#but in this scene he looks actually scary with blood stained teeth

[preseriesdean]

it’s over for me. you can keep going.                                   who says i want to?

“Mirror Traps” —Hera Lindsay Bird

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

I Melt With You - Bakugou Katsuki

All Parts:

Part 10:

“Hey, Bakugou.” You greet easily, waving at him. “Can you believe it?”

“Jesus- what the hell are you on about now?”

“Nothing. Just, this marks the third time I’ve seen you without injury. Good on you buddy, setting a personal record and everything.”

He huffs, pushing off the wall. Bakugou is without his costume, clad in just normal sweats. The sight makes you feel a little bad- it was obviously his day off, but there he was working. Sacrificing his time for you.

“Fuck you.” He grumbles, without any bite. “Seriously. Fuck you.”

“C’mon, grumpy, don’t get so huffy.” You say playfully. “I was mostly joking, but I did mean it. I think I like you a whole lot better when there’s no blood involved.”

He starts to smile, just for a second, before he quickly evens his expression. It’s like he’s trying to hide the fact that it was there at all, quickly spinning around and starting off at a brisk pace. 

“Woah, slow down, no need to run, speedy. I’ll take it back if you’re so allergic to me being nice.”

Bakugou doesn’t respond, but he does slow down. Just minutely. Hardly even at all if you really think about it, but hey, at least you’re not basically running after him anymore.

“What’s got you so cheery, hah?” He asks after a beat, making an intentional point not to make eye contact. “It’s late- you’re not tired again?”

His tone catches you off-guard, something accusatory underneath that has you scrunching your nose. You’re not exactly sure what he’s getting at, but you can read his prickly tone for what it is- Bakugou is making fun of you. 

“No. I’m actually not tired, thank you very much.”

“That’s not what you were saying last night.”

“You know, that sentence from anyone else would offend me- but from you?” You scoff, squinting your eyes at him. “Well, I’m sure it was meant as an insult, not an insinutation; so I’ll refrain from calling you a pig. For now.”

“Call me anything and see where it gets ya, leech.”

“What’re you gonna do? Fight me?”

“Please, it wouldn’t be a fight.” He snorts, kicking at a rock in the road. It flies down the alley, all the way past the streetlamp’s glow. “See? I’d slaughter you.” 

“Yes! Probably!" You say in faux exasperation. "But it’s because you have way more practice at slaughtering people! I don’t know why you’re bragging about that- that’s totally not something normal people brag about!”

You throw your hands up, gesturing wildly, and Bakugou just sort of watches you. Doesn’t really react other than to evade one of your errant hands. You just barely miss him, the tips of your fingers clipping the fabric of his sweatshirt.

“What- nothing? You’ve got nothing to say about that? Course you don’t- because you’re proud of slaughtering people. Is that it? Huh?”

“I’m proud of winning.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Close enough.” He shrugs. “'Sides, it’s not my fault I wasn’t listenin’. Ya said so many damn words to me.”

“That’s so rude! You-“

Seeing his smile, you cut yourself off half-way. It should hardly even count as a smile, really, it’s much more of a smirk- something entirely self-indulgent and dripping with arrogance. You’re not sure if you wanna punch him in the mouth or giggle.

“You jerk. You’re messing with me!” On impulse, you knock your shoulders into his. Bakugou doesn’t flinch- nor does he budge whatsoever. “You’re just being mean on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Course.”

“Why? Just, I don’t know, be nice?”

“Fuck that. No thanks.”

“You incredibly rude- you know that?”

“And you’re fuckin’ annoying.” He retorts, knocking his shoulders into yours. Bakugou smirks when you stumble. “See- I’d murder you in a fight.”

“No one was debating that!”

He just bites his lip, throwing his head back. It’s like Bakugou is trying to hide his smile; exposing the strong column of his throat to you, pale skin gone 10 shades of gold under the streetlamp.

It steals the breath from your lungs- how devastatingly beautiful he can be. You have to tear your eyes away.

“Hey, Bakugou, it’s your day off right?”

He eyes you a little strangely. “Yes? Why?”

“Geez- Don’t be so suspicious.” You laugh. “I only asked because I was curious.”

“The hell you have to be curious about?”

“Just what you’d be doing right now otherwise- you know, if you weren’t stuck walking me-“

“‘m not stuck. Wouldn’t do this if I didn’t need to.”

“Yeah, but still.” You take a breath. “What I mean, is that, I’m sorry if this is burdening you. I know this probably isn’t what you wanted to do on your day off.”

He eyes you, sniffing for a moment while he juts his chin out. “Eh- it’s fine. Walking this far outta my way is good excercise anywa-“

“This far? Oh my god- are you serious? Where do you live?”

“Far enough.”

“Bakugou.” You say sternly, staring him down. You’re well aware he’s not a man who’s easily scolded into revealing the truth, but damn if you weren’t going die trying. “Seriously- how far?”

“Fuck’s it matter to you for?”

“Because it just does! Now, c’mon really, I’m gonna feel like, super bad if you say you’ve gotta take a train her-“

“No train, so quit bitching.” He scans the street for a moment, before turning back to look at you. “Not that far. Half an hour, maybe, if I was running.”

“If you were running? What about walkin-“

“Not walking so it doesn’t matter.”

“It does!”

“It fuckin’ doesn’t-“

Then he’s standing ram-rod straight, slapping an open palm over your stomach and pushing you back. You’re flying back into the shadows, back slamming against the brick wall. Gasping, air knocked clean out of your lungs, it’s all you can do to keep your eyes open and watch him leave.

Bakugou hardly even looks back before he’s soaring past the end of the alley, explosions igniting under his palms. There’s no one, all is quiet, silent and tense and then- bam.

A mottled mass of muscles and pulsating flesh barrels through the building beside Bakugou. Debris rains down onto the street, down onto the exact spot you were standing moments ago. The flying detrius knocks Bakugou off course, and the blonde hardly dodges before the creature is slinging fists his way.

“Shouldn’t’a been makin’ such a scene!” Bakugou is all smirks and haughty confidence, seamlessly twisting and dodging the creature’s strikes. “Gave yourself away- I’ve got you now!”

Even breathless and winded, you can’t help but stare. Bakugou truly is something else- a terrifying bullet in the air, bordering on frenetic as he dodges. He’s so fast you’re worried he’ll catch fire. There’s a reckless sort of smile on his face, stretching his lips back around canines you’re sure are sharper than before. He’s throws his left palm out, explosion recoil throwing him just past the creature’s next attack. It’s enough of an opening for Bakugou to surge in, flashbang fingertips making contact with the beast’s abdomen.

“Really, that’s all?” He challenges, grinning like mad when the beast flies back from the impact. “No strategy at all? That’s not gonna fuckin’ work!”

And then he looks back at you, just for a singular moment, while the beast is bent over from his previous blow. The sight nearly knocks the air out of your lungs all over again.

Bakugou is terrifying. Manic and bloodthirsty and feverish almost, chest heaving with every labored breath. There’s something wild in his eyes, coloring his features in blood that hasn’t even been spilled yet. It’s intimidating and scary and overwhelming, but he’s dazzling too. A crazed smile, so blinding and brilliant, that it leaves an after-image long after he’s blasted away again.

Something snaps in you then, and you’re diving behind the nearest dumpster. It’s a little gross and cramped, but you hear plaster cracking around you, and suddenly it’s not so bad anymore. Your eyes are wide, watching the battle- and even when hidden it still feels too close.

Your heart is trapped in your throat, a battering ram even as you try to catch your breath. Everything is loud, and chaotic, and you’ve never been this close to a real battle before. It scares you. You clasp your hands around your ears, trying to block out the gargling and explosions. It’s not enough, your breath still picking up as explosion impact rattles the asphalt beneath your feet.

“You’re done!” You hear him shout, and suddenly the air goes white and hot, and bright.

You screw your eyes shut, and bite back a scream as an explosion rattles every surrounding window. The sound swallows everything, and the light show is even worse. Even through your eyelids it’s blazing. Bright enough to have you diving to the ground and tucking your head between your knees.

Then it’s quiet. Complete silence other than the ringing in your ears. You hear impact, a warbled groan, and then the sound of his voice.

“You fucker.” He roars. “I’m fuckin’ busy, you weak bitch, can’t ya fuckin’ see that?”

Another thud. Another groan.

“All this shit for some cash? Just get a job, you fuckin’ loser. Like the goddamn rest of us.”

You peak your head over the dumpster, and see Bakugou standing tall over the collapsed body. You’re not entirely sure how the villian’s quirk operates, but the mass of flesh is deflating by the second, leaving behind a skinny mess of bones and sinew.

“A front, hah? Pathetic.” Bakugou sneers, grinding his teeth before he snaps. “On your fuckin’ feet weakling- ‘m taking you in.”

Bakugou hauls the skinny man to his feet, trapping rail-thin arms tight to the man’s back. It’s only then that you choose to emerge, staggering slighty on your shaking legs. It’s like you’ve got tremors- your body practically bowled over by the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through your veins.

“H-help- I didn’t-“ The skinny man starts, before Bakugou is sending a knee into the base of his spine.

“Don’t speak to her, you shit-stain.” Bakugou curls his lip. “Shut the hell up.”

You’re not really sure what to do then- caught between wanting to high-tail it in the complete opposite direction, and surging towards Bakugou. Because, if you weren’t certain before, you definitely were now; Bakugou knew what he was doing. And if worst ever came to worst, he’d stay true to all his threats. Nobody was getting to you while he was around.

“Follow. C’mon.” Bakugou nods towards the end of the street. “Police station. You know where it is. Let’s get the hell to it already.”

You just start walking- almost on autopilot. There’s a weird fuzz settling in your brain, the adrenaline seeping and leaving nothing but exhaustion behind. It’s disorienting because you weren’t even part of the fight- Bakugou had shoved you back long before you could have ever been in any real danger.

You’re not sure how he knew- how he could have possibly predicted the villain coming through the wall, but even still, you’re gratetful. Because you’re not hurt, only frazzled where you would’ve been massacred without him there.

Bakugou waits for you to pass him by, and only once you’re a good few steps ahead, does he start shoving his prisoner forward. The walk is tense and silent, the only noise being the occasional pained groan from the skinny man. There’s an undeniable air of intimidation coming from Bakugou, rolling off his skin and permeating every spare inch of air. It only adds more stress to an already harrowing situation.

The police station lies just where you remembered it, but you’ve never been this close before. You’d only seen it down the end of the street as you passed by- only through the fuzzy haze of exhaustion after your shift ended. Now there’s nothing hazy about it- just a stark white building and big glass doors. Big glass doors that Bakugou is surging through, prisoner in tow, and ordering you to stay behind.

When he’s through the door, it’s like your heart finally starts to catch up. You can feel it’s thud slow against you ribs, no longer jumping at every slight sound. You eyelids feel heavy, further weighed down by the headache you feel coming on. You lean against the wall of the station, bending slightly at the waist as you ground the heels of your palm against your temple.

“All good?” You hear his voice some time later, Bakugou’s footsteps heavy as he approaches. “You get hurt?”

“No- ‘m fine.” You chew your cheek, straightening as you look up at him. “I think.”

He studies you for a moment, red eyes flitting across your face. Bakugou grimaces. “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah. Was scared.”

“It’s fine now.” He huffs, frustration lacing his features. Bakugou clenches his hand, releases, and repeats twice over before he speaks again. “Got ‘em already, so you can chill the hell out now. Alright?”

“Yeah- yeah sure.”

You try to agree, but your voice doesn’t sound right when it leaves your throat. It’s a little too hoarse, empty of almost all inflection. You’re not particularly pleased with it and Bakugou is even less so.

“You need a few minutes or something?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, like even asking the question pains him. “Need to call somebody?”

Bakugou looks incredibly uncomfortable- eyes shifting around wildly and refusing to settle. All of his battlefield-confidence, even that self-assured smirk seems to have disappeared entirely. He huffs a pained breath and leans back against the wall next to you. His shoulders are just barely touching yours, voice pinched and tense when he speaks.

“I know it’s loud- but it’s over now. Now you just go home, and you sleep. Nothing is gonna happen to you.” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Bakugou tilts his head skyward. He grinds his teeth, once, twice, and smooths out his grimace. “And I’ll fuckin’ be there so don’t go spiraling about it, alright? You’re safe now.”

You nod, rolling your lips together for a moment. He’s not meeting your eyes, not even attempting to, but you can’t help but stare. Can’t help but track all the lines of his face; the way his nose slopes, and the set of his eyebrows. He doesn’t look like before. Not crazed, or manic, or brutal. He’s just Bakugou. Maybe a little grumpy, but mostly just uncomfortable- exactly the way you’ve come to know him.

Something in you settles at bit at that.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let's go." You kick off the wall, putting one foot in front of the other. "I'm more than ready to be home."

Bakugou just watches you, and you can see him reach a hand out before immediately dropping it. His lip curls up in disgust- and that just confuses you. You wonder where the Bakugou from a few minutes ago went; the one who seemed so entirely sure of himself.

"Faster." He says, overtaking you in one long stride. "Stallin' around at night is never a good idea."

You suppose he's right, but you never would've believed him before.

Prior to tonight, you had never been a part of a villain attack. You hadn't even seen a villain on anything other than TV re-runs. Your neighborhood was quiet, the streets never holding any danger, even at night. Now, though, every shadow seems suspicious, every sound a precursor for something far worse. Your well aware you just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time that night, but that didn't make the reality any easier to handle. If Bakugou hadn't been there, if he hadn't show up dead on your balcony months ago, then you would've been gravely injured by all that falling debris.

The thought makes you feel weak all over again. Has your fingers curling in your gloves- itchy and uncomfortable and helpless.

You're quiet as you walk, caught up in a million spiraling thoughts. Bakugou doesn't seem keen on conversation either, keeping a few paces ahead and scanning for other danger. Occasionally he'll turn back, check to make sure you're following, and all you can really offer is a nod and a shaky sort of smile. It doesn't satisfy him at all- you can see that every time he sets his jaw.

"Oi- Leech." He snaps in front of your eyes, waving his hand back and forth. "It's- stop lookin' like that already. All freaked the fuck out. You look ridiculous."

His haughty tone as your blood warming, fingers clenching at your sides as you walk. You're not sure what reaction he's after, but all you can really think to do is get angry.

"I am freaked out! You were there! You saw that guy! He was huge!" You snap, squinting your eyes and waving your hands around. "If you weren't- I- what am I supposed to do when that shit happens? Huh? I can't fight, and even if I could I wouldn't, so what am I supposed to-"

"Nothing." He interrupts. "You do nothing, and you hide. Like you did."

"Yes, because you pushed me! If you hadn't I would've been crushed by all that- and how on Earth did you even know he was coming?"

"Vibrations. In the ground." He squints at you, a little confused. "Did you not-"

"No!"

"Damn," He huffs a laugh, shaking his head. "You really couldn't feel that? Jesus, you really are clueless. No wonder you were so freaked out."

In that moment, you're a little sure you could strangle him. All his skill you'd seen earlier suddenly didn't matter at all, and you were sure you could take him down with nothing but rage alone.

He- vibrations? You didn't feel anything! You felt nothing and even if you had, you would've assumed it was an earthquake. No one except for him and his battle-addled brain would've ever assumed it was a villain of all things!

"Calm down," He seems to be fighting a smile, lip twitching up. "You look fuckin' ridiculous right now. 'm not scared of you, leech."

"You should be! I'm about to strangle you right now-"

"For what?"

"For- for- I don't know! You just make me so angry with your 'Oh, you didn't feel that?' bullshit!" You tilt your voice lower, coating it in gravel to mimic him. "Of course I didn't feel anything! I'm not like you- I don't have freaky super-human instincts and explosions and I can't just go fight somebody!"

True to his word, your outburst doesn't seem to scare him. If anything if seems to pull the smile from him more, lips pulling back into a grin even he has no chance of hiding.

"There she is." He stuffs his hands in his pockets, falling back a little to walk right beside you. "Thought you'd gone into shock or somethin'."

"So you- on purpose?"

"Said that shit about vibrations? Yeah." His smile turns wolfish, all sharp canines and pink gums. "There were no fuckin' vibrations, idiot. I heard the plaster cracking."

In that moment you're the surest you've ever been- you were going to murder Bakugou Katsuki.

"You dick!"

Your hands are out before you can stop them, shoving forcefully at his side. He just looks at you, rolling his eyes, and then decides to let you tip him sideways off the curb. It's the worst kind of victory- a pity one that he let you have.

"Chill out, already." He laughs. "Only said shit so you'd stop bein' all miserable. You should be fuckin' thankin' me."

"I'm not thanking you!"

He steps forward, one long stride eclipsing you entirely. Then he spins, facing you with another crooked grin, and you're digging your heels into the cement to avoid crashing directly into his chest.

"I said-" He starts, hands in his pockets and leaning forward until he's practically towering over you. "You should be thanking me."

His voice is low, sly and challenging as he grins. He looks positively predatory- but attractive too. The worst kind that leaves your heart stuttering in your chest for almost no discernable reason.

"G-get away from me." You fluster, taking a step back. "I'm not thanking you."

He shrugs, falling back to a safe distance. You don't miss it though- the way his grin goes just a little wider, entirely satisfied. He won, and he knows it.

"Suit yourself, then leech." He says, voice light. "If ya wanna mouth off so much, then 'm not fuckin' saving you next time."

He says the words, but you're almost entirely sure he doesn't mean them. Not with the way he is now- beaming and pleased under the moonlight. You wonder if he always gets like this; so happy just after a victory. It's the kind of sight that almost makes the entire ordeal worth it. Almost.

You walk through the doors of your apartment, shuddering a long sigh of relief. The walls feel safe, security and peace etched into familiar walls. Even with Bakugou stomping behind you, the serenity isn't disturbed all that much. He's still in his rare good mood apparently, and he doesn't even grumble whatsoever.

Truth be told, you're still a little shaken, but the interior of your apartment puts you at ease. Even if you don't feel nearly as infallible as before, home is a good feeling- it always is.

"You know- you know that you just got unlucky, right?" Bakugou seems to struggle for a moment, kicking the door shut behind him. "It's- that's- shit like that doesn't usually happen here."

You're not sure where his sentiment is headed, and he must see it on your face. He flares his nostrils, sighing something long-suffering and dramatic.

"I'm sayin'- that wasn't part of anything else. It was just the one idiot, so it's not any more dangerous here than it used to be. 'm sayin' don't waste your time worryin' about that shit."

Something in you warms a bit- just a fraction. You're not sure how he knew, how he always seems to know just what you're thinking, but at this moment you don't care to find out. There are some comforts better left experienced instead of studied- and you figure this might be one of them.

You smile, something soft and fond. "I take it back- I will thank you. So thank you. I'm sure I'd be a lot worse off if you weren't around."

You watch him fluster, watch him itch in his skin and shift his weight around. Eventually he settles on turning his back, moving towards your fridge as he speaks.

"Probably. You froze up completely- woulda been piss poor job performance to let you get killed." He's swinging the fridge door open, and the white light just makes it more apparent- his cheeks are pink. "Got ice packs in here somewhere?"

"I-Ice packs?"

"Yeah. Knuckles are gonna bruise up if I don't ice 'em."

You look a little closer then, at his fingers curled around the handle of your fridge. His knuckles are a little swollen, bruised up and red where the skin had split. It doesn't look too bad, much less serious than any other injury he'd come to you with, but that doesn't change the itching in your own fingers. You want to help him- now more than ever it seems.

"Shit- sorry." You breathe out, nearing a little to get a closer look. "I was so freaked I didn't even think about asking- are you okay? You're okay, right? Nothing else, no bones or blood or-"

"Calm down. 'm fine."

You look at him again, squinting for eyes for a moment. He just rolls his own, extending his arms out and flipping them. He was telling the truth- there's only one other scratch on him, and even that was already scabbed over. The only issue were his knuckles- and that sets you at ease.

"You want me to wrap them for you?" You ask, looking up at him. "Oh wait- actually, you'd probably want to do that yourself, huh? Since you're not on the brink of death this time and actual-"

"You do it."

"Huh?"

"I said- you do it." He won't meet your eyes, turning back to your fridge and opening it up once more. He makes himself right at home, grabbing one of the water bottles off the shelf without asking. "Did it all the other times, so you do it. Don't think you're gonna get away with cuttin' corners on me."

"I didn't mean it like that. I just meant, that I know you find it annoying when I'm all fussy so I just-"

"Shut up already. You continuing to run your mouth is the only thing that's annoying me right now."

You're about to retort, something offended and assuredly juvenile, but you decide against it. That night had been filled with far too much conflict for your liking, and you weren't about to incite more of it. If he wanted you to wrap his knuckles, then you'd wrap his knuckles. You figured it's the least you could do for him.

Turning your back on him, you start for the bathroom, and the first aid kit inside. A part of you considers just permanently moving the kit into the kitchen, but that sort of seems like you're just inviting more misfortune. You keep hoping that one day you'll stop having to patch Bakugou up at all, but from the looks of it, that isn't likely. Not even a little bit considering his obvious bloodlust.

"You wanna-" You start, walking back into the kitchen. You're shocked into stillness by the sight of him searching through your cupboards. "Um, what exactly are you doing?"

"Hungry."

"Okay, caveman, I just- you're not seriously trying to cook right now are you?" You near him, hands hovering in the air. You're sure he wouldn't appreciate it, but a large part of you just wants to grab at his shoulders and shove him away from everything. "Stop that- lemme get you fixed up first. Then I can call for something. I'm not gonna let you exert yourself any more than you already have."

Bakugou seems a little perturbed by that, whipping his head around until you can see wild red eyes. You almost sigh; what you wouldn't give for him to just chill out for once.

"I'm not saying you can't cook. You probably could, I don't know." You near a little more, dropping the first aid kit onto the countertop. "I'm saying, you've already done enough today, and you deserve to take it easy. So let me help you by wrapping your hands up. That's all."

Bakugou's in the midst of another internal struggle, before he visibly forgoes it. His shoulder's drop and the tension leaks until he's settling into one of your dining chairs. He sets his hands out on the table, clearing his throat at you until you kick into motion.

At this point, cleaning up his hands is practically a daily chore. You've gone through the motions more than enough times to be adjusted, but even still, his hands still freak you out a little. You'd never seen anyone who radiated so much heat- even just being next to him was like sitting in front of an open flame.

Your fingers are gentle, skidding over his hands with feather-light touches. He seems to slump in his chair, eventually just laying his head on the outstretched arm you weren't actively working on. He watches you closely the entire time though, red eyes burning holes into the side of your head.

"Do it again." He says. "Too loose. Do it again."

You're half-way through wrapping his right hand, only a small amount of bandage left. Not only would you have to do the bandage over entirely, but you'd have to unwrap it completely first.

"You always say that," You mutter, exasperation coloring your voice. "What makes it so much better the second time around, huh? I do it the exact same."

"It's just better. Takes longer."

You're not really sure what he means by that, and Bakugou doesn't look all that thrilled that he said the words at all. He jumps in his chair, cheeks gone pink as he digs his face into the skin of his arm. He's hiding.

It strikes you as even but odd, but you shrug off the strangeness all the same. You're getting far too used to his particular brand of bizarre.

"All better now?" You goad, patting the bandage after you've finished re-wrapping. "Everything feel nice and perfect for Prince Bakugou?"

He lifts his head. "You're not funny."

"You always say that too. But it's okay, I know one day you'll finally come around and appreciate me."

He just laughs under his breath, but he smiles too. Grins something tiny and small that he hides in his shoulder.

You start finishing up his other hand, and Bakugou doesn't say anything otherwise. He just sits, resting his head on his arm, and watching you intently. He's all calm and even breathing, chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm. You'd thought him adrenaline-crazed earlier, but it seemed he was coming off of that high rapidly. You could feel the exhaustion too- almost lulled by your movements just as much as he was.

You start gathering away all of your materials, and he doesn't even move. Just sits in perfect stillness at your table.

"I- I didn't accidentally touch you right? That's not why you're like that?" You ask, smothering a yawn. "Super exhausted, I mean."

He shakes his head. "Nah. Normal tired. Didn't fuck up this time, leech."

You don't have it in you to respond, hardly even rolling your eyes at his remark. His jabs don't hold much bite anymore- you begin to wonder if he's actually getting nicer or if you're just growing a ridiculous tolerance.

You brush off the thought, pushing away from your table and rising from the chair. "You still hungry?"

"Yeah. Wanna sleep first though so don't worry about it."

"Okay; well, I'm definitely going to so-"

"I said don't." He supplies evenly, finally sitting up in his seat. "It's fine. 'm not fuckin' starvin' or anything."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

His insistence sells you, but you're not sure if it's because you actually believe him or because you just want to. Either way, you figure it doesn't matter much in the end, not to the way your limbs are quickly bowing to exhaustion. You feel the fatigue settling in, and you'd like to blame that for your next actions.

"C'mon then, sleep time, I guess." You say.

Then you cross the kitchen, passing behind him, dropping your hand on his shoulder. You hardly let it sit, just running your thumb over his shirt once, twice, and then continuing on your way.

He takes several seconds to finally follow you into the living room. Enough to have you looking back in confusion, unable to understand why he looked so very stunted where he still sat.

"Jesus, you're annoying." He finally grumbles, rubbing at his eyes.

His steps are loud as he crosses the room, stopping just a few inches in front of you. He grabs at your arm, raising your wrist himself and plucking the glove off in one fluid grab. It if wasn't so sudden an action- so ridiculous and fast and borderline violent, you might have even been flustered.

As it was though, he just grabbed your wrist before you could really register it.

Familiar warmth floods your veins. The same burning, slow heat that makes it;s way through each vein and artery. You think maybe your knuckles ache a little bit too, but it's too hard to tell through your quickly increasing sleep fog.

Bakugou lets you go pretty quick, falling back on your couch in almost the same moment.

"Better?" You ask, mirth warming your words. "Had to do it yourself because I was taking too long?"

"No, 'cause you pissed me off."

"Doing what?"

"You know what you're fuckin' doing."

Then he's grabbing the blanket, settling it over himself gracelessly while he flops over. He's face-first into the cushions now, effectively ending the conversation in much the way he typically does- by refusing to engage entirely.

You just roll your eyes a litItle fondly, still not even beginning to understand.

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ooooo boy i am so sorry y'all for this late uPDATe,,, pls i usually update my fics way faster than this but sometimes life rlly just do be happenin lmaoooooo

n e wayz, ty for reading and supporting my work!! y'all are the absolute best i could ever ask for!!!

[bluegarners]

Dick comforts a dying civilian. He wishes he didn’t have to lie to do so. 

~oOo~

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

That’s what he says. What he swears. The dying man, hardly a man, couldn’t be a man, he’s barely an adult, he’s so young, so young, only nods his head at the lie. It’s a sure movement, confident and trusting, and Dick has to force his mouth shut in order not to take it all back.

The asphalt is cold, it’s barely eleven thirty, but there are no stars or street lamps to help soothe the roughness of it all. The ink that oozes out and stains the black is staining his suit as well. It coats his hands and fingers, breaks through his knees, slides under his feet. Despite the pebbles that press into his shins, Dick can only focus on how soft and slick blood is.

Blood is soft.

“My name’s John,” the young man offers. Red stains his teeth in a grin that reminds Dick of his own. “Nice to meet you, sir, uh, Nightwing.”

He knows he’s not really supposed to listen to the scanners. Old habits die hard, and even though Batman’s disapproval is almost enough to keep him away, Dick’s fingers still twitches to his retired radio. It’s how he got here. It’s why he’s here now.

“Hi, John,” is all he can really offer, too focused on keeping his hands in position. Too focused on trying to slow the stream, the bubble of life that keeps pouring out. Upper left side of the sternum. Exit wound out from the third left rib. Estimated time of sixty, maybe ninety seconds, since the shot. Too late. Too late.

“My sister’s name is Rita,” John says, and his eyes are wandering across Dick’s masked face. “She’s thirteen.”

Dick nods. Digs his fingers into the small hole further. The ambulance is maybe two minutes out. Maybe more. The call only just came in.

“What’re you doing?”

Finally, Dick shifts. John has brown, unremarkable eyes. “I’m stemming the blood flow. You were shot.”

“Really?” John is genuinely surprised. “When?”

Dick presses his hands down a little harder. “A few minutes ago. Tell me more about your sister, John.”

“Why was I shot? Who did it?”

“I don’t know,” Dick responds. “You said Rita was thirteen?”

John smiles, eyes scrunching up. “Yeah,” he sighs. “She’s going to turn fourteen next month. An actual teenager.” He adds, softer, “She’s growing up too fast.”

“I know the feeling,” Dick agrees, thinking of his own teenager. Damian, indeed, was growing up too fast. He was almost up to his shoulder now. “Any plans for a birthday party?”

The blood isn’t stopping despite the pressure. It keeps seeping through his fingers, a warm envelope compared to the dry cold.

“She wants-” John coughs, chest caving. “She wants to go to Disney World. Go see Mickey Mouse.”

“That sounds like fun,” Dick cheers, trying to calculate how much time is left. John’s green coat is soaked, drenched, and Dick knows if he were to squeeze the front, it would dribble. 

John jerks his head and his eyes are roaming. There is little color in his face, lips parted in desperate gasps. The shock from before is steadily going away. The adrenaline is leaving, but everything else is fixed in place.

“Am I,” his voice cracks, “Am I dying?”

“No,” Dick reassures. “You’re going to be fine.” He presses down harder.

John whimpers. “Stop, stop. That hurts.”

“I know,” Dick soothes. “Everything is going to be okay, John. Look at me. You’re going to be okay.”

A lie.

The younger man doesn’t look at him though and he bites his lip, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t feel my hands,” he admits. “I-I don’t feel very good.”

“Help is almost here, John.”

Another lie. He can hear the orders going back and forth in his ear. There’s traffic. It’ll be another three minutes until an ambulance is free.

 “Just stay calm. Deep breaths. Breathe with me, okay? In and out.”

John is trying his best to copy the exaggerated movements, lungs stuttering and shaking. The panic is setting in though. The panic and the desperation.

“What am I gonna tell Rita?” he asks like he’s expecting an answer. “What am I gonna tell mom?”

Dick doesn’t know. 

“We were-- We were all gonna go together, you know? She’s turning fourteen but she still wants me around and I don’t understand why but-”

John coughs again. It’s weak. 

“I’m scared,” he whispers. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Dick opens his mouth again to spew some half-hearted reassurance or answer that’s just lies with a pretty bow atop. He stops though. John is staring at him with dirty brown eyes. There’s nothing special about them. Nothing notable. There are no flecks of gold or amber in them that catch the light. There’s no stony wall of indifference built behind them. The whites of his eyes are splattered with burst vessels and strain, and they hide nothing.

But John has brown eyes that stare at him, stare into his soul, and beg for honesty. Truth.

Dick can’t bring himself to use harsh words though. Can’t bring himself to form the sentence ‘You’re going to die,’ because that’s cruel and too blunt and death is so personal. Dying is too intricate to be put like that. You can’t explain death.

Dick’s died before. Only a minute or two of complete nothingness, but death nonetheless. He remembers the moments leading up to it more vividly than he does the moments after. His body hurt, ached in a way that he was sure he’d never feel the same again. His throat was sore, deep gouges and scratches still oozing blood. He could barely see out of his left eye, nearly swollen shut, and his wrist were throbbing. 

Most of all, though, Dick remembered suffocating. Remembered Luthor’s clean, clean face. There wasn’t a speck of dirt or blemish on that man. His teeth were a perfect white and his eyes were filled with apathy. Luthor’s metal gauntlet smelled like oil, and he could sometimes taste it on his tongue during the worst nights. The pill was small, shoved down his throat so efficiently, but the very idea of medicating like that again leaves him shivering.

He struggled. He did. Dick struggled as much as he could, muscles screaming and heart crying out. At some point, he recalls looking for Bruce. Looking for a small comfort in his despair. A familiar face to ease the panic.

There was only Luthor though. Luthor and his pearly white teeth and apathetic eyes. 

His lungs had burned and it had spread to the rest of his body like he was on fire. Dick’s last moments, his death, his murder, was filled with nothing but horror and pain.

Dick hadn’t wanted to die. Dick hadn’t wanted to know he was going to die. There was no hope with that. No sense of faith for another outcome. Fruitless as it may have been, Dick had wanted to dare for a savior.

No, Dick would not be cruel. He could not be.

“Nightwing?”

His name is hardly a breath out in the open air. The wheezes have stopped. Blood still pours and pours and pours. His suit is stained. The ground is soaked.

“It’s not scary,” Dick says, leaning closer. It’s truthful, this time. Dying wasn’t scary. Everything up until death was. “It’s like falling asleep.”

“I’m not ready,” John rushes to say. “I--I don’t wanna be alone.”

His eyes keep flickering closed, slowly fluttering open every few seconds. Carefully, cautiously, Dick removes his hands. Alleviates the pressure. There is an awful suctioning noise as he releases his fingers from the wound. John doesn’t notice.

“You won’t be,” Dick whispers, taking the other man’s trembling hand into his. “I’m here. You won’t be alone.”

“You said it’s like falling asleep?” His voice is hardly a rasp. “I go to sleep and it’ll all be just a dream?”

Death was a dream for Dick. A nap in oblivion. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and then opened them and gasped. That was it.

“Yeah, just a dream. That’s all it is.”

“And after...” John trails off, pausing for such a long time that Dick doesn’t know what to do except to continue to hold his hand. He speaks up again though, eyes flickering to find opaque lens staring back at him. “What happens after?”

There’s a wailing in the distance, close enough where the high pitched whines sound like hope and the flashing blue and red lights look like safety. There’s too much life around him though. Too much of it leaking into the asphalt and draining out of that green winter coat. John stopped shaking awhile ago. His grip lessened, and even though his eyes were meeting Dick’s own, Dick knows that he was no longer seeing.

On some level, Dick knows it’s too late. It was already too late when he arrived. John, this man that barely looked over twenty one, with a chipped tooth and boring brown eyes and a thirteen year old sister named Rita, had the misfortune of Nightwing arriving too late.

“After?” Dick repeats, squeezing the man’s hand. “Well, that’s the easy part. After, you wake up.”

He doesn’t see the exact moment brown eyes become dull, doesn’t look at his watch to confirm the precise second of when John takes his last breath, but he does know that sirens flood the dim street thirty seconds later and that it is much too late to do a thing about it.

He lets go of John’s limp hand, briefly considers wiping his gloves onto his already smeared suit, and allows two paramedics to swarm the quickly cooling body. He waits for police to arrive, watches as they drape a black tarp over Rita’s older brother’s body, and declare it a homicide. Even throughout the questioning, of which they let him off relatively easy considering the sheer volume of-- of life splattered all over him, Dick lets them do their jobs.

He leaves with little fanfare, grappling away from the scene and flipping through rooftops.

The radio in his belt feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. The static in his comm is loud and screeching, and for a moment, Dick entertains the notion of flinging it out into the night. Throwing the cheap device into darkness, watch it plummet and shatter. 

The sirens are soft, muffled with distance, but the taste in his mouth takes him back as if he never left. Copper. Oil. Dirt. His own sweat. A dry pill.

See, the thing is, Dick isn’t very good about being honest. He’s tongue and cheek most of the time, quipping and tossing around puns as distractions and ice-breakers. When people go to him for guidance, they aren’t looking for his honest thoughts. They’re looking for leadership. They’re looking for advice that’ll help them through their trials. Most of the time, they just want hope.

John was looking for hope.

Call him an optimist. Call him a pessimist. At the end of the day, there’s still water in the cup, and that’s all that matters, right?

Dying was not like falling asleep. It wasn’t taking a little nap and floating in forever. You don’t wake up from death. It wasn’t a dream that you don’t remember after opening your eyes. It wasn’t a nightmare that leaves your heart beating out of your still chest.

Death was nothing. Nothing.You aren’t supposed to come back from nothing.

You aren’t supposed to wake up either, and yet here he was. 

Dick isn’t very good about telling the truth. He’s a very good liar. A good actor. Manipulative, some would say. He prefers to see the other half of the coin. He doesn’t like the darkness or the grim. He tolerates it all, yes, but he’s a good liar. Good enough to fool himself.

Sometimes, Dick wonders if he ever actually woke up.

Thoughts like these are dangerous. They lead down a rabbit hole that’s difficult to claw out of. He’ll do it again, shovel through his own thoughts until his nails are broken off and the tips of his fingers are raw, but he can’t let himself ever succumb to it all again. 

Death wasn’t like a dream, but it took all the same. It took memories from him. Those short, precious, important minutes he spent dead took away a lot of things. And he gets so angry when he can’t remember the good things.

He gets so furious when he has trouble recalling his first birthday at the Manor. He feels an unbridled rage when he doesn’t know off the top of his head when Jason got adopted. These dangerous and purging flickers of loathing for himself shove everything else aside when Tim talks to him about certain missions that he knows he should know like they happened yesterday, and yet even the thoughts of it are fuzzy and woven with cob webs.

He’ll never forgive himself for forgetting what it was like to hug Damian for the first time.

Death, trauma, it all stole from him, but he was also lucky enough to wake up. 

Blink. Gasp. Breathe. Taste ash and inhale smoke.

John had brown eyes. Rita is turning fourteen next month. 

The radio call requested emergency services for a neighborhood disturbance at eleven twenty five. Nightwing arrived on scene at eleven twenty eight.

The blood under his fingernails will take three showers to get out.

John bled out and his life now stained every part of Dick Grayson.

These are things Dick will remember. 

Death is not a dream, so this is the price for making it one.

[nohoney]

Do It For Me - 3.3

warnings: 18+, threesome, polyamory, mentions of assault, toxic relationships

title song: Do It For Me

summary: 

You trust him.

“Anything?” you turn your head and ask against his lips.

“Anything…” he echoes back to you. “And fucking everything…”

“For me?”

“All for you princess.”

3.1 ✧ 3.2 ✧ 3.3

It’s not that you want to defend Jun in the first place for strangling you, you think he definitely deserves a kick in the balls or something, but Touya is not against beating someone blind for touching you and would not be sorry for going overboard. You had one scary instance where you went out together to a social on campus, back when he was still Dabi to you. A drunk frat guy grabbed your arm too hard, too insistent that you drink with him and his buddies when Touya left to go have a smoke, leaving behind a bruise on your bicep. Touya witnessed it the moment it happened and he dragged that guy to a hallway and proceeded to beat him silly.

You can’t move fast enough as Touya moves through the house, his eyes rapidly scanning the faces of the remaining partygoers and searching for Jun, damn near out for blood. Keigo has no idea what’s going, trying to ask what was wrong and you’re calling out for him to not do anything crazy and to calm down. “Jesus, fucking wait! Dabi! Dabi, I swear to god do not do anything!” you call out him, uncaring as you capture the attention of several of the people still in the house.

Keigo tries to grab Touya’s arm to get him to slow down and get a sense of what is happening. “Dude, talk to me! What the fuck is going on?”

“(Name) got fucking strangled and I know exactly who did it.” Touya growled and shook Keigo’s arm off. Turquoise blue zeroed in on his target who was standing by the sliding door leading to the outside.

You’re pinned by Keigo’s gaze when you come up behind him, his eyes now registering how badly bruised you are around your neck. You can see how his eyes harden instantly but his hands are so gentle when he pulls you to him, carefully cradling your cheek in his hand. “Who did this (Name)? Who put their filthy hands on you?”

It looks like Keigo might be on board with the ‘beat Jun’s ass’ club.

There’s a loud slam and a screech of ‘what the fuck dude?!’

Touya has Jun pinned against the glass of the sliding door, both his wrists restrained in Touya’s large hand while the other is grasped tightly in Jun’s hair and squishing his face into the glass. He’s got one leg in between Jun’s spread out legs, taking the assertive stance and ready for any kind of struggle he may receive. You can practically feel the malice rolling off his body in waves and you’re genuinely scared to approach the situation but you don’t think you can take witnessing Touya get violent on your ex-boyfriend, even if he deserved a good punch in the face.

“You fucking touch my girl and put your goddamn hands on her! I should shatter your fucking kneecaps!” Touya growls and slams Jun against the glass. “You think that you would get away with it, huh?”

“Dabi, stop it!” you tell him and look to Keigo, pleading with him to do something to stop Touya. But Keigo has that same look as your boyfriend, wanting to inflict pain on the person who hurt you and does nothing despite you shaking his arm and begging for him to calm the situation down. People begin to gather to see what all the ruckus is, cell phones slowly coming up to record what is surely going to a chaotic clip.

Jun is such a jackass, he hasn’t changed that loudmouth of his when he’s obviously in trouble. He taunts Touya as if he’s got any power in this situation at all. “I don’t see why you’re so pissed off man. Isn’t she, like, one out of the four other bitches you see? I think you can stand to rent her out to me for a little bit. It was just a little choking, nothing I haven’t done with her already.”

Touya slams Jun against the glass again, his teeth grinding so hard you swear that you can hear it from where you stand. “Oh my fucking god, Jun! Shut the fuck up! It’s like you’re trying to get your ass handed to you!” you tell him frustratingly, remembering this unsavory part of his persona when you used to date him. “Dabi, he’s drunk. He always talk like an ass when he’s drunk so just let him go.”

“This bastard fucking strangled you and you expect me to let him get away with it because he was drunk?” he hisses at you. “You think I’m supposed to be okay seeing you walk around with all those bruises on your neck because he was drunk?”

God, this was not how you wanted your night or your roll to go.

There’s a look of realization in Jun’s eyes at Touya’s words and he cranes his head the best he can to get you in his view. You can see the way he squints his eyes towards you and registers the damage he had inflicted on you, his mind sobering up a little. It’s not an excuse that he was drunk for what he did to you, it absolutely is not, but it’s clear that he had overestimated just how hard he grabbed you and didn’t actually mean to do it that hard. Honestly it felt a little rough for you but you didn’t anticipate either that you’d get bruises. Jun deserves a consequence for strangling you but you’re not asking him to get maimed or anything like that.

You don’t want him to get hurt but Touya will inflict a punishment he sees fit though, regardless of how you feel.

The severity of the consequence should never exceed the crime… right?

“Shit… (Name), I didn’t know that I-” Jun starts speaking to you but yelps when Touya bends his head back with the hand he still has planted in his hair. “S-Shit Dabi, I’m trying to apologize! I seriously didn’t—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Touya growls and you swear the entire room just freezes. “Don’t you say her fucking name, don’t you fucking look at her, you don’t get to say shit to her. You’re speaking to me now, understand?”

“Keigo! Fucking stop him!” you beg once more and pull on his arm. You’re getting flashbacks to that frat party, especially as Touya drags Jun to the backyard, it mirrors the memory of him dragging that poor frat boy. When you move forward to stop himself yourself, Keigo holds you back and just tells you to stay with him. You wrestle in his arms but he holds you tightly, shushing you with his lips pressed against his temple and telling you that everything will be okay. Your heartbeat is rushing in your ears and you feel light headed, anxiety rising and the scene in front of you feels unreal and you feel yourself to dissociate, your mind attempting to protect you from the trauma of witnessing Touya’s temper a second time.

There’s two boys that rush from the house to pull Touya off of Jun.

“You kicked his ass plenty Dabi, you gave him what he deserved.”

But Touya doesn’t feel like it’s enough, damn near lunging at the defenseless Jun on the ground.

Jun is an idiot, especially when he’s drunk, he used to come to your old apartment in the middle of the night sometimes a little beat up from being in a bar fight. You could remember your disappoint in him, that you told him if he kept on being a jackass while he was drunk then he’d surely get himself killed one day by the wrong person. And then you would bandage and clean up his scrapes and ice his bruises, kiss his cheek and keep him company until he fell asleep.

It’s wrong to think this in the moment since you’re with Touya, but you want to run to Jun and make sure he’s okay. You want to stop his bleeding nose and ice the poor bump on his head, tell him that he’s going to be okay. You want nothing more than to nurse his wounds because you still cared; Jun was wrong, you’re still too fucking nice. Even after that break up and him putting his hands on you, you couldn’t bring yourself to seriously consider him getting hurt as a proper punishment.

Touya better not find out that you feel that way.

You feel like your brain is going into overload, the memory of that first time witnessing Touya’s anger colliding with this experience now. The ecstasy and alcohol still coursing through your system definitely do not help either. Drugs, alcohol, and anxiety don’t make a good combination; you remember that very clearly from that first house party you attended with Keigo and Touya. They mix together and you feel like you are both flashing back to that memory but are also present in this moment, that same anxiety rushing through every part of your body and unsure how to handle itself, your body does one thing in response to all the stress.

You pass out.

━━━━✧

The instant it happened, it felt like everything moved in slow motion as you watched Touya grabbed that drunk frat boy and moved through the crowd of uni students who were either drunk or on something. The music was loud but you still kept calling him, shouting the loudest you could to tell him that it was an accident. Maybe that guy really did mean to grab you that hard or he really was just too drunk to register the strength of his grip on your arm, but a bruise on your arm was not the worst thing that could have happened with a drunk guy at a college party.

That didn’t stop Touya from clearing out a hallway of the frat house to beat that poor frat boy, you had watched helplessly because pleading didn’t get him to stop. So you did the only thing you knew would get his attention: you cried. The moment Touya heard your sobbing he had stopped instantly, coming to you shush you. There was blood on his knuckles and you had dared to look just a bit past him to see the frat boy with a bloody nose and blood stained lips. The guy had come out with just a busted nose and a slight concussion and when the fraternity president caught word that it was Touya that beat one of his brother’s, he took you and Touya to the side a week after to find out the story.

“He grabbed her, left a bruise on her arm after she said that he wouldn’t leave her alone. You can’t tell me that if you were in the same situation that you wouldn’t have done something about it?” Touya asked as he had lit a cigarette between his lips.

The fraternity president had sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before speaking. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have done the same, but I have a duty to protect my brothers Dabi. The proper thing to do would have just been to bring him to me. Now my brother has to take two weeks off to recover, I had to lie to the goddamn dean that he got too shit faced and fought with one of the pledges. The fucking frat house is on a probation now!”

You remember as you stood close to Touya, keeping your head down and somehow feeling like this was all your fault even though it wasn’t.

“Do you think he went overboard?”

You bristled at the question, not prepared to be spoken to again and thought that the boys would just talk it out amongst themselves. You had looked between the two of them and rung your hands together out of a nervous habit when you were put on the spot. You could never condone Touya’s actions because he clearly went too far over a simple grab on your arm, but you were scared of what his reaction may be if you spoke what you felt.

“You don’t gotta say it, it’s on your face.”

It’s not like that fraternity president saying it for you made it any better.

Touya had huffed, puffing on his cigarette and blowing out the smoke. “I fucking defended her, end of story.”

“Dabi… there is such a thing as excessive force. It’s clear that my brother was too insistent and grabbed her a little too rough, but fucking shit it did not have to come to that. I’m sorry but something has to be done, my brother deserves a little bit of justice too.”

“Hm…” Touya threw down his cigarette before telling you, “Go wait in the car.”

“But Dabi—“

His glare had sent you practically scurrying back to his car, waiting in the passenger seat as you watched from where you were. The worst case scenario was that you thought they were going to fight each other but they just stood where they were and continued to talk. At least they did up until you watched Touya lean in close to the fraternity president’s ear before he had pulled back and walked back to the car and got into the driver’s seat. You didn’t dare say a thing, the tension in the car palpable as he turned on the engine and drove back to his place.

You waited patiently for that so called justice the fraternity president spoke of but nothing had ever happened, trying to ask Touya what exactly he said to dodge any consequences of what he did. But you were forced to move on and leave the incident behind because he refused to tell you anything, just that he did what he thought was right and that he did it for you.

It was one of the first instances you learned that Touya will withhold what he feels likes you don’t need to know.

And you don’t question it.

━━━━✧

When you open your eyes, you’re lying in the backseat of a car and assume that you must be in Touya’s car. You still feel hot and groan over the fact that you passed out, feeling like shit since the ecstasy was still processing through your system. Thankfully you were already on a come down so you’d just have to ride it out again, though it would be slightly more raggedy considering the circumstances of why you fainted. Your teeth ache and your mouth feels dry, smacking your lips and slowly sitting up in the backseat. “I feel like shit.”

“You look like it.”

It’s not Touya or Keigo that speaks to you.

You jump as you look to see who’s in the driver’s seat, now recognizing that this was not in fact Touya’s car but a complete stranger’s instead. Despite your sluggishness, your body tries to go into overdrive to save yourself from potential danger, reaching for the door handle to just tuck and roll out the car. But the driver anticipates your action and locks it just in time, the vehicle slowly coming to a halt at a stop sign. The driver turns back to you and hands you a bottle of water, “I don’t normally take any favors from anyone but Dabi promised that if I took you back to his apartment then he would do something for me.”

It’s Shigaraki.

You warily take the bottle from him, the cap unbroken so at least you know that it’s new and it doesn’t have anything in it like a roofie. Chugging the water, it helps calm you down a little but you’re questioning why you’re being taken home by this stranger instead of by Touya or Keigo. “Why are you taking me home? Where’s Dabi and Keigo?”

“I don’t know who Keigo is but I’m assuming that’s Dabi’s friend when I pulled up at that house. He didn’t say where he’d be, just told me to take you back to his place and watch over you until he gets back.”

Whoa… Touya hates having people at his place. The fact that he’s letting this Shigaraki guy into his apartment to watch over you, that definitely speaks volumes because Touya likes to watch over you himself first and have Keigo take care of you if he’s not around. You still don’t know what this guy’s relationship is to your boyfriend and you don’t know who he is period so you keep your guard up for now. You see your purse on the floor of the backseat and you pick it up, finding your phone inside and seeing that the time was almost four in the morning. “When did you come get me?”

“Not too long ago, maybe like ten minutes ago. Your fucking boyfriend was blowing up my phone and telling me to get my ass to that stupid house all just for me to babysit you.” the words are mean itself but there isn’t a bite to them, a hint of annoyance at most. “He mentioned that you were on ecstasy, didn’t want you to be alone on your come down.”

Your phone has no messages from Touya or Keigo and your mood drops even lower; you want to be with them. “Did they say what they were doing? Where they would be?” you ask as Shigaraki pulls into the guest parking of Touya’s complex and turns off the engine of the car. The door clicks and you’re able to open the car door, stepping out into the crisp air of the very early morning.

Shigaraki walks ahead of you, carrying a little backpack that’s slung on his shoulder and he pulls his hoodie over his head. “I didn’t ask, I don’t really care about what he does in his personal life.”

You unlock the door to Touya’s apartment with the spare keys and allow Shigaraki in first. It’s so strange to be in his apartment and not be with either Touya or Keigo for company. Shigaraki leaves his shoes by the front door and goes to sit on the armchair, a recent purchase that you and Touya bought together. You see him pull a handheld game device out of the backpack he was carrying and just fixate his gaze on the screen of it, not paying you any attention.

Closing the bedroom door and locking it, you go to the bathroom with your phone and try to ring either one of the boys; they both go straight to voicemail.

It feels better to be cleaned up and in loungewear, though your body craves the affection of your boys. They always take care of you when you go through your come down, this would be the first time you go through it without either of them. So you walk back into the living room to see Shigaraki still sitting in the armchair with his game, two glasses of water on the coffee table, obviously one for himself and the other for you.

Keigo left you his pack of gum in your purse, tossing it on the coffee table after popping a new piece into your mouth. You take the throw blanket from the little storage underneath the couch cushion and snuggle into the fabric. The fabric vaguely smells like Touya’s cologne and you know that he’s slept on this blanket without washing himself up first which would normally annoy you but you’re grateful this time, feeling like this is the closest you can be to Touya at the moment.

The tv is turned on and you just run a random sitcom series to watch, keeping the volume low enough where you think it won’t distract Shigaraki from his game. Without neither of the boys to take care of you during your come down and this stranger keeping you company instead, you feel even lonelier. All you can think of is where they are and what they’re doing, why their phones aren’t on and when they’ll return to you.

You want something to distract you.

“Who are you to Dabi?” you ask to Shigaraki as you shift your gaze to him.

He doesn’t answer right away, seemingly focused on his handheld but he answers vaguely, “Just an acquaintance.”

You shouldn’t ask, you know you shouldn’t because if Touya wanted you to know then he would tell you himself, but you ask anyway, “Why did you come here that one day? What did you need to talk to Dabi about?”

Shigaraki answers vaguely again, “Just some business between us, that’s all.”

“When you came by that day, I didn’t see him until the day after. I came back over here and he was high or something like that.” you don’t think you should be explaining all this to Shigaraki on the off chance that Touya and him aren’t involved like that but you can’t stop running your mouth. You’re still so curious about that day and this guy could be the only person to fill in the blanks of what happened that day. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

“What Dabi takes is up to him, I just made sure he got back here alive.” It’s just more vague answers and it starts to frustrate you.

You’re not certain if Shigaraki is under orders from Touya to keep his mouth shut or if he’s just naturally dodging the questions without a prompt from Touya in the first place. It seems like he doesn’t want you in his business either, not exactly looking happy that apparently he was harassed to babysit some girl that he doesn’t know. “What did Dabi promise he’d do for you? It’s not like him to reach out to other people for favors, especially when it comes to me.”

The handheld device plays soft music that suddenly shifts into a different soundtrack, hinting that whatever game is being played means that he probably went into a battle or something. “He just said he’d do something for me, we haven’t worked out the details just yet. Just pretty much wanted me to come get you in a hurry, so here I am guarding his princess while she sobers up from her roll.” You hear a victory anthem before the same soft music from before plays. “I didn’t even know Dabi had a girlfriend this entire time, didn’t think he was capable of being locked down by someone.”

You ask all these questions but no light is shed on who exactly this character is.

“Are you, like, a drug dealer too?”

The little game plays whimsical music, little chirps and tones that sound much too cute for a scary guy like Shigaraki to be playing.

“Did Dabi tell you anything?” he asks you when he looks up from the screen of his game to look at you.

You feel nervous under his gaze now and regret asking your question, you feel like the wrong answer given to this guy will bare a really bad consequence. “No. He doesn’t tell me about that kind of stuff, doesn’t want me to know. I can’t ask him myself, he’d just get mad at me. And it’s just,” you pause to take a breath and hoping that this next sentence won’t get you or Touya in trouble, “when he came back that day after we met, he came back with a case full of drugs. So I’m just taking a guess that maybe you’re his supplier?”

Shigaraki stares at you and you stare back.

He looks back down at his game and continues to play it. “I’m not into getting high or using any of that shit but Dabi likes to sample it if he’s interested. He’s got the strongest tolerance out of anyone I know. Though not to say that I haven’t had to revive him once or twice.”

Oh god… the thought of Touya overdosing and dying makes you spiral even more.

What kind of life is Touya leading? And you have to wonder what exactly his plan was in life before you came along and what his future ambitions were. Talking about the future wasn’t really something that came up, you were surprised that you’re coming up pretty close to the one year mark. You have to figure though that with how serious things seem between the two of you that it’s a discussion that has to come up sooner or later.

“No more questions, you need rest.”

You snuggle into the blanket and inhale Touya’s cologne to bring you a sense of comfort. All you want is to be sandwiched between the boys right now. They’d give you head massages, play with your ears, pass you back and forth to cuddle with, and they’d just coddle the fuck out of you. And they’d know exactly when it was okay for you to fall asleep during your come down, without them you’re just pretty much guessing.

You pull up your phone and go to your photo album, scrolling through your favorite pictures of you and the boys. Touya isn’t really one for taking pictures, he’ll be in it but he rarely looks into the lens and gives a smile. There’s more photos of him looking away but the best ones are the candids that you and Keigo liked to take. Those images of him captured in soft moments or when he’s genuinely enjoying himself, never mind that some of them have lines of coke in the corner of the picture or that he only looks so relaxed because he’s high on opioids. One of your favorites you captured so him just smoking a cigarette outside with the sunset just beyond the horizon.

The next picture you pulled up was of Keigo and Touya together, the both of them had fallen asleep in your bed waiting for you to come back from your lectures one day but passed out from drinking the night before. The more you looked through the photos, the more you missed them and wondered when they would be back.

It was useless to try again but you rang their numbers one more time, sighing when it went straight to voicemail again.

I miss them.

“Do you know when they’ll be back?” you ask Shigaraki and hope that he’ll have an answer for you.

Shigaraki just shrugs his shoulders in answer and continues to focus on his game. “Dabi didn’t say. Though if I had to guess I’m assuming that he doesn’t want to be away from you for too long, he wasn’t exactly happy handing you off to me. He threatened that if I touched you the wrong way then he’d have my hands.”

“Well he’s gotta trust you to some degree if he placed me with you right?” you asked him. Touya doesn’t trust anyone outside of you and Keigo so Shigaraki must fall within the circle somehow.

“He considers me not as scummy compared to other people so that’s the only reason why I’m here.”

You make yourself comfortable against the couch and look at the tv, not really paying attention to what’s playing. “I’m tired but I feel like my body won’t let me rest.”

Shigaraki’s game beeps and in between what sounds like a battle, he offers something in his bag to help you sleep. You highly doubt that it’s melatonin that he’s offering you in the bag and tell him that you’re not allowed to take anything if Touya’s not the one providing it to you. As tempting as it seems to take something to help you sleep, you don’t know how your body will react to taking something while on a come down.

“You’re a big girl aren’t you? Dabi shouldn’t have to be the keeper of what you can and can’t do.” But you want to be good for Touya and follow his rules, more than anything you want to be good for him and be rewarded for it. Shigaraki’s cares are so little as you decline his offer, shrugging his shoulders and continuing on in his game with a quiet, “Suit yourself.”

You don’t know exactly when it was you fell asleep but when you wake up, you’re in the one place that you’d been wishing for the past few hours; curled up right in between Touya and Keigo.

The sun is out and if your curtains weren’t covering the window then you’d be getting the full blast of sunshine. You can see the dark circles underneath both of their eyes from staying up who knows how late, you had no idea when they returned and you figure that Shigaraki must be long gone. They breathe peacefully in their sleep and you just notice the placement of their hands, Keigo sleeps behind you with his hand on your hip and just one finger tucked in the band of your panties while Touya has his hand placed underneath the back of your knee and just simply holds it there.

The question of where they were can be put on hold for now, this is all you want in this moment.

━━━━✧

It’s hard for you to not bring it up every time either of them give you something or when they move to hold your hand. They’re not trying to hide it because they know it’s obvious but you’ve already learned from the both of them when to not ask about certain things. If they wanted you to know, you would have been informed by now.

They must have been too tired to clean up completely that night you passed out, you woke up before them and peeled back the blanket to see their hands with some dried blood and their knuckles bruised. Touya acts the same as ever and so does Keigo, but he’s careful to give you that warning look or a little tap on your thigh when your eyes lingered too long on their hands.

It’s been a little over a week since that night, burning curiosity that neither of the boys will cure for you. So you have to investigate on your own but without directly involving yourself, you ask a friend who’s still connected to your ex to find out how Jun is and make her promise that she won’t ask you any questions if she discovers something.

She gets back to you rather quick in just a few hours, it surprises you. But the only thing that she can inform you is that Jun’s still pretty beat up from the party with a broken arm and a black eye. “I heard that Dabi and Jun had a fight at that house party and that you passed out. But everyone says that some guys took Jun home after pulling Dabi off of him, he must have been acting up with one of the dudes that took him home, we both know how he can be when he’s drunk. That idiot is always starting fights when he’s wasted.”

That’s the story that she told you but it doesn’t feel right. When you look down at the boys’ hands, you get a strong feeling that something more went down. Touya was the only one beating down on Jun at the party while Keigo kept you at bay, so you have to question why Keigo’s hands look as if he had also beat someone up when you clearly remember that it was just Touya inflicting the blows at the party. Not to also mention the fact that you woke up in the care of someone else after passing out instead of with them. But you won’t ask, they won’t tell you anything and you figure that it must be for the best. Just like what Keigo told you before, if Touya doesn’t tell you anything it’s for your own good.

To the best of your ability, you try to move on from it.

Touya sits behind you, propped up against the headboard and holds your legs spread open for Keigo who lays on his stomach and eats you out. A playlist sets the mood in the room, playing from the little bluetooth speaker on his bedside table that is surprisingly loud. You recognize the beginning of the song that plays next but you can’t quite put your finger on where you heard it before, like it’s been a while since you’ve last listened to it.

“Cum on Keigo’s face, c’mon pretty girl. Do it.”

Whatever he says, you’d do anything for him, you trust him, you love him… you think.

Touya’s humming in your ear in tune with the song and it triggers the memory of where you’ve heard it. The bass of the song, the little piano that plays in the back, the chorus and lyrics. It’s a fitting song, the one that’s playing in the background. It’s the song that he played on loop the first time you sat in the back of his car. You didn’t pay much attention to it the first time but when you listen to the lyrics, you now realize how fitting they are. “I’d do anything for you.”

You let out a little pitched whine when Keigo presses the tip of his tongue onto your clit.

The bruises on their knuckles are fading but they still serve as a faint reminder of a night that you probably won’t get any answers if you ask what happened, just like that night you unknowingly ingested LSD.

Touya’s shown you things you’ve never done before, things you probably wouldn’t have even given a chance if not for him. He makes you feel like never before and you want as much as he will give to you, you have him in a way that no one else has before.

You trust him.

“Anything?” you turn your head and ask against his lips.

“Anything…” he echoes back to you. “And fucking everything…”

“For me?”

“All for you princess.”

Keigo kisses up your body, licking a stripe up your neck and captures you in a kiss, taking your attention off Touya. Any thoughts you have about Jun or that night, their touches and their words erase it for the time being. You drown in the affectionate names, drunk on their attention, whining and mewling, their cocks wiping your mind blank as they fuck you into the mattress.

Neither of them have dared to wrap their hand around your throat even though you do desire it but the bruises are still tender. So only soft kisses and careful caresses around that area in the mean time. Too caught up in your own ecstasy, you don’t see how their gazes soften when they look at the bruises, unable to see the correlation of how they go just a bit softer for you up until you asked to be hurt and for them to be mean to you.

So they give you what you asked for, sharp smacks to your ass that make you cry out, bite marks all over your body that make tears gather in your eyes, pulling their cocks out from you and making you masturbate in front of them for not begging the right way, and degrading you when you’re unable to articulate any coherent sentences when they fuck you silly.

And as mean as they were to you per your request, they’re extra nice in the after care as Keigo massages your sore body and Touya rubs soothing lotion on the sensitive parts of you skin. You ignore the fading bruises on their knuckles, knowing that it’s no longer important what happened that night but you make them promise that they don’t leave you with someone else the next time you have a come down. “You’ll do that, won’t you?”

Of course they promise you.

Touya will tell you if he feels like you need to know something, that’s how he protects you, how he keeps you safe, how he keeps you his. And you fell for it, genuinely believing that this is his form of love for you. Early in the beginning you didn’t even think that the two of you would come this far, that you’d just tell him how you like to be fucked and eventually things would fizzle out, especially with the whole ordeal with the side whores. Yet here the two of you are, bordering on the edge of an unhealthy love that neither of you can recognize.

He confessed to you himself that he’d do anything for you, that you’re all his and he makes you feel like you’re the one for him. You’ve given him your trust and hopefully you’ll eventually confess more than just your lust to each other.

━━━━✧

Touya’s glad that he’s finally able to bite, choke, and kiss at your neck again just a month later though it was a hassle for you to cover up every time you had to go out, the weather starting the transition into colder temperatures later in the night but still warm enough during the day time to wear short sleeves. He’s relieved to see that the bruises are gone, he felt like every time he saw the marks he would get that same sharp rise of anger like the very first time he saw them. He knew something was fishy when he heard that thump upstairs and when he stepped into that room with you and your ex, not trusting how you withdrew into yourself but he didn’t want to act without a probable cause.

He had watched two guys from the party drive off to drop Jun off at wherever he lived, but not before he bribed one of them with a little extra something so that he could get the asshole’s address and pay his own little visit later on. At that moment, he was more concerned with making sure you got home safe, the only other person he knew that would probably do him a favor was Shigaraki but only if he did something in return. He wasn’t a fan of leaving you alone with him but he would be damned if he was going to let that Jun bastard off for what he did to you. The punishment had to be executed the soonest it could happen. He gave him an easy beating at the party but it wasn’t enough, Keigo believing so too and riding in the car alongside him after securing you in Shigaraki’s car.

It was so fucking satisfying hearing Jun’s terrified whimpers and pleas, he has to hide how giddy he feels when he remembers Keigo breaking the fucker’s arm.

His knuckles feel a bit better, it only took a week or so for the soreness to go away.

You’re his good little doll, not asking questions despite the obvious evidence on his and Keigo’s hands the day after. You have your suspicions but you’ve learned well to not ask unnecessary questions and he just had to reward you in the best way that he knew how to, making you a cock drunk mess until you were too stupid to say anything but his and Keigo’s names.

It’s getting close to a year since the two of you made it official, a few weeks away actually and Touya’s surprised himself that he’s committed himself this far. He wouldn’t trade anything else in the world for what he has with you. He watches you with a fondness he’s never had for anyone else and he’ll do whatever it takes to make you stay with him, right where you belong. It’s so good that you’re compliant, Touya would hate to have to fight and break you to make you stay with him.

You and him are walking downtown together, his arm slung around your shoulder and making casual conversation about the upcoming cold weather and needing to buy new winter clothes. The two of you are going to meet up with Keigo at a bar later on so you kill some time. You want to stop inside a little boutique and see what they have, Touya will just stand outside and have a smoke while he waits for you, he doesn’t mind. He lights one up between his lips and brings his phone out of his pocket, messages about if he has more oxys and xannies. He responds back accordingly, puffing smoke out between his lips with ease and sucking in more nicotine into his lungs.

He pockets his phone and stomps out his cigarette as you come out the store a few minutes later with a little bag in hand. You talk excitedly about what you purchased and Touya listens absently, his eyes just briefly looking to the side when he sees him for just a quick second.

Jun stands a decent distance away, his arm still in a sling and cast. He’s frozen in place when he’s caught under Touya’s sight, absolutely petrified. You don’t see him because your back is to him, completely unaware of the silent interaction between your current boyfriend and your ex-boyfriend. All Touya does is subtly lift his arm from the small of your back and clenches his hand into a fist while keeping his gaze on him; it’s all the warning Jun needs to turn on his heel and walk the opposite direction.

Keigo waves to the two of you when you arrive at the designated bar, already having found a table and he just has a round of waters for now along with some chips in the center to snack on. Touya lets a little smile come onto his face as you barrel into Keigo’s arms, greeting him with a kiss and excitedly holding up the little bag you had shown to him earlier. Touya honestly doesn’t remember what you bought nor the store that he stood in front of waiting for you.

All he thinks about that in the moment is seeing Jun on the same street you stood on, seeing Jun with that fucking smug look on his face when he entered that room at the party, remembering Jun fucking begging to stop the pain as Keigo had him restrained so that Touya could inflict more pain on him before Keigo wanting his own turn as well. For a moment that bastard is all he can focus on to the point he has a headache and feels like he needs to pop a few oxys. But you pull him from the storm of his mind with just a simple touch to his thigh, looking to you and he sees your face, your smile… and he feels calm again.

Jun is the past and he’s your present, there’s no need to focus on what has already happened.

Although if Touya had the choice of going back in time to deliver an even worse consequence to Jun, he would absolutely do it in a heartbeat.

He’d do it for you.

━━━━✧

Part 4 of the Us Series: Tell Me (When You’re Ready)

[my-brothers-corrupted]

ooh, scene requests! can we see some of red and dapper before they were fully corrupted? i've always been interested in that

Note: Jameson has the flu in this, but because he has a fever and a cough I will trigger tag it corona virus. He does not actually have corona, just a bad case of the flu. I just know it’s a time of high anxiety right now so best to keep it tagged :) He is quite ill in the first part of this so be careful.

He won’t let go of him and he can’t let go of him and he’s never letting go of him again.

“I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.”

Raised red cuts are mountains beneath Jackie’s fingers. He pushes his hands through Jameson’s limp brown curls and presses him tighter to his chest, rocking them both back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you. It’s okay, Jamie, it’s me, it’s me.”

Fuck, but he’s hot to the touch. His whole face glows with fever and he won’t even open his eyes to look at him. Just lets himself be held.

“Anti?” he tries to clarify frailly, his hands releasing Jackie’s sweatshirt for just a second.

“No, no, no,” promises Jackie, gripping at his spine and running his cool fingers across the tight fabric of the torn, starchy dress shirt he wears. “It’s me, it’s me. It’s Jackie, bud, I’m right here.”

Jameson’s eyes squeeze tighter shut, his mouth grimacing. He shakes his head.

“Dream?” he suggests. “Hallucination? Anti?”

Jackie’s eyes lose water and he chokes on a sob, gripping at the back of Jameson’s head. “No. No, Jameson, it’s Jackie. I’m here, really.”

“Not Jameson anymore.”

“Not Jameson?”

“Hot,” he complains, cracking open one sleep-crusted eye, his mouth hanging dully open. “Hot, Anti.”

“Jamie, it’s Jackie. It’s Jackie. You’ve got a fever.”

“It’s not Jackie… it’s not… dream…”

Jameson shivers, burrowing suddenly against Jackie’s body, hiding his face in his stomach, making himself smaller. Jackie puts his head down over Jameson’s and lets the crying shake his whole body, rubbing his back, gentle, gentle.

“Isn’t he docile these days?”

“Shut the fuck up,” hisses Jackie, baring his teeth over his brother’s body and swiping tears from his face. “Stay the hell away from us. How dare you treat him like this? He’s never done anything to you in his whole damn life.”

“He’s mine,” snaps Anti. “He belongs to me.”

“Why? Huh? Why take Jamie? Why do you think he belongs to you? Just because you had him in that fucking box?”

“Oh, Jackie, darling, it could have been any one of you. Things have changed since then… my powers have changed. You all belong to me, you see. And soon? You’ll know that.”

“Fucking creep!” screams Jackie. “Stay away from us! Marvin will come and get us and then you’ll be fucking sorry.”

“Oh, I hope so!” Anti’s eyes flutter longingly, his hands clasped over his heart, and Jackie knows he’s being mocked. “Your dear Marvin! Surely he’ll be strong enough to destroy me!”

“He will. Marvin will.”

“Even your little time traveler couldn’t stop me before I had him drugged and tied down, Jackie. And now he’s well on his way to broken in. Better yet…”

Anti leans forward, his eyes glittering.

“I’m going to have you to help me by the time Marvin comes for me. No, no, the magician can do nothing now, he belongs to me already. Here - supplies for the sick little brat. It’s your job to look after him. If you escape and run away, I will leave Dapper to die. Am I understood?”

Jackie glowers. The floor lights up and he has one second to frown before electricity comes coursing up through his body and he finds himself jerking back and forth on the ground, vomit rising in his throat with small, desperate gasps, unable to scream. Curled against him, Jameson shakes and jerks against his chest, too tired to whistle or cry.

The shock cuts off again.

“No, no, no!” screams Jackie, riding through the last of the hellfire blaze burn, his foot kicking at the floor, Jameson trembling around his waist. “Fuck, oh, oh…”

“Am I understood?” repeats Anti flatly.

Jackie has already taken days of torture.

Anti told him Jameson was dead. He had good reason to believe him.

But here he is.

Jameson trembles and jerks and wheezes in his arms, worn to the bone. Jackie tightens his body around him. He won’t watch him take another shock.

“Yes,” he croaks. “I understand.”

Anti slides something through the bars of their door - a bottle of night-time flu medicine and a tiny prescription bottle labeled “Haldol.”

“Stay here and keep him healthy,” says Anti. “If you’re good, I’ll keep giving him his medicine and anything else he needs. If you’re bad… if you run…”

Anti shrugs, staring down at the shaking bodies wrapped together in the darkness of their little cell.

“Dapper dies as well as Jameson.”

He won’t let him go and he can’t let him go and he’s never letting go of him again.

Jackie pours flu medicine and massages anti-psychotics down his little brother’s throat, pulling a sleepy, disoriented JJ into his arms and lying them both down on the small cotton mattress in the corner of the room, so he can sleep without letting go of him, without ever letting go of him, without ever leaving him or losing him again. He doesn’t know what Anti’s done to him - he doesn’t know what Anti plans to do to either of them - but it no longer matters; it is dust in the rearview. He will keep Jameson safe no matter what he has to do. He tries to start making an escape plan, but he’s exhausted and in pain, and a part of him is just hoping Marvin will come and help them before he even has to risk Anti killing them.

Fuck, he was so stupid. He would have been clever if it had worked. He’s spent his whole life trying to do what he did just days ago: find Anti. Track Anti. Hunt Anti. No matter what he tries. Unscramble his disguised coding, tear apart the false signals, find the heart and hunt it down. Protect Jack, find his brothers. He was a genius, a hero; he knew where Jameson was and he was going to get him back. Years of neurotic tracking and experimental coding finally coalesced into a computer program more clever than a monster made up of them, or at least novel enough to slip past him once. He hadn’t paused. As soon as it was done, he had done it, he had saved them, none of them would ever hurt again. He could find Anti.

He was so stupid.

Dreams of Marvin telling him so. Henrik bandaging him up and scolding him, Chase kissing him and Jameson. You were so stupid, they’ll tell him. But you did it and you saved us and he’s gone and it’s over.

He wets his hoodie sleeve in their drinking water and brings it up to cool Jameson’s forehead, stroking it down his flushed, burning face.

“Can you wake up for me?” he murmurs, rubbing across his stiff, unkempt beard. “I need to get a look at you. You gotta tell me where he hurt you.”

Jameson’s face twists. A breath shudders from his mouth as he turns his head in Jackie’s lap, coughing.

His eyes are hollow with hunger and a great dark bruise swells across his jaw. Blood staining his clothes tells Jackie there’s more in hiding, too. He soothes water across Jameson’s closed eyes and long lashes and then reaches down to unpluck the buttons of his stiff, stained white dress shirt. Jackie doesn’t think he would have packed this when he went up to see the Kamenyes, would he? He’s careful with his nice clothes, sometimes too distressed by the image of the puppet kid he sees in the mirror to wear them. Jackie’s sat with him through enough panic attacks to know that. Did Anti get this for him? He pulls the shirt from his shoulders.

Jameson’s hands come scrambling at his own as he wakes abruptly, scratching at Jackie’s fingers and struggling to pull the shirt back over his thin undershirt, panicked breaths bursting from his mouth. “Wait, wait, wait,” he cries between grappling. “No touch, no touch, no touch!”

“Okay, okay!” Jackie sets him carefully down on the pillows and leaps off the bed, holding his hands out and backing away. “Okay, James, no sweat, no worries.”

Jameson stares at him, eyes wide. “No touch?” he repeats uncertainly, sweat dripping into the water on his face.

“Let’s just calm down a minute, yeah? Don’t have to check right now if we don’t need to.”

Jameson breathes in and out and shakes his head and blinks, once, twice, at the face before him.

“It is you,” he signs finally. “It is J-happy.”

Joy makes Jackie’s face hot and energy races through his hands. He wants to throw himself forward and hug him, but he won’t if he’s not -

Jameson is leaping from the bed and throwing himself into Jackie’s arms.

Jackie whoops and laughs aloud as he feels Jameson pull him into a hug so hard he lifts him up off the ground, the toes of his shoes scraping across the cold metal floor.

“There’s my little brother!” hollers Jackie, laughing and pulling fondly at his hair, pressed to Jameson’s chest. “There’s my - oh, Jaimer… don’t cry, it’s okay.”

Jameson sets him back down, flushed from the brief exercise and the heat of his fever, and staggers into Jackie’s chest, burying his face against his sweatshirt and clinging to it with his hands. Soft, hiccuping breaths dissolve against his chest as it grows wet with salt.

Jackie’s eyes burn. His feet steady now, he wraps his arms around his brother’s trembling body and squeezes him tight, pressing his head on top of Jameson’s.

“It’s going to be okay,” he promises, laughing a little from the awkwardness of it, from the grief, from the fear of what he might say. “Was it - was it so scary here alone? I know it must have been…”

“I don’t want you to be here,” sobs Jameson, his hands striking, flying, flashing, barely drawing away to let him see. “I don’t want you to be here, I want you to be safe at home, Jackie, J-joy, please not this.”

Jackie repositions his hands on his waist and tries to get him to look at him, but Jameson is crying too hard to open his eyes. “Jamie, Jamie! Hell, James, don’t be scared, don’t be scared. I know you’ve been sick, I know he’s hurt you, but I am going to look after you. Okay? And I’m going to find us a way to get home, I swear. I’ll get you out of here, I’m not going to let him keep you again. He said if we cooperate - ”

“I want you to go without me! You can still get out if you don’t have a sick brother weighing you down!”

“What? No way! Jameson, don’t even say that. I have to make sure you get your medicine, cause clearly Anti isn’t going to keep you alive.”

“No, no, not worth it, go, go, don’t want to see you changed, don’t want him to have you too, need to go home to the others!”

“Jameson.” He tries to keep his voice steady. “Jameson, I’m not leaving you behind.”

“No, no,” scream Jameson’s hands, and then he strikes his chest, once, twice, his eyes red and ferocious and terrified. “No, Jackie, you don’t understand!”

“I’m glad I’m here, James, cause at least you don’t have to go through this alone, at least you don’t - ”

“I know what it’s like to be Anti’s! You don’t!”

Jameson staggers away from him, hyperventilating, and Jackie reaches out, helpless.

“Bud, just… just calm down, just…”

“No, you’re the one who’s wrong this time. You don’t understand. Listen to me.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“Anti will change who you are.”

“I’m not going to let that - ”

“You’re not listening to me!”

Jameson whirls on him, and this, apparently, is the last straw on his camel’s back, because his face drains of all color, and his eyes drift deliriously, and then he tumbles -

Jackie catches him and folds to the ground with his head in his lap.

They lie breathing together.

They lie breathing together.

“Just calm. Just calm. It’s okay.”

They lie breathing.

“It really is you,” whisper Jamie’s hands.

Tears trace down his cheeks.

And then a manic, wild giggle blooms up out of his throat and goes echoing through the air around him, Jamie’s body shaking with despair in his arms, and Jackie fights the urge to draw away from him as the frantic movement of his chest sends blood welling up against the little white dress shirt.

“But it won’t be for long,” Jameson weeps, and only then will he let Jackie soothe him back down to sleep, exhaustion and the burning, disorienting, terrifying height of his fever sending him back into dark dreams.

“Anti’s really got you spooked,” murmurs Jackie, rubbing his shoulder. He becomes aware of a faint, flickering smile near the cell door, a soft laugh, wilder still than Jameson’s, shaking soft through the air around him, and he closes his eyes, bent over JJ’s body, determined to block Anti out. Jameson is all that matters. “You’re right, he’s made you a puppet before, and I know that must scare you. And do you remember the night you told me that you needed me, because no matter what happened to you, I was unchanging? And you knew I would protect you as well as I could and you felt safe with me?”

The pride of it, even now, brings a burn to his throat; he throws his head and lifts it up again, cradling Jameson against him, listening to his soft, congested snuffling as he breathes thin and steady.

“It must be scary to think that Anti could change the both of us. Make us people we don’t recognize. But I’m not going to let that happen. You were all alone the first time he got you. Not anymore. I’m going to look after you. I’m going to keep you safe, Jameson. I promise. I’m not letting you go.”

“Sometimes,” says Dapper two months later. “He kills you when you disobey, to make sure I rewind.”

He doesn’t have time for master’s pet’s babbling. He wasn’t good yesterday. He wasn’t very good at all. He needs to make up for it or else, or else, or else. A cold jump of imagined electricity bumps through him and he hisses through his teeth, turning his head to make sure the little one is not crying with the electricity. Can’t watch him get shocked again can’t can’t can’t.

“Tell me where your shirt is,” he demands, grabbing the back of his collar and hauling him off Anti’s bed. “Now now now. Get you ready so you can have your medicine. I gotta make sure you get your medicine. Yeah? Keep you all healthy and clean, huh, pup?”

A frantic edge makes his voice shake and he grabs Dapper’s hair for a second, not sure why, the way he’s seen Anti do it, Anti knows what to do, Anti brushes his hair sometimes and he lets him.

“He stabs you through the skull,” says Dapper distantly. “Or the heart. Or your tummy. And you wail and die and I sit on the bed and stare at you until I can rewind.”

“Gotta be somewhere around here,” moans Red, tearing through the room. They’ve just moved and everything’s in chaos. Did they just move? He can’t remember why. He thinks Anti told him and he thinks that he protested - we can’t move, I have to get home to… I have to get home to…. I have to get home to…

“You have to stay with me,” Anti had answered, wide-eyed and sweet, always so sweet, nice lovely Anti with his swirling you’re-a-mouse-I’m-a-snake eyes. “Or who will give Dapper his medicine and buy him his food and things?”

Oh, of course, of course. Dapper was the only person he needed to get home to. He needed to get him his medicine. He needs to get him his dress shirt.

“Oh, thank God, thank God!” he cries, finding it at the bottom of the hamper. He had missed it the first time because it was so soaked in blood he didn’t recognize it. Whose blood was it? Red’s? Maybe. Or one of the girls he killed last night cause Anti said, don’t you want something to eat? And Red said, I do, I need something for Dapper to eat. And Anti said, well, here, I need you to do this and why don’t you look here, look at me, look into my eyes too, cause I’ll make it easier, and it did and it did and it -

“I used to cry about it,” says Dapper, sitting cross-legged on the floor like Red taught him to do to keep master happy, cross-legged like a pre-schooler, cross-legged like a good boy. “It was the most horrible thing. But, now, Red, you know, sometimes I think you would be happier if I just let you be the dead, gaping, murdered thing lying on my floor.”

“Okay, sweetie, that sounds nice. Come on, get up for big brother, let’s get your shirt on.”

“Blood,” complains Dapper, recoiling from him with a sudden shiver.

Oh, oh. He’s afraid. Red, you’re not supposed to let him be afraid. Everything softens and everything cools. Red realizes he’s shaking and laughs at himself, trying to calm down. There’s nothing to be afraid of. As long as he gets Dapper his medicine. As long as he looks after Anti’s puppet like he was told to do. That’s his job. That’s him. Protect him protect him protect him.

He sits down beside Dapper, their backs falling against the hard wood of the bed board. He tilts his head down and meets Dapper’s eyes.

“I know it’s kind of gross. But you know what happens if you don’t have it on. I’ll buy you a new one next week, what do you say? I can save up, we have enough peanut butter and some canned stuff left. I’ll have enough.”

Dapper pauses. “Canned fruit with the cherries?”

“No,” Red admits. A worm of guilt - fuck, make it a dragon - crawls along the inside of his belly, leaving him ashamed. He can’t even feed him right. “Um, canned red beans.”

Dapper nods slowly, blinking. At least he’s stopped rambling. Is that a psychotic symptom? Red should have maybe listened to what he was saying. Does he need better medicine? He bets Anti will get it for him if he asked. Anti will get it. Anti will get it. Anti gets Dapper his medicine. Anti gets Dapper his medicine. Anti makes the shocks stop and the knife stop and the fire stop and the screaming of the people underneath Red’s hands stop. Anti, Anti, Anti. Protect your little brother. You can’t go, who will look after Dapper? He has a fever. No, he doesn’t, he’s cool against Red’s shoulder. Wait, why does he need to look after Dapper? Was it Dapper he was meant to look after? Anti? No, no… no, it wasn’t Anti, Anti was - why did he come with Anti, Anti hurts him, he’s afraid of Anti, that’s the monster, that’s the monster! What is he - why - Who will look after - didn’t he have other people to look after? Didn’t he have other people to look after, once, a long time ago? A long time ago? Is there a such thing as a long time ago? He can’t remember. He can’t remember. He can’t remember.

He doesn’t know when he started crying or why. He’s laughing too. Or he thinks it’s him. His mouth tastes like burnt promises. At some point he has dropped the dress shirt. The blood is soaking into his skin.

Soft hands clutch at his shoulders. Sobbing, hysterical, Red lets his twin pull him into a hug, and cries until he is breathless, breathless, breathless, on Dapper’s chest.

“But then again,” signs Dapper to himself, feeling his mind drift away again, grounded only by the warm body laid against him and the tug of a rope around his throat which Red tied to keep him from running, so Anti would not be angry, so everything would be okay. Red will not let him go, and Red cannot let him go, and Anti is never letting go of them again. “Maybe you already are a dead thing lying on my floor.”

[stella-maria7]

THE UNTAMED FAN FIC: THE TANGLED HEART

WARNING: MATURE CONTENT!!!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CHAPTER 12: HOW I WISH...

A man in his early thirties was walking alongside an old-aged horse that could no longer carry the weight of a human. On its back, there were only bags, blankets and some stuff that he traded with other merchants from other villages. Despite having neither capital nor resources, the man tried his best to do business so that one day he could become successful enough to bring luxurious life to his wife and his beloved daughter. He would buy cheap things from one village and travel to sell it at another village at a slightly better price. His work demanded him to stay away from home a lot and only to return once every three months. To console his wife and daughter, a man would bring small gifts home every time he returns. Today was the day of his returning so his family would be expecting to see him. That was why he didn’t stop to stay at an inn and insisted on travelling in the silent night. Alone. This time, business was doing better than usual so he bought his daughter a beautiful hair piece and his wife a pretty silk dress. With one hand held onto the horse’s rein, the man smiled to himself as he was looking at the hair pin in his free hand, imagining happy reactions from his two most precious people. As he was absorbed in looking at the hair pin, he totally didn’t register a presence standing in front of him. Not until his horse fidgeted and neighed in fear did he looked up at the road before him.

A sight he saw made his entire body froze in fear. A hand that was holding onto his horse’s reign dropped to his torso lifelessly giving a chance for his horse to gallop away. The man wanted to spin around and run away just like his horse but he was transfixed by a fierce bloodshot pairs of black eyes that prevented him from making any movement. Aside from the piecing glare, a figure in front of him had his clothes splashed with blood. The figure started to take the first step, second step and many more follow without breaking the eye contact. With only a few feet away, the man realized that the terrifying figure was just a boy. He had a pretty face that was as beautiful as a woman if he were to put on blush or lipstick. Albeit the beautiful frame, his expression was dead and scary. The boy unsheathed his blood-stained sword slowly and raised it high in the air.

“P-please, please don’t kill me. Spare me. I- I will give you anything.” The man finally found his voice. He tried to beg for mercy.

“Then, give me your heart.” With that, the boy sliced his sword down, splashing blood into every direction, dirtying even the nice hair pin that was recently dropped to the ground.

***

“Master.” A pretty boy in a clean set of robe stood before a closed room. Even with the softly spoken voice, it carried enough sound throughout the door given the silent night in a large manor.

“Come in.” commanded a voice from the other side of the door.

The boy obliged and pushed the door open gently, revealing an immense room that was heavily decorated with exorbitant vases and other valuable items. After securely locking the door, the boy walked towards a drawn curtain bed where a man in his night robes was sitting and waiting for him.

When he was three steps away from the bed, he knelt down on one knee and lowered his head. “I have brought you the ingredients, master.”

“Good.”

Since he was near, the boy could hear his master’s labored breathing when he spoke. Lifting his head up, the boy said. “Master, please allow me to relieve you of your pain.”

There was a rustling sound coming from the bed caused by the friction of the sheet. The man moved his feet from the bed to let it dangle to the floor and spread them wide. “Come then.”

The boy’s expression turned happy as if a kid was given a gift. He got up from his knee and walked in. He parted the curtain and went inside to kneel down in between the wide open legs. He parted the seated man’s robe and tugged the pants down to the ankle. Then, he glanced at the alluring length that came alive hard in front of his face. As if he had done this many times, the boy took the erected length in his mouth and started sucking it, moving with rhythm as he travelled up and down. The man’s held his breath at the sensation of being suctioned by something hot and wet. “Faster.” The man directed after several slides. The boy happily obliged. The man’s breath quickened as he grabbed the boy’s head tightly that surely would leave bruises on his temples, yet the boy continued his job with no complains. Then, without warning, he threw his head back and arched his hip, releasing his juice into the back of the boy’s throat. Eyes brimmed with tears as he chocked on the release but he made no attempt to move. Once he was done, he pushed the younger’s head away, making him fell on his butt. The boy swallowed everything and used his tongue to lick the spill at the corner of his mouth, not wanting to waste even a single drop.

Despite the release, the man’s private part still looked aroused. Kicking his pants free and positioning himself to the edge of the bed, the man raucously instructed. “Strip.”

“Yes, Master.” The boy got up and shed his clothes piece by piece until there was nothing left to cover his slender, beautiful body. Next, he climbed up to the space made for him on the bed and got on all four with his behind exposed to the man. With a slap on his pink hole, he sensed something cold and greasy which he registered as oil. Grabbing firmly by the hip, the boy jerked his head back and gasped as he felt a hot and hard object penetrated his small entrance. Without bothering to give the boy time to adjust, the man rocked their bodies together. After a short while, the position was changed. Without breaking the connection, the man swiveled the boy’s body around and pushed him down till his back hit the bed. The boy reached out his hands to hold onto the man’s neck only to get his hands slapped away. To prevent this action from happening again, the man gripped the boy’s forearms down tightly that his fingers almost pressed into the bones and broke them. The boy gritted his teeth in pain. The movements were getting hastier and the moans were getting louder as time went by. Finally, both of them found their climaxes with long groans.

“Wen Yuan!” The man shouted before he collapsed and buried his face in crook of the boy’s neck, panting.

The boy’s expression changed to sadness. He had always served his master in both duty and pleasure but he never received the affection he wanted. Every time he served in bed, his master always cried out for this one name. He had no idea of whom his master was calling but he was so jealous of this Wen Yuan.

“Your job is done. Now get out.” The man ordered as he rolled back on his bed without bothering to take off his mask.

Tears threatened to ooze out from his eyes yet he swallowed them all back. He dragged his sore body off the bed to pick up his scattered clothes and walked out of the room.

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

After their return from Lotus Pier, Sizhui went straight to his room after informing Hanguang-Jun that he would like to be excuse from dinner today as he was exhausted from travelling. He said that with his spiritual energy restrained, riding a sword seemed to have consumed all the energy he had left. Even if he wasn’t the one maneuvering it. And everyone bought it. In fact, this was just the constituent reason. The main one was that he wanted to be left alone after being shot by Jin Ling’s question. Though Jin Ling didn’t prompt for the answer right away, Sizhui still felt uneasy for hiding something from his best friend. In this case, best friends. Even Jingyi didn’t know this secret. Not that he wanted to hide it, he just didn’t know how or where to begin.

Sizhui was tidying his messy room –as he left in a hurry after the nightmare– when the memory of the bulky man made him stop mid-way. Actually, after that day, he had always wanted to go find the man himself and asked the many questions that he had in mind. However, he was forbidden to go out due to his injury so he missed the chance. Now that the man was dead, how was he supposed to get his answer from?

With a sigh, he walked to sit on a chair and threw back to the scene of their first encounter.

Sizhui spoke in deferential after seeing the injury on his opponent "Sir, we really don't have to do this. We have no grudges against each other. Lives are precious and shouldn’t be wasted. Please leave with your men. We will pretend that today has never happened.”

The man huffed “No grudges? You of all people have no rights to say that we have no grudges against each other.” And with a wicked grin, he mouthed two words that were only loud enough for both of them to hear.

Wen Yuan. Those were the two words that the man mouthed at him. He had forgotten the last time he was called by this name. Also, no one besides from Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, Wen Ning, Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren and he himself knew about this name. Even Jin Ling and Jingy hadn’t known about this.

Hearing this name really shook him to the core. Not that he hated the name. He still valued it because it was his birth’s identity in spite of how horrible the name impacted on him. He wasn’t ashamed to be known as a Wen. But he didn’t want the Lan Sect’s reputation, especially Hanguang-Jun’s, to be tarnished because of him. So, he kept his identity secret.

The list of questions that he wanted to ask the bulky man were: How did you know my real name? Were we related? Were you the survivor of the Wen too? And one last question was, what bad things had I done to you that you wanted to kill me for it?

But it seemed those questions weren’t important anymore since the man was gone. Even with the Inquiry, he wouldn’t get the answers for his questions.

Now, he had another important thing to worry about. Jin Ling caught him by surprise yesterday with his question. If Jin Ling had talked with the bulky man, maybe he already found about this secret of his already. And the reason that he asked Sizhui was to hear from Sizhui’s own mouth.

Did he start to despise me already? Sizhui talked to himself. Did he only need to confirm with me to officially falling out with me? After all, it was his clan’s fault that Jin Ling became an orphan. And it was also his clan that the cultivation's world ended up in chaos. He didn’t even have the right to defend himself if Jin Ling became disgusted with him after knowing his true origin. But the thought of Jin Ling hated him really made his heart ache. Was it because they had always been close-knitted? Or was it due to their best-friendship? Or it was something else more crucial? His heart had been behaving weird lately whenever he thought of Jin Ling. He couldn’t even understand his own heart.

Sighing for the countless time today, Sizhui got up and started tidying up his room again. Even if he sat and brooded all day, he still wouldn’t have the answer that he wanted. So, it was better to be efficient than wasting time breathing the air away. That was one of Lan’s teaching somehow.

Sizhui started gathering the fallen items on the floor and put them in their respective place. Finally, he reached his bed. He picked up the Qiankun and scolded himself for leaving it open before closing it properly and put it next to his pillow. The usual place. When he began to pick up his blanket to fold it, he saw something that made him gasp in surprise.

It was the crimson bangle that Master Zhang had entrusted to him. The jewelry that embedded dark spell in attracting evil spirits. Though the malice energy already left along with the crimson woman’s soul, it was still his duty to present it to Hanguang-Jun. How could he forget about this?

After Sizhui was done blaming himself, he realized he had one mystery to solve. This bangle was kept in his Qiankun ever since their return from The Zhang’s Manor. He had never taken it out. Not even once. So, how could it appear on his bed?

And if his memory served him right, he was holding on to it the night he had that partial truth nightmare too.

[mycatshuman]

Castle of Devils

Chapter 5

Word Count: 3, 028

Warnings: talks of not eating, supernatural stuff, a scene from a scary movie explained in detail, demon mention I think that's it, let me know if I missed any.

Pairings: eventual Prinxiety

Thank you so much to @civilsounds17 for listening to my ideas and helping me bring this story to life. I owe you my deepest appreciation. 💚💚💚💚

More Chapters

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Roman frowned as he ate while sneaking glances at Virgil, who, yet again, wasn't eating. He had wanted to immediately bring up his question about the Disney living room but his suspicions rose up again as he noticed his host had gone yet again without eating. Roman supposed it wasn't fair to say that Virgil didn't just eat in the time they spent together but it was weird to never have seen him eat with him. Maybe he just didn't feel comfortable eating in front of him? Roman nodded his head. Yeah, that had to be it. It had to be.

He cleared his throat. “I, uh, noticed that you had some themed rooms.”

Virgil's grey eyes lit up like glittering silver. “Ah, yes. I thought it would be fun to decorate the rooms according to a theme.”

Roman felt himself smiling at the others clear excitement despite himself. “Yes. I found them very well done and I really liked the themes.” Roman shifted slightly and looked down, only mildly embarrassed. “My, uh, favorite one was the Disney one. And, uh,” he bit his lip as he glanced up at Virgil. “I was wondering if, it'dbeokayifIsleptorjusthungoutinthatroomsometimes?” Roman trailed off into a mumble that was so quiet that Virgil surely couldn't have heard. He took a deep breath and prepared to repeat his question.

“Of course.”

Roman froze. What?

“While you're here, this castle is as much your home as it is mine. Feel free to do whatever you like.”

Roman blinked. “How did you even hear what I said? I wasn't exactly that audible.”

Virgil’s eyes moved away with a shrug. “I have good hearing.” Was his explanation.

Roman frowned and remembered a question from much earlier. “Uh, the villagers.” Virgil's eyes shot back over to look at him. Roman gulped slightly. “They warned me about the castle. And they said there were monsters and devils in here. Do you know anything about that?”

While he was talking, Roman had looked anywhere but Virgil. After he finished, he took a deep breath and looked up, staring Virgil straight (gay) in the eyes. Virgil was quiet for a few minutes. His eyes searched Roman's for, something, Roman wasn't quite sure. “This castle has been in my family for centuries Mr. Prinz.”

Roman frowned slightly, unsure how this had anything to do with the villagers. “I am sure you are aware of the most famous of the Stoker family, Abraham Stoker?”

Roman blinked.

Virgil rolled his eyes and sighed. “Perhaps you know him better by his nickname, Bram.”

Roman gasp. “Oh! You mean Bram Stoker! The writer of Dracula! I was wondering if there was any relation.”

Virgil nodded. “Yeah, that's sort of the reason the castle was nicknamed Castle Dracula.”

Roman's nose crinkled as if he had smelled something funny. “I didn't think Bram was a nickname. I assumed that was his legal name.”

Virgil grimaced, he wasn't creative with names. “Yeah,” he agreed. “You don't normally hear if Bram as a nickname for Abraham. Maybe Abe, but not Bram.” Roman nodded. “I suppose it started a few decades before Bram was born,” Virgil started. “I'm not entirely sure what started the rumors.” He frowned. “I think it might have been when bodies drained of blood began showing up in the village.”

Roman raised an eyebrow. Virgil, suddenly remembering the average lifespan of the human body, shook his head. “At least that might be when if I'm remembering the journals correctly. Anyway,” he said, quickly moving away from that bit. “Some accounts said that a witness noticed one of the Stoker family, or at least someone with similar facial features, slipping away from the scene of the,” Virgil grit his teeth slightly. “crime, with what they said to be blood on my- my ancestor's face. Ever since then, there was talk of what the locals called a Strigoi. In Romanian mythology, a strigoi is a troubled spirit that is said to have risen from the grave. It is often said to have abilities to transform into an animal and even become invisible. However, the locals were only able to say that my ancestor was one of the Strigoi through the fact that they are said to have drunk blood to gain vitality, or life through blood.” Virgil sighed.

“Bram grew up with the locals fear of himself, the family, and the castle. I believe that he wrote the novel Dracula to, cope? Or even in an attempt to understand where the fear was coming from.” Virgil shrugged. “But mostly I just think it was for fun.” It was for fun.

Roman looked thoughtful for a few moments. He looked up at the other. “What do you think?”

Virgil glanced at Roman. “What?”

“What do you think of the rumors of your someone in your family being,” he waved his hand, “practically a vampire?”

Vampire. The word sent a chill colder than Virgil's skin down his back. “Well,” he started slowly. “First off, I think vampires have a bad rep. And Stephenie Meyer didn't help.” Virgil's nose wrinkled.

Roman sputtered indigitantly. “ExCuSe Me! Edward Sullen! What did Twilight ever do to you?!?!?!?”

Virgil rolled his eyes at the others dramatic behavior. “Literally anyone could do better than Twilight. Like, I mean, I think Vampires are misunderstood, but like, what Twilight did was turn them into elves prancing around like clueless morons. Vampires are supposed to be feared! Not made fun of or sexualized for the majority of love sick teenage girls who go on a murder spree because forbid someone was on Team Jacob and not Team Edward.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “I'm not saying that I couldn't do better, Re-Volturi.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Roman finally looked at Virgil. The other was guarded. His shoulders tense and his jaw slightly clenched as if whatever Roman was going to say would hurt him. He had to be careful. “I'm saying that while Twilight's depiction of vampires is ridiculous, it's still something someone made and is possibly proud of. It's hard being a writer. Surely you know the struggles?”

Virgil blinked and looked down. Boy did he know the struggles. Getting started was a nightmare. And finding a good enough alias proved difficult, if Roman's reaction was anything to go by. Virgil cringed. Why did he even use a nickname? "Yeah, I suppose I can feel….some sort of sympathy for Meyer." Even if she did stain the name of all vampires with an elf like love sick boy.

------

Roman sat back with a loud, dramatic sigh. A small hint of an amused smile pulled at Virgil's lips and he tidied things up a bit before he too fell into his chair with a relieved sigh. Virgil stretched out his legs and leaned he head against the back of his chair, his eyes slipping closed as he let himself relax slightly. Roman found the look suited him. It was nice to see the other relax in his presence. He let himself enjoy the picture for a few moments before he cleared his throat.

Virgil cracked one eye open and raised a dark eyebrow at the other. Roman's eyes darted off to the side as he gathered his courage and swallowed the lump in his throat. "I-I was wondering if we could watch a movie together," Roman watched Virgil's face as he spoke. Finding no clear sign of disgust, he continued. "I just thought it would be fun."

Roman watched as Virgil's face reminded blank. The silence grew for an uncomfortably long amount of time until Roman felt like he was going to burst with an apology for being so stupid. "That does sound fun," Virgil started slowly, almost hesitantly, his eyes not looking at him. "I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it, Princey." Virgil couldn't help but notice the lights in Roman's eyes brighten at his words.

A broad smile spread across Roman's handsome face as he leapt from his chair and grabbed a hold of Virgil's wrist. "We're off on an adventure!" He declared as he dragged Virgil from the room to the hall with the doors that lend to the different themed living rooms. Virgil suppressed a giggle (A giggle!) at the other as he was dragged along on their "adventure".

Once in the hallway, Roman stopped and let go of Virgil's wrist. Virgil still felt the warmth from the others hand lingering on his skin. It made him startlingly aware of how cold the rest of his body was. Looking up at Roman, he noticed a small frown on the other's face. "Princey?" Roman broke out of his thoughts and looked over at Virgil. "You good there?"

Roman nodded. "Yeah, I was just wondering what movie we should watch."

"Oh." Virgil was silent for a few moments before speaking up. "I was thinking of watching the Conjuring Universe movies in the order they were released. If you would like to join me, we could start them tonight?"

Roman blinked a few times before he grinned. "Of course! Let's go!" Roman took a hold of Virgil's wrist again and pulled him into the correct room and plopped down on the couch as Virgil turned to set up the movie. He rolled his eyes fondly at the other, careful to keep Roman from actually seeing him with something other than a small smile, blank face, or the occasional scowl. Setting up the first movie, Virgil moved back to sit on the opposite end from Roman on the couch as he waited for the main menu to pop up so he could start the movie.

"So, Princey, have you ever watched something like this?"

Roman turned to him as the previews played through. "Um, not really." He shrugged. "I mean, I've watched movies similar to them but they didn't really intrigue me," Roman's eyes trailed back to the tv screen as he talked before snapping back over to look at Virgil. "What?"

Virg stared at him with wide eyes, his mouth slightly ajar as he tried to comprehend just what exactly had been told to him. It's not that he didn't understand what Roman had told him. No, he understood him perfectly. But the fact that he wasn't intrigued in these kinds of movies sorta irritated him for some reason. "Well, Princey, get ready to have your socks blown off because the Conjuring universe is one of the best set of movies like this."

"Sounds a little opinionated but okay."

Virgil sent a glare at Roman. Roman, despite having Virgil's icy glare directed at him, couldn't help but feel a excited shiver run through his spine. It was like he had found a match. A lot of people tended to agree with Roman, aside from his friend Logan. But even then, it was always playful arguments. They were like brothers. Hell, they were brothers. If not through blood but through bond.

This, this felt different. This thing between them was something entirely new and wonderfully mysterious. It was like something out of one of Roman's novels. It was terribly exciting and Roman felt himself anticipating every interaction with the dark man before him. He wondered why he wasn't like this before. Perhaps he was finally getting comfortable enough to show his true self. The one that, despite dark glares and deep frowns, Roman could tell were more playful than not. They were like a hurricane and a volcano. Both terribly, beautifully fierce and passionate.

The glare dimmed once the main menu popped up. Virgil turned to the tv. "Watch the movie, Princey." He pretended to not see the roguish grin Roman sent his way before the other turned to watch the screen.

-----

The two had moved slightly closer over the course of the movies. They had watched two by this point and were almost finished with the third: The Conjuring 2. And Roman couldn't say he wasn't enjoying the movies. They were very well done and, despite the moments after each movie when Virgil told him a few of the details that were fiction, Roman found they were quite scary. He jumped a few times, he wasn't going to lie. Now, they were nearing the end of the second Conjuring movie. Roman became absorbed in the story as what must have been the most climatic moment came on screen.

Lorraine Warren was pulling herself up through the hole in the floor as her husband, Ed, reached the room the possessed Janet was in. The window in front of Janet exploded as glass flew past her. Ed watched as Janet stepped up onto the window ledge, ready to jump from the window and impale herself on the split tree trunk that had been sharpened to a point. His eyes grew wide as he screamed her name, rushing forward to stop her. He caught her just as she fell from the window. He grabbed a hold on the curtain beside the window prevent both of them from tumbling out the window and to their death.

In the looting rain on the sidewalk below, the girl's mother let out a horrified shriek at the sight of her daughter dangling in the air, the only thing keeping her from being impaled was Ed's hold on her. Lorraine rushed up the stairs shouting Ed's name as he tried to pull himself and the girl inside by his arm. He let out a shout as one of the rings holding the curtain up broke, the two dropping farther out the window. Lorraine came to doorway and screamed as she noticed the two hanging over halfway out the window. The crosses hung up all over the walls of the room all began to turn upside down as Lorraine noticed a black mass in the corner beside the window. She let out a gasp as she noticed the demon that had been plaguing her since their case in Amityville. A demon nun, with face white as milk and covered in blue veins and glowing yellow eyes set deep in the skull, pitch black circles surrounding the eyes as it's habit blew about in the vicious wind.

Ed screamed Lorraine's name as lightning flashed outside and the curtain began to rip and another ring broke. Lorraine started forward only for the demon nun to let out a wicked roar and Lorraine flew back against the wall a few feet off the ground. Black lips surrounded yellow, rotting teeth as the demonic nun bared its teeth at her. Another ring broke and Lorraine screamed for her husband. The demon nun's grin was vile as it turned to look at Lorraine.

Lorraine turned her attention to the demon nun, her face set determinedly. "Your name gives me dominion over you demon. And I do know your name." The demon screamed, knocking crosses off the wall. "You are Valak!" Lorraine screamed as the demon continued to scream, flakes falling from its face at the use if it's name. "The defiler! The profane! The marquis of snakes!" She sneered. The demon let out a hell raising scream. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I condemn you back to Hell!"

The demon screeched as it's face decayed and it fell in on itself before disappearing. Lorraine fell as the demon disappeared and she quickly rushed forward as another ring broke and the last ring slid forward. She grabbed a hold of her husbands wrist just as they were falling and quickly pulled her husband and the now normal girl inside.

Virgil turned to face Roman, a shit eating grin on his face, ready to tell Roman that he told him so but froze as he noticed Roman's awestruck face. He couldn't turn away. He was in awe over Roman's awe! And he felt the blood in his body rush to his face, his cheeks tinting with a bright pink. Even if he could look away, Virgil found he didn't want to.

A thunderous crash sounded down the dark hallway and both Virgil and Roman jolted. Their heads whipped over to look at the darkened doorway, hearts pounding in fear. A loud thump sounded and Roman jumped forward and gripped onto Virgil's chilled arm. "What was that?" He whispered, his voice wavering. Despite the moment, Virgil's cheeks darkened.

"P-probably just one of the cats," he stuttered slightly. Roman gulped. They waited as the credits rolled. Their ears alert as they tried to find any hint of someone in the hallway. Soon a small bright white cat trotted into the room and stared up at the two on the couch. "Meow!!!" The feline let out.

Roman closed his eyes in relief and let out a sigh. "Thank goodness."

Virgil nodded. "Do you want to go back to watching tv?" He asked.

Roman hesitated for a few moments before nodding. "Uh, yeah. But is it okay if we uh…." Roman stumbled with his words. "Uh.."

"I think we might have to sleep in here tonight. I don't think I'll have enough energy to get back to my room after this."

Roman almost let out a sigh of relief. "Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to either."

Virgil nodded and got up to change the movie. The white cat from earlier jumped up on the couch and climbed into Roman's lap. He smiled as he began petting the cat. Virgil turned around and let out a small laugh. "It seems Moonlight as taken a liking to you."

Roman looked up with a smile. "That's their name?"

Virgil nodded. "Yeah. She likes to nap in the moonlight; seemed only fitting." He sat down gave her a pet before turning to the movie and grabbing the remote. Roman smiled at the other, but frowned slightly as he noticed something flit past the doorway out of the corner his eye. He turned and inspected the doorway only to find it empty. He shrugged and turned back to the screen as Virgil hit the main menu button. Soon they were enthralled in the storyline of Annabelle Creation. And if they ended up leaning against each other halfway through the movie, nobody said anything.

------

CoD taglist: @kittycake574 @rainbow-roman @icequeenoriginal @ilovemygaydad @roman-flair @comicsimpson

Everything taglist: @spxced-oxt @superwholocked-for-life @mirror2thespirit @aroundofapplesauce

[itschimmychimchims]

Etched Pt. 7

♡ jimin x reader

♡ smut, mafia!au

♡ This is just the whole crux of the story and Jimin and Y/N finally know more about each other!

—

Jimin finally gives you the answers you need, though you can’t say the answers were as you expected.

—

| Part 1 (M) | Part 2 (M) | Part 3 (M) | Part 4 | Part 5 (M) | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 (M) | Part 9 (M) | Part 10 |

The night went on a while longer, and I even got to dance with Jimin. I did take some classes before, but Jimin was a different class of ethereal. His movements were fluid, natural and so soft yet so precise. I could feel his muscles tense and untense under my hands that held his arms as we twirled into the night. His lips were mere inches from mine the whole of the night, sometimes sneaking in a kiss on my cheek as we moved closer.

“You dance so well, Princess.” He smiled, telling me while we slowdanced, a ballad being played by the tireless orchestra behind us.

“You can’t possibly mean that when you’re actually perfect.” I scoffed. He laughed, and at the same time, the ballad had ended, signalling also the end of the ball. There was a loud applause from the guests for the hard-working orchestra.

Suddenly, as the maestro took his bow, several gunshots rang out from far behind the guests. Some bodies dropped to the floor in the distance and I let out a gasp as the gunshots grew louder, freezing. Jimin, however, in a matter of moments, unlocked his phone and signalled for his men to come in.

“Code Red.”

He whisked me away through a dark corridor, me stumbling behind him as he held my hand firmly. Once we reached a doorway, he turned towards me and pushed me inside the room. He gripped my shoulders and looked at me in a borderline-frenzied state.

“Princess I need you to stay in this room and don’t come out for anyone but me okay?” Jimin hesitates before he tells me, “If I don’t make it, the code word is Memory.” I shudder at the thought of it. I nod and Jimin pulls away from me, only to come back and kiss me before disappearing back outside. I locked myself into the dimly lit room, choosing to turn off the lights so as to not attract any attention to the space. I could hear more gunfire and shrieks and that terrified me. Did my father make it out safely? What happened? Will Jimin come back for me?

I didn’t even know how much time had passed since I was trapped inside. I could hear the screams quiet down but nothing else. No more gunshots. Suddenly I could hear footsteps approaching, slowly and at an odd pace - as if the person was limping. My heart lurched thinking it would be Jimin that had gotten hurt. But as the footsteps grew closer, they sounded too heavy to be Jimin’s. I tensed, scrambling to hide behind some chairs. I knew how to fight but I don’t think fighting helped when there were guns involved.

The door rattled violently, and it was shaking so much that the hatch lock was coming loose. I held my breath, not knowing what to expect. In a few moments, the door’s hatch got shaken loose and the door burst open, slamming the wall as it swung open. A big, muscled man, bleeding on his right leg, stormed in, looking around in a frenzy. I could only pray that he wouldn’t see me behind the cluster of chairs.

“Fuck, I could’ve sworn I saw that fucker Park run in here.” He cursed, looking frustrated. He kicked over a few boxes, some spilling over and landing in my direction. As my eyes travelled to the spilled storage goods, I realized that my necklace was among the items spilled on the floor. My eyes widen, fingers slowly feeling my neck. It must have dropped as I scrambled to hide. Fuck.

The burly man had rummaged through most of the room and was just about to exit. I almost let go of the breath I had been holding but I saw his feet pause, turning in my direction. I cursed, praying to anything I could that he didn’t see the necklace.

“The fuck is this...” the man mumbled, picking up the necklace. I put my hand on my mouth to keep from letting out any sound, but my heart sank as his eyes finally locked with mine.

“Oh what do we have here...?” The man grinned, teeth dark with signs of smoking. His face was also smeared with blood. I pushed the stack of chairs in his direction, causing them to tumble onto him and he yelled out in surprise. I made a run for it, almost reaching the open door, but I felt fingers grasping my hair. The man gave my hair a harsh tug, causing me to jerk backwards.

Quickly, he gripped my neck, coming closer to me.

“I saw you with Park Jimin tonight.” He growled. “Tell me where he is.” Something in me lit up, knowing that Jimin was alive. I spat in his face, making him hiss in surprise, but it earned me a hard slap across my face. I hit the floor with a thud, but I tried to scramble away again.

“You don’t fucking spit on me and run away, bitch.” The man caught my arm, grabbing me back into his grasp and I screamed, struggling but failing to get out of his hold.

“Just tell me where he is and I’ll let you go.” He huffed, trying to quell my squirming.

“Go fuck yourself.” I snarled, elbowing his face, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

“When will imbeciles learn not to touch what isn’t theirs?” A clear voice rang out from behind me. I could have cried from relief. Jimin.

Almost immediately, the man had turned me around to face Jimin, gripping my neck harshly.

“Well, Park, now that you’re here, let’s talk about the 3 million won contract you fucking shredded.” The man smirked, making me choke as his grip on my throat tightened. I struggled against him, trying to loosen his hold but it didn’t budge.

“You take my girl hostage and want me to look at your contract. How stupid can you get, Hoon?” Jimin laughs but there was no humor in his voice.

“Needed to cause a scene if not you’d never give me the time of day.” The man called Hoon shouted at Jimin, making my ears ring from the sheer volume. Then I felt a gun click, and cold metal hit my temple. There was a gun... pointed at my head.

“Let her go. I won’t ask again.” Jimin said in a calm but extremely dangerous voice.

“And lose my bargaining chip? Fuck no.” Hoon hissed. “Sign or I’ll shoot.” There was a tense silence as Hoon dug his gun into my temple.

“Princess, I need you to close your eyes.” Jimin’s voice turned gentle as he talked to me. We finally made proper eye contact and I nodded internally, closing my eyes as he asked.

The moment I closed my eyes, the gunshot rang out loud and clear. I felt the echo ring in my ears as I felt something spatter on my hair. The hold on my throat slackened and I felt the man behind me slump to the ground. I stumbled to the ground, finally letting myself breathe normally. I look behind to see blood pooling around the man who had attacked me, but I quickly looked away.

In an instant, I felt warm arms wrap around me and I broke down immediately. I let out a loud sob as I let all the fear, anxiety and shock out of my system.

“It’s okay now baby, you’re safe with me. I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m sorry I let him hurt you.” Jimin whispered to me, stroking my hair. I cried harder, smelling the thick scent of blood. For a long while, Jimin was kneeling on the floor with me in his arms just recovering from all that had happened.

“I’m sorry princess, you shouldn’t have had to see all this.” Jimin kept apologizing profusely, gripping me tightly, patting my head gently, waiting for me to stop crying. As I calmed down, I wrapped my arms around Jimin, finally able to be glad he was safe. I shift to look up and down at his body and I immediately got a shock. He was covered in blood - his beige suit ruined by crimson splatters and his white shirt underneath crumpled and stained red as well.

“It’s not my blood, don’t worry baby.” He murmured, wiping the tears from my eyes. I pulled him closer, just relieved he was safe.

“Take me home, Jimin.” I said in a trembling voice. “Let’s go home.”

I’d fallen asleep in the back of Jimin’s car, blindfold still on, now tailed by several other black cars. When we got back to the house, Jimin had shaken my shoulders gently to wake me. He had an arm around my waist as we went into the house. I could see several men outside the gates, fervently talking and moving out in different directions.

“It’s a little chaotic now but just rest, okay? If you need anything you know the drill.” Jimin murmured, patting my head, tucking me in on my bed once I had bathed and changed out into something clean... and not bloodstained.

“Knock 3 times.” I said softly, nodding.

“Good girl.” Jimin smiled slightly. “For the next few days, I’ll be at home but there’ll be a few visitors from time to time. While you’re definitely safe, I’d prefer if they not see you.” I nodded at his words, even if it did pique my curiosity.

After Jimin left my room, I fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep. It was the same images over and over again - gruff hands, pain, splattering of blood and the sounds of gunfire. I awoke, startled and sweaty from fear, but calmed down when I saw the soft grey walls of my room in Jimin’s place. I wiped my face that was wet from tears, resting my head on my knees. I’d never seen a dead body up close, let alone see people die in front of me, hearing the gunshots... it was so scary. The feeling of his blood, still warm, hitting my skin and dress was something I’d never forget. For Jimin to kill someone without any hesitation... Just how many times had this happened? How was he sane? He must be really fucking dangerous, but I was letting this guy screw around with me, touch me, make me feel comfortable with me. It defied logic. But I knew somehow he would never hurt me. At least that was what my warped mind convinced me of.

I walked over to the door, knocking thrice, wanting to get some water to calm myself down. For a long while, nobody came. So, I knocked again.

This time, the door opened to reveal Jimin, once again topless with just his robe draped around his shoulders. He looked slightly weary, and I could see spot the beginnings of a bandage near his stomach. He gave me a small smile, but it disappeared when he got a better look at my face.

“You were crying.” Jimin said, coming closer holding my face in his hands. His fingers swiped over my cheeks, wiping what was left of the tears on my cheeks.

“It’s nothing.” I shook my head. “I’m okay.”

“It was your first time seeing a dead body, I’d understand it’s very frightening.” Jimin said, frowning. He pulled me into his arms and pat my head slowly.

“You were really brave tonight. Even if he did have a gun to your head. Fiesty as always.” Jimin says soothingly, putting his forehead to mine. “Come take a walk with me, I know you may have questions you want answered.” How did he always read me like an open book?

He got me a warm cup of barley tea and took me to the garden for a walk. For a while, we just strolled around the flowers, listening to the crickets chirp, watching the stars glimmer. The night air was crisp and bit into my cheeks. How was Jimin walking around almost bare-torsoed?

Then, we sat down on one of the wooden benches under the now bare apple tree.

“You’re awfully quiet, Princess.” Jimin says, his voice somewhat cautious.

“I don’t really know what to say.” I admitted. “I’ve never seen a dead body, so seeing someone die in front of me is a little shocking.” Jimin nods, waiting patiently for me to formulate my thoughts.

“I’m just replaying whatever happened in my head. How was it so easy for you to just...” I couldn’t find the word so Jimin finished my sentence for me.

“Kill him?”

I nod at his words.

“I was thrown into this field when I was a lot younger, and honestly, it wasn’t by choice. I’m sad to say it, but I’m used to it. Sometimes it’s the only way. And he was holding you at gunpoint.” He explained slowly.

“I know I must seem very dangerous to you. I am a dangerous person. And I worked damn hard to get to where I am now - which is virtually untouchable.” Jimin said with a sad look in his eyes. “There were so many things I gave up on - one of them being a normal life.”

“But please believe me when I say I-“ Jimin began to say but I interrupted him.

“I know you won’t hurt me.” I told him truthfully. “At least, I believe it. Whether or not it’s true, I guess we’ll find out.”

“It is.” Jimin said firmly.

“What happened to you Jimin? Why were you the one that had to do all this.” I asked, crossing my legs on the bench, facing him.

“When I was 17, my father was killed. Some members of the clan went rogue but the rival clan didn’t know my father had nothing to do with them. He got caught in the crossfire and naturally, as his son, I had to take over. The rebels, one by one, were quelled by our men after the initial shock of it all. I was trained tirelessly, forced into doing all sorts of dangerous tasks, made to do all sorts of unforgiveable deeds... until it was a natural part of me. In my head now, I can only see myself and the clan, and what I need to do for my survival as well as the clan’s.” Jimin looked up at the stars, sighing.

“I... lost a part of my humanity. But every day, I try to get it back. You... make me more human.” He says, pausing a lot, hesitating. I never really see Jimin hesitant or unsure. He usually seems like he knows what he’s doing all the time. I guess that comes with being a leader.

“It must be hard to have grown up so fast and to carry everything by yourself.” I murmured, putting my hand on Jimin’s cheek. I pitied him, to be very honest. He was still not much older than I was, so him having to run a whole operation, most likely being one of if not the most successful black market operators... It had to be extremely difficult. His house, big as it was, was empty. He shared it with nobody. His riches and his life now seemed to be meaningless and passionless. How tiring.

“It was hard. It really was- is.” Jimin said, wistfully looking up at the stars again, moving away from my touch. “It gets harder every day looking for meaning in what I do.”

“I’m here now.” I say shakily. “I know it’s bold of me to ask, and we aren’t even like... close but I’ll help you.”

“As in-“ I began, but Jimin turns to me and smiles, interrupting my attempt to rephrase.

“You help loads already just by being here.” He replies simply. I stare at him a long time before I muster the courage to ask him.

“Why me?” I whispered uneasily. “I feel like... we’ve met before. Like we’re always meant to be like this. A sense of peace... where is this coming from?” I could feel Jimin tense, and my question was met with stony silence.

“Why me, Jimin?” I continue prodding. “You can’t keep it from me forever. Please just tell me.” Jimin turns to me after a long pause and his expression is apologetic and he looks pained beyond anything.

“We’ve met before.”

***

I stare at him in shock.

“But… I don’t remember. I would have remembered… if it was you.” I stammer. When I saw Jimin, he was a stranger - I had zero recollection of him ever being in my life. Jimin just stared at me silently, his eyes looking sad again.

“You and I were friends, almost lovers if I’d have it my way. We were babies when we first met because our fathers were allies. We grew up seeing each other so often, I remember it very clearly.” Jimin said softly - so softly that the rustling of the trees in the small breeze almost covered his shaky voice. I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew Jimin. Not just knew but we were close friends…

“It was when I was 17 that the dissent in White Mist Clan burst forth, causing a huge ruckus. When the rebels’ demands weren’t met, they went around sabotaging White Mist Clan. In particular, they targeted allies - your father’s clan.” I gulped, not liking where this was headed.

“The rebels managed to raid a secret facility your father owned, and at the time, that was a facility your mother was running.” Jimin shifted uneasily, as if talking about the subject made his skin crawl. “From the investigation done, she was on her way to pick you up from school. The rebels found your car by recognizing you when you got in. And that was when… the accident happened.” I listened, mouth agape. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing… my mother was murdered. And I had almost been killed too.

“The rebels had probably miscalculated the explosion, but you were thrown out of the car by your mother once she sensed you were in danger. But the car was travelling at such a high speed, you were knocked unconscious and suffered severe head injuries. You lost all your memories of your mother… and me.” Jimin said. “She died immediately.”

“Your father did an investigation and found out the rebels were from my clan. And he went on a rampage, destroying several of our facilities, calling our actions an outright betrayal of friendship and trust. He didn’t understand or probably didn’t want to understand that the rebels had nothing to do with us. But, I know deep down my father felt guilty about not warning them sooner.” Jimin let out a sigh and paused, looking at my expression before he continued his story.

“Both our fathers fought. But at the very end, I think my father let yours win.” He said softly. “He was killed and I was forced to take over.”

I was silent for a very long time, not knowing how to feel. A whole plethora of emotions rushed into me like a towering wave, not caring about what destruction it brought upon me. I started shivering. My father… killed Jimin’s. Jimin’s clan members killed my mother. I lost my memories of Jimin and my mother… it was too much for me to take.

“What does my father have that you want back?” I asked, closing my eyes as if closing them would make the bad thoughts go away. My head started to feel heavy and I felt like I could collapse.

“When you were 10, you came to my house crying and screaming for me to marry you because you liked me so much.” Jimin said, his lips trembling slightly. “I thought it was ridiculous but really cute, so I promised you I would. I found a plastic ring with a pink and blue bead embedded on it and just gave it to you, half wanting you to just shut up. But it made you so happy, so it made me happy too.”

“Why do you want it so badly? It’s just a ring.” I asked.

“I believe that it’s the key to your lost memories.” Jimin said. “I know your dad thinks so too. That’s why he’s hidden it from me.”

“Why do I need my memories back? Why did you keep all of this from me?” I was overwhelmed but I tried to organize my thoughts slowly to ask the more important questions. “Aren’t I here, still hopelessly attracted to you? And we’re already… sleeping together.” I blushed a little, turning away from Jimin.

“It’s different. For now, it doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to me.” Jimin said fiercely. “I need you to remember. I need you to remember me and everything we had.”

“But your father thinks that it will hurt you. So he’s kept the ring locked away somewhere I can’t fucking find. He’s always been good and hiding shit.” Jimin hissed in frustration. “I thought by spending time with me, me touching you, holding you, you’d come back to me. That you’d remember. But you aren’t remembering.”

“I…” I began, but the words fall flat at my lips as I don’t know what to say. I couldn’t process it. There was too much going on.

“Now, why I’m telling you this… is because after tonight, I realized how easy it was to lose you again.” Jimin continues, seeing how I couldn’t seem to speak. “The people who instigated the attack are closely related to the rebels. I’m afraid they’re back to cause trouble.”

“So what’s going to happen now?” I murmured, looking at Jimin, unsure. Everything seemed to be a big dream, like I could wake up any time and just return to my overprotected boring life.

“I’m… considering letting you go home.” Jimin said softly. “They know about you, so being with me might be dangerous. I’m torn because I don’t know how safe you’ll be without me either because I can’t assess the rebels’ strength yet.” I exhale almost in a sigh, wondering about the what-ifs when I left Jimin. My father would probably be ridiculously overprotective and lock me up in the house again. I thought he would probably send me overseas.

“I just want you to be safe.” Jimin said, putting his hand on my cheek gently. “I lost you once, I can’t bear for it to happen again. I waited 8 years, I can wait a while more.”

“I’m sorry. I really can’t remember.” I said, putting my hand over his hand.

“This is good enough for now.” Jimin whispered.

There was a silence as watched the stars shimmer above us. The wind had stilled considerably, but it was still rather cold, smelling like grass.

“Can you…” Jimin began, taking my hand. “Sleep with me tonight?” I cock my head to the side. It seemed like he wanted to say more.

“I mean, just share my bed. I feel like I might not get too many chances like that soon.” He said, standing up. I followed him and nodded.

That night, the warmth of Jimin’s arms around me and his soft cotton-like scent kept the recurring images of blood and death out of my mind. As we intertwined under the black velvet sheets, I really felt like I was meant, from the very start, to be with him.

| Part 1 (M) | Part 2 (M) | Part 3 (M) | Part 4 | Part 5 (M) | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 (M) | Part 9 (M) | Part 10 |

[btgalaxy]

Berlin (m)

masterlist

» a/n: there’s literally not a fluff thing even remotely about this fic, and from now on every friday we will be updating with new stuff! - admin lottie

» genre: angst

» word count: 6.9k

warnings (for this and upcoming parts): assault, drugs/alcohol use, violence/gore, profanity. this is purely fictional and not intended to reflect the members’ true personalities. otherwise enjoy!

Part 1:

The smell of cigarette butts danced in the air in wanton puffs of smoke, reaching the blue-pink of your lips grotesquely quick. You drained your glass of brandy with unrelenting haste, delving into a fantasy of old-time Berlin, with your feet on the table and liquor burning like ashes in your throat. You’d arrived but four days prior to your retreat to the sombre tavern in Lichtenberg, the feeling of youthful excitement still fresh on your fingertips, now tracing the outline of a German proverb carved with a knife into the table top: "Nur die Harten kommen in den Garten."

You were naïve. You didn’t believe in the atrocities that could take place over 96 hours and how mercilessly fast the pace of city life is. You came from a small, everyone-knows-everyone kinda village, and never experienced the bitter cold that bit at your skin when not hidden by your cushty fireplace and friendly farmer next-door. The realities of demise and decease and other such perturbation were concealed from you for years and years, under the segregation of country life. You didn’t know how a person could leave you feeling empty and worthless. You didn’t know the haze of marijuana could send you into a spiralling attack of anxiety and terror and pure hysteria. You didn’t know that the blood drained from a corpse to the lowest body part and pooled there till it stained the skin only a few hours after the death, and you didn’t know that the foul, rotting smell could linger on your clothes and your flesh and around the house for days afterwards, no matter how fervently you may wash yourself, skin raw and bleeding. You didn’t know it clung to you like moss on a damp wall. You didn’t know any of this.

It was drugs you were first exposed to, the pungent green smell invading you from the bench of a run down bus stop by Brandenburg Flughafen, foreign to you and so incredibly exciting. You’d never even seen any popular narcotic, bar on the tv shows you watched on your phone down in the local café in a corner booth away from any wandering eyes — your mother hired a technician when you were in your pre-teens to censor any ��explicit’ or ‘inappropriate’ broadcastings, and the whole town of 267 knew of your credulity and innocence, thus seemed to have a silent agreement not to allow you to experience anything ‘harmful’.  You had to hide to try and experience things; it’s no wonder you left for a scene of sex, partying and amphetamines.

“You smoke?” A voice rasped from beside you, sucking in a breath through his teeth after choking out another huff of the joint.

You barely flickered your eyes to look at him, so far out of your comfort zone you could barely form a coherent sentence. He looked brazen, with luminous mint hair and hooded eyes, drained of life beneath the tendrils of smoke scorching through his nostrils like handmade clouds. Between his fingers was the thing you were most scared of, there, right in front of you. It was finally real, finally happening. There was no friend of your parents to switch the channel or take away the book or suggest you research a different subject, he was there, in front of you, real, happening.

“Sure.” It tumbled from your mouth before you could consider any further, hand effortlessly lunging slowly forwards to pry the smoke from his hands, and you held it between your thumb and your forefinger, as if you’d done it a million times before.

You remembered the first time you discovered drugs exist — Pulp Fiction, you believed it was. Mia Wallace inhaling some white substance up her nose? You couldn’t fathom at the time that someone would react that way to a powder. It intrigued you, beyond belief. Then at school in year 10, that assembly where you were taught of all the gruesome effects drugs can impose on your organs, and all the side effects they could have. You know how when you’re forbidden from something, when you’re constantly instructed not to do something… you know how it makes you oh so more desperate to do that very thing? That feeling was stirring inside of you.

The blunt felt scary in your hands, scarier than you imagined. It was strange the way it rolled down to the crease of your knuckles so easily, the sound of the rolling paper ruffling slightly and resonating through you in a chorus of anticipation. It came even easier to your lips, closing them around the filter and gently sucking in for a few seconds.

You ripped it from your mouth and began coughing violently.

It was like it was burning down your throat, your voice deepening as you tried to cope with the feeling of it coating your oesophagus like hot wax being poured generously into your mouth, gliding down your tongue and plugging your windpipe. It didn’t ease up for at least a minute, gunk rising up into your jaw relentlessly, and you spat it out in desperation to rid yourself of the scorching it brought.

“So you don’t smoke then?” The man smirked, retrieving his joint back from your curled digits and holding it back between his own lips. He took a stainless-steel lighter out of his pocket, engraved with the acronym MYG on it, relighting the end and promptly puffing out again, the smoke tapering into the air to form other strange shapes.

“I wanted to try,” you choked, finally regaining the ability to speak with a still coarse throat.

He tilted his head slightly, “Why you in Berlin?”

His question unnerved you. You didn’t answer. You instead burrowed through your hand luggage for the scarce remains of a bottle of water, unscrewing the cap and letting the meagre sips trickle onto your tongue to offer some brief soothing to your dizzying head.

He laughed, “You run away from home or somethin’? You don’t look like the typical Berliner.”

“I didn’t run. I left,” you exhaled, wetting your lower lip with your tongue, eyes fluttering shut, breath heavy.

He laughed, again, “That’s what they all say.”

Looking back on your first meeting with Min Yoongi, you didn’t ever really like him. It wasn’t that you were scared of him — well, you were a bit scared, but even after everything you felt the same way. You didn’t like the way he spoke, and you didn’t like how he acted like some nonchalant, borderline careless druggie with no real feelings or emotions. He was an effortless liar, and you valued honesty. He could be condescending and cruel and manipulative. He wasn’t someone anyone should trust.

He sat next to you on the bus. You didn’t ask him to, but he did. He didn’t speak to you, just sat there smoking his joint till it burnt out and he rolled another. God, he made it look so easy. Like it didn’t singe the pink flesh in his cheeks, or like he couldn’t feel the way it thrusted down him into his lungs, just waiting there, or how it drove into his brain and made him high as hell. He would’ve certainly excelled in a career of acting, with that beautiful façade he employed. He pretended he felt nothing. Later, you would find that was not the case.

You were travelling to Kreuzberg. Apparently, there were lots of cheap hostels there to put you up during a measly financial situation, popular to other youths that went to Berlin with little to no money. It was the perfect way to blend, to be the typical traveller that was relatable and approachable. You wanted to make new friends, meet new people. You thought Min Yoongi might be your first, at the time, and perhaps he was, perhaps you did consider him your first friend.  You glanced fleetingly over at his side profile, admiring the way he grit his jaw and the curved slope of his nose. He was handsome.

You never had a boyfriend back at home. You had friends that were boys, sure, but they were shy and most were strictly catholic and didn’t want to risk any undue temptations. You especially, because you hemmed your skirt a couple of inches higher than the rest of the girls at your school — a scandal at the time, you were labelled as a slut for at least a week which speaks a lot of the town’s standards. When the headmistress did her rounds at the end of the week, she made all the girls kneel to ensure their skirts reached the floor. Yours didn’t, and the subtle scarring left on your hand from the thin cane certified you were to carry on hemming all your skirts till the teachers gave up. You liked a thrill like that, you liked being able to defy those condemning rules that society set. It felt freeing.

Kreuzberg wasn’t what you expected, as you gazed out the tinged window onto the paved roads, onto the buildings painted with colossal street arts; a worthy canvas of such mighty works. You briefly wondered how they managed to paint a few stories high, slathering colour onto the otherwise miserable red bricks, but you supposed that could be a good conversation starter for later. Instead, you tried to digest everything you were seeing; the people sat in cafés smoking, photographers on the street, backpackers, young people, old people, tourists, natives. Some you couldn’t identify if they were actually native Berliners or not, and others you could.

You got off at a stop in the heart of the city, and Yoongi followed. Of course, you didn’t know his name at the time, you only knew that he smoked and knew that you didn’t. You strode over to a nearby map of the tramlines to find a decent hostel.

“They’ll all be booked, y’know?” He commented, sighing as he finally put out his cigarette without pulling out another, “It’s summer in Berlin. It’s packed with people like you.”

You ignored him, unwilling to accept that was the case. You couldn’t book anything prior to your trip; it was all a bit last minute. You’d just decided you couldn’t stay it that damned town any moment longer, so booked a flight, packed a bag and there you were at the heart of Berlin, the city of new starts. Of your new start.

“I know a place you could stay,” he remarked, piquing your interest, “I gotta friend down by the Spree. He’ll put you up if you’re nice to him.”

You grazed your teeth over your lower lip in contemplation, conflicted with feeling like that was cheating, like you weren’t really doing it for yourself. You didn’t want other people to still be controlling you, like at home.

“I don’t even know your name,” you quipped, making eye contact briefly before diverting them away, finding yourself struggling to look him in the eye for longer than a few seconds.

He pulled his lighter from his pocket, pointing to each letter as he spoke, “Min Yoon-Gi.” He sounded out each syllable with an amused glint in his eye, and you thought it was strange the way he became suddenly much seemingly friendlier.

“I’m Y/N,” you responded, glancing around awkwardly. You didn’t like that introduction. You felt uncomfortable.

“He lives by the bridge.”

You really were so naïve. You allowed a man who’d given you a joint at a dodgy bus stop to take you to his friend’s place to stay for a few nights, and you barely questioned it. God, you couldn’t have imagined what kind of a hell hole it really was. But at the same time it was exciting, it was new. It was everything you’d never experienced and craved like a captive desperately labouring for an escape. So you got on a tram to the river with Min Yoongi, and you followed him to a worn down terrace house on a street corner, both thrilled and terrified; you’d never felt more exhilarated.

The bricks were dark crimson, stained with mould and the rotting pieces crumbled away like ashes. It was lifeless and cold, and it felt as though it had been lived in over a thousand years and seen a hundred deaths. There was a bra hanging out one of the windows, and the other was smashed and covered with a strip of cardboard that had a picture of a blender on it. Yoongi ambled down the front path like it wasn’t the most harrowing place you’d ever seen, like it didn’t tell you to go back and find a hostel, or even as far as to travel back home and live your life the way it was. But that’s what made you follow him.

His knuckle rapped against the ivy oak as green paint chippings fell to the doormat that had an image of a cannabis leaf in the centre, with cigarette butts smothered into the bristles as well. He kept knocking, till a man with silvery hair pulled back the door.

“Fuckin’ stop, I was tryna roll, you prick,” he spat in Yoongi’s face as he spoke bitterly, immediately stalking off back down the corridor towards an archway.

Yoongi trudged inside with his shoes on, “I’ll find Jimin.”

You thought Jimin sounded like a nice name. Like someone happy and energetic; you thought you could make another friend.

The interior of the house was nothing less than expected; barren of any decoration or paintings or even some basic household items. It felt so vacant, like the people that lived there never really lived there — perhaps that’s because they were never really living. Everyone in that household was dead from the moment you got there, and maybe that’s why you don’t feel sick at the thought of what you did, rather just that it happened. And it was done and a part of history that couldn’t be changed.

You followed Min Yoongi to the kitchen, piled with dirty dishes and cutlery, empty packaging strewn across the cheap surfaces and abandoned beer bottles on the table. It smelt like weed, and the silver-haired man that opened the door to you sat on one of the counters with a filter amid his teeth, pinching the rolling paper between his thumb and index to bring it into a skilful turn.

“Where’s Jimin?” Yoongi asked, pulling back the off-white refrigerator door to take out a beer as you hovered uncomfortably in the doorway. It’s a horrid feeling, standing in a stranger’s house in a strange city with a strange person you’ve only just met. You felt like you were in a movie.

The man nodded his head in the direction of upstairs, focusing his gaze still on the tobacco in his hands.

“Stay here,” Yoongi ordered, making you grimace as his figure stalked back past you into the corridor.

You looked back at silver-hair, sliding the filter into the tip of the roll. Honestly, he didn’t look like a smoker. But then, what would you know of what smokers looked like? He muttered a curse when he patted his empty pockets, looking back at you.

“Got a lighter?” He inquired, and for a second you were taken aback.

You told him, “No. I don’t smoke.”  He groaned at you, jumping down off the counter and began rummaging through all the drawers. You could see inside they were all filled with junk, spilling out onto the floor as the man whipped each one out and left it open as he went onto the next. Your parents would’ve hated someone like him in their house. They used to lock you in your room without food or water until it was immaculate, and only then were you permitted to eat. You remember you tried to defy them once, refuse to do it, but after six hours in the blazing heat of summer and no water you were beginning to feel dizzy from the dehydration and submitted to their order.

He found a lighter on the table under a newspaper. You didn’t expect anyone in that house to pay attention to the news, let alone buy a paper. He leant against the counter and lit the end of the fag, putting the lighter down with a sigh.

“How’d you know Suga?” Silver-hair asked, head lulling back to breathe up towards the ceiling.

“Suga?”

“Yoongi.”

You remained uneasy beneath the doorframe, “He told me he knew a place I could stay.”

“You wanna stay here?” He laughed all of a sudden, holding the lit cigarette unnervingly close to the wooden counter.

“I’m Y/N,” you announced, pursing your lips.

“V.”

“V?”

“Or Taehyung. Whichever.” It fell quiet between you both again, and you enjoyed the brief escape.

He trudged over to the table to shake the beer bottles, seeking one with a little liquid left inside, “You drink?”

You shrugged. You’d never drank before. The teachers at school told you drinking was a temptation that brought about sinful consequences that would never be suitable for young girls like you. Drinking was limited to a sip of wine during Mass and should not otherwise be pursued. You didn’t really like the taste anyway, but you were curious what drunk felt like, what such sinful intoxication felt like. It at least sounded dramatic.

Silver-haired Taehyung found a fuller bottle, bringing it up to his mouth to take a sip before smacking his lips together and passing it to you. You retrieved it cautiously, sloshing about the stuff inside before having a taste yourself. You discerned a yeasty and bitter flavour, but you continued to drink. It was better than smoking.

“You speak German?”

“Not really, no.”

“But you wanna live in Berlin?”

“You speak English.”

“You think you’re gonna be hangin’ around with me?” He laughed, making your face flush with embarrassment, and perhaps a little of the beer now stirring in your stomach. You took another long gulp.

“You look like a nun.”

You didn’t own any revealing or fancy clothes. Your parents wouldn’t even let you wear jeans for a few years, deeming them improper. It’s one of the things that had seem to stuck with you; your apathetic attitude towards your own attire. You’d just learned not to care, so a baggy, waffle-knit jumper and black trousers was just something you put on to leave the house, really. Something that covered you up and your parents weren’t going to question as you left them.

“How long you gonna be stayin’ here?” He quizzed, taking another long drag.

You shuffled awkwardly, “Only a few days I think. As soon as I can find someplace else, and some work.”

A voice resonated from behind you.

“You can stay here as long as you like, babygirl.”

The first thing you thought was: Park Jimin was short. Shorter than your average thug. But a thug nonetheless.

His hair flamed orange like a fox and his teeth were slightly stained. And the tattoos were everywhere; inscriptions across his bare chest; Aztecan patterns looping around his arms; playing cards littered across his shoulders; a tiny diamond inked just beneath his left eye. He wore black sweatpants that hung low on his hips to reveal a tiny trail of hair and small looped earrings in his lobes. He scared you from the second you met.

Although short, he still had a good few inches on you. And a hell of a lot more muscle. You immediately felt an anxiety begin to consume you.

He sauntered towards you with his crotch forwards as you looked at him, coming to place his hands on your waist. He seemed to look you up and down with an insatiable look, or maybe it was amusement, you couldn’t tell. It was a fierce gaze, that you naturally desired to squirm away from as he pressed himself closer to you, lips curling up into a smirk.

“Babygirl, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” His Cheshire grin reached his eyes, crinkling up at the corners, “You wanna stay here wi’ me, huh?” One hand crawled to your arm, tracing his fingertips up and down the skin making you shiver.

You swallowed, “I don’t have anywhere to stay.” Your voice wobbled uncontrollably, as did your entire being in his predatory arms.

“That’s no problem at all,” he pulled the hand from your arm and up to your chin to bring your face towards his, “No problem at all.” You screwed your eyes shut and held your head as close to your chest as possible as he pressed a kiss to your lips, uncomfortably softly to make you quake. You wanted to scream in his face for him to get away from you.

He pulled back, chuckling, “I think you’ll get along just fine here, babygirl.”

He and Taehyung left promptly after that without so much as a second word to neither you nor Yoongi, only leaving you with his musky scent in the air and phantom touch on your lips. You were glad he was gone.

The floor of your room was carpeted, but you didn’t want to take off your shoes due to the questionable stains that were sprinkled across it. You had a bunk bed, but Yoongi told you nobody would come in to share without warning, and there was a chest of drawers with a Yoda Bong on it, just sitting there, staring at you. You had an en-suite too; the bottom of the bath was stained yellow and the toilet had no seat, blackened with mould around the rim. The sink was clean enough in comparison.

You swallowed, lifting up the duvet of the bottom bunk to peer underneath, eternally grateful that it seemed rather untouched.

“Nobody really used this room,” Yoongi told you, arms folded across his chest, “Nobody wants a bunk bed.”

“I don’t mind,” you countered, plonking your backpack and hand luggage onto the floor beside the bed. “And he’s not going to make me pay?”

“He has parties most nights anyway, so it’ll be noisy. You won’t be able to get much sleep,” he admitted nonchalantly, turning to pick up the bong on the side.

You sat down on the edge of the mattress, the springs inside prominent and digging into your behind. You’d not expected much when you left, but you had hoped for something better than that. There was no cushioning, nor did it resemble in any way the duck feather mattress you slept on at home. It was entirely new.

You pushed your mouth to the side awkwardly as Yoongi lingered, “Do you stay here too?” Your meagre attempt at small talk seemed to be enough of an invitation for him to come and sit next to you on the bed.

“I crash with Tae most of the time,” he said, slumping down beside you and falling onto his elbows as he gazed onto your back.

You could feel the way he stared.

You turned to look at him, “How do you know Jimin?”

“Everyone knows Jimin,” he said, with his shooting eyes still unwavering, but now focused on your chest, “He and I- we have a mutual agreement.”

“Agreement?”

“You a virgin?” Your eyes widened at Yoongi’s curt interrogation, blunt and outright, making you feel embarrassed enough to squirm away, swallowing back the discomfort with crimson cheeks. He laughed, loudly, unbelievably amused with your mortification.

“I’ll take that as a yes then,” his chuckling faded out into a piercing look, and you felt it burn on the side of your face and in your peripheral, “Are you scared?”

“No.” Yes, you were, actually.

“You’re sure?” He leant forwards to sit upright, a smirk pinching the corners of his lips as his hand landed on the outside of your thigh, moving inwards.

You turned to look at him, now somewhat adamant with whatever the hell you thought your intentions were, “I’m not scared.”

He licked his lips, before he leaned in to kiss you. He tasted like the beer you’d just been drinking, and he was quickly laying you onto your back and pressing on top of you into the springs of the bed before you could protest.

There was a brief few seconds where you didn’t realise your eyes were open, watching Yoongi’s head rock back and forth as his tongue delved into your mouth, but then you squeezed them tightly shut, trying to follow with his pace. It was fast and intense, and you could barely keep up when your lips began to dry out.

Moments later and the reality of what could happen suddenly hit you, and you shoved him off of you with all the force you could muster. The back of his head hit the wall with an ominous thud. You wanted new, but you didn’t want whatever this was.

With one hand now holding the back of his head, his eyes immediately snapped up to look at you, blazing with fury, “The fuck?”

“I’m sorry,” you whimpered, breathing heavily, “I couldn’t.”

You could see his nostrils flaring slightly. For a moment you were really scared. Like really scared. Of what he might do.

Thankfully, he shuffled to the end of the bed, readjusting the crotch of his trousers slightly.

“Whatever,” he grunted, “Shit kisser anyway.”

It reminded you of your first kiss with a boy on holiday. You met him on a cruise ship. His name was Tom. You were both 14 and he said you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. You swooned instantly- rather charismatic for a spotty teenage boy. He kissed you on the last day, and he said he would keep in touch. But, of course, he didn’t. Maybe if he had things might’ve been different.

As Yoongi left the room, you heard him grumble, “Fuckin’ virgins.”

“Mornin’, babygirl,” Jimin sang as he strolled into the kitchen, entirely bare except for his skin-tight grey briefs, outlining his crotch. He came over and kissed you uncomfortably slowly on the cheek, then sauntered over to the fridge to take out a beer. It seemed all they did was drink and smoke. But that was what you’d left your home for. You wanted these experiences. Didn’t you?

“Good sleep?” He asked, perching against the counter with his Cheshire grin.

You swallowed a mouthful of Honey Cheerios you were surprised to find in a cupboard beneath the sink, “I slept well.” You didn’t try to continue the conversation, you didn’t want to.

He did anyway.

“You gonna go sightseeing today or some other shit you religious girls like to do? Go to a fuckin’ church or some shit?” He’d seen the crucifix necklace you wore and was a million times more intrigued by you; and by intrigued you mean humoured.

“I wanted to go to the town and eat Bratwurst.” It was the first to-do on your agenda. Your parents were vegetarians, so you only ate meat when alone with your friends or other relatives — quite frankly, not very often at all.

He nodded, “I assume you need a tourguide, babygirl?”

You froze for a moment, before slowly tracing your lower lip, “I don’t- I think I-“

“We already have plans,” Yoongi interrupted you, buttoning up his plaid shirt as he ambled carelessly into the kitchen. Jimin glanced at you, looking thoroughly entertained, before returning to watch Yoongi, taking another gulp of his beer.

“Suga, I gotta job for you later.”

“I left my wallet upstairs,” Yoongi ignored him, jogging off till you heard his footsteps on the stairs.

Jimin sniggered from the side, watching you with his slanted eyes taking another mouthful of cereal. He loved to look at you, watch you. It was like you were his own personal form of entertainment, and he couldn’t get enough. You weren’t like the usual travellers that came through him, usually aggressive or a druggie or an alcoholic or- or just anyone considered some kind of a delinquent. But, God, you were pure. You were naïve. You were untouched. You offered something different to his usual girls, something new.

Suddenly, he was behind you, hovering above your shoulders.

“I saw him go into your room last night, babygirl,” his hands slithered malevolently down your biceps, skin rising into goosebumps at his touch.

He began to whisper in your ear, “Did you like it when he fucked you?”

“He didn’t,” you insisted, frozen in place staring down at your bowl of cereal.

He hummed, amused, “Babygirl, don’t lie to me. I’m not a man you lie to.”

“I swear,” you gulped, the fear beginning to churn in your stomach.

He nudged closer, his hand slinking down further and onto your waist, but as he inched closer you snapped your hand down to stop his arm, even surprising yourself.

There was a second where he just scowled at your hand, attempting to cease his advances, but then he violently ripped his arm back, yanking you up by the chin to bring you close enough you could hear the way his teeth grit in his jaw, dirty breath wafting up your nostrils and you had to repress the gag biting at your throat.

“Babygirl, if I can’t have somethin’, nobody can,” he snarled out, shoving your face to the side and leaning in to clamp his lips over your throat where he sucked the skin red and raw, as you held your lips tightly shut and tried to repress any tears.

Crybaby. They’d called you crybaby. When you were about ten you suddenly lost the ability to hold back your tears. At films, books, being scolded, being praised — even over things that had nothing even remotely to do with you. You’d cry. And you were inconsolable for hours. So all the kids at school started to call you crybaby. Then, when you were about sixteen you suddenly found a new emotion inside you — a stronger one — anger. So whenever you wanted to cry, you’d get angry. Anger didn’t need tears, anger needed a scream into the pillow and a punch to the wall and it was enough. Everything was channelled into this unrelenting fury towards your parents, your school, your friends. Even the word crybaby was enough to set you off. When you wanted to cry, you’d become angry instead. So as Jimin sucked a deep magenta bruise into your flesh you clenched your fists and you squeezed your eyes shut; angry.

He retreated seconds later, still grimacing as he took his thumb starkly across the raging bruise, “Don’t fuck anyone in my house.”

It’s a shame your anger didn’t fuel your confidence. You nodded meekly in response, fists still quietly clenching as he stalked out of the room, leaving you emptily.

“I’m not paying for you,” Yoongi announced, waiting behind you in the street stall line as you held your hair next to your neck, attempting to conceal the large, unwarranted bite.

“I have money,” you countered, nervously tightening your lips as you took another step closer.

You didn’t know why he even offered to go out with you. He was miserable.

“You seriously wanted to come all the way here for a fuckin’ sausage?” He groaned, pulling a cigarette box from his pocket and fumbling to open it before resting one between his teeth.

You cowered slightly, “I wanted to try it.”

“Such a cliché,” he mumbled, fag still between his lips as he patted his jeans in search for something.

“Shit, I didn’t bring my lighter.” He wrenched the small pipe from his lips, “Get your damn sausage, I’ll be in Maysie’s.” You didn’t know what that was, but you still nodded as if you did.  

You didn’t like the Bratwurst. You thought it tasted too… too meaty. And it was a bit spicy too.

Maysie’s was a bar that was open 24 hours and filled with mainly young people sat around circular tables drinking. There wasn’t a bouncer, and IDs weren’t checked. Yoongi was sat with a girl with a pixie cut and a bald man with sad eyebrows.

You approached them wearily.

“Yoongi…,” you murmured, in a futile attempt to pry his attention away from the bong that sat breezily on the table, as if it were the most normal thing.

He coughed a bit as he pulled his lips away from the tube, covering a hand over his chest with his chin lowered slightly as he fought the rising phlegm, “Sit.” You sat on a chair next to the girl, and it felt comfortable to be next to her. At least, more comfortable than you had been since you arrived.

“This is Y/N,” Yoongi remarked uninterestedly, immediately bringing his attention back to the pot on the table.

The girl offered her hand, “TK, and this is Sadly.” She gestured to the bald man with the slanted eyebrows.

Sadly. What an apt name for his features.

You shook back, “Do you live in Berlin?”

“Only as of recently. Sadly’s a native,” she smiled warmly, “You come here to get away from your parents?”

“To get away from my life.” You returned her smile, liking the way she spoke to you.

She shook her head understandingly, “I get it.”

You spent the day with your two new friends and it couldn’t have been more exciting. You went to Checkpoint Charlie and the art gallery then sat and ate pretzels by the Spree. You drank black coffee and they offered you a smoke, which you politely declined. You felt you could with them, they didn’t pressure, and you weren’t scared. Yoongi moped nearly the whole time, and you felt angry that he kept trying to ruin the day and cut short your time with them.

Sadly taught you some German, predominantly the phrases “Kann ich das kaufen?” and “Ich hasse Pferde”. You didn’t really know what the second one meant.

The two of them shared a house together, and they lived in Lichtenberg. They’d only come for the day to visit Checkpoint Charlie and buy some drugs off of Yoongi. It was at this point you understood why his nickname was ‘Suga’. You didn’t think he looked much like a drug dealer — he didn’t have any tattoos.

“I heard Jimin’s having a party later,” TK said, biting off a chunk of her bread.

“He always does,” Yoongi responded, curt and dismissive as you’d only ever seen him be.

“I imagine Y/N’s invited, with that big-ass hickey on her neck,” TK laughed, and your hands automatically split to your neck, covering the bruised side. You’d forgotten.

“At first I thought Suga had done it, but Jimin’s far more likely to have,” she carried on, and you couldn’t look anywhere except for your lap. You noticed that Yoongi stayed quiet, and you couldn’t decipher what it meant. What any of anything meant. If he liked you, if he didn’t, what happened yesterday. You just didn’t know.

The air was so clogged it was suffocating. You dizzily made your way through the people crowded in the kitchen towards the cupboard with the cereal, aka the only food you knew was safe to eat in that house, and tried to shove your way back through the sweaty bodies when Jimin spotted your retreating form.

“Babygirl!” He laughed, happily.

He trotted over to you with his Cheshire grin, “Babygirl, I haven’t seen you since this morning.” He smiled, pushing your hair off your shoulder to admire your bruising.

He leaned into you, “Won’t you join us for a drink?”

His breath smelt like whiskey this time, like an old man. He sneered at you, burying into the crook between your neck and shoulder.

“I’m quite tired,” you responded, subtly turning away from him.

Unexpectedly, he nodded his head, pursing his lips slightly, “Course’ you are. Had long day, huh?” He ran his tongue slyly over his lips, eyes unconcernedly wandering to your chest, peaking out a bit from your vest if you peered over at the right angle. Which, of course, he did.

“It was,” you exhaled, “I’ll go to bed.”

“I might see you later, then.” God, you hoped you wouldn’t. You nodded docilely.

In bed, you couldn’t shut your eyes for longer than ten seconds in fear that drunk Jimin would stalk in and pin you to the mattress when you weren’t looking. He’d already been drinking, and only God knew what he became when he was drunk.

You wriggled and switched positions infinitely, but sleep never came. Instead just the writhing urge to pee, which you attempted to suppress in fear of the bacteria on the loo, but your bladder was about to burst. You knew you’d never fall to sleep needing to go this bad, so you eventually succumbed and got up to your feet from the bunk.

As you approached the en-suite, the sound of soft moaning resonated. Soft moaning and quiet grunts from behind the door. You could only hear it muffled, so you pressed your ear gently to the wood. It was squelching and slapping and other vulgar noises that vibrated through your eardrums like a coffee mill. You let out an uncomfortable breath.

The scream that pierced through the air was all instinctive. The door had opened to reveal Taehyung holding a woman on the sink with her legs high and parted, and himself situated between them, pounding into her turbulently. Of course, they immediately stopped and began frantically covering themselves as you looked on, frozen.

“Fuckin’- fuckin’- Y/N get the fuck out!” Taehyung roared, but your feet remained planted on the ground, as if vines had wrapped around your legs and held you to the floor, immobile. The pair were fervently picking up the strewn articles of clothing as footsteps approached behind you.

“What- what is-“ Jimin’s voice ceased when he pulled the door back further to see into the bathroom, with Tae and the stranger now relatively covered.

His chuckle rang like poison, “Babygirl, you scared me.”

“She fuckin’ scared us!” Taehyung shrieked, eyes wide and nostrils flared. He looked livid.

Jimin simply laughed again, “She’s a baby, V. Don’t yell.” You wanted to be sick. You thought you might be.

As the two of them sprinted past you and out of the room, Jimin smiled, “I think you need that drink, huh? How ‘bout that?” His voice was mocking and you felt like a child, but you still agreed. You were too shaken to do anything else.

He guided you downstairs to the lounge, with battered blue sofas and a coffee table with a lamp and nothing else, except for the people sat on the floor passing round a joint. He made them move aside so you could sit near the door, and you didn’t want to look at the brunette beside you, guzzling down vodka like water.

“Babygirl, you ever smoked?” Yoongi chuckled from the other side of the room at that, looking darkly amused. Jimin squinted his eyes back, making the diamond tattoo on his cheek crinkle.

“How about a brandy first?” There was a plastic cup on the table which he passed to you, with burnt orange liquid sloshing about inside. He smirked a bit as he ushered it to your lips, and you instinctively held his wrist as he tilted it upwards, pouring a generous gulp into your mouth.

Why did everything burn?

You struggled to swallow it, and as soon as you did you were gagging embarrassingly. The small crowd laughed at your straining, face contorting with disgust. Your grandfather loved a glass of brandy at Christmas, and he always considered it a treat, so you’d expected it to be sweet and warm, as he’d described to you as a child. You thought it tasted like perfume you’d sprayed the wrong way.

“Good girl,” Jimin coaxed the cup back to your lips to make you finish the rest of it as you continued to gag and nearly spit it up. It came as a relief to see the liquid was finished when he pulled it away, entertained as if you were a showcase.

“Babygirl, you really are somethin’, eh?” He smirked, “Now, hows about a smoke?”

He taught you the way to do it. He said: inhale for three, hold for three, then exhale. You still weren’t very good at it, but you felt it this time. You felt the lethargy hit you hard enough that your head began lulling side to side, back and forth uncontrollably as the group fell into laughter at your disorientation.

“There we are,” Jimin cooed, before turning to look at Yoongi with a satisfied grin, “Suga, what do you mean she can’t smoke?”

Yoongi grunted, “It’s all an act. She isn’t a virgin anyway.”

You straightened up your head with significant struggle as Jimin responded, “She isn’t?” He looked you up and down with a frown, as if not being a virgin made you worth less.

“She fucked me yesterday.”

“No I didn’t,” you denied, shaking your head slowly, eyes squinted in your drunken haze.

“Don’t lie, Y/N. Jimin doesn’t like it.”

“I don’t lie.”

“You’re a fuckin’ slut, Y/N. Stop playing the virgin.”

You couldn’t find the anger in you to prevent it, the tears. The fucking endless tears that just streamed from your eyes relentlessly and unstoppably. They were all laughing. All the strangers laughing at you as Jimin frowned and you felt scared; so so scared, and you didn’t want to breathe or be seen, you wanted to hide and cry. You wanted to cry and be away from there.

You left, jaggedly and disturbed.

[dangilliam]

The Relics of God

A friend of mine recently passed through Vienna, Austria en route to other wonderful places. His post on social media reminded me of my visit there in 1983. While there are a myriad of sites, events, and museums to see in Vienna, my visit to The Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg Palace stood out. The large collection of shimmering crowns, multi-colored jewels, golden scepters, and royal clothing from centuries long past was impressive to behold. However, what captured my attention more than anything were the purported Christian relics housed there. These religious artifacts, cherished and revered by millions of people over the years, provided believers and seekers with a physical means of touching God, a much desired bridge between the spheres. Though the only ancient relics America can claim belong to the Native Peoples, our thirst for a means of touching God in the physical realm has not waned.

The Church of Europe has been obsessed with the relics of God since the Middle Ages, though many of the claimed relics have authentication dating only from the 11th century. (One exception being the chains of St. Peter, kept in The Church of San Pietro since 442 A.D.) Nevertheless, sacred pilgrimages to sites and chapels that housed such relics were commonplace and considered holy. Many worshippers claimed healings of all sorts when in the presence of these spiritual treasures. When travel became too difficult or hazardous, relics were transported back home and scattered to the four corners of Europe. Worship of the relics of Christ was as much a part of daily faith as was the Eucharist.

I first learned about the Church’s history with relics while a student at a Christian University. One class required reading the exhaustive work of Ken Latourette on church history which I found to be tedious but worth the effort. Apparently, nothing was off limits for the Church when it came to relics. At various sites around Europe today, any diligent tourist can lay eyes upon (but not touch) the Holy Stairs where Jesus blood dripped, the Holy Crib of Christ, and a vial containing evaporated milk from the breast of Mary, the Mother of God. One can even find and gaze upon the Holy Lance used to pierce the side of Jesus and, believe it or not, part of the Holy Foreskin. I couldn’t help but wonder how some of these relics would have been collected.

The Imperial Treasury in Vienna perhaps has the largest and most interesting collection of relics related to Jesus. There I saw a piece of the True Cross, a nail from the left hand of Christ, two thorns from the crown of thorns, a piece of Jesus’ loin cloth, a wood chip from the manger, a tooth from John the Baptist, and the table cloth from the Last Supper. Seriously. In the moment, I was able to quiet my doubting mind and not let the potential for lost facts get in the way of my spiritual experience. Whether or not these relics were authentic did not matter to me at the time. I was more drawn to the fact that millions of believers had trekked for centuries to lay eyes and hands upon that which they believed to be authentic. Belief made the objects holy and therefore part of the true spiritual experience of the pilgrim.

Upon returning home, I remembered the college lecture where my professor talked about the history of the Apostles’ teeth. He said that during the Middle Ages one of the popes had put forth a call for all Apostles’ teeth to be brought in to Rome. Purportedly, in the ensuing months many bushel baskets containing teeth were brought to the pope. So, there is some evidence that not all items presented as relics of God were authentic. Or, as one friend said, “Those Apostles sure were toothy fellows.” I wonder if it mattered.

Years ago, while traveling in Florida, I stumbled onto a scene that was being covered by national news. On the side of an office building with very large windows, an image had appeared that resembled the silhouette of a woman. Someone had decided this was the image of The Holy Mother and in three days time the parking lot had filled up with candles, flowers, and a variety of trinkets left for her. There were hundreds of people milling about, some praying on their knees, others standing with hands raised, and a child who was singing a song about Mary. My attention was drawn not to the colorful, oily stain on the window but to the sincere belief of the people around me. Hungry for a physical sign from God, this one would do for them. Was it from God or the remnants of a sloppy window washer? Does it matter?

In Georgia USA, there is a phenomenon occurring this year around a Bible that purportedly leaks healing oil. Because of this, thousand of hopeful believers are making a pilgrimage to this small, Pentecostal church to experience something otherworldly. The touch of God. We love stuff like this. Creating means of contact, authentic or delusional, with the supernatural has become a cottage industry. Providing spiritual experiences, whether real or imagined, is big business in America. I follow UFO videos not because I’m sure they exist, but because I love the idea of something from another world physically touching mine. I walk, pray, and meditate every day with the intention of God touching me in this world. Perhaps due to my age and experiences, I have ceased looking for the Big Bang touch of God. Instead, I have learned to experience these God touches in daily life with regular people and smelly animals, scary storms and intoxicating sunsets, regular animals and smelly people, etc., etc. When I practice seeing that of God in every one and every thing, each brush with the created world becomes a relic of God, inspiring me on my path and fueling my pilgrimage. Of course, if you survive yourself, live by spiritual principles, and make it to 60+, you can actually become a relic of God.

[kamino-ink]

Trust | Bang Chan

genre ⌁ haunting!au, horror, supernatural, angst, fluff, enemies-to-lovers-ish

summary ⌁ you are a regular ole’ demonologist, just living your best life attending the occasional possession or exorcism - until a novice exorcist with a giant ego accidently gets you into harm’s way.

word count ⌁ 2.8k

warning ⌁ kinda violent tbh, mentions of death n blood and religion

Check out my masterlist!

A/N - I hate this a lot I swear the other parts will be better :/

the case of the southend werewolf was one that would haunt you forever, for years to come until the day you passed

while the famous husband and wife duo, ed and lorraine warren, had solved the case many decades ago, one oddly similar instance popped up in news reports and videos over time

you’d been doing some personal research since the very first story came up on your recommended page, diligently applying your demonology knowledge to the strange case

yes - demonology

you weren’t exactly catholic, or... religious in general, for the most part; you liked to call yourself agnostic for lack of a better term

you didn’t quite believe in the idea of gods and all that jazz, but you did however delve deeper into the possible existence of demons or, rather, negative energy that fed off the masses

moving on

you decided that you really wanted to go to the area in England where the supposed possession was taking place, but on account of their authority figures (and the church) you required a professional to go with you

enter bang chan, novice exorcist in training

in the midst of your heavy digging for an exorcist to accompany you on the trip, you stumbled upon a verified site from the Vatican itself, which cited experienced or in training students all over the world

bang chan happened to be the first one who had a decent record, plus he was technically still training so if he came on the trip, his supervisor would have to go as well - meaning double the protection

after a week of arranging flights and meetings, you found yourself landing in an airport located in Essex, England

there you met up with chan and his supervisor, a decorated exorcist by the name of park jinyoung

together the three of you spoke about the case, from the ride to the hotel all the way into unpacking for the stay

while you and jinyoung had been in a heated discussion over the suspected possession, chan spent that time rolling his eyes whenever you presented your research or an opinion - he even had the audacity to glare at you as you asked questions about their church and services

“you shouldn’t even be here,” the Australian man finally spoke up, “you’re not a child of god, so why do you even care about our church or what we’ve devoted our lives to?”

jinyoung hisses and smacks the younger man on the back of his head, offering you a reprimanded look of apology

“chan, just because you’re technically a licensed student doesn't mean that you can ridicule others who have different beliefs than we do. our first lesson is to-”

“not judge others, for judgement is a sin.” the blonde finishes with a grunt, though he sends you another harsh glare at the same time

“my beliefs are my own, chan. while I don’t believe in your god, I do believe in the mere existence of negative entities in our world.” you reply shortly

he scoffs, abruptly standing from his chair at the dining table, “you’re completely unbelievable, woman. just - stay out of our way during our investigation.”

and with that, he left, storming off into his bedroom

jinyoung apologizes for his pupil’s behavior, though he doesn’t bring up the topic of your beliefs for the rest of the night

for the next three days, the three of you delve deeper into the possible possession of a man named mark tuan

he was a normal guy from la who moved to England a few years ago so he could be with his long-term girlfriend, and up until recent months he was just like any other man

but then he started to exhibit strange, inhuman habits; such as uprooting a fence post and crunching on the wire mesh, walking on all four limbs, and just the other day he reportedly sniffed out a deer carcass deep in the woods behind his home

after witnessing the man break out into a cold sweat and nearly attack a smaller dog much like a predatory wolf, father jinyoung decided they would perform an exorcism

the plan was to bring mark tuan back to their church in Australia, as the demon manifesting inside of him was something entirely inhuman and could potentially be a threat if it somehow wasn’t fully dismissed

however on the same evening you all were planning to fly to Australia, something triggered mark into a furious frenzy

foam started to dribble between his dry lips, his hair stood up all over his body, and the lanky man literally lunged at father jinyoung - effectively pinning him to the ground as he attempted to gauge out his throat

you leapt into action, throwing yourself onto the back of the man to try and pull his weight off of the priest

meanwhile chan was in a state of sheer panic, watching as his own mentor was being targeted by a very powerful demon before his very eyes

“c-chan,” jinyoung called out to the stunned man, letting out a painful scream as mark tears into his flesh with his teeth, “leave and lock all the door and windows - call father jaebum from the church in London-”

but chan doesn’t listen to him - he silently reassures himself that he can handle a real exorcism himself - it’s what he’s been training to do his entire life

so the blonde snatches a bible from the bookshelf behind him, flipping through it until he finds a set of pages, his gaze wavering in fear and panic as you whip your head around to gawk at him

you scream and shout at him, telling him to listen to the dying man’s words, all the while struggling to pull him towards the front door and away from the possessed man

still he goes on, reciting his teachings word by word until there’s a pregnant pause

mark’s body, still on top of father jinyoung’s, twitches after a certain phrase chan had stuttered out weakly

“y-you didn’t say it the right way-”

“how would you know!?”

“just because i’m not religious doesn’t mean I haven’t done my own damn research,” you hiss quietly, voice shaking as mark continues to twitch madly and turns his attention to the two of you, fresh blood and torn skin hanging from his stained lips, “c-chan, we need to go!”

“no - if we leave then there’s a chance the demon will use his body until it can find a new host and go on torturing innocent people just like mark!” he protests, glancing down at the bible as the brunette man takes a step forward

“chan-”

he doesn’t listen to a word you say, attempting the passage yet again, but more clearly this time

it’s too late, though

on his last word mark charges towards the man, his mouth wide open and prepared to take a chunk of flesh from his neck - but you’re somehow faster. you shove chan out of the way just as the deed is done, receiving a painful bite to your shoulder

in seconds mark’s body collapses onto the ground, a strange, cold presence emitting into the open air before all goes quiet

the series of events that followed that were a blur to you: from chan rushing to cover your wound to the two ambulances that arrive on the scene to take you and father jinyoung to the nearest hospital

before you know it, an entire month has flown by since the southend werewolf incident

you had to stay in the hospital for a majority of that time, since your demon-inflicted wound tended to get infected too easily

by the time you were given the okay to leave, you heard that father jinyoung was still being held there as a patient, his entire throat needing to be worked on for who knows how long

the one interesting outcome of the entire situation, though, was finding a defeated looking chan at your doorstep when you got home

“the church said that, due to my hasty actions and its consequences of you being injured by a demon I was instructed not to interact with, I am to be your caregiver until I am able to go back to learning.”

“... so you’re grounded, basically.”

“please, don’t say it like that.”

so that my friends is how bang chan the sort of exorcist was thrust into your life for good

“heyyy chan, can you please make me some chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast?”

“your bite is healed, you can cook your own fucking food-”

“ah, but the church said that you have to do whatever I ask of you until you aren’t grounded anymore~”

“... I’ll make them super fluffy if you promise to stop saying it like that.”

so for the next two months, you were accommodating an amusing roommate of sorts

he slept on an air mattress you set up in the living room, so it wasn’t like the poor guy had to suffer with an aching back the entire duration of his ground- of his punishment

each morning he’d cook the both of you breakfast and begrudgingly watch exaggerated dramas with you until lunchtime rolled around

usually he’d take you out to eat and explore the city with you, something he refused to admit actually made him have some fun for once in his life

for dinner you’d both kind of give up on the idea of making real food and would instead order pizza or Chinese takeout, all the while hiding under a set of fluffy blankets next to you in favor of watching scary movies

you kind of hated to admit it, but chan had really grown on you - over time he seemed to accept his mistake back in the England exorcism, and one night he even took the time to apologize to you on his own terms

“chan, I still don’t understand why I have to wear a dress if- oh...”

there the man stood himself, clad in a black tux with a red bowtie next to the tiny dining table stuffed in the cramped kitchen. “I think it’s time that I owe you a real apology for what happened in England... and how I acted. I know that, to a degree, we have different beliefs - but you’re still an amazing, wonderful woman who I would like to call a friend.”

you totally didn’t almost ruin the moment by commenting on how his bowtie was crooked, shhhh

that night he treated you to homemade pasta and brownies for dessert, the first dinner either of you had actually made yourselves since he arrived at your home

ever since that night, the two of you would grow closer and closer - and then his punishment was over

the church had called him immediately, stating that he had to return quickly if he wanted to continue his training

neither of you admitted it aloud, but having to help him pack his things just so he could go back to Australia crushed your hearts

you’d grown so used to each other’s presence, forming a natural routine every single day that never became tiresome

after you bid farewell to the now silver-haired man at the airport, you found yourself feeling more lonely than ever before

sure you both exchanged contacts with one another and talked on the phone often, but it just... wasn't the same, honestly

then, out of the blue, just about two weeks after his departure, chan called you and told you about a haunted house he was being sent to investigate near your city

you weren’t required to go, but you found yourself offering to accompany him during his paranormal studies at the home

the moment you two met up at the house, you went straight into work mode, having no time to catch up since it seemed as if something was very wrong

cameras placed by the two husbands all over the two-story house showed signs of life, even when no one was awake

they reported that they’d seen furniture being tossed around their rooms and that their own daughter had started to experience hellish nightmares that ended with her being covered in scars the next morning

you and chan went to work, looking at every single audio or video file you could find in their tapes and cameras, even interviewing each member of the family alone to see if it was a hoax as the church suspected it to be

then one night, you felt an odd chill roll over your body in the middle of your slumber, though you at first thought nothing of it

but the next morning, there was a circle with a cross etched onto your wrist. chan immediately guessed that the demon had somehow managed to inch its way into your body - though that in itself was odd, especially since demons traditionally had to weaken their target host before fully possessing them

your condition continued to grow worse and worse as the days passed by, up until chan had finally decided that the best course of action was to take you to a church and see what more experienced priests could do

luggage in tow, chan lead you to the front door of the house, bidding a short farewell to the family and promising to send members of the church the same day - yet, you didn’t follow him

or rather, you couldn’t

something forcefully snapped you back into the house, causing you to stumble and crash into a shelving unit on the wall

“y-y/n?”

“mam, are you alright?”

you shake your head, slowly standing back up to walk back to the door where a worried chan was staring at you with furrowed brows

the second the tip of your shoes reach the doorway, another tug slams you onto the cold floor - quickly going to drag your limp body down the hallway into a bedroom before the door suddenly slams shut

you can feel the demon lurking in your body, hungrily feasting upon your state of utter terror - though you try your best to fight it off before it can fully possess you

seconds, minutes, hours - you're not quite sure how much time had passed since you’d been thrown into the secluded bedroom

all you knew was that you had grown so much weaker in that period of time, your eyes struggling to focus on anything in the room

you also knew that chan was banging on the door, trying his damned hardest to break it down

in a woozy state your head bobbles around until your blurry gaze lands on your now exposed shoulder, spotting the wound from the werewolf demon now irritated and red with pus seeping out of it

the demon had been able to subdue you so quickly because you’d technically already been afflicted before, and now it was a race against time before it was able to completely overpower you

with a snap the bedroom door flies open, a rugged looking chan standing with a bible and a slim jar of what you could only guess was holy water

“c-chan,” you echo his name just as the late father jinyoung had, feeling dread sweep over your entire being as another wave of pus pushes out of the inflicted wound on your bare shoulder, “leave, be-before you get hurt-”

“I won’t run away from you, y/n,” he whimpers softly, stepping closer to your now convulsing body as he flips to a page in his bible, “you’re not going to get hurt because of me... not again.”

you find that you’re too exhausted to argue, instead nodding your head silently

“I - I trust you, chan. you’re an exorcist, you can do this-” you stop in your tracks, heaving in pain as a spurt of red blood shoots out from between your cracked lips

with no hesitation at all, the silver-haired man clears his throat and continues to stare you down, occasionally glancing back down to his bible as he perfectly recites the words for the exorcism

he splashes a dosage of holy water onto your skin, wincing as you let out a screech of pain - but he knows it’s not you reacting that way, it’s the demon possessing you

in a matter of seconds he’s performed the passage perfectly, not once stuttering or saying a word incorrectly like he had in England

a wave of relief causes you to topple over when the evil presence vanishes completely from your body, but before you can hit the floor chan has wrapped his arms under yours to hold you up steadily

“I sent the family out to call an ambulance and other members of their church - you’re going to be okay, I promise.” he speaks to you softly, brushing your now frazzled hair out of your face

“I knew you could do it, you know.”

“but - but how, y/n?”

“because I trust you with my life, bang chan.”

[cowandcalf]

H50 9.11 – 'Hala i ke ala o'i'ole mai'

Part 1 – The Hug between Steve and Danny

The reason why I look at an episode the kind way is that I'm never unprepared. Yes, there are of course moments, situations that suck and the way the plot is unfolding is not always the way I wished it to happen. But that's all I get. That's the show – let's say I know my opponent after over eight years (producer, director, writers…). I know what I'm going to get, no surprises there.

There's no reason for me to fight that because the only thing that would break would be my heart. I try to deal with it because Hawaii Five-0 is my happy place. I'll try to explain here why I loved and enjoyed this episode and why I’ve really liked it a lot and why it shook me, made me cry, let me muse over scenes and tiny, important moments and all the unsaid words between the short sentences.

There's also the other side. I know the writers have their ideas and they always put a meaning behind situations. I try to look past my McDanno wishes, past my own version of Five-0. I've engaged in this version the writers have chosen for this episode. I truly believe that there's always a deeper meaning behind actions, situations and why they are handled the way we watch it on the show. I also believe that the writers care for the characters and their actions. I really believe that, and I try to understand the meaning they've put in there.

So, let's have a closer look.

Steve's and Danny's meeting in the very beginning was way different than I've expected. At first, of course, I was disappointed, and I've thought – c'mon guys! That's all you give us? This lousy hug between my guys? That's some big heartless shit you let me see there! BUT ohmygod – there's a reason why the hug felt cold, distant and unreal. And Danny sensed that immediately. Steve pushed him away, non-verbally, but with all the power he could muster to make Danny keep a certain distance.

Because... this hug? This was in no way a Steve hug.

We all know how Steve hugs – especially Danny: It's totally emotional and his whole body is involved. It's encompassing, engrossing with his emotions. Steve likes to tug Danny to his chest; wrap him up in his body, one hand always goes up and sneaks towards the nape of Danny's neck. Steve often props his chin on Danny's shoulder and he normally closes his eyes. Both his long arms are tightly looped around Danny as if he never wanted to let go again.

Steve would have definitely closed his eyes with this hug in Montana because Danny would have turned this one in a special, important, meaningful hug. But Steve didn't let him! He couldn't, and he didn't want Danny to hug him with all the emotions that would have been there.

Danny knew the moment he got out of the car that things have changed. Steve's in Montana for over four weeks now. Danny came all the way to see Steve because apparently, Steve didn't have any intention to return home and somehow, he hadn't been in no mood to tell Danny what his plans were. Danny asks him if it wasn't time to go home. It's been four weeks now. There's a worry in Danny's voice. He's testing the waters and his face shows everything. He has no chance to get closer to Steve. Steve has shut him out. And it hurts Danny, but he can't do a thing about it. He only can accept what's happening and roll with it. There are some lingering touches of Danny's hands, briefly but the contact is there as if he hopes that Steve might cave, might want to be closer. Steve doesn't. Steve actually feels uncomfortable when he hugs Danny. That's a first.

Watch Steve, take a real good look at him. He's dirty, a stained tee shirt, dirt smudges (no blood) all over his arms, up to his biceps – on both arms. It seems as if he wears this shirt for days now. His face shows alert and there's this streak of being haunted. Steve looks stressed out, clinging with the teeth to reality.

I look at Steve and see all these details and something big is missing – his energy field (aura) has shifted like massively. A new message wafts around him like fog. It's a huge difference compared to the time before Joe's death and this is not only because he can't deal with grief. There's something bigger that hollows Steve out, that makes the invisible tags around his neck more visible. There's a message on this tag 'I can't give a shit anymore because I'm not worth it.'

When Danny arrives there's this moment. Steve crouches down behind this big tub, his gaze close to feverish and intense, with wary eyes he watches the car. Danny gets out – and Steve literally slumps, and he even closes his eyes for a moment. He fucking folds into himself on the spot when he recognizes Danny. And I can see how Steve steels himself, hardens everything inside him to be able to face the moment. To face Danny. Steve can't stand to see Danny because it hurts so much!

The explanation for that moment and this awkward hug is given further into their mission. Steve mentions to Catherine that he's responsible for Joe's death. If he hadn't had trusted Greer and if he hadn't had a blind spot for her, he maybe would have sensed that's she's going to betray all his team and get everyone killed. This revelation Steve is having right there – Jesus fucking Christ – that meaning just chopped my heart to pieces. He believes that he's stigmatized or at least he has to make sure this doesn't happen again. Many people who Steve has trusted so far have turned against him and people have been killed because he didn’t realize that they were betraying him.

Wherever he goes, whoever he meets somehow, they turn their back on him and fucking kill or hurt people he loves! Steve believes he must protect people from himself. He believes that he's not worth to be loved because it always ends badly somehow. He wants to protect Danny and that's why he shoves him away. He doesn't want Danny to get hurt, and in his grief-befogged mind, Steve's really convinced that everyone is better off without him. Of course, he loves Danny so much and of course, he would need him by his side, craves for his touch and his comfort but Steve doesn't allow himself this wish anymore. He only brings danger and death, grief and unhappiness and that's why he creates a distance, an iron wall – and this just kills me.

Whatever Steve does, whomever his loves at some point Steve meets death and it would kill him if something happens to Danny. So, the awkward, cold, distant hug at the beginning makes way more sense with this background. Steve can't stand Danny's love and his care because he is convinced that he isn't worth it. Steve wants nothing. He has nothing to give. I can't even –

Steve's also not interested in Catherine. (More to this later). He just walks by her with this bucket filled with water and with an energy of a damn executioner he walks into that room where his victim sist, tortured, bloody, beaten into a pulp of raw meat – done by Steve and Danny's understanding grows that something big shifted in Steve and that nothing can be fixed right this moment.

This Steve, the hangman, the how-to-torture-a-man-trained SEAL Steve is scary. Seriously. That's some tough shit happening right here in this room. I was a bit shocked to see what the events have done to Steve's heart. Danny knows he just has to let him have his way. He knows Steve has to find Joe's murder, the one man who ordered the kill. Without this satisfaction Steve wouldn't come back from his personal hell he's living in right now.

 There's more – I mean…fuck this is so intense!

Part 2

Part 3

[angellightwood-bane-blog]

What Lurks In The Dark // Alec Lightwood X OC

disclaimer - Chapters one - two - three - four - five

Chapter Six - Vampires and Blood 

The door burst open and I instantly took the first one out with a flick of my wrist, a knife buried itself in the chest of the vampire. Quickly, Isabelle took out the next one with her whip, while Alec loaded his bow. My seraph blade found its way into the stomach of a vampire coming for Isabelle and Alec shot one as it came through the door.  The next one that came after me had a weapon of its own. He swung the club at me and I easily met it with my blade, blocking his attack. He threw himself forwards into his next strike and I used his own weight to deflect his hit and throw him off balance. Unfortunately, on his way down, he took out my legs and brought me down with him. He was the first to recover and came down on top of me, brandishing his weapon. I focused all my energy into my legs and kicked him off with an enormous effort. Jumping back up to my feet, I lifted my blade to block the oncoming blow. Before I had time to react he had swiped at my face cutting a deep line down my left cheek, eyebrow to chin. I grunted but refused to allow myself to lose focus, knowing I would die if I did. Channelling my pain and turning it into anger, I let it pulse through me. With a newfound strength, I ducked his swing at my head and drove my seraph blade through his heart.  I had no time to celebrate my victory as I saw Jace and Clary sneak past while more vampires flooded the room. My face was stinging, and I felt blood gushing down my cheek, but I gritted my teeth and carried on. Another one was coming straight for me but before it was even within arm’s reach, an arrow whistled past my head, and the attacker was dust. I didn't have time to react to it before two more came at me. I snapped my belt into a Bo staff and impaled both vampires in one hit. Turning back around, I saw Alec about to shoot a vampire heading for Isabelle, not noticing the one right behind him.  

"Alec!" I threw myself forwards, seraph blade outstretched, successfully disintegrating the vampire behind him, but as soon as it turned to dust, an even larger male vampire appeared in front of me at an unearthly speed. Before I could even comprehend his presence, I heard Isabelle scream as he drove his own sword straight into my stomach and in a matter of milliseconds, I was shoved chest first into the wall on the other side of the room, so hard that the concrete split. My head crashed against it and felt my ribs crack inwards at the force of the blow. Blood dripped from my nose and down my chin, but I hardly had the energy to wipe it away.  

"Breeanna no!" Isabelle cried, and Alec dealt with the two remain vampires before they both rushed over to me. Alec pressed a hand over my stomach in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. They tried to help me up, but I pushed them both off angrily,

"Get off me."  

"Bre now isn't the time, you're seriously injured, and you need our help," Alec pleaded with me.  

"No, you don't want to help, your life would be so much easier without me here. That's what you think yeah? You'd prefer it if I just died wouldn't you," I coughed, heaving myself up. I tried tracing the healing rune Alec had drawn on me at the City of Bones, but it wasn't doing anything. I stumbled forwards and Isabelle tried to steady me, but I pulled away with a,

"Don't touch me." I collected my weapons and moved on, holding my hand over my stab wound, applying as much pressure as I could. Feeling like my lungs were flooded, I was having extreme difficulty breathing by the time we rounded the corner straight into another fight scene. Jace was fighting two against one while Clary managed to get herself in a chokehold by a third.  Alec reacted immediately, aiming at the vampire, but the Downworlder held Clary in front of him like a shield.  

"Okay," Alec smirked, and instead shot the arrow at the wall, allowing a beam of sunlight to flood in and burn the vampire, releasing Clary. Clary then moved to fight one of the others and stabbed him, while Jace sliced his in half, both successfully disintegrating their opponents. Clary look stunned because she managed to kill one and Jace looked at her with pride.  

"I killed him," she stammered,

“He was already dead," Jace replied.  Isabelle walked forwards and offered,

"Plus, he wanted to kill you. Remember that." Then she looked at Jace with a grin,

"She did great, right?"  Jace looked back at Clary with a smile,

"Yeah, you did. You should be proud."  I threw my hands up in the air out of exasperation.

"Yeah great job you killed one Clary, fantastic, can we go find Simon now?" I somehow wheezed out. I could now taste blood and was feeling very lightheaded.  Jace's eyes widened as he saw me. He dropped his seraph blade and it clattered to the ground, forgotten as the blonde raced to my side.

"Are you okay?" I grit my teeth and shook my head,

"Simon, we have to find Simon," I insisted. Jace reluctantly left my side and led the way forwards, throwing worried glances at me over his shoulder. We quickly located Simon and found him in the clutches of a vampire, with a knife to his throat.  

"Simon!" Clary went to run forward but Jace caught her before she'd made it two steps.  

"Clary! That's not gonna do any good," He warned, keeping a tight grip on my sister's jacket.  

"Listen to him, Clary Fairchild. Put it away," The vampire demanded, referring to the seraph blade in Clary's hand,

"I've had more than enough of your friend for one day. I'd love to cut his throat - don't give me a reason. Put it away!"  Clary lowered the blade and took a cautious step forward, talking to Simon as if he wasn't being held with a knife to his throat.

"Simon, are you, all right?"  Ever sarcastic Simon replied,

"I wouldn't say all right-” The vampire had had enough.

"Stop talking! Now if you would all just follow me. Let's go! Come on, let's go! Up here now!" He led us through a corridor as I staggered after everybody and we seemed to be ascending.

"That’s right get down there now! Get down there or I'll kill him right now!" I tripped and fell onto the damp stone flooring, sprawled out on my hands and knees, grazing my palms and tearing the skin on my knee. I scrambled up and felt the almost unbearable pain in my stomach starting to spread.  My hearing had gone fuzzy and everybody's voices sounded distant. I only caught snippets of what was being said as I crashed into the walls, desperately trying to keep up with the others.  

"Get out!"  

"Not without Simon..."  

"This is about Valentine..."  

"Take him..."  I thought I saw a Simon-shaped figure being thrust forwards towards the bright red splurge that was probably my sister. Black dots were clouding my vision and suddenly we all spilled out into the sunlight on the roof. I could still hear ringing voices that sounded a lot like my sister.  

"Oh my God. Oh my God, it's over. It's actually over." I fell to my hands and knees, coughing and wheezing. Looking down I could see red liquid spattered on the concrete in front of me and it took my hazy mind a minute to recognise it as blood - my blood.  

"Oh my god, Bre!" Jace's frantic yelling pulled my line of vision up to him and saw him, Alec and Isabelle racing over to me.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded. His tone was scary, and I'd never heard him use it before. It was full of a mixture of rage and worry.  

"She killed a vampire that snuck up on Alec but another one got her. He stabbed her and threw her clear across the room, he hit her so hard she cracked the concrete!" Isabelle's upset voice sounded like a faraway whisper to me now.  

"She saved your life?" he turned to Alec with a frightening glare,

"Even after the way you treated her," He spat. He turned back to me,

"It’s okay Bre, it’s gonna be okay, I'm gonna help you, we're gonna get you some help." He pulled one of my arms around his shoulders and pulled me up to a standing position, taking nearly all my weight for me. I took a sharp intake of breath as my stomach stretched and I slumped over, trying to ease the pain.

"Alec! Help me!" Jace cried, but as soon as Alec took a step towards us I shook my head.  

"Not... him..." I choked, blood trickling from my mouth. I couldn't think straight, and my logic had disappeared, replaced by anger towards the Lightwoods. Jace looked understandably confused - he wasn't in the tunnel with us when I'd snapped, but before questions could be asked, Simon rushed forwards.  

"I got her, I got her, let’s go," He said, pulling my other arm round his shoulders.  I could barely take a step and I couldn't keep my head up, so I let it hang down, lolling about carelessly, barely keeping myself conscious as the boys practically dragged me.  I saw the horrified looks everyone’s faces. Blood trickled down the left side of my face now covering it, courtesy of the gash the first vampire had given me with. The red liquid had also stained the entirety of my chin and was still freely flowing down my mouth and nose. But my stomach, my stomach looked dreadful. The wound was visible through the rip in my shirt; a large hole expelling waves of thick, dark blood.  Jace threw another glare at Alec,

"Changed your mind about her yet?" He didn't wait for an answer, shaking his head and instead focused on dragging me back to the Institute, promising to help me, if I could just stay awake for him. I coughed again, blood dribbling down my chin, staining my shirt, and I saw everybody wince, knowing they couldn't do anything to make it stop.  

"Stay with me Bre, come on," Simon's voice echoed from somewhere nearby.  

"We're nearly there, come on, you can do it, don't do this to me Bre, come on" Jace's voice resonated distantly. I could see the blurry outline of a building that looked vaguely like the Institute and I willed myself to hang on a bit longer. I physically couldn't lift my feet, so I was dragged like a rag doll, up the steps and towards the doors of the church, my feet catching on the stone. Blood was still gushing profusely from my nose and mouth and I was very quickly choking on my own fluids. Alec and Isabelle barged through the doors, Clary holding them open for us while Alec yelled at anybody who was there,

"We need help! Quickly!"

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

Sorry for not posting.

School sucks.

Hope you enjoy my lovelies.

-Angel

[starscreamloki]

Sticky Sweets

Challenge and prompt: This is a little fic for the halloween challenge of @loki-the-fox. You can read the original post here, and the prompt is: “I hate Halloween.” I brought Loki x Venom for this one.

Summary: Loki is out on the street, trick or treating with his boyfriend, when he is send to the creepy house by his lover to spook for candy. Scary mansions on Halloween... What could possibly go wrong?

Warnings: A little blood and gore, Dark!Loki

Words: 2720

A/N: I had written this fanfic a while ago and wanted to wait for the movie of Venom to come out to put it out there so I could fix some last minute inconsistencies. Turns out that I had written one big inconsistency but if I would take it out, I would lose a great portion of the fic and I did not want that. I’m not going to spoil what it is for those who haven’t seen the movie yet. Also, there aren’t any spoilers for the movie in this fic so it’s safe to read. Lastly I also think (and hope) that I’m the first one to write a Venki fic and therefore I’m going with the word Venki (Venom + Loki) as a matter of name combining. But correct me if I’m wrong on that one...

Read on AO3

----

“I hate halloween,” Loki pouted with a sour face.

“Oh, come on, you’re doing fine,” Nik quipped happily and gave the God a friendly nudge with his shoulder.

“Really? That was the fifth one this evening who said my ‘costume’ wasn’t accurate,” Loki answered bitter. “And this isn’t even a costume!” he said through gritted teeth.

“I know honey,” Nik answered him and put himself on his toes so he could peck a kiss on Loki’s cheek. “You and I know that and that is enough for me,” he snickered as Loki only gave him an exasperated look but a little smile tugged at the corner of the God’s lips at the kiss that still tingled pleasantly on his skin.

Loki hadn’t intended to fall in love with this man, a mortal on top of that, but alas, here he was and he wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

“Now you go trick and treat at that mansion over there and I’ll go over to that house.”

“Why do I have to go to that mansion and not you?” Loki asked with a sigh.

“Because I don’t do creepy looking houses that smell of doom,” Nik said cheerfully. “Now go get them and I see you in a bit,” and he slapped Loki playfully on his behind before he bounded off to the other side of the street.

Loki shook his head and sighed. This halloween celebration was still foreign to him but he couldn’t deny the little pangs of joy it brought the God every time someone gave him candy - the need for endorsement he had lacked most of his life filling a weird kind of emptiness in his heart.

Loki pushed open the gate in front of the house, the creaking sound piercing his ears and he gritted his teeth after which he started to walk the path to the mainson.

He had been promised that after they had went from door to door they would go to a party, and at this moment it sounded a lot better to Loki than wading through this unkempt jungle of a garden which he had to pass before reaching the front door.

Loki wanted to knock on the door but as soon as he lifted his hand in the air it slightly swung open to a small crack and Loki raised his eyebrow.

When the door didn’t open further Loki placed his hand on the wood and pushed it open so he could see inside.

Nobody was there and a mischievous grin spread across his face as he entered the mainson.

The interior was old and was in the same state as the garden; not maintained in the slightest through what must have been ages for the cobwebs and dust were everywhere he looked. The God wrinkled his nose in disgust and tentivaly walked through the hall trying to decide whether he should take the staircase that led up to the higher levels, or find the stairs that led to the basement.

Loki shrugged - it didn’t matter - and he started to explore the house.

With every step the floorboards creaked under his weight and the rooms on the upper levels of the residence were devoid of life except for the bugs that scurried away in a corner as soon as Loki drew near. Most of the place was riddled with dust, the furniture worn from the many uses through the ages, and bleached from the amount of sunlight they had seen.

The cabinets and drawers were mostly empty except for the ones in the living room where some crystal glasses were still put on display and some books adorned the shelves. Loki picked up a book, his interest for the letters on paper piqued as always, but the tome crumbled under his touch, the papers lazily drifting to the floor to an unseen breeze of air.

“I hate halloween,” he murmured to himself as if he could shove the blame from the book falling apart on the mortal festivity.

The Trickster moved on through the house and found the staircase to the basement. It was dark outside and even darker in this part of the residence and Loki used his Seidr to create a little ball of light which hovered in the air with him to illuminate his path.

When he pushed the door open Loki was greeted by weird plastic strips hanging from ceiling to floor obscuring his view to what lay beyond, and he pushed past them, taking in the scene that lay before him.

If the house upstairs had looked like it belonged in the middle-ages, then this part of the house looked like it came straight out of the future, not to mention that this was the last Loki expected to be in this maison.

Behind the plastic curtains was a lab of some sorts. Glass separated the lab from the entry to the basement, some weird panels right next to a glass door but most striking of all was that time hadn’t worn it down and the place looked a lot cleaner and better maintained than the rest of the house even though the dust had also settled in on this part of the house.

Loki licked his lips and walked into the lab, the glass door falling shut behind him with a bang and Loki winched. He actually had nearly jumped out of his boots at the unexpected sound but years of training had taught him to cover up that emotion but he could still feel the shot of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

He kept his breathing steady as he moved through the lab, taking in his surroundings and unaware of the dangerous Symbiote that watched his every move.

Venom had escaped his containment the moment the door had closed and he was now clung to a dark corner where the ceiling and walls met, out of reach of the weird light that hovered around the greasy haired man.

Glass cabinets were placed along the walls holding various of glass pots and test-tubes with liquids, their labels and the meaning a mystery to Loki.

In the middle of the room stood a single chair, the kind where they usually strapped someone into to keep one in control. The many brown blood stains gracing the white leather indicating that someone had been experimenting here on another being, the leather straps that were placed around the armrests torn from something that had forced his way off the chair with inhuman strength. Loki couldn’t suppress a shudder at the morbid sight and his to vivid imagination played several horrific scenarios.

The Trickster still remembered the horrors one had put him through, bringing memories of long past to the front of his mind and frightening him a little, but the ever underlying evil streak that harbored itself within the God writhed with pleasure in his being - as long as he wasn’t at the end of tortures he could somewhat appreciate it.

Next to the chair stood a trolley with some shining tools placed on them, the thin layer of dust betraying it hadn’t been used in quite some time.

Venom crawled along the ceiling to have a better look at the man on the floor. The symbiote hadn’t eaten in days after he had killed his previous host, and this human looked like a fine appetizer. Venom’s mouth watered at the thought and drool slipped from it’s maw, falling to the floor behind the chair with a soft sluggish sound that sounded way to loud in the eerie and silent laboratorium.

Loki quickly spun on his heel to see where the sound had come from but he didn’t see anything that indicated someone was there. Still he felt the goosebumps run along his spine, his gut telling him something was amiss and that sixth sense was never wrong. He peered around the lab again but there was nobody in the room yet he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

Loki used his Seidr to expand the magical green light that hovered with him, making it go higher and illuminating the room some more.

In the corner of the lab he spotted a device that looked like a computer. He wasn’t very familiar with the things but Nik had shown him around the device and Loki had learned quickly.

He punched a couple of keys on the keyboard and the machine flared to live. It was a little bit odd the computer worked for the fact that the mainson didn’t have any electricity as far as Loki had tried, but then again doors opened and fell shut at random so he didn’t question his fortune.

As the screen flared to life a recording of the room started to play, showing a man strapped into the same chair as was behind him and some weird black slug taking hold of the victim. Loki wasn’t sure if it killed the man on the video or did something else but going by the contorted face of the man it looked as if he was in great pains.

Loki grabbed the mouse and clicked on different icons on the computer, opening and closing videos and notes and taking in all the information.

By now Venom had slithered along the ceiling and had came to a rest there where the ceiling and wall adjourned right above the computer. The Symbiote had figured it had waited long enough, this human wasn’t interesting at all and Venom decided to pounce.

The moment Loki spotted the movement he stepped back and called forth his Seidr, creating multiple illusions of himself while he skitted away and took up residence on the other side of the room.

Venom felt a pang of delight as it noticed the many meals that were suddenly in front of it and shifted into a form that somewhat resembled a humanoid. Well, the creature looked more of an enormous black contorted Frost Giant with more teeth sharper than Loki’s daggers and splitting its black face in a macabre grin, not to mention the long and slimy tongue that snaked out between those teeth.

But what struck Loki the most were those white eyes without pupils that were far too large to resemble any form of humanoid and the muscles that rippled underneath its black skin showed that the creature probably had immense strength.

Loki wasn’t sure if he’d rather fight this monstrous being or a Bilgesnipe but as soon as Venom attacked the illusions with vigor, falling through each of them and feeding the creature’s frustration and hunger, Loki was sure he’d rather fought the latter.

“WHERE ARE YOU, TASTY HUMAN?” The Symbiote purred with a raspy voice as it slashed through another one of Loki’s illusions with black claws.

When Loki spoke he made all the illusions speak with him. “If I show you where I am you have to promise me not to eat me,” Loki chuckled, trying to cover up the terror he felt.

“TASTY HUMAN,” Venom purred and its tongue slowly flicked out of its mouth to lick one of the illusions, making it disappear on contact.

Loki shuddered at the sight; he wasn’t one to be freaked out quickly but this just looked unnatural to him. Yet the information he had gotten from the computer might prove useful and Loki decided to up his game.

He whisked his copies away and quickly casted an illusion throughout the entire lab, making it look as if they were out on the streets, the place teaming with life as dressed up people celebrated halloween.

Venom whipped its head around, its seemingly lifeless eyes taking in its surroundings and narrowing into something that Loki could only interpret as glee. With renewed enthusiasm the Symbiote lounged itself into the illusion, trying to eat an unfortunate bypasser only to slam into the wall of the lab that lay behind the trick.

“Now you see,” Loki said without showing himself, an invisibility spell cloaking him, “you can choose to eat me or you can help me to get us both out of here and you can have as many ‘tasty humans’ as you want,” Loki bargained.

If you can’t defeat them than win them over with whatever you can offer.

Venom made a raspy purring sound from deep within its chest that showed the creatures dismay at having hit a wall. It swayed its head left and right trying to determine where the spoken words had come from but it didn’t see Loki.

The Symbiote pondered the Trickster’s words for a couple of moments before shifting into a black goo, gliding over the floor and trying to seek out the God. But Loki was quick to his feet and avoided the creature by silently darting through the room, dodging the Symbiote’s search.

Venom eventually stopped his in vain search and turned to his humanoid form once more. “SNACK. YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER,” it hissed.

“Honey,” a voice suddenly echoed through the mansion. “Are you still in here?”

Loki’s eyes widened as he recognized the voice of his mortal lover and Venom whipped its head at him. A wicked grin spread across its maw and under his skin he formed spikes which he then flung across the room.

Loki had to drop all of his illusions to counter the misles the creature threw at him but he couldn’t avoid all of them and some lodged itself painfully in his skin.

In the brief moment Loki was distraught Venom pounced, shifting into his gooey form and wrapping itself around the God.

When the Symbiote tasted the first blood and flesh of Loki it was pleasantly surprised to find this creature wasn’t a mere Human but something far more powerful, and it decided to alter its plan, instead of eating it making him its new host.

As Loki was wrapped in the alien parasite he felt the creature latch on to his skin and being, and the more the Trickster got covered. With a silent scream on the his lips Loki fell to the floor as he felt the parasite fuse with his being, shifting rapidly between his Aesir form and Venoms humanoid form.

When Venom was completely fused with the God it gave Loki his body back and the God breathed hard as he tried to recover from the intrusion. Slowly he pushed himself into a sitting position, placing a hand on his pounding head and he sighed.

“I’m not sure if I’d rather had you’d eaten me,” Loki murmured while hauling himself to his feet.

He could feel Venom stirr within him and his emerald green eyes shifted to black marbled with white veins as the Symbiote spoke to him in his mind. “NOW, LET US PAY THAT BOYFRIEND OF YOURS A VISIT.”

Loki moved to the door of the lab and coaxed by the Symbiote he used his Frost Giant abilities to freeze the glass and shatter it. Tentative he moved up the stairs and through the house until he was in front of Nik - Loki’s eyes carrying a black haze.

“Loki? Are you okay?” he asked and carefully stepped toward his lover.

Loki felt the pangs of hunger and without warning the alien parasite took over Loki’s body, shifting it into its black-skinned humanoid form.

Niks eyes widened at the sight and he screamed. “Loki! This is not funny!” he screeched. “I know you can shapeshift into anything but this is just macabre!”

Venom let out a low rumbling purr from its chest that sounded like a mocking laugh. “SNACK,” it hissed before it opened its maw and attacked him.

Loki could only watch on in horror through the white eyes of Venom as he tore the other man asunder limb by limb, blood spraying the walls and floor, and eating him. The screams of terror the man had howled went through marrow and bone and would forever be etched in Loki’s mind.

Venom felt the Trickster’s turmoil and searched within the God, pulling on his darkest desires until Loki didn’t feel melachonical anymore - until he didn’t feel anything anymore except glee at the gore that lay at his feet.

“MORE” Venom purred and gave Loki his body back.

“I hate Halloween,” Loki said reluctantly with eyes blacker than night.

The End

----

I thrive on coffee

General taglist:  @lusty-loki, @destiel1597,  @laralaufey, @welcome-to-fangirl-hell, @fairlightswiftly, @lokikingofasgardslover713, @daddymarvel, @vesperazylra, @annievvv7, @myclock, @hiddlestoner3095, @vethrvolnir, @occasionallywittyavengers, @wintertink, @jane-labban, @whovianwookie86-captainxev, @blondekel77, @bambamwolf87, @loki-is-the-best-villian, @wegingerangelica, @kcd15

[avengeultrons]

Title: Clue (Reader x Peter Parker)

Summary: The reader drags Peter to a halloween get togeter that Flash invited her to, oblivious to the fact that there’s a dead body in the bathroom. The only way out is to find out who did it.

Word Count: 1618

A/N: YAY FINALLY AN IMAGINE. Hope you guys enjoy, sorry it’s taken so long :)

--

“I can't believe you forced me to come here,” Peter groaned as you dragged him along to Flash’s weird get together. He had invited you to a sort of soiree, an odd party at an abandoned house that he found.

Even though he was complaining the whole time, Peter was glad to accompany you. In fact, you only had to ask once before he jumped up and joined you. Anything for you, his favorite person in the world. Alone, in an abandoned haunted mansion with Flash? He couldn't take any chances. Especially not when your grin radiated off of your face like a ray of sunshine and you always gave a wide-eyed smiling look that had to make everyone weak in the knees like himself surely.

You scoffed at him, looping your arm with his as you double checked the address Flash had sent you before knocking loudly on the creaky old door of the house, “I didn't force you to do anything! Oh, hi Flash,” you smiled, your face falling once you saw how upset he was, “What's wrong?”

“Please, come in,” you shoved Peter over the threshold as Flash stepped out of the way, “I didn't know you were bringing him,” he said ‘him’ like it was taboo, yet he was talking about Peter. Your face grew hot and you turned to him, your eyebrows furrowed.

One glance around the room made it look like Peter was the only one out of your group of friends not invited, “I didn't know that he wasn't welcome,” you raised an eyebrow. Flash stared at you with his eyes narrowed as you stalked off to find Peter, your stomach churning and twisting into knots.

“Peter! There you are!” you found him in the corner talking with Ned in hushed whispers. Ned’s face broke into a wide smile as he nudged Peter to turn around, a wide smile forming on his face, “What are you up to?” He tried to search for a reply in his mind, your eyes bright as you looked at him. Peter’s face grew hotter by the second as he looked at you.

Michelle stepped over to where the three of you were standing, her arms crossed as she sipped from a bottle of water, “Lame party, huh? And I could be at home watching CSI by now,” she said with a dramatic sigh, eyeing all of you up and down.

“I mean, I guess,” you said with a laugh. Flash and your fellow classmate Liz were standing near the cooler that Flash must've brought, glancing over at the three of you as they spoke. It was practically dead in the house, no music or television,“Actually, yes. This party is kind of lame. I'm gonna run to the bathroom,” you announced, remembering that you saw the bathroom once you came in.  It was quite a small house even if it looked large from the outside; everything was cramped and stacked on top of one another.

You were hardly paying attention as you journeyed back through the long, dark hallway to the bathroom. You were even humming a song up until the moment that you threw open the bathroom door and let out a blood curdling scream. There was a body of a young woman, dark blood staining her silk bath robe.

The sound of running feet filled your ears but you were frozen in place, staring at the poor woman in her curlers, her body slumped in the claw foot tub, “Y/N! What the hell?” Peter yanked you back as Flash pushed through the group to see what you were screaming at. Your eyes pooled with tears yet you couldn't look away, it was like a car crash. A terrifying, horror-movie esque car crash, “Oh God. Okay, Come on,” Peter was basically holding you upright as he helped you back to the main sitting room, lowering you onto one of the vintage velvet couches.

Usually, your Halloween nights weren't scary at all. You'd pass out candy to little kids dressed as ghosts and princesses and doctors until it was time for bed; it wasn't every day that your Halloween included an actual dead body.

“Well, she's dead,” Flash concluded, which caused all of you to groan collectively. Gee, what a conclusion, “There's a note written in pink lipstick on the mirror, too. Here,” he pulled out his phone and held it up, a photo of the scratched and smudged mirror lighting up the screen.

Somebody has killed me

Yet,I have something to say

Find out who murdered she

Or you won't see the day.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion and fear as you stared at it, “Well, where's the pink lipstick? Was it not in the bathroom?” you glanced around the room nervously, “Does that stupid clue mean that the killer is still in here?”

“Surely not, Y/N. We’ll get out of here,” Peter smiled kindly at you, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. He didn't know anything, only that you all had to get out of there. His only hope was that the rest of you didn't feel as dumbfounded and as scared as he felt.

Flash took in a sharp breath and glared at you with intense eyes, “There's only one person who has pink lipstick and it's you, Y/N,” he said, sending a shiver trailing down your spine, “If you could just swipe it across your arm so we could see that it wasn't the same color?”

“What are you saying, Flash?” you could feel your stomach drop to your feet as you stared at him, eyes pooling with tears.

Peter laughed loudly, shaking his head at Flash. He sat on his hands to keep himself from wanting to hit him in the face,“Are you kidding me? Did you just suggest that Y/N had any part in it? She found a woman dead in the bathroom! Come on, is anyone else hearing how outrageous is? You're the one that brought us all here! For all we know, it could have been you.”

“Okay, let's not jump to conclusions here. There's no way any of us could have done it, We’ve been together the whole time,” Liz took this chance to take the reins and try to calm everyone down, even though should could feel her heartbeat in her teeth, “Let’s just stop pointing fingers and try to figure this out.”

Peter and Flash had an intense stare off, one that you thought was going to end in an actual fist fight. You’d only seen Peter as sad and angry as he looked in that moment one other time; the time that Flash asked you for the first slow dance before he could even open his mouth.

You put your hand on Peter’s shoulder and jumped up from the couch, all pairs of eyes now flitting to you, “I’m going to go and look for clues. I don’t know about you, but I’d love to get out of here before any one of us  dies,” you announced, dusting your hands off by clapping them together.

“I’ll come with you,” both Flash and Peter jumped up while Michelle groaned loudly, not hiding her annoyance and disgust by any means. She pushed past the two of them and led the way back to the bathroom, beckoning for you to join her.

Ned stifled his laughter as he poured himself a glass of water, “Well, you two just got served,” he said with a wicked smile. Peter’s eyebrows furrowed at him with Flash glared, “What? We’re searching for clues to find a freaking murderer, can’t I at least try to lighten the mood? The Clue board game is fun and all, but in moderation.”

“God, those two are so annoying,” Michelle said, her nose turned up as the two of you tore apart the small bathroom. You each wrapped small towels around your hands to keep your fingerprints from compromising the crime scene; it was all Michelle’s idea, “I really shouldn’t have even come tonight, it’s not like I have any friends here.”

You rolled your eyes, smiling over at her. Was she really that oblivious to the fact that you had every class with her and spent almost all of your free time either texting her or doing homework with her? “I’m your friend, you know,” you said with a light laugh.

“Right. Well, you don’t count then, you considered her answer satisfactory and moved over to the large radiator taking up a large portion of the bathroom. The blood had travelled so far that there were droplets trailing up the heater, all the way up to the windowsill.

You followed the trail with your eyes, your mouth hanging open, “Michelle, how do you think she died?” you asked, staring at the glass windowpane on the upper half of the window. You climbed up on top of the radiator and steadied yourself before moving your hand along the wood. She stepped over to the tub with her teeth clenched and took a look, eyes squeezed half shut.

“Looks like she was stabbed, why?” Michelle looked over at you and audibly gasped once she saw what you were holding.

The glass was broken above you, just enough to cause shards to rain down. Glass shards large enough to cut, and one was covered completely in dried blood. You snatched it up in your towel covered hand and stepped past her to pad back over to the sitting room, where no one was sitting anymore. The four of them turned to face you, Michelle right behind you as you raised the shard up, “I think I’ve found the murder weapon.”

[kang-euigeoni]

Scream

Summary: Kim Jaehwan goes into a haunted house with his friends and gets friendly with a ghost. Genre: romance, fluff

“Come on, guys, it’s really not that scary!” Jaehwan nags the other boys.They had been at the amusement park all day and Jaehwan immediately wanted to go into the haunted house as soon as he saw it. He’s always enjoyed amusement parks in general, because he gets to let go and yell/scream/shriek all he wants and not be labelled a psycho. The haunted house was also his favorite because he wasn’t the only one screaming among the eleven of them; he also thoroughly enjoyed seeing the others get scared. However, almost all of the boys denies his request to go in; half the members are deathly afraid of ghosts and the others would rather go ride the ferris wheel. The only person who willingly agrees is Jinyoung, who manages to convince Daehwi to come along as well as long as they hold hands the entire time.

“The other guys are missing out,” Jaehwan says as the other members scatter and the trio heads inside to pay. Daehwi insists on being in the middle, cowering behind Jinyoung’s back even before they’ve entered the dimly-lit hallway covered in ripped cloth and fake cobwebs. “I can’t even see my feet! OH MY GOD SOMETHING JUST TOUCHED  MY SHOULDER--” “Daehwi, it’s just me!” Jaehwan chuckled. 

Various “monsters” popped out from their hiding places--a mummy wrapped in dirty white cotton burst out of a fake coffin, making Daehwi and Jaehwan produce a scream so high-pitched Jinyoung has to cover his ears; a man in torn overalls and with a cloth sack over his face waved a chainsaw through metal bars, almost separating the three who had been holding on to each other’s shoulders; a bloodied hand reaches over a rope bridge with wooden planks, just barely missing poor Daehwi’s leg, causing him to jump and making the bridge shake. 

The whole time, Jinyoung is singing strangely inappropriate children’s rhymes and commercial jingles to distract himself, but whenever he gets scared his voice gets louder and he gets off-key. Daehwi also violently pushes or pulls him any which way whenever he gets shocked. The whole scene is extremely hilarious to Jaehwan, whose high-pitched, high-volume shrieking couldn’t be distinguished between a cry of fear or a hysterical laugh. 

At some point, Jaehwan tells the guys to stop; his shoes have become untied and he needs to tie them, otherwise he’d trip over the dark pathways. The background music that fills the halls is filled with screaming, and without Jaehwan realizing, Daehwi has bolted around the corridor in a screaming fit, Jinyoung following worriedly after him. Jaehwan stands up after tying his shoes to find he’s been abandoned. “Dammit, these guys, how could they leave their hyung?” He’s about to take a step when he senses something--or someone--behind him, and he freezes.

“H-hello? Ghostie? Don’t hurt me please,” he holds his hands up as if he’s going to be arrested. He turns around very slowly, only to find he’s facing a small, white-skinned girl with fake blood dripping out of the sides of her mouth, down her neck, and staining her flowing white dress. Her long, scraggly dark hair runs down the sides of her face. Suddenly, she bares her teeth while reaching towards, Jaehwan, making him back up against the wall instinctively and scream so loud even the ghost was taken aback.

The ghost makes no move towards him, as the actors and actresses of the haunted house aren’t allowed to actually touch the guests. After the initial shock, Jaehwan is able to open his eyes and have a good look at the tooth-baring lady in white. To her surprise, he bows politely in greeting. The actress, in shock because she’s never been in such a situation, bows back. Jaehwan then asks, “uh, now that you’ve scared me, which way is out? I’ve lost my friends, you see.” The actress gestures towards the narrow hallway on his right, Jaehwan thanks her and bows again. “Oh, by the way, you’re a very pretty ghost!” he exclaims before waving goodbye and walking down the hall. The actress is confused and flustered because no in their right mind would ever call a girl in ghost makeup, complete with fake blood down their chin, pretty.

What shocks the girl more is that after her shift is over and she’s removed her stage makeup and changed into regular clothes, she finds the same boy standing outside the employee entrance of the haunted house, leaning casually against the black iron gate. As soon as he sees her, he recognizes her and waves. The actress stops and stares at him, and he just says, “I couldn’t find my friends. Since I’m alone now, maybe you can keep me company?”

lmao i’m ending it there i’m done