#dissociated and walked for like 2 hours

[ne-cropolis]

walked a 3 mile lake trail today in crocs, can say for sure they really are the ultimate all terain shoe

[clover-the-awesomest]

OMG GET ME A MOM LIKE THIS WHAT

Was just informed by my mom that I do in fact have ADHD and the reason I thought I didn’t was because ever since I was seven whenever I got super energetic my mom would have me go chop wood so now when I’m feeling The ADHD I go chop wood and I thought it was just some sort of routine I started when I was little and wanted to blow off steam

[passionfruitmango]

Brain feels like mush, might treat myself to a nice mental spiral this evening after all my shits done

[yeonjunsvape]

gym games: seungcheol smut

w/c: 2k

pairing: idol!seungcheol, female!reader

genre: smut

summary: seungcheol challenges his lazy girlfriend to workout. every level completed, a reward will be given.

a/n: i didnt know how to put the ‘keep reading’ link on my posts but now i do, i apologize if that annoyed anyone lol

your bed was your favorite place to be after a long day at work; unfair wages, annoying employees, nagging customers. when you're in bed, watching your favorite drama, all the problems go away.

"[Y/N]!!" you hear a distant voice shouting and look up to see your sweaty boyfriend, seungcheol, waving his hand to get your attention. "are you dissociating again?" he asks with his arms crossed and a mischievous smirk on his lips.

he's trying to get you at the gym more because after work you just lay around, and you promised him you'd be his workout buddy. "i'm sorry baby, but not everyone enjoys working out like you." you defend, crossing your arms to copy him.

"i know you don't like working out, that's why i came up with an amazing idea, hoshi, bring it in." you stare at the man coming in with a white board, raising an eyebrow. "what...is that?" you ask confused and seungcheol stands on the otherside of the board.

"this, my dearest, is the motivation to inspire you to work out." he proudly smiles, grabbing a hand pointer and slaps it against the board, making you jump.

"level 1, warmups, you get a kiss for every warmup you complete. level 2, cardio, run 1 miles on the treadmill, i'll give you a sexy hot oil massage. level 3, dancing, you complete a whole seventeen song, of your choice, you get head. finally, level 4, weightlifting, if you can lift 100lbs, you can pick the reward." seungcheol points to each level as he talks and you hide your blush away from the two men.

"hoshi, did you come up with this?" you ask and he laughs, looking at the board proudly. "i helped, the hot oil massage was my idea." you roll your eyes out of embarrassment, glaring at seungcheol. "okay, i accept your offer, i'll go through all the levels," you confidently nod your head and start the warmups.

"20 pushups, 20 squats, and 10 lunges." your boyfriend commands, acting like a personal trainer. you try to hide your laugh at his stern demeanor, you were usually the one telling him what to do so you found it cute.

"thats all? this is gonna be a piece of cake." you get down to a pushup form and seungcheol walks to you, hovering over your smaller frame. "i forgot to mention, its 2 sets of pushups."

you groan loudly at the thought of doing 40 pushups and plop on the ground, hearing hoshi maniacally laughing in the back.

"come on baby, kisses are in store when you finish." you roll your eyes again at the offer and get back in form. "with this many pushups, i better get a full makeout session, not just a peck." you hear your boyfriend hum in agreement, watching you start on the warmup.

when level 1 was complete, the last thing on your mind was kisses, you were sweating profusely and chugging your water until it was almost gone.

seungcheol goes to the white board and puts a checkmark by level 1, looking at you with satisfaction. "take a 10 minute break and start level 2." he commands, you instantly dropping to the ground in a starfish formation, groaning to yourself loud.

"man, how is she going to get through the other levels when she's dying on warmups?" hoshi asks, doing pullups in the background. "she'll make it, she's just dramatic." your boyfriend answers and you lift your head up. "i'm already plotting my revenge, don't make it worse for yourself."

level 2 starts with the treadmill, and it was quite easy considering this is the only machine you use when you want to stare at seungcheol work out. "i've done 5 miles on this before," you brag to your boyfriend when he hops on the one next to you.

"have you done it on 12% incline and 7 miles per hour?" he asks with another cheeky smirk, and you gulp. "i-is it hard?" you chirp out, scared of the pain you'll be in tomorrow.

hoshi comes up and presses buttons that were foreign to you, but you read 12% and start going at a jog as he heightens the miles per hour to 7. you whine when it starts burning your calves and never keeping your eye off the mileage. "i'll do it with you," seungcheol smiles at your cuteness, running beside you.

the more you run, the less it hurt, and it was actually making you more energetic. "i'm halfway done!!" you proudly shout to your boyfriend, breathing heavy and he looks over at your machine. "good girl, don't give up." he cheers for you and your cheeks turn red from blushing.

when it hits the 1 mile mark you turn off your machine, slowing down with the motor, and stepping off with shaky legs. "that wasn't bad at all." you announce to the two boys and hoshi gives you a highfive, holding a stereo with the other hand.

"good job, now level 3, dancing to one of our songs, which one do you choose?" seungcheol asks, getting off the treadmill as well.

you think hard about what song you want to choose, then stick your finger in the air. "i got it! 'very nice'." the two boys start laughing and you slap your boyfriends arm. "it's my favorite, leave me alone."

hoshi plays 'very nice' on the stereo he had earlier and you begin the choreography, hitting every beat. they look at you with wide mouths, not expecting you to know the entire dance, "go [Y/N]!!" hoshi yells out, doing the dance to himself while he watches.

when you finish you blow your boyfriend a kiss and he catches it, putting it to his heart. "level 3 complete, i'm impressed [Y/N], seriously." he says and gives you a hug, rocking the both of you back and forth.

level 4 was to lift 100 lbs but after all you did, seungcheol decided to go easy on you, and change it to 50 lbs.

you easily lift the weight above your head and cheer to yourself, setting the weight on the ground, dancing around. "i get kisses, hot oil massage, head (sorry hoshi), AND pick my own reward."

seungcheol lifts you up and waves to hoshi, "thank you for helping, i have to go fulfill my promises." he puts you over his shoulder and you feel a slap on one of your butt cheeks, making you squeal. "bye hoshi, sorry you had to be involved with his perverted behavior."

hoshi waves and laughs, watching seungcheol run out of the private gym under your apartment complex, with you still on his shoulder.

at the apartment, he lays you on the bed the both of you share, and spreads his arms open to welcome you in his chest. you curl up comfortably on him, rubbing circles around his cheek. "level 1 prize please."

seungcheol leans down and kisses your nose, making you huff. he chuckles and goes down further to your lips, kissing gently until you open your mouth so his tongue could enter.

the kissing lasted only a few minutes before your hands roamed his body but he pulls away, "uh-uh, we need to do level 2 now." you pout but change your mood when you see seungcheol bringing in the massage oil, him smiling from ear to ear.

"get undressed, i'll warm the oil up." he tells you and gets the warmer, while you take off the athletic ware you had on. you put a pillow at the end of the bed and lay belly side down, anticipating the feeling of seungcheol's hands on you.

the feeling of him straddling your waist from the back made you let out a deep sigh at his weight. "am i too heavy?" he asks, hearing your breath hitch but you just shake your head. "no honey, im good." you whimper out and he laughs, getting off your butt, kneeling on the bed next to you. "i forgot you're half my size." you giggle and lean your head up to kiss his lips, admiring his compassion for you. "i'll get started now." 

he pours the oil on your back slowly, the pain hitting your skin instantly but you old it in until you're used to it. seungcheol massages your shoulders first and you let out a low lingering groan which made him start laughing, but you ignore it. his muscles flexed as he rubs every knot that was in your shoulders, continuing to make unnatural sounds at the massage. 

"flip." he whispers so he didn't ruin your zen state, and you abide, turning over so you were now on your back. he gently rubs your shoulders from the front with the oil, dragging his fingers up your neck in the process, making chills run down your body. 

he moves his hands down to your boobs and you smile with your eyes closed, squirming around when he squeezes them tight. the oil wasn't as hot anymore so when he poured more on your chest it didn't hurt your boobs. 

seungcheol admires your body and hums, pinching your perky nipples so they could get hard. you blush and watch him take one of your now hard nipples in his mouth, your head thrown back when you feel him start nibbling on it softly. his tongue swirls around you and he looks up at you with a smirk, "do you want to move on to level 3?" 

you nod and buck your hips gently in the air, signaling you needed him. he kisses from in between your boobs to your belly button and rubs your inner thigh gently. "good girl." he whispers and kisses down to your pelvis, just swiping his tongue over your clit. you whine at his teasing and buck your hips again, "i need it." you whimper out, seungcheol listening and flicks his tongue over your clit in a fast pace. 

you let out a loud moan at his tongue and grip his hair in your hand tightly, looking down at him pleasuring you. he pulls away so he could spread your legs open wide, his tongue sliding through your folds skillfully, then back up to your clit. his tongue pace never lessens while he lifts your legs up to your knees so he could see more of your pussy. 

he slides his tongue in your hole, feeling the inside of you with a moan and rubs your clit with his thumb. the sensation of him inside you made your legs shake and you buck your hips fucking his face. "you have a magic tongue baby." you moan out and feel him chuckle, sending vibrations against your wetness. 

you throw your head back again, arching your back and push his face closer to you while you cum in his mouth, yelling loud for him. "fuck..." you whimper when he sucks up all your juices and kisses your now throbbing clit. 

"thank you my angel." you breathe heavy and he goes up to kiss you on the lips, rubbing your arm softly. "anytime, i love you." he mumbles, wrapping an arm around your naked body. "what do you want to do for level 4?" seungcheol asks after you catch your breath and you hum, cuddling up to him close. "watch my shows naked, eat, have sex, watch my shows, eat, have sex, repeat, until we fall asleep. if we fall asleep." 

"deal."

[grotesquedarling]

All Yours.

Toby Rodgers x Werewolf!Fem!Reader

Summary: You are assumed dead, after going on a walk and not coming back. Toby finds evidence of the 'death' and thinks the worst. You return hours later, your ability to heal not working well. Toby helps you clean up, which leads to much more.

A/N: This is a one-shot for a story I am writing for Toby, where reader is a werewolf. If anything is confusing in this one-shot, God I pray not, it is connected to my story and things will fall in place as I post it! Divider made by cafekitsune! Please go easy on me, this my first time writing smut, or anything really, in about 2 years, due to writer's block, so things may be clunky.

Warnings: 18+ minors DNI!, P in V, descriptions of violence and murder, no protection. (If I have forgotten one, please let me know!)

Word count: 3k

“Wh- What now?” Toby yelled. “Sh-she is d-dead!” He was getting worked up, stuttering more than usual.

Tim and Brian couldn’t do anything, nothing that would be helpful anyway, so they listened. They listened for so long they were to the point of ‘listening’. Which consisted of sitting in the room and dissociating while looking interested.

Toby was getting louder, pacing faster, unsure of how to handle the situation. “Are y-you even li-listening to m-me? SHE’S GONE!”

Before Tim or Brian could say anything, there was a loud bang on the cabin’s front door. As soon as all their eyes shot in the direction of the sound, the doorknob was ripped from the door, leaving a gaping hole where it once was. A few bloody fingers could be seen going into the hole to open the door.

The door swung open and there you stood, bloody and bruised. The three men looked at you in awe and confusion. 

“How-?”

“Don’t fucking speak to me,” you growled, “I am going to take a shower.”

Toby just stood there, unable to process the fact that you were actually alive, you may have looked like shit, but there you were, covered in blood and looking hotter than ever. 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

As the cold water started to run down your body, the dried blood and dirt washed away. The images of the people that had been mauled, maimed, and mutilated didn't go anywhere, though, as a matter of fact, they just lingered and kept replaying.

“Shut up! You stupid fucking cunt, just stay down. Quit fighting back, you won’t win.”

A hand grabbed your hair as you were being yelled at, dragging you over to the lake you had been brought to to be thrown in after being killed. The thought of not being able to swim crossed momentarily, it was gone as soon as it seemed to come. Staying conscious was getting harder by the minute, eyes trying to close and breathing was almost impossible.

Unsure of what to do, a last burst of adrenaline hit, right before getting dunked into the lake. Your hand wrapped itself in the hair of the woman holding you, and dragged her off the dock with you.

Fighting underwater was not as easy as one would hope for in this situation. All you could do was hold on to the throat of the woman trying to murder you. If you’re dying, so is that bitch. Time felt almost as if it was slowed, as you waited for the bitch’s partner in crime to try to help her, he never showed.

Even struggling was hard, but losing is something you were never okay with, you had to win, or not die. Finally, life seemed to have left the woman, but you weren't about to let her trick you. You pulled yourself above the water, dragging the woman with you.

Your hand scrunched a bunch of the woman's hair, and quickly, with all the strength you could muster, you smashed her head into the dock, probably a little more than what would kill her. She will not be coming back from that one, you made sure of it.

As you finished, you stood up and looked down, blood was everywhere, yours and your attacker’s. You had no time to worry about that though, there was a man, somewhere close, who also wanted you dead. Blood loss and pain seemed to start setting in as you reached the grass, knees bruising as you hit the ground.

“What the fuck did they do to me? Why am I not healing? And where the fuck is-?”

Dead. As soon as you saw something, or someone, out of your peripheral vision running off, you noticed the guy was way beyond dead. You gave the woman you left on the dock one last glance, there was absolutely no chance she was coming back, unless someone were to gorilla glue her brain back together.

With both of them dead, you took a few minutes to lay in the grass, in the hopes that regulating your heart rate would start the healing process. It did not.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Tears fell down your cheeks as you sat on the floor of the shower, the back of your head against the wall. Pain was something foreign to you, considering your healing factor, but the healing wasn’t happening, not as fast as usual anyway. The pain was almost unbearable, but the feeling of possibly being dramatic due to never having to feel pain for long seemed to cross your mind.

Unaware of how long you’d be sitting under the warm water, you realized it had been at least 20 minutes. The water started to get cold, the change in temperature wasn’t a bother, considering you run hot anyway, but that meant someone would be checking on you soon, probably Toby. You two had gotten close recently, very close. Too close, according to Tim.

Keeping your composure under the cold water was getting hard, the adrenaline had worn off and everything hurt. Suddenly, you were hyper aware of every bruise and open wound you had, your legs hurt, your body ached, and breathing started getting hard again. A panic attack hit.

A heavy knock hit the bathroom door, and the door opened. The realization of how loud you were sobbing seemed to bring you back to reality. Trying to speak to Tim, who just slung the bathroom door wide open, was impossible at the time, the only thing coming from you were sobs.

The shower curtain moved to the side ever so slightly, Tim’s eyes met yours as you looked up at him, curled into a tight ball, knees against your chest.

“He wanted me to check on you first, can he come in?” Tim seemed to be hiding the worry he had for you, hoping that if he didn’t worry, Toby wouldn’t worry as much. That didn't work. Toby peeked over Tim’s shoulder to see how fucked up you were.

“G-get out Tim,” Toby shoved Tim aside and out the door. Once the bathroom door closed, Toby just stared at you for a minute, taking in the wounds that were not healing. “Why are you st-still bleeding? I th-thought you-.”

Your eyes stayed glued to the wall in front of you, unmoving as your head rested on your knees. Words weren’t coming easy, the panic attack seemed to subside, breathing still seemed to be a big task, and you felt mentally numb.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Toby crouching now and knew he wouldn’t go away without getting the information he wanted and making sure you were okay, and since being okay was not a thing at the moment, he would not be leaving.

“If you’re just gonna sit there and stare at me like that, you might as well get in.” You deadpan, eyes still glued to the wall. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.”

His eyes widened, “I-I,” he stuttered out, shocked by your offer. “I’ll h-have you know, I haven't ever s-seen you n-naked by ch-choice. You don’t l-lock doors.” He was flustered, but he wasn’t going to turn down the offer. He started to remove his clothes, and quickly.

While trying to stand up so Toby could get in the shower, stars filled your vision and put you right back on your ass and a little yelp left your throat. You leaned into the wall again, completely and utterly ready to give up.

Toby sat down beside you, both of you completely vulnerable, and seemed to be scanning the severity of the damage to your body. He was quiet, more quiet than usual, it was almost scary. His eyes finally made his way up to yours, tears started streaming once again. Never in your life had you wanted to be held so badly, you had always been able to be independent and take care of yourself.

With his eyes still locked on yours, the words ‘hold me,’ slipped from your lips. Without hesitation he pulled you into him, causing you to wince with how fast and rough the action was.

“S-sorry,” he whispered as he gently loosened his grip on you. His fingers started tracing the bruises on your arms, then stomach, then your thighs. Something about him having to be gentle with you for the first time, made you feel a way, you couldn’t tell what that way was, but it was nice.

Leaning into him was a lot better than leaning on that hard ass wall, as he continued looking over your body, you listened to his heart as your head rested against his chest, regulating your own breathing and heart rate.

Pain started to slowly subside, your chest was not as tight, and the anxiety had melted away. Healing still wasn’t happening, at least not fast enough, it only seemed to be slowly coming back, and being the most impatient person in the world it might as well just be not working.

“I don’t understand why I am not healing,” you thought aloud, “If you're done looking at my tits from over my shoulder, will you help me just clean up? I feel absolutely disgusting.”

Toby was flustered once more, and hid his face in your shoulder for a moment. “Y-yeah, I can,” he whispered before helping you up.

Being in such a vulnerable state with you was something he never thought would happen, at least not when you first met anyway. Something about the innocence of sitting with each other, naked in the shower, made him want more than that. He was craving you, in so many different ways.

His impulse control was in overdrive but now, he didn’t want to hurt you, he was supposed to help you clean yourself up. All he could think about, though, was having his way with you. His hands were a little shaky now, trying not to think about grabbing you and pushing you against the wall. That seemed to be the only thought his brain could manage to give him, he was getting frustrated.

“You know, as a werewolf, I can smell many different pheromones, and I-,” you were quickly interrupted before you could finish the sentence.

“Sh-shut the f-fuck up!” Toby practically shouted. “You s-stink and you need h-help showering, let me f-finish helping you.”

“How about I help you after this, then? If I’m not too sore anymore.”

The look on Toby’s face was of pure confusion, “with what?”

You shook your head, “Let’s just finish here first.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Toby caught on a lot quicker than you thought he would, you hadn’t seen him move that fast and sporadic before. He needed you though, and when you offered yourself to him, even with the state you were in, he was not going to let opportunity slip away.

Your healing seemed to be back to a semi-normal speed. All you felt were light aches and any open wound looked like a gnarly scar, but they were closed up and not bleeding. What more could someone ask for?

“What the fuck were you two doing in there?” Brian asked, but quickly took the question back. “You know, don’t actually answer that. You two share way too much information already. Pretend I never asked, I am leaving.”

As Brian walked away, Toby practically dragged you to his room. His excitement was unmatched. He has wanted to do this since you two beat the shit out of each other sparring, which was about three weeks ago. Something about you looking feral unlocked something within him.

The thought of you scraping your sharp canine teeth across his neck, bringing blood to the surface while riding his thigh was something he never knew he wanted or needed. He wanted to be buried deep in your pussy, he wanted to be between your thighs, he wanted, no he needed to have you in every way possible.

Toby couldn’t decide what to do first, his thoughts were racing as you stood behind him while he locked the door. Once it was locked, he turned to you and lost the little bit of composure he had left. He grabbed you and ripped the shirt you had just put on after the shower completely off your body, and pushed you down on his bed.

Now all that was left on you was your panties, his focus wasn’t there yet, though. His kisses were sloppy yet held so much passion. His hands seemed to wander your body as he started kissing down your jaw line and making his way to your collarbone.

A small gasp escaped you when his hands finally found their way to your breasts. The way he squeezed them made you think he’d been waiting for the moment. The way he held onto you in general made you wonder how long he’d been wanting this. You had to admit, you had also been waiting for this, the way Toby had been acting around you, the way his glances started lingering, or how you could hear his heart rate change slightly when he’d see you.

His lips were back on yours now, and he was growing more and more desperate by the second, he whined a little as he started grinding into your thigh. You smirked when you realized how needy he was. He took that as an opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth.

You could tell he didn’t know what to do next, the way he moved, twitched, and whined into the kisses. Pulling away from his lips for a moment caused him to become confused, but when your hands moved down his chest and started pulling at his pants he realized you weren’t trying to get away, you were helping him. A giggle came from you when you saw the look on his face.

“Wh-what? D-did I do something wr-wrong?” He was slightly worried.

As you shook your head, your hands went to his hair and pulled back into a kiss. He seemed to melt into you. He was so rough, even while trying to not be rough, then there was you. So gentle and loving. Despite being some sort of monster, you were just so patient, it drove him crazy, he loved it.

“I, I don’t kn-know what to d-do first.” He stuttered through his kisses.

Deciding to take things in your own hands so he wouldn't have to decide, you flipped him onto his back. His eyes went wide, he forgot about your strength, he was not going to argue though. With you on top, he seemed to be in awe. The way you looked was angelic.

“Are you ready?”

All that came from Toby was a whine as you went to sit on him, but you were going slow, way too slow. His hands grabbed your hips hard enough to bruise you as he forced you down. He started grinding up into you, and moving your hips whichever way he wanted, there was no rhythm, just random thrusting.

Now it was your turn to whine. Your hands rested on his abdomen and your claws started to come out. A growl escaped you, as your hips rocked in a more rhythmic way, syncing with his.. The moans and little growls rumbling through you were almost enough to get Toby to cum then and there.

His grip tightened on your hips as he started controlling your movements again, very sporadically. You didn’t care though, you were close too.

“Toby, I’m…” was all you could manage before a warm feeling came over you and you were orgasming. Your head went back and your eyes shut tight, and with your pussy clenching around his dick as you rocked your hips through your high, Toby quickly found ecstasy after you.

A string of moans and cusses came from Toby as he rode out his high with you still on his dick. He didn't want you to move, not yet. His grip on your hips was so tight by now that his knuckles were white. It felt as if he was making sure this was real.

“F-fuck,” He managed to moan out. “That was s-so much b-better than any of the p-porn I’ve ev-ever watched.”

You giggled again as you rolled from the top of Toby to the side of him. You laid your head on his chest for a moment, just listening to his heart. You gently kissed his cheek, before throwing your legs over the side of his bed and putting on a shirt that was on his floor. You were almost certain it was not a clean shirt, you used it though, just in case Tim or Brian came in and saw you with absolutely nothing on. Not that they would ask you any questions about what you were doing though. They have learned their lesson asking that one too many times. 

“I don’t know how much longer they will be gone, but I have to pee. When I come back-”

“We’re fucking even ha-harder. I have s-so many th-things I want to try wi-with you.” Toby was very serious saying this, but laughed a little, until he heard Tim and Brian walk in through the front door. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything with you now, they would complain about the noise.

Brian was quick to speak as he walked in, “We’re back, please don’t be fucking in my line of sight.”

Tim shook his head at that statement. “I am going to bed, if you are fucking, do it quietly,”

“They are such party poopers. Looks like it’s bedtime at the old folks home. Whatever, you good if I sleep in here tonight? That couch is going to give me tetanus with those rusty springs stabbing me in my ass cheeks.”

Toby looked from you to his bed, and gave you a strange look. “Your bed is way more comfy!”

“H-how do you kn-know that?”

“I take naps in here when you’re out or whatever.” You spoke matter of factly. The two of you stared at each other, unblinking for about ten seconds. Toby sighed, and promptly made a small  space for you.

“D-don't make this a habit.”

“Sleeping in your room? We just fucked in your bed. Shut up.”

[moody-alcoholic]

These Violent Delights

Chapter 14 - Save Me

Summary: Poly 141 x fem!reader, a/b/o alternate universe 7.2k words. Let's save Piper! Go team!

CW: a/b/o alternative universe, a/b/o dynamics, typical a/b/o universe tropes, torture, descriptions of torture, descriptions of wounds, death, use of weapons, HORRIBLE military inaccuracies, dissociation, blood, medical inaccuracies, panic attacks, talks of death, Mr Jonathan “I can justify my actions” Price, bombs, angst, all hurt no comfort, fuckin’ Graves and his shadows are everywhere like a cancer.

AN: Name a chapter the omega hasn't cried in... I'll wait.

Previous - masterlist - next AO3

Enjoy!

Dr. Piper opens her eyes properly for what feels like the first time in hours. She’s alone in the room, though the camera is still set up. She looks down at her arm. He’s still bleeding her; she’s being killed by her own invention, a repurposed dialysis machine built to keep just enough blood out of her body so she can’t heal her wounds. Fitting really. 

She feels weak and her head is swimming. He can’t keep her hooked up to this much longer or it will kill her. Maybe that’s his plan? She wishes he would just shoot her, at least that way it would be quick. She wouldn’t be so lucky though. He needs to keep her alive. 

She looks around the room. The lights are harsh, bright white in her eyes. She remembers him recording the video, or at least him yanking her hair around. She can remember his demands too. It’s supposed to be a swap. It’s the worst case scenario. 

She made sure to put in the letter to John not to come and save her. She knew this was a death sentence, all to keep the omega safe. You are safe and you have your pack to protect you. It doesn’t matter what happens to her. She just wants to get this over with quickly. 

Hale gave them 48 hours. That means she’s going to have to suffer through this for at least another 2 days. The pain’s not too bad, when she doesn’t move. Her heart aches for you, though she knows you’re in the best possible place and with the best possible people. She hopes you’re on your way to the UK or wherever John thinks it's safe. 

She’s not religious but she’s praying to any God who’ll listen to keep you safe. 

The door to the room opens and Hale walks in. He’s changed clothes. There are no windows, no clock. She’s been unconscious too many times to try and keep track of what time it is or how long she’s been here. He puts a bottle of water down on the table, and it makes Piper's mouth go suddenly dry. She can’t remember the last time she had a drink. 

“No word yet,” Hale sighs. 

Piper looks up at him. Good. What is she supposed to say, ‘oh well, let's make another video.’  She doesn’t even want to look at him. 

“I guess you didn't really wait long before setting her up with an alpha,” he scoffs. She can hear the irritation in his voice. Yeah, she did it on purpose. Maybe John had figured it out, maybe not. She needed you to be in a pack to keep you safe. You needed to be claimed by an alpha, and she needed to make sure it was as difficult as possible for the Professor to get to you.

“Why bother with the contraceptive suppressants?” 

“A purebred is still pure, it doesn't matter who the alpha is,” he replies. 

She scoffs, shaking her head. 

“She would never have been able to carry to term. Her whole reproductive system is a mess,” she says, remembering what she saw on the ultrasound.

“I’m sure we would have been able to figure something out. You’re a good doctor,” he says, smiling. It makes her feel sick. She shakes her head, looking away. She’s a doctor first but she would never subject you to the surgeries he’s thinking about. 

“Do you remember the research we did on the betas? The one with the claiming?” Hale asks, picking up the water bottle and opening it. She nods at him. She learned how to do autopsies that week.  A smile grows on his face. It makes her angry—he shouldn’t be smiling. 

“We never quite figured it out did we?” he says, talking about their work like they’re old pals. He takes a sip out of the water then walks over to her. He brings the bottle up to her lips. She keeps her lips closed. She won’t take anything from him. 

“I don’t want you becoming dehydrated. You’re a doctor. Don’t be stupid,” he says. She looks up in his eyes, his dark, tired eyes. The eyes she used to see determination in.  She used to think he held the world in his hands, that the scientific marvels they would discover would change the world. Then you came along and his vision changed, and he became obsessed with creating the perfect omega. 

She wont accept anything from him again. 

He sighs, gripping her hair, yanking her head back. Her body tenses as he moves his hand to her jaw keeping her head in place as he forces the bottle past her lips. She doesn’t have time to clench her teeth as he forces the bottle in her mouth squeezing. 

She immediately chokes on it, water filling her mouth and nose, slipping down into her windpipe. He squeezes until the bottle is empty, most of the water being forced back out her mouth. She’s coughing and spluttering as she gasps for air. 

“I guess you learned to be stubborn from the omega,” he says, throwing the empty bottle on the floor. “I knew I should have never let you get close to her.” He sounds angry, his mood changing. His fuse is getting shorter. He’s getting impatient. 

“Why don’t you get it over with now then. You’re going to kill me anyway, there’s no swap,” she says between gasps, her throat raw. 

“I know that,” he says scoffing. “I expect the 141 to come here and try to save you. Then the omega will be left all alone in a base surrounded by people I pay.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’m not worth anything to them,” she says, her voice shaky. 

“Sure you are. You’re their key to a cure,” he laughs. She looks at him as he walks back over to the door.

“Besides, they’re soldiers. They like to think they're the good guys. Rescuing you or letting you die? Which do you think they’re picking?” he asks, laughing again as he opens the door. 

“And when they turn up and kill you? Then what?” she spits back at him. 

“Four of them against all the security I have here? I’m not worried. You should be though, because when I get the omega back, I’m still not sure if I want to keep you around. We never did test what happens when a bond is forcefully broken.” His voice is low, the smile still on his face as he leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. 

She hangs her head. She was blindfolded when she was bought into the building. She has no idea what kind of system he has or how many people are here. She sighs letting fear rise in her. She knows he’s right. She knows they’re going to come. They are good people. They’re going to risk their lives to save hers. 

She doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve the rescue. She hopes John will listen to her message and just flee. It’s the only way you’ll be safe. Hale can’t chase you forever, especially when you’re being protected by your pack. 

John’s hands are gripping the cup as he hears your wails. Simon and Kate are sat at the table, Kate looking through the intel she’s managed to find on Hale’s Seattle home. His head is spinning. You’re in pain, mental and physical. He can’t do anything about it other than try and get Dr. Montgomery back.

It’s risky. You’re not safe when they’re not around you. Based on what Kate has been able to dig up, the place is definitely going to be protected. He needs everyone for the mission to be successful, which means he’ll be leaving you alone with Kate. 

He sighs, taking another sip of his tea. It’s cold, but he doesn’t care. Simon looks over at him, then back down at his own mug. He’s struggling. They all are, and maybe it’s normal. You being upset must affect the pack's mood in some way. He wishes Dr. Montgomery was here to help, or at least to explain. 

Kyle comes out of John's room.

“Did she sleep through the night?” John asks. Kyle shakes his head. John sighs watching him going into the bathroom. 

He’s not sure how long Johnny has been with you. The sobbing seems to have died down, though. Kyle comes out of the bathroom going over to the kettle. There’s a heavy feeling in the air. They can’t talk about their plans here. Simon and Johnny searched the place but they couldn’t find anything. John still doesn’t trust it. 

Kyle is boiling the kettle when Johnny comes into the common room with you in his arms. John’s heart breaks when he sees your pale, bandaged figure pressed up against his chest. He walks over to the sofa placing you down. You’re murmuring something under your breath as he pulls the blanket over your shoulders.

“S’aright lass, let’s get you that cuppa.” 

Your murmuring stops as he says that, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear. 

You look over at the table. You can see Kate and Simon's backs. Then there’s John sat at the head of the table. He looks over at you, and sadness bubbles up inside of you. You look away. The house on the hill, the pies, the lake, the summer’s evening. Johnny comes back, placing the cup of tea on the coffee table in front of your face. 

You don’t want it but you can smell it.  Johnny always makes it extra sweet. Johnny kneels down next to your head stroking your hair. He lets out a sigh.

“You need to try and drink something,” he says. 

You blink at him. You're not thirsty. You don’t want anything. You look away from him at the mug of tea. Johnny sighs, getting up and going to the kitchen table. 

It’s just so much pain. You keep your eyes on the mug watching the steam swirl in the air. 

“When are we leaving?” Simon asks. They’re keeping their voices low. You don’t know if you want to know what's going on. You close your eyes and you’re back in your happy place. 

The house on the hill, the pies, the lake, the summer’s evening. 

You didn’t mean to fall asleep but you wake to John squeezing your shoulder. The mug of tea is still there. Your arm is numb. You force yourself to sit up. The moment you move John’s hands are on you helping you. You look round the room. It’s just John but you can see they’re getting ready to leave. Bags and weapons strewn everywhere.

“You’re leaving,” you say.

John sits next to you. 

“We’re going to get her back. We’re going to get her back and kill Hale,” he says, squeezing your thigh. You nod, trying to keep the relentless tears back. There’s a pain deep in your core, a throbbing in your body, something you’ve never felt before. It’s because your pack is going away. They’re going away to do something dangerous.

“Kate will stay with you.” His hand comes to your chin pulling your face to look at him. “You have to promise me if anything happens you will listen to her. You’ll follow her instructions. She’ll take care of you.” 

You nod, fear gripping you for a second. His expression softens. 

“Please save her,” you whisper, choking down the sob rising in your throat. He reaches over, pressing his lips onto yours. It's been a while since he kissed you. Even during your heat it doesn’t happen that much. You let yourself relax focusing only on the kiss, his soft lips, his warm tongue. You melt into it, letting him caress your tongue with his.

His hand runs up your back, firm and warm as it stops on your shoulder blades. You don’t want the kiss to end, you want to stay in this perfect moment forever with your alpha. He pulls away when your tears reach your lips. He looks at you sympathetically, thumb coming to brush the tears away. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks. You nod. “Good, then trust that we will bring her back. I promise.” He presses a kiss on your forehead and gets up. You lay back down pulling the blanket over you as silent tears run down your face. You watch as he leaves the building and Johnny and Kyle come in to collect the bags.

John walks over to Kate talking to Simon. They stop talking as he approaches. 

“Are you sure you want to do this John, she did say not to come after her,”  Kate says. 

“We’re going after Hale too,” he reminds her. Simon crosses his arms.

“You know what to do. As soon as Shepherd gives the order you take her and run,” John says. 

“The truck’s hidden 2 klicks south. Here are the keys,” Simon says, handing them to Kate.

“You’re sure no one knows about it?” she asks.

“No. If it’s gone, head to the rendezvous point anyway. We’ll find you,” John says. She puts the keys in her pocket, reaching into her back pocket bringing out a phone. 

“Keep it off until you need it, you know the drill,” she says, handing John the burner phone. He smiles at her. 

“Stay with her, and do not let anyone near her,” Price says. “Try and keep her calm, if she panics—” 

“She’ll distress, I know I’ve been reading Montgomery's USB. Go John, she’ll be fine,” Kate says, almost pushing him towards the car where Johnny and Kyle are waiting. 

“Here,” John reaches to his side, handing her a pistol. He trusts her. He knows she’ll keep you safe, but it doesn’t make it any easier. They know as soon as Graves gets the word they’re at Hale’s house, Shadow Company will be after them. 

John nods at Kate and heads over to the car. He looks over at the barracks one more time. He knows the likelihood of them going back there is low. He gets in the back, Gaz already taking the driver's seat. 

“Laswell will take good care of her,” Soap nudges him. He looks up in the rearview mirror. His eyes meet Gaz’s and he nods. The car drives off. 

He really hopes that he’s making the right choice. 

It’s raining. Of course it is. The rain seemed to start the moment they made it onto the motorway. The sky turned darker as they drove the hour-long trip. The ride had been mostly silent. Even Soap’s chipper attitude seemed mulled out. 

When they made it to the location, the sky was almost black. Price checked his watch. It was almost 5, and it would be getting darker soon. That’s good, they can use that to their advantage. They park down a dirt access road hidden from the main road. 

The road runs about a kilometer, and then it’s dense forest all the way up to his house. The place is guarded by Shadow Company. There should be 10 or so people, not including Hale and Montgomery. They all get out of the car, picking up their weapons, putting on the rest of their gear. 

Ghost swings his sniper over his shoulder, checking his watch. He looks over at Price who nods.

“Ghost, head east. There’s an abandoned outhouse at the end of the drive that should give you a good vantage point to set up.” Ghost nods heading off into the woods as John heads to the north, following the dirt path until it merges with the trees.

When they make it to the house, it’s bigger than Price thought it was going to be. Modern and brand new. How he can afford all this, Price will never understand. He must have a mansion in every state at this point. Dr. Montgomery was right, no matter where they went, Hale would chase them, and you would never be safe.

They all kneel down in the bushes to the side of the high wall. The whole place is surrounded by walls, the only opening being the front gate. 

“Remember, the moment we make our move we’re on a timer. We find Dr. Montgomery and Hale then we get out.” Price says over the radio. “How are we looking Ghost?” 

“Got two Shadows on the main gate. You’re clear to jump that wall.” 

Price nods at Gaz who gets in place to boost Soap over the wall. Price hears him land on the other side before taking his turn. He turns at the top of the wall reaching down to help Gaz over. 

They all land in bushes keeping their backs to the wall. 

“Need help dealing with the Shadows?” Price asks.

“Negative. Side entrance looks clear,” Ghost says. 

“Copy,” Price says and they start to move over to the side door. At least the rain has slowed. Soap tests the handle and it’s open. Price nods and they go in. There are some lights on. They move in silence as they make their way through the rooms. The place is almost barren of any furniture, and what is placed around the massive rooms is covered with plastic sheets. 

“Think he’s renovating?” Soap whispers behind Price who shushes him as they reach a closed door. There is light coming through it. Gaz toes the door open an inch and Price can hear voices, at least 2 people, but he can’t see anything through the crack. He looks round at them both before nodding and putting his hand on the door.   

He pushes on the door as Soap and Gaz rush into the room. Two shots, two people down. They keep walking down the corridor. This place is like a maze and they haven’t even been upstairs yet. Price takes the lead as they continue through the rooms. 

It’s corridor after corridor, temporary walls and scaffolding all over the place. The smell of fresh paint is strong in the air. They make it through to a larger room. The whole place looks like it’s being fitted like a lab. It reminds Price of his old chemistry classroom back in school. He’s building a new lab. 

That's why they’ve been helping Shepherd track down ex-colleagues.

Price continues to lead through the rest of the ground floor, and they take out 3 more Shadows. Plus the 2 when they entered and the 2 on the gate Ghost took care of, there shouldn’t be many left. No sign of the Professor though. The corridors lead back around to the lab. They haven’t been upstairs yet but there’s a large metal door. 

Price goes over to open it and it’s a stairwell leading down. If Dr. Montgomery and Hale were going to be anywhere, it would be in there. 

Price goes down first. As he rounds the corner he sees a Shadow, firing off a shot taking him down before he has a chance to turn and see them. He continues down the narrow corridor. There are doors on each side. The first one is empty. The second, one more Shadow. There are fewer than Price thought there would be. It’s almost too quiet. 

“Soap, go back and shut the door,” Price says. They don’t need anyone sneaking up on them. Price peeks around the bend in the corridor. There is one room and then the corridor ends. Price turns back, pushing on the next door. 

When he looks in he sees Dr. Montgomery. She is still tied to the chair. She lifts her head up.

“I told you not to come,” she says, but there’s a smile on her face. Gaz puts his weapon down going over to her.

“Where is Hale?” Price asks. 

“Upstairs maybe. I didn’t exactly get a guided tour,” she says, gritting her teeth while Kyle cuts her ties. 

“The machine. You have to press the green arrow on the screen,” she says, nodding over to it. 

Price keeps looking down the hall.

“Ghost, we’ve found her. How's things looking out there?” Price says. 

“Quiet, no movement,” he responds. 

Soap comes round the corner, almost making Price jump. He turns back to look at Gaz and Dr. Montgomery. She looks beat up, pale, and she's attached to the machine next to her. 

“What’s that?” Price asks coming into the room and letting Soap take point on the door. 

“Drains my blood, making sure I don’t have enough in my system to heal myself.” She says leaning back on the chair. 

“The Professor sure is resourceful,” Gaz says, rolling his eyes. 

“It was my invention actually,” she says. Soap looks back at her frowning. “Did you forget that I'm not one of the good guys for a second?” 

“We need to get out of here,” Price says. She nods moving to sit forward in the chair.

“Soap, go check ahead. We still haven’t located Hale yet,” Price says going over to the door. 

Soap nods heading down the corridor. 

“Just pull it,” she says. Price turns to see Gaz holding her arm. She has bandages in her free hand. He lets out a breath and pulls something out of her arm. She grits her teeth letting out a groan as she places the bandages on her other arm. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Kyle asks. She moans nodding as she moves to stand up.

“Yeah,” she says as Gaz helps her to her feet. She’s unsteady, even swaying against him as he gets his arm under her armpit, so she can lean on him. An alarm rings out. 

“Soap!?” Price calls through the radio. 

“It’s not me!” he calls back.

“What’s going on?” Ghost asks. Price looks back at Gaz helping Dr. Montgomery. Fresh blood is dripping onto the floor. 

“Stand-by,” Price says as Soap comes back around the corner, Price leads with Soap watching their 6. They need to get out of here. Whatever set off the alarm it can’t be good. 

“Price you’ve got Shadows driving to the house,” Ghost says. Shit. There is no way Graves is here already. They must have been nearby. Not like the Professor to host his security inside his mansion. 

“Soap go ahead see if you can stop the alarm!” Price calls. Soap nods, pushing his way past them. Price waits at the top of the steps letting Soap go out first.

“How many Ghost?” He asks.

“10, maybe more, civilians too,” Ghost replies. 

Great, now they have to worry about civilians. He looks back down at Gaz supporting Dr. Montgomery. Gaz nods at him and they push through the door into the lobby.

Kate is nervous, and you’ve never seen her nervous before. She’s tapping her foot as she types on her laptop. It’s making you nervous. You get up off the sofa, wrapping the blanket around you and go to the table to sit with her. 

She looks up from her laptop as you do. You smile at her and she smiles back. 

“How long do you think they will be?” you ask. 

“I don’t know. They will call when they’re done.” 

“Do you think they can kill the Professor?” 

“Yes. They’ve had to do harder things,” she says looking at you.

“Like what?” you ask, curious. 

“Maybe you should ask John about that kind of stuff,” she says.

“What about you? Are you a soldier?” You realize you don’t know that much about Kate. 

“CIA,” she says, shaking her head. You’ve heard of them before. 

You sit there watching her type on the laptop and then your vision is pulled outside. It’s dark outside and you watch as the floodlights are coming on across the field you can see out the window. All of a sudden it feels like something has changed. A bell rings out and it makes you jump. 

Kate turns around in her chair looking out on the field as you see soldiers start running around. She looks back slamming the laptop closed. All of a sudden she’s out of her seat. Now you’re definitely nervous.

“Come,” she says, her voice level as she goes into John’s office. You nod, wrapping the blanket around yourself. She grabs a backpack and puts the laptop in, throwing it over her shoulder. She leaves the room without closing the door. 

“What’s going on?” you ask as she walks fast down the corridor, almost dragging you along as you head to the fire exit at the end. 

“We need to get out of here. Quick, put some shoes on. And do you have a coat?” she asks as you go into your room. You nod following her instructions, pulling some trainers on and a jacket. Almost as soon as you’ve zipped it up she’s gripping your arm again pulling you out the room.

“Wait,” you say, stopping her. You look around your room. You have a feeling you’re not going to be coming back here. You go over to your nest picking up Dr. Piper's scarf. It still smells of her. You wrap it round your neck, tucking it into your jacket. 

You go up to Kate. You're ready now. She nods at you, leading you out the fire door. You’re hugging the building as you follow her, trying to match her movements. Your heart is thumping in your chest. You don’t know why you’re being sneaky. You just follow her, keeping quiet. 

Before you know it, you’re at the exit you and John take to get to the forest. Kate pulls you up against the base’s wall. You’re hidden in the shadows. You listen to the trees swaying as the wind picks up. You can feel the electricity in the air, the rain moving in. 

“Stay close,” she whispers, inching forward to the corner of the wall. You’re holding your breath as she looks round the corner. You watch as her hand slides down her side pulling a pistol into her hands. You swallow the lump away as you watch her pull the barrel back. The pistol clicks and she brings it up to her chest. 

You keep quiet as you follow Kate as close as you can, your hand resting on her back. She’s peeking around the corner and before you have time to calm down, she turns, running through the exit gate. 

You follow her, holding your breath. As soon as you're through the gate you’re in full sprint forcing your body to move and keep up with Kate. You run past the path you would normally walk down with John and she keeps going.

You run with her until she turns to the right down what looks like a walking path. She slows to a walk and you let yourself suck in breaths of air, the cold making you shiver as the drizzle of rain falls on you. 

Kate doesn’t say anything, putting the pistol back at her hip as you continue to follow the path. You wonder what John is doing, what your pack is doing. You hope they’re okay. You don’t get long to worry about them as Kate takes a sharp turn off the path into the thick foliage of the forest. 

You wish you could enjoy the sounds of the woods, the smell of pine. You can smell damp, the ground after rain. It makes you miss John. You miss your alpha. 

“Where are we going?” you ask after a few more minutes of walking. 

“There’s a truck parked waiting for us. We need to get to it and meet up with John.” 

“Okay,” you say. You can hear the nerves in your own voice. You keep following her. You're not sure how long you’re walking for, trying to keep up with Kate as you stumble through the forest. Eventually you come across a truck. It’s one of the big ones with 3 seats in the front and benches in the back, covered in a tarp.  

You’ve seen them around the base. They always looked so out of place. You follow her into the front seat. It’s cold and the rain is starting to fall down hard now. You bring Dr. Piper’s scarf up to your nose. It smells of her, and you smile, breathing it in as Kate drives off down the dirt road.

“Ghost we need a way out,” Price asks over the radio leading Gaz out while Dr. Montgomery leans heavily on him. 

“Main entrance is a no go. Go back the way you came, through the side door,” Ghost says. Price shakes his head. They need to move fast. He’s frustrated. He can’t think with this stupid alarm almost deafening him.

“Soap, any luck finding the kill switch?” Gaz calls as loud as he can over the radio.

“Working on it!” he calls back, barely audible even though Price can tell he’s shouting. They make it up to the ground floor and the ringing just seems worse, the large empty rooms echoing, the sound bouncing off the walls. 

It doesn’t matter. They’ll be out soon. The building is like a maze, and Price has to really focus to remember the way out. He looks over at Dr. Montgomery. She looks worse. She’s going to need medical attention when they have time. 

Suddenly the ringing stops. There’s collective sighs of relief. Price’s ears are still ringing though. 

“This way,” Price says, leading them to a door with light coming through. It leads down a corridor. Now they’re heading to the west side of the building, which is good since that’s the way they came from. Price has to keep checking behind him to make sure Gaz is keeping up. 

He peeks into a room and sees Soap leaned over a table with a computer on it. There are monitors all over the wall and equipment everywhere. By his feet is a body with a knife sticking out of his neck. The whole room is covered in equipment. This must have been the main command room. 

“C’mon Soap lets go!” Price calls over to him.

“Wait Cap, you need to see this,” he says pointing at one of the monitors on the wall. Price sighs against his better judgment and walks in to see the screen Soap is looking at. 

It’s the Professor, his hands spread over a desk. He’s somewhere in the house, in an office watching from afar. Now Price needs to go find him. Shadow company are at the door. He needs to get Dr. Montgomery out first as he sees her walk into the room. 

“Hold on, let me,” she says, moving away from Gaz and over to the computer. Soap moves out of the way and she types something then presses a button on the console. The cameras move and everyone sees the door to Hale’s office lock. He can see him fighting with it as shutters on the windows slam down. 

She chuckles. She’s not done though as she continues to click through the computer until she finds something. 

‘Lockdown initiated,’ a robotic voice comes through.

“ Yes,” she says under her breath as a warning comes up on the screen. She clicks ‘accept’ and a big red button with a plastic cover on the console pops open. 

“I’m staying. There’s a kill switch here, and it’ll blow the place.” She steps back from the computer so they can see. Price isn’t quite sure what he’s looking at. Gaz and Soap step in to take a better look. 

“You can’t put it on a timer?” Gaz asks as he looks at the computer monitor. She shakes her head.

“That would defeat the purpose. It’s a suicide switch, a last resort. If anyone ever suspected the Professor, he would rather take everything down with him. He imagined himself going out in a blaze of glory, fighting till the bitter end. Covering up his transgressions as his world burnt around him. His last fuck you to the authorities.” She seems almost happy about it. Her energy seems to have picked up as she clicks through security cameras. 

“The investors are here,” she says as they watch the outside CCTV. They’re making their way to the front door. They don’t have long. They need to leave now. 

“It’s not your job to fix this!” Price says taking a step towards her. She backs up, almost bumping into Soap.

“I helped put the omega in the position she’s in now. It is my job to fix this,” she says, frowning almost like she’s annoyed. 

“It doesn’t matter, come on!” John snaps, grabbing her arm. It’s his job to fix this, not hers. She digs her heels into the floor holding her ground. 

“We could destroy it all, John. Professor Hale will be dead, and the chemical destroyed. The investors are here because he wanted to make this place his new lab. Everything is here, everything but the omega.” She looks him in the eyes as he thinks about it. 

He lets her arm go. Hale buried, the chemical destroyed. There would be no one left. They could end it right now. He can see the determination in her eyes. 

She knew this was a suicide mission. Now it still can be. 

“What, no! We’re getting you out of here,” Gaz says pushing in front of Price. She can see Price has already made up his mind. She smiles puling her arm away so Gaz can't grab her. 

“You would die too,” he says as a matter of fact. She nods as a beeping starts on the console and she swears under her breath, turning to the computer.

"Hale's trying to override the lockdown, he could trap you all in here. You need to go John." She says her voice filled with urgency, she quickly looks over at him before turning her attention to the cameras. Price can see the professor by his computer, the shadows are running up the steps to the front door.

“Is there anything you can do Soap, put this on a timer or something?” Gaz asks.

“With a homemade system like this it could take me hours. It’s impressive, built into the foundation of the structure itself,” he shrugs.

"I can keep Hale locked in his office. I can even cut off Shadow Company so you can get out." She explains turning back to look at Price. 

“Price, hostiles heading into the building. What’s your ETA?” Ghost says over the radio. Price can see they've breached the door. They need to leave now. 

“Your hands will be clean. You can take the omega and go on that holiday. You didn’t kill anyone, this will cover your tracks,” she pleads standing up and turning to look at him. The beeping stops.

“We’re leaving now,” Price says over the radio. 

“Cap, you’re not seriously considering this?” Gaz asks. Price can see the pleading in his eyes and hear it in his voice. Will you ever forgive him?

“What about the omega?” Price asks. 

She pauses and smiles.

“She’s your omega, you’re her pack. She doesn’t need me anymore.” She fights to keep the tears back. She’ll cry for you when they’re gone. Price's hand rests on her shoulder. 

“You’re a good person,” he says. She smiles at him looking down as he passes her a radio. “We’ll let you know when we’re clear.” 

She nods, taking it out of his hand. 

“Let’s go,” Price says, turning away and heading for the door. Soap lays his hand on her shoulder and squeezes. 

“I’ll make sure she never forgets you,” he says, coming into her view and smiling as he drops his hand. She smiles back at him. Gaz lingers for a few seconds watching her face as Soap jogs past him. He nods, his lips pressed together before he leaves the room too. 

Price leads them down the maze of rooms and hallways towards the exit of the house. Price tries not to think about you as he reconciles with the fact he's letting both of the people you consider anything close to parents die. 

The Professor was going to die anyway. Dr. Montgomery is a martyr, but it’s the right thing to do. Destroy it all, and then no one else can be harmed. No more chemical, no more Professor, no more unnecessary deaths. The investors will watch the building fall to pieces; they won’t want to invest in rubble. 

He can almost feel Gaz’s eyes burning into him as he justifies it in his head. They make it out the side door and back over the wall. 

When they make it over they follow the wall round to the front of the property. The blacked out SUV’s are parked at the end of the drive inside the gate. Price can see the investors waiting around as the Shadows have made it into the building. They’re going to be dead too. 

They follow the dark graveled road till they make it to the outhouse Ghost is set up in. He comes out when he sees them. They all turn to look down at the house a few hundred meters away. 

“Where is she?” Ghost asks. 

Price brings his hand up to activate his radio.

“We’re clear,” he says.

“John, promise me you’ll keep her safe.” Her voice comes through his ear piece. 

“I promise,” he replies. He feels guilt rise in him now, and he can feel everyone's eyes digging into him as Ghost figures out what’s going on.

“Simon. It’s okay you never forgave me. I never forgave myself.” Soap looks over at Ghost, watching as a breath leaves his throat. Price can smell the sadness in the air. 

“Price, what's going on?” Ghost asks. 

Price doesn’t say anything, the line goes silent. There’s heavy tension in the air, a distant rumbling and then explosions. The ground seems to shift as the explosions get louder. The building starts to crumble. The investors scream, running back towards the cars with whatever Shadows are still outside. 

“No, Price!” Ghost calls his voice catches in his throat. 

“Piper what the hell?” Ghost shouts over the radio.

“You’re a good man Si—” The transmission is cut off. The explosions are bigger now, he can see sections of the building blown off and then the building collapsing in on itself. Price can feel the eyes on him, the tension in the air. He doesn’t want to turn around. He doesn't want to face what he’s done. 

It’s for the greater good , he reminds himself as he turns to look at them. Ghost’s eyes are wide, Soap’s hand resting on his shoulder from behind. Gaz is looking down at the ground. 

“She’ll never forgive you,” Ghost says, his voice low as he composes himself, shrugging Soap’s hand off. Price nods. He knows what he’s done. Ghost shakes his head and turns to walk away. Everyone follows in silence. 

It’s for the greater good, he reminds himself, taking one last look at the ruined building as fires start. 

You’re waiting in the back of the truck with Kate. It’s cold even with the blanket you found. You know you’re never going to be going back there but even Kate has been vague with you. You were driving for what felt like hours before you ended up off a large road to a secluded spot in the forest. 

Now you just had to wait. Eventually a phone rings. You have almost dozed off when it jerks you awake. Kate answers it but doesn’t say much, just Yes, of course, see you soon. You’re playing with Dr. Piper’s scarf in your hand. You want to give it back to her when you see her. 

“They’re on their way,” she says, smiling at you. 

“Is Dr. Piper with them?” you ask. 

“I don’t know, I assume so.” 

You smile at her, that's good. Of course they rescued her. You never doubted them. You’re giddy, your body warming up as you think about Dr. Piper coming back. You even shrug the blanket off after a while. 

You hear them before you see them, the headlights of the car shining through the trees. You’re excited, smiling as the car pulls up, stopping. You hop out of the back of the truck following Kate as she walks over. They turn the car off and the lights go dark as people start to get out.  

John gets out first, then Simon, then Johnny. Your heart beats quicker, and your smile fades. 

You can’t smell her. 

She’s not with them. You swallow hard backing up next to Kate. You can smell sadness, guilt, anger. John walks over to you and stops in front of you. He hesitates. That makes the tears come again. There’s a chill in the air. Hidden under the canopy of trees it sounds like the rain is falling harder.

“We got to Professor Hale’s house. We found her,” he pauses. It’s almost like he doesn’t want to say it.

“And she was dead?” you ask, swallowing the sob building up in your throat. She was dead before they got there. There was nothing they could have done. That's what he’s about to tell you.

It’s worse, so much worse. He shakes his head. 

“While we were leaving she came across a room. A room she said could destroy Hale’s building, burying him inside,” he says. You nod frantically at him.

“The kill switch, she used to call it—” the words die in your throat as you realize what he’s getting at. The suicide room, she used to call it the suicide room. 

“No,” you sob. He takes a step closer to you, but you step back. 

“You stopped her right? You didn’t leave her to die?” Your eyes fill with tears. You take another step back looking around at everyone. Johnny and Kyle look sad, their eyes wide as the horror of what happened sinks in. 

“I’m so sorry,” John says, stepping forward. You shake your head, your hand coming to your mouth. 

“You could have saved her! You could have said no!” you snap at him, way louder than you expected. It even seems to shock him as you rub tears out your eyes. 

“I’m—” 

“No! You promised, you promised you would save her!” you shout at him. He starts to move towards you, but you hold your hands out, your anger strong in the air. He stops. 

You look at him. You can’t tell if he looks sad or not. You can’t tell how he feels. You can smell his alpha and it makes you feel sick. Your hand goes to the back of your neck where you can feel his mark. 

He let her die. He could have saved her and he let her die. You can’t look at him anymore. You turn to the woods letting your hand fall from your neck. 

You look out into the blackness of the forest. You can hear the wind and the rain, the air is cold. 

She’s dead. Dr. Piper is dead and it’s all John’s fault. You let the next sob die in your throat and sprint off into the dark.  

next

Dividers by Plum98 & gild-ui Beta reader and editor - rememberwren Sorry...

[hoe4sports]

Discovering a new side (18++)

Caroline Graham Hansen x reader

A/N: This is a mature +18 imagine. Do not read if you are under 18, easily triggered or in an unsafe place. The Spanish is taken directly from google translate, so do not judge the Spanish. You get the point.

TRIGGER WARNING: Semi angry, strap on, light spanking, riding, domination, mommy. All the warnings basically.

(IMAGINE STARTS UNDER GIF)

The referee blew the whistle signaling for the match to be over. The fans broke out it screams of Joy, and the home team was jumping together in a circle screaming about their victory. Your girlfriend had just played a game against low ranked Scotland, and lost tremendously leaving their chances of the next World Cup in the trash. You both played on the Norwegian national team; but you were currently not playing as your acl was causing you pain. Caroline would always take it very personally when Norway lost, and it didn’t help that she hadn’t been scoring goals with Barcelona lately either.

As the match was over some of the girls fell to the ground, Aurora Mikalsen, Norway’s goalkeeper kicked the goal and chucked the ball out of sight. Everyone was finding ways to release their dissatisfaction, disappointment and imagining the dreaded headlines. Caroline was different. She would go quiet until she had processed what was wrong, and usually within a few hours she would be okay.

“Baby, come here” you said as you walked towards her on the field. She walked straight into you, and wrapped her arms around you for comfort. You looked up at the tall winger and she looked like she was dissociating. Dissociating was always her escape in times like this.

You walked into the warderobe where some of the girls were sobbing while others were trying to be as fast as possible. Gemma Grainger was Norway’s newest coach after the last coach had mentally ruined multiple of our star players. Gemma was a good woman and she was handed a national team that was a mess. “Girls, listen. We are allowed to feel sad right now. It’s okay, we need to process. Tomorrow, we start fresh. Our ranking has climbed from 12th best to 7th best. That’s something to be proud of. I want all of you, playing or not, to remember that you are the reason as to why we have skyrocketed the rankings.” she finished as the spirit in the group slightly brightened up.

As you got to the hotel, Caroline was watching the game on her phone. In a closer inspection, she was watching her mistakes over and over. When she finished, she jumped to the next game, watching all of her mistakes again and again and again. “Baby” you mumbled as you leaned towards the disappointed woman sitting in the chair by the desk looking more like an analyst than a player. “Maybe it’s time to put the phone away?” You suggested as you kissed the back of her neck lightly. No response. “Caz, how about some food?” You suggested as you kissed her cheek. “Caroline, perha-“ you started as she cut you off by turning around. “No Y/N, I need to figure out why I am not working!! I need to find a solution to this problem or I will end up never playing again!” She screamed as her eyes moved over to the phone again. You sighted, Caroline wasn’t one to yell and you had probably only heard her yell 2-3 times within the time you had been together. Strangely enough, you always felt a burning sensation between your legs as she showed her more, let’s say dominant side. That side only came out when she was angry and would yell. You decided to push your luck, and tried again. “Baby.. Let’s try to decided what to-“ you started as you once again was cut off by her turning the chair around to face you. “I said no, I don’t want too. Stop being so fucking annoying before..” she growled, but stopped as her eyes got glued back to the screen to see herself appear in the picture. You wanted to test your luck. You wanted to have rough sex. To have her be dominant. Assertive. In charge. But she would always be careful and sweet, and you loved that. But sometimes..

“Baby, take it out on me please..” you whispered in her ear as you let out a quiet moan. She didn’t respond, but you could sense that she was tensing up. “Baby, use me, please.. I can take it, I can make you feel better..” you continued as you could see her focus become less and less sharp. “Will you please take it out on me, baby? I’ll be a good girl for you.. ” you whispered seductively while letting your hands slip her shoulders and under her shirt to massage her breasts. She broke contact as she turned around and looked up at you. It was almost like her eyes had shifted to something darker, like her lust was pouring out of her eyes. Her breathing was heavier and you could tell that she was looking at your breasts. She was definitely a booby girl rather than booty. Lucky for me, as my boobs were bigger than the standard football player’s chest. You could tell that she was considering letting go, and you needed to act quick.

“Amor, por favor desquitate conmigo. Usa mi cuerpo, puedo soportarlo. Por favor, úsame hasta que te sientas mejor.

Her eyes sharpened as she dropped her phone. “Como quieras princesa” she said as her voice sounded lower than before. She stood up from the desk chair, and with one motion; she picked you up and forced your legs around her waist with her hands resting on your ass.

“Seré muy bueno contigo, lo prometo.” You whispered in her ear as you scratched her back with you nails. She let out a small moan, and laid you with your back facing down on the bed. She crawled over you, so that she was practically on top of you. You sent her your best “fuck me” look and she sweared under her breath as her hands started exploring your waistline. She leaned down and kissed you softly before you grabbed her hair in a makeshift ponytail and tugged on it forcing a moan out of her lips.

“No princesa, ahora estoy a cargo” she said as she looked down on you forcing you to let go of her hair. You nodded, and she went back in for another kiss leaning herself on her toned tanned arms. She touched your lips with her tongue forcing it inside to dominate mine. You moaned softly into her mouth as you couldn’t simply get enough. This was all you had dreamed about for the last year, and finally she let her dominating nature out. You could feel her hand loosing the strings on your pants.

All of a sudden, she flipped you around on your belly and yanked the pants off of you. You gasped as your wet thong came into contact with the cold air. On my back, you had her name as you were still wearing her jersey from the game. She was massaging your ass violently as she moaned. “Fuck baby, my jersey.” She moaned as she tugged on the jersey. “Yes baby, I made sure to let everyone know that I belong to you” you said as you could feel her hand stroking the back of the jersey where her name was located.

“Eso es correcto. Todos ustedes me pertenecen, baby” she said in a low voice as she started kissing my neck from behind while pulling on my hair. “Are you gonna be good?” she asked as she grabbed one of your boobs from behind forcing you to moan. “Yes, I’m gonna be so good. So good.” You obeyed as she pulled your hair tighter. “Let’s test just how good you are then, princesa.” she growled as she let go of your hair and body to stand up. She pulled you up from the bed and carried me you to the desk, laying you with your ass over the desk.

Suddenly, her hand made contact with your ass. That itself was enough to send you over the edge. You moaned out loud as she grabbed your ass pulling it upwards towards her. “Be a good girl for me, and stay still.” She growled in your ear as she had me pulled back by my hair. Fuck, this was really going as you had hoped. You loved this new side of her leaving you wanting to obey everything she would request you to do.

You stayed still trying to move your hips in the hopes of your red lacy thong would relieve you of some pressure. Caroline was rumbling around the room and you wanted so bad to turn around to see what she was doing, but you wanted to be good for her. You had imagined this the day you purchased a double sided strap on. The one for the giver was shorter and upwards, while the one for the receiver was longer and wider. Let’s just agree that you had a clear vision in mind when you purchased it a few months back.

You were standing bent over the desk as you could feel Caroline coming back for you. She smacked your ass again, and you moaned louder than ever before. “Oh, fuck baby, I need you” you whimpered in hopes of her long fingers making their appearance. Instead, you were surprised by the strap on you had purchased going full force inside your pussy from behind instantly hitting the sweet spot. “AH, fuck baby, yes please” you screamed out in pleasure as you held on to the desk. No time to adjust. You knew from the treatment on your ass that you were already close. “Fuck babygirl, you are taking it so well.” Caroline moaned out as she stopped without any warning. She lifted one of your legs up on the chairs next to the desk. “My perfect girl, wearing red lacy underwear underneath my jersey for a whole day without letting me know” she whispered in your ear sending chills down your spine. Her hand was barely touching your folds through your panties making you desperate for her.

As you were about to whine, she went in with the strap at full force going even deeper than before. Her hips thrusting harder and deeper with every trust. You could feel the tension growing in your abdomen, and you instantly knew what was about to come. “Caz, I’m so close, I’m gonna cu-“ you started as you were cut of by tour own orgasm making an entrance. She pulled out immediately.

“Te dije que te corrieras princesa o eras una chica mala?” she growled as she turned me around and looked straight into your eyes. You couldn’t help but look at her soaked pussy with the double strap. “yo era una chica mala” you replied with attitude forcing her eyes to widen as she let out a quiet moan.

She picked you up again, and practically threw you on the bed. She ripped off your tiny panties and you moaned as the cold air make contact with your throbbing pussy. As you were enjoying the cold sensation with my your eyes closed, you hadn’t discovered that Caroline had positioned herself with her head between your legs. Your eyes opened up as she entered your sensitive pussy with her tongue licking your folds and nibbling on your clit. “Ah, Caroline, more please” you moaned as you gripped the sheets while she continued exploring your insides. Her tongue started throbbing in and out of your walls. “AH, more daddy, more!” You screamed out in pleasure as she continued not realising what you had just said. She responded with her thumb rubbing your clit while her soft tongue pushed in and out of you. “Ah, baby, I’m gonna have to cum” you moaned as you arched my back. “Beg babygirl” she responded as you noticed that you could barely able to talk. “I can’t hear you” she repeated, and you moaned again. “Please, I need to cum. I have to cum, please let me cum in your mouth daddy.” You cried out as I you grabbed her hair and tugged on it. “Do it for me baby” and with that you came hard, I you squirted on her face and buckled your hips upwards. She grabbed your hips, and forced them down again as she glared at you. “MINE” she growled as she started licking up all your squirt.

When she had gotten every last drop, she laid down beside you and propped you on top of her. This was new. She looked into your eyes and brushed your hair behind your ear. “¿Cuánto puedes tomar antes de venir princesa?” she whispered as you swallowed. “As much as you need me too.” You said as she kissed your head and dragged you out of bed. She put you on your knees as she stood with her strap levelled with your mouth. You looked up at her with the most seductive look that you could, and with that she took the strap and held it infront of your lips.

“Chupa la polla de daddy ahora, princesa. Muéstrame lo desesperada que estás por mí.” She growled as she touched your lips with the tip of her cock. You didn’t even realise that you had called her daddy, you just obeyed. You opened your mouth and she put it in, gagging you as she held your hair and pounded it in your mouth. You sucked her off as she was eyeing you.

“Fuck baby, I’m so close” she stunned as she threw her head backwards. And you stopped. Her head flashed towards you and her eyes were even more lustful. “You need to be punished.” she moaned as she pulled you up on your feet by pulling your hair. She then picked you up as she sat herself on the bed and laid back. Leaving you sitting on top of her.

She grabbed the cock forcing her to moan as the giver cock moved with the receiver part. She rubbed the cock along your folds before inserting it. “Ride me, babygirl. Show me how it’s done. Let me cum first.” and you? You obeyed as you started bouncing on her cock giving friction to the part inside of her. She moaned loudly as her breathing was becoming heavier. You picked up the pace, and your boobs were now bouncing ruthlessly. She looked at you, and forced you to lean forwards so she could reach your boobs with her mouth while still riding her. She put your nipple in her mouth and used her other hand to massage the other boob.

You could see her starting to shiver meaning that she was close as you kept riding her whole getting closer and closer to your own edge. “Ah, baby, yes, yes, don’t stop, be a good girl now, let daddy cum” she stunned as you continued. Her cries were stopped by herself moaning so loud that you got worried that the neighbours were gonna hear her. “Ah, fuck, yes!” You looked at her “I’m gonna cum, baby”. You said as you felt my insides tensing up again. “No, I’m gonna cum first. Keep going, baby.” She commanded and you swore you were about to have your eyes roll back into your head.

You were slowing the pace down as you were so close and so sensitive, but Caroline was in charge and she started bouncing her hips picking the pace up. “Oh my god!” You yelled as she thrusted deeper and deeper with ever move. She was working her hips in ways you had never imagined. “Say my name babygirl.” She commanded. “Ah, yes, yes , Caroline please, please let me come!” You screamed loudly as she moaned. “No” she growled, “the other name.” And then it clicked for me. “Yes, daddy, yes please let me cum!!” You screamed as she was shaking, trying to hold herself back from cuming. “Please,” you screamed “only you can make me cum like this! Fuck, Caroline!” You screamed on the top of your lungs as you were seconds away from cuming. “Cum for me princess” Caroline growled as you came all over her cock in sync with her orgasm. She slowly stopped thrusting by going slower and slower with every move until our synched orgasms were over. You passed out next to each other, and you couldn’t believe what had just happened.

You turned to face her, and noticed that she looked a little bit taken back by her newly discovered side. You were both pretty out of breath as you laid next to each other. You had talked about boundaries one time when she was drunk, and agreed on a colour system if we ever needed one. She was laying on her back, staring upwards. “Color?” You suggested. “Orange” she motioned back. You jumped up immediately, and helped her unbuckle. Orange was different to us then to others. We had traffic light systems for during and for after sex. Green was no aftercare needed, Orange was that aftercare was highly wanted and red was that aftercare was pretty much required. You kissed her forehead, and rushed to the bathroom as you turned on the water to the bathtub. You grabbed a cold water from the fridge and dragged her along with you to the bathroom. She sat down first in the tub, and you sat down behind her guiding her to drink from the waterbottle. She relaxed in your arms as you kissed her head. You kept repeating how much you loved her, how beautiful she was and that she was safe. After a few mins of cuddles, she got back to herself. “Hi baby” you said as you smiled while she looked up on me. She smiled back. “Thank you Skatt.” She muttered and you hugged her tight. You sat in the tub for a while until she was ready to go to bed. As you turned around to walk to the bedroom, she tossed her jersey at you. “I like you better with my name” she said as she smiled knowing that one day, you were gonna have her lastname.

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Dj! I‘m so glad I just found our your doing cuddle requests! As I‘m in a terrible Crosshair phase atm, may I request 2 or 14 with him? The boy needs lots of hugs.

Thank you!

I'm Right Here.

A/N: My beloved @somewhere-on-kamino! 🖤❤️ Please accept deepest thanks for your patience while you waited for me to fill this request! This fic stands alone, but it is the same Reader from “I Know,” so there’s a brief reference to a prior breakup. Reader also still experiences the fallout of unspecified trauma, as they did in “I Know.”

Pairing: Crosshair x Reader (GN; has hair)

Rating: T (but as always, minors DNI)

Wordcount: 2.1k

Warnings and tags: angst; Reader has a brief dissociative episode and the beginnings of a panic attack; hurt comfort; cuddles; implied/fade to black sensuality

Summary: Crosshair has returned to the Batch, and it’s kriffing weird. The prompts are getting the greatest feeling of safety from cuddling/cuddles after being touch-starved.

Suggested Listening:

This fic smells like: Indigo by Nest (citrus, tea, fresh figs)

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This is weird. 

You glanced across the cockpit of the Marauder toward Crosshair, who stared out the viewport, carefully avoiding eye contact. 

This is kriffing weird.

In all the time that had passed since the last time you’d seen him, all the times you’d dreamed and fantasized about reuniting, it was never like this. When Hunter set up a rendezvous to collect Omega on a desolate moon, the last thing you expected was to see Crosshair walk down the ramp behind her. The shock of it had punched the air from your lungs and left you reeling. 

And he’d seen it. Of course he’d seen it. He saw everything. The way your joy at being reunited with Omega had morphed into confusion, surprise, and inevitably, anger. It was gone in a flash, but the damage was done.

And now you sat on opposite sides of the Marauder, deliberately not looking at each other.

Omega was confused. She didn’t know. You’d never told her the truth about your history with her brother, and neither, apparently, had he. For some reason, that stung. You knew it made you a hypocrite, but at that particular moment, you didn’t care. 

There had been a brief instant, all those months ago, when you thought you were finally going to get him back. Discovering that he’d turned on the Empire had sent a fierce, hot stab of hope through your chest. And then… Eriadu. Ord Mantell. Hemlock.

Tech.

There had been no hope after that. Just months of endless, fruitless searching: crisscrossing the galaxy more times than you cared to think about, watching the faces you held dearest grow haggard and worn with grief and desperation, ignoring the way your reflection revealed the same about your own. 

And then, a miracle. You almost hadn’t believed Hunter when he told you Omega had commed him. But it had been true, and as she crashed into your arms, you’d felt nothing but unadulterated, transcendent joy. 

All of which collapsed like a puppet with cut strings the second he stepped off that ship.

So yeah, it was kriffing weird.

The jump to Pabu took a lifetime. Omega and Wrecker’s conversation filled the awkward silence, granting you a respite, at least for now. You glanced toward the cockpit, where Hunter piloted the ship silently. He, too, was wary of Crosshair, but the relief and elation of having Omega back was evident on his face, and it eased the ache in your heart to have your little family back together—at least, as much as possible. 

After several hours in hyperspace, Omega and Wrecker fell asleep, and the ship descended into silence. You took over for Hunter in the cockpit so he could get some rest, and for a time, piloting the ship pulled your thoughts away from the confrontation that you knew was inevitable. You just hoped it would wait until everyone else was off the ship.

A shadow moved at the edge of your vision, and you turned to see Crosshair settling into the copilot’s seat. He said nothing for a long while, and you refused to be the first to speak. The tension stretched like a thread of spider silk between the pair of you, binding you together: always on the verge of snapping, but never releasing either of you from its tangled bonds.

It had always been like this. Even when you were running for your life on the opposite end of the galaxy, you could feel the connection. Tenuous, frayed, but unbroken. And now he was here, sitting less than a meter from you, and it was unbearable.

Kriffing weird.

His voice, low and bitter, splintered the brittle stillness of the cockpit. “Gonna give me the silent treatment for the rest of your life?”

“Thinking about it,” you replied.

“It wasn’t like this last time.” 

He spoke quietly, barely loud enough for you to hear him over the hum of the hyperdrive. Wrecker and Omega slept on, but you had no doubt Hunter could hear, and you mentally cursed Crosshair for doing this in front of him.

“That was different.”

“Why?” he asked. “Because last time, you were the one who left?”

Stung, you gritted your teeth and punched in a minor adjustment to your route. “Because I never tried to kill you.”

“If I’d wanted that blaster bolt to hit you, it would have.”

“Cocky,” you muttered.

“Realistic,” he corrected.

You refused to answer, instead gazing out the viewport at the endless swirl of hyperspace. He was right, gods damn him, and you both knew it. But that still didn’t change the incontrovertible truth that he’d chosen the Empire over his own family. 

Over you. 

You’d made excuses for him, defended him to his brothers, pointed out that even Wrecker—even Rex���hadn’t been immune to the effects of the inhibitor chip. And then, when he had the chance to choose of his own free will, he picked them. How could he ever expect things to go back to the way they had been between you?

The cockpit descended once again into silence. Within minutes, Hunter’s deep, regular breaths that revealed he, too, had fallen asleep, leaving you and Crosshair alone in a fragile soap bubble of privacy. He waited for a response that never came. With a scoff, he turned away from you to watch the viewport, absently picking up his mug. His hand trembled, sloshing the hot tea on his skin, and he cursed under his breath. 

That was new. What the hell happened to him?

Before you could voice the question, he stood abruptly and stalked out of the cockpit, leaving you alone in the dim, flickering light.

It was midday on Pabu when the Marauder touched down, and a small crowd had gathered on the landing pad to welcome Omega home. You watched from the ship as Shep and Lyana, Phee, and several other islanders swarmed around the batch. Even from the distance, you could see the discomfort on Crosshair’s face, and you let out a grim, inaudible laugh. It wasn’t justice, but it was a start.

You remained on the ship to complete the post-flight protocols, and before long, the raucous sounds of the crowd faded away as the celebration migrated elsewhere—presumably to Shep’s home for one of his legendary feasts. You’d join them soon. For now, you just… couldn’t. Not yet. You finished your tasks and dropped into the pilot’s seat. With a heavy sigh, you leaned forward to rest your forehead in your palms, bracing your elbows on your knees and tunneling your fingers through your hair.

You weren’t sure how long you stayed like that. It could have been minutes or an hour. A soft footstep on the ramp brought you back into your body, and without looking to see who it was, you spoke.

“Not now, Crosshair.”

“Not Crosshair,” Hunter replied.

Surprised, you sat up. “I figured you wouldn’t let Omega out of your sight for the next… I don’t know… fifty years or so.”

“I can see her from here.”

You laughed. “Of course, you can.”

“She’s asking for you,” he said quietly. “You all right to come out?”

“I’m fine,” you snapped, not bothering to suppress your surge of irritation as he treated you like some breakable thing.

For everything that Crosshair had done, at least he’d never looked at you with that expression of concern, like he was afraid you were going to disintegrate in front of him. He knew you were more resilient than that, even when you didn’t believe it yourself.

Hunter’s jaw firmed. “You know you don’t have to—” He broke off with a sigh. “Fine. Yeah.”

Dank farrik, you wanted to needle him. You wanted to start a fight, to give yourself an excuse to vent the grief and the rage, the exhaustion and the frustration, the fear that had become your ever-present shadow over the past months. You wanted to see those eyes fill with anger instead of worry when he looked at you. But he didn’t deserve it. And he wasn’t the one your rage was truly directed at, anyway.

With a final, deep exhale, you stood and followed him down the ramp. The walk to Shep’s home was uncomfortably silent, but by the time you arrived, you’d wrestled your emotions sufficiently under control that you were able to muster an overly bright smile and shift into charming social butterfly mode. 

Crosshair hovered on the perimeter of the group, alternately keeping watch over Omega and glancing at you from the corner of his eye. Aware of his scrutiny, you allowed a few locals to get flirtier than you normally would as you mentally flipped him the bird.

The party went on for hours, stretching late into the night, until eventually, the crowd began to dwindle. Wrecker appeared to be exceptionally cozy with one of the locals who’d been his dance partner all night, while Hunter and Shep settled into a corner for a quiet chat. Omega and Lyana had long since passed out on their laps. 

You were kriffing exhausted.

Hunter’s eyes followed you as you slipped away. You could feel them on your back, and they only spurred you to walk faster as you made your way back to the Marauder. The night breeze off the ocean was cold, and you’d been too distracted and upset when you left the ship to remember to put on a jacket. Hugging your arms around yourself, you hurried through the dim streets of Pabu up the hill to the landing pad. Once you were safely inside the ship and the hatch sealed behind you, you slumped against it, then slid gradually down to the floor.

The Marauder was dark and blessedly silent, and you stared vacantly into the shadows, waiting for the chaos in your mind to settle. Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two—

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

A murky shape loomed in front of you, and you flinched away with a hoarse curse, curling in on yourself protectively as your heart thundered and your lungs seized in terror.

“It’s me,” Crosshair said, resting his hand on your wrist. “It’s just me.”

“Cross.” His name tore out of you with a sob, and you buried your face against his shoulder, clinging to him while the galaxy tore itself to pieces around you.

His arms wrapped protectively around your body as he cradled the back of your head in his hand. You could feel him shaking, but then again, you were shaking, too—trembling so hard it felt like your skin couldn’t contain you. 

Breathe, breathe, just breathe, it’s all right, you’re not back there again, it’s not real.

“I have you,” he whispered. “I’m right here.”

“I know,” you choked out. “I have you, too.”

His arms tightened around you, and very slowly, you began to relax as your panic ebbed, and a feeling of safety you hadn’t experienced since the end of the war settled over you. How long had it been since you’d allowed anyone to hold you like this? Since he’d allowed anyone to hold him? How long had you ached to feel him again, to have him in your arms, to breathe his familiar scent and listen to the beat of his heart? 

Too long. Far too long. 

You wanted to crawl into him, to press yourself against his body until not a molecule of air separated you from him. It was impossible to be close enough. 

“You’re freezing,” he murmured.

“I’m all right,” you lied through chattering teeth.

He exhaled a silent laugh. “Of course you are.”

He didn’t bother to argue, just gathered you up, stood, and guided you to the nearest bunk. He stole the blankets off the rest of the bunks and climbed in after you. The space was narrow, but it wasn’t the first time you’d shared it, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world for him to lie on top of you and wrap his arms securely around your body. 

Tucking your cold nose into the crook of his neck, you whispered, “You know I’m still gonna yell at you, right?”

“Obviously,” he replied, his lips brushing softly on your earlobe. “Tomorrow.”

The warmth of his breath, the touch of his lips—stars, it’s been so long. You found yourself softening beneath him, not intentionally, but without hesitation. His mouth moved lower to taste your skin as his hand slipped beneath the hem of your shirt and grazed up your side. 

“Yeah,” you breathed. “Tomorrow.”

---

Want more Crosshair? Here’s some spice and some fluff.

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[rosyhoneydew]

I'll Cover You

Written for @bucktommypositivityweek | Week 2, Day 2: Scenes from a firetruck | cw for mentions of dissociation, flashbacks

I wrote two entries for today! If mildly steamy fluff is more your vibe it's here -> Stolen Moment

The winds are strong, even days after the tornado’s long gone.

Buck hadn’t seen anything like it before. Tornadoes, sure, but the kind of large-scale damage that came from an invasive cloud of bees droning en masse and descending on the city like a plague? A first. He’s nursing a sting or two himself for a few days.

It’s almost a relief to get called on scene two days later. Almost. Because while plane crashes are, at least, familiar, they’re still grueling.

All things considered, it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. The 737 went down on land this time, but it had only barely made it off the ground before taking a nosedive back onto the tarmac. The passengers were buckled in and the drop itself wasn’t too big. So yeah, they got pretty lucky.

They’re still on the scene now. Hen and Eddie are working at the cockpit last he knew, Chim’s somewhere in the med bay here with him, working on a bigger trauma. Buck’s been handling some of the lower grade injuries and he’s cool, really. Yeah it would be nice to be out there, doing the big boy stuff, but they’ve got a new captain and he’s learning to pick his battles.

He’s just finishing wrapping up a kid’s ankle. He can’t be more than 7 but he’s been so brave, holding his little sister’s hand to keep her from crying. He’s got the elastic bandage just in place when the wind rips the kid’s jacket from where it was draped on his shoulders and under the 217’s truck.

“I gotcha!” he reassures the kid quick. “One sec, you stay right here for me, okay?”

Buck shuffles over to the truck in a walk-run and bends down low to peek underneath. It would probably be easier to grab the jacket from the other side, but he’s already here so he just finishes ducking down, crawls under and reaches out for the corner of the fabric.

He’s still under the truck when the next big wind hits. It leaves the truck shaking and groaning around him. Buck freezes. It feels like all logical thought in his brain shuts off.

The truck isn’t going to tip over. He’s not stuck. If he had the presence of mind he could wiggle his toes, even. But there’s something about being under here, hearing the voices around him, it has him tense all over. He can’t move.

When he looks back on it, he’ll wonder why it set him off. It’s not nighttime, there are no kids with bombs strapped to them, it’s not like he was even under the truck when it tipped last time. It’s a fluke, almost. But it can’t be helped. He’s petrified.

—

Tommy honestly thought his first call working with the 118’s A-shift would have had a little more novelty, but it’s just been long. He’s happy to see Evan, of course, but he hardly sees him. He’s been over in the med bay for the last couple of hours that Tommy’s been teamed up with Viera, pulling passengers out of the wreck.

He had at least been able to drop off an older woman directly to Evan about an hour ago.

Well, Patricia, it looks like your day is looking up! You’re in good hands with this one. He’ll patch you up real good.

Ahh, my job’s the easy part. You’re just lucky firefighter pilot Kinard was here to save you.

She’d only had a sprained wrist, but Tommy had watched them from afar for a minute, ever impressed with the way Evan kept her calm, reassurances and jokes taking the fear out of her eyes. He has to turn back before long, but he lets that moment carry him through the next push. He’s going home to that man.

He’s jogging back to check in at base when he hears crying to his right. There’s a kid standing still, holding the hand of a little girl and he’s wailing at the sky. That doesn’t seem right. Tommy’s eyes track around the area and he spots boots sticking out of the side of their truck. Definitely not right. He changes course, picking up his speed as he approaches the kids.

“Hey, bud, you okay?” He’s got his hands on the boy’s shoulders, grounding him, hopefully. “You hurting anywhere?”

The kid coughs out a few more sobs in Tommy’s face, but he shakes his head. He looks like he’s willing himself not to be scared. Jesus, kids are resilient.

“Alright, that’s good, I’m going to check on my friend here, you gonna be okay for a minute?” A nod. Good.

Tommy turns his attention to the truck behind him, lays flat, knocking his helmet off in the process. The guy’s not moving, but Tommy’s not able to figure out at a glance what happened here. There’s no gas leak, no threat to public safety over here.

“You good, man?” he calls out.

The body of the guy twitches. Not dead. That’s good. He clears his throat.

“Can you feel your feet? I can try to move you but I need to know if you’ve got any injuries I should watch out for.”

No response. Okay. Time to change tack.

Tommy rights himself and walks to the other side of the truck, resuming position on the asphalt. He shuffles in a little closer and finally gets a look at the guy’s face.

Evan. It’s Evan.

“Evan?” he says. He’s not sure it comes out as much more than a breath.

Evan’s eyes do flick to his then, but there’s still something distant in his gaze. He’s dissociated. It comes to mind then, the stories told at happy hours and trivia nights, and the ones told only in the sanctuary that is their bedroom. They're good stories, but Tommy knows better than most the toll that kind of shit can take on a person. Evan's having a flashback.

“Alright, alright, baby,” Tommy says under his breath. He’s not sure Evan would hear him even if he spoke up. He looks pretty gone.

Tommy scoots half a foot closer, puts both palms flat to the ground.

“Evan,” he starts, “can you do this with your hands? Just like mine.” He flexes his hands a bit to demonstrate.

Evan’s own hands are balled up. It looks like he army crawled under here. His arms are bent at his sides, curled in tight half under his body. He blinks a few times.

“Your hands, Evan.” Tommy picks his own up and places them back down again. “Just like this.”

Evan mirrors the movements.

“Good job, that’s perfect.”

“Kinard?” He hears from behind him.

“We’re good here, Sloane.” Who knows if she’ll believe him; she’s a damn good secondary when they’re in the air but she’s nosy as all get-out.

He hears the sound of her turnouts rustling as she shifts around, deciding whether to stay or go.

“Sloane. I got this. Can you round back to the kids on the other side? I’m going to be here a minute.”

He hears the sound of boots squeaking behind him as she does what he asks. Okay, Ev, just you and me.

Evan’s fingertips are curling, his eyes pinched closed.

“Ev, sweetheart, look at me.” He does. “I’m gonna grab your arm okay? Then we can work on getting you over here. Sound good?”

There’s no response, but that’s okay. Tommy’s going real slow. He reaches out and places a sure hand on Evan’s arm.

“Can you push yourself toward me?”

His eyes close again and for a second Tommy falters, mentally jumping two steps back to figure out a different path forward. But then Evan pushes. He digs the meat of his hand into the ground and uses the leverage to slide his body toward Tommy.

“Just like that. Exactly like that.”

He’s close enough now that Tommy can reach his shoulder. He gets a good grip and rolls Evan the rest of the way, pulling him up to sitting once he’s on his back and out from under the belly of the truck. He watches as Evan scrambles to pull his feet out.

Tommy’s got him sat in between the V of his legs, one arm around his waist, and brings the other up to Evan’s face, pushing the damp hair off his forehead. They’re tucked in between trucks, so the sound of commotion from the continued efforts of the other houses is muffled. The loudest thing he can hear is their panting, both going a little boneless with relief.

Tommy places a kiss to Evan’s temple. He’s sweaty there too. He feels Evan’s breathing slow down a bit, but he’s reluctant to break the quiet. He’s not sure that Evan’s flashbacks are like his, everyone’s a little different, but he sometimes needs the silence after. Just to collect himself. So he gives that to Evan, too.

“Did- did you get it?” Evan finally says, startling Tommy just a bit.

“Get it?”

“The jacket.” He’s smoothing his palms over his pants; nervous habit.

Tommy stretches his neck to look behind him, sees the blue rain jacket lying there. He can pinch it with his fingers from where they’re sitting. He drags it out. Troublemaker.

They sit together for another minute. Tommy can hear Sloane marching the kids away to find their parents. If he really tunes into the noises around them, he can hear some laughter and lots of walkies; they're finishing up here. He'll probably get called in soon enough to pack up.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Evan nods, then tips his head back onto Tommy’s shoulder. “Better. Thank you.”

Tommy moves his hand down to Evan’s face, just to tilt his cheek a little closer, plants a long, sure kiss there.

“I’ve got you.”

Evan smiles. “Yeah, you got me.”

[gold-rhine]

What the guard dogs are for

There are some things you never want to hear your secret years-long crush saying, such as “I’m getting married,” “I think we should stay friends” or “I’m the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and the foe of humanity.” Wriothesley’s very bad, no good day of trying to unravel conspiracy theories, fumbling a tea party with Chief Justice and learning Teyvat’s ancient history and vishap lore from the leading expert lector.

Genre: angst and misinformation campaign

Characters: Neuvillette\Wriothesley, Enjou

Warnings: sfw in a sense that nothing even remotely sexy happens, but there is dissociation, ptsd episode, brief mention of self-harm, and Enjou doing same thing he does in canon, which is not quite gaslighting? Anyway, let me know if you feel any other warnings need to be added.

Chapters: 1 out of 2. Wordcount: ~8k

With his morning tea, Wriothesley riffled through the reports as usual. Nothing was marked urgent, so he started with the most boring part, - the official ones. The production numbers, coupon consumption statistics, everything is prepared for Neuvillette’s upcoming inspection, which was mostly a formality, but he would want it to go as smoothly as possible. 

Reports from the surface informants. Traveler stirring up a ruckus with the research institute… Well, about time, that pit couldn’t go on forever pretending that massive explosions are just a part of science routine. 

Next, creatures called “vishaps” appeared recently in Erinnyes Forest. These vishaps are apparently a lesser form of dragons, and connected to Liyue vishaps, also lizard-like creatures, though in Liyue they are aligned with geo, not hydro. Non-hostile to humans, aside from one accident. But in that one they fought back against the hunters sent by nobles to capture them as novelty pets. So the only regrettable part was that they didn’t get the nobles, only their lackeys. For shame. 

Next, there are gangs with new lingo going around, which generally was a good thing to pay attention to as they usually ended up in Meropide. Wriothesley frowned, reading the lingo translations, as he suddenly felt old. “Trendy Zaytun Peach” was something he’d got called for taking it up the ass a lot in his days, but now it’s a hip and cool nickname with the youngsters. 

Informal internal reports. Victims of beret society are rehabilitating fine, preparations for the wedding are underway. Good. Albert, a new guy from the shop, is sending him tea. Quite good tea at that. Obviously a bribe attempt, though he didn’t ask for anything as of yet, so it was basically free. Everything was fair in love and bribes as far as Wriothesley was concerned. You could throw everything at the feet of your beloved as to the feet of your targeted bureaucrat, and receive nothing and you would have no claim to complain. Now, the fact he wouldn’t take it into account when making decisions about their proposals, and sometimes would even consider it a negative, was a different matter altogether. 

He perked up reading the last report. There was a new conspiracy, whose agenda was not very clear, as they were more careful than the others, but the gist was something against Neuvillette, so Wriothesley was tracking it for some time. It was hard to get anything concrete though, as they were pretty good at keeping a low profile, but now apparently one of the members by the name of Jacque got into the Fortress on unrelated charges, and he was reportedly not the brightest shank on the block. 

Wriothesley made the arrangements. 

Half an hour later, he happened to stroll by when Jacque was being beaten up by three guys in the shadowy corner. 

“Hey, what’s going on here? Leave him alone!” he said, walking up to them.

“Oh yeah?”, said one of the bullies, turning to him. “Well, make me!”

They were paid double for the pretend fight. It might have been an overkill, usually Wriothesley would go for just scaring them off without combat. Especially because anyone who’s been in the Fortess for some time or had a head on their shoulders would understand that nobody would try to openly fight the Duke outside of the fight club arena. But Jacque was as fresh as they get, allegedly stupid, and it was Wriothesley’s first chance at any info in two whole months, so he decided to make it as impressive as possible.

He went as easy on the guys as he could, they theatrically threw the fight and retreated. 

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, kneeling next to the guy in the corner and putting his hand on his shoulder for emphasis. 

“Yeah, yeah, I think I’m fine,” Jacque muttered, shaking his head. 

“Why did they attack you?”

“They don’t want me to spread the truth...” Jacque said with heavy emphasis. “But uh, thanks for helping me out.” 

“No need to thank me. I feel bad enough that honest folk like yourself get picked on in MY Fortress. That’s not how I want to run my place, so it’s only natural that I stand up for you.”

It took a moment, but finally the guy gasped.

“Your fortress? Are you… the Duke?”

At least he knew what “Duke” is.

“Yeah,” Wriothesley grinned, turning up the charm. “And allow me to get you a couple of drinks to compensate for the rude welcome you’ve received so far.”

He got them to the Coupon Cafeteria, where best meals were already arranged, and generously poured alcohol into the poor guy, listening to the story of his life and misfortunes that brought him to the Fortress, nodding empathetically. He didn’t ask about Neuvillette at all, to not spook the target, trusting that he will come to this anyway, and finally his patience was rewarded. 

“You know, you’re good!” the guy said drunkenly after some time, clasping his hand on Wriothesley's shoulder, which he beared stoically, grinning with all friendliness in the world. 

“You know, they say we can’t talk to you because you’re bought by that lizard, but I think you’re a good guy. You just don’t know all the facts!”

“Which are?”

The guy leaned closer to him and lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. “Neuvillette is an evil dragon!”

Wriothesley choked on a laughter, which was way too obvious to turn into cough even for the dunce this stupid. 

“No, you don't understand! Dragons were enemies of humanity that Celestia conquered. But they come back when killed! They reincarnate! He is a hydro dragon who was reborn in a human form so he could more easily trick us!”

Wriothesley blinked, remembering Neuvillette standing under the rain, and the old children’s song. “Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, don’t cry….”

“He put our rightful archon Furina on that trial, right? No one else saw the verdict, so he pretended she was declared guilty. He forced her to abdicate and took the power for himself!”

Wriothesley realized long ago that Neuvilette, of course, was not human. It was clear to any idiot who talked to him for longer than a minute in an informal setting, not to mention a lifespan of at least five hundred years. But there were a lot of options other than “evil dragon”. There were old gods who did not receive archonhood, but instead decided to serve the archon, like Liyue’s adepti, and he always assumed Neuvillette was of the same kind. But the idea that Iudex was some kind of evil monster with a grudge against humanity was ridiculous. Especially when he showed up at the Fortress and saved the entire Fountaine and Wriothesley’s own hide from the flood.

“Really?”

“Yeah! We should restore our true archon Furina to her rightful throne!”

Furina’s insurrection? Interesting. Wouldn’t peg her for someone capable of this type of conspiracy.

“And did Furina herself give us her blessing?”

“She can’t speak publicly, as this monster threatens her.”

Hmm, inconclusive on Furina’s involvement.

He spent more time with the drunk Jacque, trying to get more details, but couldn’t get much more than unhinged ramblings on how evil the dragons are and how insidious it was for a dragon to pretend to be a human. He had to leave to prepare to Neuvillette's arrival the next day.

_____

Neuvillette stepped out of Opera Epiclese into the rain and slowed down his pace to prolong the sensation. It was a bit of what humans called guilty pleasure, as he felt guilty from inflicting rain on humans for his own pleasure. Though from his understanding, humans felt guilty because they saw this pleasure as something bad for themselves. Even if often this supposed harm made no sense to Neuvillette. Eating too much food until a human's stomach hurt was at least understandable to see as such, but he heard one of palais’ secretaries say that romance novels were her guilty pleasure. How could humans feel guilty for something as simple as reading? He stopped and asked her why she would feel guilty for reading, because melusines kept telling him that socializing with humans is very easy, you just need to ask them questions about themselves and let them talk about what they like. Well, it didn’t seem to work, as the secretary stumbled, started hyperventilating and emanated levels of panic and anxiety comparable to someone in the defendant’s chair. Sensing human emotions did not actually help Neuvillette in communicating with them, as he could not discern the reasons. He asked her if she perhaps came into possession of any cursed texts? He could generally sense the stench of corruption and there was nothing on her, but there was always a possibility that it was a curse he could not register. She panicked even more and vehemently denied. At this point he decided to give up on socializing, as it was obviously very distressing for humans, but felt obliged to tell her that if she ever did read anything she felt was cursed, to inform him. He hoped it would assuage her fear of reading. She thanked him, stuttering, and after that day avoided him at all costs. 

The rain was a compromise solution in any case. Neuvillette always felt a bit strained and uncomfortable in his body, but after obtaining full dragonhood and most of the memories of past lives, the human shape felt downright stifling. He now remembered thousands of years of being something much bigger, long coils that could easily crush the spire of Opera Epiclese. Now, when he looked at his own reflection, it was hard to comprehend that this small and ridiculous frame was actually him. In addition, all of his memories and instincts called him to be submerged in water. But even with his poor understanding of humans, he realized that seeing the Iudex floating in the river would alarm humans much more than him standing under the rain. So rain was the closest solution he could get at his position. 

He summoned rain instinctively, to be as close to engulfed in water as possible. It was a bit embarrassing that even humans noticed it and composed a rhyme, even if that rhyme was inaccurate. He didn’t cry, as vishaps didn’t cry at all and even his current human shaped body didn’t have tear ducts. The closest he could pinpoint to human experience, as he understood it, was being stressed and desire to be comforted, for which water was his best remedy.

And currently he was quite stressed, looking over the Fontaine laws in an attempt to revise them. The current system that treated justice as theater was clearly imperfect, which he realized long ago. But he never saw himself as authorized to change it, as humans were the responsibility of the archon and even without it, he was well aware he didn’t understand humans, so he knew it wasn’t his place to question the human justice system, to which he was only a temporary guest. But now, as fontanias became part of Teyvat after his decision, and so, a part of his responsibility as Teyvat’s god of life, even if the usurper tried to deny him, he couldn’t ignore the need for change any longer. The problem was that he did not understand humans any better, so it was very stressful to try and restructure their systems of governance. 

He extended a hand, catching raindrops on his palm, when he noticed a silhouette near the elevator to the Fortress, and stopped himself from visibly controlling the weather. 

Wriothesley caught his eyes and grinned, approaching him at brisk pace, umbrella over his head.

“Greetings, Monsieur.”

“Good morning, Your Grace.”

Wriothesley always somehow managed to make a “Monsieur” sound more impactful than Neuvillette could “Your Grace”, despite one being a noble title and another just a polite greeting. 

“Would you like to…?” Wriothesley extended his arm with an umbrella, without actually covering Neuvillette with it. In the past, as a part of playing a role of “normal human”, Neuvillette accepted such offers, though there were not many aside from Wriothesley who dared to approach him with it. But now, as he was a full-fledged dragon, at the height of his power and influence in this land, surely he could afford to discard this role? Surely he could afford to be himself at least in this?

“No, thank you,” he said, smiling and trying to sound as cordial as possible, so that Wriothesley would not think it was a slight against him personally. “Don’t take it as offense, but I actually like being under the rain.”

The Duke smiled back, shaking his head.

“No offense taken, but why didn’t you say it last time? I felt like an idiot forcing you under an umbrella.”

“Really?” Neuvillette perked up, falling in step with the human. “You could tell that I…”

“Hated it? Yeah, for sure.”

“....prefered not to have an umbrella.”

Wriothesley let out a low, guttural bark of laughter that somehow got to the dragon despite him not being interested in humans in general.

“Not only I could tell I disturbed you, but I had to walk on the flowerbed to get to you, and then I trailed dirt in the Palais while everyone here glared at me for the audacity. Meanwhile you walked on the same dirt, but stayed pristine!”

“I’m sorry for…”

“Hey, don’t apologize. I’m just kidding, don’t worry.”

Neuvillette met the greyish blue eyes of thawed ice directly and sensed that he was truly not bothered, which didn’t make much sense. But Wriothesley was one of the very few humans who was not scared in the dragon’s presence. He was, probably, the only one who emanated only positive emotions at their meetings. Neuvillette mostly encountered negative reactions in his daily life at the trials, so he could not tell apart which positive feelings exactly that he read from Wriothesley due to the lack of exposure. But perhaps…

“I wouldn’t want you to feel unwelcome at the Palais,” Neuvillette said after a short pause.

Wriothesley grinned with a careless shrug.

“Then I will be there, even if the rest of your bureaucrats make faces. As I said, don’t worry.”

Neuvilette frowned, but didn’t see much point in pressing this further. After a confrontation with Navia, the dragon realized that his lack of understanding of humans hindered him, instead of making him truly impartial. Especially now that he was de facto in charge of the entire Fontaine government. And practice showed that only direct interaction with humans could give valuable experience, as watching from the Iudex seat did not allow him a nuanced understanding. 

So perhaps, if Wriothesley was a rare human who was not scared of him, and he proved rational and trustworthy in the years they knew each other, Neuvillette could confide in his true nature and maybe ask for advice in understanding humanity?

“Perhaps staying for some tea would make up for this past offense?”

Wriothesley stumbled for a moment.

“Seriously?” He sounded as casual and ironic as usual, but the surprised burst of positive emotions from him was bright and obvious. “After all these years you finally decided to deign my humble office with your presence?”

“It’d be a completely unofficial visit, of course.”

“Sure, sure. It was never my secret plot to bribe you with a tea party, trust me, even I realize my tea is not that good.”

His voice was ironic, but for a moment Neuvillette could see his crooked grin turn into a genuine smile. So, reassured that he was not imposing, Iudex nodded and followed the human into the Fortress’ entrance.

_________

The inspection itself was mostly a formality. The Court of Fontaine technically had no direct authority over Meripode, but it provided guards and substantial resources, and so it had a right to oversee the use of these assets. The actual budgeting was done on the regular in behind the scenes reports though, as the data was not visible in the in person visit. Still, it was a time honored tradition that got Neuvilette to show up regularly.

“Take a seat. It will take me a minute to make tea.”

Neuvilette gracefully sat down on the visitor’s chair In Wriothesley office, folding his hands on the cane. He still sat with a ramrod straight back and perfect posture, but there was a certain lightness to him today, which was hard to put into words. 

“The inspection is over, yet you are still nervous.”

Wriothesley knew he had a poker face good enough to cover it, yet Neuvillette saw it anyway. He had theorized for a long time that the Iudex could sense emotions, but usually he would not acknowledge it directly like this. “I wasn't nervous about the inspection to begin with. But inviting a high and mighty Iudex himself to the tea for years and then disappointing him when he finally accepts would be a devastating faux de pas. They will mock me on the first pages of all the papers tomorrow.”

Neuvillette frowned slightly.

“I must underline that I’m not here in any official capacity, and I would hope I’m talking to Wriothesley, not the Warden or the Duke. If you agree, I would ask that we leave the titles at the door.”

“No, of course,” Wriothesley, who had fantasized about leaving titles at the door and then clothes on the floor for actual years, said quickly, frantically recalculating how he could turn the tea party to wine tasting, which best wines he had confiscated in his storage and how he could make turning on the gramophone and then maybe leaning against the edge of the table in front of Neuvillette look natural and smooth. “Absolutely. I was just joking anyway, don’t mind it.”

“Ah, I see. I apologize, I’m unfortunately prone to missing humorous intent, so I appreciate your clarification.”

With how far the Iudex went out of his way to assure people of his good intentions in informal situations, Wriothesley really didn’t understand how everyone found him so intimidating. Especially because he very often had to interact with assholes in positions of power who did try to intimidate him on purpose and the contrast was very apparent. Neuvillette projected an aura of power without really wanting to, and then tried to over-explain himself to make others feel at ease. His earnest awkwardness was something like the clumsiness of a huge beast like an elephant trying not to step on the gaggle of kittens at his feet.

“In any case, there is nothing to be nervous about. After all, tea is liquid, and it’s really hard to make liquids unpleasant. So far I think only Fonta truly managed it.” Neuvillette drummed his fingers on the table and glanced at Wriothesley. “To be frank, if crimes against water could be prosecuted, Fonta would receive life in prison.”

Wriothesley snorted. “So no sugar in your tea, I take it?”

“No, thank you,” Iudex said politely and then, after a short pause, “And to clarify, I was not serious. There is nothing wrong with people liking sugary drinks, of course. I was just making an attempt at a joke.”

He really was horrendously bad at pretending to be a human. How could anyone hear him talk and still believe he’s a scheming manipulator was beyond ridiculous.

“No, I got it. It was a good joke,” The Duke grinned, placing a teacup in front of Neuvillette and sitting down across the table with his own.

Neuvillette gave him a graceful nod with a little smile and picked up his cup, giving it a swirl before tasting.

“Hmm. Interesting. Poignant. Bitter,” he said thoughtfully, tilting his head. 

Wriothesley was about to mention that this sort was not usually bitter, but Iudex continued. 

“Not by nature, but forced by circumstances. Not nearly enough water to be nourished, so it had to adapt and conserve strength, letting leaves seen as unimportant to die and concentrate on survival of the main branches. But there is not just hunger… there is a dream of rain. An ache of something not ever known, but yearned, longed for, without realizing what it is. But then…” Neuvillette closed his eyes for a moment. “It happened. There is a memory of luminous joy of water not gathered by mere drops, but drank in full, overwhelming, a feast after a life of fighting for scraps of morning dew. It had tasted rain at least once in the end.”

Wriothesley put his own cup down, leaning forward in disbelief.

“No way. This was a harvest from a drought year and it’s normally a mild sort, considered unusually strong in this season. How could you know this? Are you cheating?”

“You’re welcome to test me with other samples,” Neuvillette said with an air of a magnanimous ruler granting a boon and put the teacup down with a delicate clink. 

“Oh, I’m taking you up on your word, trust me,” the Duke grinned, but then paused. He didn’t want to spoil the mood, but he remembered how strongly Neuvillette felt about the perceived melusines conspiracy. Wriothesley had to tell him about the evil dragon idiots just to make sure he’s not thrown off balance later. That’s what the guard dogs are for, after all.

“Actually, before we move forward with testing your psychic tea reading abilities, there is something concerning official business that I think you should know. And then we can forget it completely.”

Neuvillette inclined his head with a small smile.

“There is a small group of conspirators, - and I must reiterate, it’s very small - who operate on the ridiculous idea that… uh, that you’re some kind of an evil dragon who schemed to overthrow Furina.”

Neuvillette's smile froze.

“You don’t have to worry about it, really. It’s negligibly small, and well, anyone with a working brain would not believe that you’re a monster in disguise.”

Iudex was silent for some time, not meeting Wriothesley’s eyes.

“Are melusines implicated in this?” he said finally.

“No. No, there’s no connection to them in this stupid theory.”

“Good. That's good. They do love living with humans so much.”

Wriothesley suspected that Iudex was taking things kind of out of proportion again.

“Listen, it’s really nothing…”

“No, no, I understand. It would be so unacceptably horrifying for humans to learn their ruler is a… monster.”

Neuvillette's voice wavered, but his face was impartial, strict, previous lightness gone completely. Wriothesley saw his hands tighten their grip on the handle of his cane a moment before he abruptly stood up.

“I must apologize for impropriety, but I have important business in the Palais which was inappropriate for me to neglect for so long. I must beg your leave to depart.”

Wriothesley stood up too, scraping to understand what he did wrong.

“Wait, it’s not…”

“Thank you for your time, Your Grace.”

Wriothesley shut his mouth, the title feeling like a slap for the first time in his life. The formality and politeness somehow only made it worse. He took a deep breath and willed himself to sound calm.

“I hope you have a nice evening, Monsieur Iudex.”

Neuvillette left in what for his usual dignified pace could be considered a hurry. Wriothesley followed him without being seen, partly to make sure he doesn’t get bothered by inmates and partly on an instinct to investigate. 

At the Fortress’ entrance, he watched Neuvillette walk under the rain, lifting his head upward. The blue strands of his long hair glowed and so did his coat-tails. They extended, shining brilliant bioluminescent blue, trailing behind the Chief Justice, in a moment looking like fish’s fins, then the next - as colossal snake’s coils. Sea waves crashed against the ridge without any wind, rising high, reaching to a lonely glowing figure of Iudex. With bated breath, Wriothesley watched Neuvillette extend a hand, as if catching raindrops - and rain stopped mid-flight in the air, lingering over his palm, waves frozen cresting over the earth. The raindrops gathered in a shuddering spheres, and then stretched upwards, against all laws of gravity.  Wriothesley’s heart skipped a beat as Neuvillette closed his fist and the rain flew backwards to the skies.

Wriothesley stormed back into his office and frantically searched through the reports, pages flying about, until he found the one about vishaps. He looked at the photos, seeing similarities he would never look for before. The dark blue color of vishap’s hide was nearly identical to Neuvillette’s attire, but that was small beans, easily written off as coincidence. Their eyes, bright magenta with white vertical slice of a pupil, resembled Iudex, but there was room for debate, as his eyes were much paler, lilac merging into gentle blue instead of a bright pink, even as white vertical pupil was so similar. What really struck Wriothesley after all this, was actually the little blue feather at the side of the head of both vishaps and Neuvillette. It was identical and looked so… deliberate. It had to be chosen and placed precisely like this. 

Still, this was not enough. He needed more evidence. He needed… he needed answers.

He walked to Jacque's block as quickly as he could without alarming inmates, but when he got to the conspirator’s room, Jacque was sleeping on the bed and a man was sitting on the chair next to him, reading a book. He looked up when Wriothesley walked in and stood up, clumsily dropping the book. He was tall and gangly, had dark hair, Inazuman features and light brown eyes behind the glasses. 

“Who are you?” Wriothesley was really not in the mood for playing games.

“Well, my organization caught wind that you are interested in learning some… historical information, and our poor Jacque is really not the best source, which is why I’m here to answer any questions you have,” the man gave him a groveling smile. “You can call me Enjou.”

“Not here. In my office. Follow me.”

When they got there, Enjou whistled musingly.

“Uh, what a nice office! Must be a pretty sweet gig. I wish I had an office instead of slinking in dump ruins all the time.” He sighed theatrically. “So, I assume your main questions are on the vishap situation. I…”

“Wait,” Wriothesley said, walking up to one of his wall cabinets. “You can’t expect me to just believe you on your word.”

“Oh, of course, of course! You’re free to rough me up a bit first. Maybe a little bit of torture? But only a little bit, I’ve got a glass jaw, haha!”

Wriothesley didn’t live so long as an undisputed champion of fight club to not recognize a freak who gets off on pain. He grimaced, walking up to the table where Enjou was already trying to rifle through the papers. He stopped with an apologetic grin and put his hands up. Wriothesley put a glass vial on the table.

“Drink.”

Enjou raised his eyebrows.

“Are we dining and wining first or?...”

“It’s a truth serum,” it was a secret project of the Sumeru Akademiya, before the sages were overthrown. Dendro Archon reportedly could read the thoughts of people, and sages were trying to replicate the effect at least partially. Wriothesley came into possession of it after using his network to get the sages connected to the needed people in Fontaine institute, as Fontaine was at the cutting edge of mech technology and the sages were apparently building an artificial god. Didn’t pan out for them, but the serum worked. Wriothesley was sure of it, because he tried it on himself first.

“Oh! How exciting! How does it work? Will it perhaps burn my insides in agonizing pain if I lie?”

“Drink,” Wriothesley said through gritted teeth.

Enjou smiled and drank the vial in one shot.

“Well, nothing is burning so far, but the evening is young, haha,” he said, smacking his lips.

Wriothesley took a deep breath.

“Why are you here?”

“Huh? What do you mean? To explain the history to you, as I said.”

“Because of the goodness of your heart? What’s your agenda? Your goal?”

Enhou cleared his throat.

“Well, first of all, I do believe in uncovering and spreading so-called “forbidden” knowledge. But with your particular case can you really question my agenda? I didn’t come to you first. You were the one who sought us out. I didn’t even want to be here! I was doing my own thing without knowing about you, to be honest! But, well, I am in an organization with some unfortunate morons who thought that recruiting a convenient idiot and then sending him into underworld prison to make sure he isn’t heard is a great plan. And then when the Warden takes note of the idiot and gets him to blabber, these same morons go, Enjou, you have to get there, because you’re a vishap expert! Ugh.” 

Enjou shook his head in seemingly sincere frustration.

“But um, yeah, I’m not trying to recruit you or anything. We know how you’ve disposed of House of Hearth agents and how you generally obstruct Fatui’s activity, and we just don't want you to do the same to us. Because we’re not your enemy! So I’m here to provide you with the necessary context to see that.”

Wriothesley drummed his fingers on the table.

“Okay. Start talking about Neuvilette and vishaps.”

“Well, Neuvilette is a Hydro Dragon, that should be obvious. To clarify, Hydro Dragon here means Hydro Dragon Sovereign, because technically all hydro vishaps are hydro dragons. If you didn’t know, which is understandable, as you’re more of a fighter type and not a bookworm like myself, haha, vishaps are primordial elemental creatures, original rulers of this land and mortal foes of humanity. Long before Archons, there were Dragon Sovereigns in charge of each element. Then there was a war with Celestia, specifics of which are not widely known, but we do know that Celestia won, dragons were largely eradicated and the huge chunks of powers of Sovereigns were taken from them and given to the Archons. Hydro Sovereign was killed.” 

Enjou made a dramatic pause, before leaning forward with a grin. “But you see, vishaps reincarnate. Neuvillette is a Hydro Sovereign reborn in a human shape. There was actually an Inazuman prophecy about it, recorded in the Byakuyakoku Collection. That Hydro Dragon will descend in a human form, and it specifically mentions a cane. This really baffles me, to be honest. How could they predict the cane? Why does he even need a cane? Surely not because of any weakness, he’s an immortal dragon, 500 years is very young for him. And the records say when Neuvilette took his position as the Iudex some 400 years ago, he already had a cane. Was he born with it? Like, had he sprung fully formed, with a cane? Did he pick it up as, I don't know, honorary agreement with a prophecy? Or were his fashion choices actually predetermined to the degree that the prophecy knew them millenia ago?”

“Get back on track,” Wriothesley growled.

“Oh, sorry. Hmm, this serum works by forcing you to spell your thoughts out loud, yes? Well, then it’s not my fault I’m even more blabbering than usual!”

Wriothesley clasped his hands together and said slowly, carefully watching Inazuman’s reaction. “Even if he is a hydro sovereign dragon, as you say, this alone does not make him evil, as your conspiracy claims.”

Enjou fixed his glasses. He really had the hands of a bookworm, no work calluses or fighting scars. But there were spots of reddened, peeling skin that looked like burns that didn’t get to fully heal before getting burned again.

“Did you miss the “mortal foe of humanity” bit? But okay, sure. This is Fontaine after all, presumption of innocence and all that. I mean, I can’t read his thoughts to tell you under oath that he’s evil, so don’t take me to court, hehe!” Enjou grinned, clearly pleased at his own joke. “But I can tell what I know and ask some questions. My first question is why, after losing a war and presumably being killed by Celestia, would an ancient dragon god want to serve a servant of Celestia? The Archon, who rules with what is actually his own power? Unless he had some sort of agenda, perhaps? And come to think of it, why would Hydro Archon put a mortal foe of humanity into a position of such institutional power?”

“Are you implying Neuvilette forced Furina to give him the position of Iudex?”

“Well, I wasn’t here!” Enjou raised his hands defensively. “But why else would he become the Iudex?”

“There are higher beings and gods serving archons in other nations. Like Liyue adepti serving Rex Lapis.”

“Morax was known as the prime of the adepti. None of them could compare with him at strength. Same with yokai and Baal in Inazuma, she was the strongest by far. It’s natural that they would accept servitude. But here…” Enjou glanced at Wriothesley with a sly smile. “If you had to make a bet on a direct fight between Neuvillette and Furina, who would you bet on? Come on, I know tales that her own court would not listen to her until the Iudex tapped his cane.”

Wriothesley couldn’t really argue with this. When the Primordial Sea started breaking out, he himself sent for Neuvillette and didn’t even think to ask the actual Archon.

“In that case, why didn’t he just kill her immediately? Why would he play the judge?”

“Well, you see, he would not get his power back from just killing her. It would just pass to the next Archon. No, the Hydro Archon had to destroy her own throne. And running out the ruler requires a long game, as you know very well yourself, You Grace.”

Wriothesley kept a calm face, but something must have given him away, as Enjou grinned predatorily.

“Next set of facts and questions. You know of the infamous Archon trial, of course? When it was revealed that fontanian people are actually oceanids, given human shape by the previous hydro archon, Egeria? And the prophecy of the flood works because Primordial Sea waters dissolve fontanians into their oceanid forms. Well, the flood actually came. Why were fontanians not dissolved?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me that.”

“Hehe, yes. It was because Neuvillette turned them into real humans with his powers of Hydro Sovereign. How generous of him, yeah? The question is, why did it take him so long? It’s been 500 years, and yet fontanians were made human only minutes before the flood.”

Despite a feeble bookworm posturing, there was a shadow of unhinged madness in his eyes, dangerous enough that in any other case Wriothesley would cut contact. But the stakes were too high right now. He needed to get all the information he could out of this lunatic.

“You might also remember that on the same trial it was proven that Furina is not a Hydro Archon. And I can tell you that the actual Archon, Focalors, was in the Oracle machine the whole time. Sorry, I’m not even trying to pronounce that full name, haha!”

The urge to punch this bastard was overwhelming, but Wriothesley kept himself in check, mostly because he could tell he was being baited into it and he didn’t want to give the piece of shit the satisfaction.

“Anyway, Neuvilette had an audience with her right after a trial, and as result she killed herself and gave him power back. You see, Hydro Archon doesn’t have the ability to turn oceanids into real humans. All of you were just… things, playing at being humans,” Enjou said with a smirk that looked more fascinated than mocking. “But Hydro Sovereign, the original god of life, does have the power to do so. And he also, conveniently, has control over the Primordial Sea, which you, Your Grace, already know as he stopped the flood in your own Fortress.”

Wriothesley raised an eyebrow and Enjou smiled with a shrug.

“Again, I was not there! But I do know Hydro Sovereign controls the Primordial Sea, and that there is an entrance to the Sea in the Meripode Fortress. I also know that there was some emergency in the Fortress, where inmates were told to run as close to the surface as possible, and then Monsieur Iudex visited and the disaster was somehow avoided.”

Wriothesley frowned. 

“If he was really a mortal enemy of humanity, why wouldn’t he just let the gates of Meripode break and the flood happen right there and then? We would all be gone and he wouldn’t need to lift a finger. Instead he ran to help when I… when the Fortress called.”

“And what would that achieve? He still wouldn’t get his power back,” Enjou shrugged dismissively and then smiled, almost wistfully. 

“No, you know what I would do if *I* was the Hydro Sovereign with an ability to take human form? And if the Archon who held my power hostage was relatively weak AND had the prophecy involving a flood of the Sea I control? Well, I’d infiltrate human society, take a position of high authority and make sure the humans not only see me as the personification of law and justice, but also respect me more than their own Archon. And when the prophecy deadline is coming up, I’d make sure I have people loyal to me in some key positions. Such as Royal Duelist… and the Warden of the Fortress.”

“He didn’t make me the Warden,” Wriothesley gritted out. 

“No, but he did make you the Duke, didn’t he?” Enjou smirked with a wink. “Our sources say the Court was not thrilled to give the highest noble title to you. And if the Iudex did not throw his own weight behind it, it would have never come to pass. How generous of him.”

It was true, Wriothesley’s own informants reported that the Court loathed to give him a title, let alone as high as the Duke. Neuvillette was the only one who fought for him and fought hard, because usually Iudex’s one word was enough to make a decision, but here the stalemate lasted for two months. They wanted to compromise and give him the viscount, but Iudex wouldn’t budge, so in the end, they caved.

Wriothesley never asked Neuvillette for the title. Neuvillette never mentioned what he did for the Warden and never dropped anything even as close as a hint of asking anything in return.

Unless you see it as a part of centuries long game, where mundane favors didn’t matter, but being called first to the access of the Primordial Sea did.

“Ah, you’re starting to get it, don’t you?” Enjou sensed blood in the water, like a proper shark would. “Then I would orchestrate a public court hearing to absolutely discredit the current ruler and corner the actual Archon. And when Focalors is forced to talk to me…. I would make a bargain. Saving the lives of all fontanians in exchange of getting my full power back and Focalors dying. Isn't it ironic that the dragon playing human was the one to turn human-shaped water things into actual humans?"

Enjou leaned back against his chair, grinning with satisfaction.

“And then I’d have an entire country loyal to me as a ruler, which would make a great foothold to use for attacking Celestia.”

Wriothesley took a deep breath.

“You really expect me to take you on your word? You might believe it yourself, which will pass the truth serum, but the word of a lunatic is not evidence.”

“Oh, of course not! I would never expect you to take my lowly word for it. Instead, why don’t you take Monsieur Iudex’s word?”

Enjou made a dramatic gesture of spilling a heap of conches onto the table. Wriothesley raised his eyebrows, when the other man poked one of them awkwardly.

“Now that I have reclaimed one of the Seven Authorities from the hands of the usurpers, I have regained my true form,” a calm voice that was undoubtedly Neuvillette, said out of nowhere. “I am now a fully fledged dragon, powerful enough to judge the rest of the gods. My final destiny is to judge the Usurper-King in the heavens above.”

“This could be faked,” Wriothesley said automatically, just to argue, but his heart already fell.

“You wound me! These are his words, and I spent an entire night fishing them out for you, I’ll have you know. It’s quite hard to capture this. You’re welcome to listen to all of them and see for yourself.”

Almost against his will, Wriothesley reached out and touched one of the conches.

“…I shall fulfill my vow to judge all of The Seven in turn, even if the sky should fall and the ground give way.”

Wriothesley took an abrupt breath through his teeth. Enjou sighed and stood up.

“I think it’s better for you to listen to this alone. After, you’re welcome to reach out to us, but please don’t make any hasty decisions. I’ll see you soon, Your Grace!”

Enjou walked down the stairs, and by the time Wriothesley got to them, there was no one there. The Duke couldn’t bring himself to focus on that though. Instead, he walked up to one of the wall cabinets and took out a bottle of whiskey he was saving up as a possible gift.

He didn’t bother with the glass. He fell down into the chair in front of the conches and clenched his fingers on the bottle, icy veins springing up from under them. He took a sip and touched another conch.

“…my grievances with the usurpers have yet to be settled... They owe a debt of blood that shall not be forgotten.”

He drank, staring blindly into the distance, and listened, and the quiet words burned worse than whiskey sliding down his throat. He caught himself on a familiar thought. “This can’t be happening. This is too monstrous.” The same feverish thoughts he had when he discovered the truth about his foster parents.

As if by now he shouldn’t have learned that nothing is too monstrous in this world.

“As a survivor of the dragon race who has regained my full dragonhood, I must fulfill my oath and obligations even if it means returning all the water in the oceans back to the heavens.”

It really did sound exactly like Neuvillette. Wriothesley tried to find the lie, something that sounded fake, but not only the voice, but the cadence and word choice fit. And it sounded calm, impartial as usual too. And then there were hydro vishaps appearing in Erinnyes…

Fuck, was it really that easy to fool him? Was he really this big of a fool? He learned to distrust sweet words and warm smiles, and he was so sure that he wouldn’t get caught in the same lies ever again, even if he sacrificed his ability to love for this. But all it took was a seeming opposite, direct and harsh, too cold and intimidating to appear manipulative, but endearingly awkward just sometimes, just enough to make him believe that… That there was something true and clear in this rotten world. That he could trust in *someone*.

“Nothing will stop me from rendering judgment on each of The Seven.” 

He went through all of the recordings, frantically at first, wanting to find contradictions, then, when none were found, numbly re-listening to the few that hit the worst.

“…also the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and the foe of humanity. “

Wasn’t it too obvious in hindsight? Why would the Iudex stake his own reputation on Wriothesley’s title? How could you not see it coming? Oh, because you thought you “deserve” it for turning this dog-fighting pit of a prison into something with a modicum of fairness? Because you thought he recognized your redemption? Gods, what are you, fucking fourteen again, did you learn nothing, why would anyone ever care about you, you naive goddamn idiot?

Soon, the bottle was somehow almost done. At this point he was running one recording on repeat, mindless and purposeless except for repeating slashes of pain, familiar rhythm like the knife on his wrists years ago.

"Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon, don't cry." Whoever had penned that rhyme, as well as the Fontainians who came to believe in it, must not have known the Hydro Dragon all that well, considering that they thought the Hydro Dragon could cry. What did they take said Dragon for, some sort of bleeding heart who grieved for humans and the heavens alike?”

If this was true… If this was true, then Wriothesley didn’t just get fooled himself. Then he helped a monster take control of the country and potentially use it in war against heavens. 

He clenched his hand and it took him a moment to realize he broke the bottle he was holding in it. That pain from glass pieces in his palm felt small and distant now. But at last, it spurned him into action.

If this was true, he only had one shot. He’d already told Neuvillette of the dragon conspiracy, like a good little idiot eager to please. And any tyrant worth his salt would make sure to take him out after his, especially now that he outlived his purpose in giving access to Meripode vaults. He might have some time because of how oblivious he was, dismissing the conspiracy openly, but it couldn’t be long. 

He couldn’t take his time. He couldn’t hope for the better. He had to act like it’s the worst option possible. More than anything, he needed to confront Neuvillette, dragon Sovereign or not. He had to fix this, no matter the cost.

He realized he needed leverage. Brute strength was out of the question. Even before the flood, Neuvillette absolutely destroyed Fatui Harbinger in one flash, quicker than anyone in the audience could see what happened. Wriothesley would put himself against Harbringer with no hesitation, but he wasn’t an idiot. If this was how powerful Iudex was before, then after allegedly gaining his full power, there was no way Wriothesley could threaten him. No, he needed something else.

He took out the paper and wrote a note, taking care to not stain it with blood. Fortunately, he held the bottle in his left hand, so he could keep it out of the way.

“....and so confess that I, Wriothesley, Warden of the Fortress of Meripode, killed Chief Justice, Iudex Neuvillette.”

He finished the note and carefully put in his signature, then folded the paper into an envelope and closed it with his personal seal. Then he walked up to a safe, one of the hidden ones, and punched in a code. When the safe opened, he rummaged in it for a moment, until finally taking out two vials.

This was sold to him as the poison that could kill a god.

[pusssyenihilater]

MY ADHD Zack Fair headcanons because I too have ADHD

- Vocal stims: Mostly just random noises. Sometimes he meows like a cat and its ridiculously accurate. Gen once thought he was insane because he kept hearing it and thought there was a cat loose in the Shinra building. Does the popping cat noise, Cloud fucking hates it

- Drank a whole can of Monster and promptly had a 2 hour nap

- Dyscalculia. Once asked someone for the time and they gestured to the clock on the wall. He pretended to read it, gave up and stayed quiet and prayed he wouldn't be late to his next mission because he was too embarrassed to ask again

- Gets overstimulated in crowded places easily. Starts to shut down, goes nonverbal. Whoever is with him will hold his hand and drag him through the crowd cause he's started to dissociate

- Bedside drawer got stuck once and it pissed him off so much that he kicked it and broke it even more

- Walks. Into. Everything.

- Will bite Cloud when they cuddle

- Plays hide and seek with Aerith in the scrapyards because it gives him dopamine

- Got distracted in a meeting once because he saw a pigeon nest on the window sill and started daydreaming about the domestic life of a pigeon family

- Woke up at 6am, got ready, sat on the couch and stared at the blank TV until his appointment at 1pm

- Kunsel once made a joke about him and Cloud ditching Zack. The RSD didn't like that one

[borderline-fixated]

Why Jinx has BPD

Going thru the DSM to prove this

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

Coming to save Vander after being told not to, to avoid being abandoned for being useless / a jinx

Screaming for Vi after killing Vander, Mylo, and Claggor

Using the flare to bring Vi to her

Almost killing Vi and Caitlyn after using the flare; “sister, thought I missed her, bet you wouldn’t miss her” (talking to her gun, Pow-Pow)

2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

Idealizing Vi while growing up

Devaluing Vi when she walked away and ‘left’ (was kidnapped)

Immediately idealized Silco after splitting on Vi

Devaluing Silco when he ‘lied’ aboutVi being dead & stabbing him with his medical tool after she found out

Splitting on Vi after she and the Enforcers came for her

Attempting to commit suicide in front of Ekko, and the next day them going to war together after an implied night together preparing (paint all over them, the hair cut, his jacket)

3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Her identity split between Powder and Jinx, being egged on Silco

Forcing Vi to choose between Powder and Jinx during the dinner scene, ultimately placing herself upon the mantle of Jinx

Hallucinations and psychotic breaks about her unstable identity

4) Impulsivity in at least two potentially self-damaging areas (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

Recklessly following Vi, Mylo, and Claggor to save Vander

Using 3 hexcore’s without rational thinking of how big the explosion would be

Recklessly jumping into fights she could easily die in

Being forcefully pumped full of Shimmer but seemingly continues to use it

No sense of rational thinking when it comes to explosions

5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

Throwing herself into fights as a form of self-mutilating behavior

Stapling her injury shut, the pain clearing her head enough to remember Caitlyns name

Trying to blow herself up after her fight with Ekko

Allowing Vi to kill her after their fight

Skin picking after Isha died

Implying to Vi, who she trapped in the cell, that she was going to commit suicide

Attempted suicide with Ekko multiple times

Allowing herself to ‘die’ with Vander (obviously she didn’t die)

6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and rarely more than a few days)

Sees Caitlyn as Vi leaving her, and triggering intense episodic dysphoria

Deep paranoid episodes about Vi and Caitlyn conspiring against her

Paranoia about Silco lying to her

Irritability seen throughout the show, nearly in every episode

All of these are triggered by something (which is necessary)

7) Chronic feelings of emptiness

Seemingly ‘empty’ in the first episodes she’s revealed as Jinx - killing and murdering with no impact on her psyche

Emptiness after Isha died, self harming to feel something

Her emptiness seems to only end when Silco dies and she can be herself without his influence

8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

This is like her main personality trait

Intense anger when Vi broke Fishbones, her giant gun

Intense anger whenever she sees Vi with Caitlyn

Recurrent physical fights that end with severe consequences (death, losing her middle finger)

This doesn’t deter her from fighting

9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Paranoid ideation throughout the series with loved ones abandoning her, creating plots against her

Psychotic episodes and hallucinations of those she’s killed and lost

Dissociation whenever she’s about to lose someone or does

Psychosis and dissociation when Isha is kidnapped

Dissociative episode in her jail cell

I will definitely go more in depth on this once I can get ahold of my DSM-5 (6 hours away)

[misscammiedawn]

Dissociative Identity Disorder in Mr. Robot

So I have been writing little essays about Mr. Robot recently.

Dom's Sexuality, Gay Marriage and Whiterose

Back to the Future and Brainwashing

Today I wish to talk about the DID representation in Mr. Robot.

Actually I want to talk about the DID representation in the Hulk comics but there are 40 years worth of storylines involving it and it would require me to write about clinical understandings from the 1980s when it was called MPD (admitedly Mr. Robot's stumbles at the finish line with some of these same outdated treatment models) and that would take a while. Suffice to say it will happen eventually*. I shall make a new tag "Media Myself and I" and post it under that when I have more time to do it justice. Maybe I'll do others. I am uncertain. I believe I want to focus on positive depictions where there are no murder alters. The goal is to get people to want to enjoy things, not to steer them away. I have a few shows and games in mind at the very least.

Regardless… Mr. Robot is an easier topic to cover and is my hyperfocus of the moment.

So Mr. Robot is a show about isolation in the modern world. It's a show about socioeconomic stress, late-stage capitalism and what it means to enact meaningful change on a broken world.

But above all it is about the healing journey of Elliot Alderson, a man with dissociative identity disorder.

I say that at the start because Elliot's condition is never named until the final episode. In many ways a realistic depiction of a real world disorder was an afterthought noted in the final hour of the journey as a means of justifying the split personality trope and hiding a final twist. In spite of that the roadmap for the show was always leading to this destination and along the way they managed to get some fairly good representation out of the mix.

Season 2 even involves the only time I have ever seen a piece of fiction depict "blending" on screen. Blending isn't a symptom listed in either DSM or ICD manuals. It is, however, something one would hear about if they had a conversation with someone who had DID. I have used that scene to depict what it feels like to my partners.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

I love Mr. Robot. It is currently my favorite show of all time. If you have never seen it then please give it a shot. This post will be spoiler heavy and I'd hate to rob anyone the opportunity to watch S4E7 and have a pure emotional reaction to it. The show is on Amazon Prime and the full box set is available for $35-50 depending on format and vendor.

Go with my blessing.

-

The first season of the show begins with Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) living a double life. By day a cyber security expert and by night he spends his time at his computer hacking people's accounts and satisfying a "little itch in the back of his head" that guides him to uncover the murky facts about people. The first scene of the show has him take down a cafe owner who hosts an illegal and deeply unpleasant website. I have seen individuals walk away from the first episode thinking that the show is "Dexter but with computers" but it is more lulsec activism with a Fight Club aesthetic.

The show has 4 seasons and each season depicts a different stage of Elliot's healing journey and with it completely different rules and depictions of his condition. I'll break down each season for what they do right and what they do wrong.

Season 1: Discovery

Elliot's system in season one is undiscovered but he has overt symptoms, meaning he is unaware that he has any alters but he suffers from clean breaks in his consciousness and drastically altered behavior patterns both which are a detriment to the "hidden" nature of the condition.

Commonly most people do not discover their condition until their 30s. I was 37/38 when our therapist started guiding us towards accepting our condition.

DID manifests in childhood but it's a hidden illness that does its best to go undetected. The point of the condition is to remain hidden. The internet and the educational resources it offers are helping younger individuals to recognize their symptoms and advocate for themselves at an earlier age but the standard medical understanding is that most people are developed adults before they are diagnosed.

Published statistics for DID indicate the global population of those with the condition is about 1.5% (some organizations argue the number should be higher due to how difficult it is to receive an accurate diagnosis, but 1.5% is the most consistent figure) which is rare but not to the point of never encountering it. For comparison, according to a 2023 census 1.0% of people in the USA identify as transgender. There are no tested classifications for Covert vs Overt display of symptoms but it is widely agreed that an overwhelming majority of cases within the 1.5% are covert.

We learn that Elliot is desperately lonely, abuses morphine and has paranoid delusions about men in black stalking his every move. Whenever Elliot is on screen we can never be sure what is real and what isn't, so there are times when men wearing black suits are on screen and we cannot be sure if Elliot is paranoid or delusional.

The show takes place through his perspective after all and we are a character in the show.

See… the narrative device of the show involves Elliot speaking to "friend", us. The audience. "Hello, friend." is a common refrain spoken throughout the show. The narrative begins a short while after Elliot had a complete mental breakdown and smashed up a server room, he is seeing a court appointed therapist, is socially paralyzed to the point of which we see him linger outside a birthday party and retreat home to cry in loneliness.

The entire first season Mr. Robot is depicted as another character, akin to Tyler Durden, a wild revolutionary who wants to encrypt the data of the world's largest bank in order to seal the debt records and reset everything back to 0. He starts off appearing in scenes involving the men in black stalking Elliot to mingle him in with the paranoid delusions and eventually begins interacting with him in earnest. Though the reveal is treated as a twist 8 episodes into the show Elliot does accuse the audience of knowing the entire time and he refuses to speak to us for some time, even going as far as to keep secrets from us because he cannot trust us any longer.

It's at this point that I will note that media depictions of DID tend to lean heavily on the phrase "it's a visual medium" and depict ways that characters can see, interact with and communicate with alters/parts in a dramatic setting. Off the top of my head Hulk is about the only form of fiction I've seen where the temptation to do this doesn't take over and even then the old "other face in the mirror" trope shows up there.

So for what it's worth the paranoid thinking and hallucinations are not DID symptoms and typically a person with the condition cannot see or hear their alters. In fact a testing criteria included in the MID exam is to rule out schizophrenia by eliminating the possibility that the voices heard are external or that any hallucinations exist. In Mr. Robot they are likely caused by Elliot's morphine addiction, but he gets clean after season 1 and Mr. Robot is always there.

There are some plot elements which I want to talk about but they do spoil the final "twist" of the show. So I want to warn again that anyone in the process of watching should be warned we are getting into entire show spoiler territory.

The Elliot we see in the show is the result of the stress fueled breakdown that Mr. Alderson had 6 months prior to the show starting. The timeline is fuzzy in my head but there were two triggers which set him off and began his condition flaring up (and/or caused him to lean harder into his drug addiction which in turn fueled his condition). The one we know about is that he was locked in a server room and forced to work long into the night on an issue and the already upset and stressed Elliot snapped and had a black-out.

We come to learn that he has had these his whole life but this is the first time such an incident occurred that he couldn't self-justify what had happened. He smashed up a server room, something he felt himself not capable of.

But the second trigger is the more important one.

His sister, Darlene, moved to NYC and started visiting him.

The bigger and better twist of season 1 is that Elliot and Darlene are siblings. This is hidden from Elliot and the audience for the first 7 episodes and her presence is treated much like Marla Singer from Fight Club, of whom she likely contains some inspiration, where she keeps showing up in Elliot's apartment and acting overly familiar with him.

In the earliest episodes when we are learning about Elliot's lonely life he looks at a photograph of himself and his mother at Coney Island. Due to some hallucinations we know that Magda is an abusive mother and screamed at/hit Elliot a lot. We learn more about her in future episodes and she is a truly horrible parent. Likely more than was ever depicted in the show.

The photo is actually of the full Alderson family including Darlene and Edward but is not shown as such until the reveals that Darlene is Elliot's sister and Mr. Robot is modeled after Elliot's father. The photograph is a reference to Back to the Future.

But it also is a fairly good visual representation of self-filtering information, even when it is contradictory in nature. This is common not just in DID but in all forms of CPTSD.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that develops during prolonged exposure to trauma and makes radical changes to the nervous system. CPTSD is considered a root of DID and it is universal for those diagnosed with DID to have a CPTSD diagnosis also.

One of the ways CPTSD symptoms manifest is "Emotional Avoidance". The nervous system is activated when triggers related to the trauma exist within the person's life. In order to function their brains push away these reminders and naturally avoid interacting with them. This causes those with the condition to become withdrawn, to isolate and to have distorted and often contradicting patterns of thought. For instance Elliot needs connection and safety that he associates with family but his family were his primary abusers and so he edits his memories to focus on positive associations such as a family trip to Coney Island that has become an obsession to him in adulthood. We later learn that Elliot's obsession with movies was born from it being his primary way of connecting with his father... which is fairly relatable.

His positive memories of his parents are held in high regard even though we know that his father "pushed him out of a window" and his mother used to put out cigarette butts on Darlene, tried to force her to commit animal cruelty and is often depicted in hallucinations as beating and screaming at Elliot.

In a case where it is impossible to avoid the traumatic trigger, for instance the return of relative who is a living reminder of his abusive childhood, the individual may begin to dissociate. Dissociation being where a person, overwhelmed by what they are experiencing has a separation from their normal state leading to a disconnect from emotions, sense of self and reality.

Episode 8 in particular contains a visual depiction of it when Elliot is having a quiet meltdown over finding out he has a 2 day deadline and his boss at work has known about the server exploit he installed all along.

(the show often uses the camera in ways to emphasize emotional walls, dissociation and isolation like this. This sequence does so by having hard cuts, shaky cam and frantic pace melt into a gliding slow lull where the background noise filters out and we can share in Elliot's distance from his situation for a moment)

Elliot's form of blocking out is extreme but has half a foot in reality (and half a foot in the logic born from the "twist" ending) in that in order to continue interacting with Darlene he views her as a member of Fsociety and edits out their connection until it is revealed in episode 7.

A small brilliancy about Fsociety is that the entire group is formed around Elliot and Darlene's need for childhood safety. The hacking elements of the show undoubtedly born from 9 year old Elliot spending time at Mr. Robot computer repair with a smile. The anon-mask that the show uses comes from an in-universe movie that Darlene and Elliot watched every Halloween and their base of operations is Coney Island. A place that both siblings seem to associate with safety and happiness...

Which is extra messed up when you factor Season 2's revelation that Darlene was kidnapped while on a family trip to Coney Island.

Darlene's panic attacks, need to feel special and her abusive upbringing are not the topic for this essay, but I wanted to make mention that Magda was such a horrible mother that a 4/5 year old Darlene thinks of being kidnapped from a family trip to Coney Island as one of her most precious childhood memories.

The desire to reach into the past and change things to create an ideal future is a heavy theme of the show and I feel it's important to note that though the Alderson siblings reject Whiterose and her scheme, they are both living in an almost literal fun house distortion of the few unambiguously GOOD childhood memories that they each have and have wrapped them around themselves like a protective blanket.

The plot of season 1 gets a lot more uncomfortable when you realize how much of Fsociety is two traumatized kids recreating positive elements of their childhood and trying to live inside of those memories while lashing out at those who took their father away from them. The entire plan is centered around events from 1995. The show takes place in 2015.

Mr. Robot himself is, of course, the ultimate symbol of that take on events.

Edward Alderson was a monster. He's referred to as such overtly in Elliot's detox fever dream. Everyone asks him who his "monster" is while handing him the key that we learn was to his childhood bedroom. A key that he hid to prevent Edward from entering his room late at night.

Yet throughout the first 3 seasons of the show we are only shown him in context of the positive memories that he and Elliot shared. Elliot was 9 years old when Edward passed away from leukemia.

At a point, Elliot is picked up from school. He has a bruise on his cheek and the scene begins with Edward asking "If I had to guess, you didn't tell Principal Howard your side.", assuring him it's okay to share his side of the story. Because Edward is convincing him to tell his side I am going to assume Elliot got into a fight but it's not impossible to assume that the school pulled Edward in to discuss the signs of physical abuse on the child. Edward would never tell Elliot to tell his side of that story so I assume it was a fight.

It's unclear if Mr. Robot is the one who participated in those fights (we only have 2 confirmed instances of Elliot's alters showing up in childhood. The window incident and the day Edward died) but Edward picks him up and protects him from his mother's wrath and bonds with him during that drive, he reveals his diagnosis to Elliot before inviting him to work with him at the computer repair store. Likely this is what leads to Elliot's hacker skills being born.

A hauntingly similar event in my own life is why I am a photographer.

Given that the majority of Season 1 has Elliot in the dark about his condition we are only given context as to why he is the way he is and see the display of dissociative symptoms which manifest from CPTSD. Mr. Robot existing at all is actually not required for this to be a good depiction of adults who grew up in abusive environments and the way they maladaptively cope.

I also want to give a little praise to the "itch at the back of [Elliot's] head" that shows up when he feels the desire to hack someone or dig deeper and the way he pushes forward with his own will until he calms down enough to let a creeping hesitation overcome him and prevent him from acting.

Passive Influence is part of DID. It's a situation where a "fronting" (that is to say part that is in control at a time) performs an unthinking action or is emotionally swayed by the influence of another part/alter that is not presently conscious. These are one of the biggest ways that the condition flies under the radar for many. When they are close to discovering proof of their condition they will often feel an unconscious push away from it. The phenomenon is fairly easily brushed aside internally as "a gut feeling" or an "impulse" but it's observable under the right conditions.

An instance I can think of in my own life is when our survival part is trying to push people away and our emotional part desperately tries to reach out. I will often find my hand grabbing a person's wrist and clinging tightly to it without even noticing that I've done it.

In the show Elliot is compelled by Mr. Robot when he feels someone is a danger or has a weakness that can be exploited. Part of him knows he needs to do something about it and so he lets himself be guided.

The season ends with The 5/9 Hack succeeding, all the financial data being encrypted and Elliot sent to prison for (minor) hacking charges.

He knows who Mr. Robot is now and he fears him as his enemy.

Season 2 (and the book): Exploration

The first 8 episodes of Season 2 are a filter for those watching the show, many drop off. Personally I love it but I can see why it's not for everyone. Season 2 is much slower than the first and Elliot is in prison for those 8 episodes. He's also imagining that prison is his mother's house.

That daydreaming coping mechanism is largely there to add a fairly unearned sense of mystery to a character development season and make things a little more visually interesting. For the most part I don't really want to focus too much on it or the way Elliot treats "us"/"friend".

The fact is that for this season Mr. Robot and Elliot are in direct conflict but they are feeling out their landscape and trying to find common ground. They are pulling in different directions but they are reacting and responding to one another. The show uses a chess match as a visual symbol of this and in such they are keeping one another in a constant state of check. They are opposed to one another but they are communicating and working things out.

So let's start by looking at the book. The book is a recreation of the in-universe journal that Elliot keeps while he is in prison. We see him writing in it during the show and the entire thing is available, it even includes little ARG elements to let you decode the messages Mr. Robot is receiving from The Dark Army.

The book is detailed like this and it's possible to note when Elliot's handwriting turns into Mr. Robot's handwriting. There are even points where there is "blended" handwriting. It's easy to spot in the above image because Mr. Robot writes with a heavy hand and in all caps where Elliot is soft and uses lower case, in the top line of the second page "you NeeD atteNtioN aNd aRe Willing to pay a lotta MoNey to get it." you can see Elliot slipping from one headspace to another while becoming upset at society.

Even still if you look above the FUCK SOCIETY image you see Elliot's calmer handwriting as clear and flowing.

When we were in denial of our condition we poured through journal after journal and chatlog after chatlog hunting for evidence to prove or disprove the theory.

It was when I looked at our old gaming journals (we took notes in pen/pencil live during TTRPG sessions because memory issues are gonna memory issues) that we noticed similar. Cursive used in some phrases, individual letters separate on another, the letters g and y getting curled at times and not at other times.

Subtler than what is displayed above but no less real.

Season 2 introduces us to Ray the warden brilliantly played by Craig Robinson. He empathizes with Elliot because he speaks to his dead wife as a means of coping with grief and assumes that Elliot is the same.

He offers Elliot guidance by asking him to play chess "against himself" and this leads to Elliot and Mr. Robot playing endless games of stalemate against one another with deletion on the line for the loser. It's the same brain and neither side wants to lose (nor do they truly want to win, Elliot admits as much in Season 3 that he likes having Mr. Robot and misses him when he's not around) and as noted above with passive influence, the games are always guided to end in a stalemate because no matter how opposed they are as forces, they both want the same things.

So... how about the Sitcom episode?

Elliot breaks his promise to Ray and looks at the website that he is tasked with doing tech support on. It's--- not good.

Ray uses a combination of crooked cops and convicted Neo-Nazis to have Elliot beaten into submission so he won't report what he saw. Elliot cannot handle this and has a mental break and wakes up in a 90s 4 camera sitcom world.

Alf is there. Because old episodes of Alf are playing in the medical ward at the time Elliot is being treated for his wounds.

The entire time he is taking a beating Mr. Robot is protecting Elliot by fronting and forcing him into an inner-world fantasy.

Okay... so Inner-Worlds.

In the show we actually had one of these in Season 1 during the detox trip but I want to talk about it now and round back and talk more in Season 4.

Inner-Worlds are a thing within DID treatment. Emphasis on the word treatment. It's one of the more commonly misunderstood things within discussion on the condition because it's regularly reported as part of the experiences within those who are diagnosed with DID but it's important to know that the existence of the diagnosis indicates the existence of treatment.

During any adapted 3 or 4 phase trauma treatment program that includes parts work, whether this be Internal Family Systems model which is used for individuals who do not have DID or system mapping and stabilization for those who do, the patient must work on creating a "meeting" space to visualize (or sense out emotionally for those with aphantasia) and much of the work of developing safety and structure within comes from filling that space with comforts and generating communication between parts.

I'll talk more on the "conference table" in Season 4.

It is possible for those not going through therapy to create one outside of the context of a therapeutic alliance but the creation of one is an intentional act. Not something that comes free with your childhood trauma.

Elliot's trip to the inner-world keeps him from experiencing any of the beating that the body is receiving and at the end Mr. Robot earnestly says he only wanted to take the punches for Elliot, nothing more. Elliot falls against him, tearful and whimpers out "Thank you" before we are given the flashback of the day Edward picked up 9 year old Elliot from school after the fight and confesses his leukemia.

For the record, my heart swells every time I see Mr. Robot acting as a protector.

So, let's talk S2E9 and the "blending" incident.

Blending is what happens when two parts/alters are co-conscious and are present enough that they are sharing control of the body. It's an uncomfortable experience. Co-Consciousness means that more than one part/alter is actively perceiving the world at any given time.

It's more complicated than binary yes/no. Every one of these experiences exists on a spectrum and no two people with the condition experience it quite the same way but there are levels of presence that one has.

The following is me talking more from anecdotes and personal experience than textbooks. I like to be clear when I'm not being academic because I do not want to spread misinformation in my arbitrary analysis of TV shows that will get 20 notes on Tumblr Dot Com.

Front is to be driving the body, to have your inner monologue playing (if you have one, most people do, but it's not a given) and have your emotions interact with the nervous system if you are grounded enough to feel your experiences. As I said, it's a spectrum. Everyone gets dissociated at times and can just go into auto-pilot or a trance. That all still counts as being in front.

To be conscious but not front is to exist in an emotionally reactive state. If Fronting is driving then co-consciousness is to be in the passenger seat.

It's truly difficult to describe and my therapist doesn't even fully comprehend it despite her being the one who educates me on these topics. Presently as I type this I can only feel one of our system (5 parts) active and "with" me right now. She's not speaking but she's reacting. I can feel her apprehension to us typing this much about our personal life, little flits of paranoid thinking that we'll get anon-hate or that people from our former life will see this and judge us. It's a presence and exists on a gradient. She's "awake" right now but I do not consider her fully "co-con" because if I asked her to tell me what she thinks about this sentence I can feel an emotional reaction (apprehension) but not a direct answer akin to "I think you should edit out references to our journal and focus on talking about the show" (which is what I imagine she would say right now). That's the spectrum.

Closer to the front a part/alter is the more direct communication happens.

There's also "asleep" and "dormant" when they are unresponsive. Pretty self explanatory. Elliot's system has 5 parts(plus "friend") and until Season 4 we only really see Mr. Robot and the main character version of Elliot. Magda and Young Elliot show up in hallucinations in Season 1 and Young Elliot is co-con in Season 4. Magda never shows up outside of emotional flashbacks and the inner-world.

So after Elliot and Mr. Robot combine forces (though Mr. Robot is still working with the Dark Army and is trying to move in secret) they have moments where they rapidly switch and cannot keep straight who is fronting at any given time.

There's a scene where Elliot is in another room thinking to "friend" when he hears an argument in the next room and realizes Mr. Robot is in the argument. As he walks in, Mr. Robot is surprised to see that Elliot is aware when he is fronting and he trails off and they switch.

Mr. Robot says that something feels off about how they are acting and that they feel like they're overheating.

A later scene depicts Elliot phasing out mid-conversation on the subway and picturing himself in the next car observing Mr. Robot talking to Cisco while a passenger plays erratic music on a keyboard.

That is such a horrifyingly accurate depiction of something we live with that I was stunned to see it on screen. I've included it in some of my stories that go over living with these experiences but the idea is when we are stressed out, can't keep our head straight and are blended like this we tend to have snippets of music playing over and over in our head. We also get what I refer to as "static" and that seems to be relatable in support groups.

A++ for the show depicting something about the DID experience that simply does not get spoken about outside of the spaces of people dealing with it. It was the moment I knew they actually spoke to people who experience this stuff and did proper research that wasn't just media depictions and medical textbooks.

The final part of Season 2's wild ride I want to talk about is the "lucid dreaming" bit.

Mind awake. Body asleep. Mind awake. Body asleep.

This again goes into Overt DID which I cannot comment on as much as covert depictions but the idea is that Elliot trains himself to remain awake when Mr. Robot takes over. We have seen from the blending experience that he is starting to remain when Mr. Robot is active and so he tries to force himself to stay when Mr. Robot is active.

In therapy this would be achieved through trust, communication and awareness. It's said in communities that systems tend to become more overt as they go through treatment as they are able to identify lines, parts can advocate for themselves and there's better understanding of what "self" means for every alter.

In my experience there's also an element of trying to pretend to be consistent and whole. We were coming out transgender when our therapist guided us towards DID diagnosis and there was a lot of tearing ourselves apart because we needed to act in a certain way for our safety and inability to do so put us at risk of being targeted. In accepting our system we have stopped trying to be the same individual and that has lead to a more overt presentation. As I tell my therapist "we need to act out our gender expression anyway. Every action we take is a performance."

That is to say, Mr. Robot has never attempted to maintain the illusion that he is Elliot Alderson (albeit he never identifies himself. He's even surprised to learn that Elliot calls him that) and Elliot doesn't even know he is "The Mastermind".

In opting to remain hidden and conscious he gains a greater degree of control and agency in his situation.

These things get easier as you learn your condition, build system trust and allow yourself to experience that which you feel comfortable experiencing. With the example of the beating earlier, Mr. Robot shut Elliot out and took the beating for him and Elliot resisted but ultimately did not want to be present. In this episode he learns that if he wishes he could have pushed through and been there and experienced everything, albeit as a passenger rather than the driver.

Therapy also teaches how to "go into the back room" to maintain stability. A technique that lets you volunteer to not be involved in a situation. My system all use this whenever I (Dawn) perform erotic intimacy of any kind. They cannot handle the thought of associating with those acts and prior to treatment it would emotionally disregulate our nervous system if parts that couldn't handle the concept were to be present during those moments because parts of me would be trying to dissociate while I am trying to act. It would either trigger a switch, cause blending or make a part shut down and become unresponsive for a large period of time- one of our partners actually discovered our system this way. She saw us shut down during a scene and realized it wasn't just a "mood swing" as we had insisted.

Elliot learns how to intentionally open up and be present when Mr. Robot is active and because Plot happens he is shot and decides to use this skill to close himself off and create a stronger divide between parts.

Season 3: Rejection

If Season 2 was the pair working things out on a chess match where they keep one another in check then Season 3 is after Elliot has tossed the board and decided to shut Mr. Robot out completely.

The arc words are "battling in our own voids", in Season 1 Mr. Robot was always aware of what Elliot was doing but Elliot was unaware of Mr. Robot's actions and in Season 2 they were fairly co-conscious to the point of overheating. Season 3 the connection is shut down. Mr. Robot has no concept of what Elliot is doing and Elliot no concept of what Mr. Robot is doing.

This goes back to the Overt/Covert thing mentioned at the start. It's a rare thing even within a rare disorder to have that level of amnesia barriers between parts and so I can't really comment on accuracy. It's a frustrating season for me in that regard because Season 2 was doing so well at depicting something that I have lived through that going back to Fight Club tropes was fairly disappointing to me.

Season 3 is great by the way. It's a debate on if 3 or 4 is the best but it's close enough that there is a debate.

The real meat of the discussion, spare for the events of the final episode where they reconcile, is in how other people treat them and talk about their condition.

Angela Moss is Elliot's childhood best friend and also lost a parent to the disaster that claimed Edward Alderson's life. She discovered Elliot's condition during his breakdown in S1E8 and was brainwashed by the show villain Whiterose in S2E11 (I have a write-up of the psychological principals at play with the brainwashing here).

In Season 3 she acts as Elliot/Mr. Robot's handler and is responsible for helping Mr. Robot continue his hacktivist terrorism without Elliot finding out. She betrays Elliot and exploits his condition. She also tells people about it without his knowledge or consent, which is pretty fucking monstrous in my eyes.

Don't out a person. Just don't do it.

When Mr. Robot asks how she can tell who she's talking to she responds "Your eyes. You're never trying to look away." which is accurate enough that I messaged my girlfriend to be sappy and grateful towards her as the first time she noticed our condition she told me it was our eyes.

From a 2022 IM chat, shared with permission:

"it's ... well, it's [...] your eyes soften, kind of, when going to Cammie. Dawn has this piercing gaze, like she's looking right into my heart and soul. Camden is just very alert, noticing so many things but not the level of piercing. Cammie... her gaze is softer. More focused, but in a ... drinking everything in, rather than seeking it out sort of way"

and added today when I asked for permission to share the quote:

"(for the record, Craig draws his eyebrows down in a particular way that makes his gaze intense in a good way)"

The show works as hard as it can to never let the audience wonder who they are seeing on screen at any time. Most scenes where Rami Malek is depicting Mr. Robot it is a brief perspective view to remind us what the other characters are seeing before switching back to Christian Slater playing the character. There are a few scenes which involve Rami playing the character for a full sequence. One is the context for a flashback where we see a scene Slater performed through another character's eyes where they see Malek.

The others usually involve us being in Darlene's perspective to highlight her unease and uncertainty of what is happening with her brother.

The only scene where it is ever treated as a surprise is when Darlene plants a bug on Elliot's computer while staying overnight and is roughly interrogated by "Elliot", only to realize midway through the conversation "Jesus. It's you".

The camera cuts back to reveal it has been Mr. Robot the entire scene. They avoid that trick throughout the show so it has large impact when it actually happens.

I feel like that scene (as well as the scene where Elliot wears the real Mr. Robot jacket and gives birth to the 2 Stage plan to take down Evil Corp) are important for reminding that no matter how differently Malek and Slater play their roles, to an outside observer they are the same person and when he acts "out of character" it could easily just be an emotional outburst.

Incidentally you can see the physicality of the acting if you go back and watch it again.

The end of the season has Elliot, betrayed, alone and terrified for the safety of his sister; finally reach out to Mr. Robot and open a dialogue.

He even goes out of his way to have this discussion on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island both as a Season 1 callback and as a sign of trust. Elliot admits in this conversation that he missed Mr. Robot while he shut him out and wants him to be part of his life and in the season finale Mr. Robot says that he wants the two of them to keep talking.

Elliot also finds out that the window incident wasn't his dad pushing him out of a window. They jumped. Elliot asks in a kind and soft way to Mr. Robot, representing both his protector and an element of the loving father he wished he had, "did you know?"

Mr. Robot, the one who jumped. The one who wanted to protect Elliot from Edward says nothing. But he finally feels an alliance form with Elliot.

The road to healing finally has opened.

Season 4: Integration and Fusion

So let's address the elephant in the room right away. The show uses the word "real" to describe the Elliot who existed before the show started and considers him to be the only legitimate alter. There is enough wiggle room within the show to think that is in-universe ignorance but the show does nothing to prevent the fumble at the finish line.

I want to say upfront and before I start dissecting this season that outdated models of DID believed that there was a crack formed in a person's sense of self and that healing involved restoring the identity prior to the crack.

This is 100% UNTRUE and it upsets me that people once believed it. DID is formed in childhood during a time of a person's life (between ages 4-9) where the child is taking in data from their surroundings and integrating it into their socialized survival mechanics to form a personality. The child is working out what traits it can exhibit to receive nurture, care and protection from other humans and will adapt to those processes. Attachment Theory goes into greater detail about how this relates to the formation of psychological disorders, especially personality disorders.

For a traumatized child they will find that their environments do not offer consistent and reliable safety and thus they are unable to adapt to a version of their reality where they are able to maintain stable safety. This may be horrifying forms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse placed upon a child and is often depicted as such but it can also be a confused child trying to get affection from a cold and distant parent or having a parent who abuses alcohol and becomes inconsistent in their ability to give affection and care. Child psychology is a heavy and depressing field, sadly.

The result is that the child never forms a permanent sense of identity. This is a large factor in the formation of Borderline Personality Disorder and is why DID and BPD are so often thrown together within medical treatment and diagnosis. It's at the point of which when my therapist gave me our diagnosis she presented a clinical list of "myths" regarding DID and "BPD is the same thing as DID" was 5 on the list of 6.

The point of this detour is to say that there is no original self. A person who has DID never managed to form a stable sense of identity in childhood and thus they find themselves acting as chameleons in their day-to-day life, adapting to what they feel they need to become in order to receive the things they need from their surroundings. It's why there is a stigma in the BPD community over the concept of being "manipulative". In reality people with that condition are unconsciously adapting to their environment as a survival mechanism. With DID the added layer of dissociation is there to help the self function even when they are forced to interact with materials that are incompatible with their ability to function.

Pre-show Elliot was living a fairly comfortable life but his emotional needs were not met and at the time he was alienated from his sister. He was miserable and lived in a society that he felt was crumbling. His daydreaming gave birth to "The Mastermind" to remove the threats from his reality and Mr. Robot who had been there all along went into Protective Sicko Mode and decided to expedite the process in a way only a protector's morality could.

We'll get into system roles a little later.

The point is that day-to-day life Elliot (Janina Fisher's book "Healing the Fragmented Self" refers to the part untouched by trauma as the "going about daily life" part) is not Real. He is not The Original. Those terms do not exist and are meaningless in this space.

True/Real/Orignal-Elliot is as much a construct as Mr. Robot. He's a version of Elliot who does not have to think about the trauma, he can just live a happy normal life. The kind that Elliot speaks often and derisively about in Season 1.

With that out of the way, I'm going to ignore the bad use of language and talk only about what is depicted on the screen and not said out loud. Because if you remove the misconception about real/original from the mixture, this is a perfect depiction of final fusion model healing.

Season 4 introduces us to the conference table in the inner world. A conference table is a therapeutic technique used in trauma therapy where you bring the alters/parts to a conference. The idea is that it needs to be a neutral ground where everyone is comfortable and able to share their thoughts and ideas. With practice it can be a space one can close their eyes and imagine, seeing their system and allowing communication to happen between parts.

Mine is based on the Minerals Gallery in the Natural History Museum in London. I refer to it as The Library. You didn't need to know that but I didn't want to discuss this section without mentioning it.

Elliot's is the conference room in Evil Corp where he and Tyrell spoke in the first episode.

Interestingly enough there are only 4 seats in this set. I'm not sure what the implication is here as in the scene depicted above Magda (Persecutor Alter) is scolding Young Elliot (Child Alter) for sitting in a chair that isn't his. They mention all 3 alters who are not present (Elliot, Mr. Robot and The Other One).

My thought is that this is the show going all in on the idea that Elliot ("Real") is not an alter and does not take a seat at the table. Which I have issues with.

I'll note as I did with the inner-world that this is a therapy technique and not something Elliot would just have in his mind. It's an accurate depiction of DID treatment but Elliot isn't being treated for DID. Krista is no way near close enough to be able to help Elliot. She's wonderful and deserves the world and more for how she handles things in this season but she's in the pre-stabilization phase of therapy where she knows more than Elliot is willing to accept and needs to wait for him to come around.

Speaking of Krista. Episode 7 is the greatest hour of television rivaled only by Ozymandias from Breaking Bad and the M*A*S*H finale. At present it has a 9.9 on IMDB.

The episode is structured as a bottle episode in way of a 5 act play depicting the stages of grief. This is the episode where Elliot peels back to dissociative layers and understands the truth. The truth of what his father did.

I won't type it.

I don't need to.

The next episode involves Elliot seeing Young Elliot and following him to a museum exhibit with a model of Manhattan. In Season 1 when Elliot had his psychotic break after realizing Darlene is his sister Darlene and Angela checked this location stating it was a place he used to go in times of crisis.

It turns out when he was young Elliot hid the key to his bedroom here to prevent Edward from getting in. All these years later adult Elliot (or "The Mastermind" if you prefer, which I do not) discovers it and has a heart-to-heart with his younger self, screaming into the emptiness that he's sorry for not protecting him. Sorry for letting him get hurt.

The scene is lit in the golden hues that symbolize safety in this show. The final season also takes place during Christmas in New York so it gets to show off that color palette more often which is great for symbolism and aesthetic.

Young Elliot shows that the act of hiding the key from their father was protecting him. It was fighting back. Sometimes surviving is the best you can do and you need to forgive yourself for not being able to do more.

God I love this show so much.

That episode ends with the scene I most want to just overtly show off to an audience.

I already loved the show. The final episode may have broken my heart a little with its talk of "Real" but this scene? This scene gets it.

Prior to the above video clip Mr. Robot cautiously approaches and says "Hey, kiddo". Something he always says. It's who he is. Regardless of anything else he, Mr. Robot, is designed from the father Elliot wishes he had and when he hears Mr. Robot-- no Edward's voice he tenses up in terror, allowing the above scene to take place with Mr. Robot so scared that he has failed as a protector by allowing Elliot to remember and that he cannot be there for him any longer because of who he is based off of.

Those with the condition commonly create alters who are based on the traits of those in the child's life at the time the symptoms developed. I... have experience.

The lines I want to focus on the most are:

Mr Robot: If I could go back in time and change everything that happened to you... just make it all go away...

Elliot: Then I wouldn't be me... *He turns to finally look at Mr. Robot* ...and I wouldn't have you.

The final arc of the show is where the "Mastermind" twist takes center stage and Elliot enters his inner-world and finds out that he created a peaceful reality for "Real" Elliot to exist in so that he is unharmed by the horrors of the world that is crumbling in reality. Mr. Robot, as a protector, wanted to expedite the whole hack and destruction of capitalism in order to rescue "Real" Elliot from the inner-world prison. In time he came to accept "Mastermind" as a part of the whole and not a rogue alter who was endangering the body and their "Host".

S4E13 lays it all down. An imagined version of Krista speaks directly to Elliot and explains the system and their functions. Mr. Robot a father and protector who could prevent Elliot from intolerable situations. Magda, a persecutor who blamed Elliot for the abuse. Young Elliot, who Elliot could push the traumatic situations on, a common thing that many do unconsciously in CPTSD situations, dissociating from the person the trauma happened to, disconnecting until they are just another version of self.

Elliot then says "I guess she doesn't know about you." referring to us, the audience.

Krista(*) looks into the camera and addresses us directly, calling us the voyeurs who pretend we're not a part of it even though we have been here for it all. She even claims we are on her side in getting "Mastermind" to accept he is a constructed personality who was there to lash out at the society that caused him so much pain.

"You loved him so much you wanted to keep him safe, no matter the cost."

The episode ends with "Mastermind" Elliot waking up in a hospital and reuniting with Darlene only to realize that she has known the entire time that the person we have been following throughout the show wasn't her "real" brother.

...and god damn it I hate this element of the show so much.

I'll accept that they had very little time to clean things up and needed to get a way to have Mastermind agree to the fusion. I'll even demonize Darlene and say she was being selfish and ignorant in saying something hurtful because she missed the version of her brother that existed before Fsociety.

But Our version of Elliot says that he loves her and she doesn't reply. Her disappointment and resignation causes Our Elliot to go back inside and agree to the fusion.

The show ends in a first person perspective of Darlene seeing her "real" brother wake up and that's it. I'm glad we never actually see "Real" Elliot, that feels fitting.

Here's the thing about that last minute fumble though.

Let's talk about Integration and Fusion. They are different things.

Integration is when dissociative barriers come down. The system is stabilized to the point of which the alters are capable of communicating openly, sharing thoughts, memories and experiences and every part has the ability to opt in or out as life goes on.

"Functional Multiplicity" is what happens when a system is in harmony, no memories are being withheld and the system is able to go about everyday life with minimal disruption or disregulation. It is a valid goal for trauma therapy and there's a decent amount of medical stigma around it being used as the goal and not a step towards the goal. Many clinicians prioritize the appearance of normalcy over the function of the individual(s).

Fusion is when you go the extra step and take this communication and sharing of memory and experience and as you tore down the dissociative barriers you tear away the division between parts.

A system is made up of parts that make up a whole person and Fusion is the process of all parts uniting to "become" that whole person. It is a valid and normal goal for treatment. It shouldn't be held up as the only legitimate method of healing but it shouldn't be demonized for being an option. I say this because I have seen some people in support communities get real upset when the topic comes up.

The final sequence of the show, prior to Elliot opening his eyes, involves the system at the inner-world conference table agreeing to go through with it and walking towards a cinema screen. Elliot says this will only work if we go too.

The family (and audience) sit down in the movie theatre and memories flood onto the screen and pour out until all experiences and emotions are shared in one pool and Elliot Alderson opens his eyes with all 5(+audience) alters fused into one.

It was almost perfect if only Darlene hadn't have rejected the "not real" brother.

The cinema screen projecting memories, all the thoughts and experiences being shared as the Alderson System accept their parts in the whole and agree to the process? It was a beautiful visualization of a healing journey.

There are imperfect moments here and there. There are great moments I skipped over such as S3E8 (I'm not up for talking about Self-Deletion today) but all in all it's the best depiction of DID for a main character we'll likely get on TV. It's a whole and complete narrative and I love it so much. It makes me feel seen.

[grassyhorizon45]

Help. - Pt 2

part 1 || part 2 || part 3

uhh my bad... looks like it really is gonna be longer than I thought. It'll be worth it I promise! I fought through writers block for this forgive me

Marauders × DiD!Reader who's slowly but surely developing it and starts experiencing symptoms :l

Warnings: A bit more yelling? and a bit of angst.

Words: 1115

James's quidditch match the next day had the whole school in high spirits. Rumour from Hufflepuff was that a new quidditch captain had been instated; and knowing James, he was definitely gonna have a pre-match panic attack in the changing room while the rest of Gryffindor prepared for the after-party.

Y/n and Remus made their way to the Gryffindor changing room about an hour or two before the match. 

Sirius and James were there already, sitting side-by-side as the latter vented. Sirius put a hand around James, offering support. 

“And then Murphy decided to sprain his ankle yesterday! Now we’re one frickin’ beater short…”

James caught sight of the two that just entered, going quiet.

Y/n’s expression softened, “Can’t Siri replace him?”

His tone was quieter now. “Even then, we don’t know what Hufflepuff has up their sleeves with that new captain of theirs… New captain means new plays and- and—”

Remus went to sit next to Sirius while Y/n sat next to James, leaning on him.

“You’ll be fine, love.” Y/n sighed, “Stop panicking.”

They spent the last few moments of ‘quiet’ together there on that bench. Y/n and Remus leaving only after the Gryffindor team had filled the once-private space.

The three knew their support pre and post match meant the world to James. He was the kind that needed attention, love and affection to grip onto mental stability. Somehow, it was just one of the things that made James…well, James, and Y/n loved him for showing that level of vulnerability. 

“Do you think James and Siri will win today?” she asked Remus as they walked to the stands.

“They’ll be fine with whatever the outcome is. Don’t worry,” Remus smiled.

Y/n nodded, “A happy James is better than a swear-y one though…”

Remus gave her a pat on the head, agreeing.

The rest of the Morning was a blur after that. Y/n hardly remembered the outcome of the quidditch match. It was all a fog, hazy in her brain. So much so that she convinced herself the morning events were all really just a dream……

There was a sharp ringing in her ear when she ‘woke up’.

Accept, Y/n wasn’t lying down… Nor was she in either her or the boys’ room.

“Bunny, what’s wrong?”

Y/n came to the realisation that someone’s hand was supporting her waist. She shifted a little, making Sirius’ hand fall to the side.

“A-Aren’t you and Jamie playing in the quidditch match today?” She mumbled, observing her surroundings as she did. “Wh-Why are we in the common room eating the food for the after-party?”

Sirius froze, catching James (who was chatting with someone across from where Y/n and Sirius stood)’s attention. He excused himself and walked towards them.

“Pads?”

The taller boy ran a hand through the other’s black curls.

“Sh-She thinks the match hasn’t started…”

“Huh?” This sparked James’ intrigue too. “We won the match, love… You and Moony came to see us before it started, remember?”

Y/n nodded slowly, “I th-think so. I thought it was a dream…”

The boys exchanged worried glances.

“You don’t remember the match at all?” Sirius asked.

Did she?

“M-Maybe I just f-forgot,” Y/n lied.

“Capt- Can I borrow you for a second?” someone interrupted.

“I-” James hesitated. “Okay… Pads, Moon will wanna hear about this.”

Sirius nodded at James before he left. 

“I-It’s not a big deal,” Y/n mumbled, faking a collected smile. “You can just… tell me about the match instead.”

“It’s not about the match, bunny,” Sirius put an arm around her, giving her a slight squeeze. “This kind of memory loss isn’t normal…”

Which brought her back to their earlier discovery. What if Remus’ previous assumptions were right? What if she did have Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Y/n excused herself from Sirius’ company, making her way to the library once again in hopes she’d find something useful. There was this sinking feeling in her heart that if she properly had this ‘multiple-personality disorder’, things would change.

Y/n got tired of the big terms after a while. Her brain felt like shutting off and she couldn’t think straight. Sleeping in the library wasn’t soooooooo bad was it?

~

“You can’t just d-drop that on me l-like that–!”

“How d-did I get here……” 

Y/n was obviously not in the library, instead she was in the boys’ room facing a near-to-tears James. 

“Jamie… You okay?”

James flinched away at her touch, storming out of the room as he tried to get a grip on his emotions.

“Wh-What the—”

The door opened again with urgency, making Y/n jump.

“I want to know why,” Sirius demanded as he stood by the open door comforting a now crying James.

“Wh-Why?” She was so confused.

Sirius’ eyes narrowed. 

“You really want me to spell it out for you?”

The bitterness in his voice was clear as day, giving Y/n the chills. 

She nodded to his ‘question’, genuinely stating, “I d-don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Sirius seemed pissed… Pissed that Y/n was ‘faking innocence’, pissed that Y/n of all people had made James cry—

“I want to know why you want to break up!”

Wait—

“I do?”

The two boys looked at her with quizzical looks.

“I-I didn’t say that…” Y/n’s heart was pounding, so loud that she could hear it in her ears.

“B-But you d-did,” James mumbled from behind Sirius.

“I only r-remember f-falling asleep in the library… A-And then waking up here.”

Sirius gulped, “We need to get you checked love; you’re scaring us.”

Y/n tensed up, “I don’t wanna see a doctor…”

James was still shaken to the core, scared of the possible end of their relationship. She noticed this…

“Oh Jamie,” Y/n went over to give him a hug. Seeing James in such a shaken state was rare. 

According to the books she’d read, Y/n suspected she wasn’t in control of her own body when…well—

As she comforted James and whispered sweet things in his ear, Sirius stood hovering by the door, deep in thought with a frown on his face.

Y/n felt guilty. Sure she wasn’t conscious when it happened but it was still her that hurt James, their Y/n that told him they should break up.

Remus came back from his prefects’ rounds to find Y/n and James cuddled up cosily, fast asleep together on James’ bed. Sirius was admiring the sight, smiling thoughtfully.

“Come here Moony…” He patted the spot next to him.

Remus smiled too, “Did I miss anything?”

“Quite a bit actually… I’ll fill you in.”

[escapingrealtiylovinginsanity]

Sonny Carisi: Part 2 

This wasn’t requested but I had to write another part to this. Part 1 Claddagh Ring. 

Sonny's world had been a haze of pain and anger since the passing of his father. His brain had been in a fog. He hadn’t been able to stop it from swallowing him and forcing its way out. Its target had been you. He knew it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t fair. But he couldn’t completely wrap his brain around the severity of what he was doing. He didn’t see what he was doing that night- picking a fight and yelling about he couldn’t even remember what. He was stuck in his own bubble of misery.  

But when he watched you flip that ring...  

“Don’t flip unless you're sure. It means something-something you can’t take back.” You told him when he had gone to turn it when he made his intentions for you clear.    

It echoed in his ears now. The bubble popped. The world shifted beneath his feet. He could barely feel the counter holding him up. The anger and frustration that had blurred his days disappeared in a flash. It was replaced with a suffocating shock followed by an anguishing pain. A pain radiated from the center of his chest up to his fingertips and down to his toes. 

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 

He doesn’t realize he isn’t just thinking it but saying it out loud until he hears his voice fill with more and more desperation, his voice cracking. You don’t look at him, instead looking up at the ceiling, trying to blink back tears. To dissociate with what your life has become. Sonny walks the few steps over to you on numb legs. You shake your head still refusing to make eye contact with him. Even as his hands reach out to cup your cheeks you turn your face away from him holding your hands up to stop him from touching you.  

Sonny’s heart shatters to pieces and falls to the floor like he does. He sinks to his knees, unable to keep himself upright. “Please, don’t do this. I can fix it. I’m sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry.” His arms wrap around your waist as he buries his face into your stomach. He keeps repeating those words over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.” His accent is thick, and sobs start wrecking through his body. You can feel them vibrate through your body, the pain behind them cutting deep into your heart. 

You never saw Sonny cry when his father passed. Everyone else in his family- his mother, his sisters, his grandmother- all were in a semi-permanent state of tears. But not Dominick Carisi Jr. He seemed to be making up for that now. He was holding you so tightly it was almost painful. You hesitated but couldn’t ignore the compelling need to comfort the man that you loved. One of your hands slowly found its way to his head stroking his hair and the other to his shoulder. For the first time in so long, he leaned into your touch. Taking comfort in your support instead of spurring it.  

Sonny was a stream of thought. Telling you how much he loved you, begging you not to leave him, and repeatedly telling you how sorry he was. He holds you so long that you eventually you sit down with him. He panics misperceiving your movements trying to stop you from leaving. He is distraught. You soothe him as you kneel in front of him. Soon the two of you are both on the floor with silent tears. Sonny is leaning against you completely exhausted from his onslaught of emotions and crying. His eyes are red and swollen and his breathing is shaky.  

You are emotionally wrecked from the night, but your mind is spinning at all that has happened in just a few hours. It’s late, almost two in the morning, and both of you are supposed to work in just a few short hours. You stroke his back, “Hey, let's get you in bed, okay?”  

His bloodshot eyes go to yours and his accent is thicker than ever with exhaustion, “You coming too?” You press your lips together in a firm line. You consider him for a second, then nod. You help him to his feet and into the bedroom. He barely takes his pants and button-up off before he collapses in bed numbly. You walk into the closet to change into sweatpants and hesitate in your reach for Sonny’s Fordham sweatshirt that you had taken over. You eventually reach for one of your own instead.  

When you walk out Sonny's eyes are a dead stare at the closet. You slowly walk around to climb into your side of the bed. There had been distinct sides in the last few months. Sonny breaks that now. His arm wrapped around you spooning you. You wish the touch didn’t feel so damn good because despite it all you are still hurt. Unsure he could repair the wounds that he had inflicted.  “I’m gonna fix this, I swear.” He whispers against your hair. “I love you.” 

You can’t find it in yourself to say it back. Not now. 

Taglist @polkadotpenguin16  @pulparindos 

[linos-luna]

My Baby (pt 3) 🥀🔪

Yandere!Bang Chan x Fem! Reader

♡ ( Pt. 1) (Pt. 2) (Pt. 3) (Pt. 4) (Pt. 5) (Pt. 6) (Pt.7) (Pt. 8) ♡

Warnings: 18+, Yandere, dissociation? depression, light self harm, stalking

It’s been a month since you left your crazy boyfriend. At first freedom was great but it started to feel weird. You were staying with a friend and doing things on your own just didn’t feel right. Even little things like feeding yourself was difficult. You missed him and was becoming depressed. And your friends were worried…

—————————— 🎀 ——————————

You sat at the table, moving your eggs around with a fork. You you didn’t want to eat.

“Y/n… you have to eat something…” your friend sighed.

“I’m not hungry, jeongyeon…”

Jeongyeon sighed and took your fork, getting some egg on it and holding it to your mouth.

You looked at her confused.

“Eat it.”

You blinked and ate it.

She continued feeding you and you ate while looking off, almost as if you weren’t really there.

“Y/n.”

You suddenly were snapped out of your little moment and blinked a few times, a bit confused.

“Are you okay?” She asked, obviously concerned.

“Y-yeah… I’m fine.”

———

Meanwhile, Chan was a mess. When he discovered you gone the next morning he full on panicked. He desperately looked everywhere for you and practically tore up the entire house.

“Baby?! My baby?!! Who took my baby?!!” He cried.

A month later and he was still a mess. He cleaned up a bit but not much. The bedroom was fixed at least.

Now he laid on the couch, mopping around. He spends everyday trying to look for you to no avail. Where could his baby be?!

Today Chan decided to go out and look again but this time he’d dress up and fix himself a little. He washed his fluffy hair which was getting longer and dressed in a white button up with clean jeans. He put on his favorite cologne and a nice watch before leaving. He decided to head out to the next city over. A good 2 hours away

He was lucky to get his car back. At first he was hopeful that since you took his car he’d be able to track you. But unfortunately for him, you were smart enough to abandon it before going any further.

———

Jeongyeon helped you get dressed. A bit after you arrived, she went out and bought you some clothes. They were definitely less childish.

“Come on, we’re going out.”

“What?” You were snapped out of your thoughts.

“You need to get out of the house.”

“But… what if he…?”

“He’s not going to find you.” She interrupted.

“O-okay…” you sigh as she helps put your boots on.

Jeongyeon took you out to see a movie, it’s been so long since you’ve been in a theater. You actually enjoyed yourself. Sitting there with the big screen, munching on popcorn, and drinking soda. You loudly laughed at scenes, making some people around you annoyed. Jeongyeon would just glare at them.

“Jeongyeon that was fun!” You cheered afterwards as you both walked out. You were cheerfully clapping your hands and giddy. “I wanna do more! Let’s do something else, jeongy!”

Jeongyeon was glad you were actually smiling. And you’ve never called her Jeongy before.

“Glad you had fun?” She said. “Let’s go home.”

“No! Baby wants to do something else!” You pause, realizing what you just said.

“Y/n…”

“I-I…” your voice was shaky.

“Y/n, it’s okay…”

“No no no!” You shook your head as jeongyeon took you outside.

“Why’d I say that?!” You cried while smacking yourself on the head. “Why why why?!”

“Y/n Stop!” Jeongyeon said, trying to grab you.

“Dumb baby! I’m just a dumb baby!” You cried.

“Stop!” Your friend stopped you, grabbing your wrists.

“You’re hurting me! Jeongy your hurting me!”

Jeongyeon quickly let go, remembering your wrist that was still a bit sore. She gave you a hug and rubbed your back. “I’m sorry, y/n.”

You only cried into her chest. People around would watch but move on like nothing happened.

“Do you want ice cream?” Jeongyeon said, trying to cheer you up.

You only nod, not looking at her as she gave you some tissues to clean up. You didn’t really move so she ended up cleaning them for you.

You were silent as she lead you to the ice cream shop down the street. This worried her a bit as she gave you the cup of ice cream.

“Baby loves ice cream…” your voice was small and weak. You’ve done this a few times while staying with jeongyeon but you never seem to remember afterwards.

“Y/n…?”

“Baby misses daddy…”

“Y/n!” She says louder, snapping you out of your episode.

“W-what?” You blink while looking around. “What happened?”

“Y/n… eat your ice cream…” jeongyeon said, not sure what to do.

You had no work experience, no money. Therapy is expensive. You’re friend wants to take care of you but doesn’t know how. She watched as you ate your ice cream, kicking your feet under the table.

“I’m going to the bathroom…” jeongyeon said while getting up. “C’mon”

“I can wait.”

“Y/n… please—…”

“Go, don’t worry about me. I’ll stay right here!” You interrupted.

She nodded and left. You sat there, playing a game on jeongyeon’s phone to keep occupied.

After your friend stepped out of the women’s bathroom she was face to face with a familiar man. Just as she exited, so did a man from across the way. It was your boyfriend, Chan!

She froze, realizing who he was. He also stopped for a moment, remembering that she’s one of your best friends.

“Jeongyeon…” Chan says, about to step forward when she suddenly rushes out and grabs you by the arm, dragging you out.

“J-jeongy?!”

“We have to go now!” She said frantically and she pulled you towards the car. She pushed you in as Chan was chasing after the both of you.

“Why are we in a hurry?!” You ask as your friend started the car and backed out of the space.

“I’ll explain later!”

Just as she put the car in drive, there was a thud at the passenger side window. It was Chan. Both hands on the window as he looked at you with relief.

“Daddy?” You’re heart was racing.

“My baby!” He yelled, nearly crying as jeongyeon floored it.

“Jeongyeon! That was channie! He found us!”

“Yeah I know!” She grunted as she made her way towards the freeway.

“Is he gonna follow—?” You were in a panic before jeongyeon interrupted.

“No. He doesn’t know where I live.” Jeongyeon said with a sigh. “And if he finds out… I’ll do whatever I can to keep you safe, okay?”

“Okay jeongy…”

———

That was the first time Chan has seen your face in over a month. His baby was wearing skinny jeans, boots, and a crop top. And… a leather jacket? Not the type of outfits he dresses you in. He knew the outside world was a bad influence!

And jeongyeon… he should’ve known! One of your closest friends. But now he needs to figure out where she lives. If he finds her, he can find you. He’ll have to do some investigating and she’s gonna pay. He needs to get his baby back….

—————————————————————————————————————————————

This just might be a whole series 😭