#have you ever gotten a splinter on the inside

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

It’s all “we need to get weirder” and “support mental illness” but when I say I eat my skin sometimes than SUDDENLY everyone’s got a problem with it!

[cressidagrey]

Unknowing

Summary:

“If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her.”

What if… Azriel actually takes Rhys at his word? And does exactly what his High Lord ordered? With unexpected consequences.

This is the Inner Circle finding out about said consequences. Azriel is very good at keeping secrets

Warnings:

(This is a doozy.) Mention of Sex Work, Unexpected Pregnancy, Mention of Faerie Genocide, Mention of Faerie Wings being used as leather, Mention of Sex

Note:

This was a thought experiment that kinda started to grow a life on its own.

(super pretty divider by @saradika-graphics)

Azriel slid into the Dining Room of the River House nearly on the cusp of being late. Mostly because he hadn’t been able to pull himself away from what he had been doing that afternoon. 

Nobody in his situation would have wanted to leave. 

It had involved his wife and the flower field in their backyard… their daughter sleeping peacefully in her willow basket a few paces away, cradled in a bubble of her mother’s magic that would keep her asleep and safe from anything that could happen to her. 

Fed, changed and as happy as a clam to fall into her usual milk-induced coma, he knew that she would only wake up if she wanted more milk. 

Which meant that her parents had some quality time for each other…and they had made the best out of that. 

The result was a little shimmer of magic all over Azriel that he couldn’t get scrubbed away. Not that he had tried particularly hard either. He liked having that proof of his wife’s pleasure all over him. 

His wife, his mate, the mother of his child…his fucking sanity . There were many words he had for Embelia. 

She was the bright spot of his life, untouched by the darkness that leeched around him. A secret he gladly kept.

And if the glimmer of her magic followed him and showed everybody that he was hers…well, then that was the case. Azriel didn’t particularly care what anybody else thought of it. 

Azriel was out of fucks to give, to be honest. Had been, for the better part of two years…ever since that Solstice. 

He was pretty sure that something inside him had splintered apart at Rhys’ order. 

That fucking order had been the reason why he had ever even met Embelia though. He had taken Rhys literally. If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her. That had been Rhys’ words. 

Her had been Elain. 

Azriel had listened to Rhys. He had followed the order to the fucking letter, giving the High Lord of the Night Court to complain about. He had left Elain alone…who had figured things out with Lucien. Both now happy and ensconced in Day Court, with Helion, Lucien’s actual father. 

And he had gone to that pleasure hall.  He had asked for any female that wasn’t afraid of him…and then Embelia had claimed his hand with hers. And that had been that. 

 Granted, he hadn’t known her name then. For months, all he had known her as had been Blossom. That’s who she had been to him for months . 

Just Blossom. Every Thursday, he had gone to that pleasure hall and paid for her company. 

And then she had gotten pregnant. 

Not quite what either of them expected. 

He hadn’t even bothered with a contraception draught and while she had, apparently it hadn’t stood up to Azriel of all faes. 

He should probably thank the mother on his knees for that . 

But Embelia had told him about the pregnancy and had been very clear from the start that while she wanted the child, she wasn’t going to ask anything of him. Which was simply unacceptable. 

He had grown up a bastard. He was not going to put his child through the same if he had any choice in that matter. 

And he had been a little bit in love with her then already. So taking her from that pleasure hall and making her his wife…moving her into a cottage he found and making a life with her…that had been the easiest decision he had ever made. 

They had just fit together…

She had come to live with him, and had given up her job, though that wasn’t something that bothered her all too much. More than anything she was happy that she no longer needed to do that to keep alive, to make a living…

And he got to hear the story of how she had come to Velaris and to the pleasure hall.  

Embelia was a Floresco Fairie. One of the few survivors of that breed of Lesser Fairies. The rest of her family had been slaughtered in the Spring Court Centuries ago. 

She had escaped and had ended up in Velaris of all places, traumatised and alone. Still half a child to her people, not having a trade or anything of that sort. The natural ability of a Floresco Fairy made it possible for her to grow flowers and life wherever she stood but none of that particularly lent itself to a well-paid job. 

So the pleasure house it had been. With a glamour, of course. 

The first time he had met her, she had left the glamour fall away, showing him a pair of iridescent pink wings sprouting out of her back. 

Even then he had thought that she was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen. 

That opinion had never changed. If anything…after the birth of their daughter, after the mating bond had snapped for both of them, sometimes between cutting the cord and pressing a kiss to their daughter’s blood-covered head, covered in downy black curls…and he had watched Emmie cradle the baby against her chest, watched her coo to her, not caring one bit about blood and sweat and anything else, because there was their little girl that they had hoped and prayed for…somehow at that point, love seemed such a weak word for what he felt for them both. 

Somehow…somehow they had become the light of his life, the only guide he needed. And he protected that ferociously. 

Maybe even more than was necessary. 

He kept them away from his job and from anything and anybody that may would know him as the terror of the Night Court. 

They were his. His. His . 

The first thing in his long life that was his and his alone . 

And maybe that was too possessive, but…he had never wanted to listen to anybody else’s opinions about his and Embelia’s relationship. 

And everybody would have had their opinions. 

He knew that.

Instead…he had kept them a secret. 

To this day, nobody knew. Not Rhys, not Cassian, not Mor, not Amren…not Feyre or Nesta. 

Though of all people, sometimes he thought that maybe Nesta suspected something. 

But even if she did…that was fine too. 

He had made Embelia his wife, and his mate and the mother of his child and nobody could take her away from him. Nobody but herself, and she was gloriously happy in their little flower-covered cottage, where she was…content to dabble at being a housewife. 

After the life she had, he could understand it. She revelled in the normal, in doing nothing but dote on their daughter and try and cook him dinner, which had started as absolutely disgusting but these days often turned out at least mostly edible…to tend to her garden of flowers, which were all she ate anyway…

To just exist there, in that little slice of paradise they built. 

And instead of being with her…he attended a family dinner at the River House that evening. He would have gladly just stayed at home, made himself dinner, or maybe let Embelia try to feed him, which never quite worked out and then walked their daughter to sleep. 

It would have been perfectly fine to him. To press a kiss to their daughter’s black curls and stroke her iridescent purple sparkling wings that were carefully folded and laid over her back…her heart-shaped mouth would open into a perfect o and she would yawn and he would fall in love all over again. It wouldn’t just be perfectly fine. It would be everything he had ever wanted. 

And then he could lay her in her crib and he could walk the few steps to their bed and crawl into it next to his wife, and she would give him that smile…and he could cocoon both of them in his wings and fall asleep, safe in the knowledge that she would be there the next morning.

Maybe kiss her some more and hear very perfect noise that left her throat and feel her warm body against his, skin like silk and small warm hands that could take him apart in seconds. 

But no. Rhys had ordered him. Like he was sometimes prone to be doing these days. Maybe because he didn’t know how Azriel spent his free time and clearly him being a loose cannon was way more believable than anything else. 

Oh well. Azriel wasn’t in the mood to clear that up. 

If anything he was in a brooding mood, wanting to go back to his afternoon in the flower field. 

“For cauldron’s sake,” Cassian complained, just as he started to violently sneeze. Multiple times. “Did you roll around in a flower field or something?” his brother demanded and Azriel was amused besides himself. 

“Yes,” he agreed drily, taking his seat next to Cassian who just glared at him and then grumbled under his breath, swapping seats with Nesta because otherwise he was probably not going to stop sneezing. 

“The Lord of Bloodshed taken to his knees by some flower pollen,” Amren drawled from across the table and Cassian glared at her. 

Nesta just snorted in amusement. 

Rhys and Feyre appeared at that moment and at least the discussion of flower fields was tabled for the moment. 

Which was just as well. 

Azriel mentally wondered if he could get away with skipping dessert if he cited some headache or something. He could get dessert at home. It promised to be much better than anything that would be served at the table anyway. 

Or maybe that was just going to make Rhys think that he was on the brink of some sort of breakdown even more than he already was. Who knew? 

Was it worth the mental berating that it promised to give him? All under the guise of worrying about him or checking in on him? 

Azriel had his own opinion about that these days. 

He couldn’t help but flinch as Nesta suddenly reached out to touch his hair. 

“What are you doing?” he asked her drily as Nesta pulled back her hand, Embelia’s glimmer sticking to it. 

“You have…glitter in your hair,” Nesta gave back. “What did you do?” she asked him with a grin. “Is that some kind of fashion choice now?” 

“It’s not glitter,” he gave back. It wasn’t. It was the flakes that Embelia’s wings shook loose when she trembled. It did look like glitter though. Sparkling, catching the sunlight…gorgeous, like every inch of her. 

“Az, I don’t know if you are ready to hear it, but it definitely looks like glitter,” Nesta told him with a snort. “Don’t worry, it suits you,” she said graciously, biting back a laugh. 

Mor was watching the whole thing. “It’s not glitter,” she finally said, mustering his hair with far too much interest. Azriel forced himself not to twitch under the assessing gaze of her brown eyes. Once upon a time, he would have given nearly everything to have her look at him like that, but nowadays…there was nothing there anymore. He would always lover her but sometimes during centuries of yearning for her it had settled into a deep and abiding friendship. Into loyalty. No longer the bright burning of desire, of…anything like that.  “Though I would really like to know where you found a Floresco Fairy to talk into your bed, Az,“ she said with a wink. 

Azriel didn’t react. 

“A what?” Feyre asked, curiosity piqued. 

“Floresco Fairy,“ Mor repeated. “They used to live in the Spring Court…centuries ago.”

“They don’t anymore?” Feyre wondered and the conversation around the table dropped. 

“Tamlin’s father had them slaughtered and used their wings for leather,“ Azriel said, his voice forcefully even. It was even more horrific than it sounded like. A whole breed of faeries was killed off because of their wings. Floresco Faeries had never been violent or a fighting breed. They kept to themselves, raising their families and growing their flowers and their crops…and then it had been ripped apart into a bloodbath. 

Embelia had been right in the middle of that. She had escaped, her youngest sister in tow…who had later succumbed to her injuries and all Emmie had been able to do was to bury her into the icy ground in Winter Court. She hadn’t outright said it but Azriel had known that for years she had wished to bury herself right there alongside her sister. 

Feyre just stared at him, blue eyes wide. “That’s horrible,“ she whispered, swallowing. 

“Yes,“ he agreed. It was. 

Horrific. 

“Not all died, a few escaped,” Mor said, trying to make it seem less horrific than it had been. “It happened a very long time ago. But still, they are quite rare. Where did you find her?” She asked Azriel, clearly trying to find something else to talk about.

He wasn’t stupid enough to lie to Morrigan, whose gift was Truth. 

“Today? At home.” He answered honestly. 

“Home?” Mor repeated, sounding amused beside herself. 

“Is she the same one you bought that solstice gift for?” Nesta piped up. 

He had asked her for advice, more out of desperation than anything else. She had been quite helpful though. 

He hadn’t been anted to ask Mor for obvious reasons, Armen would have probably bitten off his head and Feyre…well then Rhys would have known. But Nesta? Nesta had listened to him when he had asked politely and had then told him that if she liked him, she would like whatever he would buy her.

Not that useful but oh well. 

So he just nodded. 

“Which one did you end up picking?” Nesta asked him, curious. 

“I just bought both,” he admitted with a shrug. 

A hair comb that Emmie still wore nearly every day, silver and pink stones intertwined, keeping blush hair pulled back from her face and a pair of earrings that she also wore sometimes. 

She liked things like that, even when she never seemed to spend much money on them. And he liked buying her stuff like that because then she wore it and had that pleased little smile on her face, content and happy…

“Lucky girl,” Nesta told him with a secret smile, elbowing his ribs and he bit back down a smile for himself. 

“Az got a girlfriend?” Cassian asked, sounding shocked. 

“I do not,” he disagreed with a roll of his eyes. He didn’t have a girlfriend. He had a wife. Very different. 

“So you just buy…What did he buy, Nesta?” Cassian asked. 

“He was waffling between a jewel-encrusted hair comb or a pair of lovely earrings. Apparently, he got her both,” Nesta answered her mate with a sigh. “You should take some advice from him,” she told him drily, making Cassian roll his eyes. 

“So if you don’t have a girlfriend, you just buy hair combs and jewellery for any female you come across?” His brother asked him drily. 

He just shook his head, not saying a single word. His shadows tightened in response, crawling closer to him from where they had skittered away. 

They liked Embelia, though they had taken a special liking to his daughter, tendrils oftentimes coming to play with her or checking on her through the night. With Emmie they kept a respectful distance, though they liked to hide and play with her, like they basked in her pure presence.

It wouldn’t surprise him all too much if that’s what they did. 

“Flower and Bud are safe” they whispered at that moment, even when he hadn’t asked. 

Right. Safe. 

“Leave him to it, Cassian. Though maybe next time wash off the glimmer. Or don’t have one of your amorous adventures before you show up to dinner,” Rhys drawled. 

It shouldn’t have upset him like that. It shouldn’t have. 

It was harmless. Mostly at least, but Azriel couldn’t help but feel the icy rage burn bright in his chest at Rhysand’s words. At his brother’s words. 

He didn’t have many good things in his life but he had Emmie and he was not going to let anybody take her away from him. He was not. 

That was simply unacceptable. 

“If you try to forbid me from bedding my wife, Rhysand, we are going to have a problem,” Azriel snapped back icily. 

A real problem, because he was not willing to give up Embelia under any circumstances. Not her and also not the pleasure they shared. 

He regretted his words instantly. One could have heard a pin drop in the Dining Room of the River House at that moment because this was the last thing anybody had expected. 

The last thing. 

He had kept his wife and his daughter hidden and he had been completely content with that because it had kept them safe and secure and he hadn’t wanted to listen to anybody trying to talk him out of it or telling him it was a bad idea. 

It was his fucking choice and he had never regretted it once. 

“Your wife ,” Amren was the first that recovered. “Your wife?!”

“Yes.”

His wife. His daughter. His family. 

The family he claimed. They were his. 

“You don’t have a girlfriend but you have a wife ?” Mor repeated. 

He just nodded. 

“You got married. When?” she continued asking him and he met her gaze. 

“About a year ago,” he answered. It had been just the two of them…and well, the babe slumbering in Emmie’s womb, but that was the whole reason for the wedding in the first place, right? 

“You didn’t even invite us to the wedding!” Cassian complained, having suddenly recovered his ability to talk. “You got married and you didn’t tell us?” 

Clearly. 

“And you never thought that that was something we may want to know, Azriel?” Rhys asked, his voice icy but Azirel met the gaze of violet eyes with his own.

“If you believe it or not, I can just about manage my personal relationships or my amorous adventures without the input of you, High Lord,” he drawled. 

There had been no reason to tell anybody. Least of all Rhys. 

“That was not what that was about and you know it,” his brother hissed at him, but Azriel just shrugged.  

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was. 

Maybe it had really just been a political worry for Rhys, but that didn’t mean that what he had done, hadn’t hurt…didn’t mean that he hadn’t pulled rank with Azriel in a way he had only done so very rarely. 

Rhys had gotten what he had wanted in the end. Elain and Lucien had figured it out…Day and Night were closer than ever. 

And Azriel…well, he was still pissed off about what had gone down in Rhys’ office that Solstice. Fucking furious, to be honest.   Even after Embelia had come into his life…even after she had married him. Even after the mating bond had snapped. He loved his wife, but he was still fucking furious about being treated like that. 

Furious and hurt. 

And maybe that had played into his decision as well. 

There was no reason to tell Rhys what happened. No reason whatsoever. 

Rhys must have caught that thought because the shimmer of night started to swirl around him, but Azriel wasn’t scared. He just raised a single eyebrow in question. 

“No reason?” Rhys questioned harshly. “You are the Spymaster of this fucking court, Azriel! You don’t think that maybe I should know who you are cohabiting with? Who you share a bed with? Who you married? How long did you even know this female before you married her?”

“A few months,” he answered drily. “What do you think I talk about when I am with her? Bring up the secrets of the Night Court as Pillow Talk? Oh, I tortured a couple of faes from Hewn City this afternoon, oh, harder, love? ” He questioned with a roll of his eyes.

Feyre choked out a laugh.

Rhys did not find it amusing. 

“Where did you even meet her?” he demanded. 

“Why, Rhys, I just followed your orders. You told me to go to a pleasure hall so I did,” he shot back. He had followed that order to the fucking letter. 

“So she’s a whore,” Rhys said and Azriel just looked at him. 

Embelia wasn’t ashamed of what she had been. Quite frankly, neither was he. She had done what she needed to do to survive. He was never going to give her the fault for that. The fault was on Spring for slaughtering her family and on the Night Court that they hadn’t given better support so that she would have never gotten into a situation like this where that was the only way out. 

But Embelia? She had been a whore. It was a simple fact. And she wore that proudly.  

“She was. Yes,” he agreed and he could see it on Rhys’ face what he thought about that. 

“You ordered Azriel to go to a pleasure hall?” Cassian asked. “Why?” he demanded. 

“Because he fancied himself in love with Elain of all faes and I couldn’t have him bring our court to the brink of war because he couldn’t keep it in his pants!” Rhys growled. “So I told him to go to a pleasure hall and pay for it to get it out of his system.”

“Rhys!” Mor snapped, shock colouring her voice

“Clearly, I was right, because your infatuation didn’t last long after you were told no. How long did it take you until you were in that pleasure hall?” Rhys demanded. “A Day? A week?”

“Around 6 months,” he answered, his voice even. “After it became obvious that Elain was going to give in to Lucien…Once it became obvious that she wasn’t interested in me. Then I started visiting the Pleasure Hall. I married my wife 4 months later.” 

“By the mother, Azriel, did all your good sense leave you?” Rhys asked him, shaking his head.  “What were you thinking?”  he demanded. 

“That I love her,” Azriel said calmly. “I love her,” he repeated. 

“Wow, she must have really been worth the money you spend on her,” Rhys drawled. 

She had been. Every gold coin. Every fucking clipped copper he paid for her company. Everything had been worth it, just for Embelia’s company.  

He didn’t even react to it. He had heard worse. But he could feel his rage grow with ever fucking word Rhys uttered. 

“She is worth more than you will ever understand,”  Azriel said quietly, his voice laced with steel.

Rhys glared at him. And then he said something so utterly inappropriate that the rage exploded. 

“So that’s what you needed all the time? Some pretty female that opens her legs and suddenly she leads you around by your prick?”

It felt like somebody had sucked all the air out of that room. 

Azriel’s blood boiled with anger and hurt, seething inside,  his control barely keeping the darkness at bay.

He wanted to kill Rhys at that moment. He couldn’t remember ever being this angry before. 

Having their relationship reduced to that…

Embelia’s face appeared in his mind, her smile, her laughter, the warmth of her touch. 

His sanity. 

He had made his choices, and he would stand by them. No one, not even Rhys, could make him regret loving Embelia.

“You can say whatever you want about me, but you say a single thing about my wife or my child and I’ll rip out your fucking throat, and don’t think for one moment that I won’t,” he snapped back harshly. “And yes, for the record, she was worth every fucking clipped copper, I spent on her. She was worth everything. I wanted to marry her. I asked her. I made that choice. She has done absolutely nothing but love me .” 

“You got a kid too?!” Cassian piped up. “Az?” he asked and Azriel ground his teeth.

“Yes,” he bit out. 

“How old?” Cassian asked quietly. 

“3 months tomorrow,” Azriel answered honestly. Cassian stared at him, hazel eyes harsh. 

“Boy or Girl?”

“Girl.”

“I got a niece and you haven’t told me?!” Cassian demanded. “How dare you! I owe her three months' worth of gifts and cuddles!”

“Cassian!” Nesta said sharply and Cassian started pouting. 

“Are you sure that the kid is yours?” Rhys drawled. 

He didn’t even bother to answer that question. 

“Where are you going?” Rhys demanded as he stood. 

“Home,” he gave back clippedly. “I’d rather walk my daughter to sleep than listen to you insult her mother and ask if she’s actually my daughter.” His voice was dripping with disdain. “Like there ever were any questions about it. She got her mother’s wings and my colouring.”

***

Nobody followed him home. Which was a good thing because Azriel wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood at the moment. He was still furious. Utterly furious. 

Even as he walked through the door of the cottage… right until he saw Embelia sit in the living room, in that overstuffed armchair and nurse their daughter. She looked up as he entered, smiling.

And suddenly, every bit of anger just went up in smoke, because he couldn’t care less. 

Not when his mate was sitting there nursing his daughter, and it was so easy to just cross the room and drop to his knees before her, to let her reach out for him and run a hand over his hair and jaw and he leaned into her touch, breathing in the smell of earth and home and love. 

Home. He was home, he was with her and that was all he cared about. He stared at his daughter, happily drinking…dark eyes closed in concentration, one pudgy little fist pressing against Embelia’s breast, clearly making sure that her source of milk was going nowhere and he pressed a kiss to her downy soft hair, breathing in the combination of scents of himself and Emmie that clung to her. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Embelia asked him softly and he just shook his head. No. No, he didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to be with his girls. He just wanted to…He just wanted to be right there. 

“You are the best things that ever happened to me,” he whispered hoarsely. 

A gift from the mother herself, and he still wondered every fucking day how he deserved both of them. 

Emmie ran a hand through his curls, staying quiet, as their daughter stopped drinking and he reached out to take her. 

Embelia happily relinquished her hold on her, but not before pressing a kiss to his cheek, and a soft touch to their daughter’s wings…iridescent black. 

Her wings. His colouring. 

No question about it. 

He walked her to sleep like he always did when he could be there, pressing her little body tight to his chest, a scarred hand holding her as carefully as she was made out of spun gold. 

Emmie had laughed at him at the start, at how carefully he held her, telling him that she was a baby and would survive it if he kissed and cuddled her. Still, he had been terrified of hurting her. 

She was so small, and his hands were so big and broad and scarred and…

But sometime during the last few weeks, he had realised that his daughter…his daughter would never look at his hands as anything other than the hands that had held her and comforted her. She would grow up with these scars…she probably wouldn’t even notice them. 

They would just be a fact of life to her. 

So he walked her, the slow swaying circles around their living room that he always made to calm her as much as him, as Embelia tidied around the living room, got ready for bed, and made herself comfortable for the night. 

He could hear the bath running as he felt the touch against his mind. It wasn’t Rhys. 

It was Feyre.

He was surprised enough that he let her slide in, just a little bit, and he knew that she caught a glimpse of the baby in his arms as he felt the surprise register. 

“She’s beautiful.” It was nearly a coo in which she said that, much to his amusement and pleasure, taking in the iridescent wings that lay folded over her back. 

“She got it from her mother.”

It was the truth. Embelia was the most beautiful fae he had ever laid eyes on. The kind of beauty wars were fought over, that brought males trembling to their knees…Azriel easily admitted that he also met that particular criteria. 

“You missed a knockdown drag-out fight between Rhys and Cassian…And then Mor and Nesta decided that they should also get a word in.”

That was not what he had expected, to be quite honest. 

He had half expected that he was going to end up taking his wife and his daughter and find someplace else for them to live. 

“Amren stopped them from levelling the city,” Feyre said drily. It should have amused him, but it didn’t. Not really. 

“You should have come to me after that solstice, I would have told Rhys that he was being ridiculous,” Feyre told him drily. “I’ll deal with him. I promise.”

“It’s fine,” he waved her off. It was fine. 

Right now at least. He never could stay angry when he got to be home when he got to hold his daughter. How could he be angry when he got to hold her? 

He didn’t want to be angry when he held her…He just wanted to breathe in her scent and feel every bit of tension bleed out of him.

A snuffling sound came from his daughter, then a heart belch…and her little body relaxed against his, clearly on her way to the land of dreams. 

“No, it’s not, he should have never done that,” Feyre cut him off. “Or talk to you like that for that matter. Neither on Solstice nor today.  I’ll make sure he understands that. It won’t happen again. You can expect an apology tomorrow.” 

Now he was amused. It bled all over Feyre, who just huffed. “What, do you doubt that I can make him apologise?” she challenged him. 

“Of course not, High Lady,” he promised her. If anybody could get Rhys to weaken in his stance, then it would be his mate. And that was exactly why he had never told Feyre, never wanted to bring her into a position where she was in disagreement with her mate. 

“So congrats on that wedding,” Feyre said suddenly. “We owe you a gift or two, I think…Who knows what Mor is gonna come up with…” He could just hold back the snort at that but could feel Feyre’s amusement leech all over his mind. “Can I…” she trailed off, unsure for a moment. “May I see her?” she asked, curious and delighted for him all the same. He could feel that. 

He pushed a memory at her, from that afternoon…of his wife and his daughter in that spring sun, in that flower field,  their wings glittering and fluttering, Embelia’s pink hair falling to her waist in soft waves and curls, their daughter with his dark hair and her wings, curled up in her mother’s arms, grinning gummily at her…Happiness was oozing from every second of that screenshot. 

“You are beyond lucky,” Feyre said quietly. 

“I know.”

He knew that with every fibre of his being. 

“What’s her name?” Feyre wondered. “She’s beautiful.” 

She was. Gorgeous in fact. And that wasn’t just coloured by the fact that she was his wife and his mate…but she was gorgeous. 

“Embelia,” he answered Feyre. “Family calls her Emmie though.” He called her that, some of her friends did as well. It was what she was most comfortable with. 

“And your daughter’s? What’s her name?” Feyre asked. 

It had taken them months to settle on a name, and then finally, it had been so easy. 

“Aster.”

“A Star and a Flower,” Feyre realised with some amusement. 

“Embelia thought it was just fair.” 

[pedge-page]

Joel Dealing with Preggo Wife: From Party of Two, to Family of Three

Sunday Surprise takes place right before this, but not necessary for this part

notes: you guys already know this is my favorite little crackhead family. While we've been enjoying Sarah's adventures out of order for a while, lot of people have been asking when we'll meet Ellie. Which I didn't feel it was right until we actually see Sarah's birth! So here she is. Please enjoy!

warnings: childbirth (not too graphic), a shit ton of language, comedy and fuff

- - - -

They say childbirth is a miracle. It's the single greatest, most amazing, most heavenly, life giving, breath of fresh air day of any parent’s life.

What they don't say (almost as if conveniently forgetting to even mention it) is that the moments leading up to the birth are the single most excruciating, marathon through the worst hell of a nightmare.

"YOUUU. YOUUUUUU MOTHER FUCKING--FUUCCKKEERRRR!!" The banshee (his wife, you) next to him in the car screeches directly into his ear, a death grip on his forearm.

He’s one handing these turns, blowing more red lights than he's ever yelled at Tommy for, while ready to lose his right hand to your talons and his hearing to your incessant wails.

"fuck YOU!OOOOWWAHAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

You squeeze your eyes shut, head crouched down while another wave of contractions splinters your insides apart. Every muscle known and unknown in your body is engaged. 

"We're almost there, you’re gonna make it--"

"YouFUCKINGfuckSTICkofaFuCkFuckshitheadfuckingbastard mothershitstainfrigginFUCK!"

You'd bash his head against his window repeatedly if your other hand wasn't already occupied cupping your rupturing belly.

Joel’s never been simultaneously in control and losing it inside all at once. He’s got one goal right now: get you to the hospital in one piece.

 That goes for driver safety but also to ensure the baby does NOT come out prior that because lord help him he would not know what comes next.

The truck screeches to a halt at the parking lot in 3 spaces. Joel tumbles out of the seat, missing a step and stumbling clumsily to his hands and knees on the pavement. He doesn’t even brush off the bruises and dirt as he’s running to you. You’ve nearly thrown him over again by how fast you swing the door open.

Both his sturdy, reliable, big hands are there for you when you take them, hoisting yourself with an agonizing yelp.

“You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay, baby momma, you’re—“

“FUCK!!!!!”

You’re clutching your belly, now way lower than it ever has been. Each step feels like fire, with Joel cradling your back and trying to get you to the front door with quick steps.

“Baby! Baby now!” Joel shouts, pointing to you with wild and pleading eyes.

You let out a horrendous scream, stopping in your tracks. Your spine, your bones, your head, and especially your stomach, is all being hit by a truck right fucking now. And you’re crying, you’ve never cried like this. It’s not the fake shit he’s gotten so accustomed to when you want a cookie or milkshake or pussy eating. This is real.

They get you in a chair and wheel you off to the delivery unit, your hand squeezing the shit out of Joel’s but he’s never once let go. He’s gone so pale, running and running alongside you, trying to answer their questions about when it started, how long, what was due date, etc. 

He’s doing a million things at once, and you’re just fighting to stay alive.

Oh, you also would forget everything you were saying at this moment. But thankfully, Joel, and the entire fucking hospital, wouldn’t.

“YOU FUCKING, COCK—FUCKER—SHIT FUCKCUnt cunt CUNT! FUCK-OHM Y MOTHERFUCKING GOD FUCK.”

They manage to get you stripped to the papery gown, push your ass onto the bed, spread you wide so the doctor can take a look.

They’re all so calm, walking around and nodding, hooking you up like you’re just here for a checkup, like they’ve done this a thousand times before.

Joel feels the worst stabbing pain along his skull as your nails dig into his hair and yank him down to your face.

“MILLER,” you seethe, venom and sweat breaking through your clenched teeth and slitted eyes. 

“Y-yes?”

You force out harsh pants, groaning, but making sure he understands you clearly right fucking now. “Give me. A fucking. Epidural.”

“I-“

“NOW!!!!”

He looks around for some assistance. “Ep—is there an--”

“WHERES THE FUCKING EPIDURAL.”

Joel makes contact with the nurse, who checks below your legs again before resurfacing with the look Joel feared above all else. While you’re heaving and and moaning in pain, Joel receives the nonverbal confirmation she passes to him:

It’s too fucking late for an epidural.

Both Joel and the nurse also pass a clear, mutual understanding about how to pass that info on to you:

“ITS COMING!” He nods reassuringly to you, exceedingly over the top acting. “Right nurse? See she said it’s coming!”

“Any second now, we’ll get that epidural—“ she agrees, nodding and nodding with a thumbs up to you extra confidence.

“FUUUUCCCCKCKKKKKK,” you sink lower, back falling and head tossed as wave of new pain ripples through you.

“FUUCCKKING —Fuck J-Joel. Joel Miller—“

“yes baby, I’m here.”

“Im getting a fucking epidural.”

“Yes you fucking are.”

“You fuckers aren’t lying to me?”

Joel glances at the nurse again, who quickly shakes her head at you with her calm, straightforward, trusting voice of reason: “No ma’am we would never.”

Praise this woman, he thinks. “That’s right baby she’s telling ya, its coming—“

“I’ll FUCKING kill you, Joel Miller. Do you know that?”

“Yes-“

“I fucking HATE you right now.”

“Yes—“

“You shit—fuck bag motherfucker, I HATE you—you—you—“ and you start sobbing “—did this to me!”

“I did—“

“YOU!”

“ME.”

Back again to an angered, snarling beast, you growl, “I’ll rip your fucking cock off. I’m fucking you up so fucking bad when we get home, you can never FUCKIN’ do this fucking shit to me again. Balls in the fucking blender.”

“Balls in the blender,” he repeats with absolute conviction, not an ounce of protest in him.

“The FUCkING blender—you hear me fucker?”

“The fucking blender, for sure baby, anything you want right after this.”

“Ugh--oh dfuck Joel its coming!”

“Yeah?” He asks, and its the first time he hears his own voice waver. Holy fuck this is it. This is the moment for the last 9 months its actually here—

“Just another contraction,” the doctor confirms casually.

FUCK DOC HOW LONG DOES THIS TAKE I can’t feel my skull!

“CUNT SUCKER!” You scream, holding Joel’s head hostage as you chant through your breathing pants.

“Any where’s my MOTHERFUCKING epidural!”

“It’s coming! It’s coming!” Joel nods to his now best friend nurse, who’s also nodding dramatically to keep you distracted from the epidural that is absolutely not on its way.

“Miller,” you growl, shoving his nose right against yours. You stare into his very soul, like Death herself ripping his life choices out of his body and spilling them under your eyes. “I think that Bitch is lying to me. There’s no fucking epidural coming, is there.”

“There is, baby, she said it herself, I checked…”

“Are you fucking lying to me Miller?”

“Never baby, we’d never lie to you, right?” He gestures to the nurse again, who nods diligently again. “See baby, no lying, we’d never lie.”

He watches your jaw drop, voice disappear as another roar is ripped from your chest..

“I can’t do this.”

“You can, you can and will. I’ll give you anything you want, right after you do this.”

“I want you fucking DEAD.”

“Sure thing. Want a divorce too?”

“I’m CONSIDERING IT,” you bark a baritone lower like the devil. “FuuuUUUCCCKKKK!!!!!”

“I’ll get the papers printed right up. Favorite pen signed an’ all. But only after you have this baby tonight—“

The doctor checks the monitor again just as you let out a piercing scream. 

“Ma’am it’s time to push.”

“YOU PUSH!” You shout, waving your arm at him but unable to put a curse to the end of it. Your pains are coming through quicker, no longer waves but an unyielding rumbling as the baby kicks and punches and squirms and—

Joel is by your side, taking your hand in his. He’s prepped this speech in his head a million times, every night, every time he felt that baby kick or watched you struggle to tie your shoes, every single second, he’s perfected it:

“It’s here. Its happening. You’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this together, you and me, right now—“

“Nope.”

“We—what?”

Your voice is calm and face plain. “Changed my mind. Not having this baby.”

“Yes you for fucking sure are.”

“Nope no. I’m returning it. Got the receipt.”

“There—there IS NO RECEIPT.”

“Yes—I got it—90 day warranty—“ your face tightens, clenching out the last word as if you’re mentally willing this baby to not pop out right now. But by god this baby is not taking your bullshit any longer.

“We are way past the 90 day warranty, honey, you’re having this baby, TODAY, Right NOW!”

“Nope, nope I’m gonna suck it back in!” 

It seems all ability to ‘suck it back in’ has failed, as the nurse shouts clearly “I see a head!”

Your voice breaks in the most heart wrenching “I CAN’T—“ you sob, terror in your voice.

You scream again, and it’s the worst thing Joel’s ever heard. He feels like a kid again, for the first time in a long while, when his parents fought, and the sounds of their voices carried upstairs to his and Tommy’s bedroom. He wanted to run, hide in the closet, cover his ears, cradling himself and rock back and forth, shut his eyes and his mind out, drain everything away. Instead, he held Tommy, he watched Tommy, he calmed Tommy. He bared the brunt of it, and the fear, he learned to control it.

The control is gone. He’s fearing again. And it’s not his parents having an argument over watermelon seeds, but his wife experiencing the most unimaginable pain right now, and it’s because of him, it really is, just like you said. Worse than nails on a chalkboard, glass in his eyes, fire on his feet. He’s so scared, everything he had tried to train for, for you, for this moment, is collapsing before him, and he’s not gonna make it—

Every fiber in his body grips your hand more tightly than possible. “You can,” he says, sturdy yet trembling. He’s scared.

He’s always known what to do, what comes next, how to make your pain and sadness and tears go away. He’s perfected it, knowing what to get you or what to say to make it all better, but now?  He doesn’t know what comes next. Doesn’t know how to make it stop, help you through it, take your worries and griefs—you’re on your own and he’s just next to you, and its not enough, and he can’t help, and he doesn’t know what to do—He doesn’t know what to do-Hedoesntknowwhattodo!

“Hey.”

He feels a gentle hand on his shoulder; the nurse who’s holding all the pieces of his heart and sanity together. She looks at him, focused, locked in from the moment your wailing, miserable self was wheeled in here, and has been doing everything he can’t.

“We’re right there. I need you to ground her,” she says. “Can you do that?”

He nods, tightening his lips. He remembers your hand in his now, remembers where he is, in this moment, and its all the matters.

He’s here. And he wants—needs you to know he’s not going anywhere.

He calls your name. “It’s time, okay baby?” Steady. Reassuring. Level headed. Strong. Rock. Crutch. Love. Everything he’s good at. Everything you know him by. “I need you to push.”

You shake your head again, eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenching hard. But he nods, because he’s gonna do the nodding, and the yes’ing, and he’s gonna take everything that’s ever caused you wrong or pain or sadness away because it’s what he does.

It’s what makes him keep going.

“FUCK! MOTHER———MOTHERFUCKER!!!!AHHHHHHHHH!!”

“Keep going!” The nurse encourages. “Dad, you’re doing great, keep getting her to focus—“

“I’M NOT GETTING MY FUCKING EPIDURAL!!!!!!!!!!!!” You sob in finality, the truth seeping into your bones. “YOU FUCKING—MOTHERFUCKING CUNNT SHIT STICK LITTLE BI—“ 

“For Christ’s sake, SHUT THE FUCK UP!” The nurse howls, and the entire room goes silent, even you. Joel stares at her dumbfounded. 

‘“The baby. Is HERE,” she huffs definitively. 

“Now fucking—PUSH!”

 - 

Joel’s heart has stopped. 

He doesn’t know where it is, but he knows it’s no longer in his body. 

Its not until he hears the first, most beautifully devastating croak of an angelic cry that he’s felt his heartbeat resume again, and its being cradled gently by the nurse as she pulls the tiniest, wrinkliest, most precious thing on this planet from between your legs.

“Congratulations, mom and dad. A healthy, happy baby girl.”

There’s no way this little—thing—this… bean—can be a baby. It’s the size of both his hands together, and so incredibly delicate, my god, weighing almost nothing and yet the sheer weight of who she is has him nearly capsizing at this very moment.

She’s wrapped delicately in cloth, face and nostrils wiped of fluids before landing gracefully in your outstretched arms. And it’s like the cosmos has realigned in harmony.

No amount of sweat, tears, crazy hair and braised skin, torn clothing and achy muscles could possibly deter the absolute love bursting from your chest as you hold the tiny baby in your grasp. “Hi,” you whimper with a big smile, eyes floating in a shiny haze pf exhaustion and happiness, looking down upon her. “Hi baby girl.” you laugh, tears falling freely as you shake your head and hold her closer, as close as possible, reabsorbing her into your bare chest, and you feel it. Her skin on yours. You’ve carried her this entire time, and yet it’s like you’re feeling her for the first time in your life.

Joel curls next to you, his big palm splayed over top her whole body, touching her. And it’s the first time, the first time he’s felt his daughter. He had been separated by the membrane of your belly, anxiously, excitedly waiting all this time to meet her, and now she’s here. She’s here. Neither one of you can believe it.

Your little baby wiggles, cooing noise stuck in her throat as she settles from her cries. she’s so wrinkly, skin still absorbing all that fresh air, working color into those cheeks and hands, fingers and toes. Her eyes are too swollen, not yet ready to say hi to this world. But that’s okay. Because her mom and dad are still going to be right here when she wakes up, the first people who will introduce her to the world around her. Because she is their world.

“Joel,” you whisper softly. He hears you. He’s here. He hasn’t left your side once. You know he’s here, you’re grateful. He’s here. He loves you. 

“Joel,” you hum again. “She’s beautiful.”

You tremble against him. Shaken from love and joy, more than your entire achy body can contain as you bring her little head to your lips and press the most fulfilling kiss to her.

Joel cups her little head. He wants to hold her, but he’s gotta wait. Fuck after all this time, he’s gotta wait. And it’s enough. He can handle it because he’s so fucking overwhelmed that she’s finally here.

“She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” he rasps into your hair, kissing you tenderly.

Joel steps outside the room, softly closing the door behind him. He watches from the glass window pane, with you perfectly framed in the center as its only subject. Just the way he’s seen the world every day since he met you. 

Only this time, you hold another part of you, and him, in your arms.  The two of you, together. Like the only things that will ever matter to him.

And suddenly, Joel lets himself feel it all.

He clutches his mouth with the entirety of his palm, his yelp buzzing in his hoarse throat. He feels his knees give way, tumbling to the ground, one hand holding the wall while the other grips his face to keep the cries at bay. And he cries. He cries harder than he’s ever cried, and they’re wonderful. They hurt like kisses, burn like candy, ache like love. 

He wants to go back in there.

Quickly wiping his face clean, he stands up, straightening himself.

“Hey.”

The nurse who had delivered his baby stands next to him.

“She did fantastic. You both did.”

Joel tries to clear his throat, but his face is so obviously still red, swollen and barely holding it together. She doesn’t question nor judge the tough guy facade, yet completely speaks to his soul, telling him everything he didn’t know he needed to hear. “She’s 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Ten fingers and toes. Brown eyes. Hearing is great, so is—“

“Thank you,” he interrupts.

She goes quiet but offers a gentle smile. 

As he stares at her, the literal saint that got you and his baby through this, from point A to B, he realizes  nothing is coming to his head.

“I’m sorry, I … I don’t even know your name.”

She laughs. “I would not expect you to. You had way more to worry about.”

“Well, I just … really, really wanted to say…. Thank you…”

“Sarah,” she responds.

“Sarah,” he repeats. He repeats it over and over again in his mind, as if its going to stick, and he doesn’t quite know why yet.

“I’ll give you two—three, some time together,” she says, gathering the checkerboard hanging by the wall. “Then I’ll be back to help get her ready to take home, and let your wife sleep some more.”

He nods, looking down then back up, just as she’s patting his shoulder reassuringly and turning away to attend her other duties.

-

When he steps back inside, you look up to him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he whispers back. Now that the dust has settled, he can finally see just how exhausted you are. The absolute train wreck that has battered your body this last hour really settling in, and it makes his chest sore to see you like that. Your gown pulled halfway down to your ribcage, tousled hair sticking awkwardly to your forehead and back from all the dried sweat. And yet none of it, absolutely nothing, is getting in the way of that smile that hasn’t left your cheeks since the moment you heard her cry.

“She’s sleeping,” you hum, looking back down at your daughter, who’s coddled up in a wrap and little cap.

“You thinking about putting the baby down, getting some sleep too?”

“Never.”

He smirks, looking down at her again.

“You think about any names yet?” You ask, stroking over her little forehead.

The two of you had thought about it. A lot. You didn’t want it to be random, but you didn’t want it to be weird. It had to have meaning, but not so closely related to a family member that you’d always mess them up at thanksgiving. It had to remind you of someone strong, unique, purposeful but distant enough that she could to grow and make it her own. 

And this was a girl, after all, so it had to be someone that could put momma AND papa in their place whenever shit got too crazy. 

“I’ve got…one.”

-

Joel helps dress the baby from her swaddled blanket into clothes.

“They’re gonna be a little bit big at first—“ you say, giggling as the two of you realize that the smallest clothes in the world are still a little too baggy on your little—so fucking little—girl.

Joel doesn’t waver, helping put her bitty legs through the loose pant legs…

You see him wipe his lips quickly, swallowing a lump to clear his throat.

“Joel, are you crying?”

“No,” he rasps like a whimper. “M’just sweatin’ through my eyes.”

You let out a chuckle, and Joel tries to do the same, but then he looks down at his little angel again, who’s stretching herself out in the new cloth that’s practically a giant coat on her. Joel starts to tremble. “She’s so perfect,” he weeps, and the shine in his eyes are clear as day.

“Oh baby, it’s okay to cry! I’m gonna cry too—“ you bawl, and now the two of you cry over this little girl who’s just trying to figure out why this blanket is stuck to her.

Not a great first impression from mom and dad but she’ll just have to deal with it.

And just like that, the Miller family went from party of two, to family of three.

-

6 weeks later…

The baby monitor crackles to life, and Joel is already tossing the blanket aside before the baby utters her first cry. He’s already up, kissing your forehead with “I’ll get her," almost excitedly through the heavy lull of sleep. You barely get a noise out of your throat, already snoring away into the pillow. He’s exhausted too, but his feet carry him onward with droopy eyes as if on their own.

He’s still not happy about the pink paint color of her bedroom, but that hardly matters right now. Terribly dramatic cries echo from the crib ahead. He scoops his little bean—since that’s what she looks like all curly in her onesie—supporting her head carefully and tucking her into one elbow. 

He rocks her squirming, agitated body back and forth in one arm as he shakes the now warmed bottle in his other hand. Joel tries to get her screaming mouth to take the cap, but she shakes her head, avoiding him at all costs to her own detriment.

 "Oh you’re such a squiggly girly for daddy. I got ya bubbas right here, quick ya cryin’. You’re gonna wake up mommy." 

As if she understands how she wouldn’t want to cause YOU any problems, his baby stops crying and accepts the bottle between her lips. Once she finally has her snacking, she peacefully looks back up to him, studies him. 

"There she is.  Told ya." He grins, swaying back and forth as she stares back at him with those big beautiful brown eyes. You definitely got one of your wishes: Joel’s eyes. The rest of her, is yours.

He’s hypnotized, so in love with her he didn’t think it was possible to love something as much as you. He already knows he’s gonna get her the dog, the kitty, the pony, the car, credit card, dress, house, anything she points to really; he’s never going to be able to say no to those enchanting eyes.

All of her bitty fingers fist around Joel’s pointer, as if to anchor her, and she doesn't let go as she drinks safely.  

She’s only 10 pounds now, but he feels like Atlas, carrying the entire weight of the world all curled up in his arms right now. Ans he'd carry this weight forever if he could, would pump iron and concrete slabs and oceans just to stay in shape and keep his girl in his arms for eternity, never to tire.

“My babygirl,” he whispers with a grin, pursing his lips close to her. “My little baby Sarah.”

- - - -

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[arctrooper69]

As Iron Sharpens Iron

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another" Proverbs 27:17

Beta-read by @dragonrider9905

Chapter 5:

Previous // Next

Warnings: Hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

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

You felt like you were going to throw up.

“....useful asset… reckless…. irritable… not a member of the team to me…”

You'd gotten back to the ship earlier than planned, entering quietly as not to wake Omega. You froze upon hearing your name in Hunter's voice and then in Tech’s. It felt wrong, listening in to a private conversation, but you couldn't stop the way your heart sped up, sending butterflies swirling about your stomach upon hearing Hunter's voice. He sounded confused, upset even. So against your better judgment, you stayed. Now you wished you hadn't.

Is that really what they think of me? Reckless, irresponsible. An asset.

Not even a member of the team. An asset.

You curled into the pillow, hidden away behind the thick curtains that Wrecker had hung around your bunk.

Probably so that they wouldn't have to see me - so that they can just forget I'm here until I'm useful.

Tears burned hot, soaking the pillow in a silent grief. It hurt. You thought you'd finally found a home - finally found where you belonged. Now you knew that was a lie.

First Hunter. Now the whole squad.

The jagged remains of wishful hope that still lingered in your chest fractured further, splintering like glass.

You could still see it clearly. Though it was only a glimpse caught in nanoseconds, the sight of it branded itself behind your eyes like a hot iron. Hunter and Tara, lips locked in a moment of passion. Her fingers tangled in his hair. His hand on her waist.

The datapad lying forgotten on the bunk at your feet chimed loudly, drawing you back into the moment with a start. Almost instinctively, your fingers curled into fists, hands shaking, nearly drawing blood as your fingernails dug against the skin of your palm, clenching ever tighter until the skin around your knuckles turned white. Another mission. Echo must’ve been out at Cid’s. You scrolled through the dossier he’d sent, annoyance flashing across your face. They’d already assumed you’d be ready and able like nothing had happened.

Nothing has happened - at least not to them.

It was so easy to forget that all the turbulence that boiled under your skin was simply a product of your own mind.

One more mission. One more day.

You’d give them this. One last mission because you couldn’t bear to let them down. No matter what they thought of you, the love you felt for this squad was still there scrambling in a desperately futile attempt to repair the shattered pieces of hope that stubbornly refused to leave. Hope like that was dangerous. You’d only get hurt again - yet it continued to fight back.

But what if…

No.

Could it have been a misunderstanding?

No. Stop.

Am I overreacting for nothing?

If you keep this up you’ll just end up worse than before. Just accept that you don’t belong here. One last mission then you’ll leave.

But I don’t want to go…

Yes you do. It’s better this way.

Taking a deep breath, you wiped your face and quickly headed to the fresher keeping your eyes down lest anyone see the telling red-rimmed, swollen eyes and splotchy patches adorning your face.

It’s all professional now. This is just another job. The mission comes before all else. Emotions get you killed.

The cool water soothed the heat of your skin. You stared into the mirror making no attempts to dry the wet dripping down your face, allowing it to wash away all evidence of hurt. It was surprisingly easy to allow yourself to slip back into the gruff bounty hunter facade you’d kept up for so long before joining the Batch.

Focus on the task at hand. Get the job done.

Sitting back down on the bed, you drew the curtains again and unlocked the small trunk that held what little belongings you had. Sitting inside was the trooper doll companion you were making for Omega - stuffed with one of Hunter's old bandanas. It was only half finished.

And probably won’t ever be now, you thought as you picked it up, fingers running gently over the soft material. The tears threatened to come again at the thought of a memory that was no longer yours to make.

Something stuck out from beneath an extra jacket. Against your better judgment, you pulled it out and sighed. A bittersweet nostalgia knotted your stomach. There you were beside Hunter - Omega squeezed between you, smiling proudly despite the grime that covered her tunic. It was her first training exercise. You smiled proudly down at her. Even Hunter sported some semblance of a grin.

The fingertips encroaching on the sides of the image denoted Wrecker as the camera operator. Tech and Echo engaged in ship repairs in the background.

What you wouldn't give to go back to that time. Everything seemed simpler then.

Swallowing hard, you put the holopic back at the bottom of the trunk, covering it fully with the jacket. You shoved the remainder of your supplies into your pack and shut the trunk, letting the lock click into place with a resounding finality.

Clenching your teeth, you took a deep breath. One more mission. One more day.

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

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[verysium]

『02』 出発: departure

ft. rin itoshi, sae itoshi

summary: a star's life is its counteraction against death, an endless deadlock against the brute force of gravity. in the constant struggle between space and time, rin cannot tell if he is being held up or held down. perhaps he has already dictated the terms of his own demise. cw: epistolary montage, mentions of blood in film, rin violently crying and throwing up, highly implied hallucinations, swearing, suicidal ideation, disillusionment and lots of hard angst. word count: 4.9k

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Two weeks after Sae took off from Haneda Airport, his words still lingered inside Rin's mind. His brother had left with a fiery flick of a grin—a gaping, white-hot maw right where his mouth should have been. It blazed then sputtered cold in his gums by the time he turned back around, but Rin still knew what he saw. The smoke never lied.

A triple tap of tongue against hard palate, the message moving fast as light. Something had flickered between Sae’s teeth. Something about split knuckles and brotherly love. Something about calling him back.

But Rin couldn’t hear over the boarding announcements, the roar of engines propelling out of the runway, the heat waves of people out in front. At half past noon, his brother had already departed from Tokyo, ten thousand miles westbound in a floating aluminum dream, reeling contrails through the sky. 

And Rin still stood on Earth, waiting. Like some dumb thing left behind.

It wasn’t until his mother laid a gentle hand on his shoulder that he finally tumbled back to reality, an empty gate at his feet, no arrival or departure calling. The afternoon sunlight had grown dim, splintering against the glass windows and whirring the blood through his ears. His chest felt strangely suspended.

It was in the backseat where it all began. Three floors down in the parking garage. Fumbling through his pockets, his coat had snagged between the door and car frame, ten digits on a crumpled paper sent fluttering to the ground. Looking back on it now, he should’ve thrown that damn thing away. But he was stupid then, drunk on a heat stroke and the beginnings of terminal grief. Right on the exit of the Shuto Expressway, he made his parents turn the car back around and drive ten miles down to the nearest World Mobile, a wretched inhale of hope stuck squirming in his chest. 

It took him several weeks before he finally decided to punch in those numbers, and then another several weeks to call after that. His body shuddered, sweat-faced and suffocating, as he trailed sticky fingers down the waiting screen. The phone rang once then twice. Then rang on forever.

Nobody ever bothered to pick up.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

2013 年 6月 17日 Nii-chan, 

It still feels like you never left. And I say this with a miserable lack of sincerity because you did in fact leave just two weeks ago. Kaa-san still makes your bed. Square corners and all. Your duvet goes in the pile with the rest of my laundry. 

Just the other day, I think I saw your shadow. I was sunbathing on the roof when I felt something brush against my back. Does Spain have big shadows too? I hope so. A country with so much sun must leave those poor shades short and stunted. Maybe they’re just a little shy. Be nice to them, will you Nii-chan? Not everyone can shine as bright as you do.

I hope you’ll make friends soon. Write to me often. I want to know everything.

2013 年 7月 7日 Nii-chan,

How are you? I didn’t receive anything in my inbox, and I checked with Kaa-san twice. She said you didn’t text me, but there is no way such a thing could have happened. Perhaps old age has finally gotten to her, or maybe something’s just wrong with this phone. Either way, I should’ve asked her to buy me a newer model.

On second thought, if you don’t text me, I will be very upset. But it will be a childish sort of anger. You wouldn’t be very proud. You will be pleased to know, however, that I have grown a total of ten centimeters this summer, and my bones are looking very strong and wide. My shots have improved too, and I scored three goals today.

Otou-san took us out to dinner for Tanabata this weekend. He told me it is about time I became a man. I smiled and said I didn’t want to disappoint. But then he said ten and three quarters is no longer a youthful sort of age, and I suddenly felt a little mad about it. I don’t want to grow up without you. 

The festival was crowded as usual. I ate every selection of wagashi then chased it down with some of the sake Otou-san lent me from his cup. Pretty sure that was illegal, so I threw it all up on the way home. But then we all went and saw the tanzaku, so I guess something went right. I wrote down a wish, but I won’t tell you. Otherwise it won’t come true. I hung it up on the highest branch though, so that someday it might reach you. 

Tell me what you think. Text back soon.

2013 年 8月 31日 Nii-chan, 

I did not receive your reply from last time. I think this phone must still be broken. Perhaps you should check on your end. Even if it’s just a greeting, I will be content. Anything from you is fine, really.

I visited the beach again. It was peaceful until the wind blew hair in my face, and I went blind for almost fifteen minutes. I tried cutting it, but Kaa-san got mad at me. After your disaster five years ago, she said she’d never let her sons hold a pair of scissors ever again. Don’t tell her, but I laughed. Inside, you know?

Sometimes I still see the waves in my sleep. The ones at Koshigoe Beach. They cradle me, and suddenly it feels like my head is floating even though my body isn’t. You’d probably think I’m crazy. But lately dreams are the only way I can reach you. 

I do watch the news though. And I train hard. Very hard. I can pass like you now, though not nearly as good as your highlights on TV. Coach says I still need to learn. You always said the same thing. But I am nearly as tall as Otou-san now and twice as strong. That must count for something, right? I hope the guys overseas will like this new me. When I finally come over there, that is.

Make sure you aren’t training too hard. I don’t want you to overstrain yourself. And if you don’t like it there, promise me you won’t force yourself to stay. You’ll pack your bags and come home early. 

Promise me. Please. 

That you’ll come home to me.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

For the second time in his life, Rin finds himself on his knees, heaving up everything that has ever made him whole. The bathroom mourns with every dry retch of his throat, and suddenly he’s laughing into the porcelain, clutching at the sides in a mad form of desperation. His ribs shudder—tough in their hurt—yet nothing of substance ever lies between them. He’d smiled out his guts a long time ago. 

Is empty space still a space or just the photonegative of presence? 

Sometimes Rin feels like his body can never truly filled, but it can never be completely emptied either. No matter how much he regurgitates, there will always be more to come. The space inside him widens until it hangs on a threadlike line of limbo: so much to give yet so much to keep. It tugs at him—a crude form of baptism—pulling him up for air and then crashing his head beneath the waves again. 

Another harsh hurl reverberates across the bathroom tiles, this time accompanied by the loud smack of spit. He’s emptied out so much his bowels might just prolapse at any second, the boy inside him turned into some sort of liquid slop, sloshing back and forth in his ribcage. It’s all over the front of his shirt now, the stomach contents soaked for hours in bodily brine, the grief his body tries to hold. No amount of bleach is going to erase the stench.

Some days Rin just wants someone to cradle him like a child does a bird, gentle and afraid to hurt. He had a dream about this once, many moons ago. After wringing himself out to dry, he had gone to work, looping the washing line around his feet until it resembled some sort of upside down noose. Once the wind picked up, he let go of the string like a pendulum, watching his body sway in third person: up and down and up and down. In this reality, he was a creature of feathers and clothespins, his body molting in the breeze. So long as he swung back and forth in this state of suspension, he would remain in the middle, not tethered down enough to live but not free enough to die either. 

He’d simply exist. 

Some nights Rin still can’t sleep. His eyes lay limp in their sockets, two dead weights sinking into bone. He tried to pry them out with his fingers, but they only pressed deeper into his face, rigid and wax-cool to the touch. No matter what he does, Rin knows he will be too late. He can never reverse this decay—the post-mortem withering of his own heart. 

Just this afternoon, he died once again, his body slumped with the hollow weight of disappointment, his spirit sinking like a fault line into earth. He had been drying his hair in the locker room after practice, the friction of the towel’s loops causing small pinpricks of static to echo along his nape. The static had carried over hushed whispers, trailing along his scalp down to his ears. God, he hadn’t meant to overhear.

“Damn it, we’re really done for this season, huh? I’m telling you it’s the striker. We could’ve won this match if it weren’t for him.”

“I mean, if Itoshi were here, he would’ve destroyed their whole team by himself.”

“You mean the older one?”

“Of course I do. Who else did you think I was referring to? The younger one’s just been blessed up until now.”

“Without his brother, he’s just an ordinary guy.”

“Oi, Haruto, shut up! What if he hears?”

“Hear what? It’s not like it isn’t the truth!”

Rin still remembers how his surname burned on their lips, the tip of the tongue caught raw between teeth, the vowels seared into flesh. Itoshi was a burden coming apart at the seams, a title for something he could never possess. They were right and it left him smarting, reeling. He hadn’t laughed a day since Sae’s departure, but in that moment he wanted to shove his whole fist up his mouth and choke for the first time in five resentful months. The laugh had been a silent one, with tears on his waterline and a smile bruised onto his face. 

Ha.....ha.....hah.....

There comes a point in every boy’s life when he simply exists. Still young but no longer impressionable. Salt in the eyes. Salt in the mouth. Take it like a man. When he hawks back the knife, it must come out breathing and clean. Living but not dead. 

His teammates had every right to blame him. 

He can’t score goals like he used to. Can’t run and bleed. Can’t love like before. There’s nothing but shame waiting for him when the realization finally breaches the bathroom air and his teammates scramble off the benches, cleats stained with guilt. They saw his reflection in the mirror, weeping right above the communal sinks.

“R-rin! W-we didn’t know you were here.”

“Y-yeah! You didn’t hear much, did you?”

Rin had never hated his name more in that moment. They uttered it like a euphemism, hand over his stupid bullet-riddled heart, the blood too runny to salvage. It only hurt him more. So he did what he knew best. He clenched his fist, the nails fisted into the meat of his palm, eyes caught on a hardened edge. It didn’t matter if Haruto was his senior. He’d beat him within an inch of his life.

“So you call me Rin now? Wasn’t I just younger Itoshi to you earlier?”

“I didn’t....We didn’t mean...”

“Then what did you mean?”

Only the scurry of shoes answered—two scuff marks against the dirty floor, Haruto’s yelp in the distance. Rin was left all alone again, his thin shadow blown wide across the whitewashed walls of the locker room. 

“Damn coward,” he wanted to yell after him. “Run! Run and tell them how it’s not your fault!” 

But he was just talking to himself.

Is empty space still a space or just a pseudonym for absence?

He hadn't been thinking at the time. Within the liminal space of the abandoned shower stalls, he lent himself a moment of weakness. He let himself cry. The shower head was cold and dirtied, and he stood there for forty-five minutes, waiting to be filled with a warmth that never came. In the end, he let his tears mix with the brackish water, staring at the evidence of his failure before it swirled down the drain. 

He realized he must have been a mistake. There was no other explanation. The real Rin Itoshi was swapped at birth and replaced with someone else. Inside the four-walled confines of the shower stall, his imposter reared its head through the mist, long baby hair drowned down to the ears. He didn’t belong. Not in this body bathed in condensation. Not in this namesake crowned in tempered glass. But by the time the water trickled down to his nose, Rin was already knee-deep in self-doubt, wading his way into misery. What more did they want from him? No one could ever replace Sae Itoshi. Not even his younger brother. 

Not even him.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Six hours post-death in the locker rooms, Rin went home and passed out with his head on the toilet seat, two slick fingers shoved up his throat and his luminous guts buried somewhere down the pipe drain. Six hours later, his lids peel back scarlet, gelatinous with haze—a ringing in his ears. Some fucker is calling him again. 

He doesn’t answer. Twice. But the telemarketer is either underpaid or rudely insistent, so Rin finally picks up just to curse him out on the line. He doesn’t need any scripted intimacy. Doesn’t need other people counting his own losses. He just needs to be left alone.

At midnight, he staggers out of the bathroom, fingers absentmindedly flicking off the lightswitch before collapsing into bed. The sheets aren’t even his own. He doesn’t notice until he sniffs the pillow and stiffens. It smells god-awful. Like tiger balm and soothing menthol. Like somebody he used to know. And much to his chagrin, the images come stumbling back: knee-deep in the salted sea, shirasu swimming around his toes. What color were his eyes again? Blue ice between teeth. Sour like a bad star. Oh, what can he remember? Disappointment peeled into spirals. Happiness running down the back of his hand. The blood of an orange, sweet and dripping. He’s forever staring at someone’s back. Always a few steps behind.

Fuck you, Sae.

There’s haunting laughter coming out from the window panes, and he can hear the waves crash on shore in the distance. Two children run across sand. Muted footsteps. One soft thump then another. The vision is so close he can practically taste it. Salt in the wind, in the eyes, in his mouth. The seagulls pluck at his eyes, but he takes it like a man, breathing and clean. Living but not dead.

One of the children stands with his arms behind his back, face hidden by the shadows of the horizon. The ocean spray nips at his burgundy fringe, the hunger of a whole world engulfed in his gaze. In the distance, a younger boy shouts his name, dark hair framed by a cowlick, turquoise eyes smoothed over by water. He runs as fast as his little legs can carry him, his arms filled with bone-white shells.

“Nii-chan, wait for me!”

Sae’s face blurs before he can turn around, and Rin is left staring at the wooden slats above his childhood bed, resenting something he can no longer remember. Why did people have to go and change? Three years later and his brother had gone straight from stealing seashells to swindling stars clean out of the sky. Three years and he still had nothing to show for himself.

He imagines the look on Sae’s face when he tells him this. Conversations over Sunday dinner. The family gathered round the kotatsu, piss-yellow light slicing every dish into halves. He spoons pickled radish and chokes Sae’s teacup till it breaks. Would it be disappointment he sees on his face? His brother’s features crumpled mid-smile, blue-green eyes wounded into a porcelain state. Why? Why haven’t you done anything with your life while I was gone? 

Or perhaps it was anger. Smoke on the lips, bruised fists, and the heat of his mother’s blazing scream. Her son bares teeth and scrapes every syllable of their surname clean. Wrestles her other son’s shoulders down to the ground and shakes until the boy—the real Rin—gurgles and sloshes up inside. Do something, Rin. Do something! Or else you’ll never make it this lifetime.

Both, he could live with. But not this. The silence that burrows into his mind while he sleeps. The constant calling and the phone that just rings and rings and rings. It’s a circle, some sick sort of cycle. Every night he dreams of war—of sights and slights and stars. Things that end then don’t end then never end. He dreams until he wakes up screaming, on his hands and knees begging. Say something, will you? Anything. Fuck, why won’t you just say something?

Three years later and his brother still can't love him in a way he understands. 

But what did he expect? Sae was like that: pale and blistering, beautiful even when burning. Last dream cycle, his brother fell down three stories and erupted into flames, limbs compacted into fine dust. Should’ve screamed but didn’t. By the time Rin got down to him, Sae was already on his feet, sputtering soot from his lungs then flaring back up like nothing had ever happened. As if his hurt was merely bursts of light gathering and bunching, violence in free fall. 

And he was beautiful, Rin thinks. A boy of the blaze, man in the making, hair aorta-red, staring right back at him. By the time Sae opened his mouth, Rin’s arms were already open, ready to embrace the glittering shards. He crumpled before him as a building does a god, set alight on his brother’s palm. Strike me. He begged, blood around his mouth. Strike me anywhere and set me free. 

But that’s not what happens when you die. Not when his brother said it best.

I think I’d die and become a star. 

So he holds onto this life. Bunches it between fingers and twines it around his fist until he knows the person he’s dying for. Until he’s blacked out and dreaming in that damnable backseat again. Experiencing everything in the third person—the news, the screen, the slow-motion reels of an astral body wound up in constant replay. He can only watch as his brother slowly becomes a stranger in his own life again, and it guts him every time.

Sae Itoshi Dominates at Junior Championships, Secures Victory with Hat-Trick. Future Star? Sae Itoshi’s Sensational Performance Stuns Fans and Scouts Alike.

Who the hell is Sae Itoshi? Man, celebrity, celestial body? Not even his brother knows. But what Rin has learned over these past few years is that all stars are really just dead people, housed in a mausoleum of glittery beginnings and explosive endings. It’s binary—circling, really. A blinking eye in the sky, ticking time bomb, crying corpse, then everything wailing before its implosion. Sae could never comprehend this. The smoke-sputtering reality beyond tangible substance. This form of dying. 

But dying isn’t even the worst part of it all. It’s people like him who suffer. Unlucky stars are cursed with another, forced to revolve around each other. If one collapses, the companion gets ejected out the deep end of space and time—stumbling, groping, searching. 

Three years later and he’s still searching. 

Hey Google: Can stars still be seen from Madrid? 

The results for light pollution pop up. In a city of light, even light cannot be seen. How ironic, he thinks, that Sae is now a shining thing, flaring tendrils a million light years away. Post-nebula and he still loses himself in people who look exactly like him.

But that past has already come and gone, leaving nothing but the future behind. In the next dream cycle, Rin too will die, sputtering and choking, like a firework lit from within—violence in free fall. And when the time comes, he will leap off the fire escape, the city blocks spinning and spinning, every second a little death. The faster he falls, the more alive he’ll feel. He’ll drop all the way down until the only way he can go is up. And then he’ll ascend, floating past the skyscrapers, the streets, the sprawling metropolis. His toes curled, caught on the hook of night, the burnt flesh peeling back on bone. Floating until he disappears, his body nothing but white light.

Someday his brother will drown himself in his own artificial brightness. And Rin will follow, screaming, rearing, and set ablaze.

If you die Nii-chan, I think I’ll die along with you.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

There are rare moments when seasons die a sunless death, quiet and wilting into the earth. Rin’s final birthday without Sae falls on one such month—a red September during which nature bleeds, the autumn leaves rusting around Engakuji Temple. He’s taken up long walks during that time, pacing for hours around the park nearby. Something about taking his mind off things. Something about counting his own losses.

By late afternoon, his hands are shoved fist-deep into his coat pockets, on track to finish his ninth lap around the perimeter. The daylight has long pooled down his back, tiny dollops of brightness slow-dripping and honeyed, settling into the hollow divots of his spine. The mise-en-scène frames him in a languorous ochre—the kind of lighting reserved solely for an aged romance. And the wind plays his lover, its post-meridian breath tender as it brushes against his cheek. It’s all a range of motions from there. He takes another step, adjusts a stray earbud, then tugs his scarf all the way up to his nose. Ten laps now, and he still walks. The only time he ever stops is when he stalls mid-way to check his phone. 

Zero messages received. Message not delivered.

His thumb hovers briefly over the send button. The cursor at the end blinks with an almost human hesitancy before it opens its mouth, swallowing everything back up. The screen clears itself again, reduced to nothing but absence: a small square of light where silence reigns. Rin sighs before trudging home, a thousand words lodged into the back of his throat.

Nii-chan, I miss you. 

The kitchen is empty by the time he slides open the shoji, removing his shoes with practiced ease before padding across the soft tatami. His mother’s gone on an errand for groceries, her hastily scrawled note tucked under his door with a bowl of persimmons. The house is empty, the joss sticks still smoking in the living room, tips warm and powder-soft. He grows heady on their incense, locking himself away in his bedroom and drawing the curtains. His old Fujitsu laptop whirrs to life, propped up against two pillows and an oversized owl plush. This time he puts on a splatter film, splayed on his stomach as he reels through the opening credits.

He can watch without the subtitles now, even converse with tourists at the station in Enoden. He recalls his teammates’ faces last Saturday—breaths held tender, jaws slackened with faux horror—when he gave out directions in perfect English. Sae would’ve been proud, if only he knew how much it meant. But lately, there hasn’t been a single interruption to Rin’s nights alone, despite how desperately he longs for one. The most his English is good for nowadays is translating the kooky foreign films he puts on rotation, ninety minutes of runtime for thirty-one evenings.

He must have gone through a dozen franchises by now: Halloween specials, 90’s vintage, slashers, the paranormal. The American flicks still remain his favorite, mostly because of the chainsaws. Something about the suspense of disembodiment scratches an itch inside his brain. Like the adrenaline before a final goal, moments before he implodes—naked body slathered in pools of primary color.

In the darkness, the films weave together: a tidal wave of light that washes down his bedroom walls. The victim shrieks before she is bathed in an eerie swathe of red, pierced at the helm of a bloodshot lens. Something about her death is both alien and terrifying, and Rin feels himself come alive again. 

At climax, the light from his laptop is nothing short of searing, carving-knife intensity digging slowly into thin, rousing bodies. He can only watch as the killer sharpens his blade, each stroke a day-bright epiphany, cutting little wounds into the night. His figure is lit up from behind, illuminated in such a way that Rin can see his organs and count every one of his ribs. The scene peels back like water, reflecting montage after montage on the glass display case next to his closet. The trophies electrify themselves in the shadows, each silhouette splayed neatly on the shelf and serrated round the rim. The metal handles distort the characters’ faces in two-frame slashes, decapitating nose from ear, eye from mouth. Another scream rips through the background as Rin digs graves into his palm. This time the murderer chases a mother down the stairs, gleeful when her child fails to keep up. 

He’s seen this scene play out before—three years and eleven months ago, when he first got himself killed. It’s the final match against Tokyo Metropolitan Youth, and he’s running on fumes, ten minutes into additional time. There’s only a few more meters to the goal area, the footsteps fast approaching from his left. He has to make an escape. The opponent closes in behind him, knife in hand, and all he can do is run, body barreling straight toward the camera. 

The impact hits him right before the shot, his leg flaring out in some desperate attempt at a goal. The ball soars as he stumbles forward—violence in free fall, the boy inside him lit from within. In the final moments before he combusts, time stretches itself thin over his bones, smoking and exorcized from the fire. The shadow of his killer looms behind him, arm raised with the promise of metal and memory, the blade gleaming in sparse light. 

Got you.

The child on screen turns around, facial features contorted in dramatic horror. Rin can hear her scream before the lips even part. He can already predict this ending. He can predict the next one after this too. Plight of the final girl: last to die but forever immortalized in her own grief and helplessness.

In six months, he will be named the most valuable player for Kamakura United Youth. In another six, he will be hollowed from the inside out, cursed to feel only the loss inside every win. This motion picture has rewound itself one too many times, the credits rolling and taking him along with them. End scene and he’s standing there in a pool of his own triumph—the grass strewn with painted carcasses—a thousand boys dead at his feet. His knees make hard contact with the earth, nothing but penitence in his eyes. This is all he knows: love and its smoking aftermath, the weight of it iron-hot on his tongue. Victory has never tasted so bitter. 

But it always ends the same. For the final girl, the film star, everyone crucified by the crowd. All good auteurs come from a long line of men who have already run out of time, color pooling past their waists, crashing in over their heads. They don’t want to die, so they preserve their souls into billboards, spool strands of silence into substance. They only shoot what is in their blood: the sensational guts, glory, and gore. Because what better way to keep your memory alive than burn it onto the emulsion side of thirty-five millimeter filmstrip?

The red lights have begun to feel suffocating—the last of his breath now a belt around his neck—as the cameras pan down to a mutilated body. Rin secretly envies the child’s soaked shirtsleeves, the ground beneath her perfused in violent color. If only he could be filled with something that beautiful. But instead he was given the body of a pale child filled with longing, constantly waiting for a change and constantly wishing for something to flow out of him. 

Eventually the clock strikes twelve and Rin closes his laptop, the backs of his eyelids whited out, brain overstimulated from the psychedelic screams. His brother’s portrait blurs in his peripheral vision, overexposed from the red glow, staring up at him from the cluttered nightstand. And in the moment, he briefly wonders if Sae left Japan in search of a new image. Perhaps Spain was just ninety minutes of solid technicolor screen where people could scream without horror, where the protagonist could freely bleed. And in the end, there was no death. The audience remains seated in theaters, their memories replaying over and over, bodies forever housed in cinema.

At the director’s cut, Rin’s consciousness falls under, hand still clutching the frame. End scene and Sae’s blown-out face smiles just a little into the darkness.

© verysium 2024 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Forget-Me-Not 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Loki

Summary: You return to your childhood home to put the past to rest.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You never really thought of Hammer Ford as home. You only ever tried to forget it and the turbulent years of your childhood. You let the memories haze away with the chaos of the urban rush. Office doors and honking cars easily overwrote the map work of your mind. A less than glamorous life, but peaceful. That’s all you ever wanted.

Your return is inevitable. You knew that. For years, you outran that fact. One day, you would need to face those dusty rural roads and the whispers in the wind. That day has come despite your stubbornness. A week after the news came and you could find no other excuse to stay away.

Not home, just the past. A piece of you you can’t erase. A shame you’ll never fully shake.

The welcome sign, beneath an iron statue of a hammer on a cloud, marks the village edge. You grip the wheel tighter and swallow dryly. Your bladder aches from the coffee you chugged after the last rest stop. You still have some ways to go.

Funny to think that despite its sprawling roads sparse layout, that the populace is so tight knit, the small hamlet untouched by the world outside. The same red barn up on the hill, the gate of the Grove in all its resplendence, and the short strip of businesses before the earth rolls into hills and flattens to fields.

You steer off into the northeast. The Maps app stopped working a few miles back. You don’t need the automated voice to guide you. It all comes back to you so clearly. Just around this curve and behind the barn, there’s the old path behind the Berrys. On and on, behind the overgrown brush to the house by the river. 

Your tires mulch in the dirt as you brake. You shift and shut off the engine, looking out at the peeling wooden facade. The house was once a cottage in the glory days of the village, then it was passed along until your parents’ signed the deed. By that time, it was already derelict.

It hasn’t gotten better. The windows are cracked and dusty, the door splintered, and the front steps crooked. You get out and cross your arms, breathing in the damp forest air.

You feel nothing looking up at that shit hole. You thought the sight of it would bring the flood, but nothing. You shake your head. They said your mother was found in the kitchen, at the table with a bottle of vodka. You never expected anything different for her. At last, she’ll be happy. She’s off to see your father again.

You approach the porch but can’t make yourself climb the steps. There’s something blocking, some unseen wall. You just want to turn around, get in the car, and pretend it’s all a dream. Just like you had for all those years.

You lean your head back and blow out through your lips. Eventually you’ll have to go inside. You need sleep. You could curl up in your backseat again but your hips are ragged from last night. You’re supposed to meet Jan tomorrow. He’s got a casket ready and then you have to go to the church to discuss the service. You don’t think they’ll be much of one.

The hotel isn’t an option. Not for you.

As you glare up at the front door, you hear snapping sticks and the hum of another engine. You turn and watch the dark shadow slowly rolling between the trees. The forest green car turns in just behind your bumper and idles as you squint at the tinted windshield. 

A curious villager isn’t unexpected. Everyone probably knows old Nadia is dead. You just hoped they’d leave you alone, at least until tomorrow.

You cross your arms and steel yourself. The driver’s door opens and a tall man steps out, his imperious nose sniffing the scent of river water and crinkling. Your chest feels as if it might gave in as his emerald eyes meet yours.

Loki Odinson. The last person you expected. The last person you ever wanted to run into. He turns and opens the back door of the car, reaching in and pulling out a basket of flowers. Your temper curdles up to the back of your throat. How dare he?

“My mother and father send their condolences,” he shuts the door and strides across the dirt. You look down at his leather shoes, should he be dirtying them here?

You just stare at him. You have no words, not that you’re much of a talker. What is there to say? Your mother’s dead and you’re stuck dealing with this dirt hole.

“Hm,” he angles past you and puts the basket on the top step, “should brighten the place up.”

You keep your arms crossed as you stare at him. He looks at you again, his eyes flickering, as if he’s surprised by your gaze. He just remembers the girl who kept her head down, the one with no voice and no backbone.

“Very sorry to hear it. Rather sad way to go. All alone.”

“Tell your parents, it’s appreciated,” you turn and march up the steps, dropping your arms.

You hear a scrape and shift to peek at his silhouette from the corner of your eye. He has his foot propped on the lowest step. The porch groans loudly under your weight.

“And I drove all the way here,” he says.

You shrug. You didn’t ask or expect it. That isn’t your problem.

He’s silent, waiting. He’s just like the rest of Hammer Ford, he hasn’t changed. He’s still the spoiled brat awaiting his prize. Well, you haven’t got one for him. You have nothing for him, no tears, no anger, just indifference.

“I see,” he says at last, “you must be tired from the road, no doubt. Of course, you’ve just lost a parent, I can hardly expect glowing conversation… not that I ever did from you.”

You don’t flinch. You go to the front door and pull out the key you dug out of your old jewelry box. It still works. You let yourself in as the hinges whine loudly. You don’t look back as you let the door clatter shut behind you. 

There’s a lull before you hear the engine flip and hum. You stand, listening, waiting for him to be gone. Just like when you were young, hiding behind that door from that boy. Well, you’re both grown now.

[emwritesstuff]

as the world caves in | ch. 11 | bucky barnes x reader

synopsis: You are a ghost story. A former Air Force pilot who had her plane shot down by Germany in 1945, but here you were in 2023, alive and frozen in your 25-year-old body.

You haven’t seen Bucky since the 1940’s, before his fall, before you went on a suicide mission only to come back alive. You aren’t sure reliving those memories – and being a living memory of everything the man has lost – is the best for him.

But you and Bucky won’t be apart for long.

masterlist | AO3

notes: :') We've come to the final chapter. Short and sweet. I still want to write an epilogue (yes I've seen the Thunderbolts* trailer) but this is the official ending of the fic! Thank you for riding this ride with me. (warnings: fluff, angst, mentions of death, depressive states, wwii) (word count: 1.9K)

eleven: sunrise

The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

His best friend, in a sundress, his jacket around her shoulders.

Bucky had dutifully ignored all of Sam’s quips and eyebrow wiggling as much as he could, but he couldn’t ignore this. As a familiar, melodic tune filled the summer air, his feet carried him half against his will to where she was sitting, his hand offering something he wasn’t sure he could deliver.

He hadn’t taken a girl to dance in seventy-some years.

But alas, a song was playing and he could feel the warmth of her body as they began swaying along the dancefloor, danger and elation wrestling for the main spot in his chest but finding no room. She’d taken all of it.

While they were like this, muscle memory kicking in as Bucky led them as a pair across the dance floor, it was like 1945 and beyond had never happened. He wasn’t the Winter Soldier, or the ghost of it. She wasn’t a WASP WWII hero with too much baggage and responsibilities. Just a boy and a girl, how it should’ve been if things were simple and fate wasn’t cruel.

He could’ve found the courage to ask her to dance, again and again, and ruin their friendship with a romance. They’d have a little house by the coast to go for the summer, and she’d laugh at how much sand he’d gotten in his shoes. Jimmy Barnes would’ve given her his last name, and by 2023 they’d both be not much but memories in their grandchildren’s heads.

“Buck.”

Her voice brought him back to a reality where two people who should be memories from the past were still alive and kicking. And what a blessing it was, to have her be more than just a memory or a photograph.

What a curse, to want to kiss her so badly and spoil the one good thing he’d gotten out of all of this bullshit.

He took Sam’s interruption and ran with it, literally, leaving her standing alone on the dancefloor as shame and self-consciousness creeped in. Because he could handle losing everything else, but not this. Not her.

Seventy-something years and Bucky was still a damned coward.

He reflected again on this many hours later, staring at the rising sun as if it was mocking him. A new day so he could do exactly what he’d been doing: eat around the edges, careful not to take too much but never really savoring anything.

He’d almost done it back at her house, her having the grace of smoothing over the awkwardness like the good diplomat she was. It was like he never learned; here we was again, being pulled in her direction like a magnet, his body aching and his insides burning for her in a way he didn’t remember ever feeling.

What used to be a sweet teenaged infatuation evolved into a ground-splintering love, not for the girl she used to be, but for the woman she was now.

It’s what drove Bucky up the stairs, leaving the laughing sunrise behind him, as if a new day wasn’t to come and the chance of his world being shattered wasn’t imminent.

He should be content with the bickering and the gentle, lingering touches; he should be fine with meeting once in a while to catch up on each other’s lives, admiring her from afar as if she was a star he could only wish upon. He wasn’t.

Bucky wasn’t content with much, lately.

Any doubt was vanished when he stepped into the corridor of rooms 302-316 and found her still standing there, wide eyes mirroring his, wet with longing and desperation.

In the spam of seconds, he took her face in his hands and did something he should’ve done seventy-something years ago: he kissed her.

Your fingers found his wrists, seeking leverage from them as a lifetime of fantasizing turned into reality and threatened to make you float away. Your name fell from his lips in a shaky whisper and he almost dared to pull away, but you didn’t let him. You should’ve kissed him that day in English soil, before you both died to the world and the time you belonged to. You kissed him in the present for your younger self, as if you were running out of time.

You weren’t. You knew you weren’t. But rational thinking could not reach you, not there in between his arms. You kissed him for your present self, who loved him so quietly for so long you forgot how loud your heart could be. He took it in stride, tangling his fingers in your hair and making you sigh.

He whispered your name again, pleading, but you shook your head, unsure what you’re denying him of; you tasted the salty tears before you could feel them on his face, or yours, it’s all the same at this point.

“Sugar, please look at me.” He said, still holding your face and planting kisses over your closed eyes. “Please,”

You looked up at him and his silver-rimmed eyes, your own spilling over despite his effort in wiping the emotion off your cheeks. “Bucky—”

You needed to tell him that you could not bear to have him explain himself; that you understood, that you would never hold this moment against him, but he didn’t let you. He ran his thumb over your trembling bottom lip, and you quietened.

“I should’ve done this such a long time ago. I’ve been so afraid to lose you I couldn’t bring myself to tell you how much I love you. I love you like crazy, because that’s what I am,” You’d be ready to disagree but sobs filled your throat, your hands fisted on his shirt the only thing tethering you to earth. “So much has changed but not this— never this. If anything this only grew. I’ve loved you for a lifetime, so please, please, be mine.”

Your hand reached up, tracing the line of his brow, his nose, his lips. He leaned into it, free from any previous inhibition. You’d been so blind in your fear. In your denial. Bucky Barnes now laid open on your palm, crying like the boy he once was and asking you to do the very thing you’ve been doing all of these years.

“There hasn’t been a single minute in this in this life where I haven’t been completely yours, James Barnes. I’ve loved you for a lifetime,” His shoulders sagged in relief, and he smiled brighter than the rising sun. Brighter than two suns, even.

Early morning bled into afternoon. The heat of the New Orleans air made your bare skin feverish and sticky, but neither you nor Bucky could bring yourselves to untangle your tangled limbs or move. His metal arm was the only solace against the heatwave, running up and down your back and making you shiver.

“This feels like a dream,”

 “I don’t think we’d be so sweaty if it was, Sugar.” He tightened his arm around you. “This is real. ’Sides, it’s so much better than any dream my fucked-up head could have concocted.”

You hummed a protest, raising your torso to look at him. “Don’t say that.”

“Mean it,” He cupped your face with his human hand, and you sighed. “I’ve got permanent damage. There is going to be bad days. This is why it took me so long. I just don’t wanna be more trouble than I’m worth,”

“Bucky…”

He insisted.  “I know you’re stubborn enough to stick around, I just—”

“I spent two weeks in bed when you resurfaced as the soldier.” You blurted out, sitting up fully. There was concern in Bucky’s eyes, and he kept you in place as you searched for a piece of clothing to cover up. Your eyes burned with the promise of more crying. “I’ve worked for S.H.I.E.L.D for decades and you were right under my nose,”

Your voice broke, then you finally found the shirt Bucky discarded early on the floor. “I took orders from the people making you a slave. I couldn’t find you because they kept you from me. Peggy, Howard, everyone. If I’d known—”

“None of that was your fault.” He said, urgent hands reaching for you to get back in bed with him. “You were just as much a weapon as I was. I never held that against you and I never will,”

“I felt like a fraud. Steve had to come and help me bathe, eat, brush my hair.” You mumbled, wiping the stray tears with the back of your hand. “I felt like I didn’t deserve the privilege of having you in my life again. And I was terrified that you wouldn’t want to be. I’m so sorry, Bucky.” He shook his head, sitting up with you. Leaned close so he could rest his forehead against yours. “And I was a coward for not saying I loved you before you went on that fuckin’ mission in ’42. Acting like a prick because I was too scared to lose you.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad I didn’t listen.”

If you had, you wouldn’t be here. You’d never take the serum, and both Bucky and Steve, your boys, would be too further in time for you to catch. You’d be nothing but a face in each other’s memories.

“You never listen…”

You both chuckled, a pathetic, half-drowned thing on your end. “Exactly. So quit saying I’m too good for you. We’re exactly the same,”

Bucky shook his head again but gave in, kissing you sweetly then placing a kiss on your shoulder. You doubted he’d truly let that go, and you were ready to argue with him about it for the rest of time. He wrapped his arms around you and you did the same, staying like that for a while. Doing nothing but breathing in one another and allowing the past and the guilt to dissolve away.

“That’s why I’ll still complain about your terrible coffee.” Bucky scoffed at that, tightening his hold on you as if it was a punishment and not the best thing ever. “And make fun of you for being terrible with technology. Help you through the bad days and enjoy every minute of the good,”

“My coffee’s not that bad,” He grumbled, not addressing anything else and knowing you’d read between the lines. You both laughed.

“Just because this is going to be a long, winding road, doesn’t mean I don’t want to walk it with you, James.”

“’Till there’s two suns in the horizon?”

You hummed.  “I don’t think this world is caving in anytime soon. You know it, people’ve tried.”

He grimaced. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s live, Bucky Barnes. You and me. Just… live.”

Bucky’s eyes were warm under the dim lights of your motel room. This moment wasn’t the world wasn’t at its end. It probably never would.

This… this was just the beginning.

He smiled. The crooked, perfect show of teeth Bucky brought from the past just for you. “We ain’t getting any younger, Sugar.”

[cringe--is--dead]

Peaceful Paradise Interrupted

Type: One Shot

Gohan x Reader, Reader is the adopted daughter of Vegeta and Bulma

Summary: Your peace wasn't often challenged, but when someone came to earth to challenge your father and/or Goku, you end up more annoyed being in the middle of it than fearful.

Your life had settled into a routine, though after most of your childhood and adolescence, you weren't complaining. The structure gave you a peace of mind, minus the occasional extraterrestrial being hell-bent on revenge against your father or challenging Goku.

Those spats, at this rate, lasted a day at the most, an hour at the least. You hardly ever knew of them until after the issues were resolved.

Safe to say you enjoyed your peace, you enjoyed your routine, you enjoyed everything your life had become. Minus this.

The barrel of some weird, foreign gun looking at you had become your new common view. The alien man who had broken into your home, looking for one of the several (like five) Saiyan life forms, only to find you lazing around in your pajamas while attempting to finish some paper due for some class you were beginning to hate.

You craned your neck to peer around at him, studying him as he spoke into whatever communicator his people used, before speaking up, more annoyed than anything, "You realize how stupid this is right?"

He blanched, taken aback by the calm demeanor in which you spoke. He barked some orders before turning his full attention towards you, "Excuse me?"

You shrugged, "This was dumb of you to do." Your legs were beginning to cramp up under you, and you were at least grateful you had worn longer pants, "Haven't you even heard of what happens to people who come to earth looking for a fight?"

He sneered, "They end up choosing life forms far beneath them, yes, little lady, I've heard the stories."

Rude. "I'm just saying - "

"You are not the one I'm after."

"I kind of figured," He narrowed his eyes at you, pressing the gun closer towards your face, "I can't imagine I did anything wrong enough to piss you off."

"Do you know of the Saiyans Vegeta and Kakarot?"

"Hard to not know them," Your voice was dry, and you knew that after the scolding your mother would unleash on you, she'd have some pride in how you were keeping your cool.

"My readings had indicated that they had been here, though upon arrival, I only found you. What is a weak, earthling like you doing around two of the most powerful beings on this planet?"

"Don't let them hear you say that, my father's ego is large enough already."

His eyebrow, or where you would assume an eyebrow would be, twitched, "Your- your father?"

You hummed, introducing yourself casually, before sending a sarcastic smile, "Vegeta's oldest."

"Your power levels are far too weak to be - "

"Adopted," You could feel the energy before anything else, the feeling of your hair standing up on end alerting you that your fiancé had gotten the emergency signal sent to his phone, "But, still."

You braced yourself, the door launching open with the sounds of splintered wood falling all around. Gohan was standing in the doorframe, hair still black, but eyes livid. You glanced at the shocked man before you, if Gohan didn't feel the need to power up than this guy was weak- what had he been hoping to do?

You watched as your fiancé smiled, something cold and dark, a look that was so foreign to see on him. It sent chills down even your spine, "Hi," The cheeriness was forced, "Honey you didn't tell me we had guests."

"Surprise visitors." You glanced sadly at the remnants of the front door as Gohan walked inside, you'd have to ask Goku to fix it again.

The energy coming off of your fiancé was beyond suffocating, and the blaster fell from where it had been pointed at you, trembling in the alien's hand.

"W- Who are you?"

"I should be the one asking you that considering you're in my house." Your fiancé's anger was getting harder to hide, the smile bordering bloodthirsty.

You flexed your hands from where they were bound, sighing, catching his attention, "Please don't destroy anymore of the house."

Gohan didn't look away from the man, who was frantically trying to contact some of his men. You assumed they had all scattered- and odds are some ended up coming across your father and Goku.

They might fare better than this man was about to.

"Of course," You blinked and he was across the room, grabbing the man by the front of his tunic, before lifting him up, the gun dropping to the floor.

"Let's take this outside, shall we?"

Just as quickly as he had gotten across the room, your fiancé had taken the offending man outside, the sounds of shouting growing muffled as they left your home.

You sighed to yourself, twisting further as you remembered the self-defense classes your mother made you take. It felt almost pointless at the time- who was stupid enough to do something to piss off your family? But as you managed to free your sore wrists, you were grateful.

By the time you moved on to untying your legs, Gohan strolled back in, not a hair out of place. He smiled at you, moving to crouch down in front of you, softly batting your hands away to undo the rest.

"Are you alright?"

He paused, laughing softly at the question.

"I should be asking you that," The rope fell, and he helped you stand, hands moving softly across you, feeling and searching for any indicators that he should go out and end that man.

"I'm alright," You smiled, "You got here just in time."

Gohan nodded, eyes falling shut, and he leaned down, forehead pressing against yours. You remained quiet, letting him process everything.

"I was so scared when you sent me that signal," He spoke quietly, eyebrows furrowing as if reliving the moment, "I wasn't sure what to expect. And dad and Vegeta were already dealing with their own stuff at the moment."

"He didn't hurt me," You reached forward, pulling your fiancé closer, allowing him to burrow into you as best he could, "I think he was more confused than anything to find a human here."

Gohan laughed, a wet sound from the back of his throat, "Right. Not the terrifying Saiyan legends he was expecting."

"Just a human college student who probably would have hit him with a frying pan had I been in the kitchen," You glanced at the dishes laying in the sink- had you been closer you definitely would have.

"I assume the others are taken care of?"

Gohan nodded, "Dad and Vegeta are on their way here - "

The sound of your name being shouted outside alerted you that more company had arrived, and the sounds of an engine being killed let you know your mother had arrived with them.

You watched as Goku made his way to the front entrance of your house, peering down curiously at the broken door, hand rubbing the back of his head, "Aw man, I feel like I just fixed - "

He was interrupted by your father barging by, snarling an, "Out of the way Kakarot", before he made his way inside. You saw your mother trailing close behind, eyes wide and worried, hand clutched to her chest. Goku had enough smarts to step out of the way, moving to stand where you saw your brother and Goten in the yard, the later of the two poking the unconscious assailant with a stick.

"Oh, my baby! Are you hurt?" Gohan stepped back, hands up in defense as you shot him a glare.

Your mothers arms wrapped around you tightly, your ribs wincing at the strength of her hold, "I'm fine mom, he didn't do - "

"And this is why I still think you and Gohan should have taken one of the homes near us!" She huffed as she let you go, arms resting on your shoulders as she glared at you, no malice behind her eyes, "My security would have ensured that that man never even looked at you - "

"She moves back in and Gohan can go home with Kakarot, everyone's happy," Your father snarked, arms crossed over his chest.

"Vegeta," Your mother turned to glare at him, arms never leaving their place around you, jerking you forward with her.

"To be fair dad he was the one who got here first," You rolled your eyes as your father pointedly ignored this remark.

"Still - with the damages done I think it's best if you two come stay at home for now!"

"Mom, it's literally just the front door - "

"Perfect!" She squeezed you tighter- a warning not to argue.

You glanced helplessly at your fiancé, who only shrugged in response. The man who more than likely stopped himself from killing moments ago, fell powerless in the face of your overprotective mother.

[secretlovezz]

omg can you elaborate more on the reader making kaz nervous?? like, she loves to tease and he gets so flustred but he secretly loves it?? tyy

I am so sorry this took for-fucking-ever and that it's so short I've been struggling to write 😭, but yes, of course, here's some more of the reader making Kaz nervous 🫶

Kaz Brekker knew he was a strong man. It took a lot to crack the barriers of someone like him and he was proud to say only a handful of people have ever gotten past the facade of his furrowed brows and down turned lips.

When he first met you he was shocked by your very public advancements towards him. You made him feel a certain way and he couldn't understand why. You weren't frightened of him and it was almost like you couldn't take him seriously; it thoroughly aggravated him.

He loathed the way you made him feel with your incessant teasing. It had a way of pulling on his heartstrings so tightly that it made him ache with a need he'd never felt before. Your ceaseless stare made him wriggle and twist in his seat with an almost delightful uneasiness; it made him clench the head of his cane so hard you swear you could hear the crackling of wood splintering.

Sometimes, you'd make a point of being dramatic about it just to piss him off. You'd lean your cheek against the palm of your hand and sigh dreamily as you stared into his bewitchingly darkened eyes. You'd sensually move your hand up his cane fingertips gently grazing over his gloved ones leaning in close behind him, so close to his ear he can feel your breath fan his face, can almost feel the cracked pink skin of your lips on the pale-ness of his skin whispering sweet nothings to him just so you could watch him shutter and let out a shaky breath.

He loathes everything about the way you act with him.

At least that's what he says out loud seemingly to convince himself because no matter the number of sighs that fall from his lips filled to the brim with faux annoyance, complaining on top of brazen remarks, and fiery glares you know deep down he finds everything you do enthralling.

You know thanks to the way he very obviously takes a deep breath as you sway and smirk your way past him -moving in a way that could distract any man if they were to even glance in your direction- savoring the way he can smell your perfume. The way he stares when you giggle in response to his dead-faced witty comebacks when in an irritating conversation with Jesper; that sound shakes him to his core every time he gets the pleasure of hearing it. You can see it in his face when he feels like his lungs give out and collapse from inside of him when you teasingly let out the most beautiful noise he's ever heard, the softest of moans while you stretch your arms above your head. Running his hand through his dark hair and clearing his suddenly congested throat in response.

One of your favorite times to tease him was when going over plans and strategies with everybody. You wanted everyone to lay their eyes on the cracking facade that was Kaz Brekker. The urge to get his heart racing so fast and hard Nina could hear it. You wanted him to twitch and shift so Inej and Jesper could quirk their brows in confusion at his sudden discomfort. Wylan and Mattias tilting their heads at him. It made you smile, the effect you had on him, the way others noticed.

You'd even started taking extra things when on a heist (the others had noticed this too). Picking up amazingly shiny little jewels, ruby-encrusted rings, golden necklaces, anything you with your crow-like nature could pick up for the man you wanted. When said things ended up in a bag on the boss's desk (usually with little notes alongside them) he knew they were from you and you knew his cheeks heated at the gesture without even having to look at him open the gifts.

He swears your smile is the biggest he's ever seen when he wears what you get him. Maybe it was just the thought that he was wearing something that you had given to him or maybe you liked to see him wear things that were yours because it made you feel like he was yours. Yours in a way he's never belonged to anyone. (He liked to think he was yours too once he had some time alone not that he would ever admit to that). Kaz wanting you is why he gave hints as to how much he liked the way you treated him. Sure he said rude things every once in a while but the smirks -becoming more like real smiles- made the passive-aggressive comments worth it. The glances at your lips then quick scoff in disbelief when you spoke in your usual persiflage manner made you stop to bite your lip at his flushed ears the tips red as cherries.

Kaz Brekker had known he was a strong man but you knew you had made him weak in every possible way a girl could.

[magua-vida]

[Death's Mercy excerpts] A Death Jester Spares A Guardswoman + Outcome

(art is probably by AKIMBLYA just like the art for A Deadly Wit, but I couldn't see in the gallery)

Context: Harlequins encounter an unarmed injured guardswoman while on the hunt for humans invading Nequofendi, the main characters being: a grounded but sadistic Death Jester named Adroniel, a forgetful but bold Troupe Master whose name is Duruthiel, and a cryptic Shadowseer called Echo who's often high. They banter about many things in the story, but one of the arguments that stood out to me is whether a "mon'keigh" is worth sparing.

[...] Duruthiel: ‘There’s scarce a patch of unsullied floor to place my feet. Bodies everywhere.’ Adroniel: ‘If you’d been precise, you are stepping on parts of bodies, not whole corpses.’ Echo: ‘And yet in the carnage stirs a soul.’ Duruthiel: ‘What do you mean?’ Echo: ‘In the search of fear a spark of hate…’ Adroniel (enthusiastically): ‘Look! Oh! Oh! This one! I can see it is still breathing, ahahah! (grimly) But not for long.’ (FX - ECHO PREVENTS ADRONIEL FROM SHOOTING) Adroniel (angrily): ‘Ah, what is this, Shadowseer?! Do not interrupt me at the moment of releasing death’s mercy.’ Echo: ‘By your own admission it is spite that moves you.’ Duruthiel: ‘This conversation bored me the first time. I will have no further part of it again.’ (FX - WOUNDED GUARDSWOMAN MOANING FROM PAIN ON THE FLOOR) Echo: ‘Did you see? The eyes desire life and so by your argument it would be spite to end it.’ Adroniel: ‘Did I ever assert that I was above spite?’ Echo: ‘The splinter of your past life can never be fully drawn while you harbor this mood.’

Echo and Adroniel continue to disagree with one another. The guardswoman vocalizes pain. The Shadowseer asks the Death Jester if she's afraid that the human's words would spark her conscience. Adroniel denies, aiming her weapon at her. The wounded person begs to be spared as she is without a weapon, but the Death Jester calls her an animal. She and Adroniel have a brief sass exchange with the former angrily asking the latter to just kill her already. Adroniel is amused by the feisty sass. Echo chimes in that the "blade that hangs is worse than the one that drops swiftly".

A distant explosion sounds off in the distance, signalling that the fight is still going on.

Adroniel: ‘Events are moving on without us. It is time to rejoin the company so I must end its miserable life.’ Echo: ‘Or… spare it?’ Adroniel: ‘Why?’ Echo: ‘Must there be a reason? Think of possibilities, of endless fates yet unplayed. A simple act, the execution of which costs you nothing, might one day bring great harm to She-Who-Thirsts. It is in your gift to deliver a deadly fate, but equally to grant extended life. Is that not powerful to you?’ (FX - WOUNDED GUARDSWOMAN SOBS ON THE FLOOR) Echo: ‘Act without reason for we are the Harlequins of the Laughing God. As a spirit is snatched at whim from damnation, why not spare this life?’ Adroniel (thinking that over and finally taking the gun away): ‘Hm, you may go back to your companions. If our paths cross again, you will die.’

The guardswoman stands and runs away. After just having taken out a Titan from the inside and having gotten out of it, the trio receives a battle report from the Autarch of Yme-Loc and spy the same human they spared returning to her fellow people.

[...] Adroniel: ‘And see there, scrambling through the mud? A lone trooper of the foe, the one I spared?’ Echo: ‘A ripple on the skein set free to the embrace of Morai-Heg once more.’ (FX - IMPERIAL GUARDSMEN REJOICE AT THE ARRIVAL OF THE SPARED GUARDSWOMAN) Duruthiel: ‘They are pleased for your gift, Adroniel.’ Adroniel: ‘Indeed, I… Wait, I spy one among them… garbed differently. See the black coat and gold decoration?’ Duruthiel: ‘A leader of some kind?’ Echo: ‘The others draw back. I smell fear more than duty.’ Adroniel: ‘Why does it raise its weapon towards its own? Ahahahah, do they think it cowardly perhaps?’ Duruthiel: ‘Or tainted by your mercy.’ (FX - DISTANT GUNSHOT) Duruthiel (angrily): ‘Kin slayer!’ Echo: ‘Truly the ways of the mon-keigh are barbaric. What of you, Adroniel? To see your choice made mockery?’ Adroniel: ‘Ahahah, I hope you see the truth now. I am the Death Jester. There is nothing of me that is turned to life, only its ending. My work shall never cease until I claim myself and another steps up to the role.’ Duruthiel: ‘You are not saddened?’ Adroniel: ‘Why should I be sad knowing myself, Duruthiel? Does the rampant ego of the Red Swan depress you? And I am glad for fate has guided me to my next target.’ Echo: ‘To avenge the slaying of the one you spared?’ Adroniel: ‘Do not be so sentimental, Shadowseer. It is merely a glimmer from the skein that has caught my eye. Perhaps, it is a sign, the will of the Laughing God... but, probably not! Ahahahaha!’

The Death Jester readies her cannon.

___________________________________________________________

This is one of those times where we get to see Aeldari-Human interactions that aren't totally negative (roughly), but I do like how much nuance they're given in certain stories like this one. Compared to A Deadly Wit (and likely also because the Death Jester is the main character this time), Adroniel has shown special sadistic spite towards humans that seem to stem from her past compared to when she was slaughtering Orks.

Not art this time, but I just want to share some Harlequin lore that isn't brought up much.

[lady-wallace]

Whumptober Day 24: Radiation Poisoning

More Vampire AU today's @whumptober prompt, but it's Giorno whump.

Prompt: 'I never knew daylight could be so violent' Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5 (Vampire Hunter AU) Character: Giorno

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Read on Ao3

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Too Close to the Sun

Vampire Hunter AU—Giorno accidently comes into contact with a serum that makes his weaknesses as a dhampir more prevalent.

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Sounds of crashing could be heard behind the door as Mista put his shoulder to it, trying to force it open.

“It’s probably barred,” Giorno said. “We need to try getting him to calm down before we get him out of there or this could become a very dangerous situation.”

“Because talking went so well earlier,” Fugo snapped.

Giorno clenched his jaw, but couldn’t deny Fugo had a point.

They’d been asked to look into a young dhampir who had taken it upon himself to become a nuisance to the vampire society of Napoli and talk him down before he did anything he would really regret. However, as soon as they had gotten there, he had gone off on some rant about taking down the vampire aristocracy and ran off to the upper story of the house where he had locked himself into one of the rooms.

Mista looked between his companions with a shrug obviously deferring to their opinion.

Fugo huffed. “We need to get in there.”

Giorno stood back, arms folded over his chest. He still would have liked to go with a less violent approach, but it did seem like they wouldn’t get anywhere otherwise.

Mista took out his blunderbuss and pressed it against the lock. “Stay away from the door!” he shouted into the room as he fired.

Parts of the door splintered off and Mista and Fugo gave it a couple firm kicks to open fully.

Giorno rushed inside after them, stopping for a moment in shock at what he saw.

The room was covered in laboratory equipment. Liquids boiling and distilling in tubes and beakers. There were glass shards on the floor as if some equipment had broken.

The dhampir spun around, facing them with a large knife, glowering.

“You’re just the same as all of them!” he snarled. “You’re all on the side of the vampires!”

“That’s not true,” Giorno said, trying to put his hands up calmly, stepping in front of Mista and Fugo who were both carrying weapons at the ready. “It’s a Hunter’s job to be unbiased.”

“Then why are you coming after me?” the dhampir demanded.

“Because we’re worried that you’ll hurt someone who doesn’t deserve your wrath,” Giorno told him. “We just came to talk.”

“Then tell them to put their weapons down!”

Giorno shook his head. “They can’t do that. But you can just talk to me, okay? I’m a dhampir as well. Your name is Marco, right?”

The young man eyed him warily, before his face contorted in rage. “If you are a dhampir then you should understand more than anyone what it’s like, and yet you defend those who oppress us!” He threw an arm toward the beakers. “I have been trying to find a way to make us stronger, so that we at least have a chance to go up against them. Don’t you see, Hunter? The future will be ours. You should join me so we can take down the ones who wish to grind us into the dirt.”

Giorno felt a deep sadness at the desperation on Marco’s face. “I can’t speak for you, Marco, and the life you’ve lived, but the one thing I have learned is that for every bad person in this world there is a good one who is also seeking change. I know it’s hard to see it this way, but flashy displays of violence only hurt a cause like ours. I know it can sometimes seem that there will never be a light at the end of that tunnel but that light isn’t going to be made with an explosion either.”

Marco seemed to contemplate his words for a few moments, before his fists clenched again. “Have you ever thought that you’re just a coward for thinking that way?”

Giorno tried not to let that bite at him, but he could feel Mista and Fugo’s impatience behind him, their unease as the dhampir got more and more agitated. He needed to stop this. He stepped forward.

“Marco, you have two options here. Either come with us quietly or we’ll be forced to take you down to the prison.”

Marco sneered. “You really are just like all of them, aren’t you?! Why don’t you all just go to hell!”

He rushed the Hunters, and grabbed Giorno, flinging him to the side. Giorno crashed into one of the tables tipping over a rack that contained multiple vials of liquid. The vials crashed to the floor with Giorno and shattered. He hissed as glass from one dug into his hand.

“No!” Marco shouted, clenching at his hair, distraught. “No, no NO! That was my serum! That’s all I had!”

He tried to rush for Giorno, grabbing for several of the unbroken vials that rolled around the floor when Fugo and Mista managed to grab hold of him from behind, dragging him backwards as he screamed and fought like a madman.

Giorno pushed himself up, removing the glass from his hand. He had no time to think about what might have been in those vials and now consequently in his body, because Fugo and Mista were struggling to restrain the dhampir who was spewing curses at them.

“You alright, Giorno?” Mista called, barely avoiding a flying fist.

Giorno plucked a couple more shards of glass from his hand. “I’m fine. We need to call the constables.”

“Well, do it quick,” Fugo snapped as he and Mista finally wrestled the dhampir to the ground and started to tie restraints around his wrists and ankles before tying them together.

Giorno tied a handkerchief around his hand as he hurried out of the room and down the stairs. His footsteps clattered uncomfortably loud in his head for some reason—must be the emptiness of the house.

Their carriage driver was waiting outside and Giorno planned to ask him to run to the police station in town.

However, as soon as he stepped from the shade of the house, his body burned as if he had suddenly caught fire.

Giorno let out a shocked scream, staggering backwards as he stared down at his right hand, seeing it red and blistered. His whole arm, up to his neck and that side of his face also felt raw and painful.

The driver leapt off the carriage and hurried over to him.

“Signore Giovanna! Are you alright?”

Giorno gritted his teeth, wincing at how loud the man’s voice was, his heartbeat so much more prominent than it should have been. “I-I’ll be fine. We need you to run for the police now.”

The man looked skeptical, but Fugo burst out the door in a second, staring at Giorno.

“What happened, why did you scream?”

He trailed off as Giorno turned to him and his eyes widened, crouching next to him. “Giorno! You’re face, what…?”

“I’ll go get the police,” the driver promised, seeming satisfied that Fugo would help Giorno now as he hurried off down the street.

“What the hell happened?” Fugo demanded again.

Giorno cringed. “Please, be quiet,” he pleaded. “My head….everything is so loud.”

“Was there some kind of booby trap?”

Giorno shook his head. “Just…the sun. I don’t…I don’t know what happened.”

Fugo took Giorno’s good hand and helped pull him to his feet, allowing Giorno to lean on him as he helped the dhampir back inside. “I’ve only ever seen these kinds of burns on a vampire who got exposed in the sun.”

Giorno nodded, wincing as Fugo sat him down at the base of the stairs in the foyer. “Stay here for now. I’m going to go see what the hell that little bastard put in his ‘serum’.”

Giorno sat there, slumped against the railing as Fugo headed back upstairs. He could hear everything they talked about from where he was.

“What’s in it?”

“I told you,” Marco snapped. “It was meant to make a dhampir more powerful.”

“It doesn’t seem like it worked,” Fugo replied.

“It simply magnifies our senses and abilities.”

“You realize it also magnifies your allergy to sunlight, right?”

Giorno furrowed his brows. The serum was interesting in theory but it did seem rather counterproductive even if it seemed to work the way it was intended, more or less.

“How long does it last?”

“I don’t know, I’ve only done one test run. Not very long.”

Giorno wished his body wasn’t in such agony at the moment. The burns pulled against his clothing—it really hadn’t done much to protect him. Was this what it was like to be a full vampire?

The police showed up and took the dhampir into custody as he continued shouting threats. Then Fugo and Mista hurried to help Giorno up and get him out to the carriage.

“We’ll get the driver to pull it as close as possible,” Mista promised. “In the meantime, take our coats. We’ll use this umbrella too.”

Mista and Fugo settled their coats over Giorno’s head and Mista held the umbrella over him as Fugo helped him to the carriage, shutting all of the windows as soon as he was inside, leaving them all in darkness.

“How bad is it, Giorno?” Mista asked him worriedly.

“I’ll…be okay,” Giorno grunted. He thought, anyway. Every mild bump the carriage went over jostled his body painfully, and his increased audio sensitivity was really starting to make his head pound on top of it.

They repeated the procedure of getting him out of the carriage covered as much as possible. Giorno could still feel the uncomfortable heat on his lower body, but the house was blessedly cool since the maids kept the curtains drawn for the most part with so many supernaturals living in the mansion.

“Infirmary,” Fugo said.

Footsteps sounded and Giorno could see Trish heading down the stairs.

“Oh, you’re all back? I assumed you would still be at the police station. Bucciarati just headed over there.”

“Giorno was injured,” Mista said.

“What?” Trish demanded, hurrying over to them. As soon as she saw Giorno’s face, she gasped. “Did you get burned?”

Giorno cringed and Fugo turned to Trish. “Try to keep your voice low, he’s overly sensitive right now.”

They explained what had happened as Trish followed them to the infirmary.

“Trish there should be some salve on that shelf over there for burns.”

Trish headed over to look and Giorno slumped onto one of the cots as Mista and Fugo helped him take his coat and shirt off.

Giorno hissed, the burns stinging abysmally as they were exposed to the air.

“Here, I found it, oh—Giorno those look awful.”

Trish looked horrified at the sight of the burns. “Was that holy water?”

“The sun,” Giorno said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose against the headache.

“These are pretty bad,” Fugo murmured. “Hopefully the salve will help a bit but it will probably take a few days for you to recover fully.”

“I’ll let you have some of my blood fresh for extra nutrients,” Mista promised.

Giorno nodded and slumped there on the cot as Fugo started on his face and neck, spreading the salve on thickly and following it with gauze Trish helped to wrap on.

The pain of any pressure at all on the burns made Giorno nauseous and he swayed, trying to resist the urge to pull away from Fugo completely.

“Here,” Trish gently coaxed, sitting down on the cot beside him and helped lower Giorno down until he was lying on his good side with his head in her lap. Giorno stiffened in surprise and Trish flushed slightly, but stood her ground as she turned to Mista. “Could you get him a cool cloth for his head?”

Mista nodded and hurried to fetch the cloth as Fugo continued.

Giorno was tight with pain. The burns were getting worse as they traveled down his arm to his hand and Fugo’s ministrations were quickly becoming agony.

Trish seemed to see how much he was suffering and reached for his good hand, squeezing it gently.

Mista brought the cloth back and Trish placed it over Giorno’s eyes and forehead, giving him something blessedly cool to help ease his headache.

“I just need to wrap your hand now,” Fugo said, carefully twining the bandage around his fingers.

Giorno let out a small sound of relief as Fugo finished and settled his hand carefully down on the bed.

Mista came over with a freshly drawn cup of blood.

“Can you drink?”

Giorno nodded and Trish and Mista helped him sit up to drink before laying him down and tucking him into bed.

“I’m afraid that’s all we can do for now,” Fugo said. “I’m going to have to go to the station to make our full report.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Trish assured him.

“Thanks,” Giorno murmured. He felt a little better after drinking the blood, but he was mostly exhausted. “I think the serum is already wearing off. Nothing is as loud as it was before.”

“Good to know,” Fugo said. “I guess next time we corner someone so delusional we need to be more careful not to do it in his lab.”

“Is he really so delusional?” Giorno couldn’t help but ask. “All he really wanted was to be equal. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

“Most of us aren’t okay with murdering for it,” Fugo pointed out. “What you said to him back there was true—essentially that it’s better to make small changes for good, instead of big changes for bad.”

Trish nodded. “And hopefully in a world without Diavolo in charge, we might have a better chance of those small changes being impactful.”

Giorno smiled slightly. “Yes. You’re all right. Thank you.”

Trish pulled a blanket over his waist. “Get some rest. Let me know if you need anything.”

Giorno let his eyes slip shut as his companions left and dreamed of a brighter future.

[tuninghearts]

Alastor goes to the ruins of his broadcasting station to mourn his dead staff. Lucifer trails behind him, and offers him a deal.

Radioapple Week - Day 3

Prompt: Deal/Blood

The shattered ruins of his broadcasting station were a pain to witness.

Glass shards scattered over untouched dirt. The foundations have toppled from touching the bloody sky to now meeting their grave’s hands, clasped in its fists. The fluorescent lights that once flickered with a hint of life have been completely wrecked below the layer of glass, soul torn from its lifeless body. It’s gone, his reputation, and what he had built it upon.

Though, he must thank Charlie for rebuilding it, but they have not gotten rid of the clatter beside it, a painful reminder of his loss against Adam.

The trapdoor was swung open, to crash against the rotten wooden floor. He climbs inside, clothed knees scratching on splinters, and perched on top of the desk was his broken staff. Its shaft was snapped in half, the ends, its point of impact, bent and curled. He hadn’t found a way to repair it, for regular scotch tape wouldn’t work, and it’s certainly not going to be fixed with a hammer, for within it contained magic, and therefore physically putting it back together was of no use in terms of usage.

“Good evening, Alastor,” A voice creeps behind him, low in pitch.

He jolts, and turns around. Lucifer, standing there in that suit he found himself in the bar last night with, only this time it was rid of its stains. Inching closer and closer to him, floorboard creaking every time he does, his hands reach behind him to support his body when Lucifer looms over him.

“If this is your way of telling me you want to be close to me, I’ll let you know it isn’t working,” Alastor tells him, annoyed and petrified.

“Oh, come on, you think I’m that horrible? Wow, I guess nothing has changed since last night,” Lucifer pulls himself away from Alastor, and a part of him wants to reach out to the arm that flows past his face when he turns his back against him. “I want to make a deal with you.”

“You came all this way just to make a deal?”

“What’s going to be a better time to do that? Don’t be so hard-hearted, you slept in my—”

“Okay, okay, goodness, tell me what your terms are and get out of here.” Alastor pushes himself upright. Reminders of last night hurt him. They hurt him with thorns of flowers and wilting petals. They hurt him with flames when he was promised heaven.

“I’ll fix your staff, and you better stop trying to run away from me every time I get close.”

“That last part was awfully vague, can you explain more so that I don’t get myself twisted in something which wasn’t clarified before?”

“I want you and I to become close together. To be friends. It’s not as if it’s going to harm anyone. In fact, I think Charlie would enjoy us finally getting along.”

Oh no.

“Do you think I’m stupid enough to accept that deal? What makes you think that I would ever want to befriend you?”

“Last night—”

“I was drunk, you fool. You’re talking to the sobered up Alastor here.” An insult slipped past him, and it made Lucifer seethe with anger. He didn’t know what came over him, maybe it was because Lucifer is poking himself in places where he shouldn’t be, or matters involving his vulnerability aren’t something to toy with.

“Well, then,” Lucifer paces around. “Would you want to have a broken staff for the rest of your life?”

Fear rattles his core. His staff, which initially helped him in the battle, but he was tainted with a life-threatening scar when it broke. A part of him he didn’t need broken. A part of him that helped to raise him in strength, in power. He couldn’t let that part of him go. They were two intertwined souls.

“Would you want to be helpless for the rest of your life? I’m sure that when you fought Adam, you used your staff for the majority of the fight, correct? That means, you won’t be able to fight if you lose your staff, right?” Lucifer taunts him. The condescending tone hits him in all the right spots, pushing the right buttons.

That’s it.

“So, would you—” Lucifer starts, but Alastor cuts him off.

“Fine, fine. I’ll make the deal,” Alastor sighs, and reaches out his hand.

As their hands locked, light sprung across the room—he was sure it would push through the window in fierce rays, haunting anyone who stumbled upon their wretched mess. His hair pushed backwards, against his forehead. He squints. His teeth graze chapped lips. When they pulled their hands apart, Lucifer had a wide grin that he couldn’t tell if he wanted to stay on his face or slap it away.

“Give me your staff,” Lucifer puts his hand out.

The broken parts of Alastor’s staff were handed to him, and he held them ever so gently in his fist. He turned around, and a green light burned from his hands. It decorated itself on Lucifer’s attire, until he let go and it clattered to the floor as he screamed in pain.

“Gosh, this—” Lucifer grumbles. “Ow…”

“Be careful with that staff.” Alastor rushes to pick up the staff, checking for any dents made. It was fixed, put back together, and seemed as though it was unharmed from the start. “Why did you—” he stops himself when he sees Lucifer.

Golden blood trickled down his palms, cascading down his fingers to puddle and seep through the cracks of the floor. Lucifer was almost teary-eyed when he caught him, murmuring insults to the staff and the overall process of fixing it. “Why is your staff so powerful? It burns,” he sobs, and Alastor feels sympathy bubble within him.

“It’s magical, what do you expect? Is it going to be as stupid as your little cane? Of course not.” He scoffs. “Here, let me help.”

“What—” Lucifer pulls his hands away. “Don’t hurt me.”

“It’s part of our deal, right? To be friends?”

“I…” Lucifer scowls at the thought. “Fine.” His hands were placed in front of Alastor, but he rushed off to the side to grab something from under the desk. “What are you doing?”

“Getting what I need to fix you, obviously.” Alastor comes with a cloth and two strips of bandages. He puts them on the floor while he holds one of Lucifer’s hand, first picking up the cloth and wiping his palm, much more gentle than he’d like to admit. Lucifer’s teeth are overflowing with pain as he grits them, and Alastor does his best to minimise the amount of time the cloth touches him.

“Your cloth is dirty.” He points out, and Alastor chuckles.

“It’s cleaner than the rags that are sold here in half of the shops.” Once he’s done, he puts a small plaster on the area. It was a small cut, not seeming to be deep as the Mariana Trench but with the way it overflowed with blood before, he knew that he couldn’t keep it open for much longer. He needed to close it up before it rained everywhere.

He starts cleaning up the second hand, and Lucifer yelps with pain. “Slow down, oh my gosh.”

“This is as slow as I’m going. Do you want me to press hard?”

Lucifer grimaces, and shakes his head. His hands were an odd warm feeling in Alastor’s hand, and taking care of him in this way gave birth to a bud he never thought he could ever handle. Though, with their new deal, she supposes he could give it some sunlight to bathe in, let it thrive for as long as it can.

He puts the last plaster on his palm, and Lucifer peeks down at it. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

“No problem. So, does this mean we have to be close?”

“Not necessarily. You just don’t get on my nerves every chance you get.”

“Okay,” Alastor sighs. It’s the end of their bitter rivalry, and though it’s something he’ll miss dearly as he had a lot of fun toying with the King of Hell, he is looking forward to what comes next.

~~~

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

[boots-with-the-fur-club]

Chapter 4 of These Are Not Our Masks posted a day early in celebration of @daboyau’s win in their poll!!

@that-0n3-shr00mi3-guy

@iobsesswaytoomuch

@sady-is-secretly-an-alchemist

@dluebirb

@burritello3000

Splinter carefully watches April enter the building. Even after she’s safely made it inside, he waits a few minutes just in case she needed to run.

When she doesn’t, he drives off to the auction house.

He hates the silence. He always has. Being famous meant he could surround himself with whatever and whoever he wanted.

The only thing he wanted was to not be fully alone.

Even when he refused to fight for Big Mama anymore, he had his rat as a companion. Anything to stop himself from having to think about his past and what led him to that point in his life.

He has nothing now.

No friends, no family, not even a pet. It’s just him. Arguably the last person he’d ever want to be left with. It may sound like an exaggeration, but he’d rather face physical or emotional pain from someone else like Big Mama or Draxum than his own wounds that keep reopening.

He thinks about his boys.

They’re all better than him than he was at their age in their own ways. Truly, he knows just how much they love him, which is a big change from how he treated his grandpa.

Then again, the way he brought up the turtles was different too. He may not have always been entirely focused on making sure they handled Hamato weaponry, but there’s no way he’d allow Donatello to continuing crying alone after hurting himself on an invention.

He’d never ignore the big smile on Michelangelo’s face after he’s painted their family with his little hands.

No possibility of him turning his back to Raph and Leo wanting to make their own business together because they knew each other’s strengths well enough to be aware that they’re always a good duo.

Thinking about how Draxum tries to force the dynamic makes his skin crawl.

He promised that he wouldn’t let him turn innocent creatures into war machines and he’s failed.

Honestly, without whatever the mad scientist is using, he doubts he ever could have really turned the turtles into soldiers or weapons.

Obviously they have the physical aspects to absolutely decimate enemies, but Splinter feels there’s something else.

Without being raised with love and kindness, they very much could be brutal and dangerous. It’s even still possible for them to destroy humanity.

But living weapons?

That requires a connection to Draxum other than mystics. He would need undying loyalty that you don’t get from blind rage or a single purpose. That’s why his sons could fight it. It’s how he got through to them.

Draxum doesn’t know it, but he too is on a time limit, just as Splinter is. His sons aren’t going to be told what to do forever.

Splinter finally gets to the auction house and parks before quickly sneaking in. It becomes apparent that someone, or multiple someones, have gotten there first. Doorways are smashed, non Lou Jitsu items are scattered around like garbage, and the regular employees are nowhere to be seen.

There are, however, Foot Ninja everywhere.

He uses his skills to carefully make his way to the very back of the auction house. They usually store older items there. His search only lasts about 15 seconds he hears footsteps and has to duck behind a weapon rack that holds several fan blades.

“I can not believe that Draxum had me come to babysit you! If you can’t get one measly item then you’re a failure and should be kicked out of the clan.” Casey crosses her arms.

“Then why are you still in it?“ Raph grumbles.

Foot Recruit gasps dramatically.

“I only failed as a technicality! How dare you speak to me that way!? I am your superior! You work for me!”

Raph stops walking, grabbing her arm roughly to stop her as well.

“I work for Draxum, not you, and he’s not here right now. I ain’t listenin to bottom rung washouts.”

Foot Recruit attempts to pull her arm out of his tight, and although she won’t admit it, painful grip.

“Excuse me!? I’m a more fearsome warrior than you’ll ever be! I have beaten you before! I will do it again!”

Raph releases her arm only to grab her by the face and lift her up. He squeezes her head painfully in his palm. She grabs and scratches at his arm, kicking her legs as well in a struggle. Splinter holds himself back from doing anything immediately, but readies to help if this goes too far.

“You were lucky before. I was bein nice. Not anymore.” Raph stomps over to an old car, getting the door open before tossing Foot Recruit inside.

He slams the door and Foot Recruit bangs on the window. Raph summons his larger form and places its hands on both ends. The form begins adding pressure, starting to make the car fold.

It takes everything Splinter has for him not to go help her. He knows it’s risky, but if Raph really wanted her dead he would have done it already. Revealing himself now might actually put her in more danger.

As the space in the car around Foot Recruit starts running out, she finally relents.

“You win! You’ve beaten me! You’re the better warrior!”

Raph’s other form goes away. He rips the door open again and tosses Foot Recruit back out.

“That means I call the shots! You look for what Draxum wants and bring it to me when ya find it, go it?”

Foot Recruit nods, trying not to let her quickened breathing be obvious.

“I said somethin, respond.” Raph growls.

“….Understood.”

“Don’t forget. You already wasted all your chances.” He leaves the room.

Foot Recruit’s legs give out from under her, making her collapse onto her knees. She wraps one arm around herself and uses the other to clutch her chest. Her heart is beating a million miles a minute.

He’s been capable of this? The whole time? He’s just been choosing not to maim her? Break her bones? End her life….?

It’s terrifying.

Draxum has three of them acting this way now. Any of them could have done this too? Leo, no, Artemis, has been staring her down a lot. He always has an odd hold on his katanas while he does it, it makes her think now that he’s been imagining using them on her.

Or maybe even using his portals on her.

Splinter turns his head away. He’s sure she wouldn’t want anyone seeing her like this. Despite what just happened, there still is no use trying to convince her to help him. He knows that someone like her has to come to a conclusion by herself.

He sneaks away instead, finally getting to an area with aged books. There’s a box underneath that he recognizes. Opening it up, he sees the scrolls he’s been looking for. He closes the box back up and carefully holds it close.

The key to saving his children is in there. He just needs to find it. Splinter hopes he can in time for April.

After she was dropped off, April headed straight into the building towards the Purple Dragons’ tech area. It occurs to her that they might have actually been there when Donnie arrived and picks up her a pace a bit.

Even if Kendra dogs on her any chance she gets and is a tech supervillain, April still doesn’t want her to get too badly hurt. They have known each other for a while. Most of their lives. It’s hard to forget that, as rough as it may be.

She very carefully enters the room.

Donnie is immediately in her line of sight. He didn’t even attempt hiding himself here. There’s no reason to, she guesses.

April continues inside with as light of steps as she can manage. It isn’t too far in that she sees Kendra tied up like a caterpillar and suspended from the ceiling.

Well, at least she doesn’t look hurt.

Kendra struggles more while staring at April. The tape that’s around her body is also covering her mouth. She’s silently insisting for April to get her down.

April shakes her head and makes a sign for her to stay quiet. Kendra only struggles more.

“I knew you were here the moment you stepped into the building. Take the other nuisance and leave.” Donnie says suddenly, breaking his silence but not turning around.

Both girls turn to look at him.

“Donnie, you gotta come back with me.” April urges.

“That’s not my name, and no I don’t.” He still doesn’t turn around.

April grips her bat tighter.

“Maybe you didn’t understand me! That wasn’t me asking! You are coming with me! And Splinter is going to fix your head!”

Donnie slams the metal he was working on to the ground and bends his head backwards.

“Splinter isn’t going to fix jack, that’s always been my job!”

April nearly freezes at seeing the mask over his face. The pupil she can see clearly is thin, slit, like an animal ready to pounce.

“Well, are you going to fix yourself then!?”

“How about you? Go make a friend that isn’t made of slime and doesn’t have fur or scales you freak!”

Oh, that actually stings.

“I don’t care what people are or aren’t! Especially not you, Donnie! We’re nerdy pals for life, remember?”

“That line reeks of desperation! You constantly hold me back! It makes me sick to be around a loser who can’t even hold a job. I have to come help you with everything because you’re good at nothing! That’s why I didn’t care you were coming up here. I knew you wouldn’t be able to do whatever your goal is. You never can.”

April blinks quickly to avoid any tears from coming. She focuses hard on what Mikey had said. This is Donnie trying to keep her safe. Short term emotional pain is better than long term physical, that’s probably something he’d say.

He only ever approached this level of mean when he-

That’s it!

April rips the tape off Kendra’s mouth.

“It’s about time! Get me down from here!”

“Not before you help me. Where are your headphones?”

“Are you kidding me!? You’re asking for that of all things!?”

“I know what I’m doing! Just tell me already!”

“Ugh, fine! They’re over there!” Kendra gestures with her head.

April starts walking over.

Donnie bends and twists to stand up while still looking at them, slowly approaching Kendra with a hiss in his voice.

“Are you so stupid that you don’t understand I can clearly hear you? I gave you an opportunity to leave with your lives and you didn’t take it.”

“I wanted to leave! It’s just O’Neil!” Kendra shouts.

“Hey, Donnie!”

He turns his head only for April to spray a ketchup packet at him.

“Ketchup!? That’s your plan-!?”

Kendra is interrupted by Donnie letting out the most high pitched scream to ever be heard. April grabs a nearby box cutter and frees Kendra during the freak out that’s happening.

“If you ever use this against him I will personally smash every piece of your tech I find, but Donnie has big issues with the smell and texture.”

“Whatever, I’m leaving! Good luck getting torn apart by your feral brother!” Kendra runs off.

April’s confused by that, she knows fully well Donnie isn’t related to her. Unless….she was trying to be nice after everything he said? It’s doubtful she’ll ever know for sure.

Donnie squirms on the floor like a breakdancing bug. It would be funny if April didn’t feel so bad about it. She holds the headphones she grabbed and takes out her phone, connecting to it.

April kneels down, avoiding flailing limbs as she uses her jacket sleeve to wipe off the ketchup. At the same time, she takes off his goggles and replaces them with the headphones.

His panicked breathing slowly subsides as loud techno music floods his senses. April always keeps a playlist on her phone just for him. Overstimulation really sucks, she knows that firsthand.

She watches his pupils begin to return to normal. No longer slit, but round. His whole body relaxes too.

“A….April….?”

“Donnie!”

“April!”

She turns around in a panic.

“Leo…?”

[inawickedlittletown]

Don't Make A Shadow Of Yourself (BuckTommy fic) - 13/15

Summary: "A man who's pure of heart...may still become a wolf when the autumn moon is bright" - Howl (F+TM)

BuckTommy Werewolf AU. Throughout most of his adult life, Tommy had dealt with what he was. The duality of being a man and also an animal…a beast. Werewolves weren’t born, they were made. 

Rating: M

Words: 4,498

Read on Ao3

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three

Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six

Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven - Chapter Twelve

-

Chapter Thirteen

The fence door was still torn up and half hanging off one hinge. The spot where the bullet had hit the fence was so splintered that it wasn’t actually clear what had broken it. There were no other signs that anything had happened. The four of them walked over the broken fence to the backyard. Nothing was amiss. 

On the way there, they had filled Athena in on everything and she had in turn filled them in on what she knew. 

Mr. and Mrs. Buckley had snuck out of Maddie’s house and somehow gotten around the officer watching the house. Athena received a call from Maddie when she realized they were gone around two in the morning. Around the same time that there had been a few calls made to 9-1-1 about gunshots. Athena hadn’t been out to the call to Tommy’s house, but she’d gotten all the information in the aftermath. A call about gunshots that on paper was about a possible break-in and that didn’t have anything to say that anyone had actually shot a gun. No suspects found, the owner of the house not home. Neighbors that were sure they had heard gunshots.

“Werewolf Division got involved,” Evan said. 

“That’s what I thought,” Athena said. “You said you left someone incapacitated?” 

“No mention of that in their report?” Eddie asked. 

Tommy hadn’t thought about it, even though he’d still been tasting blood until he managed to rinse his mouth with mouthwash in the bathroom at Harbor. He’d bitten that hunter. Turned him into a Werewolf if he survived the bite. Tommy didn’t really feel guilty, not when that hunter had shot at Evan.

“No,” Athena confirmed.

“He was probably taken to the Division,” Tommy said.

Athena nodded thoughtfully. “Will they let any of us see him?” 

Considering his own suspicions about the Division, Tommy somehow didn’t think that they would be allowed to see him. Not just because he was likely in medical isolation after the bite, but because they clearly were covering up the whole thing. This, Tommy realized, was how Evan’s parents were getting away with what they did. Whether it was the Division condoning the hunters, or just not wanting to actually act on what they knew was happening. 

“What about my parents?” Evan asked when they had made it inside the house. 

“They haven’t turned up yet,” Athena said. “Legally, there isn’t much we can do.”

“Are there any cameras we might access?” Eddie asked. 

“I don’t have any cameras,” Tommy said. “Never wanted to catch myself transforming. Not even my neighbors have a way to look into my backyard.” 

“So we can’t do anything,” Eddie said. 

Tommy had figured that out and from looking at Evan, he could tell that Evan had as well. He could also tell that Evan was not going to be letting this go. His jaw was set in that stubbornly determined way.

Athena left after a walk around the yard and after she took a good look at the broken fence before Tommy picked up the remains of the door and took it off the hinge it still hung off of. It wasn’t completely broken apart, but Tommy still meant to replace it with a new one. 

When he went back inside, he found Eddie coming down the stairs. He’d taken what had clearly been a very quick shower seeing as his hair was wet. He was also back to his clothes from the night before. He looked a hell of a lot better. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Like Werewolf healing is the best thing ever,” Eddie. “Head’s feeling a lot better. Just a bit of a headache left.”

Tommy had always felt that quick healing was one of the better perks of being a Werewolf. He had no doubt that Evan was healing pretty quickly too, it didn’t make him worry any less. His boyfriend had been grazed by a bullet.

“I should head out,” Eddie said. “I have to pick up Chris and I’m already later than I expected. Call me if anything else happens.”

“Sure. I’m — clearly we made the wrong choice staying here last night.” 

“No one’s fault but those hunters,” Eddie said and he started for the front door. He stopped before he grasped the door handle. “Hey, Tommy, Buck does feel pretty guilty about everything.”

“Oh. It’s really not his fault.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said with a roll of his eyes. “This is Buck we’re talking about though.” 

After Eddie left, Tommy headed upstairs. His house had three bedrooms. The master had its own bathroom, and then there was one shared between the two other rooms. He heard the water running in his own bathroom. The door was open a crack, but he knocked on it. 

“Tommy?” Evan called out. 

“Can I join you?” 

“I’d be mad if you didn’t,” Evan called out.

Tommy stepped into the bathroom, already taking off his jumpsuit. He stepped out of it and then pulled the shower door open and stepped in behind Evan. Tommy could see the angry red mark left on Evan’s side. Red water was running into the drain and he hated it. The wound looked raw still and Tommy had no doubt that it was giving Evan some pain. He wrapped an arm around Evan’s middle, careful of the injury, bringing him against his chest. Evan sank into him. 

“Hi,” Evan said. 

“Hi,” Tommy replied. He kissed the juncture between Evan’s shoulder and neck.

Evan hummed and turned in his arms, pressing them up together. Tommy groaned as Evan ground up into him, arms coming around his neck and bringing Tommy right into a kiss. Any tension that had been left over from the day seemed to finally vanish. They didn’t think about the night before, focused more on each other. 

They washed it all away with water, soap, and touch. Evan was eager, pressing Tommy back into the tile and doing his best to kiss or nip at any part of Tommy that he could get to. Tommy just let him, touched him as much as he could in return, like how he grasped his wet curls when Evan got down to his knees in front of Tommy. He was a bit of a tease before he finally took Tommy in his mouth. 

Boneless though he felt after cuming on Evan’s chin and neck and mouth, Tommy still pulled Evan into yet another kiss while he grasped for Evan and gave him a quick handjob that left Evan leaning against Tommy. 

Cleaning each other afterwards was done with gentle touches, reassurances that they were both there. Tommy was tentative in touching Evan’s side, careful with the injured area. 

Evan wrapped him in a fluffy towel afterwards before grabbing one for himself. Tommy loved it. He loved the possibility, the way that he wanted this forever. 

They wound up in his bed, still naked with wet hair. Tommy had never known he could be so absolutely comfortable with someone. Evan just made it easy. 

“I’m exhausted,” Evan said. 

“Well, we didn’t sleep all night,” Tommy said. “Ran around a lot too.” 

“I haven’t even checked my phone,” Evan said, blinking slowly. 

Tommy reached over, caressing Evan’s cheek and turning him so he was looking at him. “You don’t need to do anything right now. We can nap for a bit. Everything can wait.”

“Yeah?” Evan asked. 

“Of course, Evan. Come on, I know you want to be the little spoon.” 

Evan laughed, but he didn’t complain as he turned on his side and Tommy pulled the blanket he kept folded to the foot of the bed over them. Evan smelled like his shampoo and his soap, though underneath it all what remained was everything just Evan. He pressed his nose against his neck and had his arm around his waist just below where the bullet had grazed him. Tommy didn’t even want to consider what might have happened if it was more than just a graze.  

“Hmm, feels nice,” Evan said. 

“Evan,” Tommy said, little more than a whisper. “I love you.” 

Evan didn’t pull away or freeze, he relaxed into him instead and his hand landed over Tommy’s on his stomach. 

“I love you so much, Tommy. So much. More than I could have ever thought I could love someone.” 

Tommy rested his chin against Evan’s shoulder, kissed the skin in front of him and let himself linger in the warmth that Evan wrapped him in even though it was him wrapped around Evan. 

—

Twenty missed calls. Most of them from Maddie. A few from Chim. One from his mom, surprisingly enough. One from Hen. One from Karen. There were even more texts. Even Ravi had sent a text. Buck was more than a little overwhelmed and he didn’t want to deal with any of it. Maddie least of all. 

He knew there was some blame to place there. He also knew that she’d clearly been worried sick about him. Half the texts were from her and about half of them just asked for Buck to call her. 

So, ignoring everyone else, he called his sister. 

Tommy was going through his own phone and Buck had kinda enjoyed seeing how surprised he was that anyone had thought to reach out to him at all. 

Maddie picked up at one ring. 

“Buck,” she said and he could hear the worry in her voice. 

“Uh, hi,” Buck said. 

“Are you alright? I can’t believe they did that. I am so sorry. Chim and I were sure they’d gone to bed and we didn’t even hear them leave. Chim even put a wind chime on the door so we’d hear it. And they even disabled the cameras. We don’t have any idea how they got out or even how they got Tommy’s address.”

Buck didn’t even know what to say. He didn’t blame Maddie, not really. 

“We’re fine,” he said. “It wasn’t the best night, but we managed. Have they returned?” 

“No. I tried to call them, but they haven’t picked up. We have no idea where they’ve gone. I’m so sorry, Buck. I should have…I don’t know, locked them in or something.” 

“They probably would have figured out of that too,” he said. 

Maddie groaned. “Well they haven’t come back here…I have no idea where they could have gone.” 

The thing that came immediately to mind was that they might come back looking for Tommy. No one knew where his parents were — likely with the other two hunters. He and Tommy had just been sleeping at the house like they weren’t in any danger. Arguably they weren’t, but that could change…but no, his parents had only ever hunted on the full moon. 

“Are the authorities looking for them?” Maddie asked. 

“No,” Buck said. “It’s not like they have anything on them. Athena doesn’t think anything will stick even if they do pick them up.”

“One of them shot you,” Maddie said. 

“It was another hunter,” Buck corrected. “And it was just a graze. Maddie, they came with three other hunters. Tommy bit one of them…the one that almost shot me. We think the Division took him.”

“What now?” Maddie asked. 

“I, uh, I don’t know. Athena was talking about maybe trying to go over to the division to talk to him.”

“That’s a good idea,” Maddie said. “If they let her. I just…I’m so glad you’re all alright. I was so worried when we realized they weren’t here.” 

He walked over to Tommy when he got off the phone, promising Maddie that he was already healing and didn’t need to get checked out. She also made him promise that she would see him soon because she needed to actually see him with her own eyes. 

“How did it go?” Tommy asked. 

“It was fine. She feels bad about not realizing they snuck out.” 

“That’s not her fault,” Tommy said. “And she hasn’t seen them since?” 

“Nope. There’s no way they don’t return, though. I think they’re well aware they will get away with it so why wouldn’t they return.”

“Not to mention the wedding,” Tommy said. 

Buck hadn’t even thought about the wedding. Would he have to see his parents again then? Would Maddie still want them to come? Would they act like nothing had happened? Of course, they didn’t know that one of the Werewolves they were hunting was Buck, but they had known that one of them was at the very least Buck’s coworker. His friend. 

“I wish I could just skip the wedding,” Buck said. 

Tommy laughed. “No you don’t.” 

“I wonder if Maddie and Chim will uninvite them,” Buck said.

“All things considered, that’s very likely, Evan.”

“I just hate how all of this is kinda messing up the wedding that Maddie wanted.” 

Tommy’s phone rang, interrupting whatever Tommy had been about to say. 

“It’s Athena,” Tommy said to Buck. 

Tommy wasn’t on the phone for very long and Buck only really got to hear to Tommy agreeing with whatever Athena was saying. 

“What is it?” Buck asked. 

“She went to the Werewolf Division and they refused to talk to her without a warrant. She wants to go back and asked if I’d go with her. See if they’ll say anything to us.”

“We’ll both go,” Buck said. 

Tommy grinned. “That’s what I said.” 

An hour later, they were back in Athena’s patrol car. Athena was filling them in on what had happened to her. The people at Werewolf Division had been cagey from the start and when Athena mentioned the hunter, they had asked for a warrant and refused to answer anything.

“They didn’t even admit to Werewolves,” Athena said. “Kept acting like I had no idea what I was asking.” 

“Wow,” Tommy said. 

“So how are we doing this then?” Buck asked. 

“Well, they know us,” Tommy said. “There is no reason for them to not talk to us and since we did call about the hunters yesterday they can’t exactly say they didn’t know we were worried about them.”

“Right,” Buck said. 

He’d never had any bad experiences with the Werewolf Division, granted Buck had had limited contact with them. After getting bitten and spending the first few full moons there, Buck had done things his own way. With all his knowledge of Werewolves, Buck had known what to expect and how to deal with it all and when an opportunity to head down to Peru came along, Buck didn’t think twice. 

Things were different in South America. The Werewolf legends were like nothing Buck had heard before. Since Buck didn’t fit into any of their stories, he’d hid himself well. No one had ever suspected and Buck had never met another Werewolf his entire time there. Eventually, Buck headed back to California with a plan to go to the fire academy. The Werewolf Division had done a bit to help him, but after Buck got to the 118 and after he told Hen what he was he stopped relying on them. Once Bobby knew and once they became a sort of pack, Buck had been fine existing on his own with his people. It’d been a while since he’d visited that building. 

When they got to the Werewolf Division building, Athena let them go without her at Tommy’s insistence. 

“If they see you they won’t want to talk to us,” Tommy said. 

She relented. 

“When was the last time you came here?” Buck asked as they walked up. 

“It’s been six months at least. Probably longer,” Tommy admitted. 

“Longer for me,” Buck said. “Way longer.”

They went inside and were immediately faced with a receptionist. She was on the younger side and she seemed to perk up at seeing them. Buck could see her eyeing them up and he was almost amused. 

“Hello,” she said batting her eyes. “Can I help you gentlemen?” 

“I hope so,” Buck said. “Yesterday, we were ambushed by Werewolf Hunters. We called here earlier in the day because we had some suspicions. We weren’t taken seriously.” 

Her smile faded. 

“He was shot,” Tommy added. 

“Grazed,” Buck corrected. 

She clearly had not been expecting any of that. Her eyes went wide and she didn’t seem to know what to say. She was definitely not who Athena had dealt with. Athena would have had this girl for breakfast. 

“I’ll, uh, I’ll go get my boss,” she managed to get out before she ran through a door further into the building. 

It didn’t take long for her to return with a middle aged guy following her. Neither of them, Buck realized, were actual Werewolves. 

“How could I help you?” the guy asked without preamble.

“We want to discuss Werewolf hunters,” Tommy said. “We were attacked by five of them last night. We know the identity of two and a third was taken by Werewolf Division because during the attack he was bitten. A police officer was not allowed to question him though everyone in this building should want to get to the bottom of who these hunters are. The police reports were altered even though there is evidence of gunshots and we can attest to what actually happened.”

The man coughed. “The Division follows protocol. I don’t know what happened last night. It was a full moon and several people were brought in from bites. None of them are allowed to see anyone until after they have faced their first full moon.” 

“One of those people is a hunter,” Buck said. 

“We cannot confirm that.” 

“So you’d put all the Werewolves that use your facilities in danger?” Tommy asked. 

“If what you say is true, he is now a Werewolf himself.” 

Buck shook his head. “Not if the bite doesn’t take effect.” 

“Why are there no protections in place against hunters? No one ever mentions them here.” 

It was easy to tell that the man was uncomfortable. He was sweating and he shifted from foot to foot. He wouldn’t even meet their eyes head on. 

“Hunters attacked us last night,” Buck said. “What protection do you offer us then?” 

“Uh, can’t you protect yourself?” 

“Against guns?” Buck retorted. 

“Is there anyone else we could speak to?” Tommy asked. 

“Not, uh, not at the moment.” 

“As I understand it,” Buck said, then, “the Werewolf Division exists as a support for Werewolves. Well, there are Werewolf Hunters out there and the proper authorities would be able to do something about them if they had anything to go on except that the Division is covering it up.” 

“We’ll protect the secret above all else,” the man said. “That’s our purpose. It keeps everyone safe even from hunters.” 

Buck eyed the guy in front of him. He wasn’t going to give them much and Buck was starting to put a few things together. They didn’t care if Werewolf hunters existed because their concern wasn’t the lives of the Werewolves. It was about keeping them hidden. Yes, there was a protection in that, but it didn’t change that it created some problems. Buck had never thought about why any Werewolf could go out and bite someone without repercussions even when that person rejected the bite and died instead. So there were no repercussions for those that hunted Werewolves either. 

“What you’re saying is that Werewolves getting killed by hunters doesn’t matter,” Buck said. 

Tommy gave him a look and Buck knew that he was maybe being a little too pushy. He didn’t care, not when the guy in front of him looked like he didn’t know how to respond. His heartbeat had certainly increased. He was also a mouthpiece, someone that probably had no power over any of it. 

“They are Werewolves. Should be able to protect themselves or keep themselves hidden. There are feral Werewolves as well out there and they won’t hesitate to attack humans.” 

“And isn’t it the Division that is supposed to find and help any Werewolf that goes feral?” 

“Of course,” the man said at once. 

“How?” Tommy asked. 

“That is not your concern,” he said and he took a look at his watch. “I actually have a call to take in a few minutes. If there is nothing else.” 

—

Tommy knew when something was fishy and he was absolutely right in thinking that something fishy was happening. He and Evan didn’t press about getting to see the newly turned hunter. They didn’t mention Athena’s name. Instead after talking to the guy for a while they turned and left. It would need more investigating and Tommy was sure that Athena would be more than up for it. 

Back when Tommy was first bitten, the Werewolf Division had been a government agency entirely devoted to helping Werewolves and keeping them secret. Aside from wanting them to keep what they had become secret, the Division had always warned against biting humans to change them and they also warned about the danger of being alone, how some wolves became feral and then had to be dealt with before they attacked humans. In the twenty years since becoming a Werewolf, Tommy had never heard of any feral Werewolves. 

Evan and Eddie had been a little bit surprised at how long Tommy had gone without a proper pack and Tommy had always just put that to being a firefighter and a pilot and having some consistent people around him all the time. But maybe…maybe feral Werewolves weren’t really a thing that actually happened often. 

Maybe the division said that to keep them using their services when they had no one and maybe they didn’t say it, but they were safer spending the full moon there. They were also better off keeping things secret. Tommy would never forget how he’d had to convince them to let him join the fire academy and it was all in the name of the secret. 

“You know,” Buck said, “I should have expected this. It’s a government institution. When has the government actually ever cared about anyone’s life? They’re just justifying doing nothing about hunters because they also won’t do anything if we bite someone. He’s not lying, they just care about the secret. They care that people aren’t scared that we are real.” 

Tommy knew he was right. He also knew that the dodge of the question on how they dealt with feral Werewolves could mean that the Division did work with hunters in some capacity, that they did protect them. It’d just be really hard to prove. 

“How did it go?” Athena asked when they got back. 

They filled her in and she just shook her head. “You know, I had a conversation with my Captain. She said there was some pushback. Someone called about my stop here.” 

“They’re not going to let us see him,” Tommy said. “Maybe with a warrant they’ll have to.” 

“I was afraid of that,” Athena said. “It won’t be easy to get.” 

“Well, I could press charges,” Tommy said. “He did break into my backyard and shoot into my fence. Someone called the police over that noise. It’s something to go off of.” 

Athena nodded. 

Tommy was starting to think that they actually weren’t going to be able to do anything about any of it. If the Division was unwilling to help and actually covering something up then those hunters would just keep going. The one hunter that Tommy had bitten could be their only real option and that was if he was willing to talk. 

Athena drove them to the station so that Tommy could formally press charges. They didn’t have the man’s name but suspicion of where he was could be enough for Athena and Tommy to be allowed to see the newly bit Werewolves at the Division. He’d be easy to distinguish because of the injuries and the bite. 

“A judge will have to grant the warrant. I know someone that might be interested in letting us pursue this. Are you available tomorrow morning?” 

“Yes. I don’t have a shift until the afternoon.” 

After that, Athena took them back to Tommy’s with a promise to call once she heard anything. They waved at her as she pulled out of the driveway and headed for the front door. 

Tommy could tell that something was wrong as soon as they approached the house. Evan came to a stop just ahead of him. He seemed to be sniffing the air and when he looked at Tommy there was a fury in his eyes that he never thought that he’d ever see. 

“My parents are here,” he said. 

“What?” 

“In the back, I think,” Evan said and then before Tommy could stop him he rounded the house and went through the open fence. 

Tommy was quick to follow him. He caught up to Evan as he got to the backyard. The Buckley’s were out by his roses. They had lost the black garb from the night before. They looked normal, as normal as they had the day Tommy met them at the station. It was kinda scary, especially with them turned away looking at the roses like they were experts on flowers or something. 

“What are you doing here?” Evan asked. 

They turned quickly. Tommy could smell their surprise and he almost wanted to laugh. Because of course they didn’t know what Tommy was to Evan. They had no clue. Mrs. Buckley stared at them, frown in place. Mr. Buckley barely reacted. 

“I know you don’t know the owner of this property,” Evan said. “I also know you were here last night. So why are you here now?” 

Evan also took a quick glance at Tommy. “Tommy, maybe call Athena back.” 

Tommy should have done that from the first, but he’d been more concerned about Evan. He pulled out his phone and called. Athena picked up at once. 

“Tommy?” 

“Evan’s parents are in my backyard.” 

“Oh,” Athena said. “I’ll be there in five.” 

“Evan, you know very well why we’re here,” Mrs. Buckley said. 

“Do I? How about you say it, then?” 

Mrs. Buckley pointed at Tommy. “We’re here because that man is a Werewolf. A monster.” 

Evan made a noise. 

“We’re worried about you, Evan,” Mr. Buckley said before Buck could say anything. “You don’t know what could happen if you keep this type of company.” 

Evan began to laugh. Tommy stayed where he was a few feet behind Evan even though all he wanted to do was to touch him, to gather him up and take him as far away from these people as possible. 

“I know who he is,” Evan said. “I know what he is too and I know what you tried to do to him last night too.What you tried to do to both of us.” 

Evan’s mother gasped. His father looked like he was trying to not look shocked. They were horrified. Tommy hated them, he really truly hated them. 

“I’m a Werewolf,” Evan announced, head held high. “Tommy is my mate. And right now, you’re trespassing.”

[hottpinkpenguin]

Joel Miller X Fem!Reader - Last of Us - Part 5

A/N: read part 1 ! read part 2 ! read part 3 ! read part 4! Taglist: @midgetpottermills @casssiopeia @flyingmushroomss @amethystwonders11 @hiphopdancer101universe @kiszkawagnerwhore @littleshadow17 @rh1nestonecowg1rl @alm0501 @ch4rcuterie @lodeddiperrodrick @amandalove1355 @laurathefahrradsattel @moshpot24x @middleof-thenight @kettlechips3 @happymakercollectorsworld @alainabooks143 @mikariell95

Warnings: dark themes; substance abuse; post-apocalyptic dystopia; death of reader's minor child; probably a lot of non-canon details since I've never played the game; not proofread; spoilers if you haven't seen the show/played the game Word Count: 2891 Abbreviations: QZ = quarantine zone; FDRA "Fedra" = Federal Disaster Response Agency

----

Joel fell out of a restless sleep to his head spinning in the dark room. He sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing the come-down of a hard drunk from his eyes. His dream clung to the inside of his mind like a fading shadow. 

He’d been home, in Austin. Before the outbreak. Sarah had been there, calling to him from her bedroom down the hall. She was scared, he could hear it in her voice. He’d tried to get to her, tried running to her, but the hall warped and elongated as he moved through it. Her screams had gotten farther and farther away the harder he’d tried to run. 

He gave up, calling out to her, even though somehow he knew she couldn’t hear him. He stopped running, stopped trying to fight the hallway. He let it stretch and contract with him inside it. Part of him hoped it would squeeze him to death. 

Then, right before the walls caved in on him, he’d heard something. Someone, calling his name. Behind him. He’d turned: he knew that voice. It sounded like hope, fresh and soft and gentle. He hadn’t heard anyone say his name that way in years. Around a corner in the hall - a corner that hadn’t existed in the real Austin hallway. It was you. Y/n. 

Unable to get to Sarah, he tried running to you. The hallway didn’t stretch: this time it blew open like a water balloon bursting. He saw you from the corner of his eye as the force of the hallway splitting apart threw him past you into the darkness. You were reaching out to him. He could have grabbed you if he’d reached out his hand. But he was afraid he’d pull you down. Instinctive fear took over, and he hesitated for just a moment, but it was too long. He flew by you, boomeranging alone into the darkness. You vanished from sight behind him, your eyes full of grief. He felt himself falling, falling…

That’s when he woke up. The same dream, different night. Four months he’d been having that dream. Didn’t matter how much he drank or how much he fucked. It was the same dream. Sarah and you, you and Sarah. He’d known Sarah for all of her thirteen years before the outbreak ripped her out of his life. You, he’d met only twice before he’d ripped you out of his life. The irony was darkly funny and deeply painful. 

Joel fumbled around the graveyard of empty bottles next to his nightstand, knocking a few over with muted, metallic clinks. Fuck. No more whiskey. 

Next to him in bed, Tessa stirred but didn’t wake. Joel looked over at her, watching the bright moonlight paint her face in shadow. It was strange how he felt when he looked at her. A mix of pity, self-loathing, and disgust. But mostly, Joel didn’t feel anything at all. She was a means to an end, a distraction from his own thoughts. Ever since the dreams had started, restlessness had taken up residence deep in Joel’s bones. Nothing sated it, nothing soothed the ache in his soul. Nothing, except…

“Fuck that.” He clamped down on that thought before he let it finish, his teeth grinding. A surge of anger roared through his head. He wanted to break something, to crush it, have it splinter and fracture and disintegrate under his touch. That’s how he felt most of the goddamn time anyways. He reached down, picking up the first bottle his hand touched and hurled it against the opposite wall. It shattered with a crisp tinkling as glass shards scattered across the floor.

“What are you doing?” Tessa’s voice was thick with sleep. He ignored her, picking up another bottle and chucking it. The sound of glass colliding with the cracked drywall took just enough of his edge off to keep him from unraveling there in the dark.

“Joel.” 

He ignored her still, the anger beginning to ebb. 

“Joel!” Tessa’s voice was clearer now, her irritation and being ignored rousing her.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he grunted back, hoping she’d let him be. 

As soon as the words left his mouth, he heard a distant rumble and felt a slight tremor in the walls. He jumped up from the bed, ignoring the shards of glass that burrowed into the soles of his feet. Adrenaline sharpened his senses. Following the sound, he strode to the window overlooking the open city, pulling back the tattered curtain. Rising from an otherwise black horizon was a plume of orange and yellow flames in the distance. 

“What the hell was that?” Tessa was beside him in a heartbeat, wrapping a blanket around her naked body. They both stared out at the flames, eyes straining to make out any details of the flames. 

“Some kind of explosion,” Joel commented aimlessly. His mind ticked through the possible explanations. He’d lived in the QZ almost the entire twenty years since the outbreak, and he’d been in the open city more times than he could count. Not once had he ever seen an infected - even a herd of them - set off an explosion like that. An old transformer degrading, maybe? Some sort of gas build up?

Tessa’s eyes narrowed as she watched the plume of smoke pour up from street level, fanning across the night sky and blotting out the stars. 

“Gas line, maybe. Come back to bed.” 

Tessa slunk into the bathroom off the bedroom, and Joel heard the meager trickle of the faucet as she filled a glass of water. On her way back to bed, she handed the glass to him.

“Your breath smells like a damn distillery.”

Joel acquiesced and sipped the water. He could smell the chlorine that FDRA used as disinfectant before dumping it into the city’s deteriorating water main. He ignored Tessa’s continued pleas for him to rejoin her, his eyes glued to the spreading fire. Worry settled in his chest like concrete, although he couldn’t say why. Dawn broke before Joel found sleep again. He dreamt again of Sarah and the hallway. This time, though, you weren’t there to call out to him…

****

You woke up to the sound of crinkling plastic and a painful throb under your right breast. You peeked out through slitted eyelids. Ellie was across from you, sitting next to a long neglected fireplace. It was the first time you’d seen her clearly. Her hair was a mousy brown and tied back in a ponytail, her eyes dark and far apart. She moved quickly, like a caged animal or a predator cat, and her lips were pursed together in concentration as she opened a package of crackers. The gray t-shirt under the red hoodie had a dark crimson smear of blood across her chest, and the soles of her sneakers were worn down.

You sat up, straightening your back against the door as you looked around, getting your bearings. You were still inside the house from the night before. Dust hung heavy in the air, motes floating idly in the afternoon sunlight that shafted through one of the boarded up windows.

“You’re awake,” Ellie observed without looking up at you. She was munching quietly on the crackers, picking at a hangnail on her thumb.

You took a breath in, causing your ribs to spasm in pain. White seared across your vision and you struggled to gasp.

“Pretty sure you broke a rib or two.” 

You shot the teenager a sour look. 

“Yeah, no shit.” 

“What was that last night? The explosion?” 

Your mind flicked back through your recollections from the night before.

“Propane truck. Damian must have shot it.” 

You remembered the truck, tipped on its side probably three or four houses down from where you were now. You could still see Damian as he’d turned around to shoot at the horde. Whether he meant to or not, one of his bullets must have hit the truck’s tank, setting off the explosion. 

You tried to pivot on your hip to look out through the mail slot of the front door. 

“Don’t bother, there’s nothing out there but roasted shamblers.” 

You opened the mail slot anyways. Maybe Damian had managed to survive. 

As your eyes adjusted to the bright light, you saw Ellie was right. The entire opposite side of the street was burned out, smoke still curling up from a few of the smoldering foundations where houses had been. The street was littered with charred lumps you could only assume had once been the infected, and your group mates. Luck must have been smiling on you to make sure none of the sparks drifted your way on an errant breeze. You didn’t see anything that looked alive. 

You let the mail slot fall closed, moving slowly back to seated, your ribs screaming in protest. You closed your eyes to fight the nausea, leaning your head back against the door. 

“What’re we going to do?”

She sounded scared.

“I dunno, kid. I’m not much good like this. You might be on your own.” 

“I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Yeah, neither do I. And you’ll not know where you’re going a lot faster without me.” 

Ellie considered your words for a second before she looked away. For the first time since you’d met her, you saw a note of fear in her eyes. It reminded you of how young she was. Only a few years older than Gabriel. You always wondered how it felt to be born after the outbreak, like Ellie and Gabriel. To not remember the world without infected, without QZ’s. You had memories of time before: memories of vacations and Christmas shopping and doctors appointments and traffic jams. Those were the things you missed the most - the little things. Things that Ellie and Gabriel had never known. 

“Who are you, anyways? Why did the Fireflies send an armed unit out to get you?” 

The fear in Ellie’s eyes melted away, replaced by suspicion. She didn’t answer.

“Look, kid, if you can’t tell me what’s going on, how am I supposed to help you anyways?” 

Ellie’s eyes narrowed at you.

“I thought you said I was on my own.” 

You chuckled, immediately regretting it as agony ripped through your body.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be a very good person if I let a little kid walk around the open city now, would I?” 

As much as you couldn’t bear the idea of moving, you knew it was true. You couldn’t leave Ellie alone, even if she was a scrappy thing. You thought of Gabriel, and how you would feel if someone left him alone in the open city. 

“I’m not a little kid,” she spat back, indignant.

“You’re littler than I am.” 

You’d used that line on Gabriel all the time. Looked like Ellie hated it as much as he did.

“So, now that we’ve established that I’ll somehow go with you, where is it that we’re headed and who are you supposed to be meeting with?”

“Marlene said I shouldn’t tell anybody.”

Your brow furrowed as you considered this. 

“Well, Marlene’s probably dead, and if she isn’t, she sure as hell isn’t going to know to look for us here. So it’s just you and me. Which means I need to know why you’re out here and what the hell we’re walking into.”

Ellie sized you up from across the room. Afternoon sun was giving way to the warm gold of evening. If you wanted to put any distance between you and whatever was left of the horde, you’d have to start moving soon.

She stood up abruptly, walking over to you as she rolled up one sleeve of her hoodie. She thrust her arm towards you, a large scarred-over gash on the skin of her pale forearm. You looked at it, momentarily confused. 

“Don’t you recognize that?” she asked with a hint of challenge.

You looked at the mark, something familiar about it plucking at the back of your mind. Surely, it couldn’t be…

“That’s a bite mark. From an infected.” 

She rolled the sleeve of her hoodie down again, obscuring the scar from view. 

Your thoughts felt like they were weighted down in cement. You looked up at her, a million questions in your eyes, the pain in your ribs momentarily forgotten.

“That’s… not possible.”

“Not possible or not, that’s what it is.” 

She went back to her original seat by the fireplace, tucking her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. 

You tried to piece together the facts. Bites were how the infected spread their fungus to living hosts. Bites were always effective. You’d never seen or heard of anyone getting bitten and not turning eventually. You’d seen people try all kinds of things to slow and reverse the effects of the fungus in the early days: amputations, cauterization, pouring battery acid into the bite, eating mass amounts of antifungal medications, cannibalizing healthy human flesh. None of it worked. There was no cure, no antidote, nothing to ease the pain or slow the transition. It had been that way since the outbreak first hit in 2003. It was the only truth that mattered, the foundational fact that your world was built on.

And yet, here she was. Flesh and blood. Perfectly human. The scar tissue on her arm spoke to how long ago she’d received that bite. 

“Not… possible…,” you whispered in disbelief. 

“Not just possible. True.” 

You stared at Ellie, dumbstruck. She held your gaze and waited for your thoughts to catch up with reality.

This was why Marlene and Damian hadn’t told anyone about who Ellie was. This was why the Firefly network was passing her along with armed guards along the way. She was a medical miracle, proof that there was a way out. But how?

“There’s a vaccine?” you asked, your voice trembling with emotion. 

Ellie shook her head.

“No. It’s not a vaccine. It’s me. I’m immune.”

Immunity.

You tried to imagine it. What immunity would mean for the world. Immunity would change everything. People would be saved, hell maybe even some of the infected could get turned back. Immunity meant no more living in fear. Immunity meant no more QZ’s, no more FDRA, no more infected vs. survivors. 

If immunity could be replicated. 

Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. 

Your eyes widened in understanding as you took in the sight of the most valuable person in the world: a scared, sixteen year old girl with worn-down sneakers, cowering in the moldy, rotted-out remains of a South Boston house. 

Now you understood. You’d seen Marlene move expensive cargo before, but nothing could even come close to Ellie’s value. She was everything. The answer, maybe the only person in the entire world who had the key to unraveling this puzzle. People would kill for that. People had died for that. 

You swallowed, the gravity of your situation beginning to press down on you. 

“So. Where am I taking you?”

Ellie shook her head, balling herself up tighter. 

“I don’t know. I was supposed to rendezvous with Marlene. She knew where I was headed next. No one tells me anything.” 

You didn’t know much about Marlene’s larger-scale Firefly operations, but you knew one thing: if Marlene was dead, the answer to where Ellie was headed had died with her. Damian might have known - maybe - although you doubted it. Marlene was nothing if not tight-lipped. 

“Well. We better hope that Marlene survived, then.” 

The girl shrugged. 

“If she survived - which is a big if - she’ll head back to the QZ. I can get us there… I think. If we can get back, I can find her.” 

You knew most of Marlene’s haunts in the QZ. Not all of them, but there was enough of the Firefly network for you to get a message to her. 

Sensing a decision had been made, Ellie rose from her seat, zipping up her backpack and sliding her arms through the straps. The bag was heavy, weighted down with what you assumed were her traveling supplies. It hung low and saggy off her lower back, the straps pulling away from her shoulder blades like suspenders. 

“Here kid, help me up.” You reached out an arm. Ellie obliged, tucking under your armpit and heaving as you rose. The pain was excruciating, white dots peppering your vision, but you managed to brace yourself against the back of the door enough to stay upright. 

You tried to keep your breathing shallow so as not to move your ribs. After a few ragged gasps, you nodded at Ellie. 

“The QZ is almost directly due west of here. We move quietly, take our time, but we don’t stop. If anything happens, keep following the sunset until you reach the QZ wall.” 

Fear pulsed in Ellie’s dark eyes again, but she nodded in understanding. 

“Alright, kiddo. Let’s get going.” 

Trying to move your upper body as little as possible, you shuffled back from the door as she opened it a few inches, scanning the street for any infected. After a moment of surveying, she nodded, pushing the door the rest of the way open. You followed her out into the late afternoon light, praying and hoping that your luck from the night before had a little juice left in it…

read part 6 here **let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters! ty to everyone showing this series so much love! <;33

[babiestbubbles]

I found this in my drafts this morning so here you go, let me know if you want me to finish it!

Softness in the Strangest of Places

Mikey woke up feeling small, really small. So small he didn’t think he could make it off the bed if he tried to stand up. So, he stayed in bed for a while, attempting to will himself big enough to at least brush his teeth. To his credit, he managed to make it to the bathroom, brush his teeth, and make it all the way back to his room before he collapsed back on his bed.

Last night was… rough to say the least. 

He’d been reckless, he knew he had been, but it was a spur of the moment type of thing. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, worst case scenario he’d end up with a couple extra scrapes or scratches. 

Except that in jumping headfirst into a fight he’d unintentionally dragged his brothers into danger too. It was never his intention, he swears. He’d rather deal with a thousand punches than see any of them receive a single one. But intentions aside, he endangered them, if it wasn’t for Raph, Donnie would’ve ended up with a concussion from falling off a roof, and Leo narrowly avoided fracturing his wrist from all of the impact it received from fist fighting. He wasn’t trained for long bouts of it, having to rely on his foundational training from childhood since he now trains consistently with his swords.

None of them were prepared for a fight, weapons abandoned at home in favor of a casual visit to topside. Mikey knew that, and he’d still started a fight. 

He walked home head hung in shame, taking deep heavy breaths as guilt and remorse clawed at his chest from the inside out, caged only by his ribs and fear of breaking down in front of his brothers.

Things got worse when they got home. He had to work so hard to keep up a good poker face while being lectured by Splinter, painfully aware that he’d just get in more trouble for crying. 

His dad’s words clung to his brain, branching out into harsher remarks. “You were irresponsible and childish. This behavior will not be tolerated anymore Michelangelo. ” slowly morphed into, “You are useless and pathetic. This was your last chance and you still managed to slip up.” Distress, fear, and sadness clouding his better judgment.

By the time that it was over, he’d lost track of anything other than his own misery and the burning sting of his father’s words. He walked shakily out of the living room, fighting every urge in his body to sprint to the safety of his bedroom.

The second the door shut and he was safe in his room, he fell into littlespace, hard. He was still a bit big, somewhere between 3 and 5, but lines get blurry when you’re on the verge of tears. Luckily he was still big enough that he had the sense to secure his room. He shuffled to the door, locking it, and pretending that the lock would magically make his room soundproof. 

He sprinted back to the softness of his blankets, jumping onto his bed, but the minute his body touched the mattress, the tears that had been pooling since he walked in, finally began to fall. He sobbed into his pillow, clutching his stuffed bunny close and letting it all out. 

His mind continued to swirl with thoughts, the words from earlier still fresh and metaphorical wounds they caused still aching.

How could he be so terrible? They probably never wanted to see him again. His brothers probably hated him, the only reason Splinter hasn’t gotten rid of him is because he’s spent 13 years training Mikey and it would be a waste. That was it. Mhm, Splinter didn’t love him at all actually. No one did. All he ever does is mess things up and cause accidents and be unhelpful. Mhm. Yeah. 

The poor turtle was so caught up in his feelings, and headspace, that all logic had gone out the window and he fully believed that his family no longer loved him because he’d made a mistake and gotten a lecture from his dad along with some glares from his brothers.

Mikey cried and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore, and not even ten minutes later, he was asleep. Entirely exhausted from the emotional and physical stress he’d just gone through.

And now he’d woken up cemented even deeper in littlespace, and he had no idea what to do. A part of him still believes that everyone is mad at him, that they don’t want to see him more than they have to, so he stays put. Deciding that it’s not worth the energy. He lays back down, snuggling his bunny and hoping that he could spend the day in his safe space, unbothered and a little bit sad.

Tragically, he has no such luck and less than thirty minutes later, Donnie comes looking for him. “Mikey?” he calls, his voice a bit sing-songy as he tries the door, pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked. Mikey knew he had forgotten something when he crawled back to bed after brushing his teeth.

Mikey can only look upwards and stare wide eyed at his older brother. Tears already beginning to form as he remembers everything that’s happened and emotions start creeping their way back. 

“Angelo?” Donnie asks, concern lacing his voice when his brother makes no move to greet him

Gentle distress floods his veins as Mikey makes an attempt to break his accidental vow of silence but finds the words stuck in his throat, leaving him sitting on his bed with his mouth hanging open as he tries a second, then third, time to speak. 

Through his mild panic the box turtle vaguely registers Donnie asking him what’s wrong and is suddenly struck with a genius idea. 

He sits upright, making sure he’s facing his brother and has his full attention, as he begins carefully lifting up his arms. He holds them in the air at chest level for a second before bringing his two palms closer together and hunching himself inward, effectively signing “Little” or “Small” in ASL.

It takes Donnie’s mind a moment to realize what’s happening, but his face softens as understanding washes over him. 

He slips into his role of caregiver almost immediately, his entire demeanor changing in seconds, and finds himself snuggling closer to his little brother, as he begins asking questions.

The first one is simple, “So I’m guessing you can’t talk, huh?” 

A nod is all it takes to get his brain going, running through all the various forms of nonverbal communication he knows.

He’s aware that Mikey only knows the bare minimum when it comes to ASL, so that’s off the table, but it reminds him that sometimes the simplest solution is also the best. “Can you type?” he asks softly, taking care to add a soft and suggesting tone to his voice so that Mikey doesn’t feel bad if he can’t. When his brother signs back “Don’t know” he pulls out his phone, handing it to the smaller. 

‘kinda can’ is all he manages but it’s more than enough for Donnie, whose face lights up in encouragement.

“There you go!” he happily remarks, before continuing his impromptu questionnaire. “Do you know why you can’t talk?” 

‘M rely tiny, jusa babie’  (Donnie Translation: I’m really tiny, just a baby)

Donnie can’t fight the urge to coo at his brother, “Aww, I’ve got a tiny little guy on my hands, huh?” he says in an overly sweet voice that somehow makes Mikey feel even smaller than before. 

Amidst his contemplation of the next question to ask, it clicks for Donnie that his brother is almost never this small. Hence the need for so many questions. The last time he was this small he’d gotten into a really bad argument with Splinter and- 

oh

Donnie can’t help the way face falls for a moment as he realizes why his brother has regressed so young. 

The question flies out of his mouth before he can even think about it

"Are you this tiny because of what happened last night?"

and Donnie has never been filled with such immediate regret as he watches his brother's face crumple.

Mikey's suddenly reminded of why Donnie was in here in the first place as the tears find their way to his eyes for the third time. Once they start falling, they can't seem to stop, streaming down his face chased only by hiccuping sobs.

Donnie’s on in him in an instant, wrapping him in a tight hug as he begins to soothe. 

"No, hey. Hey, it's alright. Donnie’s got you. I know it last night was a lot, I'm here I've got you. No one's upset with you, I promise. We know it was a mistake, I promise we don't hate you."

He states, knowing Mikey well enough to know exactly what was going on in his head right now.

Big or little, Mikey’s always scared that his mistakes are the end of the world, and it breaks Donnie's heart every single time.

He continues to hold his brother, a stream of soft “It's okay.”, “You're okay.”, and “I'm here”s  continuing to pour from his mouth. 

He tries rubbing small circles on the younger's shell but stops abruptly when he feels him pull away.

As the minutes pass, Donnie hears the harsh sobs fade to gentle sniffles as Mikey calms down a bit, nuzzling Donnies chest a bit as he tries to snuggle impossibly closer to his older brother.

It takes a few more minutes of sniffles for Donnie to try rubbing Mikey’s back again, but this time he leans into the touch, exhausted and desperate for reassurance. “There we go” he sighs as he feels Mikey melt into his arms, “Deep breaths, I’ve got you. Donnie’s got you.” 

Donnie’s never been a big fan of touch, but his little, scratch that baby brother, was always an exception. 

As Mikey leans back to look up at him, Donnie breaks out in a soft smile, “Hi sweetheart. Are you feeling any better? I’m so sorry I upset you like that, I promise I didn’t mean to. Do you think you can forgive me?” The question is asked in earnest, but Donnie knows the baby in his arms is far too tired and vulnerable to say anything but “Yes”, so he mentally files a reminder to apologize to his brother again when he’s bigger.

The small boy just nods shyly, looking back down with a droopy, almost shameful, look. Donnie recognizes it almost immediately. “Hey, hey, None of that! I’m not upset with you for crying. I could never be upset with you for expressing your emotions, especially when regressed. It’s fine, I promise. You’re such a good boy Mikey. My sweet baby brother.”

Mikey’s head continues to dip, though this time with a bashful smile rather than a shameful frown, and Donnie nearly beams at the sight. 

“Alright! With all that crying, I think it’s time we get you a drink and something to eat. What do you say bud?” Mikey nods cautiously in response, still on edge from all the crying, and just generally sensitive because of how heavily regressed he is. “Can you walk?” he asks tentatively, caregiver mode being increased tenfold now that he knows just how baby his brother was. 

He sighs at the sorrowful head shake he gets, but is quick to clarify he’s not upset at Mikey for being unable to walk, but simply hadn’t thought ahead about what to do in the event he wasn’t able to. 

Donnie goes back to rubbing soft circles on Mikey's back as he messages Raph and Leo a quick, “Code Baby, meet me in Mikey’s room.”

Of course, they’re there in an instant; Leo instinctively running up to the bed and reaching for Mikey’s hand to drag him up and out of the room before Donnie gives them a panicked “Hold on!” 

With a solemn look, he attempts to explain things as rapidly as possible…without upsetting Mikey. Which proves to be more than a bit of a challenge.

“Remember what happened last night with Mikey, the lecture he got from Splinter and-” he sneaks a quick look at Mikey, relieved to find him too busy playing with his newfound toy [Read: Leo’s hand] to pay attention to the discussion at hand, “the way he looked like he was holding back tears for most of it?” The second half is almost a whisper, Donnie treading carefully after earlier events. 

Raph and Leo’s faces immediately drop, excitement, about Mikey being little, shifting to worry for their youngest brother. Donnie quickly goes on, wanting to avoid putting his brothers through unnecessary anxiety. “Apparently some time between when he ran to his room last night and now, he regressed. And he regressed hard. He seems to be stuck in babyspace, and can neither talk nor walk ”

Both of their faces soften in understanding as everything, even their posture and stances, shift into caregiver mode alongside Donnie. They’d entered the room expecting a roughhouse filled playdate with an 8 year old Mikey, but now they were more than happy to dote upon their baby bound brother.

There’s also an unspoken twinge of pity, even sadness, lurking in the eyes of all three, that no one bothers to acknowledge. However Donnie decides to err on the side of caution and slips in an added, “I’m not sure if it’s what caused him to regress so hard or if it’s because he’s so tiny, but he’s super sensitive right now guys, so we’ve got to be extra careful how we handle him.” Raph quirks an eyebrow and Leo opens his mouth to retort before Donnie warns, “I sighed when he told me he couldn't walk and had to spend the next 5 minutes convincing him I wasn’t upset with him because of it.” which quickly shuts down any suspicion. 

The attention shifts back to Mikey as he squirms in Donnie’s lap, trying to reach Donnie’s phone but clearly unable. When it’s handed to him, he’s quick to type out a barely decipherable message about breakfast that kicks everyone into gear. 

Raph scoops him up, carrying his bridal style to the kitchen, and though he’s been held like this a thousand times, it still manages to make Mikey feel impossibly smaller. He babbles happily on the trip to the kitchen, clearly excited to be in his big brother’s arms and absolutely glowing under all of the attention. Donnie’s leading the way with smooth determined strides as he uses his gauntlet to run through an index of all the food in their household and organizing it into “Baby Friendly”, “Potentially Baby Friendly”, and “Are you trying to Kill the Baby?”

Leo trails quite a ways behind the other two, having run back to grab a pacifier and teether for Mikey, as well as his favorite Frog Stuffie. Just in case.

It only takes a few minutes for him to catch up with the others in the kitchen, where Donnie is already running around playing scavenger hunt with different ingredients. Meanwhile, Raph is attempting, to no avail, to pry Mikey off of him and set the boy onto a chair, a bowl of cubed watermelon sitting on the counter beside them. As much as he’d love to spectate Donnie’s goose chase for baby food, Leo figures Raph could use the help, so he makes his way over. 

“Mikey! Hey buddy,”  Leo coos.