asking him that question. Had she shown a little restraint, a little bit of sympathy, then she would’ve been fine. But just saying it out in the open like that, trying to use it as leverage again…

You reach out, grabbing her wrist harshly, “Throw her over.”

Thyme’s face changes, façade dropping again. She raises her other hand up, fist formed and aimed at your face. Finnick catches her wrist, holding it above her head. She starts yanking her arms down, “No--no, let me go!”

“Give me her other wrist, you can take her feet.” Finnick says, “I can hold her up higher than you can.”

“Stop!” the scream is shrill, “No!”

Finnick holds both of her hands above her head. If he wanted to, you’re sure, he could pick her off of the ground like this. His arms aren’t even fully extended yet, that’ll come in when you have to pick her up to get her over.

“Finnick, please!” she tilts her head back, “Please don’t do this, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?” Finnick glares.

You sweep up her feet, holding her ankles together under your arm for when she starts kicking.

“(Y/n), don’t!” Thyme inhales, a sob follows after, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I won’t say anything, please don’t do this.”

You let go of her feet when they’re over the railing, letting her scramble to find footing. Finnick doesn’t let go of her arms yet.

“I warned you,” you say again, staying on her right side. You place both hands on the railing, leaning forward so that she can see your face, “I warned you that you’d end up here if you went through with this. You’ll be lucky if they find your body this far down the river.”

“They’ll catch you,” she sobs, her eyes bloodshot, hair blowing up because of the wind from the river, “you won’t get away with this.”

You give her a smile, “No one in this faction will miss you.” you lean in a little, “They might even thank me.”

“Or think you committed suicide because there’s no way you’re surviving initiation.” Finnick says.

“Hey, being dead is better than being factionless, right?”

Thyme sucks in a deep breath through her mouth, “Help!”

You snort, “Thyme, we are so far down this hallway that you’d be lucky if someone heard you.” you look at Finnick, giving him a nod, “Any last words?”

“Finnick, I thought I was your friend!” she screams, leaning backwards, away from the river.

“I was wrong.” he says plainly, letting go of her wrists.

Thyme teeters for a moment, looking like she’s going to catch her balance. All it takes is one pat on the back to send her flying forward, “Good luck!” you shout.

Her screams are loud, and are cut off suddenly when she hits the water. You don’t move from where you stand next to the railing, Finnick comes up beside you, wrapping an arm around your back, hand squeezing your upper arm as he pulls you into his side. 

All you can think about is what your father would think, after being murdered by a factionless. How his daughter, who had suffered from this loss, went through with a half-baked plan like it was her only option. How selfish it was to save yourself.

You need a distraction.

You suck in a shaky breath, closing your eyes when your head dips, “What were you going to tell me before she came?”

Finnick’s quiet for a moment, “That I’m Divergent too.”

--

It’s late into the night when they discover Thyme’s body, and you’re already wide awake when Trink shakes you to let you know. You have to pretend to be groggy when she helps you down from the top bunk, already tugging on your arm to get you to move faster.

You couldn’t sleep, not after what you’ve done.

There are only a few people awake, you notice. Blaire is hovering over Finnick’s bed, a hand on his shoulder as he speaks quietly. When Blaire notices you staring, he nods at you. Finnick is rubbing his eyes, but his movements are far too soft for a person who just woke up. He wasn’t sleeping either.

Trink doesn’t stop to wait for them, bringing you right through the door and down a series of hallways, taking you deeper into the Dauntless headquarters than you’ve ever dared to go. There must be another place where the river shows up besides your corner, otherwise you don’t think they would have found her.

“How’d you know?” you ask her, trying to sound like you’ve just woken up.

She seems to believe it, “Lennox was trying to be cute by showing me where the river leads because I mentioned that I like it. And we followed it all the way back here, and I don’t know how he saw her body through the dark because I couldn’t see at all. But he saw, and told me to stay put while he got help.”

She looks at you, “When Lennox got back, he told me that one initiate dies every year because of their ranks.” she’s shaking her head, “But I don’t understand why she wouldn’t just choose to be factionless?”

You shrug, feigning a frown. The plan is working exactly like you hoped it would, not a single finger has been pointed toward you. Then again, it might be too early to speak, her body was just found. 

Thumping footsteps makes you and Trink turn back to see who it is. Trink gives room between you two to allow Blaire and Finnick in. Finnick comes right up your left side, his tattooed shoulder to yours. His hand finds yours, squeezing tightly.

You didn’t believe him when he told you he was Divergent. You were convinced that he was just telling you that to level out with you, to make you feel better and that you weren’t alone after all. But the more he kept talking, the details he was giving, the more you realized that he was telling the truth.

On the aptitude test day, Finnick had been stuck in the room with the Candor man. And that detail alone was enough to begin to settle the doubt because the Candor aren’t supposed to lie. An adult man in Candor shouldn’t have the urge to hide a Divergent teenager, especially if they’re supposed to be a danger to everyone else. Candor is supposed to be the law.

Finnick kept going, telling you that he took his aptitude test like normal. It was only after the test did he realize that something was wrong because of the look on the Candor man’s face. Finnick figured that the man was new, he looked confused and didn’t move from the aptitude test for a long time.

When Finnick asked what was wrong, he was told that the test accidentally gave him two results. One of them being Dauntless, the other being Abnegation. The Candor man went ahead and manually entered Dauntless, though, because the Abnegation part of him was ‘so insignificantly small’ that it couldn’t even count towards Divergence. But when Finnick caught a glimpse of the screen…

You were still confused on how Finnick didn’t know the terminology for it, then, if that’s the case. He said that the Candor man never explicitly used the word ‘Divergent’ or ‘inconclusive’, he just said that the results came out as an accident, it happened all the time, and there was nothing to worry about. That was the reason why manually entering results was possible in the first place.

And since you’re not supposed to discuss faction results, Finnick never had the reason to tell you his result or the aptitude problem in the first place. Honestly, he’s lucky he made it this far without casually telling anyone. Plus, you can’t imagine what he felt like while you were explaining your own Divergence to him, the realization of just how dangerous it is.

It explains a lot, though. Why Finnick’s time is so low when he faces his fears, but it makes you wonder why it isn’t as low as yours? Is it because he’s only Divergent in two ways instead of three? And a part of you thinks that Laurel should’ve asked him if he was Divergent, or figured that out on her own. Unless, of course, he’s still within the reasonable time range, which blocks him from being so suspicious.

So many questions, and no one to answer them

“When’s the last time you’ve seen Thyme?” Trink asks, looking over at Finnick.

“Just before I left lunch yesterday.”

Trink looks at you, her eyes lowering into a squint, “Which was a few minutes after (Y/n), right?”

You nod. She better tread carefully, because if she starts pointing fingers at you two…

“Oh my god!” She lights up, “Does that mean you two are…?”

She’s making a scissor motion with her fingers, chopping them together with a slight head tilt. You think she’s trying to ask if you two are together without realizing how odd her symbol for it is. 

“Dating?” you guess, Finnick’s grip tightens considerably, “No--”

“They’re holding hands,” Blaire grins, giving Finnick a wink.

Trink raises an eyebrow, “I bet you two are taking it slow, huh? Since you’re both Stiff’s.”

“We were Stiffs.” Finnick corrects her.

“Same difference,” she waves it off, “I’m just surprised you two can hold hands without being a mess.”

If she were standing next to you, you would’ve punched her.

“Anyway, did Thyme ever come find you?” Blaire asks.

You turn to your right to look at him again, “What?”

“Yeah, she asked us if we knew where you were, and Sydney told her that you were probably by some empty corner of the chasm. When Sydney asked why, Thyme said she wanted to apologize or something.”

You called it, you said that she probably went looking for one of you. And she did. If she had waited to eavesdrop, though, she would’ve heard you and Finnick speaking. She could’ve wreaked so much havoc, but she wasn’t patient enough for that. You’re thankful.

Your grip on Finnick’s hand is like iron.

“We never saw her,” Finnick says casually, looking at Trink, shaking his head, “(Y/n) and I were in the party room messing with the microphone for an hour before we decided to head back to the dorm.”

“Oh, it’s still in there?” Blaire asks, he sounds a little excited.

“Yeah! At least when we were in there,” you say.

“Huh,” Trink’s eyebrows are drawn in, “Do you think she was looking for you to make amends or something, and when she realized that you didn’t want to see her, she killed herself in that corner?”

“Didn’t Lennox think it was for ranks?” Finnick’s trying to steer her back to her original point.

“It could be both,” Trink shrugs, “I was just saying. It’s over here.”

She takes the lead, bringing you three around another corner before you all come to a stop. Lennox has his back to you guys, his arms crossed, but he’ll lift one every now and then when he speaks, like he’s trying to explain the situation. Off to the side, there’s a large puddle of water beneath a motionless body.

Thyme is soaked from head to toe, lying on her back. Her head is faced away, toward the ledge that has no railing. Wet hair, flattened against the ground and the sides of her face. Her clothes are like a second skin with the way they stick to her body.

A woman is holding a blue lantern up, staring down at Thyme. If it weren’t for the light, this whole area would be pitch black. And with the light, you’re able to see the ear piercing that you insisted on her getting when you and Finnick got nose piercings.

Finnick draws in a breath, and doesn’t release. Blaire stays on your other side, staring. Trink is the only one who moves forward, coming up behind Lennox to tell him that she’s brought you two. Her hand is gentle on his back, and he offers you three a half-glance, a nod, and then turns back to the man he’s talking to. Trink doesn’t leave his side.

“I’m… so sorry, Finnick,” Blaire says slowly, not being able to tear his eyes from the puddle of water.

“Don’t be, she wasn’t really my friend, anyway.” he gives your hand a squeeze.

Was she anyone's?

You try to bring out some sense of remorse, thinking that you should at least pretend to be upset, but what’s the use? Everyone in the transfer initiate group knows how much you hated each other, it would be weird for you to cry over her. In fact, it’s even weirder that Finnick isn’t crying over her.

Besides, you can’t fake an emotion that’s the complete opposite of what you’re feeling. In order to be a good actress, you have to feel what your audience would feel at that moment, and you just can’t do it. There’s something else that’s brewing, something more sickening and vile and would most definitely get you in trouble.

It’s pure gleeful laughter, the relief and satisfaction of knowing that you will never have to deal with her again. Much less worry that she could snap at any moment and get you killed. No more pressing your ears to closed doors, no more walking on eggshells...

At the rate the balloon is swelling in your chest, you’re not sure if you’ll be able to hold it in.

--

ANTERIC IS A SPIN-OFF DIVERGENT AU //MASTERLIST//

add yourself to the TAGLIST

@amixedwitch / @justthatfangirloverthere / @fnnshelbys / @neenieweenie / @vxntae / @liaaacantwrite / @terezasworld / @i-dumb-bitch /

[magniloquent-raven]

for the I Love You prompts: harringrove, 20) “You can borrow mine.”

thank you so much for the prompt!!! hope u enjoy what i did with it lol

posted on ao3

--

It’s been two years since the Hargrove-Mayfield family moved to Hawkins, and Billy is still here. He never planned on staying this long—in fact, he started coming up with an escape route the second his boots hit the ground, and yet…

Well, plans change. He didn’t plan on getting stabbed through the chest by a thirty-foot-tall spider demon made of people sludge either, but shit happens. Life happens. Falling in love happens, apparently. Not that Billy thought it would ever happen to him.

But here he is. In Hawkins, Indiana, head-over-fucking-heels, hanging around like a pathetic stray hoping for table scraps of whatever Steve Harrington’s willing to give him. They’re friends now, and Billy’s savouring every moment he can, while it lasts.

Steve asked him, one afternoon, why he was still here. “Figured you’d take off after graduation is all. Hawkins doesn’t exactly have much worth hanging around for,” he’d laughed, a little self-deprecating. “Besides, uh, a lot of bad memories here. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave.”

And Billy hadn’t known what to say. Muttered something about sticking around for Max, which wasn’t exactly a lie, but wasn’t anywhere close to the whole truth.

He spends a whole lot of time in that grey area. Weaving just enough reality into his cover-stories to make them solid enough to hide behind. It’s fucking exhausting. And sometimes a dangerous line to walk.

Especially since Steve seems to buy into his bullshit less and less lately.

Maybe it’s the fact that dying and coming back changes your perspective a bit, or hanging around Steve so much is making him soft, or some combo of both, but he’s starting to wonder if maybe he could let go of it entirely, and just…live honestly.

Which isn’t an option, not really. But sometimes, in the small moments when Steve smiles at him and the weight on his shoulders doesn’t feel as heavy, he thinks maybe, maybe, it could be. And it scares him a little. How much he wants it to be an option.

It’s a cold evening in mid-November the first time he really slips.

They’re at Robin’s house, of all places. Despite Billy’s jealousy over the closeness of her and Steve’s friendship, he gets along with Robin. Almost too well, according to Steve.

So, it’s a thing. All three of them hanging out at her place.

Her dad makes awesome mac n’ cheese. Her mom is friendly, but not too friendly. And they let Robin hang out in her room with two boys without making a huge fuss about it.

It’s nice.

Billy almost makes it through the whole evening without doing something stupid, but then Steve (somehow) spills an entire can of Coke on his jacket, and Billy opens his big mouth without thinking.

“You can borrow mine.”

The thing is…Billy doesn’t really get cold anymore. He gets warm still. Way too easily. Sometimes he’ll bundle up just to remind himself he can get warm without it hurting. Without the thing inside him dying of it and destroying him in the process. So, he still wears jackets, sweaters, whatever-- probably more often than he used to, actually-- but he doesn’t need them.

Sometimes he wonders if one day he’ll freeze to death without noticing, or if frostbite isn’t a thing for him anymore. He hasn’t had the balls to test it.

Either way it’s like the world’s dumbest super power. Just another thing reminding him of shit he doesn’t want to remember.

Steve is staring at him. At the jacket in his hand. It’s his leather one. The one Max bought for him after he came back from the hospital. She’d wrapped it up all pretty with a bow and note that said “glad you didn’t die” in purple ink. Susan was mortified when she noticed it but Billy laughed so hard he nearly busted his stitches. 

He’s worn the jacket almost every day since. 

Robin is staring too, with a weird, calculating look in her eye, and he doesn’t like it.

“I…” Steve’s gaze wavers, flickering between Billy’s face and his hand again, “I can just—”

“Just take it, Harrington,” Billy interrupts, hoping the gruffness covers for how pink his cheeks are. He tosses the jacket, and Steve catches it reflexively, still looking at it like he’s not sure it’s real.

“Are you sure?”

Is he sure. That he wants to know what Steve looks like in his jacket? Yes. That he wants anyone else to know that? No.

Billy shrugs, aiming for non-committal. “Not like I need it,” he gestures vaguely towards himself, “Not entirely human anymore, remember?” Bitterness creeps into his tone without his permission.

“Hey,” Steve admonishes. Quietly, softly, but still a reprimand. His eyes are wide, concerned. Billy tries to wave him off, but Steve shakes his head and takes a step closer. “Don’t do that. You’re not a monster.”

“I—” he can’t hold eye contact anymore, not with Steve looking at him like that. He stares at the ugly yellow carpet beneath his feet instead. “Didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did,” Steve responds immediately, tone firm and direct. Because he knows. Knows Billy better than anyone has in a long time. Which is saying something, because Billy is friends with a girl who’s literally been inside his head.

It makes Billy want to curl up in a hole somewhere and never speak again. Run as far as he can. Cry ‘til he can’t anymore. Break shit. Blow up his life and start over. Being known feels so foreign, he doesn’t know what to do with it.

But under that there’s something delicate, warm and fragile, tentative. He’s afraid to get near it. Like it’ll disappear if he looks too closely. Shatter into pieces if he tries to bring it out of hiding.

“Alright. Alright, fine,” Billy mutters weakly. “But just… wear the jacket, okay? Really. I don’t need it. Besides, it’d look good on you.”

Whoops.

Somewhere off to the side Robin makes a small, amused sound, and alarm bells go off in Billy’s head. But before he can completely panic, backpedal and pretend he was joking despite sounding entirely sincere, Steve grins.

They’ve been friends for over a year now and Billy’s world still stops for a moment when Steve smiles at him.

And then he puts the jacket on and…

Wow.

Okay.

Billy has always liked looking at Steve. He’s never really hidden that fact, just banked on nobody figuring out the why of it. He’s aware-- painfully aware-- that Steve is incredibly gorgeous. 

But this is...

This just isn’t fair.

Steve looks a little sheepish, and stuffs his hands in his pockets, hair falling in his eyes when he ducks his head. And he’s blushing. It’s faint, barely-there, just a light pink tinge to his cheeks that nobody would’ve noticed if they weren’t paying close attention, which. Well. Billy is. 

He wants to feel it under his palms, feel the warmth of it. Wants to know if he can make that blush spread, see how far it would go, chase that heat with his mouth, drop to his knees and watch Steve come undone. He wants--

So much.

He’s sure it’s written all over his face, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Well?” Steve raises his eyebrows, grin turning teasing as he spreads his arms, glancing down at himself pointedly. 

Billy clears his throat. Blinks. “Suits you,” he answers after a too-long pause. 

“Can we go now?” Robin interjects, rolling her eyes. Her tone is more fond than exasperated, but Billy still flinches a little.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, gaze flicking over to Steve for a second before he looks back at Robin. “Yeah, let’s go.”

He “forgets” to ask for his jacket back before he goes home that night. There’s no guarantee that Steve would wear it again, but Billy can hope. 

And for once in his life, he gets what he wants. Steve starts wearing it all the time. But Billy’s starting to see why people say “be careful what you wish for” because the whole situation is a very mixed blessing. 

He keeps catching Robin giving him weird looks, and, really, he can’t blame her because he’s been so unsubtle lately, it’s embarrassing. And terrifying. Because it’s going to get him noticed by the wrong person someday. 

But he can’t fucking help it, not when Steve’s walking around looking like that. 

Though, Steve’s been acting odd too. Staring at Billy when he thinks no one’s looking, face all pinched and thoughtful. It’s getting worrying. 

Then one afternoon Billy walks into Family Video and Steve pulls him into the back room. No hello or anything, just a hand around Billy’s wrist and a determined set to his jaw. 

He locks the door behind them.

“Steve?”

“I talked to Max this morning.” 

“O...kay?”

Steve sighs, runs a hand through his hair. His other hand is still wrapped around Billy’s wrist. “She said. Um. That jacket was a gift?”

Oh.

Shit.

“Yeah, so?” Billy flinches at his own tone but Steve doesn’t move, doesn’t pull away. His grip tightens, fingertips pressed to Billy’s skin hard enough to feel his pulse pounding. 

Steve takes a step forward. They’re close enough that Billy can see the purple shadows under Steve’s eyes. He doesn’t get enough sleep. Always asking Billy if he’s still having nightmares, never worrying about his own. Billy’s heart aches, and he hopes Robin will take care of Steve if this conversation ends his and Steve’s friendship. Someone needs to look after this boy if Billy isn’t there to do it. 

He hates that thought.

“So, I… Billy, why’d you give it to me?”

“Because…” Panic hits him hard, belatedly, as he tries to imagine actually answering that question. His stomach clenches, flips, and he curls in on himself. “Because you needed it,” he finishes lamely. 

But of course Steve sees through him, of course he does. “Really?” Steve sighs, rolling his eyes.

“What do you want from me, Steve?” Billy snaps, nervous energy making him jittery, he feels cornered, caught up in all the ways this could blow up in his face, trapped. He calms down a smidge when regret hits him, and he takes a breath, hates himself a little for snapping. 

“I want you to tell me it meant something, asshole.”

Billy freezes. 

He looks up at Steve, really looks at him, sees tension in his shoulders, the nervous twist of his mouth, uncertainty in his eyes. 

Oh.

“You...really?” Billy breathes, quietly, terrified of shattering the moment. “It does--it--it did, I--” Words have never failed him so completely. He used to be good at this. It would be utterly mortifying if not for the sweet smile spreading across Steve’s face. He’s strangely okay with making a fool of himself if it means Steve looking at him like that. “I wanted…” he squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself, “I wanted to take care of you. I always...want that. You needed something and I--I’d give you anything--” 

Steve’s hands are warm. He cradles Billy’s face gently, so careful, and tilts his face upwards until Billy meets his eyes. 

“Anything?” 

Well. No turning back now. Might as well embrace this whole honesty thing. “Yeah, pretty boy. Anything. Besides, you look hot as fuck in leather.”

Steve grins at that, eyes crinkling at the corners, and he lets out a huff of a delighted laugh. “In that case, I’m gonna need you to kiss me--”

He barely has time to finish his sentence before Billy lunges forward, crashing their lips together. It’s messy at first, desperate, Billy’s fingers threaded through Steve’s hair, pulling him closer. A whine escapes him (that he would deny later) when Steve pulls back, but he’s only gone for a second. He presses forward again, but gentler this time, slow, one hand falling to Billy’s waist and the other sliding to the back of his neck. 

Billy could’ve stayed like this forever, but a loud, insistent knock at the door makes them both jump.

“Steve, I don’t care if you’re mid-BJ right now, it’s my break, and you locked yourself in there with my stuff!” Robin yells through the door. 

Steve rests his forehead against Billy’s shoulder and he muffles a laugh into his shirt. “Goddamnit, Robin,” he mutters, and lifts his head to glare at the door, “Alright!” he calls, then turns to Billy. “To be continued?” There’s a question in his eyes, more than what he’s saying out loud.

Billy brushes a lock of hair from his face, and grins, “Count on it.”

[mathstarker]

Starker AU idea Peter Completely dependent on Tony

Humiliation, Slight mind control and Omorashi

It begins on a normal day for Spider-man, only Peter is getting slightly over his head and does something despite Tony telling him not to and ends up needing Iron Man to appear and save him, Tony and Peter end up arguing about it, Tony thinks Peter is too reckless and Peter thinks Tony is too overprotective.

later that night Tony realizes that he needs to do something to make Peter listen to him, despite wanting to he doesn’t think that he can kidnap Peter and hide him in a cabin where nothing can harm him, it would be easy for him of course, but he wouldn’t be able to handle a sad Peter without his aunt and friends or being Spider-man, much less Peter hating him but the way Peter doesn’t listen to him has to change.

So he decides to create something to make Peter to listen to him, of course he doesn’t want a completely obedient Peter without a will of his own he’d never destroy Peter’s mind like that, so he decides to make it look like Peter can’t do anything without Tony to help, he creates a device and applies it on the kid while he’s sleeping. 

Then he needs that Peter stays with him willingly, In this AU Tony is a bit kinder than the usual so the way he removes his aunt of the situation is by giving her a well paying job far from there, he will convince May to take the job saying that he can take care of Peter and he doesn’t have to leave the city, and everyone will be happy with it.

He also doesn’t want Peter humiliating himself in front of others Yet, so he waits for Peter’s vacation to begin his plan the first day after May leaves it begins, Tony decides to start with something easy, breakfast, he adjusts the device so that Peter acts clumsy with food, so for maximum effect he makes Pancakes full of syrup and whipped cream, Peter manages to surprise him like always and makes a complete mess there’s syrup  and cream everywhere and Peter only makes a bigger mess trying to prove he can do it, eventually Tony stops him and slowly helps him, makes peter clean himself, and calm down, Peter has no idea why it happened so Tony explains it that maybe he’s stressed because May is gone, after calm Tony tells him what to do step by step and Peter manages to do it perfectly, so he accepts the explanation.

Tony almost feels bad because of the way that Peter looked during breakfast was so pitiful, he almost changes is mind, then in the afternoon a guy in a rhino costume wrecks the city and Peter goes after him despite Tony telling him not to, and again gets hurt.

Tony decides he has to save Peter from himself no matter what so he makes Peter a clumsy mess during all meals, in the beginning he still feels bad, but then by the fifth day he realizes that Peter is beginning to wait before even picking his food, and the way he looks at him before asking how to much to put in his plate, is making he feel something that he can’t describe, Peter even lets Tony clean his face, and despite being embarrassed he always thanks Tony for it despite also apologizing for needing his help.

So it’s with an heavy heart and a weird feeling near his crotch he goes the next step, he makes Peter pee himself, Tony never understood the fun in watersports, but the way Peter’s face looked while he apologized for peeing in the couch, red of embarrassment, was something made Tony hard, so he told Peter to finish in the bathroom while he called someone to clean the room, so that Peter wouldn’t notice his boner, only he forgot that he activated the device to make Peter clumsy whenever he has to pee, so again Peter makes a mess in the bathroom, and remembering what happened when he has breakfast Peter realizes that he needs to call Mr.Stark and despite being completely humiliated he does.

And then Tony discovers that every person that ever called him a horrible Person or insulted in his life were wrong, he is much worse, he also discovers he has a kink for humiliating People or maybe just Peter, because when he looks at Peter clothes wet from his own piss completely red in the face asking for help to pee, he almost cums, he’s very lucky that Peter is too embarrassed to really look at him because anyone would be able to notice how hard he is.

All good intentions he had in the beginning are gone he doesn’t even care about stopping Peter from being Spider-man anymore he just wants to see how much he can humiliate Peter while also making him completely dependent on him, so he tells Peter to take off his clothes.

Peter tries to argue, but considering how the last meals went he already knows he needs to listen to Tony when he gets like this, so despite his humiliation he thinks it’s probably better than making another mess in front of his mentor, so he does it he gets naked in front of Tony, at this point he can barely think of how embarrassed he is almost thinking this is a nightmare, but it probably won’t get worse than this. He was wrong.

Tony couldn’t believe his luck he was having the greatest fun in a long time just by looking at Peter but he didn’t think anything could make the situation better, then Peter undressed, and it was small, he had sex with various Twinks through his life and seen various cocks, but Peter was little even for a teenager, so he couldn’t resist commenting on it, at first Peter didn’t realize what he was talking about, then he realized and began crying, Tony came instantly, he of course apologized and told Peter he had nothing to worry about, telling him that even though it was barely useful to penetrate someone he could still grind it on someone to feel good, it only made it worse, and Peter cried more, then tony began actually calming Peter down made him sit on the toilet and told him to pee.

At this point Peter was almost numb to everything, then Tony told him to wash his hands, and began cleaning his face for him, and Peter despite everything thanked him, because Mr.Stark helped him despite the embarrassing situation and despite the comment about his dick, he actually helped him, then he realized he was still naked while Tony was completely dressed, he was going to leave and get dressed, only Tony told him to wait in his room because he was going to dress him, Peter tried to stop him saying that he could do it, but Tony stopped him, he said that he understood how hard it was to be without his aunt May so he was having these problems but what if he tripped while changed clothes and hurt himself, he cares about Peter to much to let something like this happen, so Peter agreed, and Tony was very kind dressing him, he even promised new clothes for him as an apology for the situation, Mr. Stark was very kind, and he tried denying the clothes but Tony insisted saying that it would make him happy to know that Peter was wearing good clothes, so Peter agreed so long as Tony let him change clothes on his own until he had any problem with it.

The next day he had to call Tony in the morning because he couldn’t do it on his own, he even managed to rip it. He didn’t notice Tony trying not to smile.

Tony meanwhile thought his title of Futurist was worthless because he should have done this to Peter the day he met him, there was something so therapeutic about watching Peter asking him for permission whenever he was going to begin eating and he doesn’t even try to clean his face when he dirties himself, he simply takes a napkin and offer it to Tony so that he can clean him, and always thanks him so politely, that makes Tony worry about his heart, but also the way Peter looks when he says he has to pee and needs help makes his Dick completely hard, one would think that after the third time Tony tells him to undress he would get used to it, but no Peter is always is completely red whenever Tony helps him get naked, and he also always begins to tear up whenever Tony “accidentally” comments on how small his dick is, he of course always apologizes when he does it but “it can't be helped, it’s just so small i always surprise myself”, but despite everything Tony is already planning the next step, 

He noticed that Peter is scared of going outside, not as Spider-man of course, Tony would never risk his Peter making a mistake while he’s being Spider-man, and thanks to Peter already having identity issues of Spider-man being different from Peter Parker it was easy to make the device not affect Spider-man at all, and Peter noticed that while he’s dressed as Spider-man he can eat without making a mess because he managed to eat a churro while he was out, so he decided to try eating at home while dressed as Spider-man, and despite wanting to punish him he realized that he could make Peter punish himself, Peter tried to go to the bathroom while dressed as Spider-man, he thought that maybe wearing the mask only would be enough but as soon as he entered the bathroom and pressed the spider symbol to remove the suit, he began pissing, when he realized what happened it was already too late, and he began crying

Tony barely had to do anything as soon as he got there Peter got naked and asked for help, Peter was so embarrassed that he didn’t want to risk anymore for the day so he asked for Tony to give him a bath.

It completely shocked Tony because he had Planned for it to happen eventually but he was scared for peter to slip and harm himself, but this, this day was gettin better every second, not only Peter punished himself by peeing on his Spider-man uniform Peter actually asked Tony to give him a bath and Tony was going to milk this for what it was worth, the only bad side is that he couldn’t join because there would be no doubt that Peter would notice how hard he was.

He told Peter not to worry because he would use a sponge so Peter wouldn’t feel awkward with Tony’s hand all over his body, and in the beginning it was nice, Tony washed his hair very carefully and Peter almost fell asleep while he was doing that but then Tony took the sponge and began washing his body that Peter realized what he asked, he was already used to Tony looking at him naked, but this was completely different and then he realized that Tony was about to go below the waist he tried to stop him and that he could do it himself.

Tony of course wouldn’t miss a chance to embarrass him and told him no of course, he wouldn’t risk Peter hurting himself, in fact he was going to begin bathing him from now on, then he used the sponge on Peter’s dick, he pretend he didn’t notice what he was doing and kept looking at Peter’s face while he rubbed the sponge on Peter’s cock, Peter got hard very fast, and he was already getting red in the face, and he tried to say something but couldn’t he was too embarrassed. 

Tony pretended to be worried and said that from the way that Peter was red and trembling it really was for the best that he gave Peter baths from now on, all while rubbing the sponge on Peter’s dick, then just when he noticed Peter twitching about to cum he took it out, and pretended to be surprised that he was rubbing Peter’s dick, he apologized and said he didn’t noticed it because it was too small to feel it through the sponge, and Peter couldn’t handle it, after all that rubbing and then being humiliated like that he came.

Time stopped, Tony was trying really hard not to come in his pants again and he didn’t even have to pretend to be shocked, because he was planning on edging Peter, not discovering that Peter could come from having his cock insulted, then Peter began crying, Tony began comforting him telling him there was nothing wrong with having a small cock or a humiliation kink, he was very comforting and careful while he finished bathing him, then he dried Peter took him to his room and began dressing him, when he noticed that Peter was beginning to stop crying he gave the final blow, he said there was nothing with being a slut.

He managed to look positive and frame it as a sex positive thing, meanwhile Peter began crying again, and saying he wasn’t until Tony agreed, while very obviously looking that he didn’t believe Peter, later that night while he was sleeping Tony activated the device and made so that Peter couldn’t come without him.

The next few days Tony couldn’t be happier he was just waiting for Peter to ask him for help in the middle of the night when Peter surprised him by crying in the middle of the afternoon, asking for help because he was worried of embarrassing himself in Ned’s house since he couldn’t bring Tony with him while he was visiting, Tony actually felt bad, because he was waiting to use a drone to watch Peter humiliate himself in public and he was waiting for the chance to see Peter desperately needing him to go to the bathroom or to eat out, but since Peter asked Tony would have to give him the solution early, an completely undetectable earpiece that would connect to an AI that sounded like Tony to help Peter even when Tony wasn’t there.

And of course it would always report to him, so now all he needed to do was adding a few more tasks that Peter couldn’t do without help and Peter would be completely dependent on him.

Only he got a surprise in the middle of the night when he got the report that peter activated the AI and when he checked the camera of Peter’s room he saw the video of peter grinding on a pillow, and although it was an great view, it was unforgivable, Peter lied to him , and actually thought that Tony would let the first time he needed help to cum be from the AI, so he decided to make it as humiliating as possible for Peter and began walking to his room.

He didn’t knock when he entered the room only asked Peter what he needed help with and pretended to be shocked when he saw what Peter was doing, once Peter noticed he came in he tried to explain himself, but Tony didn’t let him, he said it was alright because he knew that despite his denials early that Peter was a slut, so he programmed the AI to help him with that as well, and it was true as even now the AI was condescendingly telling Peter what to do, and Peter made his final mistake of the night he once again denied being a slut.

Tony acted like he was making a very large sacrifice when he told Peter that he was very sad that Peter still lied to him despite everything he did for him when he needed help, so he deactivated the AI, and told Peter that until he admitted that he was a slut by grinding his little cocklet on Tony’s leg while sucking cock he was not having the AI and left the room.

Peter didn’t last a week before he was apologizing naked on his knees sucking Tony’s cock, once Tony came he let Peter grind on his leg until he came as well all while the AI was insulting and calling him pathetic while he did it, Peter never came so hard. So considering that Mr. Stark was right until now he must be a slut.

Then they lived happily ever after.

[zenithlux]

Tendrils of Regret - Part 6

Read the story on AO3 here!

Thank you for all the support <3. It means the world to me.

While it took a few days for your mood to fully improve, sleeping beside little Shadow certainly helped. And you were surprised to find that even Vergil was a bit more pleasant. You made sure to leave Shadow with him from time to time as you “conveniently” had something else to do. Then you’d leave for a bit, usually reading by yourself or something equally as important. And whenever you came back, you’d always find Shadow sleeping in Vergil’s lap. Once, you’d even caught him playing with the cat, but he’d tossed the toy aside the second he noticed you and went back to reading, stubborn as ever. 

But you didn’t mind. You found it… endearing. And you had to admit, it was refreshing to not be angry at him all the time. Not that he completely avoided doing something to annoy you. You supposed that would never change, and you were more than capable of turning it on him just as quickly. But everyone else had noticed that the animosity between you two had dissipated somewhat after you brought Shadow home. You still barely talked, but at least it was a comfortable silence instead of a painful refusal to acknowledge each other’s existence.

But today was a strange day. For the first time in as long as you could remember, everyone in Devil May Cry was all together, wandering toward the middle of Red Grave on a call about a demon infestation. You hadn’t seen much yet, nor had you sensed anything under the earth. Trish and Lady had been muttering back and forth about something, probably annoyed that they’d had to come out for nothing. Vergil led the way, with Dante sauntering behind. 

“I’m sure we’ll find something,” He said. “I doubt a client would have called just to mess with us.”

“Haven’t seen anything yet,” Lady said with a yawn. “You got anything, Rose?”

“Afraid not,” You said. “But maybe that’s a good thing.” You pressed your hand along the ground again, feeling for the roots. The streets of Red Grave had been torn up in the incident, and many plants had begun to grow through the holes in the concrete. There were also a lot of demon plants buried deep in the soil, but none of them would emerge without your provocation. Without the tree or you to fuel them, they were worthless and wilting. But you felt no unusual gaps beyond what you’d expect, and no signs of plant demons that simply hadn’t shown themselves. “I doubt I’d sense anything before the brothers.”

“Probably true,” Lady said. “It was worth checking.”

Vergil stopped suddenly. Dante knocked into him, earning a summoned sword to the shoulder. A month ago, such a random act of violence would have startled you. Now, you realized that Dante either felt no paint or didn’t care in the slightest. “What is it, Verge?” He said. “I don’t feel a thing.”

“Then you’re not trying hard enough,” Vergil said. 

“Or maybe I’m not as in tune with the demon world as you.”

Vergil said nothing after that, but you noticed how his hand moved almost protectively to Yamato. Did he sense something? Vergil wasn’t the type of person to lie about such a thing. You’d learned over the course of your time together that he preferred brutal honesty to white lies, and you’d often been on the receiving end of such thoughts. And maybe Dante was right. You didn’t know too much about the tree, but if Vergil’s other half had raised it… then maybe…

Pay attention, my little vine, V had once said to you in a situation eerily similar to this one. Some demons can hide themselves in plain sight, even from those who should know they are there. And he’d been right then too, as you quickly found demons that had managed to transform into objects on the streets and a strange suit of armor that came careening off the roof.

The roof. 

You stopped in your tracks, eyes drifting upward. You wouldn’t sense anything on the buildings unless the plants themselves were up there. Surely Vergil and Dante would have thought of such a thing already, but none of you had made the effort to actually check. Maybe from there, you could see something you couldn’t from down here? It was a possibility. So, without telling anyone - you’d catch up to them anyway - you moved toward a set of flowers budding beside a building. You knelt down, wrapping your hand around one. You willed it to grow and it did, expanding into a flower the size of a small seat. You plopped down on it, drawing the roots upward. It moved quicker than you expected, but you hopped onto the roof with relative ease. 

To your surprise, there were some plants on top, but they looked strange. They were like flowers, black and white petals with yellow stems. But the bulbous roots reminded you of the demon you’d killed forever ago. You knelt by one, feeling for its roots. But it didn’t have any. The plant just existed as if…

Oh. 

You stood up, looking to the other rooftops. There were hundreds of these plants spread out before you like egg sacs clinging to buildings. Some were bigger than others, reaching up to your knees while some only came up to your ankle. But they were most certainly demonic, you just weren’t sure how far their reach was. 

You jumped as Vergil appeared in front of you. “Stop doing that,” You wheezed, grabbing at your heart. 

He looked around, lips tightening as you assumed he made the same connection as you. “They don’t smell like anything,” He said. “They don’t even feel like demons.”

“They’re not normal plants,” You said. “They’re not grounded in soil, they're just… there, somehow growing through the concrete.” 

Vergil frowned, teleporting to the next building where more plants waited. You summoned your own small bridge, joining him on the other side. “They have to be demons, right?”

“It’s possible these were left behind by the tree, but didn’t manifest until now.”

“This place is usually a dead zone,” You said. “So Lady, Trish and I had no reason to be out here. Wouldn’t have even seen them.”

Suddenly, a pod nearby cracked. You both spun toward it with Vergil stepping in front of you. You might have thought the gesture nice if you weren’t staring at the plant falling apart. The center burst, and dozens of hand sized spiders with flowers for heads emerged. You took a long step back, but the other flowers around you began to crack. “Vergil…”

You gasped he appeared behind you, quite literally dragging you right off the roof. You landed in his arms but it still jarred your neck to an uncomfortable degree. “Ow.”

“Summon your plants,” He said as he quite nearly dropped you. “Dante!” 

“Way ahead of you!” His brother’s voice called back, but you couldn’t see the other three. Loud screeches echoed in all directions as spiders began spilling off the rooftops. You summoned every plant you could, slamming at them with vines and roots of all shapes and sizes, but there were hundreds of the things skittering down from the rooftops including some that were as big as you. 

You barely felt Vergil grab your wrist as he yanked you away from the onslaught. You stumbled at first, but found your footing and took off with him, summoning whatever you could with each step. The plants drove the spiders back, but most were used as climbing tools to reach the ground quicker. In another second, Vergil grabbed you and leapt an impossible height, back onto one of the buildings. He dropped you, but you didn’t have the time to be angry as he unsheathed Yamato and sliced all the demons around you in one go. You saw Dante and the girls down on the street, tearing through whatever they could. But the waves of spiders descended upon them in droves. It was a horrifying sight, one you knew would plague your nightmares if you all got of here alive. 

A quiet cackle echoed in your mind. The vine constricted around your heart, shooting pain through your limbs. You grabbed at it, flinching away from the edge as your vision blurred. “What is it?” Vergil said. 

“I don’t…” You paused, trying to remember where you’d felt this feeling before. Once with him, but not because of him. At least, that’s what you could remember. No, it was something else. Something driving the vine into a frenzy. Something like…

“Another sister,” You whispered. “Or a relative of some kind.”

“What?” Vergil said. 

“I felt like this with that plant demon the other day,” You said. “I thought it was just because you were there… but maybe it was because of her…” You stepped up to the edge of the building again, searching for any large demon possible. But even cleared, your fallible human vision didn’t reach all that far. You summoned enough plants to hop to the next rooftop, stabbing through the few bulbs that had yet to break open. You spread your own vines as fast as possible, killing the horde of spiders inside. Vergil followed suit, slicing the other three plants to a fine dust. 

“You think something else is here?”

“They must be under someone’s control,” You said. “Why else would they have all broken out now?”

“Lots of reasons,” Vergil said. 

“But if someone is controlling them, then maybe finding that person will stop them.”

“Or it will do absolutely nothing.”

“Well unless you’ve got a few flamethrowers hiding under your jacket I don’t think we have many other options.” You moved to the next building, killing the single plant there. The others had already broken open, but the spiders were all focused on pouring out over the ground. You found that odd. Shouldn’t they be reacting to you? Or Vergil at the very least? Were they that intent on killing Dante? Or was there something about you distracting them?

“If the demon’s another sister, then maybe the spiders are ignoring me,” You mumbled, more to yourself than Vergil. 

Of course, he heard you anyway. “It doesn’t explain why they haven’t attacked me.”

“Yes it does,” You said, your tone a bit sour. “If she’s someone else that pledged her allegiance to you.” You moved to the next building, summoning plants wherever you went. You had a whole network of many bridges as you jumped past Dante and the others. They were handling themselves just fine, though Lady had this horrified disgusted look on her face that you could deeply relate to. “Hold on,” you whispered, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention. Vergil was moving close behind, using your makeshift pathways rather than teleporting around himself. You wondered why that was a conscious choice, but shook the thought off. Now was not the time to be questioning someone you never understood anyway. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, you found what you thought you were looking for. A giant hole in the ground that some spiders were coming out of.  You wrinkled your nose at the thought of entering such a thing, but you’d come too far to back out now. You could practically feel the vine tugging at you, but you couldn’t tell if it was excitement to see whoever was down there, or some kind of defensive mechanism warning you to run away. And you could just send Vergil in there alone - that was probably the smarter move- but the spiders had avoided you until now… maybe their controller would talk to you too. 

You gently lowered yourself off the building, pulling back all of the plants you’d used to traverse the rooftops. You felt your energy replenish in a heartbeat. Vergil hopped down beside you and the spiders ran around you both. You glanced at him, but he was already moving toward the hole. “Stay here,” He said. 

Your legs stopped mid-step, rooting you to the spot. “You’re joking right?” You said. “You’re just going to leave me here, powerless to fight anything, as you go down into the hole that I found?”

He glanced back at you. “I never said you couldn’t fight.”

“You still suck at this,” You said, gesturing to your legs. “Stay here? Really?”

He glared at you. “Move.”

You stumbled forward, caught off guard by the sudden feeling in your legs again. “I’m going with you.”

“And if I say no?”

“You won’t,” You said. “Besides, how do you know the spiders won’t just chase you if you abandon me?”

“It was your theory that whatever is down there is on my side.”

“Or it's on mine and you’re just lucky,” you said as you crossed your arms. “Now are we going to keep arguing or are you going to take me down there?”

His glare intensified, but, to his credit, he did move to pick you up. “Foolish woman,” He muttered as you wrapped your arms around his neck and peered into the hole you were about to plummet into. 

“Stubborn half-demon,” You said lamely. It was quite possibly the worst response you could have come up with, but it was all you could think of in the heat of the moment. And Vergil’s dramatic eye-roll told you it hadn’t landed well. “What are you waiting for?” you snapped. “Just ju-”

You couldn’t stop the scream of surprise when he did what you asked, dropping into the hole with little fanfare. You pressed your face into his chest, imagining all the ways you might break to pieces at the bottom of this drop. But as the fall continued, you heard the unfurling of something above you. Something like…

Wings? 

You jerked your head up to meet Vergil’s gaze. And you might have dwelled on the fact that he’d been staring at you that whole time more if a pair of beautiful, bright blue wings weren’t stretched out behind him, glowing in the dark. They flapped once, slowing your fall to a gentle glide. For once, his smirk remained longer than a few seconds. “Surprised?” He said. 

“Your demon form has wings?”

“Of course.”

You scowled at him. “That’s not a given trait of demons last time I checked.”

He landed with a quiet thud, but you barely even felt it. The wings vanished, likely summoned by some crazy demon magic. He sat you down this time - generous of him - and gazed up into a dark tunnel. You yelped as you felt spiders skitter past you, but they were few and far between. Thank whomever for small favors as you think you might have died from a heart attack had they been as plentiful in here as they were up top. “So how far does it…” You trailed off as you realized his eyes were glowing a brilliant blue, much brighter than his usual, silver-blue irises. 

“Stay close,” He said, a command you didn’t mind following for once, as he moved forward through the tunnel.  And while you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, the world felt strange. While you normally sensed the plants under your feet, this time you could feel them everywhere. Underneath you. Over your head. On both sides. You tested the waters, running your hand along the wall. You felt plants emerge at your fingers, but jumped when Vergil grabbed your hand. “Don’t do that.”

“I was just testing it out,” You said. 

“And bring the whole tunnel down on us?”

“I’m more careful than that,” You huffed. “Ye of so little-” He stopped you again with a hand on your shoulder, cutting the conversation short. That’s when you realized there was a light at the end of the tunnel. “Is it a demon?” You whispered. 

“Yes,” Vergil said. 

“So I was right?”

He glared at you again, but it was much softer than usual. Odd. “It seems so.”

You both moved forward as the light expanded. Soon, you found yourself in a pit at the end of the tunnel with rays of sun seeping through small holes in the ceiling. A massive spider was in the center of the room. You gasped as it turned toward you noticing there was a human form embedded on its stomach. At first, you thought it might be someone else like you. Someone sealed away in a demon. But then the human’s eyes shot open and a wicked smile crossed her face. “Well, well,” She said. “I thought I sensed my cousin… never expected it would be you.”

“I’ve heard that before,” You said. 

“So you killed Belladonna?” The spider said. “Good riddance. She always was a nuisance.” The spider took numerous steps forward, beady eyes jumping between yourself and Vergil. “Are you here to kill me, Demon King?”

“Yes,” Vergil said simply. 

“Unfortunate,” The demon said. “I had hoped we could…"

You jumped as Vergil disappeared. A second later, the demon screeched as demonic blood squirted in all directions. The demon collapsed before your eyes, dead. Vergil reappeared beside you, clicking Yamato closed as usual. The spiders around you fell from the ceiling, collapsing all around you. “Well that’s… anticlimactic.”

“No point in letting the thing talk,” He said. “We need to return to the surface.” 

Then, the spiders began to move. 

You lurched backward as they filled the doorway, all of them turning on you. Vergil killed the ones he could, and you pulled on the roots nearby. But they were numerous, as if all the spiders from the surface had come to avenge their master.

Suddenly, you felt it. A spike of demonic energy that washed over you like a waterfall. In another second, Vergil was gone, replaced by a massive, blue demon. You swore the vine in your chest shrieked in response as you stumbled away. No. A voice whispered. Was it your own? You weren’t sure. You were frozen in terror as the demon tore through the spiders, incinerating them with strike after strike. “No,” You whispered as the power bore down on your chest. You recognized it. It was the demon that had sealed you away. It was back. Back to seal you away again. 

No. No. No. No.

You held your head, panic overcoming you. What was happening? That was Vergil, right? He wouldn’t hurt you. He couldn’t hurt you. He was in control. 

… Right?

“My little vine…”

Your head jerked upright as the blue demon stood before you. His voice was low and distorted, but you could almost hear Vergil - no, you could almost hear V - behind it. You scrambled backward. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Afraid?” You said. “How? You’re…” You trailed off as he knelt before you, claws reaching out to gently stroke your face. Your heart slowed at the touch. The vine uncoiled, confused just as much as you. “You’re the…”

His demonic form dissipated and Vergil returned. His hand didn’t move, but you did feel his thumb stroke your cheek. It was then that you realized you were crying. “It’s alright,” He whispered. “I’m here.”

You didn’t know why that comforted you, but you found yourself leaning into his hand. This had happened once before with V. You’d been in a panic after a demon almost killed you, and he’d joined you just like this. Hand on your cheek, wiping away your tears with a quiet promise. I’m here. 

“You remember,” You whispered. 

Vergil said nothing, but he didn’t need to.

[littlemsstark3000]

In Love Again

Can we forget all the lies that we've led

Take us so far away from the truth

Can we erase all the tears and regrets

Fear hiding in the pain, the shadows of yesterday

- lyrics from "In Love Again" by Colbie Caillat

*****

A few notes before you keep on reading:

- Prompt is from @natashastarkotp 's unpopular opinion: Tony and Natasha falling in love after Civil War and raising the new breed of Avengers without the rest of OG6

- Song fic idea is from @autumnwoodsdreamer, listen to the song and agree that it screams TonyNat

- The identified young Avengers here are not canon compliant; I actually don't know Riri and Kamala except from what I read from other fics, too

- I dedicate this to my IronWidow / TonyNat fam, you included @philosophical-army @queeenpersephone ❤️

*****

"Natasha, Mr. Stark's car has just entered the compound through Gate 2."

Natasha lifted her head from the book that she was reading at the dining area while having coffee. Her eyebrows furrowed upon that notification by AARON (Analytics, Automation, Response and Operations Nanny), the Avengers Compound's AI.

She stood up to meet Tony. He definitely can find his way in and override all access requirement, which he himself created, but he might have something urgent for him to come over in the middle of the night.

When she unlocked the door after security confirmation, he also just got there.

"Hey," she managed to say, hiding a tug on her chest.

"Hi," Tony smiled a little, both hands in his pockets on either sides. He was still wearing a white long sleeved shirt sans its pair coat. "Let me in?"

She motioned her head and went ahead, both to give way and to hide whatever her expression might give away.

"Thanks," Tony said, following her when she decided to go back to the dining table.

"What's with the surprise visit?"

"You were surprised."

It was more of a statement than a question to her ear.

Natasha shrugged as she tried to look at him again. "Because we were just together two hours ago."

A corner of his lips lifted and his gaze locked with hers. "You probably mean we were in the same event, at the same place, two hours ago."

It was valid. They were technically not together. The gala which happened earlier that night was hosted by an NGO advocating Women and Children's Rights, and both the Avengers and Stark Industries were invited among others. She was there representing the new Avengers - Peter Parker aka Spider-man, Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel and Riri Williams aka Iron Heart all had prior and more important stuff to attend to. Tony was there representing his company.

That morning, he offered to pick her up and bring her back to the compound, but she declined and brought her own ride, one of the team's service vehicles but would also pass as a luxury car - thanks again to SI. The whole night, they barely stood within each other's arm reach except when they greeted upon arrival and said goodbye.

During her short stay at the venue, she also caught him tied up with different groups and personalities. She mentally applaud how he has improved his interaction skills in times like that through the years, while she also mentally cursed herself for wanting to glance his way from time to time.

So yes, they were far from being together two hours ago.

"Right."

Tony sat on the table instead of the chairs. "How are you?"

"Fine," she leaned back on the marble counter, still standing, and replied without much thought.

"The kids?"

"In their rooms. And stop calling them kids; you've actually recruited them so they have to be called grown-ups helping to save the world," she quipped.

He chuckled bluntly. "Compared to us, they are babies."

"Way to acknowledge that we aren't any younger."

"Acceptance is key to a certain level of peace."

She rolled her eyes as she turned to the nearby coffeemaker, which contained what was left of her brew. "Coffee?"

"Our usual."

The response was short, instant, and it hit her like a bullet.

Our. Their brew. The only thing they wanted around every waking day back at the penthouse... aside from each other.

Natasha discreetly breathed heavily, her back still on him.

"Seriously - why are you here, Tony? Do you really just want to check on Peter, Kamala and Riri?" her tone was flat, going for emotionless response contrary to her heartbeat that she could almost hear now.

"I asked how you are first."

She sensed Tony's pitch lowered, too.

"It's not as if you don't have at least an eye on us here in the compound. AARON reports everything to your AI."

He sighed, seemingly intentional for her to catch. "Then maybe I just want to talk."

"At 11 in the evening, yeah?" she retorted as she placed a cup of coffee before him on the table.

"I've been thinking of coming over since 9."

She could feel heat rising to her face, and her jaw clenched  a little. The next thing she knew, she had let out words which she hoped she could take back.

"And, of all the days, you decided that you want to talk today."

Silence followed.

Natasha could not believe that her brain-to-mouth filter just disabled.

Probably, Tony could not either.

"You remember," his voice hinted amazement.

"I'm somehow not as bad as you are with dates," she pivoted again to walk to the sink, placing her used mug there and also putting more distance between them.

"Luckily, FRIDAY isn't, too. She prompted me this morning, about our anniversary."

Unfortunately for her, Tony stood from the table and started closing that distance.

"Guess it's time to update programming." The line behind her own words tasted like bitterpill.

He stopped a couple of feet away from her. His straight look on her suddenly grew tender.

"I'm sorry, Tash."

Hearing the nickname, his former term of endearment for her, constricted her throat.

Their unexpectedly beautiful relationship that came after the falling out of the former Avengers and after some compromises along the way; the love and respect built on the friendship that blossomed out of their hardwork on Accords... ruined by one thing:

Not telling him earlier on that she actually knew about Howard and Maria Stark's death in the hands of the Winter Soldier.

She swallowed the invisible lump.

"Tony, I am sorry. You snapped on me because I was at fault, and believe me, I completely understand. I would've reacted the same way if I were you."

"I lied, too." Tony stepped nearer to her. "It wasn't true that I wanted you out."

Tears brimmed through her eyes so she looked down, hiding them from him. She bit her lips to stop them from trembling. "I deserve it."

"It wasn't what I felt, Tash. I was mad, and hurt, and they slipped out before I could think about them. You don't deserve any of that."

His words that night when he learned - figured out rather - that she might knew something about his parents' murder replayed in her mind.

"You just broke my trust again, Natasha. I don't know what else I have left for you."

Tony was just standing across her that time, same as their present distance, but she felt him so far away; giant walls in between them.

How she wanted to protect him from feeling his pain.

How she wanted to shield him from the nightmares that would surely follow in the coming nights.

How she wanted to say that, apart from keeping what she knew, everything else between them was true.

How she wanted to just feel him physically, touch him at the very least.

But he would not let her. So instead, she said:

"Maybe I should leave -"

She meant to say temporarily or in the meantime while they think through the situation, until he responded with cold, piercing stare and colder tone.

"Maybe you should."

That actually hurt more. Less words, no shouting, but a whole lot of indifference.

It took more than a month before she saw him again, and they were back to the professional, teammates-only interaction they used to have before the original Avengers blew off. She stayed at the compound which housed the new breed of Earth defenders and stood as their guardian.

When Tony arrived with a date in one of their event engagements three months later, she then killed all of her remaining hopes that they can still be fixed... that she can be fixed.

Indeed, everything that I touch breaks. It's too much to wish for something normal, something more human.

She drove around the city one night. Tears just continually rolled down her cheeks but she never made a sound. No stopovers, she went on for hours until nothing comes out of her eyes anymore. The following day, back was the Agent Romanoff - strategic, analytical and distant.

"I shouldn't have -" Tony started but was cut off immediately.

"Stop. Just... don't." It was too weak for an order. Almost a plea.

Instead of talking back, he gently gathered her in his arms.

Natasha could definitely let herself go in multiple ways, but her arms were stuck, crossed on her chest, unwilling to move. Tony pulled away and held her face gently, his brown eyes soft on her green ones, conveying more than words, giving her hope again.

"By now, you should know that I tend to do the exact opposite what I'm told to do."

Despite his quip, fear ran through her nerves; because right there, she wanted to gamble one more time - history and logic be damned. He was and will always be worth it.

And Natasha recognized that Tony, at that very moment, was taking the risks for her, too.

She tugged on his shirt to kiss him hard, demanding an unfiltered response. He willingly obliged. Each touch, each movement, communicated what they needed, what they missed, what they almost completely let go.

When they finally pulled apart, they ended up snuggled on a couch at the common area, and just spent the whole night talking - with confessions, apologies, a bit more tears and new unspoken promises.

*****

Comments are welcome. Just be gentle. 😉

[mytrashs-blog]

Alter Ego ch. 4 “Perficiendi”

Spideychelle, Peter Parker x Reader, slow burn fic, Enhanced reader.

Word Count: 2,388

Warnings: PTSD, men being trash, terrible coping mechanisms

Summary: “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

A/N: Made it to the 4th chapter! Yay!! This one is a chill one, I like to say this is the calm before the storm, and you really don’t know what ya got comin’ but yeah, I gotta keep encoraging you to Reblog!! This!! Post!! because that’s how we keep ‘em comin’ and also leave the comments, they make me very happy. If you wanne be part of the taglist, shoot me an ask! :)xx

Ch. 3 “Ipsum Invenies”

It really was a simple design, kind of like the one Spider-man wore, red, blue and a few details in black. You wanted it to be like your male counterpart, a one piece with a mask covering all of your face, plus you needed to solve the eye problem, cause you’ve realized that it’s annoying at some extent to see as wide as you do, so you want to solve this to be able to concentrate in what’s more important.

The doing was the complicated part, because though you had a bit of knowledge in how to make clothes for some clubs you were in during middle and high school, you have no idea how to make a superhero suit. For starters: What kind of fabric is flexible and bulletproof, and super resistent to knives and all kind of lethal weapons? What is Spider-man’s suit made of anyway? So many unanswered questions. In the end you settled for high resistance spandex and a ton of cosplay tutorials on Pinterest and YouTube.

The first prototipe was ready in three days, but the final version, the one in which you could run, jump and everythign else took two weeks to perfect. But of course you wanted to know how to fight, so you enrolled on the gym for some boxing classes and your mother loved the idea, for it was a way for you to defend yourself if you were ever in a traumatic situation again. You really don’t wanna know how she’d react if she knew what you’re planning to do.

The spiderweb was a lot more complicated, where does Spider-man get that thing from? You know that this would be awfully easier if you had a Tony stark to pay for all your toys, but for now, all you have is Lexi: biochemistry student, roomie and very close friend. She offers her help to develpo the webs, one that’s resistent and can carry tons of weight, on the last minute you come up with the idea of infusing the web with a sedative that activates on contact, to avoid the prey from getting rif of it. That process took a lot of work and time aswell.

It took two long months for you to feel ready to go through with your revenge but even after that, you couldn’t quite find the uber driver, at some point you question if it’s even worth it, even google has its limits and it won’t present you an adress just like that. And that’s when it gets really hard. Your idea is to hack into Uber’s database to get the adress. If the police didn’t even go after him, maybe he didn’t run away.

Your college is very big, you know a lot of people, but since you went missing in the middle of exams season, everyone is very busy and it’s hard to find someone available to help you hack a likely vey protected site, but you try regardless. It takes about 15 calls and hundreds of unanswered texts, but you finally get a very nice nerd to teach you how to do the dirty job, because you really didn’t want to tell him what you were planning.

You had to begin your infiltration from a strange computer, in a place far away from your apartment and with a VPN adress, to be untraceable, hard work, but your nerd friend taught you everything you needed and it wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to do it.

The codes you have to write in are long, the ones you have to get rid of are hard to find, but you enhanced senses can do it faster than you’d ever imagined, before the incident you would’ve never been able to do it, while your thoughts drift away, you make it inside Uber’s database, you search for the information you need. You don’t type in his name, that would have made it easier for the page to identify it’s been hacked, but once you find it you take a picture of the screen eith the phone your mom insisted on buying for you and you get out of the page they way your nerd friend tol you. You’re safe.

You get out of the place, but you leave the laptop there, you figured it’d be better of someone steals it, that way it’s impossible to trace it to you. You walk to a bus stop to get back home, you don’t even consider taxis or anything else for transport anymore.

You put on your earphones while you get on the public transport, after playing some music from your phone, you decide to take a look at the data you gathered, when you open it you realize that apart from the data of the man, there’s a picture of him, looking at it takes you back to that same face looking at you like an animal about to attack, his hands touching you, his weight over your body, the puch with the baseball bat, you remember everything he made you live in a second and suddenly you’re gripping the metal bar in front of your seat with all your strenght, you feel the metal giving in under your muscles, molding to the shape of your closed fist over it. You let go.

You have tears in your eyes and the person beside you looks at you concerned, scared even. You get off the bus the second it stops and you run, you run as fast as you can in the direction of your apartment, images attacking you like flashes in a dark room, you don’t want to see it, you speed up and everything around you is a blur, except for the images in your mind, when they stop coming you start slowing down until you stop too. You’re one block away from your apartment, but you can’t, you crumble and start ccrying again. All these new abilities and none of them can help you forget. You cry until the sun starts setting, you’re still sitting on the cold pavement of the street, people walk by and they stare at you, but frankly you couldn’t care less, after a while Lexi calls.

“Hey…”

“Where are you? Everything alright?”

“I’m one block away, I was doing some stuff but I’m almost there now.”

“Okay, I ordered pizza”

“Okay.” The conversation is flat, no feelings there, maybe Lexi sounded a bit worried, lately it seems like she’s treating you like you’re a fragile piece of china that’s about to fall off a shelf, always treating you with tenderness and waryness, it’s annoying but understandable. Paola also had to endure your dissapearance, she had to go to the police only to be ignored, no one even bothered in telling her how the search was doing and she had to be in the apartment by herself, with all your stuff as a constant reminder that you were still gone.

You get up and walk back home, you don’t notice but you’re still trembling for the emotional crisis, so much that when you try to get the key in the door you simply can’t and you get so frustrated that you end up punching the wall, you get worried you might have broken it, but it’s safe for now, it’s just a small crack on it. Lexi opens the door a few seconds after.

“Did you get the info?”

“Yeah. We have to confirm the adress, so we have to go there a couple times to check it’s the right one and we’ll go from there.”

“Alight. There’s the pizza.”

“Thanks… Would you mind coming with me to check the adress? I don’t think seeing him again by myself is a good idea just yet.” Yous ask, eyes glued to the table, avoiding any kind of eye contact.

“Sure. When do you wanna go?”

“Tomorrow.” You finish. Lexi nods and goes in her room.

After finishing your dinner you go to bed, you’d never admit it, but since you came back home, sleeping is the hardest thing to do, you always have nightmares, all the things you’d rather forget come back to you every night. And each time, you lay there, looking at the ceiling until you fall asleep and the nightmares start coming. You tell yourself they’ll stop once you get your revenge, that you won’t let anyone else go through the hell you’re still going through.

The next day Lexi and you get in Sebastian’s car, you didn’t tell him why, but he agreed to take you to the adress, when you get there you decide to park a bit far but not so much that you lose sight and then you wait. An hour goes by and then there’s a car parking in front of the house, it’s not the same car you got in that night, but the driver is the same. Your blood boils in your veins and you feel color coming to your cheeks, then you see a second person getting out of the same car, a woman, the man hugs her and kisses her on the lips, that make you even more furious.

How coud he have a partner and do such monstrosity?He might be even married to this woman and yet he did what he did. You feel Lexi’s arms coming up behind you to hug you, you don’t react, you stay staring at the house of your rapist, Sebastian looking at you worried, but he doesn’t ask.

“Let’s go.” You say and Sebastian drives back to your place. When you open the door to get down he stops you.

“Why don’t you go ahead, Lexi? I wanna talk to (Y/N)”. Lexi nods and steps off, she turns to look at you, but then she walks inside the building. “Who’s the man from that house?” he asks, serious.

“Nobody.” You answer looking in your apartment’s direction.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I just want to help you, but I can’t if you don’t open up.”

“You’d help me if you stop asking questions.” You answer and you turn to look at him in the eyes, he’s looking at you the same way Lexi does, with pity, just as if you were an abandoned puppy.

“I’m not gonna judge you. I just think it’s better for you to talk about it, you know? Did that man hurt you? Does he have anything to do with you waking up in a hospital after being missing for two weeks?” Your jaw falls a little at that. Why the hell does he know you were missing? It didn’t even make it to the news. “News travel fast on campus, of course I found out.”

“It’s none of your business Sebastian. Please drop it.” You feel you voice cracking on the last sentence, Sebastian puts his hand over yours in your lap. You look at his hand then at him and then at his lips. You kiss him. He kisses you back.

The kiss is hungry and messy, almost wild, your hands play with the hem of his shirt, one of them goes up to play with his hair, he takes you by the waist, bringing you closer, you break the kiss for a second so you can climb onto his lap with a nimble movement and you also manage to get the seat back as far as it could, you kiss him again, harder than before, his hands go to your waist once again and they make their way down until he’s firmly holding your butt, his mouth moving towards your neck. Your hands go to the waist line of his jeans, playing with the buckle of his belt for a second. And you hesitate. Should you be doing this with your exboyfriend.? And you stop in your tracks.

“I cannot do this.” You say as you go back to the passanger’s seat, Sebastian looks at you confused, but he says nothing. You get off the car and run to your apartment, you rush to the bathroom and shut the door, you get undressed as you feel the tears running down your face. Are you even able to do anything anymore without crying? You get in the shower and you let the cold water fall on your body. You stay there until you stop feeling.

You feel nothing.

…

Peter ends up deciding to improve the dron a few 20 meters more, which did require a bit of a hustle with the software of the suit, but that wasn’t nearly as hard as getting KAREN to have real time access to police centres all around the country. It took a couple weeks and him having to deactivate his AI for a few days, which made his life a lot harder. But he made it. Now he can listen and record all calls made to 911 as they are happening, which are a lot, by the way, but he was also able to come up with an algorithm to filter what matters to him and what doesn’t, not that some things don’t matter to him, just that there are some stuff that are relevant to the research and some that aren’t, you get the point, right?

So, only kidnapping, dissapearances and found bodies were coming through, and to Peter’s surprise, there were so many calls a day being stored in KAREN’s data base.

After some weeks everything became a bit tedious, none of the calls had anything to do with the case, little by little Peter started to lose interest in the research. Mr. Stark had made very little progress aswell, from what he heard, therefore he too started to focus on other important matters, but not dropping the topic completely, just in case.

MJ is going to prom with Peter, but he needs a suit, and he’s also helping ned come up with a plan o ask Betty out. It’s like, for the first time in forever he finally has time to be a normal teenager and he doesn’t have to go after bad guys in the city. He’s finally finding the balance between Spider-man and Peter.

But of course everything in his life has to change one secong to another, but this… he definetely didn’t see coming.

-

taglist

@caeruleum-in-caritate-lupus, @softstarkk, @peterparkerbabyy, @dottirose, @legit-fandom-trash, @carostar2020, @appreciating-chase-brody, @mvmakki

[a-bear-at-hogwarts]

🌙, 🍼 and 🌗 for the OC asks! 💚

nkbjhjv Jay!!! Thank you :D!!

🌙 If your OC could have one wish come true what would it be and why? Would there be consequences to this wish or would they regret it once they get what they want? What would they give in return for this wish to come true?

- There are a lot of things Dahlia could wish for, given her situation. A lessening of her curse, full control of her unruly emotions, the ability to ignore the call - she wouldn’t completely erase it because she doesn’t know who she would be without it, but control and painlessness are both incredibly tempting. However if she could only have one wish, it wouldn’t be anything to do with her curse really.

She’d wish her father had never died. 

Because looking back on everything, the most heartbreaking parts of her life all seem to stretch out from that first thread like a spiders web of grief - her mother’s descent into paranoia, her brother’s grief-driven search for the vaults as he threw himself into anything he could to take his mind off it... hell even the nightmares that plague her when she does eventually close her eyes in sleep are a byproduct of his murder. So if Dahlia could have anything, anything in the world, it would be a life undefined by betrayal. But she’s not the sort to dwell on the impossible, and make no mistake it is impossible. As proven by the deathly hallows, what is dead must remain dead. 

---

🍼 Does your OC have any children or want children? What names would they pick? Are they good with kids or a complete disaster?

Dahlia and Merula work on themselves first, working through their individual and shared trauma’s as best they can before deciding to have kids!! They have a biological child (Clover) and adopt an orphaned girl whose parents had been killed in the war (Kotone); and through a stubborn determination not to repeat the mistakes of their own parents they raise them well. There’s no need to keep secrets in their household, and they support their kids in everything they do - maybe a little too much considering that includes any fights they get into at school, so long as they’re justified njkbhv

---

🌗 Early mornings or late nights? What do they spend their time doing during these hours?

Late nights that turn into early mornings - Dahlia doesn’t sleep at night if she can help it, not until she becomes an animagus. If she isn’t awake through the night then she can’t resist the star’s song that echoes in her ears, calling her body to shift form- and she really doesn’t like transforming, so the exhaustion is more than worth it in her mind. Plus the teachers have come to an agreement that so long as she keeps up with her schoolwork, she’s permitted to sleep during class since it’s better than trying to keep a bear contained every night kbjhvg

As for what she does, well usually there are two options - she trains either her mind or her body. She’s frankly a bit of a nerd so she’ll most often spend her night absorbed in textbooks and making notes, practising her wand work and completing the extra credit homework she requests on the regular. But on a particularly tough night she’ll fistfight the duelling dummies, or go out and run in the forbidden forest until her lungs feel like they might give out at any second - some nights when the call is truly too loud, she’ll end up giving in and transforming, in which case she really does have to be in the woods. Again, bear in castle = bad kjbhvgch

[jynxlovesluck]

To Love The Sky

The air wasn't right.

Of course, Logan thought it strange. As absurd as it sounded in the solid bases of his mind, the air… Wasn’t right.

It didn't feel right. He couldn't deny the way the air seemed heavy, like a great tension was increasing the pressure. And the warm, syrup like way it passed over his skin and pressed down every time he tried to breathe?

It was like Logan was drowning in a metallic haze of bitterness. Leaden. Familiar. Why was that familiar?

It scared a primal part of himself that shouldn't exist. Logic didn't get scared.

But Logan could.

Denying the absolute fear that seemed to cloud over with the haze of weight surrounding everything? That wasn't the smart thing to do. He, more than anything else he was suppose to be, needed to be smart. The way the things ran through his brain, it should be enough. But in moments like this, where he was alone that he was reminded how utterly useless he was.

He tried to move his fingers, but despite the air, he was bitterly cold. Every part of his body seemed frozen in place, numb to everything. Roman would make a snarky comment about how his outsides matched his insides as Patton slightly slapped his arm and covered him in blankets. Logan wanted to laugh. Roman was right in his regard. Logan, despite his effort, had emotions. He more than anything wished Virgil was there, holding him close. Maybe a show of emotions wouldn't be as bad in the others arms.

A pathetic desire, really.

A moment later, he could bend his toes and finger, his wrists and ankles next. If only he could get in control of his limbs, it would be the next steady step into figuring out where he is. He could practically hear Virgil’s voice next to him. “You have to get up Nerdex. Your first step needs to be to search your surroundings. And then start searching, hopefully without your curiosity completely getting you killed.”

Would Virgil be disappointed in him? Here he was, in a worse case scenario. Unable to move, unable to protect himself. It wouldn't be the first time he was incapable and inaquite when he should be strong. And there it was, his constant companion. The fear that Virgil and the others really… Didn't need him. That he was easily replaceable, another “logic” could appear and take over Logan’s role, make them all better in every way Logan failed at.

That too, was familiar.

He opened his eyes that had been fused together with sandman dust (and if, for a moment, the panic of having his eyes sewn shut made him scratch the dust away; that was his fear. Locked in the dark.) Logan looked around. Something about this place seemed like home, but he couldn't understand what.

He tried sitting up. Logan's limbs were things torn from his body and uncaringly stitched back to his torso, a toy someone cared enough to pull back together but not enough to make him feel whole.

He stood as a rubber skinned doll would, instead of a man. That was a concern he would have to deal with later. His itch to explore was overwhelming, a child finding refuge in the organized depths of his mind.

He felt like he should be remembering something. Someone.

As he walked along the pathless void, Logan wandered while pondering in wonderment. The strange, yet almost loving silence of this sleepy eternity surrounded him in a cocoon of comfort. Even if it seemingly tugged at the seams of his soul that barely connected to his body. He snorted. But instead of the crackling sound that was always much to loud, it was caught in the air like a moth in the spider's web.

He might fall apart. His hubris, created by the child named curiosity and the pride that fueled him. The contours of his brain were twisted with the knowledge that he embedded the worst sin to gain while holding on to his innocent endearment of the world. The drumming of his heart, despite the fact that it could only be felt and not heard, didn't lessen his need to discover.

To Logan, it only increased his need to move.

Time seemed meaningless. Unadaptable. Not changing.

Not real.

It could have been minutes or hours when a voice reached him. Distant and unclear, but just as beautiful as he remembered. But what did he remember? Logan had been there so long, he couldn't understand this utter want in his chest. This need for whoever was talking.

Wait. Talking?

Right. Logan could hear his voice. Calming and low in tone. One that hissed and grew louder despite never leaving pitch or volume. It belonged to his favorite paradox. His most fascinating mystery.

“Virgil.”

The whisper escaped his lips. And yet it had taken the energy of a scream. It left the same meticulous metallic taste.

It was only then Logan remembered what blood tasted like, what it felt like.

Was he bleeding? Or worse. Was Virgil injured, jaggedly walking with blood pooling down, dripping like rain on the inky floor of this boundless box?

No. Not Virgil. Logan almost wanted to be the one injured, if only it meant Virgil was okay. He had to be okay.

That's when a hand touched his shoulder and the air seemed to clear. He fell over, the combination of having clear air and the gentle touch that seemed like a punch of heat from his chilled bones too much. He gasped, holding his chest and wondering, if only vaguely, if this is where he would die.

“Logan. It’s okay. I've got you.” The arms surrounded him boiled him from the inside. But he didn't want those arms to let go. The panic in his heart made his insides a divergence of nerves smashing together like icebergs meeting lava rocks. “Just breathe. In for four,” fingers tapped on his arm, “hold for seven.”

It was hard. A little to hard. Logan lasted till the fingers taped to five. He tried to look up, mouthing the words that still wouldn't go past his throat. Maybe it was still coated, still trying to suffocate him under the weight of it all. Or maybe he just couldn't hear himself. He didn't know anymore, to lost in his own head

Always lost and always alone.

“Hey, it’s okay Logan. I won't let you go again.” The comfort he felt from those words was bright and warm. It was a gentle type of heat, something that whispered to him. A secret promise of safety. “In for four.”

It took them minutes to get it right, but to Logan, it might has well been hours. When Logan could finally sit up, finally get a good look at Virgil, it felt like his bones were creaking, just like a haunted house. He snorted, the sound muffled as if his body had been cleared. Old and unlikable. Causing a sense of fear for low maintenance. Abandoned.

Seemed like a good fit to him.

But as soon as he saw Virgil’s face… Something inexplicable tugged at his core. Virgil's eyebrows were lowered, slightly pinched at the center. His eyeshadow was messy, one eye’s worth smeared down his cheek, revealing the dark, tired circle underneath. His lips were chapped, skin flanking before being caught between white teeth, showing off his slight overbite. He looked like a wreck.

Logan didn't know how he could look more beautiful.

He couldn't help himself. A part of Logan’s brain demanded to know it this was really Virgil. And of course, the only way to check was to lift his arm up to touch Virgil's cheek. It was fake skin of course, an outer shell that contained something wild. Uncontrolled. Lovely in the way it could steal air, taking life and lungs along for the ride.

Virgil was a storm. One that never showed his true face, in fear of judgment for being something so free.

What led him to his (rather irrational) decision could be accounted for from a number of things. Maybe it was the way Virgil’s breathe hitched as Logan’s fingers ghosted over his pale cheek and his palm warmed as it laid bare in the side of Virgil’s jaw. Maybe it was the sure fire knowledge that his own form must be showing. His skin was chipping, flaking away as his real form pulsed. Like a heartbeat, a galaxy dying and another being reborn. Maybe it was the fact that Logan couldn't keep Virgil, in either of his forms, out of his head and heart.

In any case, Logan leaned forward, suns burning bright in his eyes, hair seemingly white until you looked to find it made of bright, colored stardust. Wild in a different way from Virgil, something that can be planned even in his infinity. When he laid his forehead against Virgil's, he was merely a man who didn't know how to love. When he spoke, it was not with a power of a god, but the care of a lover and the hope of a friend.

“Virgil. Can I see you?”

Virgil, at the very least, was a bit shocked question. He pulled just slightly away. “What?”

Logan gulped, using the hand that wasn't cradling Virgil's face to hold his hand. “Maybe it would be better to say; May I please see you?” he rubbed the back of Virgil’s hand in smooth, slow motions.

Virgil looked away. “Don't know what your talking about Einstein.”

“Falsehood.” He wasn't speaking with anger and embarrassment. Rather, curiosity and care. “Please Virgil. I only ever saw you for a moment during that raid of nightmares in the mindscape. Your were so beautiful. But you shut yourself down before you could even be yourself.”

Virgil did pull away at that. That's when Logan realised he had not only been held by Virgil, but he was also sitting in his lap. He felt a collapsed nebula on both of his cheeks, and started shifting off of Virgil.

Only for the strong arm that was still wrapped around Logan’s waist to pull him back.

He looked back. Virgil was biting his lip again. When he moved his thumb to remove the abused lip with a small mumble of, “Stop. It’s bad for your teeth and skin.” Well. No one had ever accused him for having tack in any situation, especially one where he asked something so emotional and vulnerable. Logan froze like Virgil did, but for a completely different reason.

Oh god. He asked Virgil about something very emotional and vulnerable.

“I. I am very sorry Vir-”

“-its okay.” Virgil interrupted. He had kept his head low, his eyes briefly looking into Logan’s own every so often. “Really. If there's anyone I trust with my real form-or wait, don't get me wrong, I trust Patton and even Roman with my life, but I just mean. Well I mean. I.” he seemed to get more flustered and off track the more he rambled. Logan was okay with waiting. He liked hearing Virgil talk anyway.

“Oh fuck it.” Virgil leaned forward, looking at Logan in the eyes. “Unless you tell me no or any indicators that you want me not too, I'm going to kiss you.”

Logan didn't say a damn word. In fact, he leaned close to meet Virgil halfway.

Kissing someone normally was a sort of chemical brain explosion in the first place. Kissing someone who was chipping out of their shell and turning into a combination of lightning and heat?

If this was how kissing was suppose to feel, Logan thought he could spend a great amount of time just doing it as so. Cracked and flaky lips that warmed his core, melting away into a pair that really burned. It was funny, how even though Logan was made of thousands of hundreds of millions of things that gave off heat, only now did he feel warm.

Virgil was just too magnificent for Logan to take his eyes off him. His skin cracked, bursts of bright blue and violet light illuminating his form. His hair seemed like it should be dripping, instead of lighting and lifting to glow. Virgil’s eyes were underneath his eyelids that quickly shifted back to their natural state of cloud coverage. His skin swirled and all Logan could do besides admire him was to pull him closer and kiss him more, deeper, intertwining themselves to each other.

Logan had never thought there was a heaven. Maybe he should devote some of his time studying about religion to see if there was one based off of kissing Virgil, see if one could experiment all the ways he could be held in Virgil’s arms.

He could have stayed like that forever, but unlike how it started, it ended in a slow decrescendo. Barely, Virgil pulled away only to softly return to Logan, and somehow each gently kiss took pieces of his heart, and every time they pulled just a bit away those missing bits ached.

They rested their foreheads against one others. A moment in this warm, comforting darkness that just moments ago stifled him. Logan felt free.

“Hey Logan?” Virgil whispered. It felt like a quiet type of time, something the two of them knew like a baby blanket to a boy.

“What is the matter Virgil?” His voice sounded a bit toneless, but it was too late to correct it.

Virgil looked at him with his eyes relaxed and his smile sweet. Logan was glad he always seemed to understand him, even when he slips back to his “before” stage.

Despite the warm air and in his soul, he shived. Never again.

“You can’t stay here.” storm cloud hands cupped glowing galaxy cheeks.

“What?”

Virgil’s eyes flashed, and that's when Logan noticed his cheeks were coated in ice that steamed away in seconds. Hail followed by tropical rain.

He was crying.

“It’s time for you to leave. You-,’ his eyes shifted around, as if Virgil was only just seeing were they were,”-have to go. Before I can’t save you.”

Logan squinted his eyes. Virgil was very solid and clear only a moment ago, but now Logan could have sworn…

Virgil smiled at him, his “everything will be fine.” grin.

It was the cruelest thing Virgil could have done to Logan. He only tried to be reassuring when there was no other option, when either the world was crashing or when it already burned.

By the way he was trembling as he held Logan’s face, the world was flaming, and their doom was near.

“Virgil. Why did you say ‘you’.”

Virgil didn't just stop. He froze.

“What do you mean Logan?” Big eyes gazed into his own. It was almost more than he could take in such a short amount of time.

“I mean.” Logan rolled off of Virgil’s lap, standing up and trying desperately not to sound as worried as his heartbeat seemed to say. “Why did you say ‘You need to go’ instead of We need to go.”

Virgil scrambled up after him. He opened his mouth and closed it. He did this several times, and in any other situation Logan would think about how silly the action was, and laugh a bit as Virgil glared.

But the cold dark of the place was suffocating. And the more Logan wasn't being held by Virgil, the more it felt like he could slip back into his mental fog like dream.

“Listen.” Virgil said, his poster becoming firm but his head bowed. “I promised to keep you safe. To keep everyone from harm. That's a little hard to do when your an embodiment of a storm.” He chuckled a little. Logan didn't.

Virgil looked at him for a moment and sighed. “I hope you can forgive me, one day.”

One single eyebrow rose. “Virgil, that's a statement based off of an event I am not aware of. What shall I “try” to forgive you for?” Logan crossed his arms and tried not to roll his eyes.

The control to do so apparently was lost on Virgil. Logan swore if he wasn't so… Himself than they would fight just as much as they did with Roman.

“For everything. For this.” Virgil leaned in and kissed him again. But before Logan could kiss him back, Virgil pulled away. “And maybe you'll forgive me for what I'm about to do.”

“Virgil-” Hands that already appeared to be reforming human skin shoved Logan hard in the chest. His vision faded away, and all he could hear was a even voice that didn't falter.

“I'm so sorry.”

_________________________________

When Logan woke up, it was to the relieved face of Roman hovering over him.

“Oh thank god, Logan you would not believe what kind of mad house it's been, when Patton couldn't wake you up, we tried just about everything. It was terrible, you wouldn't believe-” a hand that was very much still swirling in stars covered Roman's mouth. Logan pulled his arm back with a hiss.

“Rude.”

“Shut up Princey.”

Roman waved his hand like he was shooing him away, like he was a fly. It was ironic, considering the only one who could be a pest is the intruder in Logan’s room.

Roman threw his head back to flip his hair. “Well, anyway, we've all been taking shifts. Mostly the schedule is okay, but it seems the others have a habit of staying up much longer than they should be.”

“Well, that's pretty funny coming from you, kiddo!” Patton’s voice was as joyful as ever, but his face showed a different story. His hair looked curly and flat, his smile not quite full before he saw Logan, and his eyebags darker than Logan had seen in years. When he looked Back at Roman, he saw similar signs of fatigue heavily covered by foundation, cover up, and the dry shampoo Roman hated. Patton drew his attention back when he stuck a thermometer is Logan’s mouth. “After all, I seem to remember how someone made Thomas so preductive that he slept for hours just so they could come back to see Logan.”

“Lies and slander on my good name.” Roman raised his head high, despite the red flush on it and the slight step back.

“Where’s Virgil?” Logan interrupted.

The room went silent.

“I'm not sure your ready to hear about that yet Lo.” Patton seemed as chipper as he was when he entered the room, but his movements went still, and his eyes sad.

“Patton.” Roman clasped his hand on Patton’s shoulder. Roman looked him in the eye, and Patton started crying into his hands.

Logan reached out, hands moving before he could think, and really, it hadn't been the best day for his functions sake. “Patton, I’m sure everything's fine. It'll be okay.”

Patton cried harder, Roman lowering him down on the bed. He looked at Logan sighing. “Logan. He’s. He’s gone.”

Logan didn't understand. “What? No, Patton’s right here.”

Roman shook his head. “No, I mean.” he took a deep breathe. “I mean Virgil. He made a deal with. With one of Dark Sides, or maybe even one of the Parts.” he was shaking, and Logan noticed the brave prince was crying, too. “But he’s gone. You gotta understand teach, you've been asleep for the last week. Thomas has been running on us three only, Virgil and I trying to tire him out so he wouldn't do emotional based decisions.” Roman was down on his knees, crying into Logan’s lap. “I'm sorry. He did it before I could do anything. I'm sorry.”

Logan didn't know what to say. His cheeks started to glow, his skin chipped. Twice it would seem, that he wouldn't be normal. Twice he would lose himself.

Twice, he would break apart for Virgil.

It wasn't surprising, how his room started bursting with flowers that wrapped around Patton. It was normal, to feel Roman slowly start to weigh more and more as his skin turned to sapphire, tears flowing silver.

They were all breaking apart.

“No.”

Roman lifted his head. Patton stopped crying into his hands.

“What? Logan. He really is.” Patton couldn't even finish.

“No.” Logan moved Roman, standing and brushing off his pants. “ I will retrieve Virgil.” He looked at the two of them, his family, his friends. “Would you come with me?”

“Yes! Of course I will!” Roman ampted up the energy, standing tall. “A prince shall always quest for his loved ones.”

Patton rose, warm and alive. His face seemed calm. Logan knew he wasn't. “As if you need to ask. I want my kiddo back.”

Logan let go. They would get Virgil back. Logan wasn't going to let them end like they had.

Roman bit his lip. “We do need to hurry. We only have two days before Virgil will dissolve and Thomas makes a new Anxiety.” he brushed his hair back and transformed it into gold. Unsurprisingly, it stayed.

Patton summoned thrones to wrap around his arms and legs. “Into the subconscious we go, then. No time to waste.”

Logan looked at them both. He imagined the doorway, not to the hallway, but to the deepest, darkest parts of the human mind.

The door opened.

“Wait for me, Virgil.”