#aftg angst fest

[quiescentdestiny]

When Andrew had taken up the job of soul collection after he died, he'd already accepted that he wasn't a part of the world of the living anymore. This wasn't new information to him. He was used to being unseen. There may have been a few points in time where he questioned that fact. Especially recently.

•• ━━━━━ ••● x ●•• ━━━━━ •• 

This is finished now <3

in case you wanted a good amount of fluff with no angst as a chaser for chapter 5, the epilogue is now added to the fic ^^

•• ━━━━━ ••● x ●•• ━━━━━ •• 

this fic is part of the @aftg-paranormal fest <3

[themundanemudperson]

got tagged by @quotidian-oblivion! thanks for the tag, quo! hopefully this'll make me get my ass in gear and actually write lmao

Rules: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then tag as many people as you have WIPS.

AFTG Sports AU Event Fic [AFTG]

AFTG Paranormal Fest AU Fic (i'm so descriptive yall) [AFTG]

The Perfect One For You Is Me [PRDC]

James Navarro Angst (titling these are gonna be a nightmare jesus) [PRDC]

Riley Angst (FOR FUCK'S SAKE) [PRDC]

Ivan/Phillip [PRDC]

Dinosaur AU Oneshot [PRDC]

Jason and Babs and the Gotham Public Library (oh i should write this again i loved it) [DC]

Arthur Pendragon and His Inability To Express Affection Like a Normal Human Being (BBC Merlin)

i've written more prdc stuff than i thought damn.

No pressure tags: @aurora-boreas-borealis @regaliasonata @lizzardwitch @milk-c @miss-morgans-lover

@spookyblazecoffee @angry-kid-with-no-money @artknifeandglue @ashestoashes7

[darkblueboxs]

Fang and Stake

For @aftgangstfest​ Day 21: “Bite me.”

For most hunters, it would have been a wet dream: his quarry beaten, bleeding, trapped and prone before him. He might as well have been holding a stake on a silver platter. If it had been any other vampire in the world, Andrew wouldn’t have hesitated to drive the splintering chunk of wood through his chest and be done with it.

Unfortunately, Neil wasn’t any other vampire.

Read here or on AO3 (check AO3 for content warnings)

* 

The vampire was slippery. Andrew didn’t like slippery; more challenge, more effort, more time spent charging through woodlands with rain and sweat soaking through his clothes and the echo of Kevin’s orders biting at his heels. The night was too cold for running, and the ache in his legs told him that he would be ending it bruised and exhausted. If bruising was the worst of his injuries come sunrise, he would consider himself… not lucky, Andrew had never been lucky, but satisfied. He had to find satisfaction somewhere; despite Kevin’s enthusiasm, the promised thrill of the chase had yet to ensnare Andrew. The thud of his heart in his chest was born of exertion and no more. It played a deafening drumbeat in his ears, perhaps compensating for his quarry’s shortcomings in that department.

The hunt required little strategy or forethought; tonight’s mark was bleeding. Profusely. Any idiot could follow a trail of blood, and frankly Andrew’s talents were wasted on this assignment. To think that Kevin had wanted him to take backup. Kevin was intelligent, of course, no man could keep his position without a few brain cells between his ears – but when it came to Andrew, he magically developed both the stubbornness and IQ of a common mule. Kevin was adamant that Andrew learn to work as part of a team. Andrew was equally adamant that he hunt alone.

Specks of red flecked the path ahead of him, a glinting ruby treasure-trail. Kevin’s notes divulged few details where tonight’s quarry was concerned, but Andrew wouldn’t have paid them much mind anyway.  Andrew’s marks were all the same; cruel, cunning, merciless. It took one to catch one, and if Kevin passed this vampire to Andrew instead of one of his more cooperative hunters, it was for a good reason.

After a pathetically short chase, Andrew tracked the figure to a riverbank swollen by rain. He could feel his lips slicing open into an empty smile as he saw the figure staring morosely into the water which cut through his escape route with the efficiency of a ravine. Vampiric rules, as strange as they were convenient.

Andrew flicked the stake over in his hand a few times as he approached. He wasn’t one to draw out a kill, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t make a show of it, if only to sap his victim of any remaining morale. The gesture was wasted on this vampire; its shoulders were heaving and shuddering in turn, heavy with defeat. Its hair was plastered to his head, darkened by the rain which ran rivulets down the nape of its neck.

His mark hadn’t been having a good night, even before Andrew caught its trail. The burnt, decaying smell of vampiric blood was thick in the air. Andrew’s mind caught him by the throat and dragged him somewhere deep and dark, where old memories thrashed and screamed. If the vampire had gained its injuries doing what Andrew thought it had been doing, a quick death would be more than it deserved.

The snapping of twigs underfoot gave him away, not that Andrew was making any effort to mask his approach. He had no need for the benefit of surprise.

The vampire looked up, eyes piercing blue. The familiar colour jolted through Andrew like an electric shock. He lowered his stake. “You. You’re Nathaniel?”

“Shit,” Neil said, half-way between a gasp and a laugh. “Andrew.” His legs gave out as though knocked from beneath him, and the vampire fell to his knees.

For most hunters, it would have been a wet dream; his mark beaten, bleeding, trapped and prone before him. He might as well have been holding a stake on a silver platter. If it had been any other vampire in the world, Andrew wouldn’t have hesitated.

Unfortunately, Neil wasn’t any other vampire.

Neil – Andrew had never believed it was his real name, not for a second – was, irritatingly, one of the good ones, a fact which Andrew believed with the kind of certainty that he had long thought himself to have outgrown. Hunters only pursued vampires that were a proven danger to humans, which meant that somewhere down the line, Andrew had been lied to. It only remained to decide which end the lie came from: Neil, or Andrew’s superiors.

Common sense should have put the blame squarely on Neil’s shoulders. He had every reason to lie to Andrew – to preserve his cover, to get close to someone with inside information on the Hunters, to buy himself a little protection or mercy from a friend on the inside should the time come – but Andrew’s instincts screamed over common sense.

He always knew Neil was trouble, of course. He was a vampire – it came with the territory. Neil was the only vampire Andrew had ever met that showed no sign of fear or revulsion upon discovering how Andrew paid his rent. It made Andrew wonder what else Neil had to fear, that the human who slept with a stake under his pillow should have no effect upon him at all. It made Neil a puzzle, but worst of all, it made him interesting. Deliberately or not, Neil certainly knew how to interest Andrew.

The whole situation smelt of a set-up. Someone in a high place must have really, really wanted him dead. Somehow, Andrew wasn’t surprised. After all, he had wanted Neil dead from the first night Neil slipped a name through the open crack of Andrew’s window, a name which lead him to a very, very bad man. At first, Andrew had wondered if Neil was using him as his own personal hitman, picking off vampires that posed a threat to his territory. As time passed and bodies mounted, it became clear that Neil had the same distaste for bloodshed as Andrew. The same immunity, too; when they arrived by chance at the scene of an attack within moments of each other, Neil’s reaction to the family bleeding out on the living room floor was as muted as Andrew’s. Andrew was tempted to blame it on the side-effects of vampirism, were it not for the way Neil’s eyes slid past the pools of blood with complete disinterest.

Neil never seemed to send help Andrew’s way with any hope of recognition or reward; he seemed to think it was the right thing to do. A good Samaritan; Andrew’s least favourite type of person.

“If I were someone else, you would be dead,” Andrew said. He noted the way Neil’s eyes tracked his stake, and he slotted it back into the hook on his belt.

“As would you.” Neil pressed a hand to his side and winced. “At least I don’t have a doppelganger running around. Makes things a lot more confusing.”

“Remember the rules, Neil.” Andrew tapped his fingers against the handle of his stake. “Family stays out of this.”

“Don’t worry, it’s easy enough now I know your smell from his. Yours is far more…” Neil’s gaze grew strangely distant, eyes flickering black, before he realised, wisely, that this wasn’t a good line of thought to follow. “Sorry.” He wobbled before falling onto his side with a quiet thunk. “Ouch.”

Andrew walked forward until he was standing over Neil. His shirt was dark with patches of blood, presumably his own. Andrew didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned. Neither, if he were smart, but smart always seemed to go out of the window at the same moment that Neil entered through it. “Vampires are supposed to heal quicker than this.” He nudged Neil’s abdomen with the toe of his boot, ignoring Neil’s protesting hiss. “Stop being dramatic.”

“I can’t.” Neil’s voice cracked with strain. “They doused their blades in holy water.”

There was a sudden, piercing pain at the back of Andrew’s skull. If he didn’t know better, he would call it fear. “You’re going to die.”

Neil laughed mirthlessly, fangs catching the moonlight. “I’m already dead.”

“Fix it.”

Neil smiled as though amused by the urgency in Andrew’s tone. Andrew hated that smile as much as he hated the man who wore it. “No.”

Andrew dropped to his knees and clinically yanked Neil’s shirt open to examine his wounds. Neil’s body was a mess of scarring, but it was the fresh wounds that drew Andrew’s eye, raw and red in some places, scorched black in others. His hands hovered over the ragged remains of Neil’s torso, twitching with uncertainty. Hunters weren’t taught to heal; they were taught to kill. For the first time in his life, Andrew wished his brother was there in his place. “What kind of blades?”

“I didn’t stop to ask.” Neil coughed, missing the look Andrew levelled at him. “Sharp ones.”

Andrew let out a low, involuntary hiss. He placed a careful hand to the raw red of Neil’s abdomen. Neil jerked, his skin ice-cold under Andrew’s palm.

The solution came to him with an abruptness that was almost painful.

“Feeding will heal you,” Andrew said. It was barely a question, but all the same he knew the answer before the words even passed his lips. He also knew from the cold determination in Neil’s eyes that Neil had reached the same conclusion and dismissed it immediately. Neil knew Andrew, knew the stories behind the stake under his pillow, and would never ask, would never even think to ask, even if it meant dying in his arms. The quiet understanding, the assurance, the silent promise of not like them that underpinned their every interaction was almost enough to rip Andrew to pieces. Because just as Neil knew Andrew, Andrew knew Neil, knew that Neil would never tear Andrew apart for his own satisfaction, would never use him up and throw him away like butcher’s scraps. Not like them. Neil looked at Andrew in a way that none had before, not like something to be consumed, but like something… else. Something important.

Andrew could slit his own throat in front of Neil, and Neil would still bleed to death before taking anything from Andrew that hadn’t been offered.

Andrew shook Neil’s shoulder, and when he saw the distant, glassy look in Neil’s eyes, he tried again. “Neil. Feeding will heal you.”

Neil coughed. His lips were flecked with his own blood. “If you know where I can buy a gallon of purified pig’s blood around here, I’m all ears.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Andrew growled.

Neil’s eyes flicked to Andrew’s as understanding dawned. He tried to push himself away, but there was nowhere to go but deeper into the loose dirt of the riverbank “I don’t feed from people. I won’t be like them.”

“I won’t let you be.” Andrew tightened his grip on Neil’s shoulder. Neil looked like he had more objections to make, but the violent shake of his hands betrayed him, as did the terrible, ashy colour of his skin. “I trust you.”

“No.”

“Bite me,” Andrew said, “Or I’ll cut my wrists open and force the blood down your throat myself.”

“You wouldn’t,” Neil said, and his certainty burns in the back of Andrew’s throat like bile.

“Try me.” Andrew said lowly.

Neil looked at him for a long moment, jaw clenched. Andrew could see the moment he caved in; however flimsy Andrew’s bluff, Neil would never risk calling it. He watched with careful blankness as Andrew tugged at his collar before giving up and tearing it along the seam, the sound surprisingly loud in the night air. Neil’s eyes caught on the bared expanse of Andrew’s neck and stuck there. There was a want in his eyes, but it wasn’t the kind of hunger Andrew was used to seeing from his kind. It was cautious, careful, aware. A single word from Andrew and it would be buried without complaint or reprehension. It was this knowledge that let Andrew shuffle closer, pulling Neil up and against him so that his weight was supported by Andrew’s arms. Neil might have been cold, but he was warmer than the night air, and the sensation seeped through Andrew’s skin slow as syrup.

Neil’s breath stuttered out of him as his head lolled against Andrew. “I’ve never…” Neil said, little more than a whisper. “…I’ve never done this. I don’t know if I can… If I can make it not hurt.”

“I know.”

“Is it still yes?”

“Yes,” Andrew said. Then, impatiently, “Sometime tonight?”

Neil sighed. There was a flash of teeth, and then a heat burned through Andrew’s shoulder unlike anything he had ever felt.

Andrew wasn’t sure what kind of noise escaped him. Neil twitched like he was about to pull back, but the clench of Andrew’s hand in his hair urged him on. Neil’s hand wavered between them as though searching for something to steady himself with, landing at last Andrew. For once, Andrew didn’t mind the contact as Neil dragged one hand from Andrew’s shoulder down to his arm, gripping on like Andrew was a rock in a stormy sea. Andrew’s body was a jumble of warring sensations, but the sudden wet heat as Neil’s tongue slid across the bite wound sent a shiver straight through him.

Neil pushed himself back, quick to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes had turned a deep red, and they didn’t quite refocus again until they had faded back to their normal blue. His skin was closer to his usual tan, and his wounds appeared, mercifully, to have scabbed over. They tingled under Andrew’s hands as though his blood was calling out to him from within Neil’s body.

Neil’s eyes fixed on the mark left on Andrew’s neck. For a moment, Andrew worried that Neil needed more, that he had denied himself what he needed for Andrew’s sake, but the crease between Neil’s eyebrows was concern, not hunger.

Neil reached for the wound, running cool fingers across damp skin. Beneath the sting of the bite was that tingling sensation again, and this time Andrew was certain he could feel his own pulse in Neil’s fingertips. Neil pressed two careful fingers against Andrew’s pulse-point, but before worry could blacken his expression any further Andrew caught Neil’s hand in his. With his other hand, he tugged what remained of his shirt back into place. “What is it you’re so fond of saying? I’m fine?”

“Fuck you,” Neil replied, his words slurring through swollen, pink lips. His pupils were still a size too large, but there was no hint of anything but his usual ice-blue irritation in his expression.

“You can thank me with the name and address of the man who did this.” Andrew punctuated his words by resting his palm on Neil’s healing torso.

“He doesn’t take kindly to house visits.”

“I don’t care what he takes kindly to. Name, Neil.”

“Nathan.” The word shook from Neil’s chest as though it had clawed its way free with no regard for what it tore along the way. “My father, Nathan Wesninski.”

Nathan Wesninski. An influential figure and generous donor to Andrew’s organisation. It would explain how Neil ended up on Andrew’s hitlist.

Little did they know.

“He isn’t the kind of person you can go up against on your own.” Neil tried to wipe a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth and missed. Andrew wiped it off with his sleeve, ignoring the way Neil’s lips twitched upwards at the gesture.

“Good thing I’m not on my own, isn’t it?”

Neil’s smile grew. Damn him. “Can I kiss you?”

Andrew flicked his gaze over Neil’s bitten lips, the growing flush of his skin, hair mussy and clotted with dried blood. “No.” Then, before Neil could get the wrong idea, he added, “ask me again when you aren’t delirious.” Andrew wouldn’t be like them; he wouldn’t let Neil let him be.

Neil’s smile, somehow, grew even more.

*

[achilios]

eli’s masterlist of hp fic rec masterlists

decided to make a masterlist of various HP (mainly H/D) fic masterlists + reccers i usually refer back to when looking for both specific and random fics !

this list will be updated as regularly as possible, scroll to the bottom for updates

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO REMOVE YOUR TAG/MASTERLIST FROM THIS LIST (i will do it asap, let me know either by replying to this post or through a PM)

feel free to reblog/reply/PM me if you have any other masterlists you think i should add to this! they don’t have to be H/D recs, they can be any HP fic recs!

MASTERLISTS

lists (often sorted by themes, tropes, etc) that you can turn to to find any type of fic you’re looking for. they will be labeled as Extensive (E), Detailed (D) and Brief (B)

(in order of which are most to least detailed. pls note that this is based on both my opinion and the length of these lists, and does not determine how good a masterlist is. Brief masterlists can be just as good as Extensive ones.)

@capiturecs ‘s H/D masterlist

(D) great list with plenty of different themes and tropes to choose from. it is located on LiveJournal. make sure to check out their other masterlists, 'A Simpler Masterlist' (D) and 'Themed Recs' (E)

@sitp-recs ‘s Drarry recs

(E) this is probably the one i turn to the most, simply because i find it super accessible and easy to use! i also absolutely adore Liv’s taste in fics, which is alway a bonus when searching for new fics to read. check out the other rec lists (can be found in the pinned post) on this account as well, which are just as great!

@drarryspecificrecs ‘s Thematic Recs masterlist

(E) this one is sooo detailed, which is great, i love it! i also absolutely adore the way their recs work, that is, instead of only reccing fics (which they do as well), they also provide links to rec lists (for specific themes/tropes) by other accounts, as well as links to AO3 tags that may be useful to find a specific type of fic! they also have links to fest lists in their bio, which i recommend checking out as well

@ferretlovesscarhead ‘s Taglist

(E) so many possible tags to choose from! this is so well organized, and a great tool for finding fics. but make sure to open the link on desktop, if you can! while it is usable on mobile, i find it to be much more accessible on desktop. this account also has what seems to be a masterlist of every fic they’ve recced on this account (in alphabetical order). i have yet to use that masterlist, but it looks detailed, despite not being organized by theme!

@drarryruinedme7 ‘s Rec Masterlist

(B) despite how brief it is, this masterlist is absolutely lovely. it’s so straightforward and easy to use, definitely a great place to start if you are feeling overwhelmed by the longer lists!

@dragontamerdame ‘s Masterlist

(E) oh how i love this masterlist! the way it is organized is absolutely lovely, and i looove all the options they have for careers for draco and harry. they also link other fic rec lists they have made on this post, which is great! make sure to check out their AO3 bookmarks for more recs (linked in their pinned post)

@krystalliumm ‘s Masterlist: Recs

(B) yet another masterlist i love turning to when i’m looking for something easy to navigate! and oh my, Khrys’s recs are great! i love the 'soft draco + protective harry' list!

@gracerene09’s Recs Masterlist

(D) so, this is something a bit different. this is actually a masterlist of various other masterlists this person has made, for several fandoms. there are currently four HP lists, including H/D Recs, Non-H/D HP Recs, FBWTFT Recs, and Art Recs!

other masterlists mentioned include the following fandoms: Teen Wolf, AFTG, Avengers, Check Please!, Criminal Minds, Dresden Files, Heroes, The Hobbit, Hunger Games, Inception, James Bond, Kingsman, LOTR, Merlin, 1D, Percy Jackson, The Raven Cycle, TMI, Sherlock, Smallville and Song of Ice and Fire. make sure to check those out as well if you’re looking for recs in those fandoms!

@justdrarryme ‘s Drarry Fic Rec Masterlist

(D) i’ve recently discovered this masterlist and can’t wait to use it! it’s organized in two categories: length and trope. make sure to click 'Keep Reading' to see the full masterlist!

@thedrarrylibrarian ‘s Card Catalog

(D) such a great masterlist! i use it often, and love browsing the different tags this masterlist offers. the librarian has a lovely 'new to drarry' rec list that i recommend checking out!

@themalfoymanner ‘s Drarry Fics Recs Masterlist

(D) another one i’ve only recently discovered! though Emily is no longer reccing fics, they still have several of their masterlists available, including her Scorbus Masterlist.

@snowgall ‘s #fanfiction recs and Masterlist For This Blog

(none) i unfortunately do not know how to link a specific tag and make it so that it only shows the results for one account, but fortunately, you can easily access this tag in their bio, under the link 'fandom and fic recs'. be aware that this seems to included non-HP fics as well, though you can find drarry-specific posts by clicking on the 'drarry' link.

EDIT: (E) their "Masterlist For This Blog" on LiveJournal is very extensive and has plenty of subcategories, definitely recommend giving it a look!

@potter-loves-malfoy ‘s Rec Lists

(D) a masterlist that makes every single one of their 3+ fic rec lists since 2017 super accessible!

@wistfulrat ‘s Another Drarry FicRec List Thrillers, Drama, Soft Bois, Wankbanks

(D) this collection of ficrec lists is so so good, filled with absolutely amazing fics. i go back to the 'drama' one all the time

@hogwartsfirebolt ‘s Netfic Recs

(D) such a creative way of reccing fics, i love it! make sure to check out their other rec lists as well :)

@somegymnast ‘s Masterlist

(B) recently reblogged on sitp’s account! i only just discovered it today so i haven’t had a chance to fully check it out yet, but it seems like a lovely masterlist!

EDITED: @dictacontrion ‘s Masterlist

(E) such a lovely rec list! not only is it a masterlist of their own works, but it’s also a masterlist of their recs. they also have a 'recommended rec lists' link at the bottom, for even more recs by several different people! I’ll also link their Tumblr Recs, which aren’t part of a masterlist but still are a great place to find new fics.

honorable mentions:

@sturm-und-drarry

(none) this isn’t exactly a masterlist, but this account is basically an archive for plenty of amazing angst and dark H/D fics and art

@gameofdrarry

(none) a fic fest account that also happens to be a great place to find fics!

EDITED: @dictacontrion 's List of HP and H/D Bogs

(none) this isn’t a fic rec masterlist, but rather a list of other HP accounts, including fic reccers !

that’s it for today! (updated july 27, 2021). i’ll update this asap with more masterlists/places to find recs!

[i-care-bout-things-too]

Omg these head canons are a mess I love it, I’m going to do my best Rice, be prepared for some random adventures of Seventh lol

...my tags on this went to hell oh no.

I keep seeing Seventh posts on your blog and I'm getting feels, considering you're all for the ship, do you have any prompts or head canons that unlike to see turned into a fic or even just in a fic? Cause I write and I feel like doing that but I have zero seventh ideas just the emotions. I'm on ao3 @ Winterlynne_Norvic if you'd like reference for my skills/abilities lol.

- locker room fight locker room fight locker room fight

Keep reading

[ao3feed-reed900]

by Dead_Fireflies375

Gavin Reed has been on the run from his father for the past six years, taking on a different identity with each town he hides in. During his senior year of high school, he decides to play his favorite sport from his childhood, Exy, a bastard sport combining lacrosse with all the aggression of hockey. To his surprise, he receives a full-ride scholarship to Jericho University on the basis that he joins their Exy team. Jericho's Exy team is known throughout the country as being a ragtag team full of misfits, a halfway house for troubled athletes that somehow manages to keep their Class I ranking despite their poor win-loss record. It's also has become the home of two of the highest-ranking Exy players in the country, two people that Gavin hasn't seen since he's been on the run. Against his better judgment, Gavin joins the team with the intention to bolt the moment his secret identity is in jeopardy. What he doesn't expect is for one of them to ask him to stay. What he really doesn't expect is for him to actually decide to do so.

-

AKA: The All For The Game AU that nobody asked for. Doing this for DE Art Fest, Day 3: College AU.

Words: 5048, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of DE Artfest 2020

Fandoms: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, M/M

Characters: Upgraded Connor | RK900, Gavin Reed, Ada (Detroit: Evolution), Tina Chen (Detroit: Become Human), Valerie Morales-Chen, Chris Miller (Detroit: Become Human), North (Detroit: Become Human), Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Amanda (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson, Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Lazzo Fratello, Elijah Kamski

Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Ada (Detroit: Evolution)/North (Detroit: Become Human), Tina Chen (Detroit: Become Human)/Valerie Morales-Chen

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Exy (All For The Game), Exy (All For The Game), Alternate Universe - College/University, listen they're all enrolled in college together so it's a college AU, Angst, Underage Drinking, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, we'll call him Richard for a hot second and then it's Nines from there on out, Alternate Universe - No Androids (Detroit: Become Human), Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Some fluff too, Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Twins, Nines is asexual, based on aftg so there's gonna be some mafia stuff fyi but it's not a full on mafia au, Octopunk Media's Detroit: Evolution Fan Film, DEArtfest, DE ArtFest, no beta we die like men

[nekojitachan]

my god what an angst fest the last two minutes of reading was

*innocent expression* Uhm… well… it IS an AFTG fic? Angst builds character? (I’m trying here…). The rain in Spain stays mainly - oh, wait, wrong saying. Hmm.

Yeah, you might be right there.

🍵🍵🍵 (to help make it better)

[ao3feed-connor]

All For The Game

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3eWu8Yz

by Dead_Fireflies375

Gavin Reed has been on the run from his father for the past six years, taking on a different identity with each town he hides in. During his senior year of high school, he decides to play his favorite sport from his childhood, Exy, a bastard sport combining lacrosse with all the aggression of hockey. To his surprise, he receives a full-ride scholarship to Jericho University on the basis that he joins their Exy team. Jericho's Exy team is known throughout the country as being a ragtag team full of misfits, a halfway house for troubled athletes that somehow manages to keep their Class I ranking despite their poor win-loss record. It's also has become the home of two of the highest-ranking Exy players in the country, two people that Gavin hasn't seen since he's been on the run. Against his better judgment, Gavin joins the team with the intention to bolt the moment his secret identity is in jeopardy. What he doesn't expect is for one of them to ask him to stay. What he really doesn't expect is for him to actually decide to do so.

-

AKA: The All For The Game AU that nobody asked for. Doing this for DE Art Fest, Day 3: College AU.

Words: 5048, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of DE Artfest 2020

Fandoms: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, M/M

Characters: Upgraded Connor | RK900, Gavin Reed, Ada (Detroit: Evolution), Tina Chen (Detroit: Become Human), Valerie Morales-Chen, Chris Miller (Detroit: Become Human), North (Detroit: Become Human), Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Amanda (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson, Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Lazzo Fratello, Elijah Kamski

Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Ada (Detroit: Evolution)/North (Detroit: Become Human), Tina Chen (Detroit: Become Human)/Valerie Morales-Chen

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Exy (All For The Game), Exy (All For The Game), Alternate Universe - College/University, listen they're all enrolled in college together so it's a college AU, Angst, Underage Drinking, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, we'll call him Richard for a hot second and then it's Nines from there on out, Alternate Universe - No Androids (Detroit: Become Human), Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Some fluff too, Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Twins, Nines is asexual, based on aftg so there's gonna be some mafia stuff fyi but it's not a full on mafia au, Octopunk Media's Detroit: Evolution Fan Film, DEArtfest, DE ArtFest, no beta we die like men

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3eWu8Yz

[quiescentdestiny]

When Andrew had taken up the job of soul collection after he died, he'd already accepted that he wasn't a part of the world of the living anymore. This wasn't new information to him. He was used to being unseen. There may have been a few points in time where he questioned that fact. Especially recently.

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Chapter 5 is up! almost 9k for this one. (whoops) (well technically it was up last night but I don't bother making posts at 11:45 my time lmao)

final real chapter of this fic, but there will be an epilogue babyyyyy. (hopefully tonight. I'm trying my best.) ANYWAYS, uh. mind the beginning note, as this chapter is a bit heavier on the angst/violence/etc so if you're not into that. There's a hidden/spoilered trigger warning at the beginning of the chapter, in case you want to skip the worst of it.

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continuing the fic for the @aftg-paranormal fest <3 (there will be 5 chapters total, plus an epilogue. all posted on Wednesdays this month. (epilogue will be posted on Halloween.))

[darkblueboxs]

Lifelines

For AFTG Angst Fest day 23: “You can’t die”

Read here or on AO3

TW for extreme violence and gore.

*

His father starts, as promised, with his legs. He slices the tendons with thick, blunt blades that catch in the shredded flesh, eliciting noises that would be stomach-turning if they could be heard over the screaming. There isn’t much left by the time Nathan is finished, lumps of quivering flesh that may have once resembled a human but no more.

By all rights, he should be dead.

But he isn’t. He waits for death to release him from the sweat and blood and agony, but past all reason, all possibility, his heart keeps forcing blood through his veins only for it to spill out onto the cold tiles of his father’s basement.

Eventually, the voices grow distant, and the room grows dark. They didn’t bother locking the door, never imagined that what remained of him could still be capable of movement. On shaky, new limbs that heal with a speed that Neil never thought possible, he drags what is left of himself into the dark.

Three months later, they catch him again at a rest-stop near Chicago. He doesn’t know if they understand what has happened to him any better than he does; he doesn’t stick around to ask. In the backseat of a car wheeling its way back to Baltimore, he cuts and cuts and cuts until the meaty stump of his hand slips through the handcuff without catching.

The cops find a steaming wreck of a car at the roadside, and Malcom’s body cooling in the driver’s seat. The source of the pool of blood in the back, however, remains a mystery to them. The flesh of his regrown hand stings as the night wind catches it, and he picks up a new name and a new look and loses himself once more.

A month later, he is shot.

Days after that, stabbed.

Weeks later, he spits up blood as the gash drawn across his throat seals itself over, fading to a vivid, white line against dark skin. The store clerk stares at it as he swaps his blood-stained tee for a high-collar polo shirt. Later, while examining the scar in a dingy motel bathroom, he wonders in a detached kind of way whether he’ll ever grow numb to the pain, nerves torn through by endless wear and tear. He touches an exploratory finger to the scar, and yanks it back as the ghost of a blade tears through his throat once more. No. He never had that kind of luck.

“He’s been waiting a long time for you,” Lola hisses. Her threats spiral like smoke in the icy mountain air. The wind whips her hair around her face as she backs him up against the cliff edge. “We kept your room just the way you left it. Ready and waiting for your family reunion. We’re going to kill you again, and again, and again, and again, and…” She punctuates her every word with another step forward, and he steps back in turn. As his heels hit the edge, her smile turns sharkish.

Between the cliff and Lola, the decision is easy. He lets himself fall.

He doesn’t hear Lola’s outraged shriek, doesn’t remember landing, doesn’t linger long in the snowdrift before hauling himself back towards civilisation. He doesn’t think about the creak and shift of his ribcage realigning, but he does worry about the deep tracks he leaves in the snow behind him.

He takes a new name, and heads to Arizona.

“You can’t die.” Andrew’s tone is flat, yet still somehow still laced with disdain.

“I said you wouldn’t believe me.” Neil glances over to Wymack, who is watching with his arms crossed, understanding nothing of the German passing between them.

“I never said I didn’t believe you. It would be a stupid lie to tell, even by your standards.”

“So you do believe me.”

“I never said that, either.”

“There’s one way to know for sure.”

Andrew smiles ghoulishly. “I promised coach I wouldn’t spill blood on his carpet.”

“If you can’t figure out how to kill me without spilling any blood then you’re not as good as I thought you were.”

Andrew’s eyes flick over Neil, as though mapping out points of vulnerability, or perhaps looking for something else he missed. “We’ll see.”

Neil waits for Andrew to test his truth, but the night never comes.

A toy that never breaks, Riko calls him, when he uncovers Neil’s secret. His delight drips from his lips like saliva. Buried in the nest, he takes his knives to Neil again, and again, and again, and-

Neil doesn’t die.

With the marks of Christmas still fresh on their skin, Andrew takes him to the roof, eyes roaming critically over Neil’s recoloured hair and naked eyes. He drags Neil over to the edge by his collar, and Neil wonders if Andrew has finally decided to kill him. It’s a long drop to the concrete below, and the horrified churn of Neil’s stomach isn’t lessened by the knowledge that his body will knit his broken bones back together afterwards.

“You’re awfully nervous for a man with nothing to fear.” Andrew has Neil in one hand, his cigarette in the other. One moment of inattention and either could be sent tumbling over the roof’s edge. Neil’s heart hammers so frantically that he’s sure Andrew must feel it through the hand bunched in his shirt, stuttering nervously like the beating wings of a sparrow. The frailty is an illusion; Neil has yet to meet anything that will stop it powering on, dragging him through the worst the world has to offer him.

“You and I know there’s far more to fear in this world than death.”

Andrew makes a noise several shades too derisive to count as laughter. “And what do you fear?”

Neil thinks of a dark, musty room, and the steady drip of blood on tiles. “Eternity.”

Andrew’s hand releases Neil’s shirt to lie flat against his chest, and for a moment Neil is sure that Andrew is finally going to push him over. He studies Neil with eyes that burn amber against the brisk winter sky, and the moment stretches into forever between them.  Not the kind of forever that Neil fears – an eternity spent in the dark being broken and broken and broken is the kind that haunts him at night, but this electrifying moment of uncertainty, he could… tolerate.

Andrew’s hand is warm enough that Neil misses the heat when he withdraws it. Neil tilts forward, although whether he’s following Andrew or escaping the drop behind him he can’t say. Andrew doesn’t acknowledge the impulse as he flicks his cigarette butt off the roof, but his eyes don’t leave Neil’s face.

“Just because you can’t die,” Andrew says, words clipped with a tension Neil can’t decipher, “doesn’t mean you have nothing to lose.”

“I know.” It’s a new truth that burns like acid in his chest, painful as it is terrifying. “I went to the nest because I have something I can’t lose.”

Andrew’s fingers twitch. Maybe he regrets throwing his cigarette off the roof. Maybe he regrets not throwing Neil off after it. “Get out of my sight.”

Neil leaves, heart still beating a frantic pace as though he left it up on the roof edge with Andrew.

He used to believe that it wasn’t the world that was cruel, but the people in it. But people – as far as Neil knows – are not responsible for the power that drags him back to life over and over. For a man who spent the best part of his life on the run, immortality should be a blessing; an immunity to the sticky end that was guaranteed to come to him at his father’s hand. Instead, Neil’s fears have multiplied a hundredfold. At least before, he had been guaranteed some kind of release, no matter how slow and painful the means. Now he fears a lifetime spent in a dark basement, a body pulling itself back together only to be torn apart once more, like Prometheus chained to his rock, rip, repair, repeat.

He wonders what his mother, who he can only picture clawing towards him across the blood-stained tiles of his father’s basement, would have thought of it all. A woman who sacrificed a true life in favour of survival, who put herself through the unimaginable just to keep Neil alive, would perhaps have appreciated Neil’s curse more than he ever could. Maybe it was her sheer determination that landed Neil in this mess, bending the laws of reality itself from beyond the grave just to keep her son’s heart beating. For a moment, Neil is so overcome with hatred that he can barely breathe for it. It’s only now, with his Foxes, that he understands the difference between surviving and living, and if he had any real choice in the matter he would take the latter without hesitation.

Surviving is scraping himself off a grey tile floor and losing himself along stretches of highway that tangle into forever. Living is the weight of Andrew’s body pinning him to the floor as he takes Neil apart again and again and again and-

Andrew says, “stay,” and Neil pictures another kind of forever.

Three. Two. One. Zero.

There was nothing of Neil that needed protecting, that could be protected in any way that wasn’t covered by his curse, and yet Andrew had insisted all the same. Give your back to me.

With Nathan’s men watching the door and Lola’s voice still hissing in his mind, Neil looks at his Foxes and makes the only choice he can. He gives them his forever.

Thank you. You were amazing.

The gun digs into his spine as the team heads out, the threat dragging Neil’s attention away from the riot roaring to life around them. Still, the bullet comes as a surprise.

Of course, the only way to guarantee there isn’t a search is to make sure nobody thinks there’s anything to search for.

The sound registers before the pain does, earth-shatteringly loud even in the chaos of the riot. Neil’s ears scream with the aftershock, but the twist of the bullet inside him tears his attention elsewhere.

Muscles rip and bones shatter and organs burst as the bullet grinds through Neil’s body, and oh, he liked this jacket. Red bleeds through the orange of Neil’s windbreaker, and if he had to guess he would say that the bullet had gone right through the o in Josten.

The crowd screams and ripples around him, a blur of faces that could be Foxes or could be strangers for all Neil’s flickering vision can tell, and men dressed like paramedics seize him by the arms and drag him to a waiting van.

In his last, fleeting moments of consciousness he looks for Andrew.

Then the doors shut, and everything goes black.

He comes around with a bullet rattling around in his ribcage. Coughing the bullet up isn’t as unpleasant as it was being shot by it, but still it scratches Neil’s insides like sandpaper. Between retches he runs through curses in every language he can think of.

Finally, he forces the slug back up his throat and spits, watching as it clatters across the grey tiles.

Grey tiles.

Gr-

The realisation feels like falling off a cliff, dizzying, disorientating, and with the certainty of a rough landing awaiting him at the bottom.

“Rise and shine, kiddo.” He would recognise Lola’s voice anywhere. It seeps into his ears like blood, blocking everything else out.

“My teammates-” Neil stutters.

“Saw you die. Don’t worry, they won’t be looking for you. Well, only in the morgues. They won’t find your body, of course, but maybe we could snip a few pieces of you off for them to stumble upon. I’m feeling generous.” She trails a painted fingernail down Neil’s torso as though following an invisible dotted line. “Your immortality frustrated us at first, you know. But now we’ve all had time to reflect on it, and you know what we’ve seen?” She leans in close, and Neil tries not to breathe in as her perfume drowns him. “Potential.”

Neil yanks at his arms, desperate to put anything between himself and Lola, but the rattle of handcuffs at his back is predictable as it is devastating. The cuffs around his ankles are an unexpected addition to the ensemble. He tries for a kick, but she surges forward, pinning his legs easily with the weight of her body.

His time in the nest – what he can remember of it – was a nightmare of knives and exy and Riko’s smile. But Riko was, when it came down to it, an amateur. He knew how to hurt, but he didn’t know how to destroy, didn’t know the ins and outs of a body like his father’s people did, didn’t know where to draw the line that would keep a victim hovering between awake and unconscious, to keep them suffering that little bit longer. Riko was a bully, but he wasn’t a professional.

Neil survived by clinging to a few things – his foxes, exy, his promises to Andrew – but also to the knowledge that he had survived worse. Riko was a nightmare, it was true, but he was no butcher.

They leave him there to stew in the dark. With a lifetime to wait and their tracks well and truly covered, they have no need to hurry. The air that feeds into the basement through an array of soundproofed ducts is stale and faintly ashy. Without windows, he has no way of gaging the passage of time. The room isn’t just dark, it’s a void, and as time melts Neil’s eyes start picking out patterns from thin air, shapes and shadows that slide around him. He thinks of the bitter January nights spent on the tower roof with Andrew, the glistening stars above and the glow of Palmetto below. He had lived each of those moments with the knowledge of how brutally it would all be ripped away from him, had known to savour the hum of the city and the sparkling sky and Andrew’s lips on his, but all the same he longs for it all just once more. The longing is such a persistent, unhealing pain in his chest that he wonders if it might be what finally kills him.

No such luck.

When the lights flick back on at last, it has been so long that the fluorescent bulbs all but blind him. Neil wants to be on guard against what’s coming, but reflexes force his head into the crook of his shoulder until his eyes can adjust. When he finally forces them open, he wishes he hadn’t, nausea rolling over him as his father’s distinctive outline comes into focus.

He speaks, probably, but nothing penetrates Neil’s terror. He’s five years younger, watching Lola drag his mother’s body away in pieces, promising she’ll be back for him next. Trying to connect the bloodstained hands of his mother’s corpse to the ones that first showed him how to tie his shoelaces, that sewed up his wounds with dental floss and whisky, that massaged hair die into his scalp and broke three of his ribs for kissing a girl…

He was too busy watching the patterns his mother’s blood made on the floor to notice the scars on his face and arms slowly seal themselves over. He did notice his father’s approach, freshly-polished axe glinting at his side.

Past and present blur into one. The first time, his father was restrained, savouring every drop of Neil’s blood as it dribbled onto the tiles. Then came the confusion as wounds sealed themselves over, then anger, cutting and cutting and cutting until Neil couldn’t even remember his own name. Both of them staring as his body knitted itself back together.

The sentence “passed out from the pain” was one that had always irritated Neil. People don’t pass out from pain. They pass out from blood loss, or lack of oxygen, or because of whatever is causing them the pain. There is, however, no simple pain threshold after which the human mind will shut itself off regardless. Pain is not a trip switch. It might shut down the mind, but the body powers on. His body always powers on, and trained hands could hold him on the knife-edge between conscious and not for a long, long time without sacrificing an inch of his pain.

This time, the butcher has no need to hold back. The axe swings, and Nathaniel screams.

He screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams until he can’t scream anymore.

And still he powers on.

Time passes. The lights flicker on. The lights flicker off. Light is terror, because it comes with pain, but not knowing what might creep in the shadows is its own kind of nightmare. Sometimes it’s his mother, clawing through a pool of her blood. Sometimes it’s Riko, racquet in hand, the Raven’s victory march roaring at his back as though a stadium is cheering him on. Sometimes it’s Andrew, blood running down his face, laughing faintly as drugs twist his mind into knots.

Lola likes to visit him in the dark, or he thinks she does. Maybe it’s just his own broken mind turning on him. Her disembodied voice puts words to the desperation clawing at the base of his skull. Forever, forever, forever.

Nathaniel forgets the stars. It’s easier than longing for them.

One day, the lights click on, their low buzz enough by now to rouse Nathaniel immediately from sleep. But it is not his father, nor any of his men, who enter.

Nathaniel stares vacantly at the police uniform.

The cop leans against the wall with one hand, makes a faint choking sound. “We got a body down here.”

Do we? Nathaniel wonders.

There are more footsteps, more noises, the door opening and shutting. Neil doesn’t do anything until a hand touches his shoulder, and he jerks back into himself with a shout. Several people scream as Nathaniel wrenches himself away from the touch. The handcuffs bite into the torn flesh of his wrists and for a few minutes everything is a rush of movement and panic.

Eventually, a woman approaches with a pair of plyers in hand. Nathaniel’s vocal cords haven’t healed enough to scream, but the noise he makes seems to get his point across. Gently, without touching him, she twists the chain of the cuffs around his ankles until it snaps, and waits for him to still before repeating the action on his wrists. His arms tumble numbly forward, and Nathaniel slumps for the first time in… he doesn’t know.

“Nathan,” he says, voice like sand in his throat.

The officer glances to her colleague. “Dead.”

It takes Nathaniel a moment to recognise the sound that escapes him as laughter.

He wants to tell them that he can walk, but his throat has done all it can for him, and he doubts they’d believe him anyway. A stretcher comes, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in the upstairs mirror, he starts laughing all over again.

Then they pass through the oak double doors and down the drive towards the waiting ambulance, but the rest of the world fades to a faint mess of colours as Nathaniel stares, stares, stares at the burning blue sky, so bright that he thinks his eyes are going to melt, but he won’t look away.

He breathes.

When he next comes around, the world is soft and blurry, like he’s wearing glasses that don’t belong to him.

“Were you disqualified?” Nathaniel croaks.

There’s a huff of air from beside him. “Jesus, kid.”

His throat hurts too much to repeat the question, so Nathaniel looks pleadingly in what he guesses is Wymack’s direction until he gets his answer.

“We’re playing the Ravens on Saturday,” Wymack answers at last. “Neil-”*

He’s already asleep again, a smile pulling at his lips so painfully that he thinks he might have torn something in the effort.

The hospital doesn’t want to let him go, and neither does the FBI, but in the end neither can find a good enough reason to hold him. They took Nathan in a bust which turned violent, leaving his most of his men dead. The promise of a reunion with the Foxes on the horizon, Nathaniel fidgets with his hair in the bathroom mirror as though taming it to his liking will distract from the rest of him. He can heal himself of anything, but the scars always remained, and there are so many that Nathaniel barely recognises his own reflection. While he’s worried about the foxes’ reactions, more than anything, he’s grateful. There isn’t a hint of his father left in his appearance.

And, at last, he is returned to his Foxes.

The deathly quiet of the room is broken by a whispered, “Neil?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says by way of answer.

“It is him,” Nicky confirms, a little hysterically. Matt makes a pained noise and reaches for Nathaniel’s face, and he can’t help but flinch away from the contact. Matt drops his hand, expression crumbling.

“No,” says Allison sharply. Renee tries to place a hand on her arm, but she throws it off. “No. I’m calling bullshit. We saw you get shot. We saw you die.”

“Where’s Andrew?” He knows the goalkeeper has to be okay, the Foxes could never have made it to the finals without him, but still he needs to see. Allison makes a frustrated noise, so he looks to Renee instead.

“The police just wanted to go over a few more things with him.”

“Like how he beat them at their own job,” Aaron adds flatly. “And how he knew that their dead man wasn’t dead after all.”

Nathaniel ignored the accusation in his tone. “He went to the police?”

“He dragged Kevin in by the neck and told him to say whatever it took to set them after the butcher.”

Nathaniel’s eyes snap to Kevin. “What did you-?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kevin replies with a kind of certainty Nathaniel has never heard from him before. “It worked.” His eyes linger on Nathaniel’s cheekbone, tracing out what remains of his tattoo. “It worked,” he repeats quietly, as though still convincing himself of the fact.

Nathaniel considers dropping into French to scold Kevin for putting himself in the line of fire, but there’s nothing he can say that Kevin doesn’t already know. After all, Nathaniel knows better than anyone how faint the world’s dangers seem with Andrew at one’s back.

He turns to Wymack. “Take me to him.”

“Neil, you need to rest,” says Abby. “You need your injuries checked, you need-”

“I need Andrew.” Nathaniel runs a hand over his face, feeling the new ridges and bumps drag against his fingertips. “Look at me. Really look. These aren’t injuries, they’re scars.”

“Old scars,” says Dan faintly. “But it doesn’t make sense, Neil-”

“You deserve answers. All of you do. But first, I need to see Andrew.”

Reluctantly, the Foxes agree. They seem unwilling to let Nathaniel out of their sight, however momentarily. He ducks back from their open arms, his heart tipping around in his chest like a boat in a stormy sea, overwhelmed by their affection but unable to reciprocate. Every time hands twitch in his direction, his vision blackens and his body tenses, preparing for a new wave of pain. His injuries may have healed themselves, but each brush of contact revives the sensations that scratch through his skin like phantom fingernails.

Wymack drops Nathaniel at his apartment before heading off to collect Andrew, silencing Nathaniel’s protests with a heavy look. He may have a point – the last place Nathaniel wants to do this is a crowded police precinct.

Nathaniel’s legs buckle as soon as Wymack shuts the door behind him, but luckily his couch is there to catch him.

He is woken by the door tearing open.

Andrew is kneeling before him in an instant, but somehow he knows – knows – not to touch. Arms held stiffly at his sides, he looks his fill, cataloguing every new cut and bruise with his all-consuming gaze. It melts something stiff and painful in Nathaniel’s soul, and he lets himself soften under Andrew’s gaze, spine curving as he melts back into the couch.

For the first time in days, weeks, months, forever – he feels safe.

Andrew whispers his name, and it is his once more.

Physical contact is slow to return to Neil, coming in fits and starts as he gives himself back to the steady care of Andrew’s hands. The dark of night is terrifying, but the court’s glaring artificial lights are worse, and it takes a long time for him to feel comfortable under anything but the gentle amber of sunset.

He learns to love the weight of Andrew’s hands pinning his scarred wrists to the pillow, loves the drag of Andrew’s callouses against the ridges of his healing skin.

The Foxes, to Neil’s eternal surprise and gratitude, accept his truth for what it is. He can tell from the sad glances most of them flit between him and Andrew that they have worries that they aren’t intrusive enough to voice, worries about their future. Neil doesn’t know if he can ever die, doesn’t even know if he can age. He may have an eternity, but Andrew doesn’t, and the prospect of a forever without him is a new kind of horror that jerks him awake in the night as frequently as any of his most violent nightmares.

Instead of acknowledging the time-bomb between them, Neil presses his lips to the pale freckle hidden behind Andrew’s ear and whispers, “stay.”

He’s back on court in time for them to face the Ravens, and under the glow of stadium lights he feels all but on fire. The final timer screams, and Neil falls to his knees, the world hazing over as the adrenaline of their victory pounds through him.

He can only watch with a detached kind of fascination as Riko’s racquet whistles down in the direction of his head. He doesn’t bother to brace himself for pain, doesn’t bother closing his eyes, knows that nothing he can say or do will make the pain any less consuming. He feels only a flash of regret that his family will have to witness something so undoubtedly unpleasant.

There’s a sick thud as racquet connects with body, but the pain never comes. Neil blinks, and his world falls out from under him as he sees who was on the receiving end of the strike.

The racquet hits the floor a moment before Andrew does. Both are dripping with blood.

The world blurs into a rush of blood and noise, but this time it isn’t Neil’s blood, but he can feel the impact regardless, screaming through him like a bullet but worse, and there are hands and faces and they want to separate them, no, no, never again, and Neil hooks a finger into Andrew’s collar and holds it like a lifeline even if he isn’t sure who it’s keeping alive, and then there’s the rumble of an ambulance and the fragile blip of machinery-

And then quiet.

Alone in a hospital room, Neil finds the tangle of something deep in his chest and unravels it, unspooling the source of his impossible power like gossamer thread, so thin and fragile between his fingers for all it has endured, and although he had never wanted it he had never had anywhere else to keep it but within himself, but not anymore, and he weaves and weaves and weaves and finally, finally, finally Andrew opens his eyes.

He touches his hand to where the pain should be, before turning heavy eyes on Neil. “What did you do?”

“Why?” Neil says, because it’s the only syllable he has been able to string together since Riko’s racquet hit its mark. “You knew I could have taken it. You knew he couldn’t hurt me.”

“You can’t die. You can still be hurt.”

“Who cares?”

Andrew’s eyes darken with such fury that the rabbit part of Neil’s mind twitches instinctively. A moment later Andrew’s usual blank expression seals itself back over, and the anger is swallowed.

“I made you a promise,” he says at last.

Half-listening, Neil slips one of the knives from Andrew’s armbands and slides the blade across his palm. They watch as blood wells up along the thin slit and pools in Neil’s callouses. The wound stays.

“That’s new,” Neil says faintly. Andrew retrieves his blade and draws it across his own palm.

Neil doesn’t realise how tightly he’s gripping the sheets of Andrew’s bed until Andrew nudges his hand. “You’re getting blood everywhere.”

“So are you.”

Andrew turns his hand over, and slowly they trace each other’s wounds, fresh and painful and wonderfully mortal. Neil can’t feel a hint of the energy that kept him alive for so long, but when his blood mixes with Andrew’s there’s something new, an intricate tangle of something holding them together.

It’s beautiful and terrible, bone-achingly addictive, and when Andrew cups Neil’s head and pulls him in it’s all he can taste, strong and fragile all at once, sweet and tingling against his lips.

They tie themselves together, and they never let go.

 *