#but it does not feel like drugs should be able to enter the world of dreams and dictate the tone of whatever your brain is doing ok

[princessnijireiki]

tizanidine as a drug is bonkers because the fact that "horrifying nightmares/night terrors" is just, like, a thing that can even be accepted as a common & normal medication side effect in the world is very wild

but it feels all the more nuts because it's a muscle relaxant, like, oh, you're in pain, or having spasms, or muscles/connective tissue are too tight & knotted up, maybe even FROM stress? we can fix that + make you very sleepy haha. but WATCH OUT

[chleem]

Flashing lights #1

Series; actor Drew x actress reader

Summary: Drew gets involved in the worst scandal of his career. One way to solve it? Proving to the whole world that he’s the sweetest lover to exist. Who better to help than the one person he can’t stand? You, an A class actress with an alcohol addiction. So, will Drew clear up his reputation, or leave with a bigger mess to clean up?

Genre: fake dating, enemies to lovers(?, slow burn, angst, smut,

Warning: mentions of alcohol, swearing, mentions of k!lling oneself, mentions of rape & sa, mentions of drug usage, smoking & vaping,

⋆.˚ please dont copy my work, if inspired please tag me

⋆.˚ this is entirely fictional, if uncomfortable then don't read

♡⸝⸝ chapter 2 out now! index

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Late February 2024

Is that five, or six bottles in front of you? 

Your vision is burry, head feeling twisted, and your limbs feel as if they weight a hundred kilograms each. “Shit,” you curse, your hands reaching over to your bag. 

In attempt to reach it without standing up, you fall, and you laugh. Alcohol was able to make that fall feel painless. Getting up however, felt like the hardest task ever, but you manage, and you rummage through your bag for your pack of cigarettes. 

You find it; but no cigarettes to be found in it. 

“Fuck!” You yell, throwing your empty pack across the trailer. Good thing your makeup staffs gone, and no one to see your about-to-erupt tantrum. Reaching for your phone, you call your manager, Laura, only for it to go straight to voicemail. Wow. What are managers even for? 

Gotta do everything by yourself. You throw your phone onto the couch, and walk out of your trailer. You didn’t care whether anyone saw you; you just cared about getting a smoke. 

The afternoon sun is blinding to you, the effects of alcohol making it even more unbearable. Is there a convenience store around? Fuck, maybe you should just ask the staff for a smoke. 

You keep walking along the other trailers, feeling some eyes on you. Well, usually at a filming set everyone is busy with their own business, but you’re Y/n. You grab attention by simply breathing. Others might love it, but growing up in showbiz, you just wish to get away from it. Even if just for a second, you would love to be an invisible person. 

You keep walking, hoping to spot anyone with a cigarette in their hands. But your legs beg to stop, and you feel extra dizzy when you bump into a hard…wall? Well, it was hard, but soft at the same time. 

Warm hands wrap around your waist just as you’re ready to fall onto the ground. Even your drunken state knows that you should be clinging onto something if you’re about to fall, and in this case, you were holding onto the person’s biceps. 

You look up, feeling as if this person was 200 centimeters. Shit. He’s tall. 

His hat is low, but you could see blue circles staring down at you, and although his face was attractive, his expression was mean. As if wanting to murder you. Well, he probably does, since a stranger fell into him. 

“You-“

His cologne hits you, and the urge to throw up hits. 

Vomit splatters on his entire shirt, and just like that, you pass out, still in his arms. 

——

Woah. Even getting up slowly triggers the muscles in your brain. 

You blink a few times, adjusting to the lights in your trailer. What time was it? Did you already finish filming? A million questions enter your head as you look around you, and you notice the five large empty liquor bottles on the table. 

Right. No memory whatsoever. 

A wet towel is on your forehead. Weird, you think, as you throw it to the side. 

But then you hear the trailer’s bathroom door open, and you immediately feel uneasy. Who the fuck could be in here other than you? 

The stranger walks out, and he’s half naked. 

And attractive. 

But he’s half naked! 

You quickly check yourself, and yes, you’re still in your clothes. 

“Who… who the fuck are you?” You say, feeling really unsafe right now. You had no gun, no weapon of any kind, and you were terrified. This stranger was extremely fit and tall, and he was standing just a few feet away from you. 

He’s staring at you with his blue eyes, and honestly, you can’t tell what he’s thinking. Is he gonna kill you? Rape you? 

“You have no idea who I am?”

“Yes, you fucking creep. Get out of my trailer before I yell,” you threaten. 

His eyebrows furrow as if you were in the wrong, and he crosses his arms, leaning against your vanity across from you. Woah. His arms. It looks very delicious-

What. “Seriously. Get the fuck out,” you point over to your trailer door. 

He throws his head back, an annoyed groan escaping him. 

What’s his problem? You think, eyebrows furrowed. Okay. That uneasiness, has transformed into anger. “Fuck- get the fuck out, your weirdo. I’m…you know what, I’m calling the fucking cops.”

You look around for your phone, but see it charging on the vanity beside him. 

“Drew Starkey,” he finally says, and you look at him, confusingly. Never in your life have you ever heard that name. Were you even suppose to remember or know this person? He groans again, not even hiding his annoyance at you. “Wow. You’re such a bitch, you know that?”

The audacity- “you’re in my fucking trailer right now. You’re in the faults here. You can’t come in half naked, and act annoyed at me. You fucking cunt-“

The door to your trailer opens, and you squint at the light coming in. 

It was your manager Laura, and she’s holding a bottle of water, a pack of cigarettes, and a folded t-shirt. 

“Laura! A fucking pervert in my trailer-“

“Here you go, Drew. Again, so sorry,” Laura ignores you, handing the man, who apparently, is called Drew, the clean t-shirt. The name he just told you, it was his name? Why did he act so offended earlier, when he said it? Is he like some kind of, celebrity? Impossible; you've met almost all the top actors in showbiz, you would've known him.

“What the fuck,” you voice out, chuckling to get the anger and confusion out of you. You watch as the stranger puts the shirt on, enjoying the way his muscles flex and relaxes is… kind of arousing. But you pull away, feeling embarrassed and egoistic to admit you’re attracted to this rude stranger. 

Laura comes near you, placing the cigarettes and water on the table and sniffs you. “Yeah, you’re still a bit tipsy,” she comments, before grabbing perfume and mints from your bag and sitting down. “Can you still film?”

“What time is it?” You ask, while grabbing the pack and lighting a cigarette up. You breathe it in, and smoke out, immediately feeling more relaxed and in your element. 

“4:20.”

“What time was I suppose to be there?” You giggle, breathing in your cigarette. Oh, it felt so good to smoke. All the energy booster you needed. 

“2:30,” Laura says, sighing. 

“Oh shit,” you laugh, putting the cigarette between your lips. You forcefully spray the perfume on you, knowing the cigarette is probably going to cover the smell anyways. You take another blow of the cigarette, before putting it into Laura’s mouth. She groans angrily at you, and you just chuckle, looking over to the stranger now. He’s not shirtless anymore, and has a hat on. He’s staring at you, with a mean expression now. “What are you still doing here?” You rudely state. 

“Y/n, he’s gonna be here for a long time,” Laura replies instead, and you turn around to her. You look at her with furrowed eyebrows, confused by what she meant. Laura also stares at you with an amused expression. “What, you guys didn't talk?”

You frustratedly throw your arms around and stomp your foot. “What am I supposed to talk about to a half naked guy in my trailer? Laura, use your fucking brain.” 

You turn around and the stranger is now sitting on the couch. You ignore him, turning back to Laura. “Is he my new manager or something? Laura, who the fuck is this?”

“Drew Starkey. You honestly don’t remember him?”

“Am I suppose to?” You reply, reaching for the pack of cigarettes, hoping to bring it with you to set. But ‘Drew’ stops you, his hand, which is surprisingly very warm, wraps around your wrist to stop you. You glare at him, telling him with your eyes to get his hands off you. But he doesn’t. So you verbally express it to him. “Get your fucking hand off me or I’ll chop it off for you.”

“You can’t even walk in a straight line, Y/n.”

Annoyed, you yell, “Get your fucking hand off me."

He does, but he quickly grabs the pack out of your reach, stuffing it into his pocket. Wow. What a jackass. And who is he to care? To take away your stuff? You pray that he gets explosive diarrhea the whole day tomorrow. This asshole deserves it. 

“Whatever,” you say, walking over to the door of your trailer. And he’s right, because you trip over yourself on the way there. You laugh under your breath out of frustration and embarrassment, and turn back around, pointing at ‘Drew’ and looking at Laura. “Get this jackass out my trailer. I don’t care what he is, he better be out of my sight.”

You don’t even bother hearing what her response is, and you leave towards your set. Now, you’re in a worse mood than before. All thanks to the stranger named Drew.

——

Everyone knew you were a good actor. You’re one of the best. And to make it even more astonishing, you’re only 25 years old. Meaning, your acting could get better. But it’s already the best of the best. Maybe its your pure gift, or maybe because you’ve been doing this since you were 13. Either way, you were a fucking good actor. 

The director specifically appointed you to star in his film, which is about the world coming to an end. Director Ravens was quite famous in showbiz, so who were you to decline? Besides, your co-star was Hugh Jackman, a brilliant actor, who you've also grown to admire while filming. 

Your character was a girl in her twenties, who had fallen in love with a stranger despite knowing that the world was getting destroyed within a week. A tragic love story, yet it was beautiful. 

This scene, is your solo one. Your character finds out her brother is dead, and cries with feelings of sadness, regret, and happiness. It’s a scene that would be hard to portray, but you do it well. 

Although you were almost three hours late to set, you make up for it with your acting. One take and the director informs you that it's perfect. And no one disagrees, and the complaints about your tardiness disappears, once they rewatch the scene. You must still be tipsy, because you swear you saw some of the staff shed a tear. 

You don’t offer to watch or reshot the scene, since you wanted to be out of here as soon as possible. But director Ravens insists on another one, hoping to get it from another angle. And you do as he pleases, since, well, he’s the director. 

Wow. One of the most important scenes in the movie only took you twenty minutes to film. 

Director Ravens gives you a break before the next scene, and you walk off before he wants to give you compliments. You didn’t need to hear what you already knew. 

But as you walk over to your seat, someone already occupies it. Drew. 

“You’re still here?” You scoff, crossing your arms. 

You want to rip his blue eyes out to get him to stop staring at you. Why does he like to stare at you so much? 

He pulls a random chair close to him, perhaps wanting you to sit. “Wow. So you can remember faces.”

“Yeah, if they’re as ugly as you,” you lie, because, his face is so damn attractive, that you can’t forget it even if you wanted to. You sit down on the chair, looking ahead of you. “I thought I said I want you out of my sight?”

“You can’t decide that,” he replies. “Who are you to order me around?”

“And who are you to sit in my chair? If anything, you should be kissing my ass right now.”

“Why should I?”

“You’re seriously asking me that?” You scoff. “Look around; that’s what everyone else is doing.”

On cue, a staff member hands you a bottle of water, and you take it without saying thanks. 

“And they’re fucking idiots,” Drew says, and you turn to look at him. He’s still staring at you! Crazy. 

“Shut up. As if you didn’t enjoy the show,” you say, referring to your acting just then.

“I did.”

You scrunch your nose in disgust, “good thing you’re not an actor. You’re horrible at lying.”

“I am.”

‘’What? A liar?”

“No; I’m an actor.”

The fuck? Suddenly, a different staff member interrupts the conversation, a girl holding her phone out to the both of you.

“Can I take a selfie with you?” She shyly asks. 

Of course it’s directed to you, so you simply reject her. “Sorry, but-“

“Yeah, sure.”

Your jaw is probably on the floor right now. The girl wasn’t asking you; she was asking Drew. He stands up and takes a selfie with her, and then hugs her goodbye. 

So… he’s famous? No way, because you’ve never heard of him you entire life. Probably a newbie that got famous by luck. 

You look away from him once he sits down, embarrassed to even face him. You just thought he was some staff member that the company had assigned to serve you. But he’s actually an actor? 

“You were saying?” His deep voice interrupts your thoughts, and you feel your ears go red. Holy shit. You need a smoke real bad right now. Fuck that, you need some liquor in you right this instant. 

Director Ravens saves you, yelling that its time for the next scene. So, you hurry and throw the water bottle at Drew, who catches it as though he’s not surprised at all. 

And he smirks, lifting his hat a bit as if to get a better look up at you. “What’s this for?”

Flustered, you walk off without another look back, partly embarrassed and angry. And you busy yourself with getting into the emotions of the character, and soon, Drew is forgotten as if he never existed. 

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

word count: 2.3k

ִ ࣪𖤐 a/n: so...what's your impression of y/n so far?

hope you enjoyed chapter one, i had a blast writing this...although, chapter four was the funniest one yet. btw, i am not joking when i wrote slow burn in the warnings, so pls be patient! and i setted this story to start in february, to match the time of real life events. other than that, rest are fictional!

[galaxymagitech]

Call This My Funeral

For Dick Grayson Week, Day 1: Dick's Undervalued Competency

@dickgraysonweek

Summary: Sometimes, Dick remembers how it felt to kill the Joker and wishes that monster had stayed dead. After Blockbuster, he knows that his hands are already bloody. He should be brought to justice, and, well, he might as well go out with a bang.

Or: Dick breaks into Arkham to kill the Joker. He won't let anyone stop him—not some measly defense systems, not his baby brother, and not this mercenary who seems to be trying to break the Joker out.

Characters: Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, The Joker

Warnings: Borderline suicidal thoughts, murder, non-consensual drug use, very vague allusions to canon rape

Nightwing is dead.

It’s the truth of it, even if the world has yet to catch up. Nightwing is dead. He died the second that bullet entered Blockbuster’s skull and then he was buried on a rooftop in the rain.

It takes a while to come to terms with it. He thinks about trying to stop Deathstroke, but every time he stares at his Nightwing suit, he just…can’t. He killed a man. He killed a man. And maybe, if he stopped immediately afterwards, maybe he could have put the suit back on. But he had stayed Nightwing. He had fought villains with Tarantula and returned to Gotham and pretended, and then he’d gone undercover with the mob. And somewhere along the line, the illusion broke, snapped, shattered into a million pieces that dug deep into his skin. When it came time to put on his suit, he couldn’t manage it. He stared at it. Ran his hand over the Kevlar. Held it up to the light, but all he could see was blood.

So he pulls out of the operation. It’s a slow process, and he ends up having to plant evidence and set Black Mask up, but he does it. It won’t hold for long, will only put Mask out of the running briefly. But it’s enough that Dick is able to leave without anyone the wiser.

Dick rents an apartment. His lease is for one month. He thinks about signing another lease at the end of the month and he feels sick. Nightwing is dead, and Dick Grayson is empty.

He should be in jail. If he was in jail, if he served his time…at least that would be justice. Even if Dick can’t take it back, at least that would be right. The proper consequences. But Amy wouldn’t allow him his atonement.

Dick runs that series of thoughts in his mind over and over again, as he lies in  and stares up at the moldy ceiling, listening to the sound of the rain outside. He wishes he could set things right. He should be in jail. He tried to put himself in jail, and it didn’t work.

He could frame himself. It’s not like it would be difficult. Dick is a murderer already; all he has to do is make sure others see his true face. Find a body someone dumped somewhere, make sure his fingerprints are on a conveniently-placed weapon with a record of his purchase, and then call 911 with a voice modulator describing himself as the attacker fleeing from the scene of the crime. There are more sophisticated methods, of course. Any would do.

But Bruce…Bruce wouldn’t accept it. Bruce would know that Dick wouldn’t just go out and kill someone randomly, even after Blockbuster. Bruce would at least know that Dick wouldn’t be that sloppy, if he did decide to commit murder. He’d find a way to prove Dick’s innocence.

So then how can Dick do it? How can he make the world see him for what he really is? How can he show them once and for all that Dick Grayson is dirty, despicable, poisonous?

Really, it’s a wonder he didn’t notice earlier how everyone in his life seems to suffer. He corrupts everyone around him. Hell, if he hadn’t left, Jason never would have died in his colors and Bruce never would have had to grieve his son. It’s a wonder he hasn’t managed to destroy Tim yet.

And Dick had known what he was capable of. He can still feel the sting on his knuckles as he beat the Joker again and again until the laugh was frozen on his face and his heart. Stopped.

Sometimes, Dick wishes that the Joker had stayed dead.

Of course, there’s something he could do about it.

Dick shudders, but he can’t push the thought out of his head. He’s a murderer. His soul is already dirty, his hands are already drenched in blood. Bats don’t kill, but he’s not a Bat, not anymore.

If there’s one last thing Dick does as a nominally free man, it can be this. He can put an end to all the suffering and pain the Joker has caused and bring himself to justice. Dick won’t pretend that it’s right. But he’s already wrong, and he can’t betray what he’s already broken.

Dick watches as his roof cries thick drops of acid rain and decides that the Joker will die.

---

The thing is, Dick knows he could get away with it. He’s been hunting criminals for almost two decades; he knows how to commit the perfect crime. He could hide the evidence, make sure the Joker’s body was never found, frame someone else, anything he wants. Bruce might be suspicious, but Dick thinks he wouldn’t be. And he certainly wouldn’t be able to prove it.

If Dick didn’t want to hide from Bruce, he could set up a situation where killing the Joker would be considered self-defense. Right place, right time, a registered firearm, and no jury in Gotham would convict him. He probably wouldn’t even be charged. He could go back to the Blüdhaven Police Department, draw the Joker there, and kill him in uniform. Amy would give him back his badge, if he tells her that he quit Nightwing—she already tried that with Blockbuster and he hadn’t even quit then. It would be easy enough to draw the Joker to Blüdhaven. Easy enough to find him on a raid. Internal affairs wouldn’t bat an eye.

Hell, if Dick promised to draw the Joker out of Gotham, Deathstroke would take care of him easily. He’d probably be thrilled that Dick is going down this path.

It would be so easy to get away with it.

But he won’t.

Dick Grayson will kill the Joker in cold blood. He will confess and take the first plea deal offered. And then he will go to Blackgate. He’s not stupid enough to think that he’ll survive there, as a former police officer and the former ward of Bruce Wayne. Justice will be served. Dick won’t poison anyone else, and the Joker won’t destroy his family again. A parting gift, if you will.

It takes Dick only a few days to plan the operation. Arkham has improved, but it still remains disturbingly reminiscent of a cardboard box, given how frequently its inmates escape.

Dick feels his stomach turn as he pulls out his suit. He feels like he swallowed something slimy, and it squirms around in his stomach. He doesn’t ever want to see this suit again. Just a little longer, he tells himself. He brings the suit to an abandoned warehouse, treats it with some chemicals, and burns it.

It should feel horrible. Dick created Nightwing. Nightwing is his. It should feel like burning a piece of himself.

Instead, it’s liberating. As Dick watches the flames eat away at Nightwing, all that’s there is relief. Dick hates it, with the blue bird spread across its chest like some sort of symbol. Like he’s worthy. He’s so glad it’s gone. Dick has never been anything close to worthy.

He returns to his apartment. The stairs creak on the way up. He eats his last can of soup cold. Dick drifts off to sleep and awakens with phantom gunfire ringing in his ears.

---

Everything is in order. Nightwing is gone, with no evidence left to trace Dick to the vigilante, and thus nothing to connect Bruce to Batman. Dick hasn’t had contact with Bruce for long enough that he doesn’t think Bruce will have to deal with anything more than a brief police interview. This will be on Dick, and Dick alone.

Dick needs to make sure that the way he breaks in doesn’t imply that he’s Bat-trained. He can get away with a reasonable display of skill, as a former BPD officer and a former world-class acrobat, but nothing that indicates access to other resources. 

Dick’s plan is divided into three segments: enter Arkham, reach the Joker, and kill the Joker.

Part One is relatively easy. Gotham city’s government is corrupt enough that it leaks like a colander, and it’s easy enough to find a full map of the sewers. If you know the right places to look, it doesn’t take any more than an SQL injection for login information, a homemade browser plugin, and a couple URL guesses. It’s an unnecessarily complicated method, too clunky for a Bat to ever consider, but Dick isn’t a Bat anymore.

He leaves the public library, resisting the urge to wave at the cameras, and takes the subway to the edge of central Gotham. Dick enters the sewers as close as he can get to Arkham Island. It smells absolutely foul, even with the cheap Wayne Enterprises rebreather he has over the bottom half of his face, but he’s smelled far worse than Gotham City’s waste.

Dick moves as quickly as possible, disabling all of the sensors that were marked in the sewer plans and checking for extras every few feet. It takes an hour, but he eventually reaches his destination. Dick takes the time to slowly disable the alarms on the manhole cover and climbs out under the grey sky.

From here, it gets more difficult. If Dick had his grappling gun, he could scale the building easily. Unfortunately, all he has is a regular gun. That’s why he disabled the alarms; he’s going to need time.

Arkham Asylum is old building, and the wear and tear on its stones is just enough to let Dick inch up its walls in one of the cameras’ few blind spots. It’s slow-going. If he falls, Dick knows that there will be nothing below to catch him, and he can’t die before he finishes this. Hand over hand, he balances on the tiniest of footholds. The wind whips at his hair and the cold bites at his ungloved fingers. He thinks it would have been easier to bribe a guard, but there was no guarantee they wouldn’t have just turned him in for a reward. He isn’t a Rogue. He isn’t frightening. No one knows how poisonous Dick Grayson truly is.

He doesn’t enter through the first window he reaches. Dick knows that he’s no match for bulletproof glass and steel bars. So he keeps climbing. Up, up, up. The grey sky grows darker and darker as night draws near. His fingers are turning numb. He climbs.

When Dick reaches the rooftop, he knows that he’ll register on the cameras. It’s unavoidable. But from here, he doesn’t need much in the way of time. He throws himself onto the roof and clocks the single guard in the face before she even has a chance to react. She falls unconscious and Dick catches her before she hits the rooftop. No need to cause further damage.

He takes her walkie-talkie, and reports that a figure in an orange jumpsuit was seen fleeing towards the bridge. There’s enough turnover at Arkham Asylum that no one questions the difference in voice. No one knows who’s supposed to be where, and that works well enough for Dick.

It’s easy to find the guard’s keycard and the small note tucked into her pocket with the code to the door. There are too many codes at Arkham for most people to memorize, and it’s been a safety consideration that Bruce has been working on. Apparently, he hasn’t found a solution yet.

Taking a deep breath, Dick enters the Asylum. He’s probably going to be noticed soon, even with the distraction, but he’s able to get into the elevator, swipe the keycard, and then override the protections to go straight to the maximum security ward. Dick clenches his fists and waits.

He expects to find guards when he steps out of the elevator. Instead, he finds Robin.

Dick freezes, watching as Tim’s face sets itself in determination. The kid has his bo staff extended, but he isn’t attacking, not yet. Just…ready to.

For the first time, it hits Dick that he’s not just betraying Bruce and Batman. He’s betraying everyone. Alfred. Tim. Even Jason, who had looked up to Dick in life. Is he going to make his little brother fight him?

If he has to. Dick needs to do this. He has known for a long, long time that someone has to kill the Joker, and it couldn’t be a Bat. He’s the only one with the skills and will who is already tainted. This is his duty.

The Joker won’t hurt anyone else. Dick may be betraying Tim, but only to keep him safe.

“Dick. You don’t want to do this,” Tim says slowly, as the two stare at each other.

“I do,” Dick says. Can he convince Tim to back down? Surely Tim, with his brilliant and practical brain, can understand why Dick has to stop the Joker.

“The cameras are off,” Tim pleads. “If you stop now, no one will ever know.”

Dick has avoided justice once. He won’t do it again. “Turn them back on,” he orders.

He watches as Tim’s grip tightens on his bo staff. “Bruce—”

“Don’t,” Dick hisses. “You have no idea what I’ve done. What I am.” He sighs. “I have to do this. Let me past, Tim.”

“I know you turned yourself in for Blockbuster’s murder.”

Dick nods tightly. “Then you know that I’m already a killer. Turn the cameras back on. When I’m done, Tim, you can arrest me yourself.”

“No,” Tim insists. “You didn’t kill Blockbuster. You didn’t shoot him.”

“Are you sure about that?” Dick asks, tilting his head. He draws his gun from inside his coat. The magazine is full. The safety is on, for now. He doesn’t point it at Tim—first rule of gun safety, don’t point the gun anywhere you don’t want to shoot—but it’s a demonstration. Dick is carrying a gun and has carried a gun for months, even if his fellow Bats have tried not to think too hard about it. Tim’s confidence in him is baseless.

“You didn’t kill Blockbuster,” Tim repeats.

Dick sighs, tucking the gun away. “I let him die. That’s close enough. Amy disagreed.”

“I disagree,” Tim says. “Bruce, too. Come on, Dick. Stop this and come home.”

Dick laughs. “I killed a man, Tim. I failed Bruce, do you really think I’d be welcome?” But even then— “Do you really think it matters?” Dick doesn’t want reassurances. Doesn’t want Bruce to accept him, because even if Bruce was willing to put aside his morals, Dick would still know what he is: rotten to his core. “This isn’t the first time I’ve killed someone, Timmy.”

Tim inhales sharply. “What.”

“You watched me,” Dick says. He lets his stance open. “I beat the Joker to death.”

“That doesn’t count,” Tim says, but he sounds uncertain. Dick feels his heart twist in his chest. He hates that he’s hurting his baby brother, but it’s better this way. It’s better that Tim realizes what Dick is before he can get poisoned too.

“I beat the Joker to death, and I was happy about it. Bruce made a mistake when he revived him. I’m just going to correct that mistake.”

Something flashes across Tim’s face. “This isn’t you, Dick.”

“This is me,” Dick says. “I killed the Joker, I killed Blockbuster, and now I’m going to make sure the Joker dies permanently.”

“You’re going to regret this. I can’t let you do something you’ll regret.” 

“You don’t have to let me,” Dick says gently.

“You won’t hurt me,” Tim insists. “And I’m not going to let you past.”

It’s true. Dick won’t hurt Tim, not really. But they both know that Dick can incapacitate him without doing any significant damage.

Tim’s face falls. “If you really think that letting Tarantula shoot Blockbuster makes you a murderer, how can you expect me to let you kill the Joker?”

It’s a good question. But the answer is easy. “Because I could have stopped her.” Dick takes a deep breath and forces his hands to unclench. He hadn’t even realized that they’d formed fists. Dick looks up and meets Tim’s eyes through the lenses of Robin’s mask. “But you can’t stop me.”

“I have to try,” Tim says.

Dick watches as his little brother finally moves his bo staff into a fighting position. He could stop here. He could accept Tim’s offer and go back to the Manor and see if Bruce would forgive him.

But he’s a murderer, twice over, and he’d always know that. And he knows that he can never be Nightwing again. There’s only one way left to atone.

“I know,” Dick whispers, and Tim launches forwards.

The fight is far more fierce than a spar, at least on Tim’s part. Tim is willing to do damage, anything to stop Dick from moving forwards. He thinks he’s saving Dick. And Dick, well, he appreciates it, but doesn’t Tim know that it’s already too late? Dick is a murderer. This is nothing new.

Meanwhile, Dick is trying to pull his punches. It’s not a fair fight, not in the slightest. But Dick has almost fifteen years of training on Tim, and while Dick is determined to win, he can tell that Tim’s heart isn’t in it. As much as the kid has the obligation to try and stop him, they both want the Joker dead. After all, if Tim really wanted to beat him, all he’d have to do is turn the cameras on, and Dick wouldn’t be able to plausibly beat Robin. But the cameras stay off.

Dick doesn’t call him out on it. Tim probably just hasn’t let himself think of it, and Dick will never give Tim the guilt of knowing that he could have won.

Dick dodges Tim’s first strike and dances around his second. He redirects the momentum of the third and tries to sweep Tim’s leg. Tim leaps out of the way. Dick ducks a blow to the head. Tim might not truly want to win, but the kid fights viciously. 

It’s difficult. Dick doesn’t have the time to just keep dodging, so he throws out a light punch. Tim twists away, but can’t avoid the kick that throws him sideways.

“So you’re serious about this?” Tim asks, panting. Tired, surprised, but not injured. The Robin uniform should’ve caught most of the force.

Dick still feels bad about it.

It’ll be better in the long run. The Joker will die. He will never kill another Robin, never tear another family apart. Tim will be so much safer. It doesn’t matter that he’ll never forgive Dick for this, because the Joker will never be able to hurt Robin again.

Tim throws out another strike with his bo staff. Dick catches it and rips it away, taking the kick to his stomach and letting himself fly backwards. He slams into the wall, and oh, that hurts. But it’s fine. Tim flies at him again, and Dick neatly sidesteps. With an elbow, he’s able to throw Tim off balance and catch him in a chokehold, wrapping his arm around Tim’s throat.

Tim tries to tuck his chin down, kick Dick in the shins, claw at Dick’s arm, but all it takes is a few seconds and he’s out like a light. The utility belts are keyed to their gloves, so Dick snatches one of Tim’s gauntlets and removes the handcuffs from his utility belt. He cuffs Tim, and then uses the zipties he brought for good measure. If Dick was being particularly careful, he would use a tranquilizer from the belt and lock Robin in a cell, but he’s absolutely not going to leave Tim in Arkham, unable to defend himself. This is supposed to keep Tim safe, not put him in more danger.

Dick waits a few more seconds and watches as Tim stirs. He can’t help the relief that washes through him when he knows for sure that Tim is okay, that he didn’t hurt him. Even through the mask, Dick can tell that Tim is glaring.

“You can get out of that,” Dick says quietly. “But I’ll have a head start. If you don’t want to watch me kill him, you should wait a couple minutes. I’ll stick around in the cell so you can arrest me. Now, how do I turn the cameras back on?”

Tim tilts his head to the side. His face shifts from annoyance to confusion. “Do you want to get caught?”

Obviously. Dick shrugs. “I’m breaking the law. I kill the Joker, and then I go to Blackgate. Seems like a fair trade, doesn’t it?”

Tim shakes his head. “Dick, you’re not thinking this through. You can’t be Nightwing from prison.”

It’s obviously a delay tactic while Tim works on the handcuffs and zip ties, but the statement is so out of place that Dick has to respond. Does Tim seriously think that Dick would go back to Nightwing after committing cold-blooded murder? “Tim,” Dick says. “I’m not ever going to be a vigilante again.”

“But you made Nightwing!”

Dick did make Nightwing, and he’ll regret it until the day he dies. “Nightwing is dead,” Dick says harshly.

Tim flinches. “Then what is this? What are you doing, Dick?”

Dick turns around and starts walking down the corridor. He doesn’t want Tim to see the way his face twists. “Call this my funeral.”

 ---

A minute later, Dick stands outside the Joker’s cell. He’s not going to be able to guess the twelve-digit code, even with a UV light, so he just takes his gun and slams it into the keypad. The thing cracks, but the door doesn’t open. Well, security did at least one thing right.

Dick pries the keypad away from the wall and takes a look at the wires behind it. He fiddles with it for a few minutes, recalling training sessions with Batman standing over him as a timer ticked the seconds by. Dick could do this in his sleep. He refuses to let his hands shake as he crosses the last pair of wires and the cell door slides open.

Dick takes a step in, only to find that someone else beat him there.

The Joker is lying on his cot in a white straightjacket, but standing over him is a figure in a black motorcycle jacket. When the figure turns around, the harsh florescent light reflects painfully off of his bright red helmet.

Dick runs through the list of known Gotham villains in his head before drawing a blank. His knowledge of skilled mercenaries that operate in the United States likewise doesn’t have a match. The only thing he can think of are the whispers he heard while working for Tommy Tevis. Rumors from Gotham occasionally make their way into Blüdhaven, and among them was the Red Hood.

Red Hood. Former alias of the Joker. Possibly a current up-and-coming drug lord, said to be operating out of Crime Alley. Or a really messed-up vigilante. Or a mercenary. Whatever he was, he had “rules” that no one was happy about. And he supposedly delivered a duffel bag of heads to someone, although no one can agree if it was to fellow drug lords, the Gotham Police Department, or Batman himself. Dick personally hadn’t believed that particular rumor.

Red helmet, operating in Gotham, standing in the Joker’s cell…and the clown’s still breathing. This is, without a doubt, the Red Hood. And it’s not easy to guess why the guy is here.

“What the fuck,” the Red Hood says. His voice is mechanical, leading Dick to guess that there’s a modulator hidden in his helmet. Dick can fight a random drug lord, but the Red Hood does not seem to be a random drug lord. And Dick is unequipped, unprepared, and still bruised from his fight with Tim. “What the fuck, what the literal fuck?”

Well, this is awkward. Right about now would be the perfect time to bury several bullets in the Joker’s brain. It is not a good time, on the other hand, to be fighting a Joker fanboy bent on breaking his idol out of Arkham Asylum.

“You here to stop me?” Hood asks.

Well. Dick may not be a vigilante anymore, but he is here to kill the Joker. And he supposes that is mutually exclusive with rescuing him, so…yeah. “Yep,” Dick says.

“Dressed like that?”

“Yes?” Dick’s wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, he doesn’t see why his clothes are a particular issue. The Red Hood presumably thinks he’s an off-duty guard who got called to deal with an alarm.

“Right then,” Hood says, amusement trickling into his tone, and before Dick can react, he leaps forwards.

Dick dodges his punch, just barely, and returns with a kick of his own. It sinks into some kind of body armor, and Dick narrows his eyes. The Red Hood, whoever he is, is well-funded. Another blow. This one strikes Dick in the face and he reels back. Hood’s punches are fast and hard, and it’s all Dick can do to avoid the next one.

The two dance. Dick is well-aware that they’re both on a time limit. If Hood gets caught, he can probably disappear. If Dick gets caught, he won’t have his chance to kill the Joker ever again.

Dick thinks he might be able to win this fight, but he doesn’t have the time. His fist glances off Hood’s helmet, so he changes tactics, launching himself through the air and sending a strong punch straight into Hood’s throat. It’s not what a Bat is supposed to do, it’s dangerous for the target, but right now, Dick can’t bring himself to care.

“Wow, Dickie,” Hood says, breathing ragged. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”

Wait. Dick isn’t actually that recognizable, despite Bruce Wayne’s fame. Why the hell does Hood know his name?

Dick doesn’t have time to worry about it, because Hood’s next kick comes out of nowhere and catches him in the stomach. Dick flies across the room, crashing into the wall.

The Joker cackles from his cot. “All this fighting over little old me?”

“Shut up,” Dick says, only to hear Hood’s mechanical voice snap in unison with him. He pulls himself up to a standing position. “Not a Joker fanboy then,” he observes, launching himself at Hood again. Why else would he be in the Joker’s cell, though? “Mercenary?” Dick had thought the crime lord story was more likely, but he supposes a mercenary is plausible. Though obviously not a very smart one, if he was making deals with the Joker.

Hood dodges his blow and throws a punch that glances off Dick’s cheek. Dick’s elbow catches him in the jaw—not that it seems to make a dent on his helmet—and Dick redirects Hood’s next punch and makes several successive blows towards the man’s gut. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” Hood asks. Dick gets the distinct impression that he’s missing some very vital information. “Did he?” Hood repeats. “Bruce didn’t tell you. Hah!”

A punch strikes Dick in the jaw and his head snaps to the side. Copper blood fills his mouth, but Dick’s up before Hood has a chance to press his advantage. He kicks out, catching one of Hood’s arms just as he misses a punch. There’s a distinct crack and Dick grins, blood dripping from his teeth.

“You’re good,” Hood says, launching himself forwards. “But I’m better.” In a single fluid motion, he hits Dick’s shoulder, knocks him off balance, and then presses him against the wall in a chokehold. Unlike the way Dick choked Tim earlier, this is an air choke. Painful. Painful, but slow. The Joker laughs, and this time, no one bothers to cut him off.

Dick slams a knee into Hood’s groin and then uses the wall to launch both feet into his chest, kicking him back. His throat aches. “No, you’re not.” The way Hood moved…Dick’s only seen that from one person before. “You’re League-trained, aren’t you?” If Hood is, then he likely already knows Dick’s identity. And he recognized Dick on sight, asked him if he’s really going to fight dressed like that, mentioned that there was something Bruce hadn’t told him…yeah, he definitely already knows.

“Maybe,” Hood says. He’s slower, now. From the way he’s moving, his arm is definitely at least fractured.

In the background, the Joker continues to laugh, reminding Dick why he’s here. Dick doesn’t need to win this fight. He just needs to complete his objective and render Hood’s null and void.

“You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?” Hood asks.

“Yeah,” Dick says. “I realized I’m going to win.” He flies forwards, pulling himself into a somersault and slamming both feet into Hood’s chest. The man flies backwards and Dick rolls away, pulls out his gun, and flicks the safety off.

“What—”

Dick practiced this in the police academy. He knows how to shoot a gun. He knows how to hit his target.

He forces his eyes to stay open as he aims the gun at the Joker’s forehead and pulls the trigger. A bullet flies through the Joker’s brain and he goes silent, his last laugh ringing in the air.

There are fifteen rounds in Dick’s pistol.

He shoots again and again and again, until every single bullet has buried itself in the Joker’s corpse.

And then he turns to face Hood and smiles.

Dick doesn’t know what happens now. Sooner or later, Tim will burst into the cell to arrest him, or the guards will come to do the same. But Hood—Hood wasn’t part of the plan. And he doesn’t know what the man will do next.

Hood stares at him, unmoving. Dick steps forward and presses two fingers to the Joker’s neck, checking for a pulse. There’s nothing.

The Joker is dead. Dick killed the Joker.

Dick killed the Joker.

Dick killed the Joker.

The last time he killed someone, he panicked. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t do anything.

This time, he just feels vaguely numb.

Hood pulls off one of his gloves and Dick watches as the man checks for the Joker’s pulse as well, before turning his helmet to face Dick. “He’s dead,” Hood says, shock audible even through the modulator.

Dick swallows. “Yes.”

Last time he killed someone, Tarantula was there. This time, it’s the Red Hood. At least the Red Hood isn’t his ally. At least the man will be more likely to want to kill him for ruining his payday than anything else.

“Yes,” Dick says. “I killed him. I killed the Joker.” He leans against the wall, lets his back slide down until he’s crumpled on the floor, his pistol hanging loosely from his hand.

“He’s dead,” Hood repeats. “What the fuck, Dick? I didn’t think you were even capable of this.”

Dick stares at the ground. “Do not,” he says, voice hard, “presume what I’m capable of.”

“Yeah,” Hood says slowly. “I’m getting that.

Dick looks up tiredly. “You should probably go. Your employer won’t pay you for breaking out a corpse.”

“My employer?” Hood echoes, as Robin bursts into the room.

Dick watches Tim freeze. Watches his face flicker as he takes in the Joker’s bullet-riddled corpse, Dick crumpled against the wall, and the random mercenary standing in the middle of the cell.

“Fuck,” Tim says. Dick thinks it’s the first time he’s heard his baby brother curse.

“Was the Pretender in on this too?” Hood asks.

Pretender? Hood has to be referring to Tim. “No,” Dick says. “No, Robin tried to stop me.” He hopes that will be enough that Hood won’t be upset at Tim for ruining whatever he was here for.

“Did he now?” Hood’s voice sounds dangerous. Tim looks—not scared, but determined in that desperate way Robin always does when facing a fight he knows he’s not going to win. Mouth set into a hard line, tension etched into every line of his body, stance defensive and far too steady.

And Dick may not be a vigilante anymore, he may be looking at a life sentence, but he’s not going to let anyone hurt Robin. “If you touch him,” Dick hisses at Hood, “I will end you.”

“Will you now?” Hood asks.

Dick stands up, bruised and battered but still a protective shield for his little brother. He gestures at the Joker’s corpse. “Yes,” he says resolutely. “I will. I will fight you, and I will win. Robin might be here to stop me from killing again, but I know better ways to make you wish you were never born. Are we clear?”

Hood holds up his hands. “Crystal.”

If Hood does try to get revenge, then Dick will defeat him, but it would be far easier if Hood just leaves now and Tim takes Dick to the nearest police station. The cameras are still off, so there isn’t much evidence, but… “You can take me to Gordan,” Dick tells Tim. “I’ll confess.”

“Fuck,” Tim repeats.

“You know it has to be like this,” Dick coaxes, holding out his wrists. “Just bring me in, and you won’t ever have to see me again. I killed him.”

“You better not,” Hood says. Dick’s not entirely clear on who he’s talking to.

Tim’s hands clench. He’s holding his bo staff aimlessly by his side.

“Robin…” Dick says softly.

Eventually, Tim sighs. “Fine. Put your hands behind—”

“Don’t you dare,” Hood interrupts.

Tim whirls around. “I’d like to hear any better ideas!” He snaps.

“Oh, I have several,” Hood says, voice dark. The underlying threat is clear.

“Trust me on this,” Tim says.

“That’s rich.”

Dick has no idea what’s going on. Robin and the Red Hood keep arguing, though it sounds more like bickering interwoven with some very creative threats. Do the two know each other or something? Is this like a Deathstroke situation?

His eyes keep flickering back to the Joker’s corpse. The blood is pooling over the cot, now, staining the thin sheets scarlet red and dripping onto the white floor.

“He won’t hurt you anymore,” Dick whispers. He doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

Tim’s hand fall on his shoulder and Dick can’t help but flinch. Tim withdraws, as if burnt.

Dick is making this easy for him. Tim doesn’t have to fight, doesn’t have to do anything except drop Dick off at the nearest police station. So why hasn’t he done it yet?

“Agreed,” Hood says roughly, and Dick looks up to where Tim and Hood seem to have reached some sort of consensus.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Tim shakes his head. He turns to Dick. “I may not have been able to stop you from killing the Joker, but I’m not going to let you get yourself killed over this.”

“Gotham doesn’t have the death penalty,” Dick says, even though that’s not really the point.

“And I’m supposed to trust you’d defend yourself from the other inmates?” Dick doesn’t answer. “Yeah. I thought so.” Tim leans forwards. “And you can hate me all I want, but I’m not sorry.”

“I don’t hate—” Dick feels something pierce his neck, and then cold liquid enters his bloodstream. He twists around to see Hood standing over him. “Tim?” He asks, voice shaking. “What’s—what’s going on?” Whatever he’s been injected with, it’s fast-acting. Dick can already feel himself starting to slip away. “No,” he hisses. “No, Tim, what—”

“It’ll be okay,” Tim says. “This was the fastest way. I’m sorry.”

Dick’s vision goes fuzzy and he stumbles away from Hood. The man lets him, and Dick nearly crashes into Tim. “Wait—” His lips move, but they feel like blubber. Everything is numb. Everything is spinning.

The world fades out.

---

Dick wakes up with a headache. Someone—multiple someones—are shouting with sharp, angry voices that pierce his skull. Dick groans.

What happened?

He remembers—

The wall, Robin, the Joker, Hood, no—

Dick struggles, heart racing as he tries to force his eyes open—

“Dick.” That’s Tim’s voice. Dick can see a very blurry Tim standing there, still dressed as Robin but without his mask, and. And someone else? Whoever they are, they move out of Dick’s vision before he can register them. “Dick, you need to calm down.”

“Where am I?” Dick asks, pulse thundering away, but it comes out more like “wh’re’m’i.” He knows he’s not in a jail cell, not where he belongs. His hand brushes against what feels like a couch cushion. Not the cot in his apartment. Not a motel bed. He blinks, and his vision clears, somewhat.

“You’re at a safehouse.”

“C’n’t be ‘ere,” Dick mutters. “B’m’n wou’n’t wan’…” Though, he realizes, Tim hadn’t said whose safehouse. If Tim hasn’t taken him to the police, then he probably hasn’t taken Dick to one of Batman’s safehouses either.

Where the hell is he?

“Wh’re ’m I?” His words are separating a little more. Dick blinks again, and Tim sharpens into focus.

“A safehouse,” Tim repeats.

Dick can feel his face scrunch up. He shifts, slowly moving to a seated position. He’s definitely on a couch. The grogginess is clearing rapidly—he must have been given an antidote to the sedative.

Tim kidnapped him. Why?

Wait, there was another voice. Tim and the Red Hood kidnapped him?

“Okay,” Tim says. “So. Hood’s going to come over here, and you need to…not freak out. We’re not dead.”

“We’re not dead,” Dick repeats, a bit lost.

“Yeah,” Tim says.

And then Hood enters his vision and, well, Dick understands why Tim felt the need to clarify that they’re all still alive.

Because that’s Jason.

“Little Wing?” Dick whispers.

Jason winces. “Yeah.”

“How long?” Dick’s eyes desperately scan over him, drinking in every detail. The white streak in his messy hair, the wrinkles in his shirt, the way his fingers tap at his thigh like they always did when he was nervous.

“Bruce has known he’s back for a few weeks, but he’s in denial,” Tim says.

“I had a plan,” Jason says. “I was going to…I was going to kill the Joker. I guess you beat me to it.”

[yanderes-galore]

RAAH I LOVE YOUR WRITING, SUPER EXCITED <3

Could I request a yandere concept for Arthur Hastings from we happy few?

I live for that excitement towards my writing :) Sure, here's my take on Arthur Hastings. I hope he's mostly in character.

Yandere! Arthur Hastings Concept

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Overprotective behavior, Fear of loss, Trauma, Violence, Murder mention, Breaking and entering briefly mentioned, Dubious companionship.

Arthur would fall into the category of both being subtle and also a threat.

His obsession is subtle but he'll do some intense things to pursue his obsession.

His base personality is awkward, compliant, calm, patient, and collected.

Being around him doesn't set off many red flags if any, especially as you're a Downer in this concept like him.

He's simply a non-confrontational man trying to live life in a dystopian nightmare such as this.

What would make him come off as bad is the skills he can learn throughout the game.

He acts on his behavior behind your back, primarily with the stealth skill tree that allows him to get away with things.

He plays everyone around him, managing to be a charming smooth talker despite his awkward disposition.

To you Arthur may come off as a pushover.

He's stressed and nervous in intense situations and doesn't come off as much of a threat.

Which would make him a yandere able to draw his obsession in closer.

How could you be scared of him?

He's a simple man who means well... if anything you should be able to trust other Downers, right?

Arthur tries his hardest to preserve this trust between you.

Such trust allows him to keep you close while also doing is more unsavory duties.

Such things include stalking, theft for momentos, watching you sleep, bashing in the heads of those who are suspicious of you...

He's able to do this all while you're unaware!

To be honest, he thinks he's doing you a favor!

He's protecting you from a world that thrives off of destruction and drug addicts.

Plus, Arthur would feel attached to you due to the trauma he's endured with losing his brother.

He probably has attachment issues.

Arthur will play the role of a good wellie as he plans how to take you out of this situation.

Arthur's main goal of the game is to leave everything and search for his brother/freedom.

Arthur would no doubt take you with him, willingly or not.

You don't deserve to be in a situation such as this!

Arthur only wants to offer you a chance at something different.

If you come with him, you can both be happy!

No Joy needed!

Plus, then he has to resort to much less unsavory means of keeping you as his.

You may both fight at first... but Arthur thinks you'll come around.

Arthur loves to help people.

In his eyes, taking you away with him is helping you.

He wants you to run away with him, to start something new.

He wants it to the point he won't let you go when you try to refuse.

He fears losing you, he's already done so much to satiate his growing obsession over you and to protect you!

He wants you to know this.

Everything he does is now for you.

He'll do anything to start something with you.

He even plans to find a home for you to stay in, where it's safe and hidden from this dystopia.

When it comes to Arthur, you may actually agree to his offer.

He's nice to be around and truly means well... doesn't he?

After all, who else do you have to trust?

He offers you freedom... something you'll take with open arms... even if it simply cages you with him instead.

[tunkers05]

red light (Javier Peña x Reader) (1/?)

series masterlist

authors note: hi! this is my first time writing in a while. feedback is much appreciated!

From the moment I stepped off the plane and into Colombia, I felt the sweltering of the world around me. Everything seemed to move with a simmering haze I was not accustomed to. It wasn’t just the heat, it was the complete aura of my new “home”. The new food, new job, new home, new car without AC. It all seemed like some sort of mirage that I couldn’t snap out of. I still haven’t been able to. Three months of being in a country hasn’t gotten easier, but I didn’t expect it to.

I moved here for similar reasons to those in my line of work. I wanted to help people. That’s the reason why I entered my profession in the first place. If you had told me when I was young that I would end up trying to take down the richest drug dealers in the world, I don’t think I could fathom you would be right. But then I found myself hiding behind the couch watching shows of good guys stopping bad guys and I knew that’s what I needed to do. Somehow all of this led me to working in Miami trying to intercept drug shipments, and now preventing them in Colombia. 

If you didn’t know me, you would be confused about how teaching English to primary school kids would fix this. If you did know me, you would know I was only doing this to get the government off my back. I work for the DEA, but for obvious reasons, I have a cover. It’s not really a cover when I do the work for both jobs. I don’t normally think the agents sent to the embassy have to work two jobs, but I guess my conditions of being here aren't like normal agents. I should have remembered that when I walked into my classroom. I was confused by the sight of a man sitting by my desk. Mainly because he was blonde and I hadn’t recalled meeting many blonde men in Colombia. “Hello? Can I help you?”, I called out to him once I realized I really didn’t know who he was.

He stood up and turned to me and that’s when I saw his face unobstructed. He was taller than me and wore a short loose button down. He smiled briefly before reaching out to shake my hand, “Steve Murphy. Are you Ms (y/n) (y/l/n)?”.

“Yes, I am. Can I ask why you are in my classroom at 7 in the morning, Steve Murphy?”, I didn’t take his hand. I kept my distance and started immediately thinking of every way I could escape him. I don’t take to trusting random men very well, especially when they seem to have a reason to need me.

“I work for the DEA. I hear you do too.”

“Prove it.”

He looked annoyed at my response as if he just expected me to believe everything that came out of his mouth. He pulled out a badge, “Does this work?”. I stepped to him and looked at his badge. It was definitely real, and that proved why he knew who I was, and my whereabouts. 

I closed the door and turned back to him. “Okay. Can you tell me why you are here?”, I visibly relaxed at his presence, “People aren’t supposed to know I’m DEA.”

“I know and I know this is putting you at risk. We figured it would be best that I talk to you here rather than at your apartment. I need to ask you a favor.”, he sat back down and motioned for me to sit at my desk. I moved to the desk and placed my bag down, “Not sure I love the sound of that, Steve.”

“Just hear me out. Escobar has been recruiting kids from the area to help him out with his trafficking. We need you to see if you can find anything out from your students.”

A small flame of anger flashed into my brain at even the thought of him thinking he could ask me that question. “You know I can’t do that, Steve.”

He sighed and ran his hand down his face, “Can’t or won’t?”

The small flame started festering into a fire. My fingernails were stinging into my palm, trying to keep myself cool. I sighed before looking at him, “Steve, I am sure you know that when I came here I said I would never mix DEA work with being a teacher”.

“Listen, I know. And I know that it feels wrong but isn’t letting Escobar manipulate them worse?”

“Don’t play morality with me. I came here to help people, not spy on kids who trust me. If that’s all you have to say, you can leave.”, I crossed my arms with a growing scowl on my face.

“We are on the same side here, literally. I know you have your reasons, but so do I. I haven’t brought this up with the ambassador yet. But if I need to, I will.”, he stood up to leave but I knew I couldn’t let him have the last word on this.

“I am here to teach these kids English in the one non hostile environment they have. I won’t taint that just because you can’t do your part of the job well enough. It’s always been a hard no for me, and it will continue that way. No matter if you talk to the ambassador or not”, I said scowling at him as he left. 

I know about Steve Murphy. We do different work for the DEA, but I know about what he has done. I don’t care if it has come to a moment of necessity for him. I know the odds always seem stacked against his team, but we all have to face this. I sighed and placed my hands in my head. I don’t think I could imagine interrogating the students who walk into my classroom. No matter what information I end up getting will negate how terrible I feel. My morals are the one single string I can hold onto in this confusing situation I’m in.

[miasmal-sweetness]

Needle in to a bug (part 3)

I am alive…… barely….

I feel like Derek could by the type that would kill his darling before letting them go. He’s a world-renowned surgeon with magical powers, idk if he’d ever see anyone as being that special. Or maybe he’d instead feel he’s deserving of having this one thing, and if he has to destroy it to make it so he was the only one to ever touch it, so be it.

Summary: 4.8k. You'll be a good little patient, if it means you get out of some horrific testing for the time being. A friend wonders who's to blame for your disappearance.

Pairing: yandere!Derek Stiles x reader x yandere!Victor Niguel

Warnings: reader has a vagina, feminine pet names used for reader, kidnapping, bondage, needles, blood, surgery, some foot torture, non/dubcon, PIV sex, no protection, breeding mentions lol, general medfet, drugging, probably a slowburn lolol, continuing my trend of no proofreading

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4

MDNI – NSFW – 18+ only – take care of yourself

Needle in to a bug (part 3)

Your body is aching and burning. Your arm especially. The drip of whatever anesthetic he used—it must be propofol, with how milky it looks and how it burns your arm like liquid capsaicin as it flows in to you—seems to be running dry, since you’re awake enough to look around and recognize objects. You’re not sure when he set this up. Maybe when he saw how you continuously snapped in and out of sleep with bloodshot eyes, long after you gave up on using screaming and then the silent treatment to try to get your way, jumping any time you slept longer than ten minutes.

You can still count the ceiling tiles with your blurry vision. You can hear the pounding of your heart, too; you feel it strong enough to think it might be able to beat against the tub. Your thighs and bottom feel wet and you know that days ago it would have upset and disgusted you, but at this point it’s just something else you expect.

Your glazed eyes shift to the milky bottle of anesthetic hanging near you. It’s nearly empty, just a few drops left in it. Maybe he’ll come back in and replace it soon, you hope. Then you at least won’t be aware of whatever it is he does to you. You know he hasn’t been leaving you alone; he’s not decent enough to do that.

You think your prayers are answered when you hear him enter the bathroom. You hear his breath and his footsteps, feel the weight of his presence, all well before you see him.

“Oh, it ran dry already? Didn’t realize I was gone for so long,” Derek muses, taking the bottle in his hands. He looks down at you, locking eyes, and smiles. “Good morning, princess.”

You want to scowl at him and show your disgust for the pet name, but the propofol and pain are too much to have the energy to do so. You just blink your eyes at him and quietly groan.

“You’ve been out of it for a while now,” Derek says, crouching down beside you. As he speaks, he examines the healing incisions on your belly. They look as bad as they feel, but healing isn’t a comfortable process. It’s an itchy one that makes you want to reach inside and scratch at everything and make it worse until your nails have torn every bit of tissue away. “I think you should get up and move a bit. Don’t you?”

You grunt, your eyes falling closed for a few seconds. Your eyelids flutter and open. The anesthetic will wear off quickly, but even with that, you’ve been living off IV fluids for days now. You’re weak. The thought of moving your legs is enough to exhaust you.

Derek clamps your PICC and disconnects the empty bottle. No more anesthetic means you’ll have to be awake to deal with him, but at least your arm will stop burning soon. “I need to take a look at you anyway,” Derek mutters, placing his hand behind your head. “I don’t want you to develop an ulcer, after all.”

Just from the shift of fluids in your body when he picks you up, you feel lightheaded. You feel old, stale urine dripping off the backs of your thighs; now that you’ve been moved, it hurts. It stings. Burns. Your sacrum, bottom, and backs of your thighs are excoriated, your flesh worn away from the combination of moisture and pressure.

Derek is surprisingly gentle as he cleans the ulcers and applies ointment to them. He inspects you like you’re a piece of fine china he’s making a cautious bid on; you’re not sure any doctor has ever examined you so thoroughly. He cleans the ulcer on the back of your head, unmats your hair even. He cleans and medicates and pads your heels with pink foam dressings to protect them from any more damage.

If he weren’t such a fucking monster, you’d take it as proof of what a good doctor he is. But all of these wounds are his doing, and you make sure to stifle any signs of pain your body tries to show as he dresses your wounds.

“You have a good pain tolerance,” Derek praises with a smile. “But you don’t need to put on a brave face in front of me, honey.”

“It’s… fine,” you mumble, the words slowly floating to the top in your mind. “Barely feel it.”

All that sweetness, all the gentleness in his tone and in his touch, it all disappears in an instant, when Derek plunges the scissors he used to cut your bandages in to your thigh. The wound is shallow and small, but even with the lingering effects of anesthesia, it makes you gasp and gag and contort. But you don’t scream.

“You felt that one more, right?” Derek asks in a condescending voice. He’s all smiles as he takes in your reaction, the anguish on your face; so intense it even shows in your glazed, dead eyes. You look more alive now; there’s warmth in your face again. “I have to be sure. I was worried you gave yourself a nerve or spinal injury for a moment.”

You could spit in his face, but you know where you’ll end up if you do, and it isn’t worth it. No matter how much you want to scream and cry and throw a fit before you prostrate yourself before him, you know where you want to end up, and it’s not back in the tub with his foot on your chest.

“Th-thank you,” you say through clenched teeth, “for your concern.”

The way his eyes light up—he looks more like you just told him he won the lottery. “Of course, honey,” Derek coos, loosening his grip on the scissors impaled in your thigh. You’re lucky your body is still numb and heavy. You’re lucky you’re getting so used to pain, from the sutures in your abdomen to the bruises and ulcers littering your skin.

Derek licks his lips as he watches blood trail down your thigh. Really, you should be bleeding a lot more than just a light trickle. Your blood isn’t red; it’s almost black, thick and dark as it oozes from the puncture. Even with the fluids running, you’re still dehydrated; to him, it just makes your blood look all the more pure.

“I think I should look at you a bit more closely,” he says, tracing around the scissors in your leg. He finally pulls them out without so much as a warning; he looks at the wound for a moment, dermis and fat staring back at him, before covering the wound with soft gauze and applying pressure. “Maybe try a few more tests?”

Your skin crawls when you hear the excitement in his voice, and you pray the fatigue and haze over your brain lasts long enough to get you through whatever he’s planning. “I’m healthy,” you lie through your teeth, “You don’t need to.”

“Oh, but I want to be sure,” Derek insists with the same smile he shows his patients; the same smile that earns him praise for his wonderful bedside manner. “I don’t want to risk missing a single thing going on with my favorite patient.”

It’s subtle, but his breaths are heavier now. Is this why he became a surgeon? He gets off on it, the exchange of power? You feel your insides churn at the idea of him thinking this way about others—due to the risk it would pose to them. They’re innocent. That’s why, and for no other reason.

Derek bandages your leg tightly and leaves your side to wash his hands and gather a few instruments. Your eyes flit about the room, often returning to the door. If you weren’t bound, you’d be able to run. He’d probably catch you, though; your legs are still heavy, your head is foggy, and you’re wounded.

He’d probably kill you.

You settle in to your spot on the side of the tub. You flex your fingers that are stiff and crackly from being tucked behind your back for so long. You look down at your feet, and you see that they’re a color between gray and purple from how long it’s been since they were last untied and able to move. If Derek doesn’t kill you one of these days, you think you might die from neglect.

Derek turns to you, wielding a needle in his hand. Your gaze focuses on it, and you gulp without meaning to.

“We’ll start with something easy,” Derek says, kneeling in front of you again. He grabs you by the rope that binds your legs, nearly throwing you off balance, but you tense your core to stay upright. Instinctively, you curl your toes and try to pull your feet away from him, but you don’t make any progress. “Relax, honey. It won’t take long.”

“You don’t have to do this,” you whimper, desperately wiggling your swollen and numb wrists against their rope.

“But I do.” He doesn’t seem to be lying; some part of him believes his own words, regardless of how insane they are. Derek pulls your feet in to his lap and grabs you by your face, making you focus on him and not the instrument of torture in his hand. “Look at me, honey. You can do this. And when you make it through this, you’ll get a reward. Okay?”

“Reward?” That got your attention. It was Derek saying this, so you knew it was more likely than anything that this reward was more pain, more torture, another attempt to assault you. But what if it wasn’t? Maybe he’d let you go if you passed this last test? Or maybe he’d let you eat or walk around a bit, or at least give you some more pain meds?

“That’s right, cutie,” he encourages, using the same tone he would with a young patient reluctant to undergo treatment. You need treatment, right? And he needs it, too—even with the haze in your mind, you can see the need in his eyes. You just don’t know if it’s a need to see your blood and viscera or a need to touch you and hold you. “If you’re good and get through this for me, I’ll give you something nice. You can eat something good and I’ll let you play in the living room if you want.”

Freedom and food? Fuck, you don’t even remember what your last meal was. You salivate at the idea of a real meal, and agree with little hesitation. You can deal with that stupid needle. You’ve gotten shots before, had IVs and blood draws and such. This needle isn’t any bigger than that.

Derek smiles at you and takes your right ankle in his hand. He squeezes your swollen flesh, watches your skin blanch and slowly return to its oxygen-deprived coloring.

“Edema and poor capillary refill,” Derek muses. “I need to get you up and walking soon. But let’s make sure your sensation is intact.”

As the needle stabs the sole of your foot, you flinch and recoil when you see the grin splitting Derek’s face in two. He’s as thrilled as you are pained, enjoying every second he pushes the needle deeper in to your flesh.

“Do you feel that?” he asks in a condescending voice. But he expects an answer nonetheless.

“Yes,” you eke out, stifling a groan at the end.

“Good, good. And this?”

The needle is yanked from your skin and plunged in to the ball of your foot, nearly meeting bone. He squeezes your foot as he watches you screw your eyes shut and take deep, ragged breaths.

“Answer me, honey.”

“Yes,” you repeat, your voice a whisper.

The needle is removed again; the pain of the removal burns so much you wish he had just left it in there. You foolishly think the torture is over, that you’ve passed his test, until you see him holding up another instrument—a surgical cautery pen.

“This will stop the bleeding,” he explains, “but it will also help me test your sense of temperature. Normally, we do that with ice… but I think this is more efficient.”

“I-I can feel temperature,” you quickly assure, “Your hands are warm, I can—”

Derek is determined to put you through this test, regardless of what you have to say; he cuts you off by pressing the tip of the device to one of the bleeding wounds on your foot. You hiss and choke at the sensation of your flesh being zapped and burned, your blood vessels now singed closed. You can smell your flesh burning, a smell that should be repulsive, but now it just reminds you of the scent of food and your determination to continue is renewed. You’re going to be miserable here no matter what, so you may as well get something out of it.

“It burns,” you say through your teeth, answering his question before he even voices it.

“Good. Just one more.”

You want him to just let you bleed, but he cauterizes the second injury anyway, before setting the tool down and lowering your foot.

“Now let’s test the other foot.”

It hurts more this time around, both from your body’s expectation of the pain and the way he swirls the needle around in your flesh. He pokes you three times in your left foot, takes his time with cauterizing, and then moves to your calves. Here, he takes out a scalpel; a few jabs of a needle aren’t enough for him anymore.

It’s while he’s slowly pressing the blade of the scalpel in to your calf that you finally notice the look on his face. Flushed cheeks, shallow and quick breaths, dilated pupils. From the position he’s in, it’s easy to see the bulge in his pants, too. He’s getting off to every bit of your pain; every sound that comes out of you just makes his cock twitch.

“You’re doing so well,” Derek praises in a low voice, steadying your leg as he cauterizes your new injury. “Just a few more spots, okay?”

The scalpel digs deeper in to the flesh of your leg this time. It’s not from how he’s begun to tremble; he stays steady when he actually slices in to you, the skill of a surgeon evident even now. His wide eyes, the way he licks his lips, tells you the real reason. He looks ready to explode any minute now.

You can put up with it. It hurts, it’s slow, it’s miserable and nauseating—but you can get through it, if this is as deep as he goes. The more excited he gets, though, the deeper he pierces you. You can try something else. You could try to wiggle your way out of this by sacrificing whatever dignity you have left in exchange for preserving some of your flesh and blood.

You see him reach for a dermal punch and make your decision. Scooting yourself forward, you brace your legs and lift your feet until they come to rest on his hips, where you slide your right foot over the bulge trying to free itself from the fly of his pants. For once, he looks genuinely surprised and baffled, and seeing him so thrown off makes this a little worth it.

Derek grips your ankle, his eyes wide as he stares you down. “What—what is it, princess?” he asks, trying to subtly clear his throat.

“Isn’t there anything else you want to do?” you breathe. You curl your toes and press your foot further against his cock, feeling it throb against the sole of your foot. Your heart is pounding from the pain you’re in, but your clit has never been the smartest and thinks it’s racing from arousal, so it throbs with each beat.

Derek’s grin returns, though his eyes remain wide. “There’s plenty of things I want to do with you,” he laughs, giving your ankle another squeeze. You respond to the touch by rubbing your foot up and down the fly of his pants. It irritates the punctures on your foot, but it’s getting the response you want; you feel his hips twitch and jerk up against you.

“Then stop stalling with these tests,” you say, rocking your foot back and forth, up and down. His eyelids flutter at the sensation; easy to please. Either he’s inexperienced or just that pent up—maybe both. “Please, Derek.”

That’s what pushes him over the edge. He groans at the sound of you calling his name, grabbing you by your hips and pulling you closer so he can bury his face in your thighs. He raises the scalpel again, but before you can protest, he uses it to slice through the bindings holding your ankles together.

“Open,” he demands, forcing your legs apart by your knees. You don’t fight it; you don’t have the mental or physical strength to. There are no needles or scalpels going in to you, no cauterization; you finally get a break from the pain, time for your body to adjust to every new mark you’ve been given. You feel a little grateful for the waves of throbbing pain that hit you, since it provides a distraction from the fact that Derek is staring right between your legs.

“So cute,” he praises, holding your legs behind your knees. “You’re that wet from a couple of pokes? You should have told me sooner, princess. I didn’t know you were enjoying yourself.”

He can believe what he wants; disrupting his delusions will only bring you more suffering. You wince and grimace when he presses his face against your labia, his tongue flickering out to tease your clit. He brings your clit in between his teeth with gentle pressure, and your right leg betrays you by twitching from the painful and pleasant sensation.

Before your body can embarrass you further, Derek pulls away, chuckling as he presses wet kisses up your belly and to your chest. He’s slow when he trails over your sutures; he’s admiring his own work, you think, like the narcissistic monster he is. But he isn’t hurting you, you remind yourself.

“I almost fucked you on the table while you were paralyzed,” Derek murmurs against your skin. The words make your heart drop, and you wonder if he felt the skipped beat. His fingers knead the soft flesh of your sides and hips as he speaks filth in to your skin. “But I was nice. I’ve been waiting to be inside you for so long, princess. Are you gonna be good this time?”

You keep screamed insults and curses locked inside your head, where they won’t earn you any more torture. “Yes, I’ll be good,” you promise, itching for any chance at even a short burst of freedom from rope.

Derek’s teeth press in to your flesh, gently tugging skin from fat and muscle. He releases your skin to admire the teeth marks he’s left on your chest. “Oh, you’ll be very good for me,” he moans, grabbing your ankle to press your foot against his cock again. “You’ll be so good that you’ll say yes and get on your knees if I tell you I want to fuck your skull. Isn’t that right, honey?”

Goosebumps crawl up your arms at this words, the hairs on your neck standing straight; you hope this isn’t a warning of what’s to come. “Right,” you lie, trying to push the thought from your mind. “A-anything you want, Derek.”

Derek finally pulls away from you, letting you breathe for just a second, before he hauls you up by your bound wrists and drags you towards the door. You stumble after him, each step sending pain shooting through your legs, each movement requiring a conscious effort on your part. Derek must not like how slowly you’re moving, since he settles for letting you fall and dragging you across the floor of his living room, towards another closed door.

Your heart is pounding too hard and your vision is too blurred and tunneled for you to take in anything useful about his apartment. The most you can tell is that it’s rather plain, you can see the skyline from the windows, and the floor is hard and cold and nearly tears the skin off your hip as he drags you.

Derek slams the bedroom door shut, locks it, and throws you on to his unmade bed. He’s already stripping out of his shirt and undoing his pants as you struggle to simply sit up and look around your new environment. White walls, more of the city skyline, a phone on his nightstand that maybe you can—Derek grabs the rope around your wrists and undoes the knot with ease, before pressing your hands in to the sheets beneath you.

“Be good,” he reminds you, each word washing over your face. “Be good and you’ll get your reward.”

You nod, using every ounce of willpower to not look at the phone again. It could be a chance to get out of here, but if he noticed it, you’d definitely be punished. So you act your part and let him push you in to the mattress, his nails clawing up and down your sides as he groans obscenities against your throat. You can feel his cock throbbing against your clit, and you feel a little nauseated at how your body clenches in response.

Derek’s fingers run over the soft flesh between your legs, and he sighs when he feels how slick you are.

“Did you want me to do this to you?” His question is punctuated by his sudden thrust in to you; you gasp and bristle and claw at the sheets, but you choke down your scream. You’re sure you’re bleeding. “Did you follow me to that dark and empty wing and let me drug you because you wanted this to happen, honey?” He never looks away from your eyes as he speaks, saying these words in such a sickeningly loving tone.

You know what answer he wants. You know it would please him, probably get this over with faster. But even so… you picture yourself in court some day, testifying against him, when he smiles and tells the court how you claimed you wanted this and you feel the weight of the jury’s judgment on you.

“No,” you mumble.

Derek’s smile only grows, and he pats your cheek. “No?” he mocks, tilting his head. “No, you didn’t want this? You were just that stupid?”

“No,” you groan again as his cock presses against your cervix. He rolls your hips up to push deeper in to you, no matter how much it hurts or makes you bleed. Whatever he’s seeking, he moves on to gripping your neck to try to find it, cutting off most of your air supply.

“If you don’t want this, I can stop it,” Derek hisses, pressing his forehead against yours. “Just let me fill you up and I’ll snap your neck, all right?”

He says it so calmly and plainly, and it makes you contract and you hear him groan and you hate yourself and him even more. “N-no, no,” you plead. “I didn’t—” Think faster, think harder with whatever oxygen is left in your head. “I meant—I wanted you to make me cum, just go a little higher up…”

It was the best lie you could think of, and the only one that had the chance of stopping him from his attempts to ram through your cervix. Derek laughs and grins in an effort to hide his surprise at your words, before throwing open the drawer of his nightstand and pulling out a small bullet vibrator.

“That’s a little selfish, don’t you think, princess?” Derek teases, pressing the toy against your clit. “But you can be selfish. Go ahead and cum for me, princess.”

With a click of a button, the vibrator turns on, and you shudder at the feeling. Derek watches each response of your body and quickly picks up on which spot you respond to the most, angling your hips so his cock presses against it with each thrust. He runs his hand over your belly, his fingers stroking the sutures that hold you together after he took you apart, and you start to feel sick again.

“No,” you whimper as warmth and pressure builds in your gut. Your leg twitches and your toes curl as you try to resist the feeling. “N-no, no!”

“Relax, honey,” Derek coos. To your surprise, he doesn’t punish you; he seems more amused by your attempt to resist the pleasure than anything. His hand presses against your belly, where the root of the heat is, where his cock strikes the spot that betrays you. “Don’t fight it. Let me take care of everything, honey.”

You’re too weak and tired to keep tensing your core to hold back the wave of pleasure, and you’re left groaning and writing as the orgasm hits you. Derek hisses as you contract around him, his quickened pace only prolonging the overwhelming sensation consuming you.

“Good girl!” Derek praises, grinning as he watches your face scrunch and your mouth open in a silent cry. He presses harder against your belly, like he wants to feel his own cock inside of you. He’s sweating, his face is red, and his arms are shaking; he doesn’t look anything like the same man that cut you open and played with your insides. “You needed that, honey, you’re still squeezing me.” Your hips twitch and buck at another thrust, your teeth sinking in to your lip to deal with the pain caused by his hand against your sutures. His eyelids flutter, and he curls his nails in to your wounds. “Finally get to fucking cum inside you…”

You feel warmth spurting in to you and leaking out to your inner thighs. You feel full and sickly satisfied, some primitive instinct inside of you pleased with the attempt at breeding and then empty when he pulls out and gets off of you. You could move now, could reach for the phone and call for help, but you don’t feel like you can move. You barely even know where your hands are right now. Your body feels so far away, so light and heavy at the same time.

“Princess,” Derek calls. Even he sounds so distant. You didn’t even notice that he was cleaning you up, wiping blood and semen off of you. “Feel better now?”

And you do, somehow. Much of your pain is reduced to a buzzing sensation somewhere on you that you can’t pinpoint. Maybe your feet, or your legs? That sounds right. You nod your head at him. He says something about your reward as you shut your eyes and let him pick your slack body off the bed.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Victor thinks he really ought to start adding a splash of jack to his morning coffee. And maybe his afternoon coffee for good measure. Another day at work, and you’re not there. Everyone’s business as usual, though, acting like your absence isn’t glaringly obvious. And maybe it isn’t to them, but that just makes the vein on his temple pulse and dilate even more.

It’s been days. When you didn’t show up to work the first day, he thought you might be sick; you mentioned not feeling well, after all. So he texted you, told you that you could have just asked him for some medicine—he is a doctor, after all—and thought you were just sleeping when you still didn’t respond. The next day, he went to your apartment, and you weren’t there. You weren’t anywhere.

Victor reported your disappearance to the police, like any responsible person would. Cybil promised she still had connections to the police in Angeles Bay, that she’d make sure you were found, but it’s been nearly a week and you’re still gone.

You wouldn’t run away, he told the police that. You wouldn’t have killed yourself, either. And they asked how he knew and he yelled that he knew you better than anyone, and if they wanted to actually focus on their own fucking jobs and find you then they’d better listen. Cybil had to step in and talk him down after that, but he knew he was justified.

If you ran away, if you hurt yourself, he’d have seen the signs. But you didn’t show any. You were making plans, you had your routines, you took your meds. Someone did something to you. Someone took you away, and that someone wasn’t him.

His bloodshot and glazed eyes bore holes in to the picture of you on the screen of his phone as he sits in the bright white glow of his office’s monitors. Are you alive? Are you dead? Are you waiting for him? Victor swallows and brings the screen closer, like it would bridge the gap between you two in real life. Whatever state you’re in when he finds you, he’ll fix you up so you look like yourself again.

[anchanted-one]

Legend of Lightning Chapter 62. Therapy Begins

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43208574/chapters/114381535

Note: My memory during my depressed phase is often hazy, especially those of therapy. At times, I felt like I was half-asleep in the backseat of a car being driven by a questionably sober driver. 

Which is why I don’t expect my depiction of Therapy to be accurate. So please be kind in that regard :D

It was a sunny afternoon when Jedi Master Oteg landed on Tython. He took a customary deep breath, closing his eyes and taking in the eddies of the Force. The Light was strong on this world, quite unlike any other world he visited these days. It rejuvenated his spirit a little. These days… dark times, dark times. The Force was in chaos, and most senior Jedi spent every waking moment feeling uncomfortable. He had hoped to never see its like again, after Raya had restored peace to the Galaxy, but alas, the stars were ever at war.

But at least he now had this one safe world.

His infrequent returns to Tython were as precious as they were ephemeral. One had to drink in every last moment they got. When he opened his eyes, he feigned surprise to see the woman standing there, as though he hadn’t Sensed her from the other side of the door.

“Ahh, Grand Master! I wasn’t expecting a welcome party.”

“Welcome back to Tython, old friend. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Nonsense! I needed a break. A few days’ rest, before the next campaign.” He followed the human, returning bows all around.

“Ah yes,” Satele smiled. “The ‘secret mission’ you refuse to tell me about. You do realize—”

“That it’s highly suspicious?” Oteg finished. “It’s merely a surprise for you, Grand Master! A <<redacted>>* my age me should be allowed his moments of theatricality, I think? A fair trade for all the wisdom I have to offer in exchange.”

“Have it your way then,” the child sighed. “Is there at least anything I can do on my end?”

“Perhaps. I will need a few good Jedi, and a few good pilots.”

“Seraphim should be ready for a combat mission in the next few days.”

“Good. I have a strong strike team prepared already. With luck, we’ll be able to hit Taral V by the end of the week.”

They entered a conference room close to the hangar, and Grand Master Shan immediately dropped her mask.

“I need answers, Oteg.”

“To what questions?”

“You’re aware of Vajra’s situation?”

“Yes, you were kind enough to send out a coded memo to all your colleagues on the Council. Poor boy… to be driven to this extreme—”

“But why does he want to see you?”

Oteg felt the muscles of his jaws loosen. “What?”

“It was the first coherent thing he said after waking up. He didn’t talk to Jasme, didn’t apologize to her, he didn’t even ask about Kira or T7. He jumped straight to Master Oteg. Why? The two of you haven’t interacted since he left Raudraksha nearly twelve years ago. He barely remembers you. Yet he asked for you by name. Even drugged up and worn out, he knew he wanted to talk to you. Why?”

Oteg sighed. “I have a guess, but there’s a good chance I’m wrong. Why don’t we just get it straight from the horse’s mouth? You’re welcome to sit in, if you like.” He always wondered if a day might come, where he would have to own up to what he did. Perhaps it was here; but there was a chance the boy didn’t know. Maybe he just wanted to talk about Uupa. Or perhaps, he wanted to talk about something else on Raudraksha. Maybe it was just a product of the anesthetics and deprivations, and he would forget now that he was properly awake.

“If this is another one of your games—”

“Not this time. I am dead serious. He is my closest friend’s apprentice after all, so I want to help him. I just don’t want to rush to any conclusions right now. When may I see him?”

Satele spoke into her comm for a moment. A voice answered; her daughter’s. That Jasme was her flesh and blood was one of the worst-kept secrets in the Temple, or at least among the Senior Jedi. Everyone just pretended to ignore it as a courtesy. “Looks like he’s awake. And lucid. His first therapy session starts in half an hour.”

“Good. Let’s not waste any time then, shall we? Let’s seek him out right away.”

Satele gave him a searching look before nodding. She was worried about Vajra, more so than any other Knights his age. It probably not too far off the mark to guess that it was because of Jasme, whose friendship with the boy was quite well-known by now. Unlike other Jedi, Oteg did not begrudge Satele her deviations from the rule. She had given her life to the Order, she had chosen the Jedi over a normal life, and she had never given anyone reason to suspect she regretted her decision, even though it had left her almost alone in the galaxy. She had few left, whom she could call a friend. The Order was all she lived for. The Grand Master was all she allowed herself to be, most of the time. Her path was as solitary as it got, but she rarely ever complained.

If there was any one Jedi who deserved some leeway, it was her.

Besides, love had helped many Jedi in the past, Jedi whom he had met and served with, like Revan and Bastila. Or Nomi Sunrider. Even Kreia had been stopped by love.

“I see you’ve not placed him in the General Ward,” Oteg commented, as Satele led him down to one of the sublevels.

“We’re trying to keep this under wraps,” Satele replied. “Vajra is a high-profile Jedi, thanks to his accomplishments. We still receive requests for him personally, from the highest echelons of the Republic. Some are requests for high priority missions, others for showing him off. We do not want word of this getting out.”

“Of course.”

Satele turned down a corridor and opened the first room on the right to reveal a safe room. Like most psych wards, it did not have anything that a patient could hurt themselves with. There were no locks on the doors, not even the fresher.

Vajra was lying down on his bed, and he looked terrible. He’d grown much thinner than Oteg remembered. His cheeks were so hollow that you could almost see the outline of his teeth. His hair was dull and lusterless, as were his eyes, which held a haunted, defeated look. There was a collar on his neck designed to stop him from reaching out to the Force, and his hands and feet were bound.

“Was this necessary?”

“It was. He nearly killed a nurse waking up, despite being drugged and weak. But perhaps it is no longer so. It isn’t my decision to make, however.”

Three pairs of eyes looked at him; Kira Carsen and Jasme Shan were both sitting in the room.

“Good morning, Masters,” Jasme began, but Kira talked over her.

“Please don’t ask us to leave. I think we deserve to know everything about this situation.” She glared hotly at her former Master, who averted his gaze.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Good morning, Vajra. I hope you’re feeling better under the care of our best doctors.”

The youth eyed Oteg uncomfortably, still not saying a word.

“I understand you wanted to see me—”

“Did you alter my memories?” he asked in a rush. “Or my head?”

Oteg gave a heartfelt sigh and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Some explanation is required,” Satele said, her voice soft but sharp.

“Master Satele?” Vajra tried to sit, forgetting for a moment that he was tied down. “Ow!”

Satele entered his field of vision and comfortingly ran her fingers through his hair. “Don’t try too hard. You’re still quite weak.”

“I need to move,” he begged. “All this sleeping around is driving me crazy!”

He certainly did look crazed. His eyes were wide, except for his firmly closed third one that is. They were so shot with blood that Oteg feared vessels might burst.

“Vajra, you’re not supposed to strain yourself,” Jasme said. “The vessels in your eyes have only just healed, you know. You’re supposed to relax completely. Don’t make me beg. You’ll be on your feet if you behave. I promise.”

“Just let us distract you in the meantime, okay?” Kira put in. “I know it can’t be easy in there.” Both women sounded like they had their own battles going on inside their hearts, but neither put in a hint of anger at Vajra, which was good.

“Remember your training. Try to breathe. Relax.”

“I can’t. I haven’t been able to for… for so long!”

Satele surprised them all by ripping off the restraints. “Stand.” Vajra complied, looking awed. Satele redid the cords so that his arms were still bound. “There. You can stand and walk now. Does that help at all?”

He nodded furiously. “Thank you, Master.”

Satele surprised everyone again by giving him a firm hug. He seemed to grow calmer in her arms, almost as if her poise and serenity were influencing him directly. Tremors in his limbs stopped, and his muscles relaxed. He exhaled a few times as he worked to reassert his control over his body.

Satele released the young man. “You were about to tell me about what you meant. How have your memories been altered?”

She phrased the question for him, but it was clear that it was also intended for Oteg.

Now calmer, Vajra began speaking at once. “I’ve had a lot of nightmares these past few months. Uphrades on fire. Everyone I lived alongside for years being exterminated like bugs. I could feel their pain and anger. I felt guilty for not being able to save them, for not dying alongside them. But then I saw the slaughter of the Devarath tribe. I saw Darth Bellicose killing them all, even children younger than myself. I remembered seeking out my mother’s body in that place, and lying down in her arms. And I felt nothing. Nothing at all. No love, no guilt, no rage, no sorrow. When I woke up, I tried to remember my days on Raudraksha. I had memories, some quite clear. But it was like watching holodramas in a cantina. I felt no attachment or sense of belonging.”

All three women looked accusingly at Oteg, who held his ground. “It was me,” he admitted. “Vajra had survived something as cruel as the massacre of everyone he’d ever known. He was shellshocked when the Raudra recovered him, but recovered briefly under the Force’s influence. Too briefly. He was already returning to a catatonic state when we got back to the ship. We needed to reach him before he shut down again.”

“Did Uupa agree?” Satele asked.

“She wasn’t happy. The only reason she consented was because of my second argument.”

“Which was?”

“That her time was running out. If she wished to train the boy herself, as the Force seemed to desire, she would not be able to train him for years. If at all. Against her better judgement, she allowed me to go ahead and modify his emotional response to his memories.” He turned to Vajra. “Please do not blame Uupa. If you must harbor a grudge against someone, make it me. I made quite an unethical decision—”

“Can you do it again?”

“What?” the boy’s request shocked everyone. “Do you realize what you’re asking?”

He nodded. “I can hear them all. It’s all I can hear these days. I can’t eat or sleep. I can’t reach out to the Force. I need… I need to stop it. Somehow, anyhow! Please, can you help me?”

There was stunned silence for a moment. Satele looked over at Oteg, who finally shook his head. “Things have changed since then, Vajra. You were a child. There were fewer memories in your head, and they were all connected. Now that you’re older, your brain is less moldable. In addition, your memories are far more solid and branched out now. Affecting your memory of Uphrades might affect those of your training, or anything else. One wrong step, and I’d turn you into a droid. Or a psychopath. There’s a reason this isn’t standard practice.”

“Anything,” Vajra staggered upright. “Anything! I don’t want the screams to stop! Anything, please! What must I do!?”

“I’m afraid there are no more shortcuts. The only thing you can do now, is commit to your therapy. Doctor Row is good, as half our Masters can attest to.”

Vajra’s shoulders sagged visibly, and he sat down on the floor. His expression was one of utter defeat. Looking at him, Oteg fancied he could hear the poor boy’s ghosts. Kira helped him up, wiping her eyes. “Master… if it means never hearing the screams again, would you be okay losing your feelings for me? Or Jasme?”

Distracted though he was, he shook his head without hesitation, and so firmly that everyone felt a little better.

“I’m glad we mean that much to you,” Jasme was wiping her eyes. “Never knew you’re willing to fight your demons for me! For us…”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Kira held him like they were each other’s lifelines. “If the Council wants me gone on another mission, they can kiss my ass. I’m staying. I’ll not let you do this without me. Not again.”

“Your friends are your strength, my dear child,” Oteg spoke to Vajra. “I understand how you made the mistake before, but don’t ever try to face your monsters alone again. They are what will help you win, for they are the only things in this galaxy that make you willing to face the darkness. Remember that. You are different from most Jedi. Embrace that. Don’t try to be something you’re not. And never lose your soul again.”

Thoughtfulness spread across his face as Vajra considered the words. At last, he nodded remotely. An uncomfortable cough from beside the door caught everyone’s attention.

“Ah, Doctor Row,” Satele welcomed her warmly. “I hope you’ll forgive me for freeing Vajra without consulting you first—”

“Not to worry. If he hurts my feelings too badly, I’m billing the Jedi.” She glared at Oteg. “And we need to talk later.”

Oteg shrank back. Explaining himself to Satele and these children was one thing, but Row was an expert on psychology. She was far more aware of the risks and consequences. She might even know—no, she definitely did—that his action might have permanently weakened Vajra’s mental resilience.

“Any time you like, my dear Doctor—”

“As for you, young man,” she looked over at her patient with soft eyes. “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. But I’m glad you have a reason to get through this period.” She smiled at Kira and Jasme. “I promise, you won’t have to resort to rusty tricks like Master Oteg’s in order to improve. I also promise, that you can improve. Are you ready to get started?”

The Raudra nodded listlessly.

“Come,” Satele said softly. Oteg and Jasme followed, but Kira stayed firm.

“I want to be here,” she murmured.

The doctor shook her head firmly. “No. Perhaps in future sessions, but for the first few, it will be just me and him.”

“It’s alright, Kira,” Jasme tugged her hand. “He won’t do it to us again. Will you?”

Vajra’s face burned with shame. “No.”

“See? Let’s go. Leave Doctor Row to her work.”

 *

Vajra shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The doctor had allowed his bonds be loosened, but his collar remained. He could still feel the Force, but he could not use it. Not without being interrupted by a jolt.

Doctor Neha Row smiled at him kindly, waiting for him to answer a question.

“I’m sorry? My mind got lost there.”

“Both those sweet girls seem to mean a great deal to you.”

“Yes. They’re both practically my sisters now.”

“I see.” Her smile twisted playfully. “Do you think you have a crush on either of them? Or both of them?”

“No,” Vajra replied honestly. “And I don’t think either of them sees me that way either. I’m still sixteen.” And Kira has a boyfriend. Doesn’t she? She did when we last met. I wonder how he’s doing now. How they’re doing.

“Whether it’s romantic or platonic, you seem to love them a great deal. You care more about having hurt their feelings than what you almost did to yourself.”

Vajra nodded. “I wish…” he swallowed. “I wish neither of them had been unfortunate enough to meet me.”

“Why do you call it unfortunate?”

“Everyone I ever cared for is dead.”

She scribbled a note on her clipboard. “Uphrades and the Devarath.”

“That’s right.”

“But neither of those is your fault. I hope you know that.”

“Uphrades—”

“Angral was thoroughly questioned. He did not know what the planet meant to you. He chose it because of its importance to Coruscant. The Capital is scrambling to fill the gap in its food supply.”

“But still. Everyone I know dies.”

“That is true for everyone else, too. You almost died, and you’ve seen how that affected your two adoptive sisters. Besides, haven’t you saved Kira’s life several times now? She’d be dead without you. Or worse. In fact, there are trillions today, alive because of you.”

“Pure luck.”

“Luck may have been involved, but so too was skill. Yours. I’ve read through the reports. Every decision you made was a good one, if not the best one available. Especially on Coruscant. I don't know what transpired on Nar Shaddaa—” she scribbled something on her pad, perhaps seeing a reaction to the mention of Smuggler’s Moon “—but you acquitted yourself most nobly in the war of Alderaan.”

“I guess…”

She waited a few moments before prompting him. “How do you feel?”

“Guilty. Weak.”

“Survivor’s guilt is a common affliction to people who watched their comrades and friends die. Or perhaps I should say ‘Felt’ in your case. Can you describe your experience to me?”

Vajra swallowed. “I… I Felt them. I Felt connected to seventeen million people. I knew some of their signatures thanks to my time with them. They were roasted alive. I felt the air burn in their lungs, the flesh melt off their bones, their eyes fall out of their skulls. I felt their anguish, not only for themselves, but for each other.” He swallowed again. “I felt Gabril fall off a tower he liked to climb. I felt Sonni’s fear for her infant child. I heard her call to me, begging me to save the child.”

“You know this for a fact?”

Vajra blinked.

“Sometimes, our memories make things up. You’ve undoubtedly seen her in your nightmares. But did you see them in that moment?”

He tilted his head, trying to remember. “I can’t…”

“It’s okay. Who were Gabril and Sonni?”

“Gabril was a good friend. Sonni was his older cousin. I… I liked her. I used to… to dream about kissing her. Or holding her hand. Making her laugh. I never told her, of course. But she knew me well, and hung out with me often enough. She was Jasme’s age.”

“I see. Do you feel responsible for her death? The death of her child?”

“Yes.”

“And not counting your nightmares, which will only reflect your darkest thoughts back at you, was Sonni the sort of girl who’d have blamed you?”

“I—no.”

“Tell me about her.”

Vajra began to talk about all the times they’d had. The annual harvest competition, the picnics, the games, the contests. The few anecdotes that stood out among the rest.

“First crushes are always so cute,” Doctor Row smiled.

Vajra didn’t return it easily. “She had a child. I’m certain of it. And I…”

“Angral. Not you. You are no more responsible for the destruction of Uphrades than you are for the that of Taris and Telos, three hundred years ago.”

“I guess…”

“Is there something else troubling you?”

“I—I… I think I used the Dark Side.” He babbled the truth of his fight to her, leaving out none of the details. He told her everything, from his frame of mind to his ruthless slaughter of anyone who stood in his way. He held back details about exactly how, but he ended with the most damning of his actions. “… I had him at my mercy. And I crumpled his mind like it was made of feather glass. With the Force.”

“Given the circumstances, I think it’s natural.”

“It’s not the Jedi way.”

“I doubt even Grand Master Satele could stick to her guns if she were in your situation, with all her experience and maturity. Not something like this. I hope you’ve realized just how few people are forced to witness murder on such a massive scale. What Angral did was an abomination.”

“Has the Empire tried to demand his return?”

She shook her head. “Only his head. I think they’re upset that one of their premier Darths has been reduced to such a… shameful state. As they should be.” She laughed unkindly. “Has anyone told you about the reaction to his defeat?”

“No…”

“There were parties in the street. People dressed up as the man and wailed ‘Dada! Dada!’ Others talked nonstop about how, after all of his bluster, he was defeated by the first Jedi who managed to fight him when he didn’t have the deck stacked. And that this Jedi was a mere adolescent. People made a point of screaming ‘Maybe Darths aren’t so big after all’ on Imperial Channels.”

Vajra chuckled. “Reckless. What if it had hurt their poor feelings?”

“They weren’t pleased. They demanded Angral’s head back. As punishment for him going rogue, they said. Supreme Commander Rans reminded them that the treaty didn’t oblige us to return someone who they had disavowed. He also let slip that perhaps Angral’s fate may repeat itself, should any Sith start to act up.”

“What the hell?!”

“It was a bluff, of course, but the Sith were clearly not willing to test it. Yet. Oh. And there were also secret celebrations on occupied worlds. I believe there were even Sith who celebrated, chief among them, Lady Kaira Rooks. She sent you a gift hamper.”

“Who’s Kaira Rooks? Wait, never mind. I’ll ask Jasme.”

“A good idea. House Rooks has a fascinating history. Anyway, the galaxy is relieved by Angral’s death, just as it was by Bellicose’s. Everyone out there is looking for your name in the news, eager to know what you’ll do next.”

“Did anyone see ‘attempted suicide’ coming?”

“Not that I’m aware of. But you know what is on the forecast? Defeats of Sith like Malgus. Barras. Marr. Some are even betting you’ll kill the Emperor.”

“They’re mad.”

“They were encouraged. The Treaty of Coruscant… well. I don’t know if you heard, but there were over fifty million suicides when it was signed. Many were not as protest. People were shocked and disheartened. They thought the galaxy was ending. Others just couldn’t accept that after all the carnage, all the sacrifice, the war would end in such ignominious defeat. And Angral was one of the architects of that defeat. His downfall has brought cheers like you wouldn’t believe!”

Vajra understood the fear. He thought back to that day he’d received news, nearly seven years ago, recalling his own dismay at the thought of Sith victory. He had remembered the slaughter of his people by Darth Bellicose, worried that this would be the fate of countless Republic worlds. And he’d not quite been proven wrong.

His fellow Uphradeans had also been shaken. The normally happy and jovial townsfolk had grown tense and fearful overnight. Someone had started floating the idea of mass suicide should the Empire come knocking. Vajra remembered watching, aghast, as cannisters full of Sleeping Death had been passed around to everyone. He had refused his, of course. If he’d kept it, he might have used that instead of a noose.

Master WenSuul had not attended that emergency meeting. Her knees had failed her when news of the Sacking arrived, forcing her to sit down on a heap of fallen leaves. Vajra had carried her back to the cottage, and tended to her as she spent the next few days in a daze.

Come to think of it, that might have been the last day she left her home.

He told Doctor Row all his thoughts, and she sighed. “You see? The Sacking of Coruscant left a scar on our people. There are billions of citizens—or former citizens, I should say—who feel betrayed to this day, even though the Senate’s hands were tied. That is why your actions gave them such powerful hope.”

“It’s a sham,” Vajra whispered. “A lie. We aren’t ready for another war, not yet.”

“That’s not the point right now.”

“Alright.”

“Tell me your thoughts on the Sacking of Coruscant.”

Vajra cast his thoughts back seven years. “Until I set foot on the world myself, Coruscant wasn’t a real place to me. It was… a symbol, I suppose? A beacon that represented the heart of the Republic. The center of everything the Republic stood for, and the source of civilization in the galaxy.”

“That is how they’ve propped themselves up to look,” Doctor Row chuckled.

“I thought it was an endless city in the clouds, filled with rainbows and terraced gardens. Which is a ten-year-old child’s rendition of the truth, I suppose. I still can’t comprehend one trillion people. That is truly vast!”

“Yes it is. And I seem to recall you once saved all those lives. Almost single-handedly, too.”

“Feels so long ago.”

“Almost two years, no?”

“I think so. And now I’m living in the woods and nearly ended my own life.”

“You keep bringing that up. Are you feeling ashamed?”

“No,” he admitted. “Only because I hurt Jasme and Kira. If not for them, I wouldn’t hesitate try again.”

“Good thing you’re here then. We’ll keep you safe from yourself.”

“Why? Why do people care about someone like me?”

“Even the worst people in the galaxy have those that care about them.”

Vajra thought about the Power Guard program. “That’s not true. The homeless, the poor, the addicts. All the poor souls who joined th—” he stopped short, remembering that this was privileged information.

“It’s alright,” she said. “Under Republic Armed Forces regulations, I’m authorized to be hear even classified information, if my patients need to talk about it. Don’t spare any details.”

Vajra opened up about the program, being more open per her request. He was taken aback by her rather tame response, which was a forlorn sigh.

“Does this happen often?”

“More than you’d believe,” she confessed. “But I can’t tell you about them. War makes people desperate. Especially when they’re losing. I promise you, there are others out there just as horrific and unethical. We just don’t hear about them. And no doubt the Empire has such programs underway too. The best we can do is to help the victims, something which I’m certain you did.”

“Why? Why are you certain, I mean?”

“Because I’ve read your file. You’re one of the more conscientious Jedi. You go above and beyond for those you feel responsible for.”

“But I killed thirty Power Guards. On Angral’s ship.”

“A tragedy. But what choice did you have?”

“The ship was disabled. If I’d waited—”

“Angral might have gotten away. Or he may have pointed the ship itself at the Temple. You don’t need a bridge to do that, you know.”

“The reactors were down. The ship was dead. We had him. We had them all. All I had to do was take my time. I could easily have defeated the Power Guards without killing them.”

“I see.” She made a note of that. “But you went for the quick option. Why?”

“I—I wanted Angral defeated.”

“Vajra, while I can be persuaded to agree that you had other options, I want you to acknowledge one thing. You were not yourself that day. The destruction of Uphrades had a profound effect on you. Any other day, any other day… we will work on making you acknowledge that. We will reconvene the day after tomorrow. You’ve gotten a lot of things off your chest today, given them words. And I’ve said a few things in return. I want you to reflect on them. Can you do that?”

“I guess so.”

“In addition, I’m giving you a datapad.” She gave him a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “I want you to verbalize your thoughts and feelings. Talk about how you’re feeling. I have remote access, so I will be able to review it all outside our sessions. This kind of journalling might bring out some thoughts that you’ve kept hidden. Even from yourself.”

He nodded.

“I also want you to list things you are grateful for, every time you see one. Anything, no matter how small or big. Or if it’s a thought about yourself.”

He nodded again.

“I’m clearing you for leaving the ward so you can exercise again. Get plenty of it, see plenty of grass and sunlight. I will see you again the day after tomorrow. You take care of yourself now, alright?”

 *

[drumaknae]

[ID: the first two images are a question on reddit from u/Maylandman101: What does it feel like to use heroine? And an answer from a deleted account that says: Actually this is an obvious question but it's not what you might think. Let me explain it to you, I've been an opiate addict for a long time and tried many drugs. Drugs that are 'uppers' have the most 'obvious' euphoria. For example if you take adderall/coke/meth/speed/MDMA you will get this shining bright euphoria, self confidence, energy, and other drug-specific feelings (for meth like you are king or for MDMA like you love everyone). However, you owe these drugs back what they delivered to you. After a meth binge, or lots of MDMA use, or staying up all night on coke you will feel like shit. To an extent this aspect is similar to an alcoholic hangover.

On the other hand, for many people who experiment with heroin they are underwhelmed (not including IV usage, but most experimenters rarely ever IV first time). They just feel good, chill, happy, but they feel like this spooky drug 'heroin' hasn't delivered. They are just mellow. Oh obviously it has all been a lie they will think. Heroin isn't spooky, it's chill. It's not addictive like everyone else thinks. It doesn't make you do stupid shit or stay up all day and hallucinate like amphetamines or coke. It doesn't empty your serotonin like MDMA or give you a hangover like alcohol. People tend to just think oh, what a nice drug.

So the next day they wake up and everything is normal. No headache or shitty feeling--just a slight afterglow of that nice feeling. Oh it was cheap as well! It only cost $10 for a whole night of being high! I thought people said heroin was expensive? And then next weekend comes... There are all these drugs I could do but I liked heroin. It didn't 'fuck me up,' I could still think clearly. No hangover. No feeling like shit later. I still was awake. It just made me happy and content with life. Oh and it's only $10! Well, I should get some more for the whole weekend. This is great! I will use Heroin on the weekends now!

Now let's say this person works and has responsibilities. He knows he can't go into work drunk, or on MDMA, or high. So he doesn't. It's actually simple. But heroin... Well the user might actually find they do better work on heroin. Instead of being sad or grumpy or depressed with his job... he is just... happy. Mellow.

Content. Everything is fine and the world is beautiful. It's raining, it's dark, I woke up at 5:30AM, I'm commuting in traffic. I would have had a headache, I would have been miserable, I would have wondered how my life took me to this point. This point I'm at right now. But no, no, everything is fine. Life is beautiful. The rain drops are just falling and in each one I see the reflection of every persons life around me. Humanity is beautiful. In this still frame shot of traffic on this crowded bus I just found love and peace.

Heroin is a wonder drug. Heroin is better than everything else.

Heroin makes me who I wish I was. Heroin makes life worth living. Heroin is better than everything else. Heroin builds up a tolerance fast. Heroin starts to cost more money. I need heroin to feel normal. I don't love anymore. Now I'm sick. I can't afford the heroin that I need. How did $10 used to get me high? Now I need $100. That guy that let me try a few lines the first time doesn't actually deal. Oh I need to find a real dealer? This guy is a felon and carries a gun--he can sell me the drug that lets me find love in the world. No this isn't working, I need to quit.

To answer your question, heroin feels nice. That's all, it just feels very nice. You can make the rest up for yourself. Attach your own half-truths to this drug that will show you the world and for a moment you will feel as clever as Faust.

Edit: Thank you for the kind words. I received help and I'm doing well now. Luckily I was able to pull up and get help right before I entered the deadly downward spiral. Some of my friends have not done as well. Sorry to steal the limelight from OP

At the bottom there is a reply from u/Ifuxdalion that says: Reading that was more haunting than any drug campaign I have ever been exposed to. Thanks. A lot.

The third image is tumblr tags that say: #anti-drug campaigns should be run by recovering addicts #cause like #how are you gonna talk honestly about how a drug affects your life if youve never done it #how can you really communicate what it does to your life if you ignore the reasons people do drugs in the first place? #i dont think anyone's gonna believe you when you say a drug is bad if you never acknowledge the way the drug makes you feel good #tags. End ID]

[hunter-slime-660]

Sooo ive finished earlier tonight interlude #3 of Dramatis Personæ (Savage Worlds campaign) and im kind of obssessing soooo, you all get to know what happened!

TW: substance abuse

BASICALLY its winter, and its been 2 weeks since (interlude #2) where Bea (my pc) lost control of her ability and almost (involuntarily) killed several people with it due to stress.

Its the weekend and everyone from the office is relaxing at home, except Ruth.

Ruth is kinda worried because she hasn't seen Fujiko (her ability who is, somehow autonomous and sentient) in several days, which is very weird for her. But as she goes for her weekend chores she keeps seeing what seems to be Fujiko entering several dark alleys from the corners of her eyes, but every time she looks she just can't see/find her.

As Monday rolls around and everyone (including Bea) comes back to the office, Ruth acts a bit off, since Fujiko STILL hasn't appeared. So she goes talking to Bea and Wulfric (npc) and he is like "uhhh go talk to Muriel, im too busy (doing nothing)", so then Bea is like "do you want me to come with? Im done with my work for the day" and Damiano (third PC) is like "WE ARE GOING TO SEE MURIEL? 😍"

So the three of them go see Muriel, who's the director of the medicine department of the Agency. Ruth explains what's been going on and Muriel is like "huh. Weird. You should probably look it over and if anything happens please tell me. I want to keep it monitored"

So Ruth asks the group to help her find Fujiko by going back where she was last seen: the alleyway. There Ruth keeps on seeing Fujiko by the corner of her eye and following her they actually find her looking down at a young woman having an overdose. Seeing the woman Bea and Damiano rush to grab her and bring her to an hospital, leaving Ruth behind with Fujiko.

Here Fujiko actually scolds Ruth, calling her a hypocrite because before she joined the Agency she used to be a drug dealer and never cared for what happened to the people after they took the drugs (making a point of it by throwing a bag filled with pills at Ruth), but now wants to act all saint and suddenly cares about other people, who are not, in fact, addicted; and asks her what's she's trying to obtain from all this.

Ruth tells her that she does not, in fact, care about helping people, but that she feels that a secret agency whose purpose is to bring good in to the world without anything in return cannot possibly exists and wants to know what's underneath and only then she will be able to tell Fujiko what she wants to do afterwards.

Fujiko doesn't like the response and simply says "then call me once you have an answer" and disappears.

In the meantime Bea and Damiano manage to save the woman by bringing her to a hospital in time and go back to Ruth.

At this point everyone goes home and the next day Ruth goes to talk to Muriel.

Muriel is like "huh glad everything is alright- WHY DO YOU HAVE DRUGS ON YOU." Because yeah Ruth kept the pills Fujiko gave her. Oopsie. So yeah Muriel scolds her and the game ends with Muriel being upset about a specific pill (we dont know what its for)

[bestsevenstarrecovery]

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Using Drugs Or Alcohol In A Luxury Drug Rehab It’s easy to feel that being clean is a waste of time in a high-end drug rehabilitation program. The bright side of attending treatment is that even while you won’t be able to drink or use drugs, you may still work on improving your lifestyle. The bad news is that you may relapse if you engage in certain activities that are strongly discouraged.

Relapse on a drug or alcohol during treatment is a standard method for individuals to set back their recovery. Those that start an addiction treatment program while still inebriated from the night before may run into this issue. A common blunder is re-entering the drug world after entering a rehabilitation facility.

It’s crucial to refrain from using any illegal or potentially harmful substances throughout your treatment program, even if you’re not already using them regularly. Because of the potential for adverse reactions to medications that a doctor does not prescribe, it is standard practice for rehabilitation facilities to prohibit patients from bringing in any illicit narcotics.

Not Being Honest with Yourself or Others Patients at the luxury drug rehab clinic are encouraged to be entirely truthful with themselves and others around them throughout their time there. The patient must be willing to open up and be entirely honest with themselves and those closest to them for honesty to play a significant role in the healing process.

When trying to be honest with yourself, the single most crucial thing to keep in mind is that you need to be honest with yourself. It’s tempting to tell some individuals what they want to hear, but doing so is neither beneficial nor healthy in the long term. You have to acquire the skill of speaking all that is on your mind, even if doing so requires you to be impolite or cruel.

Getting Into Arguments with Other Patients or Staff Members Under the influence of drugs, it’s simple to lose control of your emotions and say things you don’t mean. Drugs aren’t the only thing that may throw you off your equilibrium; occasionally, your environment can do the same thing. Rehab, even at a high-end center, may make it hard to feel at ease and comfortable. Arguments with other patients or staff members are common. This is something you want to keep away from. Conflict is inevitable in human interaction but has no place in a recovery environment.

When you’re high or drunk, your brain doesn’t function like when you’re sober. As a result, you are far more prone to act on instinct and rage. There is a risk that your changed mental state may prompt you to take reckless or harmful action. Relapse into violence or self-harm due to arguments in treatment is counterproductive to the healing process. No one will want to be around you after a fight, especially if you are aggressive or cruel.

If you or a loved one needs high-quality drug treatment in Southern California, go no further than Seven Star Recovery. Guests will appreciate our state-of-the-art facility’s discreet entry, constant monitoring, and high-end decor. If you or someone you know needs detoxification or rehabilitation services, we can help. We offer affordable and flexible payment options, including insurance coverage for individualized treatment programs. To speak with one of our professional staff members, contact us at (818) 390-9817.

[ashe-delta]

One of the biggest themes of House of Leaves is the feeling of being lost. Not just physically lost, either, but mentally too, not sure where you're going in life, or with yourself. Nothing seems, right, everything is deeper than it actually is, hidden in between layers and layers of abstraction that make it difficult to tell if you're going the right way.

In the most literal interpretation of House of Leaves, it is a book written by Danielewski [1], (edited by uncredited editors [2]) annotated by Truant [3], about an analysis (written by Zampano [4]) of a documentary filmed by Navidson [5], about a house thats bigger on the inside than the outside [6]. Every single layer talks down to each other bringing what exactly is true or not. Its impossible to follow and horribly pretentious, exactly how a book should be.

Truant in his story tends to seek distractions from when he gets lost, and those distractions are usually drugs or sex, usually both. Each layer is written in it's own style, and Truant's is typically conversational. Short sentences, easy to understand. But he also has a tendency, when getting distracted, to have long, long run on sentences. And when I mean long, I mean multiple pages long. You can't even catch your breath as you tumble through a sentence with no ending in sight, never really able to look back, just trying to reach the end. (It's a metaphor. It's obviously a metaphor. I mean do I even need to explain it)

These long run on sentences are know as Stream of Consciousness prose. It emulates the feeling of those long run thoughts, by making it hard to stop reading, thereby stop thinking. You quite literally get lost in thought. One additional thing this prose does it makes you feel almost breathless, since you can never take a second to pause, since the sentence never ends. The only relief for the sentence, and the train of thought, is for when it finally ends and you snap back to reality.

Enter the sex scenes, of which there are many, and are better content wise than I'd like to admit. You can feel him get lost in his passions, because you too are lost in this sentence with no clean way out. Every comma feels like shaky breath, every tiny pause a gasp. Then, when you feel like this passage will really, truly never end, you can feel it, as both you and Truant, are about to, uh, well, finish the sentence.

Jokes aside, without even describing the scene, the prose follows along the themes of the scene so well that it can make the reader feel lost without any words telling them to be. And after this page (or 2) long sentence, the world is back to normal, and life is back to the dull short quips it was before. That juxtaposition parallels Truant going back to his life he was trying to run away from. It just works.

Truant is lost in the passion of sex. Zampano is lost in his writing. Navidson is lost in his house. And you are lost in the writing. At once, you are lost together. And you're all distracted, too, you from the greater story, Navidson from his family slipping away from him, Zampano from his life, and Truant from his anxieties. There are 4 separate stories being told here, but for one moment, you all feel the same horror.

And it's all in the form of a "useless sex scene".

the thing about house of leaves no one is willing to admit because we're all trying to pretend it didn't happen is that the sex scenes are actually insanely well written

[pwarkluv]

❝ idk you yet ❞ - p.js

park jisung x reader | angsty, fluff | 1.6k words 

WARNINGS | TW: mentions blood, abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, lowercase au, non-idol au, high school au, badboy!jisung, mature language/cursing, reader is like an angel sent from heaven for him, jisungie just in need of love :(

SUMMARY | being an outcast has him wondering if he’ll ever be happy. cue you, the new girl, stumbling into his life (literally).

AUTHOR’S NOTE | inspired by the song “idk you yet” by alexander23! also AHHH this is my 100 followers special fic :) THANK U LOVES FOR 100 IM SO SHOCKED CJSBFKEJD <33 the writing is a little crappy because i’m currently on my period and my patience for sitting down and writing this went down halfway through lol but I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, ENJOY THIS JISUNG FIC BC JISUNG MY BABIE AND SO ARE YOU GUYS!

whenever anybody thinks of park jisung, they think of the chains and dark clothing he wears. they think about the faint smell of smoke and men’s cologne that follows him wherever he goes. 

they think of the boy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. 

but what they don’t think about are bruises on his face he fails to hide whenever he walks into school, the dejected look on his face whenever random people give him disapproving looks, the way his smile slowly faded into a permanent frown wherever he went. 

jisung quickly accepted his reputation at school and in their little town, not having enough energy to feel insecure about it like before.

the only group of people that even remotely cared about the boy were his best friends in the whole entire world, nct dream.

they were outcasts just like him, the most “fucked up group of boys” in their town (the people’s words, not theirs).

see, they were your typical bad boy group straight out of your typical fanfic. bad grades, smoking in their free time, getting into fights, always being late to class; not a single person had hope in them.

but behind their scary and intimidating facade, all seven boys were big softies with misunderstood hearts and difficult backgrounds.

people were just too dense to look into it, only judging them based on their looks and personality on the outside. 

❝ how can you miss someone you’ve never met ❞

love was a foreign thing to jisung, the only form of love he’s ever felt being from his friends. his parents were… interesting to say the least. 

jisung’s father was a hard-core alcoholic, his mother being a major druggie. with no siblings in the house, jisung was usually their main target to push around and beat up.

and so because of this at a young age jisung learned to distance himself from other people and found different ways to release stress.

he started smoking when he was 14, the warm and hazy feeling of the smoke entering his lungs comforting him.

if jisung humored himself enough, maybe smoking could count as his first love. it was always there for him, never leaving him alone even if he wanted to quit. 

he relied on it knowing it was the only constant in his life. 

now of course the boy has heard of proper love, love like in the movies or shitty romance songs he hears on the radio.

and he won’t lie, there were moments he thought about what it felt like to be in love. but he knew that would never happen, at least not in their small town anyways. 

he just wanted to be loved. 

jisung would never admit it but sometimes he’d be jealous of the old couples walking down the street in their own world like it was just them two against the universe. he was jealous of the happy kids running around, their mother’s and father’s fondly smiling at their child. he was jealous of all the “normal” kids in his neighborhood. 

jisung wanted that, craved that. 

but most importantly, the boy wanted love.

❝ cause i need you now but i don’t know you yet ❞

everything hurt. 

his head, his body, his mind, his heart; everything was in pain.

jisung walked down the empty streets of their city, a trail of blood following behind him as he accepted his fate. the boy was 99% sure he had a concussion and at the very least had a few broken ribs. 

he felt like this was the end, and he was ready.

-

wandering aimlessly around town, you decided to take a late night walk to familiarize yourself around the area. you had just moved into the city a week ago, spending all seven days trying to help your family unpack and rearrange your cozy new home. 

now that you were finally free of the smell of tape and the dust of the boxes, you decided it was best to get to know the place you were living in. 

the autumn air seemed to settle at night as you shivered, cursing yourself for not bringing a jacket of some sort. the sight of a convenience store up ahead of you brought you relief as you rummaged through your pockets wondering if you had enough money for ramen.

your steps became excited as you found a couple dollars, fondly thinking about what type of ramen you should buy. you became so lost in your thoughts you didn’t even notice the poor boy who was staggering in front of you, or the trail of blood he left behind. 

-

jisung pushed himself to reach the convenience store a couple feet away from him, in desperate need of supplies to at least try and fix himself. 

if it didn’t help in any way then oh well, maybe death was indeed an option. 

grinding his teeth though the pain, he did not expect to feel a small body bump into him. had he been at his regular health, jisung would’ve easily been able to keep still but because of how much blood he was losing the boy was knocked down like a bowling pin.

“holy fuck.” jisung cursed the feeling of the concrete floor colliding with his ribs. he didn’t even notice the girl who had bumped into him sitting on the floor dumbfounded, freaking out over his state.

“oh my fucking god.” the girl said, capturing his attention. jisung glared at the stranger, mentally acknowledging the fact she was pretty. 

but her being pretty won’t get you anywhere, he scolded himself. she’ll leave you just like everyone else.

“a-are you okay?” she said, eyes glancing at his black eye. jisung rolled his eyes, already annoyed. “does it look like i’m okay?” he replied, his deep voice catching the girl off guard. 

“just, fuck off.” jisung said closing his eyes as he laid back down on the floor, knowing he couldn’t force himself to get up anymore. he didn’t even have to open his eyes to know she left, hearing the sound of her footsteps walk away.

the boy sighed as he laid idly on the floor, wondering what sin he committed to lead him to where he is now. not even she wanted to stay, the tears threatening to fall as his thoughts buried him alive.

“why can’t i just die?” jisung said out loud, asking no one but himself.

“because i won’t let you.” a voice replied as jisung forced himself to sit up in confusion. it was the same girl he had bumped into, but this time she had a first aid kit with her. he gave her a lost look despite knowing what she was here to do. 

jisung’s mind just couldn’t wrap around the fact that a total stranger would even bother to help him. 

“now sit up.” she said softly as she bent down to open the box, the boy slowly followed her instructions. “i’m sorry this might sting.” she said though jisung didn’t mind because she was much prettier up close.

-

the next ten minutes were you trying to fix his wounds against the shitty chairs outside the convenience store.

jisung didn’t even bother mentioning his broken ribs, not wanting you to freak out. you cleaned up what you could and the boy was beyond grateful for that.

you subconsciously rubbed his back in a comforting way whenever you’d apply alcohol to his open wounds, trying to ease the sting. you held his hand for him to hold and though he was a big boy and had a high pain tolerance, he still gave it a squeeze just to keep your hand there.  what the actual fuck is this feeling, jisung asked himself as he watched your determined figure work on him.

it was cold and in order to better work on his wounds, the boy offered to give you his hoodie which strangely had no traces of blood on it. you gladly accepted, the faint smell of blood and his cologne engulfing you up. 

the sight of you in something so big and so him made his chest swell in pride.

jisung couldn’t even formulate a sentence as you cursed at the time once you finished patching him up, fleeing the scene before he could say anything with a small smile, his hoodie still on. 

❝ and can you find me soon because i’m in my head ❞

the thought of your soft hands on his, your voice, your whole presence; everything about you couldn’t seem to leave the poor boy’s mind. it was now monday, and waiting for his class to start already made him want to go home.

if only i got her name, jisung daydreamed with his head resting on the palm of his hand. the classroom was loud and bright, people occasionally giving him looks but the boy didn’t mind. 

“jisungie~ did you hear we have a new kid?” jaemin asked, poking the boy’s cheeks. the boy only gave him a pointed look before sighing. 

“hyung i don’t really care.” jisung replied, looking back out the window. 

jaemin only gave him an offended look before grumbling a bit. “i don’t know maybe you will.” he muttered under his breath as their teacher walked into the room. 

❝ yeah i need you now but i don’t know you yet ❞

their homeroom teacher stood in front of the class, jisung tuning out his voice. the boy once again sighed as his teacher called for their attention, explaining they had a new girl in their class. “now make her feel welcomed,” he said before turning towards the door.

“y/n, please come in.” the teacher said and jisung almost fell out of his seat when he saw you walking through the door with the same smile you gave him a couple days ago.

“hi i’m y/n and i hope we can get along.” you bowed to the class, a familiar hoodie you were wearing catching his attention. 

isn’t that mine, jisung thought to himself as he bit back a smile knowing you kept it all along. 

[wri0thesley]

omg wait no hold on I just requested overhaul but then I remembered your overhaul thirst post about him pulling a "curing hysteria~" as an excuse and thought I'd request something along that vibe (no oun intended). I think that'd fall under orgasm control, overstim? (hope this is okay!)

hysteria antidote - overhaul x fem!reader (4k)

seeing nothing but the same four walls every day of your life is playing havoc with your brain. overhaul thinks perhaps you're suffering from hysteria. he has the perfect cure for that.

cw: not sfw/minors dni. dark content!!! dubious/non-consent. captive reader. talk of death, blood, etc. medical kink, gloves, fingering, overstimulation, orgasm control. misogyny. mentions of pregnancy/breeding. afab reader, fem pronouns.

[a/n: idk the internet said the 28th of may was his birthday so consider this both a birthday fic and a fic to celebrate 6k followers, sorry that i am gross and horrible but tbh im having a great time <3]

You really don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to be going out of your mind.

Since the Boss was taken ill, and Kai – Overhaul, you remind yourself, though he’s always just a little less sharp with you when you trip over the new name than he is with anyone else – took over leadership of the Shie Hassaikai, you’ve been pretty much stuck indoors.

Considering that you’re pretty sure he only has fond feelings towards maybe three people in the entire world, including you, you guess you ought to feel special about it – but all it actually does is make you feel like a trapped bird, caged and restless. It doesn’t help that all of the other members of the organisation have started being weird around you; people who you’ve known most of your adult life, people who you’ve worked beside and killed beside and done other horrible things beside (for the good of the organisation, of course)--

But now, they look at you like you might break at any moment. They treat you like an invalid. Their brows crease when they see you out and about, quietly murmuring; “Shouldn’t you still be in your room?”, avoiding touching you at all costs. There’s a kind of fear in their eyes, that they’re going to be told off for even speaking to you, that they’re afraid of being caught close to you.

And you know exactly who’s to blame for that.

You’d tried to speak to him about it, once; you’d thought that perhaps he might be amenable to your desire to do something to help the Shie Hassaikai. He’s always wanted to restore them to their former glory, after all! But after you’d let out your little impassioned tirade, his eyebrows had creased over the bird-mask.

“You don’t sound well,” he’d said to you. “Go back to your room. I’ll talk to you about it later.”

You had missed, at the time, that he hadn’t said ‘we’ll talk about it later’. He’d just said ‘I’ll’. When he had come, that is how it had been; the reassurance that he was keeping you safe. That he didn’t want you to be tainted. That he was keeping you well.

Your quirklessness has never been an issue before, but it certainly hasn’t been a boon. Still, for Kai--

“It’s disgusting,” he’d said, agitated by the discussion. You’d stared at his hands, thinking about the destructive power he himself wielded. “Quirks are a curse, and you not having one is just proof you’re not infected.” He’d looked up, golden eyes piercing directly into yours. “I’m going to keep you perfect.”

Overhaul is not a doctor, for all of his talk about illness and disease and plague. You think he could have used his quirk for something meaningful, once; but you also know that his burning curiousity, his disgust of anyone who deems tainted, his utter lack of morality . . . those are all things that would not have been welcomed in the medical profession. So instead, he deals in needles and pills and altering drugs in the underground labyrinth of the compound.

Sterile rooms, with examination tables and scalpels and impersonal, silver-grey equipment. Pill boxes that rattle when he passes them to you and tells you to take three of those a day, one of those, that one has to be taken to with food--

The idea that you won’t take them doesn’t enter his head, and though he has never . . . overhauled someone in front of you, you have walked past other members of the organisation mopping and disinfecting blood and gristle from sterile flooring.

It is better to go along with him, so you take the supplements and the pills and submit to the way he grabs your chin in gloved hands on the doctor’s chair, tipping your face up to shine a light into your eyes and watch your pupils dilate. But inside, you are screaming.

You’re not made to be locked in one room, occasionally allowed out to pace the hallways of the upstairs – never the underground ones, not any more – with restless footsteps and your muscles fizzing with desire to taste fresh air. You’re not made to stare at the same walls and breathe the purified air and think about how empty the compound is, now that Overhaul is in charge of everything--

(Too many knick-knacks attract dust. Pollen allergies act up, if there are too many plants, and he hates hearing people sneeze. Furniture should be easily movable and barren, to assist in the twice-daily cleanings of every room that people walk through.)

But it’s getting too much for you. Suffocating. You feel like you’re choking on air all of the time; you take the pills, because the thought of what he could do to you is terrifying, but sometimes you wonder if perhaps it would be better if you didn’t.

You’d woken up that morning to the sound of rain hitting the high windows in your bedroom, and you had longed to go outside in your thin nightwear and spread your arms and taste the air, smell the rain, feel it hit your body in fat droplets. Your entire being had ached. You’d tried to distract yourself, with what little there was in the barren prison cell that you called a bedroom – but when the door opened at four thirty exactly, and Kai had stood there with his face as impassive as ever, you had not been able to stop yourself.

Hand fastening around his upper arm (you shouldn’t touch him, you know you shouldn’t, but the same four walls are getting to you), you’d begged him;

“I want to go outside.”

If anyone else had touched him like that, they would already be splattered against the walls and floor. But all you get is a furrow of his eyebrows, careful fingers (gloved, of course; the latex against your skin always makes you shudder) pinching at your hand to get you to let go of him.

“No,” he says. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“I don’t care,” you’re petulant, you know, frustration bubbling up in every cell of your body. “If I stay in here for one more day, I will tear myself into pieces.”

“You’re being over-dramatic.”

“Kai—”

“Don’t call me that.” His rebuttal is sharp. “You know I’m doing this for your own good.”

Your face twists into something ugly. Overhaul hates it when you do that; hates the way your brow wrinkles, your mouth moves, your normally lovely face (one of very few he can bear to look at unmasked and not feel as though he is going to get sick from merely breathing the same air of you) marred.

“You’re not,” you hiss at him. “You’re doing this because you’re fucked up! Because you’ve got some weird fucking ideas about what’s clean and what’s unclean, because you’re on a power trip, because you don’t care about other people--” Your voice is pitching and modulating, all of the things that you usually try and keep balled up inside of you spilling out that the floodgates of how unhappy you are is open.

You’re breathing heavy as Overhaul, clearly irked by what you’re saying, tugs at the wrist of one of his surgical gloves. If he’s going to kill you, good – at least it will be better than this, you think, your breath coming in short sharp pants after the outburst.

He lets go. His hands fall to his sides. His golden gaze on you is very level.

“You’re hysterical,” he tells you. An exasperated laugh falls from your mouth.

“Yeah?” You ask him. “Of course I am. Do you know the last time I breathed fresh air?”

“Seven months, two weeks, three days.” He says it without blinking. Your shoulders tense. Has it really been that long? “You haven’t been ill once in that time. The world out there is filthy.”

“It’s normal to get sick,” you try and tell him, but Overhaul is moving forward; past the doorway, and into your room. The door clicks shut behind him, the sound of a lock ominous. You don’t think you’ve ever been alone with Kai in your bedroom.

In the medical examination rooms, sure. In his office. In common areas, back when he was just the boss’ troubled protege and not the boss himself--

His eyebrows twitch in disgust as he notices the dust on your bookshelves. You’d stopped letting any of the cleaners in here a month ago; you’d refused to clean in the mean time, taking whatever small victory against your captor that you could.

“You’ll give yourself respiratory issues,” he says.

“Good,” your voice is cold, but you realise you’ve backed away from him. For all of your attempts to stand up to him, you’re terrified. Everyone knows what he can do. “Better dead than here--”

Gloved fingers around your wrist, so tight you can practically feel them bruising.

“You don’t mean that,” he says. His voice has gotten softer, cajoling. You’re trembling in his grip. “I told you. You’re hysterical.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” you say, but your words feel like you’re spitting them out around a mouthful of gravel. “I—I’m calm--”

Your knees knock against your bed, but Overhaul is still clinging to you; still too close. Your heart is beating so fast that you can hear it pounding in your ears.

“You’re not. You’re hysterical.” He repeats it, calmly. The hand not on your wrist reaches up and cups your face, a gloved thumb stroking across your cheek as if you’re the most delicate thing he’s ever touched. The scent of the latex is overwhelming. “But that’s alright. It’s not your fault.” He clicks his tongue behind the mask. “It’s mine. All of this checking for the physical sickness, and I didn’t think about checking your head.”

You fall onto the bed as his knees knock against yours, your back hitting the wall. It’s just a plain, single bed; rumpled sheets, because you’d fought against any attempt for someone to come in and collect your laundry, too. Overhaul looks silly in your room, you think dimly; like a huge black crow in the nest of a small, frightened wren.

“If you fight,” he tells you, “I’ll disassemble you. I’d rather not. I don’t want to taint you by using my quirk. But . . .” He’s sinking to his knees in front of you, those same methodical hands pushing up the skirt of your dress. “If I did, I’d get a blank mind to work with. I won’t hesitate. But I’d still rather simply fix you without having to break you into pieces first.”

You know him too well to think that he’s bluffing.

After all of the vitriol you’ve spat at him, he’s unwilling to kill you. Would it be worse, to be mindless and brainless under Kai’s quirk? You’ve heard some of his failed experiments before; babbling, drooling, broken things. He’s killed them sometimes just to put them out of their misery.

What if he did that, and your mind remained perfectly capable – just utterly unable to communicate with your body? A prisoner in your own skin. Worse than even now. You swallow back the lump of fear.

“H-how are you going to do that?” You ask him.

You start at how cold the gloved fingers are on your bare thighs, as Overhaul pushes them apart. Cold fear prickles down your spine. You’re too scared to fight back, but everything he’s doing is making you want to run.

“Did you know,” Overhaul says, those same hands sliding higher, to tug at the waistband of your underwear. “In the past, there were rumours that doctors would cure hysteria by genital massage and stimulation?”

His words are very clinical, but there’s a thickness to his voice behind the mask that fills you with revulsion.

“It might be nonsense, of course,” he says. Your underwear is being tugged down, pulled around your thighs, your knees, your ankle. “They theorised that the best cure was regular intercourse, male semen, pregnancy and childbirth--”

“Kai—” Your voice is a soft whine, fear-filled. This time, he doesn’t snap at you for calling him by the name he’s left behind. He simply says;

“Spread your legs.”

You don’t want to. But you want to risk what he’s threatening you with even less, so you tearfully open them as wide as you can go. He shifts forward, and the tip of the beaked mask digs into your inner thigh as he studies you like you’re nothing more than a diagram, not a living, breathing person--

“Next time I’ll have lubricant ready,” he says, under his breath, and your heart seizes up at the implication that whatever he’s going to do to you, there’ll be a next time.

You start at the sensation of gloved fingers gently parting the lips of your sex, Overhaul’s golden eyes drinking in the sight of you spread open and bare. You’re shaking, but for some reason the way he’s looking at you – the utter concentration in his eyes – makes a curl of heat flare deep inside of you.

“Don’t,” you breathe, trying not to squirm. “Please--”

“I don’t want to have to,” he says. His tone remains calm, unbothered. “I’m doing it for your own good, you know that. Just helping you along.” One finger slides through the slit; the sensation of the gloves against your most intimate, heated parts makes the muscles in your thighs clench. It’s . . . not exactly unpleasant, but neither it is pleasant. “Do you think I’m getting any pleasure out of this?”

He doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. You know this; everyone knows this. If this particular thought was so unpleasant to him, you don’t doubt he’d have found somebody else to do it (the thought of one of the other members of the Shie Hassaikai doing this to you fills you with even more revulsion than the idea of Overhaul himself). But you can’t say that out loud. Not after what he’s threatened. So you press your lips together and shake your head, gasp dying in your throat as one of Overhaul’s latex-covered fingers prods gently around your opening.

“You’re getting wet,” he tells you, as if you can’t feel the shameful slick beginning to leak from you. “That will make this easier. Good.”

You hate that the praise makes another jolt of arousal go through you. You don’t want to like the feeling of his gloves, rubbing at your heated cunt; the sensation of a fingertip circling around your entrance, brushing the bud of your clit and making you want to clamp your thighs around his hand.

He sinks the tip of one finger inside of you and you jerk, your hips out of your control as you try and sink away from the intrusion. Overhaul clicks his tongue again in annoyance at you. The hand holding the lips of your cunt open moves, to land on your hip and pin you between the bed and the wall so you can’t squirm again.

“I’ll sedate you next time, if I have to,” he says. “I’m not getting anything out of this. I’d prefer not to have to do it at all--”

He’s lying. You know he is. But you can’t call him out for it, so you press your trembling lips together and try to stop tears spilling out from your lash line as the finger inside of you sinks further and further inside, past his first knuckle, right down to the base.

He crooks it inside of you and your hands curl into the bedsheets, nails digging into your palms through cotton. His touch is curious, exploratory; has he ever actually done this to anybody before? He slides over a rough patch inside of you with the latex-tipped finger and a moan escapes your mouth against your will, your head falling back against the wall. Narrowed golden eyes look up at you as he repeats the motion; taking in the gloss of your lips, the widening of your eyes, the way your shoulders are shaking up and down.

You can feel yourself pumping more slick out; helping the glide of his finger inside of you, as he begins to carefully thrust it in and out of you. His touch is made all the more impersonal by the mask obscuring everything but his eyes and eyebrows; you can’t even hear him breathing.

Your cunt is fluttering around him, pleasure swarming you in breathless waves as he withdraws his finger entirely. He lifts the glove to his eyeline, looking only vaguely interested in how the white latex glimmers with your arousal.

“I’m going to use two now,” he tells you – and that is all the warning you get before two fingers beside one another are opening you up, scissoring your tight channel apart with an ache that you feel up to your hips. You bite back the whimper, but you’re unable to stop the choked breaths that are falling from you as he fucks you with them in steady, constant thrusts.

A covered thumb brushes your clit; swollen, now. Sensitive. Standing to attention. Your hips attempt to jerk in his hold once more, a strangled noise that’s neither pleasured nor pain falling from your throat. You’ve touched yourself, of course you have – even recently, just to try and assuage some of the boredom that fills your exactly-the-same days – but Overhaul’s fingers and thumbs and touch on you are so entirely different from that.

He continues his assault over your clit, those same eyes watching you with that same detached, clinical disposition that he’s had most of the time. There’s a cast to them that suggests there’s something more, but whatever emotion – if, indeed, he’s still capable of that – he’s feeling about having you at his mercy in this way has been pushed to the back of his mind as his thumb rolls and pinches at the bud.

Your body goes all-over heat, Overhaul’s fingers still pumping in and out of you, the slick noises of your shaming wetness echoing around the prison of the four walls you’ve spent seven months in. You’re teetering on the edge of something, hot and needy and wanting – and as Overhaul’s thumb sweeps over your poor aching clit again, you tilt your hips forward for as much stimulation as you can--

And he pulls his fingers out of you.

The heat fades into nothingness as you let out a noise of disappointment. Overhaul’s head tilts to one side, considering.

“What do you want?” He asks you. “Say it.”

No. You don’t ‘want’. He’s wrong. You keep your mouth pressed tight now that the damning noise has fallen out of it; you have managed to not let the tears trembling in your eyes spill forth. Your gaze meets his, defiant and tired and afraid all at once.

“Alright,” he sighs. “If you’re going to carry on being difficult.”

He does it again; his fingers plunging into you, scissoring you apart, rubbing against your folds with a practised agility now that he’s done it for the first time. He has always been a fast learner; always been observant. His thumb is back on your clit with ceaseless assault, and all over again you feel heat begin to build up; tension that crawls into every crevice of your being and worms its way deep inside you despite how badly you don’t want this.

The hand holding your hip loosens somewhat, allowing you to messily thrust your hips into Overhaul’s stimulation. You’re torn; you shouldn’t want to hump against the gloved fingers stimulating you, you should be wriggling and squirming away. But it feels so good; even with the skin-tight covering of rubbery latex, Overhaul’s fingers seem to find every one of your weak points and exploit them.

There it is again, building up on you; a ball of tension in your stomach being gradually wound tighter and tighter, threatening to snap at any moment. Your hips flex against his hand, your fingers clenching and unclenching on the bedsheet--

He denies you the peak of your orgasm for the second time.

And a third.

And a fourth.

“Kai--!” You’re too far gone to even think, after the pleasure has been pulled from you so cruelly, over and over again. The tears spill over your cheeks., rolling down in fat, shaming droplets. Overhaul’s eyes narrow.

“No,” he says, vehement – more emotion in his voice than you’ve heard all day. “You know what to call me.”

You know what he wants you to call him. You know that he wants to leave his old name behind, start again, be someone who can drag the Shie Hassaikai out of the shadows and into light and power once again – and he thinks that the name will help. You gurgle out a sobbing, strangled noise;

“O-Overhaul, please--”

Three fingers are plunged as deep inside of you as they can go, crooked to rub against your sweet spot; as Overhaul murmurs, detached but soft;

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

They thrust into you, his thumb rubbing your clit with firm, certain strokes – and this time, as the orgasm rushes up on you all at once, he doesn’t stop. He fucks you with his fingers through it, his thumb not ceasing the circling. Pleasure washes over you, finally, in great waves and crests. You feel yourself gush on his fingers, soaking him in your wetness (his eyebrows furrow again, at how close your fluid comes to spilling over his bared wrist; but you are too relieved to think about anything other than finally getting what you need).

Your hips flex, gasps falling from your mouth with every thrust of them – and you expect Overhaul to pull his fingers out of you. To stop touching you. Perhaps to strip off his gloves and put on a new pair – you know he always carries spares – and sneer at you as he walks out of the room.

But Overhaul’s fingers do not move from inside of you. The fierce rhythm of his fucking and petting and rubbing does not stop, even as the final aftershocks of your orgasm clench loosely about him and his constant stimulation becomes more of an annoyance than anything else on heated, sensitive skin.

You squirm, trying to push your thighs together to get him to stop touching you – but the hand not fucking you forces your thighs to stay parted with the curl of fingers into supple flesh, leaving you helpless to do anything but let him carry on touching you. Carry on fucking you.

A short, sharp shock of an orgasm rips through you as he swirls his thumb over your clit just so, and you realise that you’re drooling down yourself as well as panting; helpless and sloppy, utterly unable to do anything except lie there and take it until Overhaul decides he’s had enough of touching you.

You come, what? Twice more? Thrice? Until the pulsing of your channel is painful, your skin feeling red raw, your whimpers into the ceiling dry and broken. Only then does he pull his fingers out of you with a lewd pop.

A gush of your fluid that his fingers were stoppering soaks your bedsheets, and you watch, dazed, as Overhaul stands up. He looks down at you for just one moment, that stretches unbearably long in the heat-and-sex soaked atmosphere of the room.

He strips his gloves off of his hands, eyebrows twitching in disgust as he leaves the crumpled latex on your bedside table. He’s sliding on another pair as he speaks;

“Feel better?”

No. No, you don’t. You feel worse. You feel disgusted and violated and aching, your body over-stimulated and exhausted, sweat and drool and bodily fluids clinging to your skin. But if you tell Overhaul that--

“Yes,” you say, voice very soft and small and weak. You cannot see his mouth, but you see the way his eyes flash happily, the overall sensation of him smiling.

Why does Overhaul’s smile make you so scared, when Kai’s smile used to just make you feel warm?

“We’ll need to do it a few more times,” he tells you, as your blood runs to ice in your veins. “Such maladies aren’t cured in a day, after all. But . . .” He turns, rearranging himself carefully, his mask readjusted. You can’t see him as he speaks the next words. “I’d like to try some of the other suggested remedies, too.”

You think of his earlier words.

‘They theorised that the best cure was regular intercourse, male semen, pregnancy and childbirth.’

You’re never going to escape, are you? You’re going to be trapped in this compound until the day you die, and Overhaul is going to think that he’s keeping you safe--

“Take a shower,” he says to you, as he opens the door. It is not a suggestion. “And stop not letting the maids come in here to clean. I’m not having you get sick.”

You think he might be the sick one.

[loveandthings11]

How Deep My Love Goes, Chapter 2

Read on AO3 l Chapter 1

Roses

He’s talking low in her ear.

He’s talking low in her ear.

“Do you know how much I missed how you feel?” She’s inhaling him like a drug as he collapses on top on her. “I’m fucking obsessed with you,” he whispers. “That was fucking amazing.”

She smiles into his skin. He can feel it with the lights off.

“Mmmm, I definitely missed you… and your talents.” He’s been starving for her compliments and feels like he’s high again when she gives them. He smiles and looks into her eyes like that’s where the truth is. 

“Oh, yeah?”

She holds eye contact while she pulls him closer.

“Oh, yeah,” she whispers as she kisses him, deep and messy, the way they only do in the dark.

They lie there in the quiet while their breathing slows. He kisses her shoulder and she closes her eyes. This is how it should be, how it had felt on their wedding night. They’d been safe and warm and listening to the waves outside. 

After a few minutes she feels his energy shift and knows the worries of the last day are pulling him away.  He moves to lie on his back and pulls her onto his chest. She knows what he’s thinking.

“Your dad’s going to be okay,” she says quietly, reaching up to give him a hug. He nods, but he’s not convinced.

Right now he’s trying to fill shoes that he fears are far too big. She wishes she could take away the heavy pressure on him from all sides. She’s never understood how he could do it. Logan never lets go of his son’s mistakes and he makes sure no one else does, either. He piles on constant reminders of the past.

She moves up so her face is next to Kendall’s. He’s staring at the ceiling and she gently places her hand on his face, guiding him back to look at her. Connection.

“You can do this,” she says. She’s the only one who’s ever said it to him, and it’s nice to hear a good answer to the question that’s been haunting him for 20 years. Once in a while, her words get through the ocean of doubt he lives in. Right now, he just wants to forget.

He rolls her over and brushes his lips over the soft skin on her neck. It sends tingles all over her body.

“Don’t you have to go to work at some point tomorrow?” She asks coyly.

“Fuck being CEO,” he mutters into her, kissing down her collarbone.

“Fuck being CEO?” The phrase is so absurd she can’t help but start laughing. He gives her a devious glance from his lowered place on her chest.

“I can’t go in. I can’t keep my hands off you that long.”

“Clearly!” She almost forgot how insatiable he is. His hands start wandering further. Electricity in the dark. She squeals as he touches a ticklish spot and it’s enough to make him need all of her right this second.

“That’s it,” he says. He locks his lips onto hers and slides the two of them back into the place where nothing else exists.

…………………………….

It’s early when she wakes up and light is streaming in through the curtains, all white and to the floor. He’s sleeping snuggled up next to her, curled into her with his hand on her heart. He must know it’s home, he’s always lived there. He’s breathing softly, finally feeling some peace. She smiles at him even though he doesn’t see it, and she thinks maybe everything else can wait.

He stirs and she wraps her arms around him. It’s the first thing he feels that day. He takes a breath and wonders if it’s the same dream he’s had before. It’s a hard one to wake up from. Her hand slowly rubs his back and he feels the ring on her finger. She hadn’t wanted to take it off last night. He inhales the scent of her skin. It’s real.

He opens his eyes and sees her soft smile, looking right at him. Sometimes you do get exactly what you want.

“Good morning,” she says to her husband. Her husband. It’s the first time they’ve been able to relax in forever. She loves the look he’s giving her. She loves all the colors in his eyes. 

The world is still for a few minutes. Maybe an hour. Time slowly enters her consciousness.

“You know, we might have some visitors soon,” she says with a knowing glance. They share the sweet moment before he reluctantly untangles himself from her arms, reaching for his t-shirt on the side of the bed. He’d tried to put it back on last night and she’d shaken her head, pulling him back to her and bringing out that little bashful smile.

She slips on her silk robe from the chair and sits back down next to him on the bed. The fragrance of her fresh roses floats through the air. She wonders if he remembers they’re the same as the ones that surrounded them when he proposed all those years ago.

He gets up and goes into the closet. There’s no way but he has to check. Folded up on a top corner shelf are his old Harvard sweatpants, hiding from everyone but her. He puts them on and walks out to show her what he found, giving her that self-satisfied look that makes her bite her lip.

“I knew you were pining for me.” He looks so annoyingly pleased with himself and she tries to roll her eyes but smiles against her will. He nods. “Yeah, I knew it.” She’s shaking her head and trying not to laugh. “The photo, the sweatpants, what else did you- did you have a stash of my voicemails that you’d listen to at night? A collection of my shirts you would sleep with?” He can’t remember the last time he had this much fun.

“You thought of that really quickly, Ken, I think you might be projecting,” she laughs. He gets closer to the spot she’s sitting on on the bed.

“Yeah, don’t try to toss it back. These were in your closet.”  She looks up at him, her favorite memories falling back into place.

“You live here again now, remember? So, actually, it’s your closet too.” He takes a second to take that in and blinks, smiling at her as that hits him. Maybe enough time has passed. Maybe she really has forgiven him.

They hear the patter of little feet coming down the hallway and she stands up, walking toward the door.

“You ready?” She asks. He’s never been so ready.

She opens the door a crack.

“Hi, you two,” she says happily. “I have a surprise for you!”

The anticipation is killing him.

“What, what??” Sophie asks excitedly.

“See for yourselves,” Rava says, swinging the door open. Their faces light up.

“DAD!” Sophie yells, running full speed and flinging herself at Kendall, hugging him with all of her might. He’s got his arms around her in one second and he looks so happy that Rava might cry. She walks with Iverson over to the side of the bed. Kendall sits down with one arm still around Sophie and gently puts the other one around him. 

“Hey, buddy!” He says to his son, studying his face and glad to see him grin. Iverson looks back at his mom. Rava gives him an encouraging smile.

“Your dad’s going to be moving back in with us,” she says in an excited tone, and Kendall watches Sophie’s eyes widen. It seems like it’s really happening but it’s still hard to believe it could be this simple. 

“Really??” Sophie asks, totally amazed. It���s just what he’d been hoping he’d get to see. “So you’re in love with each other again?”

They laugh to themselves.

“That’s right,” Rava’s relishing being able to take back the separation talk she’d had to give the kids by herself and lingering in exuberant eye contact with him over the kids’ heads.

“I thought you said love doesn’t come back,” Sophie says innocently, still smiling and gazing at her mom. Kendall’s eyes are gone in a second, staring straight down at the comforter.

Rava can barely look at either of them. It makes her queasy that Sophie remembers the awful thing she’d managed to say the day she had flown back from dropping him off at the treatment center and ending it all, when all her hopes were gone and she didn’t know if she’d ever get to touch him again. She summons the will to speak.

“…But sometimes, honey, you get very happy surprises. Dad is back!!” She exclaims, trying a little too hard to bring the excitement back. Sophie smiles, satisfied with the answer and content to cuddle up to her dad. He’s here and that’s all she needs to know. Kendall focuses on the bed and leaves his arms around her and Iverson for a minute.

“Okay, time for school,” he says for the first time in too long, feeling out of place.

“Okayyyyyy,” both kids grumble. Sophie bounces off the bed, knocking the nightstand and making the vase of roses wobble. The kids head out of the room and back down the long marble hallway to get ready.

Rava closes the door and dreads turning around. She can feel his eyes on her. She tries to look at him.

“You said that to her, Rava?“ his voice is dark and sad and she wants to rewind by 5 minutes. She’d almost made herself forget what happens when he thinks she’s against him. She squeezes her eyes shut.

“It was the day I got back…”

She glances up at him. He has that terrible mixture of hurt and anger all over his face. She takes a deep breath.

“I dropped you off, and when I got home, she asked me when you were coming back.” She hates every word that’s escaping her mouth. “She wanted to know when we would be together again and I had to figure out how to explain that we… I didn’t want to give her… false… hope.“ She’s staring down at the floor. This is the opposite of what she wants to do. She’s so tired of ugly truths.

He wishes he were anyone else. The guilt and shame are twisting him into knots of tension. She wants to smack herself. They can’t get stuck here.

“I’m really sorry, Ken. I didn’t think she’d remember.”

“Well, she does, though.” Everybody does. He scoffs. “Is that what you think about this, really? You and me. It’s not even possible? What is this, another fucking… one-night flirtation, and it’s just nothing?” He’s searching her face. She winces, shaking her head vehemently and trying to find words. “I mean, I mean what else did you say to her? I thought we agreed that they weren’t supposed to know about all our shit. There are supposed to be- like, two people who don’t fucking think-“ 

He shakes his head. Her stomach is grabbing itself. She didn’t miss this part.

She hesitantly walks over to the bed and puts her hand on his shoulder. He leans away and she can tell he’s sinking.

Everything is breaking in his head. He’s the reason Sophie doesn’t get to be a kid. They probably know about all the worst things he’s ever done, just like everyone else. Rava gave up on him. Love doesn’t come back. She’d wanted to separate. She still looks at him and only sees white lines. It’s all spiraling down the drain. His dad is dying in the hospital and he doesn’t trust him to follow in his footsteps. He’ll never be CEO, his siblings will never respect him. They think he’s a joke, the shareholders are running to sell with him in charge. Everyone looks at him and sees one-time potential that came to ruins, reduced to nothing but dust.Powder. The weight of it is crushing him.

“I really should’ve known better.” He stands up and looks around for his things. He thought he was finally getting there with her.

Her heart is pounding like it used to toward the end when she got scared she was losing everything every time they fought. It’s only been a few hours. This can’t happen.

“Don’t say that,” she pleads, catching up to him and taking his hand. He stops walking and extricates it from hers. He hates that he’s ruining this but he can’t make it stop. 

“You can’t do this now,” she starts panicking. “We just told them-“

“Yeah, we just told them we’re back together and I found out my nine-year-old daughter thinks that’s impossible because that’s what you fucking told her.”

“Ken, you don’t get to criticize everything I’ve done, I didn’t mean it when I said that and you’ve barely even been here since then!”

He’s silent.

She regrets it immediately. Dredging up the past is not the way to the future. It’s old news now. She has to stop saying things she doesn’t mean to say. She drops her head back and closes her eyes for a second.

“I didn’t-“ she sighs. She wants to tell him that the anger was only covering the sadness. “It felt like a miracle when I could get out of bed back then,” she says, quietly this time. He knows the feeling. 

“That’s not what I think now. I meant what I said last night,” she says, holding up her hand to show him the ring. Things were so good 10 minutes ago, 6 hours ago, 14 years ago.

“Right. Sure.” Of course she’ll never stop seeing him at rock bottom, it’s where everyone sees him. His dad, the shareholders, the only one who used to believe in him… He wishes he could have another chance at all of it, but suddenly it feels too far gone. “I’m sorry for… everything. I should go, you know… Dad… and I have to figure out this buyout, so…” he trails off, stepping over to where last night’s pants are lying on the floor. Probably should’ve picked those up before the kids came in- one more mistake.

“No.” She’s borrowing his mask of strength, blocking his way. She has to save this. He’s overreacting, he’s so worried about how he’s seen. It’s so far in the past now. That terrible phase is over now, it can be good again now. It can’t fall apart, it can’t all disappear again. She can’t go through that again, she can’t explain it to them, she wouldn’t make it this time. She can’t smell the roses on this side of the room.

She tries again. “You know, the kids don’t know about- the other stuff. Their rooms are still full of legos and Barbies. They’re still kids. It’s not too late.” She really looks at him. “It’s not too late.”

He wants to believe her more than anything. He misses when she was just in love. She has to see he can be better this time. It’s only been a few hours, how could she already be thinking about the worst day they ever had? She probably sits with the kids and talks about it all the time. He’s focused on not letting her see the tears forming. He’s gotten good at that, he thinks.

She sees his eyes instantly. It looks like he’s drowning in there. She wants to dive in and save him. She remembers this part.

“It’s been really, really hard without you here,” she says sincerely, hoping for any clue that she’s getting through to him. “I know how much you’re going through.  I’m sorry. I really don’t even think about it anymore.”

“Well,” he gets out as he turns toward the door. “It was my fault, so…”

“Ken,” her voice breaks at the thought of causing him more pain when he’s already dealing with so much right now. She wants to be his safe person, the one he can trust and the one who never hurts him. There’s a lot to muddle through, but it’s worth it to get to him. “Hey, things are different now. How hard has it been for you to stay sober all this time? You’ve done it. That’s different, and it’s great. I see that! It’s not like it was.”

“Yeah. It’s… been really fucking hard.” More than she knows. He’s still trying to hold back tears. At least she gets that he’s been trying. He looks down but he stops making movements to leave. He doesn’t know which way to go.

She’s still worried, looking around for any possible way to go back in time by a few minutes, by years and years.

Something shiny on the floor catches her eye. Next to his pants is his wedding ring, flung out of the pocket in a moment of wild passion the night before. Just a few hours ago.

“You had your ring last night?” She asks cautiously. He still can’t look at her. He doesn’t really want to answer, but she might as well know the truth.

“I, uh… I always have it.” He tries to play it off, but he can tell that she’s struck.

“For three years?” She says, barely above a whisper.

He turns to look at her for a split second and shrugs before looking back down at the floor. She sees it now.

She pictures him putting the ring in his pocket every single morning. Keeping it with him when he’s in meetings at work, when he’s sitting in that flashy apartment meant to fill the void, when he’s riding in the car alone at night. She doesn’t even know he feels for it through the fabric every time Logan storms into his office to thunder about what stupid thing he’s done now.

She misses him even though he’s right in front of her.

She doesn’t care if they’re fighting. She needs the distance between them to go away, right now. She knows he’ll stay if he can feel how much she needs him, how close she wants him. She takes his hand and guides him back toward her, tugging a little when he doesn’t respond right away.

“Come here,” she practically begs him.

He feels like maybe he shouldn’t let her do this, but he can’t bring himself to move away. He takes a step toward her and she presses herself into him. His need for love is overpowering and she’s exuding it, sending it right into him, right through the wall he just put up. She wraps her arms around him and he closes his eyes and rests his head on her shoulder. She breathes a sigh of relief.

There’s too much being sloshed on him at once and he doesn’t know if he can handle it. He wonders if she’ll ever be able to go a day without remembering his most shameful moments, wonders if anyone will. He wishes he could undo all of it, wishes he could make his dad wake up. He wonders if the family breakfast he’d imagined 6 hours ago is still even possible. He wants his kids to have what he didn’t. She can feel him trying as hard as he can to stay afloat.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. He doesn’t have to hide his feelings from her. She holds him close and he tightens his arms around her. She wants to do anything to console him. He’s carrying more than the average person could even dream of and she can tell when he feels it all crashing down on him, when he can’t find the surface. But she can help him now. One step at a time. She thinks about last night.

She keeps one hand on his arm while she reaches for the ring on the floor and stands back up, slipping her arm back around him and looking into his eyes carefully. Her touch is making some of it drain away and he finally looks back and takes a breath. They were right last night. Maybe with more time she’ll see him like she did before.

“I love you,” she whispers. “Then and now.”

She slips the ring onto his finger, like he did with her last night.

“I love you, too,” he says quietly. He’s looking down at his left hand. It looks familiar. Safe. Another breath. The smell of waffles wafts through the air. It mixes with the flowers and smells sweeter. He wonders if the roses are a coincidence.

She gives him a reassuring kiss and starts gently playing with the ring on his finger. 

“So I guess you were pining for me, too.” She sees the beginnings of a smile returning to his face. “Don’t worry,” she says softly. She can’t fix it all for him, but she can tell him a good truth. “The kids will see for themselves that love comes back.”

Chapter 3 💗

A/N: Thank you @tvgremlin for encouraging this obsession 😘

[mortalfaerie]

Stimulants (S.R)

spencer reid x bau (adhd) reader

word count: 1441

synopsis: reader has inattentive adhd but hasn't brought it up with the team before. after a few on-site assignments that drag into the night, spencer notices the signs of adderall wearing off and asks reader about it.

TW FOR DRUG MENTION AND DISCUSSION

these away assignments could prove to be hellish. it couldn't be helped- the nature of your work meant that you didn't exactly work at normal 9-to-5, and sometimes your team was wracking their mind in a small police station conference room at 2 am on a tuesday, knowing fully well that a killer was still on the loose. generally, you could be relied upon to focused and engaged during cases, providing useful insight or simply making witty banter with your teammates- but inside, you hoped that the case would wrap up timely enough that you wouldn't be blankly staring down into you 4th post-sunset cup of coffee, not taking in a word around you.

however, that's what you were doing at the moment.

"Y/L/N?" you heard Hotch say pointedly.

“Huh?” you snapped out of your haze, embarrassed, and Hotch gave you a sympathetic nod. “I understand, we’re all feeling a little burned out, but we have to focus. The unsub is out there.”

You gave a nod to the table and pursed your lips, then taking a long gulp of coffee.

work, work, work! you chided yourself.

you took your usual dose of adderall around 7 in the morning each day, and you could trust that you’d have a safe 11-12 hours of focus and level-headedness. However, its half-life ran out roughly 7 hours ago, and you were painfully aware of it. you had gotten the short end of the stick mentally, having gotten inattentive adhd as supposed to hyperactive adhd, which most people were familiar with. so, instead of having boundless energy that would have been useful right now, you couldn't stay engaged in the case for longer than 10 minutes at a time, and now your teammates were noticing.

you volunteered to go fetch some back records from the local legal archive next door, needing to clear your head- but with an unsub preying on women alone at night, Spencer was quick to volunteer himself to go with you. you walked mostly in silence to the elevator, but he spoke when the doors closed in front of you.

“Caffeine’s a stimulant.” he stated plainly.

“Uh. Yeah, it is.” you responded, not knowing where he was going with this.

“You know that you probably shouldn't be mixing stimulants.” he added, meeting your gaze in the reflective elevator doors.

you gaped at him for a moment, before loosing a dry laugh. “Are you diagnosing me with addiction, Dr. Reid?”

“Well, no, not precisely. You're evidently dependent on stimulants- I’ll wager that you take them around 7 or 8 each morning before work?”

you just gave a measured nod in response, not in the mood to deny it.

“Ritalin?” he asked, this time meeting your gaze directly.

“Adderall. Prescription, just so we're clear.”

“I figured as much- a normal person on adderall wouldn't have the same decline in ability after the half-life.”

you sighed. “Is it that obvious?” you ask. in the two months since you joined the bau, you had hoped you'd be able to stay on top of late night cases, or that they would be few and far between. as you were learning, the homicidal maniacs of the world didn't obey normal work hours.

he offered you a sympathetic smile. “I don't think anybody else thinks it's anything more than fatigue. I'm just a little more aware of it.” after a pause in which you studied the floor of the elevator, he added “You might consider getting a “bump” pill.”

you looked up and raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you suggesting I do drugs?” you asked, only half sarcastic.

he flushed and backtracked. “Oh, no! I-” and you laughed openly, a good laugh, as the elevator doors opened. You proceeded through the lobby and put into the street with a flustered Dr. Spencer Reid on your heels. catching up to you, he explained, “A “bump” pill is a small amount of a stimulant that diffuses faster than your normal extended release medication, so you get a measured amount of focus for an hour or two after your primary stimulant wears off.”

you nodded, and pulled out your phone to put it on your calendar for your next doctor’s appointment. “Well, thank you, Reid.” you said, tucking your phone back in your pocket. “That would actually be pretty useful.”

clearly satisfied with himself, he gave a quick nod as you continued on to the legal archive. about two minutes had passed in silence before he abruptly said, “Call me Spencer.”

“Hm?” you responded, again forcing your brain to focus.

“Call me Spencer. You keep calling me Dr. Reid or Reid, but you don't have to.” on a more measured breath he added, “My friends call me Spencer.”

at this, you smiled. you had been fond of him since your first day, but were rarely alone to get to know him personally. you could tell the most obvious aspects of his personality and interests that he shared with the team, but all the while, he had apparently deduced that you had adhd and took medication for it by your behavior after hours alone.

“Alright then, Spencer. Then you call me Y/N.” you agreed.

“Y/N.” he said, as though trying out the sound of it.

As you thumbed through files in the archive looking for a specific box of court records, you and Spencer talked more, as he hinted that he knew what it was to be neurodivergent. you had wondered, of course- you were keenly aware of your ability to fixate on things and favor specific sensations over others- you couldn't stand the texture of chalk, and all your blouses were cotton since polyester felt like nails on a chalkboard for you to touch. you had noticed Spencer had similar reservations about things, but they were easily dismissible as him being eccentric.

walking back to the police station, each holding a box of files, he addressed your speculations. “If you wanted to talk about this again, I’d be glad to. I know what it is to have a mind that doesn't run like others do.”

you snorted, and gave you a confused glance. “No, I believe you, Spencer,” you explained. “But it seems to mostly work in your favor.”

he scoffed. “Not always. I have an eidetic memory, but I'd love to be able to read social cues. I'm well aware I can't do that, trust me.”

you smiled. “Well then, I'll trade you social graces for memory. I'd love to actually have a sense of object permanence.”

re-entering the elevator, he laughed. “Then it's a deal, we’ll swap.”

“Fantastic! I've always wanted to know what it's like to be a genius.” you exclaimed on a laugh.

“You don't think you are one?” he asked, more pointedly than you expected.

“I- no? Why would I?” you asked, a little shocked.

“Why wouldn't you?”

“Because I'm impulsive? I can be oblivious to the things right in front of me? Oh, and I have an executive function disorder? That doesn't really sound like Einstein to me.” you listed off, as though it were obvious.

“Impulsive, sure, but you're knowledgeable beyond what anyone would expect. You should see the expressions of the others when you told them the history of the ferris wheel on the last case- you even beat me to it. You see patterns that others don't, and you understand emotions on a level that the others can't imagine, because they've never been in your shoes as a kid with a learning disability.” he countered as the elevator ticked up and up the floors.

“You flatter me.” you said flatly, clearly skeptical.

“No, I'm being honest. You're incredibly intelligent. But if you only ever measure yourself by your perceived shortcomings, you'll never see that for yourself.” he said, matter-of-factly.

As the elevator doors opened again, the two of you were surprised to see the team suiting up in kevlars with Hotch on the phone with the local sheriff.

“Finally!” Prentiss exclaimed. “We’ve got a hit on the unsub, Morgan and I are heading over now- Hotch and local law enforcement are meeting us on-scene. Go put the boxes in the conference room and get back here.”

“Uh- of course!” you said, and you and Spencer exchanged a bewildered look as you rushed to go put the files away.

The clock back in the conference room told you it was closing in on 3 am. You huffed an exasperated sigh. “Does evil ever consider a good night’s rest might be pretty fulfilling?” you asked rhetorically.

“No.” Spencer said, setting down his box. “No, it never seems to do.”

[writingtoforgetreality]

Stockholm Syndrome (Helmut Zemo x Reader)

[Marvel-Masterlist]

Summary: During the fight with the Dora Milaje in his safe-house, Zemo made an exit. But not alone. For inexplicable reasons, he dragged you along. Probably because he wanted to mess with Sam & Bucky. Would the Baron kill you? Or worse?

Words: 4,083

Warnings: language, angst, fluff (?), kidnapping, spoilers for TFATWS, (Let’s put the angsty shit in this part & the fun stuff in the second one.), (Y/E/C) = your eye color, REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

The fight in front of you held your entire attention. Eyes focused on moving bodies, kicking, punching their way through. While you were not inexperienced when it came to battling, you preferred holding back. Bruises were not necessarily your favorite. Not these kind of bruises at least. All your ears could make out was the grunting radiating from the combat. Hence why the movements behind you stayed inconspicuous. Only when a cloth pressed against your nose & you had no choice but to breathe in, did you notice the jeopardy of the situation. Darkness enveloped you. The last thing you perceived was a dark silhouette picking you up. As much as you wanted to fight back, to defend yourself, it was impossible. All strength had dissipated. Whatever was happening, you hoped you would wake up again. This could not be how you died. You would not die.

Pain woke you up. But you were not hurt. At least that was what you remembered. Then it came to you. Someone had kidnapped you. If your eyes did not open soon, you would regret it later. Heavy eyelids slowly opened. Though it took many attempts to keep them that way. You scanned the room. There were no windows, no light which would have made that task easier. It took a few minutes to adjust to the obscureness. And once you did, you found yourself as perplexed as before. No restraints were obstructing your motions. Technically, you could up & leave. But it was never that simple, was it? The door was opposite of you. Your muscles were still sore. The act of standing up & waltzing over seemed like too much effort for you. The bleakness of the wall your back rested against was a more welcomed sensation. Your knees scooted closer to your chest. Arms raking around them, you hugged yourself. Hoping it would bring you a bit of comfort. Your brain failed to work properly. Because you were stumped. Who could have possibly seized you? Walker was busy getting his ass kicked. Lemar imitated his partner, pretty much. Sam ordered Bucky to help out & went into the battle right after. And Zemo was… Yeah, where the hell was Zemo during all of that? If you recalled correctly, he held a drink in his hand. Like you, he kept away from the fight. And then? You were aware that the Baron was not a saint. Neither were you. But you did not believe he would pull something like that. Then again, it was Zemo. Nobody knew his next step. Nobody but himself. Your foot tapped a rhythm on the cold, grey pavement. Usually, when your anxiety acted up, you distracted yourself. Fiddling with your hands or bouncing your legs. Something you could focus on that was not life threatening to your mind. The unknown beat managed to calm you down the slightest. Whoever held you hostage would be back soon. Your gut feeling told you so much.

Maybe you dosed off again. Because your body flinched when a creak reached your ears. Quickly, you looked around for possible threats. The only thing that had changed was the door sitting ajar. Only a diminutive gap. It was noticeable due to the light illuminating the room. There was no piece of furniture which meant that nobody lived here. It resembled a cell. But even cells had a bed, a chair. Something. The room turned dim again but only for a second. A shadow, you figured. Your captivator was here. So close, in fact, goosebumps erupted. A chill ran down your spine. This single interaction could modify your imprisonment. You still needed time to consider a successful escape plan. Which meant that you needed to observe the person keeping you here. Movies displayed such situations more than once. It was manageable. If they decided to show themselves & reveal their identity. Your eyes fell to the boots first. Black or a dark brown that was not detectable due to the lack of brightness. Next were the pants. Black again. The end of a coat came into view. Dark grey, almost anthracite. Your thoughts instantly went to one person. You could be mistaken. He was not the only one with a coat like that. Your gaze flickered up to his hands. The leather gloves were proof enough. Your (Y/E/C) eyes locked onto his brown ones. There was no shock written over your features. After all, deep down, you awaited this sight to be met with. As much as you wanted to withhold it, your eyes rolled & the sigh that left your lips was one of pure exhaustion. Zemo never made a secret out of it. His dislike for you started off the moment he first laid his eyes on you. From then on, it only seemed to increase steadily. You were a simple person. If someone treated you like shit, you returned that favor with pleasure & ten times worse.

“You are awake.” he stated the obvious after his frame entered through the doorway.

“Pretty sure I’m still dreaming.” you replied sarcastically, your elbows propping onto your knees. A smirk formed at the corners of his mouth. Whatever you said, it was the wrong thing.

“You dream about being locked inside a small cell? And I make an appearance as well? This does sound problematic, (Y/N). Nothing I would not be able to help you with.” he enjoyed this. Disgust made itself shown onto your face.

“Yeah? How could you possibly help me with that?” it took you a second to fully realize what you said. Immediately, you corrected yourself. “You know what? I don’t even wanna know.” your head rested in your hands, slightly embarrassed by turning this conversation awkward. Maybe it would have been more convenient if you just kept quiet. Zemo chuckled shortly but did not comment on it again.

“I assume you wonder why you are here.” the Baron observed your small frame on the floor. It was easy to recognize how uncomfortable you were.

“Your assumption might be correct.” your head tilted upwards, trying to hide the fear. Burying it deep down. You needed to think clearly so you could escape him.

“Would you like me to declare your purpose?” he questioned, eyebrows raising.

“Enlighten me, Baron.” you wasted no time with your reply. Maybe you imagined it but you could have sworn that his muscles tensed up when you called him by his title. You were the weaker one here so you kept your jokes at bay.

“I have no desire to get involved with the Wakandans. A getaway is more enjoyable with a suitable associate.” his hands gestured & you fathomed the seriousness behind his words.

“Oh, so that’s what I am now? An associate? Could’ve sworn I was your enemy. Improvement, I guess.” you focused on a lighter spot that interrupted the evenly dark color of the cement wall.

“I never declared you my enemy. That is solely your imagination.” Zemo stared at you but you would not give him the satisfaction of holding eye contact with him. He did not deserve it.

“I prefer my imagination then.” you stated & earned another chuckle from the Baron.

“Our departure is soon.” he let you know & left you alone once again. Great, so he did have a plan for you. But it did not seem like he wanted to murder you brutally. Basically, you could do nothing. The lock of the door clicked. No way out of this room. And your cellphone was no longer with you. He probably removed it from you while you were unconscious.

The drug Zemo had you breathe in really affected you. Tiredness rushed through you still. Falling asleep once again was inevitable. A steady, loud noise stirred you from your slumber. When your eyes opened, the chair you were seated in felt familiar. Your surroundings were not new to you. It was Zemo’s private jet. No sight of him. No sight of Sam & Bucky. The only company was the engine of the small plane, creating a ringing in your ears. Surprisingly, you were well rested. Your sleep schedule was messed up. On a good day, you slept for three hours. On a normal day, though, you were lucky if the dreamland even invited you in. Did that mean that you should thank Zemo? For drugging you? Your gratitude could stay inside, for now. It was kind of embarrassing to admit that you had enough rest because of him stunning you. All it would do was feeding his ego. He had enough of that already. Would it be clever to hop out of a plane that was thousands of feet in the air? A clever suicide mission, maybe. Zemo would not harm you. If he truly wanted to, you would be a ghost already. Where was he anyway? Certainly, he would not leave your side after kidnapping you. A look down your lap confirmed what you had feared. The trembling of your hands was noticeable. Almost worse than usual. If push came to shove, you could defend yourself perfectly fine. The Baron did not strike you as a fighter type of guy. Sure, he could handle a gun. In reality, the one thing he could really handle was his alcohol. If you had been in a cell for almost ten years, you would not be able to cope with this world either. Now that you were thinking about it...when was Zemo not drinking? Ever since you guys had teamed up, he had taken every chance to get some liquor into his system.

“How are you feeling?” a voice startled you. The cause of it was your dear captivator. His strut brought him over to you, taking a seat right opposite of you. Plopping down onto the soft cushion with a sigh, he intertwined his fingers in front of his chest. His chin rested on the back of them. The intensity with which he eyed you was unsettling. Your body curled together, shifting away from his rigid glance. The man in front of you frowned. Never before had you behaved that way. Usually, you were sarcastic, humorous. Your current state was uncommon. The fight or flight instinct kicked in. If you played by his rules, the cards were on your side. So the only natural thing was to answer him.

“Okay.” it was short but the tone held much meaning.

“Okay is not good.” he mumbled quietly, though you could still make out his words. The clouds outside of the window you were sitting next to looked like cotton. Smooth, soft. Perfect if you wanted to jump in. The sunset colored the sky in various, bright hues. A phenomenon. That was something that had always fascinated you. “Astonishing, is it not?” the silence broke when he spoke up yet again. You nodded, still gazing outside.

“We will arrive soon.” another voice joined you. The startle from your side could not be stopped. You hated how jumpy you were. Especially during such a situation. The strong, independent woman you usually were was gone. Right now, you were like a little girl, awaiting punishment for misbehavior. Apparently, the Baron was a mind reader because he soothed your worries immediately.

“You did nothing wrong, if that is one of your concerns.” he started. His eyes then flickered to the other man on the private jet. “Thank you, Oeznik.” small smiles were exchanged between the two of them. The assistant disappeared through a door again. Zemo being the only company left.

“Where are we going?” you had to know.

“Somewhere safe. Where nobody can locate me.” as his eyes met yours, he finished. “Us.” your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. His explanation was not helpful at all. You were still left in the dark. Your destination was unknown but he assured you that you would be safe. Zemo would never lie about something so significant. This bugging feeling was still present. If he did not tell you more about the location, maybe he could elucidate this.

“Why me? Why, out of everyone, did you kidnap me?” slight anger was behind your eyes but one could only notice if they looked precisely. The Baron’s head tilted. In amusement, you guessed. His forming smile held a hint of another emotion you could not quite identify.

“Kidnapping is such a harsh word, don’t you think?” was it mockery you could hear? “I believe there is no need for us to repeat our previous conversation. I told you why you’re here.” he stood up from his seat, dragging his body to the very end of the plane. There, he picked up two small glasses. The liquid of the half empty bottle of scotch poured a good amount in both of them. Evidently, one for him & one for you. His hand stretched out towards you & he offered you the drink. You eyed it suspiciously. While you were not one for drinking alcohol, maybe it would assist to calm your nerves. In the end, you reached for it, touching his hand in the process. The skin contact sent an unintended chill down your spine. Goosebumps were forming. The pit of your stomach felt odd. Never before had you experienced such a sensation. Though, & you had to admit that, it was everything but unpleasant. Your body language spoke louder than you would have liked. And it did not go unnoticed by the man in front of you. To avoid an awkward tension, he decided against commenting on your body’s reaction.

The first sip made you wince. A burning sensation washed down your throat. The Baron handled his alcohol way better than you did, that much was obvious. Unfortunately, the liquor did not numb your anxiety right away. The effect was awaited but luck was not on your side. Would it be rude to ask for another drink? The downside was not realizing how strong it was. If you got wasted then Zemo could take advantage of your state. Depended on how he defined taking advantage of you. The conversation that had died down for a while was resurrected. This time, it was you. This shocked not only you but also him.

“I don’t like you.” you stated monotonously.

“I am aware.” he chuckled, taking a sip of his drink.

“You don’t like me either.” one of your eyebrows raised.

“An incorrect assumption.” his hands gestured to emphasize his words. You rolled your eyes, throwing your arms up in frustration.

“A freaking obvious fact.” you breathed out, falling back into your chair. The softness caressed you tenderly. A hum left you & your previous desperation was replaced by some sort of relaxation. Why did your emotions change so quickly? One moment, you were scared. The next, you were furious. Then, you untightened. All in the presence of the man who had kidnapped you.

“What is going through your mind right now?” seemed like he was eager to talk to you. Comfortable silence with Baron Zemo was not possible. It was either awkward or not quiet at all. Your head snapped into his direction. He was deep in thought. Occupied with whatever his mind came up with.

“I-I don’t know.” you were being honest. Spending more time with him meant no lies. At least not about such things. The next question came naturally. “What about you?” one corner of his lips lifted slightly. The first step in the right direction. Deep down, Zemo was aware that you did not exactly hate him. Liking him would be too far but at least, you tolerated him. Accepted his presence.

“I am quite fond of bringing you with me. Sam & James are irritating. Helpful but irritating. You are a delight to be around.” he confessed & you had the urge to call him out on his ridiculous behavior.

“Sounds fake but alright…” your annoyance was audible.

“I beg your pardon?” he abandoned his glass, placing it on the small table nearby. Elbows propped onto his knees & his upper body leaned forward, closer to you. But not close enough to make you feel uncomfortable.

“Ever since we met, we’ve been arguing non-stop. This is the first normal conversation between us.” your fingers pointed to him & then to you, signaling what you were talking about.

“Arguments are not an indicator for antipathy.” Zemo explained.

“Oh, they’re not?” the sarcasm was more than obvious. “What then?”

“They are concealing true emotions, burying your urges deep within.” casually spoken, as if he had prepared this exact speech multiple times before.

“My urges?” you questioned, making fun of his statement.

“Indeed.” he wore a winning smile & you hated the effect it had on you.

“Sure.” you chuckled, shaking your head in disbelief. “My only urge is to punch yo-“ both of your heads turned into the direction of Oeznik who unknowingly interrupted your conversation.

“We’re here.” he claimed, nodding briefly, & left you alone again. By the way his face changed, he looked like he was sorry for bothering the two of you. Truthfully, you were glad that he joined you because without him, you would have said something regrettable.

Paris. He dragged you to France. If your situation were any different, you would have felt excited to be here. Before you exited the private jet, Zemo threatened you. If you had the glorious idea to speak up before you arrived at your destination, you would regret it later. Basically, you thought he would kill you. Of course you had no clue that the Baron would never hurt you in any way. After all, you were a victim of his kidnapping. Whether he called it that or not. The small alleyways were decorated with narrow buildings sitting next to each other. The cobblestone street underlined the atmosphere perfectly. Eyes wide, you were overwhelmed by the impression of the beauty of the sweet town. When one of his hands reached for yours, you did not even flinch back. Because, if you were honest, it felt good. Your intertwined fingers brought you warmth. A feeling that spread out through your entire body. Sparks, almost like the beginning of a firework, started forming. The sun shone brightly. Your eyes closed contently. Hence why you did not notice Zemo watching your every move. He reminisced your features closely. The sunlight brought out the beauty of you in a way that was worth remembering. Your body sensed something. It was in your nature when someone stared at you. Carefully, your eyes opened, showing the (Y/E/C) colors that glowed almost mysteriously in the light. Warm brown ones locked onto yours. The two of you exchanged an honest, almost shy smile.

“What?” your head tilted to the side, observing his face. Looking for a sign. Any sign. But Zemo was a clandestine guy. It was almost impossible to look through him. Something inside you took that as a challenge. Maybe you could make his walls come crashing down. Maybe you were the one to change him. Wait. Why were your thoughts running down that road? He was the person to take you away from your friends. The sympathy that started building up was wrong. That much you knew. Resisting felt like a tough task. What did he say during the flight? Something about pushing down your urges. This was the first time you understood the meaning.

If you thought the town was pretty then the apartment you entered was stunning. It was on the top floor. Spacious, furnished in a minimalist way. Overly white, accentuated with colorful artwork. Special pieces to complete the look of it. It screamed expensive. The process of taking everything in took a few minutes. It was overstraining. In the best way possible. You should screw down your excitement. After all, you were part of an incredibly dangerous situation. But you let his touch linger on your skin. Just for a fraction longer. If you really wanted to, you could have retreated. Something told you that Zemo would not have forced you to hold onto him. That thought alone calmed you down a little further. Technically, he was not a stranger. Throughout the missions you had performed together, with Sam & Bucky, you two had become acquainted with. You were associates, apparently. And associates were not supposed to fear one another. Then again, associates would not kidnap each other. Your body was overthrown with mixed signals. Unknown what was wrong & what was right. Your friends would probably describe you as insane, reckless. Maybe you were. Maybe the last few weeks had formed you into a different type of person. That type who sympathized with a criminal. With a criminal who broke out of a high security jail. Since when had criminals become your type? And why were you starting to think in a very friendly, almost amorous way? Looked like you really were insane.

Who would have thought the Baron to be an excellent chef? Definitely not you. But here he was, preparing a meal for you. This was actually pretty sweet of him. His body behind the stove & his eyes focused on the task. It was a sight for sore eyes. Only, of course, if he were not Zemo you were referring to. While he cooked, you set the table. He assured you that you did not have to but it felt like the right thing to do. It was the least you could do. What were you even saying? He kidnapped you, for God’s sake. Your body, your emotions, should be damned.

“Is this something you do often?” Zemo’s question caught you off guard. For a moment, you halted in your tracks. Cutlery was being put down. A deep breath left your mouth.

“What?” your bewildered expression made him chuckle. Funny to watch your perplexity.

“Living in your head more than in the present.” his proclamation cut through the tension.

“I…um, haven’t realized that, actually.” you answered awkwardly. Your hand raised to the back of your head, resting behind your ear.

“You do. When spending time with Sam & James. And now. It is quite entertaining.” he eyed you closely. It made you slightly uncomfortable.

“Why?” your curiosity got the best of you. That was nothing new. Even before he brought you here, your nosiness was on of your more obvious characteristics.

“Because the light in your eyes shifts. You are more at ease. Not to forget your smile…” Zemo trailed off at the end of his sentence, voice a little softer than usual.

“What about my smile?” you really were curious. Would it be in your favor or not? There was only one way to figure that out.

“It differs from when you are actively engaged in a conversation. The corners of your mouth lift in a softer way. No hesitation or restriction.” he finished, his sparkling brown eyes meeting yours. Due to the embarrassment, you could not keep eye contact. So you averted your gaze, facing the almost empty plate in front of you.

“You talk like you’ve known me forever.” your whispers were almost missed. The tone so quiet, even your racing heart was louder.

“I am simply skilled at reading people. You facilitate that process, actually.” every single word he spoke made so much sense that it almost did not make sense anymore. There was no other way to describe it.

“I do? How?” your constant short questions were amusing to him. On one hand, you wanted to distance yourself from him as much as possible. On the other hand, you inquired every single time he finished talking.

“I assume it is because you do not fear opening up to me & letting me in.” people who did not know your history would have believed you two had been friends for years. By the way he discerned the small, almost unnoticeable details about you. Details you did not even know existed in the first place.

“You assume an awful lot, Baron.” you teased, eyes moving to his face gingerly.

“Tell me I’m wrong.” but you could not. Because it would have been a lie. A smirk made its way onto his face when you did not give him a reply. Unintentionally, you mimicked his expression. He had you. Right here, he had you. And he was not the only one aware of the shift in the situation. You were just as deep in it as he was. It was a game with fire. Who would get burned in the end?

~to be continued~

Published (04/28/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @yallgotkik, @noavengers, @lieutenantn, @birdieofloxley, @aisling1985, @trelaney, @hiddlestoner-cumberbitch, @msmarvelsmain, @friday18eo, @crackerjackharkness, @waiting-for-motivation, @obsessedwithfandomsx, @friday18eo, @bibliophilewednesday, @princess-yuna, @trenton007, @pedropascallovebot, @your-lovers-heart, @stressedoutsteph (thanks for your support <3)