#any free time ive had has gone to sitting around doing nothing or hanging out with friends to get human interaction outside of work

[charlotte-family-apologist]

Sorry I've been somewhat mia lately irl life is beating my ass and it's probably not gonna lighten up until November

To all who've sent me asks I've seen them I'll get to them don't worry it just might take me a while 😭

[agent-whiskeys-sweetheart]

Meant To Be (iv)

Pairing: Hotch x F!Reader

Summary: Once the team is back you all go out for drinks and your connection to Rossi becomes increasingly evident. The following day at work you get your first chance to work in the field.  

Warnings: None! Just the slow burn as usual. 

Word Count: 5,751

A/N: As always, thank you all so much for your continued support! It means so much to me! I just wanted to warn you guys that I may not be able to update as often as I would like for a while. School just started for me and my schedule doesn’t really allow for “free time” at the moment. Just know that I am working as quick as I can and I always look forward to sharing more with all of you. Thank you for your patience. I love you all so much!

Today goes by much more quickly than the last few weeks. Garcia helped to make the time pass a little faster but most days you were hanging on by a thread. Now that the whole team is back you feel more hopeful about your future amongst them. As the others do their required reports you make your way down to Garcia’s office. There is a bit of paperwork for the two of you to complete as well but it’s much different and a lot shorter than the rest of the team’s. At this point, you are able to walk into her office without even knocking. 

“Hey cupcake! Ready to finish things up?” 

“You know it.” Pulling your chair around you saddle up beside her. The paperwork is already laid out in front of her and she pushes a few sheets over to you. Thumbing through the few pages that there are you ask her for something to write with. What she gives to you is a small boring ballpoint pen. With a pang of betrayal in your eyes you look at her. “So what, I’m not good enough for the fun pens now?”

“Oh I’m sorry your highness. I thought you’d want a professional pen for your first round of professional paperwork.” Taking it out of your hand, she reaches over and retrieves a new pen that is a bright sparkling pink with a tuft of brightly colored fluff on the end. 

“Thank you. Much better.” She laughs, nudging your knee with her own. The two of you set about filling out the reports. Every so often you ask her a question which she happily answers before going about finishing up her own. It only takes you both about fifteen minutes, leaving you time to talk before the rest of the team gets done. 

“Did you get a chance to talk to Morgan?” Hearing her mention him for about the ten thousandth time makes you roll your eyes.

“Yes, I did. You know what, he didn’t mention you at all.” 

“I wish I believed you but we both know that man is obsessed with me. What did you guys talk about?” 

“Oh, so we’re feeling especially nosy today, aren’t we?” 

“Always my sweet.” You love the ever adorable smile on her face.

“He was just telling me that he was impressed with my work on the case. He also told me that everyone is going out for drinks tonight and he invited me to come along.” 

“Are you gonna go?” She asks even though she knows the answer.

“Yeah, of course. This is my first real chance to get to know the rest of the team. I mean, I already know Morgan pretty well I feel like but everyone else is basically a stranger to me.” 

“I know. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. And of course I’m going with you.” 

“I would expect nothing less from you my dear.” She gives another big toothy grin, causing you to smile as well. Looking back at the clock you stack up your papers and grab Garcia’s as well, heading toward the door. “I’m gonna go hand these in to Hotch.” 

“Oh, okay. Thank you!” She says, watching the expression on your face change at the mention of your boss. “Are you still mad at him?” 

“No, I was never mad at him. Was I frustrated with his decision? Of course but I don’t dislike him for it. He was doing what he thought was right. Besides, he already apologized to me.” 

“Hotch apologized to you? For a decision that HE made?” 

“Yeah.” Garcia pulls your chair back around and points to it.

“Okay you can’t tell me that and just leave. I need details.” Laughing you go back over and sit, putting the papers back on the desk. 

“There’s not much to tell. Before he left he said he wanted to talk to me so he could ‘evaluate my abilities’. He called me in just a little bit ago. It went pretty well I think. He apologized for being harsh and said that on the next case he wanted me in the field. He also apologized for not remembering me when we met. So, yeah. We’re all good.” 

“Okay, so why did you make a face?”

“What face?” 

“Oh come on, you totally know you made a face. When you said you were gonna go to Hotch’s office you made ... a face.” 

“Okay, well I didn’t do it on purpose.” 

“Even so, it happened so what’s the deal?” 

“It’s nothing. I don’t know.” Hearing your awful dismissal, her nose scrunches up as she watches you with narrowed eyes. 

“Yeah, something is definitely going on with you. I’m all ears my love. You know that you can tell me anything, right?” The genuine expression on her face tempts you to tell her every thought that’s gone through head from the very first moment you met Hotch. However, you are having enough trouble understanding your own feelings. There is no point in sharing them right now.

“Yeah, I know. It is truly nothing. I’m just nervous that he might change his mind about me working the next case, that’s all.” This answer seems to satisfy her as she pats your knee.

“Trust me, he won’t. You are an amazing agent and you are going to do great out there. And if he doesn’t like it he can just--” 

“I can just what Garcia?” The sound of Hotch’s deep voice makes both of you jump as you look behind you where he is looming in the doorway. His presence is entirely commanding, the power that he exudes seeming very evident to you now. Garcia clears her throat as she looks between the two of you, adjusting her glasses. 

“I was saying that you can just make an informed and valid evaluation and we will be entirely respectful of whatever you decide.”

“Right,” He says with a ghost of a smile, walking a little further into the office. “I came down to see if you had any questions about the paperwork. I know this is your first report, I didn’t want you to get lost.” This he says to you as he makes his way closer. 

“It was actually pretty straightforward. I have it done if you’d like to take a look at it though.” Reaching behind yourself, you grab the report and hand it to him. With a nod he begins to scan through the pages, flipping through them fairly quickly. 

“Exemplary. I’ll just take this up to my office. Garcia?” Without needing any further instruction, she grabs her own report and hands it to him. Just like that he’s gone again, leaving Garcia stunned.

“Wow. He must be in a really good mood.” She adds. 

“What do you mean? I mean, how do you know?” 

“Hotch doesn’t do that kind of stuff. If you had a question he would have expected you to take the initiative to ask. He normally wouldn’t have even considered making the trip so something must be different. That was ... just not in his nature.” Pondering the implications of her statement you settle for a small shrug. 

“I guess he was just being nice. No need to wonder why he did it.” 

“Yeah, I guess not. Well that takes care of that. I honestly don’t have anything else for you to do right now. You could probably go ahead and ask Hotch if you can leave for the day.” 

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that. I wouldn’t mind a shower before we all meet up later.” With that you stretch and make your way towards the door.

“Have a good afternoon my dear. I look forward to seeing you later.” 

“Thanks Pen. I’ll see you later.” Once she waves goodbye you leave her office, cracking the door behind you. Stepping into the elevator, you slink against the  wall. Even though there’s nothing for you to do, the idea of asking to leave this early in the day makes you uneasy. 

Once you’re back on the main floor you make a beeline for Morgan’s desk. The sight of you in his peripheral causes him to look up. 

“Don’t you ever hang out at your own desk?” 

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I didn’t come bug you every five minutes.” This makes him laugh as he sets down his pen.

“We’ll never know until you try,” Faking offense, you cross your arms. “I’m just teasing you kid. What’s up?”

“Well me and Garcia finished our paperwork and she doesn’t need help with anything for the rest of the day so I was gonna go ask Hotch if I could leave early. If he says yes I’ll need to know the name of the place we’re going tonight so I can meet you there.” 

“Good luck getting Hotch to agree to that but on the off chance that he does, I can write down the address for you.” 

“Sounds good. Better start writing then bud.” Glancing back over your shoulder teasingly you walk up to Hotch’s office, knocking sharply. Hearing him beckon you inside, you step through the door. 

“I wanted to let you know that I talked with Garcia and she doesn’t have anything for me to do right now. Nobody else needs help either so I was wondering if there was anything you needed from me.” 

“I don’t believe so. Usually today would mainly be spent doing paperwork but since you have less than the others if you’re finished I would be alright letting you leave early.” Hiding a smile, you nod.

“Thank you sir. I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow then.” You go to leave but he stops you before you can get out the door.

“L/N,” When you turn to look at him you see that same softness in his eyes as you did during your earlier conversation. “I was curious ... are you doing anything tonight? Anything recreational, I mean. An important thing to try and do is find time for yourself. This job is incredibly stressful and can take a lot out of you. It would be good for you to find some time each week to do something ... fun.” 

This seems like a very light-hearted thing to be coming out of his mouth. He carries himself very professionally. There hasn’t been a moment so far when you’ve seen him unwind so hearing him talk about having fun each week seems a bit odd. However you take the advice to heart. Anything he has to offer you want to remember. “I actually am sir. I was going out to have a drink with the rest of the team.” As you say this you suddenly realize that he may not have already been invited. Feeling guilty you offer a smile. “Did you plan on coming as well?” By the look on his face you can tell that he is unaware of the event however he doesn’t seem upset. 

“No but thank you for asking. I need to go home and get some rest.” 

“Of course. That’s a very smart decision. If you ever want to though ... go out for a drink with us, I mean. You’re always more than welcome in my book.” The genuine kindness in your eyes when you look at him causes Aaron’s heart to clench and for some reason, this time he doesn’t try to stop it. God, how can one person be so good?

“I appreciate the gesture. I’ll keep that in mind next time,” The two of you stare deeply into one another and for a moment, just one brief fleeting moment, you are just a man and a woman filled with yearning. It passes quickly and you convince yourself that it didn’t even happen. “Go, enjoy your free afternoon and have fun this evening. It’s important for you to bond with your team members.” 

“Thank you sir.” As you’re about to leave he stops you one last time.

“One more thing,” There is a second of hesitation. “You don’t have to call me sir all the time. A bit of formality when we’re on the job is appropriate but you can just call me Hotch. Everyone does.” 

“Got it. In that case I hope you have a good evening Hotch.” When you step out of his office you can feel your heart beating rapidly. Every time you start to get your feelings in check he looks at you like that and you melt at his feet. It’s nothing but a stupid crush though. You’ll get over it. It’s not like he has feelings for you anyway so there’s no point in entertaining a fantasy. As lovely a fantasy as it is.

“Hey, Y/N,” Emily stops you as you make your way towards Morgan’s desk. “I wanted to tell you, really great job on this case. The work you did was great. You should feel very proud of yourself.” 

“Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.” You nod in gratitude.

“Of course. I’m excited to see what you can do in the field. If you’re that good in an office you’re gonna be a force out in the world.” 

“I’m excited too. Hopefully I don’t disappoint any of you.” 

“You won’t. We’re all on your side here. No matter what happens, we all just want to help you be successful. I promise.” 

“That ... makes me feel a lot better actually. Thanks.” She gives you a kind smile, pushing back away from her desk to face you.

“Absolutely. Hey, are you coming out with us tonight?” 

“Yeah, Morgan invited me earlier. I was actually about to go get the address from him since I’m headed out for the day.” She doesn’t say anything for a moment, frozen as if she’s buffering.

“Hotch is letting you leave early?” 

“Yeah. I finished all my work with Garcia so he’s letting me go.” 

“Well, whatever you did to get on his good side, keep it up.” She jokes, turning back to her own paperwork. The continued mention of Hotch’s graciousness with you threatens to go to your head but you fight to keep your daydreaming in check. 

“When I figure out what the secret is I’ll let you know.” You kid back before leaving her to continue her work. Morgan seems to be almost finished when you make your way back over to him. Upon seeing you hovering he stops briefly to look up at you. The look on your face tells him everything he needs to know and he lets out a chuckle. 

“No way. He’s really letting you leave?” Giving him nothing more than a nod you shift your weight as you watch him grab a piece of paper and write down the address. “I guess you earned this fair and square then. We’ll all meet up at eight. Sound okay?” 

“For sure. See you then.” With a smile you stroll out the main doors. 

++++++++++

As soon as you step in the door you drop your things to the floor and flop onto the couch. It has been a very short day and yet you feel a strange weight on your shoulders. Hearing everyone’s disbelief at the idea of Hotch being so relaxed with you had sent your mind spiraling with thoughts. Even though you know it was nothing it is hard not to entertain the ideas that come to your head. With a frustrated sigh you push yourself up and head for the bathroom. 

Once you step inside your small shower the pressure of the warm water on your back immediately makes you slump over with relief. The strange sense of tension in your body melts away with each droplet as they disappear down the drain. Reveling in the feeling, you take a bit longer than normal to enjoy the time to yourself. After being clean you feel that you can no longer justify lingering in the water so you turn the knob and step out to dry off. The soft material of the towel elevates the feeling of relaxation in your body. 

Throwing a robe on you make your way to the bedroom, flinging yourself onto the bed with your phone in hand. Suddenly feeling very mischievous you take an adorably flirtatious picture of yourself in your robe, well cleaned and blissful, which you send to Garcia. 

Having fun all alone at work Pen?

I think that I hate you.

The response makes you giggle as you head out to the kitchen to grab a snack. There is a chocolate bar on the top shelf that you’ve forgotten about which you happily grab before plopping down on the couch. Turning the tv on to your favorite station you sit there, impatiently waiting for eight. The day feels impossibly long but once you see that it’s seven you decide to get dressed. 

After several minutes of trying to figure out what to wear you decide to keep things casual. You’re not at work tonight. It’s just you and the team spending time together as friends, not agents. The thought alone makes you smile. After a bit longer you figure it’s a good time to head out and make your way to your car. Typing the address into your GPS you pull out and make the drive to the bar Morgan told you to meet at. It is surprisingly close to your apartment complex. When you step inside the building it seems to be fairly empty. There is no sign of the others yet so you make your way over to a table to wait. Cursing your preparedness you fidget with your shirt until you hear the doors open, announcing the arrival of the others.

“Hey, sweetheart!” Morgan immediately calls out upon seeing you. With a smile you stand to meet him as he wraps you up in a hug. 

“Hey! Nice of you to show up.” You add jokingly, turning your attention quickly to the others. Emily steps forward next and also gives you a hug. JJ follows with a sweet smile. Spencer offers a handshake, as has become the custom between the two of you. Garcia pushes her way to the front and nearly suffocates you before letting you go with a laugh. At the back of the group is Rossi. His presence is mildly surprising to you but you offer him a small smile. Seeing him brings to mind the recent conversation you have had with your sister but you push those thoughts aside. Rather than embracing you he places a gentle hand on your arm. 

“It’s nice to see you again.” He adds, trying to alleviate the tension.

“Yeah, likewise. I know we haven’t really had a chance to talk to one another yet. Hopefully we can clear that up tonight!” 

“Sounds nice.” With a nod, you turn back towards the others. They all take up residence at the table you had already picked out. Squeezing in between Garcia and Morgan, you can’t help but smile shyly at the people around you. They immediately strike up conversation, talking like the oldest of friends. Just being amongst them means so much to you. Hearing your name you are drawn back out of your thoughts. 

“Sorry what?” There is a uniform chuckle from the group. 

“I asked if you wanted something to drink?” Emily speaks up.

“Oh yeah. Sorry.” She starts standing but Rossi stops her. 

“Actually, let me get this one,” The action causes you to look between the two, a strange feeling in your chest. “What’re you having?” After telling him your drink order he disappears with a nod. The others continue the conversation as though nothing has happened and you quickly rejoin them. When Rossi comes back over he hands your drink to you first and then passes drinks around to the others. 

As the night goes on you share moments with everyone, getting to know them better and allowing them to know you. Emily and you discuss the stresses of being a woman in this field and she gives you several pieces of advice to stay afloat, which you always appreciate. Spencer recommends some pieces of literature to you which you take mental note of. JJ and you get into a conversation about your sisters, confiding in one another as you share stories. Morgan makes light hearted jokes with you as you talk about some of your favorite movies together. Garcia doesn’t do much talking but she does pull you away from the table to dance when one of her favorite songs comes on. Rossi doesn’t talk much either, instead choosing to sit back and watch with a look that seems to be fatherly pride. 

After a while of dancing with Morgan and Garcia you decide to go sit back down, a wide smile on your face. At the table Emily, JJ, and Spencer seem to be in a heated discussion about chess. Deciding to leave them alone you instead make your way to sit down next to Rossi. As you do so he smiles at you warmly. 

“Having fun?” He inquires, glancing at you briefly.

“Yeah. I really am. It’s really nice getting to spend time with all of you like this. I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life to be part of a family like this and now that I am it’s like I just can’t get enough.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’ve heard some people say we can’t choose our families but nights like this just go to show how wrong that is.” 

“Yeah, exactly.” With that, the two of you sit in content silence. The quietness between the two of you leaves time to think. Your sister’s words continue to ring in your head as you wrack ever corner of your memory for how you might possibly know the man sitting next to you. With a sigh of frustration you come up completely blank. As you ponder this you also begin to wonder if he might be having the same thoughts and decide there’s no way to find out without asking. 

“So, I hope this doesn’t sound too weird but I’ve been thinking about this since we first met. I just have the strange feeling that you and I know each other somehow but I just can’t recall where from.” It all comes out at once as you shift in your seat to look at Rossi. When you say this he allows himself a moment to think before responding. 

“That’s not weird at all. I’ve been thinking the same thing. There is something about you that is so familiar but I just can’t quite remember how I know you.” Hearing him say this helps to validate your confusion and you offer him a kind smile. 

“Well, I guess we know each other now. That’s what’s important, right?” In his eyes there is that same sense of fatherly joy and it causes a pang of sadness to creep into your chest for a moment. Quickly deciding that it’s better to just enjoy it rather than dwell in the past, you nod slowly. “Thanks for the drink.” 

“Anytime kiddo. I’m glad we do know each other now.” 

With that you mutually decide the conversation is over and you stand with a stretch. Morgan and Garcia seem to be the drunkest of anyone at this point and you laugh as you watch them stumble all over each other as they “dance”. Emily, JJ, and Spencer still seem to be deep in conversation. Looking at the time you decide that it’s probably best for you to turn in for the night. “Hey guys.” You raise your voice slightly so they can all hear you as you make your way over to them.

“I think I should probably head home.” They collectively whine for a minute which causes you to laugh. “It’s okay, I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” Seeming satisfied with this answer they all get up to hug you as you thank them for a fun evening and head outside. Rossi sticks to your side and walks out the front doors with you.

“Would it be okay if I drove you home? I feel wrong about sending you home alone after you’ve been drinking.” 

“Yeah, that would be okay. I actually only live a few minutes from here anyway.” With a nod he heads back towards the bar. As you make your way over to your car you can here him call inside to the others.

“Don’t any of you even think about setting foot inside a car yet. I’ll be back in a few minutes to drive you home.” With a chuckle you unlock the door and step inside. He slips into the driver’s seat and you give him directions back to your apartment. The drive is silent and quick. When you arrive you thank him as you both step out.  

“Wait, how are you gonna get back?” You say, realizing that you’ve stranded him at your apartment complex since he took your car. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be alright. You get inside and get some rest.” With another expression of gratitude you head upstairs and make your way into your apartment. Stripping as you make your way to the bedroom you flop down on the bed, unable to keep your eyes open. 

++++++++++

This morning you are awake bright and early, surprisingly ready to start your day. By this point you’ve begun to get into a routine before you head out for work. Your clothes are always laid out on the chair and your work materials are on the kitchen table. You make a quick breakfast then give your sister a quick good morning phone call before heading out the door and showing up to work promptly at five.

When you step inside the building this morning you are one of the first people there. Setting your things down at your desk you head over to the coffee machine, deciding an extra little boost might not be so bad. After setting it up you wait patiently for it to brew. A few minutes later you are very aware of a presence next to you. When you look back over your shoulder you are greeted by Hotch, seemingly very awake and as professional as ever. 

“Good morning, Y/N.” The sound of your first name on his tongue doesn’t escape your attention as you take a small breath. 

“Morning Hotch,” Hearing yourself say his name is equally as pleasant to you as you revel in the blooming bond between you. 

“How was your evening?” Thinking back to the night you shared with your other team members you can’t help but smile. 

“It was really wonderful. I had a great time. It was nice getting a chance to learn more about everyone. It really makes me feel connected ... like I’m truly a part of the team. You know?”

“I do. I’m very happy to hear that you had a good time.” With a nod, you look back down for a moment as you think of what to say.

“How did you sleep last night? I hope you were able to rest.” 

“I slept well, thank you. I spent the evening with my son, Jack.” Hearing this takes you aback. The fact that he has a son is news to you. It’s not bad news, just a bit surprising. However, the more you think about it the more fitting it seems that he would have a kid. 

“That sounds lovely. I didn’t know you had a son.” 

“Yes, he’s two now. The nights I get to spend with him are always some of the best.” The thought of Hotchner taking care of a young baby sends a warm feeling spiraling through your chest.   

“I can imagine,” You say, unable to hold back a small smile. “I don’t have any children but if I did ... god, they’d be my world.” 

As much as you try not to think about it, for the briefest moment an image of you and Aaron laying in bed with a few babies of your own flashes in your mind. Scolding yourself harshly you erase the image and turn back towards the coffee machine. You look away just in time to miss the same dreamy look cross over Aaron’s face as the exact same vision passes through his own thoughts. It’s these moments of silence between the two of you that dare you to dream. It isn’t awkward. It has all the familiarity and comfort of a silence shared between two people that have known each other all their lives. 

“That’s exactly how it feels. He means everything to me. He is the biggest thing that makes this job worthwhile. I want him to look back on his life when he’s older and be proud of the man his dad was.” 

“Jack will always be proud of who his dad is. That’s a feeling that doesn’t fade over time. At least, not when you know he loves you. And when you know you love him. I’ve never--” There is a brief moment of hesitation as you wonder whether or not you should continue your train of thought. “I’ve always been proud of who my dad was. I always will be, no matter how much time passes. It’s one of the biggest things I remember about him. How much I loved him. That’s a hard feeling to forget. Jack won’t forget either.”

In this moment, Aaron Hotchner has never wanted to embrace someone so badly. Every fiber of his being is itching to reach out and touch you, to pull you close, kiss the top of your head, tell you that everything will be alright, tell you how sorry he is that you lost your dad, thank you for comforting him, caress your face, tenderly press his lips to yours, and just hold you. But he can’t. So he doesn’t. 

“Thank you. That’s nice to hear.” Is all he can muster before he falls silent again. Content with this, you stay silent as well as you both simply enjoy each other’s company. A few minutes later the coffee is finished brewing and you pull the pot out to pour some for yourself and Hotch. With a nod of gratitude he makes his way back up to his office, leaving you there alone but strangely full and warm. 

Needing a distraction you head back to your desk and begin pulling paperwork out of some nearby drawers to begin filing. You keep yourself occupied like this for a few more minutes before the other agents begin entering the bullpen. Morgan ruffles your hair as he passes by you causing you to punch him. The others come in, talking amongst themselves and greeting you warmly as they pass by. You quickly join in on the conversation as you all begin your work. 

Pretty soon JJ disappears to her own office and Garcia disappears to hers, leaving you, Morgan, Emily, and Spencer to do your own paperwork. Things remain uneventful as you look over your materials, stopping every now and again to ask Morgan a question. As you do your work you can’t help but glance up towards Hotch’s office every once in awhile. Your interaction with him had been very strangely intimate and you almost wanted to speak with him more about it but you knew that both of you had things to do. And even if you didn’t it was in the past and didn’t need to be dredged up again. It’s better this way. Around lunchtime you head down to Garcia’s office, joining her for some light hearted conversation. She has also packed you some snacks she knows you love and the gesture warms your heart. It is a very pleasant afternoon, feeling reminiscent of the time you spent shut up in her office on this last case.

After a while you decide to head back up to your desk to continue your work. The day is passing fairly slowly until JJ suddenly draws your attention and calls you into the conference room. There is a new case that you all need to be prepped for. Now everything around you is passing at lightning speed. Preparing your things you head up to the conference room with the others, buzzing with excitement. When you step inside you realize you’ve never been in this room before. In an instant you are flooded with the gravity of what you’re doing. This is the culmination of years and years worth of hard work and you are finally being presented the chance to do what you’ve always wanted to do. It is both liberating and completely terrifying.

JJ begins her debriefing very succinctly, telling you all the facts of the case. You listen intently, absorbing every single piece of information she gives to you. The others pitch in when the moment is right but you remain silent as you simply take in what everyone is saying. Several gruesome images are pulled up on the screen in front of you and for the first time since you’ve stepped foot in this building your stomach turns. Six homeless people have been murdered in the Phoenix area. Their bodies have all been left in widely public places with various messages written on their skin with blood. All the messages are different but point to someone with a serious hatred for big corporations. They have all been left in different parts of Phoenix, leaving a wide geographical profile which will pose a challenge. Once the debriefing is finished Hotch is the first to speak. 

“You all know the drill. Wheels up in thirty.” Everyone nods and begins heading for their desks. You follow closely, pulling your go bag out of your bottom desk drawer. Checking inside to make sure you have everything you need, you gather the rest of your things and head towards the doors. As you stand at the threshold you feel a hand on your shoulder. Once again you are met with Hotch’s intense gaze though his expression seems strangely soft.

“Y/N, I want to make sure you feel ready to get into the field. I know this will be your first case with the rest of the team and I want you to be prepared. This won’t be pretty and it will take a lot out of you.” 

“I’m ready, Hotch. I was ready the moment I walked through these doors.” Keeping his eyes locked on yours he responds with a nod before walking away. You head in the direction of the jet, steadying yourself. This is your big moment to prove yourself. To Hotch, to the team, and to yourself. You are ready. You’ve been ready for a long time now and nothing is going to stop you from getting out there and putting whoever is doing this away. Determination fills you with every step you take. No matter what happens, you will not fail. 

Tags:  @talesfromtheguild @lannister-slings-and-arrows @gryffindorwriter @nopeforyou @sheerfreesia007 @roxypeanut  @ohpedromypedro @ssahotchie @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa @readsalot73 @the-mechanical-angel @races-erster @maxlordd @pascalisthepunkest @paintballkid711 @hotchafterhours @h0tchner @ssahotchswife @ssahotchhner @technotic-prophecy @klinenovakwinchester  @hotch-stufff @annadorothxa @canadailluminate @yoshigguk @gothicxbarbie @romanogersendgame @little-diable​ 

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Crimson Ties (Bela Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 2

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village

Rating: T for language and mild medical drama

Warnings: Typical Vampire shenanigans

Genre: Hurt + comfort

Summary: Bela is somewhat unprepared to deal with a soulmate who has no clue about her condition, her family, or any of the village's secrets. Thankfully, her sister Cassandra is more than willing to be a bad example. Also there's some fluff.

Notes: For reference, each of my soulmate stories take place in their own contained timeline, since they each involve different types of soulmates. So in this one, Cass doesn't currently have a soulmate.

Previous Chapters: 1: Stem the Flow

2: Tangled Strands

A gentle humming fills the space around you, as fingers slowly run through your hair. As far as you can tell you had fallen back asleep, for several hours, and you were just now waking back up. No longer holding you down, your soulmate is curled up next to you. There’s still a needle in your arm, much to your irritation, but now you can finally see what it’s connected to: An IV for a transfusion. Explains why I’m feeling so much better than before, you think. Then you’re turning your head to the other side, eager to finally get a good look at your soulmate. Instantly you’re blushing, tongue tying itself into a knot, because wow are you lucky.

“Feeling any better?” She asked, as soon as your gaze met hers. You try to stutter out a confirmation, but you’re too distracted by the soft curve of her smile to speak, and barely even manage a nod. That beautiful smile grows wider in response. “Good. I couldn’t stand the thought of you suffering more, after what you’ve already been through.” Now her smile fades, and she looks away for a few moments. Watching it makes your heart ache. So you swallow the lump in your throat, willing yourself to relax, before trying a little comforting of your own.

“I am safe now, am I not? Moreso, we have too much to talk about for us to dwell on the ill circumstances of our introduction. Let us cherish this time, in respite, with our hearts open wide to one another,” you said, donning your softest smile. Somehow your words fulfill their purpose, and your soulmate is once again grinning. Slowly she leans forward to rest her forehead against yours. Then she’s speaking, voice as smooth as the sheets you lay on.

“You are right, of course. I simply wish I could have saved you sooner,” she replied, tone betraying the sadness that her expression otherwise hid. Before you can protest, she continues talking, and you soon forget all about your qualms. “To think I don’t even know your name yet… nor you mine, I suppose. Let’s remedy that, yes? I am Bela Dimitrescu.” Something about her last name feels familiar to you, but not to the point of clear recognition. Instead of inquiring, you return her favor, giving her your own name. She repeats it back a few times, letting the syllables roll off her tongue, and you feel your heart skip a few beats. “A lovely name for a lovely soul, perfectly paired.”

A pause, followed by Bela reaching out to examine your IV. Following her gaze, you turn to the metal hook adjacent to the bed, where a blood bag hangs. Only a few drops remain inside. Just as when you first awoke, Bela gives a soft hum, then rises into a sitting position. Your first instinct is to copy the motion, and you’re relieved when (this time) she doesn’t push you back down. Both of you quietly inch your hands closer until they’re laid on top of each other.

“I wish I knew more about medicine, but unfortunately my family is more experienced in the creation of wounds than the treatment of them,” Bela said, scowling. Confused, you tilt your head at a slight angle, watching her with interest. Am I supposed to know who she’s referring to? My memories of the past couple days are still hazy, you think. “Do… do you remember how you ended up in the dungeon? I know you wanted to speak of happier things, and we can, soon. It’s just… Knowing how you arrived here may help me deal with the consequences of freeing you. Mother will be dreadfully upset that I’ve interrupted a draining, even if we are soulmates.”

“Wait, are you saying…? The intimidating giantess who strung me up and attempted to bleed me dry… is your mother?” You asked, jaw nearly dropping to the floor. This was an unexpected development, for sure.

“You didn’t know?” Bela replied, eyes going wide for a moment. Clearly she wouldn’t have said anything if she realized you weren’t already aware. Suddenly the tension in the room is palpable, with an uncomfortable silence overtaking the two of you. In the moment, you cannot even bring yourself to look at Bela, too stunned by this new knowledge. Eventually she breaks the silence, voice sounding unsure for once. “I realize that this is a lot to take in, if you need time to process it, I… I can go. But you need to understand that our situation is far more complicated than it might appear. We cannot survive without the blood of others- it is what sustains us when nothing else can.”

Now you’re staring at her like she’s crazy, and she’s standing up, moving to the other side of the room. She draws back a curtain, gazing out into the snow covered hills. Every muscle in your body is urging you to run while she’s distracted. Thread of fate be damned, this went far beyond anything you had ever imagined having to deal with. You come so close to ripping the IV right out of your arm. But a gentle tug on your soul string makes you pause, remembering all the times this bond gave you hope in dark times. Had she felt the same way, all these years? What had she gone through, in this absurd castle, on the very edges of civilization? You pull on the red thread, feeling a wave of composure wash over you.

“It appears there is much I need to learn. But is that not the very nature of our connection? We know, simply, that we are bound to each other, though we know not what shapes our souls take so that we might put them together, nor even what roles we must play. I cannot say that I understand your plight, my dear, but I will try, as is my obligation, and my honor,” you said, wishing you could hold her, and cursing your IV. As soon as the first word leaves your mouth, Bela is turning around, watching you with a bittersweet expression. Once you’re done she’s moving closer, as if reading your mind, extending a hand to cup your cheek. Then she leans forward to press a brief kiss to your forehead. “Oh, how I have longed for this- to be with you, to get to know you.”

“As did I,” she murmured. You can’t help but lean into her touch, closing your eyes and enjoying the moment. “Perhaps I should introduce you to my family? I imagine you’ll be needing breakfast anyway, and bringing human food back to my quarters would raise more suspicion than I’d like.” Well, the moment couldn’t last forever, could it?

“Only if you promise that your mother won’t suspend me by my wrists again. Or by any other part of me. Shall we simply put suspension off the table altogether?” You asked, half teasing. To be entirely honest, you were equally worried about Bela’s sisters. Well, the people you had heard other prisoners whispering about, who were the daughters of the giantess, and by connecting a few dots were also, presumably, Bela’s sisters. Apparently they preferred to play with their food. Unless, of course, Bela was one of the daughters you had heard about, and would have easily torn into you if not for your connection. Let’s not dwell on that concept, you think, glad to be distracted by your soulmate.

“I will not let anyone harm you anymore, my beloved. My mother would not stand so firmly in the way of my happiness,” Bela reassured, though you detected a hint of uncertainty in her tone. Still, there wasn’t much you could do other than trust her. “Now, let me take care of your bandages, then we’ll head downstairs…”

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

“Who the fuck is this?” An unfamiliar voice asked, as you meandered down the corridor, arm around Bela for support. As soon as she hears the person speak, your soulmate is freezing in place, casting a worried glance over her shoulder. When you turn as well, you spot someone dressed almost identically to Bela. However, the woman wears a yellow pendant, as opposed to a red one, and her hair is a dark brown. It feels safe to assume that she’s one of the sisters you’ve heard about. Which understandably makes you nervous, to the point where you almost want to hide behind Bela. Instead, you stand tall, attempting to seem unfazed by either her presence or her vulgarity.

“Mind your manners, Cassandra,” Bela hissed, taking more of an aggressive stance than you had anticipated. “This, dear sister, is my soulmate. And if you even think about harming them, or getting in our way, I will tear you apart.” While you’re downright shocked at the intensity of Bela’s statement, her sister doesn’t look at all impressed, and eyes you with minimal interest. Better than looking at you with hatred, right? Apparently not, as Bela moves to stand between the two of you, eyes narrowed. There’s a clear stiffness in her posture that leaves you anxious. Cassandra seems to notice it as well, and laughs, before taking a few steps in your direction. Then your soulmate mimics the movement, forcing you to do so as well.

“They’re human,” Cassandra snapped, pausing to sniff the air and scowl. “Here I thought your soulmate would have to be special, if they’re to compare to your ego. You’re disappointed, aren’t you? Having to settle for this.” With that she shifts, flesh writhing, making your stomach churn as you watch her disintegrate into a cloud of… flies? What the hell is wrong with this family? Can Bela do that too? I hope not, you think. Soon you’re pulled from your thoughts, however, as the swarm circles around you, single insects occasionally surging forward to cut at your skin. But Bela is grabbing you by the sleeve and tugging you to her chest, moving against a wall so that her body shielded your own. Your eyes clamp shut as you shake in her arms. When the buzzing stops, it is quickly replaced with cruel laughter. “That fragile, hmm? I can’t wait to see what mother thinks. See you at breakfast, sister!”

Then the two of you are alone, still pressed against the wall, staying still until the sound of footsteps fade. You’re stunned, unsure of how to react. The fact that a few drops of blood roll down your cheek only makes things worse. Still, Bela managed to prevent you from getting too hurt, and the few wounds on your body are negligible. Ever filled with gratitude, you hold her close as you try to stutter out a few sentences.

“Is she always this hostile, or am I truly not what you had expected? No, pay me no mind, it hardly matters. Thank you for protecting me,” you whispered. In response, Bela gives you a little squeeze, then pulls back enough to wipe the blood from your face. There’s a hint of something odd in her expression, which you interpret to be related to her apparent ‘need for blood’. Thankfully, she is in perfect control, and does not frenzy the same way you had read about fictional vampires doing. But she does hesitate, words dying on her tongue, like there are a thousand things she wants to say, and no words to say them with. “It’s alright, my dear. Let’s just go to breakfast, like we planned, and hope your sister behaves better when supervised.”

Bela nods, quickly, before taking your hand in her own. Whatever awaited you in the dining room, the two of you would be ready. Hopefully.

[thesunshinebunny]

When the world falls apart, the only thing we can hold onto is ourselves (Part IV)

Series Master list

pairing: canon Eren Jaeger x reader

content: Angst, unstable relationship, breakup, smut/nswf+18, major character death, violence, blood (obviously), war (pretty obvious)

summary: War and hate. It’s what defined the world at this exact moment. You failed your comrades, and by failing them, you failed yourself. Your relationship is hanging by a thread and your enemies will not only be found on the other side of the sea, but also in the mind of the person you love the most. How will you take the reins in the face of so much destruction?

Chapter Summary: Talk doesn´t seem to be like a good attack plan and now reader has to run for their life and avoid being caught by the Jaegerists.

Words Count: 6.1k

Silence reigned in the room. Only our breaths could be heard, some agitated, others calm, as well as footsteps fading at the end of the corridor. I could feel my heart pounding hard on my chest, inwardly wishing that no one could hear it. From the distance that each one was, I doubted it was physically possible; But let's face it, in a world full of humans turned into Titans, whose possessors can regenerate their body parts, listening to the beat of a heart shouldn’t be a difficult task.

"I wanted to speak with you"

Eren's lifeless eyes weren't focused on anyone in particular, I could notice his face even darker than it had been in recent days and a look much duller. My hand on the table was very close to his, threatened with blood staining from the crimson pool that was forming on the beautiful white tablecloth.

On my left side, the little girl was shaking up and down, not looking at anyone or anything at all. She also had her hands on the table, as did everyone. I directed my gaze towards the other companions at the table, the three were reversed in a conversation that I had no intention of being part of. The only thing that interested me was to give a little security to this poor girl.

I made a little movement with my elbow and shoulder toward her, trying to get her attention, but it didn't make her turn around. I tried again, this time launching a breathless and very low 'hey', taking advantage of the voices at medium volume to lighten mine. That did work. The girl had turned her eyes to me, she was still extremely scared and it showed in her eyes and all over her face. I was very sorry to see her like this.

I gave her a slight smile, curling the tip of my lip upward, and nodded. Her gaze locked with mine for a few seconds and I could see how she was calming down, even a little, but it was there. It was a stressful situation for everyone, I didn't even want to imagine what she must feel, and if my possibilities were within bringing her some calm, I would. I made a little "s'ok" with my lips without speaking, not even whispering.

"Are you paying attention?" My gaze turned to the source of the problem again. Eren had his eyes fixed hard on my face. I thought I might have gone unnoticed, but I was wrong.

I adjusted my posture on the chair, now staring forward, but with my eyes fixed on those intense but haggard gray-green eyes. I took my gaze away from his for a second to see the girl next to me, who was again trembling with fear, and I reached my hand towards hers, returning my gaze to it’s previous position. Eren  clenched his fist at this movement and furrowed his brow even more, sending me a silent and mental warning. I ignored his threat and grabbed the girl's hand, at no point taking my eyes off his and accentuating my head up high.

"Keep your hands on the table Mikasa"

His gaze now turned to his childhood friends, standing myself alone at the side of the table, failing incredibly to calm a twelve-year-old girl. And as if there was nothing that could make the situation worse and make the moment much more stressful, they had to touch on sensitive issues, issues that were like putting a finger on the sore.

"Armin, you keep going to see Annie, do you really do it of your own free will?" Was it really necessary? There was nothing, or so it seemed, that could give any indication that Annie was about to wake up, and the fact that Armin wanted to go see her didn’t seem bad at all, or at least that’s what I thought; Indeed, it clearly showed Armin's sentimental attraction to her.

Yes, Annie was an important key to the investigation of the titans, but that was four years ago, now we were just sitting back in the chair and hoping that, by some miracle, the glass that surrounded Annie and left her in a reverie state will unfreeze. That Armin came to see her didn’t change anything in the plans of the militancy, much less the legion.

"Since you inherited the memories, a part of you is now Berthold"

Ah, that’s where the shots came from. It was difficult to understand the powers and responsibilities that came with being a titan shifter. We weren’t only talking about the short life that the owners unfortunately had to endure, but also the memories of their predecessors, memories that could haunt their current owner.

Likewise, blaming Armin for Berthold's memories wasn't going to fix things. Armin was still Armin, the sweet and calm boy, willing to fight if necessary, but always opting for the least violent solution, the most civilized one. He tried it on Annie and he tried it on Berthold, failing both times.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to blame Armin for having the memories of one of our enemies in his mind, memories that I never wish to obtain or see. As far as I knew, Grisha's memories, while they had been an impact towards the general knowledge of the world, hadn’t shaped Eren ... had they?

Nor was it fair to see how the same boy who had so supported his childhood friend in the years as a recruit, was internally unbalanced by the stubbornness of that friend. See how fear invaded his gaze and he was petrified to such putrid revelations.

"Eren ..." I tried to stop him, God, I swear I tried to stop him.

I tried to use the word my comrades wanted to use so badly, the words Armin wanted to use, but they weren't enough. In a thousandth of seconds, horrific ideas flashed through my mind, wishing none of them would come true. If the conversation went this way, it could end not just a friendship of years, but the sanity of all of us. I wasn't important in this trio, I was an add-on, and I couldn't allow Eren to continue destroying relationships and people wherever he stepped.

But I wasn't quick enough to stop him with words. When he finished defenestrating Armin, he turned his attention to Mikasa. Of all the people, the one who I was most afraid was her, the person who would collapse the most if he detached himself from her half-brother.

"You too Mikasa"

My eyes went wide as I heard the truths of the Ackerman clan. Created and genetically engineered to protect and follow orders, without conscience, without free will. Mikasa was devastated and I could see in her eyes how images of her childhood passed through her mind, images and memories that now seemed like a lie, a sham.

"In short ... a clan created to protect others who have no conscience of their own"

"Eren, stop" Armin was just as scared as I was, praying to any God who had been watching us that so much evil stop at once, that those words would stop coming out of that damn viperine tongue. Eren was vomiting word after word, without measuring the consequences, without measuring the damage it could cause to Mikasa's mind.

"In other words, slaves"

The situation was getting out of hand. Nothing we could say or do right now was going to help. The conversation that Armin wanted with all his might to take place was going overboard. If the others could be present with us, they would see clearly like me how the faith in his friend was dissipating with the seconds in the blond's gaze.

"At last I understand why I hated to see a slave who carried out all orders without question"

His eyes were filled with hatred, resentment, anger, contempt, and a thousand other degenerative feelings. His intention was very clear the moment he entered the room: to hurt; and he was succeeding.

He’d done me a lot of damage in the last year, such damage that it reached the darkest and inner corridors of my mind and it was impossible for me to move forward on a gray and dubious course, and now he was willing to continue doing more damage, this time to his closest friends, those people that I never thought, that never crossed my mind, he could destroy internally. He was annihilating their willpower and their desire to fight, and he’s doing so by colossal steps.

"Eren that's enough!" Armin and I shouted in unison. We didn’t necessary have to say a word or look at each other to know that the next words were going to be disastrous.

"Mikasa, I have always hated you"

That was the breaking point. Mikasa's eyes filled with tears and they didn't last for a second on her lids, they were already being spilled onto her cheeks. She was completely devastated and I couldn't blame her. The person who had given her a home after the brutal murder of her parents, the person to whom she was so devoted and would give her life, was turning his back on her, as well as killing sentimentally.

"You damn bastard!"

Armin jumped on the table with the intention of reaching the dark-haired man, but he didn’t get very far, being pulled from the chest to the hard wood of the furniture by Mikasa herself. And that only made the situation worse and agreed with Eren. It was as if fate was laughing at us for trying to pull the strings of our paths, strings that handled us like puppets and over which we had no control.

Mikasa let go of Armin's hand when she realized the act she just did, horrified with herself, and he now had the opportunity to pounce on Eren, throwing a punch in the middle of his face and throwing him to the floor. With that, the table flew backwards and in a reflex action, I also threw myself back, letting the chair fall to one side and avoiding any blow that the table could give me.

Unconsciously I lunged towards the girl next to me, preventing at all times that the table hit her or that some of the two men who were fighting each other to ended up bumping into her. I pushed her away from any crossing point and hid her behind my back, using my body as a shield against any impact that could shoot towards our position. Mikasa had also run to the left side of the wine cabinet, contemplating the scene before hers with complete sadness.

Eren's fist slammed into Armin's face, throwing him straight into the cabinet, knocking a few wines against his back and knocking a couple of ceramic plates to the floor. My instincts screamed I needed to help Armin, even knowing that he could regenerate in a matter of seconds, that the cuts and bruises weren't going to last long, but that wasn't why I wanted to help him.

It wasn’t the pain and physical blows that worried me, but the psychological anger and damage that this was entailing.

"Jaeger-san!"

Two followers slammed into the room, pointing their rifles directly at Armin and Mikasa's heads. They were unaware of my presence, paying more attention to the boy beaten from head to toe and the girl crying like a river.

I took a step forward and reaffirmed my theory, my presence wasn’t being recognized. I took another step, and another, and another, until I was right next to the fallen table and turned around, making sure the girl was still where I left her, that she was safe and sound. I gestured with my finger to my lips for her to be quiet and to stay still and turned to the scene in front of me. Eren kept beating poor Armin, who was unable to defend himself properly. He was right, in a hand-to-hand fight, Armin would be the worst off, even myself, but that didn't mean I couldn't manage to come out victorious.

Next to me, the chair Eren was sitting at a few seconds ago was still in the same place where he felt. With great care and tranquility, I bent down to grasp the back legs of it, without taking my eyes off Eren or the pseudo-guards who still had with their rifles at a shooting position, raised it to the height of my head and then smashed it against the two armed men in the stomach area. I hurriedly kicked each of them to the face, preventing them from having a chance to get up quickly, just as I slung the rifles from their shoulders with the same leg and pushed them away under a window. Without wasting time, I turned around to find Eren realizing the events that were happening next to him, and I wedged a blow in the middle of his face, in the same way Armin had done.

The blow hadn't been quite strong since he didn't fall to the ground, but it was enough to throw him off balance and make him leave Armin alone. The blonde fell to the floor, exhausted and sore from the multiple punchs to the face he had suffered, and I continued to give a new blow to the stomach height to the brunette in front of me. One of his knees fell to the ground, giving me the opportunity to grab his arm and twist him from behind, immobilizing him. I put my other arm over his armpit, preventing him from moving his arms and his upper body.

“That’s enought you fucking bastard. Mikasa..."

My face was on the crook of Eren's neck, preventing me from seeing clearly ahead, but my partial gaze sought out those tear-filled gray eyes to signal her to help me. My voice was already a signal for help even if I wasn't yelling. I could see how those eyes were full of conflicts, a battle was being fought inside her mind and she seemed to not be able to reason what she saw.

"MIKASA!"

This time I did yell, asking with all my will Mikasa could come to her senses, that she could help me with the lost cause Eren was now. I wasn’t going to be able to control him for much longer, I didn’t have the necessary strength and that was why I was trying to reach her. But the fear in my eyes was reflected when I saw that she wasn’t moving, that she was simply watching with tears in her eyes, eyes that would surely be cloudy and couldn’t see clearly. My fear was reflected when I saw that no one was going to be able to help me.

Eren hit his head against mine, right on the septum of my nose. My head jerked back involuntarily and my arms lost support on his. He grabbed my left hand, holding it high, much higher than my head, uncovering my stomach and his knee hitting it’s pit, not just once, but twice. His leg hit my knee, yanking it back and knocking me off what little balance I had left.

His grip on my hand released and I fell hard on my knees and hands onto the wooden floor. My stomach was spasming and I regurgitated bile, struggling to take in some air that I was deprived of in a matter of milliseconds. I coughed all I could until my stomach settled back, but I was unable to get back to my feet. I felt two pairs of hands grab my arms and I stood up abruptly, grabbing my hair even and looking up as the turquoise eyes set at my point of view.

"Why do you always have to be in the middle? Why can you never stay quiet in a corner without sticking your nose in someone else's butt? " Without my noticing, his fist slammed into my nose, hitting the septum back and most likely breaking it. My head cocked to the side and I could see drops of blood falling to the ground and a stream spreading from under my nostrils to my chin. "It was frustrating to see how in all the missions you were there, being a useless without importance"

Useless? I was the one who treated his wounds in training, tying his head when he hit the stone floor in his practice with the movement equipment. I was the one who put cold water on his ankle when he bent it while running through the lush forest on a rainy day. I was the one who pushed him to the side when he was going to hit a stone face down for not looking where he was going. I was one of those who saved him when he was captured by Reiner and Berthold. I was the one who pulled him out of the middle of an onslaught of titans when he first activated the coordinate, even with a wounded and bleeding shoulder.

I was the one who slapped him to make him stop crying inside the cave when Rod Reiss was transforming, claiming this wasn’t the time for his tantrums and that if he wanted to make a change in this whole twisted story, he better put down the crocodile tears for when he was in the quiet of his bed.

It was me who warned him of dozens of Marleyan soldiers when he shed from his titan back at Libero.

“And yet you continued to stick to me like a lap dog to the leg of it’s owner. Yet another slave. Makes me gag just looking at your face"

I turned my face to him, fixing my eyes on his, conveying all the hatred and contempt he was making me feel. I felt my heart shrink at such crude words, but my duel had started several weeks ago and they didn’t achieve the same effect as with Mikasa. What he did was get me to give him a contemptuous half smile and laugh in his face. His eyes darkened when he saw my reaction. Whether he expected it or not was no longer important to me. He gave a slight nod to the men behind me and I noticed how my arms were gathered around my back and tightened so that I couldn't move. One of them walked away from me and went straight towards Mikasa and Armin, pointing his rifle at their heads.

"Take them, the brat who killed Sasha too"

I wasn’t going to allow it.

My two comrades were pushed into the corridor outside while I glared at them waiting for my turn to go out with the man behind me. The girl was completely scared and she had walked to the door of her own will, perhaps avoiding being further hurt. The moment Eren was about to leave, I slapped my head against the man's face repeatedly until his grip weakened and I was able to move freely again. I turned to him, kneeing him in the face and stomach. When I managed to reduce him to the ground, making him roll into a ball and couldn't move without causing him pain when he breathed, I wanted to turn towards the door with the sole intention of getting the poor girl out of the conflict. My hand was halfway searching for her when Eren grabbed it and yanked me back violently, slamming me against the table.

I lost my balance for a second and as an involuntary act I grabbed the tablecloth, but that didn’t do much, making me fall to the floor in the same way. Eren lunged at me, his body falling completely on top of mine and pinning me to the ground. His legs were positioned at each place of my torso and his fist hit my face not once, not twice, but three times, noticing how the cheek bone began to burn. I lifted my knee to the side of his ribs, my nails finding the skin of his face, and pushed him toward the table, hitting his back against the hard wood and tangling with the tablecloth.

I got up to run, but his leg hit my ankle causing me to fall on my face and hands. When I wanted to turn around again I felt his weight against mine, his legs now better placed on my knees and both hands holding my neck. He squeezed, I felt like the air was beginning to thin, my vision was turning white and I could feel my face redden. I tried to hit him in the face, but I wasn't strong enough to make him stop. I reached the same hand towards my side visualizing one of the chairs thrown by the fight with Armin but Eren was faster and his knee was now pressing against my inner arm.

I was running out of air and at any moment I was going to lose consciousness. In a desperate attempt I turned my eyes around me as best I could and found a bottle of wine broken in half lying a few inches from us, though too far away for me to just reach out. My fingers couldn't even touch the surface of the glass and on my last attempt before I fainted, I pushed myself towards the bottle, grabbed it by the spout, and pulled it towards Eren's face, driving the broken surface onto his cheek and eye. 

Eren grunted in pain and released his hands from my neck, giving me a chance to push him back with both legs and barely get up to run. With cloudy vision and an incredible urge to cough thanks to the pressure on my cervicals and thyroids, I could not make out the whereabouts of the Marleyan girl and ran out the door to the corridor. As I passed the threshold slamming the door wide, rifle bullets were aimed at me, miraculously failing to hit my body. I shrunk my body as much as I could without stopping my feet and looked towards the end of the corridor, finding the second man who was with Armin and Mikasa shooting at me from behind them.

I was about to fall to the ground when Mikasa slammed her shoulder against his, causing him to stagger backward and she struggled to get the rifle out of his hands. In those few seconds of advantage, Armin stepped between the line of fire and me in case any bullets were fired and yelled from his position.

"Go!" I don’t know if it was due to lack of air that I couldn’t react at all quickly and when seeing my indecision to run to where the two of them were or go through the back window, Armin again shouted angrier and more determined "Just go!"

Behind me was a window with broken glass, I assumed due to the bullet holes of the rifle, with a simple blow with my elbow I could break a large part of the glass and jump to the side of the street, but not before giving one last look at Armin and Mikasa, who were still battling the man and Eren coming out of the room half healed and with smoke coming from his wounds.

I fell onto the cobbled street and started running towards the main avenue. My legs were on fire and my lungs were about to collapse, every step I took was a stronger pain in my throat. I wanted to stop and cough to regain normality in my breathing, but I heard behind me the footsteps of people running and yelling to stop me. They were chasing me and if I kept on foot I wasn't going to get very far. I put my fingers to my mouth and whistled as best I could, calling out to Phillip from afar. I had left my horse right at the front door of the restaurant, on the other side of the avenue, so I ran in that direction in order to find him early.

The so-called Jaegerists kept firing behind me, a bullet struck my leg and hit the stone on the ground and ricocheted to the left side against a house. Multiple bullets continued to brush my body, some passing very close to my face and others aimed directly at my legs. In the distance I could see Phillip riding towards me, getting closer and closer. When he came to my side, without stopping, I grabbed his leash and jumped on his back, leaving half my body hanging from lack of strength. I grabbed his neck and motioned for him to turn around and head straight for the avenue.

Phillip was always a fast horse, I thanked the universe for entrusting me to this horse from the first recon mission. He was always there for me, a loyal, strong and very audacious horse, banking me on every expedition and whatever madness crossed my mind to save my companions or myself. I always thanked him for his swiftness and now more than ever I was thanking him in a shaking voice as he continued galloping through the crowd, heading toward the wall’s gate.

Having left the Jaegerists at a considerable distance, I positioned myself correctly on his back, grabbing onto the leash and leaning forward to stroke his head for his great work. I gave myself the freedom to cough and clear my throat of any discomfort, but multiple blows and a firm rumbling behind us made me realize that nothing was over yet, as they were still chasing me, now with their own horses. There weren't many, maybe five or six people and a coach from what I could make out from the hollow of my shoulder, but they were armed and that was what made them dangerous.

I told Phillip to keep riding, to go even faster, to get to the gate as soon as possible. With the riding, the saddle hit my legs and crotch, annoying and hurting me at the same time, but I had to hold it and keep going; we had to get to the gate and fast, very fast. We were a few blocks away when I saw the gate in the distance, wide open and with their respective guards on either side of the threshold.

"Close the door!" I screamed as loudly as I could, feeling my vocal cords tear in the attempt and made my throat hurt even more. The guards turned their heads towards my figure, but none deigned to do what I asked them, they just stared at me stupidly.

"CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!" I coughed as I let out such a scream hoping it was clear enough in the message. Seeing me continue to gallop towards the gate and now hearing the bullets being fired, the guards ran towards the internal mechanism and began to close it, giving me enough time to pass through it without being crushed.

The gate ended up closing when Phillip had already traveled about ten meters outside the wall, leaving the Jaegerists on the other side.

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

I dipped my head into the clear water of the river. The cold of the current massaged my battered muscles and cleaned the still bleeding wounds. It was already the third time that I’d put my head in the water and I could notice how little by little the pain was dissipating, but knew that the next day I would have a remotely swollen face and a septum to treat.

We had gotten quite far from the wall, maybe forty minutes or an hour galloping, and we had stayed by the river so as not to get lost. Phillip took the time to drink plenty of water and eat some of the dry grass that surrounded the river; I owed my partner a big one and if it was necessary to spend the little savings I had on a better chair and care for him, I would give it all… but when things were calmer and we could go home.

I lay on my back on the grass into a star-shaped possition and gazed up at the clear sky except for a few fluffy clouds. If it din’t for the recurring events in the last month, I would have taken the liberty of enjoying this beautiful day and the days before that surely there were, but I was too blind and busy to notice them.

The grass felt soft except for a few small stones scattered unevenly and the small field insects that landed on my arms and face and then flew off. It was relaxing, too relaxing. The heat of the sun's rays hit my skin and gave me a comforting sensation that soaked down to my bones, generating a pleasant interior warmth and tingling; I wanted to sleep, I wanted to rest, my body was forcing me to take a break, and this place, this moment, seemed like the perfect one. I closed my eyes, wishing sleep and tranquility would come as quickly as possible, but a vibration in the floor and Phillip's screaming snapped me out of my trance.

I raised my head, surveying my surroundings, the vibrations getting stronger as if they were getting closer. I looked at Phillip and followed his line of sight, far over the horizon, there was a litter of horses galloping over the stone paths that had been built a couple of years ago between each wall. Green overcoats could be distinguished over the horizon of the clear blue sky.

"Fuck, I was hoping to be calm for a couple more hours, come on Phillip"

I got on the back of my horse for the third time that day and directed it to the opposite side of where the other horses were riding. Being in the middle of an open field, there weren’t many houses where to take refuge, even though they had built a lot of houses between both walls. A little in the distance was a lush forest of tall trees, but not as tall as those of the Forest of Giant Trees, that enormous nature of fifty and eighty meters.

We stopped right at the entrance, hoping we had distanced ourselves from the litter of horses, but when I got off Phillip to rest my legs, I saw the path we had come from, and in the distance the same horses that he had seen on the stone path were approaching. There was no longer any doubt that they were the Jaegerists.

I turned my head towards the forest, from what I could see from the entrance the trees weren’t at a considerable distance from each other and the small dirt roads were too narrow. I didn’t know this forest at all and the mere fact of entering without knowing the terrain through the narrow corridors didn’t give me much confidence. But going around it wasn’t a good option either and I would end up being visualized in a matter of seconds. We were in a dead end, in a maze, and I had to play the few cards I had cleverly. I unbuttoned the coat which was already very badly placed on my shoulders and tied it on the strap.

"Phillip I need you to keep running, go as fast as you can and as far as your legs can reach" I pulled the saddle off his back, dropping it to the ground and tried to hide it inside a nearby bush with my foot. I brought his head closer to mine, resting my forehead on his muzzle and stroking his side one last time before saying goodbye.

"Go!" I smacked him on the back and Phillip ran down the narrow forest paths. As for me, I tried to dispel the footprints the horse had left behind before sending me to run down another path and go as far as I could into the heart of the forest.

I ran, ran and ran, my legs were on the edge, branches and thorns were digging into my skin making it burn every time other scratches were created in the same place. At this fact, I was resigned to the fact my clothes were bleeding and torn, as well as the matted hair and bruises on my body. My foot made contact with a tree root and I fell between the others, right in a hole, hitting my head and shoulder in the fall. I scraped my arm too, and my shirt was now full of dirt and dry leaves; surely my hair was the same. I heard heavy footsteps near me and I rolled into a ball in the hole, hiding behind the tree and seeking its protection.

"Find them, we can't let them escape"

Six people broke up and each one ran in a different direction in search of me. For an instant, my heart skipped a beat and my breath hitched when I saw one of them pass by the side of the tree where I was. At no point did he turn towards my location so I was able to breathe again. Minutes passed until I stopped hearing nearby footsteps, I got up leaning against the bark and kept walking inward, finding myself up a steep hill down.

I let gravity guide me and my feet unconsciously ran downward, avoiding rocks and bushes along the way. As I reached the low surface of the hill I tripped over my feet, losing my balance and colliding with a small tree that was right in the middle of where I was walking. As I stood up and turned it around, I came face to face with a Jaegerist, hooded, rifle in hand.

"Hey! You- "

My reflexes acted on instinct, my leg went straight to his ribs, hitting him squarely in the side of his stomach. I grabbed the rifle with both hands and hit it with the butt on both sides of the face and discarded it to the side when blood began to come out of his mouth. My hand went straight to his head, slamming it against the tree over and over again without stopping until his body fell unconscious on the grass. The interaction lasted no more than fifteen seconds, but it felt like I was about to explode. So many blows received and produced were leaving collateral effects on my body; at any moment I would pass out.

During the three years of training I have gotten used to physical confrontation and body training that lasted more than five hours, not to mention the months we spent annihilating each Titan within the walls. Those missions that lasted all day, if not more, were nothing compared to what my body was going through right now.

I sat next to the body, trying to catch my breath and rest my eyes. I rested my head on the tree and when I opened my eyes I saw a black figure in the middle of a grove a few meters away. He didn’t carry a rifle and seemed to have no intention of running to any specific place, he simply deigned to look around him, at the ground and towards the treetops. I froze to see Eren staring down at the body.

I shrank as much as I could to the left, hiding in the middle of the bushes, body to the ground, without taking my eyes off that figure that was now heading towards the unconscious body of one of his followers. I crawled back until I found a tree wide enough to hide.

"I know you are here"

It was the only thing I heard him say. My blood ran cold and a cold sweat began to form on my forehead. I was scared, very scared, I wasn’t going to deny it, but this wasn’t the time to sit and watch how they corner me little by little until they capture me. If this was the moment, I was going to give everything to get out of here. I stood up resolutely, taking a deep breath, and showed my face to my perpetrator.

"Do you want to pick up where we left off?"

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[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober 2021 - October 1 - Bound

Fandom: Nightwing, Batman - All Media Types

AO3

Warnings: Kidnapping, Panic Attacks, Isolation, mentions of IV/needles

---

It’s been hours since Dick’s woken up… here.

“Here” is hard to describe, yet incredibly easy. He can say for sure that at least within the 180 degrees ahead of him, it’s all white. White walls that, if arranged in a mirrored-image behind him, might make a hexagon. The ceiling above him is bright and unforgiving, LED lights dotting the space above him like freckles on Barbara’s cheeks and shoulders. He can’t see any sign of a door ahead of him, and the gray-speckled white tiles that make the floor aren’t particularly enjoyable to look at.

Yeah, describing what he can see about the room is the easy part. The hard part is that behind him? It’s all guess-work. For all he knew, there could be nothing behind him, or a cliff, or… or something ridiculous. There could be a whole manner of things behind him, but it’s impossible for him to get a look because his head is strapped to the cushioned chair he’s forced to sit on.

He hates this. It’s been hours. The chair, while cushioned, isn’t even that comfortable. The way his arms lay on the armrests and his feet come together near the end of the chair suggests a dentist’s chair and a therapist’s sofa had an evil love-child who was into bondage, considering how many straps were buckled in to keep him trapped down.

He’s going to lose his mind. Did he really just make a bondage joke about a chair?!

Anyway, he’s stuck here, his arms pinned down by the wrists, elbows, and under his armpits. Two heavy straps run over each shoulder and cross in the middle of his chest to connect back to the chair near his hips. And speaking of hips, there’s another strap around them too like an old Volkswagen seat belt. More straps around his thighs, knees, and ankles keep his legs locked together and down. That’s not even mentioning the binds that lock around his neck or the one around his forehead that’s fitted to the headrest that seems designed to not let him even attempt to rotate his chin to the side.

It’s horrible, and awful, and cruel, and unusual, and he’s not even that sure why he’s here. All he can tell is that he has a massive headache, his Nightwing mask is on but his suit is gone—replaced by some sort of nightgown that definitely doesn’t seem friendly, and whenever he tenses his arm he can feel a tug in his wrist.

Must be an IV of some sort? It’s strange though, from what he can see he can’t see any medical equipment hanging around him. But it has to be an IV. With his night job, he’s become familiar with the way his lips go dry and how his fingers tremble when the damn needle gets put in his arm.

But… if it is an IV, it must need changing by now, surely. It’s been hours, and those things don’t last that long.

Hours. Sitting here with the feeling of a needle in his arm, not sure where he is or what he’s doing here, nothing to look at besides those Barbara Gordon freckles on the ceiling and those gray speckles on the tile.

He tugs on the restraints for what must be the thousandth time, and growls when nothing happens, as unsurprising it is. All his attempts to slip out of or break the restraints have left him with nothing but bruising and irritated skin. However, he feels so restless and bored out of his mind that tugging on the belts seems to be the only productive thing his brain can think of to do.

He tugs again, and nothing happens. He sighs. Relaxes back. And… tries to think of how he got into this mess.

It’s just as successful as breaking the straps.

-o-o-o-o-

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he calls out to nothing. His eyes hurt, he’s exhausted, he needs to pee and that’s something he doesn’t want to deal with. “What do you want from me, eh?”

Silence. His hands bunch in angry fists and he pulls against the straps hard enough for him to feel the edge bite into his skin.

“Batman’s identity?” He tries, because it’s always about Batman’s Identity (TM). When there isn’t any answer, he continues. “Police secrets?” Nothing. “Superman’s identity?”

Nothing. He growls and glares at the empty walls ahead of him.

-o-o-o-o-

He’s using the pain in his wrists, focusing on the warmth running down the cuts the straps have finally created, instead of the pressure in his bladder.

It only lasts so long.

Great, so now he’s bored out of his mind, stuck, and the room smells horrible. Or, the room smells horrible until whatever unseen vent takes away the reek and the chair dries, leaving him being the only one who’s smelling.

He hates this. He hates this. He hates this.

He jerks against every restraint and snarls in impatience and restlessness. He can feel the cuts tear more, but he’s close to not caring, he longs to move.

If his snarling eventually fades into howls, then he’s almost positive no one is around to hear it other than himself.

-o-o-o-o-

Bruce’s cape settles around his feet as he lands, launching droplets of questionable sewage water up to his knees. Damian lands beside him, the whites of his domino mask narrowed in fierce determination.

It’s been nothing but a series of long hours since the Riddler kidnapped Dick with the clues to his whereabouts left carved into the pavement with abandoned Wing-Dings. During Bruce’s search, a few things became apparent: Dick was trapped, alone, and Bruce had until Dick died from malnourishment once the crude IV he was apparently attached to ran out. Riddler is already behind bars, has been for several hours, but interrogation wont get him to give up his games, and Bruce may be a vigilante and “above the law”, but he wont stoop so low as to torture.

At least, not until things get desperate and Damian’s not around to see. Dick would never forgive Bruce, and will probably never talk to him even in any kind of afterlife.

But it hasn’t come to that, Tim solved the riddle through emails delivered from wherever he’s located with his Young Justice friends. They’re always changing spots, and even if Tim were to come home and solve the riddles in person, it would probably be too late.

It isn’t too late, he reminds himself as Damian takes off down the sewers. They know Dick’s exact coordinates. Bruce almost kicked himself when Tim revealed them, because of course lead to Gotham’s abandoned sewage system.

The way to Dick’s location is a tough one, one riddled (as Dick would say) with traps. But they’re nothing compared to a worried father and a determined brother. They find the door nudged neatly behind a section of brick, and when Bruce opens it he’s almost blinded by the night vision in his lenses adjusting to the sudden attacks of bright lights.

Bruce sees before he hears. His eyes were always one of his favorite senses, which is probably why Damian—a boy who’s had to hear to save his life many times—ran to the chair in the middle of the hexagon-shaped room before him. White walls, white tile, white LED’s to sit in a white ceiling. The back of a padded chair in the center of the room faces him, revealing nothing of what it contains.

And then Bruce hears the screaming. Weak, clawing screaming that sounds like what sandpaper would feel on dry skin. He knows this scream, the tones to it, and within moments he’s running to the front side of the chair with Damian.

Dick’s there… writhing. Blood stains skin and cloth around almost every strap holding him down from struggling that must have been continuing for hours. As Damian tears an IV—the tube feeding him nutrients disappears within the chair; there must be some sort of mechanism keeping it working within its structure—Dick’s struggles like he doesn’t notice the change. His eyes are squeezed shut, tears drip down his cheeks, and his screams are so so hard to listen to. Does he even know they’re here?

“Dick,” Bruce says, knowing there’s no one to hear him with Riddler behind bars and his goons scattered. Dick doesn’t respond, just continues to yowl like a wounded stray cat. Already, Bruce can see the symptoms of prolonged use of an IV and of exhaustion. Has Dick slept at all since being kidnapped?

Damian begins work on one of the straps around Dick’s jerking wrists. Bruce follows suit, quickly, desperately wanting to get his eldest out of here, but he’s forced to abandon his task when the loosened strap on Damian’s side allows Dick to tug his wrist free and move to hit the boy. Bruce catches his hand before the hit can be met.

“LET ME GO!” Dick screeches.

“Dick, we’re helping you,” Bruce shouts back wearily, but Dick doesn’t listen as he begins to babble all kinds of demands similar to let me go. Bruce gives Damian a look. “He’s exhausted and most likely delusional. Our best course of action would be for me to hold him down, and you undo the rest of the straps. Maybe we can get to him without having to risk drugging him once he’s no longer restrained.”

Damian looks all parts of his age as he takes a second to give a shockingly vulnerable stare Dick’s way. The vulnerability only lasts a moment before Damian’s nodding. “Got it.”

The next several minutes are filled with events that will reveal themselves in bruises with the coming days, even through the kevlar. It’s tough work keeping a Dick Grayson down, especially when it’s a Dick Grayson who absolutely refuses to be kept down in the first place. However, eventually they release the last strap around Dick’s other wrist and soon enough, both Bruce and Damian are jumping back and Dick launches himself out of the chair, stumbling to the floor and then falling to his ass when his knees give out. Dick looks pitiful, trapped between wanting to curl up and cry or stand up and run, yet curling up seems to win out as Dick must have no energy to lift himself back up.

“Dick,” Bruce calls again when Dick’s hoarse breathing calms, and this time, hope flutters into his belly when Dick’s shoulder’s tense in response.

“… B…?” comes a horribly weak response, but a response nonetheless. Bruce rushes around the damned chair to where his eldest still sits, curled up and shaking. He reaches out unconsciously, kneeling down to scoop Dick up in an embrace, but stops when Dick violently flinches away.

“Don’t touch me,” he whimpers, “just- I don’t- I couldn’t move-” he breaks into sobs.

Bruce is almost considering returning to Arkham and breaking a few bones. Instead, he lowers his voice and speaks as calmly as he can.

“I understand. But we have to get you back home. Just your arm around my shoulder, and I’ll support you while you walk. Can you do that?”

It’s proof of just how shaken Dick is when it takes a few moments to get a hesitant nod.

Bruce does his best to ignore Dick’s flinching and twitching while, with permission, Bruce helps Dick up and wraps his arm exactly where Bruce said he would. Damian stands a few paces off, looking torn. Bruce tells him to run ahead and bring the bat-mobile closer to the sewer opening while Dick blinks owlishly and gulps like a fish… doing his best to keep down what must be a pending panic attack. Damian thankfully leaves without much argument, and Bruce is left to help his eldest, hyperactive, always moving, always smiling, always stimming in some way or another son out the blasted room and towards freedom with as much control given over to Dick as possible.

“I scared Dami,” Dick whispers through clenched teeth, halfway through the sewage tunnels.

Bruce hums and resists tightening his grip on Dick’s arm. “It’s not your fault. He will not hold it against you.”

“I scared you.”

“… I was scared for you. But right now the only thing that matters is getting you home. Then everything can return to normal”

Dick nods his head, his voice choking in what must be another sob. “Okay,” he whispers, “okay.”

And Bruce silently vows to punch Riddler a little harder the next time he sees him.

But right now, the only thing he cares about is that Dick’s alive, and Bruce is bringing him home.

[whump-town]

Tuesdays Hotchner Style

Waiting out the bag of saline hanging over his head, Hotch lays back on the bed and just enjoys this one second that he has to himself. Being a father is great, he loves every second of Jack’s curiosity and his attention to detail. He loves his team, even if he’s not sure he does well in how he shows that. However, between Jack's pre-teen temper and the team’s never-ending list of needs he rarely gets a moment to just breathe. No one asking to use his office or when dinner will be done. It’s almost nice.

Had he set out this morning to get hit by a car during his morning jog? No, but maybe that’s what he gets for entertaining the idea of taking some time off. He’s got a few bumps and scrapes but already knows his knee is going to give him hell for landing on it like he did. Not even the ice pack the nurse taped over it is doing a thing to squish the pain. He still needs to have his shoulder pulled back into the socket and his concussion assessed. In other words, he’s taking that time off but not like he’d planned.

They did give him a cherry popsicle and the nurse showed him how to lean against his pillow to keep the ice pack pressed against his head without having to hold it up. This place is better than most motels he’s stayed in. If the nice nurse says he needs to wait twenty more minutes for the saline bag to empty and she’s promising another popsicle then she’s won. Seems like a good deal to him. He was a lawyer, he’d know.

“Hey, sweetie.”

He blinks himself back to Earth. Peeling his eyes open and grunting, not having realized he’d managed to doze off. The nurse, the same one as before, steps into the little curtained-off area with a smile. “Sorry,” he slurs softly, motioning with his popsicle hand to where he’d managed to let some of it drip onto the white sheets.

She just smiles at him, “ honey, that’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She dismisses it with a wave and goes to her fluttering around him. The treatment he’s gotten used to since hobbling into here four hours ago. Replacing the ice pack at his knee she stops to frown at the purpling skin but it’s just bruised and swollen. Angry at its treatment. “How’s the arm?”

The concussion is probably worse than he’s led on if the current state of his consciousness is any proof. He’s just tired and this is like his version of a spa day. “Arm?” he asks, and he swallows thickly. Vaguely, he’s aware of his arms. The strange weight in his left hand where the IV is and the ice pack settled against his shoulder. It’s dislocated. It hurts.

“My arm,” he whispers, “I can… I can feel the fingers.”

She moves his hand, turning over his palm, and waiting for him to do as she silently asks and moves his fingers. He makes a fist, slowly closing each finger. She pats the back of his hand as she sits it back down, movements intact and coloration is alright. “I’m going to give you another sedative, some painkillers, alright? Then we’re going to get this shoulder back into the socket.”

Another? He… He can't remember the first.

“You’ve got some people asking for you out in the waiting room.”

He picks his head up, opening eyes he hadn’t realized had already slid shut again. “The team?” he mumbles.

She takes his popsicle out of his hand, it’s no good half-melted, and he’s falling asleep. “I don’t know about any team, darlin’, but there’s a whole crew.” She dispenses the drugs like promised and steps back. “Lemme think,” she’d seen them when she was stepping into the room. They’d asked for him but she can’t let all of them back here and she’d at least like to run the idea of them by Hotch first. “I used to smoke a lot of Virginia Slims in my day, there’s a fella out there that looks exactly like one. There’s two feisty brunettes. One about my age and the other looks like she eats bolts in her cornflakes.” She sighs, there’s more she’s certain. “There is a man out there who looks like he could have been sculpted by angels.”

He smiles at that, dopey and free. “Morgan,” he whispers, he knows it with a strong certainty. Who else could it be?

“Anyways,” she has moved away from her point. He’s probably ready to have that shoulder moved. “I can go get one of them if you’d like,” she offers. “It’ll be a painful but quick procedure. Still, most people like having someone.”

Someone.

He almost wonders if Garcia’s out there. She’s the end of the world sort. Even if she didn’t want to be back here she’d come with her flurry of colors and glitter. Hold his hand and make sure he got that other popsicle but no, no he won’t ask that of her. Can’t.

“I can always let them decide,” the nurse offers. “If that’s alright with you?”

He’s too tired, too disoriented to make the words work so he nods. She pats his hand one more time before moving back out the curtain. He can hear them talking, transforms their mumbling and their stiff silence to none of them wanting to come back here. Doesn’t hear Morgan and Emily fighting, neither wanting to be the one left out there. Both wanting to set their eyes on Hotch, to really make sure he’s okay.

His knee hurts, the drugs and the adrenaline are fading in and out and he’s tired. He turns his head back into his ice pack, rests the cut on his cheek against the plastic still cool from the water. Panted, short breathes leave his mouth and he wants nothing more than to sink into the bed. To disappear.

The curtain parts but he doesn’t hear it.

Dave steps in where the nurse directs, standing by the edge of the bed while she moves things where she needs them. He gets stuck, unable to move for a moment while he just looks at Hotch. The tears drying at the corners of his eyes and labored breathing, his agitated state.

“Aaron,” the nurse moves his good hand. Waking him without hesitation but still smiling when his tired eyes move slowly to concentration. To focus on her. “I brought you a friend.”

They’re back to the same old song and dance. Dave goes to the little space at the side of the bed, standing beside machines and things not currently in use. There nonetheless. Aaron looks up at him, sleepy eyes slowly blinking clarity back. “Hit by a car,” Dave mumbles. “Only you.”

Hotch smirks, “was running.”

Dave shakes his head, “again, who in his right mind?”

A doctor steps in, the little area of curtain overrun by white coats and stethoscopes.

Hotch gets nervous and looks hopelessly up at Dave. He’s scared. “Easy,” Dave takes his good hand. Making a quick understanding of his having been put on this side. “It’s just a little upset joint,” Dave assures him. “You’ve been stabbed and shot and blown up, you’ll be okay.” Hotch doesn’t look convinced but Dave doesn’t let go, he’s right there. Not going anywhere. “You’ll be okay, Aaron. I’m right here.”

It’s all medical nonsense from there on. The doctor introduces herself and the nurse nods her head, giving them the okay. Hotch is as drugged as he can be, relaxed under their touch so long as Dave isn’t more than a step away. He holds onto Dave so tightly he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. Part of him does, he’s not sure he wants to watch this. Hotch cries out when they pull on his arm, a sound that drowns out into a whimper. The sickening thunk of the joint sliding back into place. He tries to sit up, screams, and cries out as they check to make sure it’s gone where it needs to be. Their fingers digging into his skin. He cries out for Dave, to make them st0p.

“Easy,” Dave whispers. “Easy, easy.”

The doctors and the nurses leave as soon as their job is done, giving them nods as they go.

Dave brushes his thumb across Hotch’s forehead, frowning down at the tears. “Hang in there,” he whispers. “Behave a little longer and I’ll get you a milkshake, alright?”

His eyes peel back open at that, “promise?”

Dave shakes his head, “you’re a child, Aaron Hotchner, but yes, I promise I’ll get you a milkshake.”

“Hey-” both look to the curtain and after a second Emily’s head pops through. “Do we all get a milkshake?”

Dave rolls his eyes, “yes. Yes, sure.” They’re going to be the death of him. “Milkshakes for everyone, why not?”

The hard part is over.

He doesn't get another popsicle.

“Hey, Morgan?” Dave sticks his head out of the curtain and motions Morgan in. “We’re gonna need your help in here.”

Hotch groans, entirely too disoriented to completely stop himself from whining. He doesn’t want help, he just wants to go get a milkshake and go home. To his couch and his blankets and to clothes that don’t smell like blood and sweat. But there’s no winning, if he’s leaving he needs help. “Up on three,” Morgan encourages. He stops for a moment, makes sure his grip is good before bracing himself. One arm around Hotch’s back and the other bracing his front. “Ready when you are.” It’s more falling than walking but Morgan directs his fall straight into the wheelchair. “Easy Hotch,” but his head is a blur and he’s vaguely aware of Morgan gently lifting his legs up into the footrests.

“Damn,” Emily mumbles when Morgan pulls back the curtain and Dave pushes Hotch through. “Look like a Tim Burton doll.” Hotch grunts back at her. She tries to find a small silver lining, ���but good, considering. Your hair is still pretty neatly styled and the road rash on your cheek makes you look distinguished.”

Hotch frowns but can’t turn his head to look at Dave so he just mumbles, “don’t think Emily has deserved her milkshake.”

“Hey!”

“Children,” Rossi interrupts before either can get any further. “Everyone is getting a milkshake, calm down.” He sighs, watching them fall in line alongside Hotch. “What flavors are we thinking?” Milkshakes and car wrecks… sounds like a regular old Tuesday to him.

[butteraway]

when time runs out | ii

⋆ summary:  A young girl has fallen deeply ill with an unknown disease in her, so with all her free time spent in an empty hospital room, she spends it online playing video games. That's until she meets her cousins friends, one spiking her interest with his extremely vulgare language.

pairing: bakugou katsuki x reader

word count: 2.1k

warnings: small mentions of suicide (I’ll put a star ‘⋆’ on top and below the paragraph so you can skip over it if your uncomfortable, you won’t miss anything too important so dont worry!)

"Bro, honestly I still can't believe that you of all people made it into the elite, number one hero school in the country."

"Waahh, I'm telling you! I'm the real deal Y/N!"

"So, how's your summer been? School's gonna be starting soon, are you excited?" Denki could only smile and sigh as his character was finally killed off.

Said girl chuckled as she heard Denki's voice rise through her headphones as they continued killing zombies in front of them. She grimaced as a zombie attacked her from behind her character. Geez, I never get a break in this game.

"Well, to be honest, nothing big really happened besides me getting my acceptance letter from U.A. Just me training and hanging with the fam." He laid back in the comfort of his bed, headphones still on in order to hear his cousin.

"Aah, already training, hero boy? That's why you haven't been visiting me lately." Y/N pouted and crossed her arms as her TV screen turned black, returning her to the main page of the game.

"Man, we suck at this game!" Denki laughed out loud as he saw how long they lasted in the last round. Y/N smiled and let out a small giggle of her own as she placed down her controller.

"Yeah, how long have we had this game for? It still feels like it's our first time playing this." Denki cracked a smile, even though Y/N couldn't see him.

"Hey, sorry for not being able to come to the hospital. Getting ready for U.A. is no joke, haha." Denki rubbed the nape of his neck, eyebrows scrunching up with regret. 

"Nah nah, it's fine! I understand that you have things to do. You have big plans for the future." Y/N brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, looking down at the needles that were plunged into her arms. Her eyes were clouded with an emotion she often felt when talking with Denki. She always felt guilty whenever the feeling came around.

"Must be nice to be able to achieve your dreams." Jealousy. She hated the feeling she got every now and then, but you couldn't really blame her. She lost everything in only a couple of months. Silence passed between the two teenagers, Y/N finally realizing what she said.

"Uh s-sorry about that! I didn't mean to say that alou-" Y/N was cut off by Denki's soft voice.

"Y/N, it's... okay to feel like that. I don't understand what you have been going through, but I know that you shouldn't bring yourself down for something you can't control. You're such an amazing person and to be honest. . ." Denki paused as Y/N's eyes began to glaze over.

"I'm doing this for me and you. You always encouraged me to take any opportunity by, as you like to say, the neck. I-I wanna make you proud, y'know? I wanna make it feel like you're a part of this crazy world, even if you're not really here, walking with me through it all."

Y/N’s lips wobbled as she let out a watery laugh. She hunched over, small tears falling down her face. To someone else, this would've boosted their ego, but to Y/N, those words meant the world to her. No one had ever said that to her before. She felt like she had a purpose in this wretched life of hers. She sniffles were heard by Denki

"H-hey! It's okay, p-please don't cry!" Y/N heard shuffling coming from Denki as he reassured her to not cry.

"I mean it. I only wish you could be there though, it would be so much cooler!" Denki smiled, trying to lighten up the mood. Y/N's sniffles slowly quieted down as she let out a soft laugh that made his heart swell with joy. At least he can make her laugh.

"I'm s-sorry, but no one has ever told me t-that." Small hiccups came from the girl as she calmed down, taking deep breaths to slow her heart rate. Won't want doctors to come rushing in just to see her crying over something so small.

⋆

"I-I'm just really happy you said that." Denki's heart clenched at those words, his chin trembling every now and then. He knew that Y/N wasn't happy with where she was. She had even admitted that she had urges to rip out the needles and slowly lose her life from there. Denki spent the rest of that night talking to her after. To say he was concerned was an understatement. He was terrified when she told him.

⋆

"I think us being able to play games together is already enough!" They both laughed and talked for a couple of minutes before deciding to to hang up. 

"Y/N, I mean it when I say I want you to be happy, okay? I hope you feel better tomorrow. Buh-bye!" Y/N said her goodbye to Denki, hanging up and closing the laptop that sat on a movable table. 

Her smile slowly left her face, leaving her staring blankly at the pure white wall and mirror in front of her. When visitors were gone, her window would turn to a mirror so no one would disturb her. Y/N took a good look at herself and only sighed. Despite being as healthy as she could get, she looked a bit on the thin side, this complimenting her skin. Running a hand through her hair, she untangled the little knots that had formed there.

"Geez, what happened to you girl? You look like a zombie." Y/N looked at the zombie game and cringed.

"Literally."  Just then the door to her room opened and shut quickly, the air filter turning on when a female doctor entered. Y/N watched her carefully as she checked the IV that connected to her arm. The protective suit never made Y/N feel better about her condition.

"Are you alright, Ms. L/N?" The light, stern voice rang through her ears as she looked at the woman in front of her. Y/N gave the doctor a grin.

"Never been better."

It had been an hour since the doctors had turned the lights off, but Y/N didn't feel the slightest bit of exhaustion. She had been sitting in the pitch black room for the time being and was really debating on turning on the TV.

"Ahh, fudge it." Instinctively reaching out for the remote, she turned on the TV and winced as the bright light hit her.

Looking back to the screen, she chose the option of going online and waited for other players to join. While waiting, a new character popped up next to her and she could only smirk at their username. Tapping on her mic, she decided to make conversation with them to see if they also had a mic.

"Now, what to play. What to play..." Y/N had settled for playing OverWatch since she didn't feel like playing any story type games. No cliffhangers tonight, Y/N thought. As the game loaded, she laid back and began thinking about cheesecake. When was the last I ate strawberry cheesecake? Great, now I want some. Thinking about eating cheesecake made her excited about the next day.

"Well hello, dear ol' '​​​​​King Explosion Murder_1.' Nice name you got there." Y/N chuckled as she said the name out loud, seeing another player enter.

"Hello 'Tape Dispenser?' What's with the wack name?" The girl’s eyes crinkled as she smiled at their name, hearing the user chuckle through her headphones. '​​​​​​King Explosion Murder' still had yet to reply, but that didn't bother her. They're either using the bathroom or don't have a mic. 

"The name was inspired by my quirk. But what's up with '_DeathGirl_', huh? You good?"  Y/N could only laugh at what he said. She should really send him a friend request.

"I’m honestly great, a little tired, but great! I just gotta make up a name, y'know? But your quirk has to do with tape? I don't know if that's wicked or useless." The boy laughed while Y/N laughed as well, losing her grip on her controller. That was until a gruff voice interrupted their laughing session.

"Shut the fuck up, your annoying ass voices are giving me a damn headache." Finally, after being silent, 'King Explosion Murder_1' spoke up.

"Aah, so you do talk. I don't know why you didn't say anything sooner Mr. Explosion Murder." The other player could only sneer at what she said, hitting his desk with his fist. Another player had joined, Y/N only noticing.

"Ah, hello 'Sleep Deprived Controller!'" Said player made their character wave, making Y/N chuckle. While they had their interaction, 'King Explosion Murder' was shouting at her, now realizing that she wasn't paying attention to what he was saying.

"Hey! Listen to me when I'm fucking talking to you, emo bitch!" Y/N’s eyes widened, soon rolling her eyes, watching the game load as they were placed into a match. What's his damn problem?

"Hey man, no need to go calling people names now." 'Tape Dispenser' nervously chuckled as he heard the other player growl. Y/N sported a shocked face as she heard this. What is he, a dog??? 

"Outta this conversation, extra!" Tape dude could only deadpan at what he was just called. Who calls people extras?? I’m not an extra, in fact I think I’m- 'Sleep Deprived Controller' listened with an annoyed expression on their face, wishing they could shut their shouting teammate up. Damn, wish I actually had a mic.

The game began as all the players separated, going their own way to kill their enemies. Everyone was in the zone, getting items and yelping every now and then if they were attacked. The first to go down was 'Tape Dispenser', then 'Sleep Deprived Controller', leaving both Y/N and 'King Explosion Murder' left on their team. Y/N smirked at their winning team, only one player was left on the other team. Just as the game was going to end, the opposing player shot down 'Explosion Murder', killing him.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUU-" His mic cut off, causing the two players with mics in a cackling mess. Y/N calmed down, remembering she was still playing, trying to hunt down the last player. Finally, after many curses by a certain player and cheering from another, she located her enemy. 

"You better fucking win this or I'll kill you." Knowing he didn't mean that last part, she only focused on the first part. You better win this. Those words echoed through her head as she stopped aiming for the player. She hated being told what to do.

"Ah, so you're one of those people." Not knowing what she meant, they only watched with wide eyes at what she did. Y/N jumped down next to the enemy, shooting them twice with her weakest gun, signaling them that she was there. Quickly, the other player shot her character down, killing her. They lost the game.

"THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?! WE COULD'VE FUCKING WON!" Explosion Murder wasn't taking defeat easily like the other two were. Y/N could only give a grunt of disapproval towards the loud player.

"Ha, why did you just give up right there? You could've easily killed him." Tape Dispenser was just as confused as the other two players, slightly disappointed at the loss. Y/N sighed as she rubbed her forehead.

"Sorry not sorry, but this dude really thought he could get away with telling me what to do. I'll make my move when I'm ready, sorry to disappoint you guys." She sighed as she rubbed her neck, ready to hear the disapprovals of her teammate. But what she heard and saw made her smile.

"Nah, it's fine. It can get a tiny bit annoying with Murder yelling in your ear." Tape Dispenser reassured her, with Sleep Deprived's character giving her a thumbs up. Though, the annoyed sigh caught her attention back to him. Her eyebrow twitched. What is it now?

"I'm done with this fucking sappy shit scene. I'm out." Those were Murder's last words before he disconnected, leaving them in an awkward silence before Y/N stifled a giggle.

"I have a feeling that won't be the last time I'm seeing him." Tape Dispenser chuckled while Sleep Deprived's character shook their head, making Y/N softly laugh. After sending friend requests to both people, she bid them both fair well and left.

Y/N turned off her console and tv, putting the controllers on the table near her. She laid down in the comfort of her bed, thinking about her interactions with the people she met. She smiled, closing her eyes and drifting into a dreamless slumber with only one thought in mind. 

King Explosion Murder is such a weird name.

[hale-13]

Zero Days Without Incident

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 20 Prompt - Defiance

The ‘Days Without Incident’ sign in Tony Stark’s private workshop has nothing to do with engineering or science mishaps and all to do with a bet between him and a certain Spiderling.

Words: 1783, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Happy Hogan

TW: Stabbing

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“Peter you have thirty minutes until your curfew,” Karen warned him, already plotting a course home and throwing it up on his HUD.

It was a balmy spring evening and Peter had spent most of his patrol leisurely swinging through Queens or relaxing on a hammock made from his webs. There had been a few petty crimes he had dealt with, some grand theft bicycle, a cat stuck in a tree but, all in all, he couldn’t really complain. He loved being Spider-Man and helping his neighborhood but it was nice to have a slow day sometimes.

A scream sounded in the distance.

“Spoke too soon,” he mumbled, altering his course and picking up speed. “Can you get me directions K?”

“Of course Peter,” Karen answered, as chirpy and happy as normal, re-routing him away from his apartment and toward the sounds of discourse in the distance. When he dropped in on the scene it seemed to be a mugging in progress and Peter rolled his eyes – didn’t people have anything better to do on a random Tuesday in April? God just seriously rethink your life choices.

“I would say its knife to meet you but I’ve definitely used that pun in the last couple weeks and I don’t want to be accused of not being original,” Peter called down, making both the assailant and victim flinch and look up to where he was perched on the wall above them. “Where did even get that thing? The renaissance fair? Who robs people with a full on dagger anyway? Run out of kitchen knives?” Peter quipped, flipping down and pushing the mugger away with a well placed kick to the arm that made the man stumble back.

“This has nothing to do with you bug,” the man snarled, brandishing the weapon at Peter now and making him roll his eyes. “Don’t get in my way and I won’t have to use this on ya.”

“Spiders are arachnids actually, not bugs” Peter pointed out, shooing the stunned woman out of the alley and on her way out of any potential danger. “And how about you not stab anybody today huh? If you promise to behave I won’t web you to the wall and call the police. Sounds like a fair trade right?”

The man snarled at him with irritation. “You talk too much.”

“So I’ve been told,” Peter agreed easily with a nod. “But what do you say? Ready to give up your life of crime for the straight and narrow?”

“No,” the man grumbled and, with literally no warning, lunged forward and stabbed his knife directly into Peter’s gut.

They both stared at each other in stunned silence before Peter processed the pain with a loud ‘fuck!’.

“You motherfucker,” Peter grunted, backing away to lean against the wall, holding the knife still with one hand so as to not dislodge it. “I can’t believe you stabbed me!”

“I thought you would dodge! You always dodge!” The man said, reaching up both hands to dig into his hair. “I stabbed Spider-Man what the fuck!”

“God this is just-,” Peter grumbled using his free arm to fire webbing at the guy and secure him to the nearby dumpster. “I’ve gone three weeks without having to go to the MedBay! Three weeks! All I had to do was last one more and then I got to pick the movie at movie night for the next month! God I can’t believe it! Mr. Stark is going to be so insufferable now!”

“You could just… not tell him?” The man asked hopefully, not even bothering to struggle against the webs and Peter blew out a breath as he sank down to sit on the gritty ground – he was starting to feel a little cold and dizzy from either the blood loss or shock, he couldn’t tell which. Not that it mattered, his fierce anger overshadowed everything.

“Not an option,” Peter grunted, leaning his head back and closing his eyes against the helpful countdown timer Karen had started displaying the second Tony had entered the Iron Man armor and started jetting to him. “He already knows.” Curse the Baby-monitor Protocol! He and Ned would need to remove it again…

“He track you or something?” The man asked questioningly, head quirked to the side in obvious curiosity.

“Or something,” Peter agreed.

“That’s wack man,” he said. “An invasion of privacy. A, uh… violation of your constitutional rights as a free American!”

“Do you honestly think Tony Stark cares about an something as simple as an invasion of privacy? I’m lucky he hasn’t microchipped me yet,” Peter pointed out. Or, at least, he didn’t think Tony had microchipped him. He’d have to check that and remove it post haste if he found something.

“Dude,” knife guy said commiserating and Peter had to fight the eye roll. Of course the person who stabbed him felt remorseful now.

“I know,” Peter agreed, peering down at his side to look at where the knife was embedded into him. He was pretty good around blood as long as it wasn’t his own and, looking at the way his suit was slick and blood was beginning to pool under his thighs in a puddle made Peter lightheaded so he closed his eyes again. “He’s probably going to be pretty pissed at you by the way,” Peter warned. “He has pretty good lawyers so I wouldn’t have high hopes of getting out of this without jail time.”

The man groaned and Peter just shrugged. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time and all that – also don’t stab people and leave them to the ministrations of their helicopter mentors. Same thing really. The sound of repulsers neared and Peter braced himself – he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with this.

“I guess that we can change the ‘Days Without Incident’ sign back to zero eh Spiderling?” Tony teased as he landed in the mouth of the alley, disengaging his suit and walking over to kneel next to Peter. “You were doing so good too – your longest streak ever in fact.”

“Don’t remind me,” Peter hissed as Tony prodded around the wound carefully with a pre-gloved hand. “Can you not touch that?”

“No can do buddy,” Tony said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “Gotta anchor it in so it doesn’t fall out on the ride back. Happy’s on his way to pick us up.”

“Oh great,” Peter groused, letting Tony lean him forward a little so he could start wrapping roll gauze around the knife. “He loves to complain when I get blood on the seats.”

“Only when you get impaled,” Tony said brightly, pulling the gauze tight almost vindictively and making Peter wince. “Wouldn’t want to deprive him now would we?”

“You could just let me bleed out and die here,” Peter suggested seriously. “Since my life is basically over now anyway.

“You’re such a dramatic little shit,” Tony groused, tying off the gauze and levering Peter up off the ground to slump into his side for the extra support. “Now say ‘goodbye’ to your friend, he won’t be seeing the real world for a long, long time,” Tony’s voice had an edge of steel as he said this, dragging Peter to the end of the alley and ignoring the muggers ‘Aw man, c’mon!” as they passed. Peter just shrugged a ‘what can you do?” and wiggled his fingers in a facsimile of a wave as he was pulled away.

Happy, to his credit, was efficient and must have already been in the area because he was quick to pull up with a surly look already cemented onto his face as he surveyed where Peter was leaning into Tony and dribbling blood onto the sidewalk in large, heavy droplets. “I already called the cleaning crew,” he told them through the open window. “They’ll be here before the police to scrub up any possible radioactive DNA.”

“Best forehead of security ever,” Tony crooned lovingly as he carefully situated Peter onto the pile of towels Happy had put into the backseat to soak up the blood and keep it off his leather seats. Happy glared at the both of them in the rearview mirror before rolling up the partition. Tony snorted in undisguised mirth.

“How you feeling kiddie?” He asked as he peeled Peter’s mask from his sweaty face. “Not going to pass out on me again right?”

“Uh…” Peter groaned, squeezing his eyes shut tight to stop the spinning and grey dots that were clouding his vision. “No promises. Sorry.” Tony just let out a put upon sigh like he expected as much and pushed Peter to lay down across the seats, grabbing one of the extra towels to press tightly around the knife and making Peter let out a whining moan at the pressure. “Yeah I might pass out,” he said faintly as his vision started to tunnel.

“Go on then,” Tony said, running a hand through Peter’s damp curls and smoothing them away from his face. “At least you don’t sass me when you’re unconscious.” Peter felt the man lift his legs to slid a few wadded up towels underneath… like that would actually help keep him awake.

“Rude,” Peter grumbled before losing his grip on reality – he trusted Tony to take care of things for now.

——————————————

“I hate this movie,” Peter grumbled groggily, as he pulled himself awake some time later. He was lying in one of the beds in the MedBay, attached to a blood transfusion and with a thick padding of gauze on his abdomen. Tony, seated next to him and munching on popcorn, just sent him a shit eating grin and held up the whiteboard that had been hanging in his workshop displaying ‘Days Without Incident’ with a large 0 written under it in obnoxious red ink.

“This is such bullshit,” Peter said petulantly, picking at the tape holding the IV in place. “I can’t escape! Go watch your garbage movie somewhere else.”

“Excuse me you brat,” Tony said imperiously. “The Breakfast Club is a cult classic thank you very much and besides,” he continued, offering Peter the bowl of popcorn, “someone clearly has to educate you on good movies.”

“I’m going back to sleep,” Peter said, flicking a kernel of popcorn playfully at his mentor (and missing damn – he must be on drugs) and letting his tired eyes slip closed again.

“Sore loser,” he heard Tony tease as he fell asleep and that did it. When he won their next bet they were marathoning the whole Star Wars series from beginning to end, including all of the Clone Wars and the Mandalorian, and he didn’t care what Mr. Stark said.

[nefoe-dd]

SO SMT AU AM I RIGHT GAMERS

I mentioned this in the tags of another post and joked about it in Discord but my brain went brrrr during my last class of the day and now I lowkey have a full plot starting to form lol.

Keep in mind the only Shin Megami Tensei game I’ve played myself is the Nocturne remake, plus I only really remember bits of the plot of 4 and whatever we’ve been given so far of 5 so I’m not super well versed in the series.

Also I’ll add this to the tags too but DSMP Spoilers specifically for the contents of Techno’s Will exist in this post, because that is where the idea for this came from. A lot of other JRPGs have similar plotlines but I specifically thought of SMT because its kind of a meme specifically for that at this point how the plot always seems to have the same type ending bosses. 

Also some spoilers for Shin Megami Tensei IV

ANYWAYS

Now Presenting: An AU where Techno’s Limbo is an SMT Game lol

(Under a ‘Read More’ because it got way ahead of me)

An Introduction to Relevant SMT terminology:

Demons: Makes up a large majority of the characters in the game. They are the enemies that you face in combat, and its possible to recruit them to your team through various means. Some demons exist in the overworld though, and can be talked to normally, they’re chill most of the time, unless you do something to tick them off. ‘Demon’ is not taken literally by the Christian definition, they are based off of various figures in folklore and religion around the world, some are even based on Gods and Angels.

Law vs Chaos: Many SMT games have multiple endings based on these two alignments, along with the neutral alignment. It is usually decided by some important decisions the player makes throughout the game. I’m most aware of the SMT 4 ending, in which the route you are on decides the final dungeon, the character you team with for the ending, and the final boss (its either Satan or the in-game version of God). It’s based off of the traditional interpretation of these two, where Law represents the importance of authority, and Chaos represents the importance of freedom. 

Another note is that a lot of SMT games take place in a post-apocalyptic world of some kind, which, spoiler, is the case here.

General Plot Details and Worldbuilding:

- Techno dies in the prison. The stasis chamber fails and Quackity succeeds in killing him. Permanently. 

- Despite dying, he wakes up again in the main prison cell, but things are different. The lava isn’t blocking the entrance anymore, (in fact there isn’t any lava at all), and he’s alone. Upon peering outside the main cell, he notices a bit of sky peeking through the prison ceiling, like it had been broken into. 

- The drop down to the bottom floor is long, but he’s dead, so he just shrugs and jumps down so he can see what’s going on. Turns out there are several holes in this part of the prison, in fact there are multiple on the ground, likely where the lava had escaped from. (Obviously Minecraft lava specifically doesn’t work like that, I’m pretty sure in the DreamSMP the bottom is all source blocks, but just ignore that bit). 

- He exits from the back wall of the prison, and everything there so far looks normal, except for the fact that there appears to be less trees than normal. Of the trees that are still there, many of them were cut down and never collected, and some appear to have fallen over due to some damage.

- Techno goes around the prison to the front, and that’s when he notices some things that are very wrong. Various parts of the prison, not just the main cell, are also sitting destroyed. Many cracks, scuff marks and full-on chunks are missing on the walls. The usual entrance which houses the nether portal is hardly still standing, and he can see straight into the main lobby where the portal would lead into once you were let through. 

- The surrounding areas are not much better. Tommy’s outpost is toppled over in the distance, only the base and bottom floor are left standing. The tents near the beach are collapsed and destroyed, the only remnants of one of them is a small piece of fabric ripped from the main bit and laying on the ground. Skeppy and Badboyhalo’s mansion is crumbling where it stands, half of the back wall and ceiling are gone. And that’s only what’s visible from here. 

- The rest of the server is also in various states of destruction, the spawn walls are hardly left standing, the main nether portal area is covered in potholes, none of the portals are active. The prime path is rotted and broken in most areas, the buildings along it are not faring much better than the ones he’d seen before. And the further he gets away from the prison, the more the plants themselves appear to be dead or dying. 

- L’manburg’s crater looks much the same as it once did right after its destruction, albeit with more debris at the bottom which had fallen from the sides as they slowly eroded. The flag at the bottom is torn up and discoloured, honestly its hardly recognizable. The nature that had finally begun to reclaim the land has slowly been dying instead over time, and the bridge overtop has completely collapsed. The only thing still standing, is the ever present obsidian grid that looms over it in the sky. He supposes that whatever disaster had caused this wasn’t able to reach that high up, or that it was at least in part done by someone that liked the way it looked. Not that there seems to be a need for the reminder anymore. 

- Something something, he finds out DreamXD is here, and that he might have had something to do with how this world looks. And as much as it shouldn’t matter in the afterlife, he did promise Phil he would be killing God sooooo he goes on a mission to do just that. He can do pretty much anything now that he really doesn’t have to worry about dying, so why not. He has no reason to care about some God, especially when they’re the only ones left.

- Some DSMP people hang around the world and are represented by certain demons, the mostly chill ones that kinda just hang around in the apocalyptic scenery. They don’t recognize him, it isn’t really the people he knows after all, but they are willing to talk to him since they can tell he isn’t human either. He learns little bits of what happened through them, and learns where DreamXD resides, that being one of the strongholds that’s a bit further out. 

- Unfortunately, due to the portals being inactive, and his inability to break anything efficiently, or even at all, he has to travel using the overworld. Along the way he manages to speak to some others, this allows him to better locate where the God is, although it doesn’t seem to be hiding out. He even sees it sometimes flying around, which he uses to follow where its hiding. 

- Some of the random demons he runs into recognize that he’s not supposed to be here (according to them at least), so he has to fight his way through them. Luckily, many of the friendly demons that he talks to end up tagging along in order to help, thus making up a team he can use to get through them instead.

 - There’s probably a demon that seems to resemble Phil somewhere, living alone (alone for so so long) away from everyone in an arctic house perhaps. If I wanted to really up the angst, the demon takes a liking to Techno right away, which is partly how Techno is able to tell its him so quickly. The more they talk, the more Techno realizes how lonely the Phil he knows must be without him there, how upset he’d be once he reads the will and finds out what happened to him. Thus he’s more motivated to, you know, fight God, in an attempt to figure out what the hell happened. (DXD is the only entity existing here that also exists where he’s from, he can guess pretty easily that maybe, just maybe, they are one and the same). Thus, he is given a choice that he knows he will have to make in the future. 

- Eventually he manages to find the stronghold and comes face to face with DreamXD himself. DreamXD is just kinda chillin there, they fight, through DreamXD doesn’t seem to be putting in too much effort, almost like it does not want to win. 

- Techno wins (duh), and he is left with a choice, a choice to finish the job, or spare the god and allow it to go free. And, well, he feels that he doesn’t really have the right to decide whether it lives or dies, and while its possible that DreamXD caused whatever disaster created the current state of the world, but he doesn’t know that for sure. DreamXD has done nothing this whole time he’s been here, and its done nothing to him or his companions.

- He chooses to leave it alone, and DreamXD seems to know that it was always going to end that way. 

- DreamXD disappears, and Techno wakes up in the cell again post-revival, the prison and the world around it is the same as he remembers

(I don’t remember the exact real-world to limbo time difference but I imagine that it felt like, a day, maybe half that, while irl it was only a few minutes to an hour.)

Some other notes/details:

- The other possible ending would have resulted in Techno killing DreamXD and being given ANOTHER choice to take its power over the world, or just leave and stay there forever. Basically DreamXD’s existence is vital to the power of the revival book, and it’s death would have resulted in Dream not being successful in his revival attempts. Obviously we have no idea how the powers actually work yet, but I just came up with an explanation because I thought it would be interesting. You can decide on your own which of these endings fall into Law, Chaos or Neutral because uh, its complicated given the scenario. You can also decide if letting DreamXD live even fits into his character! Idk! But its not like DreamXD’s being oppressive by any means, not that there’s anyone to oppress here anyways. That’s my logic anyways.

- I don’t know what demons would represent specific people, I’d like to use one of the Angels for Phil but the Demons based on Angels usually have an important role in the plot that is in line with the Law alignment and like, protecting god or whatever, so no. There are a couple bird ones but idk if they fit the vibe, idk it could work, I’d have to look at a list if I want to go into this further.

- I kinda want Eret to be an Inugami because it’s body does that thing that ferret’s do when they’re all stretched out :) The only reason I’m hesitant is because Inugami is a dog, and Goose deserves representation.

- The reason I imagined for why Techno can’t break anything is because the mining fatigue lasted throughout this because he died with it, it’d get in the way of fighting too but at least it isn’t weakness, and he’s not alone either.

Uhhhhh that’s it for now I think!

(will potentially add to this if I figure something else out in the future)

[joshslater]

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I would normally be able to roughly keep track of time by how thirsty I was. Master didn't usually tie me up, but there had been many scenes planned by others that had kept me in different kinds of bondage for many hours. This was different on a whole new level. The penis gag kept leaking small amounts of something not quite water. It was the same viscosity, but it tasted more like cum. Perhaps diluted cum, but that wouldn't taste as much as this did, I would guess. It would slowly drip from the end of the rubber dick, back in the mouth where you could easily accidentally inhale it instead. And since you are gagged you can only cough out the liquid through your nose. You quickly learn you can suck it and get a full shot at once, and then nothing for like a few minutes until it starts to trickle again. Makes it bearable, but keeps you awake. I'm getting off-topic I guess. I'm exhausted. I would think that's understandable as this has been by far my longest session, days possibly. I have no way to tell.

This isn't the first time they've changed something or moved my position, but this is the first time they are letting me walk. What a sight that must have been. I could feel them remove the restraints and the other things, one by one. All except the gag, the hood, and the chastity cage. God, that cage has probably been worse than any of the other stuff they did. I have no idea what nasty stuff they smeared on my dick, but I would happily fuck a tube of bengay instead any time. After they smeared the dick in whatever that was they slipped on the tight cage, the kind the also go up the urethra. I've been caged before many times, but pretty soon it just sits there, keeping you horny and impotent. But this shit, it acted as viagra gel, constantly keeping my dick struggling to break free. I can feel it's still trying. But I'm rambling again I guess.

It's the mental version of what pathetic spasms I do when they help me up to walk once the bondages were off. There are at least two of them I can feel, one on each side helping me up, and supporting my steps forward. I feel my mobility is getting back, though we are slowly going somewhere. I can't see where though, for the black sock or whatever covering my head. We are indoors, but it is a bit chilly. That might just be me being naked and suddenly have a blood flow. The floor feels like concrete, I think. Hard and cold.

We walk pretty far, only turning once, and the sound I hear sounds like echoes of a corridor. We turn right and walk into a new room. I can hear more people here, though no one is speaking. After a few turns my guides stop me and something is rolled towards me from behind. I can hear them fiddle with something, then they grab me again, and one of them tells me to sit down slowly. They still hold me, guiding me to whatever I'm supposed to sit on. I suddenly feel a blunt point going up between my ass cheeks. Another butt plug or similar. I slowly lower myself onto it. It is well lubed, and I have had far bigger things up my ass just in the last hour, so I manage to impale myself easily and sit myself down on the modified office chair. It might not be a very thick plug, but it goes deep. Hands grab booth my ankles and pull them backward on either side of the central pole below the seat and I can feel them being secured in some sort of padded, stiff shackles mounted below the seat. Finally I hear a wheel on the side of the chair being turned quickly. I feel the butt plug slowly expanding in my ass, forcing me to sit more and more upright. Certainly more than what I would have liked with the legs folded back the way they are. Then they leave.

I'm more or less naked, secured to a chair, but my arms are free for the first time in I don't know how long. I had cuffs on while master took me to this place. I'm fighting the urge to stretch my arms. I don't know what this is, but if it is a test, I want to succeed. I suppose I could remove my face sock in one quick motion, but that would definitely be a fail. I don't think I want to touch my dick. As painful as it is right now, I don't think it will be any better if I mess with it. Nothing will improve, and then someone will see it and punish me. Who are the other people in this room? I can hear breathing. Are they spectators, or are they secured to furniture like me?

This is worse. When you are tied up you are helpless. You can test the strength of your bondage, but they have so far been rated far above what I can muster in strength. But here you are just sitting almost free, with no idea what to do with your arms. Just waiting, listening, and sucking rubber dick. How is it still feeding liquid by the way? I try to lean back, to see if there is a backrest to the chair, but the buttplug makes it impossible to lean that far back. I know it isn't possible, but it feels like the plug is reaching all the way up to my lungs. Or is it possible?

There's a distant sound getting closer. Several steps getting closer and closer. Once they get into the room, somewhere to my right, I hear them walk to a spot just next to me. Then the same rolling sounds, and the same voice telling the person next to me to sit down slowly. I guess the other people in this room are in the same situation as I am.

They complete the same procedure as was done to me, best I can determine from the sounds. Then they leave, and it's all calm and silent again. You would think I would be used to that by now, after having master tell me to sit somewhere and wait, only to be gone for hours. He doesn't allow me to watch TV or read books, so all I have is to think about what has happened recently, what I'm feeling right now, and on the rare occasion what was long ago. That's on purpose of course, so my thoughts center on master, myself and nothing else, but I can't help thinking like something has been taken from me. Thoughts I might have had.

Footsteps again, lots of them. How long was it since they left us? I tried to keep count of how many times I suck the gag dry, but gave up when I came to about eighty for the third time. I think it was the third time. They don't talk. Their steps all sound the same. It must be at least four of them.

I'm completely unprepared when someone behind me pulls the sock off my head and the light of the room burns my eyes. I haven't seen any light since master put a gym bag over my head, however many days ago. The entire wall on the left is windows. This is a run-down classroom, almost stripped bare. The green blackboard is still on the wall in front of me, and on the small elevation where once a teacher's desk stood a man is standing. There is a desk in front of me, out of reach, with some papers and a pen neatly placed on top of it. There's a line of desks. I look to my sides and see five other naked men locked to modified office chairs. All have a gag secured around their head, with a transparent plastic tube attached to the gag in one end, and a drip bag hanging on an IV stand next to them. This isn't just a weekend at one of master's friend's home.

The man in front of us simply stands still, observing us. Handsome, muscular, short hair, black boots, blue jeans, and white T-shirt. Once bored with our puzzled looks he starts to speak to us.

"Congratulations. Your master has decided to improve you to better serve him. I don't know your master, or what he has done to you before, but I'm pretty sure this next part of your life is going to be your toughest so far. I'm not going to tell you how long this training program is. I'm not going to tell you what you will learn and unlearn. I'm not going to tell you what alterations will be made to your body. But I am telling you that your master knows the answer to these questions, and have handed over you and a sizeable amount of money to implement these changes."

He makes a sweeping gesture in our direction.

"These are your classmates. You will never learn their names, should they still have any." He made a crooked smile. "Though I guess you will be very familiar with what each and every one of them smells and tastes like. While the majority of the program here is the same for all of you, there are some customizations that are unique to you, as per your master's wishes. Parts of the program have already started. No doubt you have reflected on the uncomfortable feeling in your dick and balls. As you know all too well the point of a chastity device is not only to control when you get hard, but also to create an ever-present low hum of horniness, so you are always ready to please. A side effect, though some see it as a bonus, is the ever-shrinking dick size after prolonged wearing."

I wasn't sure what the rules were, but one of my hands sought its way down to touch my cage. I got a wave of dull ache in response. The man's eyes shifted to me, but he showed no change in expression and continued to talk uninterrupted.

"The process you have all started will rapidly accelerate this, both in terms of horniness and dick shrinkage. When you leave here you'll have not much more than a circumcised dick head rubbing against your panties, leaking precum, and keeping you horny. You won't need a dick cage. You'll be unable to play with your dick anyway without a vibrator."

Suddenly someone behind me pushes the chair forward, stopping just behind the small desk. Everyone else has been moved forward as well.

"In front of you is a contract waiving any rights and objections you might have to this education and to any modifications done to you. Nothing done so far is irreversible, but once you graduate we will have done our utmost to make it impossible for you to go back to a normal life. We're talking permanent physiological changes. You think it is water you're sipping on?"

He made a pause, letting it all sink in. I love my master, and this past year with him has been lovely, but is it all I want out of life. What does he mean by physiological changes? Can you actually develop a dependency for sucking dick? Is that what he means?

There is a spray of mist coming out of the man to my right. Sounds like he tried to not swallow any more of the liquid after what he just heard. He makes horrible noises while he recovers. No one moves an inch towards him to help him.

"Read the contract if you want. Put your initials on every page. Sign the last page."

[petersasteria]

Younger (IV) - Peter Parker

Pairing: Peter x Reader

Back at it again with a theme

Inspired by: Younger by Ruel

PP Masterlist || Younger (I) || Younger (II) || Younger (III)

I’m so sorry for it being overdue, but I hope 1.3k words can make up for it.

* * * *

"I saw you just the other night

I didn't even recognize you Find it kinda strange, I guess that people change But I didn't expect you to"

The effects of The Blip really took a toll on Peter. He just wasn't the same anymore and he was shutting you out all the time even though you've been dating for about two years now. Before you knew it, he was moving on without you. You started to notice the little changes Peter made.

He would look at MJ a lot more and he started paying attention to her more too. This obviously upset you and the fact that MJ would do the same whenever Peter wasn't looking, upset you even more. You talked to Peter about it, but he said that you were just crazy. It made you sad, but you decided not to talk about it anymore so that you wouldn't upset Peter.

You also noticed that MJ was beginning to talk to Peter a lot more than usual. There was nothing wrong with that, but it was just so unlike her.

When the trip to Europe came around, you were really excited. You thought that it would be romantic for you and Peter to just relax around and maybe have some gelato or something. That would be a fail, though because the whole Mysterio thing happened and whenever he was free, he'd spend it with Ned or MJ. He seemed to forget that you existed because he was surprised when you knocked on his hotel room after the whole thing.

When you got back in New York, Peter started to become really really distant. He texts and calls you less and he would turn you down whenever you’d ask if he wanted to hang out. When your third anniversary came around, he was a no show even though you constantly texted him about it. He wouldn’t reply, but he’d leave you on read. So, he knew what your plans were.

He showed up at your apartment that night and he just broke up with you. He wasn’t there to say sorry for missing your anniversary. He was just there to break up with you with no explanation whatsoever..

“I’m so sorry, Y/N. It’s just not working out anymore.” Peter said.

“Are you seriously breaking up with me today?” You asked in disbelief and he just shrugged. You rolled your eyes and said, “It’s our anniversary, Peter.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’. Get out of my apartment. Have a nice life, Parker.” You said angrily. Peter walked himself out and closed the door. You couldn’t believe that after three years of being together, he would throw it away for reasons you don’t know.

When school started, you wanted a fresh start. If you were being honest, you didn’t have any friends. You only had friends because Peter was your boyfriend and he already had Ned. And as much as you wanted to say ‘hi’ to Ned, you knew he would just avoid you because his loyalty stood with Peter which you completely understood.

You didn’t have anywhere to sit during lunch time, so you just sat on your own outside by the bleachers. As you were staring at the cheerleaders while you were eating, you began to think about the things you’ve always wanted to change during this fresh start of yours. Your family was well off, so cleared out your closet when you got home on Friday and went on a major shopping spree to buy new things for yourself: new clothes, skin care products, a little bit of makeup, new bags, a few accessories and even a new phone case. You also got a new haircut which you absolutely loved.

When you arrived at school on Monday with your completely new look, everyone stared at you in awe when you walked along the halls of school.

“Dude, is that Y/N?” Ned nudged Peter. He glanced at you and he had to look at you for a while because he wasn’t sure if it was you or not. Sure enough, it really was you.

“Yeah, it’s her.” Peter said in shock.

“She has a whole new look.” Ned said. “I like it, though! She looks great!”

“Yeah, she does.” Peter said softly.

During lunch time, you were on your way out to sit on the bleachers when one of the popular kids invited you to sit on their table. You smiled and immediately agreed. You learned about typical high school gossip and you learned about which skirt looks good with a particular top. You knew that those people were only hanging out with you because of your new style, but it felt good to hang out with a new group. It’s a new school year and you deserved to start new. Peter did the same, anyway.

A few months later, your eighteenth birthday came and you invited all the seniors to your summer house. Since you invited all seniors, Peter, Ned, and MJ went. Ned got you a present and you gave him a tight hug because you missed him. After that, Peter never got to give you your present because you were dragged by your new friend somewhere.

Peter didn’t see you the rest of the night, but that changed when he saw some guy trying to kiss your neck even though you tried to push him away. You were grateful for Peter because he saved you from it and it was awkward between you after that.

“Um, happy birthday.” Peter said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Thanks.” You said shortly. “And thanks again for saving me back there. If you weren’t there, something might’ve happened and yeah. Just- thanks.”

“Yeah, s’no problem. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something were to happen to you. I mean, I already witnessed it, y’know? If I didn’t save you and something bad happened to you, I wouldn’t forgive myself.” Peter said.

“Yeah, well I’m okay now. Thanks again.”

“So, new clothes?” Peter said, making small talk. “What happened to your old ones? You don’t seem to be wearing them anymore.”

“Oh, that’s because I donated them. I figured I should start fresh. It’s our last year of high school and I haven’t done anything. So, I started fresh. New school year, new me.”

“Yeah, I didn’t recognize you.” Peter said softly. “It’s like the old Y/N’s gone. I kinda miss the old you.”

“Well, she was dying when you started shutting her out and when you broke up with her, she was pronounced dead. You don’t get to miss the old me because you left the old me with no explanation. Besides, I’ve learned to accept that you most likely left me for MJ. I understand and while I’m still bitter, I can be civil.” You said coldly.

“I just didn’t expect you to change. You were still welcome to sit with us, but you sat on your own. No one kicked you out, you let yourself out. You didn’t have to change your whole look or whatever because you’re still our friend and we like you for you. Now all you have are these fake people who like you because of how you dress yourself and because you’re rich.” 

“That’s part of the change, Parker. Deal with it.” You said calmly even though you were pissed at him for talking to you that way. How dare he? “Help yourself to some food and drinks. I have to go to my friends now.”

“Y/N, I’m still your friend.” Peter sighed. “And we’ll always be friends. I don’t understand why our friendship has to end just because I broke up with you.”

“Like I said, deal with it. I have to go and find my friends. I’m sure MJ’s looking for you. Good night, Parker.” You said curtly before leaving him standing alone.

* * * *

𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @blueleatherbag​ @harryismysunflower​ @buckys-little-hoe​ @sandystoriess​ @heeeyitskay​ @slytherin-chaser​ @quaksonhehe​ @yaya4302​ @lil-mellow-bunbun​ @starlight-starks​ @swiftmind​ @alexx-stancati​ @sovereignparker​ @nerdyandproudofitsstuff​ @pearce14​ @cherthegoddess​ @chewymoustachio​ @cocoamoonmalfoy​ @parkerlovebot​ @supred12​ @peterspidey​ @givebuckyhisplumsnow​ @beverlythrillz​ @slutforsr​ 

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓:  @marvelousell @justasmisunderstoodasloki @rubberducky-jrr @allyz @osterfieldnholland @miraclesoflove @god-knows-what-am-i-doing @drie-the-derp @hollands-weasley @itstaskeen  @call-me-baby-gir1 @the-panwitch @iamaunicorn4704 @geminiparkers @holland-styles @calltothewild @fancyxparker @herbatkazmiloscia @whatthefuckimbisexual @justanothermarvelmaniac @unsaidholland @musicalkeys @lost-in-the-stars03 @hufflepuffprincess24 @hollanddolanfangirl @parkerpeter24 @bellelittleoff @agentnataliahofferson @aqiise @lexirv @blairscott @hi-im-maddie @xfirstfemale-marauderx @u-rrose @speedymaximoff

[padme-parker]

Collide / Chapter 2

[a Star Wars x Avengers crossover]

summary: You get interrogated by the Jedi Council and some calls home are made.

word count: 3,700+

warnings: my shitty writing, a few curse words, plot holes

A/N: I might’ve forgotten to edit some things out lol my bad, also this chapter is really messy but I will come back to fix it once I get the hang of writing for a series

Song(s) of the chapter: Creep by Radiohead, Home with you by FKA Twigs, and Softly by Clairo.

read chapter one here

“Is it alright to feel this way so early? And in my blood, all the sweet nothings fallin' in love overnight” -Softly by Clairo

Anakin was walking amongst the halls with Master Obi-wan and Master Yoda when he felt it, a disturbance in the force. Obi-wan turned to him, “Do you feel it too?” Anakin had merely nodded before taking out his holo device, bringing up a map of the Jedi Temple. His eyes quickly scanned it before finding something out of place, “Look, it’s an unrecognized heat signature in the lower levels of the temple.” Of all the years he’d been living in the temple, he had never visited the lower levels. He knew of its existence and that only certain Jedi, like Master Yoda, could enter. However, he never understood why it was forbidden to enter.

“Master Yoda, what should we do?”

“Go down, you must. Alert the others, I will.” He gave Master Yoda a nod before taking off with Obi-wan. Using the holo map to guide him, he found himself in front of a large steel door. He placed his hand on the door, seeing if it’d budge, but it didn’t move an inch. Beckoning forth the force within him, he imagined the door opening. A warmth that spread from his heart to the tips of his finger, encompassing his entire being until he felt the door shift. Pushing the door open, he put away his holo device, his lightsaber now in his grasp.

“They’re close Master, I can feel it.” Obi-wan took the lead, using the force to guide him to the person they were looking for. It didn’t take the two very long to find them, well more like her. Anakin took notice as to how she was gripping onto the wall for dear life. With her back to them, he couldn’t see her face. Only the outline of her figure, clad in all black. Who are you?

Obi-wan ignited his saber, Anakin following. “Stop right there! Turn around and face us sith!” Oh, so apparently I’m a sith now. Anakin furrowed his eyebrows, why could he hear her thoughts? His ears picked up on the approaching footsteps, as he felt the other Jedi enter the room, his shoulders slightly tensing.

The girl raised her arms slowly, showing defeat. Turning around, his eyes immediately found hers. He watched as her eyes moved across the room until they landed on his. He let his eyes widen for a fraction of a second, before composing himself. He realizes that he’s seen her before, in his dreams. The ones where her beauty overtook him, and they’d spend their time together in the meadows. When he dreamt about her, he felt at peace. He felt whole. Even after waking up, only to find Padme at his side, he could still feel her lingering touch. He had always wondered why the force was showing him visions of her, of their future together. Now, he knew why. He felt a tug in his chest, the force insisting that he move closer. To take you in his embrace and never let go.

He watched as you blinked, licking your lips before uttering his name. He watched as your knees buckled, sending you to the floor. He watched as your eyes shut, your body going limp.

It’s you.

He was angry at the force. Why would they send him to you, after he had gotten married to the love of his life. The force had also shown him visions of Padme and him, their life together. He knew it was one full of joy and happiness, the force assured him of that.

“Anakin? Anakin, I asked you a question,” He was broken out of his reverie by Obi-wan, “Do you know that girl?”

“No, I don’t know her.”

-

Anakin found himself in your room, the steady beeping of the machine was beginning to frustrate him. He needed you to wake, he needed to know why you were here, in this exact moment. Why not earlier? Before he had fallen in love with Padme? He wasn’t sure, all he knew was that he couldn’t leave Padme, especially now that she was carrying his child.

He walked closer to your bed, before sitting on the edge of it. He observed your face, she looks the same. She even smelt the same, like a meadow of flowers with a hint of something fruity. He took his time to observe you, not knowing if he’d ever see you again. What was the Jedi Counsel going to do to you? He gently brushed a lock of hair out of your face, tucking it behind your ear. Brushing his knuckles softly over your cheeks, he was interrupted by his holo device pinging. Signaling that he was needed elsewhere. He didn’t want to leave your side, but he has a life to get back to. He looked at you one last time before swiftly turning away, leaving you alone once more.

-

A few hours later, you regained consciousness. Sound was the first sense that came back to you, and all you could hear was the stupid beeping of the machine. The next sense that came was sight. Your eyes scanned around the room, noticing the IV that was hooked onto you, along with the heart rate monitor attached to your index finger. Using your free hand, you ripped off the monitor and IV, the beeping of the machine stopped, only to be replaced by a flatline sound. Oh my stars, does this thing ever shut up. Before you could make it to the door, it flew open. Obi-wan, Anakin, and Master Yoda walked in.

“Where do you think you’re going, sith.” Obi-wan asked.

You titled you head to the side, “What makes you think I’m a sith?”

“What other force user would be able to cunningly sneak into the temple unnoticed?” Although his face was completely serious, his voice held a sarcastic tone. “Besides, who wears all black in a Jedi temple?” You gave him a pointed look.

“Uh, Anakin. Duh.” Turning to face Anakin, you also gave him a pointed look. Both brows furrowed as you called him out.

“And exactly how do you know Anakin?” Right, you forgot that they were going to question you. Luckily for you, Fury had gone over the plan with you a couple of times, so you knew what to do.

“I’ll tell you, only if you bring me to the Jedi council.”

-

Standing in front of the council was more intimidating than you thought. Especially when your eyes landed on Master Windu’s. You couldn’t tell who was scarier, Fury or Windu. As intimidated as you were, you were also amazed. Gazing through the windows, you could see the flying shuttles and speeders, something Earth certainly didn’t have.

“Right Miss…” There was a pause, they waited for you to say your name.

Remember, no real names. Why? ‘Cause Fury said so, “Alyra.”

“Just Alyra? No last name?” Obi-wan questioned

“Yep,” the pop of your ‘p’ echoed throughout the silent room, “Just Alyra. No middle or last name. Mysterious right?” You said, wiggling your eyebrows, trying to lighten the mood. When no one laughed or cracked a slight smile, you gave them a tight smile. Right, the Jedi don’t like having fun.

“So Miss Alyra, please do tell us why you’re here.” Fu- Master Windu’s voice booms, showing that he isn’t in the mood for jokes.

-

“It’s extremely vital that you explain to the Jedi Council the reasoning for your arrival. And I don’t care how much you admire that Anakin Skywalker, don’t do anything that will forever alter their timeline. We need him to turn, because we need the Death Star.”

“So, you want me to watch and do nothing as Anakin suffers? Absolutely nothing. Also, how the hell am I supposed to acquire the Death Star?”

“Correct, I trust that you can do that. Right, agent L/N? As for the Death Star, just make sure you get close to Skywalker, close enough that he won’t kill you when he turns, but not too close.” You assumed Fury hadn’t watched any of the prequels because Anakin killed and pushed away literally everyone who was close to him.

You swallowed before swiftly nodding, “right.” you replied. Your mouth had gotten dry all of a sudden. You’d be damned if Fury thought you weren’t going to do anything to help Anakin. You couldn’t imagine yourself holding the knowledge of their future, Anakin’s future, and not doing anything to help. You didn’t know what you were going to do, but you sure as hell knew that you weren’t going to sit around idly. Something had to change.

-

How were you supposed to explain to the Council that billions of lives were being threatened, and that the only way to save them was through a weapon that doesn’t exist yet. On top of that, it was a weapon created by the empire. There was no way Fury’s plan was going to work without questions arising, so you created a plan of your own. Of course one that Fury would approve of.

“I’m here because not only is my planet being threatened, but so is yours, and every other planet in this universe. The only way to stop it from happening is if you train me.”

“Before we can even decide on if we should train you or not, please do tell us, how did you find out about our existence.” Taking a deep breath, you composed yourself before telling them the story.

“Long ago, there was a Jedi named George Lucas.” You glanced at Master Yoda, noticing his eyes light up as he remembered him. “He was a powerful Jedi, gifted with foresight. Almost always, his visions came true. One night, he dreamt of the destruction of Coruscant and it’s people. At the time, he didn’t know that it didn’t only affect Coruscant, but the whole universe. Scared of being caught in the destruction, he warned his friends, Jedi or not. Together they fled using the bridge, coming to my home planet. There, they started their new lives. George Lucas then created comics and movies to serve as a reminder to himself and his friends of their home. He did his best to replicate Coruscant, but I must say, it’s more beautiful in person.” I can’t wait to see Naboo though. You smiled, a frown soon emerging. This means that I can never tell Anakin of his future, not even a little. They wouldn’t believe me.

You cleared your throat before speaking again, “If that’s all, I’d like to go for a walk.” You waited for one of the Jedi to reply.

“Alright, you have 30 minutes. We expect you to be back once those 30 minutes are over. In the meantime, we will be discussing your stay here.” Master Windu said, waving his hand to dismiss you.

Quickly walking out of the room, you began to wander around aimlessly. You took in your surroundings, admiring the new environment. Who knows, you were probably going to hate it as time passed. The vibration coming from your chest startled you, picking up the necklace you pressed the button. A hologram of Director Fury and Mr. Stark came up.

“Hey kid, how are you holding up in there?”

“Well, I think I’ve got everything under control. I’ve told them about the mission,” well not really, “So far, everything is going as planned.”

“Alright agent L/N, if that is all, I’ll be ending the call no-”

“Wait, wait, wait! Can I speak to Peter, pretty puhhhleasee! Come on Fury, you owe me this.” You watched as Fury rolled his eyes and huffed out a fine, soon after Peter came into frame. “O. M. G. Peter you’ll never guess where I am.” You panned the device around the hall, showing off the Jedi Temple.

“Holy crap! You're in the freaking Jedi Temple. That’s so cool!” You heard feet shuffling behind you, “Hey, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll call you later Peter. See ya!” You shut off the device before a voice was heard behind you.

“Were you talking to someone?” Anakin’s voice rang out from behind you, turning around you found him resting against a pillar, looking casual as ever.

“Yes I was, Mr. Skywalker. However, that information doesn’t concern your prying ears.” you smirked.

“And that is where you are wrong Miss Alyra. You see it does in fact concern me, do you think the Jedi Council knows of this device.” He strided up to you, gently grasping your necklace. You were able to get a good whiff of his scent, he smelt like strawberries and cinnamon. It was a peculiar combination but it worked together. Honestly, that was probably the most attractive thing about him, besides his face. You could stare at it all day. There was just something so mesmerizing about his face, it demanded your attention.

“Why are you staring at my face?” He asked

“Hmm, oh nothing. I just thought I’d never see you in real life.”

“Real life? What do you mean in real life?” His brows furrowed, making the scar on his face more prominent. Shit, not even a day in Coruscant and you had already blown your cover, “Have you,” He inhales deeply before continuing, “Have you seen me in your dreams too?”

Wait, what? Sure, maybe you had a sexual dream about him every once in a while, but you didn’t expect him to dream about you too. “Umm, yes…?” It’s too late to stick to the original plan now.

“So, you’ve seen it then? Visions of us, in the meadow?”

“Yes, I was… unaware that you were having these dreams too. I thought I was going crazy.” Maybe you are.

“Well, we’ve only known each other for a short period of time, so it wouldn’t be plausible for you to know. However, I do suggest we talk about this tomorrow. I’m afraid we have to get back to the council now.” He motioned for you to go first, following closely behind you. The two of you walked in a comfortable silence until the doors of the Council came into view.

“Well, here goes nothing.”

-

“The Jedi Council has come to the decision that we will train you,” You let out a breath, “But you need to tell us of the threat first.”

“In my system, there is a moon filled with powerful beings. Their greediness and selfishness will ultimately lead to their demise. There was a famine, the poor and weak struggled the most, while the strong thrived for a short amount of time. However, once the food was all gone, everyone perished. Except for one. His name is Thanos. Struck with grief, he sought after power. Enough power to eliminate half of the universe. He…. He wants to spare us the grief of losing our loved ones to selfishness, but fails to realize how much anguish we will be in if half of the universe just disappears. That’s why we need your help. Without your knowledge and technology, we wouldn’t be able to save the universe. But once my training is over, I will need others to help me.” There was a pause, you let the words sink in before speaking again, “Like I said, they are powerful beings. But even they cannot survive a famine. The only reason Thanos survived was because he was exiled. An acquaintance of mine saw this, through a vision. So it hasn’t happened yet, but it will soon. So the sooner I can get trained, the better. But I will need others to train with me too. I cannot take down a titan alone.”

“It’s settled then, Kenobi and Skywalker, you will train alongside Alyra to help her. We will send more Jedi if needed.” After Master Windu dismissed the council, Obi-wan came up to you to formally introduce himself. Of course, he didn’t need to, you had already known who everyone was. But for the sake of the plan, you had to act like you didn’t.

“Hello there! I am Obi-wan Kenobi. I’d like to apologize for my behaviour earlier.”

“Oh, there’s no need to apologize. But thanks I guess.”

“I assume no one has shown you to your quarters yet?” You nod, “Let me show you the way then.”

Anakin watched as the two of you left, a gentle laugh escaping your lips. Although Obi-wan’s hands were clasped behind his back, Anakin didn’t like the way he was so close to you. The furrow of his brows were noticeable as he felt the jealousy grow in him. Snap out of it, you just met her. He took big strides in order to catch up to the two of you.

“Hey! Wait up.” Hearing Anakin's voice made the two of you stop in your tracks. “Where are you two heading?”

“I was just going to take Miss Alyra to her quarters. Anyhow, since your quarters seem to be closer to hers, I think you should take her instead.” Obi-wan stated, giving Anakin the information he needed before leaving.

“Well, it looks like your room is right across from mine.” He began to lead the way, taking smaller steps to make sure you kept up.

“Tell me Anakin, what’s it like living on Coruscant?” You’d been curious, life as an avenger was grueling, although you did travel many places for missions, it was never for leisure. Living in New York for most of your life, you lacked knowledge about culture and life in general outside of America. So being in a new environment like Coruscant was quite exciting to you, but it was also scary. Give or take a few Jedi, some senators, and siths; you barely knew anyone.

“Well, I’m not gonna say I love it, because I don’t. But Coruscant does have its perks. There are many different cultures here, you’ll never get tired of it. Plus there’s no sand here, I fucking hate sand. It just-”

“-gets everywhere. Yeah I don’t like sand either. There’s a lot of branches and broken shells in it, making it hard to walk on.” You finished his sentence for him. Not realizing what you said before it was already out of your mouth, you gave him a sheepish smile. Anakin gave you a smile in return.

As your quarters came into view, Anakin grew nervous. He didn’t want the conversation to end, “About tomorrow, how about I pick you up for some breakfast, then we can explore the lower levels of Coruscant while you tell me about your home?”

You looked to the floor, biting your lip to keep you from smiling like an idiot, “Yeah, I’d really like that.” you continued to stare at the floor as you felt your cheeks heat up. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Anakin.” Finally meeting his gaze, you gave him a small smile.

“Sweet dreams, Alyra.” You watched as Anakin disappeared into his room before entering yours. Truth be told, you weren’t expecting much from the Jedi. The room was moderately decorated, only containing necessities. The bed itself looked like a bag of rocks, but was surprisingly comfortable. Going into the refresher, you were delighted to find that it wasn’t some outdated 90’s looking bathroom, but a more modern one. There was a single sink, along with some counter space where you could put your toiletries. A circular mirror was hanging above the sink, giving the bathroom some style. Everything in the bathroom had been so monotone, the same shade of white. Except the shower curtain, which was a very light gray.

Walking out of the bathroom, you noticed a door which presumably led to your closet. In it you found Jedi robes already hanging, there was also some sleep wear too. The robe itself was black, just like Anakins. However your clothing had been variations of white and gray. What a weird combination for a Jedi. It felt weird to be calling yourself a Jedi, it just didn’t feel right.

You decided to take a quick shower before calling Peter again. Turning on the shower, you watched as the water fell from the shower head attached to the ceiling. To your disbelief, the water was already hot when you jumped in. You thought it would’ve taken a while for it to warm up or that the Jedi absolutely loved taking cold showers. They hadn’t given you any shampoo or body wash, so you just let the hot water do its magic. I should probably tell Ani that I need some tomorrow while we're in the lower levels. Stepping out, you hastily dried yourself before putting on your night clothes.

Sitting on the bed, you took off your necklace. Pressing the button to turn on the device, you scrolled through the hologram screen until Peter’s name came up. Clicking on his name, you waited for it to connect. After a couple of seconds waiting, the video connected.

“Y/N!” He said eagerly

“Hi Peter! How are you? It feels like ages since I last saw you.” It had been only mere hours since you had left, while for you it’d been almost two days.

“Honestly things have been...okay. It’s just not the same without you around y’know?” You could hear the hesitation in his voice, as if he was hiding something.

“What do you mean okay? What happened?”

“I meant to tell you this before you left, but everything happened so quickly, and then you were gone before I knew it.” He pauses, taking a deep breath, “Umm…. MJ and I broke up.”

“What, why? Peter what happened?” Before he could answer, the hologram disappeared and the call ended. You tried to call him back but the call wouldn’t go through. Giving up, you let out a sigh. It’s probably for the best, I need to get some sleep.

Crawling into the covers, you situated yourself before finding a comfortable position. Thoughts of Peter and Mj lingered throughout your mind as you tried to fall asleep. You decided not to think about them for the rest of the night, and instead think of your day tomorrow with Anakin. Soon your breathing slowed down, a smile could be seen on your lips as you fell asleep.

-

somewhere in the Star Wars galaxy

Darth Sidious sits on his throne, hood pulled up to hide his face. He too, felt the disturbance in the force. Reaching into the force, he sought to find the person responsible for the disturbance. Quickly finding his answer, he lets out a vicious cackle.

so, the last of the Andarae bloodline has returned.

--

read ch 3 here

[loudsuitlover]

Doctor Harry IV Dulce introducción al caos

A/N: This is pretty much a story. Like a real one. And there are more than two characters and I love them all and I’m excited about this. Thank you to everyone who reads my shit. You’re great. 

Part I Part II Part III

INDIE’S POV

I have avoided Harry today. That’s so silly, I know; because he probably didn’t give the other night much relevance. I mean we just had a pizza, well he did, and I threw up. I threw up a lot; but he’s a doctor, he’s used to seeing people throwing up every day and I’ve had pizza with professor Gibbins before; that day I stayed with him for practice after lunch. But for some reason, after he saw me like that, it’s embarrassing for me to encounter him.

I just had to come over for the clinical session before their day starts because I have class afterwards anyway and Harry’s not here so I reckon I won’t see him today. Maybe I don’t ever have to see him again so I can’t stop this stupid desire I have for him. It’s pathetic really but he’s just so attractive. I mean I know he is, not just for me, because I’ve seen the way girls look at him and I know Olivia would gladly take off her undies if he wanted to take her to bed. Jason’s name appears on my screen after I go out of the clinical session.

“Hey, J.”

“Hi.”

We haven’t talked directly since last Friday when I was a jerk to him. He’s talked on the group chat so I know he’s been alright but the fact that he’s calling me is a good sign. I thought he was mad at me. I know he doesn’t like it when I talk about David like that, but I also think someone has to say something. I worry about him and I only tell him because I love him and I don’t want anyone to hurt him.

“Are you busy?” He asks.

“I just came out of the clinical session we have to attend to.”

“Right.” I hear him breathe in. “Was Harry there?”

“No, he wasn’t.”

There’s a pause and I bet he’s nodding.

“Well, how are you?”

“I’m good. I wasn’t calling you for this.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“I should be.” He sighs. No, he shouldn’t. “But I’m fed up with getting mad at you for the exact same thing every single time. You have your opinion and I think you’re a meddlesome but I know you mean well.”

I choose not to answer to that because I know we’re unable of discussing that without fighting and I don’t feel like confronting him at eight thirty in the morning.

“I was just calling to tell you I can’t go to your Mum’s exhibition.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I forgot I had promised David I was going to go with him to his hometown.”

“That’s in two weeks.” I tell him. “Can’t you go to his hometown any other weekend?”

“Well, no, we’ve already talked to his family… You don’t mind, right?”

I’m tired of David’s shit. He probably organize the whole thing so that Jason couldn’t hang out with us especially if he was going to “dangerous territory” because he knows it was my mum’s exhibition. I’m beyond mad. I start walking outside and bump into Harry whose eyebrows raised as he looks at me. I’m about to walk away when Mr Gibbins stops me and tells me to wait for him before he disappears inside his office. I talk to Jason under Harry’s attentive stare.

“What do you mean I don’t mind? Of course I mind! You barely hang out with us anymore and that was going to be a special night. You know it means a lot to me that you guys are there.”

He sighs.

“I’m very sorry, Indie. I just can’t cancel on my family-in-law. I’d go if it was any other weekend but…”

I can hear the regret on his voice and that’s what drives me crazy. He wants to come it’s just fucking David.

“You’re not coming because David doesn’t want you to come.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Listen, J, I know some people forget about their friends when they have a boyfriend because well, you can’t fuck your friends, but I never thought you were going to be one of those people. I thought we were more important to you. You could make some time for us too.”

“Can’t we have a Golden Girls’ day this week?”

“No.”

I want to hang up but for the first time in forever he seems to be listening and I won’t take this opportunity away. Jason is smart and handsome and funny and kind, he could have any partner he wanted to, so I don’t understand why he would settle with such an arrogant controlling toxic prick.

“Tell him to fuck off for once, J. Having a boyfriend doesn’t mean you can’t go out with your friends alone every once in a while.”

“We went out on Friday…”

“Because he had gone out with the team too!” I take a deep breath. “Don’t you want to come with us?”

“Of course I want to go with you. You just don’t get it. He…”

“What? He hits you?”

“WHAT?” He all but yells. “NO! Indie, how can you say that?”

“Well, I don’t know anymore, J. He reminds me too much of Javier.”

“He’s nothing like Javier.”

“He does the exact same things.”

“No, he doesn’t. He loves me.”

“Yeah, Javier used to say he loved me too but that’s a very weird way of showing it.”

There’s complete silence from his end. I start fearing he’s hang up until I hear him take a deep breath. I don’t know whether he’s quiet because he doesn’t want to be rude to me or whether he just doesn’t know how to deny what’s obvious anymore but I can’t keep having this conversation here.

“Listen, J, if you don’t come I just won’t understand it and of course I mind. You know there are two people in a couple and he doesn’t get to decide every little thing. You’re your own person and get to decide your shit too. Just think about it and of course call me if you need anything. You know I love you.”

With that I hang up. I know I have to be on his side no matter what but this topic really gets on my nerves. How they stood by my side when I was with Javier is beyond me but I know he’s gonna need his friends if he’s going to break up with him which I hope he does soon.

“Problems?”

My eyes move up from the floor before me until they meet with Harry’s. He’s staring at me with a worried look on his face. Has he been listening?

“No.”

“Who’s David?” He asks.

“Jason’s boyfriend.”

“And Javier?”

Man, he’s so nosy. My expression is hard but I’m not really mad at him. I’m mad at David and frustrated with Jason but not mad at Harry. I have to remind myself that before I let my anger out on him.

“He’s mine.”

“But you said you didn’t have a boyfriend.” He’s frowning.

When did I say that?

“I don’t.” My eyes hold his and I watch his expression softens. Does he care? “I meant he’s my ex.”

He nods his head.

“Are you always so blunt or is it just with me?”

“I’m not blunt.”

“You didn’t use to be but don’t think I haven’t realized you avoided me today. And yesterday.”

“I didn’t avoid you yesterday.”

“You stayed with Dulce for your practice.”

“Dulce’s a very-”

“You always go with me for practice.”

My mouth opens so I can argue when professor Gibbins stands next to me with a confused expression and a folder on his hand.

“Is everything alright?” He asks having a look at his folder so he doesn’t have to look at Harry or me I suppose.

“Yeah.”

Harry answers for me before he walks away with a frown. I can’t believe he’s actually mad that I didn’t bother him yesterday or this morning? I mean nobody wants to have a student following them around the hospital and asking questions and taking notes. All of sudden he likes teaching?

Professor Gibbins and I walk together to class on a professional silence until he makes conversation asking me about how my study is going. I tell him I like his notes because they’re easy to understand and I appreciate the effort he put at making them and he ends up blushing. Professor Gibbins is very cute. He walks around pretending he’s this cool guy with a big motorbike and a cool leather jacket but you can easily tell deep down he’s like a little boy with a toy. I wonder whether he likes videogames like my brother.

I join Marie as professor Gibbins get the ppt ready for the lecture. There’s no sight of Olivia or Jason obviously because this lecture is not mandatory and on wednesdays we all have hospital practice in the afternoon. Marie tells me they’re both coming to have lunch with us at the restaurant we like. The Chambers is just ten minutes away from the hospital and they have really, really great food at a very affordable price. I reckon the fact that it’s not on a well-known area lowers the prices of the meals but the food is signature cuisine and the staff is great so we love the place.

Professor Gibbins tells us the Surgery and Anesthesia department had decided the hospital practices should end with an essay so that we could actually get a mark on that so all the hours at the hospital would have a more rewarding result. I hate essays but I understand and I think it’s a fair idea.

“I’ll send you the list with your tutors afterwards. I think you all know them but it’s possible that someone has a tutor they’ve never met because we’ve tried not to overload anyone with work.” He states. “Well that’s all guys. See you on Friday.”

Marie and I leave the lectures hall gossiping about Olivia and Mario. Apparently they kissed on Friday night. The girls told me Saturday morning when I woke up at their apartment and Olivia was embarrassed to death. It was funny to see her like that because Olivia is never embarrassed of being sexually free and hooking up with whoever she wants but for some reason she was mortified about this.

Jason and Ollie are already sitting at a table when we get to The Chambers and I set my eyes on Jason’s, trying to get the vibe we stand now, and I can tell he’s sorry. His eyes look at me with regret so I give him a little smile. I still want him to come to my mum’s exhibit but we still have ten days for him to come around. I hold his hand over the table and he gives me a smile back.

“Wait, what’s that?”

Marie’s eyes bulge out of her sockets as she stares at Jason’s neck. I lift my ass off my chair so I can lean over the table and have a look myself.

“That’s a bite clear as day.” Ollie giggles.

Jason blushes.

“It was David…”

“What an animal.”

Marie seems horrified, her green eyes fixed on the bread.

“Did it hurt?” She asks.

“No.” J places a hand on her shoulder as if trying to reassure her. “He did it on purpose.”

“What?”

“I did one on him too.” He shrugs. “So that everyone knows he’s mine and I’m his.”

I’m afraid my eyes are going to fall off from my face.

“You mean he marked you like livestock?”

Jason rolls his eyes but I can tell he’s embarrassed.

“You can twist it as you like, Indigo, but it’s something intimate and romantic.” He defends him. “And if you need to know, it gets me hard as a rock when he does that.”

“Jason!” Marie scolds him.

“It’s completely out of place. The fact that he’s aggressive on bed can be a turn on but he shouldn’t be controlling in your life out of the bedroom and have you marked like a cow. You’re not his property, J. You’re yours.”

“I belong to whoever the fuck I want, Indigo. Why can’t you understand that? And don’t you find it funny that you’re trying to control me by telling me David is controlling?”

I count to ten. I don’t want to punch him in the face.

“I haven’t forbidden you to go to his mum’s exhibition.”

I know he wanted this to stay between us. That’s why he called me instead of saying he couldn’t come on the group chat because we both know the girls would give him some shit for not supporting my mum.

“What?” Marie asks.

“That’s not it at all. I can’t go because we have a commitment to his family.”

“Can’t you have a commitment any other weekend?”

“No.”

“Does it turn you on when he tells you what to do?” I ask him.

“On bed, yes.”

“And out of bed?”

“It’s more complicated than that. Sometimes he gives me orders that ends up on sex and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just another way of understanding sex, Indie. I wish you’d respect that.”

“I would respect that if it was only about sex. You do you in bed, whatever gives you pleasure. I’m just saying you should draw the line. Show him he isn’t in control of your life even though he might be in control during sex. You’re your own person and you should be in control of your own life.”

Jason sighs. I know what I can say isn’t going to solve anything but something tells me, even though he tries to convince me he doesn’t listen to me, that he does. I know I keep him thinking and for now, that’s all I want. I place my hand on his wrist on the table.

“You know I love you.”

His green eyes meet mine and he nods.

“I love you too.”

I know he’s angry at me but that doesn’t change the way we feel about one another.

“Oh my God you won’t believe this.” Marie’s looking down at her phone with her mouth opened in a tiny circle.  

Jason, Ollie and I look at each other without understanding until she looks up from her phone and explains.

“Professor Gibbins sent us the lists as he said he would.”

“Which lists?” Jason asks.

“We have to make an essay for the practice. It’s a couple of clinical cases that a tutor would give us.”

“Do we choose the tutor?” Ollie asks.

“No, that’s what the lists are about. They assign you the tutor.”

“And what’s what we won’t believe?”

“Student Indigo Blue Anderson” I flinch as Marie reads my full name “Tutor Harry Styles.”

My eyes bulge out of my sockets and I choke on my water. Olivia taps on my back as I bring a hand to my throat. What kind of joke is this?

“But that’s not all…” Marie bites on her bottom lip. I’m afraid what she will say next. “Student Olivia Bassot, tutor Mario Matteoti.”

Olivia stops tapping my back to freak out herself and Jason laughs out loud as both Olivia and me look ahead with eyes wide opened.

“There’s no way this was a coincidence.”

“Do you think they got to choose?”

“That or it was professor Gibbins who did the distribution.” Jason laughs. “This should be fun.”

One hour later, after lunch and discussing Mario and Olivia’s fling and the possibility that the same thing happens between Harry and me, I’m making my way towards the Anesthesia doctors’ room where I hope to find Harry. I’m going to tell him he’s my tutor and then I’ll find someone else to do the practice with but I’ll inform him because my friends thought he had the right to get offended when I just disappeared on him without any warning. I still don’t get it but if it’s four against one, they might be right.

I knock on the door and wait for someone to let me in. He’s sitting on the desk typing on his laptop when he sees me. His green eyes set on me as I walk towards him.

“Are you busy?” I ask.

He hums as if considering whether he can give me his attention or not before he points at the chair next to him.

“I just need another minute and then I’m with you.” He smiles.

I take a seat next to him and place my hands on my thighs. It’s crazy I get complete changes of mind every time I’m close to him. This weekend it was easy to decide it wasn’t a good idea to keep up our weird friendship but now I see him and I remember he actually texted me and I feel all sorts of butterflies on my belly. That’s just silly but he smells so good and his skin looks so tight over his muscles and his eyes are so beautiful and he seems so smiley all the time.

There’s another doctor on the room but when she leaves we’re left alone and less than a minute after that Harry turns his body so his corporal language lets me know I have his full attention. He raises his eyebrows as if asking me what I need.

“I just wanted to let you know you’re my tutor for this essay we have to do.”

He smirks.

“I know.”

“Okay.”

My eyes set on his. I want to ask him why he knows, I want to ask him whether it was a coincidence but I would be mortified if he went “of course it was, what were you thinking?” so instead I just shut my mouth and take a deep breath.

“Well I-“

“Wait” he sucks his lips inside his mouth and then he frowns. I know by now that’s his serious expression. “Before you continue, I wanted to apologize.”

I raise my eyebrows. I wasn’t expecting that.

“My reaction this morning was out of line. I don’t want you to feel pressured or like… I mean I’m aware I’m six years older than you, I’m also on a position of… I don’t know how to say this without it sounding bad but.. I guess on a position of power over you in some way so I wouldn’t want you to feel like you have to be nice to me just because I kind of supervise your way around the hospital and… I wanted to apologize if I crossed a line or if I made you feel uncomfortable.”

Why did that sound so sexy? And why do I not want him to say that? He also realized this can’t be and this is not good for either of us but then again that means there is indeed something, isn’t it? I need to tell the Golden Girls this. I feel lots of different ideas colliding in my mind but there are too many for me to focus on any of them and understand what is it exactly what I’m thinking. All I know is I didn’t like him when he said that.

“You didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.” I confess.

I see his green eyes sparkling as they focus on mine and I feel like he’s trying to read me as hard as I’m trying to read him. His shoulders are tensed as if he was ready to run any minute from now.

“So would you stay with me in your practice?” He smiles timidly.

I nod my head, his shyness is contagious.

“We can work on your essay.” He offers.

“Cool.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Aren’t you supposed to give me a clinical case?”

“Yeah” Is he blushing? “But if there’s anything that’s interesting to you, we can work on that. I mean if there’s something you don’t quite understand or something you’d like to know more about, I could search for an interesting clinical case about that.”

That’s very nice of him. I bet most tutors would just give students well-trodden clinical cases or clinical cases they’ve solved themselves so as to work as little as possible but he doesn’t mind working double to make things easier for me.

“I don’t know… Maybe we could do something about anesthesia on an epileptic patient? I think that could be interesting.”

His eyebrows raise and he smiles at me.

“You’re very smart, do you know that?” He tilts his head and I giggle. I can’t believe I just giggled. “Let’s see what I have here.”

With that he begins his search and turns his laptop screen to me so I can see what he’s doing too.

“You don’t have patients now?”

“I’m on consultation today.” He answers without looking at me. “I just made a round before lunch so if no one calls us, we still have half and hour or so before we make another.” He looks at me so he can give me a smile and then turns back to his laptop.

After a few minutes of silence as he opens, reads over and closes documents, he speaks again but he’s not looking at me.

“How are things with your mum?” His question takes me off guard. “Did you work it out?”

“She let it be.” I reply.

His green eyes set on mine for a few seconds and I know he’s holding back for asking more questions. I’m glad he knows when to ask and when not to. Trying to avoid his eyes, mine set on my phone that doesn’t stop vibrating on top of the table.

“You can answer.” He lets me know. “I’m just searching for your case anyway.”

Hoping to avoid more questions, I grab my phone and realize the reason behind all the vibrating is The Golden Girls group chat.

Jason: THEY CHOSE THE STUDENT.

Olivia: What are you talking about?

Jason: THEY DID. Professor Gibbins told me.

Marie: Please tell me you did not ask him directly.

Jason: Oh, please, I’m a ninja. There’s no way he noticed.

Olivia: INDIE DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?

Jason: Harry Styles wants your pussy on a tray.

Marie: JASON!!!!!!!

Olivia: Give it to him. Everyone knows you want to.

Marie: Ollie, for the love of God, how is she going to do that? He’s her professor.

Olivia: He’s not! And even if he was, so what? They’re both consenting adults.

Marie: I don’t think that’s right…

I block my phone and leave it on the table. I feel so nervous I want to throw up again. Did Harry choose to be my tutor?

“I like this one.” He states before he reads the beginning to me and turns around to check whether I like it too. “Wow, is everything alright?”

I bet my face is a poem. I’m even dizzy and I don’t know why this is affecting me this much. I can’t believe he’s interested in me like that. I mean what does he see in me? He could literally have any woman not only in the hospital but everywhere else. He’s some sort of god and he’s just too much for me. I think I’m going to faint.

“Yes.” I lie.

“I’ll email you the case.” He says. “I think Danny gave me your email with the list and you also have mine” he looks for it on the list “or I could always text you.” He smirks.

My cheeks are set on fire and he chuckles as he sees me. So he apologized for crossing the line just moments ago and now here he is jumping over the line and doing a headstand on the other side.

“Let’s go.”

With that he stands up and waits for me next to the door. I don’t know whether he’s moving too fast or I’m a turtle but I try my best to follow him around and as usual he’s all smiles and puns and jokes and I find myself rolling my eyes at him more than once. We’ve bumped into Peter a few times and he’s picked on him every time.

At seven o’ clock, when it’s time for me to leave, I stop Harry before he enters another patient’s room and take my attendance signatures paper out of the pocket of my white coat. He’s signed all of my practices smiling smugly but this time his smile falters.

“This is your last practice?”

I smile at his disappointment.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it’d make a difference.” I shrug.

“Well, I could have offered you a coffee or something.”

“We’ve been very busy anyway.”

I dismiss his offer with a sincere smile and I see his eyes dropping to my mouth. I raise my eyebrows setting my eyes on the paper he’s holding on his hand for him to sign my paper. Olivia must be waiting for me. She’s taking me home today. Harry nods and presses the paper against the wall so he can sign it. He looks at me once as if he’s considering something and I swear he’s got something to say when he turns back towards the paper and signs. He’s shaking his head. I grab the paper and pull from it but he doesn’t let go so I chuckle and blush and keep pulling until he lets go of it. I’m sad he did.

“You will be missed Sorry.”

I smile. He didn’t say he will miss me, but I know that’s what he meant. I don’t know why I’m not moving but neither is he so I don’t know for how long we stand there just staring at each other.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Is it about practice?” He raises his eyebrows.

I blush and shake my head. He ruined all the courage I manage to gather to ask him that so now there’s no way I can ask him.

“Then” he interrupts me even though I’m not ready to ask him now “since it’s not about practice, how about you ask me outside of here?”

I feel a crease between my eyebrows. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? My heart is beating fast on my throat as Marie’s words resound on my mind. I don’t think this is right either. What would my family think of me?

“Can I take you out sometime?”

I can’t read his expression but he’s looking at me as if he knew I was going to say yes. I don’t know why in the world he would want to take me out. I’m serious, there’s nothing I have that he can’t have in another woman better than me. Probably older and sexier too.

“Why?”

It looks like I gave him the crease to wear between his eyebrows. His green eyes investigate mine.

“What do you mean why?”

“I mean why do you want to take me out?”

He chuckles. I don’t know whether he’s laughing at me, whether he finds me funny or whether he’s just as nervous as I am.

“Why do you think?” He laughs.

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”

“God, Sorry, you’re making this so hard. It’s okay if you don’t want to, just say no.”

“Okay, then no.”

With that I walk away, almost running away from him so that I don’t have to see his face. I have no idea what just happened. Did he just ask me out? Did I just say no? Oh, God, I still have an essay to do with him! That’s going to be so uncomfortable. Just like Frank Sinatra, I want to roll myself up in a big ball and die. I still have to wait for Olivia because to my surprise she’s not here smoking when I walk out as usual. Usually I have to deal with her complaining about my slow ass but today she’s the one making me wait. My phone vibrates on my pocket and I pick up without checking the screen.

“Where are you?”

I hear Harry’s laugh and my breath catches on my throat.

“Miss me already?”

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry.” I can hear his stupid smirk.

“Yeah, but what for?”

“Because I was rude to you. I didn’t want to talk to you like that. You just… It made me nervous that you rejected me.”

“I hadn’t rejected you when you snapped at me.” I correct.

“But you were going to.”

“I wasn’t.”

WHAT?

“What?”

Oh, boy.

“So you’ll go out with me?”

His grin is contagious even through the phone because only that could be the reason I’m grinning too. I’d like to see him now.

“I… Don’t you think it’s inappropriate?

“Why?”

“Because you’re my professor.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re my tutor.”

“Do you want me to tell Danny I can’t be your tutor?”

“No!”

He laughs. What would professor Gibbins think? What would professor Gibbins think anyway? They’re friends. I’m sure he’ll end up knowing and what does that say about me? That my tutor and I went out even before he marked my clinical case.

“It’s just an essay, Indigo.” He reasons. “Danny could always grade it for you. I’m sure he wouldn’t mine. Plus, I’m sure your essay’s gonna be interesting to read so he’d read it anyway.”

I smile at that. I like the compliments he gives me about my work, especially because I know he means them. He’s very honest. If he thinks something I say is silly he’d also tell me so that makes this count more.

“Come on. It’s just going to be you and me. Forget about the hospital. That’s doctor Styles and Sorry but it’ll just be Harry and Indigo.”

“Indie.” I correct him.

“Indie.” I swear the vowels sound different when he smiles. “Harry and Indie.”

“But why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Why would you want to take me out?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Do I really have to explain it to you?”

“I mean… You could out with anyone-”

“Well I want to go out with you. It’s simple.”

“It’s not. I know you don’t care but I’m still a student.”

“Okay, Indie, stop. You’re on a swirl. Listen to me.” His voice hardens and I feel funny between my legs. “It can’t be that bad. If it goes wrong, I can always tell Danny I don’t have time for your essay and I know he’ll supervise it but that’s not even going to happen. Come on, it can’t be that horrible.”

“I don’t know.”

“Dinner.” He tries.

“I just…”

“Just dinner.”

“Okay.”

What did I just say?

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is Thursday.”

“So?”

“So I have lectures on Friday.”

“But it’s just dinner.” He chuckles and I thank God he can’t see me because I bet my cheeks are bright red.

Ugh, how smug can he be!

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hangs up.

I can’t believe I just agreed on a date with Harry. I try to gather my thoughts as Olivia walks past me with a big smile on her beautiful face. She seems to be on a good mood.

“Harry just called me.” I tell her. “We’re having dinner tomorrow.”

She grins mischievously as she unlocks her car.

“What did you do?”

She shrugs.

“I just talked to him.” She gets inside her car and I open the door and jump on the passenger’s seat.

“WHAT? What did you tell him?”

She laughs like a maniac.

“He stopped me on the hall and asked me if you’re always so hard to get with guys. I said yes.”

“Ollie!”

“I also said it was just a shell and that deep down you love fiercely and with passion.”

“You’re an idiot.”

We both laugh like crazy.

[missmonsters2]

The Color of You || Part VI

PAIRING: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader/OFC

Summary: It was another mission Natasha was assigned to. Nothing she hasn’t done before. Same mission, different people. Sent undercover to investigate William Cain, suspect to funding terrorism and smuggling weaponry. Under the disguise of Natanya Rovinski, Natasha is ready for another routine mission. Until she met you, William’s fiancé. 

Warnings: There are dark elements to this series. Also, smut later on. Please note this part includes abuse (non-graphic).

NOTE: The dark elements are coming soon. Drop a comment to be added to the tag list! Also me has no idea how the technology works. I just make things up ok

PART I || PART II || PART III || PART IV || PART V 

PART VI of X

Count: 2481

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“...There’s something different about you.”

Natasha looked at Steve who was eyeing her, a slight squint in his eyes. 

“Like what?” Natasha cocks her brow at him.

Steve continually eyes her but he doesn’t say anything else. But he knows there’s something different about his friend. They’ve arrived 10 hours ago and since then, Natasha keeps looking outside like she’s watching the time pass by.

Everyone was currently crowded around her dining room table, laying out what the plan was going to be. 

“He should have his set up somewhere. I developed a counter bug to this sicko’s software. All you have to do is get to his computer and plug this USB in. Everything else should be taken care of. It will deactivate every chip there is and scramble any information that was gathered so they’re unsellable.”

Natasha nods, grabbing the USB stick from Tony.

“Do you still have the list of companies that were interested in this program?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, why?” Natasha asks as she puts the USB stick away.

“Give it to me,” Tony says and Natasha opens a drawer and throws a stack of papers onto the table for Tony to grab.

“Why?” Natasha raises her brow.

“I’m going to make their stocks drop and then make them bankrupt,” Tony casually says as he takes the stack of papers and gets F.R.I.D.A.Y to analyze and store the names.

Everyone just grins.

“What?” Tony says defensively.

“You’re soft,” Natasha teases with a smirk while everyone starts giggling.

Tony’s jaw drops and looks as Natasha offendedly.

“First of all--” Tony starts to say but is interrupted by Natasha’s cellphone ringing. She looks at everyone as if to warn them to behave as she takes the call.

She looks on the screen to see that it’s David calling her. Natasha turns her body slightly away as she takes the call.

“Natanya?” David sounds extremely frantic on the line. 

“David?” Natasha responds confusedly.

“God--okay,” David panicked as he heard Natasha’s voice. “Fuck! I don’t--Can you--”

“David, David, calm down,” Natasha told him in a calm voice, trying to get him to slow down. She heard a deep breath on the other line.

“Can you please come by my place?” David asked shakily.

“Why? What’s wrong?” 

“God, fucking William...that fucking bastard. I’m going to fucking kill him, I swear to God--”

“David! I don’t understand, what’s wrong?” Natasha cut David off. She was getting a sinking feeling in her stomach, the one that told her that something awful happened.

“He beat her...bad. She’s here right now, but all she kept saying was to call you. Just come, okay?”

It was like someone took a swift punch to Natasha’s gut. She hung up the phone immediately, briskly walking to grab her jacket on the way out.

“Natasha, where are you--” Steve asked but Natasha was already gone. 

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There was frantic knocking on his front door, but David was already waiting in his foyer, pacing back and forth. 

He opened the door with a wide swing. Natasha stood before him, lips pressed in a thin line as he let her in. 

“Where is she?” Natasha asked throat raspy from how choked she was at the thought of you hurt. 

“She’s in a guest room. Liam is bandaging her up.” David says as he leads Natasha up the stairs. 

He takes a left and the door to the room is opened. Natasha sees you lying there in bed, your body under the covers with your arm out as she watches Liam is disinfecting some of the cuts on your arm. The sudden appearance at the door grabs your attention as you turn your head over.

Natasha sucks the air in sharply between her teeth.

There’s a nasty cut on your left eyebrow and your cheek is bruised and swollen, an ugly color taken over your once smooth skin. 

“Nat...” your throat is so dry and raspy that Natasha was sure you had cried.

It was breaking her heart.

Natasha walks into the room, putting her hand on Liam’s shoulder softly. He takes the cue and leaves, ushering along David as he shuts the door and gives the two of you privacy.

It’s silent.

Natasha doesn’t know what to say because the only thing that wants to come out of her mouth is a choked sob at looking how broken you look. The next thing is that she swears she’s going to kill William. It’ll be a slow and painful death and she doesn’t care that it’ll add to her ledger. 

She takes a seat next to your bed, grabbing the white bandage in one hand and cream in the other. Natasha delicately grabs your arm, applying the cream to the cuts and bruises before slowly wrapping the bandage until it comes to an end at your elbows.

Natasha’s eyes travel down to your fingers, catching the soft stains of paint that still linger and for some reason, it hits Natasha and she’s grabbing your hand, pressing your knuckles to her forehead.

“Nat...” you say softly and it grabs her attention as she kisses the back of your fingertips gently before looking at you.

“What happened?” Natasha asks.

You give her a half-hearted smile. 

“We’re not as conspicuous as we thought. There was a maid who caught us last night as you left.”

“And he...he did this to you because of that?” Natasha fumed.

“William is a selfish man, Natasha. Everything I am doesn’t belong to me,” you tell her quietly.

Natasha clenches her jaw because it makes her furious, but she swallows it.

Her phone starts vibrating in her pocket. She sighs, pulling it out to see that it’s Steve calling her.  She hangs up the call but sends a quick text to say she’s on her way back.

Natasha turns back to you.

“Come on, you can’t stay here,” Natasha tells you. It’s not safe to merely stay at David’s. She doesn’t doubt that David would swing a bat to William’s knees if he showed up, but Natasha is worried that William can still show up to take you. 

Natasha helps you out of bed. “Can you stand?”

You nod, but take the extra support that Natasha offers you and lean against her as you make your way out.

“Where you going?” David asks as you make it down to the foyer.

“I’m taking her back to my place, she’ll be safe there. I don’t want to make it awkward for you since you’re family friends and all.”

“Oh,” David scoffs. “We’re way past awkward now. I’ve already called his mother and I’m about to let everyone know what a bastard he is. Let’s see how that helps his campaign. So, God, help me if he shows up here.”

David was so heated up, his cheeks were red as he rubbed his temples. Liam passed him a glass of water and gave the two of you half-hearted smile.

“Make sure to change your bandages in a couple hours,” Liam tells the two of you and Natasha nods. They help open the door and Natasha gently places you inside the passenger seat, closing the door gently before she gets into the driver's side.

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All eyes are on Natasha when she brings you in. 

You feel slightly awkward and embarrassed for meeting everyone in such a poor state, but Natasha merely holds you tighter. She’s carrying you bridal style as she’s worried you’ll be in more pain if you walk too much.

Everyone is just looking at you. Looking at your bruises with a grim expression and you flush red under the attention. Steve gives you a small smile that you return before Natasha walks past everyone, putting you into a room on the main floor, softly setting you on the bed. She throws the cover over you, brushing her finger gently across your cheek.

She places a bottle of water on your tableside.

“I’ll be back,” Natasha tells you quietly, swiping her finger gingerly once more at the side of your cheek. She leaves, shutting the door behind her.

“So,” Tony drawls. “Who’s that?”

Natasha rubs her face tiredly as she comes back to stand around the table with everyone again.

“William’s fiancé,” she says plainly.

“Oh...” Everyone recalls in Natasha’s report.

“What the hell happened?” Steve asks.

Natasha bites her tongue because the last thing she wants to admit is that she fucked up.

“William caught us.” 

“Us as in our mission?” Steve tries to clarify but Natasha merely shrugs.

“Maybe.”

“Well, that doesn’t change much. Not like he can speed anything up. If anything, just means we have to beat up more goons,” Tony says, Natasha internally sighing in relief from any more questioning.

It’s not that she’s ashamed of you, but she’s not ready to put you on the line. You’re hers and Natasha always keeps everything that’s hers safe.

The next couple of hours are spent planning again before it comes to an end and everyone leaves to get some rest.

It’s just Steve who stays behind.

“She’s the one who can see the future, right?” Steve says, trying to remember the report he briefly read on the plane.

Natasha nods. 

“This guy...William...he did this to her?” Steve asks clenching his jaw.

Natasha nods again.

It seems stoic, but Steve has gotten pretty good at reading Natasha.

“What is it that you want for her?” Steve asks because it’s easier than asking what you meant to her. 

Natasha taps her fingers against her biceps as she mulls over the question, over what you’ve told her.

“I want her to be free,” Natasha says and Steve catches the unsaid words. 

Free to do what you want, love who you want, free from him.

Steve gives Natasha a small smile, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“Good thing we’re freedom fighters,” he jokes lamely and Natasha rolls her eyes with a smile for his comfort. 

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The room is quiet when Natasha enters. She finds you sitting up against the pillows, looking outside the window into the night. The sound of the door opening catches your attention as you turn your head over.��

Natasha shuts the door quietly behind her, leaning against the wooden frame for a moment before she pushes herself off, making her way over. Natasha takes a seat on the edge of the bed, one hand over your legs resting against the mattress. 

It’s quiet as Natasha takes in your form.

A part of you wants to turn away because you don’t feel beautiful with the mars over your face, but Natasha doesn’t let you escape her gaze as she lifts her other hand to cup your jaw and neck, pulling you into a soft kiss. 

You sigh lightly at the feeling of lips against yours and Natasha takes advantage by swiping her tongue at your bottom lip, kissing you deeply, and sucking on your bottom lip at the end. When she releases you, she looks over at your bandages and takes a deep breath.

“Alright, we should change your bandages,” Natasha says as she gets you to sit up straighter. She diligently changes or bandages, giving your arm a slight pat before she looks at you.

“I’ll give you a change of clothes so you can sleep comfortably,” Natasha walks over to the drawers and pulls out a change of clothes. She gives it to you but before she can walk out, you grab her arm.

“I...” You cough awkwardly, cheeks flushing red. “I can’t reach the zipper of my dress.”

Natasha tilts her head but nods as you stand up, slightly wobbly but steadied as Natasha held you. Tucking your head to the side, Natasha grips onto the zipper. 

Before she can pull down, you use your good arm to grab her hand.

“I...” You say quietly, nervous, and unsure. 

Natasha raises her brow, and you clear your throat.

“I won’t look,” she promises in an attempt to reassure you.

“It’s not that,” you tell her, licking your lips. “I just...I’m not...perfect.”

The way you emphasize the last word makes Natasha bite her tongue because she wants to blurt out that you are. At least to her, and nothing could change that.

But she merely goes back to unzip your dress. As the zipper gets lower and the sides fall apart to reveal your skin, Natasha sucks in a deep breath. 

Your back was tattooed. There were flower petals and an outline of wings over your shoulder blade that carried down to the bottom of your back.

It would’ve been beautiful. But Natasha couldn’t help but focus on the angry scars all over your back. They were jagged and dark, but have long faded away into what they were. 

It made Natasha want to cry. 

The dress began to slip down your shoulders as you put your arms around yourself to keep it from completely falling. 

You turned around and looked at Natasha’s expression.

God, how it broke your heart to see her like that. 

You think back to the very first time you saw her...really saw her, and for a moment, you’re in disbelief that she’s in love with you. 

“Did he...” Natasha begins to ask, but she can’t finish the sentence because she doesn’t know how she can ask out loud without storming out right now to find William and slaughter him. 

Damn the rules and mission. 

You look away out the window again before turning your face back to Natasha.

“You and I both understand what it’s like to be captured.”

Natasha hates it.

Because she doesn’t want you to understand what it’s like. She walks closer, pulling you closer as she grips the edge of your dress and lets it slide down. She turns you around so she can examine the scars in closer detail. You feel so exposed with her face so close, fingers unabashedly tracing your scars. 

Your breath hitches when Natasha drops to her knees, pressing her soft lips against the dip of your back. She drags her lips against your skin as she comes back up, pulling you to bed with her. 

Natasha unsnaps your strapless bra, throwing the garment on the floor. Lying you at the foot of the bed on your stomach, she climbs over you, fingers tracing your shoulder blade before it makes its way to a scar just under.

The air is different.

You can tell Natasha’s intention isn’t sex.

It’s a different kind of intimate. 

The one where she wants to know everything about you, everything that’s been carved into you, and it’s almost overwhelming.

You fold your arms, head resting against it as you close your eyes, and let yourself feel Natasha’s fingers tracing your back.

“I want to know you,” Natasha says and you hum.

“Okay.”

PART VII

[presumenothing]

one more light

ALRIGHT SO this isn’t a new fic but i just realised i somehow never did post this to tumblr, so here it is: 2k worth of atla zombie apocalypse non-au. 

no archive warning content beyond the fact of. y’know. zombies

(AO3)

i.

“It’s not your fault, Aang,” Katara says after they beat back the latest siege, and only his sister could still sound sincere even in something they’ve all said at least a dozen times by now.

Sokka feels so proud of her that his heart is almost bursting… or maybe that’s just the effort of hacking his way through dozens of actual damned zombies. A bit of both, really.

Not that the rest of them don’t believe what she’s saying. This whole mess is Sozin and maybe Roku’s fault if it’s anyone’s, and Sokka would gladly repeat that until he went hoarse if he thought Aang would listen.

But Katara is the one who’s always believed in Aang before any of them did, and that sort of thing made a difference.

Or it used to, at least, but today there’s no brightening in Aang’s expression as he stands up, glider having never left his hands. “I’ll take first watch.”

Biting her lower lip, Katara meets Sokka’s gaze as Aang flies off without waiting for any response, and Sokka shakes his head slightly: let him be.

“Twinkletoes fly off again?”

“Yeah.” When Sokka looks over, Toph’s eyebrows are furrowed in what he would’ve called concern if it hadn’t been on someone who could still fling him off the cliff even after a whole day of fighting. “He’s… not doing too well.”

Not that any of them really are, by this point. Toph doesn’t even call him out for stating the obvious, only crosses her arms. “I wish Sparky was here.”

“You and me both,” he admits – and fine, yes, it’s already enough of a lucky coincidence that the four of them had been travelling together when the sudden case of apocalypse broke out, so asking for more would just be tempting fate, but…

Sokka sighs. “I’m sure he’s fine. Jerkbender doesn’t know how to lose.”

Toph’s punch on his shoulder is far lighter than her usual. “You’re a real shitty liar, Snoozles.”

“Doesn’t make me wrong,” Sokka retorts, and he really really hopes he isn’t wrong. Because Zuko has his firebending and his dual swords and a whole palace full of scarily armed guards plus Suki hellbent on protecting the first sane Fire Lord, so there isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t be okay except that there is.

A century of war dead, in every corner of their world. Legion doesn’t even begin to cover it.

.

.

ii.

Aang had still tried to be careful, at first – dodging blows from shambling corpses is easier than usual, if anything, and he could call up enough water or earth to freeze a half-dozen bodies in one sweep even if it wouldn’t be fatal (insofar as that applied to the undead).

Not that they really had any other option besides stopping them permanently; Katara had tried healing once, on someone who’d just been turned an hour before, and the way her entire face had gone grey answered that well enough.

But Aang is still their most powerful fighter, and after everything with Ozai none of them had been willing to say anything until they almost lost three people to a too-quick thaw. Toph had been the one to react, a flying shard of rock decapacitating the half-frozen zombie with extreme prejudice right before it could lurch onto the cowering villagers, and later she’d also been the one to say it.

“They’re already dead, Aang! Someone’s going to die if you keep this up, and it’s gonna be one of us still alive!” Toph had shouted, eyes glimmering even as Aang stood too quiet and too still, and even now Sokka isn’t sure which had been the worse sight.

.

.

iii.

In a way, taking down zombies as a non-bender is – well, maybe not easier, but at least a sword thrust clean through the throat works just the same on everything.

It wouldn’t have been Sokka’s first choice of target before, but at least he hadn’t needed to change strategies as much as the benders had: internal injuries from blunt force rock don’t slow down an opponent who lacked working organs to start with, and getting frozen in ice probably ranked as a minor inconvenience compared to literally being dead.

Toph had begun hoarding metal after their first fight, and now could bend and fire wickedly-sharp blades in a manner scarily reminiscent of Mai except she never ran out. Katara’s ice missiles aim for the head instead, and Sokka doesn’t need a closer look to know that her ice had gotten denser, heavier somehow, even if he doesn’t quite know how.

At least air still works the same in clearing a swathe through the hordes when they need it, which is just as well – Aang fights almost solely as an airbender, now.

It had taken Sokka a while to realise, since he’d initially sorta assumed that Aang had just been avoiding any use of fire (because the stench of rotten flesh burning is really enough to make anyone consider joining Aang in vegetarianism).

But then he’d paid more attention, and confirmed it with Katara and Toph: Aang really doesn’t fight with anything but air unless he’s forced to. Like he’s not the Avatar at all.

And that makes its own sense, in a twisty sort of way – even after they’d ended the war and brought some sort of peace Sokka knows that Aang still blames himself for having let things get that far, and being the bridge to the spirits doesn’t help this situation at all because it had nothing to do with the spirits to begin with as far as they could tell, so what good is the Avatar?

…just because it makes sense doesn’t mean that Sokka has to like it, and he is going to confront Aang about it one of these days as soon as he’s figured out what to say. Just like how he still needs to talk to Katara about what the heck happened during that fight in the desert.

(All Sokka knows for sure is that Katara had run out of water to bend even though they still had far too many zombies to take down, so instead she had reached and–

Empty bodies had fallen like cut marionettes in a half-circle around her, in the same moment that Katara had turned to the side and thrown up, and if Sokka’s being honest with himself he thinks he can figure out what happened there too even without asking Katara about it.)

(There are many things they don’t talk about, these days.)

.

.

iv.

At least it’s a blessing in disguise that Aang and Zuko had already gone through the Air Temples to perform the appropriate rites, because they’ve proved to be the current best option for evacuating people and keeping them safe.

Not that the temples are invulnerable, not by a long shot – but it’s better than staying on flat ground, and definitely way better than it would’ve been if there’d still been century-old corpses scattered around.

Also, it turns out zombies aren’t really keen on higher altitudes. Who could’ve guessed?

Admittedly the temples were never built to host that many people, especially not after standing vacant for this long, but it’s the best they can do for now. Iroh had told them about the White Lotus safehouses, of course, just in case everything went wrong during the comet and they needed some place to regroup, but Sokka has to wonder if those are fortified enough.

He tries to imagine Master Piandao preparing for the zombie apocalypse and can’t help a snicker.

Aang, staring straight ahead, doesn’t notice.

It’s just the two of them on Appa now as they make their way back down from ferrying more people up to the temple, so Sokka isn’t expecting it when Aang shoots upright from his seat on Appa’s head, turning wide-eyed to shout in the direction of the saddle. “Take the reins, I have to get down there!”

Sokka almost yelps in alarm when Aang barely waits for his glider to open before throwing himself out mid-air, but then he looks down and does swear a dozen things that would have Gran-Gran washing his mouth out if she heard, because there’s no mistaking those bursts of blue fire.

He urges Appa down at top speed and scrambles off once they touch land to see Katara facing off squarely against Azula, Aang by her side and Toph a few paces behind.

There’s at least a dozen ice daggers hanging in the air around Katara, but Azula doesn’t even seem bothered. “Zuzu? Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I took you down once, Azula.” Katara’s voice is scarily level as Sokka slows to a stop beside Toph. “I can do it again. For the last time: where is Zuko?”

Azula doesn’t even bother to answer now, only throws her head back with a laugh, and Sokka can see Aang tensing up in preparation to redirect lightning–

–can see Toph twitch in something like surprise, opening her mouth to say something just as another voice roars: “Hold your fire!”

A grin spreads across Toph’s face even as Sokka turns, and there they are: Zuko supporting Suki as she limps up to them, both looking worse for wear but still safe.

Suki waves at them with her free hand, smile a little wan. “Hey. Sorry we’re late?”

.

.

v.

Sokka volunteers for first watch before anyone else can.

He’s only just gotten settled in when Zuko comes over to sit beside him, and if Zuko notices that this position conveniently lets Sokka keep a lookout while still being able to see Suki – screw it, okay, he hasn’t seen his girlfriend in ages and he’s missed her like hell.

They’d gotten the chance to talk earlier while Katara had been healing Suki’s twisted ankle, but even now that Sokka knows she’s okay, it’s still good to have the visual reminder.

Zuko doesn’t comment on it, though, so it’s up to Sokka to point out the obvious. “You can rest, y’know. Katara will wake you when it’s your turn.”

“In a while, maybe. I’m not sleepy yet.” Zuko shakes his head even as Sokka gives him (or more accurately the dark smudges beneath his eyes) a dubious look – but then again, none of them are strangers to being exhausted but sleepless, whether from adrenaline or something else. “Suki has been taking more than her share of night watches, anyway, she’s the one who really needs the rest.”

Sokka almost snorts but stops himself. Honestly he might’ve done the same, if he had been sharing a camp with Azula. “So how are things in Firetown?”

“Still standing when we left,” Zuko answers, which Sokka takes to mean possibly overrun and definitely on fire. “I gave the decree to open the imperial bunkers to anyone who needed shelter, right before the Fire Sages burst into the hall and demanded I immediately leave and seek out the Avatar to end this blight upon our world.”

Sokka raises an eyebrow. “That a direct quote?”

“Yeah. I don’t even think I’ve ever seen the Sages literally running, but apparently there’s a first time for everything.”

Like mostly-ending the war only for the walking dead to happen, Sokka’s pretty sure they’re both thinking. “Don’t suppose they might’ve mentioned what exactly Aang is supposed to do?”

“That would’ve been too easy,” Zuko says dryly, before sobering. “Aang hasn’t figured anything out?”

“He doesn’t even think there’s a spirit behind this.” Which had all sorts of disturbing implications that Sokka refuses to consider right now. “So Suki decided to come with you?”

Zuko doesn’t say anything about the blatant change of topic. “Insisted, more like.”

Sokka grins – that’s Suki, all right – before he looks over at the other addition to their group. “And Azula?” he asks quietly.

“She’s my sister. I–” Zuko scrubs a hand roughly over his face, shakes his head. “I couldn’t just leave her behind. She’s my sister.”

And if Sokka hadn’t already noticed how tired Zuko looks, that would’ve been clue enough. Yeah, they’ve all made their fair share of jokes about Zuko being a broken record about honour and capturing the Avatar way back when but really, he’s never been one to repeat himself. Sokka isn’t even sure Zuko realises that he’s doing it.

He takes a page from Toph’s book and punches Zuko on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, hotman,” he says over Zuko’s splutter. “We’ll still be here in the morning.”

“You better be,” Zuko grumbles as he heads off to bed, but when he flops down to sleep it’s right between Suki and anything that might come at them.

Sokka turns back away with a smile.

.

.

.

.

hell yeah sokka pov

also my other atla fics are here and here if you need a pick-me-up after that, i swear they’re actually like. my usual funny fare

[welcometophu]

Not Your Guardian Angel: Chapter 21

Marked Book 3: Not Your Guardian Angel

Chapter 21

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Pels swims back to consciousness, gripping the hand in hers tightly as she feels herself wake. “What…?”

“Shh,” Dad whispers. “Rest.”

“Pels?”

Wait.

“Mom?” Her throat hurts, and she’s not sure why. Maybe it’s just dry. Maybe she screamed. Was she screaming? There’s a hazy memory of flying and sound and then… no, she doesn’t have anything she can grasp.

The hand on hers grips her so hard it hurts. She whimpers, opening her eyes to see her mother leaning in close, reaching out to touch her cheek with her free hand. “Pels,” Mom whispers. “Thank God. You were in an accident. Do you remember…?”

Flying… the car tumbling….

“Are Jess and Shane okay?” she asks. She remembers leaving PHU with them, heading for Valiant. Dad wanted to take a different route. Then… just bits and pieces.

“In better shape than you are,” Dad murmurs. “They’re fine.”

“In the waiting room,” Mom says. “Treated and released. Their parents have already been here and left again. You were… it’s a miracle.”

“It’s Dad,” Pels says. She doesn’t know for sure, but he had to have been involved. He has to be the reason she’s still here, the reason that Jess and Shane are okay.

“Hey, Mom.” The curtain pulls back, and Cheyenne is there, poking her head in. “They said there’s one food court open at this hour and Jess and I were going to—oh my God, Pels! You’re awake!” She squeals loudly, darting to Pels’s bedside, hugging her hard enough that it hurts.

“Cheyenne. Hey. Please….” Pels tries to push her away, thankful when Dad helps. The IV in the back of one hand hurts, and her body just aches like she’s been on the inside of a cement mixer. With the hardened cement. “How are you here?”

“I need to go tell Jess and Shane.” Cheyenne disappears with a rattle of the curtain as she drags it shut behind herself. There’s a call of, “please don’t run!” in the distance, along with Cheyenne’s footsteps moving quickly away.

Mom releases Pels’s hand so she can settle back in her chair. “They called me as soon as you arrived in the hospital. You’re eighteen, and you had all your information on you, but I was listed as your emergency contact, so—”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Pels says quietly. “I don’t really remember everything.”

“I don’t know everything, either,” Mom admits. “We’ve been trying to put it all together, but even with the witness accounts, it doesn’t make sense. The police are still investigating as far as I know. It’s been about six hours since it happened.”

“Only six hours?”

Mom looks down at her hands, twined together in her lap. “One advantage to this area is that there are a number of experienced and very talented Healers available and on-call,” she says quietly. “It would’ve been far worse without them. It’s still not going to be easy. You’re here until Sunday at least, so Cheyenne and I will stay in the area through the weekend. We need to get a hotel.”

“Ma’am?” The curtain draws back again, a nurse looking in, her expression pinched. There’s a commotion behind her, and Dad pulls the curtain further open to show Cheyenne in the hall with Jess and Shane.

Mom glances at the curtain moving on its own, and the nurse’s confused expression. “Please,” she says quietly. “Let them in. They are—” Her gaze falls to where Pels’s hand lies on top of the sheets. “Something close enough to family that they should be with her.”

People have been talking while Pels was unconscious. Dad looks innocent, and Pels supposes he has to be since without Dax or her, he can’t exactly talk to anyone. But she wouldn’t put it past him to have helped facilitate the conversation starting somehow.

“Please,” she echoes.

The nurse yanks the curtain closed, and sounds are muffled but Pels is certain she’s giving everyone very specific orders for how to behave. Pels clenches her hand, the machines beeping faster as her heart accelerates. She needs to see them more than that one glimpse, needs to know—

“They’re okay,” Dad promises.

It’s hard to believe that for herself until the curtain opens and they drag in two more chairs. Shane sets his on Pels’s other side, and Jess sits further back, arms crossed and lips pressed tight together as if she’s holding herself back. Cheyenne curls up on Mom’s lap like she’s three instead of thirteen.

“If you cause any distress—”

“I’m better if they’re here,” Pels says. She carefully holds up her hand, wincing as the IV pricks her when she twists it to show the ink. “We’re soulmates. It’s a magical thing.”

The nurse’s gaze flicks from her to Jess and Shane, and she sighs. “Fine,” she mutters, yanking the curtain closed around them.

Between the hospital bed, three chairs, all the machinery, four people, and a ghost… the room is full. Too full. But Pels can’t give it up. “I need you to tell me you’re okay. Dad said—and I can see—but….”

Shane lightly places his hand over hers, and the warmth of bees is a comforting buzz under her skin. “We’re surprisingly okay.”

“This guy came out of nowhere around the curve,” Jess says, her voice strangled and tight. “He swung out over the solid line to pass a truck and he and was completely in our lane. I tried to swerve, so he didn’t hit us head on. I think he hit the front, then we were flying and that’s… I can’t really remember.”

Pels looks at Dad.

“I did my best,” he says quietly from where he stands by the curtain. “I tried to make it better. I’m just not—I’m not that good.”

“Dad helped,” Pels says. She nods at him, hoping he’ll keep going, and she echoes his words as he speaks.

“When Jess jerked the wheel, the car started spinning,” Dad says quietly. “I don’t know if you caught gravel or what, but you spun out. The oncoming car struck the front, then the back, and you flipped. Your seatbelt failed, Pels. Your door popped open. You went flying. I couldn’t—I tried….”

Pels takes a breath while Dad fades in place as she watches, his hand the clearest part of him where he grips the curtain tightly.

“I made it into Jess’s car first,” he says quietly. “Kept them safe. I was with you as you landed. I tried to cushion your fall. I tried—” His hands both come up, fingers extended, and Pels can almost feel that in her own hands, like she wants to reach out. “I don’t have the magic that I feel like I should have. I had to catch you on my own. I did my best.”

“It’s okay,” Pels says quickly as soon as she finishes relaying his words. “You did your best. It would’ve been worse if you hadn’t—”

“It wouldn’t have happened at all if you’d just taken the damned detour,” Dad says sharply.

Pels sits there, her mouth hanging open slightly.

She swallows hard. “What’s the point of being an Oracle if nothing makes sense until after it happens?” she mumbles. “I don’t get it. It’s all just too late then.” Maybe it’s a question for Dax and his family, maybe they can help her understand. Dad’s obviously not being clear about it.

“We’re bruised,” Jess says quietly. “I felt—it seemed like we should’ve been worse off, but something held me into my seat, kept my head from hitting the roof when we went upside down. Then it was gone, and I could move again when the car settled. And you were just—you were gone. That stupid seatbelt.”

“The EMTs on scene thought it was a miracle. We couldn’t really explain about your Dad,” Shane says. “My Dad’s impressed. It’s the first time I’ve ever come out of an accident less injured than I should be, rather than more.”

“How’s the other guy?” Pels needs to know that, just like she needs to know about everyone else on the road.

“The driver of the truck is fine. The driver of the car that tried to pass it was taken to the trauma center in Albany, but he was alive. Thankfully he was alone in his car.” Shane’s thumb moves against her skin, gentle and soothing. “We didn’t ask any more questions, honestly. We were far more worried about you. The Healers were with you for a couple hours, but they said you didn’t need surgery. They were able to do what they needed without surgical intervention.”

That doesn’t seem to make sense. “What?”

Dad pulls the curtain and steps out, the curtain falling back in place after his exit.

“Surgeons were unable to get into the room,” Mom says tightly. “I was told after I arrived. They thought you would need surgery—there was a risk of injury to your spine after you were thrown—but somehow they had the impression that Healers needed to be the first line of defense. As it turns out, the damage was more easily reparable by Magic than by traditional surgery. They can’t repair soft tissue damage, so you’ll still have recovery time, but it will be must faster than if it were repaired by invasive measures.”

“I only heard about it after, but I got the impression that the tantrum was emphatic, but subdued,” Jess says, her tone almost light. “Your dad is very protective of you.”

“Yeah.” Pels relaxes, letting the bed take her weight. “He is. But I still feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. And a little light-headed.”

Shane reaches up with his free hand to touch the bags hanging from the IV. “You’ve got a saline drip, you had one of those sugar solutions for a while, but it’s gone now, and I believe you’ve had medication. That’s probably why you’re light-headed. Now that you’re definitely out of risk for surgery—and you’re awake—maybe we can get someone to bring you some food.”

Her stomach rumbles. “I didn’t get dinner,” she grumbles. “We didn’t get our date.”

“We’ll have another chance to go out.” Shane stands, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “Jess and I are going to go see if we’re allowed to bring you something to eat. Is your Dad—?”

Pels shrugs, and oh, ow, that hurts to move like that. She can feel something across the back of her neck, like her shoulders are bruised deeply. “He left. It’s okay, I think maybe Mom and I….” Her voice trails off as she looks at her mother. Cheyenne is still curled on her lap, head on her shoulder, eyes closed as Mom strokes her hair. “We should probably talk.”

“We’ll be back in a bit.” Shane holds out a hand to Jess, their fingers loosely clasped as they exit the small space. Pels half expects Dad to drift back in their wake, but he doesn’t reappear.

It’s just her and Mom and Cheyenne.

There’s a small choked noise, and Pels realizes that Mom is crying.

“Hey.” She tries to leverage herself up onto one elbow, reaching towards Mom. It pulls at her IV and she falls back with a groan because that was all just such a bad idea. “I’m okay,” she says weakly. “As long as I don’t try doing anything stupid, I’m okay.”

“You’re alive because of something I tried to pretend didn’t exist,” Mom whispers. “You’re alive because of him.”

“That’s true.” Pels can’t deny it. “I’ve tried to tell you, but you, and well, Peter—”

“I know.” Mom sounds exhausted. Defeated. “I just couldn’t believe that this could be true. I didn’t know he was Talented, and I didn’t know how it could happen. If he was alive, how could he be with you and I didn’t know? Why did he abandon me? And if he was dead… if he’s dead… it’s still the same question. How is he here, now, with you? Why? It just… doesn’t make any sense, Pels.”

Pels glances at the curtain, but no, they’re still alone. “He’s not here right now,” she answers the question before Mom or Cheyenne could ask. “I think there are some things even he doesn’t really know. I get the impression he’s just with me, and that he was learning how to be who he is while I was growing up. I know what I told you before, and that’s all. And if you never talked about it….”

“Maybe I need to find out more about Ammon Masri,” Mom murmurs. “I’m just not sure how. I never met his family.”

“I think they were local, but they’re gone now. I got that much out of him,” Pels says.

Mom doesn’t look at her, staring at the ground while one hand strokes soothing circles on Cheyenne’s back. “This is my fault,” she whispers. “I need to fix it. You think he’s been with you since you were born?”

“Pretty sure, although I don’t really have great memories of infancy,” Pels says dryly.

Cheyenne snickers.

“I went home,” Mom murmurs. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and my parents took me in, even though I’d been in this Godless place, even though I was pregnant. They took me in, and I didn’t ask questions. I went back to the Church because God loved me when no one else did. God accepted me back.”

Pels bites her tongue; this is not a can of worms she wants to open right now. But she sees how Cheyenne goes stiff, despite Mom’s soothing touch. A moment later, Cheyenne wiggles herself free and moves to the chair Jess abandoned, bringing her feet up to perch her heels on the edge, arms wrapped around her knees.

Mom slowly sits upright, pushing her hair back from her face. “I think I might need to go home,” she says.

“I—”

“To Virginia,” Mom says, as if Pels didn’t start speaking. “To my parents. Where you were born. I don’t know if you even remember—”

“I don’t,” Pels says. It’s a lie. She remembers the place, and she remembers some of the earliest incidences of Dad interfering on her behalf. But her memories of her grandparents are dimmed, buried behind the memories of Peter becoming a part of their lives. They are dark figures in the recesses of her mind, stoic and stern.

She remembers not missing them. She’s never really understood the idea that grandparents are soft and warm and caring. She hasn’t seen hers since she was five.

“But Cheyenne….” Mom’s voice drifts away as she looks at her.

Cheyenne slowly uncurls and lowers her feet to the ground, her hands balled in small fists against her knees. “How much trouble can I get into going to school?” she asks, her voice high-pitched and tight. “I can ask my friends to give me rides. Maybe I can stay with Ashleigh. She’s part of the Church, so Dad can’t be against that, right? And it’d make it easier on him if he doesn’t have to get me to practices and things. He needs time for his Ministry.”

Mom exhales roughly. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll be fine,” Cheyenne insists.

“Maybe just think about it. There might be something else.” Pels doesn’t like the idea of leaving Cheyenne alone with Peter, either. She doesn’t trust her stepfather at all, not when it comes to Talent, and not without Mom there to protect her.

“We’ll figure something out,” Mom promises. “We’ll find out answers.”

Sure. Great.

Pels still isn’t sure they’ve even found the right questions.

The curtain rattles, Dad pulling it back as Jess and Shane return. They carry a box with several small cans and juice boxes, along with an assortment of plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

“We didn’t even have to go to the café,” Shane says. He lifts different drinks. “The nurses felt sorry for us and raided their fridge. I’ve got apple juice, cranberry juice, chocolate milk, and ginger ale. The sandwiches are tuna, turkey, egg salad, or cheese. I’ve got condiments separate because apparently everything comes without mayo because we’re healthy.” He drops back into his chair and holds up the box. “You get first choice, Pels.”

“I can eat?” She wiggles her fingers at the box. “Tuna and apple juice. I’m starving.”

Shane lifts the bed so she can sit up, while Jess places the requested sandwich and drink aside. Jess hands out the rest, then turns the box into a makeshift tray for Pels.

It’s just terribly dry tuna salad but it tastes so damned good right about now. She devours half the sandwich before she manages to slow down. Jess silently sets another juice box on her lap when Pels drains the first, and she hovers there for a moment, as if she wants to reach out to her. Pels glances at her wrist—no change to the mark so she assumes that somehow they’ve come through this without touching.

Or if they did touch, somehow nothing changed.

That seems improbable.

Cheyenne vacates the chair so that Jess can sit, instead finding a spot on the floor to sit cross-legged. She yawns widely once she’s done nibbling on half of a cheese sandwich, then tilts towards Mom, her head on Mom’s knee.

Dad steps out of the way as the curtain opens again. The nurse is different, small and round and biting back a small smile. “Hi, I’m just coming on shift and wanted to see if you needed anything,” she says quietly. “Other than something to collect the garbage. I’ll go get a bag and be right back.”

Mom rises quickly, one hand on Cheyenne’s head. Cheyenne blinks and makes a soft noise. “Actually, if you could recommend a hotel, I need to get us settled somewhere.”

The nurse hesitates, gaze flicking between Mom, Pels, and Shane and Jess. “If you’d like to stay in the room with—”

“Yes,” Jess replies quickly.

The nurse says nothing.

“They’re as good as family, magically speaking,” Mom says firmly. “Cheyenne and I drove up, and we need sleep. Now that Pels is awake and I know—” Her voice catches.

“It’s okay,” Pels assures her. “I’ll be fine.” She can feel exhaustion in her bones again, now that she’s fed and secure. The adrenalin of waking is wearing off, and she sinks back, letting the bed take her weight. “But I’d like it if—”

Jess looks so hopeful, her hands clasped tightly together, so tight that her fingers are pale and her freckles bright against the skin. Shane has one hand on the rail of her bed, close to her shoulder.

“I want them to stay,” Pels says quietly. “They’re my soulmates. Literally. I mean, magically. See?” She lifts her wrist just barely off the bed, the nurse’s gaze dropping to the ink displayed.

“I’ll make sure the head nurse knows,” the nurse says gently. “And ma’am, if you and your daughter would like to come with me, we’ll get you a ride to a hotel. You don’t look like you should be driving.”

Cheyenne makes a noise of protest as Mom helps her stand.

“Be safe,” Pels tells them. “I love you.”

Cheyenne’s mumble is almost incoherent, but Mom’s words are distinct as she looks back at Pels. “I love you, too.”

The nurse returns just a moment later with a tall garbage bin, and to show them where the switch is for the main light over Pels’s head. Even with the light off, Pels can still see easily in the near darkness from the lights out on the main floor, outside the curtain.

Dad settles into the chair where Mom had been, while Shane stays put. Jess moves around, cleaning up and taking care not to touch.

“Thank you for staying,” Pels says. Jess gives her a startled look, while Shane carefully tangles his fingers with hers. Pels squeezes Shane’s hand.

“We couldn’t—we just need to know you’re okay,” Jess whispers as she sinks back into her own chair. “I wish….”

Pels knows what she’s asking, but she can’t answer that right now, not when sleep is dragging her back into its clutches. Instead she rolls on one side, her hand still held where Shane can reach her. Dad sits slouched in his chair, head bowed as if he would sleep as well, his arms crossed and legs stretched out. “Thank you,” she whispers, waiting until he glances at her. “For saving them.”

“They’re yours,” Dad murmurs. He leans forward, lightly brushing her hair back from her face. “Of course I’d save them.”

Everyone’s safe, and Dad’s with them, so they’ll all stay that way.

Pels exhales, and lets sleep steal her away.

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