#but staring death down is not the time to start unpacking your trauma

[the-biscuit-agreement]

Lucy: Lockwood, you need to open up more! Tell me what is going on so I can help!

Lockwood: *waits until they are doing something dangerous*

Lockwood: It all started when I was six and...

Lucy: I am so glsd you want to talk about this but can you wait until we escape the guys trying to kill us!

[starkeysbunny]

mine [rafe cameron]

pairing - rafe cameron x reader

summary - when reader goes to hang out with kiara and sarah, rafe gives her no choice as he tags along. he doesn’t trust kiara’s pogue friends around reader, and his protective side gets the best of him.

warnings - protective!rafe, fighting, violence, blood, cursing, talks of death, angst, hurt/comfort, lowkey unpacking rafe’s trauma 😭

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Tonight was the bonfire. An annual, summer bonfire that the pogues throw every year. Normally, kooks are never invited. But, Sarah and I are the only exceptions as Kiara’s best friends. Sarah has been integrated into their group even more so, now that she’s with John B.

But as for me, they still—even after almost ten years of being Kiara’s friend—hold distain toward me. It only got worse when I started dating the kook prince, Rafe Cameron.

John B, JJ, and Pope always have something to say about me and dating Rafe only added fuel to their fire.

I don’t care though. Kiara and Sarah are my best friends and these boys that make up this stupid kooks vs. pogues rivalry aren’t getting in the way of that.

I was excited for tonight, picking out my outfit as I stepped out of the steaming bathroom in my towel. That was until my boyfriend made an utterly insane suggestion.

“What time are we leaving?” Rafe asks nonchalantly as he steps into the room, flopping down onto my bed, and staring at the ceiling.

I pause, spinning around, holding a top in my hand, “We?” He props himself up on his elbows, furrowing his eyebrows at me.

“Yeah, we. What you think I’d just be unbothered by you hanging out with those pogues? It’s not like I’m going to stop you from going, that’s your choice, and I have no problems with Kiara. I know you’re best friends. It’s her pogue friends I don’t trust. I’m not gonna sit here on my ass while you’re at the bonfire with JJ fucking you with his eyes from across the beach.” He states, like it was plainly obvious.

I sigh, sitting down next to him on the bed. “Babe, I love you, but is it really the best idea for you to go? You hate them. I don’t want to start anything.”

“Oh, I won’t,” he assures. “Trust me, I’ll keep to myself, sitting next to you, drinking a beer, minding my business. As long as JJ doesn’t try anything.” He shrugs.

“What do you mean? JJ won’t do anything what’re you—“

“Every time we’re around Kiara, he’s there. And his eyes are on you. Or he says something rude to you. I don’t like it. Only I get to look at you like that, you’re my girl. If he so much as looks in your direction, I’ll make sure he knows you’re mine, that’s all.” Rafe explains, leaning down to slip his shoes on.

“Okay fine. But please, Rafe. I’m begging, don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want this night to be ruined, I just wanna hang out with my friends.” I say, nervous about how Rafe’s behavior easily gets out of hand, especially around JJ.

Rafe sits up, putting his hand on my thigh, and looking right in my eyes. “I know—I know I can get carried away sometimes. And I’m sorry, I just—I need to protect what’s mine, okay? They already took my sister from me, there’s no shot I’d ever let them take you from me too. I don’t trust they won’t hurt you, okay? I just need to be there. Just in case, okay?”

I press my lips together, “Okay. Just promise me, don’t start anything.”

He pauses, contemplating, “Unless he does?”

I roll my eyes, “Fine unless he does.”

Rafe smiles, satisfied, “Then, yes. I promise.” He places a kiss on my cheek.

I get up and walk back to the closet, throwing a pair of denim shorts on the bed and two tops, “Which top?” I turn around and look at Rafe.

He inspects both of them. One being a white tube top with pink lily flowers on it, the other being a crochet multi-colored tube top.

“Mhmm, the flower one.”

I smile at him, grabbing the outfit and changing. I slip on my adidas sambas and grab my purse. “Ready?” I ask him. He says nothing, just staring at me.

I step closer to him, waving my hand in front of his face. “Helloooo??” He just chuckles, pushing my hand down, his hands landing on my hips, and pulling me closer.

“Do we have to go?”

I smile, brushing my hands over his buzzed hair, “Yes, Rafe. C’mon, let’s go.”

He groans, resting his head on my stomach. He places small kisses along my stomach, “But if we stay here,” his hand slides back toward my ass. “I could entertain you.”

My cheeks turn pink as I almost give in, but shake back to reality. “No, c’mon. I promised Kie.” I pat my hand on his back as I step away. “Let’s go.”

He groans, standing and coming to my side. He grabs my hand and walks out the bedroom with me, “Fine.”

I chuckle and lean up, placing a kiss on his shoulder as we walk down the stairs. He opens the front door for me and we head to my drive away. He opens the door of his truck and buckles me in before rounding to the drivers side. My music automatically connects every time we get into his car and it always makes me smile.

-

Rafe parks the car as we arrive at the beach, and I spot Kiara and all her friends by the shore, sitting around the fire while the beach is packed with everyone from the cut.

Rafe opens my door for me, grabbing my hand as I hop out of his truck. He shuts the door and rests his hands on my shoulders, looking out to the beach, and letting out a long sigh. “Oh, stop. It’ll be fine, okay, just try to have fun. For me?”

He rolls his eyes, playfully. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this over with so I can have you back at Tannyhill tonight all to myself.”

I chuckle, grabbing onto his hand and pulling him down toward the beach. I go to the bonfire, where Kie sits with Sarah.

“Kie!”

She turns around, grinning. She gets up and runs over to me, embracing in a hug. “Oh my god,” she gushes, grabbing onto my shoulders. “It’s been forever.”

Her gaze moves to my right where Rafe stands, rigid and unmoving like some kind of guard dog. “And Rafe,” she grumbles.

“Hello to you too Kie,” He smiles condescendingly.

To try to lessen the tension, I turn to Rafe. “Could you go get me a drink, please?” I widen my eyes at him.

He sighs, nodding before walking off.

“Why is he here?” Sarah asks as I go to sit with her and Kie.

“Trust me, I thought it was a bad idea too, but there was no stopping him.” I shrug. “He won’t start anything, trust me.”

Rafe walks back over to us, handing me my drink. He looks over at Sarah, rolling his eyes. “The pogue princess.”

Sarah scoffs, “Oh shut up.”

Rafe opens his mouth to say something again, but when I shoot him a look, he groans but keeps his words to himself.

As the night goes on, Rafe does exactly as promised. I sit with Kie and Sarah, catching up. While Rafe sits beside me, holding one of my hands in his lap as he fidgets with my rings and bracelets, just counting the seconds till he could take me home.

“Well, y’know John B and I got.. married.”

I whip my head around, “What?! Oh my god?”

She chuckles, “Yeah.. kinda of spur of the moment type thing. Not much thought into it—I’m honestly not sure it’s actually legal either but, yeah.”

“Congra—“ I begin before getting cut off by the one person I was praying would not come over here tonight.

“Y/n, what a surprise.” JJ exclaims, walking over to where we were. “And Cameron. Of course,” he says sarcastically.

I feel Rafe tense next to me, his grip on my hand getting stronger. “Can’t say I’m thrilled to see you either, Maybank.”

“You’re the one on the cut. This is a pogue bonfire. Why the fuck are you even here? And with miss kook princess, over here?” JJ looks over at me, then back at Rafe.

“Rafe,” I warn, looking at him as his jaw clenches and he lets go of my hand.

Rafe stands, facing JJ. “I was willing to leave you alone, as long as you left her alone but clearly, that’s not possible for you.” Rafe pushes at JJ’s chest.

“Stop, Rafe.” Sarah shouts, standing and trying to push JJ away. When her attempts don’t work, she waves over John B.

“Rafe, let’s just go,” I stand, tugging at his hand.

“Yeah,” JJ agrees. “Listen to your bitch and go.”

“What the hell, JJ?” Kie stands, even her agreeing her best friend is being an asshole.

Rafe chuckles, his tongue poking at his cheek as he pulls his hand from my grasp, grabbing onto the collar of his shirt. “The fuck did you just say?”

“I said take your bitch and go.” JJ spits.

Rafe pushes JJ down and he falls onto the sand, Rafe straddling him as he lands punch after punch. “You always gotta start shit,” Rafe says, blood coating his shirt and knuckles.

“JJ he’s not worth it!” John B shouts, finally making his way over. John B attempts to grab Rafe’s shoulders and pull him off but Rafe pushes John B, causing him to stumble back.

“Rafe, what the hell!” Sarah shouts, going to John B’s side.

I go to grab Rafe’s arm, causing him to stop punching JJ, not wanting to accidentally hurt me. When Rafe pauses, JJ takes the chance and flips Rafe over, landing a punch square to his jaw. “Y/n needs to come around without you sometimes. She’s pretty hot for a kook,” JJ chuckles.

At this, Rafe gets his strength and punches JJ in the jaw so hard, JJ falls off of Rafe, landing on his back in the sand. Kiara goes to JJ and I grab Rafe, trying to pull him away as fast as possible. Rafe shakes from my grip one last time and goes to stand over JJ.

“Stop! Let’s just go, c’mon!” I groan, everyone on the beach now circling the bonfire watching this unfold.

“Listen to her Rafe! Get out of here before the cops get here, just leave!” Sarah shouts, her brows furrowed in anger.

“Talk about her again, Maybank. You won’t live to see the next fucking day.” Rafe spits, standing up and walking over to me. He goes to grab my hand but I refuse, walking past him to the truck.

“Y/n!” He shouts, following after me. I lean against the passenger door, waiting for him.

He walks over, slumped over, feeling defeated even though he technically won the fight, he knows he made me upset. He stands in front of me, unlocking the truck with his keys and I turn around, getting in before he could open the door for me, and shutting it without a word.

When he rounds the car and gets in on the drivers side, I turn on the overhead light and grab his jaw, inspecting his face.

His lips is busted open, a bruise already forming around his cheekbone. Blood splattered across his cheek, neck, and shirt. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “But I couldn’t stand there while he said that shit about you.”

“You could’ve let it go and we could’ve just left. I just wanted a normal night to hang out with Kie and now they just have more reason to hate you. And you’re hurt.” I sigh, my thumb gently brushing along his cheekbone.

“No, I couldn’t have. You can be mad at me forever, I don’t care—I’ll always defend you. Even if that means you hate me. I’ll always protect you.” He replies, putting his keys in the engine and starting the car.

I sigh, and lean back, looking out the window. There’s nothing more I could say. When Rafe had his mind set on something, you couldn’t change it. Especially when it came to protecting the people he loved. He’s a naturally protective and territorial person. Nothing can get through his mind when he’s in that violent state, just wanting to protect the people he loves.

After a very silent ride, we arrive back at Tannyhill. Rafe parks in the driveway, pausing before getting out. “Do you want to be here? I can take you home if you don’t want to be around me, I understand—“

“What?” I ask, turning to face him.

“You’re upset. I went too far. I figured you didn’t want to be with me right now.”

“No, Rafe, no,” I sigh, my hand coming to rest on his thigh. “I’m upset at everything that happened but, I’m not mad at you. I think there might’ve been a better way to handle it, but I’m not mad. Let’s just go inside okay? And talk?”

Rafe nods, stepping out of the car and coming to my side, opening the door. My hand finds his as he helps me out and we make our way to the front door.

Quietly, he opens the door to the very empty, quiet, home. Ever since Ward died, I stay over at Rafe’s almost every night. Rafe said he feels lonely at home. Even though Rose and Wheezie still live there, it’s not the same. And tonight, Rose was away on the mainland and Wheezie was staying over at a friend’s house.

Rafe guides me up the stairs, the stairs I’ve walked up countless times. To the familiar route of his room, but I pull him off into the bathroom next to his room.

“What’re you—“

“Shh,” I shush him, patting the counter, indicating him to sit. He sighs, but follows, sitting on the counter patiently.

I reach into the medicine cabinet, pulling out the first aid kit. I grab a wipe, taking away the excess blood so I can clearly see where he’s hurt. I treat his busted lip, Rafe flinching as I put disinfectant on his lips.

“Is it because of your mom?” I ask softly.

He stiffens, and asks, “What do you mean?”

He knows what I mean.

“The overprotectiveness. Is it because of what happened to your mom?” I question.

He sighs, shrugging. “Sort of, I guess. When I was younger I felt like her death was my fault. Ever since then I’ve always wanted to protect what’s mine, everyone close to me. But, it got so.. intensified when we got together. I never protected anyone as strongly as I do with you.”

I nod, staying silent as I inspect his hands. I didn’t speak because, I had a feeling he wasn’t done. Like he had so much more to say. He’s not very good at expressing his emotions. So when he does, I try to give him all the room to vent.

“Does it bother you? Or scare you? I don’t mean to. I just can’t help it. I could never forgive myself if something happened to you and I wasn’t there to defend you. Just like I couldn’t defend my mom, I guess.”

I press my lips together, grabbing the wrap from the kit. “It doesn’t scare me in the way you think. I just don’t want you to go too far one day and do something you’ll regret. Or hurt yourself beyond repair. That’s what scares me.”

He doesn’t say anything, watching silently as I wrap his bruises knuckles. “I just hate him. All of them. They took everything from me. I won’t let them take you. I hate the way they look at you. The way he looks at you. The things they say.” His jaw clenches just thinking about it.

“They don’t know you. They don’t understand how truly selfless and kind you are. They don’t know shit. I hate the way they talk about you. Some friend Kiara is for not fucking defending you either—“ His voice begins to raise.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” I sigh, finishing bandaging his hand. “Look let’s just go to bed, okay? It’s been a long night.” I pat his knee and move from between his legs. He slips off the counter and I gently put my hand in his.

He follows me like a lost puppy to his own bedroom.

His room is the polar opposite of mine and it always makes me smile. When he’s in my room, seeing him curled up on my fluffy pink bed, and me in his cold, plain room in my frilly pink pajamas I keep in his dresser. Rafe goes in his closet and finds some clothes to change into while I change into pajamas from my designated drawer in his room.

I sit on his bed as I wait for him, closing my eyes. I hear his footsteps and look over at him, he’s shirtless, in only some basketball shorts. He flicks off his bedside light and gets under the covers.

I scoot closer, resting my head in the crook of his neck. His hand runs gently, up and down my back, the room falling quiet with just our breathing.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better,” He confesses, causing my heart to shatter into a million pieces.

I sigh, looking up at him. I place a kiss on his jaw, smiling into his neck. “It’s okay. I understand now why you do it. You just need to talk to me, yeah? But maybe just try to not beat people up so terribly.” I chuckle, pointing at his bruises.

“Hey, you should see the other guy,” He jokes, grinning down at me.

I smile softly, pressing a kiss to his lips. “Goodnight.”

Rafe smiles, his fingers brushing through my hair. “Goodnight, pretty girl.”

[cornishkat]

Just Friends - Pt 3

Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x F!Reader

Warnings: Angst, Past Trauma, Harassment, Violence, Fluff

Summary: No matter how many times Hangman and yourself told the others you were just friends they were not buying it.  But maybe the past coming back to haunt you will be what is needed to for you both to admit to your feelings.

Note: First time writing for for Hangman, hope you like it.

A week had pasted since you received that phone call and you had managed to let go of it, it had helped telling Jake what had happened, it had helped him not judging or changing how he was with you.  For the first time in years, you could see yourself being with someone again and you wanted that some one to be him.  But even though he had supported you and been your friend you still knew he didn’t see you in that way, you had seen some of the girls he had dated, and you couldn’t compete with that, and anyway he deserved someone better, someone not so broken.  If friends were all you could have with him, that was better than nothing.  It still made you smile when his name appeared on your phone’s screen,

“Y/N/N what you got planned for this weekend?”

“I could maybe free up sometime in my social diary, what you got in mind”

“I’ll pick you up in the morning and we head down to the beach for the day, guys are going to set up a BBQ, play some football”

“Sounds good, I’ll see you in the morning”

As you stepped down onto the cool sand you felt yourself relax, the ocean always calmed you and you just needed to get into those waves and let them wash the last week off you.

You were the first to get to the beach and before Jake could even finish unpacking everything you had shimmied out of our denim shorts and t-shirt and were heading to the water.  He watched you stride down towards the surf, a vision in your blue bikini, blond hair trailing out behind you.  Throwing off his t-shirt he followed you, you didn’t even hesitate as you hit the water, diving straight in under the waves.  As he got to the water’s edge, he felt the cool water hit his skin and before he could summon the courage to join you, he saw you break up through the water in front of him and he froze.  The water ran down through your hair over your body, Jesus Christ you were going to be the death of him.

“Hey, you big baby what are you waiting for, not afraid of a little cold water are you?”

“Big baby, really….”

And with that he dove into the waves, you laughed as you looked for him to resurface.  Scanning the water again for him you jumped as he popped up out of the water beside you, dear god, it took your breath away as the water ran down over his chest and abs.  You knew you were staring but just couldn’t pull your eyes away and for the first time in a long time you felt a flutter in your stomach and heat between your legs.

“Enjoying the view”

“Not bad I suppose,  but I think you need some more time in the gym, your letting yourself go”

He moved towards you, and you knew you were going to pay for that.

Rooster dropped his bag and beer next to your stuff and watched the two of you goofing around in the water.  He could hear you laughing, really laughing and it was like music to his ears.  He never thought in this world that he would want Hangman dating his best friend but watching you both together he knew you belonged together.  He just needed to figure out how he could get you both to realise it.

As the embers on the BBQ started to die and the sun was going down people started heading off, agreeing to meet at the Hard Deck later.  

“How about I take you back to get changed and we can head over together?”

“I’m ok Jake you don’t need to turn into my shadow”

“I know you are, I just want to make sure you make it to the bar because the first round is on you”

“Ever the gentleman, at least make yourself useful and carry the bags”

You were still ribbing him you pulled up in front of yours and you felt your heart swell as he ran around to open the door for you.  You were rummaging for your keys as you approached your door when the smell hit you and you froze, your stomach lurching.  Jake almost ran into the back of you as you looked up at your front door to see a bouquet of lilles sat in front of it.

“Y/N/N what’s the hold up?”

You stood and stared at the flowers, taking your phone out you dialled and pressed it to your ear.

“Y/N/N what is going….

Jake had stepped around you and the sight of the flowers silenced him as he heard you speak into your phone.

“I think he has been at my home”

Jake stared at the flowers as you continued to speak, trying to resist the urge to rip the flowers to pieces.  He could feel the change in you, the happy girl messing around with him on the beach was gone and he could feel the anger bubbling inside of him, but he knew that remaining calm was what you needed from him.  Putting your phone away you turned to look at him,

“The team are going to look into this, if it is him how in the hell did, he find me so quickly”

“You know I won’t let him hurt you, and while your team are looking into this you’re coming to stay at mine” “You don’t have to do that, I don’t want to impose on you”

“This is not open for discussion, lets grab what you need and get out of here”

“Thank you”

Stepping around the flowers you gently unlocked the door, there was no sign that anyone had been inside. But you still made your way to your safe first to grab your weapon and badge.   Jake had checked the rest of the house and was satisfied everything was safe and that no one had been in there.  You grabbed a bag and threw in what you needed,

“Are you sure you want me cluttering up your space, I don’t want to be in the way”

“And what exactly do you think you are going to get in the way off, now just get your stuff and let’s go”

The journey was made in silence, you stared out of the window and tried to process the implications of what had just happened.  You knew the flowers weren’t a coincidence, you didn’t believe in them, but had you ever really considered the fact that you may have to deal with him again.  You were trying to work out how you felt, but to be honest you just felt numb, no fear, no anger, just nothing.

You had been to Jake’s place before but flying visits but when it came to your nights in, he always preferred your place, said it was more homely.

“You want to give the bar a miss tonight?”

“To be honest I’m not really feeling it but that doesn’t mean that you have to miss out”

“You think I’m going to leave you alone here to poke around in my underwear drawer”

“I may be fearless but even I have a line”

“I’m thinking, take out, movie, popcorn”

“Sounds good, who gets to pick the movie?”

“You but I get the chance to veto”

“Fair”

“I’ll order the food if you want to grab a shower”

You let the water run down over you, washing the beach and the rest of the day off you and it wasn’t until you stepped out and dried yourself off that it suddenly hit you that you were going to be staying the night with Jake.  You felt you should be worrying about your past coming back to haunt you but all you could think about was being in close proximity to Jake.  As you pulled on your sweats the image of Jake in the sea with you earlier that day invaded your mind, the water running off his toned body, the feel of his touch on your skin and once again you felt a heat run through you.

“Hey you done in there, need to wash this sand off me”

“All yours”

“Ok get that movie teed up and the pizza should be here in fifteen”

Curling yourself up on his couch you started looking for a movie, something easy going that you didn’t need to think about too much.  As you kept searching your phone pinged with a message.  It was Bradley, wanting to know where the two of you were.

“You ok there?”

“Yeah, just Bradley wanting to know why we aren’t at the bar, I need to tell him”

“Do you want me to give him a call, save you going over it again”

“Would you mind?”

Smiling Jake grabbed his phone and called Rooster,

“What are you two up too, you leaving me hanging here?”

“Y/N/N is here with me, when we got back to hers someone had left her a bunch of lilies”

“Son of a bitch, is it him”

“Her team are looking into it but thought it best if she stayed somewhere else”

“How is she holding up, you need anything?”

“Quiet, not really saying much.  Maybe you swing by in the morning with breakfast?”

“You got it, look after her”

“You have my word”

Walking back into the lounge he watched you scanning the tv, before he could comment he heard a knock on the door of the pizza arriving.

Throwing himself down on the sofa next to you he lifted the lids on the pizza and placed a beer down for you.

“So, what we watching”

Smiling you pressed play and watched the smile spread on his face as the opening credit started,

“How did you know I love this film?”

“I do listen to you sometimes you know”

Snuggling down on the sofa you felt the rumble of his laughter and it made you smile, he made you feel happy and safe but as you had discovered today, he was also making you feel a lot of other things and that made you nervous, it had been a long time since anyone had made you feel like that.  What if you weren’t capable of taking that next step, it had been so long.

Jake looked down at you as the film ended, he could see you trying to keep your eyes open as they became heavy.

“Come on you time for bed”

“I’m good here on the couch”

“If you think for one minute, I am letting you sleep on the couch while I take the bed you have another think coming.  I’m taking the couch, the bed is all yours”

You went to protest but you already knew you were not going to win, following Jake through to the bedroom as he grabbed himself some bedding you chided yourself for thinking he had meant anything else.

“Ok sweetheart sleep tight and I’ll see you in the morning”

“Jake, thank you”

“Anytime”

As you settled yourself under the covers you were surrounded by the faint smell of Jake, it filled your senses and made you even more aware that he was only feet away from you next door.  You felt a brief longing to have him here in the bed with you, his arms wrapped around, grounding you.   You had been pretty much glued to him all day and now you found yourself missing his presence.  

You woke the next morning to hear voices and the smell of coffee, pulling on your sweats you quietly made your way to the kitchen.  Stopping in the doorway you were met with the sight of Jake and Bradley making breakfast, well unpacking it.

“Morning guys, what’s for breakfast?”

Bradley came over to you and wrapped you in his arms,

“How you doing, are you sure it is him?”

“I’m good and my team are looking into it at the moment, but it is too much to be a coincidence”

“I will not let him hurt you again”

“He’ll have to get past both of us”

Jake and Bradley both stood there looking at you and as much as you felt your heart swell at their protectiveness you were also worried, you were not going to let either of them get hurt because of you.

As you were clearing away breakfast your phone rang,

‘Hi boss you found something? Ok I’m on my way”

“Y/N/N they found something?”

“Yep I’m going to have to head in, can I borrow your car please”

“How about I give you a lift I have a couple of things to do”

“Hangman do you not trust me to drive your car?”

“To be honest no, I have experienced you’re driving”

“I’m with Hangman on this, you’re driving terrifies me”

“Hey I am a trained professional, and you two agreeing on anything is frankly just freaking me out”

[maximons]

Door’s Always Open

Summary: Wanda Maximoff had just experienced more trauma and loss than anyone should ever have to endure, so naturally Y/n L/n wanted to help as best she could. However, Wanda wasn’t the most appreciative.

Word Count: 3,761

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Requested?: Yes

Warnings: Mentions of death

A/N: This is another rollercoaster for sure lol Enjoy!

The fight against Ultron was rough.

You were brought in for help at the last second. Steve had called you up at 3am to tell you what was going on and asked if you could lend a hand. You and him had met at SHIELD before it fell, he saw potential in you and unofficially took you under his wing. Your cryokinetic powers were still new to you when you guys met, so Steve didn’t think you were Avengers material at the time.

But now, three years later and with the impending robot apocalypse, he was more than ready to make you an official Avenger.

As long as you survived.

You didn’t have much time for introductions when you arrived at Avengers Tower. Steve did a quick run down of who you were and what you could do, and you simply smiled and gave an awkward wave. The only two people who recognized you were Clint and Natasha, who gave you curt nods. Everyone else accepted your presence immediately, figuring it wasn’t the time to argue and they could use all the help they could get.

Vision was literally just born and he was a central part of the plan, so it’d be hypocritical to deny you from helping out too. As long as Steve vouched for you, they knew it wouldn’t be a mistake.

“Alright, Elsa, welcome to the big leagues.”

You resented Tony for that, because unfortunately that nickname would catch on.

You didn’t get a chance to properly meet the three faces you didn’t recognize. A man with silver hair, what looked to be a android who was red and green, look you weren’t one to judge

And the beautiful woman in the scarlet red jacket. 

You couldn’t take your eyes off of her, she was captivating. And when you saw her in action in the battle of Sokovia, she was even more so. You made it your personal mission to get to know her when all was said and done.

But then, her brother Pietro was killed.

The flight back to America was awkward. Bruce was MIA now and the team was struggling with that. More importantly, to you anyway, Wanda was letting out silent sobs over her huge loss. Her brother and then her country. Her entire world. All in one day.

You figured she needed time to herself. That’s a lot to process.

A few weeks later, Steve called again inviting you to the new Avengers compound in upstate New York, and you said yes without hesitation. You were escorted to your new room and were beyond impressed. This really was the big leagues. You didn’t have time to appreciate it or unpack though, because Steve and Natasha ordered you to suit up and make your way down to the main floor.

You arrived in your brand new light blue suit with black accents. The suit was body length with the sleeves cut off. You figured it helped with mobility, making it easier to fight. You couldn’t get cold anyway, so it worked out. You were never one to be too cocky, but you had to say you looked good.

But Wanda looked way better.

She floated down, clad in a new suit as well. You couldn’t help but stare, she looked amazing. Beautiful and bad ass at the same time. You knew you were staring for too long though, because the witch turned her head towards you, giving you an unreadable expression. You turned your head away quickly.

Your first training session as an Avenger, and you were distracted the whole time. Wonderful.

It was a few weeks after when you decided you wanted to start making moves to get to know Wanda.

While you knew she wasn’t gonna be healed by any means, and you didn’t expect her to be, you thought it had been long enough that she would be willing to accept a hand.

And boy, you were wrong.

You had entered the living room, where she was sitting by herself, watching what looked to be a sitcom on the huge television. You gave yourself a mini pep talk before making your way over.

“Hey, Wanda!” You said, a little to loudly, which startled her. She whipped her head towards you, hands and eyes glowing red, and before you knew it you were flung across the room. Ow. You were struggling to stand up, when you saw a hand reach down to you.

“Are you alright? I’m sorry, you scared me.” Wanda apologized, and oh boy you were a goner. Her accent...wow. You shook your head, not the time. You were trying to get to know her.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ve had worse.” You joked as you stood. Wanda simply nodded, and once she knew you were okay, she turned away from you, intent on heading back to her show. You panicked. “Wait!” You shouted, and the witch turned towards you again. Eyebrow raised impatiently. “I...uh, came over to say hi...”

Wow, smooth Y/n.

“You wanted to say...hi?” Wanda asked, confused.

“Yeah...hey.” You chuckled nervously, hand going to the back of your neck. “I wanted to...I don’t know, check in on you? I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

Wanda’s face fell in anger, and she turned all her attention to you, facing you head on. Uh oh. “Am I doing ‘okay’?”

“I...uh...”

“Tell me, Y/n. If you lost your sibling, the person who’s been by your side since the day you were born, and your entire home country in one fell swoop, would you be ‘okay’?” Wanda asked, approaching you slowly and you stepped back, nervous.

You, being a total nervous wreck by this point, answered. “Um...I’m an only child...” Very badly. Wanda just scoffed and turned away from you, heading back to the couch. 

You reached out one more time, determined. “Wait!” When she turned her head to you this time though, her eyes were glowing red. You rose your hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. That was the complete wrong thing to say...” Wanda’s eyes went back to normal at that, and you continued. “I know I’ll never be able to fully understand what you’re going through...and I’m so terribly sorry.”

Wanda turned again and headed back to the couch. She sat down again when she answered, not even looking at you. “I don’t need your pity.”

“It’s not. Honest.” Wanda didn’t give a reaction as she stared at the TV. You figured this night was shot, it was time to call it. Before you did though, you called over to her again. 

“I just wanted to let you know that...you aren’t alone. My room’s the third one down from the elevators. You can stop by anytime if you want to just...talk. I know what it’s like to feel like the whole world is caving in on you, obviously not to the degree you do, but still. The worst part of it though...is dealing with it alone.” You still didn’t get a reaction from the witch. You sighed. “My doors always open.” With that, you left.

Wanda never did stop by.

You were stubborn though, you didn’t give up.

The next opportunity arose after training a week later. It was a tough one, tiring out the entire team, except for Natasha of course. You swore she was a super soldier herself and just hid it from all of you.

You were all gathering your things, team members beginning to trickle out of the room. Sam called over his shoulder as he was walking out “Good job today, Elsa!” He laughed and you groaned. 

“Man...stop calling me that.”

“Aw come on...just let it go.” He laughed again and left. You rolled your eyes playfully. While you hated the nickname, you loved the playful banter that it provided with your team. Made you feel at home.

Before you knew it, it was only you and Wanda left. She was about to head out, ignoring your presence when you called out. “Hey.” You said softly, and she turned around. “I...uh, I was thinking about heading off campus for a bit. Maybe grab some ice cream? I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come?”

Wanda stared at you blankly. “It’s December.”

You internally face palmed. “Right...yeah, sorry. Kinda forget that people aren’t as fond of the cold as I am.” Wanda nodded, and started walking away again. You stopped her. “We can do something else though? Maybe get some hot food?”

Wanda rolled her eyes before turning to you. “I’m not interested.”

“Okay, well maybe we could-”

“I’m not interested, Y/n. Stop asking me.” She left the room without a second glance back to you. You sighed. 

“Okay. Door’s still open if you wanna take me up on that talk!” You shouted after her. She didn’t answer.

And she still didn’t stop by.

The next few weeks continued like that. You offering out a helping hand to Wanda, her rejecting it, and you always reminding her that your door was always open. You could’ve sworn that she was letting her guard down a little bit each time. She wasn’t as cold with her rejections as she was when she started, she didn’t seem to be annoyed at your very existence anymore, you thought you were making progress.

And then it all went to hell.

You noticed that Wanda looked even more downtrodden then usual. You kept clear of her for the first half of the day, thinking she maybe just didn’t sleep well. Later that afternoon though, you made another move. You had a surprise for her after all. 

You walked up to her door and knocked. After a moment, she opened the door, and she looked awful. Tear streaks on her face, hair messy, shirt hanging off her shoulder. This didn’t look good. Before you could ask what was wrong, she spoke. Colder than she ever has.

“What.”

The tone and heavier than usual accent took you aback. You didn’t dwell on it though. “Hey, so I actually had something I wanted to give you this time! I’m switching it up.” You chuckled nervously, but Wanda wasn’t phased. You coughed and kept going. “So I noticed that you were missing season 5 of Malcolm in the Middle, and I know the show isn’t available on streaming services for some reason, so...” You pulled the DVD set from behind you back, presenting it to her. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise as she slowly took the gift. She was about to say something, but then you started talking again. Saying the worst thing you possibly could.

“I bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?”

Wanda’s eyes snapped up, glowing bright red. You were then flown across the hall, back hitting it harshly before collapsing to the ground. You looked up at the witch, shocked at what just happened. Her eyes still glowing in anger. She threw the DVD at you as she seethed out her next words.

“Take it. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything you have to offer me.”

“Look, I just...”

“I don’t care! Why can’t you just stop!? You’re such a fucking idiot, Y/n! What, do you have a block of ice for a brain too!? I don’t like you, I’m never going to like you, I’m never going to talk to you. Take the hint already, and just leave me alone!” With that, she slammed the door.

You sat there in shock, not even being able to conjure up words. What the hell just happened? You tried to do something nice, not even asking anything of her this time, and she does that? Maybe it was a trigger, you didn’t know, but that just wasn’t cool.

You were determined to get Wanda to open up to you, yes, but you also had self respect. You can take rejection, but you weren’t gonna stand for being treated like that. After a few moments, you stood up and began to head back to your room. As you walked, you passed by a trashcan, and roughly slammed the DVD set into it.

That was the last straw. You were done trying.

Wanda had felt guilty when she fell into her bed. She knew you didn’t know the relevance those words held to her, and you were just trying to do something nice. In fact the entire time, you persisted. You never gave up on her, when most people would have. She felt bad for rejecting your advances, but she just couldn’t get close to you.

Wanda liked you, maybe more than she was willing to admit. She found you attractive, you were funny, good with your powers, a great fighter, but most importantly, you were kind. You gave her a kindness no one else on the team showed her, and now that she was thinking about it, maybe more than anyone in her life has.

She talked to Vision sometimes, and he was a good listener and all, but to be honest it felt like she was talking to a therapist. She wanted that emotional connection and understanding, and she didn’t have that with him.

She could’ve had it with you, but she was scared.

She fell back with a groan. She knew she would have to face you again eventually. Her stubbornness won out when she decided against just going to your room to talk. She fell asleep figuring you would probably approach her tomorrow.

You didn’t.

Wanda was a little taken aback when you just ignored her presence. It was like you were actively avoiding her. She guess she couldn’t have been surprised though, she did treat you pretty harshly. She’d give you the day, it would go back to normal tomorrow.

It didn’t

And it didn’t for the next few weeks either.

Wanda was really beginning to miss your presence. Something that she looked at as a burden for so long, she was now missing dearly. She had to make things right. She pushed her pride aside, and finally headed to your room. She hesitantly knocked on the door and waited. After a few moments, you answered.

You were surprised to see Wanda finally at your door, but you pushed it away, not letting it show. “What’s up?”

Wanda hesitated. You were never this short with her before. She really screwed up. “I...I just wanted to talk to you.”

Your eyebrows shot up and you crossed your arms. “Oh, did you? Did you want to tell me how much of an idiot I am or throw me against the wall again? Was there anything else you kindly wanted to share with me?”

Wanda cringed. “No, Y/n. I’m...sorry.”

You don’t know what you were expecting here, but it definitely wasn’t an apology. Your face softened as you dropped your arms, staying quiet to let her continue. “I have been horrible to you, even before the other night...you’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I repaid you by making you out to be a nuisance and...” She trailed off as she began crying. You sighed, letting your guard slip. As upset as you still were, you didn’t want to see the girl cry. 

“Okay, just...come in.”

You stepped aside, letting the witch into your room. When she entered, you gestured for her to sit on your bed and after a moment, you joined her. You reached across to your bedside table, and pulled a tissue out of the box, handing it to her. She nodded in a silent thanks, and wiped her tears. You gave her a moment to try to calm herself down, all while you stayed silent.

Wanda took a moment to think of her next words carefully. She could apologize all day long, but it wouldn’t mean much unless she showed you that she actually did want you around. She did want to lean on you, you just had to see it, and pray that it wasn’t too late. She took a deep breath.

“That day...was Pietro’s birthday.”

Your eyebrows shot up again. “Oh...I’m sorry. Happy belated birthday by the way.”

“No...it was just Pietro’s birthday, not mine.”

It was safe to say you were confused at that. You furrowed your brow. “I thought you were twin-”

“We are.” Wanda cut you off, looking up at you. “Pietro would never fail to remind me how he is...was twelve minutes older than me. He was born five minutes to midnight, making my birthday the next day.”

You nodded, unsure of what to say. You took the safe route. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah, we always thought so. As twins, growing up we always had to share everything. So it was nice that we each had our own birthday.” You nodded again.

“Well...my sentiment remains. Happy belated birthday, sorry I missed it...”

“No, don’t be...you didn’t know, no one did. I made sure of that.”

“Well, I’ll make sure to remember for next year. Both of yours.” You gave a small smile, which the witch returned. 

“Thank you. Anyway...the reason why I...did what I did to you that night, was because of what you said to me...”

You racked your brain, trying to remember what you said to her that could’ve possibly gotten her upset. You couldn’t think of anything and you shook your head. “I don’t-”

“You said, ‘You didn’t see that coming’.” Wanda interrupted, and before you could ask why that was bad, she continued. “After he obtained his speed, he would always say that. It sort of became his catchphrase...he never failed to say it when he could.”

Your face filled with understanding. You could understand why those words would be triggering to her. Coupled with the fact that it was the boys birthday, her first one without him, yeah...you understood why she reacted a little bit more. 

“No, Y/n...nothing excuses the way I treated you.” Wanda says, seemingly out of nowhere. You looked at her, very confused. 

“How did you-”

“I can read minds.”

“Oh...” Your face flushed with embarrassment, and for some reason Wanda chuckled at the sight.

“Don’t worry, I never intentionally peered into your mind, but sometimes I just can’t control it...”

You weren’t sure if that made you feel better or not, but you didn’t want to dwell on it, so you simply nodded.

“Y/n, I am so incredibly sorry for the way I’ve been treating you. You were just showing me kindness, a kindness that most people in your situation wouldn’t have showed. And I want to start trying to repay it. So...If it’s okay with you...I was wondering if we can...start over?”

You smiled at this. You were happy to see Wanda, the girl you’ve been trying to talk to for months now, was finally reaching out to you. Ready to start coming to you on her own. You reached down and placed your hand gently on Wanda’s, which was resting on the bed. “I’m more than okay with that. You already know, my doors always open.” Wanda smiled back at you at that.

After a few moments of silence, your face dropped slightly. “Um...” You took a glance around your room for a second, causing the witch to look at you in confusion. “So...that night, I kind of...threw away the Malcolm and the Middle DVD...” You said sheepishly, but Wanda just laughed.

“It’s okay, Y/n. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to have it. Y’know as like a token of our friendship. It could’ve been cute.” You pouted, and Wanda laughed even louder. You couldn’t help but swoon at the sound.

You thought for a few moments before your face lit up. “I got it.” You smiled. You pulled your hand away from the witch’s, facing it palm side up and held it in front of you.” You took your other hand and pointed it towards it. A stream of ice steadily flowed out of your hand, and slowly something solid started to form. When Wanda recognized what you were doing, she gasped.

After a few moments, you finished. Now lying in your once empty hand, was a beautiful small ice sculpture shaped like a lightning bolt. You smiled at your work, before holding it out for Wanda. “Here.” You said gently, and Wanda slowly took the statue, studying it with a smile. “I know it’s not exactly the same as having something of his...but hopefully this can be something to remember him by. Like a tribute to him.”

Wanda looked from the statue back up to you, smile wide on her face. She couldn’t believe you made that for her. It was small and simple, but it was perfect. She was speechless for a moment, but eventually she spoke. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” You said, as she placed the statue delicately on the night table next to her. “Maybe just...call me in like once a week so I can refreeze it. Wouldn’t want it to melt.” You gave a small chuckle, which Wanda returned.

“I will...” Wanda trailed off as she looked into your eyes. She couldn’t believe that she pushed you away for as long as she did. You were perfect to her, in everyway. She was going to make sure she kept you in her life for as long as she could, she would never push you away again.

Before she realized what she was doing, she felt herself slowly leaning in. She was glad to see that instead of you pulling away, or looking at her with disgust, you started leaning in as well. Soon enough, you met in the middle in a gentle kiss.

Wanda lifted her hand to rest behind your neck, and you brought your hand to rest on her knee as the kiss continued. After a few moments, you two pulled away, smiles planted on both your faces.

“I...hope that was okay.” Wanda said, suddenly nervous. Your smile only widened.

“That was more thank okay. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind doing that more. Like, a lot more.” You said in a playful tone, causing Wanda to laugh.

“Maybe take me on a date first...Elsa.” Your face dropped in mock hurt as you pulled away completely. Wanda only laughed harder.

“Nooo, not you too.” You whined, and Wanda only continued to laugh as she pulled you into another kiss. You more than welcomed it.

Needless to say, you were happy you opened your door for Wanda that night. Your door would always be open for her, and now, you were hopeful that she’d always she would always come knocking.

[waitimcomingtoo]

In Case You Don’t Live Forever

~chapter two rewritten~

Pairing: Peter Parker x Venom!Reader

Synopsis: you are Peters greatest love and Spider-Man’s greatest enemy

Masterlist and Series Masterlist

Moving and finding an apartment can be an incredibly long and stressful process. Unless you’re you, and life likes to throw a lot of curve balls at you for the utter hell of it.

Your dad dropped dead three weeks after you told Andy you were moving to New York. Coincidentally, right in the middle of you trying to find a place to live. He drank himself to death. Figures. You doubted you’d ever had a conversation with him that he was sober enough to remember. His untimely demise was unfortunate for him, because he died or whatever, but very fortunate for you. As his only child, you got his apartment in Queens and all his smelly hoodies.

You said your goodbyes to Andy and Dani after a night out in the streets of San Francisco. You had originally moved there after high school to start your show, The L/n Report. San Francisco was known for its crimes against the homeless population and you wanted to start with a story on that. You ended up interviewing Andy at the police station while investigating a missing person, and dated him for two years. Now, you were spending your last few hours in San Francisco with the very boy you once loved and the very girl he now did.

“Are you all packed?” Dani asked you, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Pretty much. I gotta put my toothbrush and hairbrush in my suitcase in the morning. Other than that, I’m good to go.” You answered her. She smiled fondly at you as she linked her arm through yours.

“Hey, I’m really gonna miss you. More than that guy over there.” You whispered, nodding towards Andy, who had his head buried in his phone. Dani laughed and nodded in agreement as you continued to walk.

“I’m going to miss you too. You’re my best friend here.” She sighed sadly.

“I’m glad we’re friends. Most women in our position would hate each other.” You thought out loud.

“Uh uh. You’re thinking of women in films. It’s 2021, baby. Women support women. You and I are two talented, smart, beautiful women who would never be caught fighting over some boy. Especially not one who can’t take his eyes off his phone for two seconds.” Dani said loudly and smacked Andy’s arm. You laughed at the domestic moment but couldn’t help feeling a pain in your heart knowing he used to be that way with you.

“What, sorry?” Andy looked up. You and Dani looked at him before looking at each other and laughing.

“What’s funny?” He asked, growing annoyed.

“We’re laughing at you babe. Put your phone away. It’s Y/N’s last night here.” Dani scolded playfully. Andy sighed and reluctantly put his phone in his pocket.

“Right, sorry. And it’s not her last night here. She’s coming back. You are coming back, right?” He asked you. You nodded, though you weren’t entirely sure.

“Of course I’ll be back.” You shrugged. “I just want to experience something new for a while. I’ve done a million pieces on homelessness and poverty. I want to see what fresh stories New York has to offer.”

“You’re quoting the Daily Bugle, aren’t you?” Dani teased you.

“That is verbatim what they said to me.” You admitted with a laugh. “But hey, it worked. As of tomorrow, I’m the Daily Bugle’s newest investigative reporter.”

“Who are you reporting on anyway?” Andy showed a rare interest in your work.

“Some guy named Cletus Kasady.” You answered. “He’s some hot shot serial killer down in Queens. No one knows how he’s hiding his victims bodies. Apparently none have ever been close to being found.”

“And they want you to write the story on him?” Andy raised an eyebrow, always with the condescending tone.

“Well they heard about the whole Carlton Drake situation and decided I hadn’t been through enough trauma in my career.” You replied, earning a laugh from Dani but not Andy. You and Andy had already broken up by the time Carlton Drake contracted a symbiote and tried to kill you and Venom. You stopped him before he could hurt anyone and wrote a career defining article on his lethal human experiments. You managed to leave out all information regarding symbiotes from the article, so your secret was still safe. You were a fairly well known reporter since the incident and your next job was waiting for you in New York.

In the morning, You and Venom got on a plane and made your way to New York. Being on a plane with Venom turned out to be the equivalent to traveling with a toddler. You tried to sleep, but every two seconds you had to stop Venom from getting into trouble. She kept trying to open the window, even after you explained to her that everyone on the plane would die horrible death if the window were to open.

“Stop that.” You whispered when you noticed a black tendril creeping towards the window. The lady in the seat next to you shot me a look of confusion. You gave her a fake smile and turned back to the window, doing your best to conceal the small black tendril that was coming out of your body and fidgeting with the airplane window.

“We want it open.” Venom replied telepathically.

“Do you also want us to blow out of the plane and into space?” You said through my teeth.

“We didn’t anticipate that but it’d be appreciated.” Venom answered, making you groan. The rest of the plane ride followed in similar fashion.

Seven hours later, you arrived at the apartment building. You had never been to your dads apartment, you didn’t even know he had one. You wondered what happened to your childhood home as you looked around the place. The apartment wasn’t too small but not too big either. The rent was practically nothing compared to how expensive San Francisco was, and The Daily Bugle offered to cover your expenses until the story was done. You figured after some redecorating and moving in, it would make a fine new home.

The first seven days in the apartment went by smoothly. You unpacked, with little to no help from Venom, and set up the furniture. On the eight day, you sat on the couch, aimlessly flipping through channels in the TV when you had a thought.

“Oh shit.” You said out loud.

“What?” Venom, who was curly nestled around your neck like a neck pillow, asked.

“I forgot mail exists.” You frowned. “We better go check the mailbox before it overflows.”

You and Venom grudgingly walked to the mailboxes and back again. No one was around, so she manifested herself and rested on your shoulder as I looked through the mail.

“Oops. I grabbed someone else’s mail too.” You clicked your tongue when you read a strangers name off the envelope. “I gotta find them.”

“Let’s go.” Venom said and pulled you towards the front door.

“Sorry, babe. This is a me thing, not a we thing. You know I love you but I don’t want to scare our neighbors. Not yet anyway.” You reasoned. Venom grumbled and went back inside your body.

You checked the address of the envelope and discovered that it belonged to the apartment directly across from you.

You knocked on the door and patiently waited for someone to open it as you mindlessly cracked your knuckles. Just as you were about to walk away, the door opened.

“Hi, are you May Parker?” You asked right away. You looked up from the envelope and your face instantly flushed. The person staring back at you definitely wasn’t May Parker. It was a boy around your age, maybe a little younger. He had soft brown eyes and wavy brown hair. It was gelled back loosely and you could see the outline of soft curls. To your surprise, he was just as flushed as you were. You stared at each other for a moment, no one wanting to be the first to blink.

“Yea. I’m May Parker.” The boy said finally. He shut his eyes in embarrassment and shook his head.

“I mean, no I’m not. But that’s my Aunt. May is my Aunt but I’m not May. That’s my Aunt May. I’m her nephew…obviously. Aunt May is my Aunt May. I…what?” He stumbled over his words and somehow turned even redder. His blush reached all the way down his neck, to his blue jumper that read “Midtown Tech” in yellow letters. You recognized the name of one of the most prestigious high schools in New York, already impressed with your new neighbor.

“Well hello, not May Parker. I’m also not May Parker. But I seemed to forget that when I grabbed your mail this morning. Sorry about that.” You said sheepishly as you handed his mail to him. The boy rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at it and attempted to redeem himself.

“It’s not problem. She and I always forget to check the mail so you actually helped us, um, whoever you are.” He smiled weakly. His voice was cute. He had that Queens accent that the people of San Francisco lacked, for obvious reasons.

“Oh, right.” You laughed in embarrassment. “I’m Y/N L/N. I just moved here from San Francisco. I live across the hall.”

You pointed to the door behind you as if he didn’t know what “across the hall” meant. You didn’t know what was wrong with you. You were never this awkward.

His eyes lit up a bit once you told him where you lived.

“Really? I thought that smelly guy lived there.” The boy said and you stifled a laugh.

“That smelly guy was my father. He died a little while ago so I live there now.” You told him, malign the boys eyes widen. They were so brown. Like little pools of honey. Or little pools of the Hudson River. You had seen a million pairs of brown eyes before, but none like his. They were quite distracting to be honest.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I had. I had no idea-“ he began to frantically apologize but you cut him off.

“Don’t worry about it. We never got along. And you’re right, that man stank.” You chuckled. It was the first thing you said that felt like your old self. You hadn’t really talked to anyone since moving to New York, with the exception of Venom and the occasional phone call from Andy or Dani. You liked talking to this boy, though you still had no idea who he was.

“Oh thank God. I thought I screwed this up before it even went anywhere.” He immediately turned red when he heard his own words. You saw the regret in his eyes and decided to throw him a bone.

“Well it certainly can’t go anywhere until you tell me your name.” You flirted. Again, he relaxed. You felt a surge of confidence knowing he wanted this to go well.

“Parker. I’m Parker Peter. I mean, Peter Parker.” He fumbled over his words again, making you smile fondly.

“We like him. He’s cute.” Venom said telepathically. You looked down at my shoes and blushed, knowing you liked him too.

“And he looks delicious.” She added, ruining the moment.

“It’s nice to meet you Peter Parker.” You gave him your best smile. “I’m glad there’s someone my age around here. Everyone I’ve met so far is either an old bitty or a creepy uncle type.” You regretted it as soon as it left your mouth. You didn’t know what his sense of humor was like and he might not find you the slightest but funny. Andy always told you you were bad at telling jokes, and you feared he might be right.

Lucky for you, Peter burst out laughing.

“Ah. I’ve seen you’ve met Henry.” Peter pointed a finger down the hall. “Yeah, I’d stay away from him. He asked me if he could have pictures of my feet once. He said he’d “pay me handsomely” for it too.”

“Damn. So he beat me to asking you.” You pretended to be upset, which made Peter laugh again. The sound of his laugh made your heart pick up speed. You weren’t used to feeling like this. Boys rarely impressed you, Andy was just lucky you liked a man in uniform.

“Yeah. You better stay away from him.” Peter advised.

“It might be hard.” You clicked your tongue. “Our mailboxes are pretty close. I’ll make a mental note to never check my mail while wearing flip flops, though.”

Peter smiled at your joke. He had the kind of smile that you would make the person laugh just to see it again. It was brilliant.

“Well my mailbox should be directly above yours. So don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” He grinned, and you grinned back.

“My hero.” You gushed as you put your hands over your heart. The tips of his ears went pink, like he was shocked that you said that.

“I’m no hero.” He sounded almost panicked, like you touched a nerve or something.

“We’re hungry. We need to eat.” Venom interrupted abruptly, causing you to jump. Since Peter couldn’t hear her, he looked at you strangely, not knowing the cause of your sudden jolt.

“Sorry, I uh, I thought I saw a spider.” You lied.

“If there was a spider, we’d eat it. We need food. Now.” Venom demanded.

Peter looked up at his doorframe for the imaginary spider.

“Yeah, New York is full of them.” Peter said skeptically. “Not that full, though. And some spiders are nice. One might even call them friendly.”

“Right.” You laughed at his strange wording, unaware that you were both keeping a secret.

“Would…” Peter began but trailed off, seemingly mulling something over in his head. “Would you like to eat dinner with my Aunt and I? I remember when we first moved in, it took us a while to get into the swing of things and make dinner every night. If you like, you could join us. And, you know, we could get to know each other.” He offered. It all came out in one breath. You could tell he was nervous and that only drew you in more.

“I’d love to Peter.” You said, and he smiled in relief.

“Great.” He gave an awkward thumbs up. “We usually eat around six so maybe come around then? She’ll be so happy to meet you. She loves cooking and she always tries to get me to learn but I once burnt cereal and I still don’t know how.” Peter began to ramble. He cut himself off and shook his head again. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”

Then, you did something stupid. You put your hand on his arm like the dumb bitch you were. You barely knew this guy. Who the hell were you to touch him? He must’ve been thinking the same thing, since he instantly froze under your touch and stared at your hand on his arm.

“Don’t apologize. I can’t cook either. Unless you count making tater tots as cooking. Then I’m Gordon Ramsey.” You assured him, feeling him relax under your touch.

“You’re just gonna mention tater tots without warning us first? Our mouth is watering. Can we eat Peter?” Venom asked, making your eyes widen.

If it was socially acceptable to scream at your symbiote in public, you would’ve yelled “NO, WE CANNOT EAT PETER” from the top of your lungs. But since you didn’t want to scare Peter and the rest of the neighbors away, you merely smiled and made another mental note to smack the shit out of Venom later.

“I love that man. “Where is the lamb sauce?” Peter mimicked in a bad British accent. He had no right being as charming as he was.

“No no no.” You shook your head. “His best line is “I’ll get you more pumpkin and I’ll ram it right up your ass. Would you like it whole or diced?”. He’s said some pretty wild things but that one makes me cry.”

Peters laugh rang through the halls. To be the cause of that laugh was a feeling like no other. You stood there for a while, just looking at each other. His eyes grazed down your body, but not in a crude way. You berated yourself for not dressing better when going to meet the neighbors, clad in nothing but a grey hoodie and some leggings. Peter looked cute, but you had a feeling he always did. His jumper was pretty baggy and you could see a collared shirt poking out the top. He was dressed almost professionally and you found it incredibly endearing.

You wanted to know more about him. You wanted to know his secrets and his hobbies and what makes him itch. You wanted to see if he dresses this way on weekends too or what his summer clothes looked like. Your gawking was interrupted by Peters phone ringing. He broke out of his trance and answered it quickly.

“Hi, Mr. S. No I’m not busy. I mean, I’m super busy but I can totally make time for you. Yea, Happy talked to me. Okay. Okay. Where? Okay. See you in a bit.” Peter hung up and looked at you apologetically.

“That was my job. I have to run but I’ll be back in time for our dinner. I live at…you know where I live. I’ll see you then. Don’t be late.” Peter called as he ran down the hallway, towards the elevator.

“I won’t. See you later.” You called back.

You went back to your apartment and like a kid, broke out into a happy dance.

“Venom!! Did you see how cute he was?” You gushed. “And how funny he is? I have to get ready for tonight.”

Venom manifested and swirled around my arm.

“Someone has a crush.” Venom smirked. Well, as much of a smirk as she could muster with that huge mouth of hers.

“I don’t have a crush. I just think he’s cute okay?” You replied coyly. “Cute. And funny and sweet and charming and amazing. But that’s it.”

“We can feel your heart beat.” Venom reminded you. “It was going ten miles an hour. What would Andy say?”

You had been rummaging through your closet and stopped in your tracks. With Peters new inhabitance in your mind, you had forgotten all about Andy. You moved to New York to avoid his wedding and his moving on, and you might’ve succeeded.

“I don’t care what he’d say.” You decided. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“But we want him to be.” Venom insisted. “We want him back, remember?”

“I don’t know what I want.” You answered honestly. “I just want to get ready for tonight.”

“Why are you getting ready now? You have 5 hours until you have to be there and it’s right across the hall.” Venom teased.

“Only 5 hours?” You sighed. “We better get moving.”

[tiifalockhart]

End of the F**king World

Pairing: Sephiroth/Reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: major character death, implications of stalker behavior, mentions of torture, mentions of insanity, portrayal of mental illness, end of the world, anxiety, depression, alludes to suicide

A/N: this wasn’t a request, however, this idea had been on my mind for quite awhile. with lots of motivation, i finally put it into words. please keep in mind that there are huge trigger warnings for this content, since it is probably the most angsty and intense thing i’ve written on this blog!! i hope you enjoy reading, feedback is greatly appreciated

Ao3 || Masterlist 

After it all had fallen apart, there was nothing left to hope for. 

Genesis was gone, Angeal was dead, Zack was dead, Sephiroth was... Dead? His body was found deep inside the destroyed Nibleheim reactor, so it was possible that Sephiroth was dead, right? But...

You aren’t supposed to see dead people.

So why was it that Sephiroth was constantly following you around? Why was he silently watching you at all times? No matter where you looked, he was there. It was chilling to see his cat-like mako eyes pierce into your skull. His twisted smirk made your stomach churn and want to run away as fast as you could, but there was no where to run. He was always with you. Whether you wanted him or not, it seemed like you didn’t have a choice. 

What did you do to earn such a strange connection to the dead? 

That’s right... In Nibleheim, you were there. You were one of the sole survivors that witnessed it all. The roaring flames, the deafening screams and cries of dying people, the sound of buildings collapsing and blades crashing against one another, you relived it every time you closed your eyes. 

Sephiroth sought out to kill you, even though you were a simple bystander. But... That wasn’t the complete truth, was it? You were more important than anyone else at Nibleheim. That’s why he came after you, right? Think of it as... Young love, a childhood best friend, his only friend, that’s what you were. That is, until you mysteriously disappeared and left him all alone. You were taken far away from Shinra after being deemed as... “Intruding.” You and Sephiroth were just children, you didn’t understand the world. You always thought wishfully because even as a child, you knew that Sephiroth didn’t belong in a laboratory twenty-four-seven. You put all of these ideas of “running away” or “sneaking out” into his head. He became obsessed with the idea for the longest time. He wanted to run away, he wanted to experience this life that you mentioned so many times, he wanted to experience normalcy. 

When Hojo caught wind of this... Disobedience, he sent you and your family far away. He sent you as far away as he could. Your father began to work at the Nibleheim Mansion as a book keeper as punishment for your indiscipline. Sephiroth felt betrayed by your disappearance. He blamed you for the punishments he received for wanting to escape. He blamed you for leaving him alone to deal with it. He never forgot about it, instead he bottled it up and chalked it up to some kind of cruel training he had to go to. 

As he grew up, those thoughts bothered him less and less. He figured he would never have to see you again, therefore he would never have to face that trauma again. Instead of coping with it, he pushed it away to the deepest place he could and tried to forget about it. But as things around him began to crumble, all of his past traumas began to surface again. Genesis ended up leaving him, so did Angeal. His two friends, his only friends since you, ended up leaving him. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? 

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for him to snap. The moment he knew he was being sent to Nibleheim for a mission, dread began to build up inside of him. As if it were a sixth sense, he knew something was going to happen here. He made sure to keep his guard up as they arrived at Nibleheim, who knew what was going to happen?

What he didn’t expect, though, was that the threat he was dreading would end up being himself. Dealing with the loss of his two friends was enough, but he never expected having to face you after all those years. You looked exactly the same from when you were a child. Sephiroth knew who you were in an instance when he saw you in that village. He knew that he couldn’t stay. He had to run from you, he had to run, he had to. He avoided you like the plague, unwilling to unpack the bottled-up regret and anger he held for you. His mind couldn’t stop wandering to his childhood with you, he began to question everything. Why were you here in Nibleheim? Why did you leave him? Why was he punished because of you? Why did Genesis and Angeal have to leave, too? He felt sick, he felt weak and dizzy, nothing was making sense anymore. 

That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. 

The moment his eyes landed on those monsters in the reactor, he felt something inside of him shatter. He needed answers. He needed anything. 

He needed something. 

Something to grip onto.

He was losing his mind. 

What was reality? What was real and what was fake? 

He couldn’t hear himself over his own thoughts anymore. He was descending into madness. He couldn’t stop himself from wandering into that library. It was similar to a deep, primal instinct. It felt like he was hunting for prey. But there was no prey. He was hunting for... Nothing? It didn’t make sense, nothing made sense anymore. The voices of concern were drowned out by his mind screaming at him. His mind told him that he couldn’t eat or sleep until he had answers. Who was he? Who were his parents? Why did he want to escape? What are these voices in his head? 

He paced back and forth until his legs were numb, his fingers frantically flipped through the pages of those books, his heart pounded in his chest to the point where it was deafening. He was terrified for the first time in his life. But it wasn’t because of some foe he had to face. No... 

He was terrified of himself. 

That’s when he stumbled upon the documents named ‘Project S.’ His fingers trembled as his eyes scanned the pages. His arms grew weak, he couldn’t stand anymore and ended up collapsing against the wall. He slid down the wall slowly as he took in every bit of information. 

He was... A monster? 

No.

He was an Ancient...

He was a God.

This was his world. 

It all belonged to him.

He was betrayed by everyone. He was treated like an experiment on his own Earth. He was destroyed and numbed to the cruelties of this Earth, used by simple humans for their own bidding. He was dumbed down to a puppet. Everyone else had to have known, right? His mother was Jenova... The J.E.N.O.V.A.? They lied to him. How could they all keep this from him..? His own friends, his mentors and companions? Why did they... It didn’t make sense. Even Zack hid all of this from him... His last friend...

It all started with the books. 

Sephiroth burned them all. He was caught up in a fit of rage. He was betrayed by everyone. Everyone he’s come to know has known what he is, but decided to hide it. His entire existence was a lie. It was all fabricated from birth. How many people knew besides the scientists? The people he laid down his life for ended up betraying him. He would never forgive the human race for what they’ve done.

Before he knew it, the entire village was in flames. Overcome with rage, Sephiroth decided he was personally going to rip the world apart. Everyone would suffer because of what they’ve done to him. There was no room for negotiation anymore, they lost that privilege many years ago. 

During this fit of rage, Sephiroth’s eyes managed to land on you. This was where it all started, wasn’t it? You could have saved him, you could have told him the truth. You knew what he was, but you participated in treating him like... Like some lab rat. You lied, and you were just as guilty as everyone else. 

He couldn’t stop himself from raising Masamune over his head. His vision was red with anger, he was no longer thinking for himself. His mind screamed at him. This is what they wanted, wasn’t it? A truly powerful being... 

He’d show you what power really looks like. 

It was all your fault. 

How you managed to escape was a mystery to all. How Sephiroth was still alive was a mystery to you. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. 

You remembered that day very clearly. You hadn’t even known Sephiroth was in Nibleheim. You didn’t know that he still remembered you. You didn’t know that you planted the seed for his inevitable mental break. 

Now, you were cursed with a daily reminder. His eyes would never leave you for as long as you lived. You assumed the same fate followed you into the Lifestream. 

The day of the Nibleheim Incident, you took off into hiding immediately. You couldn’t face the guilt that possessed you. You could still clearly hear the pain in Sephiroth’s cries as he stood over you. “You took everything from me!” It played in your mind on repeat. He died knowing that it was all your fault this happened. His last few words would be permanently ingrained into your brain. You slightly wished that he had just finished the job in Nibleheim... But you somewhat convinced yourself that that wasn’t his intention. 

Now that he was staring you in the face, you couldn’t believe that he intended for you to die in Nibleheim. He fully intended on you living with your sins and carrying that burden until the end of your time. 

It’s been months now since his first appearance. You remembered when you first saw him after Nibleheim many months ago. You were making your morning deliveries, casually walking around the Sector 5 slums. You approaching the small orphanage located at the top of the slums, ready to face the children when you suddenly stopped in your tracks. Your eyes had been focused on the ground as you walked, so when you saw black boots suddenly appear in your vision, a confused expression formed on your features. You slowly lifted your head to look up at the mysterious figure, only to let out a blood-curdling scream and fall back. 

In front of you stood the silver-haired SOLDIER, he wore a twisted and sickening smirk, his eyes held a glint of... Desire. His left hand tightened around the hilt of his blade as he stared down at you. Fear consumed you as you prepared to finally die, your eyes squeezing tight as your hands came to cover your head. 

When nothing happened, you slowly lifted your head again to see everyone around you staring at you in confusion. Sephiroth was gone as if he completely vanished into thin-air. The ladies working at the orphanage stared at you, fear evident in their eyes. They held the children back from approaching you, as if you were the one to be feared.

No one else had seen Sephiroth. 

You were the only one. 

You quickly got up, not bothering to dust yourself off or gather your things, before taking off to your small shack. Surely, it was part of your imagination. People have mentioned having hallucinations and stuff, maybe that’s what happened. You tried to think it through logically as you splashed cold water on your face. When you lifted your head again, you felt his presence in the back of the room. 

“Why are you here?” You asked, your voice shaking as you turned towards him. He was leaning against the wall casually, his smirk still present. Instead of answering you, he simply looked in your direction before walking further into the house. His gaze sent chills down your spine. What kind of desire is he holding inside? 

Life went on like that for months. Eventually, you were forced to grow used to his presence, no matter how oppressive it was. He would follow you anywhere, basically. He hardly said anything, if he did, it was probably something obscure and ominous. Eventually, you began to talk to him more, finding it unreasonably hard to cope with what life has become. You were never sure if he was listening or not, but deep down inside, you kind of hoped. 

You were never sure what Sephiroth was intending to get out of spending all of his time with you. It kind of made you anxious, knowing that you had some... Purpose to him, something that made you special from everyone else. Even through the hard times like the fall of Sector 7, he hardly ever left your side. 

There was one night where you felt particularly lonely. Sephiroth seemed to be gone, no where to be found. It was odd, even if you were his sworn enemy, you still found yourself concerned if he wasn’t around. That night, to somehow distract yourself, you wandered out into the Sector 5 slums, hoping to cope with the suffocating loneliness. That’s when you heard the news channel booming from the monitor at the center of the town. You approached the crowd quietly, feeling your heart drop at the announcements. 

President Shinra was dead. They claimed it was from Avalanche, but you knew better than that. From behind you, you heard his chilling voice. 

“You agree that he deserved it, don’t you?” Sephiroth asked, his voice low. It sounded like just a whisper in your ear. The question was odd... He wasn’t asking for your opinion, instead he was asking which side you were on. 

President Shinra did deserve it, though, didn’t he? While you would never wish death upon someone, it was undeniable how terrible of a man the President was. You could only respond with a weak nod of your head, feeling too repulsed to give him anything more. 

You moved to take off back to your home, only to feel the burning sensation of his gloved hand wrapped around your forearm. “The end is nigh... Who’s side will you be on?” He questioned. You forced yourself to look back at him. 

“What end?” You asked, your voice shaking as you spoke. Sephiroth didn’t give you an answer, instead he let go and slowly backed into the shadows, leaving you alone once again. 

What end was he talking about? ...End of the world? No, he doesn’t have that kind of power, does he? Honestly, you weren’t sure what Sephiroth was capable of in this form. He was powerful before he died, but what is he capable of now that he is dead?

You wouldn’t know his true power until it came to you in dreams. Since President Shinra’s death, and your odd conversation with Sephiroth that night, you had been having weird dreams. They weren’t the kind of weird that you forget in an instance of waking up, no... These dreams were visions. They were of what was to come. You saw visions of people you didn’t know dying, you saw a giant star in the sky slowly closing in on the Midgar tower, you saw visions of the Lifestream erupting from the ground... They had to have been connected, didn’t they? 

Sephiroth was no longer around for you to question him. It’s like he suddenly vanished, like he never existed after Nibleheim. Had you imagined it all up? It was getting hard to tell. You couldn’t bring yourself to search for him. You didn’t want to see him anymore. Truthfully, you wished you had never seen him in the first place. 

It seemed like months had passed since then. You were really keeping track of time anymore, honestly. Things began to change in the world around you, though. Above you, in the sky, a meteor pushed against the atmosphere of the world. Everyone else was terrified of it, but... You honestly couldn’t say that you were afraid of it anymore. After months of visions, you saw it coming. 

This was the end that Sephiroth was talking about, wasn’t it? 

The end of his torment.

The end of the human race.

The end of the fucking world. 

You hated him for it. There was no one that could stop him... He knew that, everyone seemed to know it except for the innocent lives. You heard the daily questions from bystanders.

“Why is this happening?”

“Are we all going to die?”

“There is nothing we can do to stop it, is there?”

Humanity’s downfall rested in the palms of a revenge-stricken God, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

By now, you had already accepted death. It was inevitable at this point. The fates of everyone were completely compromised at this point, death stared everyone in the face. It was only a matter of time until the Meteor made contact with the Earth. 

You remembered when the evacuation of Midgar began. Every single person was forced onto trains, cars, buses, whatever mode of transportation was available in poor attempts to escape fate. You watched from the window as the bus drove away, your eyes glued to the Meteor. Only a few days from then...

Those next few days were absolute torture. The entire world played a waiting game. There was really nothing to do to prepare for impact. Any preparations would be futile. In the end, there seemed to be a collective loss of morale. 

This was the end.

Just a few hours before the Meteor struck, you remembered hearing that familiar unsettling voice. “What a beautiful creation.” Sephiroth commented, his eyes fixated on the star. You looked up at him, your burning gaze quickly turning into one of shock. He stood next to you, blood decorating his face and suit. 

“What happened to you?” You asked softly, your brows furrowing slightly in concern. As much as you hated to admit it, you still cared for him. 

He shook his head slowly. “I...” He hesitated, seeming to return to his old self for just a moment. He slowly turned towards you, regaining that twisted look. “Will never be a memory.” He hissed, before completely dissipating in front of you. 

Below you, the ground began to shake. Your eyes shot up to the Meteor, expecting to see Midgar destroyed by now, but to your surprise, streams of green were fighting it off. There were screams coming from the people around you, they all cheered on the Lifestream. You couldn’t bring yourself to cheer though. This was fate, wasn’t it? You found yourself strangely conflicted. 

In the end, the Meteor ended up being destroyed before it could even touch Midgar. You watched as the Meteor disintegrated into small rocks. The population around you cheered unendingly, thanking the Gods for survival. You found yourself unsure. You survived, but at what cost? This battle with Sephiroth isn’t over... You knew that deep down. A quiet sigh left your lips as you turned away from the celebrating crowds, finding it hard to relate. 

This wasn’t the end, after all. 

[ageofevermore]

Unsaid Emily

SUMMARY — and maybe it was the midnight ink on her wrist that tied her to him

WORD COUNT — 1.7k

───── ･ ｡ﾟ☆ﾟ: *. ☽ .* : ☆ﾟ. ─────

They had said goodbye to a child eight years before welcoming the second with shocked and scared hearts. They had promised to do things differently -- to like whatever she liked, watch whatever she watched, and love whatever she loved. They drew no boundary at personal belief when it came to this second child that shadowed the life of Luke, but they made no attempts to forgive and mend the empty spaces in their hearts where they had already done this. They had already gone through first steps, words, and heartbreaks. They had captured Luke’s seventeen years of life in their memory so perfectly watching hers felt faulty. They tried with everything they had to love her as they never loved Luke, but somehow that caused even more of a divide as everything was reminiscent of the deceased first born brunette. 

She had been away at school when his birthday rolled around; for the first time in her seventeen years of pitiful existence she didn’t blow out the candles on a stale chocolate cake. She spent the day away from stories of her brother, and instead  spent it knowing somewhere in the universe he wasn’t being smothered by Mitch and Emily’s persistent opinions. She couldn’t outrun home forever though. An amazing music program in Santa Monica pulled her away from LA for most weeks out of the year, but her mother was persistent that she abandon the dorms and visit home every so often. It was that fear of Luke again. He had instilled so many traumas that even trust with her was unruly and weak. 

She heard the doorbell ring as she was unpacking her pile of homework, the weekend away from school meaning nothing for the multiple classes she was taking weekly. Though the private boarding school was diverse in the makeup of their structured courses, she was still on a tightly wound schedule with instrumental practice and vocals along with mandatory academics like calculus. She hates calculus. She had only started around the corner because she heard the sound of her brother's name roll off of a stranger's tongue. The defined L sound was unmistakable, and partnered with the topic of music, the correlation was undeniable. 

“Yeah. That’s Luke, when he was two.” Mitch explained the picture between the girls grasp, eyes growing damp at the topic of his greatest failure as a parent. Luke was his perfect gift. 

“Do you have any other children?” The girl asked, gently setting the picture frame down and bringing her chocolate eyes up to Mitch’s. The gentleness of her expressions were weighing heavy on the hearts of a family that lived with the memory of Luke on their mind daily. Even with the retelling of his story the only fragment of his existence that she knew, hearing these words hurt.

“A daughter. Lily.” Mitch looked just behind the guest, eyes trailing over his daughter that shared the same midnight toned hair and hard blue eyes as his Luke once had. She stepped past the threshold connecting the foyer to the living room, ignoring the butterflies that spread through her stomach at a certain point across the hardwood. 

“I’m Lily.” She smiled tightly at the girl, hand extended in a polite greeting that was in no way authentic. Her heart was beating her ears, palms collecting sweat at the idea of knowing Luke from somebody else's perspective. 

“Julie.”  The two smiled at each other, both looking equally displaced despite this being Lily’s house, and having been Julie’s personal decision to come. Luke just had that effect on people. His memory made you hurt so deeply that anything other than crying felt wrong. 

“Did I hear the doorbell?” Emily asked, hand softly brushing against Lily’s back. Emily hadn’t even flinched when her child pulled away from the embrace, just accepted what had become routine since implementing the memory and the love of Luke. In remembering one child Mitch and Emily had completely pushed away the other. 

“Mom, this is Julie.” Lily introduced the two, her eyes wandering around the space that suddenly felt so full. She had stood in this same living room for seventeen years prior to the current evening and never had she got the sense of being complete. 

“Hello, Julie.” Emily smiled, looking over the girl standing in their living room with nothing more than a name to her purpose. “Oh, that’s a beautiful sweater.” 

She had never heard her mother speak so freely kindly towards others' clothing. She had woken the same morning, expecting the looks of judgement and unwarranted warnings that band-tees and vans had been the very wardrobe to have taken Luke’s life. 

When she had gotten Sunset Curve tattooed to the flesh of her wrist, binding her life to her brother's memory, they had gone mental. It had been tears of disappointment and pain at the foundation of an argument. They had come around eventually, but only off of the premise that they didn’t want to drive Lily away and watch her face death like Luke did. 

“Thanks. It’s my moms.” Julie looked down at her sweater, fingers softly brushing along the knitted material. By the solemn expression in her eyes, Lily knew that death had been upon her. Nobody bore such a heavy gleam without the persuading of trauma and grief. 

“Julie lives in the house where Luke and the band rehearsed. She was just telling me she found a song that Luke wrote.” Mitch looked down at Julie, all while Lily couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on her. Looking around the room again, her heart jumped painfully in her chest at the orb of afterlife reflecting from the sun just behind Julie. As she stared into the rainbow colors of the orb, she couldn’t help but feel as though a set of eyes was sharing the encounter with her. 

Blinking away the delusion, Lily’s thumb traced the tattoo on her wrist, her eyes welling with tears. She might have rivaled a ghost all of her childhood, but she missed the soft and tender memories of her brother she didn’t have the heart to relearn. She could love him with everything she had, but never would see ask her parents about his short lived life. 

“It’s a song about a girl named Emily?” 

A tear fell from Lily’s eyes, while warm pools of grief framed the waterline of her blue optics, threatening to spill over at any second. She traced the spot where the orb of afterlife had once floated above the air with streaks of rainbow, but the sun had moved away and stopped casting a spotlight on the space. 

“Emily…” Mitch whispered into the open air of the space, eyes glazing over as he looked down to his wife that had beared two children and loved the first more than anything worldly. “I’m Emily.” She pleaded, although neither she nor Julie knew what she was asking for with her desperation soaked tone. 

“Then I think your son may have written a song for you.” Julie handed over the old and tattered piece of notebook paper that bore the same handwriting as all of Luke’s journals still stashed away in the attic. The same handwriting that lived permanently on her wrist, taking the shape of what his dream had once been. 

“First things first, we start the scene in reverse.” Lily had to shake the thought of music out of her focus, her body so heavily convinced that somewhere in the depths of her home a song was playing softly. The dimension of the vocals she heard was unlike any streaming platform ability, making her wonder if her mother had broken into the vinyls again. 

“All of the lines rehearsed disappeared from my mind when things got loud. One of us running out, I should've turned around, but I had too much pride. No time for goodbyes, didn't get to apologize, pieces of a clock that lies broken. If I could take us back, if I could just do that and write in every empty space the words ‘I love you’ in replace. Then maybe time would not erase me, if you could only know I never let you go, and the words I most regret are the ones I never meant to leave. Unsaid Emily. Silent days, mysteries and mistakes. Who'd be the first to break? I guess we're alike that way. He said, she said, conversations in my head, and that's just where they're gonna stay forever.” 

It was a ringing between her ears that brought the delusion to a standstill. As her fingers curl around her wrist as if to physically grab the midnight ink, the whisper of a voice in her focus becomes too prominent to ignore. 

“If I could take us back, if I could just do that, and write in every empty space the words ‘I love you’ in replace. Then maybe time would not erase me, if you could only know I never let you go, and the words I most regret are the ones I never meant to leave. Unsaid Emily. If I could take us back, if I could just do that, and write in every empty space the words ‘I love you’ in replace, then maybe time would not erase me. If you could only know I never let you go.” She hears the words through herself so clearly, she’s certain the words she can practically feel are the same as what’s written on the page between her mother's fingertips. She doesn’t understand it, but somehow she knows. 

It’s him. Luke. Her big brother. 

Her wrist flashes hot for a second, startling her enough to abandon the tight locked gaze she has on the empty space behind Julie and look down at her reddening skin. “And the words I most regret are the ones I never meant to leave. Unsaid Emily.” 

A cold shock ran through her body in contrast to the searing hot pain circulating her wrist. She sniffled when the last sung Emily sounded through her body, the vibrato sounding so close to her it was paralyzing. When she found her bearings and the jelly like feeling in her legs dispersed to her heart, she looked back up at Julie.  

With one last fleeting glance towards the empty space behind Julie, the sight of a blue-eyed boy looking tearfully beyond herself, calmed the burn in her wrist. She made eye contact with the boy, a name fitting comfortably on her tongue despite the impossibility of it all. 

“Luke…” 

[morepeachyogurt]

we are good people (and we've suffered enough)

word count- 2.5k      Pairing- Temily

Summary- After Scratch, Tara and Emily run away to Italy to start a new life, ft. cats, cafes, and gardening. Based on this post, and this prompt. 

Part 2 of my, maybe we’re from the same star, series, work is a standalone, part 1

read here on ao3

tw’s- very minor mentions of substances and ptsd

Things were never the same after Mr. Scratch. The two of them were filled with more trauma than they had room for in their hearts to still hold each other in. Nights were no longer filled with a movie and cuddling, or talking about philosophy but tense sentences, paranoia, and nightmares. Tara knew that something needed to change, anything to stop the monotony of desolation. But still, they went to work every day and drowned their sorrows in killers like that would bring back the part of her that died when Scratch took Emily. There are only so many times one can be held captive and wait for death before something inside them breaks.

One night they get wine drunk, Emily laying sidewise on their black couch, and Tara sitting on the table staring at the ceiling.

“I miss being young, god, that’s such a weird thing to say. I mean, I spent my youth hating it. Hated my mother, and all of our traveling, never could make friends. I hated that I never belonged, hated not being in control of my own life, and here I am 50 years old working for the government that I used to despise trying not to cry myself to sleep every night,” her voice takes on a bitter tone.

“We love in our old age the things we hated as children. Does that make us matured or foolish?”

“Both, I think.”

“What was your favorite place to live? I mean it sounds like hell to keep moving between places but there must have been someplace you loved, right,” Tara’s voice fills with a tang of desperation as she searches for a way to help her lover.

“Rome. The weather and the scenery,” her voice takes on a dreamy tone, “and the food! Man, the food is good, don’t tell Rossi but his carbonara tastes like Olive Garden compared to the real thing,” they both chuckled at that, knowing it would have sent Rossi in a fit if he were to hear that.

“That sounds really nice honey.”

“I miss it sometimes you know? I think about how gorgeous everything was. It feels like home in my distant memories.”

“Then let’s do it. Lets, go move to Rome. You aren’t happy here Emily, I know you say you are, but you do this job for our team, not the position now. I miss when you laughed,” both of them sobered up by now, knowing that it has taken a turn for the more serious.

“No, no we can’t. I, I can’t keep leaving this team and our friends. And, people need us. You love this job Tara I can’t take that away from you, not for me.”

“They’d understand Emily, they all love you so much. Yeah, I love this job, I won’t lie. But, I love you more, and I’m not happy if you aren’t. So let’s do it. Let’s fucking run away to Rome together and be happy .” The two sit in silence for a minute, the unanswered question still hanging in the air.

“Okay. Let’s do it. Maybe I’ll fulfill my long-lost dream to have a nice, big garden.”

The team took it surprisingly well, they’d all noticed a change in Emily in the months following Scratch and knew that Tara had Emily’s best interest at heart. Of course, they were sad to lose two of the best members of their team, but Emily was family, and family looks out for each other.

“I’m going to miss you my favorite dynamic duo and your guys’ jokes. Ugh, it’s going to be so quiet without you two lovely ladies,” her eyes are welling with unshed tears as she says goodbye to more of her family, “Send me things from Rome or I will install a virus in your phones,” they both laughed at Penelope’s antics and promised her that they’d send as much stuff as they could. The last two weeks of their stay in the United States were filled with mixed emotions. They were excited to start the next chapter of their lives together. Away from all the serial killers and monstrous people out there. They could finally live with a fraction of the naivety that most people carry. On the other hand, Tara only speaks minimal Italian, and now they’re going to be living in a brand-new country, surrounded by strangers. A fresh start, but one filled with anxiety.

“Okay 4:30 is way too early for a flight,” Emily grumbled as they made their way to the airport. The pair had woken up at three, knowing that Tara can’t sleep on planes they tried to go to bed early and were now making their way to the airport in the dead of morning.

“Wait, babe, look! It’s a full moon,” they pulled over just for a moment and got out of the car to sit on the hood. The silence between the two is peaceful, the wind was the only whisper in the air. Moonlight shone on Tara’s face and Emily knew that there was no sight in the world as beautiful as this. With the moon reflected in her eyes and a small simple ghosting on her lips. She’s home.

Security was a breeze, they are former FBI agents after all, and they made their way to their gate. Airports always have a certain air to them, a place where time seizes to exist yet completely runs the place. Their gate was quiet, filled with the tired murmuring of people excited to travel.

“Tara, honey, wake up we’re boarding.”

It was odd for the two of them to be flying commercial after all those years on private jets. It was nice to feel normal though, to fade in the background instead of being other . Human desire is both to be noticed and forgotten all at once.

Italy’s airport is very similar to the DC airport, it would seem like they never left. Outside was a whole different story, bustling crowds and hot air hits them as soon as they step outside the building. They had picked out a quaint apartment building a week prior. Yellow walls with a terrace looking out to an alley. The couple's belongings had been shipped and were waiting to be unpacked. Not right then though. Now, it was time to explore.

Hand in hand they walked leisurely down the narrow alley way of the small Italian town they are now calling their home. Vines and every other type of plant that could grow did. Hanging off banisters, and climbing up orange brick walls. The sunlight was close to blinding, and it hit Emily just right. The golden rays hitting her face and illuminating the ghost of the smile now appearing on Emily’s face. That smile told Tara all she needed to know about their decision. Emily catches her staring, “What are you looking at,” humor evident in her voice.

“You, I’m looking at you miss Emily Prentiss. You’re smiling again,” her words come out softer than she intended, but they convey her point.

Happy couples seem to fill the streets, old and new, young and old. The town may be old, but it was filled with a life that they had been lacking. They pass a quaint little bakery. Bread, cupcakes, and assorted pastries fill the windows. There're bookshelves on all the walls filled to the brim with different books. The walls are light blue and there are flowers everywhere. It looks like something from the movies.

“Un Piccolo Angolo di Paradiso,” Emily reads the name of the building in front of them, they’ve since stopped to admire the view in front of them. It reminds the two of them how Emily asked Tara out. With a cupcake and book who had ‘I know there’s plenty of sugar in that cupcake but it’d be even sweeter if you went out with me. Let me take you to dinner Tara? ’ written on the inside.

“As much as I love hearing you speak Italian, what does that mean? Something heaven?”

“Little Slice of Heaven.” It’s truly a perfect name for the place.

“Okay, now we have to go in,” they’re both smiling now. They push open the glass doors, greeted by the high-pitched ringing of a bell and the smell of freshly baked bread.

The woman at the counter finishes the greeting, “Benvenuti nel piccolo angolo di paradiso, cosa posso offrirvi, adorabili signore?” they blush at the compliment and Emily orders them both cupcakes and coffee. Tara busies herself with admiring the books. Some of them have the most beautiful covers she’s seen. She knows not to judge a book by its cover but sometimes the most beautiful things are just as gorgeous on the inside as out. Just like Emily. She buys a book, and they take their drink and desserts to go. They make their way to a waterfront and sit down on the stairs, side by side.

“Rome is just as beautiful as I remembered. I missed it. It really does feel like home, although, anywhere I’m with you is home,” at the end of her sentence, she turns to face Tara, a look of pure love shown clearly on her face. And for that, Tara just has to kiss her.

The next day they unpack their boxes of belongings into their apartment to help rid the homesickness. Paintings go up on the walls and furniture is placed with the best view in mind. After a couple of hours they’re done, their apartment a bit more homey than before. They crack open a bottle of wine, put on an album, and sit out on the terrace. They watch the sun set over the water, the sounds of big band music filter in as the soundtrack for their night. The sky painted yellow, orange, and pink in the way only nature can create. If nature were an artist they’d be in every museum and sold to the wealthy. Instead, they are for the masses, the beauty of nature is for all to enjoy, free of cost, for those who wish to escape and fly into the night sky.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Tara leans forward on the balcony, not taking her eyes off the view in front of her, even as the colors begin to fade the sky darkens.

“No, tell me, what?”

“I always wanted to open my own bakery. I know it’s stupid, me a baker. But, I don’t know making things, it feels so uncomplicated. Just me and the dough.”

“In this alternate universe, I’d be a gardener. You and your dough and me and my flowers against the world Tara. Wait a second. I think you and I are onto something my dear,” Emily’s joined Tara at the balcony, the two of them leaning against the railing.

“Actually? You’re serious? You want to do this.?”

“Yeah! Why not? We’ve got enough money in the bank for us to last a bit, you can work at Un Piccolo Angolo di Paradiso,” the Italian rolls of her tongue in a way that drives Tara nuts, “I’ll find a gardening place to work at. We’re in fucking Italy let’s make our dreams come true.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

Alessia, the owner of the bakery, is pleased to have another employee. Especially one that is actually interested and isn’t in high school. Tara learns the basics of bread and pastry making. She has some skill, she used to bake with her mother before she died, it had been awhile since she had been able to bake without bumming herself out. Now it’s a nice memory of her. Gone but not forgotten, as is the saying. Emily comes in every lunch break for whatever Tara’s whipped up and to get her caffeine fix. One of the things that she still keeps from her law enforcement days.

They aren’t perfect. A move across the country isn’t going to cure PTSD, she has good days, bad days, and worse days, but now they have the time to deal with it. There was never anytime to process things at the FBI. It was always, distract yourself and throw yourself into solving cases. Now they can slow dance in the kitchen and stay up until three am telling stories from college. They fill their days with the happiness that was once stolen from them and bathe in it like perfume.

True to their word, they send Penelope all sorts of things, books from the café, pressed flowers, trinkets from the small shops to adorn her desk. In return, she sends them pictures of Sergio.

“I miss Sergio, his little paws, and his ability to climb on top of anything.”

Emily finds a job at a nearby garden that sells flower arrangements and herbs to local restaurants. It’s convenient, more than they would have thought. Emily now gets to stop into the bakery on occasion to deliver herbs and has plenty of flowers to give her lover. She also sends a few bouquets back to DC. Hoping that the flowers can brighten up the office in a way that fluorescent lights never can.

On one of their late afternoon walks, they hear a rustling by a trash can.

“What’s that noise?”

“I don’t know, let’s go look, it almost sounds like an animal. Could be a mouse,” Emily suggests, absently reaching to where her gun used to rest on her hip. They open the bag to find three small kittens. Seemly abandoned in a corner.

“Oh god, they’re so cute. We have to keep them.” It’s not a question, Tara knows that Emily is thinking the same thing, their minds connected in the way people who love each other’s minds always are. They look up the nearest veterinarian to make sure that their new pets are okay to take home and healthy.

The vet is sterile and a stark reminder of all the hospitals they’ve spent time in. Tara squeezes her girlfriend’s hand to remind her that they are both safe .

“They look fairly health, a bit malnourished but that is to be expected in these circumstances,” the vet is an elderly man with a mustache as thick as his accent,

“I’ve give them the shots they need, for now, come back in few months and let me take another look. Ciao.”

The kittens are fast asleep by the time they make it home. They gently scoop the kittens out of the bag and into their arms and the couch.

“Okay, what are we naming these angels?” Emily’s voice is pitched up as she talks to the kitten in her arms.

“Well, I’ve always been a classics enthusiast, what if we name them Artemis and Apollo?”

“That’s adorable. Little tiny archery kitties, yes, isn’t that right!” she coos, “And I think I’ll name this one Carter.”

“I love it, and you. Come on, sit with me, you look tired,” Tara grabs Emily’s hand and pulls her onto the couch. They fall over a bit and Emily yelps in surprise. They put the old music back on, a sense of peaceful needs for their new lives. The two sit on the couch, Emily’s head in her girlfriend’s lap, a hand playing with her hair. Apollo climbs on Emily’s feet and lays down to rest.

“I love you, Tara,” she doesn’t respond, just lays a gentle kiss to the back of her head.

The world is big and scary but the two of them feel safe in each other's arms.

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[cosmicjoke]

Alright, and now I’ve reached the final chapter of “No Regrets”, so let’s just dive right in!

There really is so much more to unpack from this story than I think people realize.

Firstly, just a few, truly devastating observations I want to talk about.

The first one being how, even after Furlan gets swallowed by the Titan, Levi still believes he can save him. The fact that he cuts the Titan open from the chest down to his sternum, and free’s Furlan’s arm, and the panels which show Levi reaching out for his hand and ripping him from the Titan’s stomach is just… so heartbreaking.  The way too that he gently carry’s him back to the ground and lays him out, only to discover that his entire lower half is gone, and he’s dead, just the level of trauma you know this must be causing Levi is immense, and beyond tragic.  This is one of only two, true friends in his life, and he’s so desperate to have been able to save him, that he clings on to the possibility to the bitter end, until he’s forced to face the bleak reality. Levi’s devastation is really brilliantly depicted in how he wobbles, as if his knees are weak, when he stands back up.

And then of course comes Levi’s rage, and how he takes it out on the Titans, expressing his grief and pain in the only way he knows how, through violence.  

But maybe the most heartbreaking moment here comes once he’s through killing every Titan there, and he starts to stumble away, and his foot comes into contact with Isabel’s severed head. This is, once more, another area in which the manga improved hugely over the visual novel.  

Levi’s reaction here is just… the most heartbreaking thing ever.  The way he stares when he realizes he’s looking at Isabel’s head, and then falls to his knees, his overwhelming grief here is just so beautifully depicted in these panels, as he reaches out a hand to cover her eyes, and then slides them closed, in an attempt to give her some sort of dignity in death.  The way he can’t even look at her, just doubled over in his grief, just killed me to see.  It’s so unspeakably sad, and conveys to us readers the true depth of Levi’s despair, I think.

And then we move on from this horrific grief, to the climactic moment of the story, when Levi and Erwin again come together, and we see Levi’s overwhelming rage.  Again, this entire scene was a massive improvement over the visual novel.  Well, for starters, in the visual novel, they had Levi cut Erwin’s horse down to bring him to the ground, and again, that’s just so out of character.  Luckily, they fixed that here too, with Levi simply leaping up and dragging Erwin off his horse.

These panels really are amazing too is showing Levi’s intense rage, as he warns Mike to back the hell off, and brings his blade to Erwin’s neck.

What’s really interesting here is what Levi says.  

After the struggle of the choice he made, before Furlan and Isabel were killed, after giving so much consideration and choosing based largely on their own dreams and wishes, Levi tells Erwin here “I’m going to kill you, you bastard.  That’s why I’m here.”.  And Erwin responds, after studying Levi a moment, “So they… all died? I see.”.  Erwin gleans here, both from Levi’s words and expression, that his friends have died, and what he says indicates that he knows the only reason Levi hasn’t tried to kill him before now is because Furlan’s and Isabel’s own well being and their own dreams were the only thing holding Levi back.  Levi made no attempt on Erwin’s life before because he was placing Furlan’s and Isabel’s wishes above his own, but now that they’re gone, there’s nothing to keep Levi from acting out his revenge.  

This is also where we get Erwin’s full reveal of just how in control of this entire situation he’s been this whole time, and how he manipulated every player and outcome to his desires.

This really isn’t something I see get discussed a whole lot when talking about Levi’s relationship with Erwin, and how it started out.  But, unquestionably, Erwin used Levi and his friends against their consent, to achieve his own ends.  He set the whole thing up, from first spreading rumors about having some sort of evidence against Lovof’s embezzlement, to then spreading the information that he was looking to recruit Levi and his friends from the Underground, thereby giving Lovof the very idea of going to them to obtain his own proof of the evidence’s existence, while simultaneously leading Erwin to the definitive proof he sought by following the messenger Lovof sent and intercepting him.  At the same time, giving Erwin a means of throwing Lovof off by using Levi, Furlan and Isabel for cover.  It really is incredibly impressive, but also heartbreaking, the way Erwin used Levi and his friends to his own ends, but of course, perfectly in character for Erwin too, willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. It begs certain questions though about the equality between Erwin and Levi, at least at the start of their relationship.  Erwin clearly had the control and power in this situation, and though clearly he never meant for Furlan and Isabel to die, still, his decision to rope Levi and them into his plans to catch Lovof and also to gain their strength and skill for the SC, did lead indirectly to their deaths.  Surely, if Erwin had never meddled in their lives, and used them as tools, they would have all still been alive in the Underground.  

But of course, this leads into a really interesting clash, then, between Levi and Erwin, and where we see Erwin win Levi over to his cause.  This is, as is becoming a redundant theme of my analysis here, a giant improvement over the visual novel.  There, it makes it seems as if Levi decides to follow Erwin only because Erwin has something Levi lacks, and until he can figure out what that something is, he won’t be able to “defeat him”, implying that Levi is still somehow obsessed with beating Erwin in some way.  Like he isn’t joining Erwin to fight for his dream of a better world, but because he wants to figure out what Erwin has that he doesn’t, so he can become superior, or whatever.  But here, in the manga, Levi’s reasons for deciding to follow Erwin are much more complex, and tied in with his own personal drive of wanting to help and save others, and into his relationship with Furlan and Isabel.  

Levi tells him “It wasn’t worth throwing away their lives!  They were nothing but pawns in your worthless game.  Well, you lose.”, right before he means to take Erwin’s head off.

What’s interesting here is Erwin’s response.  He doesn’t try to deny to Levi that he used Furlan and Isabel and Levi himself as pawns. He doesn’t argue, or try to defend himself on that front.  What he takes issue with is Levi calling the reasons for it a “worthless game”.

Erwin’s entire speech to Levi here really builds off of the feelings Levi had already started to develop, about feeling like he had maybe found a place to belong, where he could maximize the good he could do.  This wasn’t yet a fully formed idea in Levi’s head, up to this point, but the seeds of it had started to form.

Erwin asks Levi who’s responsible for killing his friends.  He asks if it was him, if it was Levi, and then he asks if he really thought that if they had come together to attack Erwin, that they would have made it out alive.  

This is what Levi is beating himself up over, of course.  The belief that he made the wrong decision, in leaving Furlan and Isabel behind, thinking to himself if they hadn’t split up, they would still be alive.  He blames himself for how he came to that decision, and starts to say as much to Erwin here, saying it was his conceit and his pride that was to blame, no doubt thinking of how it was his memory of Erwin and the humiliation he caused Levi that was the final tipping point which decided him in favor of going after Erwin himself, and also how he simply convinced himself that he would be able to shoulder all of the responsibility himself in such a dire situation, remembering how he told Furlan “I can do it by myself!” so insistently, asking him to trust him, to trust essentially in Levi’s strength.  To Levi, in this moment, his own strength must have seemed worthless suddenly, his belief in it leading to nothing but abject failure.   But then Erwin cuts him off and says, emphatically that, no, it was the Titans who killed them, before beginning to talk about how little they know about the Titans, and how if they continue to remain ignorant like that, they’ll never win against them.  He tells Levi to look around himself, and points out how, for as far as the eye can see, there are no walls, and then suggests that, in all that open space, there might be something they can find to free humanity from its despair and imprisonment.  And then he reminds Levi that there are people who want to stop this from this from happening, only concerned with their own profits and losses, content to stay where danger can’t reach them.  He shows sympathy, saying it’s understandable why they feel that way, because they’ve been blinded by the walls for a hundred years, and can’t see past their own survival.

And then he asks Levi if his eyes have remained clouded too.  He’s asking Levi here if he only knows how to live for himself, and if he’ll kill him and return to the Underground to continue to do so, after losing the two people he cared most about in this world.

But of course, Levi’s already learned how to live for people other than himself.  That was his whole reason for coming to the Surface in the first place.  In support and dedication to the hopes and dreams of his friends.  Levi’s eyes HAVEN’T been clouded, he’s already discovered and embraced what it means to give your life for others, already able to see past his own benefit.  

Erwin reminds Levi of that here, and tells him they won’t give up on going outside the walls, before asking Levi to fight with the Survey Corps, telling him “Humanity needs your skill!!”.  He reminds Levi, even after the loss of the two people whom he had been living for up to that point, that he can continue to live for others still, that he can still fight for the hopes and dreams of others, and that he doesn’t have to return to the life of isolation and loneliness and futility that he once lived, that he doesn’t have to return to simply surviving, or fighting only to survive. He’s reminding Levi that his life can mean more than that, just like he realized when he became friends with Isabel and Furlan.  That his life can have purpose, and that, if he lends his strength to the SC, he can do more even than help a few people.  He can, in fact, help all of humanity.  

The following panels show Levi coming to this realization.  He remembers Furlan and Isabel at his sides as they rode out into the open for the first time, into the first, true sense of freedom they had ever known, and their shared awe and wonder at the sight.  And Levi is realizing here, just as he had fought for his friends dreams of freedom, and of a better, more hopeful life, he can continue to fight for the same, only for everybody, for all people.  He can make the most of his abilities, and help the most people, by staying in the SC and fighting at Erwin’s side, fighting for Erwin’s vision of something beyond the walls, of a kind of salvation for humanity.

What Erwin gives Levi here, really, the thing Erwin gives Levi that he before lacked, is a sense of hope. A belief in his own ability to make a meaningful, positive impact on the lives of others.  It’s like Erwin’s own belief in that hope for humanity’s salvation is so strong, that Levi finds himself able to believe in it too, and he decides then and there that, for the sake of that hope, for the sake of the vision of something better, Levi will stay by Erwin’s side.  Because it’s what Levi’s always wanted to do, to fight for the hopes and dreams of others, to fight to make the lives of other people better, and Erwin has shown him the way to do so.  He shows Levi that Furlan and Isabel didn’t die for a “worthless game”, but for the sake of all human kind, and that’s why Levi is able to let go of his anger towards Erwin and follow him.  And that really feeds into Levi’s need, later on, for every soldier’s death to carry meaning.  If he can believe Furlan and Isabel died for a truly important reason, he can accept it and cope with his grief.  Like Isabel expressed herself before, these people genuinely believe their cause is worth dying for, and Erwin reminds Levi of this again.  

So he forgets his anger and pain, and chooses instead to follow Erwin, and dedicate himself to the cause of humanity’s salvation.  

The final panels of the manga are incredibly moving, with Levi slowing down behind Erwin and Mike, and glancing back one last time to where he lost his two, best friends, before looking away and riding on, as the sun shines through the clouds.  Like one, final acknowledgment of their lives together, and the sacrifice they made, before committing himself fully to his new life ahead.

 I’m going to be compiling all of these chapter analysis’ into a single, master post, which I’ll have up soon.  Anyway, I hope whoever took the time to read them found them worthwhile in some way, and thank you so much if you did!  And remember, if you have anything to contribute, or just want to make a comment of any sort, feel free!

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Never say never - Chapter 13

Here's a new chapter of my main story (I forgot to go on posting lol)

Fandom: RPF- Richard Armitage

Characters : OC x RA

Rating : Mature

Warnings : RPF (and factually incorrect and very soppy)

°13° ­~Victoria~

She had expected questions and intrusive crowding, but her friends and their friends, sat motionless around the table still. Victoria saw that they had unpacked every single book and movie she had bought and put them into piles, though she could not discern the logic governing the separate piles.

“Have a nice chat?” Liza asked after a moment of Victoria just standing in the door, wordless, chewing on her lower lip.

Victoria, in turn, gave an assenting grunt and handed Martin back his phone with a grateful smile.

“More information, please?” Angie demanded, crossing her legs, and putting her folded hands upon them like a school mistress ready to listen to the recitation of a particularly hopeless student. Victoria bristled.

She had to dig her heels into the floor to keep herself from turning around and fleeing the room. Adulthood somehow boiled down to the absence of the heavy, constraining hand at the back of her neck, and Victoria had a tendency to bolt every chance that she got. Afterwards, she always felt ashamed because she knew that she had not solved anything by just leaving a situation in which she felt uncomfortable, but she had not learned how to face her instincts and overcome them.

For her, it had always been a matter of being able to follow her reflexes or being forced to go against them.

It pained her to discover that her instincts were all wrong and, what was worse, not only did they neither soothe nor protect Victoria herself, no, they also usually ended up hurting someone else.

“We…we talked. I said he’s welcome to come here if he cares to. He said he’d help me set up any other furniture I might need.” She felt and sounded sheepish, Victoria knew, but she didn’t know how to make that very normal conversation sound like the outrageous exchange of dark confessions the others apparently expected.

“Oh, so I’ve been made redundant? And I had hoped you’d let me watch the movie with you.” Hiddleston winked at her.

Big breath, Victoria told herself, this was good, this was healthy, don’t run, stand your ground.

“You’re welcome here, little fairy-lord. You can come watch the movie with me.” She said in a tiny voice.

“Oh goodie good good, we have made piles of movies we want to watch along with you…on your fancy new TV…” Angie clapped her hands and, finally, Victoria understood the piles. “You naughty girl, you.” Liza laughed.

“Naughty?” Victoria blinked. She did not see why she would be naughty for watching movies. Had her father been right, and they corrupted the impeccable morals he had tried to instil in her? Were movies the devil’s dark corruption after all?

Martin had called it “porn”, she remembered, and a cold shiver ran down her spine.

“What are you talking about? Have I done something wrong?” Panic seeped into her voice now and she was starting to feel a little dizzy. She knew that Liza sometimes made crude jokes, but up to this point, she had never been the butt of these jokes.

“Liza!” Angie hissed, rushing to Victoria’s side to soothe her with shushing noises and tender caresses. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” She said, but Victoria could hear that she was lying, as noted before, Angie was a terrible liar.

“Yeah, low blow, I’m sorry. So, what else does Armitage say?” Liza lifted her hands apologetically and leaned back in her chair, knowing that Victoria would most probably shrink back from her if she was to approach right now.

“He wanted to go over some comments in the script with me. We might meet up if he finds the time. I gave him my number.” Victoria narrated in an emotionless voice; her mind still occupied by the accusation of being a naughty girl.

Angie threw a look at her wife that was so earth-shatteringly severe that Liza didn’t even dare make a face at that. Unfortunately, Jenna had not picked up on it and so, still snacking on the pizza crust, she asked: “Really? You gave him your number? Cute.”

Victoria stared at her for a solid 2 minutes; her mouth was bone-dry, and her tongue seemed to be glued to her teeth. She barely heard the warning hiss Angie gave her employee. Her head was spinning; she was entering territories of supposition and innuendo she was painfully unfamiliar with, and it scared her.

“Cute?” She gasped, feeling the tears of helpless perplexity burn behind her eyes, ready to spill over. Victoria had never given this number to any man, because the last time she had given a man her private telephone number, she had had another number, she had lived in another city, she had led a very different life.

“It’s not like that. It’s professional.” She tried to defend herself weakly. It was true, she had met that man twice in her life, and both times, it had been with Liza in the context of that ludicrous side-job she had accepted to keep busy.

On the other hand, she was a single woman and, as far as she knew, he was a single man. She was a recent divorcee; he had never been married. He had slept with a thousand and one nameless women in his life…and she had only ever had one sexual partner and had never expected having to think about another one.

“Fuck.” She cursed. There were no Saints that came to mind to call upon in this situation. She should have trusted her gut feeling and pull out of this whole story while she was ahead; she should have left this first evening right away and never return to that damn room. She should have kept her door closed tightly.

“It’s okay, I’m sorry…I’m sure that he knows that it’s strictly professional.” Jenna tried to calm her, but her eyes were wide and worried now.

“OH! Will he? I’ve invited the man into my home, haven’t I? Like Delilah to Samson, oh Lord…” Victoria groaned, all of her compounded trauma harrowing her to the brink of tears once again. What would he think of her? Did he believe that she wanted to throw herself at him like a common prostitute? Did he expect that? Would he be violent if she refused?

If he thought that her intentions had been indecent, surely, he would not try to contact her in any way or form, would he?

“Like…Vic, do you intend to seduce him and cut his magic…hair?” Liza mocked, but when she saw the expression Victoria’s face, she fell silent instantly. She waved Hiddleston and Martin aside, feeling that they should not draw attention to themselves.

“Vic,” she pleaded, “look at me, girl. It’s okay, you’re safe. It was a dumb joke, nothing more.”

Liza knew that she had gone too far too fast; Victoria was in her living room while it was dark outside, together with 4 people who were attracted to women and yet, she had only made the connection once Armitage had been mentioned.

Devout and faithful, Victoria had only ever known the man she had married, in the biblical sense, and it had been overzealous of her to believe that she might take another lover so easily. There were too many things to unravel before.

“What have I done?” Victoria sobbed and the dam broke; hot tears broke their way out of her system, and she cried pitifully for a few minutes straight, shaking so much that her teeth clattered as if she was standing naked in the snow.

“Victoria? Is there anything I can do for you? You can talk to me.” Hiddleston offered and his calm demeanour managed to pacify her enough to shake her head slowly. “I have acted abominably. I…just can’t do anything right.” She croaked.

“That is not true. You’ve been frightened and overwhelmed at first, but you’ve been a kind hostess tonight. We had fun this afternoon, didn’t we? What is it that upsets you so?” Hiddleston took her hands and brushed his thumbs lightly across them in slow, gentle circles.

“What does that poor man think of me now? He will believe I am completely insane!” Victoria lamented, tears still running down her cheeks in regular intervals. “No, he won’t. He’s not a monster. We all can see that you’ve been through some things, but we’re here to make it better. And, as you said, it’s strictly professional. I’m sure he knows that.”

Hiddleston exchanged a look with Martin. Richard knew, but that didn’t prevent him from maybe hoping that one day, it wouldn’t be so. As far as one could make any assumptions based on Victoria’s erratic behaviour, she seemed half scared to death that it might turn into something that wasn’t all that professional anymore as well.

“You’ve had a stressful day, why don’t we leave you alone? I’m surprisingly free the next few days, so if you want me to, I can swing by tomorrow and while I go have my picture taken, you can choose some more furniture. And then, we finish the movie? What about that?” He coaxed her into calming down until a puffy face and a pathetic hiccup were all that remained of her passionate outburst. “Yes, I’d like that. We can go have cakes in the afternoon?” Victoria replied.

It was easy to like Hiddleston, and that discovery surprised and amazed her. He was kind and unobtrusive; he had a good sense of humour, and, most importantly, she was in no way attracted to him.

Oh, he was glorious, there was no denying that, but he reminded her too much of that friend she had dreamt up as a child – when she had lain in bed, lonely as can be – to be in any way titillating to her. He made her wish that she wasn’t an only child; he made her long for siblings, for someone to go to for advice and solace.

Never would she look at him like Jenna did: with big, longing cow-eyes that were starry with wordless adulation.

Vic’s mind slammed on the brakes again. Jenna did stare at that man like he had literally just fallen from the sky and, when Vic had proposed to go to the tearooms, her breath had stumbled for a second there.

Jenna had a crush on Liza’s friend.

Victoria was utterly baffled. Were things that easy in the normal world? Did people just meet someone handsome and kind, and then allowed their heart to leap into their eyes? Victoria could not fathom being that brazen and reckless.

“He’s right. Let’s retreat. I’m sorry, Vic.” Liza shooed the others out of the room. “Good night, dear Victoria. Thanks for the pizza. I hope we can be friends now.” Martin spoke gently as if to a sick child or to a fretful mare.

“Sorry for being such a mess. Yes, sure we can be friends. Thank you so much for the poppets.” She picked them up gingerly as she followed the others out of the room and turned off the lights in the living room.

“Not the kind of plastic dick people usually keep next to their bed.” Liza mumbled under her breath, which made Victoria skewer her with a scandalised, speechless look. “Sorry, it was too good to miss out on. You know, because…”

Victoria lifted her eyebrows in an expression of annoyed impatience; the joke went completely over her head.

“Richard is abbreviated Dick. You know…” Liza wagged her head from side to side to make very clear that she was only making a very tasteless joke and not attacking Victoria in any way. “Funny.” Victoria commented, her face so stern and forbidding that she would have given Armitage and Macfadyen a run for their money.

“They will not be kept next to my bed…once I get the proper décor for them.” Victoria then snarled. “Décor?” Martin was interested by that comment, his hand on the doorhandle already but his face turned to Victoria, eager to hear how she would proceed.

“I guess I’ll have to go to the pet shop to get a proper set-up where they’d feel at ease.” Victoria shrugged.

“They’re inanimate dolls.” Liza cried out, horrified at the idea that her friend would procure a cave and a hobbit-hole for two toys. “They’re the only friends I have now.” Victoria shot back with a dark smile.

“Ah, come on. I love you, girl. You know that I love you, don’t you? I’d never want to do you harm.” Liza smiled warmly, hugging Victoria to her chest, and breathing in her warm, clean smell. “Go to bed.” She breathed and left.

And so, Victoria went upstairs with her poppets, laying them gently on the pillow next to hers before getting ready for bed. She brushed her hair and her teeth, applied creams and serums, and put her clothes in the laundry basket…only to return to an empty bedroom. For all anybody cared, she could have gone to bed dirty and dishevelled; nobody would ever have known.

Shaking her head, she dispelled those thoughts forcefully. She had made progress today, she had opened her home to other people, and she had taken two different, hasty, and informal meals with them. She was not sure that her friends were aware of the fact that she had never lived alone before in her life and that those experiences were completely new to her, but she felt the excitement of having had acquaintances over.

A couch, she would buy a proper couch for her little sanctuary so more people could come and enjoy movies with her.

She was on the right track, she could feel it, and so she fell asleep, her poppets next to her, with a blissful smile.

~Richard~

He was an idiot. He had nothing to do the next few days, but he had made it sound as if he was terribly busy.

She had assumed that, and he had been too proud to clear the misunderstanding up, which made it only fair that now, the ball was in his court, and he would have to contact Victoria to plan a…meeting.

He would not call it a “date”, because first of all, it wasn’t a date, and second, he didn’t want to play into the hands of Martin and Elizabeth who had been aiming for that kind of thing apparently.

She had sounded breathless but not as hostile as before tonight. She had given him her number and he couldn’t stop fidgeting with the paper; by now, he had saved her number in his phone and on his laptop, just in case that he reduced the poor note to dust by handling it so much.

What would he say though? Should he give her a call or just text? He had said he’d text her, but he wanted to be on the phone with her again; it seemed that they were doing alright on the phone even though she frequently checked out of the conversation to talk to other people.

By now, the others were certainly gone…No, he would not call her again when he had nothing new to tell her. He wondered if she would have reached out if she had his number; women were usually better at that than men.

Sexist, cool, he was going insane at a rapid pace. Pictures of her, kneeling on the floor and praying to her various saints to protect her from whatever it was that haunted her so, rose inside his mind; he wondered if she slept in long, flowing, weirdly anachronistic nightgowns or if she went to bed in an old ratty sweatshirt. Both had their own appeal.

God, it was late, and his mind was wandering in all the wrong directions. He would not think of her in bed, he had no reason or right to do so, she had not given him any cause or encouragement to take that path down a very slippery slope, but he could not forget the small moans he had caught now and again.

Of course, they might have been groans of exasperation and impatience, but even so, there was something within him, deep beneath the parts of his mind he had any control over, that had responded ferociously to the breathless sound.

Maybe, he should just get it over with and send her one of those texts that only informed her of his number…

[bi-the-way-i-love-bunnies]

(And they were roommates au)

Drarry drabble ~ 10/21

“What the fuck?” 

Harry glanced at the paper in his hand before checking the room number again. Yep, this was it. No mistaking it then. An equally confused Malfoy looked up from where he was unpacking before scowling at him. 

“Potter,” he acknowledged, “What in Merlin’s name are you doing here?” 

“You’re Drew Black?” Harry couldn’t help but blurt out. 

Drew Black, a student majoring in psychology, just like him. At least that’s what his form had told him. He’d also be Harry’s roommate for the next school year. Crap. 

“Yes Potter,” Malfoy rolled his eyes, “That’s my alias.” 

“But this is a muggle university?” Harry couldn’t help but question. 

Malfoy scoffed and turned back to the box he was dealing with earlier, “I have the same right to be here as you, you know.” 

“But you hate muggles!” 

At that, Harry saw Malfoy grimace a little. “Yeah, well, the war could change many perspectives on things.” 

Once the war was over, the first thing Harry did was try enrolling in the Auror program. It sounded good at the time. It was his dream career as a teen, Ron would be there, and it would give him something to keep him busy. However, after a month or so of training, it proved to be a fatal decision. 

He didn’t account for how exhausted he’d be after everything was done. And hunting down remaining death eaters and bad guys didn’t benefit his mental health at all. Not to mention there was constant pressure for being the boy who lived twice, all mighty savior of the wizarding world. Not taking his final year of newts was really starting to show, but all his colleagues were pretty patient and assured it was fine. It wasn’t. 

When Harry voiced all his complaints to Ron and Hermione one night, he was leant a sympathetic ear. 

“Oh god! I’m so glad I’m not the only one,” Ron revealed as he flopped back onto the couch after grabbing another butterbeer. “No offense mate, but if you didn’t say anything I would’ve told you I was quitting next week or something.” 

“Yeah?” Harry gave a wry smile, “Was it all getting to you too?” 

Ron thought about it for a moment before answering. “Not as much as you have, I don’t think. I mean, I’m not the one for killed Voldemort so there’s less pressure on me, but it feels too similar to-”

“Being on the run. War memories. Trauma?” Harry voiced. 

“Exactly,” the two shared a smile. They just got each other like that. 

“While it’s lovely you two found out you didn’t want to be an Auror anymore, what are you guys going to do now?” Hermione, the voice of reason, spoke up. 

The two men remained silent as they thought about it. Actually, now that Harry wasn’t planning to continue with training, what was he going to do now? 

“I don’t exactly know yet,” Ron spoke up first. “Whatever it is though, I’m planning on staying close to home. Mom and the rest of them really need the support right now you know?” 

Hermione nodded, “That makes sense.” None were willing to bring up Fred’s death right now. 

“What about you Harry?” Hermione turned back to him. 

Harry shrugged. “Same answer as Ron I guess. It’s not that I don’t want to stay close to home or finish my Hogwarts year like you, but maybe I’d like to get a hobby or learn stuff away from the press.”

Hermione looked thoughtful for a moment before offering a suggestion. “Well after Hogwarts, I was planning to attend a muggle university to expand my education. You could do the same, and you don’t have to worry about coming back or staying close to us. There’s quite a lot of muggle options and I’m sure McGonagall would love to help with writing up all the documents you need.” 

“You think going back to school would help me?” School didn’t particularly appeal to him, but Hermione’s suggestion sounded better than what he first assumed. 

“There’s a lot of variety when it comes to Muggle studies, Harry. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something right for you.” 

“Yeah mate,” Ron agreed, “It could do you some good. And if you ever get sick of it you could always come find me and we could be awkward veteran dropouts together.” 

Harry let out a small laugh. “You’re not going back to school then.” 

Ron shrugged. “Maybe not now. But whatever I do, I’ll figure it out.” 

And so the next few days Harry hung out at Ron and Hermione’s, the former helping him sort through colleges he could apply to with the new papers freshly acquired from McGonagall. 

“Best of luck to you Mr. Potter,” she gave him a warm smile when she handed off the papers the day prior. James Evans, it read, his new alias a bold crisp print at the top. 

And so with Hermione’s help and Ron keeping him grounded every time Harry felt like quitting and turning back, he eventually settled upon majoring in psychology at a university in New York. It was an ocean away from home, but he felt that it was the right choice. And Hermione and Ron promised to owl whenever they could and try visiting him every other week. 

The day they left for the portkey station was one of the hardest moments of his life. Even with the war, at least he still had Ron and Hermione. 

“Remember we’re only a portkey away,” Hermione hugged him, “And remember to write all the time!” 

Harry laughed, “Yeah I searched up the closest owl station to the school. Only a 20 minute walk from campus.” 

Ron and Hermione shared a glance between the two of them, one that Harry couldn’t decipher. 

“Actually Harry,” Ron disappeared for a second before coming back with a drape covered object. 

“Go ahead and lift it mate,” he encouraged, so Harry did. When he lifted the veil he wasn’t expected to find a light brown and white barred owl staring back at him.

“Oh,” Harry marveled quietly, taking in the creature before him.

“I know you’ve really missed Hedwig,” Hermione bit her lip, “But we figured you might want a companion with you.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, “And she’s really well behaved! The seller said that she liked delivering letters a lot, this way you’ll be able to reach us anytime.”

Harry looked between his two friends and his new owl before engulfing the pair in a giant hug, “She’s perfect guys!” He pulled back to give them a fond look, his two friends mirroring his expression. Eventually, he turned to face his new pet, “Does she have a name?” 

“Oh uhm. The shop named her Nessarose.” 

Nessarose. It seemed very fitting for the pretty owl. 

“I think I’ll nickname her Nessie,” Harry decided after a while. Nessie gave a small hoot in agreement. 

From there, the trio said their final goodbyes and Harry was whisked into New York. 

Upon arrival, the school gave him all the papers he needed after registering. An hour or so later on campus, he wandered around the area and found a local owl hotel of some sort, which Nessie was sure to enjoy. She was free to leave and come out of her room whenever she wanted via the skylight of her room. Before he left, the people at the hotel showed him the incantation of a spell to contact them in case he needed Nessie to deliver an owl, or if he just wanted his companion’s company in general. Once that was settled, he was back on his way to settling in, checking all the forms for school, including his dorm room and dorm mate. At the time he didn’t think much of it. Now he was sort of regretting not looking at the name closer. Drew Black? It was obvious the more he thought of it, watching his roommate unfolding what looked to be silk bed sheets. 

“Right,” Harry sighed, “I think I’m going to ask for a change of dorms.” 

“Why Potter! I didn’t know you hated me that much,” Malfoy gave him a condescending look. 

Harry scoffed. “Shove off Malfoy. I just don’t think we’d room well together that’s all. We’ll drive each other up the walls before next week.”

“Your funeral,” Malfoy didn’t look up. Harry frowned but moved past the doorway. There were two beds and separate desks, a small living space complete with a mini coffee table, and a tiny kitchen. A window was present at the back wall, acting as a sort of divider between the two sides, perfect for owls. He glanced over at Malfoy again. Maybe he’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he testified at the git’s trial for a reason. Besides, they had a week to settle in before school officially started. How bad could it be? 

Three days later and Harry was regretting everything. Right now the two sat in tense silence, Malfoy at his desk, and Harry working at their small kitchen table. They just finished an argument about eating whose food, as stupid as it was.  

“Seriously Potter! That was my last packet of instant noodles!” 

“I didn’t touch your damn noodles Malfoy! I bought my own, you paranoid prat!” 

Later on, it turned out that Malfoy’s instant noodles were in the pantry. How anyone could mistake the fridge for a pantry was beyond him, but it happened anyway. Also, it turned out Harry did lie earlier. He was the one that moved the noodles in the first place, he just didn’t remember until after their argument. This resulted in another row between the pair after Malfoy found out. 

Harry rolled his eyes. These petty arguments were slowly driving him crazy. And lately, Malfoy has gotten more snappy with him, like it’s Harry’s fault that Malfoy can’t adjust to muggle life. If they were going to keep this up, Harry’s going to quit school before it even starts. 

A sudden thud made Harry jump in his seat, causing him to look up to see Malfoy standing up after taking out his frustrations on his textbooks. “That’s it. I can’t do this anymore. I thought I could stand you but clearly, I was wrong.” 

“Well, you think I could stand you either? You don’t exactly make living with you easy!” Harry resorted back.

“I could say the same for you,” Malfoy glared before letting out a loud sigh, “Whatever Potter. Let’s just get moving and hopefully by tomorrow I’ll never have to see you again.”

“Likewise.”

They headed over to talk to their resident advisor to request their change of roommates, however when asked, the RA shook his head and gave them sympathetic glances. 

“If you could find someone to swap with you, it might work. However, the last of the dorm rooms got filled out about 2 or 3 days ago. If you came, earlier it might’ve worked, but for now, you guys are stuck with each other.” 

They left after they were assured quite a handful of times by the RA that there really wasn’t much that he could do. So the pair left, the walk to their door room filled with heated words. 

“I told you I should’ve just swapped roommates when given the chance!”

“No need for the I told you so’s Potter. If you’ve taken your own advice we wouldn’t be in this mess.” 

“I thought we were past hating each other and arguing. It’s called giving the benefit of the doubt Malfoy! It’s what decent people do!” 

Their bickering continued even once they entered their dorms. They only stopped when their neighbor started banging on their door telling them to shut up. 

Eventually, they settled on an uneasy truth to just ignore one another. Can’t find your instant noodle pack? Bottle it up and just go to the local grocery store. Complaining about your roommate’s messy side of the dorm? Shove over their stupid pile of piled up laundry back to their side and ignore them. Tripped on your roommates textbook which they placed on the floor yet again? Simmer quietly and pick it up and place it back onto their desk. All in all, the tension in the room really piled up. 

Harry couldn’t really wait until the weekend Ron and Hermione visited, so he opted to write them an owl. He cast the summoning spell for Nessie and waited as he dug around his desk looking for a piece of parchment. 

Nessie hooted a greeting at their open window just as Harry found a small piece of parchment a few minutes later. 

“Hey, Nessie,” he invited her in. At the corner of his eyes, he noticed Draco staring at them, but chose not to comment. “I don’t have any owl treats since I forgot to go buy them, but I’m pretty sure we have some spare crackers in the pantry.” 

Nessie gave a small hoot of delight as Harry left to raid the pantry. By the time he found what he needed and got back, he was surprised to see Draco softly petting Nessie’s wings. 

“Uh, Malfoy?” Harry prompted as he held out a cracker for Nessie, which she gladly accepted. 

“I didn’t know you’ve gotten a new bird Potter.” 

Harry shrugged, “Nessie’s a gift from Ron and Hermione before I left for the states.” 

“How typical for the three of you,” Malfoy commented, continuing to give his attention towards Nessie, “I dread to think of who named her. It sounds so...plebeian.” 

Harry rolled his eyes, “Well I thought it was a good name. Nessie’s short for Nessarose.”

“You poor dear,” Malfoy cooed, and wasn’t that weird to think about. Malfoy showing affection, much less to Harry’s owl. 

“Nessarose,” Malfoy started, “Do you mind if I use you to deliver a letter too? I think mother is missing me quite terribly and it’s a tad too late to head to the local owlery. I’m sure Potter doesn’t mind sending out one more letter alongside his.” 

Nessie let out a tiny hoot of agreement while Harry huffed behind him. The git didn’t even bother to ask him, yet Harry didn’t deny him the request. 

He watched as Malfoy headed back to his side of the room, already starting on his letter. Harry did the same as he addressed the letter to his friends. 

Dear Ron and Hermione, Harry began. 

I miss you both terribly and I’m sorry for not sending an owl sooner. Anyway, let me sum up my experience at uni so far. The biggest thing is that I hate my roommate (yay how fun!) I’m pretty sure the school has made a terrible mistake in rooming us together. 

He paused and spared a glance at Malfoy, who was deeply concentrated on his letter to his mother. 

I don’t see how they thought we could ever live well together, Harry resumed, I think those surveys for the perfect roommate must be flawed. Hermione, I’m sure you’d love to come here and fix the current curriculum they’re using. If it was working properly, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. The git even used Nessie without my permission! Not that I mind all that much. Nessie seemed happy to help. I’m just pissed he didn’t ask me directly. And to answer your question across the ocean, Hermione, yes, my roommate’s a wizard. It sounds like a good thing, but trust me it’s not. On another note, he refuses to call her Nessie. So he’s taken to using Nessarose in stride. Prat.

Anyway, Nessie is doing well so far! I found a local owl hotel and the workers informed me that she goes out daily. It’s fascinating how their system works, really. I’ll tell you guys more in detail on your next visit since I can’t be arsed to write it all down on parchment. So far they said that Nessie has been catching fresh mice every day, so I’m glad she’s happy. I think she’s really taken with New York because of that. 

Back to my roommate problem, you’d be shocked to find out who it is. I knew I was. And what are the odds we’d be rooming together? Out of all the universities he could’ve gone to, and of all the people he could’ve been roomed with. I’m really starting to think Ron’s theory of how I have a cursed life is correct. Well, lemme just say to the universe fuck you guys for messing with my life. 

You see, my roommate is -

“Potter!” Malfoy interrupted loudly, smirking when Harry jumped causing his quill to leave a horrible streak of ink on the paper along with several ink blots. 

“What, Malfoy!” Harry bit out and glared at him, making the prat smirk wider. 

“Just wanted to comment on how awfully slow you are at writing letters. Couldn’t think of much to write with that brain of yours, could you? I didn’t even know that the school accepted such stupidly incompetent people.”

“Looking at you, I was wondering the same thing,” Harry resorted back angrily before looking at where he left off. You see, my roommate is- ...

A blonde self absorbed prat who wouldn’t know the difference between an obnoxious snob and himself unless it actually hit him in the face, Harry angrily finished writing before handing off his letter to Nessie. Nessie, bless her, just took it happily and flew away, Malfoy’s letter already in hand. 

Well, at least one of them was in a good mood. Ron and Hermione would just have to excuse his hastily finished letter, no thanks to the prat. 

He turned around only to find Malfoy’s smug face looking back at him. Maybe Harry should’ve done some running or something during the week when he had a chance, because now all he had was built up frustration, and if Malfoy didn’t step back, all that frustration was going to go straight into his perfectly posh face. 

“I’m heading out,” Harry growled, grabbing his wand, moving quickly to the door. The Slytherin wasn’t fazed.

“Aww, but we were just starting to get along!” Malfoy teased. 

Harry couldn’t resist casting a minor stinging hex at the git, taking small satisfaction in his yelp. In a second, Malfoy was back to scowling at him again. Good. 

“Be back later,” Harry left the dorm in a strop. He really needed to clear his head. 

[cryptidshuffle]

the less we say about it the better - chp 1

ao3

Rating: Teen Fandom: Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware Relationships: Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman (pre relationship) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Temporary Character Death(its benrey dont worry hes ok), meta about deaths and respawns, arguing about the rules of uno, gay pining, Mutual Pining, fellas is it gay to comfort ur friend who u love and are both boys?, also fair warning it'll eventually be a poly ship with benrey, Autistic Character, Autistic Tommy, ADHD Gordon, everyone is gay and trans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary: “after everything we’ve been through we deserve a few mental break downs.” they are trying to recover after black mesa, but recovery is hard. especially when one of you is still dead

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

They had been out of Black Mesa for a few weeks now. It was difficult trying to acclimate to life after the incident, but they were all making it work.

The science team had gotten together for some sort of game night, something cathartic about being around others who share the same trauma. Anyways, snacks and Uno was just as chaotic as one would imagine with this group of chucklefucks, with competitive tensions high on the last round of the night.

“You can’t stack the draw 4 cards, Gordon,” Bubby argued, smacking Gordon’s hand just as he placed the card.

“Says who?”

“It’s literally against the fucking rules of the game,” Bubby said back.

Tommy agreed with, “It is in the official rules, Mr. Freeman, they- Mattel confirmed it on Twitter.”

“But that’s dumb!” Gordon argued back, “I’ve always played where you can stack those, why change that now?"

Bubby retorted, “Well maybe you’ve always been playing wrong, huh? Ever thought about that, smartass?”

Dr. Coomer chimed in with, “Well on the official page for Uno (card game) on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, it states that

The following official house rules are suggested in the Uno rulebook, to alter the game:

Progressive Uno: If a draw card is played, and the following player has the same card, they can play that card and "stack" the penalty, which adds to the current penalty and passes it to the following player.[4](Although a +4 cannot be stacked on a +2, or vice versa.)[6] This house rule is so commonly used that there was widespread Twitter surprise in 2019 when Mattel stated that stacking was not part of the standard rules of Uno.[6]”

“Well, there you have it,” Gordon exclaims, interrupting Coomer’s Wikipedia infodump, “Just because it’s a house rule doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate way of playing."

“What if I don’t want to play with that rule, that’s fuckin stupid,” Bubby grumbles.

“Jesus ok, I'll play a different card, happy?” Gordon says dejectedly, taking back his controversial draw 4 card for a more innocuous one. “It’s your turn anyways.”

Bubby throws down his last card onto the pile. “I win fuckers!!!! Ahahahahaha!"

“You wouldn’t have won if you let me stack the fucking cards,” Gordon said as he threw his losing card pile onto the coffee table.

“Don’t fret Gordon! Bubby is just extremely good at card games,” Dr. Coomer replied.

“You're forgetting I’m a goddamn genius, that extends to my sick-ass Uno skills,” Bubby bragged.

Gordon chuckled, watching the two older scientists get up to leave, and watching Tommy remain, quietly cleaning up the uno deck into neat piles to place in its box.

“Well gentlemen, it’s been fun, though I think it’s time Bubby and I better get going!” Dr. Coomer said.

“No problem, don’t want you two to be late for your old man early-bird breakfast at Golden Corral tomorrow!” Gordon teased.

“Shut the fuck- I’ll kick your ass,” said Bubby.

“Hello Gord- Actually our old man breakfast is not until Saturday! It’s the one day a week I let loose and unhinge my jaws at the buffet like a Burmese Python!” said Dr. Coomer as Bubby grabs his coat and keys.

“That sounds absolutely horrifying,” Gordon laughs.

“It really is,” says Bubby. “Well, see you later asshole,” Bubby says, herding himself and Coomer out the front door.

“See you guys later,” Gordon says.

“Goodbye, Gordon! Goodbye, Tommy,” Coomer also says, before they leave Gordon’s apartment.

Tommy had yet to get up to leave, he stayed sitting in his seat staring into space, and fiddling with the Uno card deck.

“Hey Tommy, you alright man?” he asked gently. At the mention of his name, he was shaken a bit out of his stupor.

“Y-yeah I'm fine Mr. Freeman, why do you ask?”

“I mean you were kinda just staring into space for a bit, and you didn’t say anything when Bubby and Coomer left.”

“Oh shit. Sorry about that, I’ll get out of your hair,” Tommy said, starting to move to leave.

Gordon placed a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “Hey, if something’s bothering you, just know I’m here if you wanna talk about it,” Gordon comforted.

Tommy blushed slightly at the contact and nodded.

“Thank you. I-uh… I’ve just been thinking about things that happened back in Black Mesa and, you know,” he pauses to think for a bit, and sighs, “honestly I’ve been thinking a lot about Benrey.”

Just at the mention of him, Gordon felt his stomach drop with the weight of too many emotions.

“Yeah...I uh… I understand,” he responds with a sad sigh, “anything in particular you’re thinking about him?”

“I don’t know just kind of- Earlier I started thinking about how much he would enjoy game night. And then I started to miss him and realize that- that he’s not here. I feel guilty about killing him and upset at what he did. He was still my friend and I just- I want to know why he did what he did. I just want to understand,” Tommy said.

Gordon looked away as he thought about his own emotions regarding Benrey. He was undeniably angry with him, for getting him ambushed by the bootboys, for getting his arm cut off, frustrated with the constant taunting. Yet… he also felt guilty for some reason and he couldn’t quite place why. Gordon really didn’t want to feel guilty.

“Yeah…” Gordon sighed, “I'll be honest I do feel guilty about it too. I don’t know why because I feel like it should be justified since he did try to kill us. But there were times when him pestering me about my arm felt like… like sincere questioning? I still… I don’t know.”

“Yeah… I think-” Tommy cut himself off, staring at a fixed point in his vision, trying to decide whether or not to bring this up.

“I don’t think Benrey understood how human mortality worked.”

Well, that wasn’t what Gordon expected. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he was from Xen, Mr. Freeman, he wasn’t human. It was different for him. You remember he did die several times, but he came back eventually. He had to wait for his form to regenerate.”

“Wait-” this time Gordon cut Tommy off, “Oh shit, that wasn’t a joke?  For some reason I just assumed his talking about respawns and shit was part of his Epic Gamer bit?”

“I mean it was a little but I think… there’s probably a reason Benrey attached himself to video games so much, yeah? He can see himself in the structure. Like, uh- something he can relate to.” Tommy says. “It doesn’t excuse what- what he did, but I feel like knowing why things happened makes- makes them more understandable.”

Gordon leaned back on the couch blown away by the revelation. In hindsight it wasn’t that surprising but it took him a few seconds to come to terms with the reality.

“Yeah, when you put it that way, I guess it does make a lot of sense. Wait though, I swear to god all of you have died at least once, but you guys aren’t from Xen?” Gordon said, now confused about the seeming metanarrative of the mortality of his friends.

“Yeah, but those were weird Black Mesa things, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said, not elaborating any more than that.

Gordon waited a beat for Tommy to explain more but he said all he needed to.

“I will ask you more about that later, but I do not have the energy to unpack all that right now,” Gordon said with a gentle laugh.

“Wait, getting back on topic real quick, why couldn’t Benrey just... respawn now? Did we really get him that good?”

Tommy looked incredibly sad when Gordon said this, and he regretted it immediately.  ‘Damn it Gordon, Tommy’s clearly upset about Benrey, you don’t gotta be an insensitive dick.’

“Well Mr. Freeman, that’s kinda why I’ve been thinking about him,” Tommy said, “I’m not sure. It shouldn’t have taken him this long to respawn. Depending on the amount of damage it takes longer but… It’s been a while and what if- What if he is back but he is mad at all of us and that’s why we haven’t seen him? Or what if it is taking a really long time because we hurt him a whole lot. Or what if we…”

Tommy got quiet for a few seconds, the silence in the room was deafening. For an instance Gordon felt as if making a sound would shatter the air like glass.

Tommy finally said with a whisper, voice thick with choking back tears, “What if we killed him for good? And I don’t- I never see him again?”

It honestly broke Gordon’s heart how distraught Tommy was. Pushing his own complicated Benrey feelings aside, he was gonna focus on Tommy here and now.

“…Tommy, is it ok if I hug you, man?” Gordon couldn’t think of the best way to comfort the other man with words, but physical comfort he could do.

Tommy looked a little surprised at this ask but nodded. Gordon leaned in to hug the other scientist and Tommy collapsed in his embrace, completely breaking down.

Gordon just sat there and held him as Tommy sobbed into his shoulder, trying to comfort the crying man by rubbing circles into his back.

Gordon’s brain processed the things Tommy had said. Was Benrey really gone? Why did he feel guilty about the idea of having killed Benrey, he was fine with the concept during the final boss fight on Xen but now… the thought made him feel… sad? Regretful? Even his seemingly rational justifications didn’t seem as clear at the moment, only thinking of his fonder memories with Benrey.

‘Fuck this,’ he thought as he felt his own tears well up, ‘this isn’t about me, I need to focus on being there for Tommy,’ pushing his own feelings to the back of his mind to be dealt with later.

Tommy eventually calmed down enough where his sobs turned into sniffles, and he started to pull away from the hug.

“S – sorry for having a – a breakdown on your- on your couch Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said, the post-crying mental fog making his stuttering more noticeable. Tommy didn’t really have the effort in him to care.

“Don’t worry about it, man, after everything we’ve been through we deserve a few mental breakdowns,” Gordon joked trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh, that was nothing, Mr. Freeman, in terms of mental breakdowns that was as mild as a first-grade pizza party in the eye of a hurricane,” Tommy compared in a way that made little sense to Gordon, yet ridiculous enough to cause the man to burst out laughing.

“Alright I’ll take your word for it,” Gordon said, still laughing.

“I’m serious Mr. Freeman, once you have a meltdown so intense that you accidentally teleport yourself to an inter-dimensional void, the rest is a cake walk at the school fair,” Tommy said.

“Waitwaitwait- teleport?” he leaned back to look at him in surprise, “Since when could you fuckin teleport!” Gordon asked caught off guard.

“You know, learned some things from my Dad,” Tommy said, again failing to further explain himself.

“…Well alright. Yeah that tracks.”

Gordon was quiet for a moment before responding with, “You know, Tommy, I want you to know I’m here for you if you need anyone to talk to. You were there for me when I was at my lowest in Black Mesa, and I wanna be that friend to you if you need it,” he said giving the other scientists hand a comforting squeeze.

Tommy smiled, “Thank you, that means a lot Mr. Freeman.”

“You know you can call me Gordon, you don’t have to be so formal all the time Dr. Coolatta,” he teased.

Tommy blushed, ‘dammit why did he have to be so cute?’

“Wow Mr. Fr – Gordon are you really gonna make fun of my doctorate that I worked very hard for,” Tommy teased back, still a bit sniffly from crying.

“Dude, I cannot imagine you in college for some reason, what was your doctorate even in” asked Gordon, semi-jokingly, but still a bit serious.

Tommy laughed a bit, wiping the remaining tears away with the back of his hand. “Bio-chemical engineering. Creating Sunkist was for my thesis project.” Normally Tommy would be more then willing to infodump about the topic but he found his energy to be draining fast.

“What the fuck, that’s cooler than mine was. Us nerds in the Theoretical Physics department didn’t do any crazy shit like that,” Gordon said.

“Bold of you to assume I was a nerd, G-Gordon. I was the craziest guy in the frat house,” Tommy said.

Gordon’s memory vaguely recalls Tommy’s insistence that he “do something crazy��� when drinking Darnold’s Potion of Grow Gun Arm.

“You know what, yeah, surprisingly I can see that image vividly in my head,” Gordon said. “Real talk though…” he said changing the subject and putting his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, “Are you- uh, ok? Like feeling better?”

Tommy was quiet for a second, eyes flickering down to look at his fidgeting hands in his lap, before replying with, “I’m ok. N-not great, I don’t think, but I will be.”

Gordon nodded. “Tommy, if there’s one nugget of wisdom that I have to share, it’s that healing takes time, things usually turn out to be ok in the end. No matter what’s going on with Benrey…it'll be alright, I’m sure.” Gordon patted his shoulder for emphasis, “not the best advice out there but it’s the best I can come up with straight off the dome. And I don’t wanna seem like I didn’t try to help you out."

Tommy laughed gently, “Thank you Mr. Fr- uh, thank you Gordon. You did help. Even if- if your advice was a bit cheesy.”

“Whatever man, you can’t blame me for trying,” Gordon laughed, playfully shoving Tommy where his hand had previously rested on the other man’s shoulder. Tommy laughed in return. He only noticed the warmth of Gordon’s touch once it was gone.

Tommy absentmindedly noticed the time on the wall clock in Gordon’s apartment. Jesus, 11:30? When did it get so late? The older scientist really hoped he wasn’t overstaying his welcome; While he would love to just stay here and joke around, he had already bothered Mr. Freeman enough and was already exhausted.

“I- I’m probably gonna head back home now, I didn’t realize how late it was,” Tommy said, standing up from his spot next to Gordon.

Gordon nodded. He had the passing thought of offering for Tommy to stay but… maybe that was a step too far. ‘Tommy probably wants his space,’ Gordon rationalized to himself.

He nodded, “Alright, don’t let me keep you,” he said, getting up as well to help Tommy gather his belongings. Which, to be honest Tommy didn’t bring much but some snacks for the group, but Gordon just needed an excuse to do anything.

Gordon walked Tommy to the front door of his apartment, like the good host he was, opening the door for him.

“Thanks for coming over Tommy,” he said.

Tommy nodded. “Thank- thank you again for letting me talk about Benrey, I know it was kinda rough there at the end, but if you ever need to talk about anything… I'm here for you as well.”

Gordon smiled, “Thank you Tommy, I'll keep that in mind.”

Tommy smiled in return, “Have a good night G-Gordon,” he said turning to head to his car.

“Goodnight Tommy.” Gordon turns to head back inside, but before he does, he can’t resist one more jab.

“Thought you could teleport?” he calls out teasingly.

Tommy flips him off, which causes Gordon to laugh harder. “Gives me a headache,” Tommy called back, trying and failing keep a straight face.

Gordon laughs as he waves a final goodbye, turning back inside and closing the door after Tommy waves as well. His thoughts race as he gets ready for bed, trying to ignore his fluttering heartbeat as he lays down for the night.

Tommy shuffles his thoughts in his head as he drives home. The emotional rollercoaster of his already draining social interaction meter from the science team, his Benrey guilt, and his small crush on Gordon was just too much for one day. His hands clench and unclench the steering wheel, looking forward to collapsing in bed for the night, hoping his dad won’t notice he'd been crying.

Somewhere, in an interdimensional void far away from this reality, someone begins to shift awake.

[ahatintimestorybook]

AHIT Twin AU-Welcome to ClockworkBurg

Got another AHIT fanfic for you all! So this month I’ve been into this new AU by @winterpower98 called Twin AU. Its a modern AU where Snatcher and Moonjumper are alive and twins brothers. Its my favorite AU and I wanted to write some stories for this AU.

Now these will be a series of drabbles and I have a TON of ideas for this AU. I recommend checking this AU its really good and has some comics and lore to it.

Enjoy!

Two brothers, Luka and Micheal or MJ as he’s called by his friends were finishing up packing everything from their small home in Subcon to the city their caretaker, Cookie recommended. It was for the best as the youngest twin, Luka was dealing something concerning with his ex-fiance, Vanessa and they needed to leave their home town because of it.

Luka took this the hardest, from his ex-fiance there was also the death of him and his brother’s parents and now they have to leave their hometown. All this plus the trama made the young man quiet and just packed everything in silence.

MJ finished packing the last of his stuff and was about ready to go. “Luka, you ready?” MJ called out. Luka turned to his brother and gave a nod grabbing the box and heading to the car. He put his stuff in the backseat of the car before getting in the passenger seat. MJ followed after and went in the driver’s side and started the car.

The ride to the city, ClockworkBurg was going to take five hours, and the car was nothing but silence. No music was playing on the radio, the brothers weren’t having a conversation. MJ glanced at his younger twin who just kept staring at the window as they drove by everything.

MJ thought of what he could talk about with his brother to make the ride less quiet. “Do you want to play some music?” MJ asked.

Luka turned towards his brother and replied, “Fine by me.” he mumbled. MJ gave a small smile and turned the radio on as they continued their five hour drive to ClockworkBurg. Since the first time since they left MJ saw a small smile form on his brother’s face.

By sunset, they finally made it to ClockworkBurg where a lady was waiting for them by the house. The lady smiled and waved to them as they parked their car. MJ and Luka both got out of the car, with the later feeling a bit comfortable now that they are away from Vanessa.

The woman chuckled and hugged the two boys. “You made it!” she beamed. “I hope the ride here was okay?”

MJ chuckled. “It was fine, don’t worry Cookie.” He replied.

Cookie smiled and turned towards Luka who looked like he was trying to be comfortable. She then turned towards MJ. “How is he?” She asked.

MJ frowned and looked at Luka. “He’s okay, still get tense from the tauma. Best not to touch anywhere in his hands or wrist area.” He explained.

Cookie sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry you two went through all that, especially Luka. You just lost your parents and now Luka’s situation was just the cherry on top with everything going on.”

MJ gave a small smile to his former caretaker chef. “Don’t worry. I think moving here, Luka will slowly get better.” He hoped. Cookie hoped so too, and started to help the guys bring their stuff into their new house.

The brothers grabbed their stuff from the car and started to unpack their stuff. The faster they can unpack the important things, the faster MJ and Luka can eat because they were starving. Luka was in his room unpacking his books and clothes, and flinched when Cookie came in.

“S-sorry Luka I just wanted to let you know dinner is done in five minutes.” Cookie reminded.

Luka breathed heavily before sighing in relief. “N-no its okay. Yeah I’ll be there soon.” He replied. Cookie nodded, but before she could leave she came back holding a box.

“Oh Luka, your brother got you something.” Cookie said handing over a box to the younger twin. The twin raised an eyebrow before taking the box from his former caretaker. Before he could open it a little black kitten came out and mewled at the man. Luka was speechless at the kitten, but as he was about to ask Cookie was about to explain. “Your brother told me everything that happened, and I figured you would need some comfort. So he got you a kitten to help with your trauma.” She explained.

Luka put the box down and held the kitten in his arms. The kitten was black and had glowing yellow eyes. It gave Luka almost a ghostly spirit vibe and was just ready for the cat to talk once Cookie left the room.

The kitten looked up at him before nuzzling on his chest purring. Cookie chuckled. “Aww she likes you.”

Luka gave a chuckle. “She sure does.” He replied. Luka and MJ never had an experience with animals, unless they counted the fish they took care of as children, class pets, and a family friend’s dog, the twins never owned their own pet.

The kitten went up to Luka and gave him a lick on the cheek, which earned him a chuckle. The first time he truly chuckled since the whole ordeal. MJ heard his little brother’s chuckle and he came in to see what was so funny, but stopped in his tracks seeing the cat in his brother’s arms.

“I see Lu found his welcome home present.” MJ said,

Luka smiled and went over to his brother giving him a hug. “Thanks MJ.” MJ smiled and hugged his brother back.

“Anytime little bro.” MJ replied. MJ gave the cat a pet who then replied giving a purr. MJ chuckled as he and his brother smiled at their new family member. Cookie smiled seeing the boys getting along with their new family member. “Do you have a name for her?” MJ asked.

Luka chuckled. “I just got her MJ. I don’t know what to name her.” He replied.

“Well I’m sure you two will come up with a name soon.” Cookie said putting her arms around the twins. “After dinner of course.” MJ and Luka felt their stomachs rumble realizing they were hungry. Luka and MJ shared a laugh and headed towards their new kitchen to have dinner.

Luka set his new kitten down who followed them to the kitchen and watched the two brothers having dinner with Cookie and enjoying their new home. The kitten smiled happy her new owners are here and happy.

[bmo-137]

Hannigram Oneshot—Hide and Seek Europe Edition

Warnings: slight angst, tiny bit of fluff, some fancy metaphors, implied sexy time at the very end of the chapter (but you see none of it, basically nonexistent)

Will sighed, slumping onto the bed of the hotel room, the TV playing in the background of the half lit room, the lamps on either side of the bed atop two nightstands glowing in a golden light. Will sighed again, pinching the skin between his brows and looking at the TV under half-lidded eyes. Half listening, but lost in thought, thinking back to the events of that afternoon.

“I forgive you...”

In the catacombs, chasing after a serial killer- no... his... friend... Will wasn’t even sure if he was there, just a hunch. If he wasn’t there, then that Detective could think he was a lunatic like all the rest. For good reason too. But if he was there....

“-Il Mostro has struck again. After almost a decade of peace, the monster who was the bane of Europe has come back with another murder, but in the form of a heart. The police are still investigating this issue but there hasn’t been much word of late...”

Will deadpanned at the TV, the news knocking him from his thoughts as another pang of pain resounded in his head. He groaned.

These headaches are gonna be the death of me.

Will stood up shakily and headed to his luggage in the corner, barely unpacked as he searched for his aspirin. From the time his journey overseas started to this very moment, digging through a poorly packed luggage for painkillers, Will had gotten a maximum of three hours of sleep. The only thing keeping him going was copious amounts of coffee and his persistence to find the one who ran away after stabbing him. Oh, and his spunky sniper sidekick who pushed him off a train. That didn’t help his lack of sleep at all.

Finally locating the pills he sat himself down on the carpet, about to dry swallow about five of the fuckers when he noticed a glass of whiskey, poured neatly on the nightstand.

Huh, guess I poured it and forgot.

He stood, knees a bit wobbly as he walked towards the bed sitting down on the side where the whiskey glass and bottle was. Ignoring the glass, Will took the bottle, tossed the aspirins in back and took a swig, and maybe another. He relented, putting the bottle down on the nightstand and flopping down on his bed.

Dusk was approaching. A beautiful sunset appearing off the high rise of the city he currently resided in, the thin curtains flowing carelessly from the open patio doors, a warm breeze blowing in.

Will knew he was in enemy territory. This city, this whole country, Italy, it was threatened by the very notion that Il Mostro had come back, that Hannibal had returned for seconds. But strangely, in this moment, with a warm breeze on his face, the quiet flutters of the see through curtains and the drowning of the TV was all so comforting. Something Will hadn’t experienced since... since Hannibal.

It wasn’t so much the fact that Will had been gutted, that was something he could forgive. Wounds heal after all. But the fact that he fled—Will didn’t want to admit it, but he wished that Hannibal left when he called him, right then and there... but he didn’t. Wounds heal but scars remain... And Abigail... Abigail stayed dead.

Will’s lip twitched. With one hand, he covered his eyes and clamped the other over his mouth. The blood wasn’t something he could ever erase from his mind. He went through the same trauma not once, not twice, but thrice and to think that he was still chasing.

Molten hot lava bubbled under his face, the undealt anger and frustration that he pushed down boiling over. But the more he thought about it, the more he thought he could’ve done something. He could have... The lava spilled over. It overflowed in the form of hot liquid that ran down his flushed cheeks and through the cracks of his fingers.

“Why did you do that Hannibal?” His voice was raw, it cracked with overbearing pain.

“...”

“Why did you have to kill Abigail?” Will muttered each word, getting slightly weaker as he reached the end of his question, not bothering to look up. He had long since felt the presence of the man since he crossed the small hallway that blocked his view of the patio, whose doors weren’t open yet. The whiskey, the curtains, everything was laid out perfectly, he knew the signs but chose to ignore them. Hannibal wanted Will to know he was there, it was so blatantly obvious that it didn’t seem like there was a plan at all. But there always was.

Silence.

Will sat up abruptly and stared at the man clad in a black turtleneck and cargo pants, his black boots spotless, so no tracks could be traced in case... Hannibal didn’t answer, he just looked off into the distant city of Florence.

The tears slowly dried from his eyes, his hands making no movement to dry them faster as he looked at the man unblinkingly. Hannibal finally looked back at Will, an unreadable expression on his face except for the small pang of regret in his eyes, so small that one would have never noticed, that is if they weren’t Will Graham they wouldn’t have.

“I thought you weren’t fond of eye contact,” Hannibal said softly.

“I think I’ve seen too much, that’s for sure, but I’ve never seen enough of you it seems,” Will said his gaze still fixed on the lean man before him. His silver hair combed, not a single hair out of place with the aid of a very firm hair gel. His hands were loosely folded on his lap, his eyes soft, but devoid of emotion now that he knew that he was being analyzed by ‘the keenest hound ever to run in Crawford’s pack.’ But he reveled in it. He did, every time before now, at every crime scene, at every session—it was there and so was the rush. But the keenest hound in Crawford’s pack?

I might have to change that soon... Hannibal thought as he slowly drew his hand up to lean his head against.

“How have you been Will?”

Will was dumbfounded. There was a pause, before a chuckle started that didn’t end until Will noticed that Hannibal’s lips were slightly pointed down, “How... hm, how am I?” Will asked, composing himself poorly, a smile playing at his lips, but dangerous venom waiting behind it for Hannibal to say something that even remotely triggered Will to clap back, “I think the more important question is how are you?” Wills smile dropped immediately, “How have you been doing Dr. Lecter.” The question now more of a statement.

“..... I’ve been doing alright...”

“Oh I’m sure you are, no problems with finding your special meat, or sleeping at night, or being in a medically induced coma for three months,” Will said with a thick layer of saccharine sweetness in his voice.

Hannibal opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it.

“So how. Have. You. Been. Hannibal,” Will repeated, each word with a pause in between. Hannibal pursed his lips for a moment, keeping steady eye contact on Will’s bloodshot eyes. There was a pause before he straightened himself and sat up, folding his hands while keeping his gaze trained on a stain in the carpet.

Another moment passed and he looked up finally, got up from the chair and approached Will until he was directly in front of the brunette’s seemingly small figure on the bed.

To Will’s surprise, Hannibal bent down to Will’s level and sat on his knees, “I missed you,” he said and took Will’s hands in his. Will looked down, noticing that his hands were shaking.

He quickly pushed his hands away and flopped back onto the bed, covering his face, “Fucking hell,” he whispered. The bed creaked as another weight was added. He peeked through a slit between his fingers to find Hannibal sitting on the bed as well. Will could see his broad back, and with him being hunched over a little, you could see his muscles under the dark fabric, how strong he was, but not overtly muscular.

Will slowly raised himself into a reclining position, not yet on Hannibals eye level and just stared at his back. Who the fuck was he kidding, he needed Hannibal like how a fish needs water to live. He needed Hannibal to live, and at that moment, he thought: Fuck it.

Hannibal was startled when he found two arms around his torso, warmth against his back, a muffled voice saying, “I missed you too.”

At that point, Hannibal really couldn’t help himself, a soft smile broke out on his face as he looked down at the arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. Gently, he priced them off and turned himself to see Will lying on the pillow behind him, bright blue eyes glassy again. He grabbed Will’s torso and pulled him in for a tight hug.

“I never regretted anything in my life. But the moment I met you, everything I did gave me second thoughts, and the things I did on a whim, especially if it involved you, I regretted, at least a little. Taking Abigail from you was one of my biggest mistakes.” Hannibal said into Will’s shoulder before pulling away, but not letting go of the dark haired man.

“What was your biggest?” Will asked his voice hoarse.

“Leaving you to pick up the pieces,” Hannibal said with such a look of regret that Will had never seen before, “And for that, I am sorry... So very sorry mylimasis...” Hannibal lowered his head against Will’s chest, “How you could ever forgive me I do not know, and I don’t expect you to either.”

“Shut up you idiot,” Will said as he lifted Hannibals face up to his to find a single tear had found its way down to his chin, “I already told you, yesterday, in the church, down in the caves... I forgive you.”

Hannibal looked at Will, “You don’t believe in God.”

“I believe in you,” Will said, his deep blue eyes crinkling at the edges as small, but genuine smile was cracked, “Isn’t that enough?”

Hannibal looked at Will, longing in his eyes before he pushed Will down onto the bed and gave him a tender kiss, “You’re more than enough for me mano meile, always.”

Will laughed a bit, “I sure hope so,” He threaded his fingers through Hannibal’s hair, breaking through the hair gel like straw cracking until his hair was soft and silky again, “But if you ever run off to some place halfway across the world again,” Will said pulling Hannibal’s face towards his, “Mark my words, I will find you, and you won’t be running off anywhere anytime soon.”

Hannibal chuckled, “I would never leave you Will, who in their right mind would?” Hannibal asked his eyes crinkled and an adorable grin on his face as he pressed Will closer to him.

The two sighed. Night settling in. A small while passed, the two eventually moved into a more comfortable position, side by side holding each other, listening to the night as a now cool breeze blew over them.

“Folie a deux.” Will whispered.

“Madness shared by two.” Hannibal finished.

Will turned to look at Hannibal, “I wouldn’t want to share madness with anyone but you.”

Hannibal didn’t say anything, but a small smirk appeared on his face, “Mylimasis,” he said before he rolled on top of Will and leaned in for another kiss.

And all I’ll tell you is, is that they had a very eventful night.

The End.

[tss-ragnarok-au]

Chapter 1

Warnings: Blood, takes place just after a traumatic event, a few death mentions and jokes about dying, swearing

Word Count: 1,532 (I’m trying to keep the chapters relatively short so I can get them out on a regular basis)

Author’s Note: This has been a long time in the works. I’m kind of emotional sharing it, but don’t mind me. Welcome, and enjoy!

Generally, when your best friend shows up at your door, you don’t want them to be covered in blood. With this in mind, you can imagine that Logan was not entirely pleased when his best (and only) friend appeared exactly as such.

Up until that point, it had been your average apocalyptic Tuesday. Logan had been following his to-do list, which was most likely the only thing keeping him sane on his own. His family had decided to follow the theory most widespread on the internet and split up. If there weren’t so many humans in one place, maybe all the monsters wouldn’t notice them. This theory wasn’t scientifically proven, but then again, neither were any of the others. Scientists didn’t exactly have the… resources required to perform such experiments, and, because all of the mail had been shut down, they couldn’t keep accurate records of who lived, who died, or how. But with the internet mostly still up and running the Ateneos had scraped up the data from the most reliable resources they could find and run with it. Literally. 

Logan’s father took his little sister Mercedes about a few thousand miles Northwest, his mother had taken Logan’s abuelo South, and last he’d heard they were still moving until they found someplace safe to settle for a while. Logan had been left to look after their little house. His family had figured they were going to give him a little more independence when he turned seventeen anyways. Odd how such things tend to work out. The airlines shut down the day after his birthday, so his family had stayed until the last moment they could, which ended up being around 10:47 a.m. and left him there. Alone. But it was okay, because Logan had his log and his to-do list.

Tuesday, July 2nd: To Do

Wake up (approximately 6 am)

Eat breakfast (1 slice of toast, 1 egg)

Read (at least 2 chapters, no more than 4 chapters)

Call Mami (remember to ask about her whereabouts, location apps still down)

Eat lunch (one serving, no matter what)

Paint (use moderation)

Send Mercedes a picture (yourself and/or the painting) and make sure her mental state isn’t suffering too much

Update Log

Check in with Patton (via text, see if he can come over tomorrow)

Practice Archery (set the net up first so you don’t lose arrows, be alert and aware of your surroundings)

Eat dinner (again, one serving exactly)

Research/practice knife techniques

Go to bed (approximately 10 pm, no bluelight after 9:30)

This had been going perfectly right up until it hadn’t. He’d gotten out the bread and peanut butter and had the raspberry jelly in his hand when a quick, loud knocking interrupted his lunch preparations. He held the jelly jar at an angle from which it could be easily used as a weapon and warily unlocked and opened the door. 

That is when Logan Ateneo found what appeared to be his best friend splattered with something red that was most certainly not his beloved Crofters. 

“Patton?” he asked warily. His friend’s eyes and smile were just a bit too wide and his skin was a bit too pale.

“Uhh..Last summer we rode the ferris wheel, I asked you what a cephalopod was and you told me all about them. When we were at the top you almost dropped your phone showing me a video of a mimic octopus.”  

Logan didn’t have the best memory and Patton was speaking irregularly fast, but the absolute terror of his precious cell phone dancing nearly out of his grasp over a 213 foot drop, as well as the opportunity to talk about his beloved cephalopods had burned the incident into his mind. He stepped aside and let Patton in. One day Logan was sure he was going to wholeheartedly believe his friend was a shapeshifter or the other way around because his memory was such absolute garbage. That was how he would die. He opened his mouth to ask about… well, about a lot of things, but Pat spoke before he got the chance.

“I’m really out of it, and I can’t tell if I’m about to cry or puke but oh lord, one or the other is coming so I’m gonna try to get this all out before it happens. Okay? Okay. So I think maybe zombies or like, beta mer-zombies just attacked my house, I have no freaking clue where most of my family is, I’m like 90% positive they’re coming this way next, uhh I’m pretty sure you can drive and I can’t, and we gotta get out of here.” 

Logan took a moment to mentally unpack all of that. 

“Wait, the zombie creatures are coming now? As in at this exact moment?”

“Pretty sure”

“Then could you please explain why we’re still standing here?” Before waiting for an answer, Logan grabbed his dopey friend by the arm, making a mental note to figure out why he was acting this way later, and pulled him along as they ran to the car. 

He couldn’t see anything as he rushed past, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He shoved Patton haphazardly into the passenger’s side before nearly breaking his own leg slamming the door as he slid into the driver’s seat. He reached over and buckled Patton’s seatbelt after his own as his friend stayed frozen in place. A distant growl made the hair on the back of Logan’s neck stand up. He hit the gas and everything from there was more or less a blur. 

***

It wasn’t until they were on the highway that Logan calmed down a little and Patton brought up an excellent question.

“Hey Lo… Where are we going?” 

Logan hadn’t thought that far ahead. He didn’t dare pull over but he let himself drop his laser focus for a moment to think about the answer. He was silent for a while. Then, a very… interesting idea came to mind.

“My uncle’s cabin in the woods.”

“That sounds like we’re gonna die.”

“Odds are, we’re going to die anyways. I am entirely serious. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, fairly distant, there are plenty of resources in a pinch, my uncle left a long time ago, and the last person there was his ex, who dropped off the map a few months ago.”

“You do realize how ominous that is, right?”

“Do you keep in touch with your relatives’ ex-boyfriends?”

“Eh….” It was clear Patton had drifted off again. Logan switched lanes to head towards the cabin, but his mind was working much faster, trying to figure out if Patton had some kind of rune cast on him, or if he’d perhaps suffered head trauma, or-

“Oh. I see.” Logan realized. He waited a moment for a response. His friend continued to stare out the car window, his fingers twitching in half-minded fidgets. “Pat?”

“What?”

“You’re in shock.”

“Huh. Wait-I thought…” The gears started turning in his head, “I thought you got that from wearing socks on the carpet…”

Patton then proceeded to burst into tears.

With the reading Logan had done on psychological shock, that was to be expected, as all of Patton’s emotions that he’d disconnected from had come flooding back with the realization. This information did not, however, give Logan an adequate way to deal with the situation. 

He settled for awkwardly patting his friend’s hand and respectfully looking away. 

***

Patton’s crying slowed to a sniffle just as Logan pulled the car from the paved road to a bumpy dirt path.  They sat in silence for a while, bouncing over the rocks. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t lie to me.” 

“Shit happened, I don’t think I can process it right now.”

This caused Logan more concern than the crying. Patton only swore when he really didn’t feel good.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Patton didn’t respond.

“Is,” Logan became quieter as he began to realize the severity of what had happened at Patton’s house, “Is everyone okay?”

Patton bit his lip and slowly shook his head. He hesitantly held out his hand, and Logan laced his fingers through Pat’s. 

Squeeze.

They stayed like that until the gravel driveway crunched under their wheels. It led to what appeared to be a very nice cabin that had been left to suffer by Nature’s hand. Ivy covered one wall entirely, and had begun creeping across the front and back of the house. Moss crawled over the roof. Logan could spot at least three bird’s nests in various nooks and crannies. And that was just the outside. 

Patton stared at it for a moment. Just as Logan thought he was about to remark something about the beauty of nature reclaiming and building upon what humanity had made of it he said,

“How fricking rich was your uncle? This thing is huge.”

Logan had just opened his mouth to respond when a howl swept through the trees, sending a shiver through his entire body.

“Perhaps, discussing things inside would be better?”

“I always have wanted to die in a cabin in the woods!”

.

Asks are now open for Logan and Patton!

[terapsina]

what you gon’ do (when there’s blood in the water)

Summary:

“You’re going to put all the red, red rubies back inside her chest or I’m going to bleed them out of you instead.” Alice singsongs, eyes pointedly sliding sideways.

Batwoman is unconscious and bleeding out in front of her clinic, with something that looks like the length of an arrow sticking out of her stomach. So Mary's got a homicidal villain and a potentially dying vigilante on her hands and… wow, she really regrets not drinking that fifth cup of coffee.

/or/

The obligatory ‘Mary finds out Kate is Batwoman in the most stressful manner possible’ fic.

---

ao3

---

Most times Mary doesn’t mind having long days, she would never have made it through almost two and a half years of medical school, let alone added running an illegal clinic to her resume, if she couldn’t cut it on four hours of sleep and power naps all over the place - well, if she could add that to her resume without promptly landing across the desk from her head of the Crows step-father as he just sat there... and stared, silent and furious, or worse... called her mother.

But most days aren’t today. And today she’s been up since 4 am because of an attempted bombing at a housing complex in the poorer part of Gotham. The bomb itself hadn’t hurt anyone - Mary heard that apparently Batwoman had jumped on it, taking the brunt of the explosion with her body armor - but the evacuation had caused a panic and there’d been a stampede.

Which meant that those hurt that had the means probably went to Gotham Central Hospital. And those without health insurance who couldn’t afford to pay two thousand dollars or more for a broken arm, went to her. So yeah, it’s 2 am of the next night and she’s running on four cups of coffee and one ten minute nap six hours ago.

She considers if she needs another cup to get through getting home but decides that would probably bite her once she’s in her nice warm bed, lying on her Egyptian cotton sheets and can’t close her eyes.

Mary’s actually almost out of there when there’s three neat knocks on the metal doors of her clinic. Mary stops in place, - her bag almost over her shoulder - and groans aloud. Or sobs, it might have been a sob.

She drops the bag and walks for the door, reaching it, she lightly hits her head against the cool metal before gathering enough strength of will to actually open the door.

If no one’s dying she might kill them herself.

-or - and she might just be spit-balling here, a hysterical corner of her mind chimes in - she might be the one who’s about to die.

The person on the other side of the door is Red Alice and tonight she’s really seemed to have earned her name, because she is covered in blood.

Mary opens her mouth for what promises to be the loudest, most high pitched, blood curdling scream in her arsenal when Alice moves and slams her palm over Mary’s mouth, the other one lands on her throat, squeezing - just slightly but Mary gets the message.

“Quiet like a mouse, my dear. Cats are on the prowl and we don’t want them on our tails.” Alice snaps at her, eyes flashing.

Gasping and trying to think past the terror, she tries to remember where she’d put the gun Beatrice - the mother with no insurance and a son with a severe peanut allergy - had given her after the last time Alice had directed her attention toward Mary. But it’s locked inside the drawer of her desk, and her desk is in the other room. There’s no way she’s getting to it before Alice does whatever she came here to do.

“What... what do you want?” Mary rasps out as soon as Alice’s left hand leaves her mouth - her right is still dangerously close to a carotid artery. She doesn’t want to think about exactly how fast Alice can go for one of those knives she likes to play with so much any time she drops a video message for Gotham.

“You’re going to put all the red, red rubies back inside her chest or I’m going to bleed them out of you instead.” Alice singsongs, eyes pointedly sliding sideways.

Mary’s eyes follow her and land on a second person she hadn’t noticed in her initial terror over seeing Gotham’s most wanted. Though the fact that the woman who’s slumped against the wall a few feet away is wearing all black might have helped conceal her in those first moments, now though Mary can’t look away from the shock of red hair lying in a mess around her masked head. The identity of the body is unmistakable.

Batwoman is unconscious and bleeding out in front of her clinic, with something that looks like the length of an arrow sticking out of her stomach. So Mary’s got a homicidal villain and a potentially dying vigilante on her hands and... wow, she really regrets not drinking that fifth cup of coffee. 

Mary’s mind is blank with confusion, - exhaustion - the scene just doesn’t make sense. Since the Batwoman’s appearance months ago there’s been dozens of reported clashes between her and Red Alice in the news. 

“Why would you want me to save Batwoman?” She asks, her heart - which had already been running - feels like it’s just picked up even more speed and is well on the way to beating its way out of her chest. 

She tips a bit forward to get a better look, still careful of Alice’s uncertain motives, and the door she’d opened moments before slides open a little wider. She knows that Alice says something then but she doesn’t hear it past the buzzing in her ears, the light from the doorway has moved and landed on the lower half of Batwoman’s face.

“Oh, God.” Mary gasps and pushes Alice away, no longer caring about the threat she brings to her. “Kate!”

In a moment she’s on her knees beside her sister, assessing the injury. Penetrating trauma to the upper right abdomen. She’s breathing but Mary can’t get at her pulse, the armor that somehow hasn’t protected her from whatever happened is instead getting in the way of Mary’s attempt to get at a pulse point. She doesn’t like how cold her face is to the touch though.

“Kate!” Mary tries to rouse her, slapping her lightly at the cheek. “Kate, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”

There’s no response. All her years at med-school have taught her how bad that is. Kate needs a hospital, she needs... she- Mary takes in the picture Kate makes and falters. She can’t take Batwoman to a hospital, which means she can’t take Kate to a hospital. Because if Kate is Gotham City’s new vigilante then the moment she gets identified she’ll get arrested, and getting arrested will get her killed.

For a moment Mary doesn’t know what to do and then her eyes land back on the murderer on her clinic's doorstep.

Alice is standing frozen, looking at Kate with a dazed expression, like reality isn’t really sinking in yet.

Two months ago this woman sent someone to kill her. And Mary would like nothing more than to get as far away from her as possible but right now she’s the only person around who can help Mary save Kate. Which is clearly a sentiment Alice shares or she would never have brought her here in the first place.

Smothering all other instincts Mary does what she has to.

“Help me get her inside.” She orders.

Alice doesn’t react, still staring at Kate.

“Alice.” Mary tries again.”We need to get her inside, Alice! Alice! Beth!”

That seems to have finally done it, because she lurches down to her knees to grab Kate by one of her arms while Mary goes for the other. Together they hoist Kate to her feet and start dragging her inside the building.

“How do you take this off?” Mary asks a minute later as soon as she has hastily disinfected the surface of the table she’s planning to put Kate on. First though they need to get her out of that armor.

As soon as Alice starts undoing something behind Kate’s back Mary joins her. They manage to free her from the costume without jostling the arrow too much and then finally Mary can see what she’s dealing with.

Kate’s pulse is steady but weak, which indicates she’s gone into Hypovolemia but she’s not quite in danger of her heart stopping. Yet. She needs a blood transfusion.

First things first she grabs two pairs of surgical gloves and throws one toward Alice. “Put those on!”

“Bossy.” Alice says and tut-tuts at her. Normally that would call for a more involved response but she follows her instructions so Mary just throws a hurried glare at her and lets it go.

As soon as their hands are covered by the latex gloves she pours some more of the disinfectant over them and then guides Alice to place her hands over Kate’s abdomen, carefully encircling the arrow in a way that makes sure it doesn’t move.

“Put pressure there.” Mary says and turns to run toward the back of the room to get her blood transfusion kit, she falters as she remembers Kate’s blood type. She doesn’t have any B negative blood and she’s fresh out of the O neg. She spins back around. “What’s your blood type?”

“What?”

“Your blood, do you have the same type as Kate?” She snaps, irritated at the delay of this conversation. At any other time she’d be far too terrified to yell at a known killer, right now she’s far more terrified of watching her si- watching Kate bleed to death.

“Yes. I think so.” Alice says.

“You think so, or you’re sure?” She asks, voice harsh, she’s moving again taking the kit and starting to unpack it so that if she gets the answer she needs she’s ready to do her job at once.

“I’m sure.” Alice says and her voice hardens with certainty. “We got tested in school. B negative?”

Mary exhales in relief and moves to insert the needle in Kate’s arm. Then she does the same to Alice and tries not to think too much about it.

Saving Kate’s life first. Figuring out how to survive the night in case Alice still plans to finish the job she started by sending her ax-happy boyfriend after her? Later.

---

The next half an hour had turned into a hectic rush of removing the arrow from Kate’s abdomen - which luckily hadn’t penetrated as deeply as Mary had feared - and replacing her lost blood with Alice’s before it became too dangerous for the donation to go on, and Mary was forced to replace the blood with a saline solution.

Getting the arrow out might have turned into more of a struggle than it would have been if the arrowhead had gone out her back but at least it had avoided piercing any of the major organs. It hadn’t actually even nicked her large intestine which is good because Mary doesn’t think she could have fixed that.

She’s already done more tonight than she’s entirely comfortable with doing inside the sub-par facilities available, actually. Or, you know, with still having a year and a half of medical school left to go.

And Red Alice is still only a few steps away from her.

Though at least now that she’s donated so much of her blood to Kate she should be woozy enough that Mary might be able to knock her out if the situation calls for it.

And Kate is stable.

Which means Mary’s mind is pulling back from the emergency mode of ‘Kate is dying’ and switching gears to ‘Kate is Batwoman’.

Which she hadn’t told Mary. Despite the fact that they’ve spoken more in the past two months than they had in the past five years combined, or the fact that Mary had thought they might actually have been starting to build the relationship she’d given up on ever sharing with her, or the fact that Kate knew Mary’s big ‘go-to-jail-if-ever-found-out’ secret but at no point even hinted at her own.

A secret that Alice obviously knew. Because of course she did, because somehow a mentally unstable villain was more trustworthy than Mary.

The feeling blooming inside Mary’s chest is ugly and unfair, there’s a dozen other reasons for why Alice might have found out Kate’s secret, it’s also a feeling Mary’s very familiar with.

She’s been envious of Beth for almost twelve years. Not because she wanted to steal the affection Kate had always held like a torch in wait for Beth to come back, - or because she wanted to replace Beth - but because she’s always wanted to share in that affection.

Because she’s never heard Kate call Mary her sister. Not even her step-sister. Even when Kate had cause to introduce someone to her it would never be: ‘This is Mary, my stepsister.’ it was always ever and only ‘This is Mary, our parents are married.’

It had never failed to make something sharp twist inside her chest.

Enough. She needs a distraction from this pointless carousel of feeling not quite good enough, so she turns away from Kate and moves toward the discarded pieces of the suit that was left at the side of the room once they’d gotten it off Kate.

Something about the front of it catches Mary’s eye. The black armor isn’t pristine with one hole on the suit’s frontal side like she’d guess would be the case if it got hit with some kind of armor-piercing arrow - are those a thing? Because she’s heard rumors about Star City.

The suit looks damaged, bent inward and cracked in something almost like a spiderweb pattern. There’s jagged almost melted looking spots on it, especially around the lower torso. It looks as if... - her mind jumps back to what she’d heard from a few of today’s patients, about Batwoman jumping on top of the bomb.

“What exactly happened?” She asks before she can think better of attracting Alice’s attention.

“What always happens.” Alice says from close behind her. Mary forces herself not to jump out of her skin. “A lucky shot by a pathetic mouse on a bad, sad, mad day and the bat fell down. Oh well, you live, you learn, you chop a few heads tomorrow.”

Alice is a bit unsteady on her feet but not as much so as Mary might have hoped, and that intense focused stare is back on her face. The focus entirely on Mary.

Mary knows not to flinch. Besides, there’s something almost familiar about Alice’s eyes, they’re angry and wounded and lonely. She sees Kate in them, which she guesses means she’s seeing Beth in them.

She’s just not sure if that’s very good or very bad.

“What are you going to do?” Mary asks. Or starts asking because there’s the sound of a broken glass pane hitting the floor and shattering from a room above them. The building is abandoned. That’s why it’s perfect for Mary’s purposes. Somehow Mary thinks it’s too much to hope that some homeless animal has found itself wandering onto the property.

“Oh. I love a mouse trap.” Alice says as she throws back her head with a smile. Then she grabs Mary’s shoulders and pulls her closer. “Go make sure Katy-Kate is all tucked in and hiding behind the Bat, okay? I’ll be right back.”

And then she’s gone.

The first thing Mary does is pocket the thing she’s been trying to get her hands on without being observed for the past half an hour. The second thing she does is go for the costume. There’s no way Mary has enough time to dress Kate back into Batwoman but she doesn’t need to put on her the whole thing, just the mask. And that she does quickly enough.

Kate looks ridiculous and Mary mourns the fact that she doesn’t have time to take a picture - not that she could anyway, with all these hackers rising up from shadows recently, both the villainous type and the plain gross ones.

She’s finished by the time the ominous silence that’s been covering the clinic since Alice left, gets broken by something heavy and soft hitting something wooden.

She leaves the room and then knocks a closet filled with clean linens over the doorway, quickly she makes sure it’s jammed in place so that if anyone tries to move it to get inside at Kate, Mary will be able to hear it. Then she runs toward the sounds of laughter and smashing glass and breaking furniture from one of the inner rooms. Which tells Mary she probably knows where Alice and their uninvited guest is.

The room the fight is taking place in is the one where Mary had moved all of the too damaged furniture coming with the building. It wasn’t a neat place to begin with and now it looks like a hurricane has gone over it. 

Alice is grinning, teeth bared and trying to remain standing by one of the walls. She’s also pale and breathing too hard, the blood she’d donated clearly finally catching up with her. There’s one of Mary’s scalpels in her hands and a smashed lamp by her feet.

The man is with his back to Mary on his knees, arm bleeding. And he’s reaching for the hunting crossbow by his feet.

Mary doesn’t so much think as react as she grabs the closest heavy object at hand - another old lamp that wouldn’t turn on - and smashes it over the guy’s head.

He drops like a particularly heavy stone.

“Are you okay?” Mary asks on reflex and lets the lamp fall out of her hands to the floor.

“You know, I think I might be starting to like you.” Alice says at her, though her smile hasn’t lost its savage look, there is however a hint of actual interest in her eyes. Mary shudders, she’s not sure if that’s actually better. Then Alice’s eyes go back to the unconscious man Mary’s guessing shot Kate, and all hint of humanity drops from her face like she’s a snake shedding the skin that doesn’t quite fit. She takes a step for the man, the scalpel in her hand twisting around with a play of fingers and Mary panics.

“No, stop!” Mary says and rushes to stand in front of Alice. “You don’t have to kill him. He didn’t see Kate. I’ll have some guys drop him off somewhere in the morning and make an anonymous tip. He’ll be arrested, he’s not a threat anymore.”

“Really now? And how will you do that, he’s gonna wake up any minute now. And we can’t have that, now can we?” Alice says, eyes still intent on her target.

Mary’s face hardens, her hand going into her pocket. Then she turns around - turns her back to Alice, a panicked voice in her head adds - and drops to her knees to inject the liquid from the syringe she’d been hiding, into the man’s bloodstream.

“He’ll wake up when I want him to wake up. And no one’s murdering anyone inside my clinic. It’s off limits.” She says and gets back to her feet.

Alice just stares at her, her lips pressed in irritation, the look on her face that of a child that’s being told there’s no sweets for dinner.

“Fine.” She snaps. “I’m not going to kill him here.”

“Good.” Mary says, dropping from her protective stance. Relieved that she doesn’t have to risk her life to protect a man that almost killed Kate. Her eyes move down to the scalpel Alice is still playing with. “Can I have that back now, please?”

“No.” Alice says and tilts her head sideways, looking at her with thoughtful eyes. “Mine now.”

She opens her mouth to argue but then closes it, all things considered a scalpel is probably the easiest of the stuff she’d used up tonight to replace and she doesn’t want to risk setting Alice off.

“Be a dear, tell my sister I won’t always be there to pull her wings out of the fire. And don’t sing to Daddy’s crows, I wouldn’t want to have to come back.” She says and makes the scalpel vanish into one of the pockets of her blue coat, before twisting dramatically on her heel and starting to walk out of the room and away from both Mary and the room Kate’s still in.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Mary yells toward Alice’s turned back and almost adds how Kate’s her sister too. What holds her back is not so much the potentially suicidal results of those words as the fact that Kate would probably disagree. 

She wouldn’t say it, Mary knows that much at least, but she’d think it and that’s painful enough.

After Alice is gone Mary turns around toward the knocked out and drugged man and sighs. “Now, how the hell am I gonna move you?”

---

It takes another hour before Kate starts stirring.

In that time Mary has managed to drag the man into the room and wrapped up his bleeding shoulder - though she’s left him on the floor by one of the walls, which as far as she’s concerned serves him right... even if it had more to do with there being absolutely no way for her to lift him up onto one of the old spring-mattress beds than anything else.

She’d also taken off Kate’s mask again now that the threat of her being identified as Batwoman was over, and made herself that cup of coffee she’d decided against before she’d been so rudely interrupted from going home.

She hears Kate groan and walks over.

“Drink this.” Mary says and passes Kate a glass of water as soon as she opens her eyes and starts trying to get up. Then she puts an additional pillow under Kate’s head to help her stay upright. “You’re dehydrated.”

“Mary?” Kate asks, shaking her head as soon as she’s downed the water. “What are you- what happened?”

“That guy over there shot you with an arrow and then Alice brought you to me.” Mary says, nodding toward the man in question. “I patched you up.”

It’s then that Kate’s face flashes with fear and Mary has to look away. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to tell anyo-”

“Did Beth hurt you?” Kate interrupts Mary’s attempt to assure her that she wouldn’t betray Kate’s secret.

“What?”

“Beth. Alice. She didn’t try to hurt you did she?” Kate asks, real worry coloring her voice. Mary just stares at her, chest tightening with something painful but... not.

“Oh, no. I mean she kinda scared me half to death at first 'cause Red Alice and all that blood, duh, but- no, she didn’t hurt me.” Mary says and consciously stops herself from reaching up to rub at her neck, Alice hadn’t really choked her, though she knows her skin well enough to know that by tomorrow there will be visible bruising there anyway.

“Good.” Kate says, but her eyes are still running over Mary like she’s cataloging every hair out of place, just to make sure it’s true.

Mary doesn’t quite know what to do with Kate’s uncharacteristic reaction. So instead she changes the subject.

“Yeah,” she says and her eyes slide sideways to the unspoken elephant of the room. “So, don’t take this the wrong way but I really need Batwoman to not be here by the time it starts getting light outside.”

She sees Kate flinch from the corner of her eye, as she too finally notices the Batwoman costume and maybe only now puts together all the pieces to realize exactly what Mary knows now.

For a moment Kate says nothing. Then she looks like she’s weighing something and coming to a conclusion. 

“It’s okay. Luke can come pick me up, honestly I’m pretty sure he’s already freaking out, I wasn’t exactly supposed to go on a patrol yesterday. The suit’s kinda of a mess right now. ” Kate says with a shrug and then visibly regrets it as she winces and clutches at her stomach. “I just hadn’t thought it was so much of a mess it would let a low speed projectile through.”

“Yes, I’m guessing that’s what happens when people jump on bombs, Kate.” Mary quips back dryly.

“Yeah,” she says, “about that.”

“We can talk about that later.” Mary says and then hands her another glass of water and two tablets of pain medication. “Drink that down. I’d give you some for later but you can afford to buy your own, and I’m already running low.”

“What about him?” Kate asks as soon as she’s followed Mary’s instructions and nods toward her would-be killer. “He’ll tell the cops where he’d tracked me to to cut a deal, or he’ll tell his friends.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, I’ve got guys in prison.” Mary assures her.

“You’ve got guys in prison.” Kate says, a wry twist to her mouth.

“It’s not what it sound like, okay? It’s just that, well, for some of them I’m the closest thing to health insurance their families have, so I’m like... officially off limits.” Mary says and feels an embarrassed blush rising to her cheeks.

“Wow.” Kate smirks.

“What!?” Mary can’t help snapping, irritated and recalling all the times Kate made her feel smaller just by looking at her.

“My little stepsister really is the Meredith Grey of Gotham’s underground.” Kate teases her fondly, though her smile has slipped a bit and then drops completely at the sharp breath that catches in Mary’s throat. “What?”

“Nothing, you’ve just never- it’s nothing.” Mary says, swallowing back the sudden and inexplicable tears threatening to build up and drop down her cheeks. She feels like Kate has just punched her in the chest, except somehow it’s simultaneously the warmest feeling she remembers having.

---

The next time Mary sees Kate is a day later when she shows up at Mary’s apartment carrying takeout from the Mexican place around the corner.

“I thought we should talk.” Kate says when Mary opens the door.

“You should be in bed.” Mary disagrees but lets her in, honestly she was kind of expecting her to come around, especially after she read today’s front page article.

“I’m fine.” Kate says.

Mary rolls her eyes and snorts.

“I sewed up your stomach yesterday, you needed a blood transfusion. You’re really not.” She guides her to the living room to sit down on the couch. For a few minutes there’s a semi-comfortable silence as Mary sets up the dinner Kate brought over onto the table.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was Batwoman.” Kate says as soon as Mary has sat down beside her and started on her quesadilla.

“It’s okay.” Mary says but doesn’t quite meet Kate’s eyes, she’s not lying but it still kind of stings. “I wish you would have trusted me but I get it.”

“It wasn’t about trust, Mary.” Kate says. “I didn’t want to put you in unnecessary danger.”

“Well can you not put yourself in unnecessary danger either, please? I’d rather avoid as many future visits from Alice as possible.” She says and unconsciously starts playing with the colorful silk scarf around her neck.

“So I take it you saw the article.” Kate sighs.

Mary’s eyes flicker toward the newspaper with a grimace.

“You mean the one about how Red Alice broke into police holding and killed a suspect found through an anonymous tip before he could be questioned? Yeah.” She says, a stupid guilty feeling bubbling inside her chest cavity. “She said she wasn’t going to kill him at my clinic, I should have guessed she meant that literally.”

“It’s not your fault, Mary.”

“Right.”

“It’s not, you shouldn’t-” Kate says and then freezes, eyes zeroing in on Mary’s hand, the one running nervously over the scarf covering her neck. “What’s that?”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Mary tries but isn’t all that surprised to receive back a glare, so she sighs and removes the scarf hiding the bruises in the shape of a hand-print.

“I though you said Beth didn’t hurt you.” Kate whispers, voice upset.

“She didn’t... much. I was gonna scream so she-”

“That’s not an excuse, Mary.”

“I know. It’s just that all things considered this time went a lot better than last time, There were no axes for one.” She tries joking to lighten the mood, it doesn’t seem to work. “And she said she might actually be starting to like me now.”

If anything, Kate looks even more worried at that.

“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too.” Mary nods, it had felt like Alice had forgotten about her in the past two months and now she has a bad feeling that’s no longer going to be the case.

Feeling like she needs to move on to a lighter subject she winds the silk back around her neck and grins a bit forcefully at Kate.

“So, you’re Batwoman then, how did that happen?”

---

After that, their dinner is pretty uneventful. Kate fills her in on that whole vigilante business, though Mary’s pretty sure she’s still keeping something back. She doesn’t fail to notice how in Kate’s retelling of finding Batman’s secret lair she never actually mentions any specifics.

But they do talk and it’s not that different than it’s been since Kate had come back to Gotham and they’d started actually hanging out sometimes, like how actual sisters might. They jump through topics, covering criminals Batwoman has taken down and patients Mary has patched up, the local barista Kate has been flirting with and the fellow med-student who's been hitting on Mary. She mentions the message Alice had wanted to convey to Kate and then they move back on to some lighter subjects when Kate's mood plummets.

Eventually it’s getting late and Kate starts getting ready to go home... well, hopefully home. Or at least not out to patrol the city. Kate’s definitely not healthy enough for that yet and Mary doesn’t see how the Bat costume could have possibly gotten fixed this fast.

But before Kate can leave, Mary impulsively jumps forward to hug her. Squeezing her older stepsister for all it’s worth - though she’s careful not to put pressure near her abdomen. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

“Mary?” Kate says but doesn’t try to pull back, which means Mary doesn’t feel like she has to either. It's not the first hug Mary's ever shared with Kate but it's the first one where Kate hasn't initially frozen, which puts this as the best hug she's ever gotten from Kate.

“Yeah?”

“I know I’ve never said this, and that I should have but I’m gonna say it now. I’m glad our parents married each other. I’m glad that we’re family.” Kate says and squeezes Mary back.

“Well, duh.” Mary says and covertly tries to wipe away the tears before Kate can get the chance to see them. “I’m awesome.”