#and now i just feel like ive been really impatient and needling them by asking if i could drop by to pick it up

[bugunlikeanangel]

tfw u think someone hates you but theyre actually like. wait sorry i thought i sent a message back hours ago, it didnt send bc i exited out of the app and ur just like, ok. so you still like me

[scarlettriot]

When one feels like shit, one writes things to feel better :)

This is based on a very short headcanon I had a little while ago that I've decided to make into a little fic. I hope you enjoy.

Featuring: Mainly Pro Hero Red Riot. Also includes Pro Heroes Dynamight, Chargebolt, Earphone Jack, and Pinky

Y/N: They/Them (Y/H/N: Your Hero Name)

Warnings: Kidnapping (well, not kidnapping exactly, adultnapping), restrained, minor physical injuries, drugged into unconsciousness

HAPPY ENDING THOUGH, I PROMISE!

Summary: You've been captured by villains. Wonderful, right, just how you wanted your Friday to go. Your quirk isn't working thanks to them pumping you full of suppressant drugs. You were actually having a hard time remembering how you were abducted. You're only able to remember being on patrol and something smelling off before passing out. Now, thanks to the drugs, you were having a hard time remaining conscious in this...basement? Warehouse or it could be a factory... Someone would find you, your friends were perfectly capable. You just hoped it'd be before anything worse happened.

When you didn't report in at the specified time and weren't answering their calls, the rest of the heroes at the Alliance Agency grew concerned. Jiro was already pulling up your location on your cell phone while Kaminari searched for the tracker in your suit.

Unfortunately, they both ended up at the same location, a dumpster behind an apartment complex, you were nowhere to be found.

Bakugo and Kirishima, who were also concerned about your whereabouts, took a different approach since neither was too talented at the tech side of things.

Kirishima canvases the immediate area around your phone and tracker, using his easy-going smile and charming personality to coax information out of anyone who was willing to talk to him in the area. Meanwhile, Bakugo played to his own strengths and threatened the low lives of the area.

"Someone said they noticed two guys, 'helping' someone in a hero suit down the street earlier. The description of the person and suit match Y/N." Kirishima could see lights in a few of the windows flickering but no signs of people moving about in the apartments above. He couldn't help but wonder if you were in one of them.

He got a grunt of a response from Bakugo through his earpiece. "Yeah, well, I just persuaded some scum into giving up an abandoned factory location about 10 blocks from here. Says he doesn't know what they're doin' but he's seen people goin' in and out all the time. Seems odd since it's abandoned."

The location pinged on Kirishima's phone. "I'm six blocks away. Meet you there."

The building in question looked like it hadn't been in operation for at least a decade when he arrived but fresh tire tracks him something was definitely going on. Not to mention the building had electricity running to it judging by the lights he could see.

When Bakugo showed up minutes later they decided to enter through a southern entrance that Ashido had pointed out after pulling up blueprints at HQ.

"Most of the electrical usage is centered in that location." She explained, "If you're going to find anything useful, I'm betting it'll be there. Chargebolt and Earphone Jack will meet you as soon as they're done collecting security footage from the suspected abduction sight."

Bakugo scoffed. They were Dynamight and Red Riot, they didn't need any damn backup.

Kirishima broke the lock on the door with a sharp tug rather than letting Bakugo shoot it off with an explosion. "You take downstairs and I'll go up. We stay on coms." Kirishima nodded and started his descent.

There was a single guard with a gun resting on his knee and headphones in his ears making Kirishima's job too easy. Not even bothering to harden his skin, he whacked the back of the guy's head and he crumpled to the floor unconscious.

"Took out two guards and a scientist. Oh, there's a lab up here too."

"One guard taken out. Moving into another room now."

The metal door was locked up tight and the guard had a surprising lack of keys on their person. They could have been close by but Kirishima was impatient. He was aware this would be loud but at least it was efficient.

He hardened an arm and with one, two, slices of his hand diving into the metal he was able to create a hole... and garner attention. A knife broke across his hand and two gunshots were fired from inside the room, doing nothing to him.

"Gonna have to do better than that!" He roared with laughter.

Kirishima ripped the metal wide and stepped through. He wasted no time, grabbing the gun point-blank, bending the barrel upward with a devilish grin before turning on the man with two daggers. A green substance ran off his skin and down onto the blades. It burned slightly when they slashed at him but Kirishima was used to Ashido's acid by now that this was practically child's play!

The other guy came at him with an orange beam of light right from his eyes that managed to break through a bit of his hardened skin. He could feel blood start to trickle down from his forehead. "Now, we're getting somewhere!"

Using his body weight, Kirishima shoved the man with the daggers down to the ground, disarming him quickly, and used his own blades to live into his friend's leg. He watched as the acid melted the fabric and left black burns on the man's skin, nasty stuff. He tired another beam in retaliation but Kirishima dodged it this time.

"I'd love to keep playing around but I'm lookin' for someone." He used one hand to hoist the man up and another to shield his eyes. Instantly, Kirishima's hand started to burn but he held steady. "Do you know where Y/H/N is?" The beam pulsed stronger, "Fine. If you won't help me then I have no use for you." He sat him back on the ground, a harden fisted to the back of the head had him good and knocked out.

"What about you?" Kirishima asked, returning his focus to the dagger man, "Do you know where they are? Your operation is a bust, the least you can do is tell me where my friend is. I might even put in a good word for you if ya do."

He grabbed a discarded metal pipe and the man must have taken it as a threat because he lifted shaky hands that were no longer coated in green. "B-back there with the others."

"Others? Other victims or others of you?"

"Subjects, we have other subjects!"

Rage pulsed in Kirishima's veins but he kept a lid on it. "Right then. Thanks." He bent the pipe around the man's hands and another around his ankles before speaking over the coms again.

"Y/N isn't the only victim. Dynamight, get down here."

He was running to the back of the room when he saw you along with five others. Your wrists had been bound by metal shackles suspended from a beam high on the wall that the tips of your toes were just brushing the concrete floor. You were slumped forward with IVs poked into both arms.

"Y/N?" He calmly approached but you didn't answer. You just hung there like a rag doll.

Kirishima lifted your head in his hands and saw a few cuts on your face that had dried blood still surrounding them but he breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the steady drumming of your heart, shallow, but there. You were alive and that was all he cared about.

"Okay. Gonna stop whatever the hell these are..." He flipped switches on the IVs and continued to talk out loud about his process. "Then gotta get 'em outta you..."

With surprisingly delicate fingers, he pulled the needles from your arms. Stopping the small pools of blood with a few pieces of gauze and tape that someone had been so kind to leave behind.

He then wrapped his left arm snuggly around your body. Holding you against him in a way he hoped didn't hurt you any more than you already were. With his right hand, Kirishima reached up to the shackles just as you started to stir awake.

One side of him was so completely soft and caring, the other hard and brutal, snapping the manacles in a powerful grip and you fell against him completely.

"Whadda hero." His ears glowed pink from the compliment.

"I'm really glad I got you back."

A/N: I know it isn't my best writing by any means but I had to do something to distract myself. Hope you're all doing well <3

[aster-aspera]

It’s just my skin

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: loss of hearing

Pairings: (platonic) jonmartim

Warnings: claustrophobia, hospitals, hearing loss

Masterlist

If you liked it please reblog <3

The aftermath isn’t as quiet as Tim thought it would be.

Maybe it’s the fact that he isn’t dead even though he should be, maybe it’s the dreadful ringing in his ear, maybe it’s the way his chest is heaving in gasping breaths he can’t hear.

There’s a thousand pounds of stone pressing down on his back and somewhere far above him he can feel the ground rumble and shift. He can’t even find it in himself to worry about the whole place coming down. He wasn't planning on making it out alive either way.

He thinks he floats in and out of consciousness for a bit. Time seems to wind and stretch and loop back, only the rubble on his back and the incessant ringing to keep him company.

Something shifts eventually, a change in the air at first, the darkness becoming just a bit softer, a bit less cloying.

And then there are hands and stretchers and needles and people pulling and prodding him and over it all is still that high pitched ringing, rising higher and higher into an impossible crescendo. He thinks they ask him things, he is sure he sees their lips moving and their expectant gazes. He thinks he tries to say something, but his lips feel awkward and unwieldy.

Everything goes dark after that. A cool blessed darkness where he just floats, no stone, no rubble, no dust, just peace.

He thinks about Danny for a while, and the ritual and the burning collapse of it all and the way Sasha smiled at him every morning when he came into the archives. Then he just sleeps.

He wakes up a bit more coherent the next time. The ringing isn’t gone yet, but at least his brain doesn’t feel like it’s through different planes of dimensions at a hundred kilometres per hour anymore. At least now he can breathe without the dust clogging his lungs.

He looks around the overbright hospital room, the disconnected monitor and the IV dripping a clear fluid into his veins. There’s a bouquet of orange flowers on the bedside table. Probably from Martin, he thinks bitterly. There’s no one else who would go through the trouble.

Martin walks into his room at some point and Tim wonders why he’s here and not hovering around Jon like some lost puppy. Maybe Jon didn’t make it out of the explosion.

Something sharp and painful shoots through Tim’s chest at the thought and he does his best not to examine it too closely.

He looks up at Martin, whose lips are moving as he fusses with the flowers on the little table. Tim stares up at him uncomprehendingly, waiting for sound to come through, waiting for that unbearable ringing to resolve itself into something he can understand.

It doesn’t.

“I can’t hear,” He says, his lips forming the words, his vocal cords vibrating, but no sound comes out, not to him at least. Martin looks up at him with concern, his mouth moving in shapes that should have been familiar, had they been accompanied by the right noises.

“I can’t hear,” Tim says again. And this time, it doesn’t come out half as controlled. He can feel something very close to panic crawling it’s way up his throat and he doesn’t quite manage to swallow it down.

Martin presumably says something else, before giving up and typing something on his phone, shoving it into Tim’s hands before stalking out of the room.

Getting a doctor, stay here

Well of course he’s going to stay here, does Martin really think he’s going to wander around London when he’s just survived an explosion? He isn’t Jon.

He waits impatiently in his bed, rubbing the uncomfortably thin hospital sheets between his fingers and trying to adjust the flat pillows so he can sit up.

Eventually the doctors come in and once again, it’s back to being poked and prodded. Doctors examining his ears and brain and all the million scans they take, with Martin occasionally coming in to hover over him, bringing along coffee from the cafeteria.

In the end, the verdict is predictable. Permanent damage from his proximity to the explosion. Figures he couldn’t just walk out of that unscathed.

And most people would probably consider being permanently deaf better than being dead. Tim wasn’t too sure he agreed with them  yet.

They let him go home eventually, with a whole laundry list of instructions on how to care for himself. Tim throws the papers into a corner as soon as he gets home. He’ll be fine, he’s survived Jane Prentiss, he can survive this. And it isn’t like it matters much.

His phone buzzes to life when he sticks it into the socket, all the messages he missed streaming in at once, a tidal wave of promotional mails and push notifications. He’s half tempted to just shut it off again when he notices one text notification between all the others.

Jon

Martin had told him he was alive, of course. But something about seeing his name displayed black on white on his phone screen drives the point home in a way Martin’s scribbled notes hadn’t done. Something sharp and hot shoots through his chest and he wants desperately for it to be that familiar anger that carried him through the last few months.

But as he lets his head fall back onto the couch, he can’t quite feel it burn the same, and without its familiar warmth, he feels hollow in a way he hasn’t since Danny died.

He swipes away the message without reading it and curls up on the couch, pulling an old, dusty blanket over himself and shutting his eyes. He tries not to think too much of the darkness after the explosion, of the plaster dust swirling through the air and settling in his lungs, of the stone crushing his limbs at awkward angles.

A dark apartment isn’t much like a collapsed building but his brain doesn’t care when it brings up vivid images of his time under the rubble. Despite it all, he does eventually drift into the comforting darkness of sleep, his slumber taking the pain and weariness out of his bones for just a moment.

It’s peaceful, till he wakes up gasping from a nightmare.

His desk rattles slightly when a heavy book is dropped on it and Tim looks up in annoyance, ignoring the painful squeezing in his chest when he meets Jon’s tired, regretful eyes.

‘Learning sign’ The book proclaims and Tim feels irritation bubbling up.

“Fuck off,” He says, focusing his attention once again on his desk.

‘I know sign, I can help, or at least recommend you some classes/books’ Jon informs him through the notes app on his phone.

“I don’t need your help.”

‘I know you don’t, but I’d like to'

“Why? So you can feel better about everything that happened? You think this is going to fix it?”

‘I’m sorry Tim’

“Sorry is too late,” he bites out, shoving out of his chair roughly. He tries to move past Jon, make it out of this stifling, dusty room, get somewhere it doesn’t feel like the walls are watching him.

A rough, calloused hand shoots out, wraps around his wrist like a vice. Jon’s eyes are dark with concern and Tim feels an odd anger at the expression. How can he show so much empathy after everything that happened?

He looks at the hand wrapped around his wrist and suddenly, it’s all just too much.

The deafening ringing in his ears, this wretched place that trapped him and choked him and took his best friend from him. And Jon, eyes still hopeful, still compassionate, after Tim had blamed him and hurt him for months on end.

“Go away,” He tries to say and he doesn’t even make it to the first syllable before his voice betrays him with a choked sob. A shudder runs through him and he looks down at the wooden floor, trying to compose himself.

The grief has never felt as all consuming as it does in this moment and it chokes and burns and pulls him under all at once.

And then, there are arms around him. A familiar touch, a familiar weight, from days so long ago Tim can barely remember them. The first touch that isn’t hostile, the first comfort he has felt in so long.

And it’s all from the man he’s tried to hate for months.

His hands curl themselves tightly into Jon’s cardigan and he buries his face in his shoulder, biting back tears with all his might. It doesn’t do much good against the tidal wave of emotions sweeping through him and soon he’s shaking all over with the sobs that wrack through his body.

Jon’s hand comes up in a familiar movement, brushing through Tim’s messed up curls. It’s hesitant at first, as if Tim will yell at him again, but when he makes no motion to do so, only melting deeper into the hold, the fingers carding through his hair become surer.

There’s a rumble against his cheek as Jon says something and Tim wishes desperately he could still hear it, hear Jon’s sure and steadying voice.

He remembers when, near the beginning of it all, he would stand in the corridor outside of Jon’s office and listen as his voice drifted through the halls, all the pain and fear and emotions painted so clearly on it. He’d always thought Jon a bit ridiculous for the way he read those statements. Now he just wished he could hear it one more time.

He closes his eyes as the loss of his family and his friend and even his hearing tear through his chest, leaving him shattered and shaking.

Jon’s chest rumbles again and Tim presses his cheek into it, pretending for just a moment he can hear a sound that isn’t the awful ringing.

Another pair of hands close around him, softer ones, broader ones. They pull him up gently and he’s not entirely sure how they both ended up on the floor, it probably has something to do with how broad he is and how skinny Jon is.

He’s pulled close against a soft, broad chest and relaxes into it almost immediately. Martin’s safe, he always has been.

He’s deposited gently on the cot, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a warm mug of tea pressed into his hands. He feels a bit like a child, being coddled and carted around. But right now, he can’t find it in himself to care.

He thinks Jon and Martin are saying stuff. Martin’s chest is rumbling against his back and he tilts his face so he can feel it better. Martin runs a comforting hand along his face, brushing away the tears that stick to it.

A hand settles on his knee, comforting and grounding and he’s sure it’s Jon’s. Both of Martin’s hands are occupied holding him together after all.

He closes his eyes. He can deal with the mess of it all tomorrow.

Right now, he just feels safe. His friends are here and that’s enough.

[she-wolf-of-highgarden]

As someone that likes both Sansa and Arya, what’s your take on Ned’s parenting? I feel like Ned really needed to sit them down together after the trident and explain to them the dangers of the Lannisters as well as drawing a line for acceptable behavior. Say to Sansa: you cannot tell Arya you wish she was dead. Say to Arya: it doesn’t matter what Sansa says, you cannot beat her up. Ned never talks to Sansa after he kills Lady and his talks with Arya aren’t enough. (Sorry for sending all the asks

Oh my gosh don’t worry about it. I love asks…I’m just sometimes slow with them. Fair warning, this got...long

At his core Ned loves his children; he really does. He also doesn’t know them super well or at least isn’t super in touch with them and he is not in charge of raising them. Which is pretty on par with the Westerosi fathers we see. He’s still a heck of a lot better than Bobby B and Roose Bolton over there. There’s still some distance there. Which again considering the universe Martin has made and the social standing it makes sense.

Ned does kinda sorta address the don’t-hit-your-sister thing with Arya when he finds Needle. But, admittedly, it is kind of a joke.

“For true." He smiled. "If I took it away, no doubt I'd find a morningstar hidden under your pillow within the fortnight. Try not to stab your sister, whatever the provocation.” – Arya II, AgoT

But I think part of the reason he isn’t that worried is that even Sansa is surprised when Arya hits her.

“Arya, stop it!" Ned shouted. Jory pulled her off her sister, kicking. Sansa was pale and shaking as Ned lifted her back to her feet. "Are you hurt?" he asked, but she was staring at Arya, and she did not seem to hear.” – Eddard III, AGoT

After that the worst Arya does to her is throw a piece of orange at her and while it was unkind and Arya needed to be reprimanded for it, it wasn’t like it was unprovoked. This isn’t like the show where Arya sheep-shifted Sansa’s bed (that still annoys me) and threw fruit at her at the feast for the king for fun. When Arya does it, they are arguing about Mycah…the same subject that had Arya kicking her sister.

“Arya screwed up her face in a scowl. "Jaime Lannister murdered Jory and Heward and Wyl, and the Hound murdered Mycah. Somebody should have beheaded them."

"It's not the same," Sansa said. "The Hound is Joffrey's sworn shield. Your butcher's boy attacked the prince.” – Sansa III, AGoT

Feels like the adult sitting right there should have ended that conversation.

It doesn’t matter if Sansa is in the right not to be mad at the royal family or that she can’t. The issue is that Arya is 9 and has a thing about lying and is traumatized. Remember even though it is never brought up again, Arya is hiding in the woods for three days. A 9-year-old little girl. In the woods. In Westeros. The fact Ned didn’t turn around or send at least Arya back is honestly one of the times I wish I could shake a fiction character and demand answers. Why Arya was in the south in the first place still boggles me, but I’ll get back to that.

It takes Ned until Sansa III to actually talk to the girls together. This should have been like Eddard IV or Sansa II or something. Sansa III is a bit too late and we can see that because Sansa is just plain mean in this chapter, the girl has reached a breaking point. Arya ruins her dress. Which is bad, no argument here. The issue is that she gets an apology. She gets one in front of Ned and refuses to accept it.

“Enough, Sansa." Lord Eddard's voice was sharp with impatience.

Arya raised her eyes. "I'm sorry, Father. I was wrong and I beg my sweet sister's forgiveness."

Sansa was so startled that for a moment she was speechless. Finally she found her voice. "What about my dress?” – Sansa III, AGoT

This conversation between the girls goes on for a pretty minute in front of Ned. Instead of just standing there he could have given some Stark speech about forgiveness or something. Instead he just lets it go until he tells them that they are leaving and just kind of does his best to comfort Sansa about not being queen and dips. That’s it. He doesn’t mention that fact that Arya came up with two different ways to make it up to Sansa. What he should have done was tell Arya she had to mend the dress or clean it or whatever because she messed it up and tell Sansa that that was the way her dress is getting fixed. You don’t let it just go on like that. They are 11 and 9, they don’t know when enough is enough it why some voice of reason is needed. 

Part of the issue is, as mentioned above, Westerosi highborns parents aren’t how we think of parents. They are pretty hands off. Martin doesn’t even let us see Arya and Cat together. Ned bit off more than he could chew. To be honest, I’m still unsure why he brought Arya along. He never really tells us and even Cat just chalks it up to her needing refinement.  

“You must," he said. "Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too.” - Cat II, AGoT 

I guess the plan was to marry Arya off to a Southern lord? He didn’t need her to go to keep Sansa company, Jeyne was already going. It was just a bad plan. And then you add the incident at the Trident (aka Joff “kitten killer” Baratheon is left unsupervised and adults suck at the Trident) and the depression and trauma that both girls face and it gets worse. 

At least he gets Arya Syrio. What does Sansa get? She wanted high harp lessons, find a harpist or whatever. If you can find the first sword of Bravos just wandering around you can find someone who plays the harp. It would have given Sansa an outlet that she needed as well as maybe putting a balance in her life. A different perspective or something. 

Ned should have talked to both girls about going to KL. He should have had joint and separate conversations. Contrary to fandom belief 11 and 9 are different ages. Sansa can take a little bit more information because she is older. Why he doesn’t give it to her is a different question. I think he relies on the Septa to do it. If Arya hadn’t spiraled and had a weapon, I dont think he’d have a big sit-down with her.  The issue with letting the septa take charge instead is that the septa doesn’t really get the political intrigue either because that just isnt her job. 

I think Ned is a man who loves his children and got way in over his head. In different universe where the incident at the Trident doesn’t happen and the court is a bit more stable (IDK Baelish gets lost at sea or something), then i think it might be kinda okay. There would still be problems, but they might seem less severe. 

[fullmetalscullyy]

a conspiracy theory - chapter 14

co-written by @snowdog49 and @jeanhaavoc

summary:  Detective Roy takes on a challenging task… To find Olivier Armstrong’s sword. However, he has a beautiful woman to distract him along the way. Will he, Jean, and Ed be able to find the sword in time, or will they succumb to the conspiracy?

warning: graphic depictions of violence

tags: conspiracy, pining, unresolved sexual tension, private detective au, royai, havolina, mystery, violence, modern au, coffee shops

rated: m | words: 2760

read on ao3

One of Roy’s legs bounced impatiently as he waited. With his elbows resting on his knees, he’d leaned forward in his chair with his hands clasped before his mouth. His grip was tight but he didn’t really notice. Apart from the bouncing leg, he hadn’t moved since he’d sat down. He was wound up, adrenaline running on high, but unable to move or spend any energy. There was nowhere for him to go anyway.

Beside him, Rebecca wasn’t faring much better. She shifted every now and then, but mostly she remained still and chewed on her lip and the nail of her thumb. Roy wanted to comfort her, should comfort her, but there was nothing he could do. Not yet, anyway. He only knew as much as her, so it was just a waiting game until someone arrived and told them something, anything.

The wait was killing him. Roy needed to know. His fist tightened, knowing that he’d ordered a move that resulted in the pain of another person, let alone a co-worker. He couldn’t even do anything about it. It was eating at him, guilt swirling around his body. He should’ve been there. It should’ve been him. He didn’t even know what happened.

‘He’s been shot’. The words felt heavy as Roy played with them in his mind, and they made an uncomfortable weight settle inside his stomach. He hated them. A fury burned inside his chest with a passion. How dare this happen? Not only that, but there was nothing for him to go on. He was a detective. It was his job to know things, to find out things, and he couldn’t even do that for someone he cared about.

His arms lowered slowly, almost creaking after being held tensed for so long. His elbows dug into his knees almost painfully.

“The patient is ready to see you now,” a nurse called gently to them both.

Before Roy had even registered what was said, he was up and out of his chair. He’d been wired sitting there, doing absolutely nothing, so that when he did finally move and was given direction, he was like a tightly coiled spring finally releasing.

Turning, he ushered Rebecca forward first as the nurse walked ahead, escorting them both down the hallway. Roy steeled himself, stepping into the hospital room with anticipation crawling all over his skin. He didn’t know what he would see and wasn’t quite as mentally prepared as he’d liked to be for seeing the worst.

“Hey guys!” Jean cried happily. He was lying in the bed with a dopey look on his face. He grinned at them, offering a clumsy wave with one hand. The other was trapped in a sling across his body. Roy’s eyes caught movement from the IV needle in Jean’s arm, noticing how it flailed around.

“Careful, Mr. Havoc,” the nurse admonished. She hurried over and gently restrained his arm, lowering it back down to the bed so she could check the needle’s placement. 

Jean’s head craned around her hands to look at it. Then he giggled. “Oops. Sorry!” 

“It’s fine, Sir. Just be careful.”

Roy didn’t blame the woman for batting Jean’s hands away as he tried to poke at the needle. She was just trying to do her job and Jean was off his face on drugs, messing about with all her hard work. He was half tempted to believe Jean was fine since he was in such a good mood. 

“He’s on quite a bit of morphine,” the nurse explained as she walked away. Roy noticed she didn’t turn her back on her patient and kept an eye on his IV. Jean was just grinning back at them, perfectly at ease. “But that will wear off soon. If he starts poking at that needle, the machine will beep.” She gestured towards Jean’s bed. “If it does, come and find me.” She closed the door softly behind her, giving them some privacy.

“Hey, Jean,” Rebecca greeted as she walked towards the bed. 

“Rebecca!” He was ecstatic to see her. “I love you,” he crooned. He leaned onto his good side, obviously looking for a kiss.

Roy felt relief wash over him, seeing Jean awake and talking. Even if he was drugged up. He was alright at least, and he was safe.

“I love you too,” Rebecca replied. Her voice was soft and she gripped his hand tightly, the whites of her knuckles showing. “Are you alright?” 

“Feel fine!” he grinned. “This stuff they have me on, it’s great! I can’t feel my face though…” He trailed off, suddenly looking very troubled. His mouth was closed, but suddenly his lips were pushed outwards as he ran his tongue over his teeth. Jean shrugged, and the grin was back. “Nah, can’t feel it.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Roy asked. He needed to now. He needed to know who he needed to find. 

“Roy! Roy Boy. Mustang.” Jean cackled to himself, drawing out the ‘a’ in his surname, finding it hilarious. It was like he was drunk.

“Hey, Jean,” Roy smiled softly. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too! I can’t feel my teeth,” he snorted, giggling to himself. At least he was in good spirits, even if it was the morphine talking. “Wait, we’re missing someone.” Jean leaned onto his bad side to look at the door behind Roy and froze. His expression turned into a grimace.

“Careful!” Rebecca quickly grabbed his shoulders and righted him, moving his weight off his injured side. “Are you okay?”

“That hurt,” Jean mumbled. His loud, jovial tone was gone. He suddenly sounded like a small child after they’d fallen over and hurt themselves.

“Take it easy, man,” Roy commanded gently. He pulled the one chair in the room over to Jean’s bedside and motioned for Rebecca to sit. “We’re all fine, I promise. But more importantly, how are you?”

“Sore… but this stuff I’m on is really good. It’s helping.” That rush of pain he’d received from being too overeager had sobered Jean up a little, and his demeanor was much calmer. He still looked slightly crazed, but he was acting less like an excited puppy and more like his old self.

“Good, that’s what’s important. Just take it easy.”

“Everyone else is okay?” Jean asked earnestly. “No one else is hurt?”

Rebecca and Roy shared a look.

“Does anyone have a reason to be?” Roy asked carefully.

“I… I don't know. But Ed’s not here…” He looked like he was about to cry.

“Honey, Ed’s fine. He’s at home. Nothing has happened to him.”

“Are you sure?” Jean’s eyes were wide, and that was when Roy became concerned.

“We’re sure,” Rebecca reassured him, giving his hand a squeeze.

His whole body sagged and Jean relaxed further into the bed. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Okay, good.”

Roy turned, lightly touching Rebecca’s shoulder. “I’m going to go and find another chair. Look after this dummy for me, yeah?”

He noticed the wetness in her eyes which she smiled and nodded gratefully to him.

“I heard that,” Jean muttered.

“Good,” Roy grinned. “I’ll be back in five.”

He said he’d be five minutes, but Roy purposefully waited fifteen before walking back to Jean’s room. He wanted to give them a moment of privacy together. Plus, after Jean’s worried questions, he quickly texted Ed to ask where he was and if he was okay. Roy could almost feel the accusation through the text, but still, it was an answer. A quick reply with ‘no reason’ was bound to confuse and irritate his protege, but it was better than explaining everything over a text. Roy would call him later and fill him in.

When he walked in the room both heads turned to look at him. Their hands were gripped together tightly in Jean’s lap and Rebecca looked like she never wanted to let go. Another grateful smile was shot his way from Rebecca, thankful for the moment of privacy, and Jean looked a lot calmer than he had before. Roy didn’t doubt that she’d caused that. They could both be firecrackers, but Rebecca could calm Jean down with just her touch alone, or a few words. He hung onto every one, like a lovesick man, and Roy had envied it. They were so perfect, and the two honestly deserved each other. It was like they were destined to be.

“So,” Roy announced, sitting heavily on his chair. “What happened to you, man?”

“Kimblee shot me,” he snorted. He didn’t miss a beat with his answer and his face darkened.

Roy’s hands made fists on his knees.

“He caught me following him at this park.” Jean scowled and looked away. “I don’t know how,” he muttered. “This is my specialty, he shouldn’t have been able to notice me.”

Roy shot a helpless look at Rebecca, then back at his friend.

“I know, Hun, but that’s okay. Don’t worry about that right now,” Rebecca reassured him. “What else happened?”

“Can you start from the top?” Roy requested, his tone apologetic. He was clearly all over the place with the morphine, but with a little direction, Roy would be able to get to the bottom of this with Jean’s assistance.

“Right, sorry,” Jean apologized sheepishly. 

“It’s fine,” Roy placated, leaning over onto his arms. “I just need to know the whole story so I can help you.”

“Okay,” Jean sighed. “So I followed Kimblee about. He went into a store. It was just a generic one and I don’t remember the name, before you ask. Then he wandered for a bit towards the address of the meeting, but didn’t go there. It was like he wanted to, but wouldn’t quite go directly. He was speaking on the phone for a short time. He sounded a little agitated but I was too far away to hear what they were talking about. I really did try to listen,” he urged, like a child trying to get an adult to understand them. The painkillers must have been really strong.

“We know you did, Hun” Rebecca reassured him, patting his arm gently. 

“But, I couldn’t hear a thing. I crossed the street and sat on a bench. It was just inside the park, slightly hidden from view where Kimblee was standing. It was the perfect spot too because the building was just around the corner from where Kimblee was standing, so I would be able to see him walking into it without moving. He was on the phone for a while, I can’t remember how long,” Jean shook his head. “I was reading the paper and having a smoke so I didn’t have a chance to check the time. Then, Kimblee hung up and walked towards me.”

“He saw you?”

Jean shrugged. “He must have. I was playing it cool though, just kept reading. Then he stopped, and said my name.”

“... Your full name?” Roy asked. He didn’t like the sound of this.

Jean nodded, and the weight in Roy’s stomach sank even lower. “First and last name. He wasn’t happy. He’d obviously figured out what I was doing. I tried to keep the peace, tell him to calm down, and play it cool. He wouldn’t listen, but he wasn’t talking. He just smiled.” 

“And then?” Roy prompted, his tone gentle.

“Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. It felt as if I got hit with a baseball bat. I didn’t really know what had happened. The bastard was still smiling at me as he lowered the gun. I didn’t quite know what was happening but I was so angry.” Jean’s hand made a fist. “I wanted to get up, off the floor, and punch that smug look off his face, but my body wouldn’t move. Someone was screaming, I think. Kimblee disappeared, walking out of the park and in the direction of the building, so I tried to get to my phone, but I was stuck. Then, I realized I’d been shot.”

“Shit, man,” Roy muttered.

“Getting shot sucks,” Jean groaned, holding his shoulder. “Let me tell you! Fucking hurts.” 

Rebecca sniffed beside him.

“I… I have to ask, sorry, but did he go to the building?” Roy continued after casting a glance over to her.

“He didn’t,” Jean confirmed, sounding completely sure of himself. “While I was on the floor he disappeared, but I saw him cross the street and walk in the opposite direction. I don’t know if he went back later.”

“I don’t imagine he would have,” Roy thought aloud. He leaned back in his chair, bringing a hand to his chin in thought. “You said you heard someone screaming. Who called you to say he’d been shot, Rebecca?”

“The hospital,” she replied, her voice husky. “We’re listed as emergency contacts in each other’s phones.”

“There would’ve been too much attention drawn to the area in order for Kimblee to get inside.” Roy hummed to himself. “Maybe too much for them to even have their little meeting tonight. Did you hear the shot?”

Jean shook his head. “I didn’t hear it. I don’t know why,” he frowned.

“If you heard screaming that meant someone saw you go down. Whether they saw Kimblee’s face or not though…” Roy grimaced. “If the Police Chief is in the pocket of these people, and if that witness went to the police, Kimblee would probably be swept underneath the rug completely.” Roy sighed in frustration.

It was so unfair on Jean to suffer because of this. He’d been innocent! Just sitting on a park bench! And yet the police would ignore it because their chief is comfortable in their pocket.

“You said you didn’t know why you heard the shot?” Roy repeated.

Jean nodded. “Yeah. I just felt a fucking hard hit then I twisted to the side and fell off the bench.”

Roy scrunched his face, noting a tiny red graze by his eyebrow. His face must have scuffed along the ground.

“That could also be why it took you so long to realize what had happened. The gun could have been silenced. I mean, if he was going to shoot anyone who got in his way so openly in a park or on the street, he must’ve had the forethought to silence the weapon -”

Rebecca’s shoulders began to shake. Roy heard her sniff and it stopped his train of thought.

“Becca?” Jean’s voice was full of concern.

“No, it’s fine. I’m fine,” she reassured them, waving her hand in the air.

Roy’s stomach dropped. He’d been too blasé and too insensitive, after all, her boyfriend had just been shot in the street by a hitman and left to die. God, he was the worst.

“No… Rebecca, I’m sorry,” Roy stammered. 

“It’s alright,” she stated firmly. “I’m okay. Keep going, this is important.”

Roy eyed her for a second longer, then looked towards Jean. He was staring at his girlfriend in sympathy.

“Becca?” he called to her. “I’m okay.”

“I know you are,” she smiled, but it wobbled on her face. “I know. It… was just a lot to go through in a short space of time.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Please, don’t mind me. Keep going.”

“We’ll always keep you in mind, Rebecca,” Roy reassured her. “I didn’t mean to sound so detached about it.”

Jean snorted quietly. “He’s in love with his work, remember,” he joked, trying to brighten the mood like he always did. A Jean Havoc special. “No wonder he can never break out of ‘Detective Mode’. I hope you’re not this way with Riza,” he frowned at Roy, causing a quiet laugh to escape from Rebecca. 

Roy chuckled. “No, I’m not.”

“You’re not, or you hope you’re not?” Jean retorted with shit-eating grin.

“She’s gone back out with me,” Roy replied defensively. “So I must be doing something right.”

“Or she just takes pity on you,” Jean chuckled.

“Listen, you,” Roy bit back, pointing at Jean with his pointer finger. “You just focus on getting yourself better, rather than what’s happening in my love life.”

“Oh!” Jean gasped. “He’s got a love life now.” He grinned at Rebecca. “Our boy is finally growing up,” he sniffed, proud of Roy. “I never dreamed this day would come!”

Looking heavenward, Roy sighed heavily. It was all in good fun, and it had cheered up Rebecca, which was important to him. And Jean was right. He needed to stop being so callous. His friend had been shot. He should forget about the damn case for once in his life.

[vivxwrites]

Guardian Angel||Part V

*not my gif*

Word Count: 2004

Summary: Read and find out

Warnings: Hospital mentions, maybe some incorrect/questionable information

Pairing: Carol Danvers x Reader

A/N: Hello! I’m too tired to edit so please forgive any mistakes, I just really wanted to get this out to you all tonight. Enjoy part 5 of the guardian angel series!

Parts: {I}, {II}, {III}, {IV}, {V}

Carol secured the last piece of her suit to her body and stepped into the hangar, where Maria waited to see her off. The pair smiled at each other and exchanged quick goodbyes. Carol approached the quinjet and hesitated before she boarded. “Maria, can I ask you a favor?”

Maria gave Carol a questioning look, “Yeah, what is it?”

“I-” Carol fiddled with her fingers and scuffed her shoes against the ground. She looked up and nervously met Maria’s gaze. “Will you keep an eye on (Y/N) for me?”

Maria ran her fingers through her short hair, “Carol-”

Carol cut her off, “I feel connected to her somehow. Like she’s a piece of me that’s been missing. I need to know that’s she being looked after. Please.” 

Maria sighed heavily and looked at her friend. Carol’s eyes were wide and pleading, her best puppy dog face on full display. “Alright fine, I’ll keep an eye on her while you’re away.” 

Carol smiled at Maria and pulled her into a hug, “Thank you.” 

“Yeah whatever. Knock ‘em dead Danvers.” 

“You know I always do. Higher further faster, remember?”

Maria nodded, a small smile making its way onto her face as Carol boarded the quinjet. “Higher further faster.”

Fury remained in the cell with you, trying to decide what to do with the situation at hand. He didn’t want to involve any unnecessary parties but even with his limits he knew he had no choice but to involve Banner.

He pulled out the burner phone he kept on him for emergencies, “Dr. Banner. I need assistance down at the holding cells. Bring a gurney and a sedative, something big enough to knock a horse out.” Fury glanced to you, writhing around on the ground, silently screaming. “On second thought, make it big enough to knock out two horses.”

Fury flipped the phone closed and tapped his foot impatiently on the ground, silently willing Bruce to hurry his ass up. He did his best to hide the concern he felt for you and let his face be the same brick wall of emotions that it normally was. After about two minutes he heard the familiar squeaking of the gurney’s wheels, followed by the patter of two pairs of footsteps. 

When Bruce rounded the corner Fury narrowed his eyes at the sight of his company. “What the hell is Stark doing here?” he barked out.

Bruce fiddled with his thumbs apprehensively and Tony smirked widely, “I followed Banner.” Tony’s tone held its usual sarcasm level but deep down he was immensely curious as to what Fury needed to sedate. He, along with some of the others, had heard the unfamiliar screams earlier and he wanted to see if they were somehow connected to whatever Fury was involving Bruce in. 

Fury rubbed his face in annoyance and bit down on his tongue. He jabbed a finger into Tony’s chest and fixed him with a look, “What you are about to see stays between the three of us. No ifs, ands, or buts. Are we clear?” Bruce nodded swiftly and Tony followed suit. Fury shot a hardened glare at both of them, “I’m serious, anyone else finds out and its your heads.” 

Bruce gulped and Tony gave a moke salute and a “Yes, sir.” Fury stepped aside and ushered them into the room behind him, closing the door once everyone stepped inside. 

Tony felt his jaw drop and he glanced at Bruce, whose eyes had widened comically. Tony, for once, was stunned silent. 

Bruce spoke for the both of them, the surprise evident in his tone, “Umm… is that an angel?”

“Yes,” Fury snapped. “As you can see, she’s not doing too well so please, for the love of God, sedate her already.”

Bruce nodded dumbly and approached you with the needle. Your eyes widened in panic and you scooted yourself away from him. “(Y/N), it won’t hurt you. You’re in a lot of pain right now and I know you’re probably scared but you can trust me. Dr. Banner here is just gonna sedate you until we can figure out how to stop the pain, alright?” Fury gave you a ghost of a smile but it seemed to be enough to convince you to trust him.

You regarded Bruce cautiously but gave him your arm regardless, doing your best to keep it from trembling. You gave him the tiniest nod and squeezed your eyes shut and he carefully injected the sedative into your bloodstream. You felt your body slowly grow slack and you numbly passed out on the floor.

Tony snapped back into reality, “I’m sorry, care to share with the class why in the hell is there an actual angel in the compound?”

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose, “It’s a long story.”

Tony motioned to you, knocked out on the ground, “It looks like we’ve got time.”

Fury filled them in on the situation, how you crashed through Maria’s ceiling and how she called him for help, and what you had told him before the pain started. Tony pulled out a Stark pad and took notes while Bruce concentrated on not crashing the gurney into anything. The group finally arrived at the medbay and Fury set the room to privacy mood, the glass walls tinting immediately. 

“Tony and I will do our best to figure out where the pain is coming from and we’ll see what we can do from there.” Bruce finished hooking you up to the IV drip and observed you quietly, running through procedures in his head.  

“Thank you Dr. Banner, and you too Stark. I trust the two of you can handle it from here?”

“Fury, you’re looking at two certified geniuses. We’ve got this.” And, they didn’t got this. About an hour or so after Fury left you had woken up, much to the utter shock of Tony and Bruce.

“That’s impossible, how can she be awake already?” Tony was more than surprised, he was amazed, even more so after he heard Bruce’s next comment.

Bruce spoke as he rushed around the bed to look at the monitor, “The dose I gave her was enough to knock out the Hulk, it’s not even possible for her to be up yet.”

They watched in fascinated horror as your heart rate spiked dramatically and you began to gain consciousness. Your eyes popped open and they both registered the flashes of panic and pain in them before you groaned in pain. Your body went rigid in the bed as your groans sped up and raised in volume until you were screaming at the top of your lungs and tears of pain were pouring steadily down your face.

Tony opened his mouth in shock and he turned to face Bruce, only to find him covering his ears and fighting back the green that was slowly crawling up his neck, which, not good. He cursed and picked up a phone, dialing Wanda’s number as fast as he could.

“Tony? Who’s screaming?” He could hear the confusion in her voice but he knew he had to act fast.

“Wanda, no time for questions. How fast can you make it up to the medbay, room 465?”

“I’m on my way now.” 

“Great.” He hung up and paced around the room, praying to God that Bruce didn’t Hulk out. A few minutes later, Wanda burst into the room, a flurry of emotions passing over her face as she took in the scene.

“Tony, is that a-” She was staring at you with a look of surprise.

“No time for questions! Can you put her to sleep?” Tony spoke fast and frantically, praying that the half ass plan he came up with would work.

“Can I put her to sleep?” Wanda’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Well yeah I think I cou-”

“Do it! Wanda please, please put her to sleep!” The green was spreading across Bruce’s neck and Tony’s voice raised in pitch as he begged Wanda to put you to sleep.

Red mist swirled through the air and pressed into your temple and you were out like a light. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and Wanda arched an eyebrow at him in question. “What just happened?”

Bruce’s skin turned back to it’s normal color, “Thank God.” 

Tony nibbled on his lower lip before filling Wanda in on the situation. “So she’s a real guardian angel?

He nodded his head, “That’s what Fury said.”

She looked at you in awe and smiled, “So I have one too?”

Tony stopped to think for a bit and then gave her a tiny smile, “I guess so yeah. You think she’s one of ours?”

The three shared a look and Bruce knit his eyebrows in thought, “I don’t see why she couldn’t be.”

“How long will she be asleep?” Tony knew they would have to come up with a plan, a real one soon as you could probably wake up anytime now.

“I give her a few hours at the most, her mind is very very strong, had she not been weakened I doubt putting her to sleep would have worked.”

Bruce nodded and Tony scratched his forehead, “I guess we better make a plan for when she does wake up.”

After a long brainstorming session they decided that when you woke up, Wanda would dull the pain to a tolerable amount as Bruce and Tony questioned you in an attempt to figure out where the pain was and to find a way to end it from there. 

When you did finally wake up they executed the plan and it went down without a hitch. Wanda was able to dull your pain down to a low burn and after a glass of water you were able to talk to them, albeit with a scratchy voice.

“Who’re you all?” You were a bit out of it but you weren’t screaming in pain so that was a total win. There were three people in the room, one you semi-recognized and two others who you had never seen before. 

“I’m Tony and that over there is Bruce. Wanda here is helping you out with your pain until we can figure out how to stop it completely.” You looked at all of them but the mention of Wanda put an airy grin on your face.

“Wanda.” She traded glances with the other two and smiled softly at you.

“Hi there (Y/N).”

“Fury mentioned a Wanda.” You gave her a drunk happy smile and she returned it. “Said I was like Wanda.”

“That’s nice draga.” You hummed in reply.

Bruce cleared his throat, “So (Y/N).”

“Yeah Tony?” 

“I’m Bruce not Tony.” You gave him a confused look and he waved you off. “We’ll fix that later. Do you know what’s causing the pain?”

You nodded loopily, “Mhm, it’s my wings.”

Tony’s fingers flew across the Stark pad as you spoke, bringing up the holographic image of the scan they had performed on you, “What about your wings?”

You scrunched up your eyebrows, “Um...Stan said they’re gonna fall off.” You giggled, as if that fact was funny.

“Who’s Stan?” Wanda’s question went ignored by you as you studied the IV connected to your arm. 

“(Y/N), who’s Stan?” You laughed hysterically at Bruce’s question.

“Stan is Stan, duh.”

They exchanged glances, obviously that was a dead end. “Okay, is there any way to stop that from happening?” 

You shook your head from side to side, “Nope. Stan said it’s my punishment.”

“Your punishment for what?” Wanda was growing concerned at your loopiness.

You crooked a finger at her in a come hither motion and she leaned closer to you. You cupped your hands around her ear, “I was a very bad angel.” You giggled again and she pulled away.

She bit her lip, looking from Tony to Bruce, then finally sighed heavily. “Don’t worry (Y/N), we’ll find a way to help you.” And with that she eased your mind back to sleep.

Draga=dear

A/N: I’m gonna do another Nat req next and then part 2 to my other series. I hope you all had a great day. Thanks, Viv :)

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[poetzproblem]

Have You Ever Really? Part III

A/N: Part III by request. There may also now be a part IV.  Under the cut, or read at FF.Net or AO3.

They don't win Nationals.

They don't even place after Finn Hudson's monumentally stupid attempt to kiss Rachel on stage at the end of their ill-advised duet. Rachel hadn't reacted quite quickly enough to dodge it completely, which had only made her effort to duck away from his unwanted attention even more obvious to the judges.

Santana had nearly ripped Finn apart as soon as they'd gotten off stage, and Quinn suspects her anger and disgust wasn't entirely on her own behalf. She's seemed oddly less antagonistic to Rachel ever since Rachel had come out to them—or maybe it's not odd at all. Maybe Santana actually feels an unexpected kinship with Rachel now over their mutual attraction to the ladies (even if Santana still isn't outright admitting what everyone already knows). Or maybe she just feels sorry for Rachel for nursing a hopelessly unrequited crush on Quinn.

Quinn wonders what Santana would think if she knew that Rachel's crush wasn't as hopeless as everyone believes.

All that Quinn knows for certain is that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Rachel since she'd serenaded her in glee, and she'd grown more and more impatient and irritated every time that Rachel had scurried away from her in the hallways or sat across the room from her in their shared classes or suddenly decided that she absolutely had to hang all over Jesse St. James everytime that Quinn tried to approach her in glee. So, of course, Quinn had needed to make it clear to Rachel that she expects her to stop acting like a frightened little mouse and start acting like—well, like Rachel fucking Berry. Really? If Rachel has a thing for Quinn, then Quinn should get the same treatment as the boys in the form of thoughtful gifts left in her locker and weird couple's calendars and loud, dramatic (and often musical) declarations of Rachel's undying affection and loyalty.

What Quinn does get immediately following the kiss that missed, surreptitiously tucked into her duffle bag in their shared hotel room, is a foil-wrapped Hershey's kiss (undoubtedly from the craft services table that had been set up for the competing show choirs) taped to a handwritten note that says, 'I'm sorry. Your lips are the only ones I want to kiss.'

Quinn feels a rush of warmth spread from her chest all the way up to the tips of her ears, and her eyes dart around the room in search of Rachel, only to be disappointed that she hasn't made her way back yet. Well, Quinn supposes that she'd actually beaten them all here before slipping away again to sulk in private over their loss. She doesn't see Kurt anywhere either, and he's been crashing in the girl's room with them.

Quinn gazes down at the note again, palming the candy kiss and catching her lip between her teeth to contain her grin—a grin that instantly disappears when Santana drops onto the mattress in front of her with a frown.

"That better not be some pathetic love note from Finnvasive." Quinn tucks it protectively against her chest. Santana's eyes narrow on the motion, but she doesn't make a grab for it. "It'd be just his style to come crawling back to you now that Berry dodged his slobbery advances in front of a thousand witnesses."

"I don't think there were that many people there today," Mercedes muses, rummaging around in her own suitcase for something or other.

"Enough for a well deserved public humiliation," Santana scoffs, crossing her arms. "If I was Berry, I'd've slapped him for trying that shit."

"Rachel is a professional," Tina chimes in with a dreamy, little smile. "I think she handled it the best way she could under the circumstances."

"You would," Quinn mutters under her breath, sending a glare her way.

"What was that, Quinnie?" Santana needles. "Why don't you share with the class?"

Quinn turns her glare on Santana. "Finn is an ass," is all she bothers to say.

Santana snickers. "True 'dat."

"He totally didn't pay attention to his cues," Brittany adds, throwing herself across the bed beside Santana. "Rachel's all about the sweet lady kisses now." She smiles at Santana, who blushes tellingly before glancing away.

"Which is still all kinds of weird, if you ask me," Mercedes says, shaking her head.

"No one did," Santana snaps.

Mercedes holds up her hands defensively. "Hey, I just mean that she's been moonin' over Finn for two years and all of a sudden she's singin' a love song to," she trails off with an embarrassed look towards Quinn. They all know who Rachel was singing to, but it's a truth that no one but Santana has been brave enough to say out loud in Quinn's presence.

"I'm surprised you're handling that so well," Santana muses with a smirk.

Quinn shrugs, mentally putting on her cool indifference like the mask it is. "It's hardly her fault that I'm irresistible."

Santana barks out a laugh. "You wish, Blondie."

"I'm sure Rachel will find someone else to focus her attention on soon enough," Tina offers with what Quinn supposes is meant to be a reassuring smile—it looks fake to Quinn.

"I guess you'd better make sure it isn't Mike," she warns Tina cattily.

Tina's brows furrow in confusion, but whatever she might have said is lost to the awkward silence that descends on the room when Rachel and Kurt step inside.

"What did we miss?" Kurt asks suspiciously after no one says anything for a solid thirty seconds.

Santana rolls her eyes. "Just our pity party for coming in twelfth."

Rachel whimpers, shrinking into herself. "I'm sorry," she whispers, her eyes cast down to the floor as Kurt wraps an arm around her and gives her a comforting squeeze.

Tina reaches out to touch Rachel's arm with a sympathetic smile. "It wasn't your fault."

"It was Finn's," Quinn grits out, scowling at Tina.

"Don't sweat it, midget," Santana dismisses with a bored wave of her hand. Rachel glances at her in surprise before gazing around the room, as if to make sure no one else is actually blaming her for this. When her eyes finally settle on Quinn, Quinn offers her a meaningful smile, subtly motioning to the note still cradled against her torso. Rachel's eyes dart down and then back up, and Quinn knows she's gotten the message by the shy smile on her face.

They don't talk about it. They can't. They don't really have a moment where they can be alone for the rest of the night or the next morning when they're all rushing for the airport and then stuck together on a long bus ride of listening to Santana take shots at Finn while Finn constantly whines about it and Mr. Schuester yells at them all to remember they're a team.

And then Quinn is being whisked home by her mother, and even if she is entertaining the notion of letting Rachel Berry woo her, she's so not letting her mother clue into anything that's going on in her head right now.

But it becomes very clear on Monday morning that Rachel has taken Quinn's encouragement and run with it. There's a gardenia with a green ribbon tied into a bow waiting for Quinn inside her locker, which is just more proof that Rachel had been the one responsible for Quinn's prom corsage.

A fact that's confirmed when Quinn tracks down Rachel in the bathroom to ask her about the flower. 

"I wanted you to have a perfect night," she admits, picking nervously at the strap of her bag.

Quinn smiles, charmed by the admission. "Because you...like me?"

Rachel swallows nervously, nods once. "And because Finn didn't seem to be very enthusiastic about something that was obviously important to you."

Quinn rolls her eyes. "I don't want to talk about him. I want to know how long you've liked me." Because this whole thing has seemed a little sudden and out of the blue. Mercedes hadn't been wrong about that.

Rachel catches her lower lip between her teeth and shrugs, looking mildly perplexed. "I'm not entirely sure. I think it's been happening for a while, but I failed to take note of it until…" Her cheeks turn a little pink. "Well, until I just did."

Quinn shakes her head, a bit perplexed herself. "I don't understand how you could. I've generally been awful to you." She'd slapped her at prom, for God's sake. "Unless...I mean, I get it if it's just a physical thing." It wouldn't be the first time Quinn had been the object of someone's dirty fantasies and it won't be the last. She's hot and she knows it. It's only natural for people who like girls to desire her. And yet the thought of that being all this is for Rachel bothers her more than she can put into words.

"That's not it," Rachel quickly denies, frowning adorably—as if she's angry at Quinn for even suggesting it. "I mean, it's obviously a factor. You're impossibly beautiful." And she blushes again, turning positively red. "But…" She runs her tongue across her lips (and why is Quinn only just noticing how often she does that and how sexy it is?) and takes a breath while she composes her thoughts. "When I told you that you're a lot more than that, I meant it, Quinn. You're smart and resilient and so much kinder than you give yourself credit for. Every time you've let me catch a small glimpse of the person you really are, I've only wanted to know more." She glances down to the floor, looking suddenly shy again. "I want to know you. To know who you are and what you're thinking. And I'm honestly not sure if I've ever cared enough to really know that about anyone else."

Quinn nearly loses her breath at that. "Not even Finn?"

Rachel huffs out a silent laugh. "I thought I did at one point, obviously, but the discovery of who Finn Hudson really is left something to be desired." She shrugs a little sadly. "I'm afraid there was only so much interest I could muster for video games and football."

Quinn bites back her smile. "How do you know the same thing won't happen with me?"

"I don't," Rachel concedes. "But I've seen the books you read for pleasure, so I suspect that you're going to keep me interested in knowing more about you for quite some time."

"More than just what it's like to kiss me?" Quinn husks, stepping closer.

Rachel's eyes widen, and she inhales sharply through her nose. "Did Finn tell you?"

Quinn frowns in confusion. "Tell me what?"

"That I asked him…" She cuts herself off, realization sparking in her eyes. "You were referring to the note, weren't you?"

Quinn's confusion disappears, and she grins ferally. Because she is smart, and she knows exactly what Rachel was about to say. "Did you ask Finn what it was like to kiss me?"

Rachel doesn't answer, but her blush does. "Why are you being so open to this? You should be telling me to stay away from you."

She probably should be, but she isn't going to. "I guess that's just one of those things you're going to have to discover about me." Quinn steps away from Rachel, shouldering her own bag before sending Rachel a wink. "Maybe you'll even get a first hand answer to that other question of yours. If you're up for it."

She leaves Rachel sputtering as she saunters out of the bathroom with an extra sway in her hips and a grin on her lips. It's the best she's felt about herself in a very long time, and if she's being honest, she thinks she's probably been mostly wooed by Rachel already. It hadn't taken much more than that little speech of hers. But Quinn isn't about to pass up the chance to be treated to more of the same.

It's really no surprise to anyone that Rachel once again has a song prepared for glee.

"Just a little something to lift our spirits after our disappointment," she explains, but there's a twinkle in her eyes when they seek out Quinn that Quinn fully understands the moment she begins to sing.

"Well you done done me and you bet I felt it I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted. I fell right through the cracks And now I'm trying to get back."

Quinn barely stifles her giggle at Rachel's song choice. It's not exactly a standard love song, but the message is still pretty clear, especially when she's so obviously singing to Quinn.

"Before the cool done run out I'll be giving it my best-est, And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention. I reckon it's again my turn To win some or learn some. But I won't hesitate no more, no more. It cannot wait. I'm yours."

Rachel's dark eyes are on Quinn while she makes her musical declaration, but then Rachel is grinning and dancing around the rest of the room for the second verse, doing a fair job of pretending this is for the entire glee club. Quinn knows better, and when she glances around the room, she sees all their friends smiling and enjoying the performance.

But at the end, Rachel's eyes come right back to Quinn for her very last—

"This, oh this, this is our fate. I'm yours."

Quinn thinks she's pretty okay with that.

And Tina can suck it.

[qvicksilversass]

Bad Habit - Part 8

(Pietro Maximoff x Reader)

Glancing over their expectant eyes, you weren't sure you wanted Wanda in your head like that; could she face the memories of someone torturing her brother? Could you?  

Words: 3309 Warnings: Mentions of blood, torture and violence...this parts get very dark, I tried not to make it too gory.

An: Sorry this isn’t a new part, I’ve had to repost this and part 3 as they got flagged :( x

Part 1 Part 2  Part 3 Part 4 Part 5  Part 6   Part 7   Part 8  Part 9   Part 10

Masterlist 

Over and over again your last few seconds replay in your brain, Pietro’s hands around Wanda’s neck, his lifeless eyes after you violently steal his essence condemning him to die with you...except this time the scene fades to white, your eyes open and it’s blinding. You feel around trying to get your bearings, an IV was in your arm and pads and wires were attached all over your body. There’s no space around you, and you panic realising you are trapped in some kind of box. You bang your fists on the sides and rip out the wires attached to you, shielding yourself when the hatch slides open.

"Y/n you're ok, you're safe, breathe,” relief washes over you when Bruce’s face emerges from the bright lights. You continue to struggle for breath your chest heaving and head spinning as Bruce gently helps you out of the chamber and onto a bed, "the cradle and Pietro's abilities healed you but we had to suppress his speed, you might feel dizzy for a while."

"Where is he? Bucky, is he ok his head was bleeding so much and..."

"He's in cryo, we thought it might help slow the deterioration down until you woke up, and Bucky's fine he needed stitches and his arm still needs fixing but he wouldn't leave you," Bruce chuckled, "he's been here three days, we had to practically throw him in the shower."

You drop back against the headboard in an attempt to help the sickness in your stomach, your muscles ached so much you couldn't really move. Three days? Only moments ago you were bleeding to death. Your hand grazes over your stomach, only soft skin under your fingers.

Bucky walks through the door in just a white t-shirt and sweatpants, his hair still wet and fiddling with the sling on his arm, "I messed it up again doc, is there any change-?."

Banner coughs and Bucky glances up, face full of surprise and he breaks into a grin, "Y/n?"    

"Hey Buck."

"Watch the arm!" Bruce warns and Bucky ignores him, hugging you tightly with his free hand. You rest your hands around his waist, letting your body relax into him, enjoying his warmth.

"You really scared us this time," Bucky smiles into your hair, pulling back to hold your face, you smile at the relief in his eyes and he kisses your forehead, "it's good to have you back doll."

"You should let them fix you properly, how's your head?"

"I've had worse." He grins and moves away a little, his arm snaking around your waist and letting you lean against him.

"How do you feel?" Steve bounds in his eyes almost as tired as Bucky's and he checks you over before giving you a hug. He sits himself down on the opposite side to Bucky and the bed bounces with the weight of him, "we tried to get to you sooner, I'm sorry kid."

"You got us home, that's all that matters." You mumble, his arms squeezing the air out of you.

"It's good to see you well."

Wanda was the last person you expected to see, let alone smile at you in quiet thanks. You returned the gesture though and she trailed in behind Tony, hiding her shaking hands under her shawl. Your eyes were drawn to the purple bruises spread over her neck, her skin a pale grey and dark shadows under her usually vibrant eyes.  

Steve and Tony share a look and you put your hand on Steve’s getting his attention, "What is it?"

"Do you think you're up to using your powers?" Steve asked and your stomach turned with dread, "we need you to try and find out who did this, to sort through his memories as you return them. If we can figure out what happened to him, maybe we can reverse it."

"I'm not sure Steve, I don't have that level of control yet-"

"I can help you." Wanda suggested, stepping forward.

"Not a bad idea, in case y/n falls unconscious Wanda will be like a back up drive."

Glancing over their expectant eyes, you weren't sure you wanted Wanda in your head like that; could she face the memories of someone torturing her brother? Could you?

"Yes," Wanda whispered and smiled at you knowingly, "we must try."

There wasn't really anything to decide, you wanted Pietro back, you wanted to know who turned him into a killer and there was no other way.

"How do you want to do this?"

Bruce straps you down to the bed, the amount of restraints and just how tight they were making you nervous, "when we remove the inhibitors it will be a massive shock to your system, we're not sure how your body will take it."

"Don't want you zooming off to China." Tony smirks, sensing your unease and you roll your eyes at him.

While Bruce begins to hook you up to machines you watch as the cryo chamber is wheeled into the room. Pietro looks so small inside, so still, you can't even see his chest rise. You need skin contact for your powers to work so they open a hatch on the side and you slip your hand inside, hesitantly placing it over Pietro's.

They were so rough now, scratches covering the pale skin that's icy to the touch. Such a strange sensation. He was always so warm, never still. You go over the softness of his fingers, remembering their gentle touch as they caressed your skin. You didn't register the quiet as everyone left, the touch of Wanda's hand taking yours the only thing grounding you.

"Ready?" Tony asks and you turn your head to give Bucky a reassuring smile, you could feel how much he didn't want you to do this.

No one knew how Pietro would react when he woke up; if he woke up at all. Bucky refused to leave in case he turned violent, to keep you safe. Wanda squeezed your hand, her calm expression not hiding how terrified she was, still, she nodded for you to begin.

A familiar sensation rushed through your veins, your power taking on a life of it's own as it built up inside you. You gripped Wanda's hand as the energy ricochets inside your brain and you struggle to control it as it flows back out. With her help you gradually slow it down, you start grabbing onto memories, trying to find anything familiar in the chaos.

Picking through memories was a skill you had never managed to control and even with Wanda's help they were erratic. There were flashes of Ultron, his parents, Sokovia, Wanda and you, lots of girls but overwhelmingly you. Lust, sex, pleasure and chasing at first changed to flashes of Pietro watching you sleep, noticing your smile, your laugh, an overwhelming sense of something you never expected...

'Concentrate.' Wanda's voice scolded you in your mind, 'I dont want to see this.'

'I do.'

"You know printessa, your eggy bacon would stop that rumbling..." Pietro walks out of the bathroom drying his hair and it takes him a second to notice you're not there, "Y/n?"

Guessing you'd gone to make breakfast, he gets dressed and walks out to the kitchen hoping he'd find you in his shirt, cooking that scrambled eggs and bacon that no one could make taste as nice as you did...your bare thighs making him want run his hands up them and bend you over the counter... but there was no you, no delicious smell. Getting worried he sped to your door and was about to knock when he got your text.

Pietro stared at his phone, reading the message over and over again until he was fuming. He wanted to bang your door down and demand answers, why would you break it off? You seemed to enjoy him enough last night, and this morning - how could you go from that to brushing him off? Instead he just stared at the door and listened to you cry until he couldn't take it anymore.

Running to his own room, he picked up the first thing he could get his hands on and smashed it against the wall, then another, not satisfied until his room was trashed. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, blood on his hands and tears staining his cheeks with no relief from his anger and frustration. Coward.

Pietro's phone buzzes from under his upturned bed and he grabs it, reading the text from another girl he messed around with before you. He's ignored her and others since; yes, there was the odd bit of flirting here and there, but he only needed you in his bed, he only wanted you.

L: Wanna hook up?

Pietro glances back at himself in the mirror, he couldn't understand what he'd done wrong, why did it hurt so much? He was angry, confused and he decided if you could just throw him away so easily, it was your loss. He wanted to show you what you were missing, make you hurt, so he typed his reply.

P: Of course frumoasa. When and where?

Wanda tears you out of the memory, her impatience making you lose control and his memories start to get away from you again, all you see are quick flashes of images until you catch a more recent memory, Pietro emerging from a run-down hotel, the sun beaming down and dust in the air.

Pietro was following a lead, speeding through backstreets until he reaches a warehouse. He ignores the anxious feeling in his gut and walks into a meeting with the vibranium dealers, not realizing until it's too late he's walking into a trap. They hold him down, and he feels the needle jab into the back of his neck and the heat of the drugs as they burn through him until it's all black.

Pietro wakes up in a nightmare, he's in a replica of his Hydra cell, he screams for help, tries to force the door open until his shoulder is bruised and probably fractured. He's left for hours, days with no food or water, left to go insane without being able to run, to burn off his energy.

"It's good to have you back 8296."

Pietro can't make out his face, but he recognizes the voice and his blood turns cold, it can't be him.

The doctor steps into the light and Pietro scrambles away from the brightness, his eyes stinging after so long in half-light, not even trying to fight off the guards as they held him down. He knew what this was. Fighting would do him no good, he just had to wait it out, whatever they did to him. He was afraid, and this time he was alone.

Wanda tries to break the connection, she must recognize the doctor. You try to keep her present, forcing her mind to stay and the picture changes again, loud music, so many voices...

Of course you were here with him.

Pietro hated how close you were to Bucky and Steve, but especially Bucky. He could never compete with your friendship and he saw the way Bucky looked at you. He knew this casual arrangement would end someday but not yet. He was sure that bastard was the reason, always whispering doubts in your ear, and he was right. Bucky could offer you more than Pietro ever could.  Fuck, he wants you so badly and it hurts him when you head straight for Bucky, not him. So he takes his anger out on you, watching your reaction when he kisses the girl, his hands roaming her body and not feeling as bad as he should for using this girl. She was beautiful and fun, but she wasn't you. He watches you leave, his pride happy while his heart hurts for you.

"What the hell is your problem?!"

"I don't have a problem." Pietro turns away kissing the girl again and Bucky yanks him back by his collar and slams him against the bar. He vaguely hears the girl scream and good old Mr Rogers consoling her, leading her away from the scuffle.

"You think you can treat y/n like that?" Bucky growls at Pietro, shoving him back again, glasses rattling on the bar and people quickly move out of the way.

"She ended it, why should I wait around?"

"Did you really need to throw it in her face, asshole?" Bucky hissed, his metal fingers tightening around Pietro's neck, the pressure almost cutting off his air.

Pietro shrugs, smirking,"She's so special she opened her legs for the first man that paid her any attention..."

"Come on Buck, he's not worth it, let's go home..." Steve attempts to calm Bucky down, however Pietro was enjoying making him angry.

Pietro leans in close to his ear, "I know you want her old man, how it kills you it's my bed she runs to," he was getting under his skin, Bucky's nostrils flaring and jaw set, it wouldn't take much more to make him snap, "you want her? Just give her a bit of attention, her curva legs will open right up."

Pietro regretted the words as soon as he said them, he didn't really mean them. He wanted to hurt Bucky, hurt you, he wanted to get what he thought he deserved.

"What did you just say?!"

The first punch had him stumbling back a little, the sharp pain and blood in his mouth not enough to wipe the smirk off his face,"just that she's my curva, but you know, give her a little and she'll..."

"Say that again."

"What? Curva?" Bucky's metal fist smashes into his face, Pietro wipes the blood from his nose and finally gives in to his anger, speeding over and knocking Bucky into a bunch of tables.

'Y/n! We're not here for this.'

Wanda would come, you would come, he just had to wait.

Pietro holds onto memories of you at first, the most private ones he saves for the nights. For the few hours he's thrown back into his cell. His body left to heal until they decided it was time to break it again. Eventually they twist those too. As his body changes he needs less time to recover and every hour they find a new way to torture him, twist his memories of you, Wanda and the Avengers. His hope fading a little more each time.

"Why do you think no one has come for you 8296?" "Who do you think told us where you were?"

For hours he'd been strapped into this chair, an IV slowly pumping god knows what into his system. Forcing him to watch endless videos of war, violence, altered images of the Avengers, killing in such gruesome ways he never imagined...every time he closed his eyes an electric current passed through the wires attached to his temple and straight into his brain. The doctor's voice played on a constant loop, whispering in his ear, worming his way into Pietro's subconscious.

"They betrayed you, killed your parents...they want you to suffer like this," he knew it wasn't real, yet the more he watched, the more pain he felt, the more numb he became, "you were right to hate the Avengers, they left you to die here, they want you to die here."

"No one is coming for you, 8296."

Wanda would come, you would come, he just had to wait. Just had to...

Pietro sneaks into your room, avoiding the creaky floorboard and chuckles seeing you spread out all over the bed, the amount of times you kicked him during the night he'd lost count. Your soft snoring and serene expression made him want to slip into bed beside you, but he had to leave he couldn't bear to hurt you anymore. He gently brushes the hair from your face and kisses your forehead, inhaling your scent, it was always jasmine,"You're better off without me, printessa, take care of yourself."

"This will keep you still," He's brought out of the memory by a burning pain in his arm, he tries to struggle, his body not responding, "now, let's see how fast you can heal."

The doctor laughed, an evil shrill sound letting Pietro know he was going to have some fun.

Pietro sees the glint of the scalpel in the bright lights the dark figure of the Doctor leaning over him. He strains to see what the doctor is doing, biting into the gag, his body tensing when he feels the cold scalpel press, then puncture and cut through his skin. Screaming when the blade slices down his chest, screaming when the doctor reaches down and pulls back his skin.  

Pietro's head falls back on the table, his eyes rolling back when he feels hands inside of him pulling, twisting, cutting, until he eventually passes out from the pain, the image of the doctor holding up his heart flickering to black.

'Wanda, we have to keep going, he could lose all his memories, he'll be stuck inside the last memory before the break...please, I know how much you're hurting but we can't leave him here...'

'I can't y/n, he's in so much pain it's too-.'

'Please, just a little longer..."

Pietro's lost track of time now, strapped down to another metal bed in another grey room. There's almost nothing left, he can't feel, can't think, all he knows is the pain, everything seems distant, hazy. The scientist approaches him but Pietro doesn't hear him, even when the scientist slaps his face leaving an angry bruise Pietro just feels...nothing.

"Is he ready?" Another man enters the room holding a vial of black liquid. Attaching it to a needle gun he fires the substance into Pietro's neck without waiting for an answer. More pain shoots through his body as the liquid does it's job, finally numbing everything except his rage, and he welcomes it.

"8296 are you ready to comply?"

'Let me out! Y/n, break it, let me out!'

Both Wanda and Pietro rip from your mind and you hang on just long enough to see flashes of his last few hours before you found him, the last remnants of his essence flowing back into his body. Oh god, the things he did, things they told him to do...your eyes blink open desperate for it all to be a dream, to forget everything you've seen.

Steve carries Wanda out of the room trying to calm her, her sobs breaking your heart, nothing could erase what happened, nothing could bring him back; not the Pietro you knew. His eyes flutter open and you struggle to get the straps undone.

"Y/n?"

"Pietro?" There's recognition and confusion in his eyes for a few moments then he starts to struggle, using his powers to vibrate the metal holding him in place, cracks appearing all around him.

"You're not real," Pietro studies your face sadly, "I wish you were..." he screams in pain as the black creeps over his eyes again and it's not Pietro that stares back at you.

"I thought I'd killed you printessa?" He grabs your forearm, dragging you and the bed against the chamber. His nails dig deeper into your skin not letting go when Bucky unties you. His grip only tightens while Bucky pulls you away, his nails leaving angry bloody scratches in your skin. Pietro starts screaming again, the same animalistic rage you saw when you found him consuming him, driving him insane.

"Y/n, we need to go!"

"No!"

"Y/n, you can't help him!"

"I can't leave him like that!"

"Look at him! He's gone y/n." Bucky grabs you around the waist, picking you up and carrying you out of the room. The doors close and sedative gas is released.

You collapse against Bucky, your screams muffled by his warm body, tears rolling down your cheeks. He pulls you to him both of you huddled against the wall of the corridor. Steve mirrors your position with Wanda, both men feeling helpless.

Covering your ears to block out Wanda sobbing, images of what you saw burn into your brain as if they were your own memories, your own pain and you cling onto Bucky unable to control your emotions, your own mind.

"They had him for weeks, I felt all of it Bucky..."

"Shhsh, it's ok, I'm here, Y/n it's ok."

"No it's not..."

Nothing will ever be ok again, for any of them.

Part 9  

[atmilliways]

👻 Nathan!

Okay, so I started with this non-human prompt meme, picked up most of Part I of this from a random prompt that passed by on my dash somewhere to get me started, and drew some ideas for Part III from @spys-art-blog‘s thoughts about godklok stuff. It DOES include Nathan talking to a ghost. It’s also a little like that thing that happened in fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when suddenly Dawn is there, and always has been, and technically that’s new but she’s been retconned into everyone’s memories so no one questions it. 

~

I. Because One Day You May Be Called

It would forever baffle Charles as to how quickly things could go wrong. One minute he was driving along the familiar route between the office and home. The next, he was spinning out of control towards the concrete barrier at the end of the bridge, barely able to glimpse the truck that had decimated the right side of his car. In the short time it took for his hands to let go of the wheel and his car to reach the barrier, he’d managed to bang his head on something and gain a nice little cut along the side of his face. 

Then the car hit the barrier. The sudden stop made him imagine the entire world halting on its axis, his stomach lurching and his head spinning even faster now that he was no longer in motion with it. Groaning, he blindly reached out for some kind of surface, only then realizing his glasses had been flung from his face. The blurry interior of the car made him more disoriented, but he managed to locate the window and look up.

A dark shape was rushing towards him, too large to be a person. The truck, his mind supplied simply. The implications of what that rapidly approaching shape meant only clicked when it was a few feet away and he only had enough time to take a sharp breath in understanding.

II. To Meet The Mighty Gods

At first, it came as a shock when he regained consciousness. Okay, Charles thought, so I’m not dead. He felt as though he was floating, which he supposed meant he was safe in a hospital bed, wrapped in a soothing cocoon of pain medication, with medical attention only a call button press away. The second and far more lasting shock came when he opened his eyes. 

He actually was floating, cushioned by thin air about ten feet above the scene of the crash. What little he could see of the passenger car left little hope that the body inside was still intact, and yet, when he touched the numb skin of his cheek, there was red on his apparently solid fingertips. How could he bleed if he was already dead?

Everything was eerily silent. 

And he felt watched. The clusterfuck of snarled traffic rapidly lost his interest as the feeling intensified, as though eyes were boring into him from several different directions at once, pinning him in place. 

Charles whipped his head around, half expecting to see… what? There was nothing. Just a sweeping view of ocean, glittering and blue and deep. The freeway had been built atop steep cliffs, and from where he hovered it seemed that one impatient shrug of the earth was all it would take to tumble the entire ribbon of asphalt and cars into the churning water. Golds, oranges, and reds bled into everything from the setting sun, painting everything but the pale sliver of rising moon with brilliant light. There was no wind, at least where Charles was. 

He’d driven home this way hundreds of times. Thousands. Yet, as he hung in the air above his mortal remains, he couldn’t remember ever taking a single moment to appreciate the view. 

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered. 

IT IS. 

He hadn’t realized that he hadn’t been breathing before. Funny what the lack of breath catching in sudden terror could tell you. And had he been straining his eyes looking for whatever was watching him, or did the glints of reddish light catching on the ocean waves form the vague shape of a man? 

A man that seemed more real and more imaginary the longer he stared, far away and right there at the same time. Not a man — there was no way, it was too impossible. Whatever it was, it looked down at the wrecked vehicles below with an air of passive satisfaction. 

Then it turned it’s terrible gaze upon Charles with decidedly less passivity. Shadows fell across its face like long dark hair, or long strings of seaweed swaying in the current below the water’s surface, and that, Charles knew, was what had been watching him. 

It bared it’s shark teeth at him and asked, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? 

Charles opened his mouth, closed it, looked down at the rapidly drying blood on his fingers. “I, ah… I used to be someone,” he mumbled. “Now I’m dead.“ 

YOU ARE NOTHING. 

He found himself nodding. No family. No wife or kids, not even a girlfriend. Not even a pet. Riding a desk in a dead-end job that he’d had since graduating college with a degree in law that he’d never bothered to use, and was too apathetic to leave for anything better. There was no one to miss him, no way to claim that he’d made any sort of positive impression on the world before leaving it. Or even a negative one, for that matter. Nothing. 

“Yes,” he agreed quietly. 

WOULD YOU CHOSE TO BE MORE? 

Charles felt his heart leap at the suggestion, and that seemed to be answer enough. The apparition narrowed its glowing red eyes. It seemed pleased. 

SO BE IT. 

And suddenly there was wind, twisting and writhing around him like a bed of snakes, as though it had always been there but had been holding still, awaiting orders. The earth flew towards him and the sea rose up, the sun and moon grew huge in the sky, and Charles passed unto utter blackness as reality reknitted itself around him. 

III. Deep Within The Ocean

The ghost stood in the center of a cavernous office. Somewhere in the gloom above there were elaborate chandeliers, but most of the lightbulbs were broken and the only light of the setting sun came in weak streams between the boards nailed up over broken windows. It was deathly still, and the air tasted of ash and dust. 

He wasn’t sure what he was doing there, or how he knew he was a ghost. The longer he stood there the more he felt as though it was where he belonged. It was a nagging, annoying feeling, as though he had just been about to do something very important but forgotten what it was. Or… hadn’t been told yet?

A sudden crash behind him made him flinch, but just barely. 

“CHARLES,” someone roared. A man, very gravelly-voiced and very, very drunk. The ghost was distantly impressed that amidst all that stumbling he was still managing to keep his feet. “CHARLES, it’s me, NATHAN. Where… where the fuck…!” 

His dark green eyes fell on the ghost, who felt the impact as a full body jolt because he hadn’t expected to be seen. Apparently the man, Nathan, hadn’t exactly expected to see him either because he swayed to a stop. With one hand — the other still had a tight grip on a bottle of tequila — Nathan pushed long hair out of his face and squinted uncertainly. 

“Charles. Is that… You’re here?” Nathan looked up at the ceiling as though the broken chandeliers could offer some sort of explanation, then at his feet, then at his bottle, which he took a swig from. That seemed to strengthen his grasp on the situation. “I mean… You. Are here. Good.” He swayed. “I’ve got… There’s… fuckin’ problems.” 

“I see,” the ghost replied, and cleared his throat. “Please, have a seat.” The hand gesture toward the big dust felt perfectly natural, though the ghost hadn’t previously paid much mind to the furniture before that moment. So did walking around the dominating piece of furniture and taking a seat, ignoring, for the moment, that there was a dust cover on the large wingback chair and he sank into it slightly without so much as a crinkle or rustle of fabric. 

Nathan trailed after him. Both of the chairs in front of the desks were on their sides, as though the same impact of whatever had blown the now shuttered windows in had knocked them over as well. He gamely put his bottle down and spent a minute clumsily righting one, then dropped into it with a huff and squinted again. 

“What was I talking about?” 

The ghost folded his hands before him on the dusty wooden surface. “I believe you mentioned having problems.” 

Nathan’s dower expression brightened a fraction as he remembered. “Fuck, yeah…” Then his face fell. “It’s all fucked up. All the… money, and… You… We’re broke.” 

He retrieved his bottle and sipped from it, shoulders slumped and looking older than the ghost thought he should — not that the ghost knew what his age actually was. But there was a dawning familiarity building up in the back of his mind, like a favorite, nearly forgotten tune just in the edge of hearing. 

“It’s hard,” Nathan confided, slumping further towards the desk. “It’s really… hard without you. I don’t know how to do this shit. Press releases and financial… fuckin’… bullshit…” 

Yes, the ghost thought, I remember this. Did he, though? Or had the information just arrived his head? He couldn’t remember. Absently, he adjusted his glasses and rubbed his fingertips against the side of his face, tracing a scar that ran from cheekbone to jaw. 

It didn’t matter. There was a job to do, and he was the best man for it. 

“I’m sure we can sort this out,” Charles said firmly. “Walk me through it.” 

IV. And If You’re Not Prepared

Air slammed into his lungs, accompanied by the sting of pins and needles in… well, everything. 

Charles remembered reading once that many bodily functions — digestion, for example — were quite painful, but the human nervous system was wired to tell the conscious mind to ignore it. For a moment, he felt every cubic inch of his body, and could ignore none of it. 

When the feeling passed and the echoes of his hoarse screams died away, Charles tried to sit up and was gently pushed back down. 

“Be still,” a soothing, age-worn voice told him. “The Gods of the Klok have restored you, but at great cost. It will be some time before you are truly whole again.” 

Charles allowed himself to fall back into the soft bed, secretly relieved. “What happened,” he croaked. 

“They have chosen you to be their champion, and made it so that it has always been so,” the old man told him solemnly. 

He remembered the ocean and broken glass. 

“You are the Dead Man.” 

He remembered talking to something that looked like Nathan, and then remembering who Nathan was after the fact, because… because…

“In time, you will forget that it was any other way.” 

V. Your Soul Will Not Be Spared

Thousands of leagues away, in a dragon-shaped mansion hovering miles above sea level, Nathan Explosion woke with his cheek resting on a puddle of tequila-drool. He lifted his head and immediately regretted it. 

“Dood, wake up!” Pickles was shaking his shoulder. “Don’t know what you’re doin’ in’ere anyway, it’s still a disaster area in this wing…” 

“Wha…?” Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, feeling like they were about two sizes to large for his head, and tried to focus on where ‘in here’ was. 

He had been… What had he been doing? 

There had been drinking, obviously. And then he’d wandered around, pacing down up and down the halls until he’d arrived at their manager’s office. 

“I was. Uh. Talking to Charles about… money?” he guessed. As he said it, the memory solidified somewhat in his head. “Yeah. Money.” 

Pickles’ stopped shaking his arm and frowned. “Nat’n, that’s impossible. Ofdensen’s d… He hamburger timed. Remember?” 

“But I…” Nathan froze halfway towards wiping the gross spit off his face. He’d just gotten so used to Charles being there all those years that he’d stormed in blind drunk and… passed out and dreamed the whole thing, apparently, because the man was dead. They’d had a funeral pyre and everything; there was no way what he remembered could have actually happened. 

Unless it was a ghost, Nathan thought despondently. But what were the chances of that? 

While he was still mulling that over, Pickles sighed and shook his head. “Dood, ya really gotta lay off the tequila. Now c’mon, this place ain’t gonna remodel itself. I think I’ve almost got the hang of that circular saw thing…”

[lifeafterten]

RtN 02: Sept 02 -Sept 12; Get Me the FUCK Outta Here

I’ve been here for days. Who the fuck stays in the hospital for days?... Fucked up people. And I’m in Fucked-Upville-- Population (points to self) this mother fucker. 

Okay. Okay. I’m turning the drama down.  Honestly though... I’ve been here a fucking while. I have an I.V. tube in each arm, one for fluids, because I’m perpetually dehydrated, the other is for the antibiotics that don’t seem to be working, because I still feel like death. I have to often lay in awkward positions so I don’t tangle myself and make the machines go off. So. Much. Beeping. And I swear to Christ, if they come at you with a little blue bag and claim it’s potassium... RUN--Fucking run, because once they hook your ass up to that shit you’ll feel like they’re injecting fire into your veins and you can’t scream because let’s face it: you’re too damn tired, so you settle for some weird case of facial Tourettes in the form of wincing and hissing. And they turn the drip down enough for the fire to feel like a sting... and you feel that effervescent sting until it’s done. It’s “supposed” to take 30 minutes-- they say. But my pansy ass can’t take the heat so the slowed down version makes it last at least an hour and some change. I pray I’m not stubborn enough today to take the morphine.  Why won’t you take the morphine, Ashley? I’ll fucking tell you why-- I have control issues.  And the morphine feels too fucking good that I need the pain to remind me that I’m still alive and to gauge between dream and reality.

At this point I’m agitated (by pain and impatience). I’ve been stuck by damned needled so many times, because of all the bloodletting I’ve been doing.  These assholes have been taking my life source (no, not coffee, you freak) twice a day. Oh, I’m sorry, they’ve been taking my “blood cultures” twice a day.

Why? They don’t say. They tell me to ask my doctor. My doctor is a pussy.  Soft spoken; pussy footing fucking pussy, who can’t give me a straight answer.

I dismiss my doctor more than a person dismisses alcoholism. Day drinking is not a bad thing. Who cares if it’s barely noon and you’ve been drinking since 9. ... Not speaking from experience-- Anyway!

I dismissed my doctor a lot. I couldn’t help it. I’ve been laying up in this bitch for weeks and you can’t give me some indication of what’s going on; let alone a time frame of when I’ll be able to go home-- on top of a mother fucking reason why I’m being kept in here for so damn long? Yeah. Fuck that shit. Dismissed, mother fucker. I have no fucks to give for useless asshats. Come talk to me when you can tell me what the fuck’s up. 

I’ve been moved to three or four rooms. From the ER bed to Surgery... Then to another room in Surgery... to the Telemetry ward, because my heart rate was too high-- which honestly I’m not surprised... I’ve been on permanent pissed the hell off for quite some time now.  They take my vitals every 30 minutes.  I’ve been counting because I literally have nothing else to do, besides... I only feel that it’s fair that I monitor them while they monitor me. But mostly it’s because I’m bored and there’s nothing on TV.  By now I’ve refused visitors.  I’ve dodged death a couple times.

Homicide via Mio overdose: Backstory: I asked for Mio, because they kept saying I was dehydrated and I thought I needed electrolytes like a muh’fug, so when my friend Kris came by (note she had no idea what Mio was let alone how to use it) and had dumped an entire bottle of Mio (24 servings) into my water jug (16 - 24 oz tops). I take one sip of it and I thought I was gonna die. Chest was on fire. My machines were going crazy, because I was coughing my lungs out and poor Kris is panicked and distraught. Its hard to convey you’re okay if you’re croaking like you’ve been smoking for about 300 years and your vision is obscured by tears. Sidenote: The incident still brings her to tears to this day, she feels so bad. Personally, I think it’s adorable and funny... Now, at the time...? Owie.

Suicide via Mother doth Love too much: I love my mother. I do. I love my entire family. But they like to hover and it was stifling. They’re looking at me with worried eyes when they think I’m asleep and I get it.  It doesn’t look good, kid.  My sister? God love her, she tries to keep the worry and her tears in check because she knows I don’t know how to handle them.  My Dad? Shit, my dad knows what’s up. He knows I’m gonna handle my shit the only way I know how. On my own terms. This is why I’m a daddy’s girl. My brother and sister in law on the other hand? My bother spilled water down the front of my gown (had to change that shit. not fun) and his wife, in her efforts to break my fever, stuffed my fresh new gown with ice packs.. And when I say ice packs, I mean latex gloves filled with ice stuffed in my gown. Stuffed. In. My. Fucking. Gown. That’s it-- I’ve had it! Everyone’s banned.

And it’s also hard to put on a tough front when all I wanna do is cry, but I end up just being angry instead.

The only human interaction I had is when the nurses are taking my blood, or my vitals, or switching my IV bags, or helping me to the bathroom to do bathroom things, or giving me sponge baths because I’m too weak to get out of bed, or shooting morphine into my body to ease my torment; or shoving pills down my fucking throat because nothing is fucking working. I’m still getting fevers out of nowhere.  People are coming in and out every morning to lift my gown up (they do it so much they don’t even ask anymore. A brief thought of charging them crosses my mind, and I allow a small giggle. Because it’s silly, because I’m glad I still had somewhat of a sense of humor.) Still, I think my cooter deserves some ounce of respect. Women’s lib and all that crap. I’ve turned this part of the day into a game (I’m SO fucking bored). I like to spot the face tightening moment when they assess whatever the fuck is going on with my leg (I don’t know. I haven’t seen... I don’t want to see yet). 

It’s fun for me, because they’re medical professionals-- they’re supposed to be used to this kind of thing. But the face tightening? To me that’s a victory. That just means they have to school their expressions to indifference so as to not alarm me. Ah, bed side manner.  They’re so sweet. But I know just by their non-expressions that it looks fucked up. I have to look at the small details; read between the lines of what they’re not telling me.  I’d be in the dark otherwise. What are they not telling me? I know they’re testing for something... But I don’t know what they’re testing for. I stamp down fear, because I don’t have enough data to panic.

My dreams are getting scarier, because of the morphine. No more morphine, I promise myself. Vicodin only.  Yeah, that seems safer. The nurses, I’ve learned, just need someone to listen to them. Since I can’t get a decent night’s sleep because they’re fucking coming in every 15 to 30 minutes all day, every day, all the fucking time... Why the fuck not? I got nowhere else to be. I seem to have opened Pandora’s Box, because it’s 3am and I’m giving life advice to Agnes who has a very rebellious son, whom I point out is 16 years old and he’s going through a phase, it doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother.  Which I reminds me that I need to tell Doris who’s part of the Day crew that Agnes is off on Wednesdays too and that they should hangout together, because I think they would get along. I make a mental note to pass Agnes’ number to Doris later. I really should start charging... This pro bono shit aint working out. 

During my hospital stay I’ve managed the following:

Make only 4 nurse assistants cry

Befriend most if not all the Filipino nurses (they gave me all the apple sauce I wanted)

Make that one stern Indian Night Nurse smile (she gave me yogurt and bananas every time she was on shift)

Counsel only 5 to 6 nurses, mostly 5.. the 6th one kinda got weird. Didn’t take whatever she gave me.

Snob my doctor almost every day. 

Made my main nurse laugh because she thinks I’m a riot. 

Days later it was time for me to go home. I knew this for damned sure.  I saw so many specialists from an infectious disease doctor to a surgeon. I was so fucking bloated from all the fluids they were trying to fill me with that they could barely find veins to stab to get their precious blood cultures from. 

I also decided that with my body like this the Mitchelin tire man was my cousin.

Sidenote: To hell with the Infectious Disease doctor. That heifer made me lay on my side for two fucking days straight. Fat load that shit did for me. With all the extra fluids in my body, it just shifted to one side. All it gave me was a backache and lopsided boobs... and some fucking fluid in my lungs. Fucking devil woman. I got a fucked up leg, I’m the size of a float during the Macy’s Day Parade, and now I got lopsided tits. It’s funny... now. At the time? Not so much. It was September 12.  I had broken out in a rash due to an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics. (Let’s just add that to the list of whatever the fuck else is wrong with my body, shall we?) My “doctor” (doesn’t deserve the title nor respect. Sorry not sorry) was trying to get me to stay a few more days. I’ve had quite enough. I told him to get the discharge papers ready. I’m leaving. My fevers were gone. My leg wasn’t draining so badly anymore (ew, gross. sorry) I felt fine. Despite me constantly checking my hands so they don’t try to scrape my skin off. Fucking hell I was so itchy. I didn’t need to be in here. That’s when the good doctor decided to divulge that I hurt his feelings and that I was his least favorite patient. (Boo freakity hoo.) But I was a good girl and let him talk, said all the appropriate things. ... He’s still a pussy.  He was glad to be rid of me and the feeling was more than fucking mutual. I did not tell him to get fucked. I did not tell him to suck my dick. I did not flick him off. I did not throw shit at him. I was rather proud of myself. I showed great restraint.  But I did point out that just because he had the “MD” attached to his name, does not mean automatic respect. Respect is earned Dr. Pussy foot.  I signed the paperwork with relish. Jessie came to pick me up and I was whisked off to spend my mandatory (couldn’t argue my way outta that one) bed rest at the Joseph’s.  I’m so tired of laying down. TBC...

[writinginthegutter]

Howlin’ For You, part IV

Wayhaught, Wynonna Earp, SFW

Read it on AO3 (y’know, if you want)

Waverly stares right ahead, fixatedly, her throat hoarse from the scream she let out.

In an instant, Wynonna is by her side, Peacemaker in hand.

"Shit, I thought we got them all. Stay back"

"Don't shoot!" Waverly screams.

Wynonna looks at her in disbelief, Peacemaker aimed right ahead, the tip of the gun glowing.

"’Don't shoot?’ There's a demon wolf in your room!"

"That's Nicole"

"That thing ate Nicole?" Wynonna asks, horrified, her finger twitching on the trigger.

"That thing is Nicole"

"Oh. Oh, shit."

Waverly looks at the creature in front of her, standing in the middle of her room. It’s exposing huge, sharp teeth with a snarl, but it’s backing away, its tail between its legs. It looks cornered. Lost. Scared. It stares at Peacemaker, the yellow light reflecting in its eyes, and lets out a whimper that nearly breaks Waverly’s heart. Waverly turns to shoot her sister a glare, nodding towards the gun. Wynonna looks doubtful but lowers it to her side, keeping her finger on the trigger. 

Waverly looks over at the animal again. There’s nothing human about that face anymore, nothing except these soft brown eyes, now looking right at Waverly. When she looks into them, Waverly knows her Nicole is still in there. She leans over, cautiously extending a hand towards the wolf’s face.

“Babygirl...” Wynonna mutters in warning.

“I know what I’m doing,” Waverly whispers. Well, at least, she hopes she knows.

The wolf draws its head away from her hand as she gets closer.

“Baby, it’s me... Waverly...” 

Waverly speaks softly, leaning closer still. At the sound of her voice, the wolf’s expression seems to change, and it stops trying to pull away, leaving Waverly free to gently lay her hand on soft red fur. 

“Nicole, I know you’re in there. You have to fight it, baby. I know it’s hard, but you’re strong. You can do this.” 

She tries to keep the tone of her voice even, but it’s getting harder as her throat gets tight. What if she can’t turn back? She tries to push those thoughts away, but she gets choked up nonetheless. “You have to fight it,” she repeats, over and over again, like a mantra. 

She rests both hands on either side of the wolf’s head, her face as close as she could possibly get, and she looks deep into familiar brown eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman she loves. 

“Fight it,” she repeats once again. “I know the demon is strong, but you’re stronger. You can take over.”

Her heart heavy with despair, Waverly throws all caution out the window and wraps her arms around the wolf’s neck, pulling its head against her. 

She strokes the soft fur, still repeating the encouragements, pouring in everything she wishes someone could’ve told her when she was the one struggling with a demon. She loses track of time, those few minutes feeling like hours. 

She’s pulled from her dazed state when she feels a shift from the creature in her arms. She hears a soft groan. A human groan. 

“Not again...” The words come out, muffled by Waverly’s shirt. “Why do I always wake up naked when there’s people around?” 

Waverly’s heart stops at the sound of Nicole’s voice. She looks down at the woman in her arms, laughing and crying with relief all at once. 

The next day, every flat surface of the Black Badge office is covered with open encyclopedias, ancient texts, centuries-old spell books, and Waverly’s laptop, whirring in protest as she opens yet another tab. Her focus on the translation of an ancient plant-based remedy for what the text refers to as the “Curse of the Full Moon” is broken when she feels a hand on her shoulder. 

“You’ve been at it for hours, you need a break. Let’s go out for lunch,” Nicole offers. Her sleeve is still scrunched up, exposing the white bandage square from where Jeremy has taken a blood sample. She has dark circles under her eyes, but a warm, content smile on her face.

“I can’t stop now- I mean- aren’t you worried?,” she protests, hanging on to the parchment in her hand.

“No,” Nicole says softly. “Not when I have the best researcher of all things paranormal on my case. You need to take a break once in a while, Waverly. I won’t let you work yourself to death. We’ve got time.” 

Waverly puts down the parchment with a sigh and closes her laptop. That’s so Nicole. Worrying about her while she’s the one getting possessed by a demon wolf. 

“Just for lunch,” she concedes. 

Nicole grins and pulls down her sleeve, ready to go out. As she brings it down, she accidentally rips her bandage off. She pushes her sleeve back up. No mark from the needle in sight, not even a tiny red dot. 

“Guess there are perks to this whole werewolf thing. Just gotta watch out for silver bullets,” she jokes, and Waverly can’t stop her lips from curling into a smile. She grabs Nicole’s hand, which still feels unusually warm, and they walk out together.

They almost reach the car when Waverly notices something’s missing.

“Shoot, I left my cellphone. I’ll be right back,” she says as she walks back towards the station, leaving Nicole to wait in the car. 

Right as she’s about to open the door of the Black Badge Office, she hears murmurs from inside. She was sure everyone had gone out for lunch after them, but she recognizes Doc’s voice. She resolves to wait outside, not wanting to interrupt what seems to be an important conversation. She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop- really, she doesn’t- but she can’t help it. 

“Remember when I told you about that dog I loved? My best hound?”

“The one you had to shoot cause it had rabies or something, yeah?”

She hears Wynonna reply, her tone a bit impatient.

“That’s right. It wouldn’t come back to me anymore.”

There’s a pause, and she hears Doc let out a long sigh before he continues.

“Wynonna, there’s something I didn’t tell you about that. Didn’t seem relevant at the time. Didn’t want to dwell on the past...”

“Okay...” Wynonna says, and Waverly can picture her face. brows furrowed in confusion and frustration without even seeing it. Her tone clearly indicates she’s not really in the mood for Doc’s dramatic dog story.

“That dog, that... It wasn’t a dog”

There’s a silence. Then, based on the surprised noise of acknowledgement she makes in reply, Wynonna understands. Waverly doesn’t.  

“You mean...” Wynonna starts.

“One of my best mates Jim.” Doc says, so softly Waverly barely hears him. “He was alright at first. Transformation only lasted a couple minutes, an hour, maybe, the first time. It lasted longer the second time around, and...” he interrupts himself.

Another heavy silence falls between them. 

“We’ll find a way,” Wynonna says, with a firm tone that fails to hide some uncertainty. “We always have.”

“Then we better do it fast,” Doc replies. “Or it’s only a matter of time ‘til she won’t come back to us anymore.” 

[elegiesforshiva]

Ghosts Pt IV: Face Paintings

Masterpost Previous | Next

Sakura’s first mission in years is estimated to last less than two days, but she still finds herself heated in anticipation.  She hasn’t traveled since she was in ANBU, excluding diplomatic conferences. But she hardly remembers much of it.  She hardly remembers much of anything besides the death tolls, the adrenaline, and the clandestine despair.

Their mission is a simple rescue one and she is placed in a team of four.  There’s one sensor, two combat nins, (one of which had just been on the last mission with the nin they were meant to retrieve) and her, the medic.  The team leader is monstrously tall with sleek black hair and hard features—an intimidating shinobi named Enra.  Sakura can tell the kunoichi was from Root.  Stone faced as shinobi often come, there is something about the stiffness in which Root members spoke with that gave way to hardness that other shinobi couldn’t quite emulate.

They are being sent to find two nin who have been separated from their team along the border of Tanigakure.  One of the missing nin is a Hyuga, and Sakura morbidly wonders if a team would be sent out in the dead of night with such haste had it not been for the threat of losing a nin with a kekkei genkai.  It’s no secret that certain shinobi are valued over others.  If there is one thing being introduced to the shinobi world alongside Naruto and Sasuke taught her, it is that.

The squad is silent when they meet at the gate and Sakura can feel each of them momentarily study her.  Whether it’s because of the unruly cotton candy on her head or because they recognize her as Tsunade’s apprentice, she’s not sure.  But she’s that much more thankful that they are quiet.

They head out towards Tani, leaping from branches of Konoha’s thick oak.  There’s the incessant rattle of crickets and the occasional hoo-hoo of an owl.  It’s frigid at this time of night and the air stings Sakura’s flesh more than she cares to admit.  She hopes she isn’t as out of practice as she feels.  

They run for long hours before their sensor stops. “Wait!”  His cry comes from her left, deep and boyish at once.  Her feet ground into the branch she lands on, toes curling with the momentum of her forceful plant.  The sensor is quiet for a moment, head tilted to the side.  He’s the only chunin in the group and with his scrawny build, bronze skin, and viridian hair, Sakura can’t help but admire how beautiful he looks amongst the trees.  It is as if he hails from forest nymphs.

“Well?” A teammate, Haru, impatiently asks.  He is much bulkier and has long blonde hair, tied back into a braid.  He is the nin who had been with the squad they are meant to save and his excessive agitation is forgiven for the sole fact.  He looks tired and anxious and horribly guilt ridden.

Sakura knows that shame—feels it every time she sees the red.  But she’s learned to keep her mouth shut and mind focused when she can help it.  Panic attacks can’t bring the dead back to life, even if the heart doesn’t know any better.  

“I think...I think I can feel them.  It’s faint.  But I’m picking up a chakra that matches the Hyuga’s description,” the sensor says.  Kaito.  Sakura remembers.  She studies him closer and she could have sworn that she’s worked with him before.  She remembers green hair and almond eyes behind a rabbit mask.  But this sensor is only a chunin and Sakura was insane during her times in ANBU.

“Is he alone?” Sakura asks.  Are we too late?

“No.  There’s one other chakra signature,” he says.  “It’s so faint, I can’t tell if it’s rival nin or not.”

Sakura lets out a shaky breath.  They’ll probably be stumbling upon a body soon.  She didn't expect any less, but she often hopes anyway.  She suspects it’s a trait she’s retained only because of Naruto’s influence.

“Which way?” Enra speaks this time, and the fixture of her lips even as the words come out unsettles Sakura.

“Left of here.  About 60 kilometers,” Kaito says.

“We’ll follow your lead,” Enra says.  And then they’re off.

It’s daybreak by the time they arrive, the sky warmed in hues of oranges and pinks, undisturbed by the strifes of nin below.  

The first thing that hits Sakura is the smell.  It’s heavy, and sharp, like someone shoved incinerated coal right against her nostrils. Her gloved hand smacks over her mouth and nose, stomach protesting violently.  Katon, she thinks horribly.  The squad was burned to death.  Just like Kakashi in her dreams.

Then they finally come upon three leaf shinobi by a river, and only one is visibly conscious.  

The first is nothing but a charred corpse with several limbs missing, the obvious source of the combustion wafting in the air.   Another is unconscious, his legs are bloody stumps beneath wet bandages, plasma oozing through.  The last is the Hyuga, propped up but barely conscious.  Maybe it is just the way he is curled up and shaking, but he looks far too young to be a shinobi.  Sakura spots charcoal in his lap, and it’s only then that she realizes his right hand had been severed too.  She shuts her eyes to take a deep breath through the leather of her gloves.  Then she rushes forward.

His pearl eyes pass from Haru and then to Sakura.  “Oh,” he squeaks, arms spasming around his knees.  “I d-don’t—Please—”

Sakura is already kneeling by the nin with their legs missing, and swallowing her horror at the puddle of blood.  The skin is purple, then black and red and she thinks the nature of the burn may be the only reason why he hasn’t bled out.  An explosive she thinks.  It wasn’t a katon.  It was a blast. Shit.  He’s definitely going to be hemorrhaging.

She slides her palm onto the nin’s chest, pumps chakra into the nin’s chest.  She treats the lungs first, sewing injured tissue back with the snaking of her chakra into the nin’s body.  Decompression.  Higher oxygen flow.  Fluid management.  Sakura wishes there was another medic, or at least more equipment.  But all she has is her chakra so it will have to do.  

“My hand,” the Hyuga boy croaks.  His voice is the most miserable thing her heart has heard all week.  But the blood is oozing, smearing against ash, and she needs to remember triage.  

She’s ripping off the bloody bandages and fastidiously pushing chakra into the stubs with one hand while the other disrobes what it can.  And the body is so black. And any flesh not covered in charcoal is swollen red.  At once, she sees muscles spasm to life, and she tries to analyze where the decay begins and ends.  Please.  Please make it.

 Sakura sees green creep into her peripheral then.  “Sakura-san,” Kaito says. “How can I help?”

She is speaking instantly, nods over to the Hyuga.  “Blood replenishing pills.  Give him two.  And one blue and yellow pill in my pouch.”  He moves quickly, and Sakura is grateful, feeling him wrestling in her pouch in methodical haste.  “I’ll see if he needs more.  Start disinfecting his wound with the alcohol too.”

“Who did this?”  Enra asks.

Sakura’s eyes dart to the boy, who’s trembling, his muted lips set in a straight line.  It’s usually a bit hard to see where a Hyuga’s iris begins and ends, blending nearly perfect into the sclera.  But his are bloodshot, lids swollen, and cheeks tracked with the line of his tears. He makes a noise low in his throat, gazr flitting around like he’s not really sure where to look.

“A bandit,” Haru responds then, since the Hyuga couldn’t seem to.

Kaito scoffs at that.  “You’re joking.  Bandits did this to you?”  He places pills in the Hyuga’s remaining hand.

“Not ordinary bandit.”  The boy finally says, before sliding the pills in his mouth with quivering fingers.  He tries to swallow the water Kaito hands him too, but it ends up splashing most of it around his face and clothes because of the tremors.

“There was only one?” Sakura asks, scrunching her nose, trying not to inhale too deep.  The air alone is so charred; she can’t bear to look at the body of the last teammate just yet.

“J-just one,” the Hyuga responds.  His voice sounds like his throat has just been freshly sanded.

“Is he dead?” Enra asks.

“She,” the Hyuga corrects with a crack in his voice.  Kaito brings the canteen to his lips, helping him drink this time.  “Yes,” he says, his voice marginally steadier before Sakura sees his face turn towards her.  “Please.  I—I found my hand for you.  Please put it back.”

Sakura turns her head to face him.  His eyes are white and red and haunting, glazed with desperation.  “I’m sorry,” Sakura says with an apologetic frown. “I can’t reattach it.  It’s been burned too badly.”  

“It’s my right.  I need it,” the boy replies, as if it didn’t matter.  Gods, he looks so young.

“This bandit was a shinobi?”  Enra asks, carrying on as if he isn’t having a breakdown.  Sakura has to turn her head to look at the kunoichi, because she can’t tell if it’s the question or her mind that’s misplaced right now.  But Enra is nonchalant, and she gazes an exterior too cool and analytical.  No, Sakura decides.  She’s not the alien here.  Enra is.  She eyes the burnt corpse they’ve all been purposefully neglected—except Haru, who just keeps staring at it.

“Yes,” Haru answers this time.  His voice is calm despite the hellish look in his eyes.  “She had to have been.  She used explosives.  Out of thin air.  No tags.”  She wonders how long he’s been watching the body.

“And you ran!”  The Hyuga squacks suddenly, the sound high pitched and so tense it snaps everyone’s eyes towards him.  And the gaze he pins with Haru is belligerent, his lips peeling back to show white, clenched teeth that looked like they would snap from the sheer force behind them.  Sakura can see the thin blue lines by his eyes begin to protrude. He looks like madness.  Fuck. Fuck he’s going to kill him, she thinks.  “Just left us for dead!”  Kaito is rigid next to him, nimble arms cocked like he’s about to pin him down.  

Sakura intervenes, speaks with a controlled calm while pulling out a syringe and filling it with fluid from the bag on her back.  “He just went to get help,” she defends.  She slowly inserts the needle into the unconscious nin she is still tending to.  She needs to work fast.  He needs attention.  He’s just a boy.  “If he didn’t leave, then—”

“Me!  She came for me!” the Hyuga screeches.  He lifts his bloody stub, pointing it at Haru accusingly, his shaking more violent than ever.  “And you ran!  Left me for dead.  I’m a Hyuga!”

“I came back!” Haru’s cry is too vehement and awkward, though he tries to school his features into something more composed.

“It’ll be alright,” Sakura says, imitating a professional medic who hopes to placate their patient.  But she feels like an imposter.  “You’re still alive, don’t worry.  We’re here, we’ll take ca—”

“Fuck you!” the Hyuga spits, and Sakura tenses beneath his vitriol, caught by the way his veins and eyes pop out of his small head.  His face is ghastly, and his arm is spasming with the surges of his trauma.  “Hiashi-sama—He will kill you!”  His cry is shrill and his head swivels in jagged motions to look ahead, veiny white fixed on something not there.  “Will kill Rokudaime!  Kill all of you for this!”  He looks rabid, and deluded, and starved for justice.  Sakura doesn’t blame him.  

“Watch your fucking tongue, brat!”  Kaito seethes, grabbing the dark locks and yanking them down, his other hand tightening around the Hyuga’s wrist so hard his knuckles turn white.

“Stop,” Sakura says, her voice hushed and soft, veiling the panic and guilt for the boy’s upset.  She should have given him something that would tend to his anxiety faster.  Instead she’s riled him up.  I’m disappointed in you, Okaasan would say sometimes, though not always with words.  Sakura nods with a hard swallow because she’s disappointed too.

Sakura places her hand on one of Kaito’s, gently prying it away from the boy’s hair and he lets her.  “It’s okay, he’s just in shock.”  She cups the Hyuga’s trembling face, who looks at her wide eyed and then suddenly so sad. He looks like he’s about to cry. She pushes her warm chakra through him, tracing his chakra pathways down to his brain.  His shaking quells just a bit and his web of veins gradually grow faint beneath the white of his skin.  “Be gentle.  This isn’t easy.”  Her hands wrap in green and she surveys his wounded stub delicately.  This one wasn’t blasted off, it was cut.  She needs to cauterize the wound.

Kaito acquiesces, relaxing his grip on the Hyuga’s wrist until finally letting go.  Still he remains fixed beside her, hoving over the boy as if he expected him to snap any minute.  Haru finally goes to make himself busy, taking out a scroll to seal the charred corpse so they can take it back to Konoha.  Sakura could not be more thankful when the malodorous fumes dilute in her lungs.

“Where is the body of the bandit?” Enra asks then.  “We should take it back with us too.”  Sakura wishes Enra would just shut up already, even though her questions are essential to protocol.  

“Exploded,” The Hyuga boy mumbles, a hitch in his breath. “And took Nohmi’s legs.”  He gasps a breath and the shaking gets a little worse.  Sakura pushes more chakra in.  She wants to run her fingers through his hair like when otousan did when she was scared, but she would just stain him with blood.

“Where was this encounter?” Enra asks.  Sakura chews her lip, glancing up at the boy only to find his eyes pasted to her work.  He doesn’t look like he heard Enra at all.

“Please put it back.  I was looking for a long time,” The Hyuga says, and he doesn’t even look at Sakura—just stares at his bloody stub like it’s not real.  “Just try.  Please.  It’s my right.”  He’s shaking so hard, Sakura has to hold his wrist to continue healing him.

“Let’s put off the questions right now,” Sakura decides.  She quickly bandages the wound.  “Just look around for it.  It’ll be hard to miss if there were explosives.”  Sakura pushes his shirt up to search for other wounds.  “He couldn’t have carried the bodies far either.”

“Fine,” Enra agrees, and she sounds neither annoyed nor pleased with the suggestion.  “I’m taking Kaito in case there’s an ambush.  Will you and Haru be okay?”

“Yes,” Sakura says, before she starts to fish in her medical bag for a vial.  “Just don’t take too long.  I’m worried about this one,” she nods her head towards the nin who had their legs blown off.  “He lost a lot of blood.  It’s a miracle he’s still alive.”

“Will fifteen minutes do?” Enra asks.

“That’s fine.”

Enra nods, then her and Kaito take off.  Sakura tries to engage the Hyuga, asking questions about his family and Konoha to ease his tension and keep him conscious.  She takes pains to be gentle when she touches him, and her heart aches when he responds with a despondent “Oh.” when she explains that she’s sorry but he won’t be getting his right hand back and he’ll just need to use his left from now on.  

Haru stays silent throughout, caught in a trance.  Sakura shoots him a question every now and then to gage his mental state.  He was looking at the body too intensely for her not to be worried.  She’s sure he knows what she’s doing too, because his responses are terse and laced with cynicism.  Still, they’re sweet relief in comparison to the crippling panic in the Hyuga’s eyes.

When they run back to Konoha, Sakura is the one to carry the nin with their legs missing.  The weight makes her slower than it should, but no one notices except for her.  She desperately tries to forget they’re carrying a corpse that has been blown to black.  

The Hyuga manages to stay conscious for it all, and he asks her to reattach his hand two more times before he finally realizes it’s gone for good.  

The retrieved nin are deposited in the hospital before Sakura’s team reports back to Shikamaru—Kakashi himself is stuck in a meeting.  Enra finishes explaining the details of how she gathered very little from the remnants of the battle.

“It was done with intention,” Enra says.  “The enemy wasn’t trying to kill our nin with her blast, she was trying to make sure she left no remains before she died.”  Sakura’s stomach curls in.  She should be used to this by now—a nin choosing death for a grander cause—but she’s not.  She can’t help but think of Enra’s word choice.  The enemy.  She thinks of Sai, of Danzo, of the rigorous brainwashing that was upheld Root.  But it doesn’t matter what fancy rhetoric they slap on, she knows; they’re all the same—pawns on the chessboard.

“I guess that means we can expect more to come,” Shikamaru surmises. “And the Hyuga is missing a hand.”  He sounds genuinely tired rather than apathetic like usual.

“I couldn’t reattach it,” Sakura explains, and her voice is soft in apology.  “It had been too badly burned.”

Shikamaru sighs, his hand coming to cradle his chin. His eyes slant off to the side, thoughtful.  “This isn’t good.  Hiashi will be upset.”

“At least he only lost a hand.  If he lost his legs or ended up dead like the other ones, the Hyugas would have Hokage-sama’s head on a platter,” Kaito says, and there’s a faint amusement in his tone that makes Sakura cringe.  

Haru’s discomfort is more audible than hers, a sound slipping out that he tries to cover with a rough cough.  When she looks over at him, she can see a steadfast guilt at the mention of his mutilated teammates.  It makes her heart expand in her chest in a painful way, like it’s been punctured on her own ribs.

“They’re both shinobi,” Sakura says, her head swiveling towards Kaito and Shikamaru in what is likely misplaced vehemence.  But she doesn’t care.  They need to know.  Everyone needs to know.  Her head is throbbing with upset.  “All of us are.  And all of us could be dismembered or die in the line of duty every time we walk out on a mission.”

“Yeah, but he’s a Hyuga,” Kaito responds, and there’s a look of disbelief in his features.  Something that she’s sure is meant to mock her intelligence.  “And a young one at that.”

“So?” Sakura challenges sternly, and she can feel her heart speed up.  “What are you implying?”  

There’s a flash of realization across his face.  “N-nothing,” Kaito sputters, and his expression contorts in such genuine alarm that Sakura instantly feels guilty for lashing out.  “I-I’m sorry, I just—”

“Really?  Aren’t you a sannin?” Haru asks, his tone so haughty and demeaning, her anger is pushing right back against her forehead.  “You can’t actually be this stupid.”

Sakura is snapping before she can think.  “You got something to say, asshole?”  She took pity on him for most of his outbursts, with his eyes perpetually wide with the gore of the day.  But now all she wants to do is grind his bones into the tower walls, consequences be damned.

“Yeah, I do,” Haru sneers right back, hot red in the face.  “A couple of things, actually.”

“Fuck off, Haru,” Kaito spits.  “You’ve been nothing but unhelpful this entire mission, all you’ve done is bitch and—”

“I’m still here,” Shikamaru says, looking every bit as unimpressed as he sounds. “Just thought I’d remind you.”  There’s an awkward, explosive pause as the three struggle to flatten their emotions for the sake of formality.   But they’ve been with singed bodies all day, they’ve found nothing concrete to the cause, and Shikamaru’s nonchalance is hardly motivating for anyone.

“I think you misunderstand, Haruno,” Enra says, so monotone it grates Sakura’s head.  She huffs, turns away from Haru to look at the towering kunoichi.  Her expression is empty and mute, and Sakura feels her anger wafting away in the face of it.  She doesn’t know what to feel when her gaze falls on that mask.  “Nin with kekkei genkai get priority,” Enra says flatly, like it’s a matter of fact—a rule of physics itself rather than the result of a flawed system.  

It almost pricks her, the way they’ve collectively misinterpreted her upset.  But Sakura is not articulating herself well and she knows it.  

And all she can think about is how she told Naruto that she’ll get better so she can speak to Sasuke.  Like she owes him that.  Their precious, beloved Sasuke.  Special.  Like Naruto.  And unlike her.

“Exactly,” Haru says.  Then he shoots her with a glare that’s paved in a new distress—envy.  Sakura is overcome with the horrible sensation that she’s looking at her reflection.  “You should count yourself lucky.  If you hadn’t been trained by Senju Tsunade, the greatest honor someone like you could ever achieve is dying by a shinobi with a kekkei genkai.”

Sakura averts her eyes, inhaling sharply as her mind spins with the revolutions of red soaked stars and the madness of a beautiful boy who lost everything.  She fights the urge to place her palm over her chest, the place he shot his hand through once upon a time.  She shouldn’t know what it’s like to die by chidori. But she does.

Ductus arteriosus.  Pulmonary artery.  Pulmonary vein.  Superior vena cava.  Crista dividens...

“Or dying to protect one,” Kaito’s voice smoothes through her head, determined and full of revere.  Sakura exhales as her mind puddles into the calm cerulean and glowing grin of a beautiful, knuckleheaded boy.  When she finally looks at Kaito, she finds his gaze delicately soft and distant too.  She wonders who put the sun in his sky.

Shikamaru crosses his arms and shakes his head.  “I don’t have time for this,” he sighs, bored.  “Go mope about being a nobody somewhere else.  And have a written report submitted by Thursday morning.”  He dismisses them with a turn of his heel.

“Sakura-chan, you have to see Sasuke,” Naruto says, guzzling down ramen at a nauseating pace.

Sakura turns her head to avoid the display, and tries to block out the wet sound of his slurps.  “Not this again, Naruto.”  She thinks she’s going to be sick.

“You don’t understand.  He was so drunk the other night.  And he—”

“Can we please talk about something else?”  Sakura asks, fingers tight around her glass of water.  She forces a breath, before swirling the liquid with tilts of her hand.  She hones in on the clang of ice against the glass, then takes a sip.  It’s pleasantly cold, and helps abate the queasiness, just enough for her to meet Naruto’s dramatic pout.

“Oh fine,” He says, begrudgingly, before proceeding to inhale his ramen like it’s the planet’s only cure for bad company.  

They had decided to check out a new ramen stand on the outskirts of the main village, right by the civilian area where Sakura’s parents used to live.  And this didn’t unsettle her as much as she thought it would, mostly because they’re dressed so casually.  The ramen isn’t as good as Ichiraku, but Naruto still ate six bowls.  Sakura has only eaten a quarter of her first before placing her focus solely on her water.  She’s sick of ramen.

“How’s Hinata?” Sakura asks, eager to steer the conversation away from the cause of her nightmares.  

Naruto takes the bait easy, his face lighting up in that way it always does when he thinks about her.   “Amazing, as always.”  He sighs sweetly with rose speckled eyes.  “She sings a lot more these days.  In the open too!  Not just when she thinks I’m not paying attention.”  Naruto’s gaze is whistful, and proud.  “Her voice is so beautiful, Sakura-chan.  She’s just so...I don’t know.”

This tender part of Naruto, soft and yearning, is not new concerning Hinata.  But it’s been amplified since the pregnancy.  Sakura can’t help but to think of how lucky they both are to exist as nothing but themselves in these moments.  It’s such a rare thing for shinobi.  “I can’t believe you’re going to be a father,” Sakura says.

“Me neither.”  His smile is gentle, a different kind of honest than the usual loudness of his grin.  “I still can’t believe I even have her.  And now a baby?  It’s crazy, it’s…”

“Everything you’ve always wanted,” Sakura finishes.  Putrid smells forgotten, Sakura is melting beneath his warmth.  

“Yeah,” he rasps.  Sakura is happy for him.  Endlessly.  Naruto deserves the world he saved.

“Have you thought about names yet?”  She asks then, her finger trailing along the seam of their wooden counter.  She suddenly remembers young girls asking each other that long ago, and she recalls herself thinking It doesn’t matter.  Sasuke-kun can pick.  Her nails leave white lines along the grain.

Naruto’s smile dampens too, although more with a wobbling uncertainty as he scratches the back of his neck bashfully.  “I mean, I have a couple but Hinata didn’t seem to like them.”

“Really?”  Sakura asks, intrigued for more reasons than one.  “Like what?”

“Well...okay, okay, hear me out on this…” Naruto says, clears his throat, and looks her dead in the eye with a twinkle in his.  “Ichiraku Uzumaki.”  Her anticipation splats flat on the ground.

Sakura rolls her eyes. “Of course you would.”

“Don’t give me that look! It’s a good idea!”

“Well, I guess you’d keeping the tradition of bland names centered around food,” Sakura mutters, unimpressed before taking a sip of her water, wondering how he could be so obsessed with ramen while she’s trying to avoid getting sick from the smell alone.

“Hey!”  Naruto scowls and folds his arms.  “You’re one to talk.  A pink haired girl named Sakura?”  He rolls his eyes, mockingly.  “Gee, wonder where your parents came up with that!”

Sakura’s eye twitches just slightly.  Yes, it was her father, known for his self indulgent humor, who had named her.  He thought it was brilliant and fitting, which is just so like him.  She doesn’t agree with the sentiment, but she loves her name anyway simply because he gave it to her.

Sakura fists her hand in the thick fabric of Naruto’s collar and violently pulls him close, lips twisting in a slightly humored but mostly maniacal smirk.  “I dare you to say that again, you little orange shit,” she whispers.  Naruto mock cowers on cue.

“Dickless!  Ugly!”

They snap their heads to the left to see Sai and Ino approaching the booth.  “Oh,” Naruto says, his smile larger than ever. “Hey you two!”

“Hey Forehead,” Ino takes a seat next to Sakura, unmoved by the scene she had stumbled upon.  She helps herself to Sakura’s barely touched ramen.  “How was the mission?”

“Fine,” Sakura spat reflexively, turning to face Ino after releasing Naruto.  She examines her friend, at once spotting several shopping bags she had dropped by her seat.  When Ino only quirks a brow, inquiring for more, Sakura takes a moment to contemplate her thoughts.  Horrible. Traumatizing.  “Suspicious,” she picks.    

“Suspicious?” Ino echoes, slurping the ramen into her mouth in a manner much more eloquent than Naruto could ever manage.  The sight must inspire the jinchuruuki though, because she hears him ordering another bowl.

“Yeah, it was ...strange,” Sakura says, pensive.  She thinks of the young Hyuga and tries to swallow the memory of his radiating panic with the cool of her water. “I was meaning to tell you about it,” her voice is somber.

“What happened?” Ino quirks an eyebrow and Sai sits next to her, setting down a few bags of his own.  He wraps his arm around her shoulder and Sakura watches as his fingers rub tentative.  At once, Ino turns her head to her boyfriend and her fingers come to wrap around his own.  Her voice is soft, and Sakura imagines her expression is even softer.  “Split a bowl with me?”

“Of course, Beautiful.” Sai returns her smile with a natural cadence, and Sakura is bewildered by the ease of it.  How far Sai has come.  She forgets he used to be as awkward and empty as Enra.  He orders a bowl of ramen for the two of them.

“Yeah, you didn’t tell me you had a mission,” Naruto chimes in, voice coarse with slight offense. “What happened?” Naruto asks, starting on his seventh bowl.

“We’re in public,” Sakura responds.  The four of them had long discarded any notion of secrecy concerning missions between each other.  Still, they keep discretion while in open areas.  It was dangerous to talk out in the open.

“There’s no other shinobi around for at least 20 feet,” Ino informs, her voice slightly hushed as she pulls apart a new pair of chopsticks.  “You can keep it broad.”

“Wait, how do you know?” Naruto quirks a brow, squinting at Ino in suspicion.

“She is a sensor, Dickless.” Sai supplies, and Sakura can almost hear the slight offense in the statement.  As if Ino’s prowess is an obvious adornment she wears for everythone to see.

“Oh.  Yeah.” Naruto grins then, ear to ear and blinding. “Sorry, it’s been awhile since I’ve been on a mission with you, Ino.”  He scratches the back of his neck bashfully. “I guess I forgot.”  Ino waves it off with her hand before urging Sakura to continue with an insistent look.

“It was a retrieval mission,” Sakura says, voice low.  “We rescued a squad that was nearly decimated by a single bandit.  And there was a nin with a kekkei genkai on that squad too.”

“Wait, a bandit?” Ino asks, maintaining her whisper.  Ino and Sai look at each other then.

“What is it?” Sakura asks, gut twisting.  She hates the idea of needing to revisit the scene.  Amputations are commonplace, but there is little medics can do when explosives are involved.  Nothing can be recovered that way.

“This job sounds awfully similar to our mission,” Ino says, then carefully takes a mouthful of ramen, chewing thoughtfully. “We had self proclaimed bandits, too. I mean, they were totally defected nin but they said bandits.”

“Our mission?” Naruto repeats, and Sakura is almost astounded he remembers to keep his voice down.

“Mine and Beautiful’s,” Sai clarifies, before reaching for Ino’s chopsticks.

“Wait, what!?” Naruto loses all discretion in a beat. “You two go on missions together!?”

“Keep your voice down.  We’re in the middle of a civilian market, you moron.” Sakura crosses her arms, shooting an discomforted glare at her blonde-headed teammate.

“Yeah, and?” Ino says, eyeing Naruto before sliding carefully woven noodles into her mouth.

“What the hell!” Naruto growls, ignoring Sakura’s pleas.  “Kaka-sensei never puts me on the same squad as Hinata!  And I actually ask too!”

“Naruto, you idiot, shut your trap,” Sakura reprimands, shrinking into herself as she spots a few heads turning in their direction.  She wishes she could wash out the pink of her hair.  It’s bright and revolting and everyone will know it instantly.

“Perhaps it’s because you are unprofessional,” Sai says with so much certainty that Sakura would have laughed if she wasn’t busy being mortified by the stares.  She doesn’t know if they think of her as Kizashi's girl or Mebuki's.  And she can't tell which is worse.

“What!?  Unprofessional my ass!  I’m the best shinobi there is!”  Naruto proclaims loudly, zealous as ever.  Sakura’s skin crawls with something heated, and it grows exponentially with every turn of someone’s head.  She feels their eyes sizing them up and down, and notes the looks of disapproval, fear, anger.  They’re talking about the war.  About fucked up shinobi that kill before they protect.  “I’m Naruto Uzu—”

Sakura smacks Naruto’s bowl of ramen in his face and she almost wishes the porcelain cracked on it too.  “Will you shut up?!”  She hisses, shifting uncomfortably.  She hears Ino choke on her ramen from the side, before she starts to giggle.  Sakura whispers again, unrelenting.  “Sensei just probably knows you’d sloppily compromise a mission or other teammates if it came to Hinata or something,” She huffs, watching the bowl slide off his face with a clang while wet noodles slip off his dumbfounded expression.  “Sai’s right, you are unprofessional.”

Naruto licks the side of his chin, slurping a loose noodle into his mouth before wiping broth off with his sleeve.  “Oh please!” He growls. “Like Sai and Ino wouldn’t do that for each other too.”  He pouts, before accusingly pointing his finger at Sakura.  “And you owe me another bowl of ramen!”  Sakura scoffs.

“We would,” Sai agrees with a nod. “But we have more…” He searches for the words with a single finger to his chin, and Sakura almost needs to hold back a smile because she knows he picked up that mannerism from Ino. “...discretion about the matter.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Ino agrees with a haughty smirk. “Kind of helps to not be an overly passionate blockhead that blurts everything that comes to mind sometimes.”

Naruto whines.  “Aw, c’mon!  I’m not that bad.”

“Beautiful,” Sai calls to get Ino’s attention, holding the last clump of ramen in their bowl between chopsticks.  He leans the piece forward towards her lips.

“I mean, just look at that!” Naruto exclaims, his hand gesturing out as Sai feeds his girlfriend.

Sakura sighs, tries to force the tension of nearby people away. They probably don’t even remember, she reasons.  No one ever does.    

“Just leave it alone, Naruto.”  She turns her head to face the man she’s come to look upon as her brother.  Adopted, of course—different parents.  “She’s pregnant anyway, it’s not like she’s even able to go with you right now.”

Naruto grumbles under his breath, arms crossed in defiance.  “Yeah, whatever.”

“Well, now that we have the whole market staring at us, and Naruto is thoroughly coated in ramen, how about we head to the training grounds?” Ino asks with a smile.  “I want to hear more about your job, Sakura.  You two are free, right?”

“I’ll take a raincheck,” Sakura says before she finishes her glass of water with two last gulps.  “I have a shift coming up in thirty minutes.”  And she needs to get the hell out of this district.

“Damn.” Ino snaps her fingers. “Forgot you’re on nights this week.”

They pay for their meals, Sakura taking it upon herself to pay for one of Naruto’s seven bowls of ramen.  Naruto thanks her with a wide grin.

“I’ll see you two around.  We’ll figure out plans soon, I want to finish that conversation.”  Sakura promises with a nod of her head to Ino and Sai.

“And me too!” Naruto says with a sunny, boyish smile.  Sakura takes a short pause to admire how he managed to maintain that youthful expression despite how they’ve all aged.

“And you too.” She smiles.

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[33] Glitch in the System - Policy of Truth (Venganza pt. 4)

Sorry we’re a bit late. Hopefully it will be worth it!

In case you missed it, here is Part One, Part Two, and Part Three!

Reconciliation happens. _

“Amélie.”

Through the unfathomable depths of sleep, a voice called a dust shrouded name. It echoed across vast, empty space, its origin leagues above and away until it reached her: a whisper, drifting past on a slow-moving current. Though the tone and timbre were familiar to her, they were only so with the transient familiarity of childhood memories: there, then gone, then presumed forever passed both in time and relevancy.

“Amélie.”

She struggled to place with any certainty the provenance of this one-word demand for rejoinder. It was not warm. It was not ragged. It was not firm. Of the voices most familiar to her, this was not among them; yet, she felt it like a lash all the same, dragging her from the sprawling black into a light she didn’t notice until it was suddenly, blindingly there.

“There you are.”

Widowmaker, thrust violently back into consciousness, blinked hard against the light. At first, that’s all there was: searing, artificial fluorescence that felt to her torpor-addled eye on par with the sun itself. With the passage of seconds, shadows, then shapes crept into existence, their edges ephemeral though their subjects were inarguably real.

Then, no more than a minute later, there was pain.

Universal, consuming pain snarled white-hot fire with every breath and beat of her heart, so furious at its own existence she thought, for a moment, she could discern with horrifying acuity the presence and location of every nerve she possessed. The initial onslaught gave way to awareness of a few exceptionally tender areas: waist, side, and shoulder, where honed agony coursed mercilessly across nerves frayed by, assumedly, hours of much the same. Through the fog of dawning consciousness, she recalled - albeit vaguely - a dry elaboration on that prolonged sort of suffering:

“Colloquially, we refer to this as ‘quantitative pain’: frequent and durative exposure to deleterious physical stimuli lasting minutes, hours, days, and so on.”

It was such a casual definition, delivered with practiced, clipped eloquence so far removed from the topic question it may as well have been a poetic recitation of Shakespeare.

And then it - recognition - hit her, hard and mercilessly with the first wave of nausea. Which, specifically, left her retching into the stainless steel kidney dish held before her remained poignantly ambiguous.

“Are you very well done?” that same voice asked, suffused with indifference, if not inconvenience. Fighting against the pall of sleep threatening just beyond the edge of her vision, Widowmaker dug into what little reserve of will she possessed to take in her surroundings: empty cots; many-armed surgical assistance bots; glass front cabinets and shelves well-stocked with a remarkable gamut of implements; Moira.

There was the nausea again.

Moira O’Deorain loomed at her side, a brutalistic composition of angles and shadow supporting the tray in one gloved hand. Widowmaker forced herself to meet the geneticist’s mismatched eyes and found, predictably, the sort of expectant impatience more frequently reserved for misbehaving or unruly children.

“Well?” Moira asked, single eyebrow raised as if to underscore how terribly bothersome she found the situation.

“Oui,” the sniper managed, voice barely touching a whisper. For a word that required so little, Widowmaker found the effort to produce it nigh gargantuan. Even the smallest movement of her jaw provoked a fresh jolt of pain that started somewhere along the right side of her skull and radiated outward. That, in turn, resulted in a reactive wince that only started the entire cycle of discomfort anew. Closing her eyes, the sniper took a leveling breath - also excruciating - and focused her attention on simply staying awake. This was, essentially, an intake evaluation, and nearly a decade in Talon’s employ taught her that cooperation now meant Moira could do her job, ensure a speedy recovery, and depart. The faster the sniper shouldered through this grisly reawakening, the faster she’d be on her feet — and the sooner Moira would be gone.

“Delightful,” the other woman murmured as she dropped the half-full dish into a nearby wastebin, its brief but useful life concluded with a weighted thud. Moira removed herself from the sniper’s bedside, repairing to the broad island at the center of the room. In addition to the consoles which allowed one to manually control the assorted bots positioned about the room as needed, its surface was covered by a neatly arranged grid of printouts, x-ray negatives, and charts. “Now, then,” she continued, plucking one of the documents from the table and slipping it beneath the clasp of a clipboard, “on a scale of one to ten, how is your pain?”

Widowmaker stared, torn between compliance and the ache caused by the mere thought of response.

“Amélie,” the doctor intoned expectantly.

“Huit,” she hissed, forcing the syllable between her teeth with as little extraneous movement as possible.

“English, please.”

Again, she gawked at the other woman’s effortless detachment; this time, Moira glanced over the edge of the clipboard and met her gaze.

“Eight,” she grimaced.

Plucking a pen from the breast pocket of her lab coat, Moira popped the cap off with her thumb and took a few, quick notes. “Speech causes discomfort,” she noted, less a question than a statement of observable fact. “Unsurprising.”

As the other woman continued with her notation, Widowmaker peered downward and noticed, for the first time, the sling secured about her right arm and the intravenous port lodged expertly in the back of her opposite hand.

“Dislocation,” Moira said, her voice pulling the sniper’s attention back to herself. “Shall I go on? Just blink if yes.”

Widowmaker complied.

“Dislocation of the right shoulder,” the geneticist reiterated, stepping away from the island toward one of the cabinets lining the med bay’s far wall. As she continued, she set about procuring a handful of objects which she set gently on a rolling instrument stand. “Ribs three through five broken on right side. Perforation of the abdomen, right side. Nifty little fact—,” she paused, scooting the tray over to the sniper’s cot, “once a knife passes the abdominal wall, it rarely moves fast enough to penetrate the bowels. Lucky you.”

Lucky, Widowmaker thought with a note of bitter amusement, was about the last thing she felt.

Plucking a pre-measured vial and syringe from the stand, Moira pressed the needlepoint past the vial’s opening and recounted the sniper’s injuries as if they were items on an otherwise mundane shopping list: “Extensive fracturing of the skull, right side. Significant blood loss - remarkable, really, given modified heart rate and blood pressure. Grade three concussion. Which reminds me—,”

Widowmaker braced herself for the inevitable.

“—where do you live?”

Inhaling slowly, the assassin steeled herself against the portentous burn of muscle and bone preceding her reply.

“Presently: Venice.”

“What is your name?”

“Widowmaker.”

Moira’s silence succeeding her reply was cold enough even for her to feel.

“What is your name?” Moira repeated, emphasizing each word independently. Widowmaker met and held the withering, imperious glance offered her for a long minute as nausea welled in the pit of her stomach, bleeding into a pain all its own. At last, she relented, averting her eyes.

“Amélie Lacroix,” she said, spitting the name like bile.

“Perfect,” the doctor nodded. Tapping the side of the syringe to ensure the absence of any stray bubbles, she leaned over the injured sniper and slid the needle into her temporary IV port, depressing the plunger with measured force. “We’ve most of the extensive work out of the way already. An intensive regimen of nanomachines, rest, and physical therapy and you’ll be operational in a few weeks. Now, count backwards from one hundred and we’ll get started.”

Somehow more exhausted then before, Widowmaker merely closed her eyes and obeyed.

Consciousness treated her somewhat more gently the second time around, creeping across anesthetic-fulled synapses with the heavy silence of a winter storm. The pain, too, was noticeably subdued - by all meant present, but denied a pivotal ounce of acerbity by whatever monumental cocktail of palliative medicine Moira supplied her. What fire still burned - and there was still quite a lot of it - did so beneath a thick swathe of ash, smoldering persistently while it awaited the inevitable come-down.

Though this was better, it was by no means “good”. Widowmaker understood the fragility of the human form well enough to accept there was no simply walking away from the extensive damage she had incurred. Even with all the nanotechnology and sedatives at Talon’s disposal - even with Moira - bones needed time to mend, muscles needed time to knit, and bodies, to her chagrin, held onto trauma with impressive vehemence.

It was going to be a long few weeks.

The med bay was empty now, though evidence of Moira’s sudden and unwelcome apparition remained: a few cardboard boxes tucked against the side of the room’s center island; her coat flung haphazardly over an otherwise unoccupied cot; a collection of folios and scholarly periodicals stacked atop an unmarked industrial steel crate. Most conspicuously, Widowmaker noted with with quiet alarm the absence of the handful of medical personnel Talon kept on retainer. The implications of their absence were disquieting at best.

“—not going in there, Sombra. That’s an order.”

“I just want to see her.”

“You’re the reason she’s in there. ‘Fist says you’re not going anywhere near her until you’ve debriefed.”

Conversation from the hallway beyond the bay filtered through the double doors. Widowmaker canted her head in its direction, constraining the movement to little more than a slight tilt to subvert the threatening ache along the back of her head and neck.

“Please, Gabe,” Sombra begged. Beyond the doors, she and Gabriel argued, voices ineffectually and erratically hushed as their independent attempts at assertion caused them to raise, then lower their voices in turn.

“Listen to me,” Reaper said, a hint of focused compassion softening his tone just so. “You don’t want to see her; not right now. It’ll only make whatever you feel worse. I promise.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Believe me, I do.”

Frowning, Widowmaker averted her gaze as a ghost of a memory came clawing back from the depths of her mind. Though time ensured the loss of detail, she recalled another act of incidental eavesdropping nearly a decade old, conducted similarly from the surface of a med bay cot. Then, she listened in a mix of confusion and curiosity as Moira proclaimed gleefully the success of the first phase of her “experiment” while Akande listened, peppering her with questions in trademark stolidity. That encounter predated the self-awareness that would ultimately allow her to draw the correlation between states of physical agitation and the specter of emotion - in that case, anger; this time, she understood the elevated thrum of her own pulse as irritation. She was right there and so palpably, existentially tired; moreover, Sombra and Gabriel’s conversation not only reignited the initial suspicion she’d harbored regarding their mission, but lent that suspicion a substantial amount of agonizing, undeniable credence.

It felt like a punch in the gut and, frankly, her gut had seen more than enough. As that irritation coalesced into the burdensome, leaden weight she attributed to sadness, Widowmaker simply settled back against the unyielding cot beneath her, swallowed the whine borne of the meeting of rigid surface and tender injury, and let her gaze drift aimlessly across the unremarkable surface of the ceiling above. Either this unwelcome moment would end or sleep would claim her anew; either was infinitely preferable to the present.

“You’re really going to stop me? You want to fucking try?”

Somewhere down the hall, the grating croak of metal on metal proclaimed the opening of a door.

“This is all very riveting,” Moira interjected, the tail end of her words trailing off into a yawn. “But you’ve been here twenty minutes and I do enjoy sleep on occasion. Could you please take your nattering anywhere else?”

A long, loud silence followed, stretching on for what felt like a year.

“Just… tomorrow. Okay?” Gabriel said at last, his tone somewhere between exasperated and plaintive. “Talk to Akande and you can see her tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Sombra grunted.

As the sound of light footsteps carried the hacker away, Widowmaker cast a sideways glance to the door, equally relieved and surprised Sombra didn’t further push her luck. While Moira provided Gabriel a brief update as to the implementation of regenerative nannites to expedite healing, Widowmaker felt that same shadow of déjà vu come worming back and, with it, the desperate wish she could be anywhere else.

“I might be so bold as to suggest now would be an optimal time for any necessary or supplemental recalibration,” the geneticist added. Widowmaker, unthinking, snapped to attention and ran headlong into a wall of wrenching discomfort so instantaneous and harsh she couldn’t even conceive of stifling the yelp that flew past her lips. With its dissolution, so, too, did the conversation in the hallway beyond peter to still nothingness.

“You know, maybe that isn’t one of your finer ideas,” Gabriel replied, heaping snide emphasis on “finer” in a way that made the convalescing assassin grateful for his beautifully unflinching capability to inform others of what he perceived as idiocy.

Moira’s retaliatory quiet spoke volumes to her displeasure. “Later, then,” she sniffed. As the shutting of her door echoed along the corridor, only Gabriel’s palpable disdain remained.

Though she couldn’t see him, Widowmaker could picture perfectly his expression: feigned indifference betrayed by the faintest upward curl of his lip, eyes narrowed on the doctor’s door as she disengaged with all the consideration regularly afforded an ant. She recalled that look so well, remembered the first time she saw it and recognized in Gabriel the same, seething dislike of Moira she harbored. She and Gabriel were things to her: “investments” and “experiments” that, while valuable on paper or display, were always precariously at risk of obsolescence.

Gabriel sighed, loud and heavy and sounding as tired as she felt. Despite the pang of dejection it caused her, Widowmaker wished, briefly, that Sombra were there lobbing witty rejoinders at Moira’s back. Shelving that desire for some future slight she knew would inevitably come, she returned her attention to the ceiling, idly tracing its contours until sleep graced her with its blissfully uneventful presence.

Tomorrow, as fate would have it, did not include a visit from Sombra; nor did the next day.

Widowmaker thought little of it: if it wasn’t Gabriel disallowing her visitation, it was Akande. If it wasn’t Akande, the sniper hardly found it unfair to assume of Moira some insistence her investment be left alone.

Truthfully, she didn’t mind. Those first few days confined to the med bay were far from her best. Though she was by no means a stranger to the heavy toll Talon’s line of work exacted on a body, Widowmaker was frankly astounded at the extent of her injuries and the resultant pain they caused her. Her frustration was compounded by the innate restlessness which governed her existence, now amplified by the frequent bouts of inactivity required of recovery. The result was a compound mixture of persistent discomfort and irritation that only fed the perpetual motion device of her anxiety. Everything hurt, and every day that passed amounted to another week of training to reattain the standard of conditioning she maintained for herself. Every second, every minute constituted the erosion of some degree of skill or finesse; that belief, like everything else, left her hopelessly cagey and acutely aware of the slowness with which her body seemed to respond to and incorporate the nanites implemented to facilitate rapid healing.

By all means, they were working. They just weren’t working fast enough.

On the fourth day, Moira begrudgingly cleared her for release from both the med bay and direct supervision, with the caveat she remain in bed the rest of the week.

“Small breaks here and there,” she explained, shouldering the bulk of the assassin’s weight as she guided her to her room with a tangible air of inconvenience. “Stretches, short walks; nothing more. If I so much as see you thinking about thinking of more, I will personally break your legs to ensure the rest of you mends.”

“That is very reassuring,” Widowmaker replied sarcastically, wincing at the dull ache bookending the statement.

Between the return to her own space, the assumption of increased autonomy, and the not insubstantial regimen of pain suppressants, she found herself capable of focusing on subjects beyond her own body for the first time in days. Unfortunately, that meant she inevitably returned to the mission itself and, consequentially, Sombra.

While restricted to the med bay and Moira’s constant attention, Widowmaker had neither the time, space, or bandwidth for any substantive consideration of what had happened; between the pain, the barrage of exams, and the imperative for rest, her thoughts were, while not exactly occupied, precluded. Now, with her wits at least somewhat about her and a sudden excess of free time, she met head-on a snowballing jumble of guilt, frustration, confusion, and hurt with which she was entirely unfamiliar: something deep, profound, and aching. With that came the questions: what, exactly happened? What went wrong? Why?

Combing through her memories for the first time in days, she pieced their mission back together bit by bit until there was only negative space left to fill - the skeleton of an event, devoid of the meat and flesh that gave it shape. What she could remember, she did with vivid detail: Sombra, leading them in an unremarkable infiltration; Sombra, leaving them behind; Sombra, surrounded by armed men; Sombra, suddenly there but so excruciatingly late. Every attempt at filling the gaps begat the same questions in the same sequence, the absence of any answers only serving as fuel for her frustration. Exhausted by the cyclicality of her own thoughts, Widowmaker sought distraction and found it in the small stack of books resting on her bedside table, topped with a hand-written note from Akande that simply read, “Take it easy. That’s an order.”

With the shadow of a smile, she tucked into the topmost paperback - an ancient-looking copy of Flaubert’s Salammbô - shouldering through her disquiet with pointed intentionality.

Hours passed, mostly uninterrupted save for the sporadic catnap, until the tinny grinding latches and plates made apparent the slow turn of the doorknob.

Glancing over the top of her book, Widowmaker met Sombra’s eye with catlike disinterest.

“Hey,” the hacker greeted her, gaze faltering. “How’re you doing?”

Closing Flaubert over one finger, Widowmaker scooted back against the headboard with deliberate gentility, righting herself against the headboard. The carefully-stitched incision along the line of her stomach screeched its dissatisfaction in a rolling wave of pain, gone as quickly as it appeared. “I am not dead,” she replied shakily, resisting the urge to shrug still-sore shoulders. “It is a plus.”

She watched Sombra, normally so self-assured, lingering behind the just-cracked door with all the cowed hesitancy of a child fully aware of their own misbehavior. That hesitant aversion - to her and to the uncomfortable situation before them - was so deeply contrary to the Sombra she knew that she almost invited her in out of pity alone. Pity, however, did not inform her invitation or the wave of the unbound hand signaled it; instead, it was that same, unfamiliar sorrow she struggled to identify and the want to see it addressed.

Closing the door behind her, Sombra crossed the room in a few, timid steps, scooting the sniper’s desk chair ahead of herself and positioning it adjacent the bed. Sitting heavily, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and immediately blurted out the most graceless, albeit perceptibly sincere “I’m sorry” Widowmaker had ever heard her supply.

Taking a leveling breath, she dogeared her page and set the book on the mattress beside her, smoothing thin fingertips over the surface of her duvet as she considered her response. Widowmaker studied the woman before her, still in bedclothes despite their being well into the afternoon. Clothing aside, Sombra looked as if she hadn’t slept in days - and if she had, it certainly wasn’t restorative. One look was all that was required to see that Sombra had done her share of suffering, and even Widowmaker wasn’t cruel enough to add to it.

“I accept your apology,” she said at last. “Whatever you did, I do not think this was the outcome you intended.”

“It isn’t,” Sombra replied.

“What was your intent?”

Hanging her head, the hacker sighed, inhaled slowly, then sat back in her chair. “I arranged a meeting with Matin. I’d been fucking with them since the first mission we blew, and offered to stop in exchange for the virus they dropped on me. They finally said yes, but I didn’t trust them not to fuck me over. There’s only one of me; I needed backup. So I sold it to everyone like a takedown and left out the rest. I wanted that virus, spider. Bad.”

The truth felt like a slap in the face, raw and sharp.

“You lied,” Widowmaker said matter-of-factly. There was that peculiar mess of unnameable affectivity, buoyed by the sudden understanding of what went wrong. Finally, she could attach a name to it: betrayal.

“I lied.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, the sniper closed her eyes as the sting of Sombra’s admission washed over her. “We would have helped you. I would have helped you.”

Sombra looked askance of her, violet eyes settling anywhere but on her.

Widowmaker frowned. “I understand. You lie. I expect there will always be secrets. But on assignment, Sombra? Do you not trust me? Have I misinterpreted… this?” She accompanied the question with a wave of her free hand between them.

“I trust you,” the spy muttered.

“Do you?”

As she pulled her knees into her chest, Sombra offered a single, plaintive nod. “I do. I just— I’m used to working alone, playing everything close to the chest. I have to do it that way; I can’t not do it that way. It’s how you stay alive, doing what I do; it’s how I stay alive.”

“I do not care if you lie to me every single day for the rest of my life as long as it causes no unnecessary danger,” the sniper explained. “This was incredibly unnecessary.”

Again, Sombra nodded her affirmation, this time lifting her gaze to meet the other woman’s. “I’m sorry I’m such a shit.”

Widowmaker pursed her lips, her expression softening incrementally. “You did a shitty thing. It is not what you are.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

“Look,” the sniper said, extending her hand to Sombra. She accepted it with some hesitation, eyeing the gesture with due suspicion before lacing her fingers through her own. “No amount of making you feel bad fixes this. You fix it by not doing it again.”

Though the hurt lingered - and Widowmaker suspected it would for some time - the clear sincerity of Sombra’s apology and the emotion informing it allowed the sniper a modicum of quiet, internal reconciliation. She couldn’t say she felt better, or that the situation was improved by any observable metric, but this was a start: a place from which to move forward and a foundation upon which she could allow Sombra to rebuild her trust. Nothing was ideal, but, then again, few things ever were for spies and assassins.

“I’ll do my best,” Sombra agreed.

“That is good enough.”

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

[namariea]

Hello, Neighbor | V

Since moving in you have compiled a comprehensive list on your mysterious neighbor across the way.

Do Kyungsoo, otherwise known as Asian Bobby Flay and apparently Bruno Mars’ protégé.

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader

Words: 3.4 k

Genre: Fluff

Previous: I II III IV

The coffee shop by the apartment was bustling with life, the endless stream of customers eager to get their caffeine fix.

An easy jazz tune filled the gaps between the chatter in the room but tucked away in the back corner, no amount of smooth saxophone could ease the tenseness in your body. You hung your head in your hands over the table, silently having an existential crisis as the figure across from you hummed in contemplation.

“So let me get this straight….and feel free to stop me if I go astray” Seulgi started, her voice slightly wistful, paying almost no mind to your despair.

You grunted.

“For the past month that you have been living in your apartment, you have been having sporadic encounters with the guy living across from you”

Grunt.

“During that time, you thought nothing of those moments except for about two weeks ago when you apparently saw him looking … how was it you described it…. Ah, like Korean Adonis”

Your head slipped lower in your hands.

Grunt. “And since said moment, rather than simply asking the boy why he was dressed like some incubus you decided the logical path to take would be to just never look at him again. By keeping your curtains closed for the past two weeks in an attempt at avoiding him…”

…

“Are you an idiot?”

Slipping from your grasp, you let your forehead crash into the table with an audible thud. People around turned and glanced quizzically in your direction, but you paid them no mind, starting a rhythmic smashing of your face against the surface. You heard Seulgi give a forced, polite laugh and quietly apologize to the fellow patrons saying something along the lines of quarter life crisis, nothing to see here, terribly sorry. Groaning, you gave your forehead a couple more good thumps before looking up. You were immediately met with a blank face, but you knew she was secretly reveling in your pain.

You are surrounded by sadists.

“I really do not see what’s the problem here, from how you’re reacting he must have gone from 0 to 10 real quick”

You grumbled from your splayed position on the table

“That’s not true….”

“He was at least a 7 before that”

Seulgi gave you a dull look

“…8.6 at the most.”

Letting out a bored sigh and picking at the remnants of what was a blueberry muffin, she deliberated “So you have always had a hot neighbor, woo, good for you, but just because seeing him in something other than baggy workout clothes suddenly got you all hot and bothered-”

“Oi, I was not hot and bothered-”

“-as I was saying” she gave you a pointed look, not appreciating your interruption “now would be the prime time to be looking, no? Icarus loved the warmth of sun so what did he do? Boy got himself some wings to see it closer.”

“Leading him to fly too close, thus melting his wings and falling to his death.” you deadpanned.

She waved a dismissive hand, “Pah, that’s just the Grimm brother’s version"

“Seulgi, the Grimm brothers didn’t even- look” you sighed, finally sitting yourself up from the table.

“You’re right, I probably shouldn’t have avoided him for so long, but what else was I supposed to do? He looked so…” you trailed, hand waving in the air in search of a fitting word, not having to wait long as your impatient comrade offered after a beat,

“-bangin?”

“Wow. It is truly a wonder why you never took the literary route when we were in art school”

Seulgi scoffed, taking a sip from her coffee “I had the option of being active and dancing to my heart’s content or sitting on my butt all day taking notes about some dead guys poems, it was a no question”

“Regardless” she continued, “the reality of the matter is that you now know you have the hots for your beta-turned-alpha neighbor and you’re going to have to face him eventually, lest you move again”

She almost smacked you from across the table as you gave a thoughtful look. Looking at her watch she reached for her bag and began to stand, you reluctantly following suit, realizing your break was over and it was time to head back to the office.

“Don’t be such a coward. He’s just a guy, he won’t even be in the same room as you when you talk for crying out loud, not unless he decides to break through two panes of glass, leap 10 feet over and land in your apartment. Though seeing your behavior, I wouldn’t be surprised if he resorted to that”

“And just what exactly am I supposed to say if he asks where I’ve been?” You shook your head as you felt the start of a headache beginning behind your eyes.

If he even noticed my absence that is

“Well that’s your fault it dragged on this long, isn’t it” She replied flippantly, the both of you exited the shop and started walking towards the subway.

“But if you want my opinion, I’d highly suggest not revealing how you have hiding because you cant control your impure thoughts around him-”

“For God’s sake, I told you it’s not even like that -”

“Ohhhh” An arm came out in front of you to bring you to a halt on the sidewalk. Turning to you slowly, you saw the beginnings of a smile take form on your friends face.

A very scary smile. One that only appeared when she was about to suggest something really dumb.

You were getting bad ju-ju vibes.

“I know exactly what you should say, say that you had …company…over and didn’t want to be disturbed”

You blinked. Once. Twice.

Then you hit her over the head.

“He has never shown any interest in me, what am I supposed to gain from that?”

Not deterred from your violence, if anything her eyes lit up with mischief, she pressed on “nono, it’s great, it’s like in those dramas, you throw down the boyfriend card and he is suddenly drawn to you because your unobtainable” she actually let out a cackle.

“I’m saying this because you are my friend and I care about your well being,” you almost let out an appreciative awww, but alas, tender moments were never in your cards.

“But if I find out you haven’t emerged from your hermit hole by Wednesday, I’ll come over and get his attention myself” You began to protest but she wasn’t hearing any of it “whether or not you listen to my advice is up to you, but so help me if I don’t get some juicy update by Wednesday I’ll take matters into my own hands”

Sadists, I say

You were walking past the living room one day when you heard a sharp yowl from the window.

Pausing on your way to the kitchen, you cast a tentative glance towards the cat perched on the windowsill, figure hidden by the curtain. You listened carefully, thinking that maybe she got her claws tangled in the fabric of the curtain again. The first time that had happened you calmly approached her with the full intention of relieving her from her cloth prison, as any caring owner would do. However, it would appear the frightened lump of fur was so lost in her terror, clearly thinking that this was the end, that she mistook your hand for that of the curtain God’s there to take her away. She then proceeded to bite and scratch anything she could get her stubby hands on.

Two and a half hours in an emergency waiting room later, you were being stabbed by multiple needles and given three beautiful stitches on your right hand. The freeloader didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed when you got back.

Since then you have always made sure she was fully aware of your presence before doing anything to help, for both her safety and yours. But secretly you were also still bitter about the first incident that you wanted to watch her struggle and realize her folly.

That’ll show her that the one with the opposable thumbs is the boss around here.

Another yowl came from behind the curtain and you made your way over, rolling up your sleeves in preparation.

“Missed me that much huh?”

You stopped mid-step, hand halting in pushing up your sleeve. The smooth baritone carried to your ears and you couldn’t stop the nervous stutter your heart gave in response. You were not ready for this confrontation, it wasn’t even Wednesday yet. Your palms began to sweat, not knowing how to proceed, however the voice was oblivious to your presence, and carried on.

“Looks like it’s just you and me again, Miss Mimi. Are you sure your owner hasn’t left you for some other stray?”

Meow.

There was an easy laugh in response, “Well hopefully despite wherever she has run off to she has you looked after, I wouldn’t want to have to pull some mission impossible stunt and save you”

Your eyes widened in horror as Seulgi’s words from the other day echoed in your mind. There was absolutely no way he was serious, you knew this, but just the thought of him being in your apartment set your mind into a frenzy.

You heard a phone ringing in the distance, “Ah, I’ll have to cut this short today, Mi. Say Hi for me the next time you see her, ok?”

Meow.

The silence that followed indicated that he had indeed left his spot at the window and you let out a shuttering breath. A million thoughts were swirling in your mind, so he did wonder where you’ve been. Granted, he said it because he wanted to know Mimi wasn’t going to starve, but it was still indirectly about you nonetheless. He also said he had to cut it short today, just how often does this man sit there talking to your cat? You try to think, but you were positive you’ve never heard him before today.

The nudge to your leg had you looking down, staring into bright cerulean eyes.

“You’re either the best or worst wingman ever”

She purred in response.

Eyes cracked open tiredly, blearily staring at the ceiling you blinked until your vision cleared.

Noting the lack of sunlight, you rolled over and pressed the home button on your phone, the harsh light making you squint in annoyance.

5:33 AM glared back at you and a groan highly resembling a beached whale emitted from your throat. Knowing there was no way the remaining hour before your alarm went off will be spent sleeping, you begrudgingly rolled out of bed.

Today was Wednesday. The thought came to you as you stirred creamer into your coffee, throwing a wary eye towards the closed curtains in your living room. Oh, how easy it would be to just keep them closed for all eternity… it wasn’t like you were some houseplant that needed sunlight for photosynthesis anyways. But you knew deep down that you would have to face the inevitable, because even though you loathed awkward situations with a burning passion, you feared the wrath of the brunette waiting for a reply today much more.

Best not tempt the fates today.

Cautiously you approached the curtains, suddenly feeling a strong sense of trepidation.

Oh square up you pathetic f-

You pulled back one of the white curtains with gusto, coffee in hand and eyes shut in anticipation. Cracking an eye open, you almost let out a victorious laugh, as you were met with dark curtains blocking your view from the apartment across.

Well…that wasn’t half bad.

You took this time to take in the view you had for the first time in two weeks. It really makes the room look a lot nicer, you mused, glancing back and watching the rising sun trickle in and brighten the living room. You almost felt foolish for your behavior, it was your house for Pete’s sake, you shouldn’t be letting one encounter prevent you from living your life as you wished.

Berating yourself, remembering your inner dilemma weeks ago that you knew nothing of the dark-haired male that lived in the other apartment. You owed each other nothing and if you didn’t want to interact with the man all you had to do was not talk to him, it wasn’t like the conversation was mandatory every time you saw him, you weren’t friends.

But you want to have those conversations, don’t you? Wouldn’t mind getting all buddy-buddy with Mr. Mysterious.

Your left eye twitched in annoyance as your heart and mind continued to have heated debate over what if’s. Once your coffee had gone cold and barely half finished, you were no closer to coming to a decision on how you were going to interact with your neighbor whenever you saw him again. Making the decision to get ready for work earlier than usual, you did so for no other reason than not wishing to be in this apartment any longer.

Picking up the keys off of the coffee table, as you made your way towards the door an hour ahead of schedule you missed the site of a familiar pair dark curtains pulled back.

Once you returned to your apartment the sun had almost set in the sky.

Not only had you arrived earlier to work that day, you had unconsciously stayed later than usual as well.

You thought nothing about it until Seulgi found you in your office, typing away at your computer.

She all but forced you out of the building, raging to herself about I don’t care if it’s not politically correct in 2017, but you need to grow a pair and man up, woman.

In all honestly it was not your intention to stay late, you were so caught up in your work that you simply lost track of time.

It was not until Seulgi found you that you realized what may or may not be waiting for you when you arrived home.

Having left your curtains pulled back, it was highly likely that you would encounter the other when you got back, and you still hadn’t figured out what you were going to say to him.

Deciding to wing it as you approached your door, as you unlocked it and stepped into the hallway you took a long, meditative breath.

Here goes nothing.

You started by walking to the light switches in your hallway and in one fluid motion, your living room was illuminated.

If you were going to do this, you weren’t going to do it as a coward.

You had, as a wise woman once said, grown a pair and manned up.

Not entering the lit-up room just yet, you instead walked back to the bedroom and changed out of your work clothes, wishing for nothing more than to get out of the business casual attire you were confined in all day.

Slipping on a baseball tee and some shorts you took your laptop out of your bag and padded towards the kitchen.

Since the kitchen and living room were situated in an open concept you had no choice but to eventually face the kitchen, however you busied yourself with dinner first, as your stomach was making itself known.

Whipping up a quick meal that you found on your laptop, you hummed as you worked, mindlessly bopping to the music that you had playing in the background.

Once you finished cooking you walked to the cabinet and refilled Mimi’s bowl before taking your culinary creation to the small dining table.

While watching an episode of your favourite drama you finished off your dinner and did the dishes. Returning back to the table to retrieve your laptop, you had intended to finish the remainder of the episode.

Meow.

You swore that cat was out to get you.

You stopped midway from picking up your laptop and glanced over at your cat who was sitting on the windowsill.

Not alone.

You stared at the man in the distance and though you couldn’t properly see him, you nevertheless lent forward and offered a polite bow.

He returned the gesture and you took a deep breath.

Showtime.

You began to make your way over to the window, closing the laptop and tucking it under your arm as you gave the man before you your undivided attention.

“I’m sure she has told you all of my deepest darkest secrets by this point,” you started, throwing a suspicious look at the furry mass by your hip “there isn’t a loyal bone in her body.”

The man smiled and let out a chuckle, “She has been talking about you in great detail I’m afraid”

“Just bad things, I presume”

“Only the worst” he offered a secretive smirk and you snorted.

“Speaking of the worst, I was afraid that the paint fumes had done you in” setting your laptop down you paused at his words and your mind went into overdrive thinking about how you were going to respond.

Briefly you wondered back to your friend’s advice, wondering if you should lie and make up some outlandish story.

Deciding that living a life of treachery was not something that tickled your fancy, you looked up in response.

“Ah, almost, I must have breathed in too many fumes, I was quite sick so I was out of commission for the last while” that wasn’t a whole lie, you were feeling oddly sick, just that it was most definitely not from paint fumes.

But like hell you were going to let him know that.

He let out a hum and nodded his head, apparently accepting your answer, but his eyebrows then furrowed.

“But you’re fine now, right?” he looked cute, worrying over you like a mother hen.

You gave him a grateful smile, waving your hand dismissively.

“It’s going to take more than paint fumes and bad ramen to do me in, fear not good sir”

“Besides, I need to see if SooJin wakes up from her coma and realizes that Joonwoo-“

“-is actually the man that saved her from the burning building when she was a child and that he is being swindled by her uncle who wants to take over the company?” you blinked at the excited look the boy gave you, who was nodding his head eagerly, hands animatedly waving as he spoke.

“….you watch soap operas?” You couldn’t believe the usually reserved man was actually gushing about a daytime drama.

Eat it, Seulgi, you uncultured swine. I told you it was an art.

“Well I’m never home to watch them when they air, but I usually stream them when I get the chance.

I dislocated my ankle really bad a few months ago and was put on home arrest, it was the only thing on at the time and I’ve been hooked ever since” He let out a sheepish laugh as his shoulders shrugged indifferently.

You let out a loud laugh and he seemed startled by the sound, but you weren’t paying attention to him anymore as tears began to well up in your eyes.

You started to shake as giggles bubbled from your throat, needing your hand to brace on the windowsill, not being able to stand straight.

“I can’t…believe…this…is happening…” You could barely breathe, “-looks are definitely deceiving” You commented, sending him a sly smile, eyebrows wiggling.

His face suddenly was dusted with a stunning shade of pink and you wanted nothing more than to squish his cheeks together.

Too precious

He began to mutter something about being totally manly and how it was good study material.

You started to come down from your hysteria but the smile never left your face.

“It’s ok, it will be our little secret, neighbor. But really,” you leaned in conspicuously, as if you were discussing something top secret.

“What do you think Soojin’s next move will be once she wakes up?”

From that moment on you managed to entice him into a totally manly conversation about plot holes and never-ending character resurrections.

Much like work, you were so lost in the conversation, completely forgetting about the awkwardness that you were supposed to be feeling, that you lost track of the hours passing as the two of you talked. The conversation drifted from daytime dramas, settling on mindless chatter that left you with bits of information about the man before you that you never knew you wanted to know.

All the while a wide smile adorned both of your faces.

Chapter VI

[juicy-cookie]

Through The Valley - Chapter 16

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10075958/chapters/28547156

Tags: @luke-vaughn @embracetheapocalypsewithme @kinkozan @lupienne @theblack-wolf @lovingzombiechaos @jmackie1983 @dragonracer @miiraal

Pairing: Negan X OFC

Chapter Summary: Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better

Chapter Warnings: Angst, Gore, Violence, Mention of rape

Word Count: 3983

A/N: I’m terribly sorry that it took me so long to update. Real life got in the way and I am all the more grateful for your continuous support and for every kind word you lovely people have sent my way. 

Negan didn’t know where he was going until he saw light coming from the infirmary. He burst into the room where Fisher was leaning over the stretcher, working on the body in front of him.

The doctor stepped to the side and Negan nearly screamed.

If Carson hadn’t told him that it was Lilly who had been brought in, he wouldn’t have recognized her. She might as well have been a biter. She wore only a thin t-shirt and panties. Both must have been some shade of gray at some point, but were now stained dark red. At least where they weren’t ripped. Her legs were either covered in blood, or in blue-ish green bruises.

The worst was her face, though. The entire right side seemed mutilated. Her eye was swollen shut, her upper lip bleeding, adding to the blood coming from a cut over her brow. The way her hair was plastered to her skull, wet and shiny, told him that she had at least one more head injury.

Lilly seemed disoriented and had obvious difficulties speaking. That didn’t keep her from trying to shove Fisher off her, though.

“Go away! I’m fine,” she mumbled through clenched teeth, her right hand flopping around aimlessly in an attempt to shoo the doctor away. Fisher ignored her and kept prodding and poking, taking advantage of her weakened state and remaining exceptionally calm during his examination.

Despite the lack of panic in the infirmary, Negan felt the cold claws of fear creeping up and down his spine. He still stood in the doorway, jaw hanging open, hands gripping the door frame, eyes frantically scanning the stretcher and the area around it. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t even know where to start.

“Boss…?”

Negan spun around. Carson and Andrei stood in the hallway, the former looking at him expectantly, awaiting orders, the latter tired and fearful.

“What the fuck happened? Who did this?” Negan had meant to shout, but all that came out of him was something between a whisper and a growl.

Andrei ran a hand over his face and sighed. “I don’t know any specifics, man. I got to the outpost real late. Look, I know we’re not supposed to be out there after dark, but…” Negan waved a hand at him impatiently to show that he didn’t give a fuck right now. “Anyway… I got there late and everyone was already asleep, but Carson had told me that you want me to look after her, so I went to her room and she wasn’t there. I went looking for her and heard noises coming from the basement and that’s where I found those two degenerates all over her.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know Negan. I shot them, grabbed her and got the fuck outta there. Took a car, too. Couldn’t bring her here on my bike. It’s still at the outpost. I’ll bring the car back tomorrow and go get my bike. Shit, man, I thought she’d die on me on the way here. Thought she was bleeding out or something. I’m sorry about those guys, boss, I didn’t know what else to do. She was kicking and screaming and they were punching her. I just pulled the trigger, I didn’t…”

“Stop it,” Negan interrupted Andrei’s ramblings, “You did the right thing. Did me a big fucking favor, too. Otherwise I would have had to drive all the way back there and fuck those fuckers up myself.” He turned back towards the door and watched with furrowed brows as Fisher set up an IV.

“Sir?” Carson piped up behind him. “Do you want me to wake up Jax?”

Negan hoped that Jax would wait with killing him until they knew if Lilly would live.

“Yeah… yeah. Go get him. Laura, too.”

He listened to Carson’s receding steps as he ran down the hallway and tried to focus on the situation in front of him again. His mind seemed to slip away whenever his gaze came to rest on the bloody figure on the bed. He vaguely registered Andrei talking about a delay at the western outpost and how he was sorry that he hadn’t been at the northern one in time to prevent this mess.

Fisher cleared his throat, trying to gain Negan’s attention. He looked up at him, hoping for the doctor’s sake that he had good news. Negan didn’t know what he would do if he got told that Lilly didn’t have long. He couldn’t take out his rage and guilt on the actual culprits and he couldn’t guarantee not to shift the blame elsewhere.

“She’s asleep now. I gave her a hefty dose of morphine.”

Negan stepped into the infirmary, his eyes back on Lilly’s now still form. Fisher had covered her with one of the coarse gray blankets they kept for newcomers who couldn’t afford better sleeping arrangements. Negan made a mental note to get her something more comfortable. Standing in front of the stretcher and with her eyes closed and her face still, he could now see the true extent of her injuries. Bruises started to bloom underneath the crusted blood. Negan felt the overwhelming urge to punch someone. Instead, he lightly grasped her hand sticking out from under the blanket.

He wanted to ask Fisher how she was doing, but the sound of thundering footsteps running up the hallway announced Jax’s arrival. He and Andrei entered the room together with Andrei recounting what he had already told Negan. Where Negan had gotten quiet and withdrawn at the sight of a bruised and battered Lilly, Jax seemed to switch into let’s-get-busy mode, after drawing in a sharp breath at the first sight of her. He couldn’t quite hide the look of horror at the sight of her injuries, though.

“Okay, so they’re dead, right? What now? Fisher, how is she?” Jax turned his attention to the doctor, conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room that was the entirety of Negan’s presence. Fisher had positioned his chair at Lilly’s head and was busy using a thread and needle on her.

“Well…” Fisher sighed. “She got beaten up pretty bad. I’m gonna put stitches on those wounds over her eye and on the back of her head. She’s got at least one broken rib and a broken nose, maybe her jaw, too. The thing is… there could be internal bleeding. Her blood pressure is okay for now, but I can’t be absolutely sure without an ultrasound. I’ll just have to monitor her for now.”

Jax looked stricken at the news and Negan knew that he probably mirrored his expression, but any further enquiries were delayed by Laura bursting into the room and subsequently into tears when she caught sight of her friend lying on the stretcher. Seth and Connor were right behind her and the room was now packed with people.

“Oh God! Lilly! What happened?”

Another round of people explaining what had happened and Negan’s mind started to wander again. She would need a blanket and pillow, water to wash off the blood, fresh clothes and then soft food. He’d have to talk meds and equipment with Fisher and then maybe organize a run to get everything Lilly needed to get better.

He became aware of the fact that he was still holding her hand, lightly stroking her fingers, when he heard the word “rape” coming from Jax and his attention was catapulted back to the here and now, feeling as if all air had left his lungs.

“What did you say?” Negan focused on Jax standing on the opposite side of the bed.

“I asked Andrei what exactly they did to her. Lil told me about the lewd comments and I’ve warned you that those assholes had it in for her.” Jax’s look was one of pure blame, before he turned to Andrei again.

“I don’t know, man. Everything happened so fast. But I didn’t catch them with their dicks out and their pants around their ankles, if that’s what you mean.”

“She only mentioned the beatings,” Fisher added, “She couldn’t tell me much, obviously, but she didn’t say anything about sexual assault. I’m reluctant to examine her without her consent. I’d recommend to wait until she gets better and then talk to her.”

Negan was a second away from giving the order to burn down the entire outpost when Lilly moaned something unintelligible, twisted her head and brushed her finger over Negan’s hand.

“Is there anything we can do for her?” Laura asked from the foot of the bed. She wasn’t crying anymore, but Seth still held her by her shoulders as if she was close to having a breakdown.

“Not really. She needs rest and observation. I’ll stay with her and you can all go back and try to get some sleep,” Fisher offered, packing away the suture tools.

“No.” Negan had finally found his voice again, despite it sounding foreign in his ears. “She hates sleeping in a room with people she doesn’t know well. I’ll stay with her. Anything happens, I’ll come get you, Fisher. The rest of you, go back to sleep.”

Laura looked like she wanted to protest, but Seth gently steered her towards the door, whispering reassuring words to her. Connor followed with Andrei and Fisher knew better than to question his leader’s orders, after his fuck-up with the Hilltop.

Only Jax didn’t move a muscle, staring intently at Negan.

“I know I fucked up. I’m man enough to admit it. But she needs us now, so do me a fucking favor and save it for when she’s better. I won’t leave, Jax, no fucking way.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you leave. Watching over her is the least you can do.”

Negan felt relieved. There was no way he would let Lilly out of his sight, but fighting with her best friend about it was something he would gratefully avoid. He let go of her hand for a moment to get a chair from the corner and positioned it right next to her bed. With a sigh, he carefully sat down. His experience with flimsy hospital chairs told him not to move too much in his seat. “Well, plant your ass in the other chair, or get back to your room, I don’t give a shit.”

Jax seemed reluctant and watched as Negan took Lilly’s hand back in his, before looking towards the door. Connor was probably waiting for him, but Negan was too tired and fresh out of fucks to give to even turn around and acknowledge him.

“I’ll try to get a couple more hours of sleep. To be honest, it’s hard to see her this way, but I’ll come back first thing in the morning to relieve you.” Negan almost scoffed and thought that Jax could try, but he was determined to not leave her side. “Listen, Negan…”

“I told you not to start fucking bitching at me tonight, Jax.”

“I wasn’t. Listen…” Jax leaned over Lilly’s sleeping form and lowered his voice. “Fisher said that we would have to wait until morning. That he can’t tell how bad she’s injured with the equipment he has and that she might have internal bleeding. You know what that means, right?” Negan nodded, not taking his eyes off her face. “Lilly and I have a pact. Made it a long time ago. That if possible, we’d try everything we can to not let the other turn. If you want to stay here, you have to promise me to do it. I know she’s tough. I know she can make it through this shit. But if something happens… You have to swear that you will end it before she comes back as one of those things.”

Negan looked up at the other man. Jax’s eyes were fearful and desperate, exactly the way Negan felt.

“I promise.”

Negan heard the door shut behind him and the Sanctuary plunged into silence again. It felt weird to know that all those people around him were sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that the woman he cared so much for was possibly fighting for her life.

He stood up again and walked over to the counter and cabinets, opening and closing drawers until he found a scalpel with a blade that was hopefully long enough to reach the brain when stuck through the eye. His expression grim, he sat back down on the rickety old chair and carefully placed the scalpel under his seat, before taking Lilly’s hand again. The movement was a familiar one, more comforting for him than for the person lying in the hospital bed.

His other hand ran through his hair and the sigh that followed almost turned into a sob.

“I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn fucking sorry, Lil. This is just one of about a thousand different reasons why you have to wake the fuck up and get better… that you are going to have the fucking privilege of kicking my stupid ass all the way to Michigan for being the world’s biggest idiot.

“I could go look for your family while I’m there. You never told me why you never went looking for them. Though it was probably because of the distance. And the odds of finding them, and finding them alive, are pretty fucking slim. Yeah… would have been stupid to try to go there. And you’re far from fucking stupid. Unlike me.

“Listen to me fucking rambling. I do that when I’m nervous. But you already know that, don’t you? You could see through my bullshit from day fucking one. Just… just don’t let this be the last day, okay?”

He couldn’t stop looking at her face. He felt that if he stopped talking, he would break down completely, so he just kept going.

“Jax and Laura wanted to rip me a new one just now. Pretty sure they’re far from done. Maybe you can put a leash on them once you get better. Or not. I mean, I know I fucked up. I tend to do that with the women I love. And then they end up in a fucking hospital bed.”

A chuckle rose in his throat, rendered hoarse by the occasional tear spilling from his eyes.

“There you fucking go. I can finally admit my fucking feelings and you’re not even awake to hear it. See? Another reason you have to get better. I’ll tell you everything when you wake up. About the wives, too. I mean, I don’t expect everything to be fucking perfect and for us to live happily ever after or some shit. But living would be nice, for a start. And then we’ll work on the happy part.”

Negan took a shaky breath and watched Lilly’s face. Her brows were furrowed. He hoped that she didn’t feel too much pain. Lifting her hand, he brought it to his lips, brushing them over her knuckles. He closed his eyes for a moment. The whole weight of tonight’s events started to bare down on him and he felt ten years older, hungover and tired.

“I promise, I’ll try not to fuck it up this time, Lilly. I won’t make the same mistakes I made with Lucille. You’ll see. Just get better, okay?”

His eyes grew heavy and he felt himself dozing off every few minutes, waking up with a start any time Lilly moved or made a noise in her sleep. He had promised to take care of her if the worst happened, but would he have the guts to do it this time?

“You better not die on me, Lil,” he mumbled as his head sunk down on the mattress next to her thigh.

He woke up again to someone nudging his shoulder and he groggily sat up and turned around to find Jax standing next to him. Outside, the sun made a feeble attempt to rise out of the gray and rainy clouds. Fisher was up and present, too, already working on Lilly, who he could now see had her eyes slightly open. She looked weak, but alive.

Negan rubbed over the stubble on his cheeks, fighting the urge to lie back down and get back to sleep.

“Her vitals look good,” Fisher said after removing the stethoscope from his ears and the blood pressure cuff from her arms, “I’m going to give her more pain meds. It’s all we can do, really, at the moment. If some cuts and broken ribs are all she got, she just needs to rest for a couple of days. ”

“You mean aside from the emotional fucking trauma she’ll probably have from getting the shit beaten out of her?” Negan snarled.

“Shhh, hey! Calm down!” Jax said in a low voice, “We’re gonna deal with that when we have to. For now, Fisher is right. She needs rest. And you, too.” he motioned to Negan.

“I just took a fucking nap when I shouldn’t have.”

“And I bet that was really comfortable and refreshing. Come on, I told you I would take over. Looks like she’s fine for now and you won’t be of use to anyone walking around like a biter. Go get some more sleep.”

Negan didn’t want to. The thought of leaving Lilly, even with Jax and Fisher staying, filled him with dread. But Jax was right. He still had a community to run, even if all he wanted to do right now was stay with Lilly until she could be by his side again.

He reluctantly got up and told Jax to get him if there was any change in her. Jax seemed much less hostile this morning and even thanked him for watching over her.

After checking one last time with Fisher that Lilly was stable and seeing her asleep again, he made his way to Carson first. Negan gave him instructions about running the Sanctuary in his absence and placed an order for blankets, clothes and warm water with his assistant and told him to make sure the infirmary wouldn’t be swarmed with concerned Saviors come breakfast. The lieutenants, Jax and Andrei were allowed inside her room. No one else. No exceptions.

While he climbed the stairs up to the Penthouse, he heard the Sanctuary come to life below him. People making their way to the cafeteria or the showers and he shut them all out by closing the door to his room. The busy murmur downstairs, while still audible, was now drowned by the heavy rain that had set in over the course of the morning.

Convinced that he wouldn’t be able to sleep for even a minute, he still took a quick trip to the bathroom and then settled down on his bed, fully clothed and over the covers. Apparently, Lilly’s improved health had been enough to relax him a little, since it didn’t even take two minutes for him to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When he woke up again, the light outside told him that it had to be afternoon already and a quick glance to the clock over his fireplace confirmed it. He had slept for six hours straight and he felt refreshed, grateful, anxious and furious, all at the same time. Negan tried to convince himself that if something had happened in his absence, someone would have come to get him..

He still felt nervous when he made his way back downstairs to the infirmary, stubbornly ignoring the rumbling coming from his stomach. He needed to check on Lilly first, before he could sit down in peace for a meal. Maybe he could have a late lunch in the infirmary, preferably with her awake and trying to have a bite, too.

When he turned around the corner into the hallway where the infirmary was located, he could hear low voices coming from the room. One of them was clearly Lilly’s. His heart grew three sizes. If she already felt well enough to have a conversation, then she would surely be okay, right?

Feeling much more optimistic at the thought of having lunch with a conscious and talking Lilly, Negan peered into the room. She was still lying on the stretcher, but covered in a soft and warm blanket now and wearing fresh clothes. What he could see of her face, neck and hands was clean, albeit still shockingly bruised and, in the case of her eye and lips, swollen and sporting grisly wounds. Negan grimaced at the sight of her injuries, which stood out more prominently, without the blood and grime hiding them. Jax and Laura were sitting on either side of her, listening to her talking, all three smiling slightly at whatever the topic of their conversation was.

Negan put on a grin and stepped into the infirmary. “Well, someone looks about a thousand fucking times better than last night. You nearly gave us all a collective heart attack.”

The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. Lilly, Jax and Laura turned silent and their faces fell, each of them avoiding his gaze. After a couple of awkward moments, Jax got up and cleared his throat. “We, uhm… we’re going to give you guys a minute or two. We’ll be back later with more food, Lil.” Lilly looked like she wanted to protest, but Jax turned to Laura and motioned for her to come with him. Laura followed him out of the infirmary, but not without shooting a glare at Negan that was clearly meant to try to make him drop dead.

Negan took Jax’s place at the side of her bed, still keeping his grin firmly in place and pointing a thumb behind him. “What’s up with those two? Looked like they have to pee real urgent.” His attempt at humor didn’t seem to go over well. Lilly merely regarded him out of her healthy eye, her expression rendered nearly unreadable by her injuries. “What? Did the same cat get your tongue, too? Because I just saw you talking a second ago.”

Lilly averted her eyes, her face now unmistakingly grim. “What do you want me to say, Negan?” she finally said. Her voice was thin and her speech a little slurred.

“How about you start with how you feel, work your way up to what Fisher said and end somewhere along ‘It’s good to be home’?” Negan tried to make eye contact with her again, but she kept staring out of the window. He thought that maybe she tried to come up with some witty answers to his questions, until he noticed the tears running down her cheeks. “Oh shit. Babe, are you okay? Do you need more pain meds? I can go get Fisher…”

“No, Negan. I don’t need more pain meds.”

“Well, what is it then? What do you need? I’ll get you any-fucking-thing, just say the word!”

She turned her head to look him straight in the eyes and his smile faltered at the intensity of her gaze.

“I need you to leave.”

“Wh-what?”

“I need you to go and leave me the hell alone.”

“Lilly, come on…”

“No.”

“Look, I’m sorry…”

“No! I don’t want to hear it. I begged you, Negan. I fucking begged you not to send me away. You knew Sherry and Amber planned all this. And you still sent me away.” Lilly strained to talk through the obvious pain and her tears still hadn’t stopped. Negan dropped his gaze. “No! Look at me, Negan!” He obeyed. “Look at my face! You did this. This is your fault.”

“I know. Believe me, I fucking know, Lilly.”

“I need you to leave. Now. And stay the fuck away from me.”

“Okay…,” he whispered before standing up and walking out of the room.

He wandered aimlessly through the Sanctuary. At first he felt completely numb, and then an  increasing need for a bottle of Scotch.

He never heard the wrecking sobs coming from the infirmary.

[shintaroux]

BOOKMARKS; so I know where to find you

I

It all began when Midorima Shintarou said: “Sir, you left a bookmark in this book.”

The red-haired man, clad in suit tailored to fit his lean frame, glanced behind as he was making his way to the exit. He smiled fondly and said: “It is there for a reason.”

And then he left.

Midorima had been working in the library for two years now but he had never seen the same person more than twice a week. The red-haired man came in every day; each morning he picked up one book and each evening he returned it.

Midorima bit his lower lip as he stroked the thick cover of the book the red-haired man had left at the desk; the cover was slightly worn around the edges, its once scarlet colour fading to a brown of sick fruit. On the side, a green post-it bookmark was sticking out. Midorima tugged at it absent-mindedly before he opened the marked page.

The bookmark had a little arrow drawn on it and it was pointing towards a quote:

“Have you ever met someone for the first time, but in your heart you feel as if you’ve met them before?”

Midorima pulled the bookmark out and put it away in a drawer.

II

Midorima Shintarou had never quite crossed paths with a man quite like the one with vibrant red-hair. He had noticed him, immediately, when he walked in for the first time; his step was like a rustle of autumn leaves and his eyes like a compass needle endlessly on its quest for paradise. One didn’t forget a presence that smelled so strongly of purpose.

Unlike the rest of the library users, he never came up to the desk and asked for a book. He sauntered around the shelves, alone on his journey, until he returned with a book he held gently in his hands as if it were sacred.

Midorima, as a man who was taught to take care of things that couldn’t take care of themselves, respected that and thought it charming to see such reverence for the written word in the modern age.

All these playful thoughts were meant to stay as such; just one curiously peculiar library user who presence Midorima appreciated for its blinding brilliance and mystery.

However, when the red-haired man handed him his library card, Midorima had finally found it in him to look at his name properly, not just skim over it to make sure it’s there like he did with many others.

Akashi Seijurou, it said.

Midorima knew that Akashi saw him linger on his name a second too long.

III

Five times, Midorima had counted.

Five was the number of times Akashi’s eyes flickered from the bookshelves to Midorima. He knew because he was watching too. It was hard not to when he had a whirlpool of questions dancing violently in his mind.

Was the quote really for him?

What should he do about it, if it was?

Should he make the first move?

The book Akashi had returned today lay before him, a green post-it sticking out almost as if it were mocking him. Midorima tapped his nails on the desk, impatiently.

When Akashi emerged out of a labyrinth of bookshelves, he was carrying a book much thicker than usual. There was no way he could read it in a day.

While he was writing down the number of the book in Akashi’s library card, Midorima mustered the courage to ask: “You are a fast reader?”

“I get addicted easily if a book catches my interest. I just can’t put it down until whatever is inside it is mine,” Akashi answered with a polished smile. “But I guess that goes for more things than just… books.”

This was the first occasion in which Midorima had heard Akashi utter more than one sentence but he could tell that he was someone who can make one word carry a litany of meanings.

Akashi took his book and went for the exit when Midorima called: “Sir, you left a bookmark again.” He said for no other purpose than needed more proof.

“It is there for a reason.” Akashi repeated without as much as a shrug of his shoulders.

The moment the doors closed behind Akashi, Midorima opened the book.

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”

A justification, an explanation, a dare… It could be a number of things.

Midorima pulled the bookmark out and put it away in a drawer.

IV

Midorima was carrying a pile of books in his arms. His co-worker, Takao, fell into a habit of leaving the returned books on the table and never taking them back to their designated place on the shelves. It was an unsightly display, Midorima thought, to leave a helpless book away from home.

He was mumbling to himself when he had bumped into what he thought was a book cart, until the ‘book cart’ winced.

“I apologize,” Midorima said, still only able to see over the book pile in his arms, not underneath.

“That is quite alright,” answered the person whose voice Midorima had recognized immediately. “May I help you somehow?”

Midorima cleared his throat, glad he could hide behind the books in his arms. “No, I am fine. I am sincerely sor—“

Before he could finish, a couple of books from the top of the pile were lifted and Midorima came eye-to-eye with Akashi. His hair was combed back today and a whisper of eye bags lay underneath his eyes.

“Let me help you,” he said and Midorima couldn’t find it in him to refuse.

Akashi followed after him, silently, just an echo of footsteps, and handed him the book he had asked for at each shelf. Midorima could handle poor attempts at conversation, but silence weighted heavy on his shoulders.

“If you’re here today, it means you’ve managed to read that long book.”

“I have, indeed,” Akashi replied in a low voice and then continued. “More importantly, do you like the quotes I have bookmarked so far?”

Midorima hoped he had done a good job at concealing his nonchalance when he said: “Yes, they were quite exceptional.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Akashi said and Midorima heard a smile in his voice. It did a number on his gnawing nervousness. “So it would be alright if I continue?”

Midorima stopped, one last book remaining in his hands; there was no reason for Akashi to follow him around anymore. He turned around towards Akashi and got swept away by the air of strange anticipation.

A smile blossomed on Akashi’s lips the moment the words left Midorima’s lips: “Yes.”

The thick book lay on the desk and Midorima opened it on the bookmarked page as soon as Akashi was gone.

The familiar arrow was pointing to the words that made him feel a tad shy:

“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”

Midorima pulled the bookmark out and put it away in a drawer.

V

It had happened while Akashi was waiting to get his library card back.

“Shin-chan, do you know where the ladders are?”

Midorima froze; out of the corner of his eye, he could see a glint of amusement in Akashi’s eye. He ignored it for a moment and gave his attention to Takao. “Yes, you have left them in the foreign literature section.”

Takao scratched his nose and bowed his head apologetically. “Whoops… that’s right. Thanks, Shin-chan!”

When Takao disappeared among shelves, Midorima returned to scribbling down numbers on Akashi’s library card. He was hoping that if he had pretended this had never happened, so would Akashi.

“So, Shin-chan,” Akashi said. It was almost a mewl, and a mocking one at that. Midorima felt the tips of his ear grow hot.

“Shintarou. It’s Shintarou.”

He lifted his gaze at last and met Akashi’s unrelenting gaze. Something about it made Midorima feel very small, despite being the taller of two. He handed the library card back.

“Thank you. Shintarou.”

When Akashi said it, it was so sudden that if felt like it gripped Midorima’s gut and pulled it out.

Like diving in a pool of honey, that was how Midorima’s name sounded on Akashi’s tongue; warm, thick, syrupy.

Midorima must’ve been speechless for a while because Akashi had found his way to the doors.

“I hope you like today’s quote,” he added and disappeared.

With shaky hands, Midorima lightly tugged at the bookmark and the book practically opened by itself.

“You are what you are and that fascinates me.”

Midorima pulled the bookmark out and put it away in a drawer.

VI

When Akashi appeared before him the next day, Midorima greeted him with poised confidence.

The routine went on all the way up to the moment Akashi handed Midorima his library card.

“Do you mind if I recommend a book to you?”

Akashi raised an eyebrow. “By all means…”  

Midorima rushed to the bookshelves and knowingly followed the path, like a pirate who knows the spine of a map, and plucked the book out of its shelf. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he was about to do.

After all, Midorima Shintarou was a lot of things but daring wasn’t one of them. He always chose the widest path to success; one he could follow with no fear of failure so long as he kept going. Having a companion on the way never crossed his mind.

That’s why Midorima took another deep breath as he walked back to the desk.  

There, followed by Akashi’s ever-curious gaze, he pulled out a bookmark of his own and planted it on a page. He quickly drew a small arrow and handed the book to Akashi.

“I hope you will find it to your enjoyment.”

“I certainly will,” Akashi said, and only when he walked out had Midorima realized that there was smug satisfaction hidden in his smile but he was too focused on the bookmark peeking out of the book that Akashi had just returned to ponder any longer about it.

Midorima pulled at the bookmark, the book opened and what he found were lines that he felt were the truest of all so far. After all, he had felt its truth on his own skin in the form of goosebumps, thin like cobwebs and much stronger than his willpower to resist:

“With you, intimacy colours my voice. Even ‘hello’ sounds like ‘come here’.”

Midorima pulled the bookmark out and put it away in a drawer.

VII

It was near closing time and Midorima kept checking on the clock, hoping time would be lenient this once. Midorima was afraid Akashi wouldn’t come.

Did I overdo it? Was he put off?

He occupied himself with putting away books, wiping dust off the shelves, going out of his way to make the time flow faster but also stop and when the doors opened for the last time that day, Midorima was already half out of his mind.

But it was Akashi; in his suit, with his posture ever so proper, his eyes ever so inquisitive.

Midorima was about to greet him when Akashi slammed his opened palms on the desk and leaned in. Roused from his worries, Midorima regarded the shorter man with alarm.

“’Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire; what burns me now? Desire, desire, desire.’” Akashi recited with gracious ease, like he had been standing on a stage with Midorima as the lonely member of the audience. “Is that right?”

Midorima looked away and covered his mouth with his hand. A wave of embarrassment washed over him. A small nod was all that he could do to confirm those lines were what he had wanted to convey to Akashi, this man he knew almost nothing about but for whom he felt a magnetic attraction; just like gravity pulled everything on earth toward its centre, so did Akashi pull everything that was Midorima Shintarou towards him.

As simple as that.

As complicated as that.

Slowly, but surely, Midorima removed his hand from his mouth and returned the fervent gaze.

The moment was broken when Akashi released the book he was holding and offered his library card. Midorima took it and confirmed the return of the book.

“You are not going to borrow a book?” Midorima asked; anything, anything to distract himself from the suffocating tension between.

“No, I’ll be busy this weekend.” Akashi said, with clear certainty and a fleeting smile.

And then he left.

Midorima waited for the doors to close to be able to breathe again.

He rubbed his eyes, a nebula in small unfolding before him, before he reached for the book. When he pulled it open, he noticed that the bookmark had no arrow drawn on it; no quote it wanted to bring attention to.

Instead, there were three lines of text written in neat, slick handwriting: a date (tomorrow), time (evening) and place (a restaurant).

Midorima pulled the bookmark out and put it away in his pocket.