#he says in so many words that's how he imagines fighting goons on the street

[beefgnawpolis]

I have known Ichiban for like five minutes and I love him, the fuckin nerd

[holylulusworld]

Deafening Silence

Summary: Steve and you are falling apart. Can you save your marriage?

Pairing: Nomad!Steve x fem!Reader

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter (mentioned), Tony Stark

Warnings: angst, language, unrequited love?, arguments, you and Steve go through a rough patch in your relationship, regrets, a hint of fluff, pissed reader, sadness

A/N: Not Endgame compliant. No one died, everyone is still alive and kicking.

Divider by @firefly-graphics​

Another cold night awaits you. Once upon a time you and Steve were undefeatable and, to be honest, sickening in love. Now you lie on the edge of the bed, try to not get too close to your husband as he always finds an excuse to not hold you in his arms any longer.

Tears well up to your eyes hearing him snore lightly next to you. Wondering if he’s losing sleep lately too but the way he peacefully sleeps tells you, he’s not letting his mind run wild.

“No sleep for me again, I guess,” silently leaving the bed you grasp one of his shirts to press it to your nose. It’s the only time you can catch his scent, so you take what you get. “Sleep well, Stevie. You don’t seem to have problems falling asleep.”

As so often lately, you walk out of the bedroom to grab a snack or watch nonsense on TV to take your mind of the problems right in front of you. Somewhere on the line you and Steve lost your love, or you lost Steve. You haven’t found out yet.

All you know is that the deafening silence between you and your husband is breaking you every day more.

“Can’t find sleep?” Bucky asks, watching you sit on one of the chairs in the kitchen. Steve invited his friend to sleep a few weeks at your guestroom as his apartment got blown up by one of New Hydra’s goons.

“I just-“ you bite your tongue, shaking your head every so lightly. You like Bucky, he’s your friend, but you can’t talk about Steve with him. He’s your husband’s best friend and would side with Steve over anyone. “Sometimes I got problems to fall asleep, is all,” you lie poorly.

“What about Steve?” searching your face Bucky nods silently. He can see your red-rimmed eyes and hear your tiny sighs whenever Steve ignores your present. “Maybe you want hot cocoa? I can make you some, doll.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just sit here for a while, ya know,” playing with your wedding band you don’t meet Bucky’s gaze, fearing he’ll see through your lie. “I just got a lot of things going on right now. We are back, work with Tony and the others again. Maybe we just need time to adapt.”

“If I can help, tell me so,” offering a cracked smile you nod, knowing you can’t take Bucky up to his offer. “You’re my friend too. How about we watch a movie and talk a bit?”

“I appreciate your offer, but I’m not in the mood to talk, Bucky,” sadly you are too tired and emotionally exhausted to even talk about the thing weighing heavy on your heart.

“Y/N,” walking toward Bucky places one hand onto your shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “Just talk to him, doll. Steve loves you and-“ you huff. It’s the first reaction he gets from you making clear you are hurt. 

“I don’t want to talk about it, him,” voice cracking you watch Bucky rummage in your kitchen to prepare cocoa for you. 

“You went through a lot together over the last years,” Bucky begins, eyes drifting toward you slumped in your chair. “Ultron, the accords, me,” you laugh when Bucky gives you a wink. “I know, I’m the most charming event rocking the boat but then there was the war between the Avengers, Thanos, the blip, and after that-”

“Steve told me he thought about going back to Peggy for a split-second, that life back then was easier and more-“ you try to find the right words but fail. “All I got was that he’s still a man out of time and that he’s sorry for considering going back.”

“Well, shit-“ Bucky grumbles. “I didn’t know, I swear. Here I stand, believing I know everything about my friend,” you shrug, watching Bucky prepare two mugs. “Did he at least apologize?”

“He did, more than once and I forgave, but never forgot,” sniffing you look at Bucky. “Since then, he started to distance himself from me. I feel like he regrets coming back to me, Bucky.” gasping you realize you just revealed your thoughts.

“Doll...”

“Please don’t tell him. I know Steve is a good man, but sometimes I think it would be easier for me if he just does what he has on his mind for months – file for divorce.”

“Anything from Steve?” watching Bucky check his phone you sigh deeply. Steve disappeared this morning, out of the blue. “Why didn’t he tell us about his mission? He always told me about his missions, confidential or not.”

“I got nothing either, doll,” grumbling Bucky sit on the couch, scrolling through his contacts. “Shall I call Tony or Natasha? Maybe they can fill us in why Stevie just grabbed a bag and left without telling us about his mission.”

“No,” biting your lower lip you wreck your brain. Maybe Steve did tell you about his mission? Lately, you are too lost in thoughts and self-doubts and barely listen if Steve finally talks to you. “I have work to do at the new tower. I will ask Tony if he can tell me about Steve’s whereabouts.”

“Okay,” wondering again Bucky looks at his phone, shaking his head at Steve’s message from last night. 

“Steve is not on a mission?” gaping at Tony you try to hide you can hear your heart pounding in your ears. “I thought he went on a mission last night. Did I confuse the date?”

“There is no mission for Capsicle,” Tony snickers. “According to my information, he took a week off. Said something about sorting things out. Honestly, I didn’t listen.”

“O-okay,” you swallow thickly, force a smile on your lips hurting your face. “I got it wrong then. I finished my reports. You should check on the sidenotes about the bank accounts. Maybe E.D.I.T.H. can check on the accounts later.”

“Y/N, is everything alright? You look a little shaken up or something,” Tony watches you fiddle with your phone, knowing something must be off with you and your husband. “Do you need my help? You know that you can tell me anything.”

“It’s nothing, really,” the lie rolls easily off your tongue, you are used to lying to yourself for months so why not lying to your friends too. “I just need some time off, Tony.”

Aimlessly walking the streets of New York, you doubt your husband once again.

Tony said he’s not on a mission. All of your friends don’t know where he could be and Bucky, well he said Steve didn’t tell him anything.

“Where are you Steve?” looking at your phone you sigh deeply. “Fine, we will do it the hard way. E.D.I.T.H., please use the tracking app we put on Steve’s phone. I need to find Captain America. It’s an emergency.”

“Tracing Captain Rogers’ phone,” E.D.I.T.H. replies. “Captain Rogers’ phone is not far away. He’s at a café, P.J. Clarke’s on 55th and 3rd, agent Rogers. Can I help you with anything else?”

“No, thank you,” walking faster you grip your phone tightly. Why is Steve at a café at that time of the day? He never disappeared only to take a day off and sip coffee.

If a heart can shatter, yours does in the very moment you arrive at the café only to see Steve sit at a table with Sharon Carter.

You haven’t seen her for years, but you must admit, she looks great as always.

“Stevie,” you whisper, hands clutched tightly to your chest when Sharon places her hand onto Steve’s on the table and he doesn’t move his hand away. He smiles, even chuckles at something the woman says. “A Carter again, how pathetic. Fuck that. Fuck fighting for our love if you refuse to even try.”

Unbeknownst you saw him with Sharon your husband tries to ask his friend for advice. Missing your pained expression and the tears run down your face when you storm off.

“Doll! Fuck I was worried about you. Tony called, asked if you are okay. He said Steve is not on a mission and that he took a week off,” Bucky watches you storm into your and Steve’s apartment. “Y/N, something wrong?”

“Everything is wrong, Bucky. But from now on, I’ll take my life back in my hands,” you quip. “I would appreciate it if you could get me my ‘I hate early mornings mug’, I want to take it with me,” walking toward your bedroom you ignore Bucky follows you.

“What do you mean by taking it with you?” while you get two suitcases out, Bucky tries to make you talk to him. “Do you want to go on a mission? Why so many suitcases?”

“Oh, Stevie was busy to take a week off while I was worried about him,” you quip, opening your drawer to grab random clothes, tossing Steve’s onto the floor. “Imagine my surprise when I traced his phone only to find him with another Carter.”

“Sharon?” humming you neatly fold your clothes to place them into the first suitcase. “Did he-?”

“No, but I guess Steve is just not man enough to file for divorce to be with her,” glaring at Bucky you make your way back toward the wardrobe to grab more clothes. “While I tried to save our marriage, Steve sits in a café and allowed that woman touch his hand. He smiled at her Bucky. I didn’t get a smile from him for months.”

“Doll, you can’t just leave without talking to him,” Bucky tries to stop you, but you made up your mind. Before you met Steve, you were wild, feisty, and stubborn but he tamed you and your free spirit. “Wait, let me call him.”

“I tried to call him this morning and after I saw him with that woman,” slamming the first suitcase shut you glare at Bucky. “He didn’t answer. It was his last chance to explain things to me, Bucky. Now I’m done waiting for Steve to tell me it is over, we are over.”

“What’s that?” looking at a neatly folded letter on your bed Steve feels his chest tightening. Your wedding band lies abandoned on the letter, but you are nowhere to be found.

“She saw you with Sharon yesterday. I guess taking off a week to meet up with an old flame and ignoring your wife called you about ten times wasn’t the smartest plan,” Bucky shrugs. “I called you too.”

“I need time to figure things out,” Steve sits on the bed, pressing the wedding band in his hand to his chest. “We went through a rough patch and I didn’t know how to fix things between Y/N and me.”

“Not talking to her and getting all cozy with Sharon was a great idea,” gritting the words out Bucky watches his friend unfold the letter with shaking fingers. “Steve.”

“I-I just didn’t know if Y/N still wants me after I admitted that I was tempted to go back to Peggy. She was distant for a few weeks and then, she almost clang to me. As if Y/N tried to fake she forgave me,” reading the letter Steve sniffles silently. “Oh, god she wants to file for divorce.”

“What?” grasping for the letter Bucky reads the last lines you wrote.

‘As you aren’t man enough to tell me that you don’t love me anymore, I will tell you it’s over. You don’t have to be the bad guy, Captain. The papers will reach you soon. Have a great life with Sharon…’

“Do you know where she went, Bucky?” jumping up Steve looks for his keys, already grasping for his phone to call you back. “Buck!”

“She came here, packed two suitcases, and left. I tried to stop her, but she didn’t listen, Steve. I don’t think Y/N will call you back.”

“Then I’ll have to find her, no matter what…”

“A whole month!” Steve waltzes into your apartment, panting heavily. His hair longer again, a thick beard framing his face he wraps you in a hug. “I was so worried, doll. How could you just leave without a trace?”

“Didn’t think you would miss me, Steven,” using his full name on purpose, you smirk as Steve flinches. “I believed Sharon would soothe the pain and fill the tiny gap I left in your life.”

“Y/N,” mumbling your name Steve pecks your hair while his hands run up and down your back. “I swear, I’m not with Sharon and I don’t want her, doll. When you saw me with her, I gave her something Peggy left for me. It was the first step to give up my past.”

“You held hands, and you smiled at her, Steven. Don’t lie to me,” you push against his chest, try anything to break out of his embrace. “I’m not stupid nor blind.”

“She grasped for my hand as I gave her the medallion Peggy left me. I smiled as she thanked me, and we remembered the last days with Peggy. Y/N, please believe me there is nothing between me and Sharon,” Steve desperately tries to not let you slip out of his embrace, but you fight him with all your strength.

“That’s the reason you take a week off and instead of having dinner with me, you meet up with that woman. Your former girlfriend,” you growl, pushing against Steve’s chest. “I tried to fix us, and you just ran off.”

“I wanted to clear my mind,” Steve mumbles. “I was afraid you are still mad at me for admitting that I thought about going back in time for Peggy for a second. I’m bad at admitting my feelings. I was afraid to lose you and handled it the wrong way.”

“Pushing me away to keep me was a great plan,” you give up fighting Steve’s strength, hating he’s so much stronger than you are once again. “You hurt me and now you come here and want me to do what?”

“Please come home, doll,” pecking your forehead Steve mumbles apologies against your skin. “Your husband is an idiot when it comes to feelings. I love you, love you so much. We need to work on our marriage but please don’t give up on us.”

“Like you did months ago?” cursing under your breath you glare at Steve when he tries to kiss you. “Fixing things between us won’t be that easy, Steve. You hurt me with your behavior. If you want me to come back, you’ll have to do more than coming here and looking like the man I’ve missed.”

“I’ve missed you too, doll,” pecking your lips Steve slides his fingers through your hair. “Please come home and I’ll do anything you want me to do. Tell me how to fix us.”

“Maybe Bucky can give you advice,” you smirk, breaking out of Steve’s embrace to walk into your living room. “He’s a man who can talk with a woman.”

“When did Bucky talk to you? Doll?” while you check on your phone Steve starts to pace your living room. “Did he touch my girl?”

“Why would your best friend touch me, Stevie?” you coo. “I mean, Sharon only touched your hand, right. There is no reason for me to be mad. What if Bucky did the same or Tony? Maybe Sam hugged me a bit longer than necessary.”

“I will kill them,” Steve balls his hands into fists, stares daggers into the picture of you and the team. “Tell me who dared to touch my wife,” nostrils flaring, chest heaving up and down Steve points at the picture. 

“See,” you walk toward your husband, placing your hand onto his heart before you meet his gaze. “That’s how I felt when you let that woman touch you. You gave her my smile while you ignored me.”

“I didn’t ignore you; it was just-“ sighing Steve hangs his head low. “I get it, doll and I’m sorry. If you give me a chance to prove that I can be the man you deserve, I’ll try to do so every day from now on…”

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[zedecksiew]

Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

+

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

+

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

+

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

+

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

+

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

+

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

+

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

+

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

+

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

+

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

+

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

+

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

+++

( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

[thevalleyisjolly]

Thinking about alternate character classes lately, and I’m always thinking about A Crown of Candy at any given point in time, so without further ado, for your consideration:

Wizard!Theo, except that he’s the only wizard ever with a positive Strength modifier because that would be hilarious.  Wizard!Theo, who learned more from Lazuli than anyone knew, whose magic isn’t loud or flashy but spell notes hidden in a false prayer book, a soft glow on the tips of his paws and a muttered breath as one of the princesses falls from the top of the staircase again only to land on their feet, as softly as a feather.  In this world, he’s officially the royal tutor, because there are things that Caramelinda doesn’t know, but she does know what Lazuli taught him and she knows where his loyalties lie and she knows that one day, one day the spark she can see in Ruby’s eyes will need a teacher but will more importantly need a protector.  And to the princesses, to the rest of the court, to the world, he’s a slightly gullible, rather awkward tutor who stands on ceremony far too much, and they laugh at him and his silly little sprinkle pet and isn’t he a bit of a large goon?  Even Amethar forgets, every now and then, what he’s seen Theo do on a battlefield, to a battlefield, because as awkward as his social skills may be, Theo is committed to the part and he plays it well.  In any lifetime, in any world, Theo loves his people and he’ll do what he has to for them.

Bonus subclass: School of Abjuration obviously, this squishy gummy bear has one mission, and that’s to protect people.

Rogue!Lapin, because obviously.  Rogue!Lapin, who never summoned the Sugar Plum Fairy, who smiled and charmed and lied his way from the street to the service of a minor but respectable lord, and from there up and up the social strata until he is chamberlain to House Jawbreaker.  Duke Jawbreaker doesn’t bother much with him, but Spearia Mentha takes one look at Lapin, standing too straight and tall, the accent of the common mountain folk still seeping out at his edges, his eyes sharp and clever even when bowing and murmuring obedience, and she thinks “Hmm.”  And when her sweet baby has to go to Castle Candy as hostage, a safe and willing hostage, but a hostage nonetheless, she writes to dear sister Caramelinda and asks would it be alright if she sent someone from her own household, just to keep an eye on the boy, for her peace of mind as a mother?  Liam arrives at Castle Candy, sans pig, plus one very stuffy guardian, and Lapin Cadbury looks up at the towering spires and parapets of the castle, and a small, rare smile flashes across his face for just a second.

Bonus subclass: Mastermind is really the only way to go, isn’t it?

Sorcerer!Amethar, but listen, alright, my kingdom for Sorceror!Amethar who grows up with magic as rage flowing through his veins, whose wrath manifests not as bursts of concentrated battle fury, but in wild surges of strange and powerful magic.  There is magic in the blood and bones of House Rocks, an old and willful magic.  His sisters protected him, as much as they could, but still, there are whispers, more so once the young prince becomes the grieving king with the eyes of the world on him.  People mutter about the witch king of Candia, they say that he’s levelled armies with his sorcery, that he’s bewitched the Emperor Gustavo into friendship, that he’s dangerous and brings only death and destruction.  And it hurts, it does, not because he cares what other people think, but because they aren’t all wrong.  Look at him, the Unfallen, alive when so many have died.  It hurts that he has so much power singing in his blood, and he’s the one who’s powerless, who can’t be the protector, who must be the protected.  Why him?  Why not strong Rococoa, or brilliant Lazuli, or kind Citrina, or cunning Sapphria?  Why is he alive and not them, when he is the wildcard, the dangerous one, the last person who should be king?

Bonus subclass: I mean, it’s gotta be Wild Magic, no doubt about it.

Druid!Cumulous is another story that writes itself.  Druid!Cumulous still swears the same vows of dedication and protection to Candia’s magic, Candia’s secrets, and so Candia itself rises to acknowledge that.  It isn’t the red glow of the Hungry One that surrounds him when he fights, but the bright pink of the frosting sprites, the warm chocolate of the fudge brownies, the brilliant lemon-yellow of the river dragon’s scales, the slightest tint of sugar plum purple.  All spirits are fickle and unpredictable and dangerous, but they can recognize faith and they can appreciate service and they can reward what is freely given.  The Sugar Plum Fairy considers this one for a while.  She has no little pet bunny in this world, no servant to demand wishes from.  But fairies are jealous, too jealous.  Hearts and minds and souls, of course they should be hers, wholly hers, why wouldn’t they be, and for all the vastness of her realm, all her secrets and all her magic, there is something more to Candia than what is just in her.  So she lets this one be, and lays her trap for another prize, a bigger prize…

Bonus subclass: You could honestly make a good argument for Circle of the Shepherd or Circle of the Land, although Circle of the Moon is pretty great for more combat-focused war guys druids.

Warlock!Saccharina’s life is still a tragedy, because magic was only the most obvious thing that the nuns tried to beat out of her.  Warlock!Saccharina is not born with lightning in her fingers and a storm in her heart, but she is born with a strength and a will that the nuns despise.  In this world, Saccharina looks in the window, in the mirror, and she still sees a blue woman, a kind woman with a kind face, reaching out to her, comforting her when the nuns mistreat her, telling her wondrous stories and magical secrets.  In this world, the Rocks sisters, held in a false afterlife, stage a jailbreak.  Rococoa raises herself back to the living, cold with vengeance against the man who murdered her.  Citrina hitches up her skirts and hikes off to Vegetania, prepared to visit as many dreams and instigate as many supernatural miracles as she needs in order to reform the Church.  Sapphria laughs and winks and goes off to do something mysterious and terribly complex and probably very clever.  And Lazuli?  Lazuli goes to find her eldest niece, and to help her do something about the frankly terrible situation she’s in.  She is no spirit of the dead that a small exorcism by a provincial abbess can banish, but something new, something more.  And when Saccharina finally drowns the monastery, a grim smile on her face, it is with eyes and fingers that glow a brilliant, sharp blue.

Bonus subclass: Either Great Old One or Celestial, depending on how Lazuli fights her way back to the waking world.  Reaching out to the mortal world from the afterlife?  Probably Celestial.  Something strange and mysterious that’s never happened before in all of creation, and isn’t entirely comprehensible even to her?  Great Old One.

Barbarian!Jet grows up with so much rage inside her, but a rage for others, a fire for others.  It’s a rage that goes bone-deep, born of so much love and fear, because Jet Rocks may be sheltered and immature and naive, but one thing she does know, one of the earliest things she knows, is that the world is dangerous for people like Ruby, people like Pops, the world does not like people like Ruby and Pops, and as young as she is, she’s already heard how people whisper and seen how they point at Pops when his back is turned.  And if they found out about Ruby-  It’s a different rage that drives Barbarian!Jet, not a mindless battle frenzy, but love sharpened to the keenest focus, to protect, to guard.  In this world, and in every world, Jet Rocks loves her sister above all else, and will do anything to make sure she is safe.  Her parents worry, of course.  Caramelinda looks into her daughter’s eyes, sees hard steel and the heart of sacrifice, and she weeps when she looks into the mirror and sees the same, this is not the life she wanted for her.  Amethar understands.  He knows.  He knew the minute his daughters were placed into his arms for the first time, and the instinct to protect something so precious, precious beyond measure.  He just didn’t want his daughter to understand as well, not so soon, not so young.

Bonus subclass: Path of the Ancestral Guardian, I think, because Jet’s rage is rooted in and for her family.  Also, imagine the confusion and the angst the first time Jet summons past ancestors to fight with her in battle, and none of them include her aunts because they’re too busy raising hell elsewhere.

Bard!Ruby tumbles out of the cradle with a cheerful tongue and a clever mind, and Amethar has to stop himself from calling after Sapphria, because Ruby is so much like her, so nimble on her feet, so clever with her words.  But it’s Caramelinda that sees it first, how Ruby’s leaps and cartwheels hang just a little too long in the air, how Jet brightens and sharpens too fast after just a word from her.  And it’s Theo, of course it’s Theo, who catches Ruby and Jet trying to rob the cookie jar with a spectral, definitely magic, definitely arcane hand floating in the air, where did she even learn that, he doesn’t have that spell, this is bad, this is very, very bad.  Ruby’s more careful after that, after Mom’s lecture about how dangerous it is, and Pops just standing there, looking stern, nodding along to everything that Mom’s saying, not saying a word to the contrary.  Her magic is just for Jet now, her and Jet and nobody else, and she does a very good job of pretending she doesn’t know anything else, pretending like she doesn’t feel the thrum inside of her, pretending like something isn’t singing in her blood with every leap and twirl and handstand.  

Bonus subclass: College of Valour?  It gets that combat flavouring without being as specific as College of Swords, but I’m open to suggestions.

Warlock!Liam, and he is so young, so lonely, roaming the forests around Castle Manylicks, when he finds her or maybe she finds him.  Just a sweet little fairy who knows where to find the best seeds, the ones that have a little bit of magic in them, and here’s a lonely little boy who’s so interested in what she can show him!  And then of course, this isn’t just any lonely little boy, this is the son of Duke Jawbreaker, someone royal, someone important.  I’ll be your friend, she says, coy and sweet, a nice friend, not like your brothers.  I know lots of things, secret things, magic things, that I can show you.  Come with me, do you want to see something really neat?  Her magic is almost golden, almost Bulbian, with the slightest whiff of something rich and sticky and sweet and purple, and Liam’s only glad that he has a friend now, someone who’s nice to him, who’s interested in the same things, who remembers his name and doesn’t pick on him because he likes seeds more than swords.  Lonely children don’t need to be threatened or coerced, lonely children don’t need deals with the devil.  Lonely children just need a kind voice and warm approval and someone to show them affection, and the Sugar Plum Fairy knows just how to work with that.

Bonus subclass: Gonna diverge from Lapin here and go with Archfey as the warlock/patron relationship, because Liam isn’t in a position where he has to pretend that his powers come from the Bulb, so the SPF can lean into her feyness more.

[marshmallowprotection]

Calluna

Pairing: Saeran Choi/Reader

Fairytale AU.

Description:

The Prince has been bound to the castle walls, and he’s never been able to leave from it. The only place that he has to escape to are the books that he reads and the garden that he’s allowed to venture into every evening. But, what happens when he encounters someone that has eyes that know a world unlike his own?

Inspired by a drawing by @sensetenou​

Chapter Index

Chapter One: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Two: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Three: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Four: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Five: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Six: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Seven: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Eight: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Nine: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Ten: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Eleven: Tumblr | AO3 Chapter Twelve: Here! | AO3

Chapter Twelve

Impatience. 

Meaning irritation with the irrationality of the people that worked for the palace. 

Saeran could say with the utmost certainty that he despised anyone who wouldn’t connect the dots and figure out what it was that he wanted. He was the king, they were supposed to guess his needs and be ready to sate them at a moment’s notice. So much for that. These people were far too complacent and daft.

How dare they not listen to him and know what to do? Honestly, he thought with a scowl as he settled back on the throne, one hand tucked into his chin against the armrest as he spread his legs. It had been only a day and a half since he had awoken from his slumber and yet, it was hardly enough time to let him know what he wanted. 

Ray had let gone complacent and it showed in how nobody respected him. By all means, it was the reason that he was hurt in the first place. The little airhead had trusted a thief and what did that get him in the end? Oh, yeah, it got him a broken heart and the inability to function. 

That was why he had to come out and fix everything. 

As if awoken from a slumber that had been against his will for more than he was comfortable with, all he knew was the magic pouring into his veins made him stand at alert and with frothing rage. All he knew was that he had to destroy every single thing that caused him to wake up in the first place. 

And why was he on the throne? 

Because Ray let himself trust the villain and it burned him. He got too close to the sun and it burned him to a crisp. It had proven that he shouldn’t be in charge anymore, Saeran thought, if he couldn’t be trusted to function and keep himself safe, then Saeran was going to have to take it into his own hands to ensure that never happened again. 

He would start with the problem that had started it all. 

The queen had sent out her men to scour the land for the rest of Red Hood’s gang and he knew that that would likely take a while to fully discern. There was no telling how far their reach went and he’d already started to formulate a plan for what would become of every last one of them. Oh, Ray wanted to save all the people from their chains like a good boy. 

But, so many of those deviants and ruffians were happy to do what they were. The glimmer in their eyes was the true monster, their greed knew no bounds. If someone was willing to go as high as the prince to destroy everything to gain all the money in the world that they could ever dream of, then they were going to face the music for their crimes with no mercy. 

They were asking for it, simple as that. 

This is why he was excited, nearly giddy with sadistic glee at the thought of what he would do to you when he saw you again. The late-night prior had been too fraught with Ray’s devastation for him to fully appreciate the freedom that he now held in his hands and he was going to take his time learning who you were and how to make you repent for your sins. 

The thought of your begging and pleading that was soon to fill the halls of this room made him so enthused that he almost allowed himself to laugh. 

The queen had been right, there was nobody that he could trust in this world except for the person that had always been there for him. No amount of staring at the shell that you had given Ray told him anything about you or the person that you had led him to believe you were. Some thief that had wrapped him around their finger by gaining his pity. 

A wolf in sheep’s clothing, someone who knew how to manipulate others to get what they wanted. It was you that had said that you were inspired by Robin Hood. You delighted in taking from those that had and giving to those that had not, but it seemed like you were the only one that you considered a had not. No surprise, really, given what he knew of Red Hood. 

Stained with Greed and desire, you took everything you wanted from others until it wasn’t enough and you had to move onto the next thing. You had almost done that to Ray. Tricked him and taken him for a fool before you almost parted with the crown that was to be his. It was now in Saeran’s hands and you were going to face his wrath for your choices in life. 

You would regret ever crossing his path in the first place. You would wish that you had turned yourself into the guards instead of letting Ray take you to safety. They would have made your suffering over in a moment and he would surely prolong it to make sure that you knew exactly what your actions meant to everyone here. 

No amount of punishing the goons that they caught in the streets satisfied him enough. It would be nothing until he could take down the boss. That would be you, and you were just waiting for him to give you the end of your suffering in the darkness. Too bad the darkness was protecting you from the true terror. 

“...”

The sound of footsteps broke him from his thoughts.

Just on time, he thought as you were brought into the room and carelessly dropped onto the hard stone without a warning. You grit your teeth to hide the pain but he knew the look in your eyes and that was one that couldn’t hide the pain that you understood to be your fault. If you hadn’t done any of this, then you wouldn’t be pitifully groveling at his feet for your life, now, would you?  

This was his first time seeing you since his anger flared. The first real-time that he was getting a good look at you, some petty criminal, and it was hard to imagine you as the mighty Red Hood when you weren’t even fighting back. Where was the fun if you submitted so quickly? There was nothing in that that would sate his thirst for retribution. 

“You may leave,” he dismissed the guard with the wave of his hand. “I wish to speak to the criminal alone.” 

“As you wish, my liege.” 

You hadn’t lifted your head to meet his gaze, no, you continued to stare at the ground in front of yourself with your hands wrapped tight around your shoulders. 

You were trying to make yourself small to hide the fear in your heart. Good, you should have been scared. Your life was in his hands and this was a power that he relished in. There was so much that he could do that he still wasn’t entirely sure what would please him the most. For now, he wanted to learn what made you tick so that he could break you. 

Break you in the same way that you broke Ray. 

So you knew what it felt like to have your pathetic heart crushed into a thousand pieces. 

Saeran would say that you had a sense of preservation. As you knew better than to look at him or say a word, why would you? You both understood the line of power that existed between the two of you, as you were one that told Ray that you very well understood how much power he held compared to you in this land.

He rose from his seat and circled you, getting a good sense of what you were. “Is this all that the mighty Red Hood has to offer? I have to say, for a crime lord, you don’t fit the bill at all. Groveling around like some pitiful beggar, and as much as I want to see you beg and plead for my mercy… Well, I thought you would put up more of a fight now that you’re secret has been revealed to the kingdom.” 

You didn’t respond. 

He gritted his teeth. Were you patronizing him? He wasn’t Ray. He wasn’t going to let you lead him into a false state of security. Saeran snapped to attention and yanked your face up so that you would have to look at him, and of course, you winced and whined when his fist gripped your cheeks too hard for your liking. 

“All I see is a pitiful thief that got fucking lucky,” he sneered. “And that luck ran out the moment you tried to turn against Ray. Don’t get me wrong, he’s also a pitiful bug but he’s not the one that’s been lying and scheming for weeks, now is he?” 

You blinked. 

Silence. 

Then confused lined your features as two and two started to come together, you couldn’t rationalize where your so-called precious Ray had gone. Now, that tasted all the sweeter to him. If you knew that your actions had brought out his anger and the protector, well, the shame and guilt that he wanted to throw on you… haha… he wanted to see you squirm for it. 

“What…” your voice spoke in a broken whisper, searching his face for someone that you would not find no matter how hard you looked. “What are you saying? You’re… You’re Ray.” 

Saeran only smirked. He tipped his head back and laughed at your face. It hadn’t clicked yet? You hadn’t realized? Did you really think that Ray could do what he was doing? Now, that was an insult that he didn’t appreciate.

“Me? Oh, no, Sparrow. I’m not your precious Ray. I’m somebody much stronger… much better. I suppose some people have called me the better Ray, but I’m not Ray. My name is Saeran.” 

“Saeran…?” 

His name sounded foreign and unsure on your tongue but he loved the way it sounded. It filled him with delight to know that you had started to understand the price of your actions, as just the crown that lay on his head had been the very thing to open up his eyes to the true cruelty of this world. It was as easy as a name rolling off your tongue. 

“I won’t repeat myself,” he continued to say, eyes focused on your own. “So, how does it make you feel to know that you’re the reason that Ray isn’t around anymore? You shattered his little heart into tiny pieces with what you did and you’ll pay for it, don’t get me wrong about that. But, you can’t blame me for wanting to get to know the person that caused me to appear.” 

“I…” you stopped yourself short. 

What were you going to say? 

What was your excuse? 

You had none. 

You had been caught red-handed, multiple witnesses, and people speaking out against you, there was no excuse that you could say that would prove innocence in his eyes. Yet, he wanted to hear what you had to say so that he could laugh in your face at the weak attempt of besting the king. It was the price you’d pay and you knew it. 

The dejected look in your eyes said it all. "You're not going to believe me no matter what I tell you, right?" 

He chuckled, "Maybe you're not entirely stupid, then. You're right, but humor me, what would you tell me to save your skin? I can't remember what you tried to sell Ray the other night. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't enough to make him believe you. How does it feel? Knowing that you broke a man all for a crown and a couple of jewels? Knowing that you damned yourself?”

“That’s not what happened,” you tried, but he shoved you away, and your back collided with the hard ground once more. You covered a wince though it did nothing to hide your terror that was slowly but surely growing. 

“That’s not what happened,” he taunted. 

Saeran scoffed at the pitiful look in your eyes. Even to the end, you were going to lie and pretend that you did nothing wrong, weren’t you? He expected you to put up a fight instead of playing around to be the pitiful sob-story. As if he was going to believe you. You tried to lie right to Ray’s face and he did not doubt that you would continue to act that way.

It made sense to him, how else would someone like you kill the original Red Hood? You played like an innocent child and stole his power for your own. Yet, a part of him thought it didn’t make sense. Someone as weak as you killing somebody for their power? You seemed hardly strong enough to bust out a window, much less a man.

He turned away from you, his eyes resting on the window that showed the world outside the castle walls. He strode over and watched from the high balcony as members of the guard were hard at work trying to piece together lists and plans to hunt down the remaining members of Red Hood’s gang. It was just as he ordered them to do. 

They had already caught some of the former members but there was a long way to go. That man with red hair and golden eyes had promised to turn over anyone that he knew to work for Red Hood, and the queen was hard at work with him, hunting down anyone that was against the crown. He left that work to them, but the punishment was his. 

He got to decide how they ended. 

“Stand up,” he ordered you.

You didn’t listen to his command, so he repeated himself, and his stern voice made you scramble to your feet. You stood behind him, a gasp on your lips as you saw the sight down below. People in chains and shackles trapped in what was once a lovely courtyard filled to the brim with flowers and nature. 

It was nothing more than thorns and bramble now. Your bound hands wouldn’t allow you to cover your whimper. 

He smirked, “Like it? I do. We’re starting to round up all the traitors and liars that have been working for you in the village one by one. I won’t rest until we’ve caught all of them. They’re all just as guilty and greedy as the leader that charged them. So, you know what that means. Once we’ve made an example of you, they’ll be begging for forgiveness that will never be given.” 

“You… you can’t do this, this isn’t right,” you tried, but he silenced you just as quickly as you spoke with his anger rising alongside his blood pressure. He wasn’t looking at you but he feel how you were starting to shake and tremble. “Those… those people… they don’t work for Red Hood. You can’t just punish everyone.”

Saeran snapped to attention. He looked back at you, mint eyes darkened and face covered in a kind of unspeakable rage. He cocked his head, waiting for you to try and say more but when you didn’t dare say more, he gripped your shoulder tight. “Listen, Red Hood, I don’t give a damn if they were working for you directly or not. There are dozens of people out there that let you blindly steal and deceive them knowingly. If they let you exist without question, they’re all guilty.” 

“That’s not—”

“That’s not fair? That’s not right? Who are you to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong? You? The pathetic thief that lies, that cheats, that steals, and that continues to pretend to be something they’re not? You think you have the right to tell me, your king, that I’m in the wrong? No, that’s not how it fucking works,” His voice spoke with bitterness and vitriol. 

He was so loud that it echoed off the stone walls. 

You couldn’t look away from him. This wasn’t the Ray that you had come to know and love so dearly, no, this was a man that felt vindicated by his fury and felt righteous and just in his actions. It wasn’t the man you knew, but, he wasn’t the man you knew. He was someone else and because of that, you had no choice but to listen. 

“And, you know what’s better, [Y/N]? You could only know who works for Red Hood if you were Red Hood,” his voice dropped to a whisper. He laughed when you tried to back away but his grip would not allow you to do so. “So, stop lying to yourself and me. Be honest. Maybe I’ll spare you if you come clean and beg for my forgiveness.” 

Beg. 

You just kept looking at him pathetically. You wouldn’t beg and plead. Why were you fighting this and prolonging it? 

Beg.

“...” 

He should have known that you would continue to do this. 

Beg. 

Your eyes had centered on his crown, the one that had been given to him by the queen, by the loss of his father that had protected him until his last day. You were still thinking about taking it from him, he knew it. You were trying to trick him so you could take it and run, you thieving, lying, pathetic, dumb, monstrous person. 

They’re lying, a voice whispered. They want your power… they want your crown… they’re trying to trick you as they tricked Ray… be cruel… be mean… be malicious… break them down and make them pay for their crimes. 

Even though you trembled, even though you had every right to be scared, you kept looking at him with the smallest trace of hope that didn’t seem to shatter. Your voice was quiet now, but you shook your head. “I’m not Red Hood, I’m being completely honest with you! I’m not him! That man is lying to you, the queen is lying to—”

LIAR!

A resounding sound boomed in the room as he slapped you down onto the ground once more, his breathing heavy and his eyes wild with anger and confusion. His breathing became ragged and hard, something burning in the back of his head that made him want to scream and shout. He didn’t know why, nor did he understand why the voice was so loud. 

All he knew was that he was angry and the voice said it was your fault. 

“You,” he seethed, pointing a finger at you as the doors to the chamber opened and some guards came in to check on the commotion. “You’re a liar, you’re a traitorous liar that thinks that you can deceive me even as I hold your life in my hands! Unworthy of my pity! Your days are numbered, do you fucking understand me? When the sun has risen, I will decide your punishment and you will accept it, kicking or screaming, you will reap what you’ve sown.” 

The guards took you away almost as soon as they brought you to him, and that took off some of the headache that had started to brew in his mind. The pain eased but the feeling of confusion lingered in its place when you were gone. It was like he couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of his own anger and rage over the voice telling him what to do. 

He needed to destroy you to kill the voice that commanded him. 

It was the only way for the pain to stop and leave him be. 

However, why did his heart feel empty now that you were gone?

[samueldays]

Shadowrunners

I was inspired to do some cybercroissant cyberpunk writeup of characters based on the SR5 group I’m playing in. Character names have been changed to protect the guilty. Props to anyone who can figure out which one I’m playing. (Show your work. No points for just guessing all four serially.)

The fog and noise were so thick in the bar, I wondered for a moment if I was indoors at all. The band - and I hesitate to use that word - was supposedly playing ‘post-electroshock motorvibe with neo-arcological influences’. To my ears, their drek was almost indistinguishable from Seattle’s streets on a bad night: the crash of thunder, the squeal of car horns, the humming of surveillance drones, and somewhere in the distance, screaming and shooting as Lone Star broke up another Ork Lives Matter protest.

But I wasn’t here for music.

I was here for manpower.

And the noise meant I was safer from eavesdropping. (Safer. Not safe. You’re never safe in this city.) I approached table four, parted the privacy curtains and sat down opposite the masked fixer who was arranging our meetings.

“You got the runners?” I asked.

“You got the nuyen?” he responded.

I carefully reached into my pocket and put a crypto-locked platinum credstick on the soykaf-stained table. He plugged it into his commlink and verified the promise of potential payment before returning it to me with a nod. Then he slowly reached into his own pocket and handed me a datastick. I plugged it into my commlink in turn and opened the cyber-dossier on the four-man team that the fixer had found for me. If they lived up to my expectations, they were shortly about to become very, very rich, or else very, very dead.

---

‘Santa Cars’, female human

A rigger and a decker, Santa can pilot anything* she can get her hands on, and if she can’t get her hands on it, odds are she can jack into it remotely and pilot it anyway. Her cyberimplants let her combine a machine’s reaction speed with a human’s creativity, and her experience tells her exactly how far beyond the safety margins she can push a vehicle.

Santa’s custom hotrod guarantees the team’s strategic mobility and portable base of operations on extended runs, and she’s been known to frequently steal other vehicles for temporary purposes. Carrying ‘only’ a standard Ares Alpha smartgun, Santa is the team member with the lightest personal armament, but has an ever-changing stable of combat drones to assist her, with both lethal and less-lethal armament.

*Cruise liners excepted.

‘Tommy Gun’, male human

You know that trideo gag where the corpsec says “Present your weapons for inspection” and the heavily armored goon spends thirty seconds pulling out weapon after weapon? That’s Tommy, ex-military combat brute. His idea of “light” armament is two knives, three pistols and an assault rifle, “normal” includes a grenade launcher, the Aztechnology Striker he carries on “heavy” missions is legally considered a missile launcher, and he’s professionally trained with all of them. Also unarmed combat, though I can’t imagine how he’d be unarmed and still alive.

Tommy is big on personal enhancement: muscle augments, bone density, subdermal plating, cranial reinforcement, platelet supplements, you name it, if it gives you an edge in a fight, he’s probably got it, and a skulljack too. His time in the military taught him to dive for cover at the first sign of trouble, but even without that he could survive a Mozambique drill and return fire.

‘Princess Nightblade’, female human

Despite the name, Nightblade lives the life of gutter scum, fearing corporate eyes and interests, hiding in the slums among a million other bodies when not on a run. She’s the product of high-end corporate genegineering, having Awakened by unrelated fluke, becoming mystically enhanced death on legs. Where Tommy delivers professional violence from cutting-edge hardware, Nightblade is the precocious counterpart with a spirit-killing sword and an old shotgun. She’s fast, stealthy, and lucky.

Having been raised first by a corporate assassination program and later by gangs and shadowrunners, Nightblade is socially stunted and bloodthirsty even by runner standards. When fights are scarce, she will cut herself for entertainment. Do not mention her injuries when talking to her.

‘Melf’, male elf

You know that other trideo gag where the human gangers need magical support, so they ask the first elf they know, and he acts insulted by their prejudicial assumptions, before turning out to be a mage and joining anyway? That’s Melf, street shaman. He provides all the magical support a runner could wish for: counterspell capability, astral perception, spirit summoning, and utility magic. He also packs the kind of overpowered fireball that can set stone on fire.

Melf is well aware of the prevalent ‘geek the mage first’ mindset among many security forces, and compensates with extensive personal fitness training and carrying multiple automatic weapons to appear less of an obvious target.

[otpnessmess]

Of Casual Encounters And Late Nights Pt.2

Here it is! I don't know if it's as long as you wanted but it's almost double the first chapter. I hope you like it!

First Next Ao3

-

A week went by where Jason managed to avoid meeting Ladybug again while investigating, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard of her. Akuma attacks were as frequent as ever and gave him an opportunity to learn more about the terrors that had been plaguing Paris for years now apparently. He sent all new info on it to his family,  who couldn’t believe none of it had reached them up until that point. Bruce was feeling particularly flabbergasted among them.

“You mean to tell me there’s been a terrorist in Paris for years, one that’s been destroying the city twice a week, and we knew absolutely nothing about it?” He seemed to be going through the seven stages of grief before excusing himself to call Diana.

Meanwhile, Jason’s brothers piled up in front of the computer screen wanting to hear more about the heroes and their work. Tim was looking up information on the internet while Dick asked questions nonstop about their powers, and their suits, and if he had had the chance to talk to them yet. 

“They sometimes stay back after the attacks, but their powers have some kind of time limit so those are rare occasions, or so I’ve heard. They’re all proficient fighters and each have their own set of powers and weapon. Ladybug’s powers are the most impressive by far” 

The mention of her name threw him right back into the memory of the night they first met. Despite resenting not being given an opening to talk to her more then, Jason had to admit leaving had been the right choice. He wanted to stay in the shadows as long as possible, and dealing with the police on his second night in the city wouldn’t have made that easy for him. Adding to that, even though he was quite stubborn and didn’t want to accept it, he felt curious about the spotted heroine. She was sassy and clever and, if the two battles she had this week were anything to go by, her abilities to strategize rivaled Tim’s.

He came back to the present with a jolt when Dick whined about him not paying attention, eliciting a snort from both him and Damian, who also looked at the eldest with a sneer. “You’re 29 Grayson, no one that age should be making those types of noises.” Jason would rather die than saying it out loud, but sometimes he did miss the dumbasses that were his brothers. 

“You know, I don’t think we would have believed this was real even if someone had told us about it. I found a... Ladyblog? It has videos of almost every attack from the last 4 years as far as I can see, and these look every bit as outlandish as I expected them to. There’s this one where apparently the whole city was flooded.” Tim pulled up the video in the peripheral monitors for the others to see and, lo and behold, there was the video from the day Ondine had drowned Paris. Faint screams could be heard in the background as the person recording managed to get to the roof of a building just in time to see the people still left on the street be swiped by the giant wave. From then on it was all silent. “This is horrible, so many people must have died during this. How did they manage to recover? I’m sure the news of Paris underwater should’ve popped up SOMEWHERE.”

“They didn’t because it didn’t last more than an afternoon.” Jason ran a hand through his hair impatiently. The whole week he had been aching to go out as Red Hood but couldn’t risk meeting Ladybug and it was making him jittery. “That’s what Ladybug’s power is. She just….reverts everything. I haven’t been able to find out how yet, but I’ve been told it must be magic or some shit.”

“Reverts everything? Just like that? Like….turning back time?” Dick looked confused trying to come up with a rational explanation

“I don’t think so. Everyone except the victims remember everything that happened. It’s more of a cure, if you will. She fixes everything, makes a new Eiffel Tower appear, brings the dead back to life, you know, no big deal.” Jason couldn’t help but chuckle at their faces. “I know, if anyone tried to tell me this before I saw it myself I wouldn’t have believed it either.”

A moment of silence on his brothers’ end was interrupted by the return of Bruce. “Diana is positively furious right now. Apparently someone received a message from these heroes years ago and thought it was a joke, so they dismissed it. Diana asked to see the message and just unleashed hell on the poor guy after watching it. It seems her mother was a former Ladybug and she grew up knowing about the magic of the ‘Miraculous’” He said the word in a way that made his sons think he was as confused as they were “The League is planning to make a trip to Paris as soon as possible to assess the situation.”

Now that brought a frown to Jason’s face. “I know I’m usually the reckless one here, but listen to me for a moment. You’re just planning on barging in here, with an angry Wonder Woman, and a probably scared shitless League, to battle a guy who makes you his minion if you show the tiniest hint of a negative emotion? Imagine if Diana got akumatized. You must really want the apocalypse to start huh?” 

He scanned their faces and wasn’t surprised to see skepticism and some smirks too. This was so not typical of him. Jason was a shoot first, ask second kinda guy, and he used to enjoy killing a little too much for it to be healthy. But he remembered what Ladybug had told him about resorting to the least amount of violence possible, and he was honestly worried about what could happen if three dozen superheroes just showed up one day to a fight. “Listen, as far as I can see, Ladybug and her team have things covered here. Give me some time to gather more information and maybe I can find a way for her and Red Hood to have a meeting. I’ll ask her if she still wants our help. But until then, you should refrain from bringing anyone here. Unless you want panic to run rampant among the citizens because the whole Justice League came.”

Snickers could be heard coming from Tim and Dick. Even Damian was trying not to show his amusement at the situation. “Who would’ve thought Todd actually had a brain. We should go if only to check whether he’s been replaced by a clone or something”

“Oh fuck off Demon Spawn, I can be smart too if I want to."

Their father seemed to be mulling over his words before sighing and nodding. “Alright. I think we can go along with what you said for now, but I want you to keep us updated regularly, and to inform us if something out of the ordinary happens. If you need us there, we’ll be on alert. And I expect that meeting with Ladybug to happen sooner rather than later. Also don’t forget why you’re originally there, we have to gather more information on what the Penguin is planning."

“You got it Brucie.” He made fingers guns at the screen with a click of his tongue. “Expect it to be at least a week until I have some big news for you, but I’ll try to make it happen as quickly as possible. And worry not about my mission, I’m almost done with it. Now my dear family, if you’ll excuse me, it’s already 2am and I would like to pretend to be a tourist at least for a day tomorrow. I’ll let you know if something comes up.”

He quickly ended the call and face planted on his bed. This was going to be a long mission. One week in and he was already exhausted. He wasn’t lying when he said he was close to finishing the mission he was originally sent to Paris for, though.  He had infiltrated the goons quickly and efficiently, and managed to hear about a drug shipment due to arrive in a couple weeks together with a human one. As soon as he got the information as to where he’d call his family and they could resolve the problem easily. For now though, he couldn’t help but want to keep them away a bit longer. Be it because, even though he loved his brothers (not that he’d ever tell them), he wanted some time alone, or be it because he wanted more time to try and figure out Ladybug, he still wasn’t completely sure.

If you asked him, he would deny it to his dying breath that he was interested in the heroine, but something about her made him want to get closer and know more about her. In spite of the great amount of knowledge the public had on her, she was surrounded by an aura of mystery and something else that Jason couldn’t pinpoint, which had him turning in his sleep ever since that encounter in the alley. It also didn’t help that she seemed to be around the same age as him, her suit doing her great favours in all her red and black. Alright. Maybe he thought she was a bit attractive. Very attractive? 

“No. Nope. Not going there.” He got up and decided to ignore that part of his brain as of now. For no particular reason whatsoever. It was only normal to want to know more about the person protecting the city. Call it a professional interest, thank you very much.

The dark haired man decided to take advantage of having an expensive suite for once and took a long bath while doing some more research on Paris. He was indeed planning to walk around the city the next day after all. When he was done, Jason headed to the bed and fell asleep promptly. Dreams full of back alleys and superheroes. 

-

As luck would have it, it didn’t take long for the both of them to meet yet again. Only maybe not in the way the Gotham vigilante would have hoped for. Set on at least enjoying this pseudo-vacation he was gifted, Jason left his hotel the next morning to visit the most popular places in the city. The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc of Triumph and the Champs Élysées were the places he had chosen to visit during the morning and early afternoon, but, even though his main goal was to distract himself from the tasks at hand, he couldn’t will away the questions roaming around his head. 

How was he going to contact Ladybug? He wanted to do it as Red Hood, but he didn’t want the heroine of Paris to distrust him since he was pretty sure his reputation would precede him. He was known for being the most ruthless of the batfam, the only thing keeping him from killing criminals once he was done with them was Batman’s No killing under any kind of circumstances rule (which if you asked him was a special kind of bullshit, some of them did deserve to rot in hell in his opinion), and he wasn’t sure if Ladybug would be as willing to hear him out as she may one of his brothers or father. However, his only other option would be to approach her as Jason Todd, one of Bruce Wayne’s adopted sons. He didn’t even know whether Ladybug would care about his family name. This wasn’t his city. And on the off chance that she might have recognized him… He was still a mere civilian. One that had, on top of that, to explain his connection to the Gotham vigilantes without giving away any of their identities. Jason knew his hands were tied. Red Hood had to be the one to try and get the attention of the spotted hero. Knowing there was no other option didn't make him happy about it though. 

Once he was done with this line of thinking his brain decided to go back to the Penguin. He was trying to instill one of the worst types of businesses in Paris and he couldn’t wait to put a stop to it. As much as he knew drug trafficking to be terrible, he was of the opinion that people who engaged in (as well as profited off of) human trafficking should have a special circle of hell destined for them. Preferably in the very depths of it.

Jason was very much aware that, for as long as he remained in this city, negative emotions had to be controlled and dissipated as quickly as possible to avoid an akumatization. Especially those of someone with the skills and knowledge he had. He had a lot of the latter in strange topics, most of which he acquired growing up during his training. And albeit he wasn’t sure whether it would actually be useful to Hawkmoth or not, he would rather not put it to the test. All of this, however, was sent to the back burner for a second as Jason's thoughts strayed towards what he would like to do to the Gotham villain when he captured him. 

Being so busy imagining the 30 different methods of torture he would like to inflict upon the Penguin had made him completely disregarded his surroundings, however. Coming back to his senses, his brain pointed out they were standing at the door of what seemed like a very nice patisserie, just in time for his stomach to growl, his lunch seemingly having been digested some time ago.

‘Maybe something sweet is exactly what I need right now’

-

Some days had passed since Marinette met Jason,  and though he was still burning in the back of her mind, she had way too many things to worry about during the day to remember him often. At night, however, the questions she had originally asked herself the first night continued to plague her, and since Tikki told her not to worry about it too much, the designer saw wise to keep her train of thought to herself. She wasn’t even sure why her brain seemed so fixed on this stranger she had only met once. Sure, he was involved in a fight, and seemed to be a foreigner, but it wasn’t that uncommon for petty altercations to break out around the city while she patrolled. Also this was Paris, for Kwamis’ sake. One of the biggest tourist capitals of the world. There was no reason why this Jason guy should’ve stuck to her mind as he did. Yet here she was. In the middle of her afternoon shift at the bakery. Still thinking about him.

A chime coming from the door brought her out of her stupor. But as she looked up, ready to greet the new customer, she suddenly froze, and her brain could only supply her with the word green. 

Green eyes she had only got a quick glance into a week ago were now in front of her and the color was even more intense as they reflected the sunlight rays that entered through the bakery’s windows.

-

There you have it peeps and pals! I'll try to update sometime again this week in between Daminette December.

Tag list:

@18-fandoms-unite-08 @bamagirl513 @j-a-n-e--d-o-e @dawnwave16

[vengeancedemons]

devil hit his second stride // self para (pt 1)

summary: In Hell, Robbie runs into a familiar face who convinces him to stop wallowing in self pity and make a move to stop his uncle from ripping his life to shreds. trigger warnings: hell, death, mentions of violence  featuring: robbie reyes, phil coulson, mentions of elias morrow, gabriel reyes, daisy johnson ( @daisyquakes ), and jessica jones ( @goddamndumbass ) word count: 4320 no one SAY ANYTHING

There were a lot of metaphors about Hell, a lot of famous quotes invoking the word. Robbie had read up on them after his death and subsequent resurrection, studied them as if they might somehow hold answers to what happened to him. Churchill famously instructed those who were going through Hell to keep going. Twain once quipped that one should go to Heaven for the climate, but Hell for the company. Sartre claimed that Hell was other people. Robbie had gathered a whole collection of quips and quotes, a whole world of things writers and politicians and activists said were Hell, because he’d known the deal he’d made to save his own life only had one end result and he’d wanted to be prepared. He’d been an idiot, in that regard. 

There was no preparing for Hell.

There was no making it easier. You couldn’t “keep going,” no matter how easy Churchill made it sound. You didn’t enjoy the company the way Twain joked that you might. The other people Sartre had feared were just as lost, just as tortured, just as absorbed in the terribleness of it all as you were. No metaphor Robbie had come across had managed to do justice to the real thing. Hell was Hell. There was no other way of describing it, no way of putting it into terms the average person would understand. You either knew it or you didn’t. You’d either been there or you couldn’t possibly imagine it. And Robbie could imagine it well. 

It was different, this time around. The last time (the last two times, rather), he’d at least gone out on his own terms. He’d chosen to exit stage left with Eli’s shoulders gripped in his hands. He decided to take the Darkhold back to where it belonged even if that meant he’d wind up where he belonged, too. And the people he’d cared about hadn’t been left in the best positions, but at least he’d known they’d be okay. He’d known Daisy would look out for Gabe, had known that Coulson would keep an eye on the SHIELD agents he’d begrudgingly come to tolerate. There hadn’t been an awful lot to fear.

This time was different.

With Eli running around in Robbie’s skin, there was no overselling the shitstorm that was waiting for the people he cared for. Daisy, who’d taken up residence on his couch the last few months, would be a burden Eli wouldn’t want to put up with. Jessica, who was almost a friend as much as someone you’d once nearly plowed over with your car could hope to be, would be an inconvenience his uncle wouldn’t want to deal with. And Gabe… It was too much to hope that Eli would leave Gabe out of things. It was too much to wish that his brother might remain blissfully ignorant in L.A. while their uncle wreaked havoc in New York. Whatever Eli had planned, Gabe would undoubtedly be caught in the crossfire the same way he had the night of that street race, when the Fifth Street gang saw Eli’s car and open fired with no regard for who was actually inside. And Robbie was powerless to stop any of it.

Shit, he was worse than powerless. The last time he’d been in Hell, he’d at least had the limited protection of the Rider keeping him out of the worst of it. It meant giving up control more often than not, but it made him relatively difficult to harm. Just like on Earth, the Rider had protected Robbie from damage in Hell. He’d made sure Robbie won most of the fights he got into, ensured that anyone who fucked with them had a generally bad day. Eli made sure Robbie was without that protection this go around, and that must have been intentional in more ways than one. His uncle had wanted the power of the Ghost Rider, beyond shadow of a doubt… but he’d also wanted to make sure Robbie was without it. And he’d absolutely succeeded in that.

You couldn’t die in Hell. Robbie figured that out his very first day, when he’d looked down at his chest to see a blade sticking out of it, rusted and bloody. You felt every ounce of pain dealt out to you, felt the way your heart tore itself to shreds as it beat around metal, felt your lungs fill up with blood and dust until there was no room left to breathe, but you couldn’t die. It was like one of the shitty video games Gabe used to play --- you bled, you ached, you faded away, and you popped back up someplace else to do it all again. Death would have been far easier. Anything would have been easier. Everyone there knew it.

It was why he’d also learned another important lesson his first Rider-less day in Hell. He’d learned about a rumor, a legend that desperate souls accepted as truth because there had to be some kind of end to all of this. It was a Fifth Street goon who’d blurted it out to him, a man terrified of Robbie who’d never even met the Rider. (Robbie had taken care of plenty of gang members without the Devil making an appearance at all, in the early days. There had been so much anger and nowhere to put it. It was inevitable.) 

‘There’s a story,’ the man had said, practically blubbering at the mere sight of the man who had taken his life. ‘If you take out the guy who killed you down here, you get out. You get to move on.’ 

‘Move on to what?’ Robbie had demanded, but the man hadn’t known. All he had known, all he had heard was that removing the person responsible for your presence in Hell from its depths meant a ticket to someplace else. And everyone figured that nothing could possibly be worse than this. 

So they fought. They beat each other to death only to yield no result when the person they were trying so desperately to remove appeared again out of their reach, breathing oxygenless through deceased lungs. It was utterly pointless and they knew it, but it was the only thing they knew how to do. It was the Fifth Street member who’d told him the legend that taught Robbie what happened when you died in Hell, putting a sword through his back the moment he turned away and shrugging unapologetically when Robbie turned back to him. ‘I just had to try it,’ the man said, ‘just once.’ And the expression on his face made it clear that whatever he’d hoped would happen wasn’t happening and Robbie had died and come back for what wasn’t the first time and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Robbie didn’t know if the legend had a grain of truth to it. For him, he didn’t guess it mattered much either way. He couldn’t get rid of the person responsible for sending him to Hell, and it wasn’t because his uncle was out of reach. No, Robbie couldn’t get rid of the guy responsible for his current predicament because it wasn’t Eli at all. The only person Robbie had to blame for his presence in the underworld was Robbie. He was the one who sold his soul to the Devil for a prize he’d already won. He was the one who’d been clueless to the fact that his uncle was being driven mad right in front of his eyes. He was the one arrogant enough to believe he could make a quick day trip to Hell and pluck a soul from damnation without facing any kind of consequence. The worst person in Robbie’s life, the one responsible for every goddamn shitshow he was a part of, had always lived in the fucking mirror. He’d always known that.

And so, with no way of knowing what was going on up above and no hope of finding his way out of Hell any time soon, he focused on survival. He focused on dying as little as possible, on staying away from the Fifth Street gang members he’d gifted with all-expense-paid tickets to Hell and avoiding Lucy Bauer and her gaggle of scientists whose ghosts he’d torn from their places on Earth and keeping distance between himself and all the trash he’d taken out since the Rider brought him back from the dead. Some days, he did okay. Some days, he bled out a hundred times an hour. It was a matter of luck more than anything else. 

Today, he was doing all right. The safe spot he’d found would be burned by tomorrow --- news of people’s whereabouts traveled quickly in Hell, especially when the person in question was one that large groups of souls were seeking out --- but for the moment, his feet were on solid ground and his blood wasn’t spilling from his veins. He didn’t know how long he’d been here. Time moved differently in Hell, crawled by one moment and sped up the next. His first go-round, he’d tried to keep count. He’d tallied up what he’d thought might have been days in his head, counted them into months and years. By his count, he’d been in Hell nearly a hundred years then, but when he got back to Earth he’d found only months had passed. He hadn’t bothered counting when he brought the Darkhold back. His high school teachers might have frequently assigned him the title of slow learner, but he could take a lesson when it was obvious and this one was. Time in Hell was relative. 

And there was no sense counting it up when you knew it wasn’t going to end.

It was a realization he’d come to rather quickly, after Eli tossed him out. He went from fighting a battle in the back of his own mind to staring out at all-too-familiar fiery slopes, and he’d known in an instant that this was how things would be for him now. No one could be lucky enough to escape Hell three times, especially now that he didn’t have Ghost Rider’s powers to fall back on. This time, Robbie figured, he was here to stay. 

So he focused on the moment in front of him. He focused on the fact that, today, he wasn’t fighting off old enemies, wasn’t killing the same people over and over again or dying so many times that he barely had enough time to draw breath between one slaughter and the next. And he was wound tight and jumping at the slightest sound, but so was everyone. That was a side effect of Hell, and there was no shot at ever avoiding it. 

It was lucky, he supposed, that he stopped to look before putting the blade he’d stolen off an old New York City gang member through the chest of the person who walked up behind him. Most days, Robbie wouldn’t have bothered. After so long in Hell, he’d lost any hope that anyone he met wouldn’t strike him down where he stood. But this time… This time, the familiar face that greeted him wasn’t one of the gang members he’d taken out in New York or L.A. It wasn’t the ghost of some scientist who’d worked with his uncle, wasn’t a wannabe supervillain with a justified grudge. It was, perhaps, a man whose death Robbie was still responsible for, but not one who would kill him for it. 

Robbie’s shoulders dropped at the sight of him, grip slackening on the switchblade he’d been white-knuckling. He closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing thickly before letting them slide back open to reveal that the figure was still there, still watching him with inquisitive eyes. They stayed like that for a moment, a pair of ghosts staring into eyes they’d thought they’d seen the last of, each waiting on the other to make the first move. Finally, Robbie shifted enough to make room for another body to sit on the ground beside him, and his newfound companion moved forward to take the silent invitation.

“I’d heard you were back,” Coulson said quietly. “Didn’t want to believe it.”

“Yeah, well,” Robbie sighed, scrubbing a hand across his face, “seems like I’ve got a hard time staying away.”

“Haven’t heard anything about the other guy popping back up,” Coulson prodded, and Robbie tasted bile in the back of his throat, which was stupid. There was no bile in his stomach, no food that could threaten to make its way back up. He hadn’t eaten since a slice of cold pizza Daisy left on the counter just a few hours before Eli made his presence known, and while he hadn’t been keeping track of the hours he knew there were a hell of a lot of them between now and then. 

“It’s just me this time,” he said, tasting ash in his mouth with the words, because Coulson would want to know why. He would want to know how, and if he asked, Robbie was going to tell him. Robbie would blurt out everything, everything, and while Coulson might not hold what happened to him after he let the Rider into his head against Robbie, he knew the man would never forgive him if anything happened to Daisy. And right now, in this moment? Robbie couldn’t promise that she was okay.

“Is it like what happened before?” Coulson pressed, because, in spite of his unassuming outward appearance, he was still a spy. He was still one of the best agents SHIELD had ever had, and Robbie was still a fairly shitty liar. “It went into someone else, like it did with Mack?”

Robbie couldn’t look at him. He kept his eyes down on his hands, on the stolen switchblade with blood rusting the metal. He couldn’t remember now if the blood was there when he got it or if he’d put it there himself. He didn’t think it made much of a difference. “Not exactly,” he replied after a long pause, because Coulson would read a silence just as easily as a lie. 

Another silence stretched between them, a canyon of stillness as Coulson looked at Robbie and Robbie looked anywhere else. “Robbie,” Coulson said, his voice somehow firm and gentle at the same time, and Robbie had never been the sort of person who held his heart on his sleeve but fuck, it took every ounce of strength in him not to cry. 

Coulson, he realized with the smallest ounce of hysteria in his thoughts, sounded like what he’d always figured a father might sound like. He was nothing like Alberto Reyes, who’d walked out long before Robbie had a clear picture of his face saved into memory. He was nothing like Elias Morrow, who’d been more than willing to send Robbie to Hell for his own selfish gain. Coulson was the closest thing Robbie had seen in his life to a decent goddamn father figure, and what had Robbie shown him in return? He’d gotten him sent to Hell.

He’d probably gotten Daisy killed. 

Robbie felt very cold all of a sudden, a shiver going down his spine. Eli said once that there was meaning to that, joked about it when Robbie was a child getting used to having an uncle where he’d once had a mother and father. That means someone is walking over the place where you’ll be buried, he’d said, feigning seriousness until Robbie’s eyes widened and he couldn’t hold back a laugh. Robbie always wondered if it was true. He wondered what his grave would look like now, if he’d have one. Was a grave yours if the body in it hadn’t belonged to you, in the end? Were you still a person if someone else was walking around in your skin? At what point did a man become a ghost?

“It was Eli,” he said, so sudden it surprised even himself. “It was… When you saw us, before, me and Daisy, Eli followed us out somehow. He hitched a ride inside my head. Rode around up there for months until he had the strength to…” Robbie trailed off, that phantom nausea tugging at his gut again, compelling him to expel food he hadn’t eaten from a body he didn’t have. “He kicked me out. He’s running around up there in my skin, with my face, with --- With the Rider in my head with him. And I don’t, I don’t know how to stop him. I don’t think I can stop him.”

The sea of information settled between them, and Robbie could swear he saw the words floating in the air, fading in and out of existence as Coulson processed it all. He didn’t know if the shock on the agent’s face was because of the tale he’d spun, the fact that it was more words than he’d probably ever heard Robbie say in one sitting, or some mixture of the two. The silence was a heavy one, a weight on his chest that he didn’t know how to breathe around. And he didn’t need to breathe down here, not when he was already dead, but he still felt as if he was suffocating. When he tore his eyes from the switchblade to risk a glance in Coulson’s direction, the man was looking at him with an unreadable expression and Robbie wondered if he might break his day-long streak of not being covered in his own blood. And god, he would have let him. If Coulson tried to take the knife from his hand and drive it through his fucking skull in that moment, Robbie would have let him. 

Finally, Coulson shifted, breaking the silence with the question Robbie had known was coming. “Does Daisy know?” And even though he’d known Coulson would ask, it was a punch to the goddamn gut. Robbie closed his eyes again, letting his head drop. He would have preferred the knife to the skull, he thought. He would have preferred anything else.

“I don’t know,” he replied, so quiet he wasn’t sure Coulson would be able to hear it. He wasn’t sure he wanted Coulson to hear it, wasn’t sure he wanted the other man to know. Robbie had failed Daisy, and he didn’t even know how deep that failure went. He didn’t even know if she was alive right now, didn’t know if Eli would try to fool her or if he’d kill her the moment she walked into the apartment. At one point, he might have liked to think he knew his uncle well enough to predict his next move, but now? Now, Robbie wasn’t sure he’d ever known Eli at all. He’d never taken Eli for a murderer, but he was one. He’d never taken Eli for a narcissist, but he’d nearly gotten his entire fucking family killed in order to pursue his own selfish goals.

He’d never believed Eli was capable of hurting him, but he’d sent him to Hell without a hint of hesitation. 

There was a sound off to the side, a quiet click of Coulson’s tongue as he mulled the new information over, and Robbie wondered if this was the part where the knife would slip from his hand to Coulson’s, if this was where he’d die and respawn someplace else, ready to die again. He braced for a blow that didn’t come, prepared for an imaginary hit. Instead, Coulson sighed. Robbie opened his eyes, glanced over at the man cautiously. Coulson was staring at him, studying him intently as he chewed on the inside of his cheek, deep in thought. Finally, he broke the silence with a question: “So what are you going to do about it?”

Robbie blinked, eyes wide as the words settled into his head. He opened his mouth and closed it. Once, twice, three times. Finally, he spoke, and the confusion was clear in his tone. “What?”

“What are you going to do about it?” Coulson repeated, and the words made just as little sense this time as they had before because what? Robbie was in Hell. He had no access to Earth, no way of knowing what was happening there, and certainly no way to stop it. He didn’t have a plan because he had no options. 

“What can I do about it?” He asked, incredulous. 

Coulson quirked a brow, looking so utterly unimpressed that Robbie had to run through his story again in his head, had to look for the parts he’d missed in his situation that made Coulson believe he had anything resembling options here. He came up short, again and again. If he had choices, he had no idea what they were. And still, Coulson looked like he was missing something obvious. 

Finally, the agent seemed to take pity on Robbie with a sigh, shaking his head. “Robbie,” he said patiently, sounding very much like a man preparing to explain something simple to a particularly stupid toddler, “your body is still your body. Isn’t it?”

“I… guess so?” Robbie wasn’t sure what he was getting at, didn’t know what this had to do with anything. His body was still his body, but it wasn’t accessible. It was up on Earth and he was down in Hell and it wasn’t like there was an express train he could take to get back to it.

“And it’s still alive,” Coulson pushed, and Robbie tilted his head to the side, still not understanding the relevance. 

“I don’t think it would do Eli much good to kill it,” he allowed, because that would really defeat the purpose of whatever Eli had planned. Besides, Robbie didn’t think the Rider would let his body die, even if Robbie wasn’t in it. The guy needed something to hitch a ride in, didn’t he?

“So your body is alive,” Coulson continued slowly, “and your soul is alive.”

“Is that what we are?” Robbie questioned. “Souls?” He’d never given it much thought before and, given Coulson’s expression, it wasn’t a conversation they had time for now, either. 

“I don’t think you understand the point,” Coulson said which, fair. Robbie definitely didn’t understand the point of whatever it was Coulson was getting at, but whose fault was that? Coulson was the one being a cryptic old bastard, as if SHIELD and its shitty secrecy was an important thing in Hell. Robbie sighed, shaking his head and motioning for Coulson to just come out and say whatever obvious thing he was missing. “If your soul is alive and your body is alive,” Coulson said, finally taking enough pity on Robbie to spell the damn thing out, “that means you’re alive, Robbie. You aren’t dead. You’re just lost.”

“I’m not lost,” Robbie argued, because he was nothing if not contrary. “I know exactly where I am. I’m in Hell, Coulson. What’s it matter if my body’s alive if I can’t get to it.” 

“Have you tried?”  Coulson sounded angry now and Robbie remembered that, while he sounded fatherly in the way none of the men in Robbie’s life ever had, he wasn’t Robbie’s father. He was a guy who’d found Robbie at a strange time in his life and offered him guidance he hadn’t known he’d needed, but he wasn’t his father. If Coulson was a father figure to anyone, it was the person up on Earth with the body he was demanding he try to find a way back to. Fathers, when they were decent, protected the people they cared for. And right now, for Coulson, that wasn’t Robbie.

It was Daisy. 

And Robbie got it. He really did. If it had been Gabe in trouble, he’d be angry too. He’d be chastising whoever he was with and demanding they do something, but what was there to be done? “People don’t just walk out of Hell, Coulson,” he snapped.

“Didn’t you do that?” Coulson retorted. “Multiple times?”

“Yeah, with a demon in my head and a chain that could open portals to other dimensions. You see either of those things laying around now?”

“What if I had a way?” 

Robbie’s head snapped up, and he searched Coulson’s face for any hint of humor and came up short. “You got a way out of Hell,” he repeated slowly, “and you… What? Waited ‘til now to bring it up?”

“I have a rumor,” Coulson amended, and that made more sense. Rumors were like currency down here. They passed from person to person, gained value where they went. Everyone was looking for an out of some kind or another, but no one had ever found one.

“Rumors are usually bullshit,” Robbie pointed out, looking back down to his switchblade and twirling it in his fingers absently. “Plenty of rumors about ways out, but I never heard of anybody actually making it. You know why that is?” He paused, though not long enough for Coulson to answer before he provided the answer all his own: “Because the rumors are fucking horseshit.” 

“Or because the wrong people are trying,” Coulson countered. “Look, this rumor says it’s a door. The only people who can pass through it are people who shouldn’t be here. Like, for example, someone living?” 

“Or a good man who didn’t earn his spot,” Robbie replied, the realization springing on him all at once. “Shit, Coulson, if this thing’s real…”

“We could both get out,” Coulson confirmed with a nod. Robbie sucked in a breath through his teeth, weighing their options. If it were just him with a shot to get out of Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d take it. The thought of getting his hopes up just to have them dashes was somehow worse than the idea of never trying at all. But if this could mean a second chance for Coulson, too…

Robbie looked up, a newfound determination in his eyes. “Well, shit,” he sighed, shaking his head. “What do we have to lose?”

[tarithenurse]

Agent of Hope - 12

Your world falls into ruin together with the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcements Logistics Division when you find out that your boyfriend isn’t one of the good guys. Pairing: Brock Rumlow x fem!reader, Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader Contents: ALL THE WARNINGS INCLUDING TRIGGER WARNINGS. A tiny bit of good in the end? A/N: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. 

12 - Broken people

…   Romanoff’s PoV   …

“This is more like it!” Stark sounds cheerful over the coms.

He’s flown ahead to scout together with Sam, eager to make sure no one escapes him and the rest of the team of Avengers as they head through the vacated part of town.

Peering down a side road, Natasha has to admit that it’s more than just a single neighbourhood that’s been abandoned long ago. The town was dependant on one industry only, not atypical for a lot of the rural mid-states, and when that went belly-up the entire town was vacated out of a need for jobs. Splintered windows beneath sheets of plywood, boarded up doors, and overgrown patios and curbs. Ghost town. But the place isn’t completely empty. A bit of hacking through Stark’s suit has proved that someone’s accessing the electrical grid and the water at one location only: a school. Perfect place for a large group of people take hunker down for a while.

“What’s the play, Nat?” Steve’s voice calls the former Russian back to the situation.

Go in, kill what moves, save [Y/N]. But it has to be more detailed than that. “Sam ‘nd Steve take the south entrance, Tony find a way in from west or make one…we take the north side.”

The man in a can is hovering far above the building sprawled out between wild grasses and shrubberies, allowing Jarvis to do its work while everyone else moves to the desired positions.

It’s a good thing. Thanks to Jarvis, they know how many Hydra-goons are waiting as the wannabe rescuers storm the place, moving methodically along the main hallways without forgetting to check each room…just in case. It’s silent work with very few surprises until they inevitably encounter the first opposition, five for each pair (counting Stark and Jarvis together, of course).

Hydra trains their people very well, forming teams with strong bonds and a capability for adapting rapidly under pressure. It’s hard to tell from the grunts or weapon-noise through the coms how the others are fairing against the enemy, but at least Natasha is a force that not even Hydra can withstand at the moment. She bears down on them like a hurricane and without any regards for her own safety except what is needed to reach the next target and the one after that.

…   Rumlow’s PoV   …

Grabbing the few things he needs, Brock’s mentally racing through the plan for getting the hell our of dodge. The second in command knows. Each and every Hydra member has to be ready to lay down there lives to ensure the goal is achieved, but sometimes the higher-ranking officers are part of a bigger puzzle that requires them (in this case Rumlow) to leave before it’s too late so they/he can fight another day.

“And the girl?” Crouched behind a corner at a T-intersection in the hallway to avoid the shrapnel and bullets, the man glances over at Rumlow on the other side of the hall.

“Not a priority.”

That’s it. A death-sentence in three words. The second knows what it means and there are no need to say anything else even as the two men meet each other’s gaze for a second before Rumlow twists to look around his own corner. An arrow whistles by with only an inch to spare and lodges itself in the wall behind him.

“COVER!” The last of his shout is drowned in the small explosion which makes a whole in the wall. Bloody Robin Hood.

Debris and smoke is raining down as Rumlow unfolds himself from where he’d landed on the floor. His ears are ringing and there’s probably a part of the less healed wounds that have re-opened on his shoulder, but it doesn’t matter right this second.

So she cares! The fiery hair is partially breaking free from the ponytail, floating in thin wisps around Romanoff’s face as she engages two Hydra agents simultaneously. The grey-green eyes are normally calculative, showing the same detachment that he himself has been trained to utilize during any mission. Not this time.

A second expands and stretches, slowing the embers to the point where they look like fireflies hovering in the air and the sound of fighting is a distant rumbling. There’s more than enough time for Brock to notice the snarl curling the pretty lips to show a flash of white teeth. It’s the eyes that does it, though. It’s almost funny. All this time he thought having [Y/N] would be a matter of principles and strategy for Captain bloody Rogers, that that’s the reason the Avengers are coming for the freak of an ex…but it’s the emotionless less bitch who’s invested. It’s so obvious it’s tempting to stay and watch, to be there when Romanoff finds the limb body.

Time snaps back like a rubber band, flinging Brock and the world into action once more. As he run down the hallway and away from the noise, it’s the fear – the desperation – in the Black Widow’s eyes that gives him wings.

…   Reader’s PoV   …

The sound of an explosion reaches you from far away, stubbornly pushing through the fluffy nothingness that surrounds and cools you. Smaller sounds can be heard too, but you just…just can’t be bothered with it all. What does it all matter anyways? Wanting to go back to the calm fluff, you refuse to open your eyes to find out what’s happening…it will only bring you pain anyways, and you’re so fed up of the constant aching from within and outside. When was the last time you weren’t hurting while awake? It’s impossible to tell. Maybe you’ve always been in pain, head electrocuting you and body ripped apart bit by bit. Or is that your soul? The dark silence comes to your rescue, quieting your brain and the world again.

…

Darkness moves in your mind, tearing your thought to pieces with pure agony. Tunnel. Running. It’s not you fleeing in the dark, but someone else. Images of landscapes and helicopters come and go together with random faces you’ve never seen together with the hot sunlight over a city you’ve never seen although you recognize the green shape tearing through the street. There’s a scream above it all, much closer and with a different quality to it. Me? Your throat is raw as the dirty tiles between leather of the real world breaks through your vision, the faded turquoise pulsing with your heartbeat in your head. The sound of yourself nestles itself over everything else, lulling you into a pained rest of brightest white before the darkness rebuilds a cocoon around you.

…

You see the slender legs (black pants covered in dust) wrapping around the neck of a man. You see the tendrils of red whip into the field of vision as the male and the entire hallway spins. The sounds you hear don’t fit that image, though. Instead there’s a metalling sound followed by a sort of oingoingoingoing and heavy boots.

“Shit!” The deep voice makes you wince, it’s much too loud this close to you. “I don’t know, hold on…”

Big hands touch your face, then neck, feeling around for something. Stop! You have to get away from the groping hands. They’ll wrap around your throat, pull your clothes aside to squeeze your breasts painfully, and tear your pants off before they pin you to whatever surface is available. Then the real pain will begin. Deep and unrelenting.

“Hey! [Y/N], it’s okay, it’s me!”

But the man’s words don’t matter. “It’s me…don’t you remember? We were good together…loved each other…look at me, baby…” Soft words whispered into your ear so many times in an attempt to stop you from struggling, promising you that the pain will go away. But it never did. He always hurt you. Or let the others send lightning through your brain until the skull would nearly split. Not again! You won’t let any of them hurt you again. Get away! And there comes the dark fuzz from the corners to save you, bring the peace and nothingness with it.

…

“Don’t let her fall.”

You spill out of the monstrosity of a chair, nearly spilling the non-existent contents of your stomach as the movement is halted by something. Someone. The broad figure has a strong grip on you, holding on so you can’t get away no matter how much you begin to struggle. Every shift in the limbs sends pain screaming through the muscles even as the shoves and pushes become weaker. No! You barely have any energy left, but this is your chance to get away. Away from Brock. Home. You know there’s no such place, the apartment you had was shared with the last man you ever want to see again. That’s not a home anymore. Tasha. Please, find me. That’s where you have to go, where you’ll be safe. Tasha. Nat!

“Easy, she’s … -er wa-” the voice fades in and out as darkness returns.

…   Romanoff’s PoV   …

At least she’s alive. The words running on repeat in Natasha’s head are meant to be a way to calm herself. A soothing mantra. However, as she runs down the halls of the derelict school, it’s not enough to keep the worry tugged away because this is about [Y/N], and everything she can hear the guys say on the coms is verifying the horrible fears supressed lately.

“Talk to me,” she pleads, ignoring that her body would prefer the air for itself rather than talking.

The second of hesitation is oppressing through the little earpiece, speaking volumes more than any words could.

“She’s in and out of consciousness,” Steve finally explains, “alive, but far from healthy.” Natasha can imagine the way the Captain’s jaw must be set right now. “Nat…she freaks out if we’re too close if she’s awa–“

As if on cue, there’s a strangled wail from Steve’s end and something that sounds a lot like a man in sudden pain. “Fuuuuu…she…my balls…” Sam whimpers broken.

“Almost there.”

…

The sight of [Y/N] shivering figure is like a punch to the guts. It’s not the dirt, torn clothes, or even the bruises and blood. It’s the way the woman is huddled into a corner of the deep end of the pool as far from Sam and Steve as she can possibly get and the haunted look as she tries to hold her head up in an attempt to keep track of the men while battling fatigue. But worst of all? [Y/N] is trying to hold the tattered trousers tightly closed with one hand behind a shield of knobbly knees and broken fingernails that sometimes stray to her scalp where hair has been sheared off in patches where bluish gel still sticks.

“[Y/N]…” I have to be slow, have to be calm. “It’s me…Natasha. [Y/N], can you hear me?”

Frightened eyes blink in confusion, searching for the source of the female voice echoing in the empty pool. Tears glide slowly down the poor girl’s cheeks along paths crusty with old salt.

“T-Tash-a?” Hoarse. Broken. The once rich sound has been reduced to a ghost. “Whe- Nat?”

The former spy recognises the grimaces caused by conflicting emotions that hurt more than any physical pain could ever do, and she wants to rush over to hold the woman. Keep her safe now when she couldn’t before…but one wrong move will be disastrous.

“I’m here. Can I come closer?”

Inch by inch, the abused woman unfolds enough to stretch her arms towards Natasha. One in each other’s embrace, [Y/N] keeps feelings the rescuer’s face and threading the dirty fingers through the flaming hair. A soft smile is on her lips, only wavering when Steve tries to come closer – at least he gets the point and retreats again.

“Y’ere,” the former prisoner sighs.

Unable to hold her own head any longer, she lets it sink onto Natasha’s shoulder. The redhead is thankful, that way she can allow her lips to quiver as they want to without the concern that the poor soul in her arms might see it. Fiddling with a zipper, she pulls out a syringe.

“I’m here, [Y/N].” At least her voice is still even. “I got you, go to sleep.” The needle finds its mark, unnoticed by the exhausted woman, and hot tears begin to fall on her head as the sedative enter her system. “I got you.”

[zecretsanta]

Fic: Not Quite Santa

To: @agentshilonglang​ From: @erisofimladris​

Soooo I couldn’t resist the Kurashiki angst and my first-ever Christmas story happened! I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I loved writing it, and Merry Christmas!

AO3 link

For the first time since their parents died, Aoi Kurashiki didn’t know how to be Santa.

It had always been easy. Akane would write a letter to Santa, Aoi would swipe it from the mailbox, and there would be something on there that he could afford, even if it wasn’t what she necessarily wanted most - even with her huge imagination and love of the unreal, she also understood that they were poor.

And now they weren’t poor, or at least they wouldn’t be for long now that Akane knew how to get the money necessary to run that game again, which meant there was theoretically more of an opportunity for gifting. But Aoi couldn’t think of anything at all.

Whenever he tried to think of Christmas, all his mind returned to was the story Akane told him he’d say in the future, the one about the two Santas - the white-robed Santa killing the one in black, the black-robed Santa’s blood staining the coat a jolly red.

It gave a whole new meaning to the holiday, and after all, he was celebrating with a new Akane. In the last month, he’d barely recognized the Akane who he grew up with who believed in everything and everyone. Now, she only believed in a thin thread tying them to the future where every little thing they did for the next nine years could make her live or die. Everything from the setup of Building Q in Nevada to getting to Nevada to his acting skills and her hair bound in a pair of hair clips, not quite stars and not quite flowers, with little circles on the ends.

No matter how hard he wished for the old Akane back, for them to both live their lives without ever knowing something called a Nonary Game existed, Aoi didn’t believe in any kind of Santa. It was hard enough to believe that his sister stood in front of him alive (well, mostly) after what happened last month.

She hadn’t left a letter for Santa this year, and it wasn’t like what some of the other kids in school said when their little brothers and sisters figured out Santa wasn’t real. Aoi had no doubt that if not for what happened on the Gigantic last month, there would be a letter waiting for him, asking for a stuffed animal or a dollhouse or a pet.

The dollhouse wouldn’t have been a bad idea before the Gigantic, but now Akane was so attached to the doll Junpei gave her that she hardly let it out of her sight. Not to mention it was a creepy little thing that definitely didn’t belong in a cutesy dollhouse - just like all the babble about morphogenetic fields didn’t belong spewing out of the mouth of his little sister.

Pets were off the table as well, now that they’d need to move around. There was no good way to keep a pet if they might need to move to a different continent in the blink of an eye; they were technically still on the run from Hongou and his goons at Cradle Pharmaceuticals, and the last thing they needed was a snafu at customs or something else to part Akane from another thing she’d get attached to.

Without any further guidance, Aoi was lost. He didn’t know how to do Christmas without letters to Santa and presents under a tree.

And so, he didn’t get a tree. Akane never mentioned it, and neither of them pointed out the spot in the small apartment where they were staying that would be perfect for a well-decorated tree. He wasn’t sure he could even get her help in decorating, and they didn’t need a bare pine tree in the living room to remind them of yet another thing that had been ruined.

After a few days of hearing Christmas carols in the streets and garlands strung over shop windows, however, Aoi felt something missing. They had to do something for Christmas; they couldn’t let this be something else Hongou took away. Even without a tree, even without Santa, there had to be something he could do to commemorate the holiday.

He found himself in an American store one day after school, looking for something Christmas-y that wouldn’t bring up any old memories. A bit of an escape from all that had happened, something to lighten the mood of an apartment that felt more like a funeral home than an actual home some days.

In one of the aisles close to the end, he found something he’d seen, but never bought before - a gingerbread house kit with pre-cut pieces (no need to use the oven, the idea of which scared Akane for good reason), two gingerbread people and icing and candy to decorate. None of his friends ever had gingerbread houses before, and after their parents died and money was tight, it was hard enough to afford a small tree and Akane’s present without buying extras. Now, though, they didn’t have to worry about money. It would be no problem.

The kit sat unopened on their one and only table for a few days. Aoi wondered if Akane would even be interested until he found her sitting at the table on Christmas Eve, legs crossed, brow furrowed, trying to affix the roof to the walls with white frosting.

Aoi didn’t say a word. He just got a little closer, then closer still, until he could reach the walls. He gingerly put his hands on them, startling her into looking up and meeting his eyes. She lost her grip on the left roof tile, which fell in a sticky mess on the table.

“It’s okay,” Aoi said, picking it up and applying a new line of white frosting. “Here, you get this end, and I’ll get that end.” Prepared to hold both on his own, he was surprised when Akane leaned in, holding the slabs of gingerbread together.

They stayed in silence, not meeting each other’s eyes until more than the necessary time had passed and Aoi gingerly removed his hands. The roof stayed, and Akane’s hand pulled the rest of the kit closer in. She picked up one of the two gingerbread people and the white icing they’d used to make the roof stick together and drew some jagged lines (impressively straight, considering her dexterity still wasn’t what it had been before) on the head.

“Is that me?” Aoi asked.

“Yeah,” she said, the first sound he’d heard from her all day. That wasn’t like her, but after their fight the other day about forgetting and remembering and moving on, he’d almost forgotten the sound of her voice not angry.

“Want me to make you, or…?” His words trailed off as she put down the white icing and picked up the black, drawing a vague outline of pants on the cookie’s legs.

“You can start the sides,” she said, gesturing to the white icing and the assortment of colorful candies still on the tray.

Turning his attention away from the people, although he did notice Akane giving him a tank-top of sorts that he’d never wear, he looked down at the picture on the box. He noted the white windows drawn in and the small candy doorknob and the lane of candy running into the door. Without any further guidance, he tried to mimic the picture as best as he could, but the windows came out a little crooked and the door snapped just a tiny bit as he opened it, and he popped the snapped-off bit into his mouth before Akane could notice.

He tried to peek at Akane’s work along the way, but she hid the gingerbread people so well as she hunched over them that he simply worked on the rest of the house until it was time for him to put something together for dinner and try to get her to eat. He looked over at her a few times as he cooked, realizing that as she put the figures down and started to touch up his work on the house itself, the corners of her mouth twitched like she might smile.

Dinner was, as usual, a desolate affair; although there was finally enough food for both of them to eat, most of his time was spent trying to convince Akane to actually put food in her mouth. Whatever he ate didn’t taste good; he could barely even remember what they’d eaten as he did the dishes and Akane returned to her gingerbread project. She leaned over it so closely that he didn’t try to approach again, instead retreating to his room, frustrated.

Part of him wanted to run back in there and try to clarify what he’d meant in their argument the other day, that he knew she needed to remember and speak about every detail to stay alive, but he needed a life where the Nonary Game wasn’t the only thing in the world. The tension of it all ran hot under his skin, but he didn’t need her reminder that something was boiling inside her as well.

Aoi sighed. He was supposed to be the big brother, and he was the one who would have to do everything he could to help Akane. She was still a kid – hell, two months ago, she’d have still sent a letter to Santa even though she was almost a teenager. Now if only Santa would write to her instead, if only he could use that to explain…

Sliding into his chair, Aoi grabbed a piece of paper. Even if it didn’t help, it couldn’t hurt.

“Dear Akane,

I’m sorry,” he began, aware that he’d apologized to her so many times for things he hadn’t done over the last couple of weeks that it was starting to annoy her, “that you’ve had such a hard year. You are very good, no matter what anyone says.”

It felt so trite that he nearly tore the note in half, but it wasn’t like he could think of anything better.

“I didn’t receive a list from you this year, and the things you want cannot come true right now.” They would be real in Building Q in nine years, on the day that silly boy from her class who gave her the doll that got her killed in the first place would save her life. “It is beyond my magic to move the time closer.”

He sighed, pushing the paper away. It was almost too late to do anything at all, and it wasn’t a proper Santa’s letter without a gift. Exasperated, he got up and shuffled into the hallway and then to the living room, where he found the completed gingerbread house sat with the Akane and Aoi gingerbread figures standing outside by the door, with no sign of his sister.

Now that he had the chance to get a good look at the gingerbread Akane, he could see that she had drawn the outfit she described to him that she would wear in Building Q. It seemed overwhelming for her to get out all at once, but she did describe the purple dress with the black pattern (looking more like blobs of icing here, but still), the striped socks and brown boots, the stripes on the sleeves and there was even a little red and blue spot on the wrist that was probably supposed to be the watch (Aoi rubbed his wrist; he could still feel his sometimes). In her hair, there was a little pin that wasn’t quite a star or a flower.

A sudden pang of guilt swept over Aoi. He tried to get Akane to think about things other than what had happened, but he probably took it too far. She did need to get things out, after all, and he was supposed to be there to listen to her. He was supposed to be a lot of things, he thought angrily as he looked down at the cookie that could crumble as easily as his sister’s life.

Suddenly, an idea came into his head. A way to show Akane that he was listening to her, that he’d seen and understood that in nine years he was going to wear a silly-looking tank-top and black pants and she was going to wear the dress with a shirt under it for some reason even though she hated being too warm and couldn’t get cold nowadays, and the whole rest of the outfit that made no sense.

Aoi hurried out into the cold, hoping the nearest convenience store wasn’t closed. They were in this thing together, no matter what. And while there was no letter from Santa telling Aoi what Akane wanted, he knew exactly what she needed.

When he got back, present in tow, he rummaged through his papers until he found the note, then added a final line: “In the meantime, I hope this helps. - Santa” He set it under the gingerbread house, slipped the present through the hole in the door, and went to sleep.

Unlike in previous years, he wasn’t awakened at the crack of dawn by a squealing sister. The sun was in the sky already and he could smell the gingerbread house as he rolled out of bed. Belatedly, he realized there was no tradition for finding presents by the gingerbread house. Would she even know it was there?

He made his way into the kitchen, slippers sliding along the floor. There were no squeals of happiness, no clatter of excited footsteps. Akane sat at the table facing the gingerbread house, the little door open, her hand inside before she pulled his present out into the light.

In her hand lay a pair of hair clips, not quite stars and not quite flowers, with little circles on the ends.

She turned around, meeting Aoi’s eyes as he stood in the hallway. He was frozen silent, unsure of what to say. Had he done the right thing? The wrong thing? The kind of thing that would make her live in her own world again until he could pry her out?

A small smile spread across her face as she looked at the hair clips. “Merry Christmas, Santa,” she said, and for the first time in a month, she sounded like herself.

“Merry Christmas,” he replied, finally stepping into the room, warmed by the thought that he might be able to pull off the good Santa from her story, after all.

[70swonderpoisonstark]

Wait, you survived? ( V )

// You and Steve survive the plane wreck and end up seventy years in the future. Everything’s different and the only person that understands the confusion and pain of losing your entire world is your now dead husband’s best friend. When the two of you are forced to adapt to the world around you, things can get complicated. //

 “If you love someone, tell them.

                         For hearts are often broken 

   by words left unspoken.”

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

Buildings were falling, crashing onto the streets. Aliens flying everywhere. You and Steve were helping civilians get inside or underground. Trying your hardest to keep everyone safe while also fighting for your lives. Your shots were dead on, head shots killed aliens just as effectively as they killed Nazi's. You went down the streets, rushing people away from the action while aiding the team with killing down the numbers. You'd lost Steve at this point, you'd been running up and down the streets, listening for the sound of Tony's blasters as you vigilantly fought the hoard of creatures that had been released through a giant portal in the sky. You were in the main part of the city, at the center of the action, punching, kicking, flipping through the air as you avoided being dusted by the alien weapons.

Steve watched helplessly as you were cornered time and time again by the horde that was unleashed on the city. He tried to fight his way over to you, but they kept coming, pulling him away from you. There were too many, they'd never make it out of this alive if they kept coming at this rate. Giant centipede-from-hell creatures filling the skies with fury, destroying everything in their path, releasing more aliens onto the ground. It was hopeless, but you kept on fighting, with the rest of them.

Energy blasts were coming from every direction, time itself seem to slow as you dodged blast after blast, shot after shot. Pure adrenaline forcing every move you made. Instinct driving you to fight, kill, survive. A crash a couples miles away lead you towards the rest of the group. You circled up, watching as more of them came out of the giant blue hole.

Steve ran off, helping the local police align their plan with his own. Saving the people was what mattered right now and he had to focus.

You fought alongside Natasha and Clint, dropping alien bodies as quickly as they came. Thor made an electrifying entrance, and Steve finally made his way over to you. He looked you up and down, checking for any obvious injuries and silently panicking about you being non-enhanced and not an assassin. He couldn't stop the fight to physically check you over, but by God that would be the first thing he did when this was all over.

Dr. Banner had finally showed, driving on a beaten down motorcycle. His look of shame had been replaced with strength. He seemed ready to do what needed to be done, and make up for his past mistakes in New York. He was ready to be the hero he had always been.

"That's my secret Cap, I'm always angry." A devastating blow demolished the skull of whatever armored alien whale, causing it to fall literally head over heels onto you guys. Steve covered you and Natasha as it came crumbling down. Igniting a fury in what was left of the aliens as they screamed their battle cries at the top of their lungs. Steve took the lead, shouting out a plan as the group fanned out. You, Steve, and Natasha stayed on the ground, taking out as many aliens as you could, bouncing creatures between the three of you as you tired out, working in unison as you ripped throats out. Natasha bounced, clasping onto one of the hover machines being flown by the aliens, flying off to God knows where. You and Steve stayed behind, throwing each other looks as you fought side by side, fighting memories as you kicked ass. They'd redone both of your original suits, his was more vibrantly star spangled and yours a much more abstract collection of dark navy, maroon and gray. It was hard not to imagine the two of you doing the same thing all across Europe before the fall as your moves synchronized together. Every crippling blow, every strike of the feet and hands, it was impossible not to see the symmetry you possessed on the battlefield; mirroring each others move without even a glance.

Steve focused on his fight, shield, punch, hit, uppercut, roundhouse. Fighting his way through squadron after squadron of evil. How was he reminiscing and battling at the same time? Aliens mirroring HYDRA goons time after time, the howling commandos behind and around him, you and Bucky on either side, taking down foe's with ease. His heart ached for the old days when the whole team was together, he'd have something smart to say to Dum Dum, only to be reminded that you were all he had left. He had to adjust to the times and realize he was fighting aliens, not Nazi's.

"Captain, the bank on 42nd past madison. They've cornered a lot of civilians in there." Clint radioed. He looked at you, torn between leaving for another fight or staying here with you.

You grabbed two aliens by the back of the head, breaking their necks in one swift pull forward as you looked at Steve. "Go! They need you, I can handle myself."

After a brief hesitation, he left to defend the civilians, all the worry for you pushed to the back of his mind as he found another clan of invaders. Silencing a bomb as he resourcefully kicked tables and mantles to take the aliens off their feet. Taking the full force knocked him out the window, and shortly he found his way back to another fight.

You looked up just as Tony had flown into the belly of the beast, shortly blowing himself up and flying out into the street.

"Try not to die, Tony. I haven't had a chance to clown your tech yet." You shouted as you continued to fight. He'd smashed into a few signs, slightly injuring himself but accomplishing the task at hand.

"I can shut the portal down." Natasha yelled throughout the comms.Finally, victory was in sight.

"Do it!"

"No, wait." Tony exclaimed, his voice strained from all the damage he'd taken.

"Stark these things are still coming!"

"I've got a nuke coming in and it's gonna blow in less than a minute." Was the last thing you heard before you saw a hundred pound nuke being flown into the sky by none other than Tony Stark. He barely missed his own building, and you heard the cheers of the city as the nuke passed through the wormhole. You and the team knew it was a one way trip, but they didn't. They hugged their coworkers and their families as you watched Tony sacrifice himself for the world. You couldn't move as you watched the portal collapse with Tony inside, as the opening narrowed slowly, Tony's armor nowhere in sight. You wanted to cry, but forced yourself to have hope that somehow he'd show up. The aliens around you powered down one by-

You inhaled sharply, knowing the intense feeling too well, one of the Chitauri had managed to stay up long enough to sneak attack you, driving a blade clean through your abdomen, the blade sticking out the back, you tried to radio for help, but just as the alien soldier fell, so did you.

Steve and the team moved to corner Loki in the tower, you weren't responding, but your coms may have been damaged in battle so there wasn't anything to worrisome about that. Thor handcuffed him with asgardian cuffs, and shortly after muzzled him. The team was given assignments and handed equipment off to other agents as they slowly cleared out the room. Thor kept Loki guarded, with the magic that was entwined in his cuffs he wasn't going anywhere, but nobody was willing to take their eyes off him regardless. Steve went to coordinate search and rescue making his way down the stairs, starting with the Stark tower to look for any survivors. He wandered around the city in a two block radius from the tower, knowing eventually you'd make your way there even with busted comms. After his check he asked the team if anybody had seen you, told them to scan around and see if they could see you walking around lost. Nobody had seen you since Tony fell the first time. A gut feeling told Steve something was wrong, and he frantically searched the surrounding area, praying you were only mildly injured, even though the voice in his head was telling him otherwise. Clint was the first to speak, and his words froze Steve in his tracks.

"Cap. I found her, but you're not gonna like it." And just like that Steve's heart stopped, his blood chilled as he listened, no details nothing as he sprinted to the nearest window. Clint gave him your location and Steve found you immediately.

"Tony. (Y/N)'s down. I need medics on 40th past the deli." Tony didn't bother radioing back as he quickly armored up and flew to where you were, he collapsed next to you, taking his helmet off as he felt the sting of each of his own injuries. He checked your neck for a pulse, hearing the sirens and knowing Steve was on his way, you had to be alive. He held his two fingers on your neck, praying to feel something, anything bounding around. He was dizzy himself from his fall, so keeping focus on something as simple as seeing if you had a pulse was hard when he could feel his own beating his skull. Tony used all his strength to to focus on you, pressing deep down onto your carotid. His head dropped, nothing. With the puddle of blood around you it didn't shock him, but he knew it would unravel Steve. He'd lost hope knowing the reality of the situation was heartbreaking, and then he felt it. Nothing strong, but he felt a slight pressure against his fingertips. You were holding on, barely, he heard the sirens getting closer but they needed to get there soon.

Steve's knees hitched as he saw you, blade impaling your side. You're unconscious body laying on its unaffected side, the sword holding you up unevenly.

"Is, Tony is she.." Steve couldn't breathe, the sight in front of him made him dizzy, he ran five feet and threw up, staring at your pale body he doubled over, hands on his knees. He couldn't force himself to believe the sight that was so real in front on his eyes. He dropped to his knees, grabbing your hand as he watched your chest with scrutiny. You were struggling, but he could see your breathing, it was definitely not as much as it should have been, and your chest shook with every half breath you took, but it was something, right?

"Tony, tony, she, she's not, she's gonna be." He pushed your hair out of your face, you'd taken a beating and a half and still you were the most beautiful woman in the world. He held back the tears he so desperately wanted to cry.

"Steve, it doesn't look good, but let me handle this, I promise I'll do my best." Steve couldn't let go, you were all he had, you were everything, and now you were dying in his arms. He was helpless yet again, watching another person he loved die before him.

Cheeks stained with silent tears, you used what was left of your strength to squeeze Steve's hand, he knew you loved him, he was your best friend, but you couldn't leave him, not like this. Stark pulled you from him and disappeared into the sky. Blasters the last thing Steve saw before he broke. Sight going black, the last thing he see's is Natasha running his way.

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

//There goes Tony being the most selfless person on the planet like ALWAYS(Tony Anti’s will be blocked SNS) You’re kind of a badass huh? Who knew, oh wait, YOU DID BECAUSE YOU’RE FUCKING AMAZING AND I LOVE YOU SO NEVER DOUBT YOUR SELF WORTH BECAUSE YOU ARE ALWAYS IMPORTANT, ALWAYS LOVED, AND ALWAYS HAVE A PURPOSE AND A REASON TO BE HERE AND ALIVE NO MATTER WHAT. FIGHT LIKE HELL, BECAUSE AFTER YOU SURFACE AGAIN NOTHING AND NOBODY CAN FUCK WITH YOU. BE PROUD OF YOUR SMALL VICTORIES AND NEVER DOWNPLAY YOUR EMOTIONS. YOU. ARE. VALUABLE. AND NOT BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU CAN DO, JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE HERE, ALIVE, AND BREATHING IN AIR. YOU MATTER, ALWAYS, AND FOREVER. Sorry for the all caps rant but my own personal anxiety/depression has been kicking my ass so I know there’s others who may need to hear that. If anybody reading this needs to talk to somebody, or just vent to an unbiased person I am MORE than willing to be your sounding board. No issue is too big or small. Message me, please. I know what it’s like to have all these feelings and emotions and not have nobody to tell them too because they wouldn’t understand or you don’t wanna be a bother or it’ll go away eventually. SO TALK TO ME, if I can’t help you’ll at least be able to get it out.//

//You guys are going to love this! This is such a fun story for me to write, and all the positive feedback is really helping, so thank you all for your likes and reblogs, every one of them brings a smile to my face and makes my day. Let me know what you guys think, what you’d like to see, what you don’t wanna see, and some crazy vocab words and I’ll write accordingly, thanks for the read, and HAPPY SPOOKY SEASON!!//

[chordstrvck-blog]

sharp gray eyes size up their unwanted companion through a lung-staled waft of smoke. “ ‘ey. ”  a tip of the chin. cigarette ash darts to pavement. crunch. eddie grinds that shit in, real good. nothin’ like a pair of trusty docs to do the trick. “ what the fuck’s your damage ? ”

or alternatively :  yo, yo, whassgood ?  the name’s liana ( she/her/hers ) and i am so friggin’ hyped to bring you my spoopy lil’ music man, eddie williams !!  below the cut you’ll find a big hodge-podged mess of facts, potential connects, and other delicious chips of info. his favorites are hoppin’ jalapeno crunch tators, thanks for fuckin’ askin’. (   imagine how heartbroken he’ll be when frito lay discontinues them in the 90′s... rest in spaghetti never forgetti.    )

— ❝ wait is that THOMAS HAYES ? or is that KEITH EDISON “EDDIE” WILLIAMS who arrived in las vegas TWENTY-THREE years ago? HE is TWENTY-THREE years old. last time i checked they were a GUITARIST IN CRIMSON & CLOVER / ARTIST AT ATOMIC TATTOOS . rumour has it they’re very BEGUILING and very HARUM-SCARUM. the CISMALE reminds me of SAY WHAT YOU WILL BY FASTWAY.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: DEATH, DOMESTIC ABUSE, VIOLENCE, DRUG USE/ABUSE, MENTIONS OF ADDICTION.

eddie is the lovely ivy williams [ @poiseonxivy​ ] ’s older brother !  they grew up in a contentious household here in vegas, with an abusive alcoholic for a father and a complacent/despondent mother. fed up with the abuse and chaos, their mother walked out on them when eddie was 13. he and ivy caught her in the act, and this savage kid called her out for being a coward and opened the fuckin’ door for her. “ die in a ditch, ”  is the last thing he ever said to that sorry waste of a woman.

naturally, things with their father only got worse. he was quick to provoke and impossible to please. the williams siblings had to step up to upkeep their home, make sure bills got paid, etc., all while receiving the worst of it from their father. ivy, as the youngest, was blamed for the family’s downfall. eddie got berated and slurred at for his tendency to peruse his sister’s things, paint his middle fingers interesting colors, ask her to do his makeup on halloween. his father was the first person to ever look eddie in the eye and call him a faggot, and, well... that shit dug deep.

it’s not that he’s overly concerned about it. hell, labels are fuckin’ dumb, alright? he’d sooner be gagged with a spoon than told he has to live his life all boxed up. he doesn’t care that the lady at the bar’s stunning and so is the guy pourin’ her drink, alright? what he does care about is... what if he is that thing his dad said? what if he... what if he is the man his dipshit dad saw in him ?

guitarist in el’s band, crimson & clover !  the band formed several years ago and has been playing gigs ever since. it’s definitely made him grow as a guitarist :  you can frequently find eddie chilling on fire escapes experimenting with new riffs and the like. he’s absolutely got that band aesthetic ––  distressed tees, tight pants, leather, leather, leather. doc martens. beat up sneaks. jaw-length hair, wavy. usually teased on stage and left to its own devices off-stage. music has always been an escape for him, especially from the hellscape that was his childhood home. catch him chillin in el’s record shop, cig in hand, blissed out to the latest rock releases blasting in his headphones.

jake wheeler’s next-door neighbor / best friend !  we have yet to plot about this, but that’s a wc eddie fills & we could do something with that, too!

tw: drugs, abusive tendencies, mild violence.  eddie’s genetics do predispose him to addiction. and, unfortunately, this bitch way more than dabbles in a haphazard lifestyle. he’s BIG into psychedelics, stimulants. alcohol. acid. he’ll pulverize the occasional bar asshole’s face. make fights out of nothing. but s’not a problem, alright ? he’s cool. he’s cool.   (  this guy’s a sinkin’ ship in heavy ass denial.  )

art. tattooing.  art has also played a pivotal role in eddie’s life. from a very young age, he created edgy doodles: skeletons in their sunday best, ghost cartoons carrying guns. the late 60′s/early 70′s saw his school notebooks filling with vietnam-inspired strips, doodles, and sketches. he used to draw “tattoos” on his fellow delinquents during detention in sharpie ink. gave himself his first poke tattoo on his ankle  ( a scrawled so what ? )  in eighth grade. now, he works as a tattooist at atomic tattoos. always flirts with the clientele. and they always leave happy.

tw: death. wears a dharma wheel pendant at all times, tucked beneath his shirt or, if he’s shirtless, just out in the open. he’ll say he found it in the street, but it actually belonged to a guy he started seeing his senior year of high school, in secret.  glenn farley. he was older, around 27, but he offered up the first safe place eddie’d ever known. dude disappeared close to eddie’s graduation. eddie stayed angry for a long time, until his photo turned up in the obits :  glenn was killed in a hit-and-run outside a dive bar.

on the topic of sexuality & gender expression :   eddie honestly couldn’t give a flyin’ shit. he’s of the belief that existence shouldn’t be coded or explained. so, yeah, he’s male. and yeah, he’ll be attracted to whomever he pleases. but in a time where that shit’s not too common? not too accepted? he does feel like he’s playing hide-and-seek. it’s exhausting. and... there’s still something that nags him, at the back of his mind, when he decides to hook up with a guy. it’s all tied up with his family history ( see the stuff about his dad above ) .

eddie is very outspoken & unfiltered. he won’t mince his words; he’ll speak bullets without considering the exit wound. 

he’d much rather have coffee and cigarettes than a meal. but if he’s gotta have food? and you’re forcing him? cinnamon waffles with ten gallons of syrup. delicious.

wears rings because hell, if he’s gonna punch you, he wants that shit to hurt.

smells like tobacco and amber and fresh-fallen rain.

likes makeup. tends to get away with some eyeliner/eyeshadow on stage, but typically doesn’t wear any day-to-day. maybe some eyeliner on his waterline, but... he’s learned how to get by.

cross his sister and he’ll eat your face for breakfast.

default greeting: blinking at you like you’re offending him by taking in the same air.

honestly he’s never thought to leave vegas. he likes it here. his crew? they’re good people. as in reckless. fun.

has almost a full sleeve on his left arm, and two bands curling around his right bicep. one ear pierced, but doesn’t always wear an earring there.

can he offer you a winter green lifesaver in this trying time ??

goes by eddie or williams. call him keith and he can’t be held responsible for what happens to you. the only person who’s got keith privileges is his kid sister.

thomas hayes has brown eyes but eddie’s are a staggeringly light blue-gray. they look like ice. he’s 6′1 and that type of lanky that tends to look sleek, enticing, and mildly emaciated. he does have muscle to him, but the guy doesn’t eat very often and he’s on a steady diet of destructive habits, so... he’s got that matty healy circa 2012 vibe going on

potential connects.

chaos crew. they hit the clubs. they try their hand at scheming and tricking the best poker leagues. chug beers, crush the cans, and toss ‘em in front of cars. experiment with drug cocktails and haunt the town. all laughs and dilated pupils and forgetting, forgetting, forgetting the cracks in their ribs, the scabs on their knuckles. nothin’ hurts when your blood pumps this quick.

diner pal.  eddie rolls up to his favorite diner in the wee hours of the morning. 2am, 3am. when he can’t sleep or he’s comin’ down from a heckish night, he’s there, whole pitcher of coffee and a stack of waffles. mussed hair. an entire encyclopedia of wild stories. one night, he stumbled into this person’s booth high as all shit, and they’ve been inviting themselves to one another’s tables ever since. could be a romantic connection. could be platonic.

ex on bad terms.  kid’s got commitment issues. i’d love to give them a source.

fuckbuddies.  they could just be friends who get fucked and do the deed. maybe there’s feelings. maybe it’s a you service me, i’ll service you situation. either way, they’re indulgent. they’re reckless. and they’ve got no regard for any damage they’ll cause.

people he’s tattooed.  

sworn enemies.  acerbic words, gnashing teeth, icy glares. they’ll cross the fuckin’ street just to avoid being within a ten-foot radius of one another.

caretaker.  a friend ( or even stranger ) who’s taken it on themselves to monitor this maelstrom. all i can say is... good friggin’ luck, kid.

obviously there are so many more but this is just a list to get some juices flowing !

if you want to plot, please feel free to message me !!  i’m headed to the gym now but after that i’ll hit up the starter tags !!  so flipping excited to write with you goons !!

[bards-witcher]

I couldn’t leave you all hanging after the last one so here you go. It’ll probably be a few days before I post the next part as I’m pretty sure my body is screaming at me to take a break XD

As always hope you enjoy :D

Part 1, 2, 3, 4

It’s just before sunrise when he leaves the roof, not having heard a single thing except the birds in the trees and the occasional car. Once again he manoeuvred his way through the streets, not even thinking about where he was going, instead trusting that his legs would take him where he needed to be.

After Luke had vanished and the cold stone of the roof had made his legs numb he returned to his bag, hugging it tight to try and derive any sort of comfort as he forced himself to relive the worst moment of his life. No matter how many times he played it through, no matter how painful it was he could only see one thing and it involved blood splattered glass and the man who was larger than life crumple to the floor.

He’s not sure what ‘Luke’ had meant last night, or why his mind was suddenly creating cryptic messages, the sound of a car horn brought him back to attention though. He went to gesture a sorry to the driver when he noticed who it was, Marcel and Scotty. As with Tyler they simply stared at each, as if trying to feel the other out, when in a split-second Ryan made a dash for it, hopping over a parked car as he darted down the pavement.

He could hear the car following behind him as he dipped through an alley, emerging and taking off in the other direction as they passed by him. He heard them turning, not looking back he kept sprinting as he made his way to the local park. He could hear gunfire behind him, quickly ducking his head in an attempt to shield it but not slowing down.

When he reached the park, the front gate was locked, being before dawn meant that it was closed to keep people out during the night. He leapt as he got close to the gate, making it about halfway up before climbing the rest. A brief look behind him showed that another car had joined Marcel and Scotty’s, it was in front of theirs and he could see Marcel hanging out the passenger window and shooting at it.

He didn’t have time to question why as he saw a gun emerge from the other car that was aimed towards him. He barely managed to scramble and fall to the other side of the gate before shots were being fired. He turned left, heading towards the small amount of tree cover as the first car crashed through the gate, swiftly followed by Scotty and Marcel. They managed to steer the front of their car into the others rear end, turning the car away from him. He didn’t look much longer; the sounds of gunfire tore through the quiet of morning as he climbed over the fence surrounding the park before he carried on running.

He came across a subway station, jumping over the railing and just about managing to land on the stairs before finishing the descent. He walked through the opened gate, sitting down on the nearest bench as he caught his breath.

If he didn’t know any better he’d say that Scotty and Marcel had saved him from who he assumed were a couple of goons from G’s gang sent to kill him. Yes, they’d saved him, but they had found him first, probably eager instead to get rid of the competition before taking him down. It was eerily quiet in the station, almost too quiet for his liking but he strangely felt at ease, he didn’t feel that twinge of dread he normally did when danger was around.

It wasn’t long before a train pulled up, he didn’t know where it went, hell he didn’t even know where he was going, he just collapsed into the nearest chair and felt all the energy drain out of him. He closed his eyes for a moment, just enjoying the peace at that moment, the gentle swaying of the carriage almost sending him to sleep before he heard a voice beside him that sent ice through his veins.

“So, figure it out yet?”

Ryan opened his eyes to see ‘Luke’ sitting casually beside him, a playful smile on his face.

“I’m really not in the mood for this right now so can you just say what you’re gonna say and go, I’ve got enough shit to deal with right now” He turned to face the man beside him noticing how his face turned into a playful pout.

“I thought you liked talkin’ to me” Ryan couldn’t help but scoff, yes he did like talking with Luke, but this Luke was nothing more than a poor carbon copy compared to the real thing. “How about I give you another hint then?”

As sarcastically as he could he replied “Go on then”

“Mind over body”

Ryan’s brows furrowed in confusion, he turned to ask ‘Luke’ what the hell he was talking about, but he was gone. Ryan stared in the space he had been sitting not a second ago before he rubbed his eyes in an attempt to clear his mind.

He got off the train at the next stop, he could see the sky starting to lighten up as he left the station on what looked to be the other side of town, a quick glance around him showed that apart from the odd early morning commuter, he was alone.

He carried on walking till he reached the edge of town, ducking under the nearby bridge to try and get what little sleep he could.

He was standing over the rooftops watching the sunset, although he was more out in the open up here, not many had the skills to get up and manoeuvre across the uneven roofs where he now stood. In the distance, he could barely make out the small warehouse where he used to live, where he knew the members of BBS would be in. He wished he could go to them, yes they were a gang, but they were also his friends, his friends who he missed a bit more each day, the only people to know what Luke’s’ death truly meant to him.

He kept watch of it until it faded into shadow at the dying sun, and even then he still watched, wondering if he’d ever return there.

He sat on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the edge as he thought back to Lukes’ words, still having no idea what was meant by mind over body. Just as he thought it, he felt a presence beside him, and sure enough, a cold hand clasped over his own.

“It’s pretty up here ain’t it?”

Ryan simply hummed, still looking out at the hub of life before him, watching the lights start to light up the town.

“You’re so smart you know that?” Ryan could only turn to ‘Luke’ in confusion, wondering where the hell that had come from. “When you were working for G I had some of the guys tailing you for weeks and you never knew. Now though, you always know when something ain’t quite right and it’s because of that wonderful, beautiful mind you got”

Ryan wasn’t too sure how to answer that, could only keep staring at the man in front of him, waiting for him to continue. They kept staring at each other, ‘Luke’ appeared to be waiting for him to say something and when nothing came he sighed, grabbing one of Ryans’ legs and lifting it over the edge so that they were facing one another and straddling the edge.

Cold hands clasped his face and as much as he wanted to pull away, to push the other man away and tell him never to come back he simply couldn’t, Luke had always been his weakness and he decided this time he would indulge.

“When you were with G you had no control of your body right, only your mind” Ryan simply nodded, closing his eyes as he let himself be comforted by the thumbs now rubbing his cheeks. “Well your eyes are a part of your body aren’t they, meanin’ maybe they were somewhat obscured.”

Ryan opened his eyes at this, staring into Lukes dark brown eyes as he thought over those last few words.

“But your mind saw everythin’, even if you don’t remember, you just need to think”

Thoughts were passing through his mind a mile a minute, but no matter how hard he tried to imagine something else happen, he only saw Lukes’ death.

“How ‘bout this then, you didn’t seem surprised when I said I had guys tailing you for weeks, that’s because deep down you knew. Your mind will remember, you just need to think Ryan”

Ryan closed his eyes again, thinking through some of the last few memories he had of when he was little more than a machine.

He remembered entering a warehouse where they were going to be given weapons for a raid on another gang. At first, he saw nothing, simply replaying the same scene over and over again, however, despite seeing nothing new he couldn’t help but feel a small niggle in his mind that something should be there. It was the next time he replayed the scene that his eye caught sight of a figure across the street as he entered the warehouse, it was Kryoz, hood up in the shadows as he watched Ryan slip through the door.

Then the scenery changed, he was with the two henchmen who he’d killed a couple days prior, they were supposed to get some money from a guy who owed them, a man who one of the henchmen later killed because he couldn’t cough up the money. They’d met him at some run-down bar where they later paid the manager to take the guy out back to deal with. As before, the scene played over in his mind, he tried to see some of the patrons, but their faces just seemed to blur and merge together, and no matter how hard he thought the scene wouldn’t change.

‘Luke’ seemed to sense his distress, moving his hands to his shoulders and giving them a gentle squeeze, their coolness sending a shiver down Ryan’s spine.

The scene started again, he walked in and looked to the left, except this time he saw Brock and Brian sitting at a booth, drinks in hand whilst their heads were low in deep discussion. When he looked to the bar he saw Tyler sitting there, hunched over as he nursed his drink. As the scenario played out, he noticed Tyler cast his eyes on him every now and then, watching him. Finally, as they dragged the guy through the back door he looked back, seeing Brian somewhat restrain Tyler in the corner of his eye until he passed through the door.

Next, he was back on the rooftop, gun in hand as he waited for Lukes’ car to pull up. The scene plays out, he remembers trying to fight tooth and nail to knock his aim but still, the bullet was shot, and Luke collapsed.

He’s not sure how many times the scene played out, doesn’t even know he’d started crying until Lukes’ cold hand returned to his face, thumbs wiping them away. The next thing he felt cold lips touch his forehead “You can do this Ry, you’re almost there” he then felt ‘Luke’ pull him close, almost as if he was acting like his shield before once again the scene started.

He was fighting just as aggressively before, but he still feels his finger pull the trigger, watches the bullet chase its target. Only this time there seemed to be a delay, he saw the bullet break through the window, but it was a split second later he saw blood, and before he turned away he swears he sees Lukes’ hand twitch, almost as if he quickly grabbed something that was on the floor beside him.

Ryan quickly opened his eyes, taking in a deep breath as if it’s his first one in weeks, his heart pumping a mile a minute in his chest. He notices that ‘Luke’ is no longer in front of him, instead, he was standing a bit further along the roof, smiling softly at Ryan.

Ryan hopped off of the edge and ran towards ‘Luke’ almost bouncing from excitement, he was breathless, the sudden realisation that somehow Luke was alive being all he could comprehend.

“You’re alive, no, Luke’s alive, he faked his death didn’t he”

“You did good, also helped that you missed your shot”

“What?” He’d expected some sage advice his mind could conjure up, not some sort of insult.

Luke simply smiled at him, raising his hands to once again cup Ryans’ face. “For the first time in your life you missed, and I couldn’t be happier or more proud about it”

Ryan could only stare at the man before him, confused about the entire situation until he truly felt the hands on his face, felt their warmth seep into his skin and drive away the cold that had made its home there. He kept staring into Lukes’ eyes as he raised his hands to grasp Lukes’ wrists, they were warm and more importantly he felt a pulse, it was strong against his fingertips, leaving little doubt about the man that was in front of him.

“Luke?” His voice cracked, hating how he sounded like a lost little child as he once again felt tears start to fall down his face.

Luke gave him a soft smile, he noticed the tears falling down his face as the grip on his face got tighter as if Luke couldn’t believe he was there either.

“Hey Ry”

They crashed together, arms curling tight around the other as if no force on earth could tear them apart, faces pressed into the other's neck as tears streamed down their faces. All they could do was hold onto each other, the thought running through both their heads that they were safe and they were home.

[thewitchandthebeasthimself]

Chapter 17

Despite today already being so eventful, my day was not over yet. I still needed to sacrifice Izaya’s soul to Satan and dance in the underworld with his evil minions into the night. Just kidding, but I did have something on my agenda, that being to put up a barrier around my and Shizuo’s apartments.

I reached my house first, eyeing the package that sat in front of my door and the transparent barrier that I had put in place before leaving. I picked up the package addressed to me from a cosplay website, indicating to me that the cosplay outfit that I ordered had came in earlier than I expected. I smiled as I thought about my first cosplay event that was coming up shortly; anticipating the fact that I finally get to enjoy what I love doing most with a group of friends that I actually feel comfortable with. I then closed my eyes, imagined a releasing feeling, and took a deep breath in. On the exhale and with a swipe of my hand, I released the barrier and unlocked my door.

 I kicked my shoes off at the door and set my groceries and package down on the kitchen table, keeping in mind what I was planning to do tonight and looking forward to the fact that I will no longer have to put a barrier up everytime I leave my apartment.

I decided to set up my space for the spell ahead of time, moving my coffee table into the center of the room and setting all of my materials for the spell on top of it. I picked up my Book of Shadows and flipped it to the bookmarked page where I had wrote down everything I needed for the spell, checking over it twice to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I suddenly felt the tingle of Shizuo's energy coming towards me. It seemed off to me because he usually texts me before he shows up.

What's going on? I thought as I picked up on his energy coming closer. Buzz words popped in my head to associate the feeling to his energy: hurt, damaged.

Fuck, not again, I thought as I scrambled up and darted out the door. I quickly tiptoed down the steps and turned right into the direction I felt his energy coming from. I finally spotted him, panting and limping down the street into the rainy night, covered almost head to toe in sweat and blood. Whatever tried to kill him this time hit him much harder than the last; his energy was still spiked with anger as he came towards me, his energy also giving off that he was badly hurt and barely hanging onto life. I gasped at the horrific sight, covering my hands over my mouth with shock that he was still alive. His energy quickly faded from his body as he fell to the ground, moving in and out of consciousness. I ran up to him to pick him off the ground.

“What the hell happened?!” I shouted. “How did this happen, why didn't you call the hospital?!”

“Stop!” he yelled back, coughing as blood dripped from his mouth. “Please! You were the closest... to me. I need help… right now.”

“Okay, okay, let me get you into my apartment.” I hastily responded, embarrassed that I immediately bombarded him with questions in his condition. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and rested some of his weight onto me as we hiked up the street to my apartment. I ripped his shirt the rest of the way down, almost retching at what I saw. His entire chest was covered in bloody bullet holes.

“Oh my God, Shizuo… you are covered in bullet holes!” I exclaimed.

“I know… I'm pretty damn lucky to have survived that. I saw... Izaya… and chased after him.” he said between pants. “Then those... Blood fuckers showed up and unloaded... their guns into me.”

“I've gotta call Shinra in for help with this,” I said. “Because this may take more help than what I can give. Give me his number so I can call him.”

“My phone… was smashed.” he said.

“Oh, well I'll call Celty,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket with my right hand. I dialed her number, listening to the ring tone. She appeared to pick up on the other end but obviously didn't say anything.

“Celty!” I exclaimed. “We need you and Shirna here ASAP! Shizuo was badly injured by the Blood Diamonds again, and I can only do so much with magic!”

The call suddenly disconnected. I looked down at my phone, instantly receiving a text from Celty saying: [Do whatever you can to keep him alive, I need to pick up Shinra then we'll be over shortly.]

I texted her back: [Will do, thanks again.]

As soon as we reached the stairs, I lost my grip on Shizuo as he fell hard onto the ground, hitting his head on a stair.

“Shit!” I exclaimed as I bent down to try to pick him up.

“It’s okay, I’ll be alright,” he said laboredly. “Just... leave me here.”

“What?” I questioned. “I’m not gonna do that, I’m gonna start a healing spell on you to spare some time before Celty and Shinra get here.” I towered over him as I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath in to prepare for my healing spell. I visualized a life of us together without the constant invasion by Izaya and his goons; a life as stress free as it was before all of this happened.  On the exhale, I rose my hands and pressed my palms into his chest, pouring healing energy into him. He closed his eyes, placing his hand on top of mine.

“I’m...I’m done fighting.” he said slowly.  “I think… at this point it's my time... He's tried so many times… maybe it's time that i finally gave up… i don't want your life to be any harder… than it already is… and... I don't want you to be sad for me….Thank you, (your name),” he said, looking up and smiling at me. “For everything. For coming here and... being with me.”

As I looked up at him as his energy began to fade. My eyes widened as I immediately understood what was happening.

No, it can't be.

“No-- no,” I stammered, struggling to speak as my mouth caught up with my brain. “No, that's not going to happen, I won't let it.”

“It's okay,” he said between uneven breaths.

“NO!” I screamed, switching to my native language out of fear. “No, you're not doing this to me! You can't! I can’t---Please! You can't leave me!” tears ran down my face as i mustered all of my energy into this spell, pouring every inch of my own into him. “I can't do this without you Shizuo, please, stay with me…”

“(Your name),” he sighed, taking a huge breath in, and exhaling, saying “I….” Suddenly, everything went silent, as if the light inside him went out. A wave of darkness came over me as his energy faded from his body. Nothing i could do was working. I stopped my spell, attempting cpr by pumping his heart then checking to hear his breath. I opened his mouth with my own lips to breathe into his mouth, seeing if i could get him to come back. 

 “Oh no, no no no please” I cried out. “Shizuo! Why?! God dammit, why?! I asked you to hang on but you wouldn't! Why would you just give up?! On me?! On everyone that cares about you?! Fuck!” I cried, beating on his chest between every sentence “Why…? Dammit where are they?!” I exclaimed as i remembered that Celty and Shinra were supposed to be here. I dialed Celty’s number and called her.

“(Your name)?” Shirna answered.

“Where are you guys?” i said through tears in Japanese. “I think… i think Shizuo just... I couldn’t do anything.”

“Oh! Oh jeez,” Shirna exclaimed. “Hang on, we're almost there, we’re actually going to need to take him to a hospital.”

“Shinra… Celty… I couldn't do it.” I sobbed. “He… he just GAVE UP before i could do anything. I feel so powerless.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Shirna said frantically. “We're going to take him to Nebula, we should be able to revive him there before it's too late, we’re almost there.”

“Okay,” I said, hanging up the phone. I laid my head on his chest, listening for his heartbeat, until I heard the revving of Celty’s horse and felt Shinra’s energy approaching. I looked up to see them riding quickly down the street until they stopped practically beside us on the sidewalk. After Celty and Shinra jumped off of the bike, Shooter transformed in a shadowy, horse drawn carriage as Celty wrapped her shadows around Shizuo’s body to pick him up. She summoned her phone from her sleeve, typed quickly into it with one hand, then showed it to me:

[Go ahead and get in, I’ll set him down on your lap.] She then erased what she wrote and quickly typed: [I promise, everything is going to be fine, Nebula is a very advanced facility, they’ll be able to revive him.]

“I couldn’t do it…” I said. “And I am destined to be a fucking immortal being with all possible knowledge. So how could they do it?”

“Come on, we’re running out of time,” Shinra said as he gently pushed me forward to get into the carriage. I stepped up into the carriage, raising my hands slightly so that Celty could lay his body in the back with me, his head resting in my lap. I played with his hair and kept a hand on his chest for a heartbeat as we rode quickly to Nebula Corp, the hospital that could supposedly revive the dead.

Upon arriving, we stopped at a gate to a huge facility. The gate opened for us automatically, allowing us inside. Once we made it to the entrance of the area, Celty stepped off of the carriage as she wrapped her shadows around Shizuo to pick him up and bring him inside. Once we all stepped off of the carriage, it transformed back into a bike, giving off a short, other wordly snort as it moved up slightly on its own to park alongside the building.

I followed Celty and Shinra into the huge building, stepping inside the brightly lit lobby. The lobby of the facility did not look like a normal hospital lobby; all of the right interior was there but there wasn’t a waiting area, and all of the attendants wore lab coats. I followed them down the hallway past a receptionist’s desk, where the the woman sitting at the desk stood up and bowed to him.

“Good evening, Dr. Kishitani,” she greeted Shinra, then looked to Celty, who carried Shizuo’s body on her shoulder with her shadows wrapped around him for support. Shinra said nothing as we hurriedly stepped past her to an elevator. He swiped his badge in the card slot to the right, then typed in a code on the keypad next to it to access the elevator. We followed in with him as the elevator door closed shut behind us and Shinra pressed a button to go to the 3rd floor.

“I've have been working on something that can bring Shizuo back in case something like this happened,” Shinra began. “It's not exactly finished yet, but we've gotta make it work either way.”

Once we reached the 3rd floor, we came to a waiting room with the same layout as the lobby in the entrance on the ground floor.

“Wait here,” Shinra said as he looked at me. “After Celty brings him in I'll send her back out here to sit with you.”

“Okay,” I said, sulking over to a chair in the waiting room as Shinra and Celty carried Shizuo past two double doors on the right of the receptionist’s desk. I slumped back into the chair, leaning back further to put my hands to my eyes as i continued to process everything that just happened.

Shizuo just… I shuddered at the thought. And… and there was nothing that I could do about it… why couldn’t I? I slumped forward, crossing my arms on my legs and put my head down staying in the position that i was in as i spiraled downward into the grief that I felt.

 This is… all my fault. I could have prevented this. I could have saved him, but i didn't…what do i do from here? I can't go back home. How am I going to live without him if whatever Shirna has planned doesn't work? I've never met another man like him. I don't know if I will ever be able to recover from this… Shizuo… I'm sorry...

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

 I woke up, realizing that I must have fallen asleep when i felt someone place their a hand on my shoulder. I jumped up to the touch, surprised that I didn’t sense this person’s energy, until I looked over to see Celty had sat next to me. I breathed a sigh of relief as I attempted to let go of the anxiety that came from the touch.

“You scared me,” I said.

She typed into her phone and showed it to me, [Sorry, I have good news for you.]

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are they really gonna save him?”

She typed into her phone again, then held it up, [They were able to bring him back, he’s breathing but he needs to rest. Shirna is running some more tests on him before leaving him here for the night.]

My eyes widened, shocked that they were actually able to bring him back. “Really?! I… I can’t believe it! That’s...that’s insane. I don’t understand but…” I struggled to find the right words to match my emotions. “I… uh...  when can I see him?”

[I don’t know yet, Shinra will probably tell you when you can.]

[Right now it's probably best to let him recover.]

“How did they bring him back so fast?” I asked as I thought of the question.

She seemed to show a bit of excitement in her body language as she typed, then showed it to me: [This is an advanced facility that does a lot of research on different types of things. Shinra’s department was developing something just for him in the case that he actually did get into some serious trouble.]

“So what is this magical ‘thing’ that outdid my magick?” I asked, crossing my arms.

[He called it “STEP 2”.]

[It’s a type of gas that they can put on him stimulate his senses and bring him back to the other side.]

“Oh… well… that sounds… nice,” I said, hanging my head. “I'm just..glad he's alive.” Of course I was genuinely happy that he was alive, but I still couldn't help but to feel that I was useless in saving him…

Celty tapped my left shoulder to grab my attention, then typed something into her phone and showed it to me: [Hey, try not to be so hard on yourself.] She erased that then typed: [I know how you're feeling right now.] She seemed to rub her neck as if she were looking for the right words to say. She erased what she just wrote, then typed: [Just be prepared for anything and protect Shizuo as much as you can while he is in recovery. Because Izaya could come for him again at anytime. Shinra doesn't think that the STEP 2 gas could work as effectively again.]

I nodded, then said, “Of course, I won't let anything happen to him this time. I will stay by his side until he is recovered.”

Celty responded: [Good. I'm gonna head home and wait for Shinra to come home, what are you gonna do?]

“I don't know, I guess I'll stay here until i can see him.”

Celty responded: [Okay, well I'll see you tomorrow.]

“Okay,” I replied. She nodded to me, then got up and walked over to the elevator to leave the hospital. Preparing for a long night in the waiting room, I crossed my arms, lowered my head and attempted to take a short nap as I waited to hear back from someone.

[moonfox281]

Since it's the holiday season, how would the mob wife verse celebrate? I imagine Dick would get little special gifts for some of Jason's closest gang members. Especially for Jeff and Trevor. Would Jason's men get anything for their Blue?

1. Believe it or not, each of Jason’s underground bases does get Christmas tree. Instead of present littering around at the bottom, they’ll have AK, C4, just lots of lethal weapons. Oh, and beers too.

2. Jason’s guards celebrating the nights in Christmas week by hanging up uninvited guests of their bases with fairy light strings and make them wear red pom-pom hats while waiting for their Boss. 

“Look Boss! It’s Christmas angels!“

“Could I shoot them now?“

4. Most of Jason’s goons are loners so they have Christmas together, drinking and chatting about how stupid stuff.

“You know, I saw Blue dragged Boss home by the ear one time.“

“Yeah, and he had just won a fight with 3 metas before that!“

“Is that how marriage life gonna be?“

“Haha… I don’t want to get married anymore.“

3. The subordinates members all decided that it’s the best gift if they could give their Boss and Blue a week off, so they arrange everything to make sure the streets are clean for their master’s special week. 

4. The superior members get Dick presents of course.

5. For Jeff and Trevor though, well, single men are all idiots when it comes to gifts, so don’t expect much of them. 

For a really long time since they knew each other, Trevor saw Jeff scrolling through boxes and gifts with the determination of a man on a special mission. Yes, he did have his moments, blowing up buildings and massing people’s brains like a walking breathing meat blending machine. Crap, he had seen Jeff with a fish hook half way through his thigh and still the man looked like he still could take some more. No, for the first time in forever, Trevor saw Jeff looking around in complete incertitude, hands fidgeted for a smoke like every he did when feeling nervous.

The people at the gang would laugh their ass off if Trevor ever said this was all by Jeff’s idea from the beginning.

“This place is crazy, and why the hell would people need an orange peeler?”

Jeff picked around the shelf and glanced around, looking like Tarzan getting himself lost in the middle of busy London streets, or in this case, a caveman in the middle of Kmart. Seriously, his friend desperately needed a shave, or Trevor was gonna have to tell Blue to tell him to do that. Jeff always listened to Blue, even when he complained about the shits Blue made him do, but still, he listened to him, every single word, and sometimes, maybe sometimes, even more than he listened to Boss.

High neck boots and cargo pants, rocking the navy Henley and black watch cap, he still dressed like a soldier, after all these years, as a living proof that all people who came back, came back different, and that patriotism didn’t die, just the belief in the system was now gone.

He looked around and frowned, acting like a lost Shepherd that barked and bit to cover up how frightened it was.

“You know, if you keep looking like that, people will start to think you’re about to steal something.” Trevor felt sorry for him.

“And do I look like I give a shit?”

“No, but the securities might do give many shits.”

“Stop being an ass and help me out. How about this?” He picked up a giant dinosaur plush, staring at it with a finger between the lip and the nose.

“Isn’t that from Kid section?”

“And Blue isn’t childish enough for you?”

“No, not with a body like that.” Trevor sighed. “Jeff, buddy, are you gonna at least tell me why you suddenly feel like picking up shit like this?”

“Look around, idiot. It’s jingling wherever the place. Wait, is that table socks? Why on Earth does anyone need table socks? The table doesn’t even fucking need it itself!”

For a minute, he had Trevor speechless there, not with all the swearing and mumbling with the Christmas edition table socks package he was staring at, no, it was Jeff talking about Christmas.

Jeff, and Christmas. That was like Michael Bay and Nicolas Sparks’ novels.

“You’re shitting me.” He shouted, had the lady next to them frowning and shaking her head. “You fucking hate Christmas!”

Jeff continued to ignore him and scrolled through the next row, eyes darting around and stopped at one particular item.

“I still do, but unfortunately, somebody doesn’t. Hey, you think they have this in like, human size?”

“Jeff, that’s a cat bed.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

The guy must be fucking joking.

“Blue’s gonna fucking plug your head off if you give him that.”

Seriously, what was wrong with Boss and Jeff and cat metaphor about Blue? To Trevor, he was always more like a bird, free and elegant and just, kind looking.

“What? I think it’s funny, and I think Boss might like it too.”

“Honestly, I don’t know whether it’s Blue you’re trying to impress, or Boss that you’re trying to satisfy.”

“A little bit of both, but it’s more for Blue, has always been for him.”

Right, right.

“How about bedding?”

He was just trying to help, really, because Jeff was his friend at the end, but the man gave him the eyes that suddenly made the whole atmosphere sink down the floor and Trevor’s blood freeze.

For a minute he blamed himself for being oblivious. They were at the bedding section, and dozens of them just hit his eyes and for a moment he just forgot. He really shouldn’t have forgotten because the face Jeff was making was even worse than when he was shot.

Trevor knew when was the time that Jeff was being serious. The thing about being friends that ran the same business and pretty much same background too, was that they understood each other easily. He knew how Jeff looked before he took every shot, what he would say when interrogating, how his face would change every time Blue walked into the room and then into Boss’s arms.

This, however, was completely different.

Jeff just froze and went stiff like someone had stabbed him in the heart, like he had been betrayed and Trevor had slapped him right in the face with the words he had said.

Bedding, what kind of horseshit was he thinking?

He wondered what Jeff thought when looking at the bedding like this. Did he think about Blue? About the thing he wanted to do with him but couldn’t? About the fantasy that pretty much everyone in the gang, or even this whole city had at least once when they saw Nightwing flew in the sky in a skin-tight suit, when they saw him smile that luxurious smile of him, smelled that fresh and clean scent of him that tasted like fresh fog by the lake before sunrise.

He couldn’t blame Jeff, even when he desperately wanted to, because wanting something or someone that was Boss’s seemed undeniably wrong and sinful. But this was Blue, and Blue was… well, Blue.

“You know what, how about a whacky ornament?” He tried to save the situation, and lucky for him, Jeff seemed to let it go more easily than he expected.

“A whacky ornament?” He huffed.

“Yeah… like this one!” He picked up the Red Hood keychain next to him, in the line of dozens other figures, but always the Red Hood one. “Blue does have dozens of cars. He might need something to stick with his keys, right?”  

“Is that Boss’ helmet? Pft, is there supposed to be a Nightwing’s ass around here?”

They ended up picking a fleece bathrobe because Jeff suddenly remembered Blue’s habit of wearing nothing around the house (which, to be honest, Trevor desperately wanted to hear more about but didn’t dare to ask), and him being drawn toward soft and cozy things. The thing cost them nearly $65, and along with the boxing and wrapping and damn, Trevor never thought Christmas shopping could be this fucking costly. But hey, Jeff was loaded anyway. He lived along, had no one to take care of, had saved up pretty well since the days being hired marine and mercenary, and Boss always paid them good, especially for ones that worked close to him.

Trevor got Blue a Superman mug, because fuck Batman, and Blue would definitely like it too, of course. He had thought about buying a rosé for Blue but thought better. Giving some $20 wine for a Wayne heir and mob wife that grew up around $300 wines and fizzy champagne would be downright ridiculous. They both didn’t get something for Boss because… well, Boss was Boss and they were all men to men. Buying him something was just like asking for something back and they just couldn’t. Boss was already the best anyone of them could ever ask for. Gifts were for Blue because, well, he was Blue.

Oh, and they did find a Nightwing’s ass keychain in the end.

[brightlycoloredteacups]

Reuinion

@ivartheboneme:...I apologize in advance. 

Brynhilda and the Murder Couple

           When you’re a professional hitman, sometimes you get into sticky situations. When this happens, having a professional freight-train as your backup was much appreciated. Unfortunately, Ivar’s cavalry wasn’t coming. It’s been nearly a year since Brynhilda left, and damned if he didn’t curse her at least once a day.

           He can’t tell how long he’s been tied up, but he knows his face is on fire from the beatings. Of course, the problem with sending thugs to interrogate someone is that thugs have no imagination. They just know how to hit things. For someone who’s used to pain, it doesn’t inspire a willingness to talk. Proper torture methods on the other hand…it doesn’t matter at this point. He feels his restraints loosening up when there’s a commotion outside.

           Gunfire. A lot of gunfire. He sits and listens to the cacophony. It seems like one smaller gun against a lot of bigger guns. He rolls his eyes, a cop fight, really? Now? He struggles with his ropes all the harder, he can’t get caught by the cops again, Ylva would be pissed. There’s only so many times you can shrug and say ‘I’m a cripple’.

           He just has the last of his binds undone when the door is dramatically kicked open. He freezes, awaiting his fate. A figure sweeps the room with their gun, lowers it, then steps into the harsh glow of the halogen light. “Brynhilda!” He called, reaching for her. She gives him a terse smile and walks towards him. “We don’t have much time, I only managed to take down a few guar-, you’re hugging me, why are you hugging me?” She’d helped him stand on his feet, but he had other plans. Enveloping her in his arms, “Because I missed you, dumbass.” He muttered, hugging her tighter and burying his face in her hair.

           Ivar expects a sharp comment, an insult, something that smacks of Brynhilda’s world famous snark. But all he gets is a resigned sigh and her arms wrapping around his waist. She’s actually reciprocating his hug? An odd sort of glee runs through him. Gods this is sickening. “I missed you too, stupid idiot.”

           She’s the first one to pull back, “Look, we don’t have long, I only took out a few guards. Their backup will be here anytime, so let’s go.” Ivar nods. Brynhilda leads him out of the small room and into the hallway. He smiles, yup, this is her signature. Messy hallway, people half alive. “You’re shooting hasn’t improved.”

“Shut up.” She mumbles, leading him to lean on the wall. She bends down and hands him a gun. “I couldn’t find your crutches,” She says, throwing his arm around her shoulder again. They begin to walk as fast as Ivar can manage. Usually, their trips out of trouble are silent, this time, Ivar is much too curious. “Where did you go? What have you been up to? Why did you go? Are you ok? What happened? Where have you been?”

           Brynhilda mutters for him to shut up. “Not until you tell me if you’re better now.” She looks up at him, her famous, ‘I want to tell you but I’m not going to’ face on. “No,” She answers. “But that’s not important right now.” Ivar bites his tongue as they continue through the labyrinth. Ivar does stop to admire a body half hanging out of the window. “That’s particularly inspired.” He mutters. Brynhilda huffs, “I’m working through some issues.”

“But putting morons through a window?”

“I can always put you through a window.” She snaps. Ivar smirks, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

           They don’t say much as they make their way about. They push open the back door, home free…or so they hoped. Brynhilda shoves Ivar to the ground as a hail of bullets pepper the building behind them. They scramble for cover. You’d think common street thugs would get smarter as time passes, but now. Instead of laying down a constant fire, rotating when someone has to reload, everyone just shoots all at one, then reloads, allowing them to pick off idiots one by one.

           It’s as if Brynhilda had never left. Without talking, without coordination, each knows what needs to be done. They spend all of five minutes working away at the group. There’s several to still pick through when a screeching of tires distracts them. Brynhilda and Ivar watch as a car comes careening through the alley, mowing over the rest of goons. “What the hell is that?” Ivar asks. “Our ride,” Brynhilda mutters. She dives for Ivar and throws him over his shoulder. “Put me down!” He bellows. She runs to the car and shoves him in the back seat. Getting in with him, she snarls the word ‘go’ to the mystery driver.

           They go careening out of the alley. “Where to boss?” A tiny voice asks. “Anywhere but here.” Brynhilda instructs. They car takes off, tires squealing once more. Ivar situates himself in the back seat, buckling up. As he settles, he gets a good view of the driver. “Brynhilda?”

“What, Ivar?”

“Why is there a two-year-old driving the car?”

“Hey!” The kid speaks up, “I’m ten and three eighths thank you very much!” Ivar looks at Brynhilda as if she’d lost her damn mind. “What?” She asks.

“You’re employing a CHILD now?”

“Being employed would insinuate that I’m being paid, which I’m not,” The kids says. Brynhilda knees the back of the seat. “I feed you, don’t I?”

“Fair enough.”

“It’s a CHILD.” Ivar points out. Brynhilda looks at him. “Don’t judge me,” She snaps. “It’s been a rough year.” Ivar’s mouth clicks shut. The Brynhilda he knew wouldn’t be asking a child to do something that would get them killed. He trusted her to know what she was doing. He gives the kid his address. “No,” Brynhilda snaps. “We’re going to The Odd Spot.”

“We’re going home.” Ivar snaps. “Ivar,” Brynhilda growls. “Ylva misses you.” Brynhilda glares at him, “Don’t.”

“I miss you.”

“Stop.”

“I have a daughter now,” Ivar says, reaching into his pocket. He shoves a crumpled photo of Dagny into Brynhilda’s chest. “Her name is-”

“If you say one more word,” She snarls. “I will punt you out of this car and leave you.”

           Ivar settles back into the seat and turns away from her, fuming. This was not how he wanted this to go. He wished he had Ylva’s persuasion, but he didn’t. “At least explain one thing to me.” He says. “If this is about me leaving,” Brynhilda says, the warning in her voice evident. “How did you find me?”

“Like I said, it’s been a rough year.” Ivar rolls his eyes, that isn’t an answer. He wants to push her, but knows better. She may have missed him, but that didn’t mean she’d continue to tolerate his attitude.

The kid parks at The Odd Spot and cuts the engine. “We have arrived at our destination.” Brynhilda slips from the car, rushing around the other side to help Ivar. “Come on Taco,” She says. “I’ll get you some pizza.” The kids whoops in excitement and rushes out of the car, they throw the keys to Brynhilda, and rush inside.

           She shuffles Ivar in, asks for a booth, and sets Ivar down. She then takes Taco, breaks a fifty into ones, and sets him lose on the place. There aren’t many kids here tonight, it’s a weekday. The arcade style of the restaurant irritates Ivar, but watching Brynhilda watch Taco alleviates the irritation. He sips silently at his soda, sure he’s going to catch some sort of illness from the greasy feel of the glass, and wonders about what his friend had been up to. “Lars says he’ll be here in an hour.” Brynhilda tells him. He grunts. “Where did you meet the kid?”

           Brynhilda groans and puts her elbows on the table. “I fell back on old habits,” She admits. “got mixed up with the wrong sort of people.”

“Don’t tell me you have another Boggvir situation.” She shakes her head. “No, nothing like that. Almost, but I recognized the signs this time. Got them before they got me,” She shrugs. “The kid was some street rat they used to peddle drugs. Smart as hell, wasted potential.”

“What about the parents?” Brynhilda glares at Ivar. “You don’t think I just fucking jacked a kid, do you?”

“No,” Ivar says reasonably. “But did you at least try to find the parents?”

“I didn’t try, I succeeded. Left Taco there for a night. Next day, I find him hunched up in an alley, beaten to hell. The fuck was I supposed to do?”

“Adopt him and kill his parents.” Ivar says matter-of-factly. Brynhilda throws her hands in the air as if to say, ‘thank you’. “He lives with his aunt now, much nicer person, still a bit dodgy.”

           Ivar nods, not paying attention, he’s too busy trying to think of ways to bring her back home. It’s when she looks at him head on he starts paying attention. “I think you should wait awhile before taking another job.” He leans forward. “Why?”

“You seriously think tonight was an accident? You’re smarter than that.”

“Are you saying someone is targeting me?” He hisses. Panic sets in, what if they get to his family. “She’s a new comer,” Brynhilda explains patiently, “Small time fish wanting to make a big name for herself. Thinks if she kills you, she’s untouchable.” Ivar purses his lips. Unlikely, there was a network of hitmen in the area. They got jobs from a central hub, and that hub had rules. One of them was no killing other hitmen. Kept the peace apparently.

           “What aren’t you telling me?” He asks, suddenly uneasy. Brynhilda sighs and looks at her drink. “You?” Ivar says. “This woman sent you?” Brynhilda looks up at him sheepishly. He can’t believe this. “Brynhilda,” He says. “I know we’ve had our differences but-”

“I hate that you took Ylva away from me.” Ivar’s mouth snaps shut. He had Ylva first. “She was my only friend and you constantly got in the way. All she ever does is talk about you, it’s always you.”

“Brynhilda,” He tries. But there’s something off, she’s stiff, wooden. Even so, there are tears running down her face, and her bottom lip is trembling.  “I hate you, and I hate your baby.” This is wrong, this is so wrong. Why save him, only to kill him? He hears the telltale click of a gun being cocked. “Brynhil-” It goes off and he jumps. The unthinkable has happened, Brynhilda has just shot him.