#gonna crawl into a hole somewhere and never come out

[loachbro]

i literally have only one free period a day im gonna die

the fact that i have 80 minutes of math class today is insanely inhumane and disgusting

[donutz]

Dogday x gn reader angst

Request from Tumblr—! Here you go Dawko-fanpage☆

—☆You are a human in this

Searching around, you always find something interesting.

Like the dead bodies of toys, or blood splatters, a pool? That's something you didn't expect in this place.

One thing you figured out yourself about this place is that it's huge. It's like the square miles of this place is more than Mount Everest!

And even in this hell hole, you still made some friends. Some as in Poppy, Kissy Missy, and a smaller version of Dogday. It jumped on you when you weren't aware, but it didn't try to eat or kill you. It rubbed its head against yours, maybe these tiny critters can actually be cute.

Other than the fact they eat humans and toys.

And have jumped a singular man as a group.

.

.

.

Let's just hope this small Dogday stays innocent.

You were in a somewhat safe spot. These colorful and soft walls kind of distract you from the real world.

You wanted to rest, just for a while.

But something's telling you to go ahead. And the fact there's a murderous purple cat on the loose, hunting you down.

To have you not thinking about it, you pet the small puppy.

Cutely, it stuck its tongue out and started wagging its tail. Even the slightest bit of happiness can comfort you here.

You closed your eyes, resting, thinking about what to do next. When a small head lightly bumped against your stomach, bringing you back to the real world.

“Why'da bump me hm?” The tiny jumped off your lap and went somewhere.

“Oh, wait I don't wanna lose you!” You whisper yelled. You kept your eyes on it, following where it’s going.

You stumble upon an eerie hallway, being suspicious, you scruffed the small Dogday just in case. It tried to get out of your grasp, squirming, “I know you want to just go everywhere, but c’mon at least have some security for yourself.” You said to the tiny critter.

“You! You’re Poppy’s angel!” The rough voice scared you, making you flinch. When you saw the source of the voice, your eyes went wide.

“Come to save us.” The small one stopped squirming and was also looking at the much bigger Dogday. Maybe that’s why it was running over here, to tell you about the suffering life form you never knew about.

“Nothing left to save, not here.” He looked up at you, noticing you had the smaller critters, aka the ones who were eating him bit by little bit.

“...”

He shook his head and resumed his talking, “You’re in Catnap’s home, angel.” But he saw that you were distracted. With talking to the smaller version of him.

“Eat those belts and I’ll give you scratches for the longest time.” You whispered. The smaller Dogday understood and jumped onto Dogday’s arms, he flinched, scared he’ll get hurt again.

“Uhh, continue with what you’re saying, the smaller you is gonna eat away at the belts, don’t worry he’s tamed.”

“... If you say so Angel, You’re in their home. A million pairs of—” Dogday’s left arm was released.

‘Wow he sure is efficient..’ Dogday thought.

“eyes are on you now… Watching, waiting, hungr—” You caught Dogday before he could fully fall on the ground.

“See? Tamed!” You said with a smile as the small Dogday crawled up your arm. “Now, let’s go before all of us get eaten!”

Tiny Dogday crawled into your pocket as the bigger Dogday shifted to your back.

Even with the bigger Dogday being huge, you still managed through. I guess you being here gives you big muscles.

You finally made it outside. And could rest while at it.

“Bigger Dogday, I’m gonna patch you up. I don’t know how to reattach your legs back, but I’ll try to not have your organs nearly fall out.” You stated, assuring that Dogday won’t be in as much pain he’s currently in.

“You don’t need to angel—”

“But I’m gonnaaaa. So stop being so selfless.” You could hear small giggles coming from your pocket.

“What, you think this is funny to you? Huh ya little vermin?” The tiny was still giggling, even louder than before.

You let out a sigh and continued on, Dogday smiled(an actual one) a little from his smaller version.

You found medical supplies and went to work on patching up Dogday, trying to be as careful as you can. He’s been through enough before you even got here.

The tinier Dogday watched your process, jumping from your pocket and rubbing its head against Dogday’s much larger hand. He flinched a bit, but pet his smaller version.

After 15-30 minutes, you were done. “Alright, I’m done!”

“Angel, this is amazing I—!”

You heard the familiar sound of metal scratching against a floor. Oh come on, you can’t get a little bit of rest?! It was the Prototype, you thought he only comes near you if you killed somebody! And Dogday nor his smaller version is dead.

So, why is he here?

Well, you either defend yourself with your life, or sacrifice it or something. Though the hand most likely knew some moves, you still need to defend the two puppies that are behind you.

You’ve done the impossible so you can do this right?

Wrong! (＾▽＾)

The Prototype’s sharp and metallic fingers were plunged into your heart.

“ANGEL NO!” (I don’t know how to make this seem serious, I’m just here💀)

His hands were removed from your heart, though he didn’t take your body to build himself(that’s what I headcanon) maybe you weren’t worthy enough.

Prototype was looking for Dogday, but fortunately, he was nowhere to be seen, neither was his smaller version.

He needed to search, to find him, but— he doesn’t feel like it right now. So he left. Leaving you to die, maybe.

Who knows?

You can always do the impossible.

[wizardpink]

I screencapped these two posts four days ago because I had Something to Say and now I have no idea wth it was.

I think it had something to do with power dynamics and how Armand making Daniel a vampire actually handed Daniel a huge amount of power over Armand despite being the fledgling?

So number one Armand rendered his primary weapon against Daniel / form of self-defense completely useless by making Daniel his fledgling. He can no longer use the mind gift to manipulate Daniel or erase his memories. Which of course is true for all makers and fledglings, but most makers' fledglings aren't Sherlock Holmes with a BSJ. Daniel beat Armand's mental saw trap as a human. Armand is never, never getting one over on him now. Daniel will perceive the slightest change in energy coming from Armand and immediately know that he's lying, and 3 seconds of deduction later and he'll know why. He's an open book now, which must be terrifying.

Number two: mentorship. This is how Lestat kept control over Claudia and Louis for so long: he kept them dependent on him through ignorance. He only told them enough about vampirism to get through the day to day: don't go in the sun, don't drink dead blood, the other vampires of the world are vicious, etc. Every fledging needs their maker at LEAST in the beginning to teach them the ropes. Well, Daniel just wrote the goddamned book on vampirism, literally. Daniel sat there and listened as Louis told him everything he knew, everything Lestat ever taught him, everything Armand ever taught him. What other vampire ever got the in-depth two week course on Vampires 101 before they even got turned?! Crazy stuff.

Number three: vampire loneliness. Supposedly the most cruel and painful thing a vampire can endure. It keeps fledglings and makers tied to each other well past the point of being able to stand each other. And god knows Armand is staring down the barrel of having no one but Daniel. Which is unfortunate for him, considering Daniel is besties with his ex husband and touring with his ex boyfriend. Daniel has friends, friends that didn't torture him for 4 days then try to kill him. Oof.

All of this is to say that, with the info we have right now, Daniel has very little need for Armand. Armand in comparison needs him at least not to be alone, but what leverage does he have to get Daniel to stay with him? He's got nothing babes. I'm not a strong believer in the Armand is running from Daniel theory on season 3, but if he is, it's hard to blame him. He is shooting 0 for 1,000 right now, losing left and right, dying of shame and guilt and embarrassment. I'd probably crawl in a hole and die too.

"Oh but wizardpink, that's not very Devil's Minion of you!" AU CONTRAIRE. Because what could be more compelling and romantic than someone who has no use for you but nevertheless wants you? Thinks about you constantly and doesn't know why? You tried to capture them in a glass jar but they broke out and flew away, only to flutter back because they missed you? Yeah inject that straight into my veins.

And on the flip side? Maybe Armand goes straight back to that headspace he was in in '73, the crazed look in his eyes when he told Daniel he was going to teach him to be fascinating. That's ONE thing Armand still has on Daniel, he could probably overpower him enough to keep him trapped somewhere, if Armand thought Daniel was going to leave him. This, too, is Devil's Minion as fuck. Slowest of burns, as they say.

Hmm. Yeah I guess that was what I was gonna say.

[roses-for-rosalyn]

cop Ellie p2 plzzz

This request is so old but here ya go! (It's just porn no plot)

Part 1

MINORS DNI 🔞

CW: nipple play, fingering, oral, begging, dirty talk, edging?, (all E! receiving), switch! Ellie, switch! Reader, idk man I'm high, I'm pretty sure reader's body parts are not mentioned

wc: 1k

** ** ** ** ** ** **

“It’s your turn.”

A shocked Ellie sits in front of you, out of breath, your arousal still dripping down her chin. You crawl towards her and encourage her to lean against the car door. You lean in and kiss her, her lips are so soft and warm, you can taste yourself as you swipe your tongue across her lips. You make your way down her body, leaving sloppy kisses along her jaw before moving down to her neck. You gently kissed at her soft skin, gauging her reaction to each different place your lips touched. When her breath hitched you focused on that place, gently sucking her skin into your mouth, earning you a stifled moan. Her hand threaded into your hair while the other reached for your waist, which she gripped gently. You move further down, kissing a line across her collarbone. Your hands travel down her body leaving goosebumps in their wake, you grab onto the hem of her tank top and pull it up.

“Arms up,” you demand and she does what you say without question. Interesting. Looks like you were finally going to be able to wipe that perpetual smirk off her face. “Take off that too,” you gesture to her sports bra. She quickly rips it off and throws it somewhere in the car and with no hesitation you take her newly exposed nipples into your mouth, running your tongue around the pink buds until they harden. You suck them into your mouth and Ellie’s hips buck up into yours, begging for attention. You let out a little giggle at her eagerness.

“What?” she asks between gasps. You slide your hand down to the hem of her boxers, running your fingers just underneath it, lightly brushing her happy trail. 

“Nothing just didn’t ever expect you to be this desperate,” you say with a smirk.

“I’m not-” Expecting her reply you cup your hand over her damp underwear, causing a soft moan to drip from her lips. 

“Mhm definitely not,” You say with a snicker as you grab the hem of her boxers and pull them down, leaving her completely exposed. You lay in between her legs and look up at her, her freckled cheeks are red, her chest rapidly moving up and down, and pieces of her hair starting to come out of her bun. You would have never imagined you would see her like this, Ellie Williams, a fucking mess all for you. 

You kiss along her inner thighs, stopping right before you get to her center. She lets out little gasps that get louder and turn into moans as her desperation grows. You kiss a line across her hips, up her stomach. You tease your tongue around her nipple again and she grinds at the air for relief. You decide to give in, you slide your leg up so your knee meets her center, providing a light pressure that would relieve her just enough to have her begging for more. You switch to the other nipple and she begins slowly moving her hips against your knee, it was barely noticeable until your teeth grazed her sensitive bud and she began to speed up. 

“If you need more Williams all you have to do is ask.” You were pushing it with the cockiness, but you were having too much fun. 

“I-I need more.” She barely manages to choke out.

“You need morrreee..?” You tilt your head, expecting. 

“I need more p-please,” She practically whimpers. 

“Good girl.” You were gonna get shit for this later, but she couldn’t respond because before she could blink your tongue was on her, licking a line from her dripping hole to her clit. You know you want to keep teasing her though, it was too much fun. You gently lick at her clit and tease around it until she’s bucking her hips up, silently begging for more, this time you gave it to her. You take her clit into your mouth and suck, Ellie’s hands pull at your hair as she lets out a gravelly moan. One of your fingers begins to tease her entrance, you make small circles, working your way deeper and deeper until you meet that spot that has her moaning uncontrollably loud, completely losing herself to pleasure. You work your way in and out, her wetness allows your finger to easily slide inside of her. 

“Fffuckkk,” she moans out, gripping your hair even harder as your teeth graze her clit. You grab her thighs, pulling her impossibly closer to your mouth, and she lets out a whiny “Oh god.” that sends butterflies straight to your cunt. You add a second finger, carefully stretching her out around your fingers. You could feel her clenching down on them, hard. She was close, but you weren’t gonna make it easy for her after all the shit she gave you. 

“You close baby?” You ask with a mock sympathetic voice. 

“Mhm.” she groans out as you continue to work your fingers in and out of her. 

“Hold it.” You demand.

“Wh-what I can’t-” 

“Yes you can, and you will otherwise I’ll spend the rest of this shift teasing you right until you beg to come.. and then stop. And I’ll do it over,” You thrust your fingers into her. Hard, “And over,” you thrust into her again “And over until you don’t even remember what it feels like.”

“Just wait until I say, you can do that can’t you, sweetheart?” She was going to ruin you after this. Your fingers don’t let up, you go faster and faster until Ellie’s whimpers and moans have barely any time between each other and she’s whispering “please, please, please,” under her breath. 

“Alright, let me see you make a mess for me, baby.” And she finally let go, her hips grinding into your hand involuntarily as pleasure wracks her body. Her pretty little sounds fill the car and her thighs squeeze around your head as you continue to fuck her through it. Once she starts to come down you remove your fingers, sucking her sweet cum off of them before your clean up the rest with your tongue, her whimpering only egging you on. You stop after she tries to push you away and she collapses against the door, still trying to catch her breath. 

“You,” She huffs, “are so fucked.” 

“I was hoping you’d say that.” 

** **

goodnight I love all of you, just a little something for those waiting on Cowboys. Gotta keep you fed.

Notes, reposts, and comments are appreciated!!

[lovebillyhargrove]

The way my heart mourns for Season 1 Steve. Cause this ⬆️ feels wrong. Miss Nancy's smug face (she did such a good job convincing her current bf to buy a camera for Jonathan) and Steve's contentment🎄

No.

***

He is young.

Give me discontent, uncertainty, unrest. The

I don't know. I'm not sure. Oh god. What have I done.

Flooring the gas

To hell with it. I'm gonna do it again.

Give me the yearning that gnaws a hole in your soul and body, rips out all your insides with a hook,

It's just a usual day.

The crushing, dire pull. And the immediate, no less devastating push.

Like the solid wave that's dragging you into the vast scary ocean, you'll die there, so you fight it —

You breathe.

However,

You come back running for more, and you forget to be careful, you —

At eighteen —

Aren't even thinking about being careful, that's not embedded in your brain.

What's embedded is

This — the thing, the hunger, the need

Like a lifeline, strung between them,

Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington.

Give me reckless driving somewhere, no seat belt, breaking the limits, in the middle of the night and no, not to save the world — it's doomed anyway — to save that one person

Maybe from making a huge mistake or

To save him from someone else or

Himself, over and over again, and every time

He's here, with me

Feels like euphoria, and so true, and it dazzles.

Or you are rushing to make the mistake with him. Together.

Jump off the cliff, together.

Die, together. Live, together.

Give me a young wild heart pounding in the chest

Trying to beat its way out. Scared and confused, bare and vulnerable.

Cocksure. It's heady, stronger than purest moonshine.

A heart itself is a jagged wound, open wide.

Give me fear, strength and turmoil

No! Please, fuck no. Hargrove!

Stay away from me, Harrington.

Why the fuck did I even ..

Biting kissing devouring

I hate you. Can't stop.

God. You're the best.

But I am the worst.

The way it never feels enough. It won't ever feel enough cause youth is a hungry beast, always insatiable, always beautiful.

No matter how many times they've told each other to fuck off. One or the other, or

Both come crawling back,

Billy smoking on Harrington's porch late at night, drunk

Or Steve knocking on his window at midnight, wasted

Or them bumping into each other under the bleachers cause it's their meeting spot, and this time both come looking.

Give me the feeling that the world is gonna end.

Let it.

Life's gonna end, blood will stop flowing if they don't touch each other, one more time, if they don't smoke another cigarette, batting the shit or staying silent,

Not wanting to kiss goodbye, even if it's just for the night.

All shooting stars are ours.

Give me the stunning heart-wrenching drama of being young and in love, in shreds and tears and constant disarray,

They are teenagers. The adrenaline rushes through their veins not only because of another run-in with abominable flower-faced monsters. Teenagers have to tame monsters inside their heads, hearts and bodies, give me all of that, not the stagnant peace.

They are not content.

..

They will enjoy the peace and quiet and their everyday routine,

Years down the line. Sailing calm waters after the necessary storm.

Still together ..?

If they survive.

[alovesongtheywrote]

i miss reid :(

♥ Summary: Me too lmao- hey, speaking of which! In this chapter of Nightmare Academia, you and Spencer are separated. Neither of you take it well. [Prof!Spencer Reid x GN-Prof!Reader]

♥ Warnings: i can't remember any, if you find something, lmk

♥ Word Count: 1864

Series Masterlist

♥♥♥

Spencer didn’t come back.  Once the Federal Bureau of Investigations had him in their grasp, they really didn’t want to let him go- and you were pretty sure he didn’t want to leave.  That thought left a gaping black hole somewhere inside you; an all consuming celestial body that devoured your organs day in and day out.   

You weren’t sure why that was.  

Reid only returned to the university once after Gideon died.  He didn’t stay long.  He just stopped by to administer final exams, officially announce his leave of absence, and take The Narrative of John Smith back home.  He made this return on a Monday.  A Monday after the murder of his mentor was solved.

He didn’t see you.  You didn’t see him.  After that, you decided you would try to push aside your sudden kinship with Prometheus and carry on with life as if he had never existed.  

You failed.

And you failed for a few reasons. 

For one thing, the ghost hadn’t left.  If anything, they had only gotten stronger.  Somehow, you didn’t find this as exciting as it was before.  On the bright side, the ghost was trying to teach you chess.  That was cool.

(Spencer kept a chess board in his office.  He didn’t take it with him.  The morning after he left, the pieces started to move on their own.  You had to do a bit of googling, but eventually, you could move them back.  Thus began the saga of your chess match with a ghost.)

Another thing was just how dull your life became without Spencer around.  There were no mugs to steal, and no classes to send a typewriter to.  There was no one to talk to you for hours about Doctor Who and why you should watch it and which companions you would like the most.  There was no one to challenge you- no one to crawl under your skin, irritate the living hell out of you, and then show you kindness.  

You were moving through an incomplete world.  There was some vital piece missing.  Reid’s absence left gaps behind.  You didn’t even bother trying to fill them.  

Then there was the guilt.  You had always been a bit of a bitch to Spencer.  Sometimes he deserved it.  Sometimes he didn’t.  It was completely reasonable to assume that he had left because of you.  Now, you were alone.  Your office only housed one professor.  And it was all your fault.

The people around you noticed that something was wrong.  Your students could see a hollowness behind your eyes when you gave your (still excellent) lectures.  They whispered in the halls, not even bothering to speculate, but stating with certainty that Dr. Reid’s absence had caused some sort of change in you.

“They were so married- what the hell happened?”

“Fuck, this must be their divorce era.”

“The make-up sex is gonna be insane.”

Your coworkers noticed that you hadn’t moved out of Spencer’s office, and you didn’t seem to plan on doing so.  You didn’t.  You had pack bonded with the ghost.  Besides, you had already replaced each and every book in the office with some smutty romance novel, and you didn’t feel like changing the books back for the next inhabitant.  They could have your old office.  You would keep this one- the one that you and Spencer shared with a spirit.  The one that still felt kind of like a home.

Your community at the community center picked up on the silent sadness that clung to your body like the world’s most fucked up cling wrap.  

They noticed.  They all noticed.   But if/when they confronted you about it, you told them that everything was fine.  You acted like everything was fine.

And then somebody got shot.

-

The second Spencer left the university, he immediately wanted to go back.  He wanted to grieve in peace (with you beside him and without worrying about Gideon’s killer hurting someone else)  but to do that, he would have to help his team put said killer behind bars.

And he did.  The BAU found the man who killed Gideon.  The BAU killed the man who killed Gideon.  Donnie Mallick would never harm another person ever again.  Spencer should’ve been free, but like always, the cases kept coming. 

For every killer the BAU took down, at least three others appeared on their radar, and that was on a good day.  On a bad one, Callahan’s niece got kidnapped, or a witness would vanish mid-case, or a black market for serial killers was uncovered, or an entire underworld of hitmen twirled into the spotlight.   

The BAU was having a lot of bad days.  And they were short on agents.  And Spencer wanted to leave.  He wanted to go and grieve, in peace, with you, without worrying about serial killers. 

But Spencer didn’t get back to the university for a very long time. 

On some level, most of the team knew that something was up.  It was hard not to realize something was up.  Spencer spent a lot of time staring into the middle distance or forlornly glaring at his mugs.  He was a little on edge, and the purple marks beneath his eyes were somehow darker than usual.

No one really questioned it.  If anything, the team was sympathetic.  Spencer had finally left the trauma and tragedy of the BAU behind him only to be dragged back in by another trauma/tragedy hybrid.  He’d found some light in the dark, dark world just to be pulled away from it and forced to wander through the black.

It sucked.  It sucked hard, and everyone knew it, and the team knew there were other places their Boy Wonder wanted to be.  (A few of them guessed there was someone in particular that their Boy Wonder wanted to be with.)

And it wasn’t that Spencer didn’t want to help.  Solving crimes and saving people still gave him a sense of fulfillment at the end of the day.  He was happy to be back at the BAU, and happy to be keeping the public safe, but there were a few things that he couldn’t get off his mind.  

He felt like some part of him was missing- some integral, mug-stealing parasite part of him that he could barely function without.  Some part of him that challenged him on a casual level.  Some part of him that looked out for all the other parts of him.

Spencer was not good at hiding this.

Spencer was especially not good at hiding this around the BAU.

I really wish that I could tell you that the whole team was helpful and supportive about this- but it’s the BAU, man.  Hotch and Rossi did what they could, helping in small ways, but when you’re chasing down serial killers, emotional turmoil kind of takes a back seat.  

(Or a window seat on a fuel guzzling private jet.  Yeah, the use of the jet was one of the things on Spencer’s mind.  What of it?)  

Morgan and Garcia were, by technical definition, “helpful and supportive.”  By practical definition, however, they were complete and utter nuisances.  Spencer couldn’t walk two feet without one of them (probably Morgan) hitting him with a: “Ohhhh, Pretty Boy misses Professor (L/N).” 

Or a, “Cheer up, kid, you’ll see that professor of yours again, soon.” 

Or a, “Can we say that Boy Wonder is hot for teacher?  Is that a thing?  Are we saying that thing?”  

(That last one was more Garcia than Morgan.)

JJ was, again, busy having an actual child.  If she hadn’t been, she probably would’ve given a, “That’s rough, buddy.”  She would’ve been right, honestly.  Callahan peaced out of the BAU, so she didn’t have an opinion, but Spencer had one about her, and it’s that he was kind of jealous.  She got to go home and be happy with the people she loved and Spencer just got more trauma.  Delightful.

Tara Lewis had no clue what the fuck was going on with Spencer, though it didn’t take her too long to figure out his particular brand of mysteries.  Between the knowledge that Spencer had spent an extended stint of time professing at a university, the various jabs that Derek and Penelope sent his way, and the amount of time Spencer spent staring sadly out of windows, it wasn’t exactly difficult to deduce what was on his mind.  It came especially easy to someone like Tara Lewis, a woman in possession of many brain cells.  

The various other agents and officers surrounding the BAU, however, were fucking confused as shit.  With a few exceptions, they remained clueless.  They would see that sad wet cat of a man drift through offices and bullpens, and the only thing they could usually think to say was, “Oh my god, who hurt that sad wet cat man?” 

One agent- a blonde woman who had been at Quantico for a while- had a lot of questions.  Decent questions.  Questions that didn’t infer that Spencer was the saddest wettest cat in the whole FBI (which he was, let’s be honest.)  And while it was kind of weird for her to have so many queries about Dr. Spencer Reid, the team kind of assumed she was the mouthpiece for all the non-BAU agents around them.

“Is Dr. Reid okay?” the agent would ask, “Will Dr. Reid be contributing to this case?”  “What happened to Dr. Reid to make him so… distant?“

Morgan and Garcia did their best to answer her, but again, they were kind of unhelpful.  They usually met her queries with, “Pretty boy’s in love,” “Our dear Dr. Reid has a crush.”  One time, Garcia said, “He knows everything, except for the fact that he loves them, and that, my dear, is why he is so distant.”  That was a good one.

The agent was never satisfied though.  One question always led to a thousand more, and Morgan’s question was, “Are we sure Agent Caddel isn’t an undercover reporter?”  He didn’t actually verbalize that to anybody but Garcia.

Hotch once dignified Caddel’s pondering with a, “Reid’s mind is still at the university.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Meanwhile, Spencer had not realized that he was the subject of a million questions.  He, himself had a question, though, and that was, “Do you ever notice that the police forces we visit are really into tunnel vision based fallacies these days?”  

He didn’t verbalize that at all.  He just stared at his mugs while the people around him whispered questions about whether his mind was really on the case at hand.  Sometimes it was.  Other times he would glare at the default desktop screen of the tablet in front of him, wishing you would call him.

And then you did.

And Spencer missed the call.  

It wasn’t really his fault.  He’d been mid-case in a different time zone, but that didn’t stop Spencer from feeling like an absolute idiot.  After he listened to your message, that feeling got worse.  

The next thing his team saw was their doctor sprinting for the fucking door.  Not even Caddel had enough time to form a question about that.

♥ Tags: @icarusignite, @usuallyunlikelyfox, @maraudersforlife2005, @fictionalcomforts, @morgthemagpie, @iiheartbowie, @digitalhearts, @corpsebridenightamare, @ghostatrixx, @reiding-writing, @mywellspringoflife, @80katie, @ms-ks-world, if you asked to be tagged and i forgot, pls let me know!! if you would like to be tagged and aren't, also let me know!!

[chaotic-orphan]

Hero and the infant part four

Read part one here

TW: suicidal ideation, suicidal ideation implied, mentions of suicidal thoughts, borderline depressed Hero, mentions of death, mentions of hopelessness

*~*~*~*~*

And they popped out again on the ground, next to the police and the reinforcements that were called in. Sidekick gasped in a harsh breath and coughed it out again, wheezing. Hero forgot to tell them about the whole deep breath thing before teleporting. Whoops. Hero groaned as someone helped them to their feet and brought them to the back of an open ambulance.

Paramedic was there waiting, glaring at Hero.

Wonderful.

“Ah. Paramedic. You look radiant today,” said Hero as they sat down on the back of the ambulance, nodding their thanks at the Officer that helped them over.

“Are you going to hospital this time?”

“No.”

“Of course not,” Paramedic grouched, nodding at the officer that assisted Hero to step away. “I’ll just wait here while Villain kills you, shall I? Make sure we get you to the morgue straight away.”

“Villain won’t hurt me, Paramedic,” Hero said and then hissed as Paramedic’s gloved fingers pressed down hard on Hero’s broken fingers. “Fuck!”

Paramedic was deadpan as they said: “Yes. They would never hurt you.”

“Can’t you just wrap them up for me and let me go again?”

Paramedic laughed, a short, derisive sound. “Yes. I can just keep patching you up while you for round two and three and twenty.”

Hero sighed, putting their elbow on their knee and pinched the bridge of their nose with their good fingers, head tilted down. So, they didn’t see the concern knitting Paramedic’s eyebrows together as they bandaged the two fingers together. Then bandaged them to Hero’s pinkie for support.

“Did you bang your head?” Paramedic asked and Hero nodded slightly. Their headache exasperated by the movement. “Show me.”

Paramedic’s cool fingers pressed lightly on Hero’s scalp. “Yeah there,” said Hero as Paramedic hit the sore spot. Paramedic pulled their hand back and said: “okay. There’s no blood. Most likely bruising. Just try to not get hit on the head again, okay?”

“Okay,” said Hero standing. Paramedic pushed a packet of pills into Hero’s hand. Hero popped out two and swallowed them dry before handing Paramedic back the foil packet.

“Keep it. You’re gonna need it.”

Hero nodded and slipped into the packet into one of their coat pockets. “Thank you, Paramedic.”

“See you in five.”

“Ah, come on. At least give me ten,” Hero said with their usual big smile, and Paramedic just shook their head.

Sidekick was speaking with Superhero fervidly when Hero strolled over, languid in their pace. They pulled their packet of smokes out and their lighter, lighting the cigarette as they walked. Superhero was the first to notice Hero stopping beside them, blowing smoke in the big shot’s face with a grin.

“Howdy Superhero,” said Hero with a grin, lapping up Superhero’s disgust. Hero nodded at Sidekick in greeting, taking another slow drag.

“Hero, I don’t have time for your shit right now. Why don’t you go crawl under a bar somewhere?”

“I was trying my best, but your delightful new sidekick here came and ruined all my fun. Why is that Superhero?” Hero asked, turning their head to look at Superhero again. “Is it because you’re too chicken shit to face Villain yourself? Maybe you should tell your new Sidekick that so you don’t kill another kid because of your cowardice, hmm?”

Superhero’s glare would have burned a hole through Hero if it got any more intense. Their lips pursed; nose held high. Hero felt sick as they let the smoke out through their nostrils.

“Oops,” Hero said, voice deadpan. “Looks like I just let the cat out the bag, huh?”

“Villain only wants to talk to you. Word is you haven’t been answering their texts.”

“Yeah, that’s a nice excuse—” Hero grumbled to Sidekick, then tilted their head at Superhero. “Listen, are you gonna help me stop them or are you gonna sit down here, safe and sound and send your Sidekick to do your dirty work?”

“This temper tantrum is your doing Hero. Clean up your own mess,” said Superhero squaring up, stepping closer to Hero’s face. Hero didn’t flinch. They didn’t do anything but follow the movement with their eyes, raising an eyebrow in challenge. Hero exhaled the smoke through their nose, and let their voice drop a tone lower. Something cold and vicious behind it.

“Villain’s a villain because of your doing, Superhero. How ‘bout you clean up yours, before you end up killing another—”

Before Hero could finish the sentence, Superhero wrapped a hand around Hero’s throat and drove them backwards until they were pinned against the front of a fire truck.

“Superhero!” Sidekick cried, running over and trying to take Superhero’s hand off Hero’s throat. Hero’s head was aching, but they didn’t let it show, just glared at Superhero. Sidekick stepped between the pair when they failed to remove Superhero’s hold, and Superhero was forced to let go of Hero. “This isn’t the time. Villain’s still up there!”

Hero stepped forward, fixing their long duster and took the last drag from their cigarette, savouring it before flicking the butt to the ground and twisting the ball of their foot on it to stomp it out.

“I’m going then,” said Hero.

“I’ll come with you,” Sidekick said immediately, but Hero shook their head, letting the smoke out through the corners of their lips.

Hero put a hand on Sidekick’s shoulder, and said: “you’re not coming this time.”

“What!”

“Villain doesn’t like you and you’re just something they can leverage against me if they catch you again. You’re staying put,” Hero ignored their protests and turned their attention to Superhero. “Don’t let them follow me unless you want them dead like the last one.”

Superhero’s hard stare melted away with a pop. Then Hero was on the roof again, facing Villain’s back. A metre or two between them. “Sorry for the delay.”

“Not at all, Hero,” Villain purred, turning to face their favourite reckless hero. Dishevelled, bags under their eyes, hands deep in their signature brown trench coat they wore over their black combat trousers and black sweatshirt. Villain couldn’t help but smile. Hero never changed.

Villain’s eyes searched the empty space behind Hero. “Where’s your friend? Haven’t scared them away already, have I?”

Hero shrugged, easy, blasé. “Nah, I put them in timeout. Left them with their babysitter.”

Clever, violet eyes settled on Hero’s. Oh, so alluring and bright at having Hero’s entire undivided attention. “Good. I always preferred when it was just the two of us. Come closer, I won’t bite.”

“No, but you’ll break,” Hero said, holding up their bandaged hand and tilting their head to the side. A soft, fond smile slipping onto their lips. Hero felt an invisible hand slide around their own. Inspecting at first. Gentle, then guiding Hero, pulling them closer to Villain, bridging the gap between them without Villain moving an inch.

Villain raised their own hand, palm facing up. Hero felt a phantom hand in theirs, guiding them gently towards Villain, closing the gap between them. When they were close enough, Villain took Hero’s hand in theirs and began an inspection of their own. Hero watched Villain’s violet eyes scan over the fingers bandaged together, inspecting the wrapping around their palm and wrist then back up again for support.

Violet eyes meeting theirs was the only warning Hero had before Villain pressed down hard on the injury. Hero hissed, yanking their hand back but Villain kept Hero’s hand locked in their iron grip.

“Does it hurt when I do this?” Villain asked with a sly smile, eyes never leaving Hero’s. Taking in every small twinge of pain, every squirming effort to hide said pain from Villain’s prying eyes. Oh, how they loved Hero’s small reactions.

“If you don’t want me to abscond you could just ask me to stay,” Hero told them honestly. Pained eyes meeting Villain’s, pleading for them to let go. Hero raised their other hand and placed it on Villain’s probing wrist. “It doesn’t always need to be pain that clouds my judgement, Villain.”

Villain smiled, a little genuine, before finally letting go. Their hand went to Hero’s cheek instead. Pads of their fingers digging in, gentle, with the smallest amount of pressure, because pain always came with Villain.

It was in Villain’s nature, Hero told themselves, they couldn’t really help it.

“I know,” said Villain, “but I do so love to watch you suffer, dear Hero. You make it into an art form.”

Hero pulled Villain’s hand away from their cheek at that, chest tight. “Perhaps you should witness me in my everyday life then. I suffer eternally.”

“Maybe you should start answering your phone when I call.”

Hero scoffed, turning their body half away from Villain, pulling the box of cigarettes from their pocket. Their hand was shaking after Villain’s inspection so they were happy to block Villain’s view of it with their body. Hero took a cigarette between their teeth, dragging it out before flicking the lid closed. The click of the lighter was reassuring, reliable.

Hero cupped their hand around the flame, a delicate thing to coddle especially on a roof where the wind was raging against their hair and their clothes. Hero could control the flame, let it burn enough to light their cigarette or they could smother it, the only thing they could control right now. They flicked the old zippo lighter closed, looking at the small black engraving on the side.

“You’re not special, I don’t answer anyone anymore. I put the stupid thing on silent. It kept incessantly buzzing,” Hero grumbled, looking over the wall of the roof down to the commotion below. Police lights and emergency services below, the street cordoned off from the public. They couldn’t make out Sidekick and Superhero below, but they could see Paramedic in their uniform and maybe pick out police but other than that it was just busy.

Hero heard Villain moving behind them, walking up to Hero and reaching over their shoulder, plucking the cigarette from Hero's hand. Hero grumbled out a half protest, hearing the flame ignite right by their ear, like a soft gasp of air. Villain slid it back between their fingers again.

“Cheers,” said Hero, flicking the ash off onto the wall. Villain exhaled a couple smoke rings then let the rest of the smoke out through their nose, the smell and smoke entrancing Hero. Hero watched the rings dissipate into the sky, as Villain’s hand stretched around Hero’s torso and pulled them both back away from the dangerous edge of the roof. Away from the prying eyes of back up below. Ensuring Hero’s attention could be focused on Villain completely again.

Hero rubbed their temple with the pad of their thumb, irritated. “All this fucking mess for what? Because I wasn’t answering your every whim? I’m getting too old for this, Villain. As are you.”

“Perhaps I should kill you and be done with it then,” said Villain, tightening their hold on Hero, tone cool and cutting. Hero couldn’t deny the chill that ran down their spine at the easy threat.

Villain could just throw them off the rooftop. Granted, it wouldn’t kill them, Hero had learned to quiet the panic when it came to life-or-death situations. Panic they could deal with, pain… well, pain was like Villain; it demanded Hero’s undying attention.

Hero shook their head, slinking out of Villain's hold with ease and popping up to the top of the wall, walking to the edge of the building and standing on the ledge.

“I can’t keep doing this Villain,” Hero repeated, chest tight. Behind them, Villain tilted their head at the Hero, their Hero. “You killed that kid.”

“That kid, was Superhero’s little psychopath. I was doing everyone a favour.”

“You could have saved them, Villain,” Hero said, half turning their body towards Villain, looking down into those violet eyes that used to give them so much comfort. “You could have tried to help them. We were once Superhero’s little psychopaths, no one put a bullet in us.”

“Maybe they should have,” said Villain tightly.

The wind whistled through the area between them on the roof, rustling their clothes and their hair as they let the weight of the words fall over them. Hero held Villain's unflinching eyes and some part of them wanted to scream. In another life, maybe they would be meeting on rooftops for secret midnight rendezvous, or to share a cigarette. The possibility broke Hero's heart, so they buried the thought and looked away from those piercing eyes.

Hero glanced down at all the commotion in the street below. They plunged a hand into their pocket, fist tightening around the cool metal lighter, while their other drew the cigarette to their lips. They nodded as they raised their head to the sky.

“Maybe they should’ve.”

Silence ebbed between them for a moment.

Then: “How are you, Hero?”

Hero laughed at the question. A loud, humourless laugh. It was such an absurd question coming from the Villain who had ruined how many people's day? Worrying about Hero, wanting to know how Hero was.

The worst part was the fact that Villain didn’t sound like Villain when they asked that question. Their voice was softer, quieter, more genuine. It was Hero’s best friend that asked how they were doing, not Villain. Not the scourge of the city, not the name whispered by civilians just in case it summoned the demon to wreck havoc on them.

It was just Villain.

Hero's Villain.

The one they had met in the early days at the Hero academy. The one who created schemes on how best to annoy the Heroes. Always getting them into trouble, always a little too clever for the Professor’s tastes — always questioned them a little too much. The one who took a punch for Hero, and threw a punch for them. The fastest, fiercest friend Hero had ever known. The quiet voice in the night when neither of them could sleep asking if Hero was still awake. The rebellious teenager who somehow managed to drag Hero into everything with them. The quickest study of them all, and it still wasn’t enough.

It was hard to distinguish Hero's friend from Villain these days, the waters were too muddled with Superhero's Sidekick's murder still fresh in their mind.

It tarred any fondness Hero harboured for Villain.

“I’m tired, Vil,” said Hero, their words clogging their throat and coming out thick. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of being a Hero. I’m tired of drinking and smoking to keep my head clear and my hands steady. I’m tired of not being able to save everyone. I’m tired that I am the one that is called to your every public beck and call. I’m fucking tired of it all.”

“Maybe if you just picked up the phone, I wouldn’t have to resort to these extreme measures to see you,” Villain snapped.

Hero whirled on their heel, eyes ablaze, cigarette dangling from their lips, feet balanced precariously on the ledge. Villain’s body twitched as if they wanted to step forward, something like protectiveness winding their body on instinct, that Hero refused to notice.

“You know where I live,” said Hero through gritted teeth. “You know where to find me. Don’t you try and justify your actions by blaming me! Don’t you dare!”

“Hero—”

“He was seventeen!” Hero cried, throwing their arm wide just to do something. Fury and guilt were battling for dominance in Hero's bones and blood and left them with this frantic, frenzied energy. Hero's hand went to their cigarette, a shadow crossing their face and molding their features into a stoic expression, hard stare almost startling Villain as Hero took a long drag and then stepped back off the ledge.

Villain's hand shot out and Hero drew the cigarette from between their teeth, grinning wildly as they nodded, as if they understood everything all of a sudden. Hero heard screams below that died down quickly when they didn’t fall, but looked as if they were floating on air above the roof.

"You can control life and death, Vil,” said Hero, voice low and rough. They dropped the cigarette onto the invisible platform Villain constructed for their reckless Hero. Hero’s eyes narrowed when they met Villain’s, before they said: “and you let that kid die.”

Hero sucked in a breath through their nose, chest expanding, and that was all Villain saw before Hero disappeared before their eyes.

Hero popped out beside Villain, whistling as they drew back their good fist, sending a devastating right hook to Villain's jaw. Villain's head whipped to the side from impact, and when they righted themselves they turned on their heel, but Hero was gone again.

A whistle behind them and a kick to the back of their knee and Villain fell to one knee, catching themselves on their hand. The second their hand made contact with the ground, Hero's feet were in front of them and there was a swift boot coming for Villain's chest.

Villain didn't have time to react before they were staring at the sky, lying on their back and Hero popped out on top of them again. Their fists bunched into Villain's sweatshirt, pinning them to the ground while a knee straddled each side of Villain's waist, keeping them trapped beneath a particularly lethal Hero.

"I'm here now," Hero hissed, digging their knuckles in painfully to Villain's chest. "What the fuck was so important and pressing that you wanted me here, Vil, hmm? Did you want to kill another kid? Want to make me watch, again? Fucking break a few of my bones instead, hmm?! WHAT IS IT?!"

Villain, to their credit, didn't flinch at Hero's emotional outburst, they just stared up at Hero, trying not to startle them too much. Villain swallowed before they spoke, Hero could feel the motion in their hands and they waited.

"You were MIA, Hero," said Villain softly. Their voice was calm and soothing, as they reached a gentle hand up to wrap around Hero's wrist. The violet melted from Villain's eyes returning them to their normal light brown, trying to show Hero that they were no threat. "No one could contact you, I hadn't — well, other villains said that you weren't yourself. I was worried about you."

Hero's hands began shaking in their hold, their adrenaline slowly leaving them in shock. "You... you were worried about me so you threaten and disrupt a block of offices to get my attention?!"

Villain tried for a smile. "It worked didn't it?"

Hero tightened their grip on Villain and lifted their torso off the ground before slamming them back against the rooftop, leaning in closer and growling: "You were so worried you nearly killed another kid, is that it Villain?”

"I knew you would reach them in time."

“But you knew I wouldn't reach the other one, right?” Hero asked, the words that haunted them the last few weeks spilling from their lips. Villain relaxed in their hold and Hero let out a scoff, sniffing back the tears that wanted to fall as they narrowed their eyes down at Villain. Villain their best friend. "I— I fucking knew it. You knew I wouldn't—”

"Hero, that was different."

"HOW?!" Hero demanded, lifting Villain up again just to make sure that Villain would look them in the eye when they told them. Tears gathered behind Hero's shining eyes, glazing over just waiting for Villain to release the dam.

“He was going to kill you, Hero,” said Villain softly.

Hero shook their head, “no. No, you did it for a reason.”

“You are enough of a reason for me to kill, Hero.”

“I don’t want to be,” Hero said with a strangled whisper, not trusting their voice enough to speak.

“I know,” Villain cooed. Their hand tightened slightly over Hero’s wrist, not painful. Not yet. “But when there is a rabid dog, it is a mercy to put them down.”

“He was Seventeen,” Hero said again, their grip loosening slightly on Villain as they spoke as if the words were Hero's only defence to Villain's honeyed logic.

“And Superhero sent him after us,” Villain told Hero, like it was the most important thing in the world. “If the blood is on anyone's hand it's Superhero's! Superhero sent him after us, Hero, not just me. Me and you, they wanted that kid to kill us. To kill you.”

Hero tightened their grip in Villain's sweatshirt, twisting their fists further and pulling Villain closer. Hero's eyes were dark, hooded, desperate — they scared Villain.

"Maybe you should have let him," said Hero, voice devoid of all emotion. The words hit Villain like a truck and left a heavy lump in their throat. This was exactly what they were scared of. Hero being so beat up about not being able to save the very person who was ordered to kill them. To kill both of them. Villain did the right thing putting the mongrel down, even if Hero was upset now. They won't be in the future, Villain would make sure of it.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

Taglist: @d-cs @somebodytolove31

[netherfeildren]

FEAR OF GOD : Chapter IV : Mouth full of blood

Series Masterlist ; Moodboard

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: A trap is set, the two of you fall.

Content Warnings: canon-typical violence, gore, threat of sexual assault, PTSD, rough sex, heavy angst

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Art is Healing by Laura Makabresku. 

Word Count: 6.8K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER IV: Mouth full of blood

Without violence, how do I understand my life as

meaningful?

As if the only tool I owned for finding truth were a knife. -Gabrielle Bates, Eastern Washington Diptych

A silence as vast as it is particular surrounds the two of you. The loud, wheezing gasp of his breath, the only discernible thing he can make out. It was like you’d been sucked into a vacuum, the rest of the world taken through the maw of a black hole. Trees and darkness and your small hand clutched to the back of his jacket as you follow close behind him. 

He makes his way slowly through the dark, one precise step in front of the other, rifle trained ahead of him. The two of you’d been separated from Tommy and the others one by one, picked off like goddamn flies. He didn’t even know if they were all still alive, if his brother was okay. 

It was a trap. It was a fucking trap. Goddamnit, he’d known. He’d known this was a mistake. 

He was going to kill someone, several someones, for this. 

They’d come out of nowhere, the so-called group of weary travelers the girl had told you all about. She’d appealed to your soft nature, tears and timidity, and scrapes and bruises you’d tended to with the gentlest hands that’d ever graced this world. You didn’t belong out here. He should’ve never let you come. You needed to be somewhere safe and warm and protected. Surrounded by your books and your soft things, and him there, to watch over you, always. This was all so fucking wrong. 

The men had diverted the group, spooking the horses and separating you all, a coordinated attack. Whether they were trying to find an in to Jackson, or if they’d heard rumors of a doctor, the resource you posed was a valuable one any group or community would vie for, he didn’t know. They’d targeted you first, spooking your mare. She’d reared and unseated you, and he’d almost cracked his neck he’d whipped around so fast watching you go down. The small thud your body had sounded as you’d hit the ground, the seconds it took you to open your eyes and start to move again, the longest moment of his entire life. He’d scrambled off his horse and lost it in his rush to get to you. Hands smoothing over you, down your neck and back, your limbs, checking for breaks. And then he’d looked around to find the two of you were alone. The sound of the others echoing off in the distance, accompanied by other, more harrowing noises. The shot of a gun firing, rushed footsteps and shouts going in and out of his ears. He’d told you to stay close and had set off in the opposite direction, away from where he thought the sounds of the group were coming from. 

And then the clicking. 

Singular in the darkness, the croaking click of an infected. He pauses your movements, halting abruptly so that the soft weight of you thumps into his back. What the fuck was an infected doing so far out here? Was this part of their plan? Had they connived some way to herd infected out here as part of their attack? Who the fuck even were these people? He needed to get you back, get you safe. Now. This was all wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Was that an infected?” your scared, cracked whisper.

He holds up a single hand, listening, listening. “We’re gonna move, slow and steady. Silent,” he whispers. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t be scared, I’ve got you.”

“Joel–” fierce little hand clutched in his jacket. He starts to move again. And then the splintering of a nearby tree, gunshots directed at you, and he’s spinning and grasping the back of your head to push you down onto the ground. “Down, down,” he shouts at you, “Crawl to the tree!” He hunches over your form, knees bent to hover over you and shield you with his body, towards the protection of the trunk. The shooter has shit aim, trees feet away from the two of you fracturing in the ricochet of the bullets. But then there’s a heavy weight slamming into Joel’s side, taking him to the ground, and he hears you scream his name as the man struggles to straddle his middle, get the upper hand. A heavy fist slams into his cheek and Joel grapples to get his arms and legs around the fucker. He can hear your voice sounding in the darkness, but all he can see is the man above him, his sloppy fists swinging without precision or direction. The man is haggard and dirty — months of traveling and wilderness apparent in his face and clothes. Joel manages to get a strong hold on his throat, and then he’s heaving his legs around the man’s torso and cinching him in a lock between his thighs, pulling his face down to meet his fist over and over. His knife is in the holster at his belt, and he’s able to reach it with the hand not gripping the man above him at the same time that he realizes Joel’s reaching for a weapon. He scrambles to knock the knife away and goes for Joel’s throat. Joel manages to turn his head enough to find you in his periphery while still grappling with his attacker.

He watches as the man above you grabs you around the ankle and slowly starts to drag you across the forest floor. Your screams reverberating in his ears like a gong, like the shredding of metal. They’re desperate and visceral and the worst fucking sound he’s ever heard in his entire life. You claw viciously at the ground, nails cracking and bloody, trying to find purchase on anything to pull you away from the man’s grasp, to use as a weapon against him. And then he’s gripping your knee and flipping you over roughly, boot planting his heavy weight on your chest as he pins you in place like a broken butterfly. He bends to say something to you he can’t make out from where he is, but the look of sheer terror and disgust on your face tells him everything he needs to know. Joel sees red, doubles his efforts into a savage mess of limbs and fists, trying to get the man attacking him off. 

The dead man standing over you pauses then, turns his head slowly to Joel, and his smile is revolting – dark and rotting, “You ready to watch?” This is every nightmare Joel has had since the end of the world, come to life. 

The man crouches down over your struggling form, hand wrapping around the delicate column of your neck. Get your hands off, off, off, get your fucking hands off. There’s fire in his lungs, in his blood. He hears the sound of a clicker again, the screeching monstrosity charging through the dark wood towards you all, and with a burst of extra strength, born of pure terror, he finally finds purchase on the ground with his foot, enough to leverage up and reach his hand towards his lost knife. The sound of the clicker getting closer, closer – and then he’s slamming the knife into the eye of the man above him, the sick crunch of steel meeting bone, and then deeper, until he feels the tip meet the softness of brain – rips it out and then slams it back in again at his neck – blood spurts hot and metallic across Joel’s face. And when he turns his head back towards you, preparing to take in the worst thing he’s ever seen since he watched his daughter die – there you are. Small, trembling frame straddled over the much larger body of your would-be attacker, a hunting knife the length of half your arm stabbing over and over again into his chest and abdomen. He can hear your guttural screams over the white noise in his ears –  great heaving sobs shake your chest. Your face, tear streaked and splattered with blood. He sees the eye socket closest to Joel is empty, optic nerve hanging torn and bloody. The gouged eyeball lies a few inches beside his lolling head. The sight of you, his little bird, with hands that hold such power for healing, for care and love, imparting such violence – this is his greatest failure. 

He calls your name, loud and sharp, and you pause your massacring immediately. Look up, as if waking from a haze, brought back to consciousness at the mere sound of his voice, eyes glazed and vacant, and his heart is breaking for you, a savage howling ringing within him, his bones vibrating with the very force of it. This is no place for his gentle little bird, no, no, this is all wrong. 

“Run, Birdie. Run. Hide. I’ll find you. I promise, I promise. Run.” He can see the refusal in your eyes. The stubbornness threatening to set in. “You promised. You promised you’d do as I say,” he grits through clenched teeth, voice filled with desperation and panic. You shudder, body jerking violently as his words settle inside you, and then you’re shooting up quick as a bullet and turning to run into the darkness. He watches the wood swallow you, and then he’s pushing himself up and squaring himself to face the clicker.

-

The pounding of your feet in the dark, the rattle of your breath in your chest are the only things you can discern in the black surrounding you. 

You have been here before. 

You’re terrified that at any second you're going to see your sister. Her ghostly specter, her savaged and torn body, her beautiful, warm face, whole and healthy and smiling at you, the massacred pieces of her torn flesh, scattered along the forest floor. 

But you need to go, you need to run, to hide, to do as Joel ordered you. Even though every fiber of your being is telling you to turn back. That the worst thing in the world you could ever do would be to leave him. And then you’re slamming into something, jarring and painful. Something blunt and heavy jabs into your gut, slams into your knee with so much force you see stars, sends you to the ground. 

A woman screams, guttural and shrill, as your two bodies collide and a sharp needling cry echoes. Your back slams against the hard forest floor, your head bouncing sickeningly, and white streaks of light flash against the swallowing darkness. 

“Fuck, fuck –” she spits, already scrambling back up to prepare to flee, the high pitched cry sounds again. A baby, you think dazedly. There’s a baby here. The baby the girl mentioned? Your head feels hollow, your brain pulsing against the confines of your skull.

“W–wait–” you croak. You can’t get your bearings, too many sounds muddling your pounding head: the far off gunshots – getting closer, the horrible clicking, your memories battering within your mind over and over, Beth’s phantom screams of pain, Joel yelling at you to run, run, run, the baby’s wail fueling your panic to rise higher and higher inside of you. You have been here before. A sense of déjà vu so acute – as if this moment is the only one you’ve ever existed in. Your skin throbs in echoes, a hair raising chill rolls through your body and you shiver, jerking. “A baby–” you stutter, “You have a baby–” you roll over, reach out to try and grasp her kicking ankle. Her boot collides with your wrist, and you swallow an agonized scream, rolling away from her. 

“Get the fuck away from me! Fucking murderer!” she screeches, over the baby’s cries. A flash of the moon illuminates the woman’s figure for a second and you see the bulk of the child cradled to her front. And her face, panicked, dirt streaked and desperate. You lock eyes for one interminable moment, take each other in, they’re light, almost glowing translucent in her skull with the reflection of the moonlight. 

“Let me– let me help you — Wait–” you urge, you can’t get up, can’t get your limbs to work. 

“Get away from me!” she screams again, and then she’s up and gone, fleeing into the darkness. You need to move, the vicious sounds of a fight are drawing nearer – Joel’s pleading voice in your head run, run, run. The thought of having left him behind makes bile curl in your belly, burn your throat, but you’d promised him you’d listen to anything he said, and the instinct to keep your word won out. You hear Beth’s voice more clearly in this familiar darkness, and you force your shaky mind to move, to work. The way she’d say your name so patiently when trying to teach you something, imparting some of her slightly snooty big-sister-wisdom, always well meaning: The trees, the trees are always our friends. They can do so much for us. And then you’re clawing your way to your feet, just like that long past night, and grappling for any sort of purchase you can find with your hands and boots. Up, up the tree, go up the tree. It saved you once, it’ll save you again. 

It terrifies you to think that life was only ever a recurring set of events; cyclical in an inescapable way. That you were all doomed to repeat the same steps, relive the same instances, again and again. Beth forcing you up the tree last time, the night of her death. You’d been taken by surprise by clickers that night also, but only you had made it up to the first branches before they were on her. Before you were forced to watch, helpless from your perch as she was ripped to shreds. You had been here before and you’d lost something essential to you last time. You would not survive a second loss. 

Joel, please be okay, please, please. 

You manage to foist yourself up into the lowest hanging branches, the blood in your head throbs so strongly it’s coupled with a wave of nausea with every beat of your heart, up higher, a little more. You’d perched on that tree branch for hours after she was finally dead. Staring unseeingly at the scattered pieces of her body. A sudden gunshot echoes loudly in the darkness and you almost lose your purchase on the branch, and then it all stops. Like all sound is suddenly sucked out of the air in a vacuum echo – the struggle of the fight, the clicking and screaming – and the vacant wilderness is so consuming, so terrifying, tears stream silently down your cheeks. You can hear your breath rattle in your chest. You feel very, very alone, as if every other human in the world had vanished with the sounding of that gunshot. 

Alone in a sick and destroyed world. 

But then there’s a sudden bumbling through the trees. A body breaking against the brush and leaves on the ground, and another one of the attackers stumbles into the clearing. You turn your head in the direction the woman had fled, perhaps she’d been part of this group, but the sheer terror in her eyes, the desperation to get away as quickly as possible, her words, calling you a murderer, inclines you to think not. Joel stalks into the clearing after him, and you huddle deeper into the shadow of the branches. The moon slants just so allowing you to take him in. 

It’s like he’s grown five inches taller, the look in his eyes – there is no hint of the man who’d touched you with the gentlest hands you’d ever felt in your entire life – it’s terrifying. His gaze swings almost manically in his head, taking in the clearing, and then his eyes stop on your tree, pause on the patch of dirt at the base and slowly travel up, looking into the looming darkness of the branches. He will always find you. You know this as surely as you know your own name. His face, his hands are steeped in blood, his clothing savaged. There’s no weapon in his grasp as the man turns to swing a long, serrated hunting knife at him. He jerks back, smoothly evading it. “I’m gonna find your little bitch, gonna fuck her dead – gut her. Make you watch the whole thing, you motherfucker,” he taunts. He’s laughing, provoking, and Joel’s countenance is so terrifying in this moment – his face seems set in stone, unmoving and frozen in a rage so black. Your whole body shivers so violently you almost lose your perch. The branch creaks beneath you, and you let out a small whimper as your hands scrape and scramble to hold on, your bloody, broken nails clawing at the wood. The man turns at your sound, but Joel’s gaze remains trained on him. The man’s eyes are manic with sick glee. “Oh, there she is,” he croons. His teeth gleam red in the moonlight, and he never should’ve taken his eyes off Joel, not even for a second. He’s on him faster than you can blink, shoulder to the man’s gut, he slams him to the ground and his skull rebounds with a sick crack on the hard dirt, the sound of his skull breaking with the sheer force of the tackle. 

Joel is an animal, hungry and vicious, ready to gorge. 

The knife is in his hand then, and the sick, slick squelch of it plunging deep into the man’s chest sounds loud and victorious in the night. He lets out a small surprised oh, as he looks down at the knife impaling him, and Joel’s teeth are bared in a snarl, he grinds it harder, deeper.

“That’s right, fucker,” he says, voice low and guttural, almost unrecognizable in this darkness. “Shoulda never put your hands on her.” The sound of it makes you more afraid in this moment than anything else that’s happened tonight, the thought of not knowing the sound of his voice – of losing him so far to his rage you’d be unable to recognize him, to bring him back to you. But then he speaks again: “I’m going to kill you now.” He’s nodding his head mockingly, and that familiar monotone is back. His tone so matter of fact – almost like a reassurance to the three of you. The oily grip of your fear slides off you, and you’re left only to appreciate the magnificence of his violence as he starts beating the man’s face in with his closed first, again and again. The sound of crushed bone and flesh resonating in the dark night air like some gruesome song. And the sight of it: it is lurid, grotesque, but also somehow, erotic. Joel’s huge, heaving body, his fist breaking repeatedly over human flesh; you are mesmerized. You slowly start to lower yourself back to the ground, never once taking your eyes off him, barely blinking. The sight of him, wrathful, murdering, the way he kills for you, the way he protects you; you understand it. It is very much like the moment in which Beth died in its violent inevitability. It will always happen like this; Beth dying, Joel protecting you. The way her body was torn apart piece by piece by clickers as you watched on from above. The basest display of violence imaginable. Joel, meticulous, precise in his strikes, protecting you with everything he has. The man’s skull is an almost bloody mass of pulpy, bone riddled sludge beneath his blows. But in this instance, the scene before you is now something that is being given to you, something being done for you – not something being taken away.

There have been many times where the lines between the infected and the humans blurred in your psyche. Unsure which was more violent, more horrifying, more willing to inflict damage. But there never existed a question of which had a greater capacity for cruelty. It was always, always the humans. Cordyceps had taught you that nature could never be cruel – it only existed as it was meant to, did as it was always intended to. There was no cruelty behind it’s actions, no motivation behind the consequences it wrought besides to go on existing, no choice. But humans, people, the well of cruelty that existed within humanity was endless in its possibility. Endless choices. Nothing else like that lived in the world. The man you killed – his disgusting whispered words ring in your ears as you watch Joel: You think your man over there’ll get off on watching? ‘Cause I sure as hell am gonna enjoy knowin’ he is, pretty thing. 

There are no lines in this moment – the way you’d murdered him – there is no sense of division. There is only Joel’s desperate violence existing with the three of you in this clearing – the echoes of your own.

And the sight before you, the violence in him, it is not frightening to you. He is not frightening to you. To see his very basest nature – to see him protect you in this way – that violent heart, beastly, savage – it does not frighten you. You step forward, closer to the massacre, to the man you love, and he instantly stops. Hearing or sensing your approach, he stops and turns his bloody, savage face towards you, chest heaving, fist still raised. The look in his eyes as he registers your presence, that you’ve witnessed him in this way – to Joel, to Joel it is devastating. You can see it in his gaze, the moment it settles within him – catastrophe of the highest order. 

The possibility of losing you, of you being hurt, of him not being strong or fast enough to protect you; every fear, every moment of unimaginable danger, every point of no return flashes in his eyes – it’s like you’re reading his mind in this moment. The instance of connection, of knowing, of intimacy you share in the wake of his violence – it tethers you to him in a way that is deeper than anything else the two of you have experienced before. To share this, to know what he’s feeling in this space his violence has forged, to understand his rage – he’s seen this play out so many different ways, so many times, with different versions of someone he cares for. Sarah, Ellie, you.

His eyes like glass, broad chest heaving, painfully out of breath; it’s like you can see him recall another moment like this as he looks at you, as he takes in the familiar look of hungry reverence in your eyes, mirroring another set too young to churn with so much appreciation for violence. 

He straightens from his crouch over the massacred form of your attacker, and comes to you, bloody hands fisting in your hair as he takes your mouth, open and fierce. The groan he licks into you is guttural, eliciting a shaky, broken moan in response.

“My brave girl,” he murmurs softly, nose nuzzling your cheek.

His hands roam down, gently pressing for wounds or hurts. “You’re okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” You press yourself to him, gaze peeking over his shoulder, staring out into the empty darkness, only the sound of your shared breaths now. 

“There was a woman,” you whisper, “With a baby.” Where did she go? Why did she have a baby out here with her in this hell?

He pulls you back, grips your jaw gently, “Are you hurt?” He demands, ignoring what you’d just said, and you shake your head, wide eyed. Do they have shelter? Somewhere to go? Someone to help them? 

“Are you?” you ask him. 

“I’m fine.”

“I saw a woman, Joel. She had a baby.”

“Was probably with those bastards. We have to go – find the others. I have to get you back home.” 

“But she had a baby–”

“That isn’t our concern,” he says sharply, and turns, clutching your hand in his, pulling you forward to bend for the knife still plunged in the man’s chest. He isn’t letting you go again. You feel the promise in the strength of his grip around your bones. The skull is caved in, and your eyes volley back and forth between the slaughter and Joel.

“But I–”

“Don’t.” There is no room for discussion in his tone, only an urgency that begs for your obedience. His panic, his terror, envelopes you both in its asphyxiating embrace. “Not now. We have to go.”

-

You make it back to Jackson within several hours. Never coming across the group or the horses again. Joel sets an uncompromising pace that has your exhausted, overwrought body shutting down once you finally set eyes on the gate. 

He hasn’t said a word in hours except to check if you’re okay. His breathing, harsh and angry — you’d focused on the rhythm of it, the reassurance it provided you. Let the sound settle in your bones and guide you forward along with his hand. He’d not let go of you since he’d picked it up, and your fingers have long gone numb in his strangling grip. But you know, that like the sound of his breathing, the feel of your palm in his is his own form of reassurance. The embrace he’d not allow himself right now. Not until you’re safe. 

The dark, red thread of tension pulls taught between the two of you. His earlier violence, still palpable on your tongue, felt in the rigidity he holds himself with, it buzzes between your bodies like a hive. A restless anxiety overshadowing the exhaustion threatening you, making your skin itch and sweat. 

You return to find Tommy safe and unharmed, Kenneth and Pablo being patched up by Nancy and interrogated by Maria. The fourth in your party, Ben, is dead. A group already assembled to go out and search for the two of you. The teenage girl had disappeared from the clinic shortly after your group had headed out – the whole thing was a trap. Joel recounts the fight in tense, short bursts, never letting go of your hand. Pulling your body slightly behind his, as if these people, familiar to you, your friends, your family, also pose a threat. Anyone who dares too close is met with the fire of his glare, bared teeth. He’s yet to shed the blanket of violence he’d dawned to defend the two of you earlier, and your body seems to answer it, a keening cry only he can hear. Shaking and sweating, clutching the back of his jacket, pressing your feverish brow to his shoulder. You know you should pull yourself together, tend to Kenneth and Pablo, clean and wrap Joel’s obviously broken hand and your own scrapes and bruises – it’s your responsibility – but you can’t focus, can’t pin a rational thought in your mind long enough to propel yourself into action. The wet sound of Joel’s pummeling fist plays over and over in your mind, the only thing you can focus on, the feel of his warm back under your touch. You need him, need something from him after that trauma, after your fear of being taken from him, of one of you being killed. You need him to remind you that you’re both okay, alive, that you belong to him and only him. 

You block out their conversation, eyes closed, you try to match the rhythm of your breathing to his, try to ground yourself with his body. The feeling of never having left those dark woods, of still being in that tree with Beth, not Joel, beneath you, of being lost, lost, lost, of never finding him, is overwhelming you. And then he’s turning and pulling you into his arms, guiding you away from the group and whispering into your hair, “It’s alright, it’s alright, just a little longer. We’re going home now.” Home, he was taking you home. The words out of his mouth allow you enough clarity of mind to squeeze the wish from your heart into your brain – that you want so desperately for his home to be yours also. That you could both share the same space you call just your own. 

“I’ve got you, baby. Stop your trembling now,” he presses into your hair. His voice, so comforting, so reassuring. 

Your eyes are blurry, colors passing your gaze in a hazy amalgamation that makes your heart beat faster. You can feel the mass of it pounding against the ribs in your back, the sensation sick and uncomfortable. And then you’re in his bedroom, and his hands are everywhere, ripping aggressively at your clothes, sliding through your hair, squeezing your ass and your breasts and your hips. 

“I need you– need you, need you– Need to feel you, Birdie.” His voice pushes an urgency into your skin that has your heart beating even harder against your ribcage, his mouth sliding over your neck, tongue laving into the hollow of your collarbone, teeth biting, sharp and painful, into your shoulder, and you find your voice finally, keening and broken, calling out his name. He’s moving lower, sucking on your breast, biting, as if he could fit the entire heavy weight of it into his mouth, “Joel– Joel, please.” You push and grip at his head, his hair. 

“I know, I know, baby. I know what you need.” He pushes you back onto the bed, rips your legs open, fingers and nails pressing painfully into your soft skin, he spits on to your exposed sex, rubbing his saliva into your folds, bends for a long lick, and then two of his thick fingers are shoving into your cunt. He curls them forward and presses, presses, hooks into that spot that belongs only to him and bares his teeth at you. Snarls like an animal. Mine, mine, mine, you’re okay, you’re mine, he chants. He moves his fingers fast, with a lewd squelch that has you writhing and gasping, scissoring them to stretch you open. He pulls them from you, too soon, not enough, you want to say, but you hear the drag of his zipper – he spits again – and then the hot, wide head of his cock is there at your entrance, swiping along you in a wet arc, and then pressing, pressing in, and he’s there, surging into you and fucking hard and fast into your tight heat, hitting the end of you. The groan he lets out when he sinks to the hilt vibrates through you. You aren’t fully ready to take his thick length, and you don’t care, want it harder, faster, want it to hurt more, to remind you that you’re here with him, that you made it out of that dark wood. You curl your fingers under the damp crook of your knees and spread yourself wider for his ravaging. Eyes never leaving his, you arch your back to allow yourself to take him deeper. The moan you give him, pleading, almost pathetic in its desperate supplication – like an animal, like prey, pinned beneath the claws of a savage beast.

“This is what you needed – this is what you needed. You’re okay, you’re okay” he chants. You cannot discern where it is he ends and you begin. You never want to be able to tell again, want to meld your souls, your bodies together like ore. 

-

Still standing over your naked form at the edge of the bed, he lets himself fall forward, rigid arms holding himself up. He takes in your flushed, sweaty face, the glassy, terrified look you’d worn for hours replaced by the glassy haze of arousal. Delirious at the pleasure he’s forcing into you right now, he picks up the pace of his hips, gives it to you harder. Snakes a hand down to give your clit a gentle swirl, then further down, where his fingers part in a V to feel where his cock splits you open. 

“Just take it, just take it.” His cock inside you is brutal, cunt stretched to the point of obscenity, stuffed full. “I need you to take it for me, just like this – be a good girl – don’t struggle, lemme give it to you how I need.” His desperation has a flavor, a scent to it. He changes the angle to fuck up, up against something no one but him has ever touched, a space inside you that belongs to him, thumb soft as a whisper on your swollen clit, around and around. He can tell you almost need to tell him to stop, that it’s too much. “Fuck, that’s so good, baby, you’re such a good girl,” he praises, and you make a soft, obscene sound that he feels in his battering cock. He gives it to you harder. It’s a sound of acquiescence, of complete capitulation, that he rings out of you. He’s conquered you in this moment – conquered you in a way that grants you no option of stopping. The sound is his permission to conquer. With his body over yours, within yours – you are completely at his mercy and protected from everything else in the world that could ever hurt you. He feels god-like. There is no fear or loss or hurt, no possibility of failure, only his body moving within yours. Your warm wet heat swallowing, gaping for him as he fills it like you both need him to.

The panic of that darkness surrounding him, of being unable to find you, of killing everything in his path just to fucking get to you, sings through him. He’d kill this dead world over and over and over again a thousand times just to find you in that darkness. 

-

He hooks your knees over his arms, hitches them higher – holds your legs open wider to receive him – your bare tits pressed up against the bloody, savaged cotton of his flannel – too desperate to bother stripping his own clothes, and the rough fabric rubs your soft skin raw. Each time his hips slam against your ass, balls slapping, your breath stutters out of you in broken gasps, and you don’t think he’s ever been as deep in your cunt as he is now. He wraps one of his arms around your back, gripping your shoulder to impale you down onto his cock. His other fists painfully in your hair to keep your head in place and tilted up to him; your jaw hinged open so you can breathe into each other. Your own hands clutch uselessly at his wrists, trying to exert some semblance of force against him – to remind him of your own strength while he overwhelms you with his. He’s fucking you as if he could burrow his way inside of you forever, live within the confines of your skin. You’ve lost track of how many times your cunt has spasmed and come around him, your muscles milking him relentlessly. Your clit engorged and rubbed raw. You’re one unending, throbbing orgasm. Everything is wet and messy between the two of you, the gush of your lust sticky and clinging to the hair on his pelvis and thighs. Birdie, Birdie, Birdie, it’s like a prayer. 

“Should’ve never left you alone in the dark, baby.”

He wants to break you, you're sure of it – to turn you into a creature reduced to only the virtue of his whims, ruled by the savaging of his cock. The very nectar of you pooling at his feet, leaking out of your pores under the unrelenting focus of his body and you know you won’t survive him. Not after this. But no, you realize, no, this is Joel breaking, not you. His fear is a living creature sharing the room with the two of you right now. Everything that’s ever held him away from you, everything he’s ever been too scared of to admit, lives and breathes with you in this moment. Like some sort of monstrosity crouched in the corner, bloody and frayed and wanting. 

“Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie,” he brands the words into your skin. “I was so scared—” searing kisses pressed to your face, your neck, your breasts, in the wake of his words. 

Oh, this is it. Your heart, your heart, it’s going to burst, to cleave in two. He’s wrought a fracture through the core of your very being. 

This will never mend. 

The rhythm of his hips speeds up, becoming sloppy and stuttered – he’s close – and his grip transfers to your jaw, so tight and bruising; you’ll have the ghost of his fingers on your skin tomorrow. His cock kisses your womb with each brutal thrust, and he bares his teeth at you as he starts to come, the blazing wash of his spend filling you. “You’re gunna take all of my fucking come.” Anger and violence and all the feelings he wishes he didn’t have to experience, churn in his dark eyes. And you’d hold onto his anger soaked skin for the rest of your life if you could, if he’d let you. His eyes flick between yours, still holding your face, he ghosts his thumb over your wet bottom lip. “Birdie, I– I…” His hips are still moving, fucking his come deeper into your messy, used cunt. You see the realization of what he’s just said settle in his eyes, moving back and forth between yours, as if he’s watching him bare himself to you over again in their reflection. 

You’re losing him, you can feel the tension – regret, please, please don’t be regret – slowly start to seep into him as soon as he’s finished, to steal him away from you, and you cling more desperately to him, pull his face to yours and press soft butterfly kisses across his cheeks and nose. Joel, Joel, Joel. Please, don’t. His eyes flutter closed – the image of you beneath him already too much to bear.

“Stop,” he growls. Again: “Stop,” and suddenly he’s ripping himself out and away from you. The loss of him from between your legs, so violently abrupt, is almost a physical pain. The emptiness after being so full leaves you clenching around nothing, pushing his come out of you, and embarrassment, shame, fills you so acutely – to have your sex bared to him like a wound he’s left you with. You shut your legs, clutch your knees to your chest and gasp for breath, almost a sob. You gouge your nails into the skin of your knees trying to draw blood – before he can. You know what’s coming. 

“I didn’t mean… all that. I– fuck—” he spits, clutches his hand in his messy hair, “I– I got carried away.” He’s backing away from you – other hand outstretched as if to keep you away. As if he could keep the reality of his confession, the betrayal to his own self, away from him with just that outstretched hand. 

You’re still on your back, vacant eyes trained towards the ceiling, sucking in painful gulps of air, but you register him from the corner of your eye, the look he wears – you can’t decide if he was more terrified at the possibility of you being ripped apart by the clickers, taken and brutalized by the hunters; or in this moment, if his fear is more acute now, in the wake of his fortuitous confession. At the risk of being laid bare and vulnerable at your feet; as you’ve lived at his since the moment he first took you.  

“Okay,” you say – try to temper your voice, slow your breaths, remain quiet and calm. Only one of you can be overwhelmed by panic right now. And yet part of you wants to rage at him. Your heart beats painfully in your chest, and you want to say, it’s not like I’m asking you to open your vein and let me drink – only just to love me.

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

“Okay…” you say again, “I– it’s… it’s okay. I know.” You sit up slowly, your body throbs and aches, still not able to look at him – the sight of him so terrified of all you represent, it would burn you – but you feel his gaze like a brand across your skin. You wrap your arms around your naked breasts, shielding yourself. His own bloody shirt is askew, his pants still open, cock slick with your mingled come, still semi-hard. If this were any other moment you’d tease him – how are you still hard after all that? 

You turn your head away, towards the door, a traitorous little tear escapes the corner of your eye, and you quickly wipe it against your lifted shoulder, press your fingers to your mouth to keep in the threatening sobs. One of his flannels is strewn across the ground and you toe it towards yourself. “It was the adrenaline.” Your voice is limp, dead. Diminishing this will be the thing to kill you, you’re sure of it. How can he expect you to turn away from the one thing you’ve wanted from him more than anything else? 

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

You shrug on his shirt, and he’s still not said anything else, but you see him move to tuck himself into his jeans now. “I- I’m gonna get some water,” you mumble, give him a moment to recalibrate.

Chapter V

Netherfeildren Masterlist

[hadesstan]

June of Doom Day 20

"That's gonna be one hell of a scar"

| Cage | Pliers | Scrape |

Cw: The prompts above, rescue, implied abuse/ torture, self-sacrifice.

I'm actually really proud of myself for keeping at this so long. I fully expected to fail before day 15. I'm thinking I might start posting snippets from my whumpy novel once I get through this shitshow of a month. Anyway, enjoy some more hero/villain whump!

...

Villain sat in the cage, bleeding all over, but refusing to cower. They didn't huddle or hide in the corners of the cage, they sat, dead centre, and glared at the door, waiting for Supervillain to return.

But when the the click of the lock echoed through the room and the scrape of the dopr opening grated their ears, it wasn't Supervillain coming through the door. It was Sidekick. The very last person they'd ever expect to be here.

"Sidekick?"

Sidekick raised a finger to their lips. "Shush". Villain understood the message and chose to watch out the door as Sidekick pulled a pair of large pliers from their jacket and began to cut the wires on the cage. One by one. Snip snip snip. It took way longer than was comfortable for Villain, and they grew more paranoid with every snip of a wire that Supervillain would arrive.

But they never did, and soon, there was a hole large enough for Villain to crawl out.

As soon as they were out though, they couldn't stand straight. The cuts crisscrossing their legs made it impossible to rest their weight on their legs.

Sidekick hissed when they saw the wounds.

"That's gonna be one hell of a scar," they muttered. The first thing they'd said since they arrived. They didn't say another word as they looped Villain's arm over their shoulder and carried most of their weight as the pair limped out the door.

They approached the front door but Villain began to panic. Where was Supervillain? They must have heard them. Why hadn't they showed up?

"They're distracted right now," Sidekick whispered, reading their thoughts. Villain wanted to question it, but at that moment they heard the loud crash as someone fell through a window somewhere out of sight.

They heard the tell-tale voices of Supervillain and Hero arguing and suddenly they understood. Hero was distracting Supervillain, hence why Sidekick was here.

Sidekick didn't seem fazed in the slightest and continued carrying Villain out the car outside, loading them into the back seat.

"Hero-" Villain started, but Sidekick cut them off.

"They'll be fine. My orders are to get you out of here."

"But-"

They didn't get to finish their complaint as the car jerked forward, shooting out into the road, just as Supervillain came crashing out onto the road behind them, bruised and battered, followed by a furious Hero.

[graylinesspam]

Okay first of all, your fics are amazing!

Second of all, I absolutely love that you made the Wolfpack Ashoka’s ori’vode but I have a question. If the arc with the Jedi temple bombing happens in your AU, how does Wolffe and Ahsoka’s relationship affect its outcome? Will he still stun her, will he even believe in her innocence, and what are his thoughts on the whole situation?

Thoughts? I sure I'm having them.

Though usually they're more incoherent sobbing than words.

I'm gonna be honest, I've never seen that act without my already preconceived ideas of the relationship between them already established. I've always interpreted it through that lens.

So I guess not much would really change except in the background. The build up. The fallout. (this also depends on the AU. Because I am writing ASOI which is post wrong jedi arc so I a dress this a little already but plan to a lot more in the future. While I'm not really writing Sleeping Habits with an intention of tackling this topic. Both AUs can be considered connected but I don't write Sleeping Habits with any foresight or planning intended for ASOI.)

Wolffe is a good soldier. He will carry out his orders no matter what. And you really can't forget that Plo is right there through the action as well. Whatever reservations Wolffe might have about hunting Ahsoka down he knows Plo cares about her more than anyone. He knows that Plo has volunteered them to capture her specifically to keep her from getting hurt. And he trusts his general. So it would be hard for him emotionally. Especially once she goes to trial and the entire GAR suddenly realises she's totally gonna get executed. That would probably be the only time he lets himself even consider that he could have let her get away. But he would never actually allow that.

Honestly, I imagine the night Ahsoka's trial ends and she disappears, Wolffe locks himself in his office with a bottle of something strong and he doesn't come out for a long time. Wolffe is a man that tries very hard not to have any thoughts or feelings. Whatever happens in his office is between him and the maker. But he doesn't take his helmet of for a long while afterwards.

Cody similarly digs himself into a hole he doesn't crawl out of for a while.

No one knows what happened to the 501st. After the battle had ended and they finally had the opportunity to reconnect with the GAR, they went dead silent. Full communications blackout for a two-day cycle. When they returned to Coruscant for leave many more of them had jagged blue lekku stripes painted somewhere on their armor. And no one dared to mention her when a soldier in blue was in the vicinity.

Those that mourn Ahsoka do so stoically, the way a soldier would. They don't show a lot of emotional vulnerability. They wear their colors. They drink their feelings. And if anyone tries to start something with them they're likely to find a first in their face. That's just the reality of it.

[chaos-event-horizon]

Future Bonefriends Drabbles:

"how they met" and "how they started dating"

Originally written around 2016 and revamped in 2018, now copy/pasted in 2023.

~~~~~~~~~~

How did they meet?

It was pure coincidence that, not only were they both in the mall that day, but they were standing less than a foot away from each other when it happened. At a kiosk for sneakers, if you can believe it. Some red-neck, never-happy, middle aged bag of dicks saw Sans and flipped his shit, his wife silent but nodding in fierce agreement at everything her racist husband said.

Ugly beasts.

Job stealers.

Thieves.

Should crawl back into whatever hole they crawled out of.

Rian, who had been bullied most of their life and always wanted to do something about it, was not one to let things go. They nudged Sans and spoke softly. “Aye man... when I give the signal, run. They’ll be more mad at me but if they get you too, who’s gonna make sure they put somethin’ kickass on my gravestone?”

The stocky skeleton was confused. “what...?”

“Get ready boneboy.”

With a grin, bouncing on the balls of their feet, Rian whipped around. “This dude is nothing but bone. I bet he gets twice as much pussy as you....” Rian announce, cheerfully and loudly, with a conspiratorial wink at the man’s wife. “But no one blames you, ma’am. With a mug like that? Eesh!”

Rian all but shoved the shocked Sans as the angry asshole started barrelling toward them.

“kid what the fu-”

“TURN!”

They skidded along, Sans breathing heavily. “why would you antagonize him? i’m used to this shit kid!”

“I hate bullies and wanted to try out some of my moves! Meet you at the bottom floor!” Rian said gleefully, stopping and nudging Sans onto the escalator. The human was barely winded. “GEEZ GRAMPS! I can see why you were jealous! He’s got more stamina than you too!”

It was at this point that Sans noticed the patches on Rian’s jacket.

PARKOUR FREESTYLE GYMNASTICS

Oh boy.

Needless to say, the rent-a-cop was both annoyed and impressed when he was yanking a loud, hateful man out of a caffeteria trash bin. All the witnesses were happy to come forward, and many even supplied video. The grown man was clearly trying to openly assault the 18 year old kid. That kid just so happened to be very adept at dodging. The wife was beside herself, claiming that the ‘rough teen and rude monster’ had started the problem. More video and more witnesses, including a guffawing kiosk manager, proved otherwise.

Papyrus never heard of the incedent, but King Asgore did, and personally invited Rian over for dinner, deciding he liked this human who reminded him quite a bit of a young Undyne.

Sans was just pissed that he hadn’t had the wherewithal to come up with a joke on the fly. It would be weeks before he let himself admit that if Rian hadn’t stepped in, he might have used his magic.

fact, it was several days before Sans decided he would even tolerate this odd, intrusive, hard-to-read human.

~

~

~

~

How did they start dating?

~

'Several days later' came relatively quick, however, after Sans was pressured into going and picking up said human for one of the many weekly dinners he was invited to.

"We have no idea what Rian's home life is like" Toriel had said only moments previously. "But the child hardly seems more than a scrap of a thing. He apparently eats enough to be athletic, but certainly not enough for someone who should be growing! Now, go and get him!"

And so, here Sans was, waiting in a small plaza right next to the mall where he and the kid first met. He must have lived or worked somewhere nearby, since he always got picked up in this general area. Figuring he might as well get something out of this, he made his way into the closest little burger joint, hunkering for a milkshake. The place wasn't busy, per say, as much as just tiny, and seemed almost packed with just Sans and less than a handful of teenagers who'd presumably come to enjoy the late-spring weather. It seemed built for drive-thru traffic, as opposed to the sit-n-eat kind.

Just the kind of place Sans didn't like, but beggars can't be choosers.

He followed his usual drill when it came to overly human establishments; pay no body no mind, look interested in the walls, and don't let anyone try to strike up a conversation. It worked, for the most part, and the poor kid he registered in the back of his mind that seemingly ran the place alone didn't notice him until the kids were heading out the door. He stepped up to the counter and...

Suddenly he and Rian were staring at each other.

There were several, long moments of silence that seemed to weigh them both down as each looked the other over. Rian was well aware that Sans didn't seem fond of him. Sans was well aware that the kid was bothered by it, but refused to budge on the matter until he proved that he was in it for more than just a cheap thrill; the fact that the kid seemed to get embarrassed and choked up whenever they were alone didn't really help.

Thankfully for the human, Sans was the first to crack. “wow kid. now that i know your secret, fry'll will have to brush up on my restaurant puns.”

A moment of silence, then softly, “Don’t you mean restaurant buns?”

Sans chuckled. “good one kid.”

“Thanks. I uh... this is a pickle.”

“heh. tell ya what. if you can make me have a good laugh, i’ll keep your secret a while longer. since you’re really that embarrassed.”

Rian blushed. “Okay... I’d tell you some anatomy jokes, but tibia honest they aren’t very humerus and I can ulna come up with a few.”

Sans snorted. “keep trying kiddo.”

“I’d tell you a joke about hot dogs, but I don’t want you to think I’m the wurst.”

“nah, you’re just a brat.”

“What do you call a tree with no leaves?”

“what?”

“It’s a tree. What do you call a bear with no fur?”

“a bear?” Sans said, fighting a chuckle.

“Well you sure don’t call him Harry.” Rian snickered.

Sans laughed softly in reply. “ya must be one of those ‘anti-joke’ types. got any more?”

“What do you call a cow with no legs?”

“no clue.”

“Ground beef! What do you call a dog with no legs?” Sans chuckled as he shook his head, and Rian went straight through with the punchline. “Doesn’t matter what you call him, he ain’t coming without help! What’s worse than ten dead babies in a trash can?”

“oh stars kid, I’m almost afraid to ask. what’s worse?”

Rian let out a soft giggle. “One dead baby in ten trash cans.”

Sans was really laughing now. “kid you are terrible!”

“What’s the difference between a pile of dead bodies and a convertible?”

“oh no.”

“I don’t keep the convertible in the garage.”

“oh my god.”

Rian’s manager, a middle-aged man named David, sighed. It was technically against company policy to flirt with customers, but he’d let it slide. Because of Rian’s friendly attitude, more people, human and monster, had been regularly coming in, and the other employees all got along with him. He’d also noticed Rian had less ‘accidental’ cuts, now that they’d been frequently seen hanging out with monsters. Some bad jokes were more than worth it.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Sans was laughing too hard to answer, and Rian was oblivious as all of his coworkers in the back stared in a mixture of fear and awe. What none of them saw, but Sans could, was the ever-so-slight glow of a kind, patient, and injured SOUL finally shining through and getting bolder with each joke. The humor almost seemed to send sparks through the kid.

“I don’t know why, but it’s an egg-cellent yoke.”

Sans wiped away a tear, a genuine grin on his face as he shook his head. “ah kid. i pine. i oak, even. marry me? i need to tie ya down if i wanna be able to hear jokes like that for the rest of my life.”

“Aw Sans, at least take me to dinner first!”

The skeleton chuckled, waving his hand. “aren’t i already? unless i’m not givin’ ya a ride anymore. but if tonight doesn’t count, i ‘spose i can take ya to Grillby’s tomorrow?”

Rian smiled shyly. “I’d like that, Sans.”

“then it’s a date. just call me your future bonefriend.”

Sans had actually surprised himself... but was willing to give the kid a chance. Anyone that quick with some messy jokes couldn't be all bad.

[anthony-sharma]

Six of Crows Reread - Ch. 3

Now, on to the reread, a chapter by own very own Kazzle Dazzle!

_

Chapter 3: Kaz

“Don’t tell me my business, Jes.”

“You think I’m dirty, too?”

“If I thought you were dirty, you’d be holding your guts in on the floor of the Exchange like Big Bol, so stop running your mouth.”

I like it that Kaz calls Jesper “Jes” since the beginning, but since the Crows’ appearance in S&B is supposed to be a “prequel” of sorts, I’m sure we’ll see Kaz call Jesper “Jes” at some point in the spin off (because we are getting it).

And also, he trusts Jes too much to “spill his guts in the Exchange”. Proof is how he treated him after he spilled where they were going. He was an ass to Jesper, yes, and he also fought him (without his cane) but he wasn’t anywhere near deadly violent to him. So shut up Kaz, you big softie!

“Kaz shrugged, unwilling to give her an answer. Inej was always trying to wring little bits of decency from him. “When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”

“Why did you even agree to the meet if you knew it was a set-up?” She was somewhere to the right of him, moving without a sound. He’d heard other members of the gang say she moved like a cat, but he suspected cats would sit attentively at her feet to learn her methods.”

And the show draws inspiration from this dialogue for episode 4 of the second season, called “Every Monstrous Thing”, where, curiously enough, he “does” another monstroous thing (burying Alby) without actually doing so. I know what you did there, S&B!

Also, it will be very cool how they portray this part of the book in the show, where Inej is talking to him from somewhere in the shadows but can’t really be seen. 

“For a while she said nothing, then from somewhere behind him he heard her. “Men mock the gods until they need them, Kaz.”

He didn’t see her go, only sensed her absence.”

I wonder if Kaz prayed when Inej was injured by Oomen, later on. 

Also, that last sentence sounds lovely for some reason. Like poetic. 

“Kaz gave an irritated shake of his head. To say he trusted Inej would be stretching the point, but he could admit to himself that he’d come to rely on her. It had been a gut decision to pay off her indenture with the Menagerie, and it had cost the Dregs sorely. Per Haskell had needed convincing, but Inej was one of the best investments Kaz had ever made. That she was so very good at remaining unseen made her an excellent thief of secrets, the best in the Barrel. But the fact that she could simply erase herself bothered him. She didn’t even have a scent. All people carried scents, and those scents told stories – the hint of carbolic on a woman’s fingers or woodsmoke in her hair, the wet wool of a man’s suit, or the tinge of gunpowder lingering in his shirt cuffs. But not Inej. She’d somehow mastered invisibility. She was a valuable asset. So why couldn’t she just do her job and spare him her moods?”

Oh my dude, your opinion’s gonna change by the second book, and maybe even before that! It reminds me to the part where Wylan asks him if he would be able to trust someone with his weaknesses and he thinks that yes, there’s one person who would never take advantage of his weaknesses.

Also, how is it possible that Inej doesn’t have a scent? Can humans not have a scent? Although we’re reading a fantasy book, maybe some things can be overlooked without thinking too much about them?

“Ghosts, Kaz thought. A boy’s fear, but it came with absolute surety. Jordie had come for his vengeance at last. It’s time to pay your debts, Kaz. You never get something for nothing.

[...]

But if they managed it, even after Per Haskell got his cut, Kaz’s share of the scrub would be enough to change everything, to finally put into motion the dream he’d had since he’d first crawled out of a cold harbour with revenge burning a hole in his heart. His debt to Jordie would be paid at last.”

It saddens me to think that Kaz thinks Jordie would want to take revenge on him or thinks that he ows him something, considering that he was only 9 years old when Jordie died and he was not at fault for anything :(

Van Eck thumbed through the papers in his hand. “You were first arrested at ten,” he said, scanning the page.

“Everyone remembers his first time.”

Is he making a sex joke or am I just reading too much into it?

“The mercher cleared his throat. “When Bo Yul-Bayur sent us the sample of jurda parem, we fed it to three Grisha, one from each Order.”

Oh, so he was indeed with Councilman Hoede in his boat safehouse in the beginning! I didn’t catch that the first time I read it. 

“So that was the secret behind the murder of the ambassador in the washroom. And the gold in those three Shu ships must have been Fabrikator made. Kaz hadn’t heard anything about Ravkan documents, but he nodded anyway.”

Haha silly me who didn’t make the connection between a drugged Grisha and the assassination of the Zemeni ambassador. And of course that is why Kaz and Inej hadn’t come up with an explanation - because they didn’t know of the existence of jurda parem or what the drug did to Grishas.

“You have to know he’s probably dead. The Fjerdans hate Grisha. There’s no way they’d let knowledge of this drug get out.”

So interesting to see how Kaz literally spoiled what happened to Bo Yul-Bayur. He really died. Or more like he died even before the book started. He was also right on the fact that they didn’t let the knowledge of the drug get out, because they kept Kuwei under lock and chains - until the Crows came, of course.

“Our sources say he is very much alive and that he is awaiting trial.” Van Eck cleared his throat.”

Well, evidently your sources are wrong. Either that or you were deceived on purpose, Van Eck. 

“From what I know of the Ice Court, whoever stole my DeKappel is exactly who I need for this job.”

“Then you’d be better off hiring him. Or her.”

I love how they’re almost dancing around each other in this conversation. Van Eck basically acknowledging that it was Kaz who stole the DeKappel and Kaz just playing dumb until his last breath. It gives me RoW “I don’t know who Inej is” vibes.

“Van Eck led him through a door and into a manicured garden, thick with the new nectar scent of early crocuses. The smell hit Kaz like a blow to the jaw. Memories of Jordie were already too fresh in his mind, and for a moment, Kaz wasn’t walking through the canal-side garden of a rich merch, he was knee-deep in spring grasses, hot sun beating down on his cheeks, his brother ’s voice calling him home.”

I hope in a future book we can get more details about how Kaz’s life was like before he and Jordie went to Ketterdam. Here we only get the barest glimpse but I wish we knew more.

“Van Eck sighed and crouched down to turn the body over. “We’ve lost another,” he said.

The boy was young, the bare scraps of a moustache on his upper lip.” 

Oh no, Joost!! Why is it that I’m just now reading about his death? Well, maybe because he’s not mentioned again by anyone, but still!

“Oh, it’s worse than that, Van Eck. If I fail, I don’t get paid.”

That’s almost the same thing he says to Nikolai in 2.07, with the “I didn’t know you were patriots” and him answering with “Well, if you die, we don’t get paid”.

So that’s all for chapter 3, next up comes again our darling Inej <3

[refriedrambles]

(We gotta lot going on in this one, blood, death, vomit I think that's everything I need to warn about)

Li fought to stay awake. Despite the carnage. Despite having seen the mangled mess his body had become. But along with his blood, the heat fled his body at an alarming rate and sleep's gentle embrace always seemed to find him more easily with a chill.

His vision was blurred and spotty as he drifted off, but there was movement off... somewhere...

Before his mind had the chance to stir, his body shot up and retched.

The first sense to come to him was touch, the burning ache as guts flipped and twisted. Seemingly trying to escape his body. The throbbing of his head. Snot, spit and tears forcing their way out of his face. And the squirming of his skin. The lining of his throat and inside of his mouth screamed with a searing pain he'd never felt before., like something was eating away at it.

That's how he was gonna die. To whatever was eating away at his insides.

The taste of pennies, rot and battery acid took over two of his senses.

Red. That's all he could really make out when he squinted open his eyes. But it was wrong. Beyond the split blur of his vision, the color wasn't right for the blood he was certain he'd just spat up.

Every time he tried to breathe, his body heaved instead, desperate to flush his system. It left him gasping, clawing the walls.

The ringing drowned out any surrounding noises.

After what seemed like hours the heaving retching stopped. He slumped onto the tiny wall of what he now realized was a tub in exhaustion.

There was a buzzing in his head, quieter, subtler than the ringing from before but still there nonetheless.

Only now he had a moment to himself did he realize how utterly and completely wrong his own skin felt.

He didn't remember crawling into the wreck of this house.

He had all his limbs somehow. He didn't before.

He was sure there was a hole in his stomach before. Now when he double checked all he found were some minor scratches and a lot of dried blood.

It must of been a dream.

His guts writhed in protest. Like they were alive. Like they were under attack.

Running his hand through his hair, he stopped when it met more with a half dried mess and pain. Well that'd explain somethings.

He had vague memories of hitting his head.

Eventually he decided he needed to secure some food and water for himself.

His vision never fully cleared, but he could make more things out now that he wasn't blinded by the pain and tears.

Copper, rot and battery.

He stumbled along on limbs that refused to carry him, clinging to the cracked walls and countertops. Until his eyes wandered.

The buzzing turned to screams, urging, demanding he turn away, before he could even make sense of what he was looking at. His insides followed suit, violently trying to make an escape.

Li scrambled to him checking-

His hand twitched at the thought.

-checking for something that might never have been there in the first place. He was cold. Colder then Li. He didn't know if that was normal.

His head continued to scream.

The nausea returned a vengeance.

Rot.

It- HE- was dry to the touch, skin flaking away as Li yanked his hand away.

Acid.

The bile seemed to tear at his throat. He tried to force it back down.

The eyes were dead, drying, staring unblinkingly.

It wouldn't go down back down.

They turned to him as he vomited black all over himself and passed out once again.

[birdieofprey]

Elyse's weakened sarcastic admonishment beats against her conscience. She thinks to protest, but doesn't, the two of them sitting there across from each other.

The easy way out; those words stick in her mind. The easy way out is just waiting for the sun to come up. It strikes her in that moment that Lara was right. She's too afraid to be what she is here. Blood curdles in her gut and she takes a breath, fighting the urge to retch it all out; its even worse than Lara's bagged bood, the stuff that reeks of cold iron and salt. How is she supposed to survive for eternity if she can't even get past the act of needing to hurt others to live? How is she supposed to kill Skinner, to keep him from making more monsters like her, if she can't even last a second on her feet around him? She doesn't want to die. She doesn't deserve to live. She doesn't want to be a monster, and she's never going to be human again. Never going to feel the way she used to feel. It's a sort of loss she's considered a thousand times and yet never so much as she's considered them in the last few days, with Skinner's revelation that she's never been anything but willing to commit whatever atrocity buys her just a little more selfish time.

So she falls back against the wall, and reaches deep into somewhere inside of her and she finds it, whatever Lara was talking about, some little lamp or flame or spark, and she snuffs it out, just like that - like she's testing a switch she's never known was there. Weight falls off her mind and off of her shoulders in a slow roll of new outlook.

It's like a breath of fresh air and she levels her vision at the girl across from her. She thinks about finishing the job, leaving the mess for whoever opens this place up in the morning, but she smiles, ignoring the unpleasant little roiling of blood in a body ill-used to proper feeding. Looking at the crumpled, crawling Elyse, she wonders what the problem even ever was. Moving over to her, she takes hold of Elyse's chin, turning it to face her, connecting their eyes, putting the essence of fresh-stolen blood into the tone of her voice, more musical now, the rasp more refined, more entrancing. "You and me, we're gonna be best friends, okay? If anybody asks, I'm just good friend - you can even call me Birdie. W'ere gonna be thick as thieves, okay? And you'll do this for me - keep my little vampire secret between us." Birdie brings her wrist to her mouth, bites a ragged hole into it, offering it to Elyse. "Here. drink up, don't want to scar that neck; I know I'm not the gentlest touch."

She wonders how she gave it to the vampire the last time she was bitten. Elyse can't remember any of it -- who it was, how it felt, whether she had a say in the matter or not. This feeling of powerlessness, it's as exciting as it is terrifying, knowing that one small slip-up and this bitch is draining her dry like a shotgunned beer.

Knowing that the helplessness is against her will, though, is somewhat freeing. Even if she's literally trapped here. If the vampire wasn't drunk before, she is now. That much is evident by the greedy lapping of warm, red blood -- some of which is spilling back down Elyse's front, sticky and wasted.

"You're sorry? Hey, everyone, she's sorry, she's sorry," the girl mutters weakly, the echoes of a morbid movie moment playing in her head. What, is she supposed to have sympathy for the vampire? It's one thing to have her blood taken in a very natural act, but to have all this contrition, the theatrics... it's confusing and a little too much for her to process with coupled with the sudden swoop of blood loss. The slide to the floor is gentle enough, though, adding another layer of oddness to this creature's behavior.

Why is she sorry for surviving?

"I don't want to forget it, no. That's the easy way out, for you, isn't it? Unless that means you have to kill me." While Elyse is relieved in the moment to be able to move, she doesn't really want to go anywhere. Still, she crawls back into the wall, sinking a bit as she cradles her head in all its sudden heaviness. "Fuck, is that what that feels like? I hope you got what you needed..."

It was so much easier to be the voyeur to violence than a waste of the canvas.

[rpmemes-galore]

florence + the machine : how big, how blue, how beautiful album ... sentence starters

tw for alcohol & religion

“I know that you're hiding.”

“But you can't live on love.”

“Some things never sleep.”

“Did I build a ship to wreck?“

“But you took your toll on me.”

“It's a different kind of danger.”

“Get out, get up there instead.”

“The damage is already done.”

“Is it too late to come on home?“

“Come on, is this what you want?“

“What kind of man loves like this?”

“Don't make a shadow of yourself.”

“You could never make your mind.”

“Under starless skies, we are lost.”

“If you could just forgive yourself...”

“I knew that this would end in tears.”

“How big, how blue, how beautiful...”

“These hands are not fit for holding.”

“I am teaching myself how to be free.”

“Don't make the mountain your enemy.”

“Who's in control? Who's playing who?”

“Can you protect me from what I want?”

“Some things you let go in order to live.”

“It isn't any use. Somebody's gotta lose.”

“Hold onto your heart, don't give it away.”

“But still you stumble, your feet give way.”

“It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.”

“Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch?“

“Outside, the world seems a violent place.”

“I know you're bleeding, but you'll be okay.”

“Now there’s a few things we have to burn.”

“'Cause when I sleep, I never dream of you.”

“'Cause there's a hole where your heart lies.”

“You do such damage, how do you manage?”

“Oh, what is it worth when all that's left is hurt?”

“The only thing that's certain is your indecision.”

“And I was making you a wish in every skyline.”

“What's with the long face? Do you want more?“

“Make up your mind, before I make it up for you.”

“'Cause I'm gonna be free and I'm gonna be fine.”

“I think you hide. And you don't have to tell me why.”

“I know there's a part of you that I just cannot reach.”

“We've opened the door, now it's all coming through.”

“And, oh, my love, remind me, what was it that I did?”

“Maybe I've always been more comfortable in chaos.”

“And, oh, my love, remind me, what was it that I said?“

“You don't have to be a ghost, here amongst the living.”

“I don't know how I don't just stand outside and scream.”

“Don't touch the sleeping pills, they mess with my head.”

“The chair is an island, darling, you can't touch the floor.”

“I know you've tried, but something stops you every time.”

“You don't have to let me in... Just know that I'm still here.”

“I can't help but pull the earth around me to make my bed.”

“How do you manage to have me crawling back for more?”

“Maybe I'll see you in another life if this one wasn't enough.”

“So much time on the other side, waiting for you to wake up.”

“And even though I'm grieving, I'm trying to find the meaning.”

“These chains never leave me, I keep dragging them around.”

“You saw the stars out in front of you, too tempting not to touch.”

“And I'm in the throes of it, somewhere in the belly of the beast.”

“You deserve to be loved. And you deserve what you are given.”

“And my love is no good against the fortress that it made of you.”

“Without your love, I'll be so long and lost... are you missing me?”

“Come on, is this what you want? 'Cause you're driving me away.”

“I was moving like I didn't care, but it was more than I could bear.”

“Oh, the king gone mad within his suffering, called out for release.”

“Between a crucifix and the Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt.”

“You wonder why it is that I came home... I figured out where I belong.”

“While you've been saving your neck, I've been breaking mine for you.”

“I'd already had a sip, so I reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it.”

“You were on the other side, like always, wondering what to do with life.”

“And the air was full of various storms and saints, parading in the streets.”

“It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, to try and keep from calling you.”

“Tell me you see it, too. We've opened our eyes and it's changing the view.”

“I'm ready for you whenever, whenever you need, whenever you want to begin.”

“Sometimes you're half in, and then you're half out, but you never close the door.”

[elysianslove]

Teaching Reki how to touch you....I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT!!! YES MAAM, BASOLUTELY I WOULD!

THANK YOU FOR ASKING FOR IT,,, i didn’t wanna be annoying </3 BUT THANK YOU BDJHSFDS LET ME INDULGE YOU!

clarifying again: reki is aged up. he is not a minor. thank you :)

okay so! after he’d, embarrassingly, cum in his pants from barely any dry humping, he’d shyly asked if he could return the favor. and you wanted him to; of course you did. but you couldn’t help but feel like he felt obligated to, almost a little pressured. you’d wanted to be sure that if he really were to do anything with you, it’d be because he genuinely wanted to, not because he felt as if he was expected to.

so you promise him, one day. not today, my love, but one day.

and he takes it to heart. reki’s as impatient as ever when it comes to loving you, so he becomes hyperaware of everything when the two of you are alone, looking for any sign that you’re willing to let him touch you, because consent is important, because he wants you to initiate it, because he’s already way too embarrassed with how needy he’d been. and eventually, one day, as you’re kissing him a little too roughly, seated on his lap as he presses his back against the wall by his bed, you pull back, and ask him breathlessly, “do you want to touch me?”

and he’s never felt his heart drop to his stomach so quickly, so suddenly. he’s kissing you again before you know it, whispering and gasping, “yes, yes, please,” as his hands carefully roam your body.

consent from either of you now vocalized, you lift yourself up off his lap, before falling back onto his pillows, one hand reaching out for him. he crawls to your side eagerly, curiously, up, up, up, till his face hovers by yours directly. he kisses you, softly, sweetly, tentatively, his hand ghosting over your body like he’s clueless, like he doesn’t know where to put it. and finally, finally, your hand reaches out for it, and you grab his palm. mouth still on his, you guide his hand beneath your shirt, so, so slowly, dragging it up till his fingers brush against your bra.

reki gasps, properly, against your lips, pulling back with wide eyes as you continue to bring his hand closer till it rests directly on your breast. his eyes widen with every second, pupils blown and mouth parted slightly in silent shock. and with your hand placed on top of his, just as you pull him in for another kiss, you squeeze, and he shudders above you, like you’re the one touching him.  

for minutes on end, you kiss as he squeezes at your breast, finally finding the courage somewhere in between to pull down at your bra slightly to tease at your nipples. it feels so— surreal. like you’re having an out of body experience. the way he’s so slow and gentle and soft and quiet with you. it makes your skin burn with how soft he is with you. and the more you mewl and whine for him, the more confident he gets, the gentler he is with you. his movements feel a lot more practiced, less clumsy and shaky as he kisses at your neck and pulls at your nipples.

till his hands wanders away, trailing down your stomach, settling at the hem of your trousers. “can i?” he asks, in a low voice, and you nod, so quickly it makes you dizzy.

“please,” you encourage him, and slowly, carefully, his once again shaky hands dip beneath the hem of your shorts. his lips find your neck as he teases the outline of your underwear, and you can’t decide whether it’s deliberate or not until he speaks up.

“tell me what to do, pretty,” he mumbles against your skin, by your ear. “i wanna make you— i want you to feel— feel good.”

and so, once again, you guide him, this time with your voice. his head lifts up from your neck to observe you as you urge him to push his fingers past the barrier of your underwear, to dip lower and lower. when his fingers brush against your wetness, he gasps, eyes flickering down to where his hand is buried then back up at you.

“all for you,” you sigh, and he swears he nearly came in his pants again.

his fingers brush slowly along your folds, collecting more of your arousal, riling you up. you can feel your skin heating up by the second; the fact that this boy, as inexperienced and clueless as he is, had his hands between your thighs, looking so mesmerized and in awe of every little twitch your body makes and every tiny sound that escapes your lips is so arousing.

“you can— reki, you can push them inside— ah! slowly!”

he’d gotten a little too overexcited when he’d heard the words, a finger quickly making its way down to your hole, trying to push in. but he pauses, steels himself, listens to your advice. he wants to make you feel good, he repeats in his head, he wants to make you feel real good. his finger pushes in slowly, and god, it’s such a weird feeling. weird, but good. so good. he can feel you tightening around him as he pushes in, and you’re so warm and hot and tight and wet it’s all going straight to his dick.

he exhales a shuddering breath as he pushes his finger in as deep as he can, pulling it out slowly and pushing it back in, leisurely fingering you until you mewl out a small, “more,” and he follows your instructions, adding another finger. you squirm beneath him as he stretches you out even more, thick fingers pumping in and out of you. 

“reki, c-curl them, please,” you sigh, and he stifles a moan, bring his lips to your own, kissing your mouth, the corner of your lips, down to your jaw as he attempts to curl his fingers inside of you, tightly. 

“like this?” he breathlessly wonders, and the squeak of surprise and pleasure that spills from your lips when he experimentally presses inside of you is an answer enough. this is so surreal. so surreal. so, so surreal. he’s fingering you, and you’re tightening around him— god, were you about to cum? is he going to make you cum? 

your chest heaves as your hands fly to his biceps, one trailing down to his forearm, gripping near the wrist that twists inside of you tightly. “my clit,” you whine. “use your thumb.” 

and he grunts, nodding firmly as his thumb clumsily finds your clit. it takes him a few seconds to get it accurate, and you can tell he’s frustrated by the furrow of his brows and the roughness of the fingers inside of you, but all you do is grind and roll your hips upwards, until finally, finally, he gets it, and he knows he does because you impossibly tighten around him and you scream. 

“ugh, fuck, gonna cum,” is your only warning, before seconds later, he’s sending you over the edge, wrist twisting quickly and fingers thrusting harshly inside of you, thumb rubbing and pressing down on your clit. you throw your head back, crying and gasping and moaning for him, legs trembling and hips attempting to meet his thrusts as he helps you ride out your high. 

he’s in complete awe of you as you cum. he can’t stop thinking about how gorgeous you look, about how pretty you sound, about how he’d been the one to make you cum. he made you cum, and he made you cum so good. you’re telling him that much, praising him, thanking him, and he’s in love. 

he can’t stop thinking about you. but also about how he’s painfully hard in his pants. 

he sighs dreamily.