#before it is about the machines of war themselves

[tokoyamisstuff]

more vladcard hcs please? 🥺👉👈 perhaps about him being a parent/ what kind of father he would be?

f! Reader, no warnings quickly drabbled @ 2am don't expect a masterpiece haha

Due to his own troubled childhood he thought it'd be for the best to never have children of his own.

It's not that he isn't fond of the concept - especially if it's with you - but he doesn't see himself fit due to his unresolved trauma.

Also, they would be walking targets for enemies seeking revenge, and even if they did survive to adulthood they'd be burdened with his legacy.

Vlad sees you as 'part of his heart walking outside of his body', and his constant worry is already tearing him apart. He just cannot imagine how much worse it would be if you were carrying his heir, let alone putting another child at risk to suffer in this cruel world.

So no matter how attached you are to the idea, no matter how long you're trying to convince him, he firmly believes he's better off caring for no one (except you of course).

Maybe an accident would have you with child after all, especially during that time pregnancy would happen eventually. Or it'd be something more tragic, like a maid of yours passing during childbirth and you insisting on raising it as your own.

His base conviction stays the same, but he just can't deny you this heartfelt with so he tries to brace himself for the inevitable.

Arranges everything you and the child would need to live comfortably, but will most likely insist to have you stay far away incognito until the child is old enough to defend themselves.

He will definetly cry as soon as he sets eyes upon this innocent, frail little creature, being overwhelmed by memories of his past together with so many emotions at once: Astonishment, panic, sadness and happiness at the same time, instant protectiveness and an all-consuming, unconditional love.

At first he'd refuse to even do so much as holding it, feeling like his blood-stained hands were unworthy of touching such a precious thing. It'll take him weeks and lots of your encouragement to adjust to the new situation, but deep down he is aching to engage with his offspring.

He will lull it to sleep with that baritone voice of his, singing and telling tales all while cradling it gently against his chest.

Definetly shaves his beard during the first weeks because he fears it'd break the delicate skin of the newborn. Sorry.

It's almost poetic how those hands that only ever inflicted violence and death were now eagerly crafting toys, meant to bring joy instead of misery.

You and his subordinates would notice him tend to orphans on the streets as of late - something he usually never even considered, as he was too blinded by the focus on his greater course.

Spending time with his child brings forth a whole new side of himself, one he wasn't even able to show you before. This literal war-machine, this pensive and stern beast of a man would be carefree for what felt like the first time in his cursed life, his laughter filling the room as he carries his child on his shoulders and having it play with his hair.

This turn of events wouldn't completely shift his perspective on God, but he couldn't deny that the existence of your child was a miracle and blessing in itself.

[msklassickilla]

Prada You Chapter 21

Summary:

In the summer of 1998, sparks fly between Nyeya and Jey.

Nyeya is an 18-year-old around the way girl. Jey is older, paid, and fine. He is also the leader of the infamous Prada Bois alongside his twin brother Jimmy.  The two have chemistry. However, Nyeya has plans outside of her attraction. With a birthday around the corner and dreams of living a good life, Nyeya sets her sights on enjoying the perks of Jey's money and hood celebrity.

But baby girl has no clue what it takes to really be down. Nyeya is about to learn some hard life lessons at the expense of her 'Prada' priced dreams.

Pairing: Jey Uso x Nyeya (Nye) Green (OC)

Author’s Note: This story is happening in an alternative universe. It features the current and original Bloodline members along with other WWE stars. So, the characters are themselves, but some things are switched around for the stories sake. This was originally written with all original characters, but I think it could work better this way. Hope you guys enjoy it and I actually finish it...

Warning: Please be advised that this chapter contains harsh/foul language, moments of intimacy, violence, underage drinking, age gap relationships.

Disclaimer: This work of art is fictional in nature including the original characters created by me. I do not own any of the existing characters or lyrics from songs referenced in this story (if any). All rights belong to their respective owners with the exception of my original characters. This work is purely for entertainment purposes and is not intended to cause harm.

Chapter 21: War

August 8th 1998

The low hum of washing machines and the distant chatter of two older women talking about the price of food filled the laundromat as I moved through the routine motions of my Sunday morning. Sorting. Folding. Thinking. The clothes weren’t the only thing I was trying to organize—my thoughts felt just as jumbled as the pile of laundry in front of me.

Jey wanted me to move in. Now. His persistence was bothering me greatly.

I bit my lip, staring blankly at the damp clothes as I transferred them from the washer into the dryer. It was all happening too fast. When had I ever said I was ready for that? Ready to leave my mother, leave Michael, leave the little bit of normalcy I still had left?

The thought of my life shifting completely into Jey’s world made me uneasy, but I hadn’t figured out why it bothered me so much.

The small bell above the laundromat door jingled, and I didn’t think much of it—until I felt his presence before I even saw him. Jey. I turned, and there he was, leaning against a folding table like he had all the time in the world. A slow, knowing smirk spread across his face when our eyes met.

“Hey, baby.”

My stomach clenched. Not just from seeing him—but because I hadn’t told him where I was going this morning after he dropped me off. How did he even know my ass was here?

I really didn’t want to show my annoyance, so I folded a towel neatly, keeping my voice casual. “I thought you went home to sleep. How did you know where I was?”

Jey walked toward me; hands tucked into the pockets of his black sweatpants. “I always know where you at.”

My hands froze mid-fold. I looked up at him, searching his face. Was he for real right now?

His expression didn’t give me an answer. My mind immediately started running scenarios. Did he have somebody watching me? Or was this just him being his usual overbearing self?

Before I could press him further, he stepped in closer, brushing my hip with his as he leaned on the folding table. “I was thinkin’,” he started, changing the subject, “You wanna learn how to drive today?”

I blinked. “Huh?”

Jey grinned at my reaction, nudging my shoulder. “You heard me. You been wanting to finish learning since that night you had to drive my car to the house on Bend. I got time today, so what’s up?”

I eyed him, trying to ignore the way my heart sped up just a little at the thought. He was right. I had been meaning to finish learning, but with everything Jey consuming my life, I just… hadn’t.

I studied him for a beat longer before shrugging. “Okay.”

Jey smirked in satisfaction. “Aight, bet.”

He stayed close while I finished up, helping me fold clothes, carrying them out like he had nowhere better to be. His touch was softer today, his presence warmer, like he wanted to remind me why I had fallen for him in the first place. Jey could be like this. He could be sweet, patient. Attentive.

It almost made me forget about the eerie way he had just shown up out of nowhere yet again. I still felt like he had somebody following me.

By the time we were back at my place, I was feeling lighter, laughing at something stupid he said as he helped carry the last of my clothes inside. My mama was at work and Michael was somewhere probably terrorizing somebody, so I didn’t mind him coming in.

Maybe today would be easy. Maybe today, I could just enjoy Jey without all the extra weight pressing down on me.

---

The sun was blazing, sending waves of heat through the near-empty parking lot Jey had pulled into. It was the perfect spot to practice. As there was no risk of me hitting anybody shit.

I gripped the steering wheel, my shoulders tense as I stared straight ahead. “You sure ‘bout this?”

Jey’s arm draped over the back of the passenger seat as he watched me, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Girl, if I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be lettin’ you sit in my driver’s seat. Now go ‘head, put yo’ foot on the gas, but slow.”

I exhaled hard, nodding. Doing my best to remember the basics. My foot tapped the pedal, and the car lurched forward, making me yelp.

Jey snorted. “Damn, baby, you tryna send us through the windshield?”

I shot him a glare, adjusting my grip. “Shut up.”

Jey chuckled but reached over, guiding my hands gently. “Relax. You got this. This shit easy once you get the hang of it.”

I took a breath, trying again. This time, the car moved forward smoothly, rolling through the lot without issue. A small grin tugged at my lips as confidence replaced my nerves. I could do this.

We spent the next hour going through the motions—turning, reversing, parking. Jey was patient with me, something I wasn’t used to. He wasn’t barking orders or making me feel stupid for messing up. He was teaching me. Something I found attractive. I liked this side of him.

After one final turn, I parked and turned to him, expecting praise. “Now, rate me 1-10.”

Jey smirked. “Solid 6.”

I gasped. “Excuse me?”

I know he didn’t try to play me like that especially after all my hard work.

“You still scared to go over 20 miles per hour. Ain’t no way I can rate you higher than that.”

I shoved his arm playfully. “You such a hater.”

Jey chuckled before letting his hand rest against my thigh. His fingers traced small circles as he spoke. “When you move in, I’ll get you a car. You ain’t gotta rely on nobody else to get around.”

My stomach flipped. There it was again. I shifted, watching his fingers absently stroke the skin of my uncovered leg. “Jey… why you so pressed on me movin’ in?”

Jey’s eyes lifted to mines, his expression unreadable. “’Cause I want you close. I want you with me every night. Not just sometimes.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. It wasn’t just about moving in. There was something else to this and he couldn’t change my mind about that.

Jey took my hand in his, rubbing slow circles with his thumb. “I ain’t tryna press you. But I’m serious about this, Nye. I want this to be more. I see it all with you—home, marriage, kids.”

My breath caught. “Jey…”

“Don’t overthink it,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the inside of my wrist. “You built for this. We built for this.”

I stared at him, my emotions tangled into a knot I couldn’t untangle. He made it sound so easy. But deep down, I knew…

Nothing about this life was ever easy.

---

August 12th 1998

The scent of hot comb and pressing oil filled my room as Natasha ran the straightener through the last section of my hair. The soft sizzle echoed against the steady hum of the ceiling fan above us. I sat still, staring at my reflection in the vanity mirror, watching Natasha work with skilled hands.

“You really letting Jey dress you now?” Natasha teased, eyeing the red, slinky dress draped across the bed. “This barely got enough fabric to be called a dress. I usually wear something like that, not you.”

I smirked, flipping a strand of my newly pressed hair over my shoulder. “You know how he is. He likes me looking good for him.”

Natasha rolled her eyes but grinned. “Mmhmm. He just likes showing you off knowing other men can’t have you.”

I laughed softly, before shifting the conversation. “Where’s Taya?”

Natasha paused briefly, then started on my edges. “With Jimmy, where else?”

There was something in her tone that made me glance up. “She been with him a lot lately, huh?”

Natasha exhaled through her nose. “Yeah. Ever since he and Jey got questioned by the police, she been… different. I don’t know, she ain’t herself.” She hesitated before adding, “I think Jimmy’s world is getting to her. She not use to no hood shit like that. Them white boys she usually date don’t get down like Jimmy do.”

I held back from saying what I really wanted to. I wondered if Natasha knew just how much Nataya’s life was changing—but that was for Nataya to share with her twin, not me. Instead, I offered a small nod. “She’ll talk when she’s ready.”

Natasha sighed. “Yeah, I hope so.”

With that, she pressed one last section, ran her fingers through my silky strands, and smiled. “There. You good to go.”

---

Jey pulled up right on time, his car gleaming under the streetlights. I stepped outside, the summer heat hugging my skin. I felt Jey’s eyes on me before he even spoke.

“Damn, girl.”

He was out of the car in seconds, hands sliding to my waist, pulling me close. His eyes roamed my figure, lingering at the curve of my hips and the way the dress clung to my body. “You tryna kill me tonight?”

I giggled, pressing my hands against his chest. “You bought the dress.”

“And I knew you’d make it look even better than I imagined,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss me slowly, as if he wanted to savor the moment.

For once, things felt… light. I let myself melt into the affection, deciding to leave our recent tension about moving in behind for the night. I just wanted to enjoy my man.

Dinner was at a high-end steakhouse downtown, the kind of place with dim lighting, linen tablecloths, and jazz playing in the background. Jey was on his best behavior—keeping his hands on my thigh under the table, whispering sweet things in my ear between courses, making sure my glass stayed full. I loved moments like this.

By the time we left, I was feeling warm and content, my earlier worries buried beneath the buzz of good food and Jey’s presence. But as we drove further away from the city, the mood shifted.

I frowned. “Where we goin’?”

Jey smirked, eyes still on the road. “You’ll see.”

Minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of a decent sized suburban house. My stomach twisted. I had never been here before.

Jey parked and turned to me, nodding toward the house. “Come inside.”

I hesitated. Something about this felt… off. But this was Jey. I trusted him, didn’t I? I followed him up the steps and through the front door. The house was fully furnished—plush couches, framed art on the walls, a polished dining table, and soft lighting that made everything feel cozy.

I looked at him questioningly. “Jey… what is this? Whose house is this?”

Jey turned to me with a slow grin. “Our home. After your birthday, this where we’ll be livin’.”

My breath caught. Our home? My pulse quickened as I took another look around, realization sinking in. He had already planned everything without me. No conversation. No discussion. Just a decision he made for me.

“Jey, you can’t just decide that. You can’t keep doing this to me,” I said, voice tight.

Jey exhaled and closed the space between us, hands sliding up my arms. “Why you makin’ this a big deal? You know how good it’ll be, Nye.” He leaned in, brushing his lips along my jaw. “No more sneakin’ around. No more nights apart. Just me and you. Every night.”

I stiffened, torn between frustration and the way his kisses sent warmth through my body. “You don’t even ask, Jey. You just tell me what we doing.”

Jey kissed my neck slowly, his voice dropping lower. “Cause I know what’s best for us, baby.”

I wanted to push him away. I wanted to argue. But the way he was touching me, pulling me in, made everything blur. His hands trailed down my sides, gripping my hips as he walked me back toward the bedroom.

“Lemme show you how good it’ll be,” he murmured, lips ghosting over my ear.

My breath hitched as my back met the bed. Jey knew how to break my resolve. He knew the exact way to kiss me, the exact places to touch that made me forget—forget about the house, the plans, the fact that I was losing control of my own life.

His hands trailed lower, fingertips teasing over the delicate straps of my dress, his lips tracing the curve of my shoulder. His warmth wrapped around me like a promise—one that whispered of a life I wasn’t sure I could refuse. The air between us grew thick, charged with unspoken words and dangerous desires.

I should fight this. I should set my boundaries. But as Jey leaned over me, his breath hot against my skin, I let go.

For now. I could think about everything else later. This felt too good to fight it. So, I didn’t…

---

August 15th 1998

The ringing of the phone pulled me from my half-sleep. I had been laying on my bed, flipping through a magazine, lost in my thoughts when I finally grabbed the receiver.

"Girl, you comin' to the party for Sami or what?" Kiyah’s voice was already impatient.

I exhaled, rubbing my forehead. "I don’t know yet."

I was still mad at myself for giving in to Jey. I wasn’t sold on moving in no matter how good he made me felt.

"Nye, stop playin'. You know you ain't got no choice," she huffed. "You Jey's girl. He gonna expect you to be there."

I sighed. She was right. Whether I wanted to or not, Jey was going to want me at that party. And he’d throw a fit if I wasn’t.

"The twins are comin', too," Kiyah added. "Sami specifically wanted Natasha there. He been eyein’ her for a minute. He want that chocolate ill nana."

I chuckled to myself. I had noticed how Sami hovered around Natasha whenever she was around. "Fine, fine. I’ll go."

"Good, 'cause I’m on my way. Jacob let me borrow a car."

I sat up, realizing Kiyah was getting in deep. Just like me and Taya. Natasha could be next if Sami played his cards right.

---

By the time we got to the lounge, the party was already in full effect. The air was thick with smoke, laughter spilling from every corner of the dimly lit space. Drinks flowed freely, and bar food was being passed around like currency.

I spotted Sami immediately, pulling Natasha off to the side, his full attention locked on her. I smirked, realizing how smitten he was. Kiyah was draped under Jacob’s protective arm, whispering something in his ear that made him smirk. And then there was Nataya, sitting comfortably in Jimmy’s lap, eating while he nursed a drink and conversed with the men around him.

That’s when I saw it—a small pouch forming on her belly. She wasn’t going to be able to hide it much longer.

I made a mental note to pull her to the side later, but my attention shifted when my eyes landed on Jey. He was playing pool with Damian. My stomach knotted.

I knew they were friends, but it bothered me how much they were together. It was always the two of them. And Dulce wasn’t far either, lingering around the table like she was waiting for an opening.

I rolled my eyes and turned toward the bar, deciding to drink instead of engaging with Jey just yet. But he didn’t let me keep my distance for long. Before I knew it, he was on me, affectionate and intoxicated. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me close. "Why you ain't come straight to me when you got here, huh?" he murmured into my ear.

I was about to answer when the energy in the room shifted. Four men walked in, drawing everybody’s attention. Jey’s hold on me tightened before he abruptly let go, his whole posture changing. I looked up at him, confused, before glancing back at the men. One of them looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had seen him before.

Damian moved first, stepping in front of them, his stance aggressive. The conversation started off calmly before their voices grew louder, and then it clicked. The man who stood directly in front of Damian. I had seen that man before—at Tama’s house party. The one who spoke to me and who Jey fought that night.

My stomach flipped as Jey pulled away from me, his focus locked on the men. I reached for him, trying to pull him back, but he was already moving in their direction.

Jey’s voice was low, controlled. "We can take this outside."

My pulse spiked. I didn’t know who the other men were or what this was about, but I knew one thing—this wasn’t good. Jimmy was by Jey’s side in a heartbeat, and together with Damian and the other Prada Bois, they followed the men toward the exit.

Nataya and I locked eyes, the same thought running through our minds. Without a word, we moved in unison, following them outside. Something was about to happen, and I needed to see it for myself.

---

The humid night air clung to my skin, thick with the scent of sweat, spilled liquor, and burning rubber. My heart pounded as I stepped out of the lounge, the neon glow from the sign flickering above like a bad omen. Then, all hell broke loose.

Fists flew. Bodies slammed into car hoods. The night was alive with chaos. Could we go one night without the bullshit?

Jey and Damian were on the same man, the one Jey had already tangled with at Tama’s. Their fists were relentless, cracking against his ribs and face with sickening force. Jimmy and Sami were fighting off another dude, the scuffle dragging them toward the sidewalk. The men they were up against weren’t alone either—more of them lurked in the shadows, waiting to strike.

They definitely had planned to lure them outside and ambush them.

Jacob had a man in a chokehold against a car, his biceps flexed as the guy flailed weakly. Tama and Tonga moved like a synchronized storm, taking turns landing blows on another man who never saw them coming. Bronson wasn’t even fighting—he was destroying one of the dudes, his fists landing with a precision that made my stomach hurt. Blood splattered the pavement beneath him, the man barely holding himself up.

And then I saw it—him. A shadow moving in from the side, creeping up on Jey, a clenched fist ready to strike.

“Baby!” I screamed, sprinting before I even thought twice.

The man swung. The crack of impact sent Jey staggering forward, but he didn’t fall. I didn’t think—I just reacted. Wasn’t nobody about to whoop my man ass if I had anything to do with it.

I launched myself at the guy, swinging with everything in me. My fists connected, but I was outmatched. He caught my arm, yanked me off my feet, and slammed me onto the pavement so hard my breath vanished. Pain shot up my back, but before he could capitalize, a blur of movement exploded beside me.

Kiyah and Natasha.

They were on him in an instant, fists, nails, and heels flying. He barely had time to react before he was crumbling under their combined assault. I scrambled to my feet, my vision tunneling with rage, ready to join back in, but strong arms wrapped around my waist, dragging me back.

“Calm the fuck down,” Damian’s voice growled low in my ear, his grip firm and unyielding.

I kicked at the air, struggling. “Let me go!” I wasn’t done tagging his ass. Don’t nobody put they hands on me.

“Chill, Nyeya,” he warned, voice taut with authority. “Esta no es tu pelea.” (this ain’t your fight)

Jey had recovered by then, shaking off the hit he’d taken, his eyes locking on the man who dared put his hands on me. I barely had time to register what was happening before Jey lunged forward, tackling him like a linebacker. The guy hit the ground hard, and Jey was on top of him in an instant, fists hammering into his face with unrelenting fury.

The wail of police sirens shattered the air. Somebody had called them.

“Shit,” someone muttered.

The lounge owner stormed outside, waving his hands. “Aye! Break this shit up! The cops on the way!”

The energy shifted instantly. The Prada Bois started peeling away from their opponents, stepping back before things could escalate further. Jacob loosened his hold on the guy he was choking out, letting him drop like a sack of bricks. Tama and Tonga backed off, rolling their shoulders like they were just getting warmed up. But Jey wasn’t stopping.

His fists kept coming, blood coating his knuckles, his breathing ragged. He was lost in the violence, in the sheer need to make the man regret ever touching me.

I twisted against Damian’s hold. “Stop him! Damian stop him!”

Damian let out a sharp breath before finally releasing me, moving in to yank Jey back by the collar of his shirt. “Enough, dude! The cops are coming.”

Jey was breathing hard, his fists still clenched, but he finally backed away. His nostrils flared as the flashing red and blue lights became noticeable as they got closer to the scene. His chest rose and fell in sharp breaths, his eyes wild as they locked on mine.

The other men picked up the wounded from their crew, getting back into cars, pulling off with the quickness.

The police arrived shortly after, telling us all to get inside, their presence sending another ripple of tension through the room. My breath hitched as I prayed none of the Prada Bois would get hauled off. I knew how this went—one wrong word, one wrong move, and they’d find a reason to take somebody in.

The lounge owner wasted no time, stepping in with a practiced ease, his voice smooth as he explained to the officers that the fight had been started by the other men—outsiders who had crashed a private event looking for trouble. The police eyed everybody with suspicion, their gazes sweeping over the bruised faces and torn clothes.

For a moment, it felt like they weren’t buying it, but after some back and forth, and the lounge owner pressing that it was an unprovoked attack, they finally backed off. With a stiff warning, they turned on their heels and exited, their presence leaving a thick residue of unease behind.

Jey exhaled sharply, finally turning to me, his fingers grazing the cut on my elbow. The energy in the room was thick, suffocating. Across from us, Dulce was tending to Damian, but his attention was elsewhere—on me. I felt his gaze burning into my skin, an unspoken feelings passing between us that I quickly forced myself to ignore.

My arm throbbed, blood trailing in a thin line, but before I could assess the damage, Jey’s hands were on me, inspecting every inch.

Jey grabbed some napkins from a close by table and pressed them against my arm, his brows furrowed. "You gotta choose your battles more wisely, baby," he muttered, his voice laced with something deeper than concern.

Before I could respond, Damian stepped forward. "She good?" he asked, eyes flickering between me and Jey.

Jey didn’t even look up. "Yea. I got it handled, Uce. I appreciate you for looking out for her out there."

Damian nodded, but his expression told me he wasn’t convinced. The weight of everything that had just happened hung between us, unspoken but understood. I nodded at him, just to get him to let it go.

It seemed like chaos followed us no matter where we went. My head was still spinning from everything—the fight, the cops, the tension brewing in the air that felt like it was far from over.

---

Things seem to settle down but the moment broke when Jimmy’s voice rang out over the murmur of the crowd.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

Nataya was standing her ground, arms crossed, chin high. “What was you thinking? You think I was just gonna sit back and let them jump you?”

Jimmy raked a hand over his face, exhaling sharply. “You pregnant, Taya. What the hell were you even doing outside in the first place? Especially when you carrying my baby.”

Everything stopped.

The words cut through the night like a blade. I felt my stomach drop as Natasha’s head snapped toward them so fast I thought she might get whiplash. “Baby?” she repeated, her voice dangerously quiet. “Did you just say baby?”

Jimmy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” she repeated, voice taut. “That’s all you gotta say?”

Jimmy exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face. “Yeah. Let’s not do this right now though.”

“Not now?” Natasha’s voice rose. “You got my sister pregnant, and you don’t wanna do this right fucking now.”

I gulped. This wasn’t supposed to come out especially right now in the mist of what just went down. Natasha had every right to be hurt though. That was her twin, who shared everything with her. I understood.

Natasha’s face twisted with disbelief. “And when the fuck was y’all gonna tell me? After she had the baby or when she could no longer hide it.”

Nataya looked at the ground, her hands protectively placed over her stomach. “We… I just needed time.”

Natasha inhaled sharply, stepping back like the air had been knocked out of her. “You needed time?” Her voice cracked, eyes flicking between her sister and Jimmy. “Are you kidding me, Taya?

Sami grabbed her by the arm, trying to hold her back. “Chill, Tasha.”

“Nah!” Natasha yanked away, her voice shaking. “This is crazy.”

Bronson, never one for dramatics, exhaled and clapped his hands together. “Aight, man, enough of this. We need to get outta here before the cops decide to circle back.”

Natasha wasn’t done though. She turned back to Jimmy. “So, what now, huh? What you gon’ do? You gon’ be around, or you gon’ leave my sister hanging?”

Jimmy’s jaw ticked, his patience wearing thin. “I already told her she ain't got nothing to worry about. She straight. My baby straight.”

Natasha scoffed. “Straight? Negro, y’all was just locked up not too long ago! How the hell you gon’ promise that?”

That hit a nerve. Jimmy’s entire posture shifted. “Watch your mouth, Nat.”

“Or what?” Natasha shot back, stepping closer.

Sami grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back. “Okay, that’s enough,” he muttered in her ear, and after a moment, she let him hold her there, her body still trembling with anger.

I looked at Nataya. She looked drained, her hands still protectively placed over her stomach. She didn’t have the fight in her right now, and I knew she just wanted this to be over.

Jey sighed next to me before stepping forward. “We handling this, aight? Everybody just relax.”

Natasha turned her glare on him. “You knew?”

Jey held his hands up. “Hell nah. I just found out like the rest of y’all.”

Natasha stared at him for a moment, deciding whether she believed him or not, before exhaling and shaking her head. “This is wild.”

Bronson clapped his hands again, louder this time. “Aight, we done here. This shit is done. Everybody go home, get your shit together. We got business to handle tomorrow.”

One by one, people started filing out. The energy in the room was still tense, but the immediate threat of another fight had passed. For most of them, it seemed like just another day.

Jey pulled me closer, brushing his fingers over the cut on my elbow. “C’mon, let’s go.”

I hesitated, glancing at Nataya. She met my eyes and gave me a small nod, silently telling me she’d be okay. I hugged her before following Jey out the door.

As we stepped into the cool night air, he pulled me into his car, his grip firm but careful. Once inside, he exhaled deeply, rubbing his temples. “Shit’s gettin’ messy.”

I didn’t respond. I just stared out the window, watching as Jimmy and Nataya stood by his car, talking in hushed voices. Kiyah, Natasha, along with Sami stood next to the car we all arrived in.

Jey reached over, his fingers grazing my thigh. “You with me, right?”

I turned to him, my mind racing with everything that had happened tonight, everything that had been revealed.

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah… I’m with you.”

I had told myself over and over that I was built for this life. That I could handle whatever came with it. But tonight made me wonder if I had just been lying to myself.

---

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[taliquest]

Well okay I guess it's my turn but this list is gonna suck because I live under a rock.

Samurai Troopers/Ronin Warriors

Arguably my first experience with fandom if only from afar, but something that so deeply resonated and rewrote my brain chemistry (this guy in particular) that I eventually tracked down the flock, blended into the flock, and now I am deeply entwined with the flock like microplastics in the fish population.

Gundam 0080

I do not deny that there are a lot of much better, much more resonant, much more entertaining Gundam series out there. None of them hit me on as deeply a personal level as 0080 does, being that I am myself a military brat who grew up neck-deep in the propaganda of the military-industrial complex and a love of war machines, only to find the realities of war hit home at a young age... albeit not in the same way as our protagonist Al. 0080 isn't the best Gundam series, but to me, it is the ideal one.

Burn Notice

There's nothing deep here. Just a great cast and lots of explosions. Perfectly, Adequately Entertaining Mid-00s USA programming.

Danger 5

I don't know something about it just seems relevant in the current day and age. Also it's just delightfully gory comedy channeling all manner of pulp stories with perfectly executed gags parodying zero-budget productions ranging from cheap sets, costumes, miniatures, "bad" acting, and the occasional boom mic, to say nothing of send-ups of classic tokusatsu.

And mountains of dead Nazis.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger

There are plenty of other, much more salient Sentai series out there, of that you can be certain. However, Absolute Mad Woman Yasuko Kobayashi lured me in by my samurai sympathies established by Samurai Troopers above, and hooked me with truly compelling character drama, weaving jidaigeki flawlessly into toy commercials and giant robot fights. Yes the blue on is my favorite, Ryunosuke is a delightful dork.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

Oh look another Yasuko Kobayashi joint. The 90s series is iconic, the manga is outstanding, and Crystal... updates it to modern times, more or less (I haven't seen Eternal or Cosmos, I'm sorry, I can't provide any greater insight). PGSM only runs the Dark Kingdom arc but brings Kobayashi's usual incredible character writing and twists, warps, and refines quite a few concepts, giving new insights and interpretations into the cast while also making them feel so much more alive.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I've got nothing to add that hasn't been said before other than it's nowhere near as Ow The Edge as you've probably been led to believe, and this show literally saved me.

Kamen Rider Fourze

With 50 years of history under it's belt, picking an actual favorite Rider season is an exercise in frustration because even the weaker series have parts and themes that make them shine. But my top five are consistent if constantly swapping places, and Fourze is at the top today. This is not a hard-hitting, introspective piece that questions the nature of humanity and justice that so many do. Fourze is a show in which friendship literally saves the day and grants the titular protagonist ever greater power as he forges bonds with his classmates and school faculty until even the stars themselves are within their reach. This is one of the few shows where the bad guys get redeemed at the end and yet it feels like such a natural conclusion; Fourze is a show about overcoming your hangups and your past, finding community and family, and through that becoming not just a whole person but the person you only dreamed of being before.

Fourze is beautiful and I'll gladly go to bat for it any day. But tomorrow my answer might be Ryuki, so...

The SoulTaker

Before we go any further please understand, this show is not here because I think it is good. The SoulTaker is something, but I could never in good conscience describe it as good. This show is here because it hijacked my adolescent mind in Year of Our Godoka Two Thousand Threeourive and I have not been able to escape it since. I want you to imagine THE MOST Early 00s, Post-Evangelion, Post-Matrix, Edgelord Cringe thing you can. Got it? Good. Now GO FURTHER. The SoulTaker cannot be described. It can only be experienced. Or rather, it can only be inflicted.

Gushing Over Magical Girls

You've probably heard a lot about this series. It's true. All of it. This show is transgressive and queer as hell, unapologetic in both its lust and adulation for the genre, both a touching exploration of a young girl's budding sapphic feelings for her heroines and a raunchy comedy wherein she exploits the same - and in the process causes them to have a few realizations. You may have been turned off by this show's reputation as smut, and that's true, it absolutely is.

But it's the best kind of, and very well done, smut. And right now, I think we need more of that kind of thing than ever.

who to tag, who to tag... Let's see... @yamiquietshadowflo, @starlitskvader, @popeyeotaku, @samurai-skittle-squad, and @kamenstranger, have a go if you please!

10 shows, 10 people game!

Game: Add 10 gifs from your favorite shows and tag 10 people.

Tagged by the ever sweet @snowviolettwhite 💜

9-1-1 (my emotional support family 🥹)

Warehouse 13 (another found family show 🥺)

Grimm (I can't explain how much I love this one it's like spn but happier) (911 lovers Lou Ransone is in this one and he has so many shirtless scenes lmao)

The Guest (Korean horror) (I'm actually not into horror but the fact that this is one of my fav is so funny. It's more the 3 main characters than anything, I loved their interaction)

From Today It's My Turn (Japanese) (this one's so silly and hilarious)

The Librarians (another found family show!) (yes Albert from 911 is in it. so is Elliot from Leverage)

Person of Interest (literally my babies 😭 i'm sorry i couldn't add root/shaw 😭 also you WILL sob)

Unbelievable (heavy but so 🤌🏽 based on a true story)

Beyond Evil (Korean) (Lee Dong Sik 😭😭 this WILL destroy you)

Dark (German) (actually haven't completed it yet but s1 is exquisite)

Honestly there's SO MANY shows that I love but I tried to include diverse ones and some not so popular ones.

Honourable mentions: Haven (if you know this one I'll love you forever lol), Kotaro Lives Alone, Ragnarok (Norwegian), Kingdom (Korean), Signal (Korean), Tunnel (Korean), The Following

No pressure tags @scknight05 @lemotmo @eddiediazismyhusband @jackwhiteprophetic @diazguzman @begebege28 @mazzystar24 @syfygirl1998 @monroemary @ofqueensandwitches and anyone else who wants to do this!

[theunsleepinghimbo]

i'm actually gonna go on record as a historian and say, on the subject of "why is every man i know always thinking about the roman empire", that means that every man you know has a dangerously bad relationship to imperialism

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:

https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2004/12/is_drm_evil.html

I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/29/cory-responds-to-wired-editor-on-drm/

I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.

But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.

This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:

https://mamot.fr/@q3k@hackerspace.pl/111528162905209453

Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/researchers-face-legal-threats-over-sdmi-hack/

20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.

But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.

These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.

This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).

Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:

https://aftermath.site/there-is-no-piracy-without-ownership

Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!

But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.

The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.

Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.

Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerjameshill.bsky.social/post/3kflw2lvam42n

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

Image: Alan Levine (modified) https://pxhere.com/en/photo/218986

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "Asexual and agender main character. In later books side characters are revealed to be in poly relationship."

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, novella, series, adult

Hunger Pangs series (True Love Bites) by Joy Demorra

In a world of dwindling hope, love has never mattered more...

Captain Nathan J. Northland had no idea what to expect when he returned home to Lorehaven injured from war, but it certainly wasn't to find himself posted on an island full of vampires. An island whose local vampire dandy lord causes Nathan to feel strange things he'd never felt before. Particularly about fangs.

When Vlad Blutstein agreed to hire Nathan as Captain of the Eyrie Guard, he hadn't been sure what to expect either, but it certainly hadn't been to fall in love with a disabled werewolf. However Vlad has fallen and fallen hard, and that's the problem.

Torn by their allegiances--to family, to duty, and the age-old enmity between vampires and werewolves--the pair find themselves in a difficult situation: to love where the heart wants or to follow where expectation demands.

The situation is complicated further when a mysterious and beguiling figure known only as Lady Ursula crashes into their lives, bringing with her dark omens of death, doom, and destruction in her wake.

And a desperate plea for help neither of them can ignore.

Thrown together in uncertain times and struggling to find their place amidst the rising human empire, the unlikely trio must decide how to face the coming darkness: united as one or divided and alone. One thing is for certain, none of them will ever be the same.

Fantasy, romance, paranormal, series, adult

[darkbluekies]

Hurting (reupload)

Yandere!doctor och x reader

Summary: it's not often he lets you out of your room, and he figures, for good reason.

Warnings: yandere, a kiss, blood, violence, poisoning,

Word count: 1.9k

A/N: i must have accidentally deleted this when I was cleaning up the account but fortunately I have all my stories backed up so here you have it again😅

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Y/N?"

"Can we do something today? I don't want to sit in here all day again."

Dr Kry moves over to your bed slowly. "What would you like to do then?"

"It's so lonely sitting in here", you sigh. "Could we go to the lounge? Please? I want to be surrounded by people again."

"Y/N  you're fragile, you know that. You shouldn't breathe their air."

"But … I've been to other parts of the hospital and I was fine. I was even outside with you, remember?"

"Yes, and do you remember how weak you felt?"

You pout slightly. Another try that failed. Dr Kry tips his head, smiling slightly.

"Okay, what about this", he says. "You wear a little oxygen mask and then I'll take you to the patient's lounge?"

"You'd do that?" you ask excitedly.

"If it makes you happy."

"Yes, yes, it really will!"

Dr Kry smiles, nodding and says he will be back soon. You sit in your bed with a smile on your face until he returns. He has a machine with him and a plastic mask connected to it.

"You'll have to wear this over your face", he says. "The oxygen in the tank is pure for you. I've measured the toxic levels. It's safe."

"Will they laugh at me?" you ask carefully. "The other patients?"

"What? Of course not! They're wearing casts and bandages of all weird types, they won't even bat an eye."

"Do you promise?"

"Of course. If you want, you can hold onto me when we enter, if it feels scary."

"Yes, please."

Dr Kry tries to hide the smile creeping up on his face. You catch it and smile with him.

Dr Kry leads you through the white hospital corridors with his arm around your shoulders. His firm, protective grip is reserved for you. 

You enter the patients lounge and see people of all ages, ethnicities and genders sitting here and there. Some are discussing, some are playing games. And some are hiding for themselves in the corner.

"Alright …", Dr Kry mutters. "What would you like to do?"

You look around, eyes catching the Playstation console in front of a protected TV-screen.

"I want to play some games", you whisper. "Can I?"

"Let's go see what games they have."

You're not surprised that there are no shooting games. There are animal simulators, puzzle games and Lego star wars. Dr Kry nods, approving the little selection there is. You pick up a goat simulator.

"I'll be by the wall with the other doctors", Dr Kry whispers in your ear, rubbing your shoulder slightly. 

Otherwise they'll be suspicious of his close relationship to you. He has to blend in with them.

"Okay", you say softly, meeting his blue eyes. 

He thinks he's going to faint. Your eyes look so sparkly. He fixes your oxygen mask and gives you a small smile before walking over to the wall.

"It's not often we see your patient out and about", a doctor snickers.

Dr Kry doesn't look at him. He leans his back against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. 

"They're sick", Dr Kry answers dryly. "Why would I let them out among bacteria?"

"You're still careful, I see", the other doctor smiles. "What exactly is wrong with them?"

Dr Kry flinches at that word. He turns his cold  blue eyes to the doctor.

"Nothing is wrong with them", he corrects him coldly. "They're just sick. Other than that they're perfectly normal."

"I didn't mean it like that, Kry. I was just wondering since they're always in their room. No ones allowed to meet them."

"I don't want them to become worse. Everything in that room is sterilized and pure, exactly what my patient needs. If I allowed people to walk in and out as they pleased, it'd be contaminated and they'd be worse."

The doctor nods. "I understand. You're a very dedicated man, Kry, I'm impressed. I've heard that you stay in the doctors dorms with the patient room telephone by your ear."

"I do have a life to care for. They're still sick even when my working hours are over. I have to be available in case something happens."

The doctor is about to answer when your voice cuts through the air. A loud, heartbreaking scream. Dr Kry snaps his head in your direction. Everything seems to go in slow motion. A boy has approached you and ripped the oxygen mask off of you. He's over you with the console in his hands. Dr Kry grows cold and runs forward. He reaches the boy and rips him off you, throwing him wherever he can. He silently hopes that he cracked his skull open on the drawing table. The doctor who he had talked to shoots forward to retrieve what seems to be his patient.

Dr Kry’s attention shifts to you. You're lying on the floor, trembling with tears in your eyes. Your lip is burst. He can tell that the Playstation controller has a bit of blood on it. In one quick motion, he scoops you up in his arms. You lock your legs around his waist, your arms around his neck, and hide your face into his broad shoulder. Dr Kry secures one of his strong arms around your waist and grabs a hold of the machine with the other.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with your patient?" Dr Kry spits angrily, angrier than he's ever been before. "They're not just sick, they're actually wrong! How dare he attack my patient like that?!"

"He didn't mean to-", the doctor tries.

"I don't believe that. Get your uncontrollable beast far away from my patients or I'll show that little bastard a thing or two."

Dr Kry doesn't wait for an answer. He walks out with you and the machina tightly clutched in his hands. You sob into his shoulder. The sound of it makes Dr Krys heart ache. Your body is trembling in his hold. He wants to check up on you, but you're not safe yet. You have to get back to your room first.

"Are you okay, little one?" he asks as he hurries through the corridors. "Try not to breathe so much filthy air, breathe down into my neck. Good job, just like that. You're doing so good. You'll be okay soon. I'll take care of you right when we get to the room."

He swings the door open to the hospital room and places you down on the nearest surface — the desk. He backs away enough to see your face.

"Poor thing, your lip is bleeding", he cooes and touches your bottom lip with his fingers ever so gently. 

He turns to the drawers to get you some cotton balls, swiftly placing his fingers to his lips. He's not one that usually likes the taste of blood, but he finds himself enjoying the metallic taste of yours. He flinches, stopping. Did he just really do that? 

Dr Kry gravs the cotton ball and a bit of disinfection substance and dabs it on your soft lips. You hiss and try to pull back.

"Y/N, stop, I have to clean it", he says apologetically. "I know it hurts, but I have to make sure it doesn't get infected. Be good for me now and I'll give you something fun later, okay?"

You nod unnoticeably. His heart absolutely shatters at the sight of your tears. He's so close to dropping the professional act and swooping you up in his arms — where nothing can ever hurt you again.

"There we go, your lip is clean", he says and takes your hands in his. "Are you hurt anywhere else? What did he do to you?"

"He wanted the game console and I said no … so he got mad. He demanded it again and I refused … so he ripped the mask off of me and tried to grab it. I refused to let it go so he ripped it from me and threw me down on the floor and hit me."

Dr Kry clenches his jaw. His grip on your hands tightens significantly. You whimper, begging him to let go of you. As if awoken from a trance, he apologizes and lets go.

"I'm not really hurt", you reassure him quietly. "I got more startled than hurt. I'm sorry if I scared you."

"You're bleeding. You're hurt. He hurt you. He won't get away with it."

You touch his shoulder carefully. He shivers.

"Your uniform …", you say in shame. "I got it bloody, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Y/N, I don't mind", he smiles and wipes your tears with his hands. "It's washable." 

He fights the strong urge to hug you. Every nerve in his body fights bravely, but they're not strong enough. He wraps his arms around you to bring you into his embrace. The placement of you both makes him blush. You, sitting on his desk with him standing between your legs … it's all so dangerously close to what he wants. It's teasing him. He can't give in. Not more than this.

"I'm so glad you're okay", he whispers in your ear and tightens his embrace. "I got so scared. Are you sure that you're not hurt?"

"The only thing that hurts is my lip."

A sudden wave of confidence washes over him. He pulls back, glances at the cleaned wound.

"I can make it go away", he whispers in a husky voice he didn't know he could achieve. He glances at your eyes carefully. "May I?"

You give that nod again. He has half a second to contemplate before his lips will meet yours. One part of the brain tells him to stop, that this isn't professional. The other screams at him to hurry up, he's been waiting long enough. He gulps and finally, finally, allows his lips to meet yours. All air in his lungs disappears, but that doesn't matter, he doesn't need it. He wants to breathe you, day and night. You're softer than he could ever imagine. A small taste of blood fills his mouth. He has to kill that boy.

You place your hand on his clean shoulder and answer his kisses. It's the only signal he needs to hold you closer, bring you into him. He wonders — wishes — that you can feel how hard his heart is beating, so you can finally understand how much he has longed for you.

He understands that he has to pull back, whether he likes it or not, to not go further. 

"You're so unbelievably pretty, do you know that?" he whispers.

"Do you really think that?" you ask just as quietly.

"With all my heart."

You avoid eye contact for a few seconds before glancing back carefully.

"This won't change a thing, I promise", Dr Kry whispers with a small smile. "I'll still be your doctor. You can count on me, okay?"

You nod.

"Good", he smiles. "I think you should rest now. This has been very straining for you."

"Can you hold me?"

Dr Kry nods. He lifts you over to the bed and lies down beside you, holding you in his arms. You shut your eyes and slowly drift off to sleep. Dr Kry can feel an ounce of regret in him, but a big part of pride. He finally dared … he hopes you won't be uncomfortable with him now.

When he's sure that you're sleeping, he leaves the bed and tucks you in. He takes a good look at you, his beautiful patient. "As long as I'm here, nothing will hurt you", he whispers. "I'll get rid of everyone who causes you harm. I'll be back soon, that boy needs to be taught manners."

[bunjywunjy]

Hello Dear Friend.

I was in your country in 2019.I have gone through your profile and decided to go straight to the point on why i wholeheartedly contacting you.

My name is Mrs. Marion Gadsby from Thailand,Australian,79years,I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer .It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a month to live, according to medical experts. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself) but my business was my priority.

Though I am a very rich lady, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I Am very sick now and depends on machines to survive which I know one day one minute I will be no more , but before departing I have a fortune I will like to confined your position so that you can use it and do the humanitarian work which I failed to do when I had the grace and the time. I have willed and given to my immediate and extended family members ,but these last funds I would want to be useful to the poor and the needy. I don't trust any of my family members again because I don't think that they will deliver the fortune to the poor and needy. This is the main reason why I contacted you because I believe you will make it happen as I will instruct you in the future when the fortune is in your hands.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul, so I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth.

I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organizations in Bulgaria and Pakistan, but they refused and kept the money to themselves and used it to buy flashy cars and big houses in the city. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be content with what I have left for them. The last of my money which no one knows of is the sum of $3,000,000.00( Three Million dollars) my late husband was wealthy as an oil mogul, politician and other businesses, but he died in his private jet crash .WE CAN'T QUESTION GOD.

I will let you have 20% of his funds for your effort and time and the 80% should go to the poor and needy around you, especially those that are in war zones. Treat this message confidentially till it's done. I am waiting for your reply.

Contact me direct for more information. asikareginad@gmail.com

Mrs Marion Gasby. asikareginad@gmail.com

MRS MARION GADSBY FROM THAILAND AUSTRALIAN

[21280]

ex! izuku, one mention of the war. pro hero! y/n, who was also in the war. weird plot, but i had a dream about this with my ex. i need to cope and take my meds.

thinking of accidentally reuniting with your ex izuku midoriya, in one of the most common ways possible: both of you being invited to an arcade for a huge event.

it’s one of your mutual friend’s birthday, with the invite being a 'simple' arcade party. though, nothing about it is simple—you and your friends have the wallet of a pro hero, which meant a whole arcade building was rented for the night, with each one of the games filled with colorful costumes in case of an emergency.

and as soon as you stepped towards a big, down the clown machine, your heard someone clear their throat.

it was none other than izuku midoriya.

how long had you practiced no contact? was it four months? to you it felt like years, but you know what they say. when love truly blooms, times goes by in a flash. did this apply here? you didn't know, but you respectfully greeted him with a smile.

a forced one at that. things with midoriya went downhill after a year of dating, and if you were being honest with yourself, you couldn’t bear to see him. he smiled as he greeted you in return.

“it’s been a while, y/n, how have you been? you wanna play down the clown together?”

it had been exactly four months since the breakup, and yet your given name rolled off his tongue so naturally. chuckling, you reached for your arcade card inside your wallet. “sure, midoriya. though i think we’ve beaten bigger clowns than this one.”

ouch. izuku visibly winced at the mention of his surname. for a brief moment, his mind replayed the events of the war, and how he held you in his arms as tears slipped his eyes. a near death experience is sure to bring people closer, yet in this case, it felt like a riff that would lead you two apart.

you giggled as you swiped the card and watched as the colorful plastic balls fell towards you and him. you each picked one and started throwing them at the nine clowns standing before you. laughs and glances were exchanged, with a few victory cries as all clowns were down and gone, the machine spewing out tickets in return.

izuku cheered as he pulled you into his embrace, his arms wrapped comfortably around your waist. as he pulled back, his hand rested on your waist still, “do you wanna play some more?”

and a part of you wanted to say no. his innocence is far too much for you, constantly reminding you of what led to the end of what was the relationship of the century. even tabloids were confused as to what happened. the happiest couples are always the ones with more trouble in paradise.

yet, you nodded. his fingers intertwined themselves with yours as he drove you towards another game in the arcade. your heart pounded from pure confusion, your mind going back a year as you remembered…

him. this was the izuku midoriya you knew. the carefree, loving izuku midoriya who looked out for you always, and the one who loved you wholly.

as he and you neared a fishing pond, he and you grabbed the magnetic fishing rods. it was terrible, your attempts at catching the plastic fish failing miserably. izuku was always touching you in some way, whether it was his hand on your shoulder or the small of your back when you turned towards him with a pout, or his hand cupping your cheek when you finally got a fish.

“you never answered my question, y/n” he started, his expression completely serious. “how’ve you been?”

“i’ve been amazing, actually” you replied, arms crossing as you continued. “my agency’s teamed up with bakugo’s for some missions, and we’ve grown quite a lot!”

“i’m so happy for you!” izuku smiles, his hand on your shoulder, slowly dragging down towards your forearm.

well, it’s not or never, right?

“so, uhm, midoriya… are you seeing anyone right now?”

his eyes widened as his lips curled into a smile.

“yes, i am! her name’s—“

it was then when your brain stopped processing the words that escaped his mouth. unable to hear the name, you sighed in relief, as it was izuku's mixed signals that got you and him into a rough patch way back. it was a sign that there is no way to go around izuku midoriya without looking like a complete fool.

“that’s so great, midoriya! i’m so happy for you” you laughed awkwardly, “i knew you’d find someone good for you.”

and to be honest, it was during this moment that you were grateful his special person wasn’t you.

[elysiae]

do you think operator & drifter treat their warframes wildly differently?

somewhat insufficient TLDR: i think the operator and drifter are emotionally attached but in vastly, strikingly different ways, and it manifested very, very differently too.

in operator's case, it isn't that they dont *care*, but they know how durable a warframe is. they know they can take one hell of a hit, and they'll be okay because that warframe takes the brunt of it (albeit with some phantom pain if the damage is bad enough). theyre less comfortable outside the confines of those large, bulky war machines because they know they're ultimately safe. those warframes can take hits. they cannot. the operator knows they were people, but they never met those people before the tragedy. besides... a lot of them really are just empty shells. they're hardly the people they once were, especially since they recreated those warframes from blueprints. don't get me wrong, they do remember the anguish of the originals - they were there, they lived it, and they still have empathy for them... but the operator knows the limits of every warframe like the back of their hand - they can maneuver however they want, they can take hits, they can run into armies and not be too afraid because they (as in the operator and the warframe this time) be fine. even if the warframe is damaged, they can fix the damage, so no harm done.

but drifter on the other hand? at first i think they never really realised the power they had. in their mind they were still them, just running, rolling on the occasion, it took them ages to maneuver those things *properly*, and probably only ever really learned with the operator's guidance. they would not let a warframe take a hit, not because they felt empathy for it (at least not a lot, last i checked you kind of need at least *some* to have effective transference?) but because they were so used to walking around vulnerable. yknow, not inside a killing machine. but what would've really solidified the difference was after they went to 1999. sure, hearing that these things used to be people is one thing, but at the end of the day, to drifter, they're still just machines. drifter never got to experience what the tenno did, they never had to deal with reaching into their freshly scarred minds to ease their anger, sorrow, fear, rein them in like the terrified animals they were turning into and hush their cries with understanding - they only knew the dead inside remnants... but it's an entirely other thing when you go to the past and see the people who were hurt. you meet them and you get to know them, become their best friends - maybe even date one of them - and it hit drifter like a fuckin' freight train. they have this entirely different view on warframes from that cold perspective they had at first. they weren't just war machines. those are people. every time they go into the head of those machines, they're looking through the eyes of *people.* people who had families and desires and hobbies, things they looked forward to, entire futures ahead of them that were snuffed out. people who were scared, people who didn't know what was happening. people who knew what was happening, who lived in fear knowing they weren't able to stop it... people who lived in fear of losing themselves. and i think it hit drifter a lot harder than they'd ever admit.

but thats not to say one of them is more attached than the other - both of them care deeply about their warframes. it's just that, they have different ways of looking at them. after all their experiences were so vastly different, it'd be impossible to look at them the same way.

(too lazy to type it out all over, but i have an example in the tags i think kinda helps pull it together more)

[akascow]

i keep thinking about the end of this post i made lmfao:

"i like that in the last battle he just accepts it: realizes hes in the same position as future jayce, but just closes his eyes... he knew the only way to get through to viktor wasnt through fighting, but talking. which has been the basis of both of their worldviews for the whole show,, which is WHY IT WORKED"

bc wow i kinda cooked with that one HAHA

(also it like totally relates to the act3 message about how killing is a cycle and the only way to stop the killing is to literally Stop The Killing lmao)

but like, to elaborate on it i just think its so significant given that jayce and viktor were always opposed to killing others or using hextech against ppl less equipped:

-jayce's anti shimmer plan crumbles the second he accidentally kills a zaunite child.

-viktor adamantly opposes the idea of building weapons the entire first season because theyre scientists, not soldiers.

-jayce throws up and almost has a panic attack seeing a bunch of enforcers stain the bridge with blood after the firelight bombs.

-viktor abandons his whole hexcore idea the moment sky dies from it, begging jayce to destroy it

-jayce completely disagrees in the use of hextech weapons even after viktor dies from the attack on the council

their goal was always to use hextech to help, not hurt.

and yes they do stray from that ideology a couple times bc of like,, moments of weakness or wtvr lol:

viktor in his Machine Herald basically killing the body and leaving the soul of everyone who joins his cult i mean harem i mean community,, ((although im pretty certain the hexcore was kinda like a virus- influencing his actions with the main goal of spreading,, and i truly believe he genuinely thought he was helping people and not like, literally killing them lol))

and jayce making some weapons for the strike team later, but you can see hes clearly distraught from breaking another promise to viktor (his wound literally reopens as a metaphor lmao)

and they try to fight each other in order to share their disagreement of the other's actions, viktor tries to make jayce see his vision, doesnt work, he tries to choke him to death. jayce tries to make viktor see that what hes doing is wrong, doesnt work, he blasts vik's puppets with his hammer lmao.

but what does work ? putting down the weapons. in the end they accomplish the mutual goal without violence. mainly because they literally cannot bring themselves to kill the other but

they never really wanted to fight, no less kill, each other in the first place. because they shared that mutual worldview, they were never in favor of violence against their enemies. both of them even show regret while trying to kill each other too. jayce's anomaly screaming trying to pull away from blasting viktor in the chest, and viktor failing to persuade jayce to his side, voicing his apology before attempting to kill him.

jayce gets to the tower and sees hes in the same position as his future self. realizing he cant beat viktor like this, and everything he saw in the future timeline is inevitable, he closes his eyes, tired from fighting. but what does viktor do? does he kill him? turn him into a puppet like the others? no, viktor lets him into his world, letting him see what he sees.

viktor shares his motivation, humanity's weaknesses causes senseless war. but instead of arguing at that, jayce just talks to him, sharing his words of affection. yes humaity has weakness, but what viktor always viewed as weakness is actually what makes people admirable. and jayce hugs him, he shows viktor the truth of what is to come continuing this path, letting viktor know what he knows.

and thats how viktor breaks free. with a hug. practically the exact opposite of violence.

and again, they fix their mistake together, holding hands and embracing each other, sharing that pain and guilt of the fact that they did hurt people, and choosing to take themselves out in pursuit of correcting that mistake.

...and isnt that just beautiful HAHA

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 30 - Every Demon Wants His Pound of Flesh

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I'm dedicating this chapter to Becca Butcher, who never did anything wrong in her life. This one's for you.

Chapter Title from Shake it Out by Florence and the Machine.

Word Count: 26.5k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You bring Ryan to safety, and Ben prepares for the final showdown. Usual warnings, plus extra violence.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, fluff, angst, violence, established relationship

Read on A03!

Chapter 29 - Chapter 31

Ben found Her in the attic. Curled in a corner, perfect features cast in the shifting light of a lone window, and reading an old, leather-bound book. 

It looked almost fucking magical. Like some sort of painting he’d see in a study or museum, with all her beauty just as permanent and timeless as the sunlight leaking into the room. The dust glowed, hovering in the air and swirling with Her every breath and shift, and Ben paused to just look at Her So goddamn peaceful, so far from the tense shouts and movements of their team downstairs and on the grounds. Setting up weapons and traps and steeling themselves to fight.

Steeling themselves for Homelander.

It was why She was up here. She wasn’t fighting with them, but she still had an hour until she and Ryan left, so she’d grabbed Ben’s arm and whispered in his ear that she was going to go rest. Ben had grunted, kissed the side of her head, and held onto Her heartbeat as she walked away. He couldn’t feel Her—She’d taken the fucking suppressant again, to trick Sage, and now Ben couldn’t fucking feel Her—so he’d kept half of his attention on Her heart every second she was away. He’d marched around the grounds, going over plan after stupid fucking plan with MM, Butcher, and Annie, listened to Frenchie explain the drill a million goddamn times, and given Ryan a hug every time he started to look sad and pointlessly guilty, all without ever letting go of Her heart.

And now, as everything began to settle and it became a game of nerves—of knowing what was coming and never fucking flinching—Ben followed Her heart until he ended up here. Dropping to his knees before Her, letting her look up at him with a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and pulling her into his chest. He’d brought her coffee and a bagel, but they got discarded and forgotten on the dusty floor as Ben’s whole existence remained about Her. Just fucking holding Her, hopefully until there would be some sort of goddamn imprint of Her on his skin he could carry with him into battle.

Ben didn’t want Her to go. Not now, not when he couldn’t fucking sense any part of her but what was in his hands. It wasn’t that it wasn’t enough—soft skin and nails digging into his chest and hair he could tangle between his fingers—but he couldn’t fucking sense Her. Ben wouldn’t be able to know that She was safe, that Ryan was safe, that the only two people he cared about hadn’t figured out how to get themselves goddamn killed when he was supposed to protect them.

She’d tell him that it wasn’this job to protect them. That his job was to be there, and love them, and keep them safe with a feeling, but right now Ben didn’t give a fuck. If he lost them here, at the goddamn finish line, he wouldn’t have a lifetime to make them feel safe. To do whatever the fuck families that loved each other did. To make a million stupid breakfasts and watch every movie ever fucking made, to show Ryan how to shave and raise him so he’d earn a woman half as good as She was. To hold Her like this forever and kiss her until she melted into his body.

To let the instinct of Her return, so Ben could fucking feel all Her love and adoration and joy. Because She’d be safe, really fucking safe, living in a world without Homelander or some sort of fucked up game to play, or any war to fight. She’d clean up messes they made, together. In the kitchen and on the stairs and between the sheets of their shared bed. A bed that would belong to them, and nobody would ever try to take away.

But Ben still had to keep Her. He had to not fucking falter here, and remind himself that she did have to go. They couldn’t delay Homelander, Ben had been the one who’d insisted She and Ryan stay away from the fight, and this would help him focus. All he’d have to do is finish the fucking job, and know that he’d feel Her again when it was over. Ben had to keep reminding himself that it was for Her own fucking safety, and he’d see Her again. He’d always fucking see Her again. He’d kill Homelander, their pigeon shit would come back, and he’d go find Her.

Ben was more than goddamn ready to kill Homelander. To spill the pussy’s fucking blood over the grass and turn him into the fucking worm he was. Buried in the dirt, never seeing the goddamn sun again, and sparing it any thought of having to give someone as fucking worthless as Homelander a shred of his demanded light.

“Three hours.” Her words are muffled against Ben’s chest, her head tilting back to watch him. Her eyes are glossy and her expression tired, but She’s still beautiful. Still fucking perfect, and still looking at Ben like she loves him. And it’s all he can goddamn ask for, so he lets a hand drift to her face, tracing the lines and slopes of Her features until he gets a soft smile, and can drag his thumb over the curve of her lips.

“Two hours.” Ben corrects, following his own internal timer. “And fifty-seven minutes.”

She gives him a flat look. “That’s only three minutes, I rounded-“

“It’s three minutes less. Four now, the longer you get all fucking smart with me-“

“You like it when I get smart with you,” Her smile grows to something more real, and it makes Ben feel fucking alive. “It turns you on, you horny old cunt.”

“I’m your horny old cunt. You’re fucking stuck with me,” Ben moves Her hand up between their bodies, and says Her name like it should be said. Like it some sort of perfect, sacred secret that he gets to keep. 

She hums, examining the ring, and Ben knows that on any other day She’d have teased him. She’d have stuck her tongue out, pretended to pull the ring off, and giggled when Ben caught her hand and pushed her to the ground, kissing her until she was a moaning, writhing mess under him. But today is a walking fucking nightmare—or a strange space before it, where you know the nightmare is inevitable, and you’re fucking exhausted, so you can’t do anything but wait to pass out and let it take over—so She just leans back into Ben’s body, propping her head on his shoulder, and looks past him to the window.

“I think it’s going to rain.” Her words are only a breath in Ben’s ear, and he lets his hand wander over Her back, moving her further up his body. “We don’t have floodlights, and it’s probably too late to get them. Annie could be the light, but you’ll probably want her for the combat-“

Ben tugged on Her hair, just enough to get her attention and pull her drawn, worried face to his. To kiss Her long and soft and gentle, and stop the machine that was Her brain from sending her into overdrive.

“Not your job to worry about that shit.” He muttered against Her lips. “We’ve got it.”

“But-“

“No.” Ben dropped his brow to Her’s, and held her quiet, painfully fucking tragic gaze with the most goddamn certain one he could manage. His voice had to be strict and firm, because Ben was going to kill Homelander, and She wasn’t going to need to lift a goddamn finger to find it washed in blood. “We’ve fucking got it. You’re going to go with Ryan, and not goddamn worry, because we’ve got it. Read some books, stay away from the TV, and wait to feel me. Then I’ll come get you, and we’ll get fucking married-“

“Right after?” She giggled, and it was like fucking music because—even if it was quiet and soft—it meant She was a little bit happier. “Are we having a shotgun wedding?” She made a mock gasp, leaning fully back with a glimmering, wide-eyed expression. “Am I pregnant? Is it yours?”

Ben snorted, shaking his head. “Don’t joke about that shit, it’s not fucking funny-“

“You laughed.“ She gave him a pretty, fake pout, fingers tapping at his chest, and She was so fucking beautiful and hilarious and perfect that Ben had laughed. 

And he still did not want to entertain that line of thought at fucking all. The very damn possibility that Ben was about to leave Her, and she could be pregnant, and it would be his because who the hell else would have made that happen, and fuck, Ben was not going to leave Her if-

“I’m not pregnant,” Her hands moved to hold his face as she spoke, her expression falling into one of worry. “It was a joke, my love.”

“I fucking cum in you-“

“I’m aware, Benjamin.” She drawled, and sighed at the scowl that Ben could feel over his face, running her fingers through his beard. “It’s, I know I can, Homelander made the scientists check, but I’m not. I think it’s part of the V. The healing.”

“The V.”

“I mean, my healing factor sort of like a stasis, right? It’s why I can’t get sick, or be poisoned, and I only get my period once a year. And, um, I think if I don’t want to be, I won’t.”

Ben started at Her for a long, silent moment before grunting, “What the fuck are you talking about.”

“If I’m not ready, if my body isn’t ready, that won’t happen.” She sighed, dropping her head into Ben’s shoulder. “I mean, we fuck all the time, and, um, Homelander wasn’t really all about protection-“

“Fine.” Ben cut it off there. He understood now, he fucking believed Her—she was a whole lot smarter than he was, and always fucking right, so there was no damn need for doubt—and had almost negative fucking desire to think about Homelander right now. Doing that, or touching Her, or trying to fucking hurt her in any goddamn way. Just the damn thought made his grip on Her tighten, because nothing should hurt Her. Nothing would hurt Her, and she needed to damn know that. “You’re okay.”

She nodded slowly against his body. “I’m okay. I’m,” she let out a long breath, and her arms wrapped around his neck. “I’m tired.”

“You’ll rest-“

“I won’t.”

Ben frowned, angling her chin up with a careful hand to find Her smiling at him in a way that wasn’t making it any fucking easier to think about leaving her. All love and want, searching over his face like She was trying to memorize it. He grunted Her name, and she sat a little higher, holding herself at his eye level.

“I’m not going to rest, Ben. I’m going to worry about you. I’m,” She smile grew, and it was only made of fucking exhaustion and love and an ache that Ben could feel around his ribs. “I love you. And if you die, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I’m not going to fucking die-“

“And I can’t die.” She gave him a pointed look. “But you’re going to worry about me.”

“That’s not the same-“

“Yeah, it is-“

“It’s fucking not.” Ben snapped. “I die, you’ve still got Ryan. You’ve still got all the pussy fuckers downstairs and your family. You die, I’m done. I’ll be a graveyard coke snorter, Sunshine, and no one will even give me any goddamn coke-“

She leaned up, kissing him in the soft, easy, shut up way he usually kissed Her, and Ben fucking hated this. He should be comforting Her. He was built for battle, for war, for blood and dirt and killing in Her name, and it was not her fucking job to kiss him like this right now-

“If you want coke,” She said against his lips, and a lot of the fight in his body fucking evaporated into radiant light at the look of adoration in Her eyes. “I’ll get you some coke, Pretty Boy. But if I die, which I won’t, you won’t be done. You’ll have Ryan-“

“If one of us is dying and leaving the other with Ryan, it should be me. He likes you more-“

She wrinkled her pretty nose, whacking his arm. “He likes you plenty, you dickhead. And neither of us are dying, so we don’t need to talk about this. We can talk about how I think Hughie was going to propose to Annie and you stole his thunder, or how I think A-Train and Ashley might be sleeping together, or our wedding, but no planning our estate or trying to figure out who’s going to die. Got it?”

Ben felt something loosen around his lungs, and he grinned, dropping to nip and suck at Her neck. “It’s real fucking hot when you yell at me-“

“I know, that’s why I do it.” Her voice was an airy, happy breath, and Ben didn’t think it was possible to be in real pain when they were like this. Her legs around his torso, his mouth attached to her skin, everything fucking good.

“Brat.” He muttered, pulling back to search Her wide, slightly flushed, perfect fucking face. “We should do it now.”

“Do-“

“Get married. Right fucking now. MM’s probably a minister or some shit, he seems like the type, we can just do it-“

She shook her head, and Ben fell silent on pure fucking instinct as Her hands glided over his face. “Not now, Ben. I don’t even have a dress-“

“You don’t need a dress, beautiful, we can-“

“I want to do a real wedding,” She said, her eyes almost pleading. “I want to have a stupid, normal, insanely fucking expensive wedding, where I throw flowers and you have to pretend you like talking to people, and I get to see you in a suit, and you,” she pressed a small, innocent kiss to Ben’s cheek before moving to whisper in his ear. “Get to do the garter thing. Behind closed doors, because there’s not a chance you don’t start eating me out the moment you get there.”

Ben loved her so fucking much. “Fine. But if we’re not married by October, I’m-“

“Waiting very patiently? Because you’re a very good husband?” She kissed him in that same sweet way, and Ben rolled his eyes.

“You’re a fucking menace, Sunshine.” Ben bumped his nose with Her’s, she fucking giggled again, and he felt high. “And I am not getting married in November, it’s a dogshit fucking month, but-“

“How about December?” She tilted her head, words slow and careful. “I know we don’t love the winter, but it’ll be one year of us knowing each other. That feels symbolic-“

“I don’t give a fuck about that. I just want to get married. Soon.” He grumbled, and earned a wide, bright, toothy smile as She squirmed in his lap, her words soft and happy.

“I can live with that.”

“Good.”

“We can do it in August? Inside, so that the only sweaty and gross things are you and I after-“

“That’s fucking disgusting,” Ben said Her name with a smirk, and she hit his chest, sticking out her tongue.

“Fuck you, Benjamin, we both know you’re just marrying me for the amazing honeymoon sex we’re going to have, and maybe the opportunity to dress Butcher in a pretty dress for his flower girl role-“

“I am marrying you for a lot of reasons,” he muttered, kissing the space between her eyes and trying to inhale the easy, blissful sigh that left Her. “But our sex is always fucking amazing, we don’t need a fucking flower girl, and Butcher should count himself lucky he’s allowed to be there.”

“What about Ryan?”

“I am not making Ryan the fucking flower girl-“

“No, Benjamin, he should be the best man.”

Ben froze for a second, scanning Her soft, thoughtful expression with a furrowed brow. “Have you been fucking thinking about this?”

“Yeah.” She mumbled, turning her flushed face to press into Ben’s arm, her heart hitting an uneven, fluttering pace in her chest. “It’s been a good distraction. From, uh, everything.”

He nodded slowly, and started to draw slow, firm patterns on her skin. “What else have you thought about.”

“I think Kimiko would like to be the flower girl,” Her voice was muffled in his body, more uncertain than Ben liked, so he just hummed and kept listening. “She likes to do pretty, simple things, I think it helps her cope with the whole situation. I would like Annie to be on my side, but I really think you should take Hughie. He might get all panicky and red when you ask, but it will mean a lot to him. And I, I want MM there, but I’d understand if he doesn’t want to be-“

“He will.” Ben muttered. “He likes you a fuck ton more than he hates me.”

“I know, but I don’t want to make him uncomfortable-“

He drawled Her name, kissing the top of her head. “We’re well fucking past uncomfortable. He’s accepted that I’m not going a single goddamn place without you, that I fucking love you, and that you love me. He’ll be there.”

“I do love you.” She mumbled, kissing the base of Ben’s neck and curling her fingers in his hair. “You burn, I burn. No burning without me, Benjamin, or I’m serious. I’ll fucking kill you.”

He chuckled, squeezing the skin of her hips. “Deal, Sunshine. You burn, I burn.”

She smiled up at him, all sweet and adoration and love and fuck she was going to kill him. He couldn’t fucking do this, he couldn’t fucking move from this warm, impossibly fucking good moment, and he never wanted to let Her go. 

Ben was vaguely aware that she had been right. It was raining, and the attic had dropped into a damp, heavy darkness Ben could feel over his skin and inside his lungs. He could hear thunder in the distance, hear the drumming of the rain on the roof above them, but Her heartbeat was more important—sacred and critical and all fucking Ben’s—so he held onto that. He held onto Her for as long as he was fucking allowed to, until her phone buzzed and she had to pry away from Ben’s grip to take the call.

“Where are you.” MM’s voice was static and muffled through the speaker, and she sighed, watching Ben as she answered.

“In the attic with Ben, why-“

“You’re rolling out now.” There was a sense of almost apologetic urgency in MM’s words, and Ben felt his hands tense as Her heart stuttered. 

“Now? I thought we had another thirty-“

“This storm is looking heavy, and I don’t want you trying to drive in it if it gets worse. You’re packed?”

“Yeah. I did Ryan’s bag as well-“

“Where-“

“In our room. But, MM-“

“Look.” MM sighed through the phone, and She swallowed. “I don’t want to fucking cut it off early either, but we don’t know when Homelander will be here, and I’d rather get this over with and know we got you out safely. Is Soldier Boy-“

“I’m here.” Ben grunted, leaning forward as she held the phone between their bodies. “What.”

“Get her downstairs, then meet Butcher and Annie in the kitchen. We’re going over everything again. No errors.”

Ben nodded, and when he looked back to Her sad, open, slightly hollow expression, everything in him became steel. If fucking anything went right tonight, it would be that She was going to be safe. That nothing was ever going to fucking hurt Her again. “Got it. Did Frenchie-“

“Guns are in the dining room. See you soon, motherfucker.”

The phone line clicked dead, and She wasn’t fucking moving. She wasn’t falling into Ben, or pulling away from him, but she was just fucking frozen. Staring at him with glassy eyes and an open mouth, her heart uneven and her nails digging into Ben’s skin, rising with smoke.

Ben didn’t bother to speak, because words wouldn’t fucking help. He gave her a long, slow kiss, letting her part open for him at the first sweep of his tongue over her lips, and deepening it until her body was warm but not burning, and Her heart was fast but not erratic.

It was a promise. Neither of them were attempting to stand and leave, because this was a silent fucking oath that Ben would find Her. That She’d be safe with Ben still lingering on her lips and teeth, and Ben would fight with the taste of honey and chocolate on his tongue, the smell of flowers everywhere around him. He’d run his fingers through her hair again, and she’d hold his face in that way that told Ben she was seeing him. That She was touching him and wanting him and had no fucking intention of ever being anywhere else, because She wanted Ben to look at Her, and she loved looking at him.

And Ben fucking loved Her. And he’d be here again—with Her in his arms, but all her fucking love alight in his body—because there just wasn’t another fucking option. He’d finish this by the time the sun reappeared in the sky, and he’d feel Her again before that. Just two fucking hours, and Ben would be able to sense her again. 

He’d made it a lifetime never feeling Her at all. He’d made it two months without feeling Her or knowing she loved him. He wasn’t a fucking pussy, he’d manage to survive less than three goddamn hours knowing she was safe, that she loved him, and then worship and tend to Her for a million goddamn years when this was done.

She let Ben carry Her downstairs, burying her face in his neck and still clinging to him when they reached the kitchen and he lowered her to the ground. Ben looped his arm around her waist, holding Her as steady as he could, and neither of them spoke as he guided her outside. Into the rain, cold and stinging on his skin, her body against his the only real thing in the whole fucking universe. 

They were taking the car She and Ben had stolen in Boston, and most everyone was already there. Ashley and A-Train were squished into the back with Zoe, Neuman was twisted around in shotgun to hold her daughter’s hand and whisper soothing words, and MM was standing on the driver’s side as they approached, tall and unflinching in the downpour as he gave them a curt nod of greeting and tossed Her the keys.

Ben snatched them out air with a scowl, his eyes narrowing at MM. “She is not fucking driving-“

“Shut up, Benjamin-“

“No. You’re a goddamn threat to your own safety when you drive-“

“When it’s just us,” She snapped, and tried to jump up to grab the keys from Ben’s hand, held high over her head. “I’m not going to be reckless with two kids in the car-“

“And she’s the only one I trust to drive, you asshole.” MM crossed his arms, scowling at Ben. “So unless you want Neuman to drive your wife and son around in the middle of this shit, give her the fucking keys.”

Ben did not appreciate that use of wife and son, because MM knew exactly what the fuck he was pulling with it. He’d backed Ben into a corner where She now had to have the keys, because Ben didn’t fucking trust Neuman, and she wouldn’t be reckless with Ryan in the car, but Christ. He mostly just didn’t want Her to go. Ben knew She’d be careful, that when she’d went she’d be safe, but if he kept the keys where she couldn’t get them—where nobody could get them, because Ben was a fuck ton stronger than all these pussies—he’ never have to say goodbye.

And She must have seen that on his face, because when Ben passed her the keys with a scowl, she kissed his cheek with a sad, loving smile and let Ben half pick her up off the ground as he deepened every part of this. It wasn’t a fucking goodbye, not by a damn mile, but Ben still gave Her fucking everything left he had to offer. His mouth and body fitting perfectly against every part of her, his touch on Her skin careful and deliberate, and the atomic light in his body that might be the bomb and might just fucking be his love for Her radiating into the air. Ben kissed Her and held her until they couldn’t fucking feel the rain, and her heart was beating in perfect time with his.

“I love you,” he said Her name down her throat, and she fucking knew that, and Ben was still never going to stop saying it. “I fucking love you, and I’ll find you. I’ll always fucking find you.”

“I know you will,” She mumbled, pulling away slowly, as if it was painful. It fucking was. “I trust you, Benjamin, my love. I know.”

Ben already had Her face memorized but he still stared. Still tried to look at Her enough that, when he closed his eyes, She’d be the only thing he saw. Listening closely enough that, between any explosion or sound of pain or splash of rain on gravel, he’d hear the perfect, musical sound of Her voice. He could live here, he decided. If all of time froze and Ben was trapped in this storm forever, it would be in a moment where She was looking at him, and he was holding Her, and everything ached but Ben still fucking had Her.

He wouldn’t lose Her. He’d repeated it to himself countless fucking times, and it had become some sort of oath between him and the universe, but right now it was a prayer. God wasn’t fucking real, the world was too cruel for that, but Ben still was asking for one last favor. He didn’t deserve it, but he still needed to look at Her and fucking plead that he would fucking find Her. That Ben could let go of Her and it wouldn’t be painful, because he had an hour and forty-four minutes left until he could feel Her, and when he did he’d only feel Her love. Only feel Her up and down his spine and wrapped around his skull, making everything in his vision glow and the drums pound of out his chest in an avenging beat of Her. She was fucking safe, and loved Ben, and now this was going to be fucking over.

So when Butcher and Ryan joined them—Butcher giving them a rough nod and Ryan running to give Ben a tight hug—all Ben could do was fucking pray. 

“I don’t want to go,” Ryan muttered, looking up at Ben with wide eyes that he could fucking taste the fear in. “I can help-“

“It’s not your job to help, Ryan.” Ben knelt down, holding Ryan’s gaze with his own glare. “Your job is to go with her, and wait for me to come get you. I’ll take care of this, and you’re going to be fucking fine.”

“What if you lose-“

“I won’t.”

“But-“

“I won’t fucking lose, kid. I don’t lose.” That wasn’t really true anymore, but it made Ryan’s face relax slightly, so Ben said it anyway. “So don’t worry about me. I’ve got it.”

Ryan mumbled Her name, glancing to where She and Butcher were exchanging low words Ben couldn’t decipher over the pounding of the rain around him and the drums inside him. “Um, she said you lose. She said you’ve never beaten her at a card game, or won any of your fights.”

Ben snorted. “That’s because she’s a fucking genius, and nobody can beat her in a fight. That woman could talk circles around a hundred damn people at once. And,” he lowered his voice, leaning closer to Ryan with a grin. “I let her beat me at card games.”

“Why?” Ryan titled his head with a frown that was remarkably fucking uncanny to Her’s, and Ben’s smirk widened. 

“Because she loves winning.”

“But it’s just a card game-

“I know that. And she really fucking loves winning. And I love her.” Ben shrugged, because in his head it was pretty goddamn simple. They played, he went out his way to lose, and she lit up like the goddamn sun after. Ben got extra ice cream, and extra sex, and She was all fucking bouncy and bright for the rest of the day, so he could lose a stupid fucking card game. “When you love someone, you let them have stupid shit that makes them happy.”

Ryan nodded slowly—it was an almost eerie imitation of Her slow nod, that told Ben they understood something, but were still thinking about it—and his frown became less strained on his face. “Okay. What does,” Ryan paused, closing his mouth once before continuing. “Does the card game, um, does it make her really happy?”

“It makes her fucking glow.” Ben looked over to where She was still talking to Butcher, and his grin became all teeth and raw fucking joy when She glanced at him, her whole face relaxed, and her smile became the one that told him Ben. Ben, I love you and adore you and want you. He turned his attention back to Ryan, dropping his voice to a mock whisper. “You ever want to get her in a good mood, lose a game of cards.”

Ryan nodded slowly, and Ben knew the kid probably wouldn’t use that tactic nearly as much as he did. Ben used it, or others like it, any time he saw her eyes grow fogged, heard her breathing become mechanical, or felt her nails dig into his arm. He’d lose a bet about who got to make dinner or chose the movie or let Her lead sex just to see her fucking smile. Ben could eat next to anything, and watch a million hours of fucking static, and have almost any damn form of sex as long as it was with Her.

And Ben wouldn’t be able to be with Her for this. He’d have to just fucking wait, and keep fucking praying. Praying that Her firm handshake with Butcher was because even that damn pussy was on board with what this was about. 

Killing Homelander. Keeping Her and Ryan safe. 

That’s all it had been about since the very fucking start, and Ben got that now. He’d get that for the rest of his fucking life, and his last prayer to the universe was that he’d been right. That this was some sort of fucked up heaven—where Ben got to have a real family, and be loved a perfect fucking woman, and repent for the rest of his goddamn life to earn that—and not the most twisted hell imaginable. That this wasn’t well-designed torture, where everyone had somehow forgiven him, and he felt loved for the first time in a hundred years—was happy for the first time in his fucking life—only have it all taken away. To have Her ripped away from him and, to lose. Lose this war, lose the only people that mattered in the entire goddamn universe, lose the love of his life and have no one to blame but himself.

She bumped past Butcher to return to Ben’s side, and pulled Ryan into a long, tight hug without a word. Ryan’s head buried in her chest, Her body over his to shield him from the rain, and Ben wanted to crawl up from where he’d found himself—kneeling in the mud, drenched in a downpour She’d probably call mythical or some shit—and fucking hold them.

Her eyes opened, meeting Ben’s, and her tiny nod was like a command over his whole body. He stood, almost launched across to the small space to where She and Ryan stood, and took all the rain like they were fucking bullets. Another way to repent, another way to prove his love, and another way to keep them safe.

“Can you,” Ryan’s voice was muffled between Her and Ben’s bodies, drowned out in the unrelenting pound of the rain, but Ben still heard them. Right now all he could fucking hear was the rain, Her heart, and Ryan’s unsure words. “Ben, can you come with us? Please?”

She tensed slightly, but looked to Ben for his answer.

She trusted Ben to handle this himself. That he’d say the right thing, not fuck Ryan up more than the poor kid already had been, and all She had to do was back up what he said.

“I can’t, kid.” He muttered, holding Ryan’s sad gaze and making his words a fucking promise. Something so certain Ryan wouldn’t even bother to worry. “I’ve got to stay here and fight. But she’s going to take good care of you, and I’ll find you both when it’s over.” Ben felt something impossibly fucking painful, overtake his body, and his words became rough. Edged with that same pain, lined with the knowledge that he could convince Ryan they’d be safe—he could convince his damn self they’d be safe—but he still couldn’t fucking feel Her, and they still had to go. “All you have to do is wait. You’ll get somewhere safe, survive this mythical storm, and just fucking wait.” He glanced up at Her, and this was the hardest thing he’d ever had to fucking say. “Take care of each other, and I swear on my fucking life I’ll find you. I’ll always fucking find you.”

“Okay.” Ryan squeezed Ben one last time, and looked to Her with an open, soft expression. “Can I-“

“Go wait in the car, Ry. I’ll be right there.” She pulled the kid back against her and let him stay there until he was ready to god. Until Ryan pried himself from Her body, and walked away with one last fearful look at Ben. Not fear of Ben—Ben knew what that fear looked like, and it was more terror than worry—but fear for him, and Ben was going to fucking roar louder than any rain or thunder or bomb.

“Mythical?” She whispered, moving Her gaze from Ryan to Ben with a sad adoring smile. “What’s a mythical storm?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I don’t fucking know. What the hell would you have said-“

“Biblical? A biblical storm?”

“Smartass.”

“You love it.” She sighed, shuffling right into Ben’s chest and pulling his arms around Her as if they hadn’t been about to hold Her on pure fucking instinct. “You love me.”

“I do.” He ran his hands through her wet hair and pressing a kiss to the top of Her head, speaking against her skin. “I really fucking love you, Sunshine.”

“Good.” She hummed, her own arms wrapping over his torso and squeezing. “Because I really fucking love you too.”

Neither of them spoke after that—neither of them needed to speak—and when she pulled Ben’s face down to Her’s for an unhurried, sloppy kiss, he bit Her lower lip in a silent promise. 

I’ll find you. When this is over, I’ll come get you, and I love you. I won’t ever lose you, because I love you, and if this does turn out to be hell, the Devil better run for the goddamn hills because I’ll burn the entire universe to get you home.

She didn’t hear the promise between their heads, or read it on his face, but she didn’t need to. Ben had told Her that in a million goddamn ways, and right now it was more of a warning to whatever might be listening. That the world better fucking pray that Ben didn’t lose Her, because he wouldn’t kill anything innocent in Her name—She’d hate that, and Ben loved Her—but he’d raze and maul and scorch anything that was guilty.

And the world must have heard him, because lightning cracked through the sky—lighting up Her every perfect feature and making Her look like some sort of forgotten, vital god that turned the world round and created all its beauty but still only looked at Ben—and Ben was forced to let Her go. To press his brow to Her’s, trace his hands over Her face to wipe any water that might be tears, and leave one long, gentle kiss to her lips before he had to watch her walk away. Meet Her eyes one last time, see that She loved him on every single part of Her beautiful face. Feel the world a little beyond himself, feel peaceful and infinite and warm in the chill of the rain, and know that Her sharp, adoring gaze would follow him, and the deep, unstoppable, consuming look in her eyes was love.

I love you, Benjamin. 

There was iron wrapped over his lungs and throat, and a roaring rush of fury and blood in his chest, but it was all drowned out by Her. And it was easy to look at Her and nod, and Ben didn’t have to think to turn his face into an expression of his own pure, devout ardor and affection. 

I love you too, Sunshine.

She nodded, and something in Ben became a heavy weight he was happy to carry as the car pulled away. She knew he loved her, and that was all that fucking mattered. His whole world was in that stupid fucking car, and he’d carry that piece of Her inside of him, the crucial and holy responsibility of loving Her, until he could feel her again. Ben would bear this on his shoulder and over his head until he could pull the universe back into his arms, and then he’d breathe. He’d crash into Her and spend the rest of time where he belonged, but until then he had a fucking job to do. 

The next time Ben saw Her, he needed to be able to look Her in the eyes and tell her Homelander was dead.

They gathered in the kitchen, and Ben could barely fucking breathe. It wasn’t just the strain and mold on his heart leaking into his lungs, it was the very air in the goddamn room. Heavy and cold, but still humid and thin, wearing them down before the fight even began.

It was wrong without Her here. Wrong to listen to MM recite a plan She made without her listening, without her correcting or amending anything, without Ben having anything to hold but a gun in his hand, anything to touch but the splintered wooden table they sat around. It was wrong to not feel Her anywhere but in the empty space at his side, or hear Her heartbeat and voice in the static silence of a ceiling fan. 

“Here’s the deal.” MM’s words were short as he scanned over the team, hands sorting the guns in a neat line on the table. “Everyone gets two guns. One regular, one drill. We got enough for one V bullet each, which means you do not take a shot unless you’re going to hit. Not you think you’re going to hit, you’re going to hit. A shot you’d have to be a real fucking idiot to miss. Understood?”

Everyone nodded, and Hughie raised a shaking hand in the air.

“What if, um, you’re just not good with a gun and don’t want to fuck anything up more than it already has been-“

“Everyone gets a gun, Lad.” Butcher snapped. “You got hands and eyes. Fuckin’ use them.”

Hughie gave a mumbled, sheepish agreement, and Frenchie cleared his throat.

“I did not, ah, account for the rain, but it should not be an issue. There are alarm triggers and traps all over the grounds, and, Petite Hughie-“

“Vicky was right,” Hughie tapped his computer on the table. “Edgar had the place wired. I’ve never see so many hidden tree cameras, I thought that was only a thing in movies-“

“Well, Edgar’s more of a paranoid asshole than most, and now we get the benefit.” MM crossed his arms, his expression grim. “Homelander won’t be able to take a piss in the woods without us knowing what leaf he uses to wipe. Hughie will keep eyes on the cams, and Frenchie’s alarms, and we can hope that the rain is in our favor. I’d imagine the overload of sound won’t help him-“

“It won’t.” Ben grunted, because the rain was starting fucking overwhelm him. It was all he could fucking hear, without Her heart there to latch onto, and it was going to drive him fucking insane. “He won’t be able to pull footsteps or random fucking heartbeats out of the noise. It’s an advantage, so fucking use it.” He moved his glare around the table. “If you can, shoot during thunder. He won’t hear the gun fire, and the pussy probably won’t bother to dodge anyway, but no risks. No fucking missing, and no going off on your own stupid little vengeance quest.” Ben’s attention moved to Butcher, and he made his words a threat. A promise of violence if Butcher screwed this up for him, for Her, for the entire goddamn world. “If Homelander isn’t fucking dead by tonight because you decided to go all scorched earth instead of sticking the goddamn plan, I’ll kill you.”

“I ain’t lookin to fuck you, Gov. Didn’t bring any protection, and I’m more damn scared of your wife than I am of you. Don’t want her findin out about our little affair and flayin me alive.” 

Butcher’s words were casual and mocking, but Ben could hear the pussy’s heart over the rain—hammering at a fucking mile a minute—and see the almost imperceptible tick of his jaw, so he wasn’t fucking worried. Butcher understood that Ben would have his back, and if he got fucking stabbed in it, Butcher would die a nuclear, bloody, violent death.

MM coughed before continuing, giving Ben a short nod and starting to push the drills—along with small earpieces—out around the table. “One shot. No missing. Keep your coms on, and be fucking careful. Homelander’s got nothing left to lose, and he’s going to fight like it.”

“I still think I should be able to just, uh,” Hughie’s eyes widened as MM handed a gun to Annie, his voice growing higher with every damn word. “Watch the cameras without a gun? I’m not going to be out in the fight-“

“What if Homelander pushes through the door?” Frenchie suggests, loading up his own drill. “It is either boom, no more Hughie, or bang,” Frenchie made finger guns, shooting into the air. “No more Homelander.”

Hughie nodded, face bloodless. “Yeah, that’s. Okay. Shit. I’ll take a gun, please.”

“You’ll be okay, Hughie.” Annie gave a sweet, encouraging smile, and Hughie blushed. “You’re not a terrible shot.”

Ben grunted Her name, glowering at his own gun. “She had you fucking train her. And you didn’t do a total fucking pussyass job, before I took over. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, um,” Hughie swallowed. “Thanks, Ben.”

Ben just shrugged, focusing on putting in his earpiece in and not breaking the weapon in his hands. Ben fucking hated this. He hated just waiting for Homelander to arrive instead of going and finding the asshole, fighting him,and finishing this without any sitting on their goddamn asses. He hated that She was the one who told them to wait, and she was always fucking right, and Ben knew that waiting was smarter, but he still fucking hated it. He goddamn despised that She was out there with Ryan, without him, and there was still a whole goddamn hour until he could feel Her again, until Ben could be goddamn certain that she was safe-

He saw the light first. Out the window there was a flash of yellow light in the distance, then, over the storm, the bang of an explosion.

Everyone fucking moved. Seats scraping on the floor as they were pushed away, guns aimed at the door and the stomping of feet to cover their every goddamn vulnerability point. Frenchie and MM patrolling the upper halls, Kimiko in the attic, Butcher in the living room, Annie in the kitchen, and Ben in the entrance hall. Gun raised at the door, the drums completely under his control and more than fucking ready to burst out of his chest. Every fraction of light and fury in Ben’s body was humming and golden over his bones, dug inside his muscles, and he wasn’t goingtomiss. If Homelander was enough of an idiot to try and walk right through the door, Ben’s finger was set on the trigger, and the pussy would die in the fucking mud as Ben blasted him backward and ended this.

But all Ben could hear was the wind and rain. Banging at the doors and falling everywhere around him, loud but not enough to cover up another explosion or the shout of a teammate for aid. 

But neither of those things fucking came. And if Ben focused he could hear rapid, panicked heartbeats, but no bombs, and no blood.

Just the fucking wind.

“There’s,” Annie’s voice was quiet in Ben’s ear. “There’s nothing over here. No Homelander, no open fire. Nothing.” “Same here.” MM said, his voice a little firmer. “But stay alert, he could be playing some sort of game-“

Butcher cut over MM, a slight screeching sound cutting into Ben’s head that made him grimace. “Homelander don’t play games, Mate. Mighta just been a real bloody unlucky squirrel.”

“Non, the traps are calibrated to human weight.” Frenchie sighed over the coms. “Maybe a baby deer, though. I cannot be sure.”

“It’s pouring, a baby deer wouldn’t be outside, right? It would be-“

“It wasn’t a baby-” There was another static shriek as Hughie cut over Annie, and Ben could hear the chorus of groans through the house. “Shit, sorry guys. But it, um, it wasn’t a baby deer. I actually, I don’t see anything here. No dead animals, no people, no Homelander. Anywhere.”

MM hummed, and Ben could fucking hear his frown. “The motherfucker could be toying with us. Luring us outside while he waits in the sky-“

“I fuckin told you, MM.” Butcher didn’t apologize as the static cut in once more, and the next person who made that horrible fucking sound happen was getting their head ripped off. “Homelander don’t play with his food. Not when he’s real angry. He’s either gonna burst through the door and fuckin eat us, or he ain’t here and that was a squirrel.”

“It wasn’t a squirrel.” Hughie sounded urgent, and Ben could hear his fucking tapping at the laptop over the rain. “It was something, but not a squirrel.” There was another, softer, muffled voice through Hughie’s com before he continued. “Oh, uh, that’s a good idea. Thanks.”

Ben scowled. “What fucking idea.”

“Annie said to look for what bomb went off. It was the…” Hughie trailed off, the sound of his typing growing rapid, then, “Seventh bomb. Down by the creek.”

There was a long moment of silence, then Annie cleared her throat into the speakers.

“I think we should send a team. Just to make sure it’s really nothing.”

“Fine.” MM paused, and Ben jumped in.

“I’ll go. I’m invincible, and if it is Homelander, I’ll just fucking shoot him.”

“No,” MM muttered, and even though no one could see it, Ben scowled. “It could be a play to get you out. You’re the one he views as a threat, it might be a lure.”

“Nah, I’m with Soldier Boy.” Butcher said, and Ben wished he would shut the fuck up. Butcher backing up a plan was never a good thing. “We all got drills, and Homelander don’t got a goddamn clue. If it is a lure, he ain’t ready for us to be ready for him. I’ll go out with the old cunt, and if it’s nothing, we’ll be right back in shake of a cock’s ass.”

Ben rolled his eyes, and could almost fucking see the wrinkle of Her nose. Almost hear Her say there’s literally no way that’s a real phrase. 

He couldn’t actually hear it—forty-five minutes—but he could imagine it.

“I can go too,” Annie added. “I can be a light source.”

MM still didn’t relent. “I don’t want to send two of my three supes out there. Not when we don’t know what the fuck that was.”

“Think of it like this,” Ben drawled, keeping his gaze on the door. “If it is Homelander, we can fight him. If it’s not, Butcher’s not a fucking idiot for once. He won’t be expecting you to have the guns, and you can shoot the stars and stripes pussy in his fucking mouth, I’ll come back, and he’ll die.”

There was a second of static, then MM’s grunt of, “Fine. But be fast, don’t be stupid, and keep on coms.”

“Aye fuckin aye, Mate. Lines on, be quick.” Butcher rounded the corner to the hall, winking at Ben. “Oi, Gov, you want anythin before we go out? Gonna put on your fuckin suit for the grand fight?”

“You want to eat my fucking asshole?” Ben snapped, because he’d very fucking purposefully traded his suit for normal, boring ass clothing. Homelander could wear a costume and fight like a fucking monster. Ben would dress like a goddamn person, and fight like an asshole who had something to lose, and people to fight for. Bloody and unforgiving, but still goddamn human. Not Soldier Boy, fighting for some sort of annoying fucking honor before. Ben was himself, and he was killing Homelander for Her. 

She’d say there could be symbolism in killing Homelander while dressed as Soldier Boy, and having that be his final act in the suit. And Ben would listen to Her, then kiss the space between her eyes and mutter that he didn’t fucking care about symbolism. He cared that She was fucking safe, and Homelander was dead. Half of his uniform was at the bottom of the fucking ocean, and when this was over, Ben would burn his Soldier Boy suit and be done for good.

But right now—Annie and Butcher a pace behind him—Ben had to wander out into the darkness of rain and try to remain vigilant when he couldn’t tell up from down. It was so fucking loud, and he had to fucking focus but Christ, it was loud-

“Hey, Ben.” Annie jogged up to his side, and Ben glanced at her with a frown.

“What.”

Annie said Her name, and it was like it set something off in his body that roared with love and care and focus. “She, um, she told me more about Rome. And I wanted to thank you-“

Ben’s frown deepened, and his words became curt. “Why.”

“Because you really make her,and Ryan, actually, happy.” Annie sighed, scanning over Ben’s face in the dark of the storm. “And I’m not going to apologize for the tower last year, you were being a dick and I’d do it again, but I will say I don’t regret listening to her. When she told us to wake you up. I mean, I didn’t think this would happen, but I’m glad it did. And I’m glad she has you, even if you’re like, so gross together.”

“Good.” Ben grunted, and he didn’t know what the fuck to do with that. “Thanks.”

Annie nodded, moving to fall back another step, and Ben scowled. 

“I’m glad she has you as well.” He added, and it was Annie’s turn to look like a fucking idiot. “She deserves a friend who can’t shut her up by fucking her stupid.”

“That’s what I mean.” Annie muttered, but there was something lighter in her tone. “That’s disgusting, who just says that-“

Ben said Her name, and couldn’t stop the grin on his face. “She’d say that shit. She’s a horny fucking problem, Annie, I don’t know how she tricked you pussies, but she was fucking begging to blow me in a bathroom last week-“

Annie made a face, and Butcher laughed from behind them.

“I knew the lady wasn’t all fucking prim and proper words. Good on you, Gov. That ain’t a shit job.”

Ben whipped around, stopping dead in his tracks to glower at Butcher. “Fucking watch it-“

“Calm your bloody tits.” Butcher raised his hands in mock surround, rolling his eyes. “That was what we call a compliment. That woman was abused and tortured, and she’s a piece of bloody work, but you somehow make her all fuckin ditzy and dumb just by smilin at her.”

Ben scanned over Butcher—the words seemed genuine, even if Butcher always said everything in a way that sounded rude—and grunted before turning and continuing their march to the creek.

“You’re going to be her bridesmaid,” he snapped to Annie, because every moment of silence in the noise of the storm was driving him fucking insane. “She told me. And I get Hughie.”

“Oh.” Annie gaped at him slightly, then shook her head clear and nodded. “Okay. I mean, maybe be careful when you ask Hughie, he might turn all red and get really nervous-“

“I know.” Ben grunted, scanning over the trees as they approached the rushing water. “The guys a fucking mess, but he’s kind. Patient.” Ben scowled at a strangely shaped tree. “Good man.”

Annie let out an almost dreamy sigh, and Ben wondered if he looked that fucking stupid when people talked about Her. If he did, he didn’t fucking care, but it did make him worry about his face when She was actually there.

“He really is. I love that weird Billy Joel nerd so much- What the fuck?!”

They’d halted at the edge of the water—the creek overflowing and rushing between their feet—and Annie’s eyes began to glow, the air humming and buzzing, as the Deep grinned at them from a high rock on the other side.  

Ben frowned, scanning over the man’s tall, proud, over-fucking-dramatic hero pose. “What’s the fishfucker doing here.”

“I’m here to fight!” The Deep called over the rain, and even Ben could barely fucking hear him. “And defend America-“

“Speak up, you asshole!” Annie was half screaming, eyes growing brighter. “I can’t fucking hear you-“

“He said he’s here to fight and defend America.” Ben muttered to Annie, keeping careful attention on the Deep’s look of annoyance before raising his own voice to a shout. “Speak the fuck up, you pussy, we can’t hear you!”

The Deep nodded, looking slightly uncertain. “I, I am here to defend America from the terrorists, Annie January, William Butcher, and Ben. We, uh, we couldn’t find a last name for Soldier Boy-“

Annie’s eyes narrowed, and Ben could fucking taste the electricity through the rain. “Deep, get the fuck off my farm-“

“God, Annie, can you not be a bitch for five seconds so I can do my speech?” The Deep rolled his eyes at Ben, and Ben wondered if fish would find empty fucking eye sockets attractive. “She has been out to get me since the start, sabotaging me, trying to cancel me-“ 

“You assaulted me, you fucking-“

“What the hell are we stoppin-“ Butcher stomped up behind them, cutting himself with a groan. “Ah, bloody fuckin- The hell you doin here, Lad. I mean, ain’t gonna pass up the oppurtuiny to kill ya, but this,” he gestured around to the woods. “Ain’t your fight.” 

“Wrong, Mr. Butcher, this is Homelander’s fight, and he’s my bro, so it’s my fight too. And-“

“As well.” Ben snapped, mostly on instinct, and the Deep frowned at him.

“As well as what-“

“Proper fucking grammar, you fish blowing pussy.” Ben raised his gun, aiming right for the Deep’s head. “It’s your fight as well, and you’re going to die in it.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever grandpa.” The Deep scoffed. “Can I get through my speech now? I am here to defend America from the terrorists Annie January, William Butcher, and Ben. You have committed high treason against Homelander-“

“You ain’t able to commit treason against a person, cunt!” Butcher called over the river. “Treason gotta be against your country-“

“Well bloody fucking hell, I don’t care, you British weirdo!” The Deep stood a little taller, starting over. “I am here to-“ 

Ben had been fucking seconds from shooting and putting an end to this bullshit, but the Deep stumbled, fucking yelped, and fell into the water. 

“Well, fuckin shit.” Butcher leaned over the flooding river, frowning at the water. “Think he managed to kill himself for us?”

“He has gills, Butcher.” Annie’s voice was the harshest Ben had ever heard it, her hands and eyes still glowing. “And he’s like a fucking cancer. He’ll be back.”

Ben scanned over the river—crashing and rushing and so fucking loud—and didn’t see any evidence of the Deep. “Assfuck could’ve hit his head-“

“No. He doesn’t get to just fucking die like that, to have this be over-“

“Bloody hell, Starlight.” Butcher gave Annie a twisted smile. “Hughie know you’re so fuckin bloodthirsty and not just a pretty church girl?“

Annie flipped Butcher off, never looking away from the water. “Shut the fuck up, Butcher, you know exactly why I want him dead-“

“I ain’t mockin you, I appreciate it-“

“Well, don’t-“

Ben raised his hand, and Annie and Butcher fell silent.  

“There.” He hissed, pointing to an odd rippling pattern in the water. “Fish-fucker is alive, stop arguing and fucking focus-“

The Deep burst from the water, splashing Ben in the goddamn face, and landed on the riverbank in an even stupider fucking hero pose than before.

“Ha!” He shouted. “Bet you thought you’d gotten me. Well, I don’t go down easy-“

“You slipped, Mate.” Butcher drawled, raising his gun. “We all fuckin saw it. Now walk your sorry octopus-blowin ass away, and maybe we might let you live.”

The Deep scoffed. “Oh, c’mon, you guys won’t kill me. I mean, you’re just like, a bad guy with a gun.”He gestured to Butcher. “Like, oh no, bullets! I mean, that’ll barely even tickle, you fucking idiot.”

Ben’s hand tensed on his own gun, and he saw Butcher’s scowl grow taut and violent as they realized the same thing. They couldn’t shoot this asshole with their guns. The bullets were either useless, or made of fucking V, and the Deep wasn’t Homelander. The V would goddamn help him, make him stronger.

But the pussy didn’t fucking know that yet. He was still monologuing, his attention turned to Ben.

“And you’re just off your leash. Where’s your whore fucking girlfriend, bro? I’d say you finally grew some balls and kicked her to the curb, but she’s got her claws sunk right into your dick-“

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Ben sneered, raising his gun higher as the radiant feeling in his body became hot and bloody. “Or I’ll-“

“What, kill me? That’s never worked for you guys before, and I don’t think your little slut would like that, Ben-“ 

Something atomic was going to explode out of Ben’s body, but Annie was right in the fucking path of it, so he did a warning shot instead. Aimed at a tree just past the Deep’s head, close enough to make him shout in fear and flinch.

“Do not fucking speak about my wife.” Ben hissed, taking a rough step forward. “Or I won’t kill you. I’ll make you wish I did.”

“Your wife?” The Deep shook his head with a tense, strange laugh. “Dude, you are way too fucking dope to be married to that manipulative ice queen bitch. I mean, I get it. I never got a blowjob from her, but Homelander told me they were good enough to fuck with his head. And like, I’m only a man, I’d probably have caved too. Fucking Annie over here gave me a shit one, and I still think about that-“

The whole world burst with light, and Ben couldn’t fucking see anything but white or hear anything but blood in his ears and a ringing in the air. It wasn’t golden light of the bomb—still held within Ben’s body—but a crackling and hissing white flash that made Ben’s hair stand on end and his skin hot and stinging. And when his vision cleared, Annie wasn’t blocking his shot at the Deep. 

She was down in the mud of the river, punching the Deep’s face raw and bloody with glowing hands. 

The rain was fucking wired with electricity, and that was the fucking sting. Every drop of water was filled with Annie’s power, humming through the air, but the Deep wasn’t fucking dead. He roared over the water, throwing Annie off his body and into a tree trunk. 

Ben lurched forward, the bomb growing sore in his hands, aching to launch from his body and just fucking kill the pussy—smashing Annie’s head against the roots of the tree—but Butcher caught his arm.

“What the fuck-“

“Starlight’s got this,” Butcher muttered, his gaze not leaving Annie, who grabbed the Deep’s fist and kicked him in the gut as another blinding rush of light burst through the air. “She needs this, Gov. Let her fuckin handle it.”

Annie did fucking have it. She was pummeling into the Deep’s gut with tight, even hits, and every traded blow just fucking drove her on, until she’d backed the Deep towards the river, her eyes glowing as the rain crackled with energy. Butcher flinched slightly at the electric water—bu didn’t fall—and Ben was fucking impressed. He’d never see Annie look fucking feral like that, and it made him like her all the more. He could have a friend like that. It was still Annie—a little too fucking nice, a little too fucking moral—but she wasn’t above blood and grime and mud like he’d thought she was. This Annie was vengeful and fucking angry, and the Deep didn’t seem to stand a goddamn chance. 

The pussy kept trying to talk to her—either to mock her or plead with her, Ben couldn’t tell and didn’t really fucking care to know—only to have Annie’s fist collide with his mouth and send him flying back. The Deep’s punches were growing weaker as Annie’s grew stronger, his nose was bleeding and his stand beginning to become unsteady, and Annie looked like she was being vindicated. Her expression was only focus, only fury, and when her body become blinding with light, Ben threw up a golden shield at the last fucking second.

A sound like thunder tore through the air around them as Annie exploded, and when Ben’s vision cleared the Deep was lying in the sizzling, electric mud.

“Woah, Annie, I, I got it, you win.” The fish pussy was crawling back as Annie advanced, twitching slightly as the rain continued to shock his skin. “Let’s talk about this, you’re not a killer, you’re like, a good person-“

“Maybe.” Annie kicked the Deep back, closer to the water. “But I’m not a saint. And I hate you.”

The Deep’s eyes widened, and he twisted to try and fall into the water and swim away like a fucking coward, but Annie was faster. Grabbing him by the neck, dropping on his back, and shoving his face into the creek.

Ben frowned, letting the barrier drop as the rain became just water once more—all of Annie’s focus and energy on keeping the Deep’s head in the flooding river—and didn’t look away from Annie as he muttered, “What the fuck is she doing.”

“Tryin to drown the cunt.” Butcher sounded fucking pleased, and Ben didn’t need to look to know he was smiling. “He breathes with fuckin gills on his torso, ain’t gonna be able to breathe if just his ugly fuckin mug is in the water.”

The Deep was pounding at the ground, trying to push Annie off, but he wasn’t faltering. His fists didn’t look strong, but they were firm. He wasn’t drowning.

Ben looked up to the darkened sky, then back to Annie and the Deep, and his fists curled. “The rain. Annie!” He shouted, and she glanced over at him with a frown. “The fucking rain! The fish fuck can breathe in the goddamn-“ Ben cut himself off with an eye roll and sigh, because Annie just looked confused. “Fuck it.”

He’d been practicing. In Rome with Her, waiting for Her and Sage’s meeting to be over, whenever he got a fucking opportunity, Ben had been trying to control the bomb. Move it through his body at will, let it glow and bang and roar in his body before focusing it and throwing it out on more than just fury and an instinct of protect.

It had paid the fuck off, because when he clenched his jaw and vaulted some of the nuclear energy built in his muscles through the air, Ben could narrow his eyes and hold it the fuck together in a way that was solid. It was the drums, tearing through his head and over his ribs, and not painful in the fucking slightest. Filling the air around them, all in a rhythm Ben could fucking control. The feeling was away from his body—golden and humming, holding Annie and the Deep in a bubble that blocked the rain—but still a part of him. 

And the Deep started to flail. Scraping at the air and Ben’s gold, trying to just twist away from Annie’s hold, and growing weaker by the second. 

Then he was only twitching, Annie pushed his head deeper into the river, and he stilled. 

Annie looked up to Ben, nodded, and the shield dropped away as the Deep went limp under her body.

“I’m pushing him into the river.” Annie muttered as Ben and Butcher approached, and Ben nodded, because as far as he was concerned, it was Annie’s body to dispose of.

“Make sure the cunts really fuckin kicked the bucket-“

Annie pulled the Deep’s head from the water, turned his swollen, slack face for Ben and Butcher to see, and snapped his neck.

“Good enough for you, Butcher?”

Butcher shrugged, and Annie threw the Deep’s weak, small corpse into the water. He was swallowed in the rushing, tumbling river, and vanished without a trace.

Ben reached a hand up to ear to radio MM, and nothing fucking happened. “Fuck.”

Annie frowned. “What-“

“Coms are fried.” He grunted, pulling out his earpiece and tossing it back into the river. “We need to get back-“

Ben’s pants began to buzz, and he pulled out his phone, the air filling with the ringing of MM’s call. 

He’d barely picked up when MM was shouting through the speaker.

“Where the fuck did you assholes go-“

Ben flinched, but didn’t pull the phone from his ear. MM’s anger was easier to focus on than the pounding of the rain. “We’re still at the creek. Our radios got fucked, but it was just the Deep-“

“We fucking know that, Hughie saw it on the cams-“

“Then what the fuck is your problem-“

“My problem.” MM hissed through the phone. “Is that we don’t have a fucking clue where Homelander is, and no one is responding to our texts.”

Something felt sick in Ben’s gut. “What.”

MM said Her name, and Ben heard the screen crack in his grip. “I texted her to check in, and I haven’t gotten a response.”

Annie approached Ben, her face drawn with worry. “What-“

Ben ripped the phone from his ear, putting it onto speaker. “MM.” He said, pushing the words through his teeth. “Where the fuck are they.”

Annie and Butcher froze, and MM’s labored sigh was almost muffled in a crack of thunder. 

“I don’t know. And we don’t think Homelander’s coming.”

Butcher’s hand shot to his coat pocket, and his body went rigid as Ben heard his heart begin to fucking race. Butcher’s heart never fucking raced. 

“Bloody fuckin,” Butcher tore off his jacket, turning it over and frantically shaking it. “Fuck. Where the fuckin hell-“

“Ben.” MM grunted through the phone, his voice urgent. “Hughie can’t track the car. You need to do that brain connection shit-“

“I can’t.” The words felt like fucking torture in Ben’s mouth. Like poison or bile, his whole body splitting open as everything in him became wrath, mauling his organs and spine, turning solid in his throat and making it painful to do anything. “She’s still on the fucking suppressant, I can’t fucking feel her-“

“How much longer until you can?” Annie’s question was a whisper as she glanced over at where Butcher had started to pull apart his drill. “Butcher, what are you-“

Butcher pulled out the bullet, pried it open with pure brute force, and dropped the shell to the ground as he took out the vial of V. 

“Butcher.” Ben warned. They didn’t have fucking time for dramatics. “What the fuck-“

“My V’s missin.” Butcher snapped, angling the V’s needle over his forearm. “I’m improvisin.”

“Holy fuck, Butcher, no, that’s a terrible idea-“

Annie started to run, probably to try and knock the V out of Butcher’s hand, but Butcher stabbed the needle into his arm, pushed down, and the vial drained.

“Jesus-” Annie halted as Butcher dropped into the mud, his body convulsing. “Fuck! Why are you such a fucking idiot, you asshole?!” She looked at Ben, expression almost desperate as she gestured to Butcher on the ground. “What the fuck do we do with him now?”

“What did he-“

“Shot up with V.” Ben snapped into the phone, because he didn’t fucking care right now. Not when She was fucking missing, and they didn’t have a goddamn clue where Homelander was. “He’ll live, it was just the regular shit. MM, where the fuck is my wife.”

“We’re working on it, but until you can do the thing-“

“I don’t know when it’ll come back, and I am not fucking waiting.”

“It could be nothing,” Annie mumbled, still watching Butcher and not even sounding like she believed herself. “They could just be in a dead zone-“

“I don’t fucking care!” Ben roared, and his whole body was trying to strain in every fucking direction. To pull Ben back to Her, when he didn’t have a goddamn clue where she was. “We don’t fucking know when Homelander is, we don’t know where anyone is but the Deep, who’s dead in the fucking river-“

Butcher groaned from the dirt, and when he looked up to Ben and Annie, his eyes were glowing. “Gov, we’ve got this. She’s strong, it ain’t gonna be an issue and Homelander will be ‘ere-“

“Are you insane?” Annie snapped at Butcher, whose eyes were still flickering with light. “You are not allowed to make plans anymore, you just shot up V-“

“I ain’t playin this clean, Starlight, Homelander ain’t-“

“We needed that V, you asshole! To kill Homelander, which we don’t need powers for-“

“Easy for you to fuckin say, when you got powers-“

“Which I didn’t choose! Nobody made you do that-“

“Ben.” MM said through the speaker, and Ben held the broken screen back to his ear. “Get back to the house, and we’ll figure out where they are. But until we’ve got confirmation they’re in danger, no going rogue. Got it?”

He might have agreed. Ben might have swallowed the feeling of wrong in his body and just kept fucking moving, kept fucking praying that She was fine and that—when the connection lit back up, any fucking minute now—he’d feel nothing but tight nerves in his body that was Her fear and love for Ben. Not aimed at anything in particular, not mind-numbing and vulnerable, just worry. Ben might have marched back to the farmhouse, ignoring Annie and Butcher’s fight about the V, and steeled himself to just fucking kill Homelander. The pussy didn’t exactly have manners, he might just be fucking with them, or late.

No part of Ben thought Homelander was late, but he could try to pretend that was it. For Her, Ben could focus on stupid fucking teamwork and trusting that she was okay. That She’d find a way to call for him if she needed it. He’d even taken a step back from the creek, grumbled an agreement to MM, and been about to hang up the phone.

Then the world lit up. And as Ben’s looked to the skyline, dark and gray and clouded with rain just a second before, the whole fucking world ended.

Not that far in the distance, ripping throughout the world with heat and light, the sky was an almost neon blue. And for a horrible, long moment all Ben could see was fucking blue. Blue fucking fire.

Everything was fucking blue, and She needed Ben.

—————————

The first half hour of the drive is the longest of your life.

For one, nobody in the car is thrilled to be there. Neuman is rigid and silent at your side—her arms crossed and her mouth in a thin, tight line—while Ashley and A-Train frown in the back, exchanging looks between themselves, and Ryan and Zoe stay in a hushed conversation about either dinosaurs or dragons. 

You’d check, or maybe dwell for even a second on how you’d manage to confuse yourself between the two, but you can’t focus on anything. Your body feels wrong—everything feels sick and slow and wrong—and you have to use all your energy to focus on driving. To get everyone to safety—or just anywhere Homelander isn’t—and not think about Ben. Not think about how he could be fighting Homelander now, how he’s going to win—he’s strong and immovable, so he will win—but it might still cost something.

You can’t think about how this might cost something. How Ben is unbreakable—sturdy and firm and made of pure fucking resolve that keeps you safe and warm and happy, your head on your shoulders and the world in focus—and Kimiko has a healing factor second only to your, but everyone else is mortal. It would be hard to hurt Annie, but it would still be possible. Butcher and MM wouldn’t go down without broken noses and bloodied fists, and Frenchie wouldn’t go down without explosions and rounds of bullets into Homelander’s unbreakable skin, but they can all still go down. 

And Kimiko can still get hurt. She can lose Frenchie and go insane, the same way you know you won’t recover if you lose Ben.

You won’t lose Ben. Not you can’t, you won’t. You’re not even going to entertain the fucking idea, because it makes your blood cold and your whole body feel all the more ill. It makes the silence in your chest unbearable, gets you stuck on hollow and quiet and wide it is where Ben is supposed to be. How you might already be going mad, just because you can’t feel Ben. You can’t feel if he’s in pain, or angry, or focused or tired or relieved or triumphant. You can’t know if Homelander is dead or if the world is burning. You can’t do anything but try to drive through the storm and push down everything instinct in your body that’s tell you to turn around. That you don’t want to see blood, and the plan is solid and well-made—you made it—but you want to go back. You want to run to Ben and tell him to come with you and Ryan, or send Ryan off with Neuman and fight yourself. You could fight. There’s fire under your skin and blood in your body that’s alive and all yours, and you could destroy Homelander, but you don’t want to.

You just want Ben. And you can’t have him right now. 

And the further away your drive, the more everything feels wrong. The more edged and wired and taut your whole body becomes, spiraling down into thoughts of blood and cold blue eyes before forcefully yanking your thoughts back to good things.

Ryan. Music. Stuffed Lions. Gardens. Ben. 

You develop a routine. The time passes as if you’re wading through mud—any small shift in a seat, or cough, or bump of the car or too loud pound of the rain on the metal roof sends you closer to screaming—and all you can do is cling to small things to keep going, and waiting, and desperately thinking of anything but blood.

Ryan.

He’s safe. He’s in the car with you, still whispering with Zoe, and he’s not unburdened and really that happy, but he’s not crying or panicking or apologizing, so he’s okay. You’d packed his clothing, and his books—along with a few extras he’s never read, that you’d bought for him at the airport—and a deck of cards in the likely event that Ryan tore through his reading within the first few hours. He has you, and he has Zoe—which is good, he should have a friends that aren’t, his grumpy, amazing asshole of a grandfather, his grandfather’s immortal wife, his impossibly British step-father, or their cool, mute friend—and, when this is over, he’ll have Ben. Ben will find you both, and Ryan can be the best man at your wedding, because you’ll threaten to punch Ben if he’s not.

Music. 

You have music. You’d put your phone on shuffle, and you had music. It filled the car with sounds that weren’t anxious and doubtful whispers or heavy breaths, and kept your attention within the world. You could tap your fingers on the wheel in time with every song, breathe in and out as if you were singing without any actual hums or vocalizations, and focus on that instead of anything else. You can pretend you’re dancing in strobing colorful lights during the songs with heavy bass and fast beats, and you can image that Ben’s arms are around your body during the slower ones. You start to skip the faster songs, just because anything that filled the air like honey or a warm, summer breeze means that you can pretend you’re pressed against Ben’s body and swaying in his hold, letting him guide you in a careful dance you could learn, but don’t really want to. You’ll spend a lifetime having Ben lead you in something so elegant and romantic and peaceful, and never want for anything ever again.

Stuffed Lions.

Ben’s was in your suitcase, right next to your white tiger. You’d give it back to him when he found you, and he’d scowl—even as you felt the glow consume his whole body—and you’d kiss him until he smiled then fall to your knees to just touch him. He’d place the lion carefully on the bed—if you told him you’d noticed he’d deny it, but he would—fist his hand in your hair, and guide your mouth up and down his cock. You’d show him how much you loved him, looking up though heavy lashes at how his throat bobbed and muscles flexed, growing wet frown every foul, vulgar praise that he offered you and every hissed groan of your name, and sit in the feeling of him everywhere. Big and strong and vengeful and all yours, cleaning you up when you were done, placing the stuffed lion on the dresser right next to your tiger, and refusing to ever let them be separated.

Gardens.

This one was harder, and easier. Right now you were driving through wilderness, and everything was green and overgrown, but it was also dark. The storm made the life around you hidden in the shadows and washed in almost too much water, made every flower and leaf hang down to the earth, made every warm patch of dirt become cold, thick mud. And so you thought of after, and that was the easiest thing to do in the world. To think of a garden after, that you’d grow in a yard that was all yours. That you’d sit in on sunnier days, and Ben would come up behind you and drop to your side, pulling you into his lap and kissing you until you were giggling, before touching you until you were moaning. He’d lay you down in the dirt, ignore your half-hearted protests of we’re outside, Benjamin, anyone could see us because he’d know that you didn’t really mean them—not when your every word after that would become either Ben or please—and then he’d touch you everywhere. Rough and long and slow and devout, before picking you up and carrying you to his part of the garden. And he’d refuse to call it his, but he’d also refuse to let you touch it, and it would be filled with butterflies he’d give threatening glares to never fucking land on him and flowers he’d pick and shove into your hands.

Ben. 

It was never an effort to think about Ben, because he was everything, and therefore everywhere. Even when he wasn’t alive and humming at the top of your chest, you could still see and feel him in the whole world. He was in the headlights, leading you through the shadows of the storm. He was in the forest, filling the air with the smell of pine and your vision with green. Ben was on your tongue—his taste of strawberries and coffee still lingering from your kiss—and over your skin. Warm and rough, fitting right over you in a phantom touch that had sunken into your skin and would stay there like a tattoo. Ben was in every note of every song, and every slow and careful breath, and every dim glow of a golden streetlamp. He was every beat of your heart, and every single thought that ended up finding its way back to Ben.

You always found your way back to Ben, and so you didn’t need to be afraid. You’ll still worry, and when you hold him again you’ll probably cry, but you don’t need to be afraid. 

You trust him. You trust your team. 

And all you can do is drive.

Then, in a very cruel twist of fate—but more likely simply an oversight in the rush and panic of the morning—a little yellow light starts to flash on your dashboard, and you’re low on gas. You haven’t quite made it to the highway, and you’d passed a station a few minutes back, so you make a U-turn, mumble apology and explanation to the group, and drive about five minutes back  to park the car at a pump and rush out into the rain. You can’t afford to linger—not for long, not when you’re still close to the farm—so you have to be quick and efficient. You’ll have to fill up the tank in the downpour, ignore how the rain is biting and cold on your skin, and go.

But the universe hates you. You must have wronged some sort of god in charge of luck, because yours is just so consistently shit. The’s a small sign taped to the gas pump with writing you can barely read—it’s a messy scrawl, and the bleeding on this ink isn’t doing anyone any favors—but still manage to decipher.

Pay inside.

You sigh, walk around the car, and rap on Neuman’s window.

She glares at you, and mouthing what and not moving from her seat.

“I’m going inside!” You over enunciate each word, pointing to the small, square connivence store. “The pump!” You point over the hood of the car. “Is fucking broken!” You make an X with your arms, Neuman just stares at you, and you sigh, yanking the door open.

“Hey!” Neuman leans back—away from the rain—with a glower. “What the fuck-“

“The pump is broken.” You glare around the car—not at Ryan and Zoe—as you make your words short and stern, mimicking Ben’s fucking listen, or I’ll feed you your balls voice. “I have to go inside to pay for gas. I’ll be back fast, don’t go anywhere.”

“Like you’d fucking let us go anywhere,” Ashely mutters, her eyes widening as your glower turns to her. “I don’t, uh, I’m-“

“Save it.” You sigh, turning your attention to Ryan. “I’ll be right back-“

“Can I, um,” Ryan’s pale, looking between you and the gas station with a frantic expression. “May I please come with you?”

“Yeah.” You give him a small smile and nod. “Let’s go.”

Ryan nods, wiggling past Zoe to the door, and you glance at Neuman.

“We’ll be back. Don’t try to drive away, because you don’t know where you’re going, and I’ll find you-“

“Yeah, you’ll track me down, we made a deal, whatever. We’ll stay here, now go.”

You swallow, draw back up, and close the door as you turn to Ryan. 

“Christ, Ry.” You pull off your jacket—technically Ben’s jacket, so it’s big and warm and feels safer than any other jacket—and pull it over Ryan’s smaller, shivering frame, his hair already stuck to his forehead from the rain. “Let’s go inside, we’ll try to get you something warm-“

“I’m okay,” he mumbles as you steer him towards the station. “It’s just wet-“

“Yeah, I know, but that’s how colds get caught.” You push the door open, and go directly for the pre-made food station. “You can’t drink coffee, and that doesn’t look like reliable hot chocolate-“

You’re mostly talking to yourself, so when Ryan tugs on your sleeve you freeze, all your attention refocusing from the gas stations dogshit options to him.

“I, um,” Ryan clears his throat, and you move a little more hair away from his face on instinct more than anything else. “Am I allowed to ask where we’re going? When we get the gas?”

“You are,” you sigh, turning back to the counter and settling on hot water and very old looking tea bag. “But I can’t really give you an answer.”

Ryan’s face falls slightly. “Oh, I’m-“

“I don’t know where we’re going.” You cut him off with a gentle, warm smile. “MM just gave me directions, no final destination. He said the drive will be about six hours, so we could be going to Canada, Pennsylvania, or upstate New York, and I won’t know until we’re about halfway there. But,” you drop your voice to a whisper. “When I figure it out, you will be the first person I tell.”

“Okay.” Ryan nods, returning your smile with a nervous—but real—one of his own. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” You start for the checkout counter—keeping your head bowed, because you’re not alone in this gas station and you don’t need one of these random drivers realizing the Anomaly and Homelander’s son are buying tea and gas—and bump Ryan’s shoulder with your own. “You are my favorite.”

Ryan’s smile grows slightly at that, and he remains almost stuck to your side as you wait in line.

You reach into your hoodie pocket for the beaten wallet MM had passed to you before you left, and freeze as your hand brushes of the small, cold vial. You’ve been pretending it’s not there. That you’re not always away of the weight of it, that—even now—you can’t feel the label you know reads Project Anomaly, Trial 6 brush against your fingers.

You’re not proud of the fact that it’s there. Of how you’d stolen it from Butcher,  how you’d swiped it from his stupid trench coat just like Ben had taught you to. Of how you’d gone back on your word, that it was Butcher’s to do what he please with.

And you know what he’d planned to do. You hadn’t been able to find it in your shared room with him, Ryan, and Ben because Butcher had been keeping it in a needle, on his body, for the entire day. You’d bet a small fortune that he’d been ready to shoot it up at any second, and that’s exactly why you’d taken it. Your final conversation with Sage had haunted you, and you weren’t sure you’d fully breathe again until the only V left in the world was that already flowing through bloodstreams.

You’ll have to burn the recipe. You should give it to Singer, or the UN, or some sort of authority figure, but you won’t. Because this isn’t just Homelander, it’s something rotting and brittle in the foundation, and this can’t be a power anyone ever gets to control or manufacture. It can’t be about being stronger or cleaner or better. It can’t be about winning anything, at all. 

If Ryan grows up and has children, if you and Ben have children, there’s a chance they’ll be born with powers. You’re honestly not sure how Ben hasn’t managed to have a dozen kids—you love the man more than life, and he’s a whore—but you have a feeling it’s the V. The unstable, strange V that’s in both your bodies, that could be too much for a normal body to handle, and may be a breeding ground for what Butcher would call little fuckin Soldier Boy kiddies. And that would be different, you’ve decided, in a way that you know is bias. You’re well aware that taking the V you’d given Butcher—taking away his ability to become a supe because you don’t want anyone to give themselves or anyone else that power again—is deeply hypocritical when there’s a high chance you’ll turn around and create a child born with this same V ingrained into its DNA. 

And you don’t care. You’ve earned being selfish, because you’re so fucking tired of all of this. You’ll look Butcher in the eyes when this is over and apologize—not caring if you really mean it—then fall right into Ben’s arms. You’ll burn all the V, and the formula, and there won’t be a second Homelander, or second Sage, or second anything. You’ll fix this past just killing Homelander, and no one will ever have to feel a pain like this again.

“Will the, um, place, will it have cards?”

You blink at Ryan, pulling out the wallet and forcing a smile onto your face. “I brought cards. They’re in the trunk.”

“Oh, okay.” Ryan studies your face carefully, his words slow and uncertain. “Um, I just wanted to know if you’d want to play go fish with me, or something-“ You raise your brows at Ryan’s nervous stuttering—he’s speaking like something very important is riding on this, when it’s just a game of cards—and find yourself unable to stop the real, peaceful smile from spreading over your face as you realize what’s happening.

 “I’m okay, Ryan.”

He gapes at you slightly, shaking his head in an almost frenzied movement. “I, I know, I just wanted to know if you wanted to play go fish-“

“If you want to play go fish, I’ll play go fish. But,” you give him a pointed, warm look. “If you’re just trying to cheer me up, you don’t need to. It’s not your job to help me, Ry, it’s my job to help you.”

“I, I wasn’t-“

“Ben told you to play cards with me, right? To cheer me the fuck up, or something?”

“Was that, um, was it supposed to be a Ben impression-“

“Yeah, I know it’s terrible, but don’t tell him I said that. Did he?”

Ryan stares at you blankly. “Did he what?”

“Tell you to play cards to cheer me up?”

“I, um, I don’t-“

In an attempt to stop Ryan from making himself overload or pass out, you make your voice a gentle whisper. “Because I know he does that. All the time.”

“How?” Ryan blurts, looking a little panicked. “I didn’t tell you, he said it’s a secret-“

You laugh. “He’s literally never beaten me. In any game. He loses war, Ryan, every time, without fail. It’s a game of chance, that’s almost statistically impossible.” You let out a sigh that’s probably dreamy and stupid, smiling into the air, and Ryan frowns.

“Why don’t you tell him you know-“

“Because he’s a massive dumb dumb who loves us very much, and he’s always very, very proud of himself. He’s adorable, and makes me dinner without me asking, and after we watch one of his dumb documentaries, which he does not pay attention to, he-“ You cut yourself off with a flush , because you’re going to draw the line of your odd pseudo-parenting tactics with Ryan at telling him that, without fail, every time you beat Ben at cards he becomes feral in the bedroom. You think it’s some weird, primal monkey-brain part of him taking over—getting all smug and cocky with how happy you are, how he’s the one that made you happy—but you have no plans to analyze it, because why meddle with perfection. 

Ben gets to glow with affection and love you can feel in your chest, looking like a wrathful angel who’s being rewarded with just you for his unrelenting devotion—strong and big and warm and Ben—and you get to scream and moan as he fucks you in a rough and unforgiving manner. Ad Ben turns you into a writhing, needy, pleading mess that only knows the word Ben, and uses it like a prayer. His lips bruise and bite every sensitive bit of your flesh, and his hands squeeze and rub your body until you’re just putty in his arms, and when you squirt over his cock he falls forward, and both of you get to rest in each other’s arms. 

You clear your throat, pushing on, and hope Ryan didn’t notice your stumble and can’t hear how your heart is pounding. “He’s just, um, really happy, after. And that makes me happy, because I love him, and I love that he’d do that just to make me happy, and I love that he’s so bad at lying to me I realized what he was doing almost immediately, but he’s still so proud of himself every time I makes me even happier.”

Ryan nods as you take another step in the line, starts to say something that’s likely a sweet and nervous question, and your whole word shifts into cold.

It was just a flash. A shifting movement outside—barely visible through the rain—that caught your attention, a crude and hateful face in the shadows, and you can’t remember how to breathe, or hear, or think. You can’t hear Ryan, only a faint ringing and overwhelming, dreadful sound of your heart. You can’t take the next step forward in the line, but you can’t keep looking. 

If you keep looking, Homelander will know you’ve seen him. And he’s far enough into the dark for you to know he doesn’t want to be seen. 

It lasts a second—the pure terror and wild, arresting sense of no. Wrong and bad and dangerous, no—because you only have that one advantage. You’ve seen him, he doesn’t know it, and you can’t afford to be frozen in pain. Not when Ryan is at your side, and you can’t feel Ben, you only have yourself. You’re the only one that can do anything here, and you’ll find a way to get through this.

Whatever it takes.

“Ryan.” You place your hand on his shoulder, angling him away from the windows, and take a careful, measured pace forward to block him from view. “I need you to be quiet, please. You can nod, and whisper, or talking to me in Kimiko’s sign language, but you cannot speak.”

Ryan’s expression falls into something nervous and weak, and you know he’s worried you’re angry. You can’t relent your focus or how critical it is that he listen to you, but it becomes just as vital that Ryan knows you’re not mad. That he hadn’t invaded your life, or crossed an invisible and always moving line, or become something you have to deal with. That all the joy and comfort is drained from your face because you will not let Ryan get hurt, and Homelander is outside, and nothing fucking matters except making sure you get out. You don’t care to shed blood and guts or to flay alive, you only need to leave this place with Ryan at your side.

You drop your hand to hold his, squeezing gently, letting your voice raise slightly. “I’m not mad. You didn’t do anything wrong, or saying anything bad, and I am not angry at you. Squeeze my hand twice so I know you understand.” 

Ryan nods slowly, and his grip on your hand might crack your bones, but you get two squeezes, and continue.

 “Good. I have this under control, I promise but I need you to listen to me. Okay?”

Two squeezes, and you sigh, standing up a little taller as you reach the cashier, plastering a fake, bright smile on your face at their empty greeting. You’ll have to keep this vague, because you’ve lowered your voice, but the cashier is inside, and right in front of you. You’re taking the gamble that over the storm and through the glass, Homelander won’t be able to hear you. The cashier might, and you can’t afford any delays. 

“Your dad,” you pull the card out of MM’s wallet with one hand, refusing to let go of Ryan’s. “Is waiting outside. We’re going to have to run out into the rain, because we don’t want to get wet before we drive home. Ben’s expecting us, and we should get there soon.”

Ryan swallows, his expression only a pure, wide fright of What about everyone else? He’s going to kill everyone else.

You know that. The people in the gas station are already dead—or as good as it—and it hurts to keep smiling at the cashier when you know that. Know that the last thing they’ll ever do is chew gum behind a counter, and you can’t save them. You want to, and you’re going to be haunted by their screams for rest of your life, but you can’t save them. Homelander won’t spare them—he may go out of his way to kill them, just to prove some sort of fucked up point that starts with superiority and ends with worms—and all this time is borrowed, and can’t be used to figure out an impossible solution where everyone makes it out alive.

You’ll have to pay for everything after. Funerals and debts and family support. Some sort of worthless apology for not saving them, for trading their lives for yours and Ryans.

But it’s still a trade you’re going to make. You’re going to do everything you can—in this finite moment—to save the people in the car, the people who’d directly trusted you with their safety, and the people who may have a chance. Homelander will want to confront you, but he hasn’t even bothered to look behind him. At the gas pump, where you pray Neuman or A-Train have noticed his drenched, hollow figure in the rain and keeping quiet. You can pray that Homelander remains so focused on you and Ryan that they escape his notice, and get out. 

You can buy time. Take just a little more—to save the people that have a fighting chance, that you can tell them how to survive this and they’ll listen—and keep praying for it to be enough.

“Ry,” you glance down at Ryan’s face with your warmest, most-reassuring smile, and pray he can’t see your own fear rooted deep in your eyes. “Do you want some candy?” You put an urgency in your eyes to tell him I’ve got this, I just need a little help.

He mumbles a weak agreement, and shuffles off to the candy isle. You hold up the line—anyone who goes outside will die quicker, draw attention faster—and keep one careful eye on Ryan as you take out your phone and dial his number. 

Ryan had left his brick cellphone in the car, and when Zoe Neuman’s soft voice greets you as she picks it up, you almost fall over in relief. 

“Hi,” She whispers your name, her voice small and filled with fear, and you know they’ve seen Homelander. 

“Hi, Zoe. Can you give me to your mom?”

There’s a brief shuffling sound, and then Neuman is hissing your name through the speaker.

“What the fuck is Homelander doing here-“

“I don’t know.” You keep your word low and curt, and don’t leave room for something useless like argument. “But he is here, and I need you to listen. I’ll take care of getting Ryan to Ben’s, you tell Ashley’s boyfriend to pick you guys up. I’ll talk to him while you wait for the ride, don’t worry about it.”

Your code is crude—you’re don’t even know what the hell is going on with A-Train and Ashley, and you’re not willing to lend it nuance right now—but effective. You’ve got Ryan, A-Train will get them out, and you’ll distract Homelander. Neuman mutters an understanding, her voice dropping to a whisper the microphone barely picks up.

“I’ll tell him. Are you,” there’s a pause, the static humming until Neuman speaks again. “You got this.”

It’s only half a question, but you understand why. You need to have this—you cannot falter or break or crack—and Neuman needs you to know that. She needs her daughter to survive this—the exact same way you need Ryan to—and she is telling you that it is crucial you think you can do this. That there may not be an option, but you are still smart enough, angry enough, and more than fucking strong enough to do this.

“I’ve got this,” you repeat the words, just to make them real. You’ve fucking got this, and Zoe will be safe. You can save Zoe, you can save Ryan, and once they won’t ever need to be strong again. “Neuman.”

She hums, and you sigh.

“Tell, uh, Ashley’s boyfriend, to be fast. That this is what I’m asking, it’s all I’m asking, and if he’s fast, we both get an after. Okay?’

There’s a moment of silence, then, “Okay.”

You nod, knowing Neuman can’t see it, and the line drops.

Ryan returns to your side, clutching a bag of gummy bears in a shaking hand, and you shove your phone back into your pocket, pulling off your ring and tucking it safely into Ryan’s jacket.

“Can you keep that safe for me?” You ask, and Ryan’s eyes widen.

“Yes, but I,” He mumbles your name, and you can hear the terror lining his every word. “I’m, I don’t, I’m not-“

“I know.” You sigh, pulling him carefully against your side and kissing the top of his head as his arms wrap around you. “I know. But we have to.”

Ryan nods against you, and you lean down, keeping your word low as the cashier scans the candy.

“Stay behind me, and don’t look at the car. You’re going to be okay, we all are, but you can’t draw attention to the car. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ryan’s voice is weak—even that one word is filled with fear—and it breaks your fucking heart. 

“Ryan,” you cup his face in one hand, holding his nervous gaze on yours, and you’ve never seen him look more like a kid. He is a kid, it’s often forgotten in the chaos and blood and violence of your life, but Ryan’s just a kid. And he can be afraid all he wants—fuck, you’re terrified, your blood still cold and your stomach turning and boiling—but you won’t let Homelander hold that power of inevitable, unstoppable, deadly and without a cure over either of you. Ryan can’t think you’ve already lost, because you haven’t, and Homelander won’t win. “It’ll be okay. We’re going to be okay. He’s not going to hurt you, he’s not going to even touch you, and once everyone else is out we’re going to run. I’ll knock him back, we’ll get to the car, and we’ll go back to the farm. Ben will meet us there, and it’ll be okay. Yeah?”

There are countless flaws in your plan. No car is faster than Homelander, least of all your stolen Honda Civic, and you still can’t feel Ben. Still can’t warn him what’s coming, still can’t scream between your heads for him to help. That you’re strong enough to do this, but you don’t want to do it alone, and you need Ben here now. 

It’ll be back soon. Thirty minutes, and Ben would find you anywhere. All you had to do was stall and run, and find thirty fucking minutes.

So when Ryan nods, still afraid and shaking—grabbing your hand and clinging to it like a frightened child, because that’s really all he needs to be right now—but taking deeper, more even breaths, you offer him a toothless, painful and sad smile, and hand him the gummy bears.

Neither of you speak as you walk to the door, and you put yourself a step ahead of Ryan as you push out into the rain. Wet and cold, small bombs of ice and water that hiss off your skin but focus you all the same. Your whole body is white-hot, but your fire is humming along the surface of your body and you’re not breaking. You’ve fucking got this. 

Homelander’s waiting for you with a crude smile and his hands behind his back—white teeth still blinding in the dark, everything about his posture and walk and face and movement so simply wrong—but there’s patch of hair near his brow that’s missing, one of his eyes looks milkier than the other, and there are still a few burn scars twisting near one of his ears. Between that and the rain, there’s a higher chance he won’t notice any of A-Train’s movements, and you can feel a small, bright bloom of something that’s bloodied and tired and furious in your chest. It might be hope. It might be certainty that you can do this.

You don’t have another choice.

“Homelander.” Your voice is bored and casual, and you don’t recognize it. It doesn’t sound like you—doesn’t feel like how your whole existence is ending in this very moment—but you can’t afford to be you right now. You have to be the Anomaly. You have to be the cold, manipulative, ungrateful bitch Homelander believes you to be, just until you’re certain everyone is out of the car. Just to hold his attention.

It’s working. His whole face twitches at your pure uninterest, and you see something that makes your heart curl and wither in your chest flash in his eyes. He says your name, and it’s wrong, and you don’t fucking flinch. “Give me my son. Now.”

You raise your chin, holding his gaze and not allowing any of your terror into your expression. “No.” 

Homelander scoffs, dismissing you with a hand. “C’mon, we both know how this will go! I’ll just keep killing everyone you love, you’ll beg me to spare them, and I’ll win. I always win, because that’s just how this works! I’m-“

“Better?” You raise your brows, and there’s a flash of moment in the background, and one person is out. Two to go. “You’re better?”

“Yes!” His hands move to his hips, and he looks mostly just annoyed now. “I am better. I mean, you idiots can’t even flee properly! I just saw you, walking in there,” he gestures to the station behind you. “With my son, and you didn’t even notice me! I’ll always win,” he says your name, his expression dropping into one of menace and a crazed short of rage he doesn’t seem to know how to hide. “Because you’re weak, and human, and I’m perfect.”

You hum, titling your head at Homelander as his eyes start to glow red. “You know, that’s almost exactly what Sage said. Right before I killed her.”

“You can’t kill me,” He hisses your name again, taking a slow step forward, his laugh making your skin crawl. “And I am tired with your games, you fucking slut. You did me a favor, though, with Sage. She was starting to outlive her use, so if you give me my son back now, maybe I won’t laser you in half.”

“No.” You let a crude, mocking smile that’s all teeth and hatred cross your face. “We might not be able to kill you, Homelander, but you can’t even hurt me, so you’re not getting to Ryan.”

Homelander laughs, and it makes your skin crawl. “Maybe I can’t physically hurt you, but I can make you cry like the weak little bitch you are when I kill all your friends. When I track down your family and fly them up to the atmosphere. Suffocate them like the breakable, useless worms they are, then go find your precious Ben and use Sage’s gas-“

“I’ll wake him up.” You shrug. The rain seems to be moving into your bones, and you’re so fucking cold, but there’s another rushed movement near the car so you raise your voice. Just one more. Just a little more time. “You knock him out, I’ll wake him up and fuck up your face even more.”

This scoff is less confident, but just as cruel. “You really think he’d be grateful? Letting some weak little bitch save him, like a damsel when he’s fucking Soldier Boy?” Homelander sneers your name. “He and I are strong, we’re fucking heroes, the epitome of human evolution-“

You snort. “You’re not evolution, you’re a product. You were designed, Homelander, like a fucking machine-“

“But I was chosen.” Homelander narrows his eyes at you, there’s another flash in the background, and you stand a little taller. This is almost over. “Just like my father, just like my son. Ryan,” Homelander tries to lean around you, and you move to block his view. “You’re strong. You’re not a pathetic fucking human like her or your mother, you belong with me-“

“You’re not touching him.” You hiss, holding Homelander’s glower. “You’re not touching anyone I love again.”

“What, like Soldier Boy-“

“Yes. You hurt Ben, I hurt you, and he won’t think it makes him weak. He’ll think it’s hot, and we’ll probably fuck after.” You’re taunting Homelander, but you need him to be so blinded by anger he doesn’t see your blow coming. “But you try to take him away from me with that stupid fucking gas, and I’ll destroy you.” 

“I’ll throw him in the fucking ocean, I’ll separate you ungrateful traitors forever-“

“And I’ll find him.” Your grin becomes almost manic. “I’ll always find him.”

“Fine.” Homelander’s tone is flat and curt, and he gives a stiff shrug. “Be all fucking dramatic and annoying. Let’s see how long you can stick to your whole romance thing with my father,” he looks over you with disgust, his lip curling. “When I lock you back up and he never, ever sees you again.”

Before you can speak, or move, or do anything, red cuts through your vision, there’s a boom behind you, and everything is burning. It’s not your fire—starting to riot and grow painful under your skin—because your fire is warm. Your fire feels clean and holy, because it was born from something worse than hell, but you’ve made it yours. 

This fire is hell. It’s made of screams and pleas for help, and there’s nothing you can do but try not to turn around. Force yourself not to look at the wreckage behind you—Homelander must have hit a generator, because you can feel the heat behind you and hear the building crumbling—that you should’ve tried harder to prevent. People are dying and you could’ve done more, could’ve been stronger, could’ve worked to save these people who have people that care about them, who cared about people, who had lives that are over because you weren’t strong enough-

“This is what you wanted,” Homelander calls your name over the storm and fire, and you can’t breathe. “Isn’t it? To fight? To be all high and mighty about love only to not have the fucking spine to kill me? I’d dare you to try,” he laughs, his face sadistic and amused and so cold. “But this isn’t David and Goliath. It’s Goliath and a fucking slut who thinks she’s more important than she is.”

Homelander takes a fast step forward, and you have to be stronger, but fuck, you can’t. You’re falling and breaking in barely a moment—a moment you’d fucking anticipated—and the rain is so cold, and you have to do this, but you can’t. You’re alone, and you’ve never wanted to be saved more, but you can’t feel Ben-

There’s a rush of air, almost knocking you backwards, and Homelander stumbles back as A-Train slams into him, pummeling into his stomach before speeding away again. 

Homelander begins to roar, his eyes glowing, and he’s distracted. A-Train is zipping in and out of the burning parking lot, keeping Homelander’s focus on trying to kill him, and the wind jumpstarts your whole body.

You grab Ryan’s hand and run. Half carrying him to the car—refusing to look back at the ruins of the gas station or the fight—and throwing him into shotgun before sprinting around to the wheel. Fumbling with the keys before slamming them into the ignition, and just fucking going. The tires skid and squeak on the wet pavement, you’re flooring the gas and breaking countless traffic laws, but you can’t care. You have Ryan, you have time, and you need to get back to Ben.

It’s almost impossible to see where you’re going. The rain is heavy and blocking your vision, you have to use the headlights in small bursts to avoid being seen, and every tree you pass looks the same as the one before it, but you know where you’re going. It’s not a long drive from the station to the farm—not at the speed you’re going—and it’s relatively simple, so all you have to do is go and go and go until you see the turn onto the dirt road, and Ryan will be safe.

He’s silent in the seat next to you, shaking and hyperventilating, and when you offer him your hand, he takes it and squeezes his eyes shut. Like this is just a nightmare he can wake up from, it will all be okay in the morning.

“Ryan,” you whisper, even though it’s just you in the car and the rain drowns out almost every sound. “It’s, it’s okay-“

“Do you think he’s going to die?” Ryan mumbles, and you tense. You don’t need to ask to know he’s not talking about Homelander. “Just because he helped me-“

“No.” You shake your head, keeping your eyes on the road. “I mean, I don’t know what will happen, but none of it is your fault. A-Train made that choice himself, we all made our choices, and this is not your fault.”

“I could’ve tried to fight-“

“It’s not your job to fight him, Ry.” You sigh, risking one, soft comforting look at Ryan’s pale face. “And this really isn’t your fault. I promise.”

Ryan nods, and you’re so fucking close. All have to do is get to the farm, and-

You barely have a second to register it as it happens. You flip on the lights at the exact moment Homelander slams down on the road before you, and you can throw your arm over Ryan’s chest, but you can’t slam on the breaks. You can try and swerve around him, but the road is wet, the car isn’t in your full control, and Homelander’s eyes are already glowing.

There’s a second where your whole body is pain. Where you falling or crashing or drowning, and you manage to keep your hold on Ryan, but your body is being shred apart and stitched together every other second. When the world comes back into focus you’re pinned under what feels like a mountain but is only metal, and Ryan’s half shielded under your body, but you can’t move.

And you still can’t feel Ben.

Homelander’s towering above you, grinning at how effectively trapped you are under the wreckage, and you can’t run, or fight, or pull yourself to entirely block Ryan from his view. You can’t even gnaw off your own leg like an animal in a trap, you can only scream in your head—between every roll of thunder and rush of chilling water—until Ben can hear you. 

“Well,” Homelander sneers your name, his grin growing. “Where’s all your fight? That little spitfire attitude all gone now that you get it?”

“You,” you groan, because trying to pull your leg out from under the debris just breaks it and heals it all over again. “You’re not going to win. You can kill A-Train, but you can’t kill me, and people will notice-“

“Don’t be dramatic, I did not kill A-Train.” Homelander rolls his eyes. “I broke his legs and left him to die by himself. And I have no interest in killing you, that would be such a waste.” 

Homelander scans over you, and suddenly you feel small. Any remaining resistance seems to be pulled from you as Homelander asses your body like it’s all you are, and for the first time he’s doing it without any guise. There are no declarations of a love you don’t want, for person who you’re not, you’re really just a vessel. Just a toy for Homelander to play with and use as he sees fit, and then break when he gets bored of. 

You wonder how long it will take him to realize that he can’t get what he wants from you. That whenever he touches you, hurts you, your body will remember and refuse to let any part of him live within you, ever. 

How long it will take before he gets rid of you somewhere cold where you can’t die but Ben can’t find you, and there will be no one left to protect Ryan. If Ben will blame himself, and burn the world only to not find you in the ash. He’ll keep looking after—he’ll be able to feel you and never find you and it might drive him mad—and you’ll keep trying to get back to him, and you won’t know how to do that or kill yourself, so you’ll become just a husk.

And you’re not strong enough to stop it. You should be, but you’re cold and there are screams echoing in your head and none of this is rational, so you’re not. 

“You might be a weak, whoring, lying bitch,” Homelander says, and you can’t tell if you’re crying or just breaking in a silent, long way that no one will be able to fix. “But you’re still pretty. Smart enough to get Sage, always healthy from the V, and maybe your V will make our offspring immortal. Then we can figure that out, and put it into me.” Homelander nods to himself, and you’re going to scream but you can’t find your voice.

“Please, Dad,” Ryan whispers from behind you, and Homelander’s attention shoots to him with a flash of surprise over his horrible face at Ryan’s soft words. “Please don’t hurt her, I’ll come with you, but please-“

“Ryan, quiet.” Homelander looks over your head, to Ryan, pointing a stern finger. “This is not your concern-“

“But I don’t want you to hurt her, please, please don’t-“

You have to be stronger, but Ryan’s pleading is going to make you sob, and you can only push your upper body to try and shield Ryan a little more from Homelander’s wrath, and you can’t- 

“Ryan!” Homelander’s shout rips through the air, over the storm, and right into your lungs. “I am your father, you will not tell me how to deal with my problems. And she is a problem.” His finger moves to you, and you choke on the rain. “She is weak, she is a parasite who tore our family apart, and parasites do don’t deserve to be happy. But I,” Homelander looks at you, his grin returning as he takes in the sight of you, trapped and useless and fucking broken. “Will be able to find a place for her. And we’ll figure out how to use her until she’s paid for what she broke. Until she understands that she is nothing, and you and Soldier Boy finally get she’s just good cattle, and fucking animals don’t deserve us-“

Something stabs and sears through your chest, carving you open and slicing your lungs in two and filling your mouth with blood. You hear a high, weak scream, and in the brief moment where everything is only pain—your vision blurred and body weak and head wrapped in iron and darkness—you don’t exactly what happened. There’s no weight under your legs anymore, the figure of Homelander is gone from your sight, and something that feels firm but touch you like it’s fragile is cradling you and calling your name in broken pleas.

“I didn’t mean to,” the sound is choked and barely audible, and you’re still lost in the daze of blood. Blood on your tongue and sticking to your skin and running the rain red. “I’m sorry, please don’t go, I don’t want you to go, I’m sorry-“

The voice says your name again, and something evil calls over it. 

“Ryan. Let’s go.”

That’s Ryan’s voice. Saying your name and pleading for you to stay. Begging you not to leave through the fog of something that’s close, but never reachable.

Then everything rushes back into focus—your body mending itself and yanking you back to earth—and you can see Ryan’s red eyed, sobbing face over yours. Feel the cold rain on your skin and the fire in your body start to bubble over. The iron taste of blood sharpens your head, drags you together faster, and then you smell coconut. 

You see a red gloved hand reaching for Ryan, feel your every instinct turn into no, and you have just enough time to throw Ryan off your body before you explode.

Ben will find you. You can’t feel him, but you know he’ll see the blue flame, vaulting from your body to the sky and burning away the rain, and understand what it means. What he has to do. 

You’re not too far from the farm. You can’t burn everything—Ryan is a part of everything, and keeping him safe is and always has been more import than killing Homelander—but you can do a fuck ton of damage with just your hands and your own, zealous fury.

You can really, really hurt Homelander. 

You can make him wish he’d never touched anyone before, and never want to touch anyone again.

It might be terror on his evil face, when you launch at him. And you understand that. The whole world is fire. The aftershocks of your explosion are still shaking the earth, and the rain may have begun to fall once more but it’s burning away around you. The air is hissing and waving, and you’re only flame. Your whole body wrapped in white fire, your hands curled in even, careful—just as Ben had taught you—and you might look like a monster. You might look like a demon, or vengeful spirit, or fallen star that’s refusing to burn out. 

But you’re worse than that.

You’re just a human that has power in her body that makes the world sing, and you’re angry. You’ve sealed up every crack in your own body, you’re strong and you’re no demon or monster or god, because they’re not real. 

You’re incredibly real.  

And Homelander’s going to feel it. 

The first blow of fire knocks him down the highway, the pavement cracking as he lands. He’s already stumbling—pushing up on shaking legs to glare at you—and there’s a hot, unrestrained anger in his laser slicing through your neck, but it does nothing. Ryan had just split you in two and you’d healed in ten seconds flat. If Homelander were smarter, less prideful and consumed by his own anger, he’d run.

He doesn’t, though. And you pull your punches to keep Ryan safe for your fire, but he’s still losing. His skin bubbles and twists when he tries to get close to you and land a blow, and every hunk of metal he throws at you explodes and melts as you blast right through it. You keep Ryan behind you—far enough to not feel the full force of your heat—and you never even trip.Homelander’s odd hit that strikes your face or gut sends a brief cracking sound through the air—leaves a dulled flash of pain through your body—but it fades and you repair and you don’t break. 

Your hand cover’s Homelander’s face, melting away the skin of his nose, and you can feel an unfocused, aimless, hollow and self-serving anger that’s twined with the most vile, gnawing and destructive feeling you’ve ever experience. Making your body eat the anger and turn it into glory that’s only a trophy to hold high over your head.

Your empathy is back. Ben’s roaring your name in your head and between the crackling of flames, and you’re going to win. Your blood is held in your body—Ryan’s already shaking and crying behind you, and you don’t know how to focus the vigilance of your emotions yet—but your fire is growing brighter, and Ben is coming. 

Homelander’s falling to the ground as you kick his tiny, worthless, hideous dick, and when you reach down with hands made of only fire, you’re smiling. Homelander is so fucking small and pathetic on the ground, at mercy you will never offer him, so you’re smiling like a fucking madwomen.

Then Homelander’s face flashes with a grin as well, and you’re not fast enough to stop his hand as it shoots up and stabs something into your bare arm. 

You see the flash of green as he pushes the head on the needle down, and when he half scrambles back—holding his burnt hand up to the rain—you don’t know what to do. There glass vial that held the V shatters and melts as your fire flares, but your skin has healed over the needle and it’s too late anyway. Homelander had moved with quick precision, and the last dosage of the Soldier Boy V is in your body.

There’s a split second where you’re only afraid, and then all you can do is wish you were dead.

Agonizing is too weak a word. Pain is far too weak a word. This is what death feels like. Like no part of your body belongs to you, like they’re all being ripped and torn into isolation for their induvial torture, then being sown back together in a way that’s brittle and volatile and one wrong breath from imploding. You can’t stand, because your legs feel like they’re running away from you but can’t get away fast enough. You can’t reach out, because your hands feel heavy like you’re carrying the sky and world and every single star. You can’t push your body away from where’s Homelander’s gripping your wrist, cracking your bones and dragging you through the wreckage to where Ryan’s crying and begging. You can’t do anything but scream, and be unsure if Ben’s roars are echoing through the world in response or just imagined in your head, so you can pretend he’s here with you.

It’s not ending. You can feeling everything, and this doesn’t feel like it will ever be over. There’s light and strength in your muscles, but it’s overwhelming and stretching you far too thin. There’s water in your lungs and ribs that might be the rain, but still drowns you and makes you feel buried in your own body. Your voice is empty, and your fingers are cracking and locking back together, and you’re too aware of everything but it makes the world around you feel so big and horrible and worthless. Your blood is burning and half yours but also everything else’s and wrong in your body, pumping through your heart and filling you with dread and hate and terror. There’s lighting stinging and stabbed and destroying your whole fucking head and soul, and it feels like there’s a fever behind your eyes that’s screaming to get out and spill gut for retribution. 

And then it all sinks deep, deep down into your body and becomes, so briefly, tolerable. Strange but peaceful in your body as something so, so strong wraps over every piece of pain and torture and soothes it into your body. Something golden and atomic, telling every other fiber in your body that this will be fucking fine, and that’s not an option. 

Your body listens. You take a shaking breath, and you’re alive again. You’re all blood and skin and bone, and you’re all you.

There’s a hole in Homelander’s glove, and his skin feels like plastics on yours wrong. Static and inhuman, without the warmth a body should have. And his odd, twisted fear and anger are still pushing through his veins, but they’ve been covered by his anger. 

And below everything else in his body, there’s something vital and horrible, but so, so powerful. It feels a little broken—as if it’s been molded and ingrained somewhere dark and wrong—but it’s still calling to you. Offering for you to grab a piece of it and pull it into your own body.

You’ve got nothing left to lose, so you bite your tongue and try to grab it. It comes willingly, and it’s only foreign and parasitic in your body for a second. Then it’s molding into a part of your body that’s fundamental and all yours, and everything is sharp. The rain is louder, your vision feels too focused—every line too pronounced, every raindrop bigger than it should be—and the smell of coconut is going to suffocate you.

But you also feel strong. Not in your mind or heart—which are the same as they’ve always been—but your hands. You feel like everything is breakable, and everything is soft, and you could flex your fingers and bring an empire to its knees. And there’s fire and fury living in your eyes, and you know exactly what’s happened. For a brief moment, you can’t help but understand why Homelander thinks he’s a god. If this was all you’d ever felt and known in your life—and everyone knew you were like this, and knew to fear it—you might think you’re better than you are as well.

You might have. You wouldn’t have, but you could have. Homelander’s powers might exist in your body—waning by the second until you take more—but you’re still you. And you’re not better. You’re exhausted and desperate, and you need more time. Just a little more time, until Ben finds you and this can be over. Until you can collapse and scream and cry and just fall all the way apart, when everything is safe.

You need more time. And you’re awake, and in pain, and so fucking angry and strong, so you’ll be able to buy it.

Homelander’s stopped dragging you along the road, and you can hear Ryan’s sobs, fueling every bit of resolve and will in your body. Building you higher and dragging you back to earth like an anchor. 

“What, what did you do to her-“

Homelander cuts off Ryan’s heartbreaking, fearful, choked words with a scoff. “That doesn’t matter-“

“Yes, it does! She can’t die, I don’t want her to die, I need her-“

“No, you don’t. You don’t need anyone be me, Ryan. Look at her.” Homelander yanks you up, a hand wrapping around your neck to hold you where Ryan can presumably see. “All it took was one dose of V and she’s fucking done. I mean,” he laughs, and the fury begins to build up and up behind your pupils, lining your vision with red and your head with heat. “Carrying the original V into battle, letting it fall out of your pocket? That’s downright stupid, honey. I thought you’d know better, but no.” He clicks his tongue, and you screw your eyes shut. “You’re still just a stupid, weak little girl, and I will always fucking win-“

Your eyes shoot open, and Homelander can only stare in shock when he sees the red glow in your eyes. Can only open his mouth and try to drop you, throw you away from his body, but you’re fucking strong now. You wrap your hands around his on your throat—keeping him right in front of you as a manic grin pulls at your mouth and strains at your cheeks—and you laser him right in the fucking face.

He roars, and you’re fucking moving. Punching his melted, twisted, face—skin hanging off his body and sizzling—with all that new strength in your body. Homelander’s strength, that seems just slightly weaker in your body, but you’re still more powerful. Your fists are wrapped in your own fire, and your eyes are still glowing with the laser—slicing into his arms, not drawing blood or cutting limbs, but sending him stumbling away from you—and you’re a better fucking fighter. Ben trained you well, so you can absorb every hit to your body and deal even, measured blows that make sickening crunches when they land.

You’ve push Homelander down into the mud and debris—pinning his face to the wrecked pavement and his body to the ground—and you’re so fucking exhausted but you have to keep going. To focus the laser on his skin of his neck and burn a hole for the V. When Ben arrives—he’s close, you can hear him roaring in your head and feel him drawing closer—you need this to be done. The pain hasn’t left you, only been pushed aside by the adrenaline, and you can’t keep going. You have to, but you can’t. You’re tired and cold and covered in blood, and you’re starting to feel wrong. 

This feels a little beyond death. It’s eating you alive and pulling your body away from you, and you’re still fighting because Homelander won’t touch Ryan, but you don’t feel well. Homelander’s powers are volatile and horrible in your body, and the new shot of V is leaving a chronic feeling of being cleaved open and sliced apart and shoved back together every fucking second. The world is moving in and out of focus—your body feels like lead and your brain feels like it’s not your own—and when Homelander throws you off his body all you can do is drag yourself back up and keep being a fucking problem.

He won’t let you touch him anymore. Homelander’s not stupid, he can see you’re growing weaker, and he’s figured out not to touch you. You’ve moved to block his path to Ryan, you’ve thrown up a thin wall of fire to keep him at bay, but you’re so fucking tired. You’re dizzy and heavy and breathing is an act of labor, and you’re holding yourself awake by your throat. By nails in your skin and quickly drying blood in your mouth.  

And you’re going to fall down. You’re going to crack and break, and keep trying to fight until you’re dragged deep, deep under as your body implodes. Homelander’s face is so fucking hideous from your fight, but it’s coming into view as the fire flickers and hisses in the rain, and you’re going to collapse but you can’t-

You feel Ben first. Somewhere in the flame and blood and searing of flesh and snapping of bones, you feel more alive, and know he’s near. You feel something return to you that you’d longed for since it left, and it’s pious and loud and wrathful and aimed into you. Filling you up with just enough fight to keep going, more and more resolve and concentration, and sparking a fuel in your veins that’s calling you somewhere warm and safe.

Then there’s an ache and mold and wrath and love that’s stronger and better than anything else in the world, smell pine as your heart becomes something golden and fucking furious. 

Then, through the rain and fog, you see a blinding white light. Drawing closer and closer, screeching on the wet pavement, going so fucking fast and aiming directly at Homelander. 

He doesn’t realize anything happening until you grab Ryan will all the remaining strength in your body, and dive to the side. You see his fucking horrible smile falter, his head twist, and it’s too late. Butcher’s car crashes into Homelander with a burst of fire, and you think your scream stops the world.

Ben was in there. Ben was in the car and now it’s wrecked, and you can feel the pain in his body and you’re so tired. You can’t lose this, but you won’t be able to keep going if you lose Ben. There’s so much fucking pain in your heart and lungs and throat and skull and you’re not sure who it’s belongs to but you can’t do anything but scream.

You hear more explosions, hear Ryan calling your name, but you can’t fucking breathe and there are black spots covering your vision, and Ben. Where is Ben, you need him and you can feel him but everything fucking hurts and where is Ben-

“I’m here.” Something warm and familiar and safe pulls you up from the ground, and a deep, powerful, good voice says your name. “I’m right fucking here, Sunshine, I’m here.”

Ben-

You’re going to be okay. He mutters in your head, and you’re not sure if you’re crying or drowning, but Ben’s here so it doesn’t really matter. I fucking swear, beautiful, you’re going to be fine. 

You pull your face back from his chest, and he looks terrible. He’s still handsome—Ben couldn’t be ugly if he tried—but God, he looks tired and angry. You can see every line on his face and feel every stab of mold through his heart, and when you reach up a hand to trace his frown, he leans into your touch like he’s not sure it’s real. 

Benjamin, my love-

We’re fine. He grunts, kissing the top of your head. We’re going to be fucking fine.

There’s another explosion, and you flinch. Homelander-

Butcher’s got it. You and Ryan are safe, that’s all I fucking care about.

You blink around, Ben’s touch and existence in your body forcing the world into focus—even as you continue to fall—and you realize everything is covered in a golden glow. That Ryan is clinging to Ben’s arm—the one that isn’t holding you—and every bang and roar of Butcher and Homelander is muffled through the atomic feeling of Ben around you.

“Ryan,” you reach out to pull him closer, not allowing yourself to flinch when all his terror hits your body. “Are you-“

“I’m okay.” He whispers, staring at you with an open, fearful face. “What did my dad do to you-“

It’s impossible to look at Ben when you answer, because you feel him grow rigid, his love and care alight and bloody in your body, and his pure fucking fury written all over his face before you even speak.

“He,” you take a long breath, forcing the words out as your head begins to wrap in a haze again. “He shot me with the last original V-“ 

“He fucking what.” 

You swallow, dropping your brow to Ben’s shoulder. “I’m okay-“

“I can fucking feel you,” Ben hisses your name, his voice lined with anger even as he runs his hand through your hair, his touch still reverent. “You’re sick, we need to get you out-“

“No.” You shake your head against him, pressing your palm to his chest. “Butcher can’t fight Homelander alone, he’s not a supe-“

“He shot the V.” Ben grunts. “The regular shit-“

Your gaze shoots up, your eyes wide. “He what-“

“When we realized Homelander wasn’t coming. He got laser eyes and strength, like last time, he’ll be fucking fine-“

“But he can’t kill Homelander, Ben.” Your words become frantic, your brain turning, but not fast enough for your tongue. “Even he gets the V in, it just makes Homelander vegetative. He needs to be hit with the nuke, he needs-“

You cut yourself off, your hand drifting to the exposed skin of Ben’s collarbone. Deep, deep down, in a fundamental part of his body—your body—he’s alive, and golden, and powerful. The V in him already feels like yours, and it’s so much better than Homelander’s. It might be because it’s the same as your V while Homelander’s is the overly perfect formula, or because Ben is simply good while Homelander is vile, or because Ben is yours and as vital to your existence as your own head and blood, but it’s right. You don’t need to take it, it already belongs to you, and it rolls into your body like a brilliant, peaceful storm. 

The pain doesn’t leave you, but it becomes distant. Pushed away where it’s only banging on your skull, dulled by the sheer feeling of Ben’s power. It’s radiant and atomic in your body, up your spine and blooming over your ribs. It’s focused and hot and so fucking strong, and it’s only building higher, until you feel invincible. You feel like the earth itself, all the way down to your core, white-hot in your muscles. It would take a force like the sun to destroy you, but you’re not even the slightly bit worried it will. The sun rests in your body—under your skin and over your brain—and it’s moving in harmony with what Ben’s silently and unknowingly offered you.

You meet Ben’s eyes—the best shade of green in the world and looking right into the deepest parts of your mind that sometimes you don’t even know how to reach—and you wonder if he can feel it. Feel his own power in you, sense that something has shifted and settled into your bones. 

“Ben-“

“No.” He cuts off your whisper with a stern hiss of your name. “There is not a fucking chance-“

“Butcher needs you. And you,” you glance at Ryan, still shaking and so small. “You need to stay here, my love.”

“You stay here, I’ll fight-“

“Please.” You move your hands to cup his face, and offer him a small, sad smile. “You said you’d let me do what I needed to do. I need to do this-“

“I did let you, and I lost you, so there is no goddamn way-“

“I need to do this. I, I don’t want to, but I need to. I have to. Please-“

“I’m the only one who can blast Homelander’s powers-“

“That’s not true.” You drop your brow to his, and let the power continue to climb. “Not anymore. I don’t know if you can-“

“I can.” Ben sighs, his hand squeezing the skin of your waist. “It’s, I felt all of it. And I can feel this. But you don’t have to do it just because you can fucking mimic me or some shit-“

“I do.” Everything hits a plateau of steady, unyielding strength, and you press a small kiss to Ben’s slack mouth. Please, Benjamin, my love. I can do this, please trust me.

He’s completely still under your touch, and you can feel that rot eating at his insides. It might drive you mad with guilt, but you need to do this. This has to end, and it needs to be you that ends it. You’ve never wanted it to be—you’d done everything in your power to make it so it wouldn’t be—but someone has to, and this feels unavoidable. All of Ben’s power is mixing in with yours, and you’ve never felt more alive, and it might be temporary but you’re going to use it to end this.

Ben will have to stay with Ryan. To keep him safe as you fight at Butcher’s side, to make sure he sees nothing that happens. And it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever asked of him, but you’ll spend a lifetime afterwards apologizing. Kissing him and touching him and doing whatever needs to be done for this to just be a ghost neither of you ever speak about. 

And he’ll forgive you. You’ll crawl back to him and splinter apart in his arms every single time, and you know Ben will forgive you. He understands you, he’s always understood you—even if he might claim otherwise—so when you feel the mold twist in his arteries it kills you, but you know he’s going to let you do this.

Maybe one day you’ll be strong enough to tell him that—even if he doesn’t let you do anything—if Ben had shaken his head and told you no, I’ll fucking do this and you’ll stay safe, you would have given in. But he doesn’t. Ben gives you a tense nod, his jaw clenched and his grip on your body bruising, and you’re going to do this.

You have to kiss him. You should go now—there’s not a chance Butcher is strong enough to do this himself—but if you don’t kiss Ben you’re going to die. And he must feel it too, in his bones and blood and every burning nerve of your bodies—or maybe he just feels you—because you’ll never know who moved first. 

You might dedicate a lifetime to describing this kiss, when everything is over. It’s hungry and angry and desperate, but coated with so much care and fear, and filled with love. It’s only really love, in the end. It’s a brief moment where it’s only you and Ben, and there’s fire on you lips that he doesn’t flinch from and a nuclear warmth in your body that only makes you dive deeper. It’s spit and teeth and fury, and so, so soft because at the core there’s a promise.

This isn’t a goodbye kiss. It’s a you’re not allowed to fucking say goodbye kiss. It’s you making a silent, final oath that Ben isn’t going to lose you, because that’s just not how this works. You’re alive in Ben, and he’s not something you’ll allow yourself to lose. 

This kiss finishes, but neither of you pull away. You live in one second longer, where you’re attached in every way possible, and warm, and safe in a way that feels permanent and older than the universe, even if it’s not. 

You burn, I burn, Sunshine. Ben’s voice in your head is hoarse, and his every exhale moves easily down your throat. No fucking burning without me.

I know. You smile, because Ben is here, so you’re not going to burn out. And you’re not fighting alone, because it will be Ben’s power—inside you and so fucking natural—that keeps you together and finishes this. I love you, Benjamin. You burn, I burn.

He nods slowly, and you have to pry yourself from his lips. Use every ounce of resolve in your body to stand, to give Ryan a reassuring smile as you steel yourself.

You take a long, deep, heavy breath that tastes like pine and gunpowder and Ben, and you can fucking do this.

The golden shield doesn’t need to drop, because you take a cautious step up to it and it begins to sing and glow in your presence. There’s a brief second—as you walk through it—that you’re stronger than you’ve ever been in your life, and you’re all yours and Ben’s. You’re everything, warm and vast and bloody, and nothing will ever break you again.

Then the chill of rain falls on your brow, and the wind rushes in your ears, and everything comes into a sharp, brutal, unforgiving focus as you step into the ruins around you.

Butcher and Homelander are locked in the most destructive fight you’ve ever seen. Scorched earth is too light a phrase, because everything has been razed and wrecked around them. The car parts have been flung around, and there’s melted metal and gas fires and fallen trees strewn across the road, and the air feels like it’s calling forward judgment day. Heavy and hot in your lungs, all smoke and oil and ash down your throat.

Neither of them see you at first—marching through the wreckage and wrapped in flames that make this rain fade in a hiss—but they don’t need to. You make yourself know as you let out the most primal, furious sound that’s ever left your body, and a wave of fire crashes through the world, aimed right at Homelander. 

Butcher moves to your side as you advance on where Homelander had vanished in the flame, giving you a smirk.

“Bout fuckin time, Love-“

“Shut up.” You snap, not sparing Butcher a glance as you see a shifting, dark form emerging from the smoke. “You get him down, I blast him, no fucking games.”

Homelander roars as he charges toward you, his laser carving a hole in your chest, and you don’t even flinch. Something white-hot and in an easy rhythm with your heartbeat crashes through the air at your will, flashing gold and knocking Homelander back.

“Bloody Christ, how the hell-“

“I have new powers.” You mutter, shooting Butcher a daggered look. “Homelander shot me with the V that I took back. And you can be a fucking cunt about that,” you narrow your eyes, and Butcher closes his mouth. “After we kill Homelander.”

“Well, Love, I ain’t sure that your plan’ll work if I don’t got backup.” Butcher glances at Homelander, rising into the air, and doges a laser blast that had been aimed at his skull. “V made me strong, but the cunt-“

“I’ve got it.” You do. Ben’s power, thrown and focused, won’t wipe the V from Homelander’s body, but it will weaken him. Enough for Butcher to get his shot. “You just need to get the V-“

“Ah, that’s the thing-“

Butcher’s words are cut off as Homelander sweeps down, grabbing him and throwing him halfway down the cracked pavement.

“What are we chatting about?” Homelander turns to you, and fuck he looks ugly. His formally too perfect face has been marred and burnt and scarred, flesh falling off his skin and his nose half caved into his fucking head. “It’s not very nice to leave me out, you know-“

You have no interest in banter or conversation, so you punch Homelander right in his thin, mauled lips and send him stumbling backward.

“Fuck,” he roars, and when he spits out a tooth you don’t bother to hide your grin. “You evil little bitch-“

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, throwing out another rush of Ben’s nuclear energy. “You’re fucking pathetic, Homelander, you know that? You had to kidnap me,” a punch to his gut, fist wrapped in fire. “And rape me,” his jaw, blood splattering over your face. “And fucking torture me in order to control me. But here’s the thing.” You take a step forward, and the pussy fucking flinches, taking a stumbling step back and your whole body begins to glow with fire and energy. You’re not sure if this is your power, or Ben’s, and you don’t really fucking care. “You never broke me. Not permanently. Not in a way that couldn’t be fixed. And now I’m going to kill you, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

He tries to fly away, but you’re faster. The whole sky turns in a storm of fire, and Homelander crashes back to earth as he realizes there’s no way out.

You hear Butcher clear his throat behind you, and when you glance over your shoulder his nose is broken and there’s a large gash along his neck, but he’s still up. Still fighting.

“You still on that die like a human shit?” He asks, keeping his attention on Homelander’s stirring body. “Or you wanna just-“

“No. He dies like the human he is. Get the V-“

“That’s, ah, that’s the thing, ain’t it.“ Butcher coughs, and you’ve never seen him look nervous before. It’s unsettling. “We don’t got no V.”

“What-“

“Used mine.” Butcher muttered. “Rest shattered in the car wreck, or is back with the team. We just got each other, Love, which I ain’t thrilled about either, but-“

“Shut up.” You squeeze your eyes shut, your fingers tapping an inhuman speed against your palm as you try to fucking work your way out of this. “We need to keep him down, that’s what the V was for, and you could do it, but I’d need to blast you-“

“Do that.”

You frown at Butcher, examining his stone-like expression. “Butcher, that might kill you-“

“So?” Butcher shrugs, and the only sign of any care or fear in his body are his hands—fisted in his pockets—and his eyes. They’re flashing with something you don’t understand, but know is emotion, even if his face is set and blank. “Don’t pretend you think I got shit to live for, Love. You all got people, I got Ryan, and he’ll be fine without me. He’s got you, he’ll make it.”

There’s no disgust or resentment in Butcher’s words, but no defeat either. Just flat fact, like even if this isn’t the only possible way, he’s not looking for another. And you can only think of that last vial of V, meant for Butcher but in your body, and how he’d been so ready to take it.

You don’t think he wants an after. Butcher might really just believe that this is all he’s for, and after isn’t a place he belongs. 

And you’re not sure if you agree, because you don’t like Butcher, but he’s not Homelander. He’s not Ben either, but he’s something in the middle. Something just as angry as them both, but with just enough love and care in his body that he couldn’t be Homelander, and not enough will for something better to be Ben. 

He’s not lost. He’s close to it, but not quite. He’s a supe now—and you can almost taste his own hatred of that every time he scratches at his skin or grimaces at any step—and you might call that punishment enough. To be the thing he swore to destroy. 

But this will wipe the V from his body, and there will be no retribution.

But you don’t think you care for retribution, or reparation, or even an apology from Butcher. You just want this to be over, and you will offer Butcher this grace. He’s never been your friend, but he’s never tried to stop you. He’s never liked you, but you don’t really think he hated you either. He’s backed up your every plan, and never stood in your direct way. He’s antagonized you, but still had your back on your more fucked up plans.

He’s the reason you have Ben. He’d backed you up, and if he hadn’t, you’d still be alone. And this isn’t your choice to make for him, and it’s your turn to back up the one time he’s will to make a sacrifice that he’ll pay the price for.

“Butcher,” your words are soft, but firm. “Do you-“

“I got a gun.” Butcher looks you up and down, his face grim. “You still want-“

“Yes.” 

Butcher nods and that’s it. All that left to do is finish this.

Homelander’s flying at you, and when his hand wrapped around your throat you let all your blood out of your body. Every last bit of cold, paralyzing fear of him that existed inside of you is pushed out, into Homelander, and he barely gets you off the ground when he drops you with a pathetic fucking scream. Butcher’s waiting for him, lasering his gut and knocking him fully to the ground, grabbing his shoulders and pinning him to the pavement and you land on his chest.

He’s sneering and hissing hateful words you can’t hear, because you’re calling the drums. The start in the distance, so familiar and in a harmony and beat you’d recognize anywhere, and as they draw closer you feel like you’ve reached some sort of peak, and you’re only seconds from the plummet. Like the barrier of Ben’s power that’s been holding the pain at bay is about to collapse, and this split second is all you have. 

But you don’t break, or falter, or fail. 

The drums fall into time with your heart right as the sickness of the V returns. 

And you feel every bit of the bomb rip out of your body and through the world right before you fall to the ground and everything is only pain.

In the distance, or maybe right by your ear, you hear a gunshot go off. It might just be a delusion of peace—born from the way that everything is fading in and out around you and you can’t tell what’s solid and what an illusion—but then you feel something being to riot in your chest that’s more real than anything and you know you’re still awake. 

Your eyes flutter open, and everything is out focus and wrapped in a haze, but that Thing that’s only ardor and care is sinking into your heart and ribs, and it gives you a brief moment of clarity. A long moment where you’re warm and safe, and so, so loved. This love feels like the universe. This love feels bigger than the universe, and you think it might be all yours.   

You hope it is. It would be really nice for this existence of only pain to fade, and to wake up and be loved like this for a long, long time.

But right now you have to rest. There’s something soft and dark creeping at your vision, and you’ve never been this tired in your life, so resting feels like a good idea. It feels very simple, to just close your eyes and rest.

Peace starts to pull you, down, down down—into something warm and intangible, but somehow everything and made of ardor—and the last thing you hear is someone that sounds like everything good roaring your name.  

The last thing you see is cold, blue, lifeless eyes that will never hurt you again. 

The last thing you feel is clean.

End Note: I would say f's in chat for Homelander but I'm throwing a party to celebrate his death, so no respect. Also, this chapter is a direct fuck you to the “powerful MC loses her magic” trope. Fuck that. She’s MORE magical!

Thank you for reading!! If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

If you want to be tagged, just ask!

Taglist

@lordofthunderthr @kritara @sukunassfinger, @justiceforquentin @acciditties

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@ej13928

[thesharktanksdriver]

Through the bars of a cell do you see the stars are shackled too? (Platonic)

Welp yall, here it is! The 13k magnum opus I somehow wrote

Not sure if it’s any good but that’s for you guys to decide

Masterlist for this series 𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @peachsuka28 @emptynessinmyworld @badluckinfrench @j-s-l-m @tigerfang-rage @madokamagicaa @rymtea @angstylittleb1tch @badluckinfrench @emmbny @kenkenmaaa @yunho-leeknow @chibiduck @spqce-bun @coca-cola-fiend @Koifishpoond

If there was one thing Kaido knew about life was that it sucked. 

Day after day was a consistent drag of disappointment and bellowing sorrow.

there were only a few things that made it slightly bearable as he went from suicide attempt to suicide attempt as to finally end his own agony.

Booze

The company of a woman (alway Black Maria)

The thought of someone finally being worthy to kill him.

And the recollection of memories.

These four things made the time in which Kaido wasn’t actively taking a sword to his chest or gunshot to the head somewhat….ok. 

The first two of these were simple enough desires.

His entire crew indulged themselves just the same as him, though in relative moderation compared to Kaido’s ravenous appetite for both. They served as decent distractions, the buzz of booze and a pretty woman at just about anyone’s side was enough to at least raise someone’s mood. Kaido was no exception to this until that buzz went away and a woman’s touch faded to a lukewarm warmth that could never graze his heart.

The second was also yet another simple desire, a goal more to say. The thought of which made his blood boil in anticipation of someone finally being worthy of giving a finishing blow. His heart stopping and breath finally leaving his throat. Oden had been the closest to this, the scar proudly displaced on Kaido’s chest seen more as a badge of honor rather than a brush with death that many would look at in shame. 

If Kaido had been less of a man, perhaps he’d gaze at it the same way rather than something he often gleams at in a mixture of pride and melancholy.

But then there was that last distraction, perhaps the most effective of them all. 

Memory.

Kaido has lived a long life, one filled with various adventures that now make everything feel dull in comparison. 

He sometimes thinks of the Rocks pirates, the crew he was on all those years ago where he’d meet Linlin and Newgate.

Most times he thinks of Oden and their battle. The man he’d be willing to call an equal as they fought to the death before that dirt old hag pulled that underhanded trick. The bullet he put through the old Rulers head as he boiled.

Other times it's of the Boy formerly known as Alber in a lab. Fanning the flames that burned away at cracking test tubes and blindingly white lab coats. 

But of all memories he thinks of there was always one memory he found himself looking back to.

No matter how much he tried to drink and wash down the sorrow.

Nor the blood staining his hands that unlike the rest he tries to wash off.

He drinks and unfortunately remembers.

===

For as long as Kaido could remember he’s always been locked behind the bars of a cell and had the key thrown away.

Being born in vodka kingdom meant he was already drafted at birth for the sole purpose of being a cog in the machine of war.

The battle cries and burning villages served as his lullabies. 

Blood staining his hands at the ripe age of 5 like paint.

Club heavy in his hands as if it were a toy.

When you're born with shackles you don’t know the concept of freedom until you see it first hand. 

And Kaido saw it when the nobles of his kingdom sat down one night for a feast. They ate and ate as if it were the last thing they’d do, laughing at jokes and throwing the bones of chicken at the nearby stationed guards who stood and did nothing. Kaido was a part of that group, he stood as a 12 year old boy with a weapon in hand whilst having food he’d never been able to eat thrown at him.

He clutched his small hands readily made for crushing bones and splattering the innards of now dead fools.

But he was ordered to stand there and he did.

He stood there being mocked and having his horns tugged at.

A “tamed Oni”, one had cackled at him whilst grabbing his horns, pulling at them uncomfortably.

People used that term around him a lot. It had explained his horns that others did not have, nor the height and strength he had compared to other soldiers. They always treated him differently compared to the others, fear lingering in their eyes despite him accomplishing a raid.

Now he knows they were waiting for him to snap the leash curled in their hands.

To break the collar of “tame” they had bestowed him.

It would take a few years but ultimately they were right to be afraid.

Because no matter how much you domesticate a wild animal they with inevitably fall to instinct.

But unlike a wild animal who bite the hand that fed them they decided he’d be transferred to new masters.

It was more profitable that way. 

So instead Kaido became a bargaining chip.

His bunk with other soldiers was replaced with a damp dark dungeon though it wasn’t much different.

The invisible shackles became real and rubbed uncomfortably against his wrists.

And the slop he was already forced to eat somehow became worse.

In a cell Kaido sat.

And it was there he met a child a few years younger than him with eyes that caught his attention.

He could’ve sworn he saw the stars shine within their deep darkened irises.

It was there he met you.

===

“So what did you do to get thrown in here?” It’s a simple question but one that makes Kaido reared his head up from letting it hang down. A scowl paints his lips, keeping them in a downward slope as golden eyes look up from across the cell to you.

You sit there, head held up by your palm while you sit in a criss cross position. Bruises and dried blood paint skin, a sight he’s intimately familiar with yet like him you seemingly brush off the pain.

“They don’t like when their dogs rebel…so their selling me off”

It’s simple and to the point, he doesn’t want to talk further and his response should indicate that.

Yet you either don’t notice or ignore his tone.

“Ah…so you were a soldier right? How many years?”

“13”

“Wow” you tilt your head a bit at that, a mixture of amazement and disbelief along with sadness “13 years…when were you drafted?”.

Kaidō scowls, “at birth”

He watches confusion settle on your face. He quirks an eye at it.

“You're 13??” You sound exasperated at that, eyes widening a bit even as you say it.

“How old did you think I was?” He can’t help but ask.

“I thought you were in your 20’s maybe even 30’s”

Kaido in that moment suddenly felt that old as you said that. Did he really look that different compared to others? Guess it was that oni blood-

“Wow, you're even cooler than I thought! You can probably fool people into buying alcohol!” Saying this with a smile he can’t help but search it for sarcasm yet he finds none. Were you…really being genuine? Did you think he was “cool”?

Kaido didn’t really think anyone would describe him as that.

A monster, yes.

Demon.

Oni.

Devil child.

Beast.

But cool? That certainly wasn’t apart of the vocabulary spat at him by his superiors and civilians of burning villages.

“So wait, since you’ve been a soldier your entire life do you know anything outside of it?” It’s a stupid question, but one he guesses is still kinda nice to ask if only for conversation sake.

“What do you think?” 

You go silent and he thinks for a moment you stay that way, but after a minute you ask.

“Well, do you wanna know about the world then?”

With curiosity and maybe even a bit of hesitant crumbs of joy he nods.

You smile despite being in a dungeon chained to the wall adjacent to him.

===

Kaido had never once thought that the world could be so interesting until you brought color to it with all the knowledge you hold.

You talk of the islands where flowers grow and bloom, meant to be admired instead of crushed beneath military boots and razed into ash.

You explain the expanse of the night sky and the stories of constellations learned through years of travel. Stars he was taught to know the way back to the kingdom or to use as to navigate yet never appreciate their gentle light.

You tell of the burning sand between your toes and the expanse of crystal blue water that extends to the horizon, the sun setting over it in warm hues of orange, yellow and pink. He has walked across sandy shores but never truly felt sand beneath his feet, never truly stopped to enjoy the lapping of warm waves when the cold plunge and orders to swim are given.

You speak of freedom when all Kaido has ever known is of the chains and collar placed on him since birth.

And you breathe color into the monochrome world he once knew.

Kaido can’t help but imagine the world you describe to him, the sights and beauty of the sea.

Is it as truly free as you describe it?

Can someone like him who’s known the shackles of subjugation truly find peace there?  

Can he be free of the weight of chains just as you described?

Perhaps it was wishful thinking on his part (something very foreign to him) but he think he believed you.

Believed your words 

Believed your stories 

He’s left to ponder over them as you're dragged away by guards despite his protest.

He knows them well, worked with them once before and maybe had even shared drinks yet they look at him with disgust. With an apathy familiar and not foreign to him yet curls in his gut with disgusted anger. 

He tries to break free of the chains but cannot.

For hours alone in a cell he stares out the little barred window looking to the stars you taught him of.

And hours later you're dragged back more bruised and beaten than before but still keeping that damn smile. 

Still retaining the light and gentle air to you that makes you laugh off the broken arm that hangs limply.

“I never asked how you ended up here” Kaido finds himself saying as you rest against the cold stones of the wall, blood marring them a deep maroon as bugs crawl and cold water slithers down. You smile as you do for just about everything, it reminds him of the softness of fur that they had the grace to give in the coldest of winter “they keep asking how I ended up here, assume I’m a spy or something. They won’t take my word that I just ended up here by accident”.

“Did you?”

“Yeah, is guess you’d call it bad luck but I met you so it’s at least better than before” 

“How is me being here with you any better?”

“Having a friend in a cell to return to is better than nothing at all”

“You consider me a friend?” The word feels foreign on his tongue. He had colleagues, and his kingdom had allies made through treaties but never once has he heard that word applied to these relationships. There was always a hollow coldness to them, necessity over genuine companionship despite the same experiences of being born weapons.

“Of course I do” you say this as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world and it hurts his head. “I guess i never asked, but would you like to be friends?”     

Kaido doesn’t understand you, but maybe that’s why he likes you better than all the other recruits he was raised with.

 You actually think.

 You feel.

And you can create actual conversation about something other than the boring slaughter of more innocents. 

He could never call the razing of a village a war, not when they do not truly fight and just wait to be slaughtered to let the women and children flee. 

It does not satiate the craving for a true battle, a true foe, a true adversary for him to fight.

You do not scratch the itch of that fight but you do create a new one as he thinks of freedom beyond these bars.

Beyond the fate of being a pawn and soldier to master.

The itch gets stronger the more you talk, as does his urge to sit down and listen genuinely instead of mutely compute the drowning of orders.

Unlike commanders too caught up in their own pride you let him talk.

Let him ask questions.

Let him find different conclusions to morality even if yours and his budded heads.

But most of all you respected Kaido.

Respected him as a person rather than when you respect a monster because of fear.

And kaido finds himself returning the sentiment even if you're physically weak. But that’s ok, Kaido can make up for your lack of physical strength. 

Your mind is what’s more important anyways.

Your kindness he wishes to savor exclusively for himself even if in every other person he’d see it as weakness is written off. 

“Yes” he answers slowly, “I’d like that”.

===

Each day you're dragged out at some point and beaten within an inch of your life. Returning with more bruises budding into ugly purple spots as blood stains your white linen shirt a color he’s too familiar with. 

Cuts are crusted up as is old blood that keeps having more crust over.

More broken bones though now they aim for smaller ones, as to drag out having more to eventually break.

Each time you're brought back more broken than the last you keep greeting Kaido with a smile and it drives him mad. 

It also makes him realize just how strong you actually are though.

How resilient you are even in the worst of times.

They keep beating you for answers even when you repeat the same thing every time.

But you do not cry.

Don’t scream nor beg.

And that just seems to piss them off more and proves your resolve even further as to when they move to other methods like waterboarding and taking precise slashes.

You're determined not to give them what they want.

And that in turn makes them Determined to see you break.

To shatter into tiny shards that they’ll stomp into dust.

But even with that it’s nothing compared to you.

The burning look in your eyes rivals that of a thousand stars, and it burns Kaido to the core with how they shine.

How they do not flicker in the face of adversity.

Do not run out of fuel for the fire and just keeps burning to new intensity each time you come back.

Each time you stare at Kaido’s chains and the lock of the cell door.

In many ways you're weak but in others you are strong.

You're a contradiction in every sense of the word that Kaido wishes he could understand.

Because how can someone who has experienced such pain and cruelty of the world still smile as you do?

How can you still laugh with half a ribcage shattered and digging into your lungs.

How is it that despite it all you're laid back and calm even when a blade threatens to expose your innards to the world.

How can you be so soft and yet harder to crack than diamond coated on steel?

It doesn’t make sense (and it never will to him) but he wants to understand you.

Want’s to take the time to solve it like a puzzle instead of the regular way of solving problems via bashing it over the head enough times.

(He never gets the time to do this in the end though)

They don’t put your shackles on this time, it’s not worth the effort in their opinion when they’ve broken so many of your bones.

So they throw you on the hard floor, and lock up the cell once again.

You crawl your way to Kaido’s side of the cell, curling up next to him in a way that feels natural. He hikes an arm around you protectively as one would their own child, and while he doesn’t know what to consider you by (he now knows he considers you as one would a younger sibling) he knows he cares.

And while that’s a scary thought to him he can’t help but revel in it.

The fact that for the first time in his life besides pulling a trigger and watching the flames burn he cares. 

Cares for something of his own volition rather being ordered to. 

Despite being similar in age to him, you're so small in his arms. It’s mostly due to his Oni blood but a swelling of protectiveness wells up in him. He’s felt it before as they drag you off, yells at them to stop and leave you alone. But now settled in his arms so physically broken and battered it really dawns on him.

You're a child and so is he.

You only help to cement this in a small moment of vulnerability in his arms.

“I miss my home…even if I can’t remember it anymore.” He sees tears glistening in moonlight that peaks through the bars. You don’t cry from the beatings and torture like a skilled soldier, but you cry for home just as a child would.

 “I want to remember but I can’t and it hurts so much. It hurts so much Kaido, and I can’t do anything about it. I’d rather rip out my heart and burn my nerves to nothing or crush each individual bone to dust if it meant it could remember what home was like. I miss it so bad and I don’t even know what I miss” 

Kaido doesn’t know what to say, what to input and make you feel better because weapons are not meant to comfort others.

Monsters aren’t meant to hold the hand of the child, they're meant to scare.

But he tries.

“What do you remember?”

You bite back tears, swallowing them down to smile once more though now he sees how it wavers. It cracks ever so slightly at the corners, no one notices because it’s so bright that they never look there to see how practiced it is.

“It’s really hazy…” you start, playing with broken fingers before he stops you by placing his battle torn ones atop your own “but I remember a garden”

“What did it grow?”

“Flowers mostly…maybe peonies? Oh! And lilies. But I also remember strawberries, well more like remember the taste of them”

“What did they taste like?” He’s heard of those berries before but has not tasted them.

“Sweet…tart and earthy. I think I planted them because I was alone for periods of time?”

“Why’s that?”

“I think my parents” for a second you pause in consideration and contemplation, he watches the tears run in your head. But then eyes light up with a hazed recognition “they had to travel for work sometimes. They’d stay for long periods at home and then leave. They didn’t want me to go with them…thought it was dangerous maybe?”. 

He nods at that.

That sounded like a fair enough reason, especially for someone like you.

Gentle and kind.

Showing Weakness even if it also seemed to be your strong suit.

The world has and would eat you up.

“Mom smelled of spices all the time. I think she came from a desert island, and liked to visit it. She would bring me back things”

“Do you remember what those were?”

“No…I just remember my sash came from that place. Made of special silk or something” you look down, but your sash is not there. Probably taken and sold already when you were initially dragged into the dungeon. 

“Your dad?”

“He…I think he liked helping people.” 

“So he’s like you then”

Your smile seems to become more genuine at that.

“Kaido my memory is really bad, I forget a lot. if…I can’t remember all of this then can you do it for me?” You look at him, those stars he swears he can see hidden in them shine once more. How can he refuse such a thing? Not when you’d made him feel like he isn’t just a gun to be held or a weapon to hold. “It’s like you said, we’re friends” he feels weird saying this but maybe in a good way “I don’t mind”.

===

The marines will be there for him soon, he knew it was a matter of time but despite that he can’t help but feel as if it has all flown away in a mere month.

What should have been a time in which he lamented alone,Cold and starved. It was filled with knowledge, warmth and fulfillment none of which he’d ever had the privilege in knowing. To his commanders he didn’t deserve it but you seem to think otherwise. 

You always seemed to think otherwise to what he was taught.

When they dragged you back one night he noticed your smile was wider than it usually would. There was something about it that was innately different. 

Once more they don’t lock you in shackles, just throwing you limply to the ground.

Your eyes watch as they slam the door and leave.

Something in them sparks up like a match in the dark. 

A chuckle escapes your lips and he watches you sit up despite the broken bones. Worry etches itself into him.

“Stop moving your hurt!”

“I’m fine, had worse” it’s said as if it’s something as casual as the weather. “Anyways Kaido, where do you wanna go first when we get out of here?” You have that gaze again, it feels like a trick question.

“When?”

The look in your eye gets stronger as cracked fingers caked in your own blood reach into your pocket and pull out a key.

It gleams in the moonlight like your tears once did.

You repeat the question again.

“Where do you wanna go first when we get out of here?”

Kaido thinks back to your tales and finds his thoughts of where he’d be most free and answers back.

“The sea”

===

The escape is not pretty, blood was shed and Kaido is covered head to toe in red. You don’t fare much better but that’s mostly due to the fact you were in the splatter zone of Kaido’s rampage, which while you didn’t agree with was likely the only way for either of you to get out alive after being spotted.

The salty breeze rustles his hair and drifts past his horns, the ivory is stained red until he’s able to wash it.

On the small boat the two of you stole he lays down beside you on the wooden flooring. It creaks lightly because of his weight, but does not crack. The two of you look up to the stars, he wonders if they are as free as he feels whilst he stares up at them covered in the blood of his captors and by (one of) the only person he’d call a Friend’s side. 

For the first of many few times in his life Kaido feels happy to be alive, if only for this moment of respite.

And it’s the first time he feels like he could take the world.

If only for you to grasp and hold for the freedom you gave him.

Because just for that, for breaking his shackles he’d give you everything and more.

(It’s a sentiment Alber would come to understand as well, many years in the future.) 

Kaido looks to the stars, he thinks they shine brighter than when he was behind that of prison bars.

“I…I think they shine brighter here than before” he mumbles, he hears you move slightly closer despite all your broken bones and bruises.

“That might be because you’d never truly had the chance to stop and stare”

“Maybe” Kaido feels himself grunting “but everything kinda feels different now that I’m free”

“How so?”

He pauses for a moment, thinking how to phrase it before saying “it feels like things have color, it isn’t monochrome anymore. I can feel the wood beneath my fingers and sand sticking to my feet instead of ignoring the sensation because of orders. Salt stays on the tip of my tongue instead of gray slop that drowned away all taste…things can just exist without a purpose in war”.

Kaido had never been one for metaphors or flowery language, but for this he isn’t sure how else to explain it.

It all feels different.

He feels different, like a weight off both his shoulders and wrists.

Like new breath in his lungs.

An icy cold plunge into new waters.

It feels exhilarating and unpredictable.

He feels alive. 

For the first time he thinks he can say he truly feels alive, rather than just surviving. 

Not scraping by.

Not simply living without thought or question.

But alive.

Laying close to his head one of your hands goes to his hair, gently weaving it between fingers so much smaller than his own. 

“Now that we’re at sea, is there any other place you’d like to go next?” You ask looking up to the stars yourself, he wonders if they reflect the ones in your eyes or if yours are their own little night sky.

“I haven’t thought that far yet.” He answers honestly, he focuses on the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, he thinks that they reflect both himself and you. “But so long as we’re free then I’m content in where we go” he says this Earnestly, turning his attention from that of the celestial bodies to you.

There's a look on your face he can’t place.

But he thinks it’s some sort of sadness.

It looms over you like a specter and soaks you to the bone in melancholy.

But you nod, and let the silence punctuated by waves take over.

He doesn’t get that look now, but he later realizes it’s the look of “I’m sorry”.

===

He realized too late your wounds should not look that way.

He knew they shouldn’t have in the beginning but it only sets in now after examining them himself. 

Kaido knew he was no Field medic. His hands were only used to destroy and Maim and kill. But Kaido tried. 

Because that’s all Kaido could do.

Try.

Try for you.

Try for you to be more than just an agent of destruction.

Of trying to do his best in treating the wounds despite the fact he does not know how to be gentle.

How to properly show care.

But nevertheless Kaido tries, he wraps your wounds and cleans them with water even if he has to hold your hand due to the sting of salt. 

His hope is that you’ll float by a marine ship, in which he’d raid it and find their doctors to fix your infections.

But for now besides that he had to stabilize you, which seemed to be a fighting effort considering you don’t seem to care all that much.

At least for yourself.

When it had come to Kaido you placed him over yourself much to his dismay. Even back in that damp and dirty cell you’d done that. Giving him half your scraps of food, pouring a good portion of dirty water into his cup. 

“You need it more than me” is what you had told him along with something like “you're bigger than me which means you need more food to power you” and “I’ve survived with less, I’ll be fine”.

He’d at the time hesitantly accepted it, but now as he dives into the ocean and catches fish to cook he doesn’t take those excuses anymore. Even if he has to basically force a large portion of Cooked fish in your hands and sit down in front of you glaring, telling you to eat.

But that is the least of his issues when it comes to you.

Kaido knows that for a 13 year old he’s mature, as are you despite being younger than him.

But he feels like a damn nurse trying to make you take medicine when it comes to the simplest things.

No, make sure you stay hydrated.

You can’t skip out on getting rest just cause someone needs to be on lookout. It's fine.

Stop poking at the very infected wound that’ll irritate it!

Stop moving around when half your bones are broken!!

At 13 Kaido thinks he has gray hairs already setting in. Because this makes him feel as old as what you first assumed him to be when the two of you met.

You're stubborn as a mule on this, practically forcing him to keep you bed ridden with the minimal supplies this small fishing vessel had. The couch you lay on is itchy as are the sheets used as blankets but it’s something and that’s all Kaido has other than you.

But even with your condition of what should be constant physical agony you keep insisting on getting up.

On trying to help around the small sea vessel.

Saying you had to look out for your own boat even if he doesn’t think that’s very likely but promised he’d look out for it in your stead.

Help trying to navigate even if he knew how to.

For some reason you can’t seem to sit still, mind always needing to focus on something even if the waves were calm and weather was fine. When he’d check in on you as you rested he’d alway find you staring out the small port window, eyes glazed over. 

The haze of memory clouding them.

You tended to do that a lot in that cell but telling stories seemed to make it go away for a while.

But now you do it more often and he isn’t sure if it’s just how you are or if the infection is getting to you.

Either or, it leaves him sleepless at night More than he’d like to admit.

“Oh kaido? I never asked but why do you have horns?” You suddenly ask as he places down the slightly burnt piece of fish. Cooking was a skill taught to him…but cooking good food wasn’t. “You ask that now?” He responds then making you shrug your shoulders.

“didn’t think it was too important to ask at the time”

At that he rolls his eyes, picking up a piece of fish for you to eat. “I’ll answer if you eat”

“Ok” that was a bit easier than he thought- “but only if I get to keep asking questions”

“Fine” it comes out as an exasperated groan but to be honest a small bit of pride swells up in him.

You take a bite of the fish he cooked, eating it without complaint even though the outside is charred to ash. You look at him expectantly.

“I’m an Oni”

He waits for a reaction, but all he gets is a “oh, cool”.

“Is…that really your reaction to learning that?”

“Am I supposed to have a different reaction?”

“Yeah” he grumbles “I’m an Oni. O, N, I.” 

He looks at your face, you have the most clueless expression he thinks he’s ever seen.

“You…you don’t know what that means do you?”

“Not really? But I was just wondering if they were fake or not. Either or it doesn’t change my opinion on you” 

“And what’s your opinion of me?”

“I think your cool…and your my friend who deserved better than what life gave you”

He pauses momentarily at that, but nods.

He thinks the same of you, that you deserve better than this.

“…thanks. What’s your next question?”

You take another bite, “oh! Here’s a good question!” You suddenly turn a bit serious “what’s your dream?”

“My dream?”

“Yeah! What’s your dream now that you're free? What do you wanna do? What do you want to accomplish?” 

“I want to change the world” he says after a moment of contemplation.

“Cool!”

But that wasn’t the entire truth.

He left out a part at the end.

I want to change the world for you.

===

You’ve been acting more off than usual, and that’s saying something since you always act weird. Always having an odd look in those eyes of yours that encompass the night sky itself even in all its expanse. 

But now those eyes seem…obscured in a sense.

You're half-there and half-not.

Because of the infections you’ve developed a fever and you're losing sight of things.

Sweat pours from your forehead and breath remaining stagard as you took in deep puffs of breath.

Chills have begun to rack up your spine leaving you a shivering mess. He lets you cling to him, leaching off the warmth he naturally produces as his blood stained hands try to rub comforting circles into tousled and sweaty hair.

He doesn’t mind.

He can’t when your in obvious pain and confusion.

Mind slipping back and forth between conscious and unconscious, past and the present. 

Today he tried to have you tell a story but you kept fumbling over your own words.Trailing off and suddenly going quiet for minutes on end and then asking him what you were talking about.

You apologize for this. As well as being an inconvenience.

For being sick.

For slowly losing yourself in the veil of loopiness as your body gets worse.

But that’s hardly something that’s your fault.

It’s his.

(Or at least that’s what he blames himself for)

After failing to tell a story you go quiet for a while. 

Eerily so.

It sets him off tilter since he’s used to your voice constantly being in the air.

You don’t seem to know what to say anymore.

So instead Kaido decides to fill the air instead.

“Apparently in Oni culture we let someone close to us make a mark on our horns” it comes out of nowhere and it takes a minute for you to compute but when it does he sees fascination light up your face. 

“How do you know that?” Your voice questions, the sound of it easing some of his tension. You're still there, still conscious and not lost in your own mind. “I thought you didn’t know much about your people, considering you were one of the only ones likely left?”.

“A commander mentioned it once” 

He thinks back to that particular memory.

Said commander looking at the small horns poking out from disheveled hair. They weren’t quite as big as they were now, just barely enough to be called proper horns. 

He remembers that man’s laugh as he roughly grabbed them and tugged Kaido along with them.

“He said that when they were big enough they should carve the kingdom's emblem into them. A sign of ownership and of its importance”

“To you?”

“No, more like how it was above me” 

Now thinking back he isn’t sure if that man’s words were true or not. He’d been so deprived of information about a people he’d never met nor traditions he’d never see that any crumb would be eaten up by his mind.

Maybe it was made up.

But even if it wasn’t it remained stuck in his head.

“I want you to carve something” 

For a money you pause, a look of confusion stuck.

“Why though? I don’t want to make it seem like mark of ownership, that’s wrong”

Lightly he smacks your forehead with his finger, he ignores how it’s too hot and the sweat that sticks to it.

“You idiot, did you not hear what I said first? It’s meant to be a thing of friendship between us. They wanted to use it as something else, I want to use it as it’s meant to be used” 

“But what would I even carve? I don’t wanna put my name. That would seem weird”

Kaido pinches the bridge of his nose, then looking at you once more.

At least he knew you’d be genuine about it.

But even then your being too picky about shit-

“Do a star then”

He gets the idea when for a brief moment his eyes connect with your own.

They sparkle even with the hazy look in them.

“Will it hurt you though?”

“Doesn’t matter, I’ve been through worse”

“Well it matters to me-“

“Yeah well, you’ve used the same excuse before of things being worse. I don’t know what you’ve been through but I’ve been a soldier up till now, I can handle it”

By the end of the night as you lay asleep atop of him, head planted above where his heart would be (if he really ever had one) his fingers trace the indent of a messy carved star.

It’s slightly lopsided.

It doesn’t look even.

Or maybe even doesn’t look like a four pointed star to others.

But to Kaido it means everything to him.

(Something that even now years in the future despite being depressed and suicidal he fondly drags a finger over the carved notch. It’s one of the few things that can make him slightly smile about. A sight of which makes his commanders ponder of, though only King knows of its true significance to him)

It serves as an anchor or sorts.

A sign.

A motivation.

A determination for a dream.

A connection.

A symbol of freedom and a spark.

A sign of friendship to someone he feels is rapidly slipping from his grasp at each moment. Much like sand between his fingers or blood pouring from an open wound.

He cannot sew it up now matter how hard he tries,

He has to watch you bleed out slowly in pain.

And it kills him slowly on the inside.

Especially as you seem to be losing yourself bit by bit.

Kaido holds you closer, he hopes to not have to let you go.

But he knows at this point it is inevitable.

The fever isn’t going down and just seems to get worse.

The end is nigh.

===

A few years ago Kaido had saw a half dead rabbit in the camp near his bunkhouse with the others his age.

It’s white spotted fur matted with dirt and its own blood as it lay mutilated but alive. The small animal writhed on the ground, ants picking away at its flesh as it sat there still alive to be eaten. It’s a cruel fate for any living thing, but one that is not unexpected for a creature that was weak.

Or at least that’s what they told him.

His superior saw his gaze at the creature and scoffed when Kaido reached a hand to end its agony. 

He was told to let it writhe.

It was the rule of the world that the weak would die for the strong to survive.

The weak were meant to be eaten by the strong. 

And so the bunny was left to be taken apart slowly.

Dying in wheezing pain.

Left there to die in agony instead having its suffering ended with the quick snap of its neck.

Kaido didn’t know how to feel as it sat there in pain, he felt sort of sorry for it but he was given orders. 

And that was the way of the world.

He thinks back to that rabbit now and finds the similarity between you both too apparent.

Both small helpless creatures in pain.

You wheeze just as it did though now due to your feverish state.

You shiver as its body once did though instead of the chilling snow it’s now your body playing tricks on you.

And just like that small rabbit your fate is in his hands.

He has to decide whether to let you continue to a painful death just as it did or end it now. 

This decision weighs heavy on him now because he isn’t given orders to obey.

He has to make this choice of his own volition.

And for once he thinks there was one upside to being given orders to be a weapon.

Because morality and feelings never came into the mix.

He’d be given a task, do it and never have to think of how it made him feel nor the consequences of those actions on others.

It was survival.

Yet now decision weighs heavy in his mind, on his shoulders and most importantly in his hands as you are cradled by them.

He can’t help but notice once more that you're so small in them. He knows it’s mostly due to his oni blood but a part of him attributes it to how fragile you are. It would be so easy to hurt you by accident. So, so, so easy for the world to shatter you like glass. 

He’s surprised it hasn’t already or perhaps it did and you're a pro at picking yourself up back together.

Your form is held gently but close.

Kaido doesn’t want to let you go from his grasp.

Wants to hoard you to himself.

He doesn’t want you to go.

To leave him alone with this burning feeling in his heart at the thought of you going.

But Kaido knows that in the end he cares too much for you to let that part of himself overpower the right thing to do. 

No matter how much it’ll tear him apart and shatter him at his core.

You're worth so much more than both those combined. 

And he’s willing to become more broken than he already was just for you to die in peace.

His hands shake, you notice.

“ you ok…Kai?” The shortened form of his name was something you’d begun calling him a few days back. Speaking hurt your throat, so instead under his demand you’d stuck to short sentences. But at this point he’s unsure if you think he’s him or if you think your speaking to someone else.

“I’m fine…just” what does he say? What's he supposed to do? He’s 13 and he’s killed more than he could ever count yet this feels different. He’d never known his victim so well, never cared for them as he did with you. “I just need to know something” before he does this, even in your feverish state he needs to find some solace.

Tilting your head back to look up at him he sees your eyes struggling to focus. Squinting at his face almost as if drunk with uncertainty at who he was. 

“What is it?” Your words are slurred and slow, raspy and thin. The complete opposite as to what you sounded like before in that cell even with a broken set of ribs. You used to speak with such certainty and strength, joy and wonder leaking from each word. 

Your voice is but an echo of what it once was. Quiet and loosing its grasp before fading to silence.

“…even if we go our separate ways…will you still consider me your friend? Will you still care for me?”

You smile.

And Kaido feels the world shift ever so slightly.

“Course Kai.” Reaching up a hand you graze the ivory of his horns, a finger tracing the small star mark he let you carve “your my friend. I’ll always love you, always care for you even when gone. One day we’ll see each other again”.

Maybe you're more coherent than he initially thought.

Maybe you realized his intentions of putting you out of this misery.

Or maybe you genuinely think that you’ll meet once more.

In a way your right, you’ll one day meet in the realm of the dead.

(Something he now oh so desperately craves to go to)

Either way it’s all the motivation he needs to do this.

His hands shake as they shift grip to cradle the back of your head.

(A monster like him does not deserve your care, to ever feel loved as he did as your friend. But even then that’s an understatement, you were more like the family he never had. The annoying little sibling he never asked for but loved as if you were flesh and blood)

You stare up at him from your place, head leaning against where his beating dead heart is.

(Star filled eyes look up at him and they make it so that he can never look at the night sky again. Even in onigashima on the clear night skies with shining stars he cannot look at them. Only because he’s flooded with the guilt)

“Kaido?” You sound a bit more coherent than before, you look at him with a confused smile as your hands graze over the tears coming from golden eyes.

(He imagines the rabbit, if on that day he’d ended its misery. The flooding relief of death sweeping over its form that was left to rot and be picked apart by the scavengers. He promises you will not be left to that fate, that the world will not tear you apart as you die a slow painful end)

“What are you-“.

There’s a twist and then a crack.

The sound is quiet yet it rattles through his hands and into his core where sorrow roars its head for the very first time.

Slumping down to the ground he holds you, and doesn’t want to let you go.

He closes his golden eyes and falls asleep clutching a dead corpse (that unbeknownst to him began to fade away as he slipped into unconscious. He wakes up later on a marine’s ship and assumes they tossed your body, there are no survivors to tell the tale but himself).

Death is all that Kaido’s hands are good for, he isn’t ashamed of this fact but this time he feels genuine loss.

One of the few times he ever will. 

And just like the other time when he feels loss for a person he kills much later on in the future.

You and Oden smile in the face of death.

The sight haunts and transfixes him at the same time.

And it makes Kaido crave it all the more knowing the two people he misses smiled as death took them.

He wonders if the sight of the other side or complete and utter peace in the reaper's cold hands did it.

Either way he wishes to go out the same.

With content in his cold withered heart and a smile.

===

Kaido isn’t sure if he believed in ghosts and spirits, but he did believe that in some way you were still with him even in death.

Because you linger subconsciously in his mind and everything he comes across. 

When he joined the Rock’s pirates under Newgates offer he imagines what would have happened if you were still with him. Would you have wormed your way into the murderous crew’s hearts just as you did him?

He knows for a fact he would have had to fight Newgate for you. 

The man’s dream of a family aligning all too well with how he would have scooped you up the minute Kaido stepped on that ship.

Linlin talks about a childhood best friend that sounds a lot like you.

She reminisces about it quite a bit, no one but him actually listens (even then he only does this for his own nostalgia of you and how similar this friend of hers and you sound alike). That seems to help get him on her good side though with how young he was when joining that helped as well, she now calls him “little brother”. It’s an affectionate term, one that he isn’t quite sure how he feels about when she messes up his hair and slaps him on the back.

He thinks it’s then that he realized he viewed you the same way Linlin does for him.

Little sibling. 

It’s always after someone is gone do you realize the true extent of their importance to you.

It’s only when they're gone do you feel their loss in the world and your life.

He thought he had prepared for loss, for mourning and grief.

But they still hit him harder than any bullet or attack. 

It’s perhaps a true testament to you and your affect on him. 

Linlin at some point has him try a strawberry shortcake once he says he’d never had strawberry before. She enthusiastically hands him a piece, it surprises both him and everyone else on board. She never shared her sweets, let alone with anyone on board besides maybe Stussy and Gloriosa when they were on those weird weeks where they smelled of blood and were moodier than usual.

So he tries it.

The small red berry with bits of white frosting stuck to it, it hits his taste buds with an onslaught of sweetness.

It’s as you described strawberries to taste, sweet and earthy, its juice pools in his mouth and leaks from the corner of his lips.

But at the same time it’s bitter and dull.

He swallows it down though, and eats the rest as Linlin grins in delight. 

She asks him how it was and he responds that it was fine.

She does not know of how it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth even after trying to wash it down with sake and whatever booze was offered that night.

Only Newgate seem notices of how he tried to wash out his mouth.

Thankfully he does not ask.

And Kaido luckily does not have to tell of how the too sweet taste of icing and lingering bitterness of fresh strawberry stains him.

(When Linlin sends shipments of strawberry shortcakes years later Kaido bitterly eats them just as they leave a bitter taste in his mouth. King asks him why he eats them despite his clear distaste for the sweet confection. He just says it’s because it’s a gift and because he values the bittersweet of strawberry. King raises an eyebrow at this, but does not comment on it. Instead he join in on finishing the many sweet confections even if like Kaido he prefers more savory dishes) 

===

In a lab many years later after gods valley Kaido finds a white haired boy chained up to a table. 

Red burning eyes stare to that of gold ones.

Kaido knows his eyes are not like yours, they do not burn with the same intensity of Starfire but they do burn.

They burn like the flames that eventually eat up the rest of the facility as shackles are broken. 

He learns the boy's name is Alber, a last surviving member of the Lunarian race that had been slaughtered much like his own. Unlike horns he possesses wings and an undying spark. Both of which weakly cling to life after years of poking and prodding by people in white coats that are now marred by ash and blood. 

Kaido was sure of it after he had bludgeoned enough of them with his own bare hands or let the collapsing building take care of the few stranglers.

Alber in the escape is reborn anew in the ashes of a burning lab as King.   

A fitting name for someone who would eventually come to rule this forsaken world at Kaido’s side.

As King looks up to him, with widen ruby red eyes Kaido notices how they look at him. He looks at Kaido as if he had hung the moon and stars, perhaps in a way Kaido had for the young Lunarain.

King does not remember much of his home besides the scent of burning wood of a giant bonfire and the subsequent burning of their homes.

Fire had been important to their people, it symbolized that of the blazing fires of the stars. The eternal fire of their spark hung just behind them like the star that was hung above the red line. It was said to have been given to them as a symbol of home no matter where they flew.

The star was placed there to always show them their way back home.

That the ones touched by their elusive god would have their sparks changed to immortalize that star.

It is ironic then that fire is used to burn away their land to bring forth Mary Geoise. 

What had used to be the land of winged people as free as the sky is reborn as the place where so called “celestials” harbor hundreds of thousands as slaves.

The lucky few lunarians had their wings tethered in chains before being dropped into the ocean to flail and drown or just properly slaughtered in the massacre as they were shot down from the sky.

The rest who don’t share that fate are privy to something much worse. Either shipped off to a lab or dismembered into exotic pieces to be kept as a part of a collection as are the remnants of their culture.

Black wings are hung up as mantle pieces above fireplaces that burn in a crude irony.

Moon White hair was cut off and woven into decorations for dresses.

Red eyes plucked from skulls to be turned into exotic centerpieces to long tables filled to the brim with imported foods.

Kaido knows that Oni horns are similarly used as decorations. 

The ivory carved into statues or used as the keys to piano’s that are played by slaves or the few lucky musicians that are deemed good enough to be in the presence of self acclaimed gods.

Like King, Kaido also knows little to none about his own culture as well.

Both their people slaughtered for decoration, leaving them clueless to their own traditions.

Yet another thing that makes him and King feel somewhat connected. 

They are both the last of their kind.

Shackled and chained like property before being broken free.

Two connected with a dream to change the world. 

Both were freed and were able to see the moon and stars once again on a beautiful night punctuated by the blood of their captures.

While King does not remember his people he does remember the stars, stars he now gets to see again.

So it’s no wonder he thinks Kaido hung them.

He looks at Kaido just as Kaido did to you.

Once more Kaido ponders if you watch him from the world beyond.

If you're proud of him for doing just as you did all those years ago.

Kaido hopes so.

===

For a good while in his life Kaido feels aimless.

To be fair, in a sense he’s always been slightly aimless. Going from place to place, adrift before he was recruited to Rock’s crew and then had to jump ship when that went up in smoke. 

He has his right hand.

He builds his crew.

Is proclaimed a Yonko and emperor of the seas.

Has a blood child.

But the hollowness in his chest does not get placated nor fade.

It only ever seems to feel worse.

The world feels like once more that it’s back to monochrome, only stray bits of color only ever appearing when he’s drunk enough to forget.  Even then the world does not feel as vibrant as it was before even when in inebriated color. 

Everything feels faded out and sullied.

Almost as if it were drowned and pulled back out from the water.

Theoretically he should be happy, but he isn’t.

There were only a few times in his life that he ever was and it started with you before going downhill from then on.

In the back of his mind he wants to blame you for this unhappiness.

You who brought him a world of light and color before having it ripped away by his own hands as a mercy to you. From then on it never seemed the same, its color began to fade as did his eventual want to live. Back when the broken neck was cradled in his hands he wanted to go with you, but surmised that you wanted better for him.

You always did.

Always put himself above you even if you were equally starving and cold.

Kaido doesn’t regret being alive, not when you fought so valiantly for him to do so and for having the opportunity in freeing King. but he does regret living to the point that he now considered it a prison in its own right.

Regrets that he now cannot look at the stars and when he does he wonders if they too are chained to their positions in the sky. 

perhaps you had known that as well.

The forlorn look you’d give when looking out to sea even in a fevered and hazy state. Eyes tracing the stars with a sadness that he could not place.

Perhaps you’d Known all of this, yet tried to keep Kaido in blissful ignorance knowing how miserable it would make him.

Even with all of this Kaido cannot hate you, nor have any ill will towards you.

Not even if he forced himself to try.

Never could he hate you.

He could hate the world and himself but never you.

Never because of the kindness you’d given.

And most importantly for the fact that he now believes you to be something else.

Kaido isn’t quite sure where exactly he first hears of the story of “Joyboy” but even with the scraps he is given it stays in his mind. It lingers and festers with curiosity. An itch that he cannot scratch until he finds more stories, then rinse and repeat.

Kaido thinks that in a way you were sent by Joyboy to him.

Maybe it was a coincidence.

Or something else entirely but you brought to him the liberation he had dreamt of.

Caused within him the spark of a burning star to create change to the world for you (one that now does not care if that change is for the betterment of the world or the destruction of it in your long forgotten name that he hordes)

But this first starts off as a stray thought as he learns more and more about the god. The small bits of information he’s been able to collect is varied and old but what the legend tells him is enough to create more similarities. Most of the stories have been covered up or collected by marines, luckily they can’t do much when he raids their bases and takes what information he wants.

More information is learnt.

And eventually he comes to believe that maybe you truly were some envoy sent by the perpetual smiling god.

You died with a smile like he would.

(As does Oden and Roger)

More of his mind makes connections probably not there but ones he so desperately wants to be true.

Because if you were sent by him that means it validates how you're a shining beacon of sunspot in the dark expanse of his mind.

Like a star in the sky.

Like the stars that match the innermost depths of your eyes.

Maybe if you were sent by JoyBoy it’s a sign of breaking free of the chains of the living realm.

Maybe he will break Kaido free since he’s the only one worthy and strong enough to finally end this.

Maybe Kaido can see you again.

Maybe Kaido will see a night sky with stars that are unshackled.

Maybe your death will mean something other than a tragedy and the turning point of how things have become dull and pointless.

===

Kaido did not have the capability to love.

Respect, yes. But love? No.

It had long died in his chest as did his heart when he was born and raised to be a mindless weapon. Maybe it had had a chance of beating once more (and maybe it was revived momentarily when on that small ship adrift at sea before a sobering snap rang out into the night and a body fell limp in his hands) but that had long been buried in the past.

In his chest sits a dead heart that lays in its coffin within the ground (he does not acknowledge that he had to rebury it or that it was for a short period of time reanimated) .

Kaido cannot love even if he tries (not anymore at least).

Kaido wants to love Yamato but he cannot on account of who Kaido is as a person.

Weapons are not capable of love.

Neither are Yonko’s (the strong ones at least. Shanks and Newgate can hardly be considered that when they show weakness in pride)

When Kaido was just Kaido, an escaped bargaining chip ready to be sold he might have (and he did, he had the love of a friend but that died when they did).

But now he is the captain of the beast pirates.

A monster like him does not deserve love in the first place, he should not crave it. (But Even if that’s correct your words of “your my friend. I’ll always love you” reverberate like an echo chamber within his skull. He tries to bash his head against a wall yet nothing is able to make it stop echoing. He didn’t deserve what you had given yet you gave it anyways)

He has no time for love.

No time to coddle Yamato. 

Yamato has to be strong to face the world.

Has to be strong as to one day kill and not let it haunt him.

To not let the crack of a neck ring in his mind when he thinks he finally has peace.

To not see the dulling eyes that reflect the stars fade out and burn themselves instead into his head.

To not realize the world has color before it’s taken from him.

(But that happens anyways, and like it happened to Kaido it is set into motion when someone smiles in the face of death. For Yamato his spark for his dream boils in intensity and for Kaido it’s a spark that now wants to fizzle out) 

===

Onigashima feels different for some reason and Kaido can’t place a finger on it.

Maybe not a bad type of different per say but it’s one that he notices in time as things progress.

It started off with Black Maria seeming more chipper than usual. The normally malicious smile hidden behind a careful mask momentarily satiated. Red painted lips genuinely up turned as she talks of her newest edition of a letter deliverer. A “cute little thing” her workers picked up from the streets battered and cold. 

Maria always had a soft spot for kids, evident from how she even coddled Yamato even when Kaido told her it would make the child soft. So it doesn’t make Kaido too surprised that she picked up one out of the many strays that wander the streets. Though, how a lone child ended up in Onigashima is beyond him.

She talks fondly of them, her “little messenger” that has seemingly captured the favor of the black widow.

Somehow getting caught in her web yet navigating it and the rest of lions den with ease.

She seems to be having custom kimono and Yukata made for her messenger. Something she occasionally mentions with a rogue tinged smile as her nails dance across Kaido’s bicep. She seems happy, genuinely. He respects her enough to nod along, content in that she is also content.

Next is seemingly Sasaki and Who’s-Who, there’s been less of their demanding fights with Queen, Jack and especially King. 

The two had seemingly befriended the young messenger Black Maria had employed (much to her displeasure because now their apparently “hogging” them from her).

This then extended to Ulti and eventually Page one as well. Apparently they had somehow worked their way onto her good side, even being able to somewhat calm her down which was a godsend for many of the other beast pirates. God knows the amount of times she’s sent a good chuck in grunts to the ER from a small spot of anger. 

But then surprisingly enough even Queen and King seem to take interest in this messenger.

For Queen it’s loud but transactional interest.

Kaido can hear the concerts he puts on but now with added guitar riffs and solos. The crowds cheer with such vigor that almost all of Onigashima shakes with excitement.

For King it’s quiet but personal. 

Kaido knows that his right hand has never trusted nor legitimately liked anyone but himself.

King has never formed friendships beyond that of Kaido and that was fine. 

King was a grown man, he could make his own decisions in life and that included who he (or in this case who he didn’t) talk to. But seeing his right hand for once actually made happy, well it created in kaido an inkling of relief.

For so long King had wallowed in a similar sadness to Kaido.

King had not enjoyed anything, even when partaking in activities such as drinking or partying he only did it for Kaido.

At first Kaido could understand. He finds no point in living, and can’t find enjoyment in much anymore. But Kaido had things, he had Onigashima and the love of thrill for battle and booze and the longing embrace of death.

But later he came to notice that King had nothing besides Kaido. 

King had no people he legitimately talked to beside Kaido.

He never attended parties if Kaido was not there.

He never even took enjoyment in fights.

He never walked with purpose unless Kaido gave him a task to achieve.

King had nothing.

Nothing but the belief that Kaido would bring change and his goal was to just solely help him achieve that change.

And while Kaido saw life to be a prison he wanted King to not see it that way.

He wanted King to live.

To soar just as his people once proudly did.

Wanted to give him what he had gained from his time with you.

To paint the bleak world in color for someone he broke from chains.

To make the bars of life not visible nor matter.

To never realize the stars were collard and held in place.

So hearing he was happy for once.

That he found someone besides Kaido to help fill the emptiness of his life.

Well it piqued his interest, especially since this same messenger had seemingly done the same for his Tobiroppo and one two thirds of his all stars.

(In the back of his mind he bitterly chuckles that it reminds him of you but he brushes it off. Your dead and gone, he’s the reason for that) 

So he arranges for the next meeting to have this messenger included. 

King seems almost eager for this. Wanting to introduce whoever this is to him.

For once Kaido hears King talk about his day in detail rather than simply stating that “it was fine” and leaving it at that.

(Kaido does not hear the small utterance of a name he hadn’t heard in so so long, too caught up in his drink to catch it. It slips through his fingers and he does not realize it, even if he did compute it he’d assume it was a sad coincidence)

===

Days go by as per usual though Kaido does have something to perhaps look forward to now with this meeting.

It’s not easy to thrive in Onigashima even as a decent fighter.

So a literal child somehow making allies with some of his top commanders is certainly something that has some amusement to look forwards to.

So he waits.

And drinks.

And waits.

And shoo’s away the weird crows that have made their home in Onigashima recently.

Something also seemingly attributed to this messenger. King had told him that apparently these were their crows, one they had raised themselves after finding the murder half dead. 

Could be useful for communication, less chance of having the den den mushi tapped or curriers intercepted. Plus…he didn’t mind the bird’s presence.

Something about them was odd, but not in a particular bad way. 

They sometimes circled the sky in a spiral, swirling in a mass of black feathers similar to King.

It was a sight to see.

What's even more of a sight to see was that one of them was bold enough to join Kaido in drinking. The small feathered fiend joining in on partaking in the enjoyment of booze. Its beak dipping down in the large sake cup, then incessantly squawking when Kaido had interrupted its sips when he too wanted to enjoy in the clear liquid.

A large scar paints over its wing, leaving a trail that the little thing seemed to take pride in.

Much like Kaido’s scar that he too takes pride in.

The little thing’s name is “Nobu” , something he learned from King. Apparently along with this messenger her also befriended their little feathered fiends as well.

Kaido jokes that it has something to do with bird intuition.

King rolls his eyes though through the creasing of leather it’s clear that beneath his mask he smiles. 

Not like King can say much anyways when on his shoulders perches several of the birds. All of which linger around his flame, seemingly trying to use it as a source of warmth and equally captivated by it.

Nobu beside him pecks at his arm, making Kaido look down at the twilight coloured bird.

“Caw!” 

Kaido’s eyes drift down to it, before the bird pecks at the now empty sake cup. It was not empty last Kaido touched it…did this small bird really finish the last two thirds of the cup that most of his beast pirates could never stomach. 

Hell, the sake cup Kaido used was custom sized to be bigger than just about any other sake cup. 

Well fuck. Looks like he had a drinking buddy? Bird? 

“I’ll give you this you little shit, your a good drinker”

“Caw!”

“Another round?”

The bird nods, pecking the cup again as if to say ‘hurry up and refill you slow bastard’. 

Kaido chuckles.

Now he feels even more curiosity as to who this messenger was.

Good thing for him that meeting was soon.

===

Typically Kaido did not care much for the meetings, not unless it was something really important or led to him possibly fighting someone (and then being disappointed that they didn’t meet expectations).

But for this one the curiosity curling in his gut is enough to satiate him of relying on the presence of Black Maria at his side and a few dozen gourds of sake to get him through. 

He wonders what this messenger will be like.

Will they be a cunning child? The one who spies the people with well made clothes and awaits to pick their pockets.

Are they scrappy? The child who rustles a raccoon on the street for stealing their food and isn’t afraid to play dirty. 

Or Are they perhaps the opposite?

(In some very distant part of his mind, perhaps buried in the cold grave that contains his heart a thought bubbles out. Like undead clawing out from a grave before being buried once more. That part of him wonders if their maybe like you) 

It swirls in his mind because the thought of a child (just a random child) that would be able to befriend his top confidants.

Worm their way into the hearts of someone like King or even Ulti and Who’s-Who. 

Well…It leaves an impression.

And a all consuming question.

Especially since before even meeting this messenger Kaido can’t help but feel somewhat charmed by them.

Them who has made King more happy and content than Kaido has ever possibly seen the man and create within the vicious Maria a kindness.

They who calms down Ulti’s violent temper tantrums and apparently party with Sasaki.

His thoughts whirl.

And then Kaido Freezes.

The unbeatable monster known for ransacking villages and crumbling a nation that he now uses as a den freezes.

He knows those eyes better than he knows the scars that mar his body.

For a moment Kaido thinks he’s piss drunk or having a hallucination when he sees you there.

He had some before, when tired enough or drunk enough he could swear to see or hear you.

Sometimes you’d sit atop his shoulder (in the corner of his eyes, never fully in focus)

Other times he’d hear your voice like a small whisper of encouragement (even though your voice feels almost unrecognizable from what it once was)

And there you are, sitting in content beside Maria who dressed you in silk. The woman’s usually cruel red smile is replaced by one of adoration and warmth instead of her biting cold.

Laughing at Sasaki and Who’s-Who as the two argue over some contrived bet they made when likely drunk.

Somehow calming down Ulti who nearly blows a gasket at Sasaki who accidentally bumps into her due to his fight with Who’s-who.

Having a paper slid over to you by Queen who looks all too pleased with himself before King burns it in front of him.

And most surprisingly of all King, his right hand also holding that familiar look of comfort and content that Kaido is too familiar with when associated with you.

And then of course there’s just you on your own.

You who sits there completely the same as when you met him in that jail cell and died by his hands minus the bruises. 

The same star speckled eyes.

Same smile.

Same calm and mild mannered disposition despite being in a room infested with monsters.

Kaido thinks back to the times he had pondered what would happen if you had lived, if he had been able to find a doctor or if you somehow miraculously healed from those infectious wounds. If the rusted blunt swords used on your flesh and slashed at by guards had impossibly not led to the discolored wounds that leaked with a disgusting mixture of blood and other fluids.

Maybe you would have joined him on Rock’s crew.

Would’ve met Linlin and Newgate.

Could have helped him Break King out of that cell just as you had for him.

If you’d get along with some of the few on his crew he had some likability for (which he now knows is possibly).

If like all those years ago despite all he’s done you’d still consider him friend.

And seeing you again he realizes that all of that could have happened.

That the future he dreamed of in the few uncrushed bits of optimism that lingers in the corner of his soul could have happened.

The life he longed for on those dark nights where memories haunted him like screaming banshees.

It could have happened.

And it didn’t.

Kaido without thinking says your name, it echoes out and reverberates. The room quiets down, so much so that it feels as if his call to you was the only thing ever spoken between the 4 walls.

Starry eyes look to him.

They feel as if they peer into his very soul. Golden burning embers searching the now dull yellow pits of his eyes.

Searching and searching for something.

Anything.

But there’s nothing. 

Not even an inkling of recognition slithers its way onto your face nor into your mind. Instead horror fills it.

Perhaps just as horrified as Kaido that you forgot. 

And like before, on that night all those years ago Kaido feels something in him break.

He lost you once, perhaps in a way you’ve even lost yourself.

But Kaido will not let you slip away again.

Will not grant mercy as he did all those years ago when he was a naive boy.

Maybe it’s because of his Zoan tendencies or because of his fear (the world feels foreign in his mouth let alone to feel anymore. Because Kaido did not fear anything, not even death) but Kaido feels something swirling in him.

Protectiveness.

And then possession.

He does not want to let you free of his grasp again, will not let you lose yourself once more. 

Even if he knows how hypocritical it is to lock you by his side when you had freed him of such a fate of a cage.

But the world is not kind and neither is Kaido.

All those years ago you lit a spark in him that grew to become an inferno.

He swore that he would create change in this world even if you wouldn’t see it.

He would create change in this world for you now with you to watch.

…He’s hardly surprised when you run.

===

He finds you when it’s too late, already crumpled up and bloody in Maria’s palm. King is overhead still in the air, though the flame behind him is less of a burning red mixed with oranges and yellows but now a blindingly shining gold that scorches the sky.

Broken and bloody you clutch something.

It shines through hands that clasp at it tightly.

Light slipping through your fingers as you clutch it closely to your chest. 

Sparks are sent off roaring as it collides against the bloodied cloth of your kimono.

It sinks through the material and into a kind and compassionate heart.

A heart that cracks into golden dust he can only aquaint to that of stardust, your body is painted in cracks. It’s reminiscent of old statues, crack lining stone though now it bleeds a glittering gold instead of cancerous white lead dust.

The words that fall from your mouth like all those years ago come out like a pained whisper.

It’s almost lost to the sobs of Maria.

But Kaido heard it like thunderclap roaring in the sky.

“Oden?” 

And finally the cracks strain and you quite literally break into pieces. Becoming the stardust that leaked into the endless oblivion of the night.

In that flurry of dust momentarily you reform, if only for a moment. You're in different attire, much better for seafaring as well as a familiar captain's coat atop your world carrying shoulders. The kimono once worn now lays on the barren ground, blood also disappearing into the fine golden powder that drifts upwards.

And then there is someone else there in that dust.

For the slightest of seconds Oden lingers.

His form made up of that dust as you drift up past him, an outreached hand reaches to your own and you grab it. Eyes for the first time opening while in this form, staring into that of the man who was born to boil.

Golden eyes shine intently as a smile stretches across both yours and his face.

And then the dust settles into the night leaving nothing of proof of your existence if not for onlookers who mourn, a kimono and hairpin meant as gifts yet you never knew were and the burning flames of a star ignited over midnight black wings. 

The air settles and the silence echoes for several minutes on end.

It’s only broken when King finally descends down, feet numbly hitting the ground as the starlit flame on his back burns oh so brightly.

The shape of a four pointed star hung upon his back.

It’s then that Kaido realizes that perhaps you were never an envoy of JoyBoy at all but your own entity.

Perhaps one more elusive than the titular liberator. Someone mentioned in those tales yet he ignored in favour of JoyBoy more.

But in the end that’s fine.

Because Kaido now knows better.

But does not know better than to try and catch a shooting star or rope one from the sky.

[shybluebirdninja]

Abyss of Time

Summary: In a dystopian future where mutants are hunted, Logan, a 170-year-old warrior, meets Y/n, a 25-year-old human who helps mutants escape persecution. Drawn to her bravery, Logan becomes increasingly possessive as their bond deepens, especially when Y/n’s dedication to her cause puts her in danger. Tensions rise as Y/n grows close to another mutant in their group, testing Logan’s control and their relationship. The story comes into the complexities of love and survival in a world where danger lurks at every turn, and Logan’s possessiveness might be the only thing keeping Y/n alive.

Pairing : Logan Howlett x Female human-reader

Warning : None

The city was a maze of shadows and ruins, a twisted labyrinth where only the desperate dared to tread. Once a symbol of progress and civilization, it had crumbled under the weight of fear and hatred. The streets, once bustling with life, were now desolate, haunted by the echoes of a war that had left no corner untouched.

Y/n darted through the narrow alleyways, her breath coming in sharp bursts as she led a small group of mutants through the darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest, not from fear, but from the adrenaline that had become as familiar to her as breathing. This was her life now—running, hiding, fighting to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

The group of mutants following her was a mix of ages and abilities, each one marked by the telltale signs of their genetic differences. In this world, those differences were a death sentence. The government had declared war on mutants, branding them as a threat to humanity, and had unleashed the Sentinels—soulless machines programmed to hunt and kill without mercy.

Y/n had lost count of how many mutants she had helped over the years. She didn’t do it for recognition or reward. She did it because it was right, because someone had to stand against the madness that had consumed the world. And because, deep down, she believed that mutants had as much right to live as anyone else.

As they approached an abandoned warehouse, Y/n slowed her pace, signaling for the group to stop. The warehouse was one of the many safe houses scattered throughout the city, hidden in plain sight among the ruins. It wasn’t much—just four walls and a roof—but it offered temporary refuge from the relentless hunt.

Y/n pushed open the rusted door and stepped inside, her senses on high alert. The interior was dark, lit only by the faint glow of a few battery-operated lamps. She scanned the room, her eyes adjusting to the dim light, and froze when she saw a figure standing in the corner, half-hidden in the shadows.

Logan.

His presence filled the room, an unspoken threat to anyone who dared to cross him. Y/n had heard of him long before they met—stories of a man who had lived for over a century, who had fought in wars that were now the stuff of legend. But nothing could have prepared her for the reality of him. Logan was a force of nature, all raw power and barely contained rage, and yet, there was something about him that drew her in, something she couldn’t quite define.

“What are you doing here?” Y/n asked, her voice steady despite the tension thrumming in the air.

Logan stepped into the light, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat. “Heard you were takin’ a risky route tonight. Thought you could use some backup.”

Y/n bristled at his tone, at the implication that she couldn’t handle herself. “I’ve been doing this long before you showed up. I don’t need your help.”

Logan’s gaze darkened, his jaw tightening. “Yeah, and you’ve been lucky so far. But luck runs out, kid.”

The endearment, meant to be a casual remark, stung more than Y/n cared to admit. She wasn’t a child, and she resented being treated like one. But she also knew better than to argue with Logan when he was in this mood. Instead, she turned to the group of mutants behind her, their eyes wide with fear and exhaustion.

“Wait here,” she instructed them before turning back to Logan. “We’ll rest here for a bit, then move on.”

Logan nodded, his expression softening just a fraction. “I’ll keep watch.”

Y/n didn’t bother to respond. She knew Logan well enough to understand that he would do what he wanted, regardless of what she said. As she moved to help the mutants settle in, she couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight was different, that something was lurking just out of sight, waiting to strike.

Time passed in tense silence, the only sounds the occasional rustle of movement or the distant hum of a Sentinel patrol. Y/n tried to rest, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She kept replaying Logan’s words in her head, the way he had looked at her, as if he was trying to protect her from something she couldn’t see.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice at her side. “Y/n?”

She turned to see one of the younger mutants, a boy no older than sixteen, standing next to her. His eyes were wide with worry, his hands trembling as he clutched a worn blanket around his shoulders.

“Are we safe here?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Y/n forced a smile, trying to reassure him even though she wasn’t entirely sure herself. “For now, yes. We’ll move again soon, just to be safe.”

The boy nodded, but the fear in his eyes didn’t fade. Y/n placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Stay close to me, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The boy nodded again, his grip on the blanket tightening. Y/n watched as he returned to the others, huddling close to an older mutant who put a protective arm around him. The sight tugged at her heart. These people had lost so much—family, friends, homes—and yet they still found the strength to keep going. It was a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, mutant or not.

Logan’s voice broke through her thoughts. “You’re good with them.”

Y/n glanced over at him, surprised by the softness in his tone. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze fixed on her.

“They trust you,” he continued, his expression unreadable. “That’s not an easy thing to earn these days.”

Y/n shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “They don’t have much of a choice. It’s either trust me or risk getting caught.”

Logan pushed off the wall and walked over to her, his presence as overwhelming as ever. “It’s more than that, and you know it.”

Y/n looked up at him, her heart skipping another beat at the intensity in his gaze. She had never been good at reading Logan, never quite sure what was going on behind those eyes. But right now, she could see something she hadn’t noticed before—something that made her pulse quicken.

Logan reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was so unexpected, so out of character, that Y/n froze, unsure of how to react.

“You’re brave, Y/n,” he said quietly, his voice rough with something she couldn’t name. “But bravery can get you killed if you’re not careful.”

Y/n swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “I know the risks.”

Logan’s hand lingered for a moment before he dropped it to his side. “I’m not talkin’ about them. I’m talkin’ about you.”

Y/n’s breath hitched at the words, at the implication behind them. She had always known that Logan was protective, that he had a tendency to take on more than he should. But this felt different. This felt personal.

Before she could respond, a noise outside the warehouse caught their attention. Logan’s head snapped up, his senses immediately on high alert. Y/n tensed, her heart pounding in her chest as she strained to hear what had set him off.

The door to the warehouse creaked open, and Y/n’s breath caught in her throat as a figure stepped inside. For a split second, she feared it was a Sentinel, that their hiding place had been discovered. But then she recognized the newcomer and let out a sigh of relief.

It was Jake, a mutant they had picked up a few weeks ago. He was young, not much older than Y/n, with a cocky grin and a swagger that belied the horrors he had seen. Y/n had grown fond of him, his easy smile and unshakable optimism a rare comfort in a world gone mad.

“Jake,” Y/n breathed, her relief evident in her voice. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Jake grinned, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Sorry, didn’t mean to. Thought I’d check on you guys, see if you needed any help.”

Logan’s expression darkened at the sight of Jake, his posture tensing. Y/n noticed the change immediately, a knot of unease forming in her stomach.

“We’re fine,” Logan said curtly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Jake raised an eyebrow at Logan’s response but didn’t back down. “Just thought I’d offer. No harm in that, right?”

Y/n stepped between them, sensing the rising tension. “It’s okay, Jake. We’re just getting ready to move out. You can come with us if you want.”

Jake’s grin widened. “Sure thing. Lead the way, boss.”

Logan’s eyes flashed with something dark and dangerous, but he said nothing as Y/n led the group out of the warehouse. The streets were eerily quiet, the city shrouded in an unnatural silence that set Y/n’s nerves on edge. She kept a close watch on their surroundings, every sense on high alert as they made their way through the shadows.

Logan fell into step beside her, his presence a comforting weight at her side. But she could feel the tension radiating off him, the barely contained anger that simmered just beneath the surface.

As they walked, Y/n couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen, that the fragile peace they had managed to maintain was about to shatter. She glanced over at Logan, searching his face for some sign of what he was thinking, but his expression was unreadable.

“Logan,” she began, but he cut her off with a sharp look.

“Stay close,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous. “And keep an eye on him.”

Y/n followed his gaze and saw Jake a few paces ahead, his posture relaxed, seemingly unaware of the danger around them. She frowned, confused by Logan’s sudden hostility.

“Logan, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice tinged with concern.

Logan’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing as he watched Jake. “Just do as I say, Y/n.”

Y/n opened her mouth to argue, but something in Logan’s tone made her stop. She nodded, falling silent as they continued through the city, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife.

It wasn’t until they reached another safe house, this one a dilapidated apartment building on the outskirts of the city, that Y/n finally had a chance to confront Logan. The others had gone inside to rest, leaving them alone in the dimly lit hallway.

“What the hell is your problem?” Y/n demanded, her voice low but fierce. “Why are you acting like this?”

Logan’s eyes flicked to the door where the others had gone, then back to Y/n. “You need to be careful with him.”

“With Jake?” Y/n asked, incredulous. “Why? He’s been nothing but helpful.”

Logan’s expression darkened, his possessive nature rearing its head. “He’s getting too close to you.”

Y/n blinked, taken aback by the accusation. “Too close? Logan, he’s a friend. That’s it.”

Logan stepped closer, his towering presence making Y/n’s heart race. “He’s a distraction, Y/n. And distractions can get you killed.”

Y/ne’s anger flared at his words, at the way he was trying to control her. “You don’t get to decide who I’m friends with, Logan. You don’t get to dictate who I care about.”

Logan’s hand shot out, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her closer. His eyes were blazing with a mix of anger and something else—something that made Y/n’s breath catch in her throat.

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he growled, his voice rough with emotion. “You have no idea what’s out there, what could happen if you let your guard down.”

Y/n wrenched her arm free, her eyes flashing with defiance. “I don’t need you to protect me, Logan. I’ve been doing just fine on my own.”

Logan’s expression softened for a brief moment, a flicker of something like regret passing through his eyes. “You’re brave, Y/n. But bravery can be a double-edged sword.”

Y/n stared at him, her heart pounding in her chest. She wanted to argue, to push him away, but she couldn’t ignore the truth in his words. She had seen too many people die because they had been too brave, too willing to take risks. And yet, she couldn’t let fear control her, couldn’t let Logan’s possessiveness dictate her life.

Before she could say anything else, the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway, breaking the tense silence. Y/n turned to see Jake approaching, his easy grin in place, completely unaware of the storm brewing between her and Logan.

“Hey, everything okay?” Jake asked, his eyes flicking between the two of them.

Y/n forced a smile, trying to keep the tension from showing on her face. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Just talking strategy.”

Jake nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. “Cool. Just wanted to check in before we head out again.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed, his posture tensing as Jake turned to leave. Y/n could feel the anger radiating off him, the jealousy that was so obvious it practically crackled in the air.

Once Jake was out of earshot, Y/n turned back to Logan, her voice low and firm. “You need to stop this, Logan. Jake is not a threat.”

Logan’s jaw clenched, his eyes hard. “He’s more of a threat than you realize.”

Y/n shook her head, frustration boiling over. “This isn’t about Jake. This is about you not being able to control everything around you.”

Logan didn’t respond, his silence only fueling Y/n’s anger. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions swirling inside her.

“I can take care of myself,” she said quietly, her voice trembling slightly. “You don’t have to do it for me.”

Logan’s eyes softened, a flicker of pain crossing his face. “I know you can, Y/n. But I can’t help it.”

Y/n stared at him, her heart aching at the vulnerability in his voice. She had never seen Logan like this, so raw and exposed. It was as if the walls he had built around himself were crumbling, leaving him defenseless against the emotions he had tried so hard to suppress.

Without thinking, Y/n reached out, her hand resting on his chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm, the warmth of his skin seeping into her own.

“Logan,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Logan’s hand covered hers, his touch gentle despite the storm raging inside him. “You won’t. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Y/n’s breath caught in her throat at the intensity of his words, the promise that lay beneath them. She had always known that Logan was dangerous, that he was capable of doing terrible things in the name of survival. But this was different. This was about something deeper, something that scared her more than any Sentinel ever could. Before she could say anything else, Logan leaned down, his lips brushing against her forehead in a gesture that was both tender and possessive. Y/n’s heart fluttered at the contact, her emotions a tangled mess of fear and longing.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Logan murmured, his voice rough with emotion. “Even if it means keeping you away from everyone else.”

Y/n closed her eyes, the weight of his words settling over her like a heavy blanket. She knew that Logan’s protectiveness came from a place of love, that he cared for her more deeply than he would ever admit. But she also knew that his possessiveness could be dangerous, that it could drive a wedge between them if she wasn’t careful.

When Logan finally pulled away, Y/n felt the loss of his warmth like a physical blow. She opened her eyes to find him watching her, his expression torn between desire and something darker.

“We should go,” Logan said, his voice strained. “The others are waiting.”

Y/n nodded, her heart heavy with the knowledge that their relationship had just crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. As they made their way back to the group, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to change, that the fragile bond they had built was about to be tested in ways they couldn’t possibly imagine.

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

The journey to the next safe house was tense, the silence between Y/n and Logan growing heavier with each passing moment. Jake tried to make conversation a few times, but the mood was too dark, the unspoken tension too palpable for any lighthearted banter to cut through.

When they finally reached their destination, a rundown building that had once been a school, Y/n was relieved to see that the other mutants were already inside, safe and sound. But the relief was short-lived. The moment they stepped through the door, they were met with the sight of another mutant standing in the center of the room, his presence radiating a power that made the air hum with electricity.

Y/n recognized him instantly—Erik, a mutant with the ability to control metal. He was a legend among their kind, both revered and feared for his abilities and his ruthless determination to protect mutantkind at all costs.

“Erik,” Y/n greeted him, her voice wary. “What are you doing here?”

Erik’s gaze swept over the group, his expression unreadable. “I heard you were in need of assistance.”

Y/n ’s heart sank at the words, at the implications behind them. Erik’s help always came with a price, one that Y/n wasn’t sure she was willing to pay.

“We’re managing,” she said carefully, glancing at Logan for support.

Logan’s expression was unreadable, but Y/n could sense the tension in him, the way his muscles were coiled, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

Erik’s gaze flicked to Logan, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve made an interesting choice of allies, Y/n.”

Y/n ’s heart skipped a beat at the subtle jab, at the way Erik’s eyes seemed to gleam with something that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Logan’s been a great help,” Y/n said, her voice steady despite the fear gnawing at her insides.

Erik’s smile widened, but there was no warmth in it. “I’m sure he has. But his methods... they’re not always in line with what’s best for our kind.”

Logan’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. Y/n could feel the anger radiating off him, the barely contained rage that was so close to the surface.

“We’re doing what we can to survive,” Y/n interjected quickly, trying to diffuse the situation before it escalated. “That’s all that matters right now.”

Erik’s gaze shifted back to her, his smile fading into something more serious. “Survival is important, yes. But so is our future, Y/n . And sometimes, to secure that future, we have to make sacrifices.”

Y/n’s stomach churned at the words, at the implications behind them. She knew that Erik was right in some ways, that their survival depended on making tough decisions. But she also knew that Logan wouldn’t take kindly to any suggestion that involved putting her or anyone else at risk.

“I’m not interested in making sacrifices,” Logan growled, his voice low and threatening. “Especially not when it comes to Y/n.”

Erik’s eyes gleamed with a cold amusement. “And there it is—the possessiveness of the Wolverine. It’s almost... predictable.”

Y/n’s heart pounded in her chest as she glanced between the two men, the tension in the room reaching a fever pitch. She knew that if something wasn’t done to diffuse the situation, things could get out of hand quickly.

“Erik, we appreciate your concern,” Y/n said, stepping forward and placing a hand on Logan’s arm, trying to calm him down. “But we’re handling things in our own way. Logan’s methods might be unorthodox, but they work. And right now, that’s all that matters.”

Y/n’s gaze lingered on her for a long moment, as if weighing her words. Finally, he nodded, though his expression remained guarded. “Very well, Y/n . But remember—sometimes the only way to truly survive is to let go of the things that hold us back.”

With that, Erik turned and walked out of the room, leaving Y/n and Logan alone in the thick silence that followed his departure. Y/n let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, her hand still resting on Logan’s arm.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, looking up at him.

Logan’s expression softened as he looked down at her, some of the anger fading from his eyes. “I’m fine, Y/n. But we need to be careful. Erik’s not someone to be trusted.”

Y/n nodded, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that Erik’s words had struck a chord with Logan. There was a darkness in his eyes, a shadow that hadn’t been there before, and it made her worry about what the future held for them.

As they rejoined the others, Y/n couldn’t help but feel that things were about to get a lot more complicated. The fragile peace they had managed to maintain was hanging by a thread, and she had a feeling that it wouldn’t take much to tear it apart.

And as she glanced at Logan, she knew that the possessiveness he felt for her, the fierce protectiveness that drove him, could either be their salvation—or their undoing.

[la2yn0va]

Hey there, it's a bit of sudden but I have an idea, it's about Self Aware HSR react to Illusion Curse User!Male Reader. So basically it's like he's having and power of a magician but on whole different level, like he can trap people (or even the most advanced AIs and Machines) into an endless cycle of illusion which they can't escape unless he wants them to, 'temporarily' revive someone even though some of them can't be revived normally, advanced memories manipulation (erase, restore, control, or even rewrite/overwrite someone's memories). A good question is, is he really a dangerous individual to face with that kind of power he possessed? Even though he's very friendly towards anyone... Since he just using it for entertainment and out of boredom...yeah.

Your powers never fail to leave them in awe. But they shouldn’t except anything less from you. All of them are of course very impressed and interested in your powers. While some bring up worries on your casual usage of such immense power, they immediately get shut down by others or you just nonchalantly dismissing it.

They would always ask you for things that has to do with your power. The intelligentsia guild and genius society would ask you if they can run some test with your power. The IPC would love to use your power for their own business (pretty sure you can guess what they want)

Belabog would love for you to put them in a world where the eternal freeze disappears, the xianzhou alliance would love for you to use your powers to make all their enemies vegetables.

Penacony? They’d see your power as the upgrade to their whole dream bullshit. They’ll ask you to assist them in making penacony a better place—a more PERFECT dream. Then there’s others who have more.. ‘personal’ requests.

Jingliu would ask for Baiheng to be revived so she could get closure. She’d be on her knees practically kissing your feet—BEGGING for you to accept her request. Blade asks for Dan Feng to be revived just to kill him again—this happens daily btw.

Luocha would ask for Yaoshi death. Hanya would want some time in an illusion where Xyuei didn’t become a robot and still had her human form. Firefly wants an illusion where her friends/planet weren’t invaded by the swarm yet still existed.

Eventually, it’s inevitable that the factions would have battles or even wars for you. They want YOU and your power for themselves, but before it could escalate into anything major, you put a stop to it, threatening to leave the universe. So they stop, they wouldn’t want such an outcome.

And just as a safeguard, you put the IPC’s scheming asses in an illusion where they believe you did help them with their bullshit, while your REAL self would help the actual people, because FUCK the government.



[shadowmaat]

Jedi Service Corps

The Legends-fueled propaganda of "bad students get sent to the Agricorp/Services" has always bothered me. First of all, forcing kids into a career not of their choosing isn't the best way to encourage them to perform well.

The Services in general seem to get a bad rap, and TBH it's kind of bizarre to assume that every kid who winds up being taken in by the Jedi wants to grow up to be a cop. LOL!

There is so much untapped potential being ignored, and even within the four pseudo-canon branches there's a lot to explore.

Agriculture. Farmers Without Borders. LOL! It isn't just about growing plants, it's about analyzing trends, understanding ecosystems, geology, climatology, politics, etc. There's mechanical engineering so you know how to fix the machines that do the hardest labor (often illegally, given corporate software locks and so forth). Probably a lot of fiddly stuff with plant genetics, too, given similar issues with seed corporations.

Being Jedi, I'm sure they're also aware of the need to include "ornamental" plants to help with the emotional welfare of hurting/devastated populations.

Education. This field must be fucking wild. Sure, you have your future creche masters and archivists, but I imagine there are those who do public outreach, too, and go to schools to teach kids about what the Jedi do beyond waving laser swords. There's probably also a need for teachers in isolated/rural areas to help with basic things like reading, writing, and maths. Ditto areas devastated by wars and natural disasters, where kids need a safe distraction from trauma. I bet Educorp and Agricorp team up more often than people might think.

There's also the sheer variety of topics. Even something basic like history will have a wide net. Galactic history, region-specific, planetary, etc. And then there's the arts. Music, singing, dance, physical media, holo media, theatre, and so much more. There will be differences between species, understanding what they need to know, how they learn best, and what their aging process is like. Teachers to cover the full range of mortal maturity, from teaching toddlers to old-timers. And don't get me started on teaching "forbidden" topics in repressive communities.

Medical. LOL. Every. Single. Species. And often subtypes between them. So many specialists needed. And again, you probably have a number that specialize in helping in disaster areas. Hello, Educorp, let's help teach these people how to best care for themselves. Maybe Agricorp can help with showing folks how to purify their air and water. There must be SO many diseases, some of which have inoculations and so that don't. And again, figuring ways to smuggle medicine and supplies to those who need it despite the extortionist rates corporations charge. Repairing faulty equipment, finding work-arounds when the parts aren't there. Triage. Using the Force to help heal is all well and good, but sometimes they still have to get hands-on.

Even with non-emergency stuff, I imagine they're still kept busy. The idea of a Jedi "country doctor" settled in some remote area sounds delightful. Communities that get "lost" in the shuffle or otherwise overlooked. Veterinary medicine as a sub-specialty.

Jedi having a special "knack" for determining what's wrong with someone, finding early warning signs before it's too late, etc. Comforting the dying. Comforting the survivors. ALL the mental health stuff and neurodivergence.

Exploration. Jedi Starfleet. LOL! It isn't all about discovering new worlds, though. Sometimes it's rediscovering planets and cultures that have been forgotten. Charting new hyperlane routes and hoping the end doesn't pop you out in the middle of a star.

I betcha you could fold so many things into this one. Botany. Archaeology. Xenoanthropology. Medicine, of course, since new worlds/people means new poisons, venoms, and diseases. New or ancient languages? It'd help to have someone around who could work on translating. Diplomats to help you talk to people. Geologists. Zoologists. A bit of everything.

Sure, there'd be room for solo missions, but I imagine there'd be bigger ships that they'd launch from. A place to come back to so the brains can pore over everything you brought back and see what they can determine from it. And big ships (or any ships really) means pilots, engineers, general crew, logistics, and all those fun things.

Anyway, I can see plenty of room for additional corps, too, but of the ones that get mentioned in Legends there's still a huge playing field.