#and repeatedly tries to kill her as a form of mercy

[hundredsspoons]

5 Favourite Characters Poll (Tag Game)

I was tagged by @awitchnamedraven

Thanks so much for thinking of me!!

Rules: make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favourite.

I'm tagging @duncanor @amechaan @carneolcamen @ocelaw @seri-tonin

[lightnersdream]

i've been thinking about exactly why people portraying one of the other crew members successfully killing Jimmy as a "for what you did to Anya" kind of thing rubs me the wrong way a bit and it's because like..... this is just another form of taking agency away from Anya, in a way. it's kind of framing her as some meek, shivery woman-thing who's entirely at the mercy of the men around her, either to hurt her or save her.

(i understand these are mostly for wish fulfillment on the audience's behalf because everyone would like to see Jimmy pay for his crimes. whether or not this is the intention of the person writing it isn't really relevant, characterization happens with or without intent. i feel like it misses the point by portraying it as an 'ideal ending'.)

because... Anya is a capable person. she takes things into her own hands when she can. it was partially(?) her idea to get into the cargo,

(before he interrupts her.. remember when she interrupted Curly in the dead pixel segment?)

it was her idea to get the code scanner from the cockpit,

it was her idea to get the medication from behind the foam.

(the chance to do these things herself is not given to her.)

she'd been keeping Curly alive for months in a critical state somehow, her psych evaluations at the start are only so useless because Jimmy refuses to take it/her seriously and Curly is obviously biased when he puts it into his own hands. he's known him a long time, like he said. "I'll just put good for that one."

there's not a lot of material to work with because of how the game is framed, but it's there. we are working with two very biased perspectives and neither one lends Anya what she deserves

there's significant changes in how she speaks post- and pre- crash, and depending on who she happens to be talking to. i recommend re-reading her dialogue, because the difference is drastic

she acts the way she does around Jimmy because he has tangibly done horrible things to her, is actively hostile, and physically could not escape him by any means. she can't take away Curly's agency herself, in my eyes. you have to remember that Especially in the post-crash segments of the game, it's entirely from Jimmy's POV, and he obviously does not (and has never) thought very highly of her or treated her with a shred of respect

i've seen a general idea that she can't bear to hurt other people for any reason, but that doesn't really track to me. this is the real point of the post by the way

it seems based on the parts where she says she struggles to give Curly medication. "It just hurts him so much, I can't stand the noise." "It makes me nauseous."

it's not really the same thing as, say, hurting someone in self defense

this sounds like she did want the gun itself. this never felt worded like someone who would refuse to, at very least, threaten Jimmy with a gun, with violence. if she had been given the agency to make that decision on her own. she wasn't though

she still tries to reclaim some of it even as she's denied it

by the end she's still trying to keep that gun out of his hands

i think some people overly soften her, for similar reasons the game itself is trying to comment on. she's not a tender victim who couldn't cause pain to another out of the softness of her soul, she's a person who's had every last bit of agency ripped from her repeatedly until she couldn't take it anymore. that's the point. that's why framing her that way, "needing" someone to save her, is odd to me

she didn't need Curly to save her, she needed him to take responsibility

she didn't want to escalate things, but she's not an idiot. self defense was absolutely on her mind

but who knows im just saying shit *smiles serenely*

[lockedtombbrainworms]

OK so I'm not the first person to say this, but there is some pretty nasty racism involved in the way this fandom talks about Gideon the First, and if even I can fucking see it, as a white person who's on this site relatively intermittently, it's pretty intense.

Like, I know he repeatedly tries to murder Harrow, but like, this is the Everyone Is A Fucked Up Person book series. People are very happy to go "oh, I know Ianthe did war crimes, that's why I love her" (and believe me I'm 100% down with that), but you don't then get to turn round and point at one of the relatively few characters actually described as dark-skinned in the text and say "ew, nasty stinky bastard man, he sucks!" and make meta posts ascribing all sorts of malice to him as a character just because he occasionally ran a spear through Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

Look at the guy. He salutes Harrow with a cigarette after she tries to kill him (yes that's him, nobody notices his eyes changing like they would if it was Pyrrha), he got kissed by Commander Wake at some point and apparently just fucking leaned into the fact that the enemy commander was trying to tongue him. He argues with John about what he's been told to do with Harrow and then John tells Harrow that it's all happening because G1deon has promised something to someone, somewhere and even John can't talk him around. He sits at the table with the other lyctors and when John, Mercy and Augustine start unspooling their repression all over each other over fuck knows how many bottles of wine, he shares a look of something close to solidarity with Harrow before justifiably getting upset and leaving after Augustine brings up Pyrrha. The fandom should be all over him.

And yeah, he's a mess. But that's what the lyctors are. He's a ten-thousand-year-old necrosaint who's spent most of that time either alone or with other ten-thousand-year-old necrosaints. He's gonna have a slightly skewed view of death. He's probably seen other lyctors gore each other to fuck all the time. You can't straightforwardly apply our morality to his actions any more than you can to any of the other lyctors, that's kinda the whole point of them as characters. So why have I seen several posts about how him sticking a spear in Harrow from behind is some sort of metaphor for sexual assault when there is a canonical example of fucky consent stuff in the form of Dios Apate Major to discuss if you really want to bring up that sort of stuff in your analysis?

For fuck's sake he's not even the first person in HtN to stab Harrow (that's Ianthe, in the oath scene), or to try and kill her (that's... whoever it is on the Erebos, which is definitely not ol' G1d). I appreciate this is The Big Book Of Freaky Lesbians and that a lot of the fandom isn't especially interested in the dudes, but give the man a break - I don't see people acting this way about Augustine or Magnus or Naberius.

Rant over. Knock this shit off.

[duhragonball]

Chainsaw Man ch. 48-52

Gosh, I wish that was me.

Last time, Chainsaw Man got suckered in by a cute girl named Reze, who turned out to be some sort of assassin with explosion powers. Now they're fighting it out, but Denji's usual strategy of "hit them with chainsaws" is kind of ineffective against someone who can repeatedly self-destruct and regenerate.

Parts of Reze's transformed body look like a mass of cables, maybe primacord. One of her fingers gets cut off and it's still stuck on Denji's chainsaw after their next exchange, and she uses it like a bomb. I'm not clear on how her powers work exactly, but she seems to be able to remove any part of her body and use it like a bomb, or just blow it up while it's still attached. Also, she seemed to have a duplicate body she used as a decoy, so good luck explaining that one.

The point here is that the explosions are just the beginning. Reze knows how to use her abilities in a very tactical way. One might assume that she tried to seduce Denji because she was too weak to challenge him directly, but we see here that this was never the case. She just wanted to try a subtle approach, but that was never the only option.

But fighting Denji in the open means you also have to deal with his comrades in Public Safety. Aki lops off one of her hands just when it seems like she's beaten Denji, and then she has to fight him for a while. Recall that Aki has a new power courtesy of Future Devil, which gives him a slight insight into the future. This allows him to anticipate his opponent's actions, although he doesn't mean he'll necessarily be quick enough to do anything about it. Still, it's enough to keep him alive while he duels with Reze, at least until...

Violence Fiend shows up to pull him out of harm's way. Violence Fiend tried to fight Reze earlier, but he got overwhelmed and ran away. I'm seeing this a lot with the Public Safety guys. They'll sometimes just turn tail and run, then come back when you least expect it and actually do something useful. Is that cowardly? I guess it depends on how you look at it, but if Violence had stood his ground earlier, he proabably would have gotten killed, and Aki would have died later on with no one to rescue him. These guys pick their spots. They're hunters, not warriors, so it's kind of ridiculous to expect them to stand and fight their prey when they're at a disadvantage.

Anyway, the key thing here is that Aki says this is the first time he ever wanted to be friends with a devil. So at long last, he's beginning to come around to the things Himeno wanted him to understand. Aki's grief, his craving for vengeance, and his absolute disdain for devils was working against his ability to fight and survive in this line of work. Now, as the story picks up steam and the battles become more desperate, he's learning to be more flexible about his attitudes.

Violence might have been enough to turn the tide here, except Reze has her own backup in the form of Typhoon Devil, who was also after Denji but they seemed to be working independently of each other. They crossed paths back in Chapter 43, and it was all awkward becuase they got in each other's way, and Reze told Typhoon to obey her for a while to make it up to her. So now she's calling him in.

I... feel like I should have more to say about Typhoon Devil being a pile of viscera with baby legs and a baby head with an exposed brain sticking out of its broken cranium, but... I kind of don't care? I don't know if I'm just desensitized at this point, or maybe the design really isn't that big a deal, but I feel like it should be.

Anway, Denji recovers once Beam and Angel feed him more blood. Notably, Angel Devil uses blood from a fatally wounded civilian, and he mercy-kills the lady before taking her corpse to Denji. That's important because Aki asked him to do something similar earlier in this arc, and Angel refused, more out of apathy than defiance.

Angel suggests that Chainsaw needs to step up his game, and asks Beam to tell them everything he knows about Chainsaw, since he seems to know him better than he lets on. Beam mentions that he used to use his chains to get around. I'm not sure what this is referring to, because it's like he's talking about the Chainsaw Devil before Denji got this power, and... well, that's just Pochita, right?

I think the implication here is that Pochita used to be a much more fearsome creature before he met Denji, and Beam might be the only one who remembers this. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that he was talking about Denji swinging around and using his chains like Spider-Man webbing, but Denji's an idiot so he puts the chain in Beam's mouth and rides him through the air like a horse.

But it does look pretty awesome, so maybe he's got the right idea, I dunno. Denji doesn't tell me how to do my job, so I shouldn't tell him how to do his.

During all of this, Typhoon Devil produces a storm, and Angel Devil is nearly carried away by the high winds. Aki catches him, but can barely hold on, and Angel's like "Just let me go, I sort of want to die anyway, it's cool."

But Aki refuses to give up, so he grabs Angel by the hand, which is a really bad idea, because Angel's touch will automatically drain a human's life span. That brief contact alone took two months off the time Aki has left, but it was the only way to save Angel. Angel asks him why, and Aki tells him that he's seen too many people die already, and if Angel really does have a death wish, then he should make sure to die while Aki's not around to stop it.

Okay! Right there, Aki finally started to turn this around. He's actually having a character moment with Angel, and growing as a person. He's matured, but more importantly, he's rubbed off on Angel a little. Angel's actually cooperating without Aki around to force him to, and Angel actually seems to care about other people around him. That's because of Aki.

And this is a good thing. I'm still not very high on Aki right now, but at least he's finally reached a threshold where he feels like more than just a bystander. His personality is still "I don't want people to die" and "I want revenge on the bad guy", which is pretty flat, but at least he's having an impact on the plot now.

Back to Chainsaw Man, the reason this storm kicked up is because Typhoon's trying to defend himself (and Reze) from Denji. Earlier, Denji managed to cut off one of Reze's legs, and Typhoon spit some of his blood at her to help her recover, but now Typhoon's on his own while he waits for her to heal. The thing is, Typhoon's so big, and Beam is so agile in the air that Denji can hit him with ease.

So Typhoon goes down, and then Reze divekicks Beam to take him out of the fight, so we're back to Reze vs. Denji. Only this time, Denji's figured something out. When she blows up one of his arms...

... he shoots out chains from his stumps, and attacks her that way.

He tangles her up and wraps them both together, then falls off whatever they're standing on and they fall into the ocean. Apparently Reze can't detonate underwater, although I'm not sure how Denji would know that.

And then, Reze wakes up on the beach. Since Beam is there too, I guess he pulled them both up to the surface. Reze is surprised that Denji didn't kill her, but he explains that he would have regretted it, so he spared her.

He thinks there's still something between them, even though she keeps insisting that she was faking it the whole time. But if she was so determined to kill him, why didn't she finish him off at the school when she had the chance?

Denji still can't quite believe there was nothing between them, so she briefly feigns affection again, then breaks his neck to incapacitate him. Denji can recover from this, but he can't move until he does. Anyway, he tells Reze he'll see her at the cafe today at noon.

Except she doesn't show up. I'm not sure why he thought she would. I guess it's just wishful thinking? Someone does arrive, though...

And it's Power, returning to duty after her blood-draining procedure. She's back, and she tracked Denji down by his scent. When she sees the flowers, she tries to take them for herself. It's not clear that she plans to eat the flowers, but that's what Denji does, so I just assumed she had the same idea.

So what did happen to Reze? Well, she tries to flee to... somewhere? Maybe she's headed back to that cafe to try to take one more crack at Denji? All that matters is that a bunch of rats follow her into an alley and they form a big rat pile which becomes...

Makima? So she has rat power? Whatever.

I should explain this thing she says about the country mouse. You know the Aesop's Fable about the town and country mice, and each of them envies the other's lifestyle until they try to live there and find out it's not so great. In this arc, Reze brings it up to Denji, and Angel talks about it in a separate scene. It... kind of went over my head, but the characters seem to agree that being a Town Mouse is like being in the Public Safety scene, and being a Country Mouse is like living a more tranquil, normal life as a civilian. Denji is team Town because he likes the excitement, while Angel is Team Country because he hates working for Public Safety. Reze said she was Team Country, but I think that was just to convince Denji to run away with her so she could murder him.

Anyway, Makima apparently heard their conversation, as indicated by her line that she agrees with Reze about Country Mice. But Makima likes it because she has a friend on a farm, and every fall she goes down to help him exterminate all the mice in the field before winter sets in. This involves digging holes to get them out of their burrows so the dogs can chase them down. Makima finds this "calming".

The point I think she's making is that the country life isn't all that different from the work she does in Public Safety, sending her "dogs" to find and kill "mice" like Reze.

Reze tries to fight Makima, but she didn't count on Angel Devil throwing spears down at her from the roof. I guess Reze might be kept alive after this, but this whole scene reads like an execution. Reze took her shot and missed, and now Makima is eliminating her before she can try again. That's a shame, because I really enjoyed Reze's whole run here, and I'd be down for more of the same.

Anway, Makima originally ordered Angel and Aki to be here together, but Angel came alone, and Makima realizes that Angel didn't want Aki to be involved with killing a girl like this. Makima praises Angel's kindness, and yeah, some genuine character development here thanks to Aki. Nice stuff.

That last shot of the mouse kind of bugs me, because I think the town mouse/country mouse was meant to be deeper than I'm able to understand. The thing is, the fable was never about which side you'd prefer. The point of the story is that you tend to take your own circumstances for granted, and assume that some other guy with a different way of life has it better. And then you step into that way of life and realize it's not all it's cracked up to be. You're going to have problems no matter where you go, because in the end you're still a mouse.

Although, the mice and rats in this story have it pretty good when you think about it. The devils in this story are only after humans and human blood. Sure, Power ate a bear, and she's probably not the only one to go after animals, but who'd waste time picking on mice? How much blood can they have? No, the mice will go on no matter how this plays out. Makima can exterminate them in her friend's farm, but they come back every year, and the mice in Tokyo aren't going away anytime soon. They'll be around long after the devils and hunters are all dead.

[thatone-highlighter]

tell me about jasper bestie

Jasper is such a deeply deeply tragic character when you actually take a step back and look at things from her perspective,

she was born into a war-torn planet and expected to be this loyal obedient soldier and to protect her diamond to the very end. and she filled that role, she did what she was supposed to and more, she became the best soldier homeworld had ever seen. she fought for her life and with everything she had constantly, all in the name of Pink Diamond. she did what was asked of her and she did it well. but it wasnt enough

despite how hard she tried and how hard she fought, Pink Diamond was shatters. Her diamond was shattered. she failed. she lost her cause and everyone expected her to just move on. they took her from her planet, where she was made, all shes ever known, away from her diamond. gave her a new diamond and shes just told to move on, she can serve in yellow diamonds name now. and she does, shes an obedient soldier who does everything thats asked of her. but she never forgets about Pink.

Jaspers spent THOUSANDS OF YEARS holding resentment towards Rose, she killed the person she most looked up to, took her home planet from her. she spent those thousands of years ANGRY and given her situation and perspective, rightfully so. Then she gets the chance to go back, the person that caused all that hurt and pain is still kicking around and she wants revenge so she goes back. and gets stuck on that planet with her and in a terrible fusion, she’s tricked into forming this fusion and held down there at the bottom of the sea for MONTHS on end. When she’s finally free of the Fusion she sets out to finish what she started, finally get revenge on Rose Quartz. So she tries to do that, a few failed attempts, ‘Rose’ keeps using the very thing that caused her months of suffering to beat her in fights repeatedly. Then she finally gets beat once and For all, she probably knows she’s not gonna be able to come back from Corruption, she’s been beat and is at her lowest low. So she decided to just try and get some closure by talking to Rose.

And then when Rose just, doesn’t seem to care, she breaks.

Literal Thousands of years of Suffering, she’s been fighting since the second she emerged, killed her Diamond, Took her planet from her, and she just, doesn’t care

and then she loses herself to corruption, and in a rare piece of mercy for her, gets immediately poofed to remain oblivious in her bubble

then, shes let out again, shes healed. but shes not the same, she'll never be the same.

and then they tell her her entire life has been a lie. thousands of years of fighting, thousands upon thousands of burning bitter resentment, all of it was for nothing. because turns out, Pink faked her death. and the person shes been blaming, been itching and burning to make suffer like she made her, thats pink too. but, no, actually, Pink is gone. its Steven now, everyone tells her. hes not pink or rose, hes steven. no one remains for her to be angry at. but shes so so angry.

they tell her theres no need to be angry, everything is fine now everyone is happy. but how is she supposed to be happy now.

she hides herself away, but steven wont let her. he keeps coming back over and over but she just wants to forget about it. one day he comes back with something she can help with, he wants to fight her. fighting is all shes ever known it comes so naturally to her. and then shes shatterd. not poofed, not cracked, shattered. this is how she ends.

except its not, except he brings her back. he brings her back from the death of deaths, and wont even acknowledge what hes done

[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Chapter 41 - Pre-show Jitters

I managed to get this bad boy out last night on Patreon and it released this morning over on ScribbleHub on my usual schedule. Yay! I'm back on top of this!

In the aftermath of the terrorist broadcast message where she watched her girlfriend getting killed on camera in an extremely gruesome way, Diane is struggling with the reality of being a secret agent under deep cover while in a relationship with someone who isn't aware of that fact.

Preview below the cut:

The entire time, the image of Caitlynn being shot through the temple kept cycling in her mind. Knowing she was going as fast as possible to rescue her girlfriend didn’t help, knowing it was a game didn’t help. So far as their bodies perceived things and their minds were connected to the VR, it was as real as it could be. So long as it didn’t cause perception dissonance, they could be inhabiting bodies composed of geometric shapes that resembled quadrupedal aliens from a universe that didn’t have gravity and pain and death would still be traumatic.

Which was a problem for the non-American VR, wasn’t it? American VR rigs could simulate pain by tricking the nervous system into perceiving light and sound as impulses from different nerve endings entirely, a form of induced synesthesia that some clever programmers had used to create sensation, but there was no direct connection between those artificial senses and the physical brains of the people playing the games.

In the VR pods, however? If she understood the technology right, it was only through the mercy of the programmers that players didn’t experience every moment of every possible death. Caitlynn had told her about CoRA and how there was some concern over how accurately the game rendered violence and death. It was, apparently, one of the reasons she hadn’t liked the game. One too many times visiting a space Caitlynn had called a ‘death dream’ where the entire experience of the ‘dream’ had been to reduce the trauma of a very ugly ‘death.’

Which begged the question, one that had only been obliquely answered and not to Diane’s current satisfaction; how accurate was the experience of death in GU:MC? At what point did the repeated pain of dying overwhelm the player’s desire to stay in the game? Caitlynn had said that being killed was an ‘unpleasant’ experience, but she hadn’t said more than that, which could either mean it was inconsequential and thus she honestly wouldn’t care how many times she had to respawn...or it had been so ugly and painful that she didn’t want to dwell on it.

And lurking underneath all the anxiety of not knowing any of this was; if the pain of repeatedly dying or the frustration of being forced to respawn grew to be too much, would Caitlynn just log out and never log back in? Diane wasn’t actually a UN citizen. Her authentication credentials to be in the game were as fake as her cover. Even if Caitlynn tried to look up Diane on the FTLN, she would find precisely nobody that fit her name or her description. Contact was actually illegal between American citizens and people outside the wall. Diane could give Caitlynn her exact contact information for every means of contact both legitimate and clandestine for online spaces and, unless they logged into the game through the pod provided by the agency, they’d never be able to even message each other.

And that was entirely ignoring the fact that Caitlynn would never recognize the person she was outside the pod.

If Caitlynn chose to leave the game because a NPC was torturing her, Diane would likely never see her again.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Read the rest at ScribbleHub

[are-you-still-writing-that]

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Event: Whump- The Musical

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Characters: Charlie Morningstar, Alastor, Vaggie

Warnings: Genocide (Canonical), Self-Doubt

Prompt Used: Day 2 - The song referenced + Mob Mentality (mentioned) + Propaganda (implied)

Have fun! Story under the cut <3

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

„No!“, she screamed. Her voice spiralling into an unholy shriek, as she threw herself at the golden door. Charlie hit it repeatedly, while not stopping to scream. She just couldn´t stop herself. And why should she?

„How dare you! How can you do this!“ Her voice broke, as a sob escaped her throat. Another angry shriek, as she threw her entire weight against the door now, hoping against all odds, that this would be enough for it to open again. To give her the chance to negotiate for the redemption of all her friends once more. To make them see sense. For her to achieve that her friends were given the mercy they were in desperate need of!

„Charlie?“ Vaggie had never sounded so afraid. Not even when Charlie had found her in that alley, still bleeding and shaking, when she needed her help to even stand up. „Are you alright?“, a gentle hand was laid on Charlies shoulder.

„Am I alright?“, she whirled around, slapping away the hand, staring at the other. At the angel, that had deceived her from the first moment. At this being who had slaughtered countless of sinners. Charlie let out a humourless laugh. „Am I alright!“

She started to pace. „How could I be alright!“ She pointed a finger at Vaggie, not even noticing, that her fingernails had grown sharper in her agitation, forming the claws she always tried so hard to suppress. It was something she needed to do, to appear more harmless, to appear kinder. Just another thing, she always needed to keep track of. Otherwise people would never believe in her idea. Most thinking of it as ludicrous anyway.

„Were you even listening!“, Charlie cried. „They are coming down to kill us all! Am I alright?! No! Why would I be! They trusted me!“, she gasped, „They trusted in me!“ Her voice broke again, warping her last word into a helpless sob.

Her voice now more akin to a growl, than anything else. She tried to quiet down, when she saw one of the sinners, that were just passing by, flinch. They didn´t even know where the sound had come from. And why would they? Charlie, just like her father, had always tried so hard to appear as kind. As more human, than they really were. No matter what they were truly like. But she was failing at it in the moment. In the same manner that she had failed in every other aspect.

Another helpless cry tore its way out of her throat anyway, as she started to run back to the hotel. She ignored Vaggie, who was running after her, shouting at her to wait, to slow down, to „Please talk to me!“

There was one last hope, that had settled into her mind. After all, she was the same kind of creature, that her father was. Her mother known as a witch. Her father an angel. Wasn´t there some book of spells that they had gifted her some centuries ago? Maybe, she would be find something useful in there. Some way to stop heaven from coming down here, and kill her people.

She took no notice of the sinners jumping out of her way, as she raced down the street or of Vaggie trying to keep up with her. Still calling out to her, growing more and more frantic, the longer Charlie refused to react, and yet still not receiving any answer.

Charlie ignored it all.

Take the corner at the left, third right, straight ahead, right again at the weird statue, side step the drunk, sharp left, run up the pathway to the hotel.

Barrelling through the door of the hotel, she took no notice of how Angel Dust and Husker jumped out of her way. How Nifty nearly got kicked across the room by her, and Sir Pretentious unceremoniously shoved aside. She ran past Alastor, who had bemused smile on his face, as he got interrupted in the middle of his greeting once more, reminiscent of his first introduction to the hotel.

The faint „What´s up with her?“ from Angel Dust, didn´t even reach her ears. Just as she didn´t hear Vaggies poor attempt at explaining her erratic behaviour.

Charlies focus was centred around the attic. She needed to get up there as quickly as she could! This hotel might still have a chance of being saved.

Boxes over boxes greeted her, when she finally climbed up to the attic. Immediately she started to rip into them. One of those contained the book she needed. Glasses, blankets and old pictures. All those things were carelessly thrown to the side. She simply couldn´t spare the patience to treat them the care they needed at this moment.

Finally, she pulled the old book out of its hiding place.

Instead of racing down to her room, like she had originally planned, she sat down on the ground. A wave of dust billowing up around her, as she started to quickly page through the book.

It was filled with an abundance of strange symbols. Charlie tried to twist her tongue around them, but realizing soon, that this would be useless. She simply couldn´t understand what was written down in there. The language too far from her grasp, even if she simply tried to sound the words out.

Her reluctance to learn, when her father had offered to teach her years ago, was coming back to bite her in the worst possible moment.

This might just be something that was far beyond what she could do. But if she didn´t even try, who would. Who would step up to the angels? To heaven? Who would protect her people from their cruel fate? From what these damn angels planned for them?

Her father? He had already given up centuries ago. His hopelessness had cost him the fight before it had even begun. Her fathers opinion of the sinners, had already clouded his decision when he allowed the angels to come down in the first place. The teachings, heaven had instilled in him far too strong to rise up against them a second time. And if he ever did again, he would never do it in protection of the sinners.

Her mother? Who had deserted them all seven years ago? Charlie knew, that against all hope she still harboured, that her mothers song were unlikely to ever return to hell. There wouldn´t be another song to get the people to rise up as one entity. The only way, they maybe could have had a chance of beating the overwhelming force that heaven was sending down upon them.

She laughed dryly, whispering quietly „One more disaster, I can add to my generous supply“

Charlie was fully aware, that whatever happened next: The responsibility of it was laying on her shoulders. The king and queen of hell, not willing to step in any more. So she had needed to do it as their princess.

But her attempt had failed spectacularly. Her idea of redemption being laughed at, as impossible in both heaven and hell. And now she had brought the angels back onto her doorstep as well.

Was this her punishment? Was she more like her father, than she had ever even thought in the first place. An old saying, her father had sometimes whispered to her „Pride goes before the fall“ to warn her of hubris, came to mind.

Had the idea of the hotel, of sinners redeeming themselves, been nothing more than her hubris, for which she was getting punished now.

Was this somehow all her fault?

With a sob, she threw the book to the side, pulling her knees up to her chest, as she started to cry once more in earnest. Curling into herself, she didn´t notice the shadows shifting behind her. They were wrapping themselves around her, as if they were attempting to hide her even further away.

Charlie couldn´t believe that all of this happened, because she wanted to help. All she ever wanted was to help.

Angel Dust, who was such a gentle and heart-warming person, once you got to see behind his mask. Husker, who always was there for everyone if they needed somebody to talk to and always offered his advice. Sir Pretentious, who was, even she had to admit, somewhat a wuss, but still willing to step into a fight to help his allies and always well-meaning.

Even Vaggie, who had betrayed her trust. She had always been there for Charlie. Fighting to protect her dream with all she had.

Charlie had brought the angels right to them, because she though she could change the way things were being run. Stupid, stupid girl.

She sobbed again.

With the way, that she was crying, she completely missed the sound of the door being opened, or the tapping of dress shoes slowly approaching her. Every little tap almost sounding like hooves hitting the wood.

Though what she couldn´t ignore, was a surprisingly gentle hand petting her hair. The tips of sharp claws, barely scratching her skull. They were nothing more than a faint warning any more, of what they might be capable off, but at the moment utterly harmless.

„Now, now little princess. Enough of that!“

She looked up at the demon, that had come to crouch down in front of her. Alastors smile was as permanent as always, but somehow it felt more forced than usual. He had tilted his head to the side, as he watched her closely.

Charlie sniffled and wiped her tears away. The radio demon didn´t stop petting her, though at this point, she could recognize, that the motion felt kind of mechanical. Nothing more than a imitation of affection.

She looked closer at the other, truly looking at another person, since receiving the refusal from heaven, that had dammed all of hell.

„One question haunts me, and it hurts to even think about it. It feels like everything is too much.“, Charlie mumbled, opening up to Alastor. Finally, spelling out what was racing through her mind.

He just raised one eyebrow. The sound of radio static, that always surrounded him, growing a bit more quiet. It was obvious to her, that he was waiting for her to continue.

„Was I really seeking good or just seeking attention?“

Charlie looked away from him, when she didn´t immediately got an answer from him. Doubt was flooding her mind again.

Faintly, she wondered if there was even such a thing as a good deed. She had grown up in the pits of hell. But what really send her mind racing was the state of heaven. The angels apparently saw the annual slaughtering of her people as a recreational activity. Something they did for fun. Killing was nothing more than a bit of fun for them.

If this was how the righteous and the holy were, was there even anything approaching goodness in the world?

„What a loaded question, my sweet!“ Alastor laughter was warped with his static, as he just grapped Charlies arm to simply pull her back onto her feet. He was still chuckling to himself, as he first dusted of her shoulders, and then his own hands.

Walking away a few steps, he picked up the spell book. Carefully smoothing out its broken spine. Charlie must have accidentally broken it, when she threw it. She waited for Alastor to continue, but he wasn´t coming forth with any answer, instead he simply turned to her and smiled. His canines almost shining.

„Well, what do you think?“, she pushed. Not willing to bear the silence for a moment longer.

„That this is exactly why I came to this hotel in the first place. Your idea was insane, and I was just waiting for you to fail!“ He hummed slightly, his attention being captured by the book, as he slowly started to page through it.

„What the hell?!“ She was getting angry.

At Alastor, who acted like all of this had no other outcome, than what was happening at the moment.

At Vaggie for lying to her all these months. No. Since the start of their relationship.

At heaven, who kept sending angels down to hell, to cull her peoples population, without even caring if there was any other way.

At Adam in particular, who was leading the charge.

But most importantly, she was getting angry at herself, for already having give up so easily.

Charlie started to pace, trying to find a way out of this mess. But no matter, how she approached it, she just couldn´t find a way.

„Interesting what you have here, princess.“

She spared another look at Alastor, who was still paging through the book, but it had slowed down. It almost seemed like- But no, that couldn´t be...

„Do you actually know what this says?“

„Oh yes. Not like it´s hard, now is it? Wouldn´t you agree, princess?“

Charlie just slowly shook her head. Certainly not agreeing with the radio demon. Her pacing slowed, as a sudden thought entered her mind. It made her take a closer look at Alastor.

Alastor, who was the radio demon. One of the most powerful overlords in hell. Certainly experienced in fighting his way to the top. Cruel and gruesome. But undeniably, one of the few which seemed to win every time.

Maybe she had been approaching, the defence of the hotel all wrong. Of course, she wouldn´t find another way. She already had tried all, that she could. At least, if she was still trying to be kind and gentle.

Maybe she needed to approach it differently. Not as someone who wanted to show her people, that kindness was possible even in a bleak place like this. But as the princess of hell.

„Help me“, she demanded. A plan slowly forming in her mind, that might just work.

„What?“

„You need to help me Alastor!“

„Not asking, are you princess“, he chuckled. Finally, he looked up from the book, staring at Charlie instead.

„No. I am not! I will defend this hotel and it´s residents with all I have. And you will help me!“ She had decided to do this now, and there was no way, that she would move from her position at this point.

„If they want a fight with the princess of hell, they will get it. O but I can promise them, if it comes to it, then no good deed will I do again.“, she growled this conviction out. At once the shadows in the attic started to violently twist.

„Willing to make a deal?“, the demon in front of her asked, his voice almost joking. But she could see, his magic coming to life, as it swirled around the two of them. Charlie took a deep breath, as she simply stepped forwards and shook his hand. In response, a loud static screech echoed through the air, as Alastors smile seemed to grow impossibly wide.

„As you wish, princess“, his laughter and voice faded away, as he vanished into some of the shadows, and a silhouette of Alastor giddily waved at her, before fading away itself.

Charlie meanwhile stormed back down to the main room of the hotel. Willing to ride the energy and motivation, that her deal has brought her for as long as possible. To plan, to scheme, to get everyone ready. Either to leave or to fight at her side. Whatever they chose.

Because if heaven wanted a fight with hell, hell they would get.

And she would make sure of that.

[chickensarentcheap]

Little excerpt from Never Gonna Be Alone

I’m usually not proud of my own writing, nor do I ever think it’s good, but I have to admit this isn’t too shabby

WARNINGS: mention of blood, gun violence.  Very brief, mind you.

tagging: @munstysmind @tragiclyhip @secretaryunpaid @youflickedtooharddamnit @mrsmungus @asirensrage @residentdormouse @kmc1989 @karimac @ninjasawakenedmystar @themaradwrites @thebewingedjewelcat

He briefly loses consciousness, and when he comes to once more, it’s with a heavy, choked sob. His beaten and battered body and mind caught in the midst of a vivid nightmare; back on the bridge in Dhaka with a grievously injured and heavily bleeding Esme laying in HIS arms. Staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes; struggling to breathe and unable to speak as blood poured from her mouth and from a gaping wound in the center of her chest. It’s happened before; dreaming of the tables being turned. Unable to help her and reduced to a sobbing and pleading mess in the middle of the dirty, bullet ridden street; tears streaming down his cheeks as his filthy, calloused palms tenderly cradle her face. Feeling helpless and alone; begging her to hang on just a little while longer and assuring her that help was on its way. But too much damage had been done, and no sooner had he pressed a kiss to her blood stained lips, she gave one final, rattling gasp before falling limp in his embrace.

His head snaps backwards; connecting solidly with the passenger door of the rental car. He can remember being thrown down onto his stomach in the middle of the dirty driveway; hands restrained behind his back and the barrel of a rifle pressed firmly against his skull. He could smell the dirt; damp from the mist cast by the ocean. He could taste it on his lips; a stranger's hand tightly fisting his hair and forcing his face into the earth. His last clear memory is of being kicked repeatedly in the ribs; the blows coming with enough force to turn him onto his back. He is certain he told his wife that he loved her; wanting there to be no doubt in her mind in case either of them didn’t survive. And he’d promised that he’d find her; warning his captives that if they failed in killing him, he’d hunt every last one of them down and show absolutely no mercy. They’d crossed a line no one should ever cross; laying a finger on his wife and causing her harm and instilling fear and worry. And his child; five and a half months away from being born and at the complete mercy of outside forces with only their mother to protect them and keep them alive.

Somewhere between unconsciousness and wakefulness, he’d managed to force himself into a sitting position and onto his knees. Likely crawling the short distance to the rental car and then propping himself  against it. Or had he been placed there? Shown a small bit of mercy by one of his captors? His head hurts as he tries to make sense of it all; the pain beginning to register as he tests the binds that keep his hands secured together. The zip ties looser than he remembers them being; recalling the burn as the plastic cut into the skin around his wrists. Was he struggling while half dead to the world? Was it his own strength that pulled the ties apart? Or was that someone else’s doing as well?

He bites back a scream as his hands form tight fists; hearing the cracking of bones as they either completely fracture or pop themselves back into place. The pain that courses through him is intense; his stomach churning and his head throbbing as sweat beads across his brow and gathers at his temples and the nape of his neck. His shoulders aching as he narrows the distance between his bound hands; eyes tightly closed as he takes a deep, shaky breath. Teeth digging into his bottom lip with enough force to break the skin; tasting his own blood as he exhales slowly and then tears his wrists away from each other with as much force as he can muster.

The plastic securing his hands snaps in two and the world spins around him. Agony seeming to fill every inch of his body; vaguely aware of the tears that spill down his cheeks as he raises his wrists to his mouth and uses his teeth to discard the remaining pieces of plastic. A mixture of bile, saliva, and blood joining the shards as he spits them into the dirt; chest heaving with even the smallest amount of excursion. And his eyes close once more as he leans his head back against the cool metal behind him; fingers of his left hand blindly exploring the damage done to the right as he attempts to catch his breath and orientate himself.

The sun burns his eyes when he finally looks up. Tip of his tongue swiping across parched lips; tasting the combination of dirt, blood, and sweat. The physical shock is beginning to wear off. His chest feels heavy and his air flow is slow and laboured; the pain centralized on the left side and seeming to inhabit the surgically repaired lung. He recognizes the difficulties presented with fractured ribs; the burning that comes each time he attempts even the shallowest of breaths. The small of his back on fire; significant pins and needless taking up residence in his buttock and into his right hip. All injuries he’d been left with after his two trips to Dhaka; the sniper’s bullet tearing into his left lung and Nathan’s barely missing his spine. Areas that his assailants had specifically targeted; lingering damage that would either slow him down or take him out of the game entirely.

He has to move.

Planting his feet into the dirt, he drives his power through his legs, managing to push himself up off the ground and then slowly and gingerly sliding his injured body up the car door. He pauses when the light headedness and nausea return; bending at the waist and taking slow, agonizing breaths in order to ground himself. Feeling the blood that trickles from his head wound and lazily rolls down the side of his face; observing in morbid awe and curiosity as it slowly drips onto the top of his feet.

[aressss1]

The Siren’s Song

(Technoblade x Reader)

Read me on AO3!

| Next Chapter > (Soon)

A/N: Mentions of drowning

~~~~~~

Death was the taste of sea salt on his tongue, lungs filled to the brim with water, and nothing but the crashing waves violently tossing to and fro around him. His body felt sluggish, as he fought to drift up to the top. The sunlight hit the water, and that was his goal, to reach with his bound hands toward the glistening water that looked oh so inviting. Maybe if he had tried harder, he could have gotten there. But the sea… It wasn’t merciful, it didn’t have ears that he could sweet talk. No eyes that he could use his good looks on to charm. The sea was far more powerful than any mere man or woman. But the sea, cannot control those who live in it.

 An enemy, and a feared one to be sure… Just happened upon the scene, wrinkling your nose in disdain at the hybrid in your territory. A tune emitting from your throat, as you circled his body. Long pink hair flowed around his form, acting as a curtain to hide his face from you. You pushed his hair from his face, your eyes meeting the most beautiful dull and lifeless golden eyes. His battle worn face told you tales, and you cupped both sides of his face, your thumbs running over past scars. He had seen many battles… Only for the sea to claim him. It was a shame really.

Oh, what fun the two of you could have had… Would he have been prone to crash his ship at the sound of your song? Questions flew through your mind, and before you knew it… You had your arms around his waist hoisting him to the surface of the very sea who had extinguished his flame. The curiosity was too much. The waves did not favor your actions, as if Poseidon himself made his thoughts clear to you. There wasn’t any sort of land near here, just ocean rocks that jutted up toward the sky. One of those would have to do. You dragged his body to the flattest rock you could find.

 You lean over his body, tilting his face to get a good view of him. You had seen the process to saving a drowned man, when you had successfully charmed a ship captain and his crew. You just push on the chest and give him a kiss… Right…? Thoughts about the kiss had you humming in nervousness, the sound echoing around you.

 Your hands snaked up to his chest, one hand over the other and you pushed on his chest repeatedly. Until it came time to give him the “kiss”. You hesitated over his face, lips just inches from his. Your necklace hanging down from your neck pooling at his chest. You were about to press your lips to his, unsure if this was helping. You could have sworn that you were doing everything right, just like the humans from before. You felt his chest seize up making you back away unsure of what was happening, and he sputtered up water. He was coughing… He was coughing! The action making a joyful note rise from you. You had done it!

 He turned on his side, coughing up everything from his lungs. You watched him curiously, as he regained consciousness. His eyes searched the sky, before they fell upon you. He watched you in a daze, eyes studying your every feature. He was surprisingly calm.

 “I see you’re no angel,” His voice was raspy, as he used his bound hands to push himself up into a sitting position, “So tell me demon, what have I done to be put in this fresh hell with you.” His words were cold, and you found yourself laughing. He was going to be so much fun.

 “Strong words for someone who just saved your life.” Your smirk irritated him, as he used the sharp rock to break the bonds around his wrists. He rubbed at the red marks irritating his skin once he was done.

 “I don’t appreciate a temptress playing with her food.” His voice was gruff, as he took a handful of his hair and started ringing it out the water splattering on the rock below. An amused hum rang out, and you reveled in the look he gave you, his eyes softened at the sound of your voice, and he leaned forward toward you. As soon as your hum stopped his face, contorted into a sneer. “The only reason I haven’t killed you yet, is because you brought me here.” His words sparked something in your chest, “Don’t push it.”

 You fiddled with your necklace, it was just an ordinary shell, but it was something your own mother had given you before she turned into seafoam. He watched you like a hawk, as he got his bearings.

 “You should leave,” His monotone voice sounded out, “my kindness for you saving me, is me not killing you like the monster you are.” His tone was a warning, one you didn’t listen to. Your song came forth as you leaned forward. This was just a little test. A test to see what he would do, how he would fare against your song. There was that look of adoration in his eyes, masking his real thoughts. Your hand cupped his face as you sang to him. He definitely struggled. You didn’t want it to end… Wishing he would look at you like that when you didn’t sing…

 You other hand slipped into his pocket, grabbing his compass. Nothing but a momento, to remember this hybrid by. Hoping your paths would cross once more, you hold the compass close to your heart, as you stop your song.

 “Give that back.” He sounded angry once he regained his own thoughts. His hand swiped at you, catching your necklace. It was too late… You launched yourself backward into the sea, watching the necklace snap and fall away from you. You had his compass, and he had your necklace… You felt the familiarity of the ocean around you and you looked up at the rock where he lay, only to see him peering down at you, necklace still in his hand.

 You had to get that necklace back at all costs. You grit your teeth and you settled for waiting him out, until he slept. He had no way off of the rock he was currently on. It was nothing but a barren piece of stone. You took a look at his golden compass, on it was a rough engravement of the name Philza. You could tell it was enchanted, probably bound with another compass, made sense seeing as it didn’t point north, and it fluctuated here and there. Enchanted items like these weren’t easy to get so you knew he would be looking to get it back.

 You waited for him to fall asleep… But the only trouble was that… He never fell asleep. When the world grew dark and the waves seemed to calm you broke through the water, your eyes watching him. You could sing to him until you got your necklace back. When you tried… You found he had torn a piece of his clothing, making earplugs… When he noticed you, he stood, just staring you down. He held out your necklace in a taunting manner, challenging you with his eyes. You knew better than to challenge a man who stood on any type of land… No… Your best bet was to charm him into the sea. Into your own territory. It’s what you did best… You know… When they didn’t have earplugs.

 You figured he had to sleep at some point, he couldn’t keep going like this. So, you watched him, as he fought to keep himself upright in his sitting position, fighting crashing waves that tried to carry him off to sea when the ocean was being relentless. He went for three days, no food, no sleep, no water. He stayed in the blistering sun, made it through the cold nights. You knew he wasn’t exactly human. So… What was he?

 “Soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. One day, when the tonguing is done, we'll take our leave and go.” He sung on the third night, you wished to rise and sing with him, not to charm him or anything… But you never had anyone to sing with… That seemed to be the sirens curse. The curse of never finding someone to sing your song with.

 You watched him play with your necklace, his exhausted eyes looking over the shell… His eyes scanning the horizon, possibly for a ship… Or maybe just to look for you. You hoped it was the latter. He leaned his head back upon the rock, his eyes fluttering shut. You waited a few minutes, watching his still form. The necklace still in his hand. Now could be your chance! You swam as quickly and quietly as you could to the edge of the rock, reaching for the necklace in his hand.

 “Aren’t you a brave one?” His sudden voice made a surprised hum rip from your throat. He pulled the necklace back. “I’ll tell you what… Give me the compass and I’ll give you your necklace.” You thought about it… That necklace was everything to you… But if you gave him the compass back… Well then… The game would be over. What fun was that?

 “You thought it was just going to be that easy?” You taunted, a playful sound echoed around you, not that it affected him. It annoyed you that all he had to do was muffle your song, and he wouldn’t be affected.

 “I could just break it…” His hold on the shell tightened. You shot him a dirty look. “Shells break really easily; all I would have to do is squeeze…” You found yourself reaching for the necklace before you could stop yourself. His hand caught your wrist. Luckily, you let the compass sink into the water before he pulled you up, you landed on his chest, his hold on you didn’t falter. “Or I could just break you. I bet you would break just as easily, demon.” You scrambled away from him, his hold still on your wrist.

 “Let me go,” Your song sounded from your throat in a menacing manner.

 “Not until, you give me the compass back.” He grit his teeth, as his hold on you got tighter.

 “It’s at the bottom of the ocean, you’re more than welcome to go get it.” You taunted him, tugging at your arm to no avail.

 “What do you even want with a compass?” He hissed through his teeth, he looked like he was done playing your games. You didn’t answer him, the feeling of his skin on yours was too much to bear. He dismissed your silence, his eyes meeting yours. “I do not forget, the faces of those who have helped me, and that is still the only reason why you haven’t turned into seafoam.”

 “Or is it just the fact that your strength is leaving your body by the moment.” You hissed; your other hand snaked around the hand on your wrist. You cursed the fact that he had hybrid strength over you. Pulling humans into the sea was definitely easier. “Or…” You had an idea… “Is it something else?” You gave him a sultry look, as the end of your tail flipped to and fro. Your hand caressed up his arm up to his shoulder, face inching forward, threatening to capture him in a kiss.

 “What-” You didn’t give him time to finish his sentence, you pressed forward, slotting your lips with his. Happy hums emitted from you; this was the most whole you had felt in a long time. Your hand came to cup his cheek, when you felt him relax into the kiss is when you took your shot. You grabbed at the piece of cloth in his ear, effectively enrapturing him in your low hums. His hands now roamed your body, and if you weren’t so preoccupied with Techno… Maybe you would have seen the ship with the crew searching for the very man you were kissing, behind you.

 ~~

 “Ready the harpoons, we’re going fishing tonight boys.” Philza, one of the more well-known pirate captains to sail the seas, spotted the two of you through his spyglass. Signaling the crew to put in their earplugs, he looked back through the spy glass once more. They just had to get closer. What Phil wanted to find out was why Techno was grabbing a siren by the wrist, and not killing the demon. What had happened here? When their ship had gotten closer, he saw you kiss Techno, and he knew he had to act now, or Techno would be lost.

 ~~

 It wasn’t long before you heard an anchor lowering in the distance. You broke away from his kiss, turning your face toward the boat you were met with the sight of a blond man with wings standing on the bow of a ship… A harpoon in his hand… You grabbed ahold of the hybrid’s shirt pulling him back toward the water with you. Unluckily for you, pain erupted in your shoulder, as his harpoon was launched into your back, causing you to screech in pain. The man in front of you took a second to come out his daze.

 You didn’t wait around to be impaled again. You launched yourself back into the water, evading the bullets that the crew shot into the water. The water turned red as you swam as fast as you could to the ocean floor. They wouldn’t follow you that deep… But now… Your mission to get your necklace back had failed, you miserably patched yourself up. Cursing the fact that you got too carried away… Your thoughts resting on the compass… If you could find that compass, you could get your necklace back that way… Assuming he still had it.

 Searching the ocean floor seemed to take forever, seeing as you were still wounded. But when you finally found it, you let out a hum of happiness, clutching it to your chest. You were going to get your necklace back no matter what, you kept telling yourself that anyway… There was no way you were just excited to see that handsome hybrid again… You shook your head at the thought as your eyes studied the arrow on the compass as it moved ever so slightly. You made your way back to the surface, your eyes scanning the horizon for his ship. Your heartbeat faster, when you saw him leaning on the back railing of the ship as it sailed away, watching the place he had been for the past three days. Maybe… It wasn’t all for the necklace…

 ~~

 He had seen you as you watched him leave, how could he have not? An unbelievable ache in his chest begged him to go back to you. Maybe it was the desire that your song brought on, still playing tricks on his mind. Your song, though beautiful, was sad… Lonely… He wanted to be over it, and yet he couldn’t. He saw your head duck below the waves, and he found himself unconsciously reaching for you… The action, causing him to sigh. He knew better than to give in to a temptress… But here he was, longing for your touch, to feel your skin under the pads of his fingertips again.

 “Techno? Mate?” Phil knocked him from his thoughts, “let’s go talk about this in the captain’s quarters.” Knowing better than to argue, he followed Phil. Two meals have been prepared for the two of them, just waiting. He had been a starved man for the past three days, but he craved your touch more than any ounce of food. “You must be hungry…” Phil sat at his desk, motioning toward the food. Techno could only grunt as he took a seat. “Techno, what happened to you?” Phil asked as Techno took a bite out of the potato he was eating.

 “Well, you saw me board that blasted ship, Phil.” Techno shrugged taking another bite, chuckling at Philza’s tired expression. “They swarmed me, tied me up and put me in their brig. When they were safe from you and your cannons, they made me walk the plank.” Phil could see the far away look in Techno’s eyes. “I think I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for…”

 “For?” Phil’s eyebrows shot up as he leaned forward clasping his hands together so he could rest his chin on his fingers.

 “Nevermind that, I’m here now, that’s all that matters…” Techno busied himself with his plate.

 “A toast to that mate.” Phil raised his glass, causing Techno to do the same. The creaking of wood as the ship rocked back and forth was deafening. Phil’s eyes spied his compass sitting on his desk… The compass bound to Techno’s… The arrow moved, fluctuating. Phil wasn’t stupid by any means, nor did he want to see his friend die to a siren… But Techno was acting different, something needed to be done, and he would give Techno that choice. When Phil was done with his supper, he stood, walking to where Techno was seated. Silently he left the compass next to Techno. “Techno, I’m taking a few days to myself. You’ll need to lead the crew while I’m gone. But you can’t do that without a compass.”

 Techno gave a salute to his captain and oldest friend. A bracelet, with a shell hanging off of it, graced his wrist. Phil gave him a smirk and left the captains quarters. Leaving Techno alone to his thoughts. He could swear he could hear faint whispers of your song being carried over the wind. He sighed closing his eyes, tilting his head as if that would help him hear it. He knew he was being idiotic… But whether it was sound of the notes you made or the taste of your lips that made him crave your very being… He was going to find you… He was going to make sure of that.

[yandearest]

May The Odds Be Ever in Your Favor (Hoseok x Reader Hunger Games AU) Chapter 7: Natural Born Killers

Summary - Living in District 4 you never thought you would  have to worry about being selected for the Hunger Games. With a training  centre right near the dock of the houseboat you lived and fished from,  your district was known for volunteers who trained their whole lives for  a shot at glory and riches. But at age 18, your name is called and no  girls volunteer to take your place. Your devastation is answered when  Kim Namjoon volunteers for the males shortly after. Tall, muscular,  highly intelligent and charming, the years of diligent preparation have  bestowed Namjoon with the expectation of being the next District 4  champion after Finnick Odair last won 3 years ago.

Fishing for a  living has granted you skills with a knife but, as your mentor Finnick  is quick to describe, your beautiful face may well be your best asset.

Upon arrival in the Capitol you are quickly faced with the reality that  Namjoon may not even be the biggest danger inside the Arena. Especially  when you capture the obsessive attention of District 2′s own volunteer,  and killing machine, Jung Hoseok. Hope soon fades from ‘survival’ to  ‘the mercy of a painless death’ but Hoseok certainly has other plans.

Pairing - Hoseok x (fem)Reader

Genre - thriller, angst, yandere

Word Count 9.5K

Warning: This chapter is very heavy with multiple deaths described in detail.

PLEASE AVOID READING IF YOU CONSIDER THIS CONTENT UPSETTING

The following is a dark fic featuring a yandere character, violence, obsession, and coercion. By no means does  writing about this in a fictional setting condone any of those  behaviours, much like Stephen King writing horror doesn’t mean he  approves of psychotic killers in reality. Please avoid reading if any of  these warnings makes you uncomfortable.

Previous Chapter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6

Cross posted on A03 so people can subscribe for updates/notifications

You had remained with the girl’s body after her canon sounded. The momentary adrenaline rush from killing her attacker had faded and you were filled with despair at the sight of her lifeless eyes. It was strange how little guilt you were feeling, you had just killed someone – something you never thought you could actually do. Even though what he was about to do to the girl was disgusting, you were expecting to feel some sense of remorse over taking another life, but yet there was none. You remembered Hoseok’s vicious attack on seven from yesterday and shuddered, did you have more in common with him than you wanted to admit?

‘No.’ You shook your head, arguing with yourself. ‘He’s a monster, he took pleasure in his kill. I killed to protect someone else… But didn’t Hoseok kill to protect you?’

Disturbed by your conflicting emotions you hit your head against trunk of the tree, begging for the thoughts to leave your head. It was too much to try and process right now, especially with the girl’s body lying on the ground next to you. The impact on your skull and the rough bark grazing against your forehead provided a welcome distraction from your inner monologue.

For a moment, you thought that a whirring noise was coming from the ringing in your head, until you felt a blustering wind, along with surrounding leaves and twigs beginning to lift from the ground. Confused, you scrambled away from the girl and over to your bag. Shouldering the straps, you whipped your head around trying to see what the cause could possibly be, as the wind and whirring sound only grew stronger.

With nothing abnormal around you, you turned your gaze upwards to see an airship hovering just above the trees. A door along the bottom opened, and a large metal claw slowly began to lower through the leaves, knocking several branches out of the way. You stumbled backwards, not wanting to get in its way, and watched with sick fascination as the claw reached the boy. It hovered for a few seconds, getting its bearings, before the metallic arms began to retract. The gears whirred as they clasped around the body, some digging into the dirt below him, before they formed a tight grip with a sealed clunk. And then the claw was moving upwards, the thick cord retracting until it disappeared into the ship above.

It was such an odd sight, such an inhumane way to treat a dead child (‘the dead child you had just killed’). You just stood there staring, until the claw reappeared at the door, once again empty. You looked over to the girl’s body, regretfully knowing she would be taken next. But there was nothing you could do for her. You didn’t know if the airship could be giving away your location, or whether the other tributes would think to run in the opposite direction, but you didn’t want to stay and find out. Securing your bag, you turned your back and ran.

 *

 Two hours later it was difficult to see the sun through the leaves above, which made it hard to try and navigate. You were starting to run low on water and you had an idea to try and get to the edge of the pool behind the cornucopia, closer to the waterfall. Your idea was basically that people who wanted supplies would go to the cornucopia itself and those trying to run away would have gone in the opposite direction. If you could sneak along the edge of the forest, maybe you could reach the fall and stay hidden. Your plan had worked well, after finding where the edge of the forest neared the river, you had stayed hidden in the trees and made your way in the direction of the waterfall. When the cornucopia came into sight, you took a longer detour back inland through the trees, not wanting to risk coming into contact with any tributes who might be hiding so close to supplies.

You knew you were getting close when the sound of crashing water began to get louder, and more rocks started appearing in your path. A canon sounding very close by caused you to jump and momentarily forget your plan. Looking around you had to be at the cliff that would take you up towards the top of the fall. Remembering the careers from yesterday, you knew you definitely didn’t want to keep going in that direction. The noise of the canon seemed to have come from further inside the forest, close to where you had been walking through only moments ago. Climbing up the cliff wasn’t an option, and neither was staying in this part of the woods, so the waterfall remained your target. You let the noise of the water guide you and continued to made your way over – the surface becoming increasingly rockier the closer that you got.

The cornucopia came into view, in all of its temptation. It was across the other side of the rocks that you were traversing. It was less filled than yesterday; however, you could still spot an array of supplies scattered around. For the first time you felt your stomach rumble and you longed to run across and raid it for some of the fruit that you could see. But it was far too out in the open to be worth the risk. So, you continued towards the fall.

The closer you came, the more you were left in awe by the design of its structure. The rocks became harder to climb over, but you realized that they went behind the pounding curtain of water, into a cave. You were apprehensive. It was such a brilliant hiding spot, but being so close to the cornucopia you felt like another tribute had to have found it by now. However, someone could only have seen it if they had chosen to come closer to the fall, rather than the cornucopia, which wasn’t necessarily an expected move.

You didn’t want to take any chances, and pulled your knife out from your pocket, just to be extra careful. Doing your best to balance, and stay hidden between the large rocks, you slowly made your way closer to the water’s edge. Once there you crouched down, repeatedly checking behind your back to make sure no one was trying to sneak up on you, and filled up your container. Once full, you put the cap on and then began to try and scrub off the lingering traces of blood that were staining your hands.

It was as you were finishing up that you spotted a moving figure through a crack between the rocks, in the direction of the woods. You sprung to your feet and quickly hid behind the closest rock. Making sure to check behind your shoulder first (in case anyone was trying to sneak up on you whilst you were distracted), you peered out from behind the boulder to see your worst fear – Hoseok and Namjoon working together.

You spun back around, your back hitting the rock, as you pressed yourself against surface. They definitely hadn’t seen you yet as they were moving towards the cornucopia and neither of them had been looking over in your area. You recalled the canon from before and instantly knew it had to be their work. Your heart was racing and a tightness was beginning to seize across your chest making it harder to breathe. You wished you could somehow melt into the rock and hide inside until these games were over, but you knew it wasn’t a realistic option. Staying outside here would be far too risky with them so close by. The forest wasn’t safe as they would very likely see you if you tried to run back now. Your best option was the cave behind the fall, as it was surrounded with large rocks for cover, and neither of them seemed to know of its existence. The possibility of another tribute being inside no longer scared you when the two worst tributes in the arena were so close by.

Using the rocks as a shield, you scrambled the last remaining meters to the fall. Once safe behind the curtain of raging water you stood in awe of the size of the cave within. The boulders from outside seemed to morph into smoother steps that lead upwards and further inside the cliff structure. There was still no sign of any other life inside, but you kept a firm grip on your knife in case of any hidden attacks. The higher you climbed, the drier the rock below your boots became. With the waterfall keeping you hidden from the outside, you deliberately allowed your footsteps to echo throughout the cave in order to alert anyone inside. You weren’t here to fight.

When you reached the top of the rock steps you found a smooth plateau and the first sign of life. There was a makeshift camp of a few supplies – a sleeping bag, a pot, and flint – set up around the ashes of an extinguished fire. The coals still had a faint tinge of orange, so someone still had to be close by.

“Hello… Is anyone here?”

You called out, but were only met with the sound of your voice bouncing back off the walls.

The sleeping bag looked like it had some sort of shape underneath it, so you slowly walked over, wondering if anyone was still inside. You didn’t want to come off as threatening, but you also weren’t stupid enough to approach someone without a weapon, so you hid your knife behind your back.

“I’m [Y/N] from Four, I ran away from the careers. Two and Four are at the cornucopia now.”

The closer you moved towards the bag, the darker the cave became, but you could still faintly make out some sort of shape. You frowned, why wasn’t the person responding to you?

“Please, I’m just want to hide,” you lowered your voice as you reached the bag.

“I promise I don’t want to hurt you.”

You tapped at the bag with your foot but were met with a hard feeling beneath your toe.

Rocks?

 A trap

 Leaping away from the sleeping bag, you narrowly dodged the swing of a machete from a figure hiding in the shadows by less than an inch.

“But I want to hurt you”

The voice of your attacker was feminine, but you had no idea who the person is.

“Are you fucking crazy, I’m trying to offer you an alliance against the careers,” you swore as you shuffled backwards, trying to put some distance between yourself and your opponent.

“No thanks. I had one until your boyfriend killed him…” The girl continued to follow you, and as she steps further into the light, you recognize her from District 7

“…And I’d like to return the favor.”

She swung the machete again, and you narrowly ducked with a shriek, rolling towards the edge of the plateau. You just managed to catch yourself from rolling off the edge, but before you could get to your feet, Seven charged at you with another swing of her blade.

You brought your knife up to block it, which she clearly didn’t expect. She’s too stunned by the fact you stopped her attack to block your leg that kicked up and into her stomach. She hunched over and gasped, barely keeping her grip on her weapon after having the wind knocked out of her. You didn’t give her the opportunity to catch her breath. There was no time for guilt or doubt as you thrust your knife upwards. It sunk in between her ribs with a broken scream, causing her to finally release her grip on the machete. It clattered to the ground beside you as you pulled your knife out.

She was still alive, her hands pressing against the bleeding wound as she stood above you. The previous sight of your would-be-killer is gone, replaced by a scared girl who knows she’s going to die. You can’t exactly blame her for trying to kill you – after all your alliance tortured her district member – but there’s no point in feeling sorry for her now. The best you could do is give her a faster death than her partner. Getting to your feet, you stabbed her again, this time in the stomach. She made a strangled gurgle, coughing up blood as you ripped your knife back out. She moved to try and grab for the machete, but stumbled over her feet and instead slipped off the edge of the plateau.

You looked over the side with morbid curiosity, to see her body had landed amongst the rocky water at the bottom. The pool below is a violent mess of currents created from the waterfall and you watched as her body was quickly pulled under to the sound of a canon.

 *

 “I’m almost disappointed by how easy this has been,” Namjoon commented as he picked up a small sack of rice and tossed it into the water. Since disposing of Krystal, the duo hadn’t so much as seen a trace from another tribute on their way to the cornucopia. They had arrived with ease and quickly finished stocking both their backpacks with food items. It was when they discovered there would still be plenty left for other tributes that Hoseok had come up with the idea of throwing whatever they couldn’t take with them into the river.

“If only [Y/N] was that easy to find,” Hoseok muttered in response. Between tossing away any food he came across, he was also searching for more arrows.

“Nothing good is ever easy, she can’t hide forever.”

*boom* 

The noise of a canon stopped them both in their place, it had sounded very close by. Namjoon looked around in a circle to see if there was any sign of an airship, whilst Hoseok suspiciously eyed the waterfall. The canon had definitely come from that direction. It was too high to see their camp up the top, but in his mind the noise had sounded closer. For a few minutes there was an uneasy silence, until he spotted something in the water.

“Over there”

Hoseok tapped Namjoon on the arm and pointed towards a figure that was emerging from the raging waters. Forgetting about throwing away food, the two moved towards the edge of the cornucopia’s rock to try and see the body. The water near the fall was a violent mess of waves, before it smoothed out into an eerily placid pool by the cornucopia rock’s edge. They watched as the body was tossed around, pulled underneath the currents, until it eventually drifted further way from the fall and resurfaced closer in their direction.

“It’s a girl,” Namjoon commented as they watched the body float closer.

It was difficult to see any details, but they could both tell the body was too big to be one of the younger tributes. There were no male tributes with hair long enough to tie into a ponytail, which gave away the fact it was a girl. With Athena having short hair, Krystal being killed earlier, and four known female tributes having died yesterday, they both mentally ran through which older females were still left in the games.

“You don’t think it could be…”

“No.”

They were both thinking the same thing, but there was no way Hoseok would allow Namjoon to say your name out loud.

It wasn’t you; it couldn’t be you. There was no way that you could have been taken from Hoseok without him feeling it inside. You were tied together and the second you left this world he would be able to feel it like a tether had snapped, right? He had no idea what he would do if you died before he was able to reach you in these games. It was a given that he would kill whoever was responsible in the most excruciating manner possible, but afterwards? Probably a rage induced rampage until he was the only person left, before killing himself. If you weren’t together with him at the end, then no one could win.

Hoseok followed the body along the rock as it drifted, until it was close enough for him to be able to reach. He could hear the sound of an approaching airship, but he had to see who it was with his own eyes first. Leaning over, he grabbed the body by its jacket and pulled it close enough for him to flip over. His sigh of relief upon seeing some insignificant nobody was audible.

“Not her,” he called to Namjoon, who had followed behind him.

“Stab wounds…” Namjoon acknowledged, nodding at the two bleeding cuts in the body. A solid incision between the ribs and a deeper wound in the stomach.

“From someone who knows how to handle a knife…"

Hoseok’s words trailed off at the end as he recalled your training in the arena. Particularly, your skill with throwing knives. The boys looked at each other, both knowing what the other was thinking. You were very close by. Looking at the waterfall where the body had appeared, there was nothing to suggest that you were around. If it weren’t for the fact that you were trying to stay away from him, Hoseok would have been proud that his girl was so good at keeping herself hidden.

“Look over there”

Hoseok’s head snapped over to the direction Namjoon was pointing at, but couldn’t see anything.

“What am I looking for?”

“The rocks. I didn’t notice before, but look how they trail behind the waterfall. I think there’s something back there… more importantly, someone.”

In an instant Hoseok was at his feet, the body below him forgotten about entirely. His bow and quiver of arrows were already on his shoulder.

“Leave the supplies here, we can come back for them when we have YN,” Hoseok instructed as he walked over to pick up some rope from the cornucopia. He doesn’t want to have to restrain you, but given you ran away it’s not like you’ve left him much choice.

Eying the rope in Hoseok’s hands and the knife in his own, a dangerous smile flashed across Namjoon’s face.

“Let’s go get our girl.”

 *

 The guilt you were wondering why you didn’t feel earlier, seemed to crash down upon you all at once. With a horrified gasp you, were hyperventilating over the reality you had now killed two people in one day. You didn’t want to, you didn’t mean to, you knew that you had to otherwise it would have been you that was dead. But it didn’t make the reality any less awful. You wondered what your father would be thinking if he was watching. He had been the one to train you with a knife in case that your name was ever called, but could he handle the reality of actually seeing you kill other kids? What about your mother? She was already dead, what if she was waiting for you to join her in peace, but you were sending other children to her instead?

You felt sick, but there wasn’t any food in your system to throw up. Instead, all you could do was dry reach and cough as you backed away from the ledge of the plateau. Maybe you should throw yourself over into the rocks to drown. You didn’t deserve to live as a killer. But then wouldn’t that make those deaths meaningless? And as selfish as it sounded, you didn’t want to die a painful death. You were scared. Scared to die, scared to suffer, scared to survive and have to live with yourself if you made it.

You crawled backwards until you felt your hand touch something soft. You flinched in surprise, looking down to see the sleeping bag from seven’s camp. It felt wrong to even consider, but you couldn’t help but think it would be a nice spot to hide out for a while. There was shelter and more importantly, warmth. You weren't exactly in the mood to return to the woods again and have to climb another tree. You shrugged your backpack off your shoulders and tried to distract your racing thoughts with the task of pulling the rocks out of the sleeping bag that seven had stuffed inside.

As you worked, you could hear the sound of rocks crunching. At first you thought it was just the sounds of the ones inside the bag as you moved them, but then you paused, and you could still hear the noise. It was hard to hear anything over the sound of the waterfall, but you had a bad feeling. You fumbled for your backpack and began to slide further backwards into the darkness of the cave.

“[Y/N]”

You feel as if your blood has turned to ice at the sound of Hoseok calling your name. How the hell could he possibly know that you were here?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…

You shuffled backwards until you hit a rock. You couldn’t see anything in the darkness around you, and you could only pray that darkness would keep you hidden from him. You curled your knees into your chest and tried to shrink yourself as small as possible, clutching onto your knife, which would be your only hope of escape if he found you up here.

“Son of a bitch!”

You flinched at the sound of Namjoon’s cursing, and felt yourself panicking. Hoseok on his own was bad enough but Namjoon with him was too much. You doubted you could take one of them in a fight, but you knew that both of them would be impossible. You didn’t know what Hoseok’s plans with you were, but you swore you would rather die on your own than find out. You might not be able to fight them both, but you still had your knife, maybe you could take yourself out on your own terms.

“What?” Hoseok barked, his voice getting closer as he began to climb the rock steps.

“Some little shit is stealing our bag.”

That caused him to pause. Whilst the careers did have some basic supplies back at their camp, because they had thrown away a lot of the other food at the cornucopia, they needed those bags.

“Go stop the prick then, I’ll meet you out there with [Y/N].”

Namjoon nodded with a pissed off frown, turning around and heading back out of the fall the same way that he came. He hated when his plans were interrupted and he was going to make whatever moron thought they could steal from him pay.

You had no idea what bags they were talking about, but felt a sliver a of relief over Namjoon leaving. At least you had a fighting chance now if Hoseok found you. You could hear the sound of Hoseok’s footsteps coming closer, as he continued to climb.

“[Y/N]~” Hoseok’s voice echoed throughout the cave as he sung out your name in a sickeningly sweet call.

“Why are you hiding from me, angel? You should know that I would never hurt you.”

His steps continued to get closer and you clasped one hand over your nose and mouth to try and muffle the sound of your breathing. You tried to breathe as slowly and quietly as humanly possible.

“If it’s over how I tortured that boy from seven, I only did that because he tried to hurt you. But if you want, I’ll make all my other kills quick and painless. I’d do anything for you.”

The sound of his footsteps reaching the plateau kept you paralyzed in fear. He was here, there was no escape anymore. You clenched your eyes shut and prayed that the darkness could keep you covered.

Hoseok’s brows furrowed as he reached the top level and saw the abandoned camp. There were visible signs of a struggle from the earlier fight, but he couldn’t see anything else. The sleeping bag was barely visible in the darkness, but he could vaguely tell there were rocks nearby and some still inside of the bag. So that dead girl had tried to set a trap, but you were too clever. Again, he felt a combination of pride and frustration. If only you weren’t so afraid of him, you would be unstoppable together.

If his vision was to go by, you weren’t here. There weren’t any rocks to hide behind and it was possible you could have run in the opposite direction than where Namjoon and himself had approached from. But why did you feel so close? He narrowed his eyes and tried to squint further into the darkness, how deep did that cave go? Could you possibly be hiding in plain sight?

He pursed his lips, preparing to walk closer before the sound of a canon stopped him in his tracks.

 *

 Yoongi was in a bad mood.

After his argument with Krystal, he had been left alone to fish up the stream, but he had a lingering sense of unease. Why didn’t she understand that he was only looking out for her best interest? He didn’t sign up for these games to protect her just to watch her get killed for some stranger. It’s not that he hated you, or wanted you to die. He felt sorry for you and the way that Hoseok had singled you out, but it was better you than Krystal.

His luck with fishing had been mediocre. He had been apprehensive to use their food supplies for bait in case there weren’t actually any fish in the river. On the plus side it turned out there were indeed fish, but on the negative, the ones he had managed to catch were tiny. He lost track of how long he had been fishing for, enjoying the feeling of the sun on his face after such a freezing night, when he was snapped out of his peace by the sound of a canon.

Something was wrong.

He couldn’t put his instincts into words, it didn’t make any logical sense, but he had a very, very bad feeling. It was like a part of him had collapsed inside of his chest.

‘Where’s Krystal?’

Surely, she would be back at camp, just like she was supposed to be?

He tried to shake off the feeling, canons were a normal part of the games, if Krystal was smart then she would still be with Athena. On her own Krystal was a formidable opponent, and Athena was a powerhouse. The only real threat that could take those two were the other careers, but they were all back down the cliff. She should be fine… so why didn’t it feel like she was?

With a huff, Yoongi wheeled in his wire and tossed the coil into the bucket. He would try fishing again later, using the smaller fish as bait. But first he had to go and find Krystal to put his mind at ease. He dipped the bucket into the river to fill it up with a little water, in order to keep the bait fresh in the meantime, then began his walk back to the campsite.

When he rounded the corner of the river that led to the waterfall, he felt his stomach drop upon seeing Athena alone at the campsite.

“Athena! Where’s Krystal” He yelled.

Her head jerked up from picking through a pile of different sticks, organizing them into different firewood. She seemed surprised, but Yoongi just thought that was from how loudly he had yelled at her.

“YOONGI, LOOK OUT!” Athena screamed back at him.

‘Look out for what? We need to look for Krystal?’

But his confused thought was interrupt by a searing pain running through his thigh. Gasping in agony, he was in so much pain he couldn’t even scream. Looking down he saw the long blade of a machete protruding out of his leg. Before Yoongi could even react, he was struck across the back of the head, whilst someone else landed a kick to his speared leg. Disorientated from the pain, the two attackers were easily able to manhandle him face down into the river.

Athena leapt up to help, but was met with a rope being wrapped around her neck from behind. The pressure instantly cut off her air, causing her to choke as she desperately clawed for the rope. But whoever had attacked her had miscalculated their strength. Once she was able to get a grip on the rope around her neck, Athena didn’t waste time trying to pull it away. Instead, she used her hold for leverage and rolled her body forward, causing the girl behind her to come flying over her shoulder.

Laying sprawled out on her back District 8 realized she had made a terrible mistake, but it was too late for her. Athena snatched a nearby spear from the weapons pile and drove it straight down into the girl’s stomach. After ripping the point out, Athena kicked her sharply in the side, sending her rolling into the rushing waters. Whether it was from the stab wound, drowning, or falling onto the rocks below, all Athena cared about was the sound of the canon that followed.

Spear in hand, she raced up the bank to save Yoongi.

One down, two to go.

 *

 Hoseok was quick to dismiss the sound of the canon as Namjoon taking care of the boy trying to steal from them, but his head turning towards the direction he thought the sound came from caused him to see a falling silhouette through the waterfall.

“What the fuck?”

He didn’t care for his allies atop the waterfall, but the odds for his plans in the games were better if they could stay alive until the outlier tributes were taken care of. He cast a quick scan around the cave for any sign that you were there, but seeing nothing he huffed and started climbing back down.

You couldn’t believe your luck.

After everything that had gone wrong so far in the arena, the moment you were seconds away from being found by your worst nightmare, something managed to distract him.

You should have felt guilty that the distraction came in the form of another person dying, but you were to high strung to properly register that. Listening to the sound of Hoseok’s footsteps, you waited until he was at the bottom of the steps before slowly moving forwards. Not wanting to risk being seen or heard, you slowly crawled your way to the edge to see Hoseok disappearing back out the side of the waterfall that he had come in from.

There was no way you were going to remain in the same place and risk being caught if he came back. Making sure your backpack was still secure, you climbed your way back down the same steps. But when you reached the bottom, you hurried along the rocks under the fall in the opposite direction that Hoseok had left.

 *

 Namjoon and the boy from 10 on the cornucopia had been trapped in a stalemate ever since Namjoon had returned from the waterfall. The boy had been distracted with filling up a bag as quickly as possible that he initially didn’t notice Namjoon sneaking up on him, but a movement in his peripheral version alerted him to the career’s presence. His head snapped up, as he saw him coming back to the cornucopia. Namjoon held the boy’s eyes with a dangerous stare that screamed one thing; ‘you’re dead, kid’.

There were barely any supplies left, the rock was sparse and the last remaining good items were now in the bag slung over his shoulder. Clearly Namjoon had to want what was in the bag if he was coming back for it.

“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll drop it!”

The break in his voice severely reduced the impact of his words, but the boy dangled the bag over the side of the water to show that he was serious.

Namjoon rolled his eyes, clearly not taking the threat seriously as he continued to walk, forwards, only to stop when the boy released the bag entirely. The boy caught the bag by the handle, but held it back up over the side of the edge once more.

‘So, he’s quick,’ Namjoon internally assessed as he held up his hands in a mock surrender.

“You have something of mine that I want back,” Namjoon nodded to the bag.

“If it was yours you would have taken it with you,” the kid snapped back.

“Everything in this arena is mine, including your life. Drop the bag on the rock and your death won’t be a painful one,” Namjoon threatened as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to showcase his muscular triceps that were probably three times the width of the scrawny teenage boy’s.

“Come any closer and your bag will be thrown to the bottom of your river”

Namjoon longed to rush the boy and slam his head against the rock to teach him some respect, but the bag of supplies kept him rooted to the spot. Meanwhile the boy was tossing up his options. The boy from 10 knew that he was fast, but the weight of the bag would slow him down, and it was possible Namjoon could catch him. But if he dropped the bag his odds of outrunning him into the forest were much higher. But the boy wanted the bag just as much as the careers did. He hadn’t eaten since the start of the games. He had scarfed down a protein bar whilst cramming supplies into the bag, but he didn’t think he was going to last long in the forest without anything.

And so, the two stood eyeing each other down, neither willing to cut the loss of the bag, not even a body flying over the edge of the waterfall to the sound of a canon could distract them. However, Namjoon could still see Hoseok resurfacing out the side of the fall.

Hoseok could be brash but he wasn’t an idiot. Seeing the boy holding the bag over the water and Namjoon with his hands up, he could tell that there was some sort of bargain happening. With the boy’s arm over the water, it wasn’t like he could just shoot him with an arrow, without the bag falling in. Being within Namjoon’s line of sight, and with the boy having his back to him, Hoseok sent Namjoon a signal to let him know he would approach quietly.

Keeping his hands raised, Namjoon began to walk around the boy. He maintained the same distance, moving clockwise around the rock with lazy steps.

“You’re not getting off this rock with that bag,” he taunted as he walked, deliberately keeping the boy’s attention away from Hoseok, who was moving closer towards their direction.

“As a matter of fact, you won’t be getting off this rock alive at all”

“Then there wouldn’t be much sense in me keeping a hold of this bag then,” ten sneered.

“The second you drop the bag, is the second you die and you know it,” Namjoon replied coolly as he continued to pace.

“Not unless I make a trade”

Namjoon barked out a laugh.

“For you to make a trade you would need to have something I want. The only thing I want is that bag.”

“Oh really?” Ten asked with a knowing grin starting to crawl across his face.

Namjoon rolled his eyes at the audacity of the kid to think he could possibly strike a bargain, but he had to admit it was somewhat amusing.

“And what else could you possibly have?”

“I saw you and two earlier, I know you’re looking for your district partner. I also saw where she went”

There was a hint of glee in ten’s voice, like he was aware of a hilarious inside joke and Namjoon didn’t like it one bit.

“Bullshit,” he called.

At this reaction, ten outright giggled.

“I know you were tracking her, and that you killed that other career. But I also saw where she was going, and you were both so close.”

“And what makes you think that I believe you?”

Whether Namjoon believed him or not, having the boy keep talking was an excellent way to stall for time as Hoseok continued to get closer. With Namjoon now on the other side of the rock, it was only a matter of time before they had the kid trapped between them.

“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?”

Namjoon let out an exasperated sigh.

“No shit, we’ve all seen her at training and the interviews. Hardly proves you saw her today.”

Ten fumbled the bag slightly, his arm starting to burn with lactic acid from holding it over the water for so long. Bringing it down to the ground, he placed a foot on top, easily able to kick it into the river if he wanted. It was in the process of doing this that he caught sight of Hoseok approaching from his peripheral vision.

“Tell him to stop right now, or I kick the bag,” he immediately threatened.

“Hoseok!” Namjoon yelled, before making a cutting gesture across his throat, to get him to pause.

Hoseok reluctantly listened, coming to a stop just slightly further away from the boy than where Namjoon was on the other side of the cornucopia.

“So now what? I drop the bag and I die, or I give you the bag and I die” Ten deadpanned as he looked between the careers on either side of him, not exactly liking his options.

“Sounds about right to me,” Hoseok grinned, sliding the bow off his shoulder and preparing to load an arrow from his quiver.

“If you shoot me now then I can’t tell you where your girl is.”

Hoseok paused his hand right as it touched upon an arrow.

“Where is she,” he demanded.

Namjoon mentally slammed his palm against his forehead, of course Hoseok would be too blinded by his obsession with you, and buy into this bargain.

“I’m not just going to tell you so you can kill me. Look I can see there’s no situation here where I leave alive with the bag, so I’ll drop it. Here,” Ten paused to toss the bag a few feet in front of himself.

“Walk towards me and let me walk past you” Ten gestured towards Hoseok “and I’ll tell you where she is.”

Hoseok nodded curtly whilst Namjoon just rolled his eyes. He thought Hoseok was a lovesick fool, but was satisfied with the fact they at least had the bag back again.

The walk across the rocks began, ten deliberately tried to walk in a path that would create a gap in width between his body and Hoseok’s when they met. Hoseok read this and navigated himself in a way to lessen that distance, in case Ten tried to run without giving him the information that he wanted.

Meanwhile Namjoon walked towards the direction of the bag to retrieve it, but spotted something from the corner of his eye. There was some sort of shape in the rocks near the waterfall. He knew he should probably be paying attention in case Ten thought it was a good idea to jump his teammate, but Hoseok was strong enough to take care of himself, and this weird shape was bothering him. It was hard to see over the mist that sprayed up from the crashing impact, and when he squinted his eyes to look, it was like it was never there at all. For a moment he dismissed it as a bird until it moved again. A blur ducking up and then disappearing behind the closest rock. And then suddenly it clicked – why Ten had been laughing when talking about how close they apparently were to you before. The boy had seen you…

“HOSEOK!” He bellowed right before the two boys were about to pass each other “SHE WAS INSIDE THE CAVE. SHE’S MAKING A BREAK OUT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FALL”

 *

 Whatever luck you had acquired for Hoseok to leave inside the cave, seemed to have vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. You couldn’t hear the words that Namjoon had yelled over the rumbling noise of water crashing nearby, but you could see him pointing in your direction.

For a split second you all froze. You were caught like a deer in headlights, Namjoon was pointing at you, Hoseok looked livid and the boy from ten was scared to death. There was barely any distance between Ten and Hoseok. They were less than six feet apart, with Hoseok blocking the way to the forest, and Ten had just lost his only bargaining chip seconds away from managing to escape. With no weapon on his body, and no way to get around the armed career in front of him, he made a split-second decision to turn back around. If he was going to die, then he wasn’t going to let those careers get that bag, He’d kick it into the river if it was the last thing he did.

Immediately, chaos erupted.

You took off into a sprint across the rocks. You no longer had to worry about remaining hidden and put all your focus on speed. There was no point in prioritizing your safety on the dangerous surface either – it was either get away, or die. You’d risk slipping and breaking your neck than winding up caught between Hoseok and Namjoon any day. Using every ounce of instinct built from years living on the coast, climbing your boat, and scaling rocks near the sea, you made a break for the forest.

Being the closest, Namjoon would have pursued you, if wasn’t for ten turning around. Reading his move for the bag Namjoon had to race him for it, which was in the opposite direction that you were running. Hoseok and ten were both the same speed, so it was down to him being closer to save their supplies.

“No! Get her! GET HER!” Hoseok yelled to Namjoon as he watched you slipping through his fingers, whilst you ran closer to the forest’s edge.

But Namjoon ignored the demand, leaping onto the bag just seconds before Ten’s foot could make contact with a kick. Instead, Namjoon took the hit to his side and rolled, causing ten to go flying over the top of him.

Ten landed with a sickening crunch. He had thrown his arms out to break the fall, only to break his wrist on impact with the rock. Despite the agony, he used the momentum to keep rolling and fell off the side, into the water below. Namjoon sat up with a grunt, with his water experience, swimming the boy down wouldn’t be a problem, except Hoseok was about to beat him to it.

With his bow loaded, Hoseok shot an arrow straight into the shoulder of ten. The boy let out a muffled scream as he fell underneath the surface, no longer able to swim. With ten no longer a threat, Hoseok looked up to try and find where you were, to see you were right at the border between the rocks and the forest edge.

You had made it to the trees and stopped to look behind to see if you were being chased, when you witnessed Hoseok shoot the boy from ten. You thought that would be it, that he would be left to drown now that he could no longer swim, or that Hoseok would fire a second arrow to be certain. Instead, you found yourself rooted to the spot as Namjoon reached into the water and pulled ten back up to the surface by the arrow stuck inside of his body. As Namjoon continued to drag a screaming ten out of the water, and back up onto the cornucopia rock, Hoseok stood at his side, pointedly staring at you.

Your eyes were locked onto his, trying to read what he was going to do next. You leaned against the closest tree as you tried to suck in deep breaths. Your lungs burned from sprinting over the rocks, but you had to be ready to run again into the forest at any moment. In return Hoseok was eerily still. He watched the rise and fall of your chest with every breath you took, studied the flush of red across your cheeks and beads of sweat trickling from your forehead, and thought of the ways in which he would love to elicit such a response from your body. He ached to run and take you into his arms so he could feel the warmth of your body pressed against his, but knew that you would disappear into the forest the second he tried to. So, instead he chose to drag those seconds out as long as possible, just watching you breathe from a distance to find comfort in knowing you were still alive.

  *

 The sound of the canon had distracted the two boys that were holding Yoongi under the water. Turning their heads over towards the sound they were hoping to see Athena dead and the other girl from eight returning to help them take care of the last person at camp, but were met with the sight of an enraged Athena running in their direction.

“Shit! What the fuck do we do?” The boy from district 8 hissed, as he maintained his pressure on Yoongi’s neck to keep him face down under the water.

“How the fuck should I know?” the boy from district 9 snapped back, “You’re the genius who said your partner could take care of her”

“I thought she could! How hard is it to sneak up and kill someone from behind?”

“Too hard apparently”

“WATCH OUT!”

The two boys’ bickering was cut short by eight shoving nine to the side and narrowly avoiding the spear that Athena had thrown.

“That was clos-”

Eight’s sigh of relief was cut short by a second spear landing in his throat.

Nine released a horrified scream at the gruesome vision. The canon hadn’t sounded yet as eight was barely clinging to life, choking out gargled breaths as blood spilled profusely down his neck and into the water below. Nine was so preoccupied by the sight that he didn’t even notice that Yoongi had surfaced from the water. With an agonized grunt, Yoongi pulled the blade of the machete out of his leg and swung it straight into the kid’s head.

Two canons sounded one after the other as the boys died simultaneously.

With the surge of adrenaline fading as quickly as it had appeared, Yoongi collapsed on the shore, vomiting up the water he had been forced to swallow whilst being held under. His injured leg was throbbing, he had a splitting headache and his chest felt like someone had been sitting on it. He was barely conscious when Athena caught up to him and dragged him further out of the water, to make sure he didn’t get caught in the stream and sent over the waterfall.

Pulling her button up shirt from her body (leaving just a tank top underneath), Athena set to work on creating a makeshift tourniquet by tying the sleeves tightly above the wound.

“You know, I could easily just kill you now,” Athena mused.

Yoongi’s response was a laugh in the form of a sharp huff. It was true, he was defenseless. The machete had been lodged into nine’s skull and taken away with his body. He now had no weapon and a major injury in his leg, whilst Athena was a skilled hand to hand combat fighter. She could also easily run back to the weapons at their camp before he could even struggle to his feet.

“So why don’t you?” he grunted, closing his eyes and letting his head fall onto the ground below.

Yoongi knew his shot at the games was practically over with such a severe injury. His bad feeling over Krystal was only made worse by the surprise attack from the three tributes. What if they had killed her when she went off to have a bathroom break earlier? She hadn’t been seen in hours and there were far too many canons that had sounded today. If Krystal was dead then there was no purpose for him to be here anymore, though he hoped to at least wait to see the tribute display in the evening and confirm Krystal was gone before entirely giving up.

“Hoseok and Namjoon,” Athena sighed in response.

Though his eyes were closed, Yoongi raised an eyebrow, indicating for her to elaborate.

“What do you think those two would think if they came back and saw you dead in camp and your sister missing too? They’d probably act like I did it and kill me on the spot for betraying the alliance.”

“That sucks,” Yoongi grumbled.

“Yeah, it does,” Athena laughed. Nothing about the situation was actually funny, but it was such a surreal experience it was all she could do.

“But you know what else sucks?” She continued, earning a questioning grunt from Yoongi.

“That this wouldn’t have even happened if Hoseok and Namjoon didn’t go off on their stupid search for YN. The weird obsession with her, it’s literally insane.”

“I don’t get it either,” Yoongi sighed.

“I’m sick of it. They left us here to die, maybe Krystal already has…”

Yoongi flinched.

“Sorry. But for what? A stupid crush they’re going to have to kill in the end anyway. I didn’t get my name pulled out of that bowl just so I could die as a side character in some weird love story.”

“So, what are you going to do about it? Jump them when they come back to camp?”

Athena scoffed at the suggestion.

“Tempting but I think we both know they’re stronger than I am. I might take down one of them with me but I couldn’t get both. And it’s not like you’d be much help there either.”

“I offer you my complete moral support” Yoongi deadpanned.

Athena barked out another laugh.

“I’ve got nothing,” she sighed. “Maybe we have that in common, and maybe we should at least watch each other’s backs.”

Yoongi opened his eyes and looked up to see Athena staring down at him.

The pain of potentially losing Krystal was still too raw for him to properly process, especially without any closure of knowing that it had really happened (though every instinct in his gut told him she was gone). But he had been so focused on his goal of protecting his sister he hadn’t given much thought to any of his other teammates.

Athena looked tough and intimidating, she scored high in trials and interviewed well. By all standards she was just another typical career, but the reality was she was also human. Yet another sacrifice to the capitol, just like his sister and just like himself. With Krystal, he had someone he loved with him, but Athena had no one. Her closest thing to a partner, in her district mate, had abandoned her for a prettier girl like a child distracted by a shinier new toy. If they were both doomed to die here, then the least he could do was make sure she wasn’t entirely alone.

“Yeah, I think we should”.

 *

 The sound of two back-to-back canons cut short whatever moment you were having with Hoseok. It was a slap across the face reminder that this was a game to kill until the last person standing, and the man standing across the rocks from you would ultimately have to try and kill you, no matter what sweet promises he made.

“YN wait, please!” you heard him beg as you broke eye contact, but you didn’t look back again as you turned and vanished into the forest.

“FUCK!” Hoseok screamed in frustration, launching a kick into the ten’s shoulder, the same one he had shot the arrow into. If he couldn’t have you now then he was going to make the little shit who ruined his plans pay.

Namjoon took a step back, and picked up the bag of supplies. He then walked over to a nearby rock and set the bag down in front of him, perfectly secured between his legs. Unzipping the top, he reached inside and dug out an apple, biting in as Hoseok ripped the arrow completely out of ten’s shoulder. Namjoon watched nonchalantly as Hoseok reloaded the arrow and shot it into ten’s other shoulder, the younger boy writhing in agony below.

The torture continued as Namjoon ate his snack. Hoseok would pull the arrow out of ten’s body by twisting it painfully, before reloading and shooting it again into another non-lethal area. His arms and legs were more like a bloody human pin cushion by the time Namjoon had finished a second apple and decided he was bored.

“We should get back to camp,” he declared, shouldering the bag.

Hoseok turned his attention to Namjoon with a raised brow.

“Those two canons earlier, and the one before that, we should check on Athena and Yoongi.”

Hoseok opened his mouth to argue before Namjoon cut him off.

“I don’t care about them either, however it would benefit us to know if they are still alive and who attacked them if they’re not. If there are other tributes working together, we need to take care of them before they go after YN next.”

Hoseok rolled his neck to stare up at the sky with an exhausted sigh. He knew Namjoon was right, and self-indulgent torture sessions weren’t going to get you back.

“Good,” Namjoon confirmed with a smile, before leaning down and snapping ten’s neck with his bare hands.

 Another canon.

 *

 It took slightly longer than an hour for Namjoon and Hoseok to climb the cliff and return to the campsite, where they were met with the sight of Athena wrapping a bandage around Yoongi’s thigh. The duo was informed the first aid kit was a gift from a sponsor and that the Yoongi and Athena were ambushed by three tributes, all now dead. When Yoongi asked if they had seen Krystal, Namjoon denied anything and asked if they heard any canons before they were attacked. Athena confirmed there had been, and Yoongi had broken down crying.

Hoseok left the other boy to grieve, knowing his sister was dead long before the nightly display confirmed it. Laying down in the tent, he longed to run into the forest and find you right at this second. However, he knew he needed to rest, and that tomorrow when he left camp, there was no way he would return without you. For now, he settled on mentally calculating how many people had to be left in the games. Krystal was gone leaving only himself, Namjoon, Athena and an injured Yoongi in the careers, and of course, there was still you. Eight tributes had died on opening day, two had died over the night, there were two earlier canons that morning, and with the short-lived alliance of three, the person you had killed, and the boy from ten, then that only left one other tribute who was still alive…

  *

 You sat high up in a tree, tied to a branch, as you heard the Panem music blast throughout the arena. Shivering under your blanket, you listened as the game maker praised the blood bath of the day, and commented that you were on track for the fastest games in history. When Krystal’s face appeared in the sky as the first tribute, you lost it. You bundled the top of the blanket into a ball and openly sobbed into the fabric, mourning the loss of the only person in the arena who you would have called a friend. You cried far longer than it took for the capitol to display all of the people who had died, and so you honestly had no idea who was left, or exactly how many people there even were now.

You knew Hoseok and Namjoon were still alive as only one more canon had sounded after you ran into the forest, and there was no doubt in your mind it was for the boy that had been shot with the arrow. You felt physically sick from crying; your sinuses were clogged and you had a nasty headache. You were also dizzy from not eating anything in hours and downright drained from how physically and emotionally taxing everything was. You had zero plan for survival in the arena, and no idea what you were going to do the next time Hoseok came close to finding you. In your exhausted state, you decided that would have to be a problem for tomorrow. Letting your head fall back against the trunk, you closed your eyes and quickly succumbed to your body’s need for rest.

Little did you know that someone very close by had been tracking you since earlier that afternoon, and was waiting for this exact moment.

  Note: Ten’s idea was to grab the bag and run, he didn’t stop to search what was inside, and obviously regretted the fact he didn’t check for a weapon when he had the chance

So close to 10K but I didn’t want to fill it with garbage for the sake of trying to boost the word count, so 9.5 it is.

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

Fugitives

Somehow inspired by @chicken0mcnugget and her sister and my sister's more than lovely camping adventure. Somehow, I don't know how. Maybe part 2 if I write it (no promises) will match up to my wild imagination's interpretation of a camping trip. Perhaps, it is a possibility.

Warnings: collapse, passing out, field medicine, blood, gunshot wounds, screaming, gagging roughly for own good, intensive description of possibly gorey wound care, betrayal, some language, going into shock, IV and needles.

~

"Stop," Villain wheezed, sinking to his shaking knees. "I-i need-" cough, "I need help."

Hero stopped running and looked over her shoulder to see Villain half-collapsed on the ground, holding his abdomen.

"We both need help, Villain. Now get up and run. They'll be here soon," Hero trotted back to her nemesis.

"Mmnh," Villain gurgled, his face an eerie shade of pale yellow. He swayed from his kneeling position, keeling sideways, eyes rolling back-

"Oh my gosh," Hero caught Villain as he fell limp into her arms.

"Wake up!" Hero patted Villain's burning cheek repeatedly. "Damn it Villain," she groaned when he didn't wake.

Hero felt at loss. They were running away from authorities in the middle of the woods, exhausted and sore, with no shelter, water, and food in sight.

And now she had an unconscious villain to deal with.

Hero removed the hands placed so precariously on his stomach to reveal a spot of bloodstained fabric. Hero silently cursed to herself and rolled up his shirt.

The sight made her stomach drop. He had not one, but two bullet wounds in his stomach. One was quite deep and bleeding profoundly whereas the other still had the champagne bullet casing, blocking the precious crimson plasma's flow.

He was shot, Hero stressed to herself, trying to figure out what to do. She vaguely remebered a series of gunshots, but Villain promised that he was okay.

And now...

Hero stopped her thoughts suddenly and stood up, cradling Villain tenderly. He was bigger, without a doubt, but between her fitness and touch of super strength, she succeeded.

"I got you," she whispered to the sleeping villain before taking off at a lopsided jog.

"Villain what are you doing here?" Hero asked, approaching the tall, leather-cladden figure.

"Saving you," Villain replied, running to close the distance and grabbing Hero's arm. "Your team, they set you up. We need to go!"

"What are you talking about?" Hero chuckled, easily shaking Villain's hand off.

"They are-"

A click.

A scuffle of feet.

"Well this, my friends, is a win-win," an all too familiar chortle sounded.

Villain spun around, stepping back to stand parallel to Hero's shoulder. His breaths were hitched, proof of his nervous anticipation.

Hero, on the other hand, was mystified by the scene. Her hands trembled as beads of sweat started to form around her amber hair line. Realization flooded into every vein and all she wanted to do was sink to the ground and give up.

They betrayed her.

Her team betrayed her.

Leader stepped into the single light spot in the warehouse. Even though it was mid-day, the shadows made it look like it was night.

"We have our darling Hero here, and her nemesis. Arrest them," Leader ordered.

Villain lunged at Leader, going for his neck. More scuffles of feet determined that there were more heroes to fight off, but injuring, or killing, Leader would slow them down.

Villain and Leader fell to the ground with a grunt, punching, and hitting, and lashing until Villain was able to smack the golden boy's head against the concrete floor.

Villain discarded his prey and hurried to assist Hero in taking down two muscular, lithe heroes. They were twins, evident in their matching black ponytails.

"You know the pay for your head," one sneered, licking her bloodied lip. "Is more than what I had to pay for my house."

"Hmm," the other laughed. "Not only that, but you are on every 'wanted' billboard in the city."

Hero said nothing, just kept striking punch after punch- most of the time missing.

Then, as if on impulse, Villain grabbed Hero's shoulder and led her to a window. "Hang onto me," He said and closed his eyes.

Then there was a shot... then two... a brief hiss and then they were in the forest...

"Villain are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I promise."

Hero stumbled across an abandoned cabin. A moldy door guarded the entrance and windows were bashed in, but it supplied the dire need for shelter.

Inside, cupboards hung lazily on rusted hinges, creaking as they swayed with the cool draft. A rat-infested couch was hidden in a damp corner with moss growing at the bottom. The only somewhat useful piece of furniture was the metal table in the center.

It was odd to be accompanied by such a modern implement when the rest of the trashy building looked like it belonged in a landfill. Either way, Hero sat on the table, testing its strength. When it passed the test, Hero laid Villain upon it softly and began to inpect the bullet wounds again. The bad one stopped bleeding, but it still looked increasingly painful even though Villain was still unconscious.

Satisfied that Villain wouldn't die, yet, Hero started to search the minimally stocked cupboards. She found a handful of bungee cords, tiny nails as if the former homeowners were into hobby crafts, a mason jar, a metal rod, a various collection a thread, some sort of hemp material, and expired medicines.

She grabbed the nails and thread and walked back to Villain. It was far from ideal to use the nails to stitch, but it was all she had and would have to make do.

Hero tied the thread right under the head, praying that Villain wouldn't get tetanus from the rust particles, and started to sew the larger wound together.

As by some misdeed sent from hell, Villain awoke, screaming like a hungry baby bird. Hero left the nail half-dangling in his flesh and dug her hand into Villain's mouth.

"Shhhh," she cooed. "Someone could be out there. We are apparently fugitives now, remember? Remember the fight?"

It seemed to drain all of Villain's energy, but he nodded. Yet, the second Hero let go of his mouth, he started to curl into himself, whimpering.

"Knock that off," Hero chided and stretched Villain back out. "I need to access that wound."

Villain mewled, but didn't move.

"Okay..." Hero breathed and with a quivering hand, pushed the needle into the ruin skin. Villain hissed, abs flexing, but didn't holler until the head started to pull through Villain's skin.

Oh boy, did he scream. It was like a dying cougar, wild and ragged. Hero, ignoring the wordless pleas for mercy, laced the nail through. It made a small puncture wound, but it had to be done.

"I'm sorry!" Hero rushed over to Villain's head, gathering it into nervously shaking arms that were fueled by adrenaline. Villain's eyes started to glaze over and slip above his eyelids.

She couldn't keep doing this. Every pass, partnered with a screech, and then rushing to comfort Villain would take too much precious time.

Time that could be spent getting as far away as they could from the ravaging heroes.

Thinking briskly, Hero grabbed the metal rod with the tiniest bungee she could find, and appeared again at Villain's head.

"I'm so sorry about this," Hero apologized, and forced the rod into Villain's limply hanging mouth. The villain's eye widened and darted frantically around, searching for the cause of his discomfort.

Hero ignored the obvious signals of distress and pulled Villain's head up. She looped the center of the bungee to one side and then took one strand to do the same on the other. She then attached the hooks together and laid Villain's head down.

A pillow would also be more than ideal. The inevitable thrashing of the head would more likely than not cause some sort of head injury- whether substantial or not.

But Villain would have to do without.

Hero went back to the gaping wound on his stomach and resumed her threading... in... out... in... out...

Everytime, the nail head would have to be roughly pulled through, and everytime more tender skin would rip. Villain thrashed, smacking his head against the unrelenting metal and kicking out with his legs. Hero tried to get by with just sitting on his legs, but the flailing arms also proved to be a problem. She got up, once again leaving the needle haphazardly in the villain's wound, and returned with the hemp fabric.

She tied each wrist and each ankle with the scratchy material, snug. Villain who was resisting the friendly torture immediately fell back into his newfound restraints, sniffing pitifully.

"I'm sorry," Hero tried to reason, but her delirious and exhausted ward was beyond negotiations.

Hero sighed and continued to tend to Villain's wound. Villain pulled back as much as the taut restraints allowed; he bit down against the metal gag until his mouth begun to bleed. Hero winced, concerned that he broke a tooth.

When the first hole was completely stitched up, Hero cut the azure colored thread and strung some more out. She retied it to the nail and set them down against the table.

Hero noticed that the table was beginning to get slick with blood and sweat.

She then examined the bullet. The other one must've fell out when Villain teleported the pair. The dark beige color shone compared to the deep mahogany blood. Hero took two nails out and placed them on both sides of the bullet like chopsticks and tried to use the leverage to launch it.

She succeeded and the bullet just barely brushed against her ear, but the wound began to bleed heavily. Hero groaned and shoved her hand into the bleeding waterfall to staunch it.

Her ears started to ring as her heart pumped faster. Villain's body slumped against the table, his face going pale. Hero gasped for breathing, the wires in her brain not connecting. She didn't know what to do.

She messed things up, now Villain was bleeding out again.

Hero removed one hand and tried to tear a piece of the hunter green shirt she was wearing off; but she couldn't, the cotton material was stubborn.

"Shit," Hero gasped, walls of anxiety closing in around her. The air suddenly felt so heavy as if a furnace was just installed. Her hands trembled, not knowing what to do.

"Think Hero, think," Hero muttered outloud. If she released pressure, Villain would surely bleed out.

Hero leaned all her weight onto the wound. Villain gasped, trying to crawl away. His skin was clammy and unnaturally pale- even more blanch than before. His eyes kept rolling up into his skull before returning to a more neutral place.

His chest heaved in irregular breaths as his stomach convulsed...

He was going into shock.

Hero groaned and grabbed the end of her shirt and brought it to her mouth. She bit it and ripped it all the way to her ribcage. She replaced her sticky hands with the cloth and stuffed it into the wound. It slowed down on bleeding, and the shirt was thick enough to give Hero some time to help with the shock.

She ran to the cupboards and found a bucket. Bringing that over to Villain, she elevated his legs. He was gasping for air now and didn't seem entirely conscious.

She then took off his jeans and laid them over his legs. She remembered learning about shock in her early heroic classes- keep the victim warm and remove restrictive clothing.

She left his rolled up shirt and leather jacket on.

His pulse was insanely weak and too fast as if he was intoxicated. Hero pursed her lips and gently tapped Villain awake.

"Stay awake," she pleaded. "I know it's hard."

Villain lips quivered and he coughed up some thick, starchy liquid.

Blood.

Hero turned Villain to his side and allowed him to spill the scarlet color. All the while, she kept a close eye on the wound. The shirt was nearly drenched.

I could tie a tourniquet, Hero realized and gathered some of the hemp. She deftly wrapped it around Villain's mid torso and pulled it taut.

Stepping back from her work, Hero knew that she had to call someone. A hospital was a no, even with Villain in shock. She could give him a blood transfusion...

If there was adequate IV lines.

Hero rushed to the cupboards once again. It was a long shot, but it was the only thing she could do.

Find an IV line, She told herself- the request was weak though, no one could find an IV in an abandoned cabin.

Find an IV.

And that she did.

Not even wondering what use the prior homeowners had for an IV, Hero inserted the needle in her vein, immediately filled with gratitude for her O type blood and attached the other end into Villain's elbow.

She gave him enough blood until some of his color returned and he fell into an uneasy sleep.

Hero finished stitching the wound. Villain remained sleeping the whole time. She then removed the rod from his mouth and stuffed some more of her shirt on both sides of his mouth where the blood origin was.

Finally, when all the work was done, Hero laid next to Villain and wrapped an arm around his chest. He melted into the comfort, whimpering silently. Hero smiled and closed her eyes, asleep immediately.

She didn't notice the security camera in the corner of the building. The one with the blinking red light.

[sparkkeyper]

A Matter of Trust

My take on the “night at Crowley’s flat” fic. 

Swapping faces requires complete trust. Unfortunately, Aziraphale has not been particularly honest leading up to Armageddon and it's hard to overcome that doubt.

Words: 2295

Warnings: None

-------------------

"You really think she meant switching our actual faces?"

"I've been over it a dozen times and I'm quite sure. I've had the last 72 hours to become familiar with Agnes' peculiar brand of predictions."

Crowley blew out a long breath and took another sip of his coffee. It was the deepest hour of the night. Darkness pressed around the outside of his flat, threatening at the edges of the LED lighting. "Put a lot of stock in this prophecy, do you?"

Aziraphale nodded from where he sat nearby on the couch, the torn slip of prophecy on the cushion between them. "Absolutely. Every prediction in her book came to pass exactly as she saw it. If this is the scenario we're up against, then 'choosing our faces wisely' is our best shot at surviving it."

"Suppose that's settled, then. Once Above and Below start after us, they won't stop unless we really give them a good reason."

"I agree. Now, this will require complete trust and extraordinary focus in order to work. It isn't like lending someone a scarf."

"That's the point, I thought. Something neither side will see coming."

"Exactly. All right then." Aziraphale wriggled a bit on the couch, bracing himself. "Are you ready?"

Crowley set down his coffee and flexed his fingers. "Ready."

Aziraphale held out his hand and the demon took it. Swap with him.

Nothing happened.

"Er..."

"Ngk. Hang on." Crowley gave himself a shake. "Been a long day and all that. Lemme just refocus. Right, let's do it." He took the angel's hand again. Swap. With. Him.

Again, nothing happened.

There were several long, awkward seconds.

Get it together, you stupid snake. This is important. This could be the most important thing you've ever done. This is Aziraphale. Best friend for centuries. You know what to expect from him.

He did know what to expect. That was the problem.

The moment was stretching on far too long. He dropped the angel's hand like it had burned him and scrubbed his palms over his soot-stained face.

"Crowley?"

"It's fine! I'll make it work, give me a blessed break."

He stood and paced the room for a moment while Aziraphale sat stiffly on the couch, watching him. "Is there anything I can do to...to facilitate things? I'm not sure what the problem is."

"There's no problem, it's fine," Crowley snapped. "I've got this. Just worry about your end of it and I'll worry about mine. Right!" He spun on his heel with his hand out and Aziraphale stood to match him. "Swap, then!"

He clasped the angel's hand and tried. He could feel the miracle simmering somewhere in the ether, attempted but not complete. He reached for it, he reached with all his might.

"Crowley-"

"I can do this," he insisted, a pit forming in his stomach. He'd just held his car together for 40 miles, he could believe one little idea for 5 seconds.

"Crowley-"

"I can do this!"

"Oh for goodness' sake-"

The angel was frustrated. He had every right to be but that was beside the point. A frustrated Aziraphale got indignant. A frustrated Aziraphale stormed off.

A frustrated Aziraphale pulled away when they needed most to stick together.

Crowley blessed savagely and spun, stomping for the balcony.

"Where are-"

"I just...I need to get some air." He slammed the door behind him before Aziraphale could respond.

The night breeze from so many stories up was like a slap in the face. Crowley welcomed it, leaning heavily on the balcony railing and burying his face in his hands. He couldn't do the miracle. Not that he didn't want to - he'd rarely wanted anything so much in his life. But he couldn't get his heart into it the way it needed to be.

We're not friends!

It wasn't true, of course. But it was something Aziraphale had wanted to be true. Because it would make the angel's life so much less complicated. Crowley was a friend...until he wasn't. Crowley occupied a place of esteem...until he didn't. Aziraphale worked so very hard to view a messy world in a manageable way and sometimes cuts had to be made.

His coffee sat suddenly on the railing because it knew what was good for it, and when he raised it to his lips it obligingly added a considerable amount of whiskey.

If they couldn't do the swap, they had no future. The Earth had a new lease on life tonight, but if they couldn't swap it would be at the price of their own. He knew Hell would show no mercy and he couldn't fool himself into thinking Heaven would. But Aziraphale... When it came to Heaven, Aziraphale could fool himself into thinking a lot of things.

I don't even like you!

Even if I did I wouldn't tell you! We're on opposite sides!

Aziraphale, who always had excuses to fall back on.

Aziraphale, who had a book with the Antichrist's address and hadn't told him.

Aziraphale who, when the world was on the brink of destruction, had kept calling out to Heaven.

If it came down to their partnership or Heaven, Heaven was the first to be appeased, no contest. Crowley understood his reasons. Aziraphale was, at his core, an angel. He treasured that identity even if he disagreed with his superiors and assignments. He held out hope in goodness, in Her, in a way Crowley never could. He wanted so badly for everything to turn out nice and good in the end, and Crowley could not take that from him.

When Heaven couldn't provide, Crowley was there to be his safety net. But Heaven was always, always first.

The balcony door clicked behind him and hesitant footsteps stepped out into the night. "If there's anything I can do to help you focus, you need only ask."

Crowley couldn't bring himself to look at him. "Focus isn't the problem."

Aziraphale was quiet for a very long moment. "Oh," he said softly.

There was no shock in his voice. No condemnation either. Crowley wondered if it would take some time to sink it, given everything that had already happened to them tonight, but as Aziraphale joined him at the balcony railing he knew that the angel understood what this meant.

Dull blue eyes followed Crowley's gaze out over London and Aziraphale took a slow sip of his tea. "This is my fault, isn't it?"

"Don't," Crowley told him tiredly. "What's done is done."

"But the consequences are ongoing. And will be for a long time, I expect." Aziraphale sighed heavily. "I am responsible, I won't pretend otherwise."

"I tried," Crowley confessed, the words barely audible over the background hum of the city. "I truly did."

"I don't doubt it."

A breeze wandered in. Tousled through red and blonde hair. Wandered somewhere else.

"I suppose I ought to at least ask...was it slow over time or was it because of this past week?"

Crowley didn't answer for a moment, taking another sip of his coffee. "Bit of both."

"Mmm." Aziraphale nodded, not particularly surprised by this. "I should have seen this coming, really. I should have seen a good many things coming."

"Stop it," the demon muttered. "You can't see everything coming. Something something ineffability."

"Is just one of the excuses I've been hiding behind for a very long time. And now it's caught up with me. With us." He sighed. "I suppose it's not just evil that contains the seeds of its own destruction."

Crowley didn't have the energy to come up with a biting response. He just looked exhausted. "I don't regret a minute of it, you know," he murmured. "The Arrangement. You and I. Wouldn't trade it for anything." There were dark circles under his eyes. "But I can't trust you the way I'd need to for this to work. I wish I could. I've tried. I just can't do it."

Aziraphale grimaced to hear the words out loud, but did not dispute it. How could he? "I don't blame you. You're right - it's not fair to ask you to trust me when I've squandered your trust so thoroughly."

We're not friends, hung thick in the air between them.

"Not that I think you don't care," Crowley clarified. "I know you do. You're terrible at hiding it, really. And you came to find me today before it all ended. That's not nothing." He took another sip of coffee. "But you also lied to my face. Repeatedly."

"I did," the angel acknowledged quietly.

"While the world was ending."

"Yes."

"That hurt, Aziraphale."

Aziraphale bit his lip hard. "I know. I'd take it back if I could. But I suppose it's too late to make a difference now."

They stood in silence for a time. Then Crowley sighed and turned back to the flat. "Come on. It's been a long day. There's wine in the kitchen, we may as well enjoy it while we can before they come for us."

The angel followed him inside and watched as he pulled glasses from a cabinet. "Thank you again for allowing me to stay the night. You didn't have to, after everything."

"Stay as long as you like," the demon uncorked the wine bottle. "Your shop's gone. Fuck's sake, I'm not a monster."

"No." Aziraphale's expression was very, very soft. "You're not."

Crowley took off his sunglasses and looked up at him at last: this demon whose heart had been broken too many times. "I want you to be all right, Aziraphale. I need you safe. I need you alive. I want to see you happy. But I don't know how far I can meet you."

"I can't say I'm surprised, after all I've put you through," the angel admitted ruefully. "Denying we were ever friends, or insinuating that you were somehow less than I. I've been a rather dreadful friend to you over the centuries."

Crowley hung his head, wine forgotten. "I know why you keep us at a distance and I know why you lied about the boy. You were doing what you thought was best at the time. I can't blame you for that. But to do what that prophecy wants, when push comes to shove I need to believe with all my heart that you won't leave me hanging. And I...I can't bring myself to believe that." He scrubbed his hands across his face. "Given time I might, but we don't have time. I can't do it. And I hate it. Because that's going to get you killed. I need you alive but once they come for us, I won't be able to save you. Not this time."

"You talk as though you're not in danger yourself," Aziraphale's face crumpled. "Crowley, if Below gets their hands on you they will destroy you utterly. I will not let that happen. I can't take back what I've said but you are the dearest thing in this world to me and I'm not going to stand back and let them take you."

Crowley looked like he was trying so very hard to hope but just couldn't get there. "I want to believe that, I really do. But I can't do blind faith like you can. I don't have it in me anymore."

Aziraphale closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the demon's. "I'm not asking you to forgive what I've done. And I'm not asking for blind faith. Goodness knows how much trouble that's caused." His voice cracked at that but he plunged onward. "I'm only asking you to believe me when I say that I will not let Hell have you. If we cannot switch our faces, we will find another way."

"But your prophecy. Agnes-"

"Agnes be damned." That shut Crowley up. Tears glistened on the angel's cheeks. "If I have to march Down There after you. If I have to take up a sword. If I have to stand between you and God Herself. I swear to you on everything that I am, I will not let Hell have you."

And in that brief moment, for just that one promise in a sea of other broken ones, Crowley believed he was telling the truth.

His hand scrabbled for Aziraphale's and he pushed for all he was worth before he could lose this moment, he pushed every atom of his soul into the heart of his best friend, gave him everything that he was and ever could be, and in that instant he trusted Aziraphale to keep him safe.

And then Aziraphale was pouring into him and Crowley opened himself up and let it happen, let him seep into every muscle, every bone, every molecule of his being -

-and suddenly there was no difference between them, there was no angel, no demon, just a tumult of soul and hope and pain and fear and resolve and-

Crowley tumbled out the other side like falling out of bed. He gasped in a strangled breath, stumbling backwards into the kitchen counter and staring suddenly into his own face. He stared down at his clothes - beige - and his hands - manicured - and back up, feeling the warmth of his best friend's corporation surrounding him like a blanket. Aziraphale, in Crowley's, did much the same.

There was stunned silence in the flat as they let this sink in. Then one of them snapped, or maybe both, and suddenly Crowley's face was buried in the collar of a stinking, burnt leather jacket and Aziraphale was crushing him close, and both were squeezing so hard the other could scarcely breathe.

"Thank you," Aziraphale managed at last. "For trusting me enough to let me save you."

"Not if I save you first," Crowley choked out, and broken giggles filled the flat.

(Also on AO3!)

[k-s-morgan]

Will’s vs. Hannibal’s Ways of Expressing Love

The fact that Hannibal loves Will and is in love with him is openly stated in the show several times. Will’s feelings, on the other hand, are more ambiguous, which is why some viewers often doubt whether Hannibal’s love is reciprocated. I think that exploring the ways these two men experience and react to love can explain the varying degrees of their openness about it.

I’ll put TLDR right here: Hannibal is more open about himself and his feelings, including love, hence he doesn’t have many challenges with admitting it. Will is closed off, stiff, and emotionally repressed, so he expresses his feelings in a much more subtle way.

Let’s start with Hannibal. Details about his past are scarce, but we know that he admits to loving two people throughout his life, his sister and Will.

E3 of S3.

*Bedelia: What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict … I would suggest what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. A force of mind and circumstance.*    

*Hannibal: Love.*

Undoubtedly, Hannibal’s love for Mischa was traumatic and unhealthy. He loved her so much that he ate a part of her body after she was killed, devastated by this loss. But it was still love that made him feel all the related emotions, so Hannibal has some experience with it. From what we know of him, he has a very broad mind. He despises limitations and overcomes them, and he is not ashamed of who he is. He isn’t embarrassed to cry in the opera or to be the first to stand up and applaud; he delights in stereotypically ‘feminine’ hobbies like cooking and clothes selection; he draws fan-art and openly expresses his admiration when it’s due. For this reason, Hannibal doesn’t have many problems with expressing love either.  

Upon meeting Will, he is immediately drawn to him. He sees him as his potential partner and decides he wants to try and build a family with him as early as E2 of S1. That’s when he starts planting the idea of Abigail being their shared daughter in Will’s mind. He does the same to Abigail, urging her to see him and Will as her parents, even giving her shrooms to evoke the desired associations (unsuccessfully since Will doesn’t come to dinner). So, Hannibal acknowledged his pull/infatuation with Will from the very start, and he acted on it right away.

It’s not 100% love at this point, but Hannibal still easily follows his emotions. He doesn’t stop to consider how strange it is to want a family with a man he just met; he doesn’t agonize over the idea of how his life has more risks now that he allows another human being to know him. When these feelings progress at the end of S1/start of S2, Hannibal is finally taken aback. While he never planned to leave Will in prison and it was a part of his plan, he still didn’t expect to miss him so much — he admits it to Bedelia, looking forlorn, in E1 of S2. He repeatedly pines for Will by sitting in front of his chair at the time of his supposed appointment, glancing at the clock despite knowing Will is not going to come. This is a shift to an actual love, but Hannibal still doesn’t fight it. On the contrary, he embraces it, and he spends the entire S2 doing repeatedly romantic gestures for Will. Namely:

1) Protects Abigail to reunite Will with her later.

2) Shares a part of himself he doesn’t seem to have ever shared with anyone else. He talks to Will about Mischa, reveals his views on murder and God, acknowledges he cared about Abigail, and shows vulnerability. He shares his teacup ritual with him, which is something precious and deeply personal.

3) He digs up fake Freddie’s corpse and decorates it as a way of courting Will (as directly said by Alana).  

4) He draws a fan-art of himself and Will as Achilles and Patroclus.

5) He is ready to abandon his well-established life in Baltimore and reputation to run away with Will. In Hannibal’s view, no one truly suspects him and there is no evidence against him, but Will is in danger. So he’s willing to discard everything he’s been building for 20 years for him.

Finally, he calls Will a loved one more or less directly in E13 of S2 (in fact, he implies that they both love each other).

*Hannibal: Do you know what an imago is, Will? … An imago is an image of a loved one buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives.*

*Will: An ideal.*

*Hannibal: The concept of an ideal... I have a concept of you, just as you have a concept of me.*

Will hurts him with his betrayal, and Hannibal still finds himself unable to kill him. He is openly crying in the finale, admitting how Will hurt him, breaks his (and his own) heart by killing Abigail, and flees to Europe to start a new life. But things don’t go as he hoped they would. Bedelia is not a worthy substitute, and Hannibal is increasingly slipping into a self-destructive state because of his love for Will. He kills Anthony, who was an improved copy of Will, and turns him into a Valentine heart for him. Again, this is a very explicit and open emotional action. Hannibal doesn’t hide his feelings. He’s an emotional wreck with Bedelia in E3, and as they are talking about Will, he admits he’s in love with him.

*Hannibal: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.*

Bedelia points out his self-destructiveness.

*Bedelia: You're going to get caught. It's already been set into motion … I know exactly how I will be navigating my way out of whatever it is I’ve gotten myself into. Do you?*

After Hannibal keeps spiraling and kills Sogliato, she adds: *You're drawing them to you, aren't you? All of them.*  

Hannibal gets so self-destructive over Will that he lets Jack beat himself almost to death, not even attempting to fight him. The first words he says to Will after they reunite in E6 are:

*Hannibal: If I saw you every day forever, Will, I would remember this time.*

He’s a romantic. The courtship, the Valentine heart, the romance — Hannibal did have some struggles, but overall, he accepts these feelings and isn’t afraid to act on them.

When Will pulls a knife in E6, Hannibal classifies it as another betrayal. This is where he decides to kill and eat him in the hope to put an end to this misery (which is what he and Bedelia discussed back in E3). However, even blinded by another heartbreak, Hannibal tries to save Will at the same time. He knows the police are coming and he puts off the moment of sawing for as long as he can, first fussing over Will and his wound, then waiting for Jack, then doing everything slowly as hell.

Everything changes in E7, when Hannibal faces the real risk of losing Will and comes to terms with the fact that a hope of life with him is better than life without him. So Hannibal carries Will home bridal-style, takes care of him, waits for him to wake up and writes formulas to reverse time. He directly tells Will that Will won, and that he, Hannibal, is at Will’s mercy.

*Hannibal: Your memory palace is building. It's full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I've discovered you there. Victorious.*

He gives himself up, sacrificing the freedom he’s been fighting for back in E2 finale, in the hope that one day, Will is going to come back to him. After this, Hannibal is all about Will, with all his heart. Throughout the second half of S3, he says things like, *“I gave you a child. You are family, Will. Was it good to see me?”*, etc. He agrees to risk his life by agreeing to Will’s plan, knowing he’s planning something but not knowing what and if he’d die in the process. In E13, Hannibal says:

*Hannibal: "No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend"* and shields Will from the bullet. Later, he allows Will to push them both down, and he stays with him afterward.

Conclusion: Hannibal is very accepting of himself, so he doesn’t undergo severe challenges on the path to acknowledging what he feels for Will. He knows what love feels like because he felt it for Mischa before, so he embraces loving Will pretty quickly, even though he doesn’t know how to best approach it at times. That’s why we get direct and explicit confirmation of his feelings several times.

Now, on to Will.

Unlike with Hannibal, there is no evidence that Will has ever experienced love before (at least love for people). We know he had a father and was lonely as a child.

E4 of S1.

*Will: We were poor. I followed my father from the boat yards in Biloxi and Greenville to lake boats on Erie.*

*Hannibal: Always the new boy at school? Always the stranger?*

*Will: Always.*

His choice of words indicates that his relationship with his father wasn’t all that good (for instance, *I followed my father* instead of *My father and I had to…*). So, it doesn’t look like Will ever had meaningful connections. More than that, he says:

*Will: There’s something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. Never connected to the concept.*

We can suggest that he doesn’t know what love is or how it feels like. From E1, we know he isolates himself because he hates himself for who he is: he understands he’s different, that there is darkness in him, but he desperately tries to subdue it and deny this fact. He’s rude, twitchy, and unhappy, but like Hannibal, he understands the extent of his loneliness only upon meeting him. That’s when he tries forming relationships with others.

Will’s relationships with Alana and Abigail are a good indication of his problems with love. He wants to be with Alana because he needs to feel normal. In 99% of cases, he remembers about her only when she comes to seek him out first. He kisses her for the first time at the moment of particular vulnerability, fearing that he’s finally losing his mind (in E8). When Hannibal calls him out on it, Will doesn’t deny it and semi-nods. He actually had to agree with it verbally according to the script.

*Will: I feel unstable.*

*Hannibal: That’s why you kissed her. A clutch for balance.*

*Will: Because I’m losing mine.*

So, it’s not that Will feels romantic love for Alana — he uses her because he desperately needs to feel like everyone else. Alana is a pretty, smart, normal woman who fits this goal perfectly. He doesn’t allow himself to be genuine with her unlike he does with Hannibal, to whom he opens up.

Will confesses to Hannibal that he loved killing Hobbs in E2, which got him down and made him panic. Hannibal supports him, and Will keeps coming back to him. He talks about everything important with Hannibal, opening parts of himself that he guards from everyone else. Will asks Hannibal to look after his dogs as early as E4 — he doesn’t have other friends, and he’s already focused on Hannibal. He buys into an idea of having a family with him and Abigail, which is amazing for Will, who has just said he could never relate to the concept of family.

When Will buys a gift for Abigail in the same E4 and freaks out, Hannibal asks him:

*Hannibal: Feeling paternal, Will?*

Will’s reaction is instant and defensive:

*Will: Aren’t you?*

Hannibal easily says “yes”, which disarms Will. This is a great contrast between them: Hannibal isn’t afraid to talk and acknowledge his feelings while Will is embarrassed of them and shies away from them. In fact, this is a repeat of their conversation in E2.

*Hannibal: You saved Abigail Hobbs' life. You also orphaned her. It comes with certain emotional obligations.*

*Will: You were there. You saved her life, too. Do you feel obligated?*

Again, Will deflects. He’s wary of emotions, especially of admitting them out loud.

Will shows a hint of romantic interest in Hannibal in E7. He brings him a bottle of wine out of blue, but unfortunately, he stumbles upon the party Hannibal is preparing. Hannibal invites him to stay, but Will says he won’t be good company. He’s shy and awkward, smiling nervously and dropping his gaze in embarrassment. Then we have this lovely line:

*Will: I’ve got a date with the Chesapeake Ripper.*

So, in S1, Will makes considerable emotional progress. He realizes he wants a family after all, and while he makes several half-hearted attempts to court Alana, he’s mostly focused on Hannibal and Abigail. He opens himself up to Hannibal, receives official guardianship over Abigail with him, arguably flirts with Hannibal (like in the wine scene above), and covers up murder to protect their family. But then Hannibal betrays him. Will doesn’t know his reasons yet, but this betrayal plunged him into darkness, bitterness, and new stage of emotional repression. It’s worth mentioning another point of Abigail here: in the end, Will doesn’t know her. He spoke to her only several times, and even fewer times were genuine. He loves the idea of her, and this idea was introduced by Hannibal, not by Abigail’s presence. It’s Hannibal who forced Will to confront his need to love and be loved.  

In S2, Will is incredibly conflicted. He acknowledges to Hannibal that he hurt him, tries to kill him via Matthew, but when he recognizes that Hannibal wants him as a friend (as spoken in E7), his attitude changes. Will doesn’t plan to forgive him, he’s still angry at Hannibal for killing Abigail (which is his biggest conflict, as evident from his talks with Hannibal himself and Freddie), but now, he can’t bring himself to harm or betray Hannibal.

He gets his first chance in E7, after being released from prison. He threatens Hannibal with a gun and has a perfect chance to make him pay, but he doesn’t. Instead, he conspires with Jack and decides to cultivate co-dependency, creating an environment where only he “and the fish exist” (E8). What does Will do to start? He makes himself physically attractive, grooming and dressing prettily. It’s a seduction on all levels, and Will plans to use emotions to hurt Hannibal back. At the same time, Will admits to being confused over what he feels for Hannibal.

E8 of S2.

*Will: I envy you your hate. Makes it much easier when you know how to feel.*

E9 of S2 (talking about trying to kill Hannibal with Margot).

*Margot: Did he have it coming?*

*Will: What do you think?*

*Margot: I can't say that I know.*

*Will: Neither can I.*

He spends the rest of the season lying to both Hannibal and Jack, unsure whose side to choose, too lost in his own feelings to make sense of them. At the same time, he has a dream where Hannibal calls him beloved in E9. It shows that Will contemplates the idea of love in relation to Hannibal. In E10, Will tries to fantasize about Alana as he’s having sex with Margot. However, he sees the image of Wendigo near the fireplace, Wendigo who he’s used to associating with Hannibal. Two interesting things (copied from my other meta): first, Will actually sees Hannibal’s room and consequently, he sees himself in it (or he sees their rooms united). Second, he sees the Wendigo near Hannibal’s fireplace. Fireplace has many meanings, including passion, sexuality, home, family, and resurrection. It emphasizes the sexual and romantic subtext of this uniquely shot scene, where people destined to be together have sex with the wrong partners. Will’s vision begins to contract, focusing on Wendigo: he is having an orgasm at this very moment, imagining the Wendigo’s face very close, approaching him. Still through the misty eyes, he tries to focus on Alana again, but his gaze moves up to Wendigo above her, as if he can’t help himself. He and Hannibal reach orgasm first, with Alana and Margot following them. So, Will dragged Hannibal into his sex fantasy. It’s both symbolic and physical: he tried to imagine Alana just like he tried to have a relationship with her before, in S1, out of his desire to be normal. But his attention is inevitably drawn to Hannibal, who’s his “real deal”.

Based on this scene, it’s underlined once again how Will struggles with emotions. Even in the safety of his own mind, in his own fantasy, he tries to think of Alana but still ends up with Hannibal. Will is always fighting himself and who he is. He refuses to accept his darkness just as he refuses to admit he loves Hannibal. It’s the essence of who he is, denial is his second name.

Among the important moments, there are Will’s words to Hannibal:

*Will: You are right. We are just alike. You are as alone as I am. And we are both alone without each other.*

So, Will accepts the bond with Hannibal, and at this stage, he even has the courage to voice some of his emotional thoughts. His progress is slow, but it’s there.

In E11, Will has a nightmare. He sees a burning corpse of ‘Freddie’ in a wheelchair, a symbol of his betrayal of Hannibal, and he hears his own increasing screaming. It’s easy to interpret, knowing the context: Will feels guilty for lying to Hannibal.

When Margot loses her child, Will feels renewed anger at Hannibal. He fantasizes about killing him and gets to realize his fantasy with Mason’s help in E12. But at the last moment, Will changes his mind and chooses Hannibal. He does the same thing in E13 by calling him. When he sees him, he doesn’t even try to point a gun at him: he asks why he didn’t leave as he was supposed to, and he even leans forward to accept the knife, accept the punishment for betrayal.

So, Will chooses Hannibal over Abigail, for whom he wanted justice; over his and Margot’s child, for whom he wanted revenge; over Jack and Alana, who were his only semblance of friends; over his own confusion and desire to be normal. For someone as emotionally stunted as Will, it’s huge. It proves that he loves Hannibal and is willing to compromise all other relationships he has formed as well his own beliefs for him (while Will is dark, he tries to fight it because he doesn’t think people like them are normal). Is it romantic? Will’s dream with the word “beloved” and his sex fantasy, as well as his acceptance of the idea that he and Hannibal were Abigail’s fathers (which makes them partners) imply that yes, romantic feeling is a part of it.

Hannibal’s romantic feelings became explicit in S3, and so did Will’s. But since Hannibal is more open and self-accepting, his were discussed out loud while Will’s were mostly portrayed silently, implied, and alluded to.

Will builds a boat to sail and find Hannibal, which is pretty romantic by itself. He spends his time in Hannibal’s house, in the kitchen where their bloody break-up happened, imagining Abigail near him. When Alana comes to find him, he asks her to leave. He’s cold and indifferent toward her — she’s not what he wants, and he’s not interested in even friendship with her. All he wants is to mourn his lost family with Hannibal and Abigail. Again, Hannibal is Will’s priority.

Will imagines his perfect world as the one where he and Hannibal killed Jack together. This scene is intercut with his Mizumono memories, namely, with Hannibal's face that emerges every time he moves yet another part of the engine. This is a vivid demonstration of Will trying to repair what is now broken. When Jack asks him why he called him, Will is indifferent and genuine:

*Will: I wasn't decided when I called him. I just called him. I deliberated while the phone rang. I decided when I heard his voice … I told him to leave. I wanted him to run … Because he was my friend. And because I wanted to run away with him.*

That’s a big admission for Will. This is the first time he openly acknowledges Hannibal as his friend in front of another person. Chilton calls Will and Hannibal’s interactions a “flirtation” in this episode, which once again points us in the romantic direction.

The entire E2 of S3 is dedicated to Will’s love for Hannibal, where he argues about it with himself in the form of imaginary Abigail. This is another proof of Will’s problem with emotions in general and emotions for Hannibal in particular. He can’t just think to himself as normal people do — no, he can’t admit how much he loves Hannibal this. Instead, he imagines Abigail and talks to himself through her to make it easier. He berates himself for lying.

*Will/Abigail: We were all supposed to leave together. He made a place for us. Why did you lie to him? He gave you a chance to take it all back, and you just kept lying.*

Will is reverent about Hannibal; he keeps talking about him over and over again.

*Will: This isn't Hannibal, it's just where he begins. Beyond this, far and complex, light and dark, is the vast structure of his mind. A thousand rooms, miles of corridors. Everything he remembers, wonderfully and fearfully reconstructed.*

Will goes as far as lies at the place where Hannibal’s Valentine heart for him was, reconstructing this image and trying to feel close to him. The heart comes to life the moment Will touches it, which is romantic. Will says:

*Will: A valentine written on a broken man … I do feel closer to Hannibal here. God only knows where I would be without him … He left us his broken heart … He misses us.*

He looks on the verge of tears, so Hannibal’s gift touched him. Will is overcome by emotions. At this very moment, his more frightened side suggests that Hannibal is also playing with him.

*Will: Hannibal follows several trains of thought at once without distraction from any, and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.*

We know it’s not the case, especially here, but Will has trust issues and a low self-esteem. He’s worried that Hannibal’s feelings for him aren’t as strong as he thinks they are, which is why he’s not sure how to react himself. He asks himself, *“You still want to go with him?”* and replies, *“Yes.” He wonders about what life they’d have if they left.

*Will: What if no one died? What if we all left together? Like we were supposed to. After he served the lamb. Where would we have gone? … In some other world.*

Pazzi comes and tells Will that he hopes they’ll catch Hannibal together.

*Will: What makes you think I want to catch him?*

Later, Pazzi says:

*Pazzi: He let you know him. He sent you his heart.*

E2 ends with Will scaring Pazzi and telling him, *“You don’t know whose side I’m on.* Then he tells Hannibal he forgives him, which is also a huge step in his direction.

This entire episode proves that yes, Will loves Hannibal. Considering how he isn’t awkward from receiving a Valentine or hearing that Hannibal gave him his heart, Will shares the romantic aspect of Hannibal’s feelings for him. He regrets not running away with him and their daughter, he places himself on the floor where the heart was to feel closer to him — this is such a rich romantic subtext that it’s practically text. Especially for Will, who remains so conflicted and emotionally restrained all the time.

Will’s attitude changes after seeing Chiyoh. He becomes more bitter. Considering how dark he is in these scenes and how he constantly compares himself and Chiyoh, he likely sees her as someone Hannibal was supposed to love but easily abandoned. It makes Will draw the parallels between them, and he starts to doubt that Hannibal loves him, that his “broken heart” has any authentic meaning. That’s where he starts thinking about killing Hannibal again. He still says:

*Will: I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him.*

This line also speaks volumes. Hannibal gave Will a precious gift of understanding himself; he showed that he could accept him, and Will is drawn to it. Will admits the depth of their connection to yet another person. Then he makes a firefly from Chiyoh’s prisoner, a tribute that is clearly done with Hannibal in his mind, considering the style and the central topic.

Chiyoh sees right through Will’s emotional constipation. She implies that he should “kiss” Hannibal rather than keep being “violent”:

*Chiyoh: I told you, there are means of influence other than violence.*

She kisses Will then, thus showing him what others means exist. He doesn’t get it, though, since he responds to her kiss despite not feeling anything for her, and she pushes him off the train, likely admitting he’s a hopeless case.

Meeting Jack, Will tells him that a part of him will always want to leave with Hannibal. This is yet another declaration from him. Will isn’t scared of the consequences — he speaks of his feelings openly now. It’s a great development of his character.

But the feeling of doubt about Hannibal likely resurfaces further after Will sees that Hannibal replaced him and Abigail with Bedelia in E6 (hence his hatred for her since that moment). He mocks her alibi and then leaves to reunite with Hannibal. The following moment was deleted, but it still discloses some of Will’s romantic feelings:

*Will: I looked up at the night sky there. Orion above the horizon and, near it, Jupiter. I wondered if you could see it, too. I wondered if our stars were the same.*

From the words that did get into the episode:

*Will: You and I have begun to blur ... We're conjoined. Curious if either of us can survive separation.*

Will doesn’t just admit the bond between them, he elevates it the level of soulmates, implying they are one and the same. It’s also a declaration of love in his language. But love doesn’t stop Will from being vindictive, hurt, and angry, so after meetings with Chiyoh and Bedelia that affected his perception, he pulls out a knife as he and Hannibal are walking together.

There is a brain-sawing disaster after this and E7, where Will looks done and tired from the madness and his constant attempts to figure Hannibal out. He does bite Cordell before looking at Hannibal, seeking his approval; he uses “we” pronouns when speaking about Hannibal with Alana. One example:

*Will: You helped Mason Verger find us.*

So, he still sees himself and Hannibal as a team, but he’s still tired and bitter, so after everything is over, he hurts Hannibal by saying he doesn’t share his appetite and by attacking him emotionally.

*Will: I miss my dogs. I'm not going to miss you. I'm not going to find you. I'm not going to look for you. I don't want to know where you are or what you do. I don't want to think about you anymore.*

This is all personal and emotional. It sounds like a break-up, which is exactly how Bryan Fuller and others referred to it. When Hannibal leaves and Jacks arrives, Will puts on his glasses, an indication that he’s hiding again.

Fast-forward 3 years. Will is married now, but from the very start, we see that this marriage isn’t all people usually expect it to be. The first scene shows the family apart. Molly and Walter have gone fishing, which is something Will loves. He had dreams about teaching Abigail how to fish, but he doesn’t go to do that with his family, preferring to stay alone instead. It’s the first hint that his heart isn’t in this relationship, that he’s too hung up on the past to move forward and make new happy memories.

Jack came to drag him to Dragon’s case, and Will makes it look like he’s reluctant. At the same time, he doesn’t send Jack away, even though we know from the past that he has no qualms being frank when he wants to. More than that, he asks him not to show pics to Molly, but when they have dinner, Will deliberately leaves the house with Walter, leaving Jack and Molly together. At night, when Molly’s asleep, he crawls out of bed and goes to read Hannibal’s letter. He doesn’t tell the truth to Molly about himself and his dark urges, about everything he has done – Molly clearly has no idea who he truly is, considering how she jokes about his ‘criminal mind’ in later episodes and how Will immediately closes himself off from her. He never initiates physical touches with her; he doesn’t return her “I love you”, which is an even bigger indication of his lack of commitment. Will is emotionally stiff with Molly for the most part, and the only times he laughs with her or shows any emotion is when they are talking about superficial stuff in the former case and when he’s furious after Francis’ attack in the latter one. Other than that, there is no closeness or honesty.

Another point of Will’s inability to express or even give his love to someone is in his scene with Walter in E11. This child, his step-son, has just been attacked by a serial killer with his mother. His mother was hurt and they barely escaped. Will doesn’t hug him or offer him paternal emotional comfort; he’s very awkward. All he says is, “You're both safe here,” which is something an officer might say but not a father. Will was much more emotional in his fantasies about Abigail.

This is what Will says about Walter’s reaction to Jack:

*Will: He read about me in a Freddie Lounds article. I had to justify myself to an eleven year old.*

He’s resentful and not emotional. He doesn’t say, “I had to justify myself to my son!” – he distances himself from him. Will is cold. He has expressed his feelings for Hannibal at this point in rather poetic ways, but he can’t be bothered to do this for his wife and his son.

He treats Hannibal in a very reserved fashion too, in comparison to how he acted 3 years ago. However: first, there is the fact that he came to visit him in the first place. Will didn’t need his help, we saw very clearly how he managed to easily reconstruct the crime scene the night before. It proved that his mindset is in a good shape, so he didn’t need Hannibal’s assistance. But it’s Hannibal he requested to see right away.

Will distances himself from him by calling him “Doctor Lecter” and insisting that he’s more comfortable the less personal they are. His eyes glisten, though, and he can’t look away from Hannibal. The impersonal approach doesn’t last very long, too, and soon, they are talking like they always did. Hannibal accuses Will of marrying for false reasons.

*Hannibal: How did you choose yours? Readymade wife and child to serve your needs. A stepson or daughter. A stepson absolves you of any biological blame. You know better than to breed. Can't pass on those terrible traits you fear the most.*

Will doesn’t bother to deny it, though any man would have been offended, particularly if he truly loved his family. In Will’s case, from the experience and all the precedents, silence = agreement.

In E10, Will seeks Bedelia out. He acts catty and jealous, targeting her personal connection with Hannibal.

*Will: You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered.* - personal, targeted against Bedelia's attachment to Hannibal.

*Will: You hitched your star to a man commonly known as a monster. You're the Bride of Frankenstein.* - personal, attack with romantic connotation. Bedelia catches up on it and mocks him:

*Bedelia: We've both been his bride. Have you been to see him?*

*Will: Yes.*

*Bedelia: Haven't learned anything, have you? Or did you just miss him that much?*

*Will: Have you been to see him?* - personal again. Will wants to know if Bedelia is keeping contact with Hannibal.

*Bedelia: I've seen enough of him. I was with him behind the veil. You were always on the other side.*

*Will: Something we should talk about.* - again, personal. It's all personal, which is why Bryan and Hugh called them Hannibal's jealous bitchy exes. Will is palpably jealous and he shows his resentment to Bedelia openly.

Later, we have some more romantic references.

*Bedelia: My relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours. You are here visiting old flame. Is your wife aware of how intimately you and Hannibal know each other? … Your experience of Hannibal’s attention is so profoundly harmful yet so irresistible, it undermines your ability to think rationally.*

So, there is romantic text, parallels between Hannibal and Will’s wife, and Will doesn’t deny any of this again. He keeps coming to Bedelia because she’s the only person he can talk about Hannibal to without being watched.

After Hannibal sends Francis after Molly and Walter, Will spends about a minute being angry with him. Then he accuses Hannibal of staging a competition between him and Francis. It is startling: Will spent months, years mourning the loss of Abigail who he didn’t even really know personally, yet he forgets the gravity of what happened to his wife and won very quickly. He leaves Molly and Walter and tells Bedelia that they are finished. One traumatic event, and Will left. It coincides with something very important that happened here: after this, Will finally figures out Hannibal is truly in love with him. So he goes to Bedelia to discuss it with her.

*Will: Is Hannibal in love with me?*

*Bedelia: Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you ache for him?*

Will is predictably silent. Obviously, if the answer was no, he would have said no. But he struggles because like we established, he has issues with expressing emotions. He only managed to start referring to Hannibal as his friend openly in this season, opening up about some of his feelings, but he’s not ready to go this far. It would be absolutely out of character for Will to say, “Yes, you know, I’m in love with him! Thanks for helping me see it.” Every confession Will makes is preceded by struggles and heartbreak. But he’s going to reply to Bedelia’s question, only not explicitly-verbally.

Will sets up Chilton and then comes to allegedly say good-bye to Hannibal. He lies several times in their conversation (about Chilton and Molly with Walter), so all his words are automatically suspicious. Regardless, he destroys Hannibal emotionally and walks away. Personally, I believe he was already planning to break him out, so he was playing it up for cameras and also taking a chance to hurt Hannibal for everything again. But whatever his plan was, what happens next is that Will conspires with Francis against Jack, Alana, and the FBI. They agree to break Hannibal out together. Will lies to Jack and then gets to ask Hannibal for help. He’s being flirty and manipulative in this scene.

*Will: I need you, Hannibal … You're our best shot, Hannibal. Please.*

He’s smirking, he leans close to Hannibal, he sends him a flirty look from under his eyelashes. Will is thoroughly enjoying himself, and he does it best when he has some excuse to hide behind.

Later, he lies to Jack and Alana again, leaks info to Francis (who nearly killed his wife and son), and gets many officers killed by proxy. He tells Bedelia the truth that he doesn’t “intend Hannibal to be caught a second time.” He also implies that he’s going to let him go free, which is why Bedelia should pack her bags.

*Bedelia: Can't live with him. Can't live without him. Is that what this is?*

This time, Will agrees, although in his way.

*Will: I guess this is my Becoming.*

For Will, Becoming was always connected to his feelings for Hannibal because accepting himself and his darkness meant being free to escape with Hannibal.

*Bedelia: You found religion. Nothing more dangerous than that.*

In E3, it was stated that love is a God (you can find more here https://www.reddit.com/r/HannibalTV/comments/7w54dg/lovegodreligion_s3_parallels/), so it’s possible to say that religion = love in this context. It certainly makes sense. Will is accepting himself and his emotions, and the trigger was establishing for sure that Hannibal is in love with him.

Will and Hannibal drive to the cliff house. When Hannibal asks Will if he intends to save himself by killing them both (Hannibal and Francis), Will replies:

*Will: I don't know if I can save myself. And maybe that's just fine.*

This is the first time he confesses that he might be incapable of killing Hannibal. Predictably, when Francis comes, Will can’t handle seeing Hannibal killed, so he reaches for his gun.

Will and Hannibal work as a unit and protect each other. Hannibal is shot, nearly strangled, thrown onto the ground, and he is still weakly holding on Francis' leg to prevent him from going after Will, even though it leaves him in an open and vulnerable position — Francis does kick him in the face with his other leg. There is fierce determination on Will's face as he stands up despite the pain and runs to save Hannibal. They act in synch, consummating their relationship.

Then, Will admires how blood looks on his hand and repeats Hannibal’s words:

*Will: It really does look black in the moonlight.*

He remembers the words Hannibal said to him weeks ago in one of their endless interactions. A bit earlier, he perfectly recalled the words Hannibal told him *years* ago, back in the middle of S2.

*Will: I understand that “blood and breath are only elements undergoing change to fuel your Radiance." Hannibal said those words. To me.*

So, Will remembers everything Hannibal told him. He stores these memories. It’s a small but still important proof how important Hannibal is for him.

At the cliff, Will finally accepts the truth.

*Hannibal: See. This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.*

We know what Hannibal wanted: a Murder Husband. What does Will say to this?

*Will: It’s beautiful.*

This is a loud “yes” to Bedelia’s question about his feelings. Will acknowledges, accepts, and admires them. He doesn’t feel awkward, as he would if he knew Hannibal is in love with him but didn’t feel the same. No, he reaches forward to embrace him, and such physical contact from Will is mind-blowing because he almost never does it. He clings to Hannibal, puts his head on his shoulder, touches him as if he wants to melt with him. Then he gives the fate a chance to stop both of them or to set them free. They fall into the ocean under the Love Crime song, another romantic element.

Water symbolizes reborn, and post-credits scene indicates that Will and Hannibal have paid a visit to Bedelia and are in the process of eating her while she’s hiding the fork to stab one of them as he approaches. The deleted epilogue to the series shows that they are in perfect harmony now.

**Conclusion**: Will has passed through a long, painful journey. He went from hiding from emotions and deflecting to not denying and carefully acknowledging them. We don’t hear words “love” or “in love” from him in relation to Hannibal because Will is not that kind of person. He doesn’t use these words freely, and for him, every small emotional step is a struggle. He tried to deceive himself and other numerous times; he tied to deny the truth and manipulate his own mind, but with each season, his feelings for Hannibal became more and more explicit. Will reaching out for physical contact, Will saying “It’s beautiful” are his way of saying, “I ached for you. I love you.”

This is a story of mutual love and obsession, about soulmates, about unique type of connection that few people share. It’s not about Hannibal falling in love and Will not feeling the same. Their feelings are equally strong, but they express them differently, particularly as Will’s are tied to the acceptance of his own darkness.

[thinking1bee]

When it Reigns Part 6

Requested by Anonymous

Pairings: Kara Danvers x Reader

Tags: Angst, Kryptonian!Reader, Parent!Reader, Parent!Kara, Estranged Parent, Graphic Depictions of Injuries, Blood, Humor, Bad Dreams, Memory Loss

Everything Taglist: @sammy90682 @nobody13 @owloftheshadows @captain-josslett @camslightstories @worldovart @finleyfray @acertainredhead @sammm9068 @reginassecretlover

You followed Elizabeth outside of her home and into the barn.  

“Where are you taking…”

Your question died on your lips as soon as you voiced it. Inside of the wooden structure was a spaceship, dusty and forgotten in the hay, and Elizabeth went around to turn on more lights so that you could see it better.

“You asked about your birth mom. I lied. I didn’t adopt you,” she explained. “I found you in this. One day, this crashed a mile from where we are now and when I looked inside, I found you, a giggling baby.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, a million questions going through your mind at a mile a minute. “I don’t understand,” you finally said.

“I didn’t either. I didn’t know where you were from or who left you in this thing, or even why. When I saw you, you looked so helpless that I took you home.”

You stared at her with your mouth agape. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“I swore that I would tell you when you turned 18.”

And then that never happened because she got kicked you out. You pressed your fingers against your temples to assuage the growing headache.

“I thought that maybe, you would be better off on your own not knowing.”

“That I’m an alien???” you demanded.

“Y/n, all I wanted was for you to have a normal life.”

You couldn’t stop the scoff or the roll of your eyes. She’d flip out if she knew that you were married to one, and thanks to her, this woman that dared to call herself a mother, your life had been anything but normal.

You eyed the space pod, your hand reaching out tentatively to touch the metal, and like the ship recognized you, it powered up, the engine whirring to life as the ship lit up. You gasped in shock as you tried to absorb what was happening. You kept touching it as you circled around it, feeling the contours of the edges and bends. Then you watched as a latch of some kind opened. Out of it came some sort of crystalline rod. You approached it and reached out to touch it. When you did, it too, lit up, and after wiggling it from side to side, it disconnected from the pedestal it was seated on. You twisted and turned it in your hands, watching as a bright light flashed on and off inside of it. It was a beacon, a map that would tell you where to go next.

You nodded in determination as your grip tightened around it. You knew what you had to do next. Elizabeth sighed and you looked at her.

“Be careful,” she whispered to you. All you could do was nod. In all the years that you knew her, this was the most helpful she had been. A part of you wanted to say thank you but…you didn’t want her to think that you owed her now. Besides you were doing just fine without her and as far as you were concerned, it was going to stay that way. You turned towards your car and left her there to live all alone.

***

It wasn’t too long before you found yourself in the middle of nowhere. Literally, the middle of nowhere. The beacon brought you to the middle of the desert, and as you neared your destination, the slow flashing inside the beacon turned into blinking. That had to mean that you were getting closer, right?

You were walking, the hot sun beating down on you and you could have killed for water. You wiped the sweat from your eyes and cursed the sun. It was way too hot for this.

Suddenly, the ground started to shake. Your immediate thought was an earthquake, after all those were common in California, but the idea was immediately dashed the moment rocks started to grow from the ground. In the shape of monoliths, rocks started to sprout in varying directions, cross crossing and zigzagging on top of each other until it formed a structure. You watched, with your mouth hanging open, as you stared at the towering fortress. It was intimidating and it radiated mysteriousness and power.

You took a deep breath, and with trepidation, walked inside. The inside was dark and dank, despite having just grown right before your eyes. You walked around, looking at everything, and noticed a strange insignia carved into the base of the rock. You continued to look, observing the ominous looking place when you saw a particularly flat slab of rock with a hole in it. You looked at the beacon in your hands and then at the hole, noticing that the hole had the same shape as the beacon. Coincidence? You approached the slab and fit the beacon inside of the available opening until you heard a click. The moment it happened, the room lit up and right in front of you, a figure appeared. You stared at it, a sense of familiarity and fear filling you as you both recognized the figure and backed away from it.

“You’ve come. I imagine that you have questions and I have answers.”

“I know you, you whispered. “Ive seen you in my dreams. What are you?”

You didn’t expect an answer. The figured never talked, and you wondered why you were talking to it now, but when the figure removed the hood of its cloak to reveal its face, you gasped.

“I am science. I am a friend.”

Okay? Well, she finally said something to you. This was very real. This was not in your head. All of this was happening, and it was happening so fast.

“Where am I?”

“This is the Fortress of Sanctuary, a building made from a piece of your dying planet. A piece of Krypton.”

Your eyes widened. “Krypton? Oh my god, my daughter was right. She said that I had powers a-and I didn’t want to believe it. I’m like Supergirl.”

“You are so much more than that,” the woman said.

“Then who am I?” you asked.

“You are a culmination of centuries of work, a being designed for one purpose: to execute justice.”

“So, I’m a hero?” you asked, clarifying that you heard her right.

“They will not call you that. They will call you WorldKiller. They will try to contain your power, but they will fail. You will show no mercy to those who oppose you. Your justice will burn the world of man.”

Horror filled you as she said her words, your eyes widening as she spoke with nonchalance. She made it seem like you two were discussing the weather over a cup of coffee, but no. She just told you that you were going to burn the world to the ground! Of course, you were going to have some choice words for that.

“No, no!” you blurted. “I’m not a Worldkiller. I have a life, a daughter, a wife! I have a company to run, I ave to be there for my family! I’m a good person”

The woman frowned. “Your offspring, among other things, was an unfortunate error.”

You whipped your head around to look at her, your fear immediately morphing to anger.

“Your powers were supposed to manifest when you came of age, but she delayed the realization of your destiny.”

“Angel is not an error!” you snapped.

“You will soon forget her,” she continued saying. “You will forget all mortal trappings.”

Forget Angel? Forget Kara? No! That couldn’t happen. They were the reason you kept going. Without them, who were you? What were you?

“No this can’t be right?” you whispered in fear. You ran your hands through your hair as you swallowed thickly.

The woman smiled, her dark eyes radiating pure evil, and you saw it. You could see that this woman had a whole agenda planned out and somehow, you were at the epicenter of it. Coming here was a mistake. Elizabeth was right. You were better off not knowing anything about yourself.

“It is time for you to emerge,” she said to you. “It’s time for you to Reign.”

The moment she said those words, something happened to you. A shrieking noise, one loud and powerful, assaulted your ears. It grew louder and louder, the noise getting more and more deafening until it was all encompassing, until it was all you could hear. You grunted and gasped as you covered your ears, but it didn’t work. It was like the horrendous sound was coming from inside of you. A horrible foreign warmth settled over you brain like a blanket. Something was trying to take you over.

“No!” you screamed. “NO!”

But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much you fought, you were losing this battle. You slapped repeatedly at your head, gripping it with shaking hands as you willed the noise to go away, but it didn’t. Slowly your world faded to black, and all you remembered was Kara and Angel, and how you couldn’t bare the thought of forgetting about them.  

***

When you stood up again, the noise was gone, and you faced the mysterious woman as your eyes glowed a scarlet red. You were no longer Y/n Danvers, but an instrument of destruction designed to carry out and fulfill your destiny. You were Reign and you were ready.

“I have awoken,” you whispered in Kryptonian.

Part 7

[wintervvidow]

apricity pt. five

apricity- the warmth of the sun in winter

warnings: angst, violence

pairing: bucky barnes x female oc

word count: 3,556

A/N: yes, I did purposely reuse the flashback sequence lol enjoy! feedback is welcome! 💕

MASTERLIST

The air held a palpable tension, red lights reflecting off of the walls and casting red-hued shadows. Florence’s footfalls were quiet, stepping with precision and purpose. Steve and Sam stalked behind her, their eyes ghosting over the path of bodies the Winter Soldier left in their path. 

Florence was trained for this: the moments of chaos. She knew how to disappear, how to take out any threat without a trace. She knew the art of managing her emotions, how to go cold like a switch. Yet all of the training that was beaten into her flew out of the window the second the lights went out. Bucky was her number one priority. She was scared, terrified of what awaited her, her heart hammering in her chest as she ran down the dimly lit halls. 

The self-proclaimed therapist laid on the floor in front of Florence, anger swimming in her eyes at the sight of him. She grabbed him by his collar, hauling him against the wall with force, face inches away from his, a snarl on her lips, “What do you want?” 

“To see an empire fall.” 

Florence shoved the man against the wall harder, hands tightening in the fabric of his shirt, opening her mouth to speak again. Movement behind her made her turn, seeing Bucky throw Sam down the hall. Steve threw a punch to his ribcage, the soldier barely feeling it and throwing his own. As Bucky stalked him like a wolf hunting its prey, Steve jerked backward, a dangerous look in his eyes. Florence looked down the hall at Bucky and Steve, watching as Bucky threw Steve down an open elevator shaft. She bolted to Sam, her fingers meeting his neck, making sure he was alive before she took off running up the stairs after Bucky. 

She found him in the open seating area of the building, fighting off Sharon’s flurry of attacks.  He took the blonde down easily, tossing her head over heels into a table, splintering off. Florence threw a punch to his abdomen, Bucky doubling over before moving to tackle her. She used their height difference as an advantage, moving behind his outstretched arm and flipping over him onto his shoulders, thighs around his neck. Her elbow struck his head repeatedly as he tried to throw her off to no avail. Bucky stumbled forward, his hands grasping her waist and throwing her onto a nearby table. 

Bucky's metal hand found Florence's throat in an instant. The Winter Soldier showed no mercy, squeezing his hand tighter and tighter. Florence felt her face heat up, her blood vessels threatening to burst if the soldier continued to apply pressure. She writhed in his grasp looking up at him with pleading eyes, black dots dancing across her field of vision. Tears stung her eyes, her throat burning from the crushing weight of his hand, feeling her windpipe constrict as she rasped out the only words she could muster up, "You could at least recognize me." 

Florence wanted him to look at her. She wanted him to look at her as Bucky, but also as the Winter Soldier. The soldier was looking at her, her legs wrapping around his neck, not giving him any way to not look at her, but he wasn't seeing her. Not in the way Florence needed, otherwise he was going to kill her. 

In the clutches of HYDRA, Florence was the only one that could calm the soldier down when he would have a panic attack or had an episode of anger brought on by the confusion, brainwashing, and torture of their captures. Even in the moments when Bucky was the farthest thing from himself and became the dark machine HYDRA created, he immediately softened at Florence. He would stop whatever he was doing, whether it be loosening his grasp around an agent's throat or dropping his aimed weapon, his eyes would soften and he would become putty, only made to be molded by Florence. Even in the moments where Bucky’s attack was set on her, metal and flesh hands clutched around her throat, a flash of recognition would always wash over his face and immediately let go, falling to his knees at her feet in forgiveness. 

HYDRA caught on very quickly about the Soldier's fondness of the redhead and used that to their advantage; always looking for a way to control. If only they had learned of the relationship the two assassins had before the war and before Florence slipped away into the winter night.

Bucky wasn't seeing what he was really doing to her. He was causing her the most imaginable pain, and in turn, hurting himself. She needed him to see her, really truly see her. She needed him to see her as Bucky, the love of her life and not the machine he was made out to be, otherwise, this was all for nothing. 

The Soldier's hand left Florence’s throat, being thrown off her by the Black Panther. Florence gulped in air, her throat burning in pain, her windpipe bruised from the weight of Bucky’s grasp. She laid on the table she had been thrown on by Bucky, taking a minute to collect herself and her breath, gasping for air as tears unwillingly fell down her face and into her hairline. Years of emotions threatened to spill, the dam threatening to burst completely. She couldn't do this. 

Florence could barely handle the constant up and down of adrenaline anymore, every day was a gamble whether something was going to go wrong or not. Lately, every day had been hell, each passing minute worse than the last. She needed a minute to breathe. 

By the time Florence had made it to her feet without falling over, both the soldier and the king had disappeared up the staircase. Florence bounded up the stairs two at a time, a loud commotion outside accelerating her heart rate. Her hand threw the door open, bouncing back against its hinges. She rushes out of the building, eyes locking on Steve who had an iron grip on the helicopter Bucky was attempting to take flight in from the helipad.

Before she could move, Bucky slams the chopper into the helipad, Steve flipping and dodging the attack narrowly.  Florence ran towards the scene, hand reaching for Steve’s bicep to help him up as Bucky’s metal hand flew through the windshield and grabbed Steve’s throat. The girl pries at Bucky’s hand around Steve’s throat to no avail, the helicopter tipping further and further over the edge towards the water below. Feet skid against the concrete as Florence and Steve were continuing to be pulled. Bucky’s grip remained on Steve, Florence trying her best to do anything to get him to let go, her hand going from the metal to reaching into the glass towards the brunette, flesh hand finding her outstretched one easily. 

Florence squeezed the flesh tightly in her hand as they continued their slow descent towards the edge, her voice betraying her by cracking, “Bucky, please. Let go, we’re trying to help.” Her pleas fell on deaf ears as she was yanked forward by Bucky, her body colliding with Steve as the helicopter finally tipped over. The trio dived into the icy water at the same time, Florence’s vision blurring and fading at the impact.

The redhead was vaguely aware of the arm around her waist and the warm body next to her. Steve secured both Florence and Bucky in his grasp, pulling them out of the frigid water. Her legs kicked helplessly in the water, failing to ease Steve’s rescue swim. Once they made it to dry land, Florence coughed up the water in her lungs, eyes trained on Bucky’s unconscious body on the ground. Neither of the two friends spoke, too preoccupied with moving Bucky to a secure location. 

Along with Sam, Steve and Florence secured Bucky in an abandoned warehouse, metal arm braced between heavy machinery. The redhead’s eyes never strayed away from Bucky’s unconscious form for long, wanting to make sure he was okay. Bucky groaned as he came too, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the old building. Sam called for Steve behind Florence, wanting to have a second super soldier in case Bucky remained the Winter Soldier.

Bucky peered at his arm between the vice and then settled his gaze on Florence who stood mere feet away in front of him, shifting her weight from one foot to another. Steve jogged to where the others were, eyes darting to the man in the chair, eyebrows furrowed. 

Bucky groaned as he sat up further, “Steve.”

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” 

Florence whipped her head to the blonde standing next to her, hand coming up and swatting him on the shoulder, “Steve!”

Bucky made no reaction, instead, he gazed vacantly ahead before he spoke again, “Your mom’s name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.” Bucky chuckled fondly at the newfound memory. 

Steve smiled softly, his lips barely turning up, “You can’t read that in a museum.”

Bucky looked from the ground to Florence, eyes softening as he took her concerned features in, “Your mom was Anya, dad was Viktor. We used to have dinner every Sunday. And you were my best girl.” 

Her face broke out in a pained smile. If Steve hadn't been standing next to her, Florence would have been on the ground. Waves of memories washed over her and threatened to pull her in, each one more grueling than the last; happiness, dances in the moonlight at 2 a.m.-, their bare feet barely gliding across the kitchen floor. All throughout time, he called her his best girl. Then there were the darker ones, them huddled together on the chilled floor of a HYDRA cell, using each other for warmth as they whispered memories of their past to one another. Always his best girl. 

The memories were fleeting, Sam scoffing behind her, “Just like that, we’re supposed to be cool?” Florence turned her head curtly, glaring at Sam. He didn’t know. 

The smile fell, Bucky grimacing, “What did I do?”

“Enough.” Florence’s voice was barely above a whisper when she spoke, she was still drowning in the past, fighting for air before the current took her under, dragging her by her ankle.  

“Oh, God,” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head, greasy hair hanging around his face and shielding his eyes, “I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words.”

Steve spoke, “Who was he?”

Bucky shook his head, “I don’t know.” 

Steve continued to pile on the hurt, “People are dead. The bombing, the setup, the doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than ‘I don’t know’.” It was Steve’s turn to be glared at by Florence, her ferocity to protect Bucky knew no bounds, even if Bucky deserved whatever it was Florence was trying to shield him from. 

Bucky took a moment to think, his words tumbling out before he spoke clearly, “He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I- we were kept.” Florence’s heart dropped at Bucky’s correction from singular to plural. Siberia. No fond memories were made in that place, Florence shuttered at the thought of remembering being kept there with Bucky. She listened closely as Bucky further explained, “He wanted to know exactly where.”

Steve wasted no time to ask questions, his invisible clock was ticking, “Why would he need to know that?”

Bucky met Steve’s gaze, “Because I’m not the only Winter Soldier.”

The December air was cold as it blew through Florence’s hair, her arms circling Bucky’s waist as they rode down the dark road on Bucky’s motorcycle. The soldier steered with one arm, free hand coming down to rub circles on the redhead’s calf as they pulled behind a cluster of trees, hiding them from onlookers as they waited. The pair of assassins were unthawed and reset only hours ago, immediately given their latest mission.

Florence remembered the screaming. Without fail, HYDRA always made her watch Bucky be reprogrammed, his screams echoed in her brain even days after it would happen. That night was no different, even the cold air from the motorcycle speeding down the road did nothing to numb the pain she felt.

A car came into view, red tail lights illuminating the air around them. Bucky flipped the bike’s headlight on and pulled onto the road again. The soldier revved the bike, catching up to the side of the vehicle as Florence sunk her butterfly knife into the tire, causing the car to swerve off the road and crash into a building.

Florence’s choice of close contact weapon had always been a butterfly knife; Bucky had taught her for hours on end in the Red Room how to use it. There had been a few training mishaps, an accidental slice to Bucky’s rib cage that sent Florence into a fit of fear, her past nursing skills coming to light, her fingers working quickly to bandage the wound all while Bucky merely peered down at her nervous hands with a smile. That had been the first moment the Winter Soldier and the Winter Widow were not the machines they were training to be in the Red Room, they were Bucky and Florence. They just didn’t know it at the time. 

Bucky parked the bike ahead of the crash, Florence stepping off the bike, Bucky behind her, and approaching the car. She flipped open the trunk to reveal a large silver briefcase, opening it to see five bags of blue liquid; exactly what they were looking for.

Bucky briefly explained the use of the liquid, HYDRA used the serum to experiment and create more super-soldiers; better ones. Bucky’s handler and head of the Winter Soldier Program, Karpov, made sure of it. 

Steve stood with his arms crossed over his chest, “Who were they?”

“Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. And that was before the serum.”

Sam leaned against a beam, looking to Bucky, “They all turn out like you?” 

Bucky lifted his head, eyes hollow, “Worse.”

Steve spoke, “The doctor, could he control them?”

“Enough.” Bucky’s head fell.

Florence took a small step forward, lessening the gap slightly between herself and Bucky, “He said he wanted to see an empire fall.”’

Bucky lifted his head again, “With these guys, he could do it. They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night, you’d never see them coming.”

Sam steps up to Steve, nodding at Florence to join before he began speaking, “This would have been a lot easier a week ago.”

“If we call Tony-”

Florence cut Steve off, “No.”

Sam shook his head, “He won’t believe us.” 

Steve shrugged, looking to Sam, “Even if he did-”

Sam interrupted, “Who knows if the Accords would let him help.”

“We’re on our own.”

Sam thought in silence before looking between Florence and Steve, “Maybe not. I know a guy.” 

A few phone calls and a handful of hours later, the quartet was packed into a small car, parked under an overpass. Steve stepped out of the car to greet Sharon, another favor that was called in, retrieving their gear. Sam sat in the passenger seat in silence, while Florence was huddled into the driver’s backseat, knee unwillingly brushing Bucky’s much larger frame. 

Bucky had a scowl on his face, whether it was from the seating arrangement or the situation they had found themselves in, Florence didn’t know. Bucky stared ahead at the back of Sam’s head, “Can you move your seat up?”

Sam snapped back monotonously, “No.”

Bucky shifted slightly towards the middle of the seat, further invading Florence’s space. Although she wasn’t complaining, she hadn’t been this close to him in decades.

The trio looks on in a mixture of shock and proudness as they watch Steve and Sharon share a kiss, Steve sauntering back to the car with a smug smile with gear in hand. 

A cramped car ride later, they arrived at the airport, Steve’s choice of car rattled and squeaked through the parking garage. They parked next to a van that contained Sam’s favor that was called in. Clint and Wanda stepped out of the van as Florence squeezed out of the car behind Steve. 

Sam stepped up next to Steve, conversing with Clint and Wanda, Florence staying by the car with Bucky. They watched as Clint slid the van door open, a highly caffeinated Scott Lang appeared.

Steve stood with his arms crossed, “They tell you what we���re up against?”

Scott shrugged, “Something about psycho-assassins?”

“We’re outside the law on this one. So if you come with us, you’re a wanted man.” Steve was giving Scott his last way out, not wanting him to be involved with something he didn’t want to be.

Scott merely raised an eyebrow, “Yeah, well, what else is new?”

Beside Florence, Bucky spoke as he leaned against the car, “We should get moving.”

Clint spoke, “We got a chopper lined up.” 

Speakers began to blare overhead in German, Florence translating in her head as Bucky translated for the others, “They’re evacuating the airport.”

Sam looked to Steve, “Stark.”

“Stark!” Scott looked at Steve with his eyebrows raised.

A frown etched itself on Steve’s face, “Suit up.”

Later, the team took their places around the airport with their gear on. Florence was with Sam and Bucky, watching through the terminal windows as Steve and Tony talked amongst themselves along with Natasha with Rhodey.

Florence shifted uncomfortably, standing between Sam and Bucky. She was nervous for what was about to happen, antsy to get Bucky out of here. She knew he was a wanted man, both by the government, T’Challa, and now by Tony. She didn’t want to have to fight her friends, but for Bucky, she would do anything. 

Sam was busy using Redwing to find their Quinjet, Bucky standing in silence. Neither Florence nor Bucky have had an opportunity to have a proper conversation, too busy not getting captured or killed.  

Chaos ensued below, various Avengers fighting amongst themselves. Florence took off with Bucky and Sam running through the hanger. Spider-Man appeared on the window, Bucky turning in confusion as he ran, “What the hell is that?” 

Sam groaned, strides falling behind slightly, “Everyone's got a gimmick now.”

The spider swung through the window, breaking it as he kicked Sam. Bucky and Florence halted, turning to the attacker. Bucky threw a punch, the spider’s red-gloved hand catching it with ease. Both Bucky and Florence stared in horror at how was able to easily stop Bucky’s punch.

“You have a metal arm? That is awesome dude.” The spider was taken down by Sam, grabbing him and flying up with him. Bucky and Florence resumed running, watching as Sam dropped the kid as he webbed himself up. Bucky threw a beam at the spider, trying to knock him down. He and Florence took cover, weighing their options of escape. Spider-Man throws the object back at Bucky, Florence yanking the man away from the crash. 

They take off running again, Sam temporarily distracting the attacker. The distraction is short-lived, Sam being webbed down to the balcony railing. Bucky and Florence run across towards Sam, the spider crashing into both of them and sent them crashing through the glass railing to the floor level below. Florence, Sam, and Bucky land with a thud, the spider quick to web their hands to the floor with no chance of escaping the unusual restraints. 

The spider sat on top of a kiosk, looking down on them, “Guys, look, I’d love to keep this up, but I’ve only got one job here today, and I gotta  impress Mr. Stark, so, I’m really sorry.” Sam managed to tap a button on his suit, Redwing appearing and dragging the spider through the air and through the window.

Bucky groaned, “You couldn’t have done that earlier?”

Sam snarked back, “I hate you.” 

Between the two men, Florence could only laugh. The situation wasn’t funny, but if she didn’t laugh, she’d cry and her training made crying a weakness. Neither Sam nor Bucky commented on the redheads' theatrics, only looking at her oddly. Bucky couldn’t help the minuscule smile he had as he watched her laugh.

They eventually freed themselves from the webs, jumping to their feet and outside to join Steve, along with Wanda, Scott, and Clint. The group ran toward the jet as fast as they could, impending doom settled itself in Florence’s chest as she ran between Bucky and Sam. 

Vision hovered overhead, casting a line of heat in front of the running group, causing them to come to a halt.

Vision remains in the air, speaking, “Captain Rogers. I know you believe what you’re doing is right.” Tony and Natasha joined below him, “But for the collective good, you must surrender now.” Black Panther, Rhodey, and Spider-Man join, all standing together across from them, divided.

Both groups faced off against one another, Sam breaking the tension, “What do we do, Cap?”

Steve took a breath, “We fight.”  

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please reblog!

Tag list: @tanyaherondale​ @lilyviolets​ @jckie94​ @badgernix​ @geek-and-proud @ginger-swag-rapunzel

[mst3kproject]

Countess Dracula

In Countess Dracula we have the tale of a lonely old woman who discovers that she can make herself young again, just so long as she doesn’t mind having to murder somebody to do it (she doesn’t).  Our antiheroine uses this newfound youth to seduce the least interesting man in the movie, until at last her misdeeds catch up with her when her latest victim turns out to have been the wrong demographic to make the magic work.

Does that sound familiar?  Yeah, this is a very Leech-Woman-y movie.  It stars Nigel Green, the news announcer from Gorgo, and comes to us from Hammer Studios, home of Moon Zero-Two.  The director, Peter Sasdy, never made anything that wound up on MST3K but he did work on the legendary Pia Zadora bomb, The Lonely Lady.  Countess Dracula is not a wild ride, as its pace is fairly sedate, but it is certainly a ride nonetheless.

The count of somewhere or other has just died, leaving his realm to his nineteen-year-old daughter Ilona – and technically also leaving his spiteful widow, Elizabeth, free to marry her longtime lover Captain Dobi.  Most people would consider this a perfectly acceptable retirement, but Elizabeth is impossible to satisfy.  She doesn’t want to grow old while Ilona (currently on her way home from finishing school in Vienna) rules the county and gets all the attention.  When Elizabeth discovers that bathing in the blood of virgins restores her youth, she embraces murder as a hobby and has Ilona locked up so she can stay in charge while posing as her own daughter!  In that guise she sets out to pursue handsome young Imre, the son of her husband’s most trusted general, while jealous Dobi can only sit and seethe.

I bet you think you can guess how this movie ends.  I bet you think Dobi tells Imre the countess’ secret, and the two of them defeat her.  Or else the real Ilona escapes and meets him, they expose Elizabeth as a fraud, and then get married and rule the land with justice and mercy or something.  That’s what would happen in a normal movie… but you guys know I don’t watch normal movies.  Maybe instead you’re guessing that nobody does shit and Elizabeth just carries on her merry way until she’d destroyed by her own hubris?  That’s more like it.

Not all of Hammer’s films were good, but they were generally pretty well-made and Countess Dracula is not an exception.  The elaborate costumes and sets are very nice, although areas like the town square are obviously artificial and the old lady makeup on Ingrid Pitt as Elizabeth is pretty bad.  There’s also a young woman made up in very ugly brownface as a ‘gypsy girl’, except they totally forgot to do any makeup on her for the scene where her naked corpse is discovered in the woods.

There are even a couple really well-done moments of storytelling and worldbuilding.  A scene in a pub, when everybody falls silent as Dobi and Imre enter, shows eloquently how terrified the peasants are of the aristocracy. Elizabeth gets some chilling bits when we see the true depth of her depravity.  She sees no difference between controlling people through love and controlling them through fear – either way, she gets what she wants, and their feelings don’t matter.  My favourite detail is the subtle cultural conflict going on in the background, as the characters speak disparagingly of ‘Turks’ and yet have clearly picked up some bits and pieces of Ottoman culture.

Although its plot outline is very similar to The Leech Woman, the philosophy of Countess Dracula is completely different.  The Leech Woman didn’t really give June a viable alternative to her poisoned fountain of youth.  Old women in its world can only sit around and drink and know that nobody loves them. Elizabeth, however, has a possible future – Dobi repeatedly notes that he’s been waiting twenty years for the opportunity to legitimatize his relationship with her.  He would have happily devoted himself to her for the rest of his life, and the two of them could have lived in retirement while Imre and Ilona gave them grandchildren to spoil.  Dobi even says there is dignity in age, directly contradicting The Leech Woman by applying it equally to both sexes.  June was more or less forced to become a monster, while Elizabeth chooses it explicitly.

So there’s honestly some pretty good stuff in this film.  Where it unfortunately falls on its face is with the characters, none of whom can really be said to have an arc, and the ending, which is rushed and unsatisfying.

The movie’s main focus is always on Elizabeth, but she refuses to grow or learn anything at any point.  She starts off as a nasty, selfish bitch and just stays a nasty, selfish bitch.  She has no actual master plan, but seems convinced that she can keep up this charade indefinitely, even though Dobi points out the impracticality of that.  Dobi believes she’s going mad, but the truth seems to be she’s just horrible.  She is evidently terrified of growing old, but that is never explored.  We see her react to aging, rather violently at times, but we never find out what the root of this fear is.

All this means that Elizabeth, despite being the focal character, is never sympathetic.  June in The Leech Woman at least started off as somebody we could pity, before she descended into depravity.  Elizabeth is a terrible person from the get-go, as illustrated in the very opening when she has her coachman run over a peasant who wants her to fulfill a promise her late husband made her.

Imre and Ilona are pretty much complete ciphers. Imre spends the entire movie in Elizabeth’s thrall one way or another.  He is madly in love with her in her guise as Ilona, and after finding out the truth he’s too scared of her to openly defy her.  The only personality trait he manifests is gullible foolishness, and any sympathy we might have had for him evaporates when he cheerfully kisses a barmaid’s tit on the same day when he’s proposed marriage to the woman he believes is his true love.  Ilona spends most of the movie locked up in some mute peasant’s hut doing not much. When she finally enters the story properly, she comes across as stunningly stupid.

The character who does the most to try to thwart Elizabeth is her lover Dobi, but he’s less interested in stopping her from killing virgins than he is in having her to himself.  He gets Imre drunk and tosses him in bed with the barmaid in the hope that Elizabeth will reject him, and later takes Imre to see Elizabeth bathing in blood to youthen herself.  These things don’t work, partly because Imre is an idiot and partly because Elizabeth is always more evil than he thought she was, but at least he tries.

At the end of the movie, Elizabeth’s latest bloodbath wears off in the middle of her wedding to Imre, and she runs off to murder Ilona in order to make herself young again.  Imre tries to stop her and gets stabbed for his trouble, which does at least expose Elizabeth’s evildoing to one and all, and she and Dobi are hanged. What happens to Ilona I’m not sure, but I know they didn’t have therapists in the seventeenth century.  Nobody wins here.  It’s a downer for everybody, including the superstitious peasants, who will continue to be terrified of their rulers now that their worst fears have been confirmed.

Several things might be made of the fact that it’s young women Elizabeth is killing.  It’s interesting to note that the idea of male virginity is never even brought up.  We could contrast two depictions of motherhood, in the form of Elizabeth���s jealousy of Ilona versus Juli the nurse’s unconditional love for her.  There’s Imre’s description of ‘Ilona’ as embodying all aspects of womanhood, to which Dobi replies that no woman can be maiden, mother, and whore all at once… yet that is just what Elizabeth is trying to be.  What I find interesting in this, however, is how the movie depicts Elizabeth’s own internalized misogyny, in the fucked-up attitudes she displays towards youth, beauty, and gender.

Elizabeth feels that age and experience have made her undesirable.  Dobi assures her that he finds her as attractive as he ever did, but she evidently does not believe him, and her mistreatment of her female servants has a definite note of jealousy in it.  She kills young virgins not only to gain their desirability, but because she hates them for what they have and she does not.

What’s unusual is that she applies this same attitude towards the men in her life.  Elizabeth is no longer attracted to Dobi, because he is old and experienced. Their affair has gone on for years, and in Dobi’s mind this has only deepened his love for her – but Elizabeth is tired of it and wants something new.  Imre is young, handsome, and innocent.  He has no wealth of his own and has not yet really accomplished much in life, but Elizabeth doesn’t care.  If all she has to be is young and pretty, then how could she ask anything more of him?

Here, Dobi and Elizabeth represent two different versions of gender equality as it applies to sexual attractiveness, with him raising Elizabeth to his level, and her lowering Dobi and Imre to hers!  Elizabeth treating the men in her life as she has been treated illustrates the inequality quite sharply, but what ultimately destroys her is applying the same standards to herself.  She believes so totally that nothing else matters as long as she is beautiful that she doesn’t care what she has to do to accomplish it, or who sees her do it.  In the end, she is undone by her own self-loathing.