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finalrespite · 3 years ago

Text

VisionBIOS 4.0 (Low Power Mode)

BIOS Date 13/08/██ 18:09:03 Ver. 39.201

“Clockwork” UNIT XE116.

System ID = 0711146049

Build Time; 30/09/██ 04:28:09

CPU = Helix Rapture(R) ADS7200 Processor @ 6.2THz

(CPUID;03HW PatchID;06EW)

Commencing Systems Check

Memory Test; 239084572637

---

ERROR;0x0000346

ERROR;0x0000447

ERROR;0x0000620

ERROR;0x0000735

ERROR;0x0000436

ERROR;0x0000548

ERROR;0x0000232

ERROR;0x0000502

ERROR;0x0000456

ERROR;0x0000659

ERROR;0x0000319

ERROR;0x0000636

Info; Numerous instances of fragmented/corrupted data were detected in memory testing. Instances have been discarded or quarantined. Subsequent memory loss is likely. See error logs for further details on individual codes.

Analysis; Discarded data has no additional extensive impact on memory unit adaptive performance. Status green. Resuming systems check protocols.

---

Activating Auxiliary SSD.

Initializing Tactical Log.

Loading Topographical Data.

Vitals Check: Orange

---

Critical Aberrations Detected. Initiating Emergency Diagnostic.

Reviewing SymSystems Regulatory Modules.

- SYMDIG; Green

- SYMNERV; Yellow = 15537/17200

- SYMDERM; Yellow = 15564/16600

- SYMPROC; Red = 5123/54000

- SYMOCUL; Green

WARNING!; Grade 5 damage sustained in nervous, dermal systems, regulatory processes. Vitality decreasing.

Switching to power saver mode; Diverting power from extraneous processes. Self-maintenance underway.

Estimated Time to Completion; 00:000:07:45:87

Note; Last Activity Recorded ███:███:██:██:██ ago. Self-maintenance duration projected below optimacy. External repairs highly recommended.

Vitality stabilized.

Reviewing MotoSystems Operations.

- MOTOLARM; Red = 1550/6000

- MOTORARM; Yellow = 5457/6000

- MOTOLLEG; Yellow = 7345/8500

- MOTORLEG; Yellow = 6352/8500

- MOTOSUP; Green

- MOTOTORSO; Yellow = 3487/3600

- MOTOBACKUP; Green

Info; Extensive (Grade 3-5) damage sustained in multiple motor systems. Projected capacity for movement well below optimacy; MotoBackup in effect. Self-maintenance extended.

Estimated Time to Completion: 00:005:14:12:53

Note; Power saver mode in effect in regards to aforementioned damage. Self-maintenance duration projected below optimacy. External repairs highly recommended.

Diagnostic Complete.

---

Core Status: Green

Ultima Protocol: Suspended

Activating IFF

FCS Suspended

Initializing Ancillary Node Connection

Node Status: Green

Node Dissonance: Nominal

DBU Setup Suspended

Epitaph Status: Green

Equipment Status: Yellow

---

Damage sustained. Structural integrity compromised.

Average Condition Rating 66/100. External repairs recommended.

---

ERROR;0x0000244

ERROR;0x0000428

ERROR;0x0000459

ERROR;0x0000441

ERROR;0x0000459

ERROR;0x0000501

ERROR;0x0000558

ERROR;0x0000431

ERROR;0x0000436

ERROR;0x0000550

ERROR;0x0000306

Info; Essential systems fail to meet the established advisable threshold for standard operations. Further extraneous actions are discouraged until repairs are complete. See error logs for further details on individual codes.

Systems Check Terminated. [Time Elapsed: 00:000:00:50:55]

4e4f532050524f4d45544945524f4e2046555455524f

==================================================================================================

Booting ...

…

Proceeding datalog has been retroactively added. Loading ...

Azys Lla. A sprawling floating continent, a momentous achievement in its own right, was once at the forefront of research for the Allagan Empire. Ultimately, it was consigned to isolation from the world with Allag’s fall, left to fester and crumble undisturbed over the ages. Just as man’s ambition had begotten it, however, so did man’s ambition eventually set it free.

While it - like the rest of Allag - was long forgotten by all but the most fervent of believers, somehow Ishgard had harnessed these whispers to open and expose Azys Lla once more. While efforts to harness the Warring Triad were consequently thwarted and gutted, the tainted complex still held countless secrets to yield to the clever, bold and reckless.

Someone like Aidea.

Unceremoniously the young Hyuran woman eased around tight defense and busted her way through a vent, kicking away the plate and landing into a darkened chamber. She stood up fast, brushing her hair from her face - locks of bright and pale blonde, almost pink. Ruby eyes tried to scan the room to no avail. “Bit - light, please!”

Her companion, a small winged drone in the fashion of an Allagan or magitek bit, complied and illuminated the room with a built-in light. The scene it revealed was somewhat dense and cluttered, filled with containers, inactive nodes and other esoteric devices. An isolated storeroom, evidently. Something in particular therein, however, prompted the Bit to mechanically chime in. “Warning! Automaton signal detected. Hostile status unknown.”

Not deterred in the slightest, Aidea proceeded to scour the crates and goods on a mission, opening whatever she could. “CPU drive… CPU drive… where is it...?”

Maybe she could crack open one of those defunct nodes?

It was in this line of focus and lapse and judgement that she nearly tripped on something at her feet, something big. “Ah!”

The Bit shone upon what could be described as a round metal hatch, rising up a few ilms from the intricate steel floor with a diameter of around three fulms. A handle was embedded in the surface.

“Hmmm…” Aidea pondered and stood before it, squatting down and firmly tugging at the handle. After a minute wherein it was clear the hatch would not budge whatsoever, she stood back up and wiped her brow. “Think you can do anything about this, Bit?”

“Analysing…” The Bit scanned the room for a moment, until it focused on a panel toward the far side of the chamber. “Analysis: Power needs to be reestablished within the parameter before hatch can be breached. Electrical conduit should be accessible through the available terminal. However, it is advised--”

“Okay! Access that terminal and help me open this hatch!” Aidea pointed resolutely, and without disputing her order further the Bit flew over to the terminal panel. Steadily it extended an apparatus as a key to meet the lock-like slot in the terminal. Aidea watched and waited while the Bit whirred, still the sole light source in the storeroom… though not for long. A hum began to permeate, and the chamber began to flicker lines and screens in a blue and green neon glow.

“Much better. Now, let’s give this another try…” Aidea girded up and squatted back down, pulling with all that she had. As the hatch continued to resist, her irritation mounted, until… Let’s try something else! With that, she instead pressed the hatch in. With a hiss, it began to give in. “Righty tighty… lefty--” The girl couldn’t finish that verbal thought as she twisted the handle counter-clockwise, and no sooner did the hatch door rocket toward the ceiling, sending her stumbling back.

There had to have been a better way to do that.

<♪>

The “door” she had released was merely the top of an eight-fulm-tall structure, one that made Aidea shudder as it reminded her of Garlean magitek containment pods. Pods for active or living beings, although its make was decisively Allagan. The sounds of pressure being released, along with cool nondescript gas leaking, falling low to the floor as the pod’s segments parted four ways.

Its segments folded around a single long platform that was then laid out before Aidea, revealing to her a figure. A body. Like her, it appeared to be that of a feminine Hyur, albeit of a taller build and deeper tone of skin. It was clear at a glance that they were in disarray, violet and scarlet-highlighted hair disheveled, light - almost alien - armor fractured and torn.

“Is this… an Allagan? A clone, maybe? No... The automaton.” Aidea had stood back up and approached the yet-motionless figure, giving a couple of light taps to the metal visor that concealed their absent gaze. Upon closer inspection she could see that the automaton was even worse for wear than she could initially tell. Layers of (hopefully) synthetic skin had been ripped to reveal degrees of stress trauma all across the body, from the underlying outer shell to the endoskeleton, beneath countless immaculate fibers.

"Goodness, she's so lifelike… Were it not for the damage, I could've even assumed her an adventurer." Aidea eased herself on to the edge of the platform where the automaton laid and sat beside it, to the disapproving beeps of her companion. "I wonder for how long…" With the extent of these injuries, she was willing to figure they were a direct result of Allag's own Calamity.

Whatever had transpired for certain, it also became clear to Ai that this particular automaton had been stored away with haste, to protect it from further degradation, and subsequently long forgotten.

"Um, hello. Can you hear me? You emitted a core signal so you appear to still be functional, I think." Despite Aidea's insistence, the automaton had no response to offer. A snap of her fingers was all she needed to prompt Bit to shine a narrowed light on the subject, allowing her to better inspect what she was dealing with.

As far as she could tell, the automaton indeed had power remaining, but was only able to retain a nominal amount in this state. All arms and legs had been damaged to varying extent, the left arm in the worst condition of all, yet it was the torso that concerned Aidea the most. Damage there was for the better part superficial, yet key processes seemed to suffer some manner of critical impact - severing the link between the core and other key functions, leading to a gradual loss of all energy but that in reserves.

“Hmm. Your motor functions are malfunctioning for sure. I can attempt a field repair here, but we’ll need to get you somewhere safe to update…well, everything. Motor cortex, external stimuli receptors, environmental sensors, OS…” Aidea pulled out a small device that appeared to be akin to a soldering iron. “At the very least, I can fix your torso. Also this arm -- I think the legs can handle small excursions, so the rest can wait for now.” Lacking the materials herself, she stepped back and scoured crates for whatever she could benefit from.

“Okay, here goes!” Having returned with connector cables and Allagan cermet, she did her best to die and bond cables and fibers together, feeling like somewhere between a machinist and a chirurgeon tying guts together. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this… Whoever made you put a lot of love into their work! Still, I have at least a baseline I can work with for Allagan standards, and this should suffice until we can get you to a proper workshop.” Infusing her tool with fire magic, she welded cermet to the more egregious damage until it resembled being patched up with armor plating.

“That should cover the necessities. Now, let’s see about starting you up… Though you’re still bound to this bed!” Aidea poked at the cuffs that, as she could guess, helped keep the automaton secure in the pod. However, it was for the moment beyond her why they hadn’t also released when the pod also opened. “If you have any port on your body I can charge with I sure can’t see it as long as you’re stuck here… Bit, with me.” Aidea gestured and rushed over toward the terminal and module displays. “There must be a way. Wait just a bit more!”

…

Safety protocols manually bypassed.. Releasing pod restraints.

Transcribing results for interaction events with the selected criteria. Threat assessment response details omitted.

I woke up with a start, trembling - all involuntary, like I had been trying to move but was being held back by a constant force. It registered that it had been a long time since I had moved. How long I could not ascertain. I felt - tired. Tired was what I was given to feel when my energy had been all but depleted. Still I had to get up. I had an inexplicable urge to just get up.

“[Initiating O-Override Co-Code AS135 … Power r-reserves critical be-below t-ten percent … Core en-energy output resto-stored; Self m-maintenance ti-time decre-creased to appro-proximately seven hours, fo-forty-three min-in-inutes and …]”

The girl had by this point turned back around with a measure of shock and awe in her tone. “You spoke? You’ve been freed! But I didn’t… W-wait!” She rushed back to my side, and nearby my ancillary node had been fully activated in tandem, further startling her. “Wah! Um… Hi! Good morning!” While the node provided a cursory scan to update language drivers, I struggled to push myself up into a seating position. My head jerked abruptly to get optics myself for the first time on this girl. I could not recognize the form beyond that of a Hyur... but the eyes felt so familiar. I could only present one query.

“A-are you-u … m-my master…?”

The girl tilted her head a slight. “‘Master’? No, I-- I just rebooted you.”

The simplicity and uncertainty behind the answer prompted me to get defensive, as I attempted to get up. “Th-then identify-tify yours-yourself. Are y-you an int--” My motor systems were betraying me in this state. I began to fall forward. It was clear that I was in no place to confront anyone.

“Whoa!” Aidea stepped forward to catch me from falling. “There, there, easy…” She turned me a little towards the side and eased me back into sitting on the edge of the platform. Though I couldn’t see her at that moment I could then sense her eyes on my back. She tugged at what appeared to be further large holes in the back of my suit.

“Ah, found ‘em!” She bent down to grab a pair of large cables, hooking them up to the nape of my neck and further down my spine. They appeared to be wired to me from the nearby terminal. Already I began to feel calmer, more energized. “There, try not to push yourself for a bit.”

She straightened my position and seat beside me, pulling me close to where I was leaning somewhat limply against her.

“Now, I’m sorry to say that whatever master you had before is long gone. I think it’s been five millennia, in fact.”

I did not know how to process an answer out of that straight away. I only knew, by the basic information of the startup log, that it was not a lie.

“As for who I am, um--” She was abruptly cut off by the apparent clockwork bit in her company, much to her chagrin. “Introduction: Aidea 08 is an old model clone designed for close quarter combat and software maintenance.”

She is a clone…? “...Acknowledged…” I looked up a little, as I ran a quick background check through the ancillary node. “I do not recognize the designation, Aidea 08, but it cannot be disputed that your physiology contains elements indicative of an aetherochemical cloning procedure.”

Aidea 08 nodded back, and was ready to deflect. “Um, yes, that’s right… You seem to be coming through better. How are you feeling now? And, do you have a designation of your own?”

I paused for a moment… How I was was one thing, but… Who was I again?

“Overall power 35% and increasing… energy distribution stable… Approximately forty-five points of trauma or disrepair, taking into account the five-thousand and fourteen years of stasis… You will have to forgive me on this one.”

“It’s alright. Take all the time you need.”

“As for designation… I am... Clockwork Unit XE116, System ID 0711146049. Keyword - Vision One.”

Aidea scanned my person, patting my shoulder gently with her hand. “I see! Or, at least I think I see. Well, how about I just call you Vision? Or maybe One. I don’t know, something about ‘Vision’ doesn’t sound right for some reason… And you can call me Aidea! Or just Ai. No numbers, okay?”

“Vision… One… Ai… Acknowledged. You may call me either. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress Aidea.”

“Hey, nono, no, no mistress stuff. Just Aidea or Ai. We’re friends now!” This prompted a series of confused beeps from the bit close by. Aidea paid it no mind while she sat me upright and draped what seemed to be her jacket around my shoulders. I took the edge of it in my hand. It did seem fair that I was somewhat exposed with the state my equipment was in.

“We are friends? … It is good to have a friend.” Perhaps I could have argued, but I felt a natural pull to Aidea. Maybe it was because she was a clone, an artificial legacy for Allag herself, I believed I could trust her. Slowly I began to stand again, and Aidea pulled the cables out from beneath the jacket.

She locked her arm with mine, as I planted my feet firmly on the floor, and smiled. “You’re really impressive, Miss One. You may have the jargon but you really do pass as a normal Hyur like me in every way. Um, very pretty, too… Sharlayan couldn’t even do that much with their, uh, weird dolls.”

My thoughts honed in on that name. “...What is Sharlayan? And what of Allag? What has become of it in the five millennia of time?”

“Oh, well…” Aidea trailed off a little. “It’s rather complicated. Now that you’re up and moving, we can get you patched up! I’ll explain as we get you somewhere safer - Trust me, Azys Lla is not the place for that anymore.” She weighed her options, scanning the storeroom around her. She could probably gather some more materials for the road before they left.

“The realm overall is a little more… primitive than you probably know it, but we’ll work with it.” Aidea let go of me for a moment so that she could face me directly, holding her hands before her. “My home’s a ways away, but there is a town even closer where a company of engineers have a presence! Actually… it is pretty close to the Crystal Tower, if you remember that. Seat of the Emperor?”

“Syrcus Tower…?” By way of context, I could glean that much and more had likely changed in the five thousand years of time, and not even the marvels of Allagan ingenuity could change that. Even still… “Does it stand? Even now? ...I have many gaps in my memory to fill. Please, Aidea, lead the way.”

...

The following is largely a summary of key thoughts and events. Aidea and I had escaped the storage quarters and made our way out of Azys Lla. Against that sinister bronze sky, she began to regale me with what she knew about past events. How the earthquake had buried the Crystal Tower and decimated the heart of Allag. How the realm had suffered further calamitous events that all but assured the Empire would remain forgotten for centuries to come, until a now-Saint Coinach would uncover its mythical existence in the Sixth Astral Era. How a new Empire would eventually rise, adapting Allagan secrets to subjugate wherever it could reach. How they would invite Calamity anew, and how this would inadvertently expose the Tower once more. How a clash of ambitions unlocked the way to Azys Lla… to me.

It was within this length of exposition that we had made our way between the dreary edifices of Ishgard, across the unseasonably frigid Coerthas, and finally through the gates of Revenant’s Toll. A sprawling outpost on the edge of civilization. Even as the level of stonework could be considered admirable… to call it all primitive in the face of the Allagans certainly could be considered an understatement.

Mankind was ever at odds with itself, fraught with seemingly endless perils that called upon the employ of adventurers, or glorified mercenaries. Nigh any relic that remained of Allag was often sought after for collection value without understanding, and even tomestones regularly fell in and out of trade through the hands of some sagacious entrepreneur.

Not all was so bleak however as an engineering company known as the Garlond Ironworks had cast its lot with Eorzea. Composed of some of the keenest and most inventive minds outside of the Garlean Empire, among their ranks many Garlean expatriates and defectors themselves, they have specialized in challenging the seemingly impenetrable Allag and bringing what is known now as magitek to the world.

As Aidea had indicated, the Ironworks did in fact establish a branch in Revenant’s Toll, and being in good graces with the people there she managed to talk her way into their workspace. Albeit she had to convince a friendly yet reasonably perplexed engineer that I was in fact an ex-Imperial soldier that had been augmented with experimental magitek. With their aid and full non-disclosure, Aidea carried out the rest of her repairs. Having bid me to lay low and convalesce, at one point she ran out and returned with so-called “sandwiches” from the Seventh Heaven to share between us. Perhaps she wished to confirm if I was capable of eating, visibly bringing her delight when I could.

Even with the high walls of Revenant’s Toll, I could unmistakably catch a glimpse of the Crystal Tower peeking beyond them, challenging the sky. I expressed the desire to get a closer look, and she informed me that there was a research camp further southeast that would provide a better glimpse. After my condition had improved, we ventured out to pay it a visit.

The sights that awaited me begged to be comprehended. Everywhere the earth was littered with giant, twisted steel. Even further still, closer to the Tower, countless massive clusters of crystals jutted out every conceivable way. Aidea’s disposition grew uncharacteristically somber, and she explained that the region of Mor Dhona used to be more significantly populated in recent times. That all changed some fifteen years back, when a great battle swept through. The loss of life was immense, and the land was so immeasurably scarred that even the great lake of Silvertear had partly drained from it. The name “Revenant’s Toll” evokes this tragedy, for in the end there was no one left to mourn the dead but the dead. ...Later still the Calamity that was the Fall of Dalamud only devastated Mor Dhona further, given its proximity to the epicenter of Carteneau, unearthing the likes of Syrcus Tower but just so leaving an objective wasteland of crystals in its wake.

A shadow of its former self, with an ever-open wound.

It was on this note that we arrived at the camp.

“Well, we’re here! Welcome to Saint Coinach’s Find, where the past lives on.” Aidea declared before the site, which was teeming with individuals in similar austere robes and caps, while what appeared to be hired hands from the Toll stood vigilant. Their tents and platforms were built around a series of tilted spires and arches.

Unmistakably Allagan architecture.

“So these are the Sons of Saint Coinach, then…?”

“Right! For all the chaos that was sown here, it did expose malms of ruins like these all around the base of Syrcus Tower… and then ultimately the Tower itself.” Aidea gestured toward the horizon. “This area has come to serve as the forefront of these scholars’ studies, with new fruits of their excavation being found every day.”

“To see these sunken structures so incredibly intact in a repeating ritual of time and destruction. Allagan innovation continues to impress.” My eyes danced from ruin to ruin… all the crystals in between… and… “And yet…” Tension inexplicably gripped me. Along the fractured ancient path I walked, slowly, my attention soon drawn southward to that ominous, rusting monolith rising from the lake. What remained of a great beast coiled around it. …It was those wings ever extended in defiance that struck me the most.

“...Miss One?” Aidea turned and jogged after me, until she was flanking me once more. I came to a stop at the outskirts of the camp.

“...What is that… structure, exactly, in the lake to the south?”

“Oh…” She looked ahead of her. “They call it the Keeper of the Lake. It’s what’s left of the Agrius, a great airship that led the Imperial fleet in the Battle of Silvertear -- only to be brought down by the equally massive Midgardsormr. The act sadly took his life as well when the ship’s ceruleum engines experienced a catastrophic failure… It’s a key part of why Mor Dhona is as it is today, the dragon’s remains ever entwined around the hull.”

“Midgardsormr? Dragons…?”

The Empire… The Empire, the Empire -- it all kept coming back to the damned Empire. Silvertear, Dalamud, the Ultima Weapon, the Warring Triad.

Death, destruction, despair.

Allag.

“Are you okay?” Aidea was looking at me. I looked at her, and saw the concern in her eyes. I realized I had involuntarily clenched my fists.

“I… I just…” I looked down at my hands. I looked up again, to the Keeper of the Lake. To the Crystal Tower. I dropped my arms to my sides.

“...I see ghosts. I can catch a glimpse of what this place used to be. A scintillant, thriving metropolis with a beacon of hope in the center of it all, piercing the very heavens. Home to thousands of people full of dreams and ideals.

“And yet… The Allagan Empire was nonetheless what it was. An empire. Its bright civilization was built on the backs of the dead and the broken. And in the end… the Emperor brought his might to bear - all that he worked for - against his own people...” My head drooped.

“I look at that hulking wreck in the lake and see a monument to tyranny and hubris both. How can I look at the Tower and see anything but the same? Maybe Allag’s ‘secrets’ should have never seen the light of day…”

I reached up with both hands and released the visor from in front of my eyes and just held it, looking down upon it. “Maybe I...”

“Vision…” Aidea bit her lip… although she was taken aback a little when she attempted to make eye contact with me again. “...You know, for some reason I thought that plate was grafted to your face or something.”

She folded one arm in front of her chest to hold her other arm. “You know… I escaped the Garlean Empire myself. They had but replicated Allag’s cloning technique, and…”

“...I... I’m sorry…”

“No, no, please don’t be.” Aidea stepped in front of me and placed her hands over my visor also. I lifted my head to look at her. “Look, it’s true Allag did bad things, and there are still those who would deign to use Allagan stuff for bad things, but that does not have to define you or me. That does not even have to define the ruins or the Tower. We can’t change the past, but that’s what it is - the past. Distant past, even. While it’s important to remember it, what we make of it today is what matters. I choose to believe that we can make good of it still, just like the Sons! Just like the Ironworks. I think you’re here for a reason too. You can also turn it around, you know?”

“Ai…” “Hey,” Aidea beamed, taking her hands off the visor. “If you’re that sensitive about it too, then I think that’s all the proof needed that you won’t follow that path. The future will be brighter and more beautiful with you.”

I gasped a little, my eyes sat downcast. But, for the first time, I felt like I could smile.

“... Thank you.”

“Mhm! … Um, may I offer you a hug?”

I could but scoff, as I donned my visor once again. “...Permission granted.” She came in and wrapped her arms tight around my waist. I returned the favor.

“It’s good to see you awake, Vision One.” “Well… it is good to be awake.”

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv rp #writing #drabble #vision one #allagan #aidea lee #this is a rewrite of a 2018 rp with @/yunkinko!

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feferipeixes · 4 years ago

Text

The Good Lines (1/3)

Trapped in an unfamiliar world, Alcor finds that he doesn’t mind the loneliness. He doesn’t care about finding a way out. He doesn’t even care about Mizar. All he cares about is solving puzzles, and drawing the good lines.

(or: I Think Dipper Should Play The Witness)

Chapter 1: Tutorial (link to chapter 2) (3)

I promised this a year ago and it’s finally happening! No knowledge about The Witness necessary -- this is basically a TAU fic. Thanks @toothpastecanyon for beta reading it!

(See the most updated version on AO3!)

===

One of the first signs that something was wrong was the silence.

Alcor didn't know when it had happened, but at some point he realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard a living thing. Sure, he could hear the grass crunch beneath his shoes, and the babble of the river cascading down the mountainside. When the silence got to be too much, he’d listen to those things as closely as he could.

He never heard a cicada screech, though, never heard a squirrel chitter, never heard a wolf howl. One time, he wandered through the forest and was assaulted by the chirping of birds, but when he looked closer he noticed that there were speakers hidden in the trees. That confused him even more, because who decided a forest needed assistance in creating an ambiance? Would the speakers switch from birds to crickets when it got dark out?

The next thing he noticed was that it never got dark out either.

Another strange thing: his magic wasn't working. He walked upon the ground instead of floating above it. He saw the physical shape of things instead of the shape of the ideas they embodied. And his hand didn't alight in flame when he snapped his fingers. He was still a demon -- he could see it in the pitch black reflection of his eyes when he looked in the ocean -- but it seemed less relevant right now. Which was without a doubt extremely odd.

However curious these things were though, he didn't have much of a chance to dwell on them. He was too busy drawing the good lines.

The panels were everywhere on the island. They were all sorts of materials -- some made of metal with a plastic border, some made of glass so he could see the scenery as he drew, and some were just embedded into the concrete he walked on. Many of them were connected with thick wires. They all had a grid of some sort on them, sometimes containing fanciful shapes and dots. All had one or more bulbous circles somewhere on the grid, as well as one or more rounded off ends. Some of them were pretty to look at, but he knew they weren't just for show. They were puzzles.

He couldn't remember when he'd discovered it. Maybe someone had told him (who? He was all alone). Maybe there were instructions on one of the panels (but he'd never seen any text on the island). Or maybe it was just instinct that led him to reach out and touch a panel, right on one of the large circles. It made a little popping noise, letting him know this was okay to do, and to keep going. So he dragged his claw across the grid, and as he did so, he drew a line. It was simple, it was effortless, it was satisfying. He drew the line around intersections in the grid to one of the rounded off bits and lifted his finger. The panel flashed angrily and highlighted some of the symbols on the grid.

Oh no. That was a Bad Line.

Frowning, he tried again; touching the circle, dragging his claw through the grid in a different pattern this time, and letting go at an end. The panel made a squeaky little beep, and the wire leading out of it lit up.

Alcor smiled. That was a Good Line.

---

There was a mountain at one end of the island. Well, it looked like a mountain, and the climate at the top was dramatically different from that at the bottom, but there was no way it was tall enough to really be considered a mountain. It only took a few minutes for Alcor to follow the path to the top, and he wasn’t even using any kind of demonic superspeed.

The summit was covered in weird stuff, but at this point Alcor would’ve been surprised if such a significant-looking location on this weird island wasn’t covered in weird stuff. Still, he wouldn’t have guessed that it would be covered in random statues of humans. There was an old man speaking at a podium, a figure in a trenchcoat using a camera on a tripod, a librarian gesturing angrily, and so on.

There were two statues at the center under three parabolic arches. One was a young man with a strange ladle-shaped mark etched onto his forehead, struggling to carry a large yellow box covered in images of eyes and which had a thick cable coming out of it. The other was a young woman in a sweater, holding the box’s cable taut and seemingly trying to pull the first statue back. All of the statues seemed vaguely familiar -- especially the two in the middle -- but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He eventually decided it was just because humans all look the same.

There was another thing he found while observing the statues: a tape recorder, sitting on a rock near the statue with the tripod. It looked positively archaic in design, and only had one button on it. When he pressed the button, the voice that came out was so clear that it was almost as if the words were being transmitted directly into his brain.

“Up there you go around every hour and a half, time after time after time.”

He frowned at the odd device and cocked his head. It was nice to hear a voice for the first time in what seemed like forever, but he had no idea what it was talking about. He pressed the button again to no effect. The voice just kept talking.

“And you realize that in one glance that what you’re seeing is what was the whole history of man for years.”

Whatever. He decided to ignore it and take in the lovely view instead. He could see almost the whole island from up there, from the desert to the quarry to the forest to the swamp. There was something stunning about the diversity of landscape he could see from one spot. And yet, it wasn’t quite the beauty of the sights before him that made him marvel. It was the thought of all of the unsolved puzzles he was yet to find.

“You finally come up across the coast of California and look for those friendly things.”

There only seemed to be one panel at the mountain’s summit, and it was hardly a puzzle -- just a single zigzagging line. Quick as a whistle, he tapped the starting node, dragged his finger up, and released. It made all of the same sounds the other panels did, but it was kind of disappointing. There was no challenge in it, nothing to occupy his mind or give him a sense of accomplishment. It wasn’t a Good Line or a Bad Line, it was just… a line.

Huh.

“And you do it again and again and again. You look forward to that, you anticipate it. And there it is. That whole process begins to shift of what it is you identify with.”

He set off down the mountain again, and headed toward the greenhouse he’d noticed on his way up. Just as he expected, it was full of puzzles. Surrounded by colorful flowers, he stared at a panel and thought, and thought, and thought.

Hours passed. He solved two more.

“You look down there and you can’t imagine how many borders and boundaries you crossed again and again and again. And you don’t even see ‘em. All of history and music and poetry and art and war and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it is on that little spot out there that you can cover with your thumb.”

Alcor bounced between areas on the island when he got stuck, always breezing past the scenery without a second glance because there were more important things to attend to. Across the island and toward the desert. Across the island to climb through a treehouse. Across the island to get lost in a boat. He waited for it to blur together but it never did.

“And you realize with that perspective that you’ve changed. That there’s something new there. That relationship is no longer what it was.”

It was peculiar, if he did let himself think about it. He didn’t want to -- didn’t want to give the voice that kind of victory -- but in between panels he sometimes needed a little break and there were only a limited number of things to put his attention to in this place. So, occasionally, he let himself wonder why he was alone.

This was not an unfamiliar question for him. He could come up with a million reasons for it right off the top of his head. He was immortal, so maybe everyone else in the universe was just dead. He was a monster, so maybe everyone else in the universe was just scared of him. He was a dream demon, so maybe he was just buried so deep in the Mindscape that he couldn’t find his way out.

Somehow, none of those reasons felt like the truth. If they were, he’d probably be sadder.

“And you think about what you’re experiencing and why. Do you deserve this? This fantastic experience? Have you earned this in some way? Are you separated out to be touched by God to have some special experience here that other men cannot have? You know the answer to that is No. There’s nothing that you’ve done that deserves that, that earned that.”

Besides, there wasn’t anything to be sad about, if he really really thought about it over and over again until words lost all meaning. He was Alcor the Dreambender, after all! He was the most powerful entity in the universe. Feared like a demon by the masses, revered like a deity by the foolish. All because he’d had the great fortune to rid the world of a villainous creature of destructive chaos.

He did deserve it. He was special. He spent a day lying face up on a rooftop in the town, thinking these things to himself on loop.

“When you come back, there’s a difference in that world now, there’s a difference in that relationship between you and that planet, and you and all those other forms of life on that planet, because you’ve had that kind of experience.”

Past the town there was a little peninsula with some sort of old building on it. Alcor made his way over, but when he got there he was dismayed to find not a single puzzle in sight. There was, however, a statue of a man kneeling on the floor. Alcor jumped when he saw it out of the corner of his eye, reaching for him with a crazed look on its face, but relaxed when he realized it wasn’t alive.

It was an odd sight, to be sure. Alcor followed its gaze to a glass shelf behind him, on which sat a chalice of some sort. He reached up to grab it -- almost knocking the shelf over as he did -- and cautiously stuck his tongue in.

Whatever was in the cup, he thought as he walked away from the building, it was delicious.

“And all through this I’ve used the word ‘you’ because it’s not me, it’s you. It’s us. It’s we. It’s life. And it’s not just my problem to integrate, it’s not my challenge to integrate, my joy to integrate -- it’s yours, it’s everybody’s.”

There was a long pause, and Alcor thought the recording might finally be over. He took a sip of his drink and smiled. Back to thinking about the current puzzle. It was a tough one -- three different colors of symbols on it -- and he was glad that the voice wasn’t distracting him from it anymore.

And then:

”Please come back, Dipper.”

Alcor did a spit take at the sound of his true name. The panel he was working on made a sizzling noise and deactivated.

“Did that work? Can you hear me?”

He shot to his feet and looked around in all directions. No one. He was still as alone as ever.

“You’re not responding so I don’t know if what you’re doing is just a coincidence.”

“What? Hello?” he yelled.

“Oh, thank the stars, it worked! Dipper you have to get out of here.”

“What are you talking about?” he sputtered. “Who are you?”

There was the sound of a deep breath, inexplicably broadcast from the sky. “I’m your sister, S- I mean, uh. Mizar. I’m Mizar.”

Alcor’s eyes widened. “Mizar?”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to contact you for so long. I can’t believe it finally worked.”

“I don’t understand. What finally worked?”

“You need to listen to me. This isn’t the real world. You’re in a virtual reality game.”

“I’m what?” Alcor said. He backed up, accidentally leading himself to the edge of the platform he was standing on, but instead of falling off, his back hit a wall. He spun around to see what had happened, but there was nothing there. “Mizar? I’m- I’m so confused.”

Mizar sighed. “I told you. None of this is real. It’s a computer program. Haven’t you noticed that things aren’t quite right?”

“Well, yeah,” Alcor replied. He flapped his wings, but stayed firmly glued to the ground. “My demon powers don’t work. Honestly though that’s fine with me. I’m just having fun drawing the good lines.”

“The what?” Mizar demanded, incredulous.

“The good lines!” Alcor squeaked, and waved at the puzzles behind him. “I don’t know what they’re for or what they do, but I’ve been so busy solving all these puzzles that I’ve barely thought about… why… things are… off…”

He trailed off, and Mizar sniffed.

“That’s the point. They’re there to keep you occupied.”

Alcor frowned. “Why though? Who’d go to so much effort to make all of this for me?”

There was no response.

---

Alcor continued to solve puzzles. He didn’t know why Mizar’s voice had stopped, but he was glad it had -- she was the true distraction, not the puzzles. And yet every once in a while, he’d be staring at a particularly difficult panel with one of those Y-shaped symbols on it that made no sense to him, and his mind would begin to wander.

And when it did, he’d notice another one of those tape recorders nearby. There were a lot of them on the island, and they all had boring quotes from philosophers or whatever on them. But then Mizar’s voice would cut in, with a note of glee like she’d thought he’d never speak to her again. Every time she sounded more and more desperate for him to leave. And every time it made him feel more and more frustrated.

“Okay, so,” Alcor said as Mizar's voice faded in for the 20th or so time, “you said last time you might’ve figured out who made this island.” He didn't look up or take his finger off the panel in front of him.

There was a rustling noise, and then a loud pop. “Sorry, had to plug in my headphones. That’s right, though. I’ve done some more research since then and I’m sure of it now.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“It was an advanced artificial intelligence,” Mizar replied. “I think you might be familiar with it. It’s called ‘the Alcor Virus’.”

“Oh.” Alcor paused for a moment. “Yeah, I wrote him to mess with fanfic writers. Why do you think he made the island?”

“I don’t think,” Mizar said. “It definitely did. There’s traces of it all over the computer network in this building.”

“There’s traces of him all over every device with a processor in the whole world,” Alcor countered. “He’s a really good virus. I’m very proud of him.”

Mizar groaned. “I also found its executable embedded in the binary for this game. Also a few summoning circles, and a big ASCII art picture of it giving me the middle finger.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “Why, though?”

“How should I know?” Mizar said, with more than a note of irritation in her voice. “I’m not a psychologist and I’m definitely not a computer scientist. Also why does it matter ‘why’ it’s doing this? Isn’t it time to get out of there already? I’ve already asked you like a million times!”

“No!” Alcor exclaimed, throwing his hands up. He walked out of the structure he’d been standing in and headed toward an area with some shady trees in which he’d noticed puzzles he hadn’t solved yet. “I like it here. It’s fun for me. And I deserve a vacation from all the people who bother me all the time. Why would I leave?”

“Because you can’t just run away from your problems!” Mizar shot back. “You think this is healthy? Literally living in a virtual reality world so you don’t have to talk to anyone anymore? How do you think I feel?”

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Horrible! I thought you cared about me, Dipper, but all you care about are those stupid puzzles! Stars, sometimes you act like such a demon!”

Alcor frowned. “You know that I -”

“Yes, I get it, you ARE a demon and you can’t help it that you’re a selfish piece of shit. I GET it. Is this how it’s really going to end? You’re just going to turn me down after I’ve spent all this time trying to get you out?”

Alcor’s ears turned red as he felt Mizar’s furious, extraplanar glare land on him. “It really means that much to you that I leave?”

He heard Mizar smack herself in the face. “Yes, yes, a hundred times yes! It kills me that you’re not in my life anymore! You probably thought I could get along just fine without you and no one would be affected by you staying forever on your fantasy puzzle island vacation, huh? Why do you think I keep asking you? I’m starting to get sick of it!”

Alcor felt every muscle in his body tense up at that. He squeezed his eyes shut as Mizar continued to shout, tried to fend off the words violently striking at his ego, and only opened them again when she cut off mid-word. The light on the tape recorder had turned off.

He tried to let himself relax again but he couldn’t. It felt like his chest had become a black hole and it was taking all he had not to shrink up into a tiny little dot and vanish. He hated being yelled at. Hated it.

Maybe Mizar was right, though. Maybe he was just being a selfish jerk. He'd done it before. Countless times, to countless Mizars, his self-serving actions had caused harm to mortals and it was always his fault because he couldn't put himself in their shoes. Maybe he was a monster after all. It was just like a monster to have wants and needs that inevitably end up hurting people.

Alcor exhaled, long and heavy, and pressed the button on the tape again. When the pre-recorded message ended and Mizar’s shouts returned, he interrupted her.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

#gravity falls #transcendence au #the witness #dipper pines #alcor the dreambender #mizar #reincarnation #fic #my stuff #long post #the good lines

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master-sass-blast · 5 years ago

Text

You Can Always Go Back Home.

THIS FIC IS 22K WORDS LONG. 61 PAGES IN WORD. THREE WEEKS OF WRITING!!!

VALIDATE MY PARKING P L E A S E !!!!

Summary: You wake up alone in a cell with no windows. The following days are nothing short of Hell on Earth.

Rating: M for physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, manipulation, injury, blood, vomiting, mental health stuff, panic attacks, kidnapping, and H E A V Y A N G S T.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, Frank Castle x Karen Page, and Alexandra Rasputin x Nikolai Rasputin.

Set after “The Literal Crack Fic.”

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo

You wake up alone.

Okay, not necessarily disturbing.

You’re in an unfamiliar room with no windows, no conceivable exits, and no memory of how you got here.

Definitely disturbing, and also worrisome, troubling, anxiety-inducing, alarming, perplexing, and… other adjectives…

You push yourself off a small cot. You’re dressed in a baggy white shirt and baggier white pants, someone’s taken your engagement ring, and upon inspection you realize that someone’s put a mutation repression collar on your neck. Okay. Might be time to panic.

There’s a door on the wall opposite where the cot sits. It goes practically flush to the floor and ceiling, has no handle on the inside, and has a small hatch at the base that is currently closed, as your luck would have it.

There’s a couple of vents pumping out cool air along the line where the walls meet the ceilings; they’re far too small to try and escape through –though, without your powers, it’s not like you could get the covers off anyway.

At the far end of the room –not that you have to go far to get to it—is a bathroom. Upon inspection, it only holds a toilet, a small wastebasket, and a sink; checking the drawer attached to the base reveals a small hairbrush, a toothbrush, and some toothpaste. The cabinet underneath has a couple packages of toilet paper and some menstrual products.

This is a holding cell, that much is obvious. You’re meant to be here a long time, judging by the amount of toilet paper and toiletries.

You frown.

Kidnappings aren’t all that uncommon with the X-Men –an unfortunate hazard of the job, one might say. It would seem that you’ve been snatched up –but by who? Are the rest of the X-Men here with you, in different cells? Was someone targeting the X-Force specifically? Did some of your uncle’s enemies figure out where you were and grab you to get to him?

You try to walk back through your memories, but nothing fruitful comes of it. The last thing you can remember is waking up next to Piotr –but was that a few hours ago, or a few days ago?

You suppose it doesn’t matter, in the long run. You’re trapped for now, but someone will look for you eventually and come rescue you. All you have to do, for the time being, is wait.

You head back to the cot with a sigh and plop down as you prepare yourself for the mind-numbing boredom that awaits you.

***

The first hint comes when a meal –lunch or dinner, presumably, judging by the contents—is shoved through the hatch at the bottom of the door on a small tray.

There’s no anxiety medication.

Either whoever’s holding you doesn’t know you’re on antidepressants, or they intend for you to suffer.

You sigh heavily as you crack open a little mini bottle of water and sip from it –then grimace; it tastes like room-temperature plastic bottle.

Judging by the lack of any recording equipment whatsoever –cameras, microphones, speakers, nothing—these people are amateurs. They’re not particularly concerned about you breaking out –which even with your powers gone, if they knew anything about you, they should be. You’ve built a career out of getting out of tough situations.

So, whoever these chumps are, they haven’t done their homework on how to keep you stable –or done any real homework on your past “is a mutant,” it would seem.

Admittedly, that would stack things in your favor, except you’ll be facing withdrawals before too awful long. Hopefully, you can figure out how to get the mutation collar off and escape before you get too deep into those.

You bite into what is arguably the blandest turkey sandwich of your life and lean back against a pristinely painted white wall. Karma, don’t fuck me over now.

***

There’s no mirror in the bathroom.

You notice after your meal, when you try to head in and twist the collar around so you can see what make and model you’re working with –a short lived plan, to say the least; without a mirror, there’s not much you can do to figure out what you’re working with.

Still, you can at least get a sense of the locking mechanism –keypad, key, fingerprint scanner—from touch.

You smooth your hands around the collar, then grimace when you only find a solid plastic node on the back of it. Shit.

These types of collars, as your uncle had taught you, are lockdown collars. They’re meant to go on and stay on, to permanently render a mutant incapable of accessing their powers. No keypad to hack, no lock to pick, no fingerprint scanner to override. The only way to get the damn thing off is short circuit it or cut it off.

Just your luck, there aren’t any scissors in your little cell.

***

The boredom kicks in fast. There’s only so many times you can analyze your surroundings or make escape strategies before you start to lose your mind from the repetition.

There’s not too much to be said for pacing your tiny quarters, either. The room is three strides wide and four strides long –borderline claustrophobic, only big enough for you, the cot, and… that’s about it, really.

Confined spaces can be used to torture people; even if they aren’t particularly claustrophobic, the inability to move around and do things can drive even the most grounded individuals a little batty.

You wind up laying on your cot and staring at the ceiling. You spend time thinking about how to handle your anxiety once your most recent dose of medication runs out, about your upcoming wedding, about what you want your future home with Piotr to look like…

About Piotr. You think a lot about Piotr. You’re not sure how long you’ve been separated from him, but you already miss him dearly.

You sigh, and roll over onto your stomach. Come find me, baby. I’ll be waiting for you.

***

Dinner –well, your second meal, and you’re starting to realize that without windows you have no way of knowing what time of day it is—is delivered what feels like a few hours later; it’s another little bottle of water, a plain turkey sandwich, an apple, and some canned corn that’s been put in a bowl.

Along with it comes a little bottle of shampoo, a little bottle of conditioner, a little bar of soap, and a washcloth.

You’re stumped at first. There’s no shower down here, how could they possibly expect…

The sink.

You let out a shocked laugh when you realize that your captors mean for you to wash yourself via using the sink. No way! No fucking way!

But… you don’t have any other options –unless you want to use water from the toilet, but ew, gross.

You sigh, shocked and more than a little frustrated, and dig into the sandwich.

***

The lights turn out halfway through your venture with attempting to wash up using the sink.

You yelp, drop the bottle of shampoo, and topple against the wall behind you; you wince as you rub your shoulder. With a rush of annoyance, you realize that there aren’t any light switches in the main room or the bathroom. You have absolutely no control over when the lights are on and when they’re off.

You scowl in the direction of the ceiling. “Really!”

***

The lights switch on again while you’re sleeping. You’re not sure how long it’s been, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been a whole eight hours.

Then again, that could just be the cot. It’s thinly padded, and no matter how you sleep you can feel the metal frame holding it up.

You’re also starting to feel the effects of withdrawal. Your brain feels foggy, your anxiety has spiked (well, more than the situation’s already spiked it), and you have pins and needles feeling all over your body.

You shiver as you wrap your thin blanket tighter around you and curl into a little ball. Baby, please come find me.

***

Your first meal of the day –or is it the third? How long have you been asleep, even?—comes what feels like a couple hours later.

Objectively, you know you should eat. You need to keep up your strength, but as you look at the tray of a plain turkey sandwich, a little bottle of water, an apple, and some canned corn –and no meds, which further confirms that your captors aren’t giving you any—you can’t even work up the shadow of an appetite.

You manage to choke down a few bites of the turkey sandwich before your stomach churns, take the water bottle and the apple, then chuck the rest of your meal in the trash before setting the tray with the others.

***

You try to focus on exercising. Easier said than done, considering you barely ate anything, but you push yourself through to try and keep your endorphins up. You do rounds of push-ups, squats, crunches, planks, and lunges until your limbs are shaking from exertion, then chug water from the sink faucet until you almost puke it all back up.

You whimper as splay out on the floor in an effort to cool down faster. Okay. I need to pace myself better, and I need to eat regardless of what’s given to me. They’re clearly trying to break me by keeping my schedule off. Slow and steady is key.

You take a deep breath, then focus on your breathing and the points where your body is making contact with the floor in an effort to meditate.

You manage to keep that up for a bit until a panic attack hits –and normally you’d use an app on your phone to help yourself work through it, or meditate, or call Piotr, or Nate, or Wade, or Ellie, or Yukio, or Russell, or Neena…

It’s so much worse without the meds. You can’t catch your breath, you can’t stop the overwhelming rush of anxiety, you can’t get your mind to stop racing—

Bed. Get to the bed.

You crawl across the concrete floor and barely manage to get into the cot before you curl into a fetal position and sob.

***

It’s hard to be alone.

You’ve gotten used to having your friends and family right at hand over the past few years –come to depend on it, even; they’ve always been there to help you through rough patches. You’ve come to love having so many companions around you during your time at Xavier’s. It’s a direct one-eighty from growing up, when you only had yourself and your parents for company most of the time –and your parents weren’t exactly what you’d call “company.”

Aside from exercise (which you can’t do too much of without risking hurting yourself), there’s only sleeping, yoga (also limited for safety reasons), meditating, masturbating (which you don’t feel like doing, given your current withdrawal situation), or listening to the gentle hiss of the air vent.

You can’t remember how you got through being so alone as a child –though, technically, you suppose you didn’t; it fucked you up. Badly.

That, and you’d barely been able to handle being at Xavier’s when you’d first arrived. It’d been like a shock to your system. You couldn’t fathom so many people being around each other all the time –and wanting to spend that time with you, no less.

Objectively, you know that isolation is a basic destabilization tactic –but that doesn’t make it any easier to go through.

You roll over so you’re on your other side –your ribs are hurting from the metal support frame for the cot—and close your eyes. Piotr’s gonna come for me. He’s gonna come for me. He won’t leave me here.

***

You have to resist the urge to scream when your next meal is slid through the hatch at the bottom of the door.

Plain turkey sandwich. Canned corn in a bowl. Apple. Room temperature mini-bottle of water.

Sadists.

You’d kill for a bag of Cheetos right now. Or some of Piotr’s pancakes.

You take the tray back to your cot –your ass can’t handle any more of sitting on a concrete floor, and your back can’t handle leaning up against the concrete walls—and try to focus on recalling any sort of memory that might tell you how you wound up here while you choke down your meal.

Waking up next to Piotr. Him smiling at you. And… everything goes black after that.

A blackout might mean head trauma. Or a traumatic event. Or drug use –someone might’ve knocked you out.

A quick check of your head doesn’t reveal any sore spots or cuts –but you probably would’ve felt that when you woke up for the first time. You can’t do a full body check for injection sites without a mirror –not to mention it’s possible the drugs were fed to you—but you can’t find anything on the parts of your body you can see. As for trauma-induced memory repression, well, it’s possible, but you have no way of knowing if that’s it.

You take another bite of sandwich –and it immediately hits your tongue wrong, making you gag.

You spill your corn all over the floor when you dash to the bathroom.

***

You have to get out of here. You have to, you have to, you have to, you have to youhavetoyouhavetoyouhaveto—

“Information first,” you can remember Nathan telling you during one of your earliest training sessions with you. “Get as much information as you can, then act. Patience never hurt anyone.”

You measure the hatch at the bottom of the door first. It’s big enough for you to slip through, even with the collar around your neck. After some careful debating, you decide it’d be best to slide through on your stomach; your back will be facing up, meaning your face and organs will be more protected from blows, technically.

You’ll have to wait before you can declare your “recon” done, though. You have no idea how long the hatch stays open for, or if you’ll be able to hear any footsteps through the walls that’ll alert you to when the hatch is going to open.

You squat down by the door and get as comfortable as you can.

You waited nearly two decades to get out of your first cage. You can wait another day to escape this one.

***

Waiting nearly kills you.

It isn’t the patience –as contrary as you like to play with Piotr about the topic, you are capable of being patient.

No, it’s the exhaustion. The medication withdrawals are doing a number on you; you can’t remember another time in your life you’ve been this tired. Even the accidental coke withdrawals from that one mission where you fell into a vat of the stuff weren’t this bad, because at least you had your family, your friends, and your fiancé to help you.

You chuckle a little to yourself at the memory of the incident. You’ve definitely lead an… interesting life.

You groan as another wave of withdrawal-induced pins and needles pain sweeps through your body, then perk up –well, as much as you can perk up right now—when you hear a series of dull thumps approaching the door to your cell.

Footsteps.

You hardly breathe as the hatch unlatches and slides open –and it retracts into the door, which is another factor in your favor—and count off the seconds as a tray of food slides in. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine—

The hatch slides back shut and latches once more.

Nine seconds.

It’ll have to be enough.

***

You’re wide awake well before the lights come on again.

Your entire body feels like a live wire. Your chest is tight, your palms are clammy, your mouth is dry, your muscles are tense, it feels like something’s constantly crawling up the back of your neck, and despite the fact that you’re utterly exhausted, you can’t sleep.

You stagger to the bathroom on shaky legs and all but collapse onto the toilet. You have no idea how long you’ve been down here, but you know you can’t afford to stay any longer. You need your meds, you need your family –fuck, you need some understanding of how time’s passing; you feel like you’re on the verge of losing your mind with the way things currently are.

You shiver as you stare down at your bare feet, jaw and fists clenched tightly. I’m getting the fuck out of here.

***

The waiting game for the footsteps to sound outside the door is a long one. You pace in short circuits near the door, careful not to wander too far so you don’t miss the sound of them approaching and lose your earliest window of opportunity. You switch to doing what exercises and stretches that you can when the pacing starts to drive you batty, then wind up just crouching next to the door, staring down the hatch with laser-like focus, as though you can make it open with sheer will alone.

And –finally—after what feels like an eternity, you hear the footsteps approach.

Adrenaline surges through your system as your entire body tenses in anticipation. You get down into a borderline army-crawl position as you hear the latch for the hatch release, ready to whip the tray out of the way and dive through the hatch opening before your meal-deliverer can react.

Sure enough, the hatch door slides away, and a tray starts skidding across the threshold—

You rip it out of your captor’s hand and shove yourself halfway through the hatch, eliciting a scream from whoever’s delivering your meal this morning—

You know that voice.

You look up in time to see your mother collapse back onto a flight of wooden stairs, looking half scared to death at your sudden appearance.

Shock hits your system first, both at seeing her face for after so long and the realization of just who is holding you and all the implications that bears.

Anger –rage, white hot fury snarling in your chest like a caged lion—hits next, prompting you to bare your teeth at her in a vicious scowl. “You fucking bitch! Let me out of here!”

Your mother screams again when you grab her by the ankle in an effort to yank yourself out of your cell, then rears back and kicks you in the face repeatedly. “Demon child! Get off me, you whore!”

You shout when the toe of her shoe makes direct contact with your brow, then duck your head when you feel blood start spurting down your face.

You need to retreat. You’re not in a good enough position to fend off her blows like this, and at this rate you’re liable to get seriously hurt before you can get out and get to your feet.

You duck back into your cell and hunch over, pressing a hand to your brow in an effort to stem the flow of blood.

The hatch slams back shut, and your mother’s frantic footsteps retreat back up the stairs and out of hearing range.

You stumble to the bathroom and unravel nearly half a roll of toilet paper before pressing it to your brow. You’re shaking like a leaf as a mixture of adrenaline and fear course through your system. That was my mom.

Your mother, in flesh and blood. Not a withdrawal induced hallucination. The real-life woman who gave birth to you, then made your life hell on earth when your mutation presented.

What the fuck?

***

You have to be at your parents’ house. That’s the only logical explanation. Even though there are other scenarios that might bring your parents into the picture –you’re being held in community bunker back where you grew up, and your mom just happened to be delivering your meal when you tried to break out, for instance—the least complicated answer is usually the most accurate one. Combine that with the knowledge that your parents have tried, inexplicably, to have you kidnapped and brought back home before, and there’s no other explanation that does justice to your current predicament.

Again, what the fuck?

Why the fuck can’t they just leave you alone? They never wanted you –at least, not after your mutation presented—and you don’t want to be around them, they literally don’t even have to think about you since you left, so why do they keep trying to bring you back?

Although…

What if you never left to begin with?

Once the thought pops into your brain, it takes root so deep you can’t stop it –because what if you really haven’t left? What if you’ve been here the whole time, and your precious memories of Xavier’s and your friends and family there are just delusions your mind came up with to help you cope with the abuse you’ve suffered over the years? Your escape, your time spent at the Institute, Nate, Wade, Ellie, Yukio, Russell, Neena, Piotr…

Piotr.

A desperate whimper rips through you as the realization that Piotr might not be real sinks into your brain. No! you think desperately as tears start mixing with the blood on your face. No, he’s real! He’s my fiancé, we’re going to get married—

But you don’t have your ring. Your parents took it from you before locking you in here –or maybe whoever abducted you to begin with chucked it or sold it or—

Or maybe it was never real to begin with.

You sob brokenly, chucking the bloodstained wad of toilet paper away and ripping more off the roll to try and clean up your face as best you can. Without the ring, you don’t have proof that any of what you’ve experienced in the past few years is actually real. Any of the new scars on your body could be explained by abuse or other unsuccessful escape attempts, your muscles could be explained by working out in your cell…

It’s real, you tell yourself desperately as you gasp and choke on sobs. It’s real, it’s real, Piotr’s out there, he’s going to find me, please just let him be real.

You toss your latest wad of toilet paper away –then double take when you see your left hand.

There’s a tan line in the shape of a ring band on your ring finger.

A mixture of hope and relief courses through you, even though you barely dare to let yourself feel it—

And then the lights turn out, plunging you into darkness once more.

You pant frantically as you try to get a grip on your spiraling anxiety, then scream.

***

You manage to crawl back to the cot and fall asleep at some point. Your face hurts –your entire body hurts, really—and there’s no good way to lay without irritating your new cut in some way, shape, or form, but you do eventually pass out for a bit.

The lights come back on sometime later, waking you up with a jolt. You groan, both from exhaustion and the bolt of pain from the cut on your brow –and then all the hair on the back of your neck stands up when the door –not the hatch, the door—to your cell opens.

It’s him.

A slew of memories, some that you’d forgotten, rush into your mind’s eye. Growing up, there’d been a pattern to the abuse you’d suffered from your parents. You’d do something to upset your mother –either legitimate or some made up slight she’d create so she had an excuse to punish you—and then she’d verbally and emotionally abuse you –sometimes physically, too—before locking you in your room for hours on end.

And then she’d lament to your father about how poorly behaved and undisciplined you’d been when he got home from work, and he’d “correct” you with whatever he had at hand –usually his belt.

Get up. Get up, get up, get up getupgetupgetupgetup—

You manage to roll out of the way of his first strike. You tumble to the floor as his folded-up belt smacks against the cot, making the frame vibrate from the force of the strike. Before you can get off the ground, though, he kicks you in the gut and knocks the wind out of you.

“You ungrateful brat!” he snarls as he brings down his belt against your body over and over, often hitting you with the metal buckle. “How dare you disrespect your mother like that! In my home!”

You scream and try to shield yourself from his blows as best you can. “Stop it! Stop hitting me!”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” he growls before yanking you off the floor by your hair.

You move on instinct, muscle memory. You knee him in the crotch before breaking his grip, block a weak attempt at a punch the way Nate taught you to, then snatch his belt off the floor and get behind him before he can try anything else. You wrap the length of leather around his neck and pull it tight as hard as you can.

Your father chokes and struggles, attempting –and failing—to get his fingers between the belt and his neck before trying to reach back and pull you off him.

You snarl as you stumble with his movements, trying to keep control over him and his belt. Unfortunately, given your withdrawals, you’re nowhere near as steady as you need to be. You trip over the cot and lose your grip, tumbling to the floor in a heap.

Your father hacks and gasps as he gets his own belt off his neck, then staggers towards the open cell door.

You charge after him, narrowly avoiding slamming your face into the metal surface when he gets it closed before you can reach him. You pound your fists against the door as his hurried, stumbling footsteps retreat up the stairs and bellow at the top of your lungs, “I’ll fucking kill you! You bastard! I’m going to kill you!”

The lights turn off again, leaving you stranded in the dark once more.

You seethe as you step back from the door, then let out a wrathful shriek.

***

Your stomach is killing you.

You hadn’t been able to eat the meal your mother delivered earlier due to the adrenaline dump over the realization that you might’ve never truly escaped from your parents’ home. Even if you could find any of the food in the dark, the meat in the sandwich has definitely gone bad by now, and you’re pretty certain everything else got smashed beyond edibility during your struggle with your father.

You do manage to find the mini-bottle of water. You drain it without thinking, then head to the bathroom to guzzle some water out of the sink when you’re still thirsty.

Except the tap’s been shut off from upstairs. And, when you get desperate enough to check, the water reservoir for the toilet –along with the bowl—has been drained, too.

You laugh until you cry, then cry until you laugh, then follow that cycle until you throw up.

Worse still, you’re unbearably hot. The flow of air was shut off shortly after your confrontation with your father. You’re pretty certain that you’re still getting some air, but without the air conditioning on your tiny cell is downright stifling.

Maybe it would be better if they’d sealed you in here to asphyxiate. At this point, you’d take passing out and dying shortly thereafter over suffering like this.

Your head swims as you wipe a layer of sweat off the back of your neck. You have no idea how much time has passed since your fight with your father. You’ve been lapsing in and out of consciousness, meaning that it could’ve been anywhere from a few hours to maybe over a day.

Are you going to die down here? Is this how you’re going to go out? To malicious negligence?

You weep softly as you curl up on your side. You’d hoped, ever since escaping, that you’d die in comfort, surrounded by those you love –or, if not that, in a blaze of glory that leaves everyone awestruck.

Though, considering you may have never escaped at all, perhaps those aspirations were never meant to be within reach for you.

Your body tenses when you hear footsteps outside your door. This is it. This is the end.

You force yourself into a standing position. You’re not going down without a fight, even if the fight you have left in you is bordering on pathetic at this point. You brace yourself against the nearest wall as the door swings open, letting light from the stairwell into your cell—

Nathan steps in, dressed in all black and with a gun strapped to his back. “Kid!”

You stare at him, shocked. “Dad?”

Neena follows in after him, beaming when she sees you. “We’ve got her,” she says into an earpiece. “She looks a little rough, but she’s conscious.”

Nathan doesn’t bother to talk to whoever Neena’s talking to. He closes the distance between the two of you faster than you can blink, yanking you into his arms and almost crushing you with a hug and—

It’s him. It’s really him. Down to every single last detail –the way his techno-organic arm whirs when it moves, the smell of the soap and deodorant he uses, the slight rasp of stubble on his chin and cheeks that he can never seem to get rid of no matter how often he shaves, the fuckboi haircut Wade never stops ripping on him for.

Dad.

You sob, borderline scream, with relief and collapse against him. You cling to him for all you’re worth, ignoring the various pains in your body that the effort causes.

Nathan holds you tight to him, smoothing your hair and kissing the top of your head in a paternal manner. “It’s okay, kid. It’s okay. I’ve got you, you’re okay.” To Neena, he says, “Let’s get her upstairs.”

You make it to the first step of the stairs outside your cell before you have to stop. “I’m too dizzy,” you whine as your legs give out. “I haven’t had my meds, I’m too dizzy—”

“Okay, okay.” Nate sits down with you. “We can wait here until you feel better.”

You grip his shirt like your life depends on it and cry against his human shoulder. “Please don’t leave me, I don’t want you to leave me—”

“No way in hell I’m leaving you,” he reassures you, wrapping both arms around your shaking form. “I’m staying right here with you, I promise.”

“They took my ring, dad,” you ramble, almost manically. “They took it, they took my ring, they took the ring Piotr gave me, I don’t have it anymore, I thought none of you were real—”

“Go find the ring,” Nathan commands to Neena. “And let Pete know where she is.”

“It’s gone,” you protest. “They took it, it’s gone, I don’t have it—”

“Hey.” Neena kneels in front of you and clasps your shoulder gently. “Look at me, Y/N. This is me we’re talking about. I’m going to find your ring and that’s the end of it. Okay?”

You sniff loudly and nod. “Okay.”

She smiles reassuringly at you. “Good. First, though, I’m going to get your guy and send him down here.”

You stare after her as she jogs up the stairs, then look over at Nathan when she disappears from view. “Piotr’s here?”

“He is. He was very worried about you. We all were.” His face creases into a frown as he takes in your full appearance. “Oh, kiddo…”

“My dad hit me,” you choke out as you start crying again. “And my mom—”

Nathan hugs you again, rubbing his human hand up and down your arm as you sob. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We’re going to get you out of here, I promise.”

Then there’s the sound of frantic, extremely heavy footsteps at whatever’s at the top of the stairs—

Piotr.

He stops at the top of the stairway leading down to your cell when he sees you –and then you’re surprised he doesn’t trip over his own two feet with how fast he gets down to where you and Nate are, but then he’s pulling you into his lap and wrapping his arms around and kissing you—

You cry until your throat goes raw. You cling to him until your hands hurt. You kiss him until your lungs burn, until you’re on the verge of passing out, but it’s all worth it because he’s real, and he loves you, and you’re going to be okay.

“Easy, easy,” Nate says after a minute. “Let her breathe. She needs to breathe.”

Piotr pulls back, which is when you realize that he’s crying, too. “I love you so much, myshka. Bozhe moi, I thought I would never see you again—”

You mash yourself against his chest as hard as you can, given your injuries –and even then, you’re still not really giving them the consideration that you ought to. “I missed you so much, baby. It’s been so horrible. They didn’t give me any meds, and I couldn’t keep my food down—”

Almost like magic, Piotr reaches into one of the pockets on his cargo pants and produces a protein bar. “Here. Eat this.”

You giggle, wet and a little hysterical, as you accept the snack. “Always protein bars with you, huh.”

He manages a smile for you. “Good for bones.” His face quickly creases back into a teary frown, and he cups the back of your head while he kisses your forehead –scrupulously avoiding the cut by your eyebrow—and murmurs something in Russian that you don’t understand.

“Turn around for a minute, kid,” Nathan says, tugging on the power cell for the repression collar when you do. “Let’s get this thing off you.”

You hold still as best you can while he works on the collar, then let out a sigh of relief that sends a gust of wind up the stairs when he finally gets the thing off.

“There we go,” Piotr says with a smile as he rubs your back soothingly. “Much better.”

“Have you had anything to drink today?” Nathan asks, looking you over and gauging your overall physical state.

You manage to shake your head limply. “No. They shut off the water supply to my room after my fight with my father.”

Nate’s mouth tightens into a deep grimace, then he stands with a grunt. “We need to get her upstairs and start hydrating her.”

You whimper when Piotr tries to lift you up. “No, no, no, no! I want to walk, let me walk—”

Both men quickly soothe you, and Piotr sets you down so you can walk on your own. It’s slow going, given how unsteady you are, but eventually you reach the top step.

You’re in the basement of your childhood home. Everything’s where you remember it being; there’s a washer-dryer set next to a laundry sink, a folding table with a small pile of clothes on it, a few cardboard boxes set on some storage racks, and a desk that your father used for various “tinkering” projects.

“Come on,” Nathan encourages you after a moment. “You’re almost there. Just one more flight of stairs.”

You lean heavily against Piotr as you stumble up the last flight of stairs. Your head is swimming, and you feel nauseous even though your stomach is empty, but you don’t want to stop. You want to get out of here, you want to go back home, and you never want to see your parents again for as long as you live.

“Holy shit.”

You look up as you step into the kitchen of the house where you grow up –and almost do a double take, but that is most definitely Frank Castle standing in the dining room, dressed in all black, a tactical vest, and carrying a gun that’s almost as big as Nate’s.

(There’s a euphemism there, but you’re too tired to think about it enough to find it.)

He also looks genuinely shocked and concerned as he takes your appearance in –and you know Frank’s not the sadist the media makes him out to be, but you’re starting to think that you might look worse for wear than you originally suspected.

You manage to flash a weak smile at him. “Hey.”

He nods back. “You okay?”

You let out a thready laugh. “Been better.”

“She needs water, ASAP,” Nate says as he emerges from the basement behind you.

Frank reaches into his jacket and pulls out an unopened bottle of water, which he then tosses over to Nate.

Nathan cracks it open and hands it over to you with the stern instructions to “Sip slowly. Don’t guzzle it; you’ll make yourself throw up if you do.”

“Oh thank fuck, you found her!”

Piotr takes the water bottle from your hand a split second before Wade crashes into you, wrapping you in a hug so tight and borderline full-body that he must’ve found a way to incorporate octopus DNA into his regular gene sequence to give himself extra arms.

Which… he might’ve actually done. Because he’s Wade.

You still cling to him just as tight anyway, crying like you did when Nate found you, and then again with Piotr, because you’re just so damn happy to see him.

“You’re okay! I’m so glad you’re okay!” He pulls back, and he winces –he’s forgone his usual suit in favor of wearing black tactical gear like everyone else, though he is sporting his mask. “Or I spoke too soon. Ow.”

“Did I grow second nose or something?” you ask, laughing nervously as you reach up to feel your face. “Everyone keeps looking at me like something’s wrong.”

“No! Nothing’s wrong!” Wade says, forcing a bright tone. “You definitely don’t look like your face lost a fight with a blender.”

“You look like you got hurt,” Nate clarifies when your expression changes to worry. “It’ll all heal just fine.”

“You found her?”

Your jaw drops when you see Alex poke her head into the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you,” she says as she gives you a thorough once over before pulling a cellphone out of her pocket. “I will call him quick.” She lifts the phone to her ear and disappears, though you can hear her say something in Russian to someone else—

And then Mikhail appears in the kitchen, wearing the same get up as everyone else: black tactical gear and strapped within an inch of his life. He claps a hand over his mouth when he sees you, recoiling for a second before approaching you tentatively. “Bozhe moi, you are okay? We were so worried! Is hugs okay?”

“Hugs are fine,” you confirm with a shaky laugh, tearing up again as he gently wraps his arms around you.

Piotr hands you the water bottle when Mikhail releases you. “Little sips,” he reminds you as he gently rubs his hand up and down your back.

You lift the bottle to your lips, and while you work on not sucking it all down in one go, you finally look around and get your bearings.

The sky outside the kitchen windows is stained a golden color that fades into slowly darkening hues of blue–the light’s coming from the west, if you’re remembering the orientation of the house correctly, meaning that it’ll be night soon.

You glance over at the stove clock.

The digital display shows it’s a little after seven.

“It’s nighttime, right?” you ask quietly.

“Evening,” Nathan confirms.

You nod as you process the information and continue scanning the kitchen. It’s as conspicuously clean as you remember –save for a half-eaten piece of toast left on a plate, a mostly empty glass of orange juice, and a partially read newspaper next to it.

A quick inspection of the floor reveals some smudged, barely-there red stains that, if you squint, might be patterned like the tread of someone’s shoe.

You don’t have to guess how those got there.

“How long was I gone?” you ask, still quiet, as you start in on Piotr’s protein bar. Your stomach gurgles greedily when the smell of chocolate hits your nose, and the past few days of barely eating hit you all at once. “And when can I get something to eat?”

“Four days,” Nate answers again. “And we’ll get you something more filling once we’ve cleared the town.”

Alex comes back around the corner at that moment, arguing with someone on the phone. “Yes, yes –she’s fine, I already told you she’s fine… do not take this out of context, you know what I meant.” She hands the phone off to Wade abruptly. “Keep him occupied for two minutes.”

Wade takes the phone and lifts it to his ear. “According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way the bee should be able to fly—”

She turns and faces you, cupping your face in her hands as she looks you over with motherly concern. She frowns sadly, and gently rubs your cheeks with her thumbs. “Malen'kaya ptitsa…” She lifts her hand to gently brush her fingers against the cut above your eyebrow. “How did you get this?”

Any steadiness you might’ve gained crumples as your eyes start watering again. “I tried to escape… my mom kicked me in the face…”

Alex visibly tears up at that and pulls you into a tight hug.

You shake in her arms, partially from the past few days and partially from the overwhelming feeling of having a maternal figure that loves you.

You have a feeling you’re going to wind up dedicating a few therapy sessions to both.

Frank pipes up from somewhere in the living room –probably keeping an eye on things, given his background and your dad’s general ability with constructing a mission plan. “Still no sign of anyone. Not even across the street. Entire town’s dead.”

“They’re probably at the church,” you pipe up as you step back from Alex and lean against your fiancé, wiping your face dry with your shirt. “Deciding what to do with me.”

Mikhail frowns. “They already took you. What else is there?”

“Whether or not they need to kill me,” you say, voice flat –and even though you’re exhausted and more than a little out of it, you can feel the snap of tension that runs through everyone else within earshot.

“We need to get her out of here,” Nate says, voice low and thrumming with barely controlled anger. He taps Wade on the shoulder, who is in the middle of rambling in Spanish to whoever’s on the phone. “Cars. Now.”

Wade gives Nate a little salute –without stopping his monologue—and heads towards the front door.

“Wait!” You panic a little when Nate and Piotr start moving you towards the door as well. “My ring –I still don’t have my ring, I need my ring!”

“It is okay, myshka,” Piotr reassures you. “I can get you new one—”

“I don’t want another one!” you sob as you dig in your heels to keep from being moved further. “I want the one you already gave me –it’s mine, they took it from me, it’s supposed to be mine—”

“I found the ring!” Neena shouts from upstairs. There’s a series of quick footsteps above you, then a thud that makes you think she jumped the entire flight of stairs in one go, and then she’s jogging into the kitchen with your engagement ring in hand. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”

You almost collapse with relief when you see it. Your hands are shaking so bad that you can barely hold onto your bottle of water, much less a delicate engagement ring.

Fortunately, Piotr’s there to help you. He takes the ring from Neena with a murmured ‘thank you,’ then carefully slides it back into place on your left ring finger.

“There we go,” Alex says with a note of approval in her voice.

Nathan nudges you forward –albeit not unkindly—as Frank, Neena, and Mikhail head out the front door. “Come on. Time to get out of here.”

You walk through the dining room and entryway on shaky legs, then across the small porch and down the little flight of steps. It’s cool outside, and Piotr shucks off his jacket and drapes it around your shoulders when you shiver.

There’s two sleek, modern, massive black SUVs that look entirely out of place on your parents’ gravel driveway. Neena’s behind the wheel of one, Frank’s behind the other—

And Wade is standing between the two cars, holding the cellphone six inches away from his ear as some rages at him from the other end of the line—

You recognize the voice; it’s your uncle.

Wade shoots Alexandra a slightly shell-shocked look. “I think he’s pissed.”

You hold out your hand to him. “He’ll settle down when I start talking to him.”

Your uncle’s still going as you clamber into the back of the SUV that Frank’s driving. “—Wilson, I swear to all things holy and not, if you don’t put my niece on the phone right now—”

“Hey,” you say quickly before he can start listing off various death threats. “It’s me. I’m okay.”

Your uncle lets out a rush of air that almost makes you think he’s been punched in the gut “Punk.”

Piotr climbs in next to you –which gets an eyebrow raise from you, to which he merely kisses your forehead—and buckles you into your seat before buckling himself in and closing the door next to him.

“Hey,” you say again, voice wobbly and hoarse from all the crying you’ve been doing. “It’s okay, I’m okay—”

Your uncle lets out a broken sob. “Punk –Y/N—I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” you reassure him, equally as teary. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault, it’s alright.”

Nate closes the front passenger door of the car with a thud and quickly buckles himself in. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“We’re leaving now,” you say as Frank pulls out of the driveway. “I’ll be home soon.”

“I’ll be here,” your uncle promises. “I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”

“It’s okay,” you say for the umpteenth time. “I know you would have if it was an option.”

“Damn right.” He sniffs wetly, then groans. “There’s some other people here that want to check in on you. I need to… yeah.”

You let out a tired laugh –you don’t have to ask what he means. “That’s okay. I’ll see you when I get home.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Alright, I’m gonna put you on speaker before I get mobbed.”

There’s a brief moment of shuffling on the other end of the line, and then—

Chaos.

Russell, Yukio, and Ellie –and possibly Kitty as well, if your ears aren’t deceiving you—all try to talk at once, asking how you are, what happened, when you’re coming back, what’s going to happen to your parents… It all comes out as a jumbled, cacophonic mess, and even though you have to hold the speaker of the phone away from your ear a little, it makes you smile.

“Okay, okay.” Nikolai’s voice breaks through the din, warm and fond but undoubtedly authoritative. “One at time. Do not want to overwhelm here.”

And that devolves into, from the sounds of things, a ‘rock-paper-scissors’ match for who gets to talk first—

Until Illyana takes the phone. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” you answer while trying not to giggle at the grumbling you can hear in the background. “I’ve been better, but I’m okay. I’m on my way home now.”

“What’s going to happen with your parents?” Russell blurts –which gets a few hisses of ‘don’t ask that’ from the girls, but you can understand why he’d want to know.

When you come from backgrounds like yours and his, it’s natural to want to know if the people like your abusers are being held accountable.

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “But, if I have it my way, I’m never seeing them again.”

“We missed you a lot,” Yukio pipes up. “We were all really worried about what happened to you.”

“I missed you guys, too,” you say, choking up with emotion again. “I’ll be home soon, I promise.”

“Did Wade kill anyone?” Kitty asks, which prompts a snort from Illyana.

“As far as I know, he behaved himself.”

“Told you,” Russell grumbles at someone –Ellie, most likely, she’s usually the first person to doubt Wade’s self-control (not that she doesn’t have good reason or plenty of evidence to support her suspicions). “Karen’s here, too.”

You blink, surprised. “Karen? As in… Karen Page?”

(You swear you see Frank perk up in the driver’s seat, just a little.)

“Yeah,” Karen says, speaking for the first time. “I was brought here for… supervision.”

Which is another way of saying ‘safekeeping,’ but either way it isn’t hard to miss the distaste in her voice over being babysat.

“Well, uh, thanks for loaning your friend out,” you say for lack of something better to comment on. “I appreciate it.”

Karen snorts. “Now that’s a business idea. But we both wanted to make sure you came back in one piece.” She clears her throat. “How are you doing?”

“Been better,” you admit wearily. “Been a lot better.”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m sure, considering you’re New York’s ‘most kidnapped reporter.’”

Frank snorts.

“Did he laugh at that?”

You smirk. “Yeah.”

Karen grumbles something under her breath before saying, “Well, I’ll have you know that claim is unsubstantiated at best.”

“I’m sure,” you yawn, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.

“We’ll let you go,” Karen says decisively. “You should rest.”

“Probably,” you mutter, too tired for functional human conversation. You make your good-byes with the group –Nikolai promises to say good-bye to your uncle for you—then hang up.

The car’s already at the fringes of the town where you grew up. The populated area is quickly giving way to fields of crops and forest; if it weren’t for all the sins you know lie close to the surface of the place, it’d look beautiful.

You watch the sun continue to set before you turn away from the window and let exhaustion claim you.

***

The cars pull over to the side of the road about twenty minutes later –far enough outside of town that you’ve got a head start, but still too close for comfort in your opinion.

You blink sleepily as Nate hops out of his seat and walks over to the door next to you. “What’s going on? Why did we stop?”

“We need to get you cleaned up and make sure you don’t have any serious injuries that require immediate attention,” he explains as Alex and Mikhail hop out of the other car and walk towards him.

You frown. “And if I do?”

Nathan nods to Mikhail. “He’ll teleport back to the Institute with you so you can get immediate treatment, and the rest of us will finish the drive back.” He pauses to take a large medical kit from Alex. “You got a preference for which one of us looks you over?”

“Dad,” you decide, voice quiet, after a moment of thought. “I want dad to do it.”

The three of them nod, and Alex and Mikhail walk a respectful distance away while Nathan puts on a pair of medical gloves.

“Alright,” he says as he turns on a mini flashlight. “Look straight ahead for me.”

Piotr unbuckles his seat belt and shifts so he’s sitting behind you. He kisses the top of your head when you interlock your fingers with his. “Does anywhere hurt?”

“Everything hurts,” you grumble as you follow Nathan’s light with your eyes.

Nate clicks the flashlight off. “No signs of concussion. Can you run me through how you got injured?”

You swallow hard and grip Piotr’s hand tighter. “I tried to escape… earlier today, I think. I caught my mother off guard… and she—” you tap where you’d gotten the split in your skin on your forehead “—kicked me. Couple times.”

Piotr lets out a shaky breath and scoots closer to you, lips pressing against your temple.

“Later, my father…” You chin trembles as your voice trails off, and you find yourself blinking back tears.

“It’s okay,” Nathan reassures you. “You don’t have to tell me how it went. I just need to know where you got hurt.”

“Ribs. Stomach. Neck,” you rattle off. “Legs too, probably.”

“Okay. Can you lift your shirt up for me so I can see your ribcage?”

You do –and for the first time, you realize there’s blood crusted on a good portion of your shirt. Some of it dripped down onto your pants as well. “Oh. That’s why everyone was looking at me weird. I look like Carrie.”

“All you’re missing is the bucket,” Nathan deadpans. He helps you roll up your shirt to the bottom of your bra when you wince, then grimaces. “Aw, kid…”

Your ribs are a mottled myriad of purples and reds, shiny and just a touch swollen. “Huh. I was wondering why that hurt.”

“That would do it,” Nathan agrees, jaw clenching as he inhales and exhales slowly. “Alright, I’m gonna feel your sides to make sure your ribs aren’t broken. This’ll probably hurt a little.”

It hurts a lot, but it’s nothing compared to the past few days.

You squeeze your eyes shut and breathe through the stabs of pain that Nathan’s poking creates. “I used the fighting techniques you taught me with my father. Almost choked him out.”

He presses a fatherly kiss against your forehead. “Atta girl. Good job. Alright, your ribs don’t seem to be broken, but you’re going to be sore until you can see one of the healers. We can always have Mikhail take you back if you’re uncomfortable.”

You shake your head automatically. “No. I want to stay with Piotr.”

Piotr hugs you gently, careful to avoid your bruises, and kisses your cheek. “Myshka, be reasonable.”

“I thought I was never going to see you again!” you whimper as you press yourself against him. “I thought you weren’t even real! I’m not leaving you!”

“We have painkillers,” Nate says when Piotr hesitates. “We can keep her physically comfortable, and her physical well-being isn’t in question. The next immediate step is her emotional well-being. She’ll be calmer if she stays with you.”

Piotr nods after a moment. “If you are certain she will be fine.”

“If I wasn’t, I’d be sending her home with your brother.” Nate nods when Piotr nods again, then pulls a pack of baby wipes out of the medical kit. “Okay, kiddo. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Pictures,” Frank pipes up from the driver’s seat. “This is an abuse case. You need to take pictures.”

“I’m not taking my parents to court,” you sigh. “I probably wouldn’t win, since I’m mutant. All I ever care about is not seeing them again.”

Frank meets your eyes in the rearview mirror. “All due respect, ma’am, but they went to the trouble of kidnapping you and dragging you back to their house. Even if you’re done with them, they clearly aren’t done with you. You need a paper trail.”

“He’s right,” Nathan says when you pull a frustrated face. “The more documentation we have, the better things go if the courts ever do get involved.”

You sigh, exhausted and frustrated. “Fine. Let’s just make it fast. I want to get all this blood off me.”

Nathan calls Alex over to help with the picture taking process. Using Nate’s phone, they start off by taking several pictures of your face and the cut and bruising there, before documenting the state of your clothes and all the blood over it. The snap a few shots of your neck –chafing from the mutation repression collar, apparently—then move on to taking pictures of your ribs and back.

Piotr kisses your forehead soothingly when you whimper from your ribs hurting. “Almost done. You are doing so well.”

They finish off by getting photos of the bruises on your legs from your encounter with your father, then Nate hands the package of baby wipes to Alex. “Start getting her cleaned up. I’m going to save these.”

Frank rolls down his window and holds his phone out to Nathan. “Send them to Karen’s number, too. She works with a law firm; they’ll be able to help.”

“I thought she was a journalist,” you say as Nate copies Karen’s number into his phone.

“She moonlights as a private investigator and paralegal for a law firm, too,” Frank explains.

You nod, impressed. “Pays to be connected.”

“It certainly does,” Alex agrees as she clasps your chin with her hand. “Alright, malen'kaya ptitsa, let’s get you cleaned up.”

With the practiced gentleness of a loving mother, she wipes your face clean with methodic, circular strokes. She goes through several wipes before she moves on to your neck, gently scrubbing the dried blood off your skin.

Your hold on Piotr’s hand tightens further as waves of emotion threaten to overwhelm you.

This should’ve been your mother. The societal laws of the universe dictate that it’s your mother, the one who gave birth to you, who should be loving on you and caring for you like this.

Instead, she helped lock you in a cell and kicked you in the face when you tried to escape.

“There we go,” Alex says softly, fondly. “All clean.” She throws the baby wipes in a plastic bag, then nods at the medical kit –which is really just a black duffel bag with more medical emergency supplies in it than you would’ve thought possible—as she ties the plastic bag off. “There’s clean clothes for her in there. Help her get changed.”

Piotr kisses the back of your head before sliding back across the back bench of the SUV and exiting on his side of the car. He circles back around to you and withdraws a pair of pajama pants, some fresh underwear, and a shirt of his that’s large enough your won’t have to wear a bra. “Alright, myshka. Let’s get you into proper clothing.” He stands so he’s blocking you from view of everyone else –even the driver’s side mirror of the car, not that you’d ever take Frank Castle as the ‘sneak peek’ type.

Still, you appreciate the gesture.

You shuck off your white, baggy clothes with Piotr’s help, then let out a sigh of relief when you pull on the fresh underwear and pajama pants.

“I bet that feels better,” Piotr says as he helps you get the clean shirt on.

“Yeah, it does,” you admit.

Piotr puts your bloody clothes in another plastic grocery bag, then ties it off and tucks it in the medical kit. He zips the duffel bag shut, hands it back to his mother, then nods at Nathan. “We’re ready.”

“Good. We can’t afford to stand still any longer.”

Your stomach growls angrily as everyone gets back in their respective car seats. “Dad, I really need to eat something.”

“I know, kiddo. I promise, as soon as we’re a good distance away, we’ll get you fed,” Nathan says as he buckles himself in. “Think about what you want in the meantime. We’ll get whatever sounds good to you.”

Piotr kisses your cheek as he buckles you back into your seat. “Hang in there, myshka. Just little bit longer.”

“I want burgers,” you whine tiredly –you’ve earned a good whine, though. “Plural. As in lots of them.”

“We can get you burgers,” Piotr promises, buckling himself in as Frank steers back onto the road.

“And fries. I want fries.”

“You can have fries, also.”

“I want your fries, too.”

Piotr chuckles, then nods. “You can have my fries as well.”

You lean against his shoulder, worn out. “Can I get a milkshake, too?”

“Whatever you want, dorogoy,” Piotr says as he carefully wraps his arm around you and kisses the top of your head. “You can get whatever you want.”

***

Forty minutes later, you finally hit a strip with a bunch of stores –and, even better, fast food joints. The two cars order enough food for twenty people, then drive over to an abandoned movie theater with a parking lot that’s more grass than asphalt and park there so everyone can eat.

You manage to slurp down half your chocolate shake before Piotr takes it from you and hands you one of the burgers you’d asked for. “Protein first, please,” he says as he sets your shake in your cupholder. “I do not want for you to get sick.”

After four days of withdrawals and plain turkey sandwiches, the burger tastes like heaven.

You moan obscenely as you take your first bite, then gulp it down before going back in for more.

“The hell are you doing to her?” Mikhail asks, grinning lasciviously as he opens his door and swing his legs so he’s sitting sideways in his seat, facing the car you’re in. “I could hear that through my window!”

Piotr just rolls his eyes, takes a bite of his burger, and hands his fries over to you, the sweetheart.

“What’s the plan for the parents’ house when we get Y/N back home?” Wade asks as he horks down his burger almost as fast as you’re eating yours. “I’m feeling something arson-y. Frankenfurter, you down?”

You can almost hear Frank’s eyes roll at the nickname, but he shows restraint by only flipping Wade off for it instead of cursing him out. “You’re buying the gas.”

“Ooh, I do love good burning!” Mikhail says with slightly manic brightness. “If I come, you will not even need matches!”

“Send a good message,” Nathan reasons, techno-organic eye flaring as he considers the idea. “Warn all the other shitheads not to go after mutants.”

Behind you, Piotr makes a noise of disapproval. “X-Men do not kill.”

“We’re not X-Men!” Wade reasons. “It’ll be fine!”

“I don’t know,” Neena says softly as she watches you closely. “I’m not getting a good feeling about this idea.”

You’re not sure when you started crying, but her sudden attention makes you realize that you’re shaking and that tears are trickling down your cheeks.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Wade crouches in front of you, smiling brightly even though panic is easy to see in his eyes. “It’s okay. We wouldn’t leave you out of it.”

Piotr sighs heavily. “Wade—”

“Hey, a little vengeance towards childhood abusers is very cleansing for the soul!”

“No,” you snap, scrubbing at your face –and then wince when you press against the cut by your eyebrow too hard. “No one’s doing anything. No arson, no killing, no threats, nothing!”

“What the shit? Are you listening to yourself right now?” Wade exclaims. “These are your parents, the people who beat you growing up and again within the past twenty-four hours, and you just want to –what—let them get away with it? The fuck kinda bullshit is that!”

“You can’t,” you sob, almost on the verge of hyperventilating. “You can’t –Wade, you can’t, you have to promise me—”

“Hey, hey.” Nate clasps your hand while shushing softly. “Deep breaths. No one’s going to do anything if you’re not okay with it.”

“Speak for yourself!”

Neena kicks Wade in the shin –albeit not too hard. “We’re trying to calm her down right now.”

“What do you think the arson is for?”

Piotr lets out a harsh exhale behind you. “Wade—”

“Everyone be quiet,” Alex interjects in a tone that brokers no arguing. She fixes Wade with a steely glare when he opens his mouth to argue anyway. “I said quiet. There is more going on here than you realize.”

Wade gives you a skeptical look. “What else could there possibly be? Your family situation is already entirely fucked.”

You sniff wetly and blow your nose into a Kleenex provided by Piotr, then give everyone watching you –which is the entire group at this point—a desperate, pleading look. “What I’m about to tell you cannot ever go any further, okay? Someone else’s life is at stake. I’m putting them at risk –and the rest of you, too—just by telling you all this.”

Everyone nods seriously –even Wade—and then it all comes tumbling out.

About your uncle. About the life he was forced into. About how he got out and has to stay under every radar conceivable to avoid being forced back into “government service.”

“If anything happens to my parents –or their property—that isn’t natural causes, the government drops a massive manhunt on his head,” you explain, voice thick with emotion. “It’s an agreement they made to keep him from taking me when I was a kid and to keep him from lashing out at them from all their bullshit.”

“Why haven’t they just dropped the bomb on him anyway?” Neena asks. “Your parents don’t exactly seem like the most rational, deal-honoring people anyway.”

“He warned them that if they did pull something like that, his first stop would be to come get me and ‘wipe all evidence of them from existence,’” you say. “I think they valued their own lives enough to keep from doing that.”

“Why not just take you and run anyway?” Mikhail pipes up, forehead creased with confusion and concern.

You purse your lips. “For all about him that’s great… he’s flawed. I don’t think he ever thought he’d be in a good position to take care of a kid –and, in all honesty, he wasn’t.”

“But he could have saved you,” Mikhail argues. “He could have gotten you out.”

“My uncle was just as abused as I am, if not more,” you say flatly. “He’s had his own demons to deal with –still deal with. And, at any rate, this isn’t about what he has or hasn’t done; this is about his present safety, and believe me when I say there is a very real threat staring him down.”

“We believe you,” Nate reassures you. “And we’re not going to do anything that’s going to put your uncle at risk.”

Wade holds up his hands defensively when you give him a pointed look. “I’ll behave! I promise!”

You heave a sigh of relief and lean back against Piotr. “Thanks, everyone.”

…

While you all finish eating, Nate, Alex, Neena, Piotr, and Frank work out how the rest of the travelling is going to go.

There’s no stopping for a hotel –or anything other than food, gas, and bathroom breaks, really. Even though you’re safely out of your parents’ clutches, the possibility of them chasing after you –along with who knows who else—still looms ominously like a black thunder cloud.

“We left the collar at the house,” Nate says while looking over some maps with Frank and Neena. “With any luck, they’ll think she got it off and escaped into the woods.”

“By unlocking the door from inside the room,” Frank says, voice heavy with doubt.

“I can unlock handcuffs with my powers,” you retort between massive bites of burger and fries. “And I used to take my bedroom door off its hinges to escape from my room. It’s not that much of a leap.”

Frank shrugs, looking equal parts impressed and irritated –though the latter, you’re certain, is directed at your parents. “If you say so.”

“If they come after us,” Nate says, stressing the first word for your sake. “You’re—” he points to Mikhail “—going to get her and get back to the Institute. We’ll be able to handle whatever they throw at us.”

You frown when Mikhail nods and look to your fiancé. “What about you?”

Piotr kisses your forehead. “I will be fine. My armor mutation will keep me safe.”

“Yeah, honey, but you’re official X-Men. You can’t be associated with a shoot-out in case something hits the news.”

“Grab both of them,” Nate tells Mikhail.

“Do I have to?” Mikhail mock-whines. “Mladshiy brat too heavy.”

Piotr rolls his eyes and says something in Russian, which Mikhail pulls a face at and replies in a short, irritated tone, and then the two of them tangent off into some sort of rapid-fire argument that leads to the two of them talking over each other—

“Stop it, both of you,” Alex admonishes them crisply. “This situation is serious. Act like it.”

“One of us is,” Piotr mutters under his breath.

“Trakhni tebya!”

“Enough.” Alex levels a serious, mildly annoyed look at Piotr. “Quit antagonizing.”

Mikhail laughs.

“That goes for you, too, Koroleva dramy.”

You squeeze Piotr’s hand when you catch him barely suppressing an annoyed grimace. “Be nice.”

Frank noisily balls up the wrapper his burger had come in, effectively distracting everyone away from the argument. “We should get moving again. Do we have a route picked out?”

Neena tosses him a map with a series of roads and highways highlighted. “I’m feeling good about this one.”

“Still lazy writing,” Wade grumbles under his breath.

Nate pats Wade on the shoulder before heading back to his seat. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Once you’re buckled in, Piotr hands you a small container with some pills and a bottle of water. “Medication,” he explains when you give him a perplexed look. “Dr. McCoy wanted you to have meal before you took it.”

You quickly –gratefully—down one of the pills and follow it with a swig of water. “Thanks, babe.”

He produces another bottle with a few smaller looking pills in it. “Xanax. He instructed me to have you take one as well to help you sleep.”

You take one of the Xanax, chase it down with some water, and flop back in your seat with a sigh as Frank drives the car towards the nearest highway. “How long until we’re home?”

“About two days, give or take four hours,” Nate answers from the shotgun seat of the car.

You adjust yourself so you’re leaning against Piotr and close your eyes.

You may as well get some sleep in that time.

***

You wake up to the sun blasting your eyes –and ow, no, I didn’t need my retinas to be functional, just go right ahead and scorch them, you fucker. You blink hard, trying to get the little spots from accidentally staring at the bright, early morning light to fade from your field of vision, and stretch your back and sit up.

For a moment, you panic when you realize Piotr isn’t next to you –but Nathan is, napping, and if he’s still here then you’re still safe…

You let out a little sigh of relief when you see that Piotr’s in the driver’s seat, steering the car around a bend in the road. You lean forward –mashing your face against the back of his seat in the process—and gently squeeze his shoulders. “Hi.”

He lifts one hand off the wheel when he gets to another length of straight, open road and lovingly squeezes one of your hands. “Dobroye utro, myshka.”

You yawn and latch onto his shirt when he lets go of you so he has both hands on the steering wheel once more. “How long have you been awake?”

“Couple of hours. I switched off with Frank around four.”

Sure enough, Frank’s in the front passenger seat, completely dead to the world and snoring slightly.

“How much longer until we’re home?”

“I think we will reach halfway point later today, provided everything goes well.”

You grunt a little and turn your head so only your cheek’s pressing the back of his seat. “Can we get breakfast soon? I’m hungry.”

Piotr chuckles a little and pats your hand. “Da, dorogoy. We can get you breakfast soon.”

***

Breakfast comes in the form of a Panera Bread. You can only imagine how big the cashier’s eyes must’ve been when Neena and Piotr had gone in to place the order, judging by the three massive bags of food and multiple drink carriers they bring out, but fortunately the place is pretty dead since it’s still early in the morning.

You all eat in the parking lot, car doors open to let in fresh air and facilitate easy conversation.

“We should refuel soon,” Frank says, voice still gravelly –well, more than usual—from sleep. “And stock up on some supplies and coffee.”

“You ordered three large black coffees for breakfast,” Neena remarks, disbelieving. “What are you going to need more coffee for?”

“He doesn’t just punish criminals and jackasses,” Wade quips. “He also likes to punish his cardiovascular system by scouring it with mass amounts of caffeine.”

Frank just rolls his eyes and flips Wade off.

Alex groans as she works a brush through her hair. “I will be glad to not sleep in car soon. I am too old for this.”

“I can take you back,” Mikhail offers, a worried frown tugging at his lips.

Alex merely shakes her head, though. “I would rather be present in case something goes wrong.”

“We’ve made some good progress,” Nate says as he works on polishing off a breakfast sandwich. “If we were going to see them, it would’ve been last night, either at the house or when we stopped to treat her injuries.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not following behind us,” Frank adds darkly. “Best to stop as little as we have to.”

***

The two SUVs stop at a gas station fifteen minutes later.

Nate eyes the meter critically as the beast of a car continues guzzling down fuel. “And people say climate change is a myth.”

The eight of you head into the gas station two at a time to freshen up in the bathroom and get whatever snacks and drinks you might want, while everyone else keeps an eye on the road for any signs of trouble.

Mikhail comes out with two bags full of Monster and Red Bull.

“Nyet,” Piotr says before you can even muster up so much as a hopeful look. He points at the bags his brother’s carrying. “Keep those in other car.”

“Do you mind if I ride in the front while he drives?” you ask Frank when he comes out from his trip to the gas station, nodding at Piotr while you speak.

Frank shrugs. “Sure. I can sleep in the back.”

“You should rest, myshka,” Piotr says as he kisses the top of your head.

“Yeah, but I want to rest next to you,” you explain. “And hold your hand.”

He chuckles and hugs you gently before ushering you towards the front passenger seat. “I suppose that is reasonable.”

***

For the first time in your life, you don’t mind the monotony of car travel.

You can keep track of how much time is passing, you’re close to Piotr the entire time, you have access to water and good tasting food, and you’re able to talk to the people you love most (other than Piotr) basically whenever you want.

The only real downside is that Frank listens to Bruce Springsteen on repeat whenever he’s driving –during the day that is, he’s not enough of an asshole to play it at night—but even that’s tolerable compared to your past few days in hell on earth.

Piotr sticks close to you throughout it all. If he’s driving, you’re in the front passenger seat next to him. If you’re in the back, he’s sitting in the seat next to yours. If you head into a gas station to use the restroom, he’s the one that heads in with you. Wherever you eat –usually in the car, but sometimes leaning against the side or the hood so you can stretch your legs—he’s right next to you.

You’re both equally clingy to each other, really. On some level, you know the considerate thing to do would be dial it back so you don’t annoy everyone else –but, on the other hand, you spent four days being held and tormented by your parents and thought that everyone you’d ever met outside of your childhood community might’ve never existed to begin with. If anything, you’ve earned a little PDA.

(Besides, it’s not like anyone’s complaining or pulling faces.)

“I thought you didn’t exist,” you murmur quietly one night, while Nate’s driving and Frank’s co-piloting for him. You’re in the back with Piotr, nestled against his chest and snuggled up in his jacket. “I thought I’d made you up –that I’d made everything up.”

Piotr holds you tight, cradling you in his arms as he kisses the top of your head. “I will always find you, myshka,” he promises in an equally quiet voice. “You will never have to wake up alone again.”

***

The two SUVs finally reach the X-Mansion around three in the afternoon, a little over two days after your rescue.

Your uncle’s waiting in the garage for you, pacing nervously and generally looking like a wreck.

“And I thought I was the one that was kidnapped and held prisoner,” you remark as you watch him stare down the cars, like he can make them park and turn off faster if he keeps his eyes on them through the whole process.

“He was pretty cut up when you went missing,” Nate says from the backseat. “Flew here in twelve hours when Xavier contacted him with the news.”

“Holy shit,” you mutter under your breath as Piotr finishes parking the car and turns the engine off. You unbuckle your seatbelt and get out of the SUV as quickly as you can—

Your uncle’s still quicker. He practically lifts you out of your seat and into a crushing hug, sobbing brokenly as he holds you.

Which makes you start crying. You’re surprised your tear ducts have anything left to offer after all the crying you’ve done over the past couple days.

“I’m so sorry!” he gasps between sobs as he clutches you tighter and tighter. “I’m so sorry, punk; I’m so, so sorry!”

You hold onto him just as fiercely. “It’s okay; it’s not your fault, it was never your fault…”

The two of you collapse to the cement floor of the garage in a discombobulated heap, weeping and clinging to each other like it’s all that either of you can do.

And, given the depth of everything that’s happened, it just might be.

Piotr, Alex, and Nate help the two of you stand, steadying you both until you’re each calm enough to stay upright on your own power.

Your uncle cups your face his hands, jaw trembling with rage as he looks you over. “What did they do to you? What did they do –I’m gonna fucking murder them!”

Alex shushes your uncle, quickly stepping between the two of you as he starts shaking again. “Deep breaths.”

“Don’t you fucking ‘deep breaths’ me!”

“She needs you calm,” Alex fires back, pointing at you.

Which you don’t think is the whole truth; of the two of you, you’re miles calmer than your uncle (that would be the Xanax, thank you modern pharmaceutics).

But he needs to calm down. And if thinking he’s helping you is the bridge that gets him there, so be it.

You offer your uncle a watery smile when he looks at you. “Honestly, all I really want is to go inside, take a shower, and nap in a real bed.”

That ekes a ghost of a snort out of your uncle. He takes a deep breath, then nods. “Yeah. Probably a good idea. Easier to bathe in water than in deodorant.”

You snicker. “You’re telling me.”

You’re ushered into the house by your uncle and your rescue group. Piotr stays by your side the whole way, holding your hand reassuringly as you step through the back door and into the kitchen—

And there’s Russell, Yukio, Ellie, Illyana, Kitty, Nikolai, and Karen, all waiting for you with varying looks of worry and anticipation.

Russell, Yukio, and Ellie all swarm you at once. It takes a bit of work figuring out how to hug all three of them at once, and it makes your ribs sting like a bitch, but you don’t care. You’re overjoyed to see them; you’ve missed their energy and company fiercely during all of this.

Illyana and Kitty go next –though they have a little more self-control and opt to go one at a time, sparing your ribs from an extra squeezing.

Illyana holds onto you for a surprisingly long amount of time. When she lets go, her eyes are watery enough that her usually impeccable eyeliner has started running.

“Was very worried about you,” she manages, voice wobbly with emotion when you ask her what’s wrong. “And for medvezhonok. Very distraught while you disappear.” She smiles at you, genuine and bright despite the tears in her eyes. “I am glad you are home.”

You have to hug her again after that.

Nikolai’s hug almost makes you cry (again). It’s so gentle and nurturing, and in direct comparison to the past few days –save for being rescued—it’s an outright shock to your system. “We are all glad you come home, malen'kaya ptitsa,” he says before placing a gentle, fatherly kiss against the top of your head.

If you sniffle a little when you step back and wipe a few tears from your eyes, no one mentions it. “I’m glad to be back.” You turn—

And then it’s just Karen left.

She grimaces when she sees you. “You look rougher than you did that one time when Frank brought you by my apartment.”

“Hey, at least I didn’t bleed on your couch this time.” You mentally flounder for a moment, then shrug at her. “You want a hug, too?”

Karen chuckles –along with everyone else—and shrugs back. “Why not? Hugs are good.” Your hug with her is briefer than your hugs with everyone else, but she does clasp your shoulder when it ends. “Your dad sent me the pictures he took of your injuries and a basic rundown of how they found you. I showed them to the law firm I moonlight for –they’re willing to represent you, if you’re interested.”

Granted, you’d rather not have anything to do with your parents ever again, but knowing what your legal options are wouldn’t be a half bad idea.

First things first, though.

“Can I, like, at least take a shower and a nap first?” you ask.

Karen smiles and nods. “Yeah, definitely do those first. I’ll let them know you’re interested in working with us?”

You nod after a moment of thought. “Yeah. I’m interested.”

***

Before either a shower or a nap, though, comes a thorough medical examination and healing session. Vitals, x-rays, bloodwork, the whole nine yards and a few extra for good measure.

Hank takes some higher quality pictures of your injuries and documents your medical status for your meeting with your new lawyers, then sends you off to one of the healers so you don’t have to treat yourself like the most delicate, frail china doll until everything heals.

“Alyssa and Professor Xavier want to do a session with you,” he informs you before sending you to one of the healers. “To make sure no irreversible damage has been done from going off your meds and being held captive.”

“Define ‘irreversible,’” you sigh as you rub your neck.

Hank flashes you a pained smile. “I know. But better to take all the steps than cut corners. Especially with situations like this.” He waves you along when you go quiet. “Go on. Go get healed up. That should help you feel better.”

***

The healing session does help –but honestly, all you want now is a shower and a proper bed.

Which is exactly what you get for yourself. Once the session is done, you head straight for the room you share with Piotr, beeline for the bathroom, and make yourself a nice, steaming shower.

Ah, just mildly scalding, you think as you step under the cascade of water. Perfect.

The warm water feels like heaven. You can feel your muscles relaxing under the soothing spray, and you waste no time washing your hair and scrubbing yourself down.

The first shower after a healing session is always a little weird. You know you were injured –you can still feel dull pain in your ribs and the stress your body went through from coping with the injuries—but seeing completely smooth, unmarred skin in contrast to all of that always makes you feel like you’re having a bit of an out-of-body experience.

Your fingers automatically lift to your brow. There’s not so much as a fine line scar left from where your mother kicked you, let alone the scabby, crusty mess that had been there only fifteen minutes ago.

You’re not sure whether it’s a blessing or a curse to have everything erased like this. On one hand, you definitely don’t want to bear the proof of your parents’ hatred towards you for the rest of your life. On the other hand, if you don’t have any proof at all, does that mean you didn’t even suffer? It could’ve all just been a nightmare, or a horrid hallucination your psychosis cooked up—

You groan and scrub your face with your hands. I need to sleep.

Piotr joins you halfway through your shower. It takes him considerably less time to scrub down than it does for you, so he spends most of his time caressing your body and planting kisses along your jawline and neck.

By the time the shower’s over, you’re wound up in an entirely different way.

The two of you dry each other off –which really means that you spend more time kissing and groping each other than you do actually drying each other off.

You moan softly as Piotr runs his tongue over the spot where your neck and jaw meet. “Take me to bed, baby.” You sigh happily when he complies, looping your arms around his neck as he picks you up and carries you out of the bathroom.

You’re home.

***

“How are you doing?”

You let out a harsh bark of laughter. “How the fuck doing you think I’m doing?”

The corner of Alyssa’s mouth turns up in a smile. “Probably like shit.”

You snort, then nod. “That’s not far off the mark.” You sigh heavily. “I’m happy to be home.”

“But?”

You shrink back into the couch in your therapist’s office, picking at the hem of your shirt. “I’m scared.”

“That it’s not real,” Alyssa supplies when you don’t volunteer any other information. “Your dad mentioned that you said something about thinking none of this was real when he rescued you.”

Your jaw clenches as the moment you saw your mother’s face for the first time in over two years flashes through your mind’s eye over and over again. “I just… I saw her face, and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.”

“That’s not an uncommon reaction. Interacting with abusers puts our systems through a great deal of stress.”

You swallow hard, staring out the window as everything that followed that moment flashes through your head at dizzying speed. “It was like… everything I thought I knew uprooted in that moment. And I thought… ‘what if I made everything up? What if I’m a delusional maniac?’”

“What makes you think you’re delusional?” Alyssa asks, clasping her hands in her lap as she studies you.

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Just… I’m afraid that none of this is real, and that I’ve been with my parents this whole time.” You look over at her. “I could be delusional. It’s possible.”

“Delusional people don't question whether or not they're delusional,” Alyssa says calmly. “They hold their beliefs with total conviction, regardless of whatever evidence is presented. The fact that you're questioning your experience is symptomatic of your anxiety and depression, not because of a delusion.”

“But it is possible!” you insist, gesturing with your hands in short, agitated motions as your anxiety spikes. “It technically is! People cope with abuse in all sorts of ways! Delusions can be one of those ways!”

“Yes, they do, and yes, it is, but that’s not the case with you,” Alyssa fires back. “In order to construct an alternate reality, you would have to be severely schizophrenic. Delusions can be a subset of schizophrenia, but they're about beliefs and obsessions, not constructing locations, people that have never been met, seen, or heard of, or interactions with those people. The latter would fall into the category of hallucinations. What you’re describing to me isn’t within the limitations of a delusion.”

“Then maybe I’m schizophrenic!” you exclaim.

“You’re not,” Alyssa says evenly. “You don’t exhibit any of the symptoms of schizophrenia. And, if you were, your interactions with your alternate reality would not be as linear as anything you’re experiencing now.” She cocks her head to the side as she looks at you. “Why do you keep looking for reasons why this might not be real?”

“I have to. I have to make sure that everything’s real.”

“Why? What’s the worst thing that happens if none of this is real?”

You draw in a shaky breath as you rip at your shirt’s hemline. “Because if none of this is real, that means I was always with my parents, and no one ever loved me.” You freeze, full body, as what you just say registers, then slump over against the arm of the couch and start crying.

“There it is,” Alyssa says softly as she pulls a couple tissues out of the box on the table next to her chair and hands them to you. “Not delusional. Just scared of not being loved.”

“But what if it is?” you whimper. “What if no one really loves me?”

“It’s not a delusion, honey, I promise. Your questioning reality was a side effect of heightened anxiety due to withdrawals, that’s all. This is all real, and you’re really loved.” She hands you a few more tissues. “Your parents were working very hard to destabilize you, even if they didn't know you were on medication. They took away your ability to track time, any personal effects, had almost complete control over your schedule. When you got back to being in control of yourself and back on your medication, you stabilized. People with delusions don't stabilize when interacting with the delusion. You've stabilized due to being out of a stressful environment and getting back onto medication.”

You grit your teeth as you wipe your cheeks dry with a balled-up tissue. “I hate them. I hate them so much.”

“I know, honey. And they’ve definitely earned it. Just make sure you don’t stay there,” Alyssa encourages you, smiling softly as she looks you in the eye. “Because you don’t deserve having to give them all that energy and effort when they never did that for you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure how fast the whole ‘moving on’ thing is gonna go,” you grumble as you start shredding your wadded up, damp tissue.

“Fast doesn’t matter,” Alyssa reassures you. “Just as long as you’re moving.”

***

Franklin “Foggy” Nelson and Matthew Murdock are nothing like what you expect.

Though that may largely have to do with the cheery “Hiya, Red!” Wade tosses Matt’s way as soon as the man walks through the front door to the Institute, which makes Matt pull a face like he’s about to shit his pants so hard he’s gonna rip the seams.

Granted, things aren’t necessarily much improved by Frank following them through the door –presumably to make sure Karen stays safe in case things blow back with your parents somehow—

Except Matt turns towards him and growls, “You didn’t say Wilson was going to be here.”

Which leads the grand revelation that one of your lawyers is actually Daredevil, one of Hell’s Kitchen’s leading vigilantes and a staunch rival of sorts with both Frank and Wade.

…Honestly, it’s not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you.

***

“I’ll be honest, Miss L/N,” Foggy says once the whole “Matt is Daredevil” kerfuffle is settled and the five of you –Matt, Foggy, Karen, you, and Piotr, who agreed to sit in when you asked him to—finally have a chance to sit down. “Given the severity of your abuse case, I’m a little surprised you haven’t already taken steps to issue a restraining order against your parents. You have more than enough grounds for it. Heck, you have enough grounds to take them to criminal court –and win.”

“I’m not interested in having a day in court,” you say quietly. “I just never want to see them again.”

“Understandable, given the tragic circumstances of your upbringing,” Matt says, tone perfectly sympathetic; he’s clearly had a great deal of practice with this. “A restraining order, however, would go a long way towards making sure that could happen.”

“We’d work with the authorities and whatever legal support your parents might have,” Karen adds, notepad settled on her lap and pen poised to start taking notes at any moment. “And, given the severity of the abuse you’ve suffered, we could represent your interests along with someone that you give power of attorney. You could be as removed from the situation as you want.”

Piotr’s hand closes around yours when you don’t say anything, thumb tracing delicate circles against your skin. “It may be worth considering.”

Matt tilts his head for a moment, a slight frown tugging at his lips. “Is there a specific reason why you never issued a restraining order against your parents, Miss L/N?”

Right, you think dejectedly. He’s Daredevil. He can hear my heartbeat. “You think I’m lying.”

“No—”

“You think I’m hiding something, then.”

Matt’s mouth hangs open for a moment, then slowly closes shut.

You swallow hard and look away as tears threaten to spill. “It’s a complicated situation.”

“We work with complicated situations all the time,” Foggy reassures you. “The more open and honest you are with us, the better we can help you.”

“This isn’t just for you,” Matt tacks on. “Restraining orders can also be used to protect whatever children you may choose to have in the future. Even if you don’t want it for you, it may be worth the peace of mind for your future self, to know that your parents can’t get anywhere near your offspring.”

And that does make the whole idea a lot more tempting. Matt’s right that you really don’t care about yourself in all this, but you wouldn’t wish your parents upon your future kids in a thousand years.

You also know you can’t rain hellfire down on someone’s life without even consulting them first.

“Would you mind if I took a few minutes?” you ask, desperately trying to keep your voice steady. “There’s, uh, someone I need to talk to.”

Matt nods. “Take all the time you need.”

You’re not sure if he’s being nice, or if he doesn’t mind because he’s paid by the hour and you’re still technically using his time.

“We’ll be here when you come back,” Karen says with a reassuring smile. “In the meantime, Mr. Rasputin, perhaps we can get started on asking you some questions about your relationship with Y/N, how much you know about her history, that sort of thing?”

Piotr nods when you nod, squeezing your hand before letting it go. “Of course. Whatever I can help with.”

You quickly step out of the classroom the five of you had settled in, then all but run down the hall and towards the residential side of the mansion.

You need to find your uncle.

***

He lets out a low whistle. “Restraining order. That’s some serious shit.”

The two of you are seated in the gazebo towards the back of Xavier’s property. The skies have decided to cast a relentless downpour on the world beneath them, drenching everything within their reach and making mini-swamps out of various patches of the lawns that encircle the mansion.

The space under the gazebo is dry, though, and the rain is loud enough that you don’t have to worry about anyone overhearing you, and the spot is far enough removed from the house that the telepaths that could pick up what you’re talking about will be able to infer by the distance that the conversation you’re having is deliberately private.

“It’d be good for my future kids,” you comment as you watch little streams of water drip off the edges of the gazebo’s roof. “Honestly, it’d probably be good to do more than just a restraining order, make sure that my parents are completely locked out of everything.”

“Damn right it would,” your uncle agrees with a nod. He glances over at you. “So what’s stopping you?”

You sigh heavily. “They’d probably rat you out to try and get me to stop the proceedings. Or just rat you out to spite me.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” you uncle says immediately. “The second you do anything to actually shut them out, your mom’s going to throw an absolute shitfit. I know for a fact that the only reason they didn’t turn on me sooner is because, legally, the government couldn’t do anything to force you to go back home to them.”

You frown. “Wait, how can you know that?”

Your uncle flashes you a pained smile. “Who do you think supplied them with the repression serum? Or the collar? Or built the holding cell you were in? Sure as shit wasn’t me, punk.”

Your blood runs cold. “Why?”

“Probably wanted another agent,” your uncle says, entirely too blasé about the whole thing for your comfort. “They knew I was around, they just didn’t know where to find me.”

“Then why not get rid of me?”

“Because getting rid of you would make your mom a ‘bad mother.’”

You scoff, fists clenching against your thighs. “And kicking me in the face doesn’t?”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child. No, I figure once you turned eighteen, they would’ve shipped you off and claimed you were at college or working or what have you.” He grimaces, eyes going flat and dark. “You are lucky you chose to run when you did.”

You swallow hard, trying to stay calm despite the rage bubbling up inside you. “Then why keep kidnapping me? What’s the fucking point of it? They don’t want me, I’m out of their hair, what do they get by dragging me back to a place I never wanted to be from the get go?”

Your uncle shrugs. “Could be the government ordered them to track you down so they’d have better tabs on their ‘potential asset.’ Could be that they just wanted to keep control over you. Honestly, I’m not sure –and I don’t really care to know, either. I stopped trying to figure out your parents’ fucked up cognitions a long time ago. But we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about you getting your parents out of your life.”

“I mean…” You scrub your face with your hands and let out a frustrated groan. “I’m not sure what I can really do. If they’ve got government backing—”

“You let me and the other people in your life worry about that,” your uncle says firmly. “You’ve got more than enough mercenaries and vigilantes in your pocket. If someone tries to fuck any of this up, they’ll get their ass handed to them in short order.”

“But what about you?” you fire back, finally pointing out the elephant in the room. “If I go through with all this, your former handlers are going to start a manhunt for you.”

Your uncle considers that for a moment before shrugging. “Not my first time I’ve had to run. I can always do it again.”

“No! That’s not fair to you!”

“You’re right, it isn’t, but that’s not your fault. I was dealt this hand a long time before you ever showed up,” your uncle says, eyes shining as he smiles at you. “Don’t put your life on hold for me, punk. You deserve to live it without having to deal with your parents. I’ll be fine.”

You hug him, wrapping your arms around his waist as you start crying. “What about your house?”

“I’ll clear it out and burn it. Give them a good ol’ ‘fuck you’ before I duck under.”

You frown. “But… you won’t have anywhere to go once everything settles.”

“Eh, I’ve been thinking about relocating for a while now,” he comments casually as he stares out at the rain. “Maybe… somewhere closer to New York.”

You look up at him, disbelieving. “Really?”

He grins and hugs you closer. “Yeah, really. I miss you when you’re gone, punk. And…” He sighs. “I’m tired of being on my own so much.”

You gasp, feigning shock. “Are you… admitting you feel emotions?”

Your uncle snorts. “Don’t get used to it.”

The two of you sit in silence for a moment, listening to the rain fall and watching it wash away the sins of the earth.

“I might need you to answer some questions for my lawyers,” you finally say. “Just so they know what’s all going on.”

Your uncle pats your shoulder. “Whatever you need, punk. Whatever you need.”

***

Matt, Foggy, and Karen take your uncle’s status in remarkable stride –which, considering that Matt is Daredevil, Karen unearths some sort of mob or government conspiracy every other week, and Foggy is constantly looped into the two’s insatiable drive to get into as much shit as possible, isn’t all that surprising, actually.

Your uncle does help confirm everything you’ve said –and everyone else, for that matter—about your parents. Even if he can’t testify, he can tell the three of them where to look for various details to confirm your version of events.

“Given your medical and therapy records, we have what basically constitutes an ‘open and shut’ case,” Foggy says during one of your sessions with them. You’d opted to meet at their office, which is attached to a deli and butcher’s shop run by Foggy’s family. “Even this doesn’t get taken this to criminal court, getting a restraining order should be easy. I can’t imagine there’d be a judge in New York that’d deny it.”

“Well, maybe one or two, but they’re in prison now,” Matt adds with a small smile.

Piotr squeezes your hand gently when you don’t react to either lawyer’s statements. “Are you alright, myshka?”

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Just… it’s a lot to wrap my head around.”

“Why not start with an ex parte order?” Karen suggests. “That’ll make sure you’re immediately protected, and then we can work with the judge to get a long-term order in place. Once that’s done, we can look at your file and work on anything else you might want to get set up to safeguard yourself against your parents.”

You nod sluggishly. “Yeah, just… can I have a night to sleep on it? I’m still trying to recover from everything.”

“Absolutely,” Matt says immediately. “You’ve been through a great deal of trauma, Miss L/N. It’s understandable that you’d want to take time to think about everything.”

You know he means to sound sympathetic and understanding, but right now it just sounds coddling. All you want to do is go home, crawl into bed, and sleep for a thousand years.

Piotr makes good-byes for both of you as you head out of the office and towards Piotr’s car. He catches up with you quickly, gently lifting you up from where you’d slumped against the car door so he can open it for you. “Are you well, myshka?”

“Yeah,” you murmur as you plop into your seat. “Just really tired. Can we go home?”

Piotr bends down, ducking under the roof of the car so he can kiss your temple. “Da.”

“And can we snuggle?”

He stops mid-way in closing the car door to give you a loving smile. “Konechno. Whatever you would like.”

***

Once the two of you get back home, Piotr lifts you out of the car and carries you all the way upstairs to the room the two of you share. He gently tucks you in bed before slipping his shoes off and climbing in on his side.

You wriggle over to him, nestling against his chest as he wraps his arms around you. “I’m so tired.”

“I know,” he murmurs as he kisses the top of your head. “It is okay. You are allowed to be tired.”

You trace your fingers over the planes of his chest in swirling, nonsensical shapes. “I just… I don’t know how to feel about it. The restraining order.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. I guess… it feels like I’m not allowed to do it.”

“Because of your uncle?”

“That, but also… I spent my childhood trying to figure out how to be a good daughter. I feel like if I lock my parents out, they’re never going to love me.”

Piotr stays quiet for a moment, before hugging you tighter and trailing kisses from the top of your forehead to your lips. “Perhaps you are right. But, I would say you have so many people here that love you. People who you do not have to prove yourself to. And I think it would be worth peace of mind to not have your parents looming over your shoulder so much. Especially when we start having children.”

And that’s the kicker of it, in the end.

Besides, Piotr’s right. You do have a wonderful family and life here at Xavier’s; everything’s improved for the better since leaving your parents and hometown community. No sense in fucking that up by leaving things to chance –especially once kids come into the picture.

“Okay,” you decide, pressing your forehead against your fiancé’s chest. “I’ll do the restraining order.”

***

You’re still extremely fatigued and weak the next morning, and Piotr deems you too unwell to travel (not that you’re complaining, because hello pajama day). He calls in to the law firm of Nelson, Murdock, and Page and lets them know –and as luck would have it, they’re in a position to make a house call since all you’re doing today is signing paperwork.

Frank also shows up. Whether it’s of his own reasons or he’s tagging along with your legal team, you neither know or care. He pretty much pairs off with Nathan and Wade as soon as he steps over the threshold into the house, talking with the two fellow assassins in hushed tones about who knows what –the latest style of bullets, maybe, or the most efficient ways to clean a gun.

(What do assassins talk about over lunch, anyway?)

You set up shop in the dining room with Piotr and your lawyers. Piotr’s family and your uncle are a few feet away in the kitchen, and further back are Nate, Wade, and Frank, still enraptured in whatever conversation they’re having.

“Alright,” Foggy says as he pulls a sheaf of paperwork out of his briefcase. “This is going to look like a lot, but it’s really just a bunch of reading and signing. Some of these are just waivers giving us permission to act in certain capacities –to use your medical records and therapy records as evidence in the courts, to act on your behalf without you being there in our capacity as your attorneys, stuff like that—some of these are forms that basically just say you understand, to your best ability, that you’re telling the truth, and some of these are also your permissive relief requests.”

You stare down at the papers like they’re liable to catch fire at any given moment. “And then?”

“Then, an emergency protective order goes into effect,” Karen says. “The emergency protective order only lasts a few days, but in that time we’ll request the ex-parte order to extend the time while we work through the litigation. Once we get through the process of establishing the long-term restraining order, it’ll be issued.”

You take a deep breath and nod slowly. “And then?”

“Given the severity of your case, we’re going to push for the longest term possible,” Matt explains with a small smile, “which is about five years. You’ll have to renew it at those intervals, but given the amount of evidence that supports your side of the story, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

Piotr puts an arm around your shoulders when you start shaking. “Are you okay?”

“Just… feel like the world’s going to explode,” you murmur as you try to breathe evenly. “Or… that they’re never really going to love me again.” You hide your face against his shoulder as tears start leaking out.

Karen produces some tissues from her purse and hands them over to Piotr. “I know this isn’t easy…”

Normally, you’d snap at anyone who dared to issue that phrase while you’re dealing with family shit, but something about the sincerity in Karen’s voice makes you believe that, somewhere along the way, she’s gone through the same kind of shit that you have.

You lift your head and meet her gaze.

Her eyes are just as watery as yours. “Letting go of people who were supposed to love you but don’t is never an easy thing to do. It hurts, and it sucks, and it forces you to go through so much grieving that life just doesn’t prepare us for. But you deserve to have peace of mind in your day to day life. You deserve to never go through again what you went through two weeks ago.”

You sniff, inhale deeply, then nod. “Okay. Just… uh… do we have to go in any order?”

“Nope,” Foggy says with a kind smile. “Just so long as everything gets signed.”

“Okay.” You take another deep breath, then nod to yourself. “Okay. Let’s do this shit.”

***

It’s so much paper. The top of the dining room table has disappeared under all the papers you have to sign. At least twenty forests must’ve died for all this paper to be here.

Also, you’ve officially hit the point where you’re questioning whether or not you know your own signature or not. Just looking at the black scrawl of ink makes you go a little cross-eyed.

“Alright, almost done,” Foggy says as he preps the next form for you to sign while Karen organizes everything and gets them tucked back in his briefcase. “We just have your permissive protections request left and the form that lets us act in your capacity as attorneys.”

“Thank fuck,” you mutter as you reach for the permissive protections request. “Is it possible to get carpal tunnel syndrome in less than a day?”

“I did it once!” Wade calls from the kitchen.

“I don’t even want to know how you managed that,” you fire back as you sign and initial the various spots on the form and hand it over to Karen. “Alright, last one.”

Matt stiffens in his seat before Foggy can hand it over to you, though. “Someone’s coming to the door. Several someones.”

Everyone freezes –and, sure enough, a couple seconds later there’s a series of raps on the front door.

You can hear Russell get up from the rec room and head towards the door, and then the door swinging open—

And past that, you can’t necessarily hear the conversation, but Matt’s hackles basically go up, which makes you tense further—

“Wade!” There’s a brief sound of struggle, and the Russell books it towards the kitchen. “Wade, Y/N’s parents are here with a bunch of other guys!”

Your blood runs cold, then white hot. If they hurt him, if they fucking hurt him…

Piotr tries to grab you when you jump up from your chair. “Myshka, stop—”

Your uncle reacts at the same time, immediately lunging in the direction of the front door. “Fucking assholes—”

Alex and Nikolai catch him, and Frank wraps his arms around his waist and hauls him back and out of sight for good measure.

You manage to slip past everyone in the chaos caused by your uncle’s attempt, charging down the hall towards Russell’s panicked voice. You can hear Piotr behind you, along with Wade, but you can’t think about either of them right now. All you can think about is Russell, and making sure no one hurts him, and if they hurt him, I’m going to kill every last one of them with my bare hands.

You nearly collide with the younger teen, but push him behind you and snarl directly in the face of your town’s pastor. “Get the fuck out!”

He –along with your parents and several of the men from your community—recoil in the face of your rage and the gust of wind that blasts through the hall.

Hit a dog long enough…

Your mother recovers first, scowling at you as she advances on you. “You disobedient, disrespectful—”

Piotr bursts into the hall, physically putting himself between you and everyone else before anyone can do anything. He glares down at your mother, drawing himself up to his full, massive height and balling his fists at his side. “Do not dare touch my fiancée.”

You mother blinks, shocked. “You actually proposed to her?”

“You took my fucking ring off me!” you snap, pointing at the hand in question.

“I thought it was fake!”

Of course she did. The whole time she told you –and everyone else told you—that no one would ever love you, and they actually believed it themselves.

Fuckers.

“Everyone, please,” your town’s pastor says above the chaos and all the shouting. “We don’t want to cause a scene or a problem.”

“Oh, I think you’ve already fucking done that,” Wade says, voice deadly, as he steps up to stand next to Piotr.

“You’ve been doing that for years,” Nate adds, gun clearly visible on his belt, as he steps between you, Russell, and everyone else.

“We’re not here because we have a problem with any of you,” your town’s pastor continues. “We’re just here to take Y/N back home, where she belongs.”

You stare at him like he’s the one growing a second head. “What?”

“We’re concerned about your spiritual well-being,” he says, like that’s applicable to the situation in any way, shape, or form.

You sputter at him, outraged. “What the –fuck your religion!”

“You mind your mouth!” your mother snarls. “And you’re coming back home with us!”

“The fuck I’m not!” you shout back. “I’m an adult! You can’t make me go anywhere if I don’t want to!”

“The daughter’s place is under her father’s headship until she is married,” your pastor says, desperately trying to keep some semblance of control over the situation. “It would be most appropriate for you to return home until you’re married to ensure your sexual and spiritual purity.”

“Now, we don’t have time to unpack all that,” Wade mutters under his breath as he flashes a none-too-subtle ‘cuckoo’ gesture at you.

You just stare at the pastor, agape and eyes wide. “What the… what?”

“I know this may seem shocking—”

“They beat me!” you shriek, pointing at your parents. “They locked me in my room for days on end! They told me they hated me, that no one would ever love me, that I was an abomination!” You narrow your eyes when your pastor blanches, the chill of realization settling hard in your stomach. “You knew. You knew all of it was wrong. Just like you know that this is wrong! You let it all happen!”

He grimaces, but ultimately says nothing.

“Doesn’t matter,” your father growls flatly. “You’re not shaming my name by dallying about like some whore. You’re coming home. Today.”

You can’t even wrap your head around it. You’re staring in the face of people who know what they did to you, on some level, was wrong, but all they care about is taking you back to the environment where it all happened and will keep happening. Like they don’t care about your well-being, or what makes you happy, or about how much progress you’ve made since coming to Xavier’s—

I can’t make them care.

The penny drops right as you’re on the verge of tears. You can’t make them care about you. You can’t make them love you. Every single person you’re facing down –your parents included—decided a long time ago that you weren’t worth loving or respecting. No amount of arguing, pleading, or proof to the contrary is going to make them change their minds because there’s so much guilt on their shoulders –emotional or legal, though it should be both—that if they ever pulled their heads out of their asses, their necks would snap from the weight of it all.

And, amid all the pain the revelation causes, a single thought rises above all the emotional chaos: I can’t keep giving them my energy.

As much as it hurts to admit, it’s a useless fight. And as much as you want them to love you, they’re, at their cores, not people that are healthy to be loved by. You’d have to change every single thing about you –including things that can’t be changed—for them to ever love you.

And they don’t deserve that, least of all from you.

You look over your shoulder and see Foggy, Karen, and Matt all looking at you –well, Matt isn’t, but you know he’s focused on you and the fight unfolding in front of you.

Karen raises her eyebrows at you and holds up the form that lets them act as your attorneys without your presence and a pen.

An offer. A ladder out of the hell you were born to and raised in. A way to close the door once and for all.

It’s about time you take it.

“You know what?” you say, almost laughing from the sheer ridiculousness of it all. “I’m done with all of you.”

“And just what does that mean?” your mother says with a roll of her eyes.

You look back to Foggy, Matt, and Karen one more time before glancing over to your mother. “It means you’re dealing with my attorneys from here on out.” You turn and walk towards the trio, ignoring the squawks of protest the group from your hometown lets out.

As soon as you sign the form, they step past you and between Piotr, Wade, Nate, and everyone that’d joined your parents. “We represent the law firm of Nelson, Murdock, and Page,” Foggy says brightly. “And we’re here to inform you that you are currently violating an order of protection that was issued for our client’s safety against you.”

“The local authorities have been contacted and are on their way to arrest you for violating the order, in addition to charges of domestic abuse and conspiracy to commit abduction,” Matt adds.

“You fucking bitch!” your mother screams, lunging forward at you only to be stopped by Matt and Foggy. “You can’t do this!”

“Miss L/N,” Matt says, turning towards you. “For the sake of your emotional well-being, I would advise you to leave the room. Mr. Rasputin, perhaps you could accompany her for her comfort?”

“He needs to be here to represent the Institute,” you say, suddenly drained from the whole ordeal.

“I’ll go with her,” Wade offers, stepping back to clasp your shoulder. “Come on, sis.”

You put an arm around Russell’s shoulders. “Let’s go, bud. We’re done with them.”

Back in the kitchen –and out of sight of your parents and everyone else—Alex, Nikolai, and Frank are still holding your uncle back.

He relaxes once you cross the threshold and step out of sight of the hall. “Are you okay? What happened?”

You sigh, then shrug. “I decided to let my attorneys handle the situation.”

Your uncle stares at you, then smiles as tears well up in his eyes. “Good. Good job, punk.”

You try to smile back, but ultimately start crying.

He reaches over and pulls you into a massive hug.

The two of you stay like that for a while, holding each other while tears flow down each of your faces.

***

The whole process of your parents –and everyone else that decided to show up with them—being arrested is exhausting.

There’s a lot of screaming. A lot of arguing. A lot of insults –those are mostly directed at you, even though you aren’t in the room.

Frank and your uncle have to duck into the basement to avoid being seen by any of the officers –which Wade makes a “alternative seven minutes in heaven” comment about that makes you smile briefly, but you’re honestly too tired to really do anything except stare at a wall right now.

Piotr has to talk to the officers as a representative of the Institute, which means that you can’t just drape yourself over him like you want to and soak in his affection and love for you.

The only upside is that Matt, Foggy, and Karen can speak to the police on your behalf. Right now, you’re not sure you could handle dealing with all the questions you’re bound to be asked.

Eventually, Alex walks up to your seat and squeezes your shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go for walk.”

You frown up at her. “Don’t we need to be here in case the police have questions for us?”

“Your attorneys are already representing you,” she says. “Besides, if they really need something, Illyana will let us know and we can come back in.” She squeezes your shoulder again, then nods towards the back door. “Come. You could use some fresh air and quiet.” She puts an arm around you as you stand and gently ushers you to the back door and outside.

It’s far calmer outside. A cool, easy breeze ruffles your hair, and the grass is soothingly soft beneath your feet.

Alex nudges you forward, though not unkindly. “Come on. Medvezhonok keeps saying I should see the gardens.”

You walk alongside her through the various gardens that dot Xavier’s property. In the wake of the adrenaline and stress abruptly leaving your body, you’re feeling numb, almost detached. It’s almost like your body can’t fully process the shock and stress of having your parents show up.

Well, come to think of it, that’s probably exactly what’s going on.

Alex is markedly quiet as she examines the garden, expression placid and body language lax as she ambles along the pathways between various clusters of flowers and flora.

“You seem calm,” you remark, voice barely more than a mumble as you stare down at a few bright, cheery yellow lilies.

“Age brings serenity,” she says as she crouches down to better look at a butterfly feeding off some hummingbird mint. “And there is not much to be afraid of when you can outmatch nearly every opponent facing you. That, and they are not my nightmare.” She looks up at you, a ghost of a sympathetic smile on her lips. “They were –are—yours. It’s always harder when it’s personal.”

You let out a huff of air. “Ain’t that the truth.” You sit down on a nearby bench, staring blankly at nothing. “What happens next?”

“I am not the person to ask that question,” Alex admits, brushing her jeans off as she stands back up. “I would wager, though, that your lawyers will know how to handle things.”

You nod slowly, numbly. “Yeah, probably.”

Alex watches you closely for a moment before sitting down next to you. “How are you, malen'kaya ptitsa? How are you feeling?”

What you mean to say is something along the lines of “overwhelmed,” or “numb,” or “exhausted,” or maybe even “angry to the point where I can’t feel it anymore.”

What comes out, though, is: “I don’t think my parents ever loved me.”

You feel a slight pulse of shock hit your system once your words register in your own brain, then the slow, sinking dread and resignation as the truth of it sets in. You’ve been on the precipice of realizing the truth for a while, but you’ve never really admitted it at all, much less out loud to someone else.

Alex grimaces and nods. “I would wager you are right. No parent who loves their child treats them how you were treated.”

You nod along, lips tugging into a frown and chin trembling. “Yeah. I kind of just… realized I can’t make them love me or respect me. That’s why I just decided to let Matt ‘n Foggy ‘n Karen handle everything, you know? I was just done with all of it.”

“You’re right,” Alex reassures you. “On all counts. You cannot change their stance, but you do not have to hold onto people who refuse to treat you with decency.”

Your eyes sting and water as a lump rises in your throat. “I just… I don’t understand why I couldn’t be worth it to them. I mean, I get that they never wanted a mutant child, but I was just a kid. What about being a mutant made it worth beating me, terrifying me, demeaning me, abusing me, making my life a miserable hell every single day I lived in their home—”

Alexandra wraps her arms around you as you start crying and presses a motherly kiss to the top of your head when you press yourself against her. “Some people are just horrible, malen'kaya ptitsa. Sometimes they are so lost in their own misery that the only way they can make themselves feel better is to make others hurt, sometimes they only care about themselves to the point that they stop caring when they hurt others, and sometimes they just enjoy making others hurt because it brings them pleasure. Either way, the end result for their victims is still the same: pain and abuse they should have never suffered.”

You whimper and weep against her shoulder as she slowly rocks you back and forth. “I don’t understand –I tried so hard to be good—”

“It was never about you being ‘good,’” Alex murmurs against your hair. “You have always been ‘good.’ It was about their hatred and inability to love unconditionally. Unfortunately, you got stuck with short end of stick, and I am so sorry that you did, dorogoy rebenok.”

You sniff and swipe at your face as you sit up and look her in the eye. “Did you go through this kind of stuff with your parents? Did they care that you were a mutant?”

Alex’s face goes completely blank as she stares at you. “My par… Piotr never told you.”

“Told me what?”

Alex’s lips purse into a thin line; she slides off the bench to kneel on the ground in front of you and clasps your hands in hers. “Malen'kaya ptitsa… I was taken from my family when I was four to train as government asset. I never saw them again, and when the KGB disbanded in the nineties, I found out that they had been executed to prevent any leaks of information from spreading. The only family I have ever had is Nikolai and my children –and now you as well.”

Guilt drops in your stomach like a lead brick. “Oh God.” You double over and start crying again. “I’m sorry –I’m so sorry! I’ve just been complaining like a brat—”

“Nyet. Nyet, nyet, nyet -- malen'kaya ptitsa, look at me.” Alex cups your face in her hands, forcing you to lift your head and meet her gaze. “Never apologize for hurting after what you have endured. Understand?”

“But what you went through was so much worse!” you protest. “I at least had a family, I had a home—”

“You had neither of those things until you came here,” Alex insists sharply. “You may have had biological parents, but they were not family or home. ‘Family’ and ‘home’ means safety and love, and they certainly provided neither. And, yes, my time as asset was horrible, but I never had to second guess whether or not I was loved. I never had to deal with mind games as to whether I was wanted or respected or what have you. I always knew where I stood with my handlers and what was expected of me.” She rubs your cheeks with her thumbs, wiping the tears away. “People who try and rank pains as ‘worse’ than each other are people who cannot handle their own emotions and need to put them in boxes to cope –and, more often than not, they are the type of people who contributed to our pain in first place.” She swallows hard, tears welling up in her eyes, and when she speaks again her voice is shaky with emotion. “So please, do not stop yourself from grieving. Because I am most certainly grieving for you.”

You sob and collapse against her, body shaking as grief wells up and pours out of you –grief for the childhood you lost, for the pain you had to endure, for the love you should’ve had but never received…

And, through it all, Alex holds you tight with strong arms as she cries along with you. “It’s okay, malen'kaya ptitsa. It’s okay.”

***

Once the authorities leave –and take your parents, pastor, and the others that’d joined them along—Piotr comes out to the back with Nikolai to collect you and Alexandra.

The two of you are significantly calmer, having had time to cry and catch your breath, but it’s still apparent that you both have been crying.

Piotr lifts you into his arms and carries you towards the house, while Nikolai sits down next to his wife on the bench.

“Can we just go to bed?” you croak, voice hoarse and throat dry from crying. “I’m just really tired. I just want to go to bed.”

Piotr kisses your forehead as he adjusts his hold on you so he can open the back door. “Da. We can go to bed.” He carries you all the way up to your shared room and gently tucks you into bed before going back to close the door, then joins you in bed. “How are you?”

“Tired,” you mumble. “Angry. Sad. It’s just—” you point at your head, twirling your finger around like you’re stirring a pot of soup “—a lot in here right now.”

“I bet,” Piotr murmurs as he wraps his arms around you. “But you can rest for now. You have earned good rest.”

“You’re telling me.” You sling an arm over his waist, then sigh when he starts tracing swirling designs on your arm and shoulder. You slow your breathing, counting your inhales and exhales until you feel less like you’re about to completely crumble apart.

And then you say, “I want to get a tattoo.”

You can practically hear the slow, shocked blink Piotr does. “Uh… khorosho.”

You tip your head back so you can see his face –and he definitely looks surprised. “Is that really okay with you?”

“It is your body,” he says, smoothing your hair away from your face. “I was just more… surprised by lack of context, I suppose.”

“I mean, I kind of wrote it off when my uncle told me that the ink wouldn’t take as well, but… I want something permanent on me. Something that can’t be taken away. When my parents took my ring, and I thought you weren’t real…”

Piotr holds you closer as your voice trails off. “It is alright, myshka. And if you want tattoo, we can find way for you to get one.”

“You don’t think it’s irresponsible to get a tattoo because of the trauma I went through?”

He sighs as he contemplates your question. “In this case, I think not. I know you will get one done safely. And, honestly, I do not think it is very drastic change to yourself considering what happened. Besides, people who lose loved ones or self-harm or feel suicidal get tattoos to help them stay grounded. I do not see why you cannot do same.”

You snuggle closer to him, soothed by his support. “You don’t care if we have kids and I have a tattoo?”

He snorts. “Nyet. What you want to do to your body is your choice. My mother and Mikhail have tattoos, so our kids will see them anyway. Plus… I was thinking of getting some of my own.”

“Really?” You tilt your head back so you can see his face. “What were you thinking of getting?”

“Maybe DNA strand on my wrist, for mutantism,” he says, tapping his right wrist. “And possibly some work on my shoulder and back that looks like northern lights night sky scene. And… I know I want to get our children’s fetal heartbeats. On my forearm.”

You smile softly. “I like the sound of all of that. Especially the heartbeats one.”

He smiles back at you and leans down to kiss you. “So do I.”

You nestle closer to Piotr as he kisses you, hands softly gripping the material of his shirt as his arms hold you tighter against his body.

Your journey to recovery is far from over. If you had to wager, it’ll probably never be over, not entirely.

But you climbed an important mountain today. And with Piotr by your side –along with Wade, Nathan, Neena, Russell, Yukio, Ellie, and the rest of Piotr’s family—you’ll be able to keep climbing whatever mountains happen to find you.

One foot in front of the other.

You’ve got this.

Sources about how delusions work:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder https://www.buting.com/blog/2015/02/false-memories-lies-and-the-limitations-of-the-human-brain.shtml https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/delusion/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016695/

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #nathan summers x wade wilson #cablepool #frank castle x karen page #alexandra rasputin x nikolai rasputin #ANGST ANGST ANGST #SO MUCH ANGST #tw: abuse #tw: manipulation #tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: vomiting #tw: kidnapping #this entire fic is basically a trigger warning #x men fanfiction #deadpool fanfiction

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operationrainfall · 5 years ago

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Title Woven Developer Alterego Games Publisher Alterego Games Release Date November 15th, 2019 Genre Adventure, Puzzle Platform PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One Age Rating E for Everyone 10+ – Fantasy Violence Official Website

I really wanted to love Woven. After all, I was one of the original backers of the unsuccessful Kickstarter project, and was duly impressed by Alterego Games’ decision to self publish the project afterwards. The premise of Woven was really compelling and different, taking place in a soft world of woolen yarn and fabric that is being invaded by strange mechanical insects. Our hero is a goofy elephant named Stuffy, and he quickly comes across a new friend, a firefly-shaped robot named Glitch. Together, they set out to discover the truth and explore this world, transforming and reweaving Stuffy to scale various obstacles along the way. If only the adventure had lived up to that fantastic premise.

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Woven is the sort of game that would have made my childhood self smile. It plays out like a live action Winnie the Pooh, in a calm and mellow land where all that matters is relaxation and finding flowers. At least at first. Stuffy is a very amicable protagonist, but not the brightest bulb. A fact that is repeatedly referenced by the game’s narrator. The narrator’s tenor sounds very British, and at first I enjoyed how his paired sentences usually rhymed. It does grow old rather quickly though, especially when you realize that the narrator is not gonna help you much with direction. If you get lost at all, he’ll start reminiscing like a grandfather with dementia, talking about the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. None of which is helpful. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that getting lost is a regular occurrence in Woven. Or at least it was for me. I managed to get stuck about 5 minutes into the game, in what would be considered the tutorial area. That’s because the game doesn’t hold your hand much, and trusts you’re clever enough to pick up on the clues in your environment. Sadly, what Woven thinks is plainly evident very rarely is. Case in point, the very first blueprint machine I came across gave no guidance how to operate it. I eventually figured it out, but it was a sign of things to come.

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There’s dozens of blueprint machines spread across Woven’s 5 regions, including meadows, deserts and jungles, and each blueprint gives Stuffy new transformation options. To unlock the blueprint, you play a little musical mini-game by operating mechanical levers to select notes. Though this was confusing initially, I grew to enjoy the mini-game. At first I assumed that each animal form would have set limbs, but you can mix and match after you acquire several, creating bizarre chimeras. Case in point, you can pair Pig legs with Lion arms and a Rhino head. You can even have two different arms or legs simultaneously. Each body part has different capabilities that allow various actions. You’ll need these to solve puzzles and make your way through the game. Though Woven is nominally a linear experience, the world is so wide open it’s easy to not immediately know where to head next. A good example was when I came across a short hilltop ringed with mountains, with a circular passage full of cranky yak creatures. I could stomp my foot to force the Yaks to move, but after moving in a complete circle, I wasn’t sure what to do. I eventually found the solution online in a very helpful playthrough, but it was frustrating being on the cusp of a solution and having no idea where to go next. This was due to the fact many of the puzzles in Woven are time based, but they don’t tell you they are. If a clock had showed up indicating I had a certain amount of time, I would have known to hurry up. And the farther I got in the game, the more complex and active the puzzles got. I much preferred the puzzles that required thinking but not fast reflexes.

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While it’s clearer why you would want to transform Stuffy to progress, it’s less clear how to use color palettes called patterns. You’ll find tons of flowers as you wander about, and by stomping your foot, they’ll open up and allow Glitch to scan them. You can also scan some animals for these, but they rarely sit still, so you’ll either need to be quick or find a way to distract or incapacitate them. Lastly, there’s patches you’ll randomly find on the map to unlock patterns. Patterns do a couple of things. On the one hand, they let you decorate Stuffy at the knitting machines, making him look as fancy or hideous as you please. You might be more surprised to realize you need some for puzzles. An example are giant snakes that block your progress unless you match their pattern. There’s another cool segment where a mechanical spider will pounce on you unless you blend in with the background. I don’t mind using patterns strategically, but it’s very easy to not scan the right one, and then be forced to backtrack until you find it. Some sort or an indicator of where key items resided would have helped, but there’s no such thing. And given the wide open format of Woven, it’s rather easy to get lost and miss the proper patterns. Oh and did I mention there’s more than 100 of them spread across the entire game? Which makes it even more daunting when you manage to pass one without realizing it.

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You may be wondering what Glitch does, and the simple answer is he operates every mechanical device you interact with. He turns on the blueprint machines and knitters, scans items and can also use his light to illuminate dark caves. The little firefly is pretty helpful, and his backstory ties directly into the plot of Woven. You’ll find lots of nodes that reveal bits and pieces of his lost memory as you go. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say there’s a reason Glitch feels so strongly pulled by the planet’s moon. I wish I could say Stuffy’s backstory was as interesting, but he’s almost an incidental character. He could literally be anything or anybody else, and it wouldn’t change the course of the game. I never knew much about the elephant, other than he was apparently simple, cowardly and loved flowers. It’s not clear how long he’s been around, what he did before Glitch or anything really. He’s just there to progress the story, and that’s a shame, especially since he’s nominally the main character.

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Not everything in the game works poorly. I did find it handy how the different Joy-Con controlled Stuffy and Glitch, respectively. And I appreciated visual prompts indicating what abilities I needed to get past obstacles, and found the camera easy to operate. The problem was primarily with the game’s physics. Woven is a wide open 3D world, but often what seems a clear path forward ends up tripping you up with invisible stage geometry. Bushes often kept me from moving forward, which was awkward. As a fan of platformers, I found this made Woven a lot harder to enjoy, since I was never clear if I could progress or not. Sometimes you do actually need different abilities tied to animal parts, such as jumping or pushing, but you never know in advance. So if I came to an area with a puzzle and had the wrong parts, I would have to backtrack all the way to the nearest knitting machine and reweave my elephant friend. I really think it would have been much easier if Stuffy could fast travel to these, since they’re spaced rather far apart and it’s not very fun walking about. Failing that, I would have loved a mini-map, since that would have cut down how often I got lost in Woven dramatically.

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Visually, Woven has a cute storybook aesthetic. There’s lots of bright colors and soft details. While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with the graphical fidelity. I will mention I played the Switch version of the game, and from what little research I’ve done, it runs far better on other consoles. I normally don’t complain about things like framerate or the like, and usually find most games I play on Switch run great, but oftentimes the graphics here were muddy and fuzzy. Simply put, this game suffers from Bloodstained syndrome, meaning every other iteration of the game plays better than the one on Nintendo consoles. Which is truly a shame, since this is the perfect sort of all ages game that would otherwise appeal to a lot of Nintendo gamers. Musically the game is frankly dull, and quite muted musically. Sound effects lack punch, and actions often don’t have the proper impact as a result. When Stuffy punches a box out of his way, it just slides quietly out of place. Much like the rest of the game, aesthetically Woven is a very mixed bag.

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While I hate to add onto my other complaints, I have a few more. For one thing, I find it completely awkward how Stuffy always looks at Glitch as he runs forward, contorting his head to follow the firefly everywhere. That’s minor, but a more significant issue relates to the linearity of the game. If you miss any collectibles or achievements, you can’t get them until the next time you play through the game from the beginning. Once you reach a new area, there’s no backtracking, and the game auto saves. So if you’re one of those people that loves to platinum games, best of luck. And finally, while I don’t mind the general lack of combat in the game, it makes it that much more challenging when you have to contend with the final boss.

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Much as I wanted to love Woven, I left the experience quite disappointed. There was promise here, but for whatever reason it wasn’t met. If you don’t mind clumsy physics and very complex and vague puzzles, you might enjoy what’s here. Even then, it’s a hard pill to swallow at $19.99. Though you can beat the game in less than 5 hours, it took me around 9 due to getting lost repeatedly. So at least you’ll get some bang for your buck. This is one of those games I recommend you pick up on a sale. Hopefully Alterego Games has more ideas they can breathe life into in the future, cause I’d honestly like to see them succeed. In the meantime, I’ll lament this tale of an elephant and his firefly buddy.

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[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”1.5″]

Review Copy Provided By Publisher

REVIEW: Woven Title Woven

#Adventure #Alterego Games #Glitch #puzzle #StickyLock Games #Stuffy #Woven

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sethnakht · 6 years ago

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more than a little on the slow side today, so haven’t read any commentary yet. but here are some raw thoughts on vader #25.

Difficult to know where to start, as the issue was overlaid with symbols and yet also rather stolidly straightforward. Perhaps as a beginning: I was expecting Soule to play things straight and hoping to be gloriously wrong about it. He played things straight.

My working theory going into the comic, written in response to @micelle in the middle of the night a few days ago:

I personally would not be surprised if that moment of projection on Padmé’s ship - you know, where Vader sees the mask engraved into Little Ani’s flesh in a reverse of Luke’s cave adventure, marking the start of a theme of this arc, the engraving of a mask onto various bodies - were the key to it all, that is, if what he’s after is the opportunity to kill himself (a reverse Momin so to speak). (or change himself. the comic has been so focused on his selfishness, on mirrors of the self - I could picture him strolling past nodes of past moments in the “world between worlds” and peering into the highlights of his wretched life as he decides whether to save Shmi, interfere with Padmé, prevent himself from leaving Tatooine, etc)

Some of this prediction played out - Vader does indeed stroll past moments in his own life, starting with pregnant!Shmi and himself as little Ani. You could argue too that the end result of it all is that he the part of him who still thinks of himself as an Anakin to be Saved is killed, for the present moment, in a reverse Momin of sorts. Things were a little more complex than I had imagined them, however. The plane upon which Vader finds himself resembles some combination of the subjective landscape of his own dark-side-fueled meditations and the objective landscape of Mustafar. As in his meditations, the sky is filled with lightning and he himself is a burning, burnt husk with dead white space where his cybernetic limbs complete him. As on Mustafar, he walks the ground, and where lava would be is the dark, roiling sea over which he floated in meditation; memories having to do with himself are presented in circles of lava, corresponding to his own burning state.

There seem to be two different possible modes of interaction with this world, objective and subjective. On the one hand, Vader walks past nodes that objectively reflect his own life back at him as would a film, much like what Ezra and Ahsoka encountered in the World Between Worlds; it is in such a lava-encased node that he foresees his own confrontation with Ahsoka (!!). Were he to interact with these nodes as Ezra considered doing with Kanan, then he could potentially change the past or the future. But Vader does not interact with these nodes, he simply walks past them. Nor does he seem to make much of the voices from his own past, from the future (Kylo!) echoing around him. Instead, he interacts with subjective projections of the people he loves - Shmi, the Jedi, Palpatine, Obi-Wan, Padmé. I say subjective projections, as these are all people who matter to him and all people who play into his self-narrative, and thus also mirrors of the self to a degree, but suspect the status of these projections is about as complex as the vision Luke has in the Dagobah cave: what Vader sees is what he brings with him, but also what the Dark Side would have him see. Thus, he sees Shmi with Palpatine behind her as though to suggest that his origins are in the Dark Side, that he has always been “unnatural” and destined to serve. (This is also what Momin’s pretty speeches would imply, that this plane is a place controlled by the Dark Side; this is partly what I mean by Soule playing things straight.)

There’s a way in which I got what I wanted - Vader doesn’t - can’t, of course - consider changing the actual past, but he does interact with his own past in a very revealing manner. That is, he doesn’t hesitate to kill the Jedi again (no Younglings, however!), presumably because he thinks they are keeping him from Padmé (standing atop the tower that transforms before his eyes from his newly constructed Sith tower into the Jedi temple). He also doesn’t lift a finger to prevent Palpatine from killing Obi-Wan (which is possibly the most !! moment of this entire sequence for me - does he not want to fight Obi-Wan himself, or think he isn’t strong enough? is this the lesson he thinks he has learned, is this the way he wishes things had gone ...?). In a departure from the past that speaks hugely to the mistakes he thinks he made, he then turns on Palpatine instead of choosing to kneel and serve as he had, shooting Palpatine down with lightning, killing his father figure with the very method Palpatine will eventually use to try and kill his son (and successfully uses to kill Vader). By the time Vader reaches the top of the tower, he seems to have recovered a positive sense of self again. Everything has gone right, just as he imagined it, it would seem, and it is as Anakin Skywalker that he speaks to Padmé with words later echoed by Luke - “come with me”. But does he want to save them both, or just himself? Padmé, for her part, seems to be nothing more than a reflection of his own self, than a reflection of what he chose instead of her - she quotes his own words back to him, chokes herself as he had once choked her, and then is rendered apart by (red, suggesting a dark side vision?) lightning in yet another foreshadowing of Vader’s eventual death. “Not again!” he says, in what has to be the funniest line of this comic. In other words, I don’t think for a moment that we actually saw Padmé here, not in the way that we see Luke, who shows up next in a massive blue column of light. Luke seems to spring from a source outside of the self - his appearance brings light back into the empty, desolate landscape that Vader had emptied of all light from within, and it’s an unanticipated appearance, too powerful for Vader to control, driving Vader back into his body, into the prone position he assumed the last time he was struck by lightning to foreshadow his own death in this comic (#18).

So, for all that Vader hasn’t learned all that much from his own history, he was, apparently, after salvation - through Padmé, with Padmé, if only with a Padmé who reflected his narrative in a way that all previous subjective projections had. (Possibly that desire for salvation also allows for the light to enter his mental picture, even to overwhelm him or the Dark underpinnings of the vision in the very end.) He never considers doing anything with the nodes of the past - he stays fixated on what is incarnated before him. Which is of a piece of him, and his self-centeredness in this comic from the very beginning. The message might thus be interpreted as: Anakin chose himself, chose one path, and despite regrets he would make essentially the same choice all over again, and that choice leaves him on the one hand miserable and lonely and empty and blinded and on the other also creates the crack that will eventually motivate his self-sacrifice for Luke.

It’s all very consistent ... perhaps a bit too consistent for me, as someone who flirts constantly with depression and takes particular enjoyment in subversive fiction. One of the things this comic has consistently done is treat Vader as though his physical condition were of secondary importance, placing the stress instead on his continued and persistent character features, on his meditative sessions, on his presence in the Force; this finale was very much in that vein, spirit over body. Camuncoli and his team have produced incredible visuals to bring that mental landscape to life; I’ve really enjoyed seeing how much they’ve been able to make of basic elemental symbols, of empty plains and dark oceans. And there is something to be said for this mind-over-body philosophy, as Vader himself might well think that this is what the Dark Side has finally allowed him to accomplish - though it’s rather at odds with Vader seeking out Padmé and engaging all of his attachments.

It’s hard to bring out certain paradoxes in his self-understanding without considering the body, let’s put it that way. I suppose what I’m saying is that I’ll always feel there was an opportunity missed. Vader watching Padmé throw herself to her death, then start choking herself, thereby transforming into a corpse in front of his eyes, only to become incinerated by lightning - well, I mean, it’s a fantastic image. I do like that you could read her “suicide” as a rejection of him and his choices, even as you can also read it as a sign from the Dark Side. Like ... I like it, don’t get me wrong. Compare his passive spectatorship to the kill-switch moment in the 2015 run, however, to that brain-addled, deranged, yet horrifyingly logical mental slaughterfest where he kills himself, Obi-Wan, and Padmé to regain agency over his own body, and ... I find it hard not to prefer the messiness of that to the rather clean symbolism in Soule.

Anyway, as a tie-in connecting the PT with Rebels, this comic certainly offers context for understanding where he is mentally. As a take on how Vader becomes Vader, who is never just his mind to me, but a mind trapped in a machine, it satisfied me less.

Am I glad I read it? A thousand times yes, because of the conversations it has generated here. Boundless thanks especially to @glompcat, @gffa, @thewillowbends, @micelle, @songofthestars and @sith-shame-shack for the immeasurable pleasure of your company along this readerly journey - it’s been an education - and a joy - I shall not long forget. 😍

#marvel darth vader #darth vader #star wars spoilers #star wars comic spoilers #star wars comics spoilers #star wars comics #charles soule #I haven't reread the comic or any commentary so take all of this with a huge grain of salt

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imagineteamfreewill · 7 years ago

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What You Always Asked For

Title: What You Always Asked For

Pairing: Elf!Reader x Sam

Word Count: 8,302

Warnings: Mentions of the murder of children (nothing graphic)

Summary: The reader is one of Santa’s elves that travels to a new town each year to make sure even the poorest of children can have a good Christmas. When the boys find a case that links her with a string of recent murders, however, she has to team up with them to help save the children she’s been tasked with watching over.

A/N: This one’s a little out there, I’ll have to admit, but please let me know what you think! It’s also long, so I apologize for the length. This was unbetaed and any mistakes are my own. Feedback is always welcome. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

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_______________

Christmastime was the best time of year, as far as you were concerned. After all, you were an elf; your whole life revolved around the holiday, and you spent every waking moment thinking about how exciting it was to get to make people—especially children—happy.

You were on your way to pick up some supplies for a new project you’d been working on when you ran into Sam for the first time. Your arms were full and you didn’t see him walking in your path, and when you bumped into him, you would’ve fallen flat on your back, had he not grabbed onto your arms to steady you.

“I’m so sorry,” you squeaked. You glanced up at him and gave him a nervous smile as you bent down to gather your things.

“It’s alright.” Sam knelt to help you, and when he handed you the roll of wrapping paper you’d dropped, you could’ve sworn sparks flew when his fingers brushed yours.

Stammering, you took the remaining craft supplies from him, then rose to your full height. Even in your human form, he was still taller than you. The thought of encountering him when you were shrunk down was downright frightening, and you swallowed nervously when he gave you a kind smile.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Did any of your stuff get damaged, Y/N?” he asked.

“How do you know my name?” You narrowed your eyes at him, wondering if he’d been watching you at the store. You could’ve sworn that someone had been watching you while you shopped, but you hadn’t been able to catch anyone staring.

Smiling, he answered, “It’s on your nametag?”

You looked down and sighed in relief when you saw that you were, in fact, still wearing your nametag from the toy store where you worked as a cover. Your work as an elf was strictly confidential, and because of that, you never received any money for what you did.

“Right,” you breathed, smiling. “Well, I think that since you know my name, I should get to know yours. After all, I can’t thank someone whose name I don’t even know.”

“Sam. My name is Sam,” he replied.

“Thank you, Sam. Truly. You probably saved me from getting a concussion or something, which would’ve stopped me from getting all my work done. I don’t think I could ever thank you enough for that.”

Sam ducked his head, then lifted his eyes just enough to meet yours. You noticed almost immediately that they were a vibrant hazel—blues, greens, and browns all swirled together to make his eyes sparkle, and the joy that filled them when his lips turned up in a smile made your heart skip a beat.

“How about you thank me with coffee?” he asked. You blinked, and your confusion must have shown because Sam chuckled. “Sorry. Is it too forward of me to ask you out right after almost knocking you down?”

His meaning finally sunk in and your eyes went wide. Was he really asking you out? You hadn’t been on a date in years. Would someone as attractive as Sam really ask you out only moments after meeting you?

Silently, you sized him up for a moment before eventually replying, “No. No, that’s not too forward at all. I would… I would love that, Sam.” When he smiled in response, you realized that you’d read him correctly, and you felt yourself relax a little. “When would you like to meet up?”

“How about now?”

You nodded in response. Almost immediately Sam was reaching to take some of your project supplies. He gave you a soft smile when you tried to object, claiming that they were your belongings and that you should carry them, but Sam simply shook his head in refusal.

He’s so chivalrous, you thought. I didn’t even think people were this nice anymore.

With a smile of your own, you fell into step beside the tall almost-stranger, still feeling dwarfed by his immense stature.

“So,” you began, glancing up at him before looking forward once more, “What do you do for a living, Sam?”

Sam didn’t answer for a second, and you sensed some hesitation. You were just about to speak up and tell him that he didn’t have to tell you if it was some kind of confidential government thing—you had a cover story of your own, after all—when he said, “I’m in pest control.”

Pest control? He took that long to answer when the answer was ‘pest control’?

“That’s… not exactly what I expected someone like you to say,” you replied.

It was Sam’s turn to be confused. “Someone like me?” he asked, clearly curious as to what you would say.

You realized he was teasing you when you looked up at him and saw a small smirk on his lips, and you couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed.

“I mean, you’re very… tall. And attractive. And very nicely dressed.” You gestured to the navy suit he was wearing, which was neatly pressed and didn’t seem to have a single speck of lint on it. “I assumed you were some kind of businessman, and when you took so long to answer I thought maybe you were in government or something.”

Sam shook his head, laughing a little. “No, I’m not either of those. But what about you, Y/N? What do you do?”

Considering your cover story options, you decided that the most honest of them all would do. “I work in a toy store, and in my free time I run a nonprofit that gives toys and other Christmas presents to children in need.”

You risked a quick glance at Sam, only to discover that he looked thoroughly impressed.

“That sounds incredible,” he said. “How long have you been running the nonprofit?”

Shaking your head, you replied, “I don’t run it, technically, but you could consider me a… key player. I’ve been working there practically my whole life. My parents were both elv— Employed there, too. They passed on the work to me.”

Sam didn’t seem to notice your slip-up as he pulled open the restaurant door, allowing you to step inside before him. The inside of the building was bustling with activity, and it took you a moment to find an empty table. When you finally did, you shifted your supplies to one arm and gestured for Sam to follow you. He did, and a minute later the two of you were neatly settled into a quiet corner table.

“If you’re in pest control,” you started as the frazzled waitress brought over two menus, “does that mean that you’re in town for some kind of infestation?”

Sam opened his menu and shook his head. “Not really an infestation. We were just passing through and someone approached us about a termite problem in some old houses they were renting out. The case is harder than we thought, though, so we’ll probably be here through Christmas.”

“The case?”

“Oh, uh, that’s what we call our different jobs,” Sam replied. He fingered the edge of the laminated menu and set it down beside his plate, then looked over at the other tables.

You smiled in reply and looked back at your own menu so you could figure out what to eat. You had a pretty small stomach, and you knew that the other elves were having a pre-toy building marathon celebration tonight, which meant that if you ate something big now, you wouldn’t be able to have any of the festive treats they’d most certainly be making.

“Elf problems are the worst,” you mumbled under your breath.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Eyes wide, you looked up at Sam. “What?”

“You said something,” he replied, eyebrows furrowed.

“Oh…” Quick, quick, come up with an excuse! “I was just, uh, commenting on the lack of vegan options here.”

The lack of vegan options? Really?

“Oh, you’re vegan?” Sam asked. “How long have you been a vegan?”

You pulled your lower lip in between your teeth as you tried to figure out how to explain that you weren’t really vegan in a way that wouldn’t blow your cover.

“So long you can’t even remember?” Sam questioned. Relieved, you nodded in response and gave him a weak smile. “Well, my brother would be arguing with you about being vegan right about now, but I think it’s impressive. It takes a lot of determination to stick to something like that.”

He offered you a kind smile and you relaxed a little, leaning back in your seat. You were trying to come up with something to say when the waitress hurried back over to take your orders, and by the time she’d left, Sam was already asking you about your nonprofit again.

Two hours later, you were on the very last of your nerves, and Sam seemed anxious to leave the restaurant as well.

Keeping up a cover story on a date is hard work.

“Thanks for not being too resentful of me for almost knocking you down,” Sam smiled as he held the door open for you once more.

You glanced back with a smile of your own and hugged your project supplies against you as you stepped out into the cold air. “Thanks for not being so hard on me for not being good at first dates,” you told him. “It’s been my first one in a while.”

Sam looked surprised to hear that. “Really?”

Smiling, you shook your head and replied, “The nonprofit doesn’t leave me much time to date or go out.”

“So… does that mean you wouldn’t be able to go out with me again?”

You couldn’t help but grin shyly in response. Sam wanted to go out with you again?

“You look surprised.”

“No, I’m… yes,” you admitted. “I’m very surprised. I’ve never gotten asked out on a second date before, at least not recently.”

Sam’s smile grew wide. “Is that a yes?”

“That’s a yes,” you chuckled.

“Could I pick you up Wednesday? Around seven?” he asked.

You nodded in response, and Sam was practically beaming as stepped away from you and began on his way once more. The two of you had exchanged numbers over your lunch, and based on the ecstatic look on his face, you had a feeling you’d be hearing from him much sooner than Wednesday.

_______________

The door to the basement opened up with a slow, anxious creak, and you inhaled sharply when you heard two sets of footsteps descending the stairs. Still hidden behind the curtain of your makeshift storage closet, you quickly shrunk down to your elf size and tucked yourself further into the corner of the cubby. Whoever had just snuck down into your hidden workshop clearly thought your house was empty, and you didn’t want to find out what would happen if they found you there.

“What is this place?”

So at least one of them is a man, you thought as you leaned a little closer to the curtain so you could listen in on the current conversation even better. Maybe two.

“It looks like some kind of… toy-making shop or something.”

You had to slap a hand over your mouth when the second person spoke, lest you give away your hiding place. The other person who’d spoken was Sam from your lunch date.

He broke into my house? Why would Sam break into my house? I didn’t call an exterminator, and exterminators would have knocked!

“So whatever is killing these kids is making them toys to lure them in?” the first man asked. You heard the tell-tale jingle of the sleigh bells you’d been attaching to the hats of the colorful jester dolls you’d been in the process of making all afternoon.

Who’s killing kids? What are they talking about?

“There haven’t been any toys at the crime scenes, Dean,” Sam said. The other man must be his brother. “It doesn’t add up. The only thing that the kids had in common was that all their parents attended a Christmas party at this house last weekend. They all went to different schools, churches, doctors… It’s the only thing that links them all. There has to be something here. We just have to keep looking.”

My kids are getting killed? Something’s not right…

The room was silent after that, with the exception of the sound of toys and materials being moved around. You held your breath and closed your eyes, hoping that they would leave quickly so you could get back to work—Christmas was in four days and you had a deadline. Of course, now that you knew kids were getting murdered and your Christmas party is what linked them all together… You shook your head. Calling The Big Man was all you could do; that and hope that everything would be okay by the time Christmas rolled around. Even though your heart hurt at the thought of those kids never getting to have a real Christmas before they’d been killed, there was nothing you could do without revealing who you really were.

You were just beginning to formulate your call when the dark fabric separating you from the rest of the room was pushed open, revealing your hiding spot. Blinking against the light, you squinted up at the gigantic man standing in front of you. It wasn’t Sam, which meant that it was his brother.

Dean let out a shocked noise upon seeing you, then stepped back and drew his gun. Sam noticed right away and hurried over, his own gun drawn, and you held your breath in suspense as you waited for him to recognize you.

After a long moment, Sam asked, “Y/N?”

You nodded and glanced between him and his brother, swallowing nervously. “H— Hey, Sam. What are you doing here?”

“We— What are you doing here? And why are you so… small?” he replied, confusion making his eyebrows furrow.

Dean looked between you and Sam, clearly even more confused that his brother was. “You two know each other?” he asked.

Nodding, you shifted and fidget with the spool of ribbon you’d gone into the storage closet to retrieve. “We, uh, went out yesterday. For lunch. It was really nice.” You smiled slightly at the memory, then felt your smile drop when you realized Sam wasn’t smiling as well.

“Wait, you were the mystery girl that kept Sammy from bringing back lunch? He didn’t mention that you were…” Dean trailed off, gesturing to your tiny frame.

“An elf?” you finished. He nodded in response. “That’s because I didn’t tell him. I don’t exactly go around announcing that I can shrink myself down. It’s not some kind of party trick. Now can you please stop pointing guns at me and explain why you broke into my house? Clearly you’re not exterminators like you said you were, so you’d better explain before I call the cops.”

The two boys exchanged a look before Dean answered, “We hunt monsters. Vampires, demons, werewolves—”

“So you’re hunters, then.”

Dean blinked in surprise at your bluntness, then nodded.

“This is your house?” Sam asked, looking around the basement. “You were the one who threw the Christmas party last week?”

You sighed and nodded sadly. Now that Sam knew you were an elf, there would be no second date, but the least you could do was help them figure out what was happening to all the kids you were making toys for. Hunters had a bad enough reputation for picking up and leaving after their job was finished, anyway, so it wouldn’t do you any good to dwell on what could have been a great relationship.

“The Christmas party gives the parents a chance to bring their kids to a fun Christmas event. It’s invitation only, and the families I invite are all families that can’t afford to give their kids presents that year,” you told them. The memories of your party made you smile a little, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little when you thought of how much fun the kids had been having. “They write letters to Santa at the party, and my nonprofit fulfills those wishes. We drop the presents off on Christmas Day. The parents don’t know it was us, and the kids think that it was Santa.”

Both boys were silent as they tried to figure out how your party could have possibly brought anyone harm. Truth be told, you’d run into many people throughout the years that had wanted to stop you and the other elves from giving even the smallest of gifts, but they’d never gone as far as killing the children. It was heart-wrenching.

Slowly, you sank down and sat against the wall, pulling your legs up to your chest and resting your chin on them. You were on the last batch of the toys for the kids, and now they were nothing but sad reminders of what would never be.

“Hey.”

You looked up to see Sam tuck his gun under his jacket, then crouch down beside you.

“It’s gonna be okay, Y/N,” he said, his voice soft and earnest. “I’m sure that this didn’t happen because of you. We’re gonna figure this out. Okay?”

You nodded in response, and you were just about to tell him he didn’t have to take you out now that he knew about your little secret when your emergency phone line began to ring. The bright red phone connected you directly to your boss and it never rang, so it took you a moment to react. Once you’d gotten over the shock of hearing its high-pitched ring, you quickly got to your feet and crossed the room. As you walked, you let yourself return to your human height. You could feel the boy’s eyes on you all the while.

You couldn’t hide your surprise as you picked up the old-fashioned telephone receiver and asked, “Hello?”

Sam and Dean watched you from by the closet, not bothering to hide their surprise. As he tucked away his gun, Dean peeked into the storage closet. You glanced his way to make sure he didn’t mess with any of your stuff, then returned your attention back to the call so you wouldn’t miss anything important.

“Yes, sir,” you replied when your supervisor had finished speaking. You hesitated to answer his next question, knowing that your response wouldn’t be well received. “Sir, I know what’s been going on, and I think I can help if you’d only let me stay here and— No, I know that it risks exposure, but if you’d only listen—” You were cut off once again when he started to scold you, and you couldn’t help but let out a sigh. There was no way you could convince your higher-ups to let you stay where you were, which meant that you’d have to leave Sam and Dean on their own.

They don’t know these kids, you thought as you half-listened to your supervisor remind you of the vows of secrecy that you’d taken. I know this neighborhood, the families, the kids… They need my help. You were just about to relay these thoughts when the receiver was plucked from your hand.

Surprised, you turned to find Sam putting it up to his own ear as he said, “Sir, with all due respect, we need Y/N here to help us solve these murders. If she doesn’t stay, more kids could be hurt or killed before we even figure out who or what is doing this.”

From the other end of the line, you could hear your supervisor answering Sam’s interruption. Sam listened intently, and after a few moments, you watched Sam straighten to his full height. Blatant shock was written all over his face, and he glanced over at you, hoping you would be able to offer some kind of explanation for what he was hearing. You smiled softly and nodded in response, then placed a hand on Sam’s arm. Reluctantly, he handed over the phone. You checked to make sure the call had been ended before hanging up the receiver.

“Was that—?”

“Santa?” you finished. “Yeah, that was him.”

“I just yelled at—”

Grimacing, you replied, “Santa? Yeah, you did.”

Sam was silent as he tried to process what had just happened.

Dean, on the other hand, was more than ready to speak on his younger brother’s behalf. “So you’re an elf… who works for a fake nonprofit… and your boss is Santa…” He stopped for a moment and you watched him warily, worried that he’d laugh in your face. Instead, however, Dean grinned wide. “That’s awesome. That’s even better than our cover stories, Sammy. We should just have her come up with them all from now on.”

You smiled briefly at him, then turned your attention back to Sam. “Are you okay?” you asked, your voice gentle.

He looked absolutely shell-shocked. After a long few seconds, he gave you a little nod. “We need to finish this case, Y/N.’’

“I know. But I have to go back to headquarters. I can’t disobey orders or I won’t be able to relocate and help kids again next year,” you sighed.

Sam looked over at you. “He gave you permission. He knows all about what Dean and I do and why we’re here. He also knows that you’re the only one that can really help.”

That made you smile. “Well, you know what they say,” you told him. “He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good…”

“So be good, for goodness sakes,” Sam finished. He chuckled and looked back at Dean, who was now picking up your various tools and half-made toys, inspecting each of them. “Looks like Y/N’s gonna help us, Dean.”

Dean nodded in affirmation, all the while fidgeting with one of the smaller screwdrivers you used. Sam went to join him in looking around after a moment, and you quietly sat back to think of anything important that might help them with their case.

You watched him for a moment, remembering what you’d found on the international database when you’d looked up Sam. It hadn’t taken you long to find the only Sam born in 1983 that had an older brother named Dean, and you’d read through both their files. Neither one of them had written many letters to Santa as a child, but you noticed that Sam had had an imaginary friend for a long time. People like Sully worked closely with elves and other mythical creatures to make sure that their kids stayed safe and happy.

“Sam?” you asked, settling down on one of your work stools. He looked over at you, still holding one of the wheels of a toy train that you had yet to assemble. “I think I know how I can help.”

_______________

“Wait, so what exactly do you want me to do?”

You sighed and dropped your head into your hands. The centaur sitting in front of you still hadn’t been able to grasp the simple task you’d assigned him, even though you’d been explaining it over and over for a half hour.

Smiling politely, you lifted your head to meet his gaze, then replied, “Never mind. I’m sure that your kid is looking for you by now. Just promise you’ll call me or my friends if anything strange happens. Can you do that?”

The centaur nodded and scribbled down all three phone numbers, then disappeared from sight.

You were cleaning up the imaginary friend’s dishes when the doorbell rang, and you were pleasantly surprised when Sam walked in without waiting for you to answer.

“Hey,” you said, smiling when he caught your eye. Reaching over to the nearby counter, you grabbed a wet rag and began to wipe down the kitchen table where you and the centaur had been sitting. “How did your interviews go? Did you get anything?”

“Not really, no. You?” Sam asked. You shook your head and he sighed in return. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next, I guess.”

“And what does happen next?”

Sam didn’t respond for a moment. “That depends on what you’re asking about,” he finally answered.

You hummed noncommittally and carried the dirty rag to the sink, then rinsed it out. Once finished, you hung it over the faucet to dry. You could feel Sam watching you as you worked, and the sensation made you feel self-conscious. If you hadn’t wanted to keep him from freaking out, you would’ve shrunk down so you could better hide from view. Neither he nor Dean seemed to be used to you being that short.

“Y/N?”

You looked over at him, hands poised to unload the dishwasher.

“Come sit down with me?”

After a moment, you nodded and moved around the kitchen counter to sit across the table from Sam. He was sitting where you had been for your interview with the centaur, and suddenly you wondered if he was going to ask you as many questions as you’d asked the imaginary friend.

Sam inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, then exhaled just as slow.

He’s nervous, you realized. Did I make him nervous somehow?

Finally, Sam spoke up and said, “Y/N, I had a lot of fun when we had lunch. I had more fun than I’ve probably ever had on a date.”

Your heart sank. Sam was talking like the first date was the only date the two of you would go on. You’d always dreaded having someone break up with you, and now you were going to experience it. Right before Christmas, no less, and with all the other horrible things going on. You couldn’t imagine a worse time for this nightmare to become a reality.

“That being said, I think we should talk about what we’re going to do next. I mean, you’re clearly leaving as soon as Christmas is over, and Dean and I are leaving as soon as we finish this case,” Sam continued. “We need to figure out what that means for us.”

“What that means for us?” you asked, confused.

Is he breaking up with me or not?

“Well, yeah. I mean, do you want to meet up whenever our paths cross? Or should our dates just be a one-time thing? Personally, I’d like to keep seeing you, but that decision is yours to make. I’m not going to force you to go out with me if that’s not what you want.”

You blinked. “Wait. You’re… You’re not breaking up with me?”

Sam smiled and shook his head, and you couldn’t help but feel warm and happy inside at the revelation, like you were curled up by your fireplace on a cold winter night.

Smiling in return, you replied, “Then I’d like to keep going out with you whenever we can. I’d miss you, Sam. You’re an amazing person and you deserve to have some fun, even if it is with an elf.”

Sam’s smile widened. “Speaking of,” he started, “Is that as small as you can shrink? Or do you do the whole pocket-size thing, too? I can’t find much lore on elves and I’ve been wondering about it ever since we found out about you being one. I actually have a lot of questions for you, if you’re willing to answer them.”

The thought of Sam wondering and thinking about you made the warmth inside of you grow even stronger, as if you were the fire itself, and you ducked your head to hide the wide, cheesy grin on your face.

Sam chuckled from across the table at your response. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Y/N,” he laughed. “You don’t need to tell me anything if it’s too personal or it makes you feel uncomfortable. I know that we practically just met. I just don’t know much about elves, and I’d like to learn more.”

“No, no! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I mean, if we’re going to be spending more time together, you deserve to know at least the basics about me,” you told him, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. “So, um, in answer to the height thing, I can only shrink down that far. Two and a half feet is about average for an elf, but since my dad was a bit taller I stop at three feet. I’m about the size of a preschooler, maybe a little smaller.” Sam nodded thoughtfully, and you could see him mentally filing away the information. “I can shrink and grow without really thinking about it; it’s pretty much just second nature now, but as a kid, we all had to go to classes to learn to do things like that, as well as learn our skills.”

“Your skills?” Sam asked.

Smiling, you pushed away from the table and got to your feet. “How about I make us some hot chocolate? I have a feeling that we’re going to be talking for awhile. There’s a lot you don’t know about the world, Sam.”

Sam nodded and you made your way into the kitchen to make the cocoa, talking as you worked. You told him all about growing up in the North Pole and about your decision to become one of the elves that traveled from place to place each year. He listened intently as you spoke, and by the end of your story—and the cocoa—you had the distinct feeling that Sam was doing more than just cataloging information about what it was like to be an elf—Sam was cataloging information about you. He was learning about your childhood and your motives for choosing your job. He was learning about your likes and dislikes, the events that shaped you, your opinions on humanity… Sam was getting to know you for you, not for just the human girl he’d met on the street only days ago.

The thought made you smile, and as you gathered up the mugs and spoons that the two of you had been using, you asked, “Will you tell me about your childhood, Sam?”

He hesitated at your question. After a few moments, he shook his head. “Not today, if that’s alright. It’s a… It’s a lot to tell, and I’d rather not spoil your afternoon.”

“You wouldn’t be—”

“Please, Y/N?”

Slowly, you nodded and set the mugs down in the sink. You carefully rinsed them out, giving both Sam and yourself time to collect yourselves, and once you were finished you went back to the table. You were just about to tell Sam that he didn’t have to tell you anything anytime soon when his phone rang.

Sam quickly checked the caller ID, then answered the call when he recognized the number as one of the imaginary friends you had spoken to. “Hello?” he answered, glancing your way as he stood. After a brief pause, he said, “We’ll be there soon. Stay put, and do everything you can to keep that kid away from them. Okay?”

“Where are we headed?” you asked as you grabbed your keys from the kitchen counter.

Sam dug his own out of his coat pocket and held them up for you to see. “I’ll drive and explain on the way,” he replied.

The two of you were on your way in minutes flat, and soon after you’d arrived at the house of Arthur Hitch. He was the youngest of all the kids you were making gifts for, and the thought of him in danger made you want to break down. Sam, however, was completely focused, which made you realize that breaking down wouldn’t do anyone any good. So, you shook off the scary “what if’s” that filled your head and gingerly took the gun that Sam gave you, then followed him into the house.

It was quieter inside than you expected from a house with a monster in it.

“What are we looking for?” you whispered, hoping desperately that whatever was trying to hurt Arthur wouldn’t overhear.

“Based on what they said over the phone, I think it’s a faerie. It’s been preying on kids for some reason—someone probably made a deal and that was the price. No idea who made a deal or what kind they made, but thankfully, I know how to get rid of faeries,” Sam whispered back.

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see you, and tried to keep your grip on the gun steady.

As you followed Sam through the house, you watched him carefully clear each room you passed. He was so focused on the hunt that you could probably shrink down and he wouldn’t even notice.

“Arthur?” you whispered. “Arthur, are you in here?”

There was no response, so you kept your mouth shut and followed in Sam’s path. As he cleared each room, you checked each one to see if Arthur was hiding there. The house seemed to go on forever, but eventually, the two of you were moving up the stairs to the attic.

“Y/N, stay here,” Sam murmured. He didn’t even look back at you when he spoke, and you rolled your eyes in annoyance as you continued to follow. The stairs creaked under your weight, but Sam didn’t seem to notice as long as you stepped at the same time as him.

When you reached the top, you were horrified to see that the little boy you’d so eagerly welcomed into your home was holding a bloody knife. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you could sense the evil radiating from him.

Something’s wrong. That’s not Arthur. Something is doing this to him.

Sam was on high alert as soon as he laid eyes on Arthur. “Arthur? What’s going on, man?” he asked, his voice steady and calm despite the panic you could feel rolling off of him in waves. Neither one of you had expected to see one of your assigned kids like this.

“My name isn’t Arthur,” the boy spat. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that I now have Sam Winchester and the pretty little elf. That’s gonna get me a pretty little penny.”

A sickening laugh came from Arthur’s lips, and your stomach turned at the sound. Sam looked behind himself and saw you, and his eyes filled with panic for a fleeting moment before he focused once more on the boy.

“This isn’t you, Arthur!” you cried. “Someone’s doing this to you, I can tell! Leave him alone, whoever you are!”

Arthur laughed again. “Oh, Y/N, you’re so innocent. I suppose I can’t expect anything else from an elf.”

You held back a snarky comment when Sam held up a single finger behind his back, indicating for you to wait. He had something planned, you realized. Biting down on your lower lip, you watched as he carefully pulled a jagged knife from his belt. Symbols were carved into the silver blade, and the wooden handle was worn and faded. You didn’t recognize it as anything that could harm an elf, but as he held it behind his back, you wondered where Sam would get such a strange knife. It didn’t matter, however, because you couldn’t let Sam hurt Arthur. Maybe he wasn’t alive—you’d heard enough about demon possession to know that their vessel didn’t always survive—but you didn’t want to risk harming him if you didn’t have to.

“Why do you want Y/N and I?” Sam asked, his voice just as calm and steady as it had been. “Who are you reporting to?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Arthur snarled. His eyes flicked black for a split second and you held back a gasp. You’d seen demons before, but up close and personal. You’d definitely never been wanted by a demon, either.

Today is just full of firsts.

Shaking your head, you focused back on the situation at hand. The child whose Christmas you’d been charged with was in serious danger, and the only person that could help was Sam. You didn’t want anyone to get hurt, but in the long run, you were the least important person in the room. You knew Sam’s story and if he got hurt, the world would be more severely impacted than if you were. On top of that, Arthur was your responsibility. He couldn’t have a good Christmas if he was in the hospital, or worse, dead.

“Hey!” you called, stepping out from behind Sam’s massive frame. You were still shorter than everyone in the room, but that didn’t prevent the demon possessing Arthur to step back when you began to advance.

“You leave that kid alone,” you growled, “or you’re seriously going to regret it.”

The demon chuckled, yet still stepped back once more as you grew closer to him.

“I mean it. Do you think that the only thing these hands are good for is making toys?”

Behind you, you heard the attic’s wooden floor creak as Sam shifted positions, no doubt readying himself for a fight.

“You’re bluffing,” the demon replied, its voice full of malice and nothing like the gentle voice of the child who had not so long ago been giggling at a Christmas movie you’d played at the party.

This is it, you thought as adrenaline pumped through your veins. Your heart was racing in your chest and you felt as if you could beat up the demon yourself, but you knew that you wouldn’t win. Sam was your only hope for saving Arthur.

“Am I?” you asked. “I don’t think you really believe that. After all, if you really did, you wouldn’t be backing away from me like a scared little mouse.”

Your taunt was what did it. The demon sprung forward and you bit down on your tongue as fear filled you. Your mouth was filled with the warm taste of iron as you hurriedly slid out of its path. A sharp pain shot through your head and neck as you tripped and fell onto a pile of cardboard boxes. Sam was still trying to get ahold of Arthur when your eyes slid closed and you were pulled down into the dark abyss, and your last thought was that if Arthur got hurt, it would be all your fault.

________________

When you finally came to, the first thing you noticed was a heavy weight across your entire body. Surprised to find that you couldn’t move anything but your head, you carefully lifted it to look down at the rest of you.

“Sorry about all the blankets. You were ice cold. I thought for sure you had hypothermia or something.”

You jumped in surprise, or at least, you would’ve if you hadn’t been under a massive layer of blankets. Slowly, you licked your lips and asked, “Sam?”

“It’s me, yeah. Give me a second.”

The overhead light turned on and you groaned, squinting as you tried to free one of your arms from the pile of blankets so that you could shield your eyes.

“Sorry! Let me help,” Sam replied. Almost as soon as he had spoken, the blankets were being pulled off of you.

After letting out a sigh of relief, you sat up in the bed and rubbed the back of your head, wincing at the dull pain that your touch brought about.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” Sam told you as he wrapped his long fingers around your wrist and pulled your hand away from the bump on the back of your skull. “It’s only been a little while and it’s still tender. Do you want some pain pills?”

You nodded, which only made you feel worse. Groaning, you told him, “My body is naturally colder than everyone else's, especially when I’m sleeping. It’s an elf thing. Um, how long was I out? What happened?”

Sam didn’t have to answer. The memories flooded your mind after only a second of thought, and you gasped when you remembered what had been going on when you slipped unconscious.

“Arthur!” you cried, looking up at Sam with wide, fearful eyes. “Is he okay? He’s okay, right?”

Sam gave you a soft smile and let go of your wrist for a brief moment so that he could move to holding your hand. “He’s fine, Y/N. You did great. He got away with a concussion, that’s all.”

You sighed in relief and nodded, then sagged back against the headboard.

After a quick look around the room, you determined that you were back home. The clock read 3:07 and you peered at it for a second longer before realizing that the date on the clock was Christmas Eve.

“Sam, I have to get downstairs. Am I free to get up now, or are you going to keep nursing me? Because if you are, you’re going to have to finish making all those toys,” you added. “Everything has to be ready by midnight, or Christmas is screwed.” Your mind was already going a mile a minute as you began to itemize all the things you had left to do, but the feeling of Sam sitting on the edge of the bed and taking your hand made your thoughts stop in the tracks for a split-second.

“You can go downstairs, but let me help, okay? You’ve been out for a day and you’re gonna need some time to adjust. Let’s go slow,” Sam replied. You went to nod in response, then stopped yourself. Sam smiled when he saw. “How about I get you some pain pills, food, and water, and then we go work on the toys together?”

“Together?”

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed. “Y/N, I’m not going to leave you to finish all this work by yourself. I want to help you.”

He wants to help me? He’s not just going to leave?

Your surprise must have been evident, because Sam continued, “I really like you, and tomorrow’s Christmas. Dean and I have never really celebrated, but if it’s alright with you, I’d like to spend this Christmas with you.”

Smiling softly, you nodded and squeezed Sam’s hand. “I’d like that, Sam.”

“Good,” he replied, smiling in return. “Now come on, let’s get to work.”

The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs stopped you as Sam began to help you out of bed. Looking up at the door, you smiled wide when you saw Dean standing in the open doorway.

“Hey, shortstuff,” he grinned, causing you to roll your eyes. “How you feeling?”

“Can I let you know in an hour or so?” you replied.

He nodded and shifted his attention to Sam, who was snaking his arm around your waist to keep you steady as you regained your sense of balance. “We heading out soon, Sammy?”

“Uh, actually,” Sam replied as he glanced down at you, “I was thinking that we’d stay here for Christmas. I mean, it would be an actual Christmas with a tree and stuff. I’m sure we could go out and find some last-minute gifts, too. At least, you could. I’m gonna stay here and help Y/N out with the toys…”

Dean didn’t say anything as he looked between the two of you. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. You held back a laugh at the mischief and pure joy that sparkled in his eyes.

“Sure, okay. You kiddos have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

He was just turning to walk back down the stairs when you remembered something.

“Wait!” you cried. “Wait, I have gifts for you two!”

From the way Dean stopped and looked back at Sam, you could tell that he was surprised. Smiling to yourself, you carefully slipped out of Sam’s grasp and knelt, then reached under your bed and pulled out the two neatly wrapped presents.

You’d prepared the two gifts shortly after meeting Dean for the first time. Dean’s was in green paper dotted with lighter green pine trees, and you knew from the way he gingerly took it from you that he was unsure what to expect. It was nicer than any Christmas gift he’d gotten since his mother had died, that much you knew from his file, but you couldn’t help but be a little surprised that he was truly as shocked as he was.

Sam’s reaction, however, was exactly what you’d expected.

“Y/N, we can’t take these,” he said as you pressed the box into his hands.

You simply smiled and shook your head in response, then watched as he reluctantly sat down and ran his fingers over the metallic red paper.

“Y/N…”

Dean’s almost reverent murmur made you look away from Sam, and you grinned when you saw him staring at the Gameboy in his hands.

“Do you like it?” you asked, already knowing the answer.

“Man, I can’t believe you— Y/N, this is what I asked Dad for every year after they came out! I mean, how could you possibly—”

“Us elves have our secrets, too,” you replied with a sly smile. “Now go on, Sam. Open it. I know you’ll like it. Dean can vouch for my gift-giving abilities.”

After a long moment, Sam nodded tore the paper from his present. You were a little confused when you saw that he didn’t look excited when he saw the photo album you’d made for him.

“You got me a photo album?” he asked.

You didn’t know how to respond. Figuring out what to get him had been difficult, but you’d thought that you’d done a pretty good job, considering the circumstances. After all, you’d known exactly what to get Dean based on his file, but how do you buy someone a family? A little boy that only wanted a family—no elf could provide that.

Dean cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, gonna head downstairs and make us some grub.”

When you were finally alone, you sank back down on the bed beside Sam. “Sam… What’s the one thing you asked for every Christmas when you were a kid?”

He took a moment to think, then replied, “Books.”

You shook your head in response. “Besides books. What did you ask for?”

This time, Sam took even longer to think, and when he finally replied, his voice was barely above a hoarse whisper. “Family. I asked for a real family.”

Reaching over, you took Sam’s free hand. “Exactly. That’s not something I can wrap up and stick a bow on top of, but someone else did, Sam.” He looked over at you, confusion and sadness filling his eyes. “Open the album, Sam. I promise you’ll understand then.”

It took him a minute, but Sam reluctantly let go of your hand and took the thick, leather-bound album out of the box and opened it to the first page. After that, Sam flipped through the pictures of both his deceased and alive friends and family in complete silence, leaving you to wonder what he was thinking about.

When he finished, you asked, “Are you okay?”

“Where did you get all these pictures?” Sam replied, his question punctuated by a quiet sniffle that you almost missed. He took a shuddery breath and you smiled softly, scooting closer to him on the bed.

“They weren’t so hard to find when you’ve got access to things like I do,” you told him. “Some were saved on peoples phones, some were uploaded to the cloud. I got some of them from videos, others from security cameras or from the Naughty-or-Nice footage…”

“The Naughty-or-Nice footage?” Sam asked, amusement in his tone.

You chuckled and shoved him playfully, relieved that he wasn’t upset that the gift you’d given him wasn’t so much a toy or a thing than it was a memory. “Shut up,” you laughed. “It’s an elf thing.”

“I could tell,” Sam replied. He laughed and looked over at you, his eyes somewhat teary, but otherwise happy. “Thank you, Y/N. Really. I used to think of these people as my family, but I’ve been so wrapped up in hunting and my own problems lately that I just… forgot. I needed to be reminded of all this. I don’t think I could ever repay you.”

“It was nothing,” you told him, shrugging off the compliment. “And besides, it’s a gift. You don’t have to repay me.”

“No, really, Y/N. I don’t think you understand that this is one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.”

“One of?” you teased. You weren’t used to talking about emotions with people, and deep down you hoped that Sam would take the bait and move on. If things got any sappier, you’d have to make a quick escape.

“Well, nothing could beat getting to spend Christmas with you.”

You blushed. “Let’s just go finish those toys so we can spend our Christmas together, rather than in the basement and covered in paint.”

Nodding, Sam set the photo album down on the bed and stood, then took your hand in his when you got to your feet. The two of you headed downstairs, and after a brief conversation with Dean, you slipped down to the basement to finish up your final task of the Christmas season.

Sam helped you finish building, wrapping, and delivering all the toys throughout the rest of the evening, and as you snuggled against him on the couch on Christmas day, you couldn’t help but feel a little bit hopeful about your future. You’d found a guy who was good enough to understand why you did what you did, and who was kind enough to help you do it, too

Sam Winchester is the best Christmas gift that anyone could ever receive, you thought as he wrapped his arm around your tiny shoulders. And I’m so glad that I was good enough to get him.

_______________

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ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff · 7 years ago

Text

Only On This Day (Collins x Reader)

Requested by @londonr26: I have a request for a Collins imagine please! It’s VE Day and Jack tags along with some RAF mates to meet up with one of their girlfriends and her group of friends. He likes one of the girls and thinks he’ll celebrate by sleeping with her but they end up having a connection and liking each other so he ends up potentially wanting something more serious with her. Thanks!

AN: Made a reference to the pilots in Complementary because i’M oRiGiNaL

Masterlist Gif Credit

A warm afternoon in May, Collins followed Eastbury through the crowds of Piccadilly to the meeting spot. His uniform was itchy and too insulating for such a day with such a crowd. However Lester insisted that it would help them get laid and honestly, he needed to get laid. Only on this day because he didn’t have a girl of his own to go back to, which was a shame.

His sights were set on finding the café with the reserved table where Bennett’s wife waited with the promise of good cheap food and a few beers. She was there earlier just to meet with some friends alone – just as Bennett had done – hence why he was currently fighting swarms to get there.

Bennett led the way but Eastbury was the one to point out the booth to Collins. His eyes were immediately drawn to the woman sat beside Amanda (Bennett’s wife). She was the most appealing to him in her turquoise polka dot dress, her hair stylistically pinned up. Animated in whatever she was discussing with them, she didn’t notice Bennett saunter up until Amanda stood and ran to him. Ducking to avoid the five minute reunion (after a few hours apart) kiss between them, Collins swerved to grab a menu and took an empty seat in front of the vision in the polka dot dress.

Eastbury swiftly introduced himself before Collins could get a word in edgeways but that mean he learnt the three girls’ names before – which included hers.

“I’m Collins,” He waved afterwards, but his eyes switched back to the woman he now knew as Y/N. She had a warm smile which caused him to shy behind the menu ever so slightly.

“Do you recommend anything?”

“I always get the club sandwich so I’m sort of biased,” She shrugged.

So Collins ordered the club sandwich when the waitress returned before turning back to Y/N, “Do you know Amanda through work?”

“No, we went to the same school when we were younger,” Y/N leant her arms on the table, “I’m guessing you know her husband through work.”

“Yeah, known him four years now,” Collins responded and he felt his happiness boost with the small talk he so often despised.

When the food arrived, he mostly picked at it because he was too busy talking to Y/N. Occasionally his attention went back to his friends but kept returning to her. His bad luck caught up with him as he started sweating a lot more. The heat of the café, his jacket and the moment were really getting to him. When the group stood to leave, the temperature was overwhelming him.

“God, I gotta get out of this straightjacket,” He let out a short laugh to diffuse his awkwardness, tugging at his sleeves.

“My flat’s just five streets away; we can drop it off then come back to meet with the others,” Y/N nodded to the right as the group headed towards Trafalgar Square to the left. With a quick explanation to Eastbury, Collins separated from his friends with Y/N at his side, ready to face the crowds for the sake of cool relief.

“God,” Collins grunted as another wave of people was shoved into him. He turned to see if Y/N was ok but she wasn’t even within his eyesight. His head darted around, searching for her with mild franticness. His height unfortunately didn’t lend much advantage. He was then deafened with the cheering at something happened. What, he did not care.

There she was: at the edge of the pavement, halfway up a lamppost with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. He shoved his way over to her where she dropped down neatly beside him. How she did that in heels he had no clue.

“Take my hand,” She shouted over the noise, holding it out to him. Restraining his glee, Collins accepted her offer and let her lead him through the rest of the masses. Eventually they made it to the end, a few people still dotted about but heading in the opposite direction to join the celebrations.

“Glad that’s over,” Y/N let out a laugh of relief, touching her forehead, “Too hot and crowds are not my thing.”

“Me neither,” Collins agreed as he cast a dizzy glance back to see the size of the celebrations as an outsider, “Why did you come if you don’t like crowds then?”

“It’s the end of the war! I figured why not, you know?” She shrugged. Jack felt the shrug through his arm and looked down at their linked hands. Y/N seemed oblivious to that and kept walking so Collins simply kept up with her and didn’t say a word.

Understanding that he was conserving his energy for walking, Y/N talked for him. Collins enjoyed it; he learnt more about her personal life (such as how she liked going to Russell Square for walks or how she and Amanda often played chess). It made the time pass faster too because in no time at all Y/N directed him into a block of flats untouched by the war.

When Y/N went to open the door to her building, she realised she was still holding his hand.

“Ah,” She eased her fingers from his, “Sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Collins smiled as she focused instead on unlocking the door to her ground floor flat. As he stepped into the flat, he undid his buttons in preparation for cooling down. Y/N didn’t stay by the door; she went into her kitchenette with the mumbled excuse to grab them a drink for him.

Shrugging off his jacket, Collins propped it over the back of a chair. Feeling like he might actually pass out, he tugged off his tie and undid his top buttons. He was rolling up his sleeves when he caught Y/N’s eye as she stood in the doorway to her kitchen, holding a tray with two glasses of water. He crossed over without thinking and started to down one of the glasses. Water dripped down his chin as he gulped it down. Absentmindedly he wiped the drops away with the back of his hand.

That was when he noticed Y/N was avoiding his gaze. That was when he realised what he’d done. He’d followed a cute girl back to her flat, held her hand the whole way over, and started undressing without even thinking of the connotations that were less than conservative.

However, as he placed the now empty glass onto the sideboard and his arms slacked at his sides, he realised he didn’t want to just take her in her bedroom then leave. Besides, it was too hot for that now.

“We should get back to the others,” She prompted. But Collins wasn’t ready for that.

“Hey, we don’t like crowds, our friends won’t miss us. Why don’t we stay here?” He suggested on the fly.

“And do what?” Y/N clutched her drink, looking tense from her spot beside the window.

“I don’t know really,” Collins threw his line of sight around the room, lingering on significant pieces of furniture and the doors to elsewhere, “I’d just like to spend some time with you.”

Fidgeting, Y/N put her glass down on the table and thumbed at one of the doors, “If that’s what you’re after, then no and you’re making a little uncomfortable. I’d like to go back to our group now please.”

He realised he was staring at her bedroom door. Realising the full effect of his actions, Collins burst out, “Christ, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I don’t want to do… anything like that.”

“Oh,” Y/N went red, “Of course.”

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can definitely go back. I’ll come back with the group to pick up my stuff too,” he assured but maintained a distance until he knew she would be ok with him, “Eastbury won’t mind the detour.”

Y/N nodded, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume.”

Collins wiped his mouth again, feeling his lips drying again, “And I didn’t mean to unnerve you. I should’ve thought more about what I was doing.”

There was a moment of silence before Y/N spoke again: “You know, I feel less uncomfortable here than I do outside. I’d just like to know what you want to do.”

Collins took another moment to look around the room and this time he landed on the sideboard. Out the end poked a polished wooden chess board. He stuck his hands in his pockets and caught her eye again.

“You mentioned chess,” He bopped his elbow at the board, “And I happen to be a grandmaster.”

A smirk fought its way onto Y/N’s lips as she crossed the room to pull out the game. She went on to prove him wrong in all four games they played. Her prize was bragging rights but Collins didn’t mind. Coming in second place, he earned another meeting between them back at the café – table not booth, alone as opposed to a group and a date instead of a first meeting.

Perma-tag: @tomgcsglasses, @lowdenglynnstyles, @prettyboytgc, @lowdensnose, @kgcurtis30, @carneylowdenwhitehead and @scottishlowden

Jack tag: @londonr26

#collins imagine #collins dunkirk #collins x reader #jack lowden #jack lowden imagine #jack lowden x reader #request #imagine #dunkirk cast #dunkirk imagine #my writing #wc: 1k+#r: female

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mass-effect-a-companions-react · 7 years ago

Note

I just wanted to say how much I love what I read here, it's so good!!! I was wondering, how would Ryder's crew react if when they are nervous or scared or even frustrated, they start to hum and/or sing to calm themselves?

Cora: The first time Cora heard Ryder do this was after Alec's death. They were in Sam node,humming a rather chippy song to themselves. Cora heard their song from down the hall, and was naturally confused and enraged. How could they SING right now? It wasn't untill Cora actually enterd the room did she see the tears in their eyes,and the grip they had wrapping their arms around themsleves for comfort. She realized it's a coping mechanism.Cora usually lets Ryder be, especially when it comes to this strange habit,but if she ever notices them doing this she takes that as a sign to back off and go easy on them. If Romamced,Cora with play in Scotts hair as he sings, the extra touch calming him down more.Liam: He picked up on it quicker than Cora. When they first got to andromeda, and their sibling's pod malfunctioned Ryder was pacing back and forth,bitting theit nails,running their fingers through their hair....and singing. It was strange,but Liam could tell Ryder was nervous and worried,so he never said anything to them about it, how ever he does clue in the others. If Romamced, Liam will hold Sara in his arms and rock her, sometimes sing with her if he knows the words.Drack: He picked it up the quickest. He raised a brow when he heard Ryder hum as they took on the Kett when they met for the first time,but then he noticed, just how slightly their finger trembled on the trigger and song was choked. They were scared,or pissed or both. And he underatood. He never judged,never said a word,but he understood. If Ryder started singing in the battfeild, he'd slip infront of them to let them get their bearings.Jaal: He is the most comfued about this? Why do they sing at the most strangest times? He did not understand....until Liam told him,then he became sympathetic. If he ever heard Ryder sing like that, he would do any and everything in his power to make things easier on his dearest friend/darling one. If Romamced he holds Ryders hand, and helps them calm their breathing. He once heard them singing on the way to meet his True Mother,Shauna and his heart almsot jumepd out of his chest? They face the threat of the Kett everyday,yet his mother is what scares them? Do they not want to go? Eventually Ryder had to switch from calming themselves to calming Jaal.Vetra: She picked up on quick, but not as quick as Drack. She'd notice how Ryder would give small melodic hum when ever they pulled a trigger,or how they hum to themselves when bitterly writing out mission reports. When she hear's this,she always ask if their okay,even though she knows the answer because talking about it helps too. If Romamced,Vetra will join in along with them,and sometimes do some work for them when they just cant calm down enough to focus.PeeBee: Its...weird. She noticed how they hummed to themselves all throughout the archives. She watched and waited to see what would happen next,but nothing did- so she just chalked it up to weird humming. It wasn't until after spending time with Ryder (and a little tip from Liam) did PeeBee figure out what the humming means. When she did, she relised how so much of Ryder's actions start to make sense. Now when Ryder starts humming, PeeBee tones it down. If romanced, PeeBee will do everything to make Ryder feel more comfortable. If on the the ship,she turns their humming in to an impromptu dance party.

#Vetra Nyx #Cora Harper #Liam Costa #Jaal Ama Darav #PeeBee #Nakmor Drack #General Companions #Sara Ryder #Scott Ryder #Mod Di

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your-iron-lung · 4 years ago

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La Chasse au Loup - 2

available to read on AO3 HERE

Story Synopsis: All things considered, there’s a lot of strange things a man could find in the back-bush of his own farm, rural as it may be. Some of it he could be aware of and do his best to work around, but a lot of it went so far under the radar it almost wasn’t worth thinking about. Mostly it was animals- a goat or a sheep that hadn’t been bedded down proper wandered out overnight and didn't wander back come morning. Turned up the next day in the bush in a strange, disemboweled sort of way.

It's coyotes that do it, Wayne reasoned. Wolves, maybe, but whatever it was it certainly wasn't anything living under his very nose.

Chapter Word Count: 1208

Pairings: (background, minimal) Wayne/Daryl

Genre: Dark/black comedy with a lil bit of drama

Next Chapter: 3

Previous Chapter: 1

Chapter Warnings: blood and an exposing of a knuckle bone

-------

THE BITE

The incident in which the bite occurred happened in the upcountry, roughly a year before the storm would sweep through Letterkenny. They’d been on a fishing trip in Quebec, where they were, as a group, no longer formally welcome after the altercation with Marie-Fred and friends. Welcome or not, though, there was great fishing up in Que-bec, and they’d all be damned if they weren’t going to take part in it once the lakes froze over.

They’d spent the day in relative peace, catching fish and sharing crude jokes, and in the end, it wasn’t even the Blue-Plaids that ended up harassing them; some other group of degenerates decided to take issue with them fishing on ‘their’ turf and of course a fight broke out.

It was pretty even from a numbers standpoint, and they’d been handling things fairly well up until the point where one of them bit Dary.

He’d had a man held in a tight grapple, arm wound around the man’s neck tight enough to hold him still while he gave him the business when the degenerate had had the bright idea to open his mouth and clamp down on Dary’s hand when it next made contact with his face. It would have been fine, maybe, if he hadn’t drawn blood. Dary would’ve let him go, taken a hit, and then kept going, probably, but the man held his hand clenched tightly between the sharp edges of his teeth like a tick stuck on a deer’s ass and refused to let go.

“Foul! Foul play!” Dan had roared angrily when Dary started hollering. The biter seemed determined to at least take a finger off as Dan tried to separate them, clamping his teeth down hard over Dary’s knuckles and locking his jaw, but even with Dan’s intervention he wouldn’t let go until Wayne came over and hit him so hard he fell back into the snow unconscious, Dary’s blood staining his teeth and dribbling down over his chin in a grotesque display.

The fight ended pretty quickly after that. Wayne’s fury was unmatched as he wreaked hell upon the rest of them until they’d all tucked in their tails, grabbed up their unconscious accomplice and hauled ass out of there. All focus switched to Dary then as he tenderly cradled his hand against himself, his face a contorted mixture of pain and bewilderment as their collective adrenaline wore out.

“Still got all your digits there, Dar?” Katy’d asked quietly, unsure if she even wanted to know the answer. She’d looked pale and disturbed, face almost as white as the backdrop of snow.

“Think so, fuck, but it hurts,” Dary had hissed, holding his hand up for them all to see that one of his knuckle bones was fully exposed, a large chunk of his skin gone down the throat of his assailant. Despite his efforts to appear calm, his hand had trembled as he held it up. “Take a look?”

Katy turned away from the gruesome sight while Dan fumed beside him.

“Oughta find ‘em. Take down their names, that’s what we oughta do.” He was so angry he’d been vibrating with outrage. “Biting another mans like that! Fuckin’ upcountry degens, raised by wolves, I swears. Oughta go after ‘em!”

They hadn’t, though; instead, they’d all stood by idly as Wayne aggressively shrugged out of his snow parka to tear a sleeve off his plaid, pulling it off gruffly at the seam with one strong yank. No one said anything as he wrapped Dary’s hand tightly with it and gathered all their things before piling everyone into the truck to head back home.

They’d managed to make it to the clinic before Dary took a turn, peeling back the shirt sleeve in the exam room to reveal the angry red streaks that were leading up and away from the bite wound, following his veins as they raced up his arm to the lymph nodes in his pit. He’d turned pale and passed out the very next second, and then it was from the clinic to the ER to try to stop whatever virus he’d contracted from spreading, and from there to the ICU when they were unsuccessful in stopping the spread, and there the infection began to wreak its havoc in full.

The fever lasted days. Wayne could clearly remember how they had Dary laid out in that hospital bed just sweating, near comatose, all the liquids being pumped into him for hydration purposes resurfacing on his skin in a sickening sheen. The doctors tested for every disease transmittable via human saliva, from the hepatitis’ to rabies to even syphilis, but every test they ran came back negative. They couldn’t decide whether to treat him for sepsis or cellulitis; had no idea how to effectively treat him at all besides giving him a cocktail of antibiotics in the desperate hope that something would work and patching up the wound.

They told Wayne and Katy to prepare for the worst- that total organ failure seemed likely if the fever spiked any higher and that he ought to be transferred to another, more prestigious hospital where they might be able to save him because this fever wasn’t something they could wait for him to just sweat out. His life was at serious risk, they explained, and if the doctors at the other hospital couldn’t figure it out, well. Wayne interrupted them by saying they best not start thinking things like that when there was more to be done, and one day before Dary was set to be transferred, the fever inexplicably broke.

He’d woken up complaining about how he looked like a Sally as he wore nothing but a hospital gown. The only question he had related to when he could get back to work, as though he hadn’t just been laying on his purported death bed for the past week suffering from a mysterious and unknown infection. Katy had cried with relief; Dan too. Wayne had felt close, but had always known in the back of his mind that Dary would pull through. He just hadn’t been able to imagine life without him.

Initially after his miraculous recovery, the doctors hadn’t wanted to let him go. There were too many unknowns surrounding his hospitalization: they ought to send him to the CDC, his recovery was too circumspect, etc., but in the end they didn’t have the legal grounds to keep him any longer. All inconclusive tests continued to show up negative, and given that he didn’t seem contagious and wasn’t exhibiting any more life-threatening symptoms, they let him go. They talked and discussed things with Dary (under Wayne’s command) to try and sell them a reason for what could have happened, and eventually came to reason that it must just have been some sort of prolonged kind of allergic reaction, like something akin to mast cell disease. They’d given him an estimate on when his hand would heal and referred him to an allergist and that was that.

Or rather, it should’ve been. It took a while for Dary’s hand to regain full functionality, but once it had, things had been normal, for a time.

Until they started finding things out in the bush.

#too lazy to format correctly just click the ao3 link #letterkenny #letterkenny fanfic #wayne/daryl #werewolf!dary #dark comedy #dry comedy #black comedy #teeny tiny mentions of gore #this is supposed to be funny but all i know how to write is drama and horror

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deanscarlett · 7 years ago

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Living Conditions

For Mimi’s RomCom Fluff challenge @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog , and Andi’s “Back in the Game” writing challenge @ellen-reincarnated1967 .

Author: Salvachester

Prompts: #29 from Failure to Launch (Mimi’s) and #21 (Andi’s)

Characters: Dean, Reader, Sam (small appearance)

Pairing: Dean x Female Reader

Warnings: Language, sexual situations (not very explicit), alcohol use, hardcore pining, mentions of masturbation, misunderstandings, awkward situations, angsty situations (plot device), fluff, humor.

Word Count: 6040 words

A/N: Thanks to my lovely gals Kayte @kayteonline and Sammit @sammit-janet for betaing it. The prompts appear in bold (in order of appearance, Andi’s, then Mimi’s). This is my first fic after all the Vancon madness began (like, May?), it took me a while to get my muse back in the game, but it’s finally here. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3

Dean Gif credit: thejabberwock - Smallville Gif credit: haleyjames

Lots of people tagged under the cut :D (you can add/remove yourself from the list here)

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Your nickname: submit What is this? (Experimental, may not work) document.getElementById("submit3").addEventListener('click', function(){ var s = escapeRegExp('Y/NN'); 'Y/NN' var val = new RegExp(s, "ig"); walk(document.body, val, document.getElementById("inputTxt3").value); }); function escapeRegExp(str) { return str.replace(/[\-\[\]\/\{\}\*\+\?\.\\\^\$\|]/g, "\\$&"); }

Friendship is never easy. Especially when your friend is the bravest, most handsome and loyal man you’ve ever met, and you happen to live under the same roof.

Being a hunter is no walk in the park, everybody knows that, but some people can handle it better than others. Take Y/N Y/L/N, for instance; girl grew up in the life, always felt normal with being a hunter. Never formed meaningful attachments, a hook-up here and there, and she was ready to roll out of town looking for the next job.

That is, until she met the Winchesters. Or rather, until she met Dean.

Y/N wasn’t a fan of sharing a job with other hunters, she considered herself a solo player. If she fucked up, it was her own fault and she could deal with it and learn her lesson. But if someone else fucked up… Oh boy, be ready to run because she could get nasty.

Now, the hunt she and the boys ran into each other was a simple salt and burn; no hiccups there. Sure, Dean had thrown a few flirty glances her way, but she merely brushed them off. Another rule of hunting… don’t get involved with a fellow hunter, even if it’s just a fuck to let off some steam. You never know when you might run into them again and have an awkward moment.

Of course, she would be lying through her teeth if she told you she didn’t consider the possibility of having one wild night with the eldest Winchester; because DAMN, that man was built for sin. And given her selection of men… Yeah, Dean definitely fit the profile down to the letter.

The next hunt she ran into them was a little more complicated: vampires’ nest with at least ten fanged motherfuckers keeping people as some sort of morbid pantry. Now, there were a couple of fuckups here and there, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. Y/N got kinda pissy at Dean for setting himself as bait and almost getting himself killed, but she didn’t make a big deal out of it. The hunt ended in success, and that’s what really mattered.

Now Dean, she noticed, had been shamelessly eyeing her at the bar while the three were having a small celebration for a job well done; and same as last time, she ignored him. Y/N ended up sleeping with some biker that was the spitting image of Zack Wylde. Couldn’t say no to that, could she? Of course, she would later on regret the choice ‘cause the dude was one selfish dick that didn’t bother giving her one proper orgasm. Asshole.

And, of course, Dean ended up taking that tall, busty blonde back to his room. Now that one definitely had a night she would never forget, if her moans and screams coming from his room were any indication.

Oh well, better luck next time, Y/N.

After that, the Winchesters and her kept in touch, mostly to exchange info, or to drop some line about some job close to either party; and eventually they started working together. As their friendship progressed, she couldn’t help feeling curious about Dean. Watching him pick up women using terrible lines and see it work like a charm was like watching some documentary about wildlife mating in the Discovery Channel; disturbing, entertaining, and highly addictive. Sure as hell he had charm. And looks, let’s not forget those looks.

But even when Dean kept making merry sport out of banging every hottie in a five-mile radius, he would, from time to time, send some flirty comment her way.

Whether he was serious or merely jesting, Y/N couldn’t tell; but a part of her kept having all these what-ifs popping in her brain and wouldn’t leave her the fuck alone. She wasted no time burying those musings deep, deep down where she kept all her dark secrets and dreams.

Remember when I told you a hunter’s life is no walk in the park? Well, here’s where things get complicated…

You see, when you’re a hunter and you don’t move around, like ever -or don't live in a safe, warded bunker, like the Winchesters- monsters definitely find you. Yeah, yeah, she should have known better, trust me, she knows that, but the little cabin she lived at was her family’s, so it held a whole lot of sentimental value.

Homeless and heartbroken at the loss of her home and possessions after the arson, Y/N couldn’t refuse Sam and Dean’s offer to move in with them. Af first, it was supposed to be temporary until she found a place of her own. But as we know, things don’t always turn out the way we expect or want…

“You know, I think I’m definitely gonna borrow one of these, or all,” Dean inspects her vinyl collection, an amused smile on his face ‘cause he knows she’s gonna tell him to go fuck himself, or some other colorful insult. She doesn’t mean it, of course, it’s just the way they interact and joke around.

“You do that and you lose your hands, or your dick,” Y/N retorts with a glare that is so fake you have to wonder how the hell she pulls off all the lies she has to say in the name of hunting.

Dean instantly leaves the record, Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers -yes, there’s some irony there, I know- back where it belongs, and raises his hands in mock surrender. “Ouch, no need to get nasty, sweetheart.” He can’t stop grinning when he sees her loosen up and burst into laughter.

It’s weird for him to have a girl living in the bunker. It’s nice for sure, because in an attempt to earn her keep, she always cooks for them, or helps with the chores without a peep. Not that he wants Y/N to be their maid, oh no, that is not what this is about; he just loves having homey, succulent and yummy meals on a daily basis. In a way, it makes him feel taken care of, and he could definitely get used to that.

And of course, what’s the downside of having a hot chick rooming up with you?

Well, as you can guess, the downside is she doesn’t seem to want anything to do with him, and Dean is starting to figure that out. Which it sucks, really, because he’s already having lusty thoughts, and harboring one hell of a massive crush on her -courtesy of her caretaking and cooking skills- and there’s no turning back. So he does what he does best; he puts on the proverbial mask and acts as if there’s nothing going on.

Seriously, Dean, could you be more obvious? Dude, if you keep tilting your head like that and stare at her like she’s the biggest, yummiest piece of pie, she’s gonna fucking notice and run off in the opposite direction. Calm down, please.

The first few months go by without any trouble; if you don’t count Dean having to see Y/N’s underwear in the laundry room. It piques his curiosity and has his brain running all sorts of imagery, but it doesn’t go beyond that. Okay, maybe a quick release in the shower from time to time.

He definitely enjoys her company, even more when they are side by side in the couch binge watching all six Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or Die Hard I and II. The fact that she mouths a great deal of the dialogues makes Dean’s attraction grow stronger and stronger.

Now, the tough moments are when either of them need stitches or patching up, and having to touch her skin -or the other way round- has his mind reeling with another kind of want. It’s just so nice having someone taking care of you that you can’t help wanting more. And Dean definitely wants more. But what’s he gonna do? As far as he is concerned, the girl’s not interested, so he settles with just musing.

Sigh, Dean, if only you knew Y/N, deep down, has the same train of thoughts. Hang in there, kitten, it’s almost Friday.

So far, Y/N is hiding her itty bitty crush rather well. Dean, on the other hand, is not doing so hot.

I mean, Dean is doing his best to keep it a harmless crush. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. But, when you’re fucking that waitress -Rachel? Raquel? I don’t even know- into the mattress and you call out the name of your ‘harmless crush’, you definitely gotta reconsider the label. And run like the fucking devil before that flying, pointy heel impales your occipital lobe.

Neither Sam, nor Y/N know the actual truth about that fiasco. As far as they know, that chick was all kinds of crazy.

Very classy, Dean, let’s blame the waitress on your fuckup.

Y/N, on the other hand, keeps her normal pattern of sleeping with bikers and metalheads. Of course, nobody knows she’s doing it to keep Mr Sexy-As-Fuck Winchester out of her mind. Which works. Kinda.

I mean, how much more of this can you stand when each hook up feels shittier and shittier and all you really want is to hold on to someone -cough, Dean, cough- and never let go? Girl, open your fucking eyes already and admit you want him!

But nope, she refuses to admit it. What’s the point? Getting all hyped up and shot down? No fucking thank you.

If you think this is the cusp of all this complication, you’re in for a rude awakening.

Enter the truly awkward and embarrassing situations.

Everybody in the circle knows that Garth is not the sharpest tool in the shed, for sure he’s cool and all, but the guy can turn a simple hunt into a clusterfuck, so when he calls for help, nobody is really surprised.

After sorting out who’s gonna come to his aid -yes, you guessed right, rock papers scissors; how else were they gonna decide?- Sam heads out to New Jersey to help the hapless hunter; leaving Dean and Y/N to deal with a job in Louisiana.

Y/N is not a big fan of Sam borrowing her car, but she has no choice. Have you met Dean? Yeah, try and pry Baby out of his hands. Go ahead, try.

So this leaves Dean and Y/N working alone. Oh boy, this should be interesting…

The drive to Louisiana is smooth, they mostly discuss the case and their theories about what monsters they’ll be encountering; all very professional. Too professional if you ask me; it’s like they are trying to avoid loosening up and truly enjoy each other’s company.

To Dean’s dismay, Y/N gets a room for herself. Yeah, what were you expecting, dude? But look at the bright side, you can get off at your own leisure.

Every hunter knows dealing with ghouls can be fucking disgusting, believe me, so when they are done with them, Y/N is covered in various icky fluids and she just can’t wait to get a shower and go back to smelling like a daisy. It’s all nice and dandy, except for the pipes breaking on her, getting her all covered in muddy water. Yuck.

As the cunning little hunter she is, she lockpicks Dean’s room to use his shower while he’s out crossing some t’s and dotting some i’s with the local authorities. He should be away for a good while, right?

Guess again, my friend…

So as she’s done showering and about to put on her clothes, she doesn’t hear Dean opening the front door.

Dean, cautious as he is, draws his gun the moment he hears noises in his bathroom and storms in.

Now, let me tell you something about Y/N; the woman can see a three-headed monster and she’s not gonna make a noise; but a gorgeous hunter pointing a gun at her naked self? Oh yeah, expect yelling and screams. Not right away, just give her brain some time to react.

If you pay attention, you can actually hear Dean’s jaw hit the floor; opposite to him, Y/N is frozen in place, stark nude and holding her hairbrush like a deadly weapon aimed at him. It’s almost adorable.

While Dean is trying to keep his cool and not make an idiot out of himself -because let’s face it, his dick is screaming at him and wants to take charge of all the thinking- Y/N’s brain is just catching up with the situation.

“What are you doing he-”

Dean doesn’t get to finish his question because Y/N is screaming and yelling and hurling a variety of non-lethal objects at him. The endless string of ‘get out’s’ can surely be heard in the next town.

See? I told you she would scream.

As Dean runs out of the bathroom, ducking the projectiles, he closes the door and sits on his bed in a futile attempt to calm his brain and his happy dick. He can still hear her huffing and grunting in anger and frustration.

He just saw Y/N totally and utterly naked. Definitely one hell of a glorious view. Yup, that’s gonna get a top place in the shelf of his memories. Half an hour passes and she isn’t out yet; he doesn’t worry though because he knows she’s embarrassed and bracing herself to face him.

When she finally emerges, Dean’s blood freezes at the murderous look she throws his way.

“Why are you glaring at me?” He asks as if nothing’s just happened. Oh Dean, either you are too adorable, or one provocative little shit. I’ll wager both.

“I’m hoping you’ll spontaneously combust.”

Uh oh, run, Dean, run!

“Why?”

Really, Dean? You gonna poke that bear? Do you wanna put your head in a hornet's hive while we are at it?

“Why? Are you seriously asking me WHY?! You’ve just barged in while I was in the bathroom, don’t you ever knock?”

Now now, Y/N, don’t act so offended, we all know it didn’t really bother you that Dean saw you in your birthday suit. And do I need to remind you whose room it is?

Dean’s little happy moment is blown away by her words and instantly stands his ground. “I should ask you the same question, sweetheart, given this is my room. Now, calm down.”

Seriously, dude, stop poking the bear. Calling her ‘sweetheart’ and telling her to calm down right this moment is not gonna do you any good.

“You just saw me naked, I don’t care if it’s your room. You just. Saw me. Naked. I cannot fucking calm down!”

Yes, Y/N, keep spelling it out for him, it’s not like Dean’s brain is back to putting that scene on repeat. Oh wait, it is.

“How the fuck was I to know you were in my bathroom?” He’s right, nobody can argue with that.

So now that her anger is fading and she’s finally realizing he’s right, Y/N explains the incident with her shower, tucks her tail between her legs and returns to her room to pack.

Thank god the hunt is done; a few more hours and she’ll be able to hide in her room until hell freezes over.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the ride back home is quiet, save for the loud music playing non stop, and, you can imagine, they avoid any sort of eye contact as much as they can.

Awkward...

Sam frowns in confusion when Y/N runs past him in the library barely uttering a ‘hello’ to him; and as soon as he hears her door slam shut, he faces Dean, who merely shrugs at his brother’s silent question.

It takes a couple of days before Y/N spills the beans about the bathroom incident; and Sam can’t stop laughing when she starts calling Dean a peeping tom.

Now that we are on the subject of Sam, let me tell you that he has no fucking clue about Y/N’s ever growing crush on his brother; but Sam is very much aware of Dean’s, but since his big brother never mentioned anything, he’s just gonna mind his own business and let him be. Dean is a grown man, he doesn’t need -or want- relationship advice. If Dean asks, Sam will gladly help.

Going back to the bathroom incident, Y/N was so frozen in that moment that she didn’t register the glint in Dean’s eyes nor his growing bulge, for that matter. As far as she knows, Dean was unaffected by her naked body, and that surely stings.

Oh, honey, if only you knew how wrong you are… You can bet your ass Dean spends several minutes in the shower reliving that moment.

After this debacle, their relationship shifts a little and they don’t tease each other as much as they used to; they both feel it, and it fucking sucks.

Y/N reached the point where she admitted it to herself how she feels about Dean. Fucking finally, girl! But she’s still under the wrong assumption that Dean is not interested in her; and about a month ago, she decided to not hook up with random guys anymore.

It’s just so taxing to sleep with below average men when your mind, heart and body only want that one perfect specimen. As they say, better alone than in bad company. But of course the lack of release and human contact is making her cranky. Lately, she snaps at him over the littlest things.

Dean also dropped his number of conquests, but for an entire different reason. How many times are you gonna say the wrong name in bed before realizing you've got a problem? I’m sure that knee in the jewels was a fucking sign.

Now, before we get to the next part, let me tell you that Sam has the best timing ever -or worst, depending on how you see it- for random hookups that take him five states away. Or maybe he’s just so damn tired of the cold vibes and petty arguments between Y/N and his brother that he makes up the lamest excuses to get out of dodge.

Seeing as Sam is gone -nobody knows for how long- and that it leaves her alone with Dean, Y/N decides one more try in the hookup department, so she heads for the nearest bar she can find.

Dean, on the other hand, stays in and hits the bottle because what else there is to do? His crush on Y/N evolved into something much stronger and he already lost any hope. And the fact she’s out there getting laid with some douchebag does nothing but add shit to the pile of misery.

Yeah, it breaks your heart to see him so hopeless. Poor Dean.

But here’s what Dean doesn’t know: Y/N’s plan is failing miserably, not for the lack of candidates, but because she shoots down every single one of them, even the good ones. Instead, she hits the bottle as well, and fuels her own pity party.

Much like Dean, she feels nothing’s ever gonna happen between them, and it hurts to her very soul. Just because she never had a meaningful relationship doesn’t mean she was never in love. She was, twice, but never really took a chance. But with Dean, she was ready to take that plunge, if only he ever shown some interest in her other than platonic.

Yes, she remembers Dean flirting with her in the early days, but as far as she’s concerned, that was Dean just being Dean: a playful guy that loves getting in every girl’s pants.

She finally gives up at the bar and drives home. Reckless as fuck, if you ask me, seeing that she’s kinda drunk, but she makes it home safely, thank god.

As we know, alcohol drops inhibitions and filters, so it’s no surprise that Dean, who is also half drunk, makes a not-so-tactful remark about Y/N striking out at the bar. Part of his brain realizes it and sends the necessary warnings, so Dean is ready and expecting to be clocked in the jaw when he sees her lunging at him; and in all honesty, he reckons he deserves it, so he closes his eyes and waits for the shit to hit the fan.

Instead of feeling her fist collide into his jaw, he feels her lips ravaging his own.

Oh my… Yeah, he definitely didn’t expect that.

He doesn’t question her -why would he?!- he just rolls with it and enjoys the moment.

Now, before you start worrying about alcohol and sex, they aren’t as drunk as to not realize what’s going on, they are very much aware, trust me. Besides, you know how much they’ve been pining after each other.

So, back to the moment at hand… They waste no time tearing each other’s clothes and bumping into walls on their way to his bedroom. Dean is on cloud nine and completely ignoring that nagging feeling in his gut that tells him this is just another hookup for her. And, as you can guess, Y/N is thinking the same.

Guys, you really are two peas in a pod. It’s getting frustrating.

As you might recall -how could you not- Dean’s already seen her naked, so there’s nothing new, except that now he can touch; and, oh boy, does he touch.

Now, Y/N, on the other hand, is seeing him for the first time, and oh god almighty, does she like what she sees. Far back in her mind, her brain makes a small Star Wars reference -‘Look at the size of that thing’- the moment she sees his dick.

If she wasn’t so caught up in the moment, she’d probably giggle at her own silly joke.

Every fantasy she ever had about Dean doesn’t do any justice to the real thing; it’s not just that he’s well endowed and with a body that is borderline perfect, or that she’s spent months idealizing him. No, he actually is that good; and attentive and thorough. She’s honestly mind blown when he makes her come just with his fingers and tongue. Like, the guy is so busy eating her out that Y/N has no doubt he’s seriously enjoying it.

I don’t think she can name one guy who made her come like this, or made it all about her.

Which brings us to the next moment…

In the afterglow of her own bliss, she attempts to return the favor, but Dean cuts her short, mumbling something about not being able to last and wanting to be inside.

Wow… Did he seriously just turn down a blowjob so he could come inside of her and not disappoint her? Is he for real? Is it the same with every other girl? Where has he been all her life?

Okay, enough with the questions, Y/N, get your mind back in that bed.

The act itself can only be described as intense; for the most part, they were quiet in the sense of barely no talking, but yes, you can bet they were very loud.

Whether for the exertion, the alcohol, or finally getting into each other’s pants -probably all three- they fall asleep rather fast. In addition, there’s that bliss that fills the both of them; but that one is short-lived.

You see, when Y/N wakes up, long before Dean does, she feels this sense of regret. Not because she’s changing her mind about wanting to sleep with him, but because this one shared moment changes her whole perspective. More than ever, she realizes how much she loves Dean and how much she wants to be with him for as long as they live. But here’s the thing: she still believes this is just another meaningless encounter for him. She over-analyzes the situation and reaches the conclusion he was probably just bored. Which, as you know, it’s not the case.

But she doesn’t know that, nor she remembers the sweet kisses Dean kept giving her all night -blame the alcohol, of course- so the first thing she does is sneak out of his bed.

When Dean wakes up, foggy minded and ready to spoon the fuck out of her, and sees she’s gone, he feels this tight knot in his chest that prompts his brain to shout ‘I told you to not get close, you idiot’ over and over again.

Painful, eh?

Well, it gets worse, let me tell you; because when they run into each other in the kitchen, and Dean is slightly considering bringing up the subject and try to figure her out and hint his interest in her -because that one tiny part of him is still hopeful there’s something more between them- she blows his world to kingdom come.

“Listen, that was fun and all, but let’s not do that again. We are good friends, let’s not ruin it, okay?”

If you listen closely, you can hear his heart breaking. Talk about a surgical, preemptive strike.

You gotta hand it to Y/N, though, she has mastered the Dean Winchester playbook down to the letter; because that’s exactly the type of move he does when he’s into a girl and he doesn’t wanna get hurt. Hurt ‘em before they hurt you.

Of course, for all his brilliance and genius, it’s in moments like this when his brain stops cooperating. Instead of analyzing the situation and look for telltale signs that she’s lying -and believe me, the signs are there and glowing like a fucking neon sign on a strip club- he takes her statement at face value and agrees.

In his own misery, he doesn’t notice the pain in her eyes.

After that, everything goes downhill.

Y/N decides it’s time to go, so she finds a new cabin and moves out a month after sleeping with Dean.

In case you are wondering, Sam has no clue that they slept together, so it takes him by surprise when she drops the news. Of course, one look at his brooding brother cues him that something must have happened.

At first, Dean beats around the bushes, making up excuses about missing her food -which is true, but not the main reason why he looks like someone shot his puppy. Sam, of course, doesn’t buy it, so he brings up Dean’s crush.

To Sam’s surprise, Dean doesn’t even bother lying about it, and eventually clues him in about that one fateful night.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam offers. He certainly would like to help more, but what else can he say? He’s not gonna go around playing Cupid to a pair of grownups. It would not only be weird, but also disrespectful of her choices, so if Y/N isn’t into his brother, there’s nothing he can do.

Damn it, Sam, you are as blind as your brother.

Meanwhile, in a little cabin in Montana, Y/N does her own share of brooding. She loads herself with cases to keep her mind off Dean; she goes out of her way to make sure to not run into them while on a job.

Of course, Sam calls and texts her from time to time, and it’s the single-word replies that make him wonder if they both were mistaken about her not wanting Dean. Why else would she part ways like that, right? But no matter how many times Sam explains it to him, Dean thinks his brother is reaching and seeing things that aren’t there.

You should listen to your brother, Dean.

Now, Y/N is reaching that point where anger and pain are ruling over her; she kicks herself for falling for him, she blames herself for being so damn weak. She works, she listens to power ballads until her ears bleed, she drinks, she cries herself to sleep. Rinse and repeat times infinity. Yeah… she’s doing awesome.

The woman literally became a ticking time bomb, every tiny little thing sets her off. So you can imagine her reaction when she runs into the brothers while working a case in Dallas.

Dean is taken aback, but he acts like nothing is happening. Bullshit, all his feelings are overwhelming him and feels like he’s dying inside.

Back in her motel room, Y/N is spiraling out of control, she hurls stuff all over the place. Yes, you guessed right, she’s had a few whiskeys so she’s not exactly thinking clearly. Which is why she storms out of her room to find Dean and tell him a piece of her mind.

I don’t know about you, but I’m honestly scared for him.

Dean frowns in confusion and draws his gun when the incessant pounding on the door starts. When he sees her through the peephole, he is both relieved and sad. Placing his gun back in its holster, he opens the door and readies himself to face Hurricane Y/N.

Like, she’s in such a furious state that she doesn’t even let Dean ask her to come in, she just storms in past him and takes the stage.

“You are an asshole, you know?”

Well, here we go…

“You are a fucking asshole,” she repeats, all red eyed and shaking.

Dean doesn’t like her tone one bit. “Excuse me? What the fuck is your problem, Y/N?”

“You! You are my problem, you ruined my life! You destroyed it, you jackass!” She’s pointing her finger at him and you almost gotta wonder if she’s gonna shoot some death ray from it. That’s how mad she is.

“Me? What did I ever do to you?” Poor Dean, he is so damn confused.

“Showing up in my life, for starters! I was fine being alone... being on my own, and then you show up. I lose my home, and I don’t have anywhere to go, and you guys take me in, and everything was so perfect and nice and then I lost it all!”

Dean has to blink several times, because he can’t possibly understand what she’s getting at with all that verbal diarrhea.

“And believe me, I did not want that because I had a good life before you. Well, not good… but… it was okay. Well, it… it was empty, actually, but at least I was blissfully unaware of how miserable I was. Whereas now… because of you… I am acutely aware of how completely and totally unhappy I am. Thank you for that.”

Dean tries to interject a word, but Y/N raises her index finger, glaring at him. “I’m not done venting!”

Yup, we can tell, honey. Go on, let it all out.

“I can’t even get properly laid, thanks to you!”

Now Dean’s confusion and anger matches her own. “Me? Why the fuck are you blaming me?! You are crazy!”

“Why? I’ll tell you why,” Y/N’s hands go to her hips, she drops her tone several registers, and starts impersonating Dean.

Yup, you heard that right.

“Hi, I’m Dean Winchester, I’m the most badass, sexiest motherfucker in town. I can be the sweetest asshole you’ve ever met. I’m gonna blind you with my perfect smile, my penetrating eyes and my perfect body, I’m gonna rock your world, be the best sex you’ve ever had to the point of ruining you for all other men. I’m gonna make you fall for me and then break your heart and move on to the next bitch in no time, ‘cause I'm that awesome.”

If it wasn't for the extreme hurt in her eyes, I’d probably be rolling on the floor, laughing.

Dean is offended at the impersonation, he’s so fucking furious that it takes him several seconds to register the ‘fall for’ and ‘break your heart’ parts; and when he finally does register it, he starts laughing.

Yes, he’s actually laughing, full-body-shaking kind of laughter. And as you can guess, Y/N is about to go postal on him, she doesn’t realize he is laughing not to mock her, but because he’s relieved.

Before she has a chance to lunge at him, he starts connecting the dots out loud. “Are you telling me, all this time, you actually were into me? But you told me you didn’t want anything to happen between us?” Okay, Dean, hurry the fuck up before she hurts you.

“Yes! But why bother telling you, Mr Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em? I had to make my move first, before you had a chance to ditch me.” She’s sobbing so badly you can’t help feeling sorry for her. “You ruined me, Dean.”

Seeing as she’s obviously gonna keep ranting, and not gonna let him get a word in, Dean does what he must to shut her up, and hopefully, calm her down too.

He pulls her into his arms and kisses her. Desperately and passionately. And it works, because when Y/N calms down a bit, she breaks the kiss with a loud gasp and stares questioningly into his gorgeous eyes; and Dean can finally speak.

“You had it all wrong, Y/NN, we had it all wrong. I’ve been crazy about you for a while, but figured you only wanted to be friends, so I didn’t say anything, and then that happened, and well, you made your intentions pretty clear.”

Remember when Y/N was frozen in the bathroom? Well, it’s the exact same situation, except she’s not naked at the moment. She stands there, thinking, until she bursts into hysterical laughter.

Peas in a pod, definitely.

“All this time I was fucking suffering in vain?” She keeps laughing, but now she’s throwing her arms around Dean’s waist. “And you were suffering too?”

Dean offers a smile in return; and she starts laughing even harder. “We are fucking idiots!”

Yes, guys, you fucking are.

And now Dean is laughing too, but soon he dives back in and kisses her again. This time is more deliberate, they take their time, they smile into the kiss. It’s all very cute and sweet until everything else kicks in and, as you can guess, they start peeling each other’s clothes and getting in bed.

This time, Dean takes all the time in the world and teases her; and she totally loves it. He’s so dedicated, so thorough, so sweet, so… perfect. She loves that he takes mental notes of what makes her tick, she loves that he makes her his priority. She simply loves him.

Dean is equally happy and making sure she gets the most pleasure out of it; he loves exploring her body, he loves her moans, he loves everything about her, even her temper tantrums.

He’s definitely a keeper, that one.

Happy and blissful, they lie in each other’s arms; neither can still believe this is actually, properly, happening.

I gotta tell you, it totally makes your heart swell the way Dean smiles as he watches her talk. Boy has some serious heart eyes going on there.

And if you thought the awkward situations ended… Wrong again; because as they are about to start round two…

Three, two, one, enter Sam.

“Oh, come on, guys! You could at least put the damn ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door!”

You gotta wonder how many times he walked in on his brother and some girl in their motel room. Too many, probably.

Despite his annoyance at the lack of warning, he smiles to himself as he leaves and sends a quick text for Dean to read later.

See? I told you! I’m glad you guys worked it out.

It’s been two months since that afternoon, and Dean is back to having his daily succulent meals. Everything is back to normal, everything is the way it was before their fallout. Well, not everything is the same…

Now Y/N has moved into his bedroom and neither feels miserable anymore.

Being a hunter is no walk in the park, everybody knows that, but having the right person in your life can definitely make things easier and brighter in a world full of darkness.

Tags list (if you wanna be added/removed, check the link after Dean’s gif):

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