#hurt/minimal comfort

[bigassmoonchild]

Nothing

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Simon claims nothing would've taken him away from you, but it's clearly a lie. You feel nothing, nothing at all, until you are filled with the worst pain of your life.

Content Tags: Hurt/Minimal Comfort, Abandonment, Original Characters (no name, no gender, just a person), Pregnancy, Slight shit-talk of Simon, Even more Hurt/Minimal to No Comfort (more tags will spoil this, but if anything is triggering please let me know and I'll add tags), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha! Ghost, Omega! Reader, No Use of Y/N

A/N: surprise!

Part 1 | Previous, Next | Headcannons, Masterlist

There's nothing. Nothing in your room- yours and Simons- when you return back to it. Rephrasing it a little better, a majority of his stuff is gone when you finally drag yourself back to the room after spending hours crying. Some paperwork between rounds of crying, but mostly crying.

There's nothing there. His scent is slightly fading, but when you look around you can see the drawers of the dresser left open, clothes half dragged out. The closet is left alone, your nest sitting there all pretty and proper. Maybe a few things shifted from pulling something out.

There is nothing of Simon's left in your room and you are panicking. The room is partially destroyed and you are adding to the damage, throwing other drawers open and tossing blankets around, trying to find something to reason through what's happening.

You feel nothing. Sure, you can feel your heart pounding in your chest and your head, you can feel the cold prickle of fear riding through your body but you truly can't feel anything. Your vision is tunneled and suddenly you can't feel anything.

Dropping to your knees, you can feel the hot tears pouring down your face but you can't feel anything. Nothing feels real. You can feel the pup, kicking angrily, but can you really feel it? Sure, the sensation is there but you aren't able to fully process it.

Your vision is blurry and there is really nothing that you can see but your blinking aggressively. The tears are still pouring but they aren't clouding your vision as much when you're blinking, and now you're seeing the little speck of white buried under a few blankets in the nest you'd destroyed.

Struggling up, you stumble to the nest and drop yourself in. There's a paper there, crinkling under your knees before you're pulling it out and looking at it. It's folded and wrinkly, slightly torn in one place but your opening it up and looking at it.

Mission called. I would have come seen you, but it's an emergency. I shouldn't be going, the pups due far too soon but they won't be able to do much without me.

I love you. I truly, truly do. I'm sorry I can't be all that you need, but I will try and be back as quick as possible.

Si

The paper is suddenly in your face, the scent of him is just barely washing over you. It's faint, but it's there and it's all you need. It's there until it isn't, and suddenly you can't smell anything on the paper anymore.

There's nothing left of Simon, and you are sitting in your nest, weeks, maybe a month from giving birth to his pup. Alone. Alpha has left you alone and now you're so, so scared.

But you feel nothing. There is nothing there and you are suddenly back to yourself, staring at the wall. Thoughts aren't processing, it's all empty but there's so much in your head that you are completely unsure of everything.

A knock is what brings you out of your stupor. Your head turns slowly to look at the door, blinking carefully as you stand. One foot in front of the other and now you're opening the door.

John's Omega.

They smile, eyes crinkling just a little from it, but there's worry in their eyes. "Hi, honey," they whisper, pressing you back into your room and closing the door behind them. "John told me they left suddenly, wanted me to check in on you," and they wipe your tears from your cheeks.

You give a weak smile, trying to push out a short thanks but they're pushing you into your nest and you can feel the exhaustion settling over your body. Your eyes are blinking shut, and suddenly there's nothing.

They hadn't seen anything like this in a while. Sure, John had mentioned how destroyed your relationship with Simon was, but seeing how destroyed the room was? It scared them. Horribly.

Maybe Simon was hurting you, but they couldn't really tell. There weren't marks, but you were so destroyed over something like this that they were so, so worried. Had it been emotional abuse this whole time? Simon hadn't ever seen like the type of person to do that, but maybe they'd read him wrong.

Maybe it was all a ruse. Just make him look good until you gave birth and he could kick you to the curb, pull the 'baby trapping' bullshit a lot of other Alphas often did. They hoped, for the sake of John and their relationship, that Simon didn't do that. That he wasn't that type of person because John would be getting hurt if he knew.

They decide to clean up the room. There's clothes hanging out of the dresser drawers, the blankets are tossed from the bed and the blinds are shut tightly. The first thing they do is go to open the blinds, but glance down at you sleeping.

It could wait, so they decided to go on and start cleaning up the clothes laying about. Folding them, figuring out if something was actually dirty and tossing them into the hamper, putting them away.

They drag the hamper to the laundry room, tossing everything in and going back to your room. It looks a little better, it's a little dusty but there's enough stuff there that it would make sense. They could tell what was mostly yours, and what was Simons contributions. Your stuff might not have been overly large or colorful, but just from interacting with you a few times they could sense your style.

It was alright, John wasn't too dissimilar to Simon in that way. He didn't like having things to clutter everything up, he was more of a person that found use in the items he kept around. He didn't want something pretty to look at, or something that just brought happiness.

Christ, you needed all the happiness that these little items could offer. The room was dark and dingy, rather small considering you were a mated pair. Maybe they should mention it to John when he returns.

Get you a better room, especially once the pup is around. But maybe there was an apartment, a home where yourself and Simon lived that held the things you needed. Gave you the room that you would need with a pup.

Everything was cleaned up, all they were waiting for was the laundry to finish. Sitting on the freshly made bed felt wrong, but it was that or the desk.

The desk. It had a paper on it, and they felt bad but they grabbed the paper anyways. And they blinked. And blinked. And blinked once more as they read through it, seeing the bland words and shit handwriting.

Simon was a shell, they decided. A shell of a person, nothing inside of him. Truly, a person who mated an Omega needed to care for them, did they not? That was what they grew up knowing, grew up understanding. There is little else that was needed for a mated pair, other than the love of the other half.

That's what mated pairs were. Two halves of a whole, trying to become closer and, hopefully, become one. Maybe their mating to John was lucky, maybe it was something that very few were lucky to get.

And over the next few days, they had time to investigate a little further. Speaking with you was interesting, something they hadn't had much time to be able to do during the few times they were with you. You're personality was slowly coming through, your humor finally being unveiled.

You cracked little jokes here and there, humoring both them and yourself while sitting in your little office filling out more paperwork. You had to hand off the duties, you'd explained.

"Once I'm out, they don't really have a 'doctor' on duty left," they nodded with your words. "They need me to sign off somebody to have the same abilities I have, someone I trust to be able to run this place in my absence," it was interesting. A job where there wasn't just somebody available to fill your spot in place of emergencies.

How had they been able to fill your role when you'd gotten hurt? John had come home short with everyone and they'd been able to get it out that Simon was sulking about you getting hurt.

Boo-fucking-hoo, they thought. Simon was an adult, and so were you. You could make your own decisions. He seemed more and more like a controlling freak with everything they'd learned.

"I love him so much," you whispered during dinner once.

"Huh?"

"This whole... thing," you started, pushing food around on your plate, "was entirely an accident. I don't know how much Price has told you, but it was a huge accident," they nodded with you. "I was assigned with them on a mission, trying to find an extremely dangerous aphrodisiac. It sounds like one of those weird fanfictions, but I mean it genuinely," they snorted at your comment.

"We all have to enjoy the occasional fanfiction," you laughed, head tossed back and mouth open. A little grunt stopped your laugh, hand clasping over your belly.

Clearing your throat, brows still furrowed, you continued. "It was Soap and Gaz, I think, who were clearing the way. Simon was supposed to guide me, body guard me so I'd be able to get a safe enough sample of it, but shit went downhill. We were getting shot at, Simon took a tranq to the shoulder so I just... jumped into action," your eyes were glazed over with tears, looking off into nowhere.

"Jumped into the hall and got a tranq myself, woke up somewhere hot. Everything was so hot and my mouth tasted sweet. They dosed me and Simon, we'd have died if we didn't fuck. He marked me, and now we're here," you whispered. They looked at you, eyes wide and shock filling their features.

Christ, you really were in a shitty situation. Everything seemed to be getting worse and worse the more they learned. "Are you serious?" You nodded, hand grasping at your stomach once more.

They looked down to your belly. "I'm fine, pups just been moving a lot more," you looked away, eyes once more cast over with a glaze and seemingly just gone from the world.

It was quiet, for some time, and in that moment they wanted nothing more than to beat Johns ass for not telling them the whole truth. Lies are shitty, but half-truths are even worse. For some time after that, when they laid in bed, all they could do was think.

Were you happy? Were you just stuck in a shitty situation that became shittier each day? Maybe it was nothing, but with the way your eyes glazed over when you spoke on stories about Simon, they doubted there was much wrong.

Just two people, stuck in a situation that was made worse and worse but the two of you were trying to make everything better.

It's late, very fucking late and you are exhausted. Laying in bed had been incredibly uncomfortable, but laying in your nest was worse. Your back was spasming, you assumed from bending over to pick something up a few hours ago, but you could feel the pup settling down for what felt like the first time in ages.

The pain from the pup moving was now coated in the general pain of your stomach. You thought everything was just fine, even if you were even more tired and you just wanted to curl up in your nest.

You had a few more things to do before going on maternity leave, and god be damned you were going to get it done. Even if you didn't sleep all night, even if you were in your office at 6 in the morning.

And you were. Signing a few more documents, just confirming everything. The pain wasn't all consuming, but it was getting there. The pup wasn't moving at all, and maybe that should be worrying you. Maybe it was nothing, but the knock on your door brought your attention from staring at the same document you signed some twenty odd minutes ago.

Johns Omega was back, and they were smiling widely at you. Their phone was held to their chest, covering the microphone and shuffling over to you.

Your name came over the speaker, Simon.

"Hi, Si," you whispered, staring down at the phone screen. It was quiet, for some time.

"I don't know when I'll be back," he whispered, gunshots echoing around him. "We've got some leads, but a lot of the people we've got aren't working with us. We're in Mexico, but that's all I can tell you," he whispered.

"Mexico?" He hummed. "Is it someone you're looking for?"

"You know I can't really tell you much more," and you winced, a little groan falling from your lips. "What was that?"

"Nothing, 'm alright," you whispered, eyes falling shut as you rubbed at your belly. "I just miss you," you added.

He hums, a few more gunshots echoing around him. "I miss you too, lovie, but I should be returning within two or three weeks," you made no noise.

"That's about the time I'm due," you whispered and he sighed audibly. The gunshots sounded louder, much closer, and you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck rising. You could feel the innate fear that came with these situations.

"I've got to go. I love you, Omega, through and through," and you returned it, feeling tears pricking at your waterline. Handing the phone back, you winced once more. A little groan fell from your lips, the pain wracking up before slowly drifting off.

John's Omega disappeared, looking at you carefully as they walked out of the office. You needed to get one more document signed, and you could go back to your room and sleep for a week.

The pen felt heavier and your hands felt shakier. The signature was a little off from what you were normally able to do, but if it was what got everything done, you were more than happy.

Dropping the papers into the slots outside of your office, you shut and locked the door. The walk back to your room was horrible, you had to stop every few moments to breathe. Just breathing was a little painful.

You want to crawl into your nest as soon as the door shuts behind you, but the bathroom door that's cracked open calls to you. A hot bath is all you want, and your shed your clothes as you nearly stumble to the tub.

Carefully settling yourself down into the tub, you shift around to get comfortable enough to and plug the drain. The water that starts isn't the warmest, but it seems to quickly heat up.

You aren't entirely sure where the time has gone and suddenly the tub is just a few inches short of the top and you're struggling to turn the water off.

You're in so much pain and all you can do is rock yourself in the water. You can feel your eyes shut tight, the pain just a little bother compared to what you're feeling.

Time is incomprehensible. One moment, you're alone and crying out in pain what feels like every few seconds, and the next you have John's Omega and a few doctors surrounding you.

Things are stuck against you, something is stuffed inside of you and you nearly bite the person.

"...looks good..." you're only grasping little bits and pieces. "...little early... looks safe..." and you can feel a hand slip into yours before your ears are ringing and Christ is that you screaming?

It burns. You can feel your body lunge forward nearly over the side of the tub as you shout, fingers digging into skin and tub. It seems to be lasting forever, but your head is a little fuzzy and all you can see are little dots littering your vision.

There are voices, now, filtering into your mind as the cool of the tiles underneath you bring your focus back. You're still naked, but you can't feel most of the parts under your waist. There's a weight on your chest, and you can hear someone shouting about 'getting that god damned Alpha back now, his pup is here' but your head is a little fuzzy.

With a dry mouth, you lift your head up a little and look down, seeing something laying on your chest before your hands rise and cup it. Oh. The pup.

But you can still feel cramping pains stabbing through your stomach and the pain of your head dropping onto the tile does nothing to you. Your vision is suddenly black, when had your eyes squeezed shut? Your body is cramping down and all you can do is scream.

Once more, your vision is a little hazy but you've been moved again. You can feel soft things underneath you, and when you looked down you've got two pups lying across your chest.

They're wrapped tight in blankets and all you can do is just blink down at them. Little, tiny creatures. Things that were once nothing are now something.

You can faintly feel some stabbing pains in your lower body, but you're blinking blearily at the pups. They're so beautiful, and you think you can feel tears falling from your eyes but there's no way you are moving your arms when they're sleeping so cozily in them.

Suddenly, you can hear Simons voice and it's crackling and breaking but you still feel adrift. Like you're floating, nothing left in your body as you watch from a distance. John's Omega is holding a phone close to you but you're just blinking, maybe you were looking over your own body at one point.

And suddenly the weight over your arms are disappearing and you can feel your mouth pull back in a snarl. The sound comes from low in your chest, something you'd never heard from yourself, and it's what brings you out.

They're standing there, pulling the pup from you. "I'm just going to go clean the pups up, they're still gross from the labor," they whisper and press a hand against you, the phone dropping into your lap.

"Lovie, please, are you there? What's happened?"

"Simon," you giggle, head falling back. "Simon, Simon, Simon," you whisper. "Pretty name, what should we name them?" He's whispering something, maybe actually saying something but the pup is wailing suddenly and your first instinct is to press them against your breast.

There's more voices coming from the phone but the wailing is no longer there, and you can faintly feel the pup latch. "What's happened? Is that a pup? Please, lovie, did you have the pup?"

You giggled again. "Had two of them, popped them both out but I don't remember it. Can't feel half my body, lil things are feisty," and you can hear a few other voices from Simons end of the phone.

"Two?" You can almost hear a whine in his voice, some more jeering from the background but suddenly John's Omega is there and you have no idea how long it's even been until they're pulling the pup from your chest and plop the one they'd been cleaning onto the other breast.

It feels like hours before you finally have both pups back on you, watching as they sleep quietly. You'd love to sleep like a baby. Just like them. Not a care in the world, but Simons talking again and you can't really understand what he's saying for a few moments.

Things seems to come back to you, feeling the other Omega curl up beside you in your nest. "What're their names?" You shrug, looking down at the pretty little pups.

"I dunno," and you're giggling again. Whatever the hell they gave you, it was amazing. It's quiet for some time, you're just watching the pups. Maybe it was only a few minutes, maybe it was a few hours, but you can slowly feel yourself coming back. It is a slow realization, and you can feel the tears filling your eyes. "You weren't here," you whispered, and now there's another whine coming from him.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers. "There's nothing I wouldn't do to be there with you, but I can't," and you can almost hear a sob or two come from him but you're trying not to wake the pups.

Nothing. You almost feel nothing, but there's the little prickle of love filling you as one of the pups shift in your hold and you're brought back to the present. With your little family. Alone.

Taglist: (Please send an ask/DM to be added)

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To my favorite people: This is not the end. I want to clarify, if you'd like to finish reading here, that is perfectly fine. I have not intended this to be the end, I may have one or two more chapters left, but there will not be much more. Please let me know if you'd like to be added to a general tag, or if you'd like to be fully removed from my future taglists.

If I have missed you and you wish to be added, I apologize. Please send me another request, and I can add you!

Thank you for your patience. I can go in depth with my disappearance, but I will leave this here.

Much love :)

[marionluth]

Title: Shattered

Fandom: Batman (all media types)

Summary: AU: Jason, a few weeks after his return to Gotham and 2 and a half years after his resurrection, is struggling. Having revealed his identity to Bruce and Dick, knowing Tim replaced him as Robin (and son/ brother) and that Bruce not only didn’t kill Joker, but is also now actively stopping Jason from doing it, Jay loses it. Betrayed by those he loved the most, resentment and thirst of revenge engulfing him entirely, he is coping by not coping. When Batman encounters a scene of brutal massacre he knows Red Hood was behind, he seeks him out to confront him, only to find him in a broken catatonic state.

Status: Complete One-shot

Rating: T

Pairings: None/Gen

Warnings: Alluded Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, Drug Use

Links:

AO3

FFNET

[57oddities]

My baby, everyone. The thing I need to reblog more. I only wish this gets the love I feel it deserves, that it would hit people in the feels, and have them coming back for more.

Call it begging for attention all you want, but I really, really feel like this has become my magnum opus.

I'm proud of it, and I want to share it. And I urge you to do the same.

Ayyy, after a 2 month hiatus, I wrote most of this in 3 days, and it is officially UP!

[hitlikehammers]

oh golden boy (don't act like you were kind)

part i : you were mine but—

for @kultiras at the ❄️ Winter @steddieexchange 🖤🩵

Arguably the sharpest knife in his chest about this whole fucking shitshow?

Eddie thought they were doing good.

Like: so fucking good.

Eddie thought they were on the cusp of…that they were building something.

He’s such an idiot. Such a…

A heartsick fucking idiot.

But if he’s gracious—which he’s not, least of all to himself—when he puts all the pieces together, lines the evidence up and analyzes it, thinks of it in terms of a narrative that he can understand and recognize the flaws in, where he’d rewrite the ending or tweak the rising action so everything slides into place realistically, cause and effect in balance just right: Eddie can see that the way this has all shaken out is fucked up. So, so fucked up.

Because there honestly hadn’t been any signs that they weren’t laying the foundations of something long-term, something lasting; that they weren’t in this deep and rooted, strong and committed and serious in a real, tangible way, and, just…

Forever. Eddie was…he was playing for keeps, here. He thought, he just, he thought—

Fuck.

He just…really believed he wasn’t alone in it all.

Again: idiot.

It’d started so fucking predictably, really, because if there’s one thing that Eddie clocked about Steve Harrington from the get-go of actually getting to know him versus operating on the popular-gorgeous-jock framework he’d distilled the guy down to in his head before 1986: the one consistent thing he’d figured from what he’d heard and what he’d seen put together was that: Steve Harrington?

Bastard’s protective to a fucking fault.

So when he blinked back to the land of the living with Steve goddamn Harrington at his bedside? Standing guard, looking a little haggard—like he cared, at least enough to worry—but still fucking devastatingly pretty, good god-

When he woke up to that, Eddie was surprised and also: not at all surprised.

The way he lit up when he saw Eddie was conscious, like world was less before that moment and something right slid back into place? Eddie…Eddie felt like his body was pretty wholly broken but that fucking cracked something down his middle, decimated parts of him in new ways that hadn’t been already devastated on another plane, were sitting ripe for wholesale ruin.

He’d let Steve blame the breathiness that’d overcome him on coming back from the brink of death, because Steve didn’t need to know the sensations, the emotions, that were running riot through Eddie’s veins.

But then it hadn’t stopped.

Steve standing guard at his side became a constant, like Eddie couldn’t quite comprehend save that it felt like his body was knitting itself around the fact of this more-than-good dude and Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that, save kind of just…poke curiously at the new shape of everything he was for it, and once he worked through the fear of the unfamiliar in it?

To kinda…savor it. Roll around in it and relish.

Probably it was gonna be short lived anyway. Probably it was gonna go away when Eddie finally got out of here. Only made sense to soak it up while it lasted.

And it was one of those early days, where Eddie was soaking it up and before anything possible beyond the bubble of middle-space they were existing in inside Eddie’s hospital room was even hinted at. Steve had gone to check on Max while Eddie grappled a bit to look down at himself a little better under the handkerchief that the hospital deemed sufficient as clothing, and he braced for the worst because it felt like the worst and what he did remember at all from the scene of the inter-dimensional mauling definitely aligned with being ‘the worst’: but it was honestly mostly bandages and pain.

Eddie didn’t…on second thought he didn’t know if he was ready to see what was underneath just yet, so he was actually kinda grateful that his hubris about it all didn’t immediately have a chance to floor him, especially when he was alone because he’d thought it’d be easier to stomach if it was just him—but the prospect, the bullet dodged, lodged in his throat and proved him kinda instantly wrong for the sharp cut of bile rising in him, and the violent jump of his pulse right behind it.

His hand had gravitated to his chest, though, like he could keep his heart from cracking his ribs that way, and he noticed that…even the light pressure ached, so he looked down a little more carefully, didn’t think the little fuckers had concentrated their attacks on the center of his chest so he tucked his chin and tried to see what was causing the sting—maybe just like, general area tenderness after playing buffet table to fucking…flying hellspace rodents but—

No. No: even from this weird-ass uncomfortable angle, Eddie could see the outline, coukd make out the dark stain of a bruise.

In the shape of a hand.

And listen, Eddie wasn’t foolish. He knew that everyone busted ass to get him topside and to a hospital. And that probably involved…stuff he didn’t want to really dwell on too long in terms of the nitty-gritty of his own mortality. He was also very much aware that Steve had played a crucial role, even if the man himself didn’t stand up and declare it. The kids didn’t have any sense of a fucking filter, so.

Eddie knew.

But Eddie then started tracing the splay of fingers on his sternum, his heartbeat so fucking heavy under even just the brush of his nails as he followed the outline of the purpling over, and over, and over, imagined what it would take to make that kind of an impression on his skin because Eddie was fucking pale, yeah, he marked quick—but not that dark.

Not that deep.

“Shit.”

Eddie’d startled, snapped his attention to the doorway where Steve had reappeared, looking a little breathless as he took Eddie in, came quick to his side and leaned to look closer at the monitor next to him and oh: Eddie hadn’t realized that the beeping was so loud, so fast. Hadn’t realized his heartbeat had ratcheted up quite so high.

Not that he was surprised.

“Shit, are you okay,” Steve barely breathed, eyes so goddamn big about it as his hands had kinda hovered, as he’d tried to figure out what to do, how to help, because that was what he was always doing; that’s who he was to his core, and Eddie…

“Oh god, let me call the nu—”

“Don’t.”

Eddie’d half-moaned it, god: scratchy but desperate as he reached for Steve’s hand and he…

He suspected he knew exactly how big that hand was; what shape it’d make to a fucking T. But he needed to see

For sure.

“What are you,” Steve’s brow had furrowed in that way Eddie was becoming increasingly aware he wanted to kiss smooth, and he started to ask it as Eddie grabbed to uncurl his grip from the bar at the side of the bed but Steve gave up fighting quick, focused on stopping Eddie from moving at all instead, from stretching the way he was against the precarious threads holding him together as he reached for the neck of his gown again, still loose enough from where he’d pulled the back up, left his ass out against the sheets to bare his breastbone, the mess of the tattoos on his chest more grisly after everything than any horrors he’d gotten inked before but—

This was a different kind of horrifying thing. Not least—maybe most—because it was entirely possible that it was also the most beautiful, sacred thing to ever touch Eddie’s skin. To ever beat through Eddie’s fucking veins.

“You,” Eddie let go of the last breath he could wrestle out before his lungs seized up too tight, because then he was watching it happen, watching Steve’s broad palm as it hovered over the imprint, shivering when Steve’s warmth made contact: eclipsing the bruise near-perfect, just like Eddie knew deep down it fucking would.

His heart took the hint and started shivering under Steve’s hand immediately, like it had something to prove.

“Ed,” Steve’s voice was wispy, choked a little; eyes too bright and Eddie feels like there must be so many kinds of dying, because he’d felt one keenly under that angry red lightning; this was a wholly other thing.

But felt just as keenly life-or-death.

“You,” Eddie whispered, the words, the truth, the feeling of it all too fragile, too precious to disturb, and he wondered if his heart knew Steve had pushed the bruises down around it to save it, if that’s why it was so unbridled and unabashed in hammering against that touch, that touch—

“I think I heard you.”

And Steve? Big eyes framed with those feather lashes, stretched wide and all made of shine and earnest fucking feeling?

“You didn’t…want to lose me?” Eddie’s voice had been so small, so so small because he did think he’d heard that, and the wisps of recollection, of a frantic but resolute voice demanding of him: what he was able to collect and try to tie into a whole matched up when he paired it all with Steve in his head, but what if he was wrong?

What if it was all just fever dreams and wishful thinking on his deathbed, what if Steve had no investment in him beyond keeping the Party safe in its entirety, no exceptions; what if Eddie was fucking wrong and showed too much of his hand with this, with Steve’s palm pressed to his thrashing heart and—

Then Steve was brining his free hand to Eddie’s cheek, fucking…cradling it like it fucking meant something, like he could matter and—

“I couldn’t lose you.”

Oh.

“You,” and so many possible ways to end that thought had swam through Eddie’s head—you barely know me, you can’t possibly care if I live or die, I cannot matter one fucking bit in your universe, so why would it matter but Steve’s hand was warm under his, and Steve didn’t pull away, only leaned in, only stayed close enough that Eddie could feel his breath on his skin and Steve could chart the way Eddie’s heart took to pummelling his already-taxed ribs but it didn’t matter, it couldn’t matter because Steve held there, so careful of the pain but nothing short of steady, devoted, a soul-sworn guard of that heart under his hand like it did matter, like Eddie did…

Like Steve ever could—

“Stevie,” Eddie would probably have flushed if the situation had been anything but what it was. If his heart wasn’t racing into Steve’s touch at the chest and just under the jaw where Steve’s thumb pressed almost proprietary, almost like a shield but also like a welcome, like the idea of Eddie’s heart beating into him wasn’t a dealbreaker, and fuck, fuck—

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Steve breathed out against him, prickling dangerous across his skin and Eddie’s heart leapt a little, fuck; more than a little and Steve felt it, front-row-center, couldn’t not feel it but he just leaned closer still, and Eddie was front-row himself to the catch in Steve’s inhale, undeniable and unapologetic as he murmured low, turning into Eddie’s cheek a little and Eddie maybe resented how it forced him to pull away,until his lips brushed the tip of Eddie’s jawbone and drew a whole ass shudder down his goddamn spine.

“Just know,” Steve gasped there, fucking…panted and hell if it didn’t catch in Eddie’s blood like pure bliss; “just know why.”

And fuck, but Eddie could only press in to the warmth of Steve’s lips where they moved for the words alone, let alone what words; what Eddie thought maybe they meant—

“Me too,” Eddie rasped a little, because fuck him, man; this was something…something else, swelling up in his chest so strong and Steve had to be able to feel it where he still held against him, palm to his galloping pulse at the source, feeling the life he coaxed back into the world.

“Does it have to make sense just yet?” Eddie asked, knew he sounded too hopeful, too desperate, more than he’d earned, than was safe but his heart kept knocking against that hand, so fucking insistent and who was he to deny it, to try and wrestle in into being less when he couldn’t even hide it, when it was evident to the man it was leaping at; for.

“I don’t think so,” Steve mouthed more than spoke where his lips dragged wet across the stubble on Eddie’s cheek.

“Then,” Eddie tipped his head, tried to catch Steve’s eyes, aimed to reason, to convince but the moment he moved, Steve dipped his chin just so to take Eddie’s lips, to kiss so hard, so complete with what felt like it couldn’t even be reasoned as less than all of him, because how could less than all feel like this—

Fucking impossible.

And Eddie couldn’t shy away—as Steve kissed him breathless, left him gasping; Eddie couldn’t shy away from the sense that he was being killed and revived all over again, endless and unbreaking, and it was perfection.

Jesus fuck.

And the kicker was that…weeks passed. A whole month, close to another. And if anything changed it was all for the better, for the more and Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it, if he was entirely honest. He…the bruise healed, y’know? That brand above his heart but—

He didn’t need it anymore. That was the thing. He didn’t need to see.

He was very fucking aware. Every minute of every day. He was…so aware. It could kill him better than those bats, it was so big and so much, and so quick, but with all that, probably because of all that: Eddie’d never felt anything even remotely like what it meant to shake off sleep and have Steve Harrington kiss you to wakefulness, to hold you for the nightmares as much as the news of small victories on the road to recovery: never wavering.

Never leaving.

When Eddie got the go-ahead to continue his rehab outpatient-style, his original conviction that all of this ended at the latest upon discharge was immediately challenged, because Steve had become so much more than he’d started as, but Eddie still worried. Made himself sick over it.

Felt like an indefensible monster as Steve rubbed his back, brought him soup, tended him like Eddie didn’t cause his own suffering, and all for the terror of losing the very man who was there, without question.

Then he signed himself out, and Steve drove him home.

Save that Eddie recognized where they were headed and…he only knew one person in Loch Nora.

“Your uncle’s still in the motel by the plant,” Steve had explained what Eddie already knew but hadn’t put together when Eddie raised an eyebrow in askance, wholly unsure how to process any of this, any of this; unsure how to hope in the face of what he was seeing, held against what he was wishing.

“Government’s being fucking assholes about setting you up with someplace appropriate,” and something in Steve’s tone had made plain that he was not just very clear on what constituted ‘appropriate’, he was probably actively involved somehow in holding the people in question rightly accountable for appropriate, and nothing less.

And Eddie…he did say he didn’t need a mark you could see on his heart, didn’t he.

“You need the room while you get better,” Steve murmured as he killed the engine, and lifted Eddie’s hand to his lips, pressed his mouth on the knuckles, nuzzling a little, eyes closed and Eddie…Eddie didn’t know what to do.

The only saving grace was that he didn’t have a monitor to rat his ass out when his heart started trying to escape orbit—fuck just his ribs, how pedestrian—this time.

They sat in a living room that looked like it was once absolutely pristine and still was, mostly, but up close Eddie could see little snags on the sofa, could feel the texture of the fabric different under his fingers for scrubbing out a stain. He suspected four infamously unmannered teenagers were the culprits. The remaining stiffness of the cushions was good for the way his body was still working through being gnawed apart, but he was gone far enough to kind of immediately hope he’d see how they wore with love and use and maybe something more once they got there, once Eddie’s body cooperated again, because he…Steve brought him home.

And maybe they didn’t have to stop when Eddie left the hospital. Maybe he didn’t have to lose.

He’d only made it shortly past the best fucking grilled cheese he’d maybe ever tasted, and he didn’t think it was only because it was his first meal without an aftertaste of sterile in too fucking long—but he only lasted a little more than an hour before Steve’d helped him to a guest room on the first floor that’d obviously been reworked for him, from the way he could reach the bed from just inside the door, to the fucking posters that he knew for a fact Steve wouldn’t have had on hand, and Eddie’d giggled a little wetly at the Ozzy one, because he figured the man steadying him at his side would never be anything but intertwined with the Prince of Darkness in his mind, now—but Steve, who’d more than proven he was so far beyond any kind of king, won hands down. By a landslide.

And who could have seen that coming?

“Careful,” Steve chided him gently as he guided Eddie slowly down to the mattress and made to tuck him in, and the word was so warm, so warm but Eddie had to…

He had to reach. Again. He needed Steve, he…needed.

The handprint on top of his heart didn’t need to be a thing he could see, but he needed Steve to…know some level of what he was feeling, of how much was inside him already, and growing, the momentum building and he didn’t want to feed it, didn’t want to let it run if he wasn’t going to have someone to catch it, to run with him but he also didn’t think there was any chance to stop it, now, he didn’t think he could trim it back or tame it from consuming him and he wasn’t sure he’d even want to if he actually had the power because it was the best feeling he’d ever known, even if it was terrifying, even if it could hurt him more than anything he’d ever known and—

“I don’t want to be alone,” was what spilled from his lips with Steve’s hand above his heartbeat as it pumped so goddamn hard it couldn’t be denied, it couldn’t be misconstrued, and he didn’t want to sleep alone, didn’t want to lose what he’d rebuilt himself around all these weeks, he—

“Good,” and Steve leaned down, cradled Eddie’s face and tipped him up to kiss him full, hard, one hand still on his chest because that was the mark, the promise, the fight for all that this was and all it could be like a fucking vow and Eddie melted for it on sight, on contact.

“Because I’m not leaving,” and Steve brushed the tip of his nose back and forth against Eddie’s, his smile like honey in his tone as he pecked Eddie on the lips one more time before stretching his hand to follow him across the bed, to crawl to the other side and slide in next to Eddie, to carefully arrange him against Steve’s body, to wrap around him with so much care, to touch nothing too tender and everything safe to hold as Steve tucked his face against Eddie’s neck and kissed behind his ear as he breathed:

“Never gonna leave you all alone again.”

And Eddie believed him.

Eddie believed him.

And when, weeks later when Eddie was hurting less and moving more, perched in the corner of the couch that was starting to give a little under persistent weight, starting to feel like it was meant to be used and lend comfort; as Eddie was poking at campaign notes for the gremlins, pen caught between his teeth, he only paused when he felt the gravity of a familiar gaze settle on him—not immediately, because he liked just existing in it, feeling its heft, but after enough moments to satisfy him he looked up, met those eyes and felt them in his goddamn soul as he asked:

“What?”

And Steve had just kept on staring, the bare hint of a quirk at the corners of his lips spreading to the full sunrise of his smile.

“You fit, here,” and he’d said it so simply, so…much like a truth, a fact of the universe—Eddie Munson fits, belongs in this place, this space, this home, this life—and then the smile dimmed ever so slightly, cloud cover across the shine as Steve shifted a little, crossed his arms loose but still as a barrier over his chest: “if you want to, I mean—”

And Eddie sat up straighter, and he reached both his hands out to Steve because:

“I want to,” it was all he wanted, really; it wasso far beyond his wildest dreams but it was real, Eddie could see and touch it, taste it, feel it through his blood when it pumped, tracking through his whole body, filling up his heart overfull and magnificent and he as just…

“Sweetheart,” he took Steve’s hands and tugged him down to sit next to Eddie, settled him so close; “I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want that.”

He leaned back, wholly prone and never once letting go of Steve’s hands, never once doing anything but keeping them laced together and anchored, locked tight and Steve matched him, followed him as Eddie drew him to his healed-enough chest to settle right at the center, to hear Eddie’s heartbeat for the declaration it was, it already was in its entirety:

“You fit here.”

And he did. They both did. Their worlds had shifted, grew around the shapes they made together and after not-long-at-all, they fit so fucking well that it was bespoke to their cells, they’d never fit anyone else. It was quick and it was heady and it was fucking right.

For months

And then it all went to shit.

Because Steve decided what should have been expected, honestly—that Eddie wasn’t worth the hassle, that he wasn’t right for Steve, that Steve’s staggeringly-expansive capacity for love was wasted to hell on this low-life dipshit who couldn’t even graduate on his third try at high school, who maybe didn’t have a murder charge anymore in the legal system but would never wash it clean from the court of public opinion, who was…trouble. Always trouble.

Not fucking worth it.

It’s just…Eddie never thought Steve would stop wanting him. He maybe went in reticent at first, but Steve had loved so hard out the gate that as soon as he knew he was allowed, and welcome? Eddie didn’t hesitate to meet that love beat for beat.

He just never imagined his love would ever be unwelcome; that that's how his heart would break.

What breaks in the moment, though—the heartbreak is constant, and unfortunately proving to be kinda fucking unending, really—but what breaks now is…possibly the handle on the front door for the way someone’s banging and jiggling it back and forth like the first time it didn’t give against the lock was just a fluke.

He frowns, considers waiting out whoever’s enough of a dick to knock like that but apparently not so witch-hunty to throw a brick through the window—which: Eddie will take progress, he guesses—but when a concerning creak sounds from near the hinges, Eddie thinks of Wayne, and how his uncle doesn’t deserve a broken front door, so.

Heartbroken or not, Eddie has to drag himself to deal with…this.

Then he’s throwing the door open and…this is—

“We need to talk.”

This should have been expected. There’s really only one little asshole who’d assault his door with that much…determination.

“Henderson—” Eddie huffs, because he knows he needs to set a date for them all to get together, he left the campaign they were in kinda dangling on a thread when he didn’t hold the gatherings at St—

Well, when their regularly scheduled venue became too much for Eddie’s heart to handle.

Which: okay, fine, he gets it but like, he can’t care as much as he maybe should when he feels like this, and the kids need to fucking take a chill pill and if they can’t understand, then at least they can just shut the fuck up for at a couple more weeks while Eddie licks his wounds and sees if they decide to finally scab over enough that he doesn’t keep with busting them back open every time he breathes—

“About Steve.”

Eddie’s heart shudders just to hear the name. He’s avoided hearing it for weeks, now; it hurts too much.

He hears it enough in his own head, in his dreams, in his nightmares when he see the worst, in the cadence of his fucking pulse because his heart doesn’t know how not to be Steve’s, kinda feels like it’s not interested in learning, will never be anything other than what it is now, forever, and—

“We need to talk about what you did to Steve.”

Wait.

Wait, what he did to—

What?

for @kultiras🖤

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @sadisticaltarts @bumblebeecuttlefishes @shrimply-a-menace @wheneverfeasible @1-tehe-1 @themoonagainstmers @dreamercec @ravenfrog @live-laugh-love-dietrich @stealthysteveharrington @tinyplanet95 @theohohmoment @samsoble @tinyloonyteacups @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @pretend-theres-a-name-here @dragoon-ze-great

divider credit here

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hi! I hope this is okay but I would love to hear more of ur thoughts about the Yunmeng siblings because they are important to me and your tummy hurt comic hasn't left my brain as just,,, such good immediate characterization! ^^ Thanks!

I have too many thoughts on the Yunmeng siblings to fit into a succinct post, but I can offer you a Jiang Yanli addendum to the tummy hurt alignment.

[sootical]

Permanence

->Wilbur Soot x Reader (hinted but never explicitly stated) ->No use of Y/n ->I tried to be as gender neutral as possible.

*Hurt, minimal comfort, hopeful ending TW: Su*cidal ideation, Self destructive thoughts and actions, SH mentions/references, depression, lots and lots of depression. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK Summary: You are stuck in a multi-month long depressive episode, and it's gotten so much worse. You're on your last leg, and you need someone to help you. Good thing best friend(?) Wilbur and his band are there to help :] Word Count - 2.4k

Wilbur Soot. Twitch streamer turned famous musician, heartthrob—you get it. He’s everything anyone could want in a partner. Trust me, I would know. He’s been my best friend since form. And since then, he’s only ever been kind and considerate and just overall an amazing person. What a guy right? With his stupid brown hair that covers one of his eyes when it’s outgrown. Stupid brown eyes that have just the right amount of dark and light brown in them. It’s stupid of me really, to ever hope for a future with him that involves us being more than friends. I can only hope though, right? He’s up there, in the states, singing his heart out on a stage. While I’m stuck, on the other side of paradise–more like purgatory–lamenting on how many people adore him. I’m feeling sorry for myself, rotting away in bed at 2 in the morning. It’s not like I have to work in three hours–whaaaat nooooo… A knot develops in my stomach at the mere thought of leaving my bed. Maybe losing my job isn’t so bad. Wilbur has told me time and time again he’d pay me to edit for him. But I could never make him do that. Never would I take advantage of him like that. I’d feel like more of a burden than I already do. The thought of him having to support me financially makes me want to vomit. It makes my skin crawl, so it’s okay if I waste away. If I end up rotting away in my bed. It’s fine. At least then I wouldn’t be able to consume too much of Wilbur’s time. Taking up too much of his time has always been my biggest fear. To me, it came true a long time ago and I’m finally reaping what I sowed. It sucks really, how I thought I'd have a shot. Just for it all to blow up in my face. Now he’s somewhere in America–having the time of his life. Good for him. Bad for me.

Reaching over, I grab my phone. My coworkers probably hate me. I keep asking them to cover my shifts so I can rot in bed for another day. It’s been like this since–September? It started off just once every few weeks. Now, it being almost December, I’ve not gone to work in over two weeks. What’s the point anymore anyways? I can’t do this. I can’t do anything. Deep down, when I started doing things for myself–I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this. That was two years ago. I guess I’m finally breaking.

Pulling the duvet over my head, I try not to think about how my breath smells, and the uncomfortable way the oil sticks to my face. I shove my head into the pillow. Trying to block out the sounds of people existing below my apartment. It’s so much easier to rot away when people don’t rely on you. When you have no reason for existence. I don’t want to die. But at the same time I don’t want to live. I’m too much of a coward to do anything about it, so I lay and wait. I wait for some omnipotent being to strike me down and judge me for how I’ve managed to mess up any and all relationships I’ve ever had with anyone. Me and Nikki haven’t spoken in almost a year. Me and Wilbur haven’t even seen each other in months My family doesn’t talk to me.

I wish I could say “The world is fucked and everyone hates me.” But that’s not the truth. The truth is I am my own undoing. I have destroyed everything I’ve worked for. Any relationships–platonic and romantic–have fallen through because of my own emotions and insecurities getting in the way. It’s not fair for anyone. Well, anyone except for me. I brought this upon myself. My phone is the only thing lighting up my face. I looked at the time. Suddenly it’s six in the morning, and I’m late for work. The thought makes me want to cry, but I can’t. I can’t tell if it’s apathy—or dehydration. 

I call my boss. She answers. “Where are you?! I haven’t seen you in weeks! I’m worried about you hun, do you need me to call someone?” She opens, sounding both relieved and shocked I even called. I clear my throat the best I can, swallowing saliva feels like eating sandpaper. “I uh..I was calling to let you know I won’t be coming back. I’m quitting. And I’m sorry for not putting in my two weeks. It’s not–” Something foreign is bubbling up in my throat, I force myself to swallow it down. “-It’s not fair to you. And I’m sorry.” I whisper, hanging up shortly after.

I feel terrible for worrying her. I feel terrible for upsetting her. I feel terrible. I am terrible. I’m a parasite. I always have been. Mooching off of others in order to help myself get by. My thoughts fall back to Wilbur. I’ve been mooching off of him for however long we’ve been friends. I want him to be happy. I don’t want him to feel like he needs to be my friend to keep me alive. But at the same time–I can’t do this anymore. I can’t look myself in the mirror and tell myself it’s me. I can’t. I’m not the person I thought I’d become. I’m not the person I thought I was. I’m useless. My phone rings again. I go to decline it, I can’t. 

Wilbur’s face greets me. His contact photo, the two of us at the amusement park I helped them film for Tommy’s vlog channel. We’re smiling. His arm over my shoulder, and my head on his arm. I remember that day. Wilbur held me for a bit while Tommy and Phil were off filming a different part of the vlog with Russ. I was overwhelmed and so was he, so we took the time to chill by the snack stands. He got tommy cotton candy, and we split popcorn even though he couldn’t really taste it. We spent a good time just taking funny pictures with each other. I remember that day, it was a great one.

Tears breach my eyes before I can stop them. A sob ripping through me, I force my face into the pillow to muffle it. The ringing stops. My tears don’t, and that makes me feel so much worse. My chest convulses as my sobs reverberate through the room. I’m a mess. I’m laying in my bed, rotting. Wasting away and feeling sorry for myself. Everything is terrifying, every breath I take reminds me of how I’m alive. Reminds me of how I can’t escape the feeling of impending doom that washes over me. I’m going to die here. I’m going to die. I was never permanent. 

I knew I couldn’t do this. I’ve been lying to myself, little lies, white lies. To convince myself everything was okay. That it was fine for me to fall in love, it was fine for me to believe I wasn’t just taking up space. That I wasn’t slowly getting tired. 

Contemplating whether or not cut myself some slack–but ending up just cutting myself loose. I lift the duvet from my head, staring at the ceiling. My eyes flick to the ground, clothes and food everywhere. Some of it’s moldy. It makes me feel worse about myself. Turning my head, I look to my PC. I should sell it. Someone else would be much happier with it. I haven’t used it in a while anyways. I can’t take care of any of the stuff I have can I? 

My phone rings again, this time I do answer. 

“Oh my god–” I hear multiple people take a sharp breath in. I can’t stop myself from making a small noise of confusion. “Hey..Your boss–called us.” I recognize the voice to be Joe. I lift the phone, checking the caller ID. It was Wilbur again. “Wil—?” It hurts so bad to talk, I haven’t used my voice this much since the end of October. I hear a choked noise and whispers. “We’re gonna—come over there okay? The tour ended last night, no gigs for a while. Wil’s been missing you y’know.” I can’t tell who said that, “I–no. Sorry.” I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I hung up either.

Maybe deep down I did want them to help, I do want their help. But logically–It’s for the best.

I swing my legs over the side of my bed, cringing at how my clothes hang off of me. My back hurts something awful. I’m so tired. 

Yet I stand on two feet and walk to my bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t recognize them. My hair–too long and too oily for it to be mine. My skin is pale and the bags under my eyes are so dark they could rival a racoon. 

It’s then that my legs decide to give out. I can feel my knees split as I hit the tile. I’m so tired. I look down at the sweater I’m wearing. It’s one of Wil’s. I can’t remember when I put it on. I can’t remember a lot of things recently. Like when this got so bad. Or when my arms started to sting. My eyes are heavy, I can barely keep them open. Maybe a nap wouldn’t be so bad.

When I wake up it’s to voices around me. I’m laying on something warm–It’s moving. I can’t find it in myself to open my eyes. My breathing picks up, and I hear an intake of air accompanied by a hand on my forehead. My eyes are shooting open in fear before I’m trembling. He’s above me, looking down at me like I could break.

I look around, there's two other people. I can barely make them out. Joe and Ash. It’s hard to think. It’s so hard to think. 

“There you are..” Wilbur whispers, his pointer finger gently stroking my cheekbone. “What happened to you love?” I can’t tell if it’s his tone, or the fact he looks so broken. But I can’t stop my eyes from watering and my body from turning into him, hiding myself away. Embarrassment filled me, they’d seen it all. The moldy food, the dirty clothes. They probably saw the abundance of mail I'd gotten as well. People are walking out the room. Not Wilbur, he stays. He stays and makes me look at him. “Here’s what’s gonna happen, I’m gonna help you shower, and they’re going to clean and get you food. Okay?” My eyes widened. I shake my head so quickly it hurts. His face falls, he looks down at what I’m wearing. His face falls even more. “Love…” He whispers. “I don’t–I can’t. Don’t make me.” I whisper. Wilbur wipes away my tears and shakes his head. “No. You’re going to get clean, eat, and then you will sleep for however long you need to.” He lifts me like I’m nothing.

He sets me on the toilet, turning to the tub and turning on the faucet. He waits for it to get warm before he’s plugging the drain and helping me get undressed. He brushes the hair from my face, he frowns at the sight of the back of my head. He looks down at my arms before I can see him clenching his jaw. “We’ll work on the matts too.” He picks me up again, placing me in the tub and going to shut the door. He grabs a towel from the cabinet, as well as a washcloth. He swipes the comb from the counter.

“I’m sorry.” I can’t help but whisper. He sighs. “I know. But it’s alright. We were worried about you.” Was all he said before he’s dousing my hair in water. He keeps a hand on my forehead, stopping the water from getting into my eyes. And with that, he applies conditioner and starts to de-matt my hair. An hour and countless tub refills later, my hair is de-matted and I’m clean. Feeling slightly better too. Wilbur gave me the crewneck he was wearing for comfort, before planting a kiss on my forehead and leaving the room to grab other clothes. The sounds from the outside are a lot less foggy now. I can hear the boys outside bickering and talking. “Are they okay Wil?” “What happened?” “From your face, I can tell it wasn’t good.”

I can’t help but stand weakly, the towel wrapped around me. I look in the mirror. I look a little more like myself. I touch my face, I look pale. I am pale. My hair is a bit longer now. I don’t smell bad anymore. I do feel better, but I can’t help but think I’m making Wilbur do this.

Wilbur reappears, he looks at me and smiles. He hands me the clothing he picked out before leaving the room once again, though he stands just outside the door.

I dress quickly. Slipping on Wilbur’s crewneck once I have my shirt on. I walk out, giving Wilbur a small smile. “You uh–You didn’t have to do this.” He takes my hand and leads me through my now clean apartment. “I did. Because if I didn’t–If we didn’t, you’d be dead right now, or you’d have killed yourself soon.” He says, sitting me down at the table that’s been cleared off. “Now, be honest. When is the last time you remember eating something?” He asks. 

My face drops. That’s the thing–I can’t. “Uh–Tuesday?” I say, like I even know what day it is, his face falls. “It’s Friday.” He deadpans before going into the kitchen, he comes back with Ash, Mark, and Joe. They each have both in their hands. Wilbur has two.

“It’s just soup. Easy on the stomach.” Joe pipes up before sitting on my right, Wilbur sits on my left, and Ash and Mark sit across from me. “We don’t need to talk about things right now, no one is going to make you. But you need to talk to someone soon. Maybe not us, but someone.” Wilbur said, putting his hand on my knee. “Yeah. I think I can do that.” They smile, I eat my soup, and for the first time since September–I feel permanent. 

[sb-1495]

cw hallucinations, brief description of violent imagery (torture)

They’re investigating a ruined dungeon when it happens.

The crew was separated after they came across some lone pirate who claimed to be an archaeologist, much to Robin’s amusement. He was trying to dig up some sort of relic that makes everyone who disturbed it “go mad,” supposedly. Though, the more they talked to him, it was clear that he was messing with things out of his depth, the surrounding ruins leaking with something sinister. And as the crazed man struck the wall with his pickaxe, the ground crumbled beneath them and swallowed them whole.

Which is how every Straw Hat found themselves stranded in a labyrinthian ruin.

Zoro’s not afraid, because he knows he can keep his senses about him.

More so than usual, the place is a goddamn maze and Zoro keeps hearing little sounds like the shift of blowing sand and water dripping somewhere that he can’t pinpoint. But no matter how loud he yells, he doesn’t hear a single one of his crewmates call back. He considered just smashing through the walls, but he recalls Robin emphasizing the flimsy structural integrity; one load-bearing wall could bury everyone, and Zoro doesn’t feel like digging that much.

So he stomps aimlessly through the quiet rubble, ducking through worn stone arches, listening for anything, any familiar voice that could lead him out.

“Help…”

Zoro freezes in his tracks. That was. A voice.

“H-Help…!”

Zoro clenches his jaw. He knew that voice. But at the same time he didn’t. That was the stupid cook’s voice. But it didn’t sound right.

It wasn’t right.

“S-somebody… please… I ca-can’t—”

Zoro starts to walk again. That couldn’t be the cook. It sounded exactly like him. No way was he mistaking that grating voice for someone else, it could only be him. But it didn’t sound any way the cook sounded like before. It must be a trick.

“An-Anyone… I’ll even take… th-the moss head at this point, haha…”

A pained gasp reverberates against the pathways, choking on something, and Zoro realizes he’s been holding his breath. It was a trap, that sounded like Curly, but it wasn’t. When the cook was down in a fight, he was either gritting his teeth to get back up, or he was out cold. He might yell out for backup if he was still standing and conscious, or grumble towards some unspoken agreement if he was back-to-back against Zoro. If he were really backed into a corner, maybe he’d scream angrily.

“Stupid… marimo…”

Zoro steps on something. A cigarette butt, he thinks. He doesn’t pause to check.

But the cook never begged for help. Never sounded so defeated and helpless, the calls Zoro heard just faint whispers against stone. This had to be an illusion, concocted by some sick bastard cloying through his mind for something that would distract him. An odd choice, surely one he’ll laugh about later to his crew once they find each other. He’ll laugh and tease the cook about begging him for help, another point for Zoro in their never-ending games.

“Z-Zoro…”

Except that Zoro can’t laugh right now. He has felt terrible agony. Imagined terrible scenarios. Yet he couldn’t fathom how a sound could fill him with such despair until right this very moment.

“Zoro..! Help, Zoro…!!”

A sob echoes through the halls and Zoro is running.

Something pulls at him, leading him where he needs to be, his feet carrying him so fast that his shoulders are checking chunks of stone out of entryways, and he can’t remember what Robin said about the structure of this place because his voice is calling to Zoro for help and Zoro needs it to stop.

In his mind flashes the scene of a bloodied cook being tortured, with blades stuck through his hands to keep him against the floor, with his legs snapped and sprawled beneath him, his spirit broken and begging for it to end, and Zoro knows this can’t be true, it’s all made up because Sanji is razor-sharp steel just like him, and there’s no way that could happen to him, he couldn’t let that happen to him, and as Zoro climbs steps towards a room with a light, he’s still holding his breath—

“MOSSHEAD, STOP!!!”

Fingernails dig into his arm as he’s pulled back, his leg hovering just shy of the last step.

He breathes. The fog clears. He stares at the ground in front of him. The stairwell he climbed dropped off into a deep, dark pit, several stories of floor having collapsed a long time ago. The light he saw earlier was gone, the echoing voice quieted, and Zoro blinks away the memories as best he can. It takes a few moments to will himself to turn back to the hand on his bicep.

It’s Sanji.

It’s the cook. A little banged up, but no more than usual. He’s alive. He’s fine. And he’s staring at Zoro like he does when he’s half-dead in the infirmary.

“Idiot, you nearly fell to your early demise!!” He yells, finally releasing his grip on Zoro’s arm. He doesn’t mention how the cook was holding it so hard, there were red indents. “Even you couldn’t survive that fall, and I’m sure there are spikes at the bottom of that chasm! There’s some freaky shit going on in this place but I’ve found Chopper and—“

Zoro’s only half listening. It wasn’t real. He knows it wasn’t real. Knew it wasn’t. He was hearing things. He was right, it was a trick. He’s still gasping for air. And as Sanji opens his mouth to shoot a jab at him, he stops.

Zoro belatedly realizes that he grabbed Sanji’s hand at some point, thumb pressed into the palm like he’s searching for some give in his skin. A scar or wound that should be there, but isn’t. He waits for a kick that doesn’t come, his breath still uneven, and oh how he hates that. Hates his body losing control. He tries to take deep breaths, Sanji’s hand an anchor. And when he refocuses on Sanji’s face, it’s softened, brow furrowed in concern, not confusion.

He understood, somehow.

Zoro doesn’t let his grip up. Sanji doesn’t make him let go.

They don’t say anything as they start walking back together, their crewmates clearly unnerved by the sight when they reunite without a fight.

It’s only when they’re back on the Sunny, smoking and drinking by the railing under nightfall, that either of them speaks.

“What did you hear?” Sanji whispers, so quiet that Zoro nearly missed it. He could ignore it if he so chose, and the cook is fully aware.

Instead, he looks ahead, biting the inside of his cheek before replying. “What did you?”

He’s ready to be hit with a retort about dodging the question, but that doesn’t come either. The tension makes Zoro wish that Sanji would just hit him with a kick or a verbal jab. But instead, a sidelong glance spots Sanji twisting his cigarette in his mouth, thinking. Slowly, like trying not to spook a wild animal, he reached out to grab Zoro’s bicep, in nearly the exact same place he grabbed last time.

“Help.“

Zoro’s eye widens, Sanji slowly turning to meet his gaze.

“You were calling… for help.” He says, trying to keep his face level even as his voice cracks.

And Zoro wants to look away, to make a joke, throw a tease, say something, ANYTHING, to make the memories go away, to force himself to forget knowing exactly what Sanji heard, to chuck them out like a bottle to sea, to be found any other day than today.

But instead he nods, a mournful grimace creeping on his face.

“Yeah,” Zoro whispers, the quiet night stretching between them. The only sounds to be heard are the gentle shifts of Zoro’s hand over the cook’s, and the drip of Sanji’s tears against the Sunny railing.

[the-baby-storyteller]

If you’re still doing bthb… would you want to do tortured for information and cradling someone in their arms for gen whumpee/caretaker? Maybe even painful wound cleaning thrown in for fun ✨

I am, and I like how you think!

(Fun fact, I didn’t register the gen at first so I wrote this whole thing as romantic.🥲 But then I fixed it so, enjoy!)

BTHB - Tortured for information

“I’m not going to tell you anything!”

A eyed the torturer carefully as they stared off at one another.

“So stubborn.” Torturer tutted, “So foolishly stubborn.”

They circled around their chair, eyeing A calmly.

“You do understand that I won’t take no for an answer?”

A growled and tugged their chest against the ropes holding them to the chair. They glared at the torturer.

“Then you’ll be here for a while.” A remarked.

“Oh, dear,” Torturer said, chuckling, “it’s you who’s going to suffer more from be being here for a while, not me.”

They pulled out a taser.

A stiffened.

Without warning, the torturer jammed the taser into their chest.

Instantly A convulsed, simultaneously not sblr to move at all.

The pain was excruciating. They couldn’t see, couldn’t think. They felt blinded by the pain as they struggled but couldn’t get away. Just when it started getting hard to breathe, it pulled away.

A fell forward as much as they could with their restraints, heaving in breaths and coughing.

“Shall we go again?”

Before they could look up, Torturer thrust the taser to their neck and this time it hurt much more. They screamed, face twisting and tears streaming down their face. Their muscles spasmed and they felt like they were choking.

Torturer didn’t stop this time. They didn’t let A breathe as they came closer, pushing the taser further and further into their neck, never giving them a break for minutes until A was a stiff yet limp, warbling mess under them.

After an interminable number of minutes, Torturer finally pulled back and A’s muscles loosened for a split second before seizing, twitching and convulsing. They gasped trying to gulp in breath but every movement of their throat made their muscles scream.

Torturer moved behind them and grabbed their hair, taking their head back and so painfully straining their sore throat, and they choked.

“Who has the key to the hideout?” Torturer asked coldly.

“I a- already told you-” A stammered, weakly forcing out words.

“I know,” the torturer narrowed their eyes, “you were lying. Now tell me.”

“Who knows how to get in to our base.” They pulled A’s hair harder with each punctuation. “Which one of your filthy teammates infiltrated us?”

A’s lips trembled but they stayed silent.

Torturer walked around and kicked them in the gut, drawing a painful yelp out from them which only tore up their throat further.

“I’m not-“ A gritted out, breathing heavily, “Telling you anything.”

“Are you sure about that?”

They looked up. The torturer had brought out an assortment of absolutely terrifying looking knives. Some had spikes, some were long, almost like swords.

“Which one should we start with?” Torturer asked, relaxed.

They picked one up and twirled it around in

“Let’s see how long you last.”

A shuddered. This was for them. For the team. They wouldn’t give up, no matter what. They were strong. They would hold out.

- -

Three hours later and was no longer just screaming.

Their whole world was blurry. The torture never stopped.

Their body was bloody; Torturer had carved into their arm and tasted right onto their insides. Every team member had held out for torture before, was experienced in it, but this.

They barely knew where they were they were so bloody disoriented. Everything was hazy and all they could register was pain pain pain that never went away and only got worse because Torturer never stopped-

“What a bore. You’ve held out all this time.”

Torturer pouted, then brightened.

“Shall we amp it up?” They asked.

Amp. It. Up? What kind of amping was worse than three hours of torture?

Then they saw it. The water tub.

Torturer hauled it out from under a table, dirt and grime floating in the water. A wouldn’t just choke. They’d swallow everything in there too. A turned white as a sheet.

“N-no please,” they started blubbering, “you don’t have to- we don’t have to do this-“

“Oh, but we do,” Torturer said stalking forward, “unless you decide to tell me what I want to know.”

They couldn’t. They couldn’t. But they couldn’t hold out and drowning terrified them but they couldn’t betray the team-

They started hyperventilating as Torturer just smiled and just drew closer.

A closed their eyes as they tensed against the ropes, mind fighting internally as they grappled with the fact that the torturer was about to waterboard them-

Debris flew everywhere as the door burst down. A’s head flew up just as five figures swarmed in through the doorway. They instantly pounced on Torturer, yelling furiously, and the water tub fell to the floor.

The team.

Thank all that was beautiful.

A stared in disoriented awe as the team swept through the area. They hadn’t thought anyone would come for them. A let out a little sob.

“Shhh shhh.”

They turned, coming face to face with B. A’s glossy eyes struggled to see them, but they just made out B’s face and they hiccuped a breath.

Caretaker’s face looked just as distressed, but they hid it better.

“Come, we need to get you out of here.” They spoke, “You shouldn’t be here any longer.”

They registered that their ropes were now somehow cut, and Caretaker pulled them, (more like dragged their entire weight), out of the room.

- -

“We’re so, so sorry we let this happen. It should have never-” B growled under their breath. “Torturer.”

A didn’t want to hear it anymore. They just wanted to be safe, to feel to warmness and assured comfort of B arms around them. They were finally out of that terrible room, laid on the floor with B knelt next to them in a different one of the chambers they had been led through. The whole place was safe now; the team had wiped everybody out before getting to A. Before A could control it, they let out a little whine.

B instantly turned back to them. Even in their mess, A burned with embarrassment. Why the hell had they done that?

B smiled lightly, thought, shoulders dropping and losing the stress they were previously holding.

At least I could make them relax, A thought.

Slowly, their eyes started to well up with tears.

“Oh, Whumpee,” B gasped, “Come here.”

B drew A into their lap and brought their arms around them. A’s muscles ached, and their crying picked up, and B stroked their hair, muttering softly:

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I know. We’re here now. I’m here. You’re not going to be hurt, you won’t be hurt.”

“It-“, A started, throat clogged by distress, “it was so hard and it hurt so much and I was so scared-”

“Shhhh,” B soothed, drawing a hand down their chin, bringing them back from hyperventilation, “Shhh, it’s okay. Calm down, we’re here now.”

A’s sobs turned into sniffles as B continued whispering sweet, comforting words into A’s ear.

“It’s all alright, I know, I’m so sorry,” B said, softly wiping away tears from A’s pain-stricken face, “You did such a good job, you’re so good, and we’ll never let that happen to you again. It’s alright now.”

B continued to pet their hair as A calmed down.

“Listen, I need to asses you, okay?” B said when A was a little bit more coherent, “I saw the stuff they had back there and it looked…bad. So I need to examine you and have you respond and comply. Can you do that for me?”

A hesitated, but nodded slowly, gingerly.

“Good job. Very good.” B praised.

A exhaled shakily. They were safe. Safe with B.

A heard B turn and mutter to themself, we can’t deal with the tasing now unfortunately, and look back over to A.

“I saw the water.” B started. “You didn’t inhale any of it did you?”

“N-no, I-,” A stuttered,” “you guys came before Tort- they could make me.” They muttered quietly, digging their chin into their chest.

They thought they saw B’s jaw tick but by the time they looked up to confirm it was gone.

“Okay,” B breathed out. “I can definitely see some injuries they’ve made.” B said unpleasantly. A’s weakened state was the only way they resisted gulping nervously. They didn’t like B when they were angry.

B pulled out their extensive first aid kid they always made sure was filled to the brim with supplies A didn’t even know existed.

“We’re gonna have to clean these cuts. They’re pretty deep and that room was not the pinnacle of cleanliness.”

A froze, then started up.

“W-wait no please,” they begged, straining against B’s arms encircling them, “Don’t it’ll be too painful I can’t, no- You don’t have to, do you-”

“Hey, woah, wait,” B’s eyebrows shout up as they held A down easily, A’s muscles too worn out and weak to do anything even mildly strenuous. B held them more securely on their lap, making them squirm, fighting B.

“Hey, no fighting me.” B scolded and A let out a pitiful cry. “I know, shh, I know it’s painful and scary. But I have to do it, you know, okay? You know this.” They reached their top arm over, grabbing alcohol and a pad. A whimpered.

“It’s alright.” B tried to soothe. “Can I get help over here?” A heard B call to a teammate who must have come in recently. Soon they were backed up against another guest and held in place firmly with arms stronger than B’s. They wiggled and worked, but the arms tightened and they yelped, quickly dying down and letting their body go limp in their teammate’s arms.

The alcohol pad was brought to the deepest cut on their arm and they immediately screamed. A felt their body tense up with effort, and couldn’t help themself from again struggling against their teammates. But their muscles were silk and hard and every movement hurt, only making them cry out more.

“A, you have to calm down.” B implored, Please try to be still. You agreed to comply, remember?”

A sniffled hard, tears streaming down their face as they heaved and choked. Their breaths were closer to shudders and they trembled in their friends’ arms.

B didn’t wait for them to say yes.

The second time the swab hit their arm, it went even deeper, and they only got to see blinding white light for two seconds before they passed out.

- -

A woke up go a light, soothing pressures appeared on their head. It pressed and nudged and soothed the tension perfectly and they let out a sigh despite themself.

They opened their eyes and saw B’s free hand massaging their scalp. B smiled down at them softly.

A blinked, then looked around. They weren’t in the chamber’s rooms anymore. Now they were in a tent, their team’s tent.

The team must have moved me back, A thought, trying not to blush at the embarrassment of a teammate holding their limp form.

“Sleep.” B voice pulled A back to their gaze. “When you wake up again, I’ll still be here. Rest.”

A wanted to contest, to make B speak about what happened and tell them everything whumper said and how in danger they were-

But B’s hands only added more glorious, perfectly placed pressure to their scalm and their limbs loosened without their permission as they exhaled, sinking deeper into B’s arms.

“Sleep.”

A shuddered, the last of their body’s energies expending themselves as they finally, finally, had reached safety, and they went limp as all went black.

[ruewrites]

Helloo! I dunno if your requests are still open or if you forgot to change it. If that is the case, feel free to ignore this.

I wanted to request a platonic scenario with Simeon and Solomon. I was thinking of a hurt/comfort where Simeon comforts Solomon when he is going through a bad time, probably something related to his immortality or the people he lost during his long life. I mean, that is a suggestion, but you can do anything you want, I just want Simeon comforting Solomon because their friendship is very cute <33

Pray for Us

AO3

Word Count: 1917

Warnings: light mentions of Solomon forgetting to eat (I know this is a little canon, our wizard not taking care of himself, but I still want to put the warning here)

A/N: I think... it may still have turned out a little sadder than I intended... But I hope you still enjoy Anon! I'm sorry it took me so long to write :,) I hope you enjoy!

It started out as a trick of the eye, a feather that only appeared to be less than perfect due to a trick of the light. It wasn't anything, it would never be anything. Yet it lingered in the back of Simeon's mind, floating and drifting among his thoughts. 

He had all intents and purposes to ignore it entirely, to swat it away like a pesky mosquito. But the mosquito bit him, and soon the mark graduated from an itching rash to a burning wound. He couldn't deny what was happening anymore, he couldn't ignore Raphael's presence in Purgatory Hall.

Now it wasn't so much Raphael himself that was the issue, but it was what he represented. 

Simeon knew something had been brewing for a while now. He could feel it deep within him and now that it was coming to light. Acknowledging it was something he absolutely couldn't do. It was out of the question. Because even if it was happening, acknowledgement made it real.

It was easy to ignore.

He was content with sweeping up the feathers he left in his wake.

But it would all come crashing to a head.

It had been a gloomy day already, no one had left the house. Rain pounded on the window outside and the occasional boom of thunder ran out in the distance, stepping ever so closer to Purgatory Hall. No one had seen a wink of Solomon in a few days at this point, so Simeon decided it would be appropriate to bring him some soup and hot tea. He knocked once, then a second time. After no answer he slowly opened the door.

He figured it would be safe, it wasn't like Asmodeus was paying a visit.

But looking back, maybe he should have left the items by the door and left. He could have sent a text, but his nature wouldn't allow him. 

Solomon was hunched over his desk. Cups of lukewarm coffee and tea were scattered all throughout the room. Some were even completely cold, left long forgotten in the depths of the room. Some were in ceramics and some in disposable cups from various cafes. No doubt those had been brought to him during hours he definitely should not be substituting them for sleep. His foot brushed against one of the aforementioned cups, sending it gracefully gliding  across the floor. 

Finally, the human seemed to be snapped out of whatever daze he was in and slowly turned his head to look at Simeon.

And he looked terrible.

The bags under his eyes were dark and his eyelids were heavy. A haze still had a hold on him, but he was fighting against it just enough to feign normalcy. It was a slight cue that screamed ‘ignore this, pretend it never happened’. 

Sure, there were times the angels chewed their human roommate out for neglecting to care for himself. But there were also times, where Simeon sensed it was best to ignore the chilling wrongs hiding beneath thin veils of normalcy. And it chilled him every single time. 

Solomon offered a nod and looked down at the food in Simeon’s hands. 

“Lunch time already?”

“Dinner actually.”

“Ah.”

You skipped two meals once again.

Simeon knew it wasn’t on purpose. Sometimes it felt like Solomon forgot that time still moved around him, that it hadn’t stopped entirely. 

“I can leave it on your nightstand if-”

“No,” Solomon stopped him, raising a hand, “Would you mind staying actually? I could use the company.”

Simeon froze. 

Then, swallowing the tight knot in his throat, he moved to sit on the edge of Solomon’s bed. Solomon joined him, pulling the nightstand over as a makeshift table for the meal. 

Solomon stared at the bowl in front of him for a second too long for Simeon’s comfort, and for a moment he reflected his age. 

“Soup.”

“I figured it would be nice on a day like this. Your room is freezing.”

“I like it cold,” he murmured, lowering his eyelids and bringing the spoon to his lips.

Simeon couldn’t help but note how frail and vulnerable he looked. 

Eyes closed, he took his first sip, and then a soft smile spread across his features, “It’s wonderful. Did you use herbs from the Celestial Realm?”

“I did.”

“Fascinating,” Solomon turned back to him, “You’ll have to show me where to get them one day, or bring some back for me. I’d love to use them.”

How much longer did he have to go back?

How fast was that unforgiving clock ticking along?

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," Solomon continued, bringing another spoonful of soup to his mouth, "It's been an incredibly long time since I've been this happy. I used to isolate myself, the whole immortality thing makes human connection a little more depressing. But now, I don't have to worry about losing my connections anymore."

They made eye contact and suddenly breathing became an impossible task. His chest heaved but the air never came. He started heaving and Solomon rose with a start. 

Why had those words shaken him so much?

He knew the answer, but in the same breath he refused to acknowledge it. 

Acknowledgement made it real.

“Simeon? Did I say something that upset you?” Solomon asked. His chair creaked as he stood. This wasn’t at all how he wanted Solomon to find out. He’d wanted to sit him down when he finally settled his nerves, or perhaps he would have never told him at all in lieu of finding a remedy for his ailment. But that wasn’t how it would happen. Simeon couldn’t conjure up incredibly good lies on a good day. Now Solomon was approaching him, eyes full of concern and curiosity.

Now he was here, standing before him, the room silent except for the ticking of a clock, counting down the final seconds until Simeon shattered. 

“Simeon?”

Solomon’s voice felt so distant, echoing in the deepest recesses of his mind. His own voice felt strange and foreign to him, “That reality you mentioned, I’m afraid it may be no more.”

As if on cue, another feather fell from his form, drifting to the floor as the final punctuation to his statement.  He couldn’t bring himself to look at his companion’s face as he processed the words. It was cruel what Simeon had just done to him, beyond cruel. Would it have been an even more unforgivable act if he had continued to let Solomon believe such a pretty little lie? Perhaps even let him believe it until the day Simeon hair went gray. How long did it take them to do that?

Words failed them. There wasn’t a thing either one of them could say. Nothing could remedy the tragedy playing out, and Simeon had no power over the pen crafting his narrative. For the first time since The Celestial War, Simeon was completely, and utterly, helpless. 

It was Solomon who finally broke the silence, “Will you still spend time with me?”

There was no question of why. It honestly surprised Simeon. He expected Solomon to bargain and plead, to immediately search for a solution. It wasn’t like him to accept the unacceptable. Was it shock? The complete shattering of the reality he had just come to accept? Perhaps Simeon was much crueler than he’d realized he’d been. Ing He had completely broken this man he cared so much for.

Solomon was in pieces, and it was his fault. 

How could he deny him more time?

“Of course I will.”

The silence lingered, continuing where it left off as they sat together. Solomon tapped his fingers against the table before them. Eyes transfixed on something beyond his own sight. Simeon watched his features for any ounce of a betrayal of his emotions. 

“Is there anything I can do? Anything we can do?”

Simeon toyed with his fingertips, wishing for a moment that he had anything else to do with his hands. He knew what Solomon was asking, yet he saw no need to conjure up some pretty lie for him, no need to veil the truth he was coming to accept. That would only make it hurt more. Solomon didn’t need sweet lies, but Simeon could deliver the truth as gently as he could. 

“Take care of Luke for me would you?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s the future you know,” Simeon’s voice wavered, “I don’t want to destroy a bright future.” Simeon’s feather wasn’t the only thing that fell to the floor. Luke was all the hope he had. He was the only good thing left he could have seen about the Celestial Realm, and now he would be the only good thing left about the Celestial Realm. Simeon had wanted to guide and mentor him through all the growing he would have left to do, wanted to be there to watch him grow into a fine young man. Now he would only be there for a fraction of his life. He wouldn’t get to see him grow, not really. Simeon would only be able to picture what his future would bring as he aged so much faster than him.

And Solomon-

Poor Solomon.

Simeon genuinely looked forward to all the growing he would do as well. He was the most powerful and interesting human he’d ever met. Strange yes, but that was part of his charm. What would Luke’s future look like with Solomon there? Most likely Michael wouldn’t let him with Solomon full time. Oh Michael…. What would Luke be like under his care? The idea of him being Luke’s only caretaker made Simeon feel quite bleak. All the work he’d done, all the lessons he tried to teach, would it all be for nothing? Would Michael close the blinds that Simeon had worked so hard to lift.

There weren’t many young angels anymore.

Luke was the future.

And the future seemed uncertain and fragile, and Simeon was powerless.

“No.”

Solomon’s voice wasn’t sharp, and yet it still managed to cut through the room. It was a tone so foreign, not one Simeon had ever heard before.

“What? Solomon-” he barely had time to turn before Solomon’s arms were wrapped tightly around him. His fingers fastened around the fabric of his shirt. Solomon’s grip was suffocating, desperate.  Simeon wasn’t sure what to do with his own hands, and so they fell to his side, limp and useless. 

“I’m not doing that,” Simeon swore he heard his breath hitch, “Because I’m going to find a way to fix this. There has to be a way, there has to.” 

His shoulder was dampening now, it crept into the fabric leaving a cold and uncomfortable wetness as the seconds passed.  More feathers fell to the floor each time Solomon moved. All it did was continue to make Simeon’s poor heart ache. Eventually his hands lifted to Solomon’s shoulders, a soft and mournful smile forming on his lips as he leaned into Solomon’s sorrowful embrace. 

“Perhaps we should start praying,” the words were ironic, he knew this, and yet he couldn’t help himself, “For us.”

The rain continued to fill the silence, and Simeon couldn’t bring himself to let go. Solomon was a determined man, Simeon knew this. There wasn’t an ambition he couldn’t capture, an obstacle he couldn’t solve. Yet as they sat there in silence, and as he enveloped Solomon in what remained of his wings, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Was there a prayer in Heaven left for him?

[oxymoronicmoron]

nosramus x reader i dont have any cool title ideas please bear w me

Slender fingers entwined with yours, a gentle hold, a quiet show of affection. “When will you be back?” The man before you asked. His voice was silent, silent enough for his words to be mistaken for the wind, had you not been paying attention. “You know I cannot answer that.” Your response seemed to have hurt him just as much as it hurt you, his displeasure obvious by the look on his face. His hands were pale and freezing… and trembling. Trembling against your own. “I can’t know if I’ll ever be back.” You continued. God, how you wished your words were untrue. How you wished you could remain by his side, listening to his rambles and watching as he worked. You could tell he enjoyed the company, judging by how he acted in your absence. You couldn’t help but wonder if he notices the change in his mood when you’re gone, it would be safe to assume you were his only friend. Were you even friends anymore? Or something more? Were the acts you had committed born of mutual attraction, or pure need? You could not tell. “I suppose it is quite the gamble in these dungeons, is it not?” You laughed, he joined you. The man’s laugh was airy and pained, though his movements remained graceful still. He was a sight for sore eyes, a kind soul trapped inside the dungeons out of his own will. But you had other plans, plans that required you to leave this place, and had it not been for him, you would have already gone through with them. But he made you want to stay, a diamond hidden behind rubble, treasure buried feet deep inside the earth. His work could only be done here, and yours could only be done out there, and you hated it. You wanted to take him outside, to take him with you, to never let go. He was the comfort you needed in this God-Forsaken place, he did everything in his power to ensure your safety and stability, and you’re taking away those exact things from him due to your own selfish goals and aspirations. You took away his everything and now you’re leaving, and you know that you won’t be able to look inside the mirror and see yourself anymore, only the person that this hellhole has shaped. But for now, he is still before you. For the limited amount of time you have together, he is here, as are you. You find yourself taking a step closer, burying your head in his chest, staining his beige robes with your tears, and in turn he embraces you, wrapping his arms around you and placing his chin atop your head. He feels your pain, he understands you, and he too wishes he could stay by your side. At times, he has considered it… he’s an immortal being, and you are not. Maybe he could leave the dungeons, join you for the duration of your life, and return once you are fully gone, but he knows his limits. He wouldn’t be able to handle that, the hurt and the pain it would cause him or the insecurity it would cause you. He knows that your departure is for the best. And when you’re finally ready, when you finish sobbing into his chest, when you finish shaking like an abandoned puppy… …He lets go of you. As do you. And with a nod, you leave. And none of you know if you will ever return.

[badlydrawn-brostrider]

This blog is gonna make me spontaneously combust i swear to fucking god i cannot take the feels/pos

/ / Oh no, don't spontaneously combust!! If you do you'll miss out on all the Bro angst and hurt I've got planned.

/ / I'm sure you don't wanna miss it >:]

[blankweiss-sb]

Gift "Drabble"

For @hiding-in-the-vault

TW: Prison Arc + Post Prison, references to torture and eye removal

Summary: Eventually, Dream found a cave and hunkered down. He didn’t dare making a fire pit, didn’t know whether he could, but it would surely reveal his position. Instead he curled up in the warmest, most wind-safe spot he could find – and slept.

Or

Dream doesn't escape unscathed – mentally or physically.

The red stone pistons fired, the deep grumble distinctive from the ever present hissing of the lava. Dream didn’t dare lift his head or move his cheeks from the grimy, sticky floor of his cell.

Rule number whatever: Either be on your knees head bowed, or you better not have moved from the position Sir left you in.

Was Dream slightly bitter that even thinking Sir immediately called up an image of Quackity and tides of fear and anger? Yes. Would he show that bitterness? No. (Maybe Quackity would think he’d finally broken Dream but he hadn’t. Dream wasn’t quite broken yet, just brittle and fractured. If – when he got out, he’d just pour gold into all those cracks.)

Faintly, Dream heard it – the rustle of small feathers that could be crushed so very easily, the tapping of fingers against the wooden handle of a tool or weapon and a slight hum, the hum of a song Sap had loved. The lava curtains gurgled – please, red stone, fail, a moment of weakness gave itself a voice – before it fizzled out.

Sir bounced into the cell.

“Hullo, Dreamie, how are you? Comfy?”

Dream knew better than to answer. Quackity didn’t care, he just loved the sound of his voice too much. If Dream was lucky, Quackity would gloat, maybe kick Dream a couple of times and leave. That, Dream could endure, he could endure anything, anything but –

Fingertips stroked along the curve of Dream’s face, the one not pressed against crying obsidian and sticky maroon, and it was only the terrors of existence that prevented Dream from flinching. But nothing could have prevented Dream’s throat from releasing a whine when Quackity gently carded through Dream’s hair, almost petting him like a beloved dog.

“Awww, you’re doing good but being greedy, I see.”

Fuck you. Fuck you, Quackity, Dream thought as his head leaned into the comforting touch Sir was offering. It was his body seeking comfort, not Dream. It was his body being pathetic, wanting his torturer to be gentle. It was his body. Not Dream.

“You can be cute. But that’s not why I’m here, not today, puppy!” Don’t call me that. “I’m giving you a gift, look –“

Quackity burst out in little giggles, giggles Sapnap used to gush about. Sapnap had called them more adorable than a baby piglin. Dream had teased him about that, by that time already missing George pressed against his side and joining in on the fun. Teasing his brother had always been one of Dream’s favorite things and George loved to needle Sapnap, too.

A sharp of burst ripped through Dream’s skull as Quackity’s hand grabbed his hair tightly and pulled Dream up until Dream’s scalp was burning. “Listen to me.”

“Yes, Sir.” Two, three seconds more and Quackity let Dream’s head fall, huffing.

“And here I was about to clean you up, wash you, but no. You had to be bad. A bad puppy.” Dream flinched and Quackity’s laugh was more than delighted, echoing between obsidian walls. “Anyway, here you go, you’re going to need this.”

Something cold settled on Dream’s face and – comfort washed over Dream as he realized it was the cold porcelain of a mask, a mask Dream knew quite well. Greedily he sucked in some air and through the stale scent of copper coils and bracken water and burnt out embers, he caught a whiff of earthy flowers.

(“Earthy flowers? Are you serious?” Dream had laughed, pressing his shoulders against Sapnap’s. George had already been snoring, his legs hanging over Sapnap’s lap and his head nuzzling Dream’s stomach.

“Man, you asked me how you were smelling. Earthy flowers. Deal with it, it’s sort of disgusting.” But the tips of Sapnap’s ears had been a brilliant red.

“Someone’s lying~ But that’s ok. I like your hearth embers and George’s bark and petrichor, too.”

“Pe – tri – chor,” Sapnap had mocked. Yet he had relaxed into Dream and – they had slept, together and bonds untorn.)

It was Dream’s mask, not a replica, but his own.

Despite this meaning nothing good, Dream sank into old comfort. The safe feeling was soured by Quackity once again running his hands through Dream’s hair. “Things are going to get exciting,” he crowed, no, that’d be an insult to the death goddess and her harbringers, Quackity quacked. “Better to keep a few things mysterious, right? I’ll be generous and let you rest up.”

Dream didn’t know what Quackity meant until the next day when the pistons fired up and someone swaggered over the bridge. The bars slammed down, Techno grunted as he sprung the trap and it clicked in Dream’s mind.

Time passed.

Sir didn’t enter the prison.

How Techno didn’t realize one tiny but largely important fact was beyond Dream but he couldn’t help being grateful.

How Dream managed to escape with Technoblade was also beyond him.

(Sir had managed to shatter Dream – after Technoblade vanished. Sir had not only dug into all the cracks he’d made but also ensured that not even respawning would ever give back Dream’s sight. There had been a slight, incredibly miniscule chance that Dream could have regained his eye sight but… hard to do that without the vital part of eye sight.

Sir had left Dream cold and raw and – there had been moments.

Dream had even hallucinated at one point, must have imagined trembling hands cleaning him up, a lullaby he hadn’t heard since he was ten being sobbed against his ears and a determined vow being seared against his temple. The voice had sounded like Bad, but Bad hated him, guarded him even, offered suggestions like Dream’s loathing of being alone in the dark to Sir. )

“I refuse. You have done more than enough, he can look after himself now.” The coldness in Philza’s screech was more than biting, was cutting when Technoblade didn’t refute his statement.

Once again Dream’s weakness took over and he wasted a minute on hope, begged Technoblade without the right words or gestures but surely, surely Technoblade picked up on it – “See ya later, nerd, stay safe.”

I’m not seeing anything, settled heavy on Dream’s tongue but – Philza was there, feathers scraping against wooden planks. He must be flaring his wings before refolding them. Rinse and repeat.

It wasn’t pride stopping Dream from saying those words. It was Caution. Philza already was irritated with Dream – Dream, objectively, had harmed the man’s family greatly and in various ways. And in an altercation, there was no world in which Technoblade wouldn’t side with Philza.

So Dream bowed, once, the proper Admin way, and darted off into the forest, barely hearing a sudden intake of breath behind him, probably Philza’s. Technoblade wasn’t an Admin, he wouldn’t have known what Dream’s bow had meant.

They didn’t chase after him, anyways.

That first night Dream almost died five times.

The server refused to reconnect to him – a weak Admin was something no World wanted, vulnerability was undesired – and so Dream had to trust his ears and nose, rather than an innate sense of the World.

Twice the rattling of Skeleton bones was barely enough to get ready for the screeching of arrows flying through the air and aiming directly at Dream’s heart. Muscle memory was, thankfully, enough for Dream to land crits against the Skeletons, even though his own frame didn’t differ much from the Skeletons.

Once a zombie almost ripped into Dream’s leg and would have infected him. Dream was already on the ground, having tripped over a root and landing on a patch of ice that sent him careening through the snow. He’d been contemplating just curling up and sleeping when the zombie fell over him. A kick and crit had taken care of the zombie.

Twice, the environment itself, the World – hadn’t that smarted – had turned against him, giving him no warnings as ravines opened up in front of him. Only hearing the echo of stones crumbling and falling, falling, falling before the unbreakable hit the bottom and shattered into a thousand pieces not even gold could glue back together had warned him.

Eventually, Dream found a cave and hunkered down. He didn’t dare making a fire pit, didn’t know whether he could, but it would surely reveal his position. Instead he curled up in the warmest, most wind-safe spot he could find – and slept.

That first night ended and his first day in freedom dawned – judging from the birdsong sneaking through the tree leaves and into Dream’s cave.

Dream didn’t have the energy to stand up.

More hallucinations haunted his sleep – if it was sleep. His body felt too heavy, his thoughts too hazy for him to be sleeping but – at one point, the hallucination of Bad took root in his mind. Dream heard Bad coo, felt Bad heave him into a bed that Dream certainly hadn’t made, cried while Bad tucked him and drew covers tight around him.

“Sleep tight, good dreams will arrive, cupcake,” the hallucination’s voice quivered as rough, scarred fingers slipped underneath Dream’s mask and tugged it off. The hallucination wanted to card through Dream’s hair and it did, detangling the knots, casting Dream’s drifty mind back to the days of happiness and – “Shh, Clay. I’ll protect you, don’t worry.”

Dream wailed, his throat giving out on him. All the while, the hallucination kept touching him, gently, like Bad loved him, like Bad was here, like Bad cared.

(Love and care were two different shoes. Surely, Sapnap and George still loved Dream but they had shown that they didn’t care for him.)

(Dream was forgetting something. Or someone. Heat was lancing through his brain, pain a deliberating force on everything that was him. How his mind still had enough force to call upon a hallucination with the ability to mimic the sensation of touch he didn’t know. But there was someone else, an agenda, Dream was forgetting.)

(Clay hated getting sick, not only because he couldn’t play with Pandas but because he couldn’t help demanding attention. To be fair, Bad would always give it to him.

“I’m dying,” Clay sobbed, writhing against the covers Bad had forced him under. “It’s too hot, it hurts, I am dying!”

“Shh, you silly, silly cupcake.” Bad chuckled, gently stroking over Clay’s head. Those fingers were so good, they spanned half his head and… Bad was starting to mindlessly but gently tug at all of Clay’s knots, tutting whenever another appeared in the long locks of Clay’s hair. “You’ll be ok, I’m here.”

Whenever Bad acted like this, Clay could pretend that Bad wasn’t only Pandas’ Dad but also his own, and fierce, fierce love wrecked Clay’s body together with the many illnesses he suffered.

One day, one day Clay would create a server for them, for Bad and Pandas and himself and anyone else he loved. He knew he was strong enough, as were his convictions and dreams.)

Energy trickled back into Dream, day by day. The hallucination stayed, far longer than Dream expected it to, offering comfort and safety and the weakness was too strong. Dream, shamefully, gave in.

Until one day the rustle of wings, the wind whistling through feathers just outside his and his hallucination’s cave broke the spell.

“Mate?”

Not Sir, not Sir at all but –

“Get out.” His hallucination growled and the air pulsed with heat and old power – and there was no way that Dream’s stitched together mind could have replicate Bad’s aura when he was pissed and protecting someone. (Someone, not something, an important distinction.)

“Bad Boy Halo, I –“

“Leave before I make you leave. You offered no help, worse, you rejected sanctuary.”

“I didn’t know.”

Bad snorted and responded. Philza said words as well but – Dream had already lost the thread, his mind fuzzy with realizations and too full, too broken to comprehend anything. Until –

“Had I known he was blind and a baby Admin, he wouldn’t have left my house!” Feathers hit the stone walls. Or did feathers scrape along obsidian, crying in sync with the dripping walls? Sir was back, wasn’t he –

Scarred hands cradled Dream’s cheeks and a pair of leathery wings sneaked around and under Dream’s frame. The hands didn’t move. They just held his face and provided an anchor for his mind.

“Bad…” How to say the things he had to say, how to ask questions, how –

Dream’s head is pressed to a dark throat and his breath hitched. Too often Dream had been in this position whenever the world got too big, or he got too big for the world and it bared its fangs at him. Being settled against the thrum of Bad’s heart hadn’t rightened all the wrongs in the world but it had always – always – made them manageable.

“I’m here, Dream. Don’t you worry.”

Dream believed him and let himself fall into trust.

One more time.

[hitlikehammers]

oh golden boy (don't act like you were kind)

part ii: you shined a light on your home

for @kultiras at the ❄️ Winter @steddieexchange 🖤💚

<<< part one

Eddie will not pretend he doesn’t squeak when Dustin bustles past him into the house—a wholly appropriate ranch on the edge of town, with two whole separate bedrooms, no one on the couch anymore, plus a little side room that Eddie thinks probably wasn’t meant as a guest room but can definitely fit about three sleeping bags, four at a push—but yeah, he should have expected Dustin to shove his way into Eddie’s home whether Eddie invited it or not.

He doesn’t have to like it. Or approve of it. Or tolerate it without complaint; without pushing back.

“Hend—” he tries to sound stern, tries to project hand-on-hips-authority like St—

Like some people do. Sometimes. So Eddie’s heard.

“Implied consent!” Dustin cuts him off, voice carrying from at least the living room already, Jesus fuck, this kid; his tone.

Eddie’s glaring hard enough to almost definitely bore a hole through this shithead’s skull, or maybe make him spontaneously combust. If Supergirl was the one glaring, it’d be a done deal.

“You didn’t shut the door, thereby participating in the creation of an entrance,” Dustin’s rambling on and Christ, but he’s such a pompous little fuck sometimes.

“Which is great, and super smart of you,” Dustin tells him earnestly, actually, and wow: if that isn’t condescending, holy fuck; “because the quicker we can address the problem, the quicker it can be solved,” and then he’s turning of his heel and fucking…clapping his hands to together like Eddie’s in goddamn kindergarten.

“So!” Dustin barks with a weird enthusiasm. “Now we can talk about what you did to Steve, and how you’re gonna fix it.”

Eddie blinds at him for a couple couple seconds before throwing his hands up and half-kinda snarling, half-kinda whining:

“What the fuck, man?”

And honestly, Eddie’s torn just now between hurt and angry, indignant and bleeding out a little, because he doesn’t like Dustin accusing him blindly, here, and while he’s long grown past thinking the hero worship was unfounded—honestly, if he’s going to have to think about the man explicitly instead of as the understood ‘you’ that the constant ache of him and his absence has settled as in Eddie’s universe: he thinks what he clocked as hero worship in the beginning probably could have used some bulking up, because…the genuine article was so much more than even the stories Eddie’d refused to believe at the start.

But, back it up: Eddie…Eddie can accept Dustin coming to Steve’s defense—encouraged it, even. But, like, Dustin has stood up for Eddie, too, and just…Eddie didn’t do anything, he’s spent enough cold nights with his arms stretched missing what they’d learned so well to wrap around and hold so close, mourning what’s not there and hell yes, he’s run down every little detail he can think of, where he might have been the one to drive Steve away without ever, ever meaning to, and it boils down the same every time: there’s nothing.

He wishes there was. Because then yeah, like Dustin’s saying—there’d be something to fix. Something to do, to try and salvage what Eddie is entirely aware was very probably the love of his fucking life.

But there isn’t.

“Clearly something is wrong between the two of you,” Dustin gestures broadly in the air, extravagant for no reason but then also it kinda fits entirely because this entire heartbreak of an affair is basically the most devastating thing that’s ever tried to take Eddie down, and he was basically dead in another dimension that one time, so.

That’s saying something, is what he’s getting at.

“And like, I’ve watched when Steve’s been the one to fuck up, man, so like, I can recognize the signs and,” Dustin shakes his head, looks not exactly apologetic but not entirely all-in guns-blazing about pinning the blame on Eddie alone. At least not without giving him a fair shake to explain first.

Which he’d do, if he had any fucking idea what caused them to crash and burn when they’d been the most solid thing Eddie had ever seen, let alone been a part of; got to feel for himself.

“I know Steve,” Dustin says carefully, kinda slow, almost reluctant, which Eddie doesn’t really get until the next part comes out, a little choked, like tears muscled down:

“I’ve never seen him like this.”

Well. Fuck.

Fuck.

“It’s the holidays, man,” Eddie tries to make it sound casual, or at the very least genuine, like his pulse hasn’t jumped for the idea that Steve’s…not okay. Not fucking thriving like he deserves, now that Eddie’s out of the way of what makes him as happy as he should always be. “Sometimes people are just a little down in the dumps, it’s not unheard of,” and he thinks that lands okay, those are all true things, no one needs to know the way his heart’s thumping like a rabbit as his head goes to all sorts of horrible possibilities, and he shouldn’t let himself slide down those pathways anymore, it’s not his business, Steve isn’t—

“He’s not just sad,” Dustin shakes his head; “he’s not,” and he trails off and Eddie’s heartbeat stutters then jackhammers wild for the way Dustin’s face crumples over a fucking interminable stretch of moments that drives every horror possible through fragile arteries not prepared for how much it hurts, laced with the acids at the base of Eddie’s throat and rising, banged around with every beat and—

“I don’t think he’s sleeping,” Dustin says, so quiet, hard to tell if there are actual tears of just the threat of them. “I don’t think he’s eating,” and he takes a shaky breath that gets mirrored in Eddie’s blood, sniffles as he adds on, kinda desperate, fraying at the seams: “Robin can’t even…”

He stops, breathes a couple of times and collects himself—too good at that. Eddie…

Eddie doesn’t even try to do that, for his part. He’s not…strong, like these kids. Like the rest of this little rag-tag-trauma family unit. Eddie isn’t built that impermeable. S’why he’s always had to put on a show, scare people off before they get close enough to see the obvious.

Until…Steve.

And the proof of Eddie’s weaknesses are front and centre right now, so. Case in point.

“I met him right after he and Nancy broke up,” Dustin’s saying after he takes the time to regroup, huffing a breath and furrowing his brows at nothing, until: “after she did the,” and he circles his wrist around again and oh. Oh.

Bullshit.

Eddie’s brow furrows, too, at that.

“I didn’t know it at the time, obviously, and not like I was really paying attention anyway,” Dustin screws up his face a little, like he’s angry at a lot of people for what he’s remembering, and he’s not exempt from his own list; “but you said it yourself, you thought they were meant to be,” Dustin points at him in the sort of way that presses down on Eddie’s shoulders, makes him feel queasy and just…small.

“Unmitigated love, or whatever,” Dustin half-sneers and he doesn’t think that was the word he used but fuck if Eddie’s not transported back to those woods, to those first inklings that his heart was gonna leap and know it couldn’t stick the landing, would less crack and more like splatter, a messy ruin on the sidewalk for trying, for reaching when there was nothing to hook with a grip—

Except there had been, in the end. He hadn’t known it then—just reveled in the way it felt to brush arms against that man, to lean close enough to feel his heat in the frigid deadspace that was the hellscape they were trekking through.

But the end, as it has come anyway, did in fact leave him a fucking spatter-scape on the concrete, exactly the same as he’d feared at the start.

But Dustin fucking Henderson hadn’t been there when Eddie was making eyes at Mr. Former High School Royalty, so—

“How the fuck do you—”

“Doesn’t matter how,” Dustin waves him off like he’s a fucking idiot for asking a question that’s beneath his concern for the topic at hand. “Youthought that,” he rocks forward in emphasis and okay, fine, yeah. Eddie had thought that.

It’d taken a long fucking while for Eddie to stop thinking it; he’s tried not to wonder, now, if he was foolish to ever stop thinking it.

But: no. Of all the reasons Steve got sick of him, he doesn’t think it was because Steve decided to want Nancy. He remembers every word Steve told him about that time, and how Eddie knew it was downplayed for how much Steve took the brunt of her rejection, for how generous Steve was in hindsight to remember how it went down; how genuinely worrisome it was to know Steve actually saw himself as deserving what he’d gotten.

Still. Back in the Upside Down, Eddie had thought it. Told him to get it back. Couldn’t fathom her not seeing the error of her ways even before he comprehended just how egregious her errors ran the first time, just how little even unambiguous signs of love might still fail to deserve Steve Harrington.

But before he knew: he had thought he understood well enough to judge.

Just more reasons for Eddie Munson to quality as an unmitigated idiot.

“So when he lost that,” Dustin’s picking back up again, has got his explaining cap on, trying to map a diagram or some shit, save that it’s Steve and it feels…insufficient in every way, insulting at that, to think Steve could ever be made…simple like that. Cut and dry.

Eddie bristles at it. Maybe he doesn’t have the right anymore, but: Dustin sure as fuck does, and needs to do better.

“He was still okay enough, after that, to fucking join a quest for demodogs and get beat to hell by a psychopath,” Dustin’s saying with the kind of gravity all of a sudden that feels up to reshaping the world; “all just to protect some kids he didn’t even know.”

Eddie can feel where this is headed, can see the lead up to where Dustin’s going to drop them.

He wishes like hell that he couldn’t.

“So if he’s like this, now,” and Dustin sounds…fucking distraught, like all the posturing of pressuring Eddie to reveal what the hell had gone wrong, what he’d done to destroy them, to lose his Steve: the anger and the bafflement was all secondary.

The kid’s fucking scared.

And this kid? Who’s stared down certain death, who’s jumped after Eddie’s stupid ass when the end was imminent, no question?

That…that ratchets Eddie’s pulse up, considerably. For what it has to…mean.

“I have never,” and Dustin’s voice is kind of raspy, kind of too strained and Eddie…Eddie thinks it’d be shitty of him to say that Dustin only sounds like he’s struggling with a fraction of what Eddie’s starting to feel head-on, the bone-deep trembling worry for the unspoken details that must comprise the current state of Steve, piled on top of the wholesale grief and the mourning of both what Eddie’d had, and what he’d been hoping he’d be allowed, be able to keep.

It’d be shitty to say that. So he won’t.

Say it.

“Eddie, I have never seen him like this.”

And it’s all Eddie can do not to whimper, or moan pathetically because the hurt in those words is visceral, and it’s not supposed to be there because Eddie was the problem, he was what was hurting Steve and he’s out of the equation. So what’s causing this much anxiousness, this much concern? How could something have gone to shit so quickly, in just the weeks they’ve been apart—what’s wrong with his Stevie?

(And maybe Steve isn’t his anymore but by god, Eddie is Steve’s, will be to the day he dies, he thinks—no, he knows; no matter where he goes or who he becomes, a part of his heart will belong to Steve for always, whether it’s wanted or not. So that’s his Steve. Where is heart lives. Where is love burns, even as a nuisance. He can’t stop it. He can’t put it out.

It’s with his Steve, and no other.)

“And like,” and Eddie pulls himself enough out of his wallowing, his fretting, the aching in his fucking veins to focus on Dustin as he eyes Eddie up blatantly, the squints a little:

“You don’t look like you’re doing the best, either.”

Okay. Rude.

“Gee, thanks,” Eddie tries to drawl annoyingly, fails miserably; aim to bat his eyes at an attempt at levity that he knows falls flat as hell.

He doesn’t know if he was even trying for it more for Dustin’s sake, or his own.

“Fuck off, man,” Dustin rolls his eyes; “I’m serious,” then he’s gets that grave tone about him again and Eddie hates that these kids have to even know how to be that serious about anything—least of all him, and his…whatever you call the ruins of your everything, when it comes to—

“You might not be hurting like Steve is,” Dustin tells him plain, doesn’t pull punches; “like you’re joyful in comparison,” and okay, ouch—

“But that’s not a healthy bar to clear.”

And Dustin’s eyes are a little narrowed around the call-out, the judgement on so many levels but they’re also…open somehow. Trying to be receptive, and welcoming.

Trying to be a good friend—for Steve and Eddie alike.

“Henderson,” Eddie shakes his head even before his voice strains; “he,” and all the fight goes out of him, drained dry better than the bats ever managed to leave him which is for the best, really, because what he says next, what he admits next is as good as slicing as artery, the way it flays him open to speak into the world:

“He doesn’t want me around.”

He doesn’t want you—

“Oh, right,” Dustin snarks at him with a glare; “definitely doesn’t wilt whenever you come up, doesn’t leave the room or anything,” then it’s Dustinwho wilts a little, somewhere between a pout and concern:

“When we actually get to see him at all.”

“That would be a prime example,” Eddie notes with a kind of…devastated intent, shoving the stabbing sense of worry at the core of him out of the way to make his point: “of what someone does when they don’t want a person around,” and Eddie is right, he’s absolutely right because that’s just natural, that’s a normal reaction and here is clear proof that—

“Not Steve.”

Dustin cuts Eddie’s mental conviction off at its knees with the sheer amount of feeling, of certainty in his tone, like he knows this one thing beyond all the doubt in the world.

It’s that certainty that sours worst in Eddie’s gut.

“If Steve doesn’t want something, he ignores it,” Dustin says, insistent and so fucking sad; “I think it goes back to his parents, like,” Dustin shrugs, and Eddie feels bile at the back of his throat.

“If you’re unwanted, you’re neglected, treated like you don’t exist,” and not for the first time, Eddie kinda-sorta regrets that the murder charges didn’t stick, because then he’d be tarred and feathered appropriately to just go ahead and off the fuckers that made Steve ever wonder if he was somehow anything less than the best person, the most deserving of everything.

“Because that hurts worse,” Dustin says, low, like he gets it. Like he hates it.

“Being invisible hurts the worst.”

Death would be too easy for those fucking assholes who taught Steve that, just because their own hearts were hateful. Eddie…Eddie wants to run to his Stevie and just, fucking, hold him. Make sure he remembers that it doesn’t matter if Eddie’s near or far, his or never close again: he’ll always matter to Eddie. He’ll never, ever be invisible.

“I,” Eddie licks his lips when the silence stretches too long, and Dustin doesn’t seem inclined to fill it this time. “He,” and Eddie’s mouth is too dry, throat still too tight; “we’ve been—”

“You’re together.”

Eddie freezes, heart doing a kind of hard brake thing that shakes him from the ribs on out, and Eddie may not have know where the hell he was going, how he was going to summarize then sanitize what it feels like to give all that you are and be found wanting in the end—but he hadn’t once considered fucking saying…that.

“What?” Eddie chokes, half-assed at best. It’s shock more than it’s denial, save that it should have been past tense, even if Eddie’s whole fucking soul is still with Steve, but he doesn’t think he knows or even fully wants to reel it back.

Ever.

But while they hadn’t hid anything more than in plain sight? They…no one was ever told they’d been dating, and, he, they—

“If even I can see it,” Dustin says, not unkindly exactly but…definitely blunt: “that kinda means it’s an open secret.”

Eddie coughs around the tight shock squeezing at his throat:

“Those aren’t your words,” he manages, because—they aren’t.

And Dustin looks briefly like he sucked on a lemon, knows he can’t fight the obvious.

“Max,” he sighs, admitting from where he’s borrowing uncharacteristic insight; “she told me I was the last to know.”

Any other day, about any other thing, Eddie would feel a much bigger sense of petty vindication in Dustin’s forced humbling.

As it stands? Eddie’s chest hurts too much to fit any kind of twisted delight of the kind getting any sort of foothold in him.

“Right,” he breathes out in an airy, useless kind of sound, doesn’t know where it’s going, doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He feels…actually?

Dying felt less tumultuous than what’s starting to churn through his veins right now, no fucking lie.

“You guys could have told us,” Dustin prods, a little sad, disappointed—hurt that he was left out.

“I,” Eddie’s mouth works around a lot of thoughts, a lot of half-formed feelings because what would it have been like to hold Steve where the people they loved could see, just because they could? To sit in his lap when he got tired, when the scars ached a little from doing too much for too long with the kids. To warm his hands just under the hem of a sweater. To just, just—

“Doesn’t matter now,” is what Eddie lands on, because it’s the honest conclusion of all his wishful wondering; bitter in his voice as much as it is in his chest. “It’s over.”

Fuck. Fuck, has he even said that out loud, yet? Can’t have—it hits too much like whiplash. Like the world ending.

“Doesn’t sound over,” Dustin volleys back like it’s simple; “is it over, for you?”

He asks it, like it’s enough to love with all that you are when it’s got nowhere to go anymore. Like he can strong-arm that kind of feeling through will alone. That one side can make a relationship on their own.

“It sure as hell doesn’t look like it’s over for him,” Dustin stares him down, now, something shifting in his demeanor that screams that he’s done playing games.

“What did you say?” Dustin asks him, something a little pleading in it, but Eddie’s throat won’t work, he can’t fucking speak and Dustin reads it as avoidance, instead of like Eddie’s heart is trying to rip out past his fucking trachea.

“What did he say?” but Dustin doesn’t sound even remotely convinced for his own self that this is on Steve. That it could be on Steve. And…again. Dustin hasn’t been shy about supporting one of them over the other when necessary.

“I,” and how is Eddie even supposed to breach explaining the chain of events that he can parse, leading to where things stand now? Sorry buddy, your ineffably physical and endlessly affectionate brother-slash-babysitter started refusing my kisses and sleeping on the edge of the bed so he barely touched me when he used to be a goddamn octopus to my sloth, grabbing and never letting go until he did, entirely, which is to say nothing of the sex, fuck, did you know your taxi driver is loud as shit in bed, but then all of a sudden if we even had sex he was suddenly silent and if there’s ever a blow to your ego, it’s to fuck your boyfriend and get nothing in response save sometimes tears he doesn’t acknowledge in the aftermath, that really makes a guy feel special.

Yeah, he’s not going to say that. He doesn’t even know how to get across how Steve pulled away, slow and all at once at the same time, overnight as much as it felt like it happened in pieces. But he stiffened when Eddie so much as brushed against him. He barely talked to Eddie. He was always taking extra shifts at work. He didn’t want to be around Eddie. He didn’t want Eddie, outgrew him in the course of weeks, maybe months if Eddie just hadn’t noticed in the beginning, but, it just…they were amazing, one minute. Perfect.

And then they…weren’t.

“He, I mean, it,” and Eddie grabs at his hair and hides behind it, because all of that’s true, all of what he saw and felt and lost in his relationship with Steve before it stopped: it’s accurate.

But then there’s…everything Dustin’s saying. And…Steve was pulling away from him, turning away from him, but did he…was he seeing Robin, or only at work? Was he seeing the rest of the Party?

“He was,” Eddie tries to find a throughway to follow but he’s too distracted because…was Steve sleeping before Eddie stopped coming to bed at all, because everything he tried wasn’t enough, because it was breaking him to keep lying there and not just be ignored, but be actively avoided? Was he…had Steve not been eating regularly, before Eddie left—

Wait.

Eddie…Eddie didn’t leave. He went to Wayne’s, the home that wasn’t the one Steve grew up in, when he needed to get more clothes. It was getting too cold, and since he’d basically moved in with Steve right out of the hospital and never really moved out, he’d been migrating what had survived the old trailer little by little as needed and so he’d…he’d gone to get things.

He’d broken down when his uncle asked him what was wrong, said he looked like someone ran over his cat.

More like his heart, but. Same idea.

And then he’d…he’d been scared. He’d called the house to try and ask Steve when he wanted Eddie to come back, because he’d wondered after telling Wayne everything—and hearing him talk about what it was like coming back from war for some of his buddies—if Steve just needed some space: but the line had rang and rang and rang. Didn’t even grab the machine.

And Eddie had…Eddie had cried so fucking hard he could have sworn he’d busted something in his eye. But…but…

never gonna leave you all alone again

He gasps to himself when the words run lightning quick through his head, and his heart clenches fucking hard.

Did…did Eddie, did he go and…and leave Steve…

Did he leave his Stevie alone?

No. No, it was, Eddie never wanted to keep his distance.

Eddie doesn’t stay awake to all hours staring the the ceiling while his body reels at what it knows it’s missing because he wants to. He doesn’t jolt awake lamenting that emptiness because he likes it, whenever his consciousness drifts in fitful bursts that he doesn’t feel like he deserves, because while he’d maybe been slinking back to lick his wounds when he went to Wayne’s, he would never have even thought to do this own his own, to be estranged.

Though all of those things aren’t without the parasitic leech of a thought on the side: he told you to leave with everything but words, and only that because he stopped taking at all.

But…but Eddie can’t live with Steve hurting. And maybe Steve doesn’t want him, doesn’t love him like that anymore. But Eddie thought of him as his friend, even if they never had a space between where they were just friends and not everything.

And it sounds like maybe Steve could use a friend. Maybe he doesn’t want Eddie for that either, but. Eddie’s kinda in agony at just the thought of the picture Dustin’s been painting.

“It’s Christmas,” Dustin takes that unspoken cue to pipe back up; “like, I just,” and he ends on a note of straight-up entreaty, damn close to pleading:

“Fix it, man.”

And Eddie…

Eddie doesn’t think he’s wanted, in general. Certainly not to be the one who fixes…anything.

But a nice chunk of his heart is with this man who is apparently hurting, and Eddie’s soul-certain love is fixed on him, probably for the rest of fucking time, so.

He’s sitting here being unwanted already.

Won’t hurt to try; can’t possibly end up worse.

for @kultiras🖤

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divider credit here

[steviewashere]

So, earlier this month, I could've sworn I posted a Wayne Munson grieving Eddie ficlet. But, for some reason it's gone? Like completely deleted. If it is already on my dashboard, oh well. So here it is again, it's sad. And not that happy. Enjoy!

(Can also be found on Ao3)

--------

It was a catastrophe what happened to Eddie, Wayne Munson understood. To his nephew, his only son, his world. The person that used to rise thirty minutes before school had to start. Who took showers vigorously (always claiming that "It's fine, Uncle Wayne. My hair is just hair." To which Wayne would show off his own balding head and chuckle when Eddie screeched). Who sat on the middle cushion of the couch, hunched over the low coffee table, scratching away at story building notes for the games Wayne still doesn't understand, and draw glorious pictures of extinct creatures and fabled warriors and fire breathing dragons. The person, especially, who set out with two left feet on the world, only one goal in mind: "No person will feel alienated or forgotten or scared, like I did, like I was growing up."

He knew that Eddie was always a good person. With impossible courage and a multitude of talents, some less important to the machine of existence, but all amazing in Wayne's eyes. Eddie was like that tree in the Shel Silverstein poem, giving and giving, expecting nothing in return, but he still did it anyway. In hopes...Wayne isn't sure what, but he can only silently pray, now, that Eddie got whatever fortunes he always wanted—even if it all remains astral and far away and never to be seen on Earth.

But he was good. Amazing. Important and worthwhile.

Scrawny and ill-tempered. Colorful and descriptive. Careful and kind, never begrudgingly those two, but Wayne suspects that there was still a mask that Eddie crafted. Because that's what he did. He made up a persona for all the people of Hawkins to see, just so he wouldn't get hurt the way he had when he was little.

Wayne has always suspected that there was a great amount of loss and responsibility driven through Eddie. No matter how many times he'd been assured, "No, Ed, whatever happened to your daddy and your mama had nothing to do with you," and "Bubba, bad things just happen. No way around 'em, but always a way through 'em. It ain't your fault." And now, here's the aftermath.

Here's the aftermath: A sunken trailer, and a lisp-bitten kid, and a blood crusted guitar pick hanging around Wayne's neck. Here's the aftermath: Silent and dark hours spent in the cafeteria of a school that hated Wayne's son, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Eddie would never be satisfied with (always one to portion out the condiments to his exact liking), and new missing person posters being put up—despite knowing that Eddie's not missing and he'll never return, despite knowing that if he were to return, he wouldn't be able to live, and despite knowing that there's still blood on both of their palms and only one of them would do time for it.

And the after of the aftermath: Wayne doesn't know what to do anymore.

He scurries around with a pack of people; teenagers and fresh twenty-somethings and a few adults that he could'a sworn were called crazy and declared dead. He used what he learned back in 'Nam to patch others up and to take cover and to close eyes of strangers he'll never get the chance to know, and in those moments, he shuts his eyes and mutters a prayer and tells his son to "Take care of 'em, you know what to do." He fights evil and feeds good people and squeezes their shoulder as a term of endearment, as silent praise, because there's no Eddie to receive it; just that Dustin Henderson kid and his gaggle of teenaged friends, Steve Harrington and his unlikely companions. He helps them out because he knows, now, that Eddie gave his life to save them and the town, and he'll carry on that duty, because what else is there to do? Tuck tail and run, Wayne used to say. You get yourself outta there, he'd mutter some time back. Run when it ain't good. But above all else, you remain good and kind and confident, and if there's nowhere else to turn, you be brave, but smart. Damn it, you be smart, Edward.

He tells the others the same. They heed their warnings. They know when to quit.

Nobody dies, not this time. But still, Wayne left his soul spattered in places, where Eddie once stood and where he once talked and where he once cried when it was all that was left to do.

So in the after-after of the aftermath: Wayne cries. Not quietly like he did when given the guitar pick necklace. Not subtly when he first heard of Eddie's disappearance.

No, it's like the fucking Hoover Dam cracked in two giant, crumbling pieces. With all the water and all the ground and all the sky that there is to offer. He crumples like the paper bag that Eddie used to give him for his late-night work lunches. His body contorts over his own knees, like threatening to throw up on his boots, and he heaves air as if it'll save him. From what, again, Wayne isn't sure. He flexes his fingers on his knees and gasps for air and he tastes blood on his tongue when he breathes a little too hard, and he is reminded of the way Dustin sat down to describe Eddie's final moments.

"Blood everywhere, in his mouth and on his cheek and in his hair. Laying still like a calm lake. Limp and warm, somehow still warm," Dustin had said, voice flat and distant. He was like Wayne's soldier buddies, the ones that grip to cans of Miller and go gravelly with the remembrance. "I held him until he went cold. It was cold down there, Mr. Munson. But he had been warm. And I held him, like you would a baby. And I told him I loved him. I told him I love him." And Wayne had held the poor kid between his arms, like he was an eight year old Eddie Munson on his doorstep, shaved hair and one of his canines missing and a duffel bag the size of Texas, loose clothing and skin so pale you could've seen through him if you squinted. But they swayed a little. They cried together, like grieving people should, Wayne had thought. And he was reminded all over again about Eddie, because everything reminds him of Eddie—even the twisted, burnt ends of cigarettes, and fingertip callouses, and Honeycomb crumbs still etched into the soles of Wayne's boots.

He wishes Eddie had been messier. He wishes he'd been less careful with everyday life, not this. Never this.

Wayne cries until there's nothing left to cry. And then he cries some more for the sake of doing so. And he stands to his full height like a wilting apple tree, brushes his palm over what remains of his hair, and sighs something caught between a cough and a billow of smoke.

Holes himself in a corner apartment that's as sterile and lifeless as every hospital Wayne will ever imagine. Thinks of it as his chunk of the universe, the one that should've been twenty years from now, where he's completely bald and rippled by arthritis and he's retired to some senior home, where Eddie ambles in with a shag-cut and a thousand new stories of grandkids or his spouse or a new restaurant he recently tried, where they sit under an awning clutching mugs of warm hot chocolate and watch all the stars in the sky—he listens to Eddie describe constellations and wonders just how his son grew to be so intelligent. And he'll ask, he always asks.

Eddie responds, "Learned it from you, old man." And Wayne digs into him for calling his uncle old. And Eddie always responded, "You'll always be the same to me. Don't change, Uncle Wayne. Don't change."

Wayne just chuckles and whispers, "That's my line."

And he is able to imagine, when visiting time is done, the way Eddie angles down to kiss Wayne's forehead. Whispers something under his breath. Says something like, "I love you." And goes home, to safety. To somewhere that Wayne remains.

In the apartment, though, Wayne will create a space where Eddie always remains.

Starting with his music. Loud and crazy. If only to fill the space. If only to understand Eddie as a beautiful catastrophe, not a sad one.

Never a sad one.

--------

A/N: Grief is mourning and then finding life all around you, where that life no longer lives.

[marionluth]

A little fic to honor Jay's birthday ❤️💔

Title: Happy Birthday dear Jason (happy deathday to you)

Fandom: Batman (all media types)

Summary:

If Jason went home tonight, they’d all be there to celebrate his birthday. But Jason was done with that. The date didn’t mean anything—not anymore, not for a long time. The letters on the cake would spell nothing of significance, and the candles would feel all wrong. If Jason went home tonight, he’d face his birthday, but all his mind would replay would be his deathday and the day he clawed himself out of the ground. The cake would read "Here Lies Jason Todd," and the dancing tiny flames would morph into the candles that greeted him as he gasped for air, spitting dirt on his graveyard’s plot.

In honor of Jay's birthday, a little fic of his thoughts as he watches his 'family' setting up a 'surprise' party for him.

Status: Complete

Rating: Gen

Pairings: none

Warnings: referenced non-graphic canon-like violence

Links: Ao3

Excerpt 👇

He drew a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his leather jacket’s pocket and lit one. The strong aroma of burning tobacco filled his senses, the nicotine melting some of the tension from his shoulders. He stood at the edge of the rooftop on the building across from his and stared at his windows. Most nights, he'd smoke this cigarette on his sixth-floor balcony, music playing in the background to drown out Gotham’s hum, a cold beer in hand, his eyes trailing the edges of the city. His city. Most nights, but not this one. Because he knew. He knew his house wouldn’t be his tonight, and his music wouldn’t play in the background, and if he walked through that door, he wouldn’t be able to ditch the mask, ditch the armor, and be Jason. Not the real Jason anyway.

If he went home tonight, he’d have to be a memory, a disappointment, a promise, a prospect of redemption, a predecessor, a stabbing pain in someone’s heart, a memory of a beating in someone’s body, a wishful future presence in someone’s life. If he went home tonight, he’d be everything everyone else wanted him to be. Everything everyone remembered him to be. Everything he never was and never will be, and nothing he really is. If he went home tonight, it wouldn’t be home. It would be a cell, a coffin, an old green, red, and yellow suit. He’d be a silent, awkward nod, a desperate hug, a playful punch on the shoulder, a rigid handshake, a pleading smile, a pat on the back.

If he went home tonight, it wouldn't smell of tobacco and smoke; it would smell of pizza and candles, burning slowly, melting on a cake with his name scribbled on it and a number that meant nothing. If he went home today, he wouldn't hear his unwind playlist while washing off the day's blood and sweat, but a happy birthday song—each word a punch in the gut. If he went home tonight, he wouldn't read the book left open on his couch, but colorful cards filled with wishes and promises and the scribbled names of people who were still salt in an oozing wound.

[arsenicflame]

Hurt/no comfort for the tropes ask game?

thank u!! this is a gooooood one to think on

C: Neutral. A good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead.

i LOVE a good whump moment. i love putting characters in awful situations and making them s u f f e r. but! all of that is on the basis that they get a hug (or something) at the end. i need at least the implication of comfort to have a good time reading hurt fic, ESP if it verges DD:DNE anywhere. i would trust authors who i know to do it well, but its still not my favourite thing.

in izzyfic: if hes kidnapped, he needs rescuing, if were messing with hornigold, i want him to get out. if something goes wrong on the ship? we talk it through. its just, not my thing otherwise!

(possessed by the spirit of Stede for a sec there, my bad)

Give me a fanfiction trope and I’ll grade it