#i cut off a friend because no matter what she could not grasp what had been DONE to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mellowsaturns · 1 year ago

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in losing grip, on sinking ships (you showed up just in time)

BUCKY BARNES X FEM!READER

summary: when the avengers pick up unusual activity, they realize that not all of hydra was destroyed. one unidentifiable face sends the team into a frenzy but bucky knows it. he could recognize those eyes anywhere.

warnings: heavy angst, one sided enemies-to-lovers-ish, hydra!assassin!reader, hurt/comfort, happy ending, brainwashing, trauma, guns & knives, fighting, implied kidnapping of reader when young, all the feels, misunderstandings, poor attempt at writing action

wc: 4.7k

a/n: sorry it’s been forever but i hope my fellow buckyluvrs are still here <3 i actually wrote this a long time ago but never got around to editing until recently so i guess you can say this is (from the vault) ? inspired by the idea: what-if there was another winter soldier and bucky finds himself in steve’s position this time trying to get you back to him. anyways, i hope you enjoy this one :)

Bucky’s life was a never ending montage of gunfire and bloodshed. It didn’t matter if he was under the clutches of someone else, he still lived through the wars—the lingering smell of smoke and tang of metallic forever ingrained in his senses.

And just when he thought it was finally over—a glimmer of peace at last—it comes and steals that dream away from him.

Like deja-vu, he’s looking at faces that were once responsible for his pain.

On the screen, three Hydra officers stare back at him. All faces identified by Tony’s system. Alive. Last seen in the outskirts of some small country in Europe. Irrelevant low ranking officials that had managed to survive the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D and have been hiding and secretly continuing Hydra’s mission underground ever since. Low officials or not, it was one too many.

Bucky freezes in his spot when Tony swipes the screen. The billionaire goes on a rant saying this particular face cannot be identified, which was according to Tony, bullshit because his face recognition system is the best in the world. The rest of the team is arguing and flipping through countless files and internet archives. But Bucky knows. He knows that face and those haunting eyes that he still sees in his dreams.

“Buck,” a voice calls out. “You know her, don’t you?”

He looks up at Steve from his spot, his best friend's face worried and all knowing.

One thing about Hydra was that they were always prepared. They had backups and multiple plans ready, or else how would two heads take its place when one was cut off? Unfortunately for the world, Hydra managed to make another deadly assassin, one whose work was so discreet and nimble that even intelligence didn't know they existed.

You were a ghost story that lived in the shadows of the Winter Soldier. You were another one of Hydra’s prize possessions—less known, but just as deadly.

With Steve’s comment, all eyes are now on Bucky. A pregnant pause fills the air and he gulps before he confesses, “I wasn’t the only one.”

The room becomes tense. The war that they thought was over suddenly looms over like an unpredicted oncoming storm. “Jesus Christ, Barnes. You couldn’t have informed us about her earlier?” says Tony.

“I thought,” he says, shifting his eyes onto the ground, “I thought she fell with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Bucky couldn’t find you anywhere after he escaped their grasp. After he joined the Avengers, he tried once again secretly using Tony’s technology but it was to no avail—it always ended up being a dead end. And for that, he assumed Hydra had put you out of your misery the day they were caught.

But the face on the screen says otherwise. And suddenly, Bucky feels very guilty.

Steve clears his throat, “Well, they were picked up not too long ago heading north. If we leave now, we might be able to find them and stop them once and for all.”

Everyone looks at each other, debating on his proposal. “What the Captain said. Everybody, suit up. Quinjet leaves in ten,” says Tony.

On the jet, Bucky stares off into space but countless questions run through his mind.

Steve walks over and sits beside him. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks, voice quiet.

Bucky sighs, “I just… I thought she was gone.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

He looks up, wondering if he should tell Steve the truth. That he’s not brooding about the fact that he concealed you to them. After a moment, Bucky speaks up. “When we get there, let me handle her. Please.”

Steve didn’t know what kind of history Bucky had with you. But judging from the look his best-friend is giving, it’s more than what Steve could understand or even comprehend but he trusts Bucky and so, he gives him a nod. “She’s all yours.”

After scouting the area and tracing the location to a very hidden underground warehouse in the middle of nowhere, they split up. The warehouse was dark and dusty, surely abandoned, but Bucky knew better—it was their facade behind the most sinister of activities. Through the comms, Natasha announces that she has already taken care of all the troops in the West wing. Moments later, Sam reports that he has eliminated one of the Hydra officers. They wouldn’t last long. Hydra didn’t have much resources or time to rebuild—their current empire was weak, they were no match for the Avengers this time.

The only person Bucky’s truly worried about is you. The fact that he trained you, made you into what you were today already gave him the chills. He’s not the Winter Soldier anymore, but he was certain that you were still in that killer mindset that Hydra forced upon you.

Step by step, Bucky walks through the quiet hallway, the echoes of his footsteps the only noise. It’s cold here, he notices, which gives him flashbacks to those days in his dirty cell and the cryostasis chamber. Down a hallway to the next, round a corner and another, there wasn’t a single soul in the eerily Eastern wing.

But he spoke too soon, because seconds later, a garrote wire was around his neck. The swift invisible steps and the perfect pressure that was being used to quickly cut off his air supply was all too familiar. He knows this move, he taught this move. You’re here, and you’re dragging him backwards.

Before all oxygen gets cut off to his brain, he jabs his elbow backwards and hits you hard on the rib which releases the hold you have on him and sends you stumbling back. Bucky takes a moment to regain his breath but you’re on your feet again. He looks at you and for a moment he freezes, then you let out a sinister grin. “Nice to see you again, Soldat,” you taunt, before running towards him.

Bucky’s deflecting your punches one after another. Maybe he’s glad he was the one who taught you everything you know because your moves were predictable—if it were another person, there is no doubt they would’ve been on the ground with multiple concussions bleeding out already. You’re ruthless when you do a triple roundhouse kick on him. On the fourth one, he manages to catch your leg and twists it, sending you to the ground with a groan.

How familiar this scene was, Bucky thinks.

Some forty-years ago, Hydra brought a woman into the training room. There was no further instruction than to train you and that’s what he did. He could tell you were well trained already—compliant and pliable. You were good. And you were just like him, injected with a serum that made you a hundred times more efficient and stronger. In just under a year, Hydra would start sending you on missions. Sometimes with him, sometimes alone.

During training, the both of you would spar for hours, leaving each other bloody and bruised, but it didn’t matter to the overlookers, the both of you would heal in a few hours anyways.

Once you pick yourself back up, he pulls a gun out on you. “Stop this,” he commands.

You smirk, “You going to shoot me, Soldat? I want to see you try.”

He clenches his jaw. You continue to look at him, a dark look on your face that shows no sign of true recognition.

His thoughts are disrupted when you tackle him onto the ground. You kick his gun away and pin his arms down as you straddle him. “I’m going to kill you,” you declare, “I’m going to put a bullet through your head.”

When he looks up at you, your eyes are full of rage. Bucky doesn’t know whether that’s the brainwashed version of you talking or the actual you talking—maybe both.

“What are you going to do after you kill me?” he says, irritated. C’mon, please recognize me. “This is all that remains of Hydra. Half the troops are already dead. One of your new leaders is dead. In a few hours, Hydra will be no more. What will you do after that? What are you going to do after you kill me?”

“What does it matter? You’re my mission. I’m going to finish it.”

He groans at your stubbornness that was identical to his Soldier persona.

He says your name slowly. “Get off. You can walk away from this.”

You frown, but he continues, “I know how you feel. You’re feeling helpless.” He clears his throat, “There’s someone behind this version of you. I want to talk to her.”

“What are you talking about?” you utter in annoyance. “Stop stalling.”

He says that name again, with calamity and care. You want to rip out his tongue.

“Let me talk to her. Please.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about!” you shout, grabbing for the gun that’s strapped onto your waist. “Stop talkin–”

“I was in the cell next to yours. You liked the colour green. You were wearing white when we first met. You always wanted to visit Bucharest. You hated the leaky cold showers in the Siberian facility,” he rambles, trying to remember every single thing about you in a desperate attempt to get your attention so this version of you won’t shoot him in the face.

And for a moment, it works because your hand freezes on the grip of your gun. He takes that moment to flip you over, so you’re under him now, hands pinned above your head. He takes your gun and throws it behind him.

You snarl at him while trying to escape his grasp. “I know you’re under there,” he says. “Please, come through. Please talk to me.”

Your face scrunches in pain, not from him—he would never hurt you—but from the mental warfare that’s currently going on in your mind. You close your eyes as he speaks again. “Listen to my voice, you know me, don’t you? мой милая.”

My darling.

For a moment, your entire body tenses up and then you let out a painful breath. When your eyelids start to flutter open, he finally sees the eyes he came to know and rely on—eyes he came to love.

The both of you are looking at each other unblinking. A scene neither of you expected but always dreamt about.

You break the silence with a whisper of, “James?”

Bucky slowly nods at your disbelief. Finally, he thinks. But such respite doesn’t last long, because seconds later, you hook your foot under his and flip him over and escape his grasp.

There's darkness in your eyes and he can tell that the Soldate is back and the fighting resumes.

You’re chasing him down the twisting hallway and when you catch up, you grab his shoulder and throw a punch to his jaw. He stumbles back and then a voice comes through the comms.

“Just took down the second one.” Steve. “Bucky, how are you holding up? You’ve been quiet ever since we split up.”

He’s trying his best to block your hand, which now has a damn pocket knife. Your quick movements are starting to tire him out. Maybe he taught you too well, he thinks.

“Buck? Bucky. Confirm your status, right now.”

Groaning in frustration, he taps his earpiece. “I’m fine,” he grunts. A second later, “Shit!” he huffs out as you nearly slice his face.

“You don’t sound fine. Is she with you? I’m sending back up.”

“No!” he says, “Don’t send anyone. I can handle her.”

In truth, he’s struggling right now—your stamina has always been better than his—but he’s worried that you’re going to accidentally get hurt and even more agitated when people appear. His main priority was keeping you safe. Fuck the mission statement they talked about back on the Quinjet.

You’re angry—no, you’re extremely angry at him. It doesn’t take a genius to tell. It’s a mixture of pure rage from both the brainwashed and actual you.

He supposed he deserved it. You should be angry. Because for the longest time, it was you and him.

Other than turning you into a ruthless assassin just like him, an unexpected companionship also formed during those hazy in-between moments when the two of you weren’t frozen or on the metal chair getting fried by those machines—during the times when he was just Bucky and you were just you, two unfortunate innocent souls that shared the same suffering.

They weren’t pleasant moments. It was dehumanising. It was getting shoved into draughty cells with nothing but a blanket until it was time to train or time to embark on a mission. Luckily, your cells were next to each other and it made the endless nights a little more bearable. He was a little off-putting at first, but when he yelled at you to stop crying because they would torture you even more for it, you knew he meant well.

During your shared time together, glimpses of your true selves would seldom come up and you would tell each other about the little bits and pieces of a life once known. And the both of you would hold onto each other's memories and stories in case the other forgets.

And whenever they prep the two of you for the chamber due to there being no current missions for the time being, the two of you would look at each other—a look of longing with the secret squeezing of each other's hand before going under.

Despite the absolute awful situation the two of you were in at the time, the both of you were hopeful for the next shared moments together. Because even when all hope was gone, you had each other. And that was good enough for the two of you.

He misses you. So damn much.

“Shut up,” you mutter.

He didn’t even realise he said it outloud. “Well, I do,” he admits, his back hitting a wall.

“You talk too much, Soldat,” you say, creeping up on him. “I ought to cut your throat.”

“I’m sorry I left you with them.”

You halt in your steps and your jaw ticks. In a second, you pounce on him, your knife against his throat. He’s gripping your hand to stop you from continuing your job.

He says your name again. You’re pushing but he’s pushing back just as hard. “I’m sorry…” he repeats, “I’m so sorry.”

The desperation in his voice… You glance up at him slowly and he sees the pink forming in your eyes and your trembling lips. “What are you doing? What are you doing to me?” you whisper.

He sees the internal war behind your eyes once again. Bucky gulps for a moment before letting go of your hand, trusting that you won’t do any actual harm, and moves his hands so he’s cupping your face, firm enough so you’re forced to look at him. You look into his eyes for a second, then a minute, and for a moment, everything stops. Your breath hitches, because those eyes… those arctic blues… you know them. You fell in love with them many years ago.

A realisation washes over your face, one that Bucky doesn’t miss. You’re back.

The first tear falls. Then the second. “Bucky.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispers.

You let out a small cry before you press the blade harder against his neck, your grip a vice from his betrayal. He could feel the sharp cold metal pierce through his skin ever so slightly, but he doesn’t try and stop you.

“Give me a reason to not kill you right now,” you grit through tears. “You left me. You left me behind to rot alone. You promised me. You fucking promised,” you say, voice laced with venom and so much hurt.

Bucky’s heart breaks at the sadness of your voice. Because he did promise. There wasn’t much to do in the cells other than throw around false hope. But whenever he told you he was going to escape one day and that he was going to take you with him—it didn’t feel like false promises at all because it wasn’t, and you knew it too.

Until he broke that promise and left you all alone.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, voice breaking. “I didn’t mean to leave you there with them.”

“I waited for you,” you cry. “Day and night I waited for you to come back. Even when they relocated, I waited for you because I knew you’d find me.”

You remember that day clearly. Everyone was in a frenzy when the death of Alexander Pierce broke out and that they could not locate the Soldat. For a moment, you could taste your own freedom because government officials would come anytime now and finally arrest all these criminals. But right when they came, a few Hydra officers managed to escape and took you with them, and when you woke up, you didn’t know where the hell you were. But even then you didn’t lose hope because James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, the name you committed to memory, was going to come for you just like he promised.

Until days, months, and eventually, a year came with no sign of him.

You were angry at first, but it slowly turned into worry because what if something bad had happened to him? But what do you know? You were stuck in this building and only went out whenever they spoke those trigger words to you. And you were always under their watchful eyes, giving you no chance to even attempt an escape. Surely he would never break his promise to you so something must’ve happened to him, you told yourself multiple times.

But he was standing here right in front of you. Alive. We’re under attack, your handler said to you moments ago, Kill the Soldat before he kills you.

“You’re a liar. You never cared about me,” you hiss.

Sometimes, it got too much. But whenever reality was a bit too hard to endure, Bucky was there, always reaching his hand out to you through the metal cage, which you took and held tight. And it meant the world to you, that someone cared.

“All those moments, did it even mean anything to you?”

He uses this opportunity to pull your arms down slightly, knife finally away from his neck and his eyes start to sting from his own tears. “They meant everything to me. I care about you.”

You look up at him with a defeated expression and Bucky never wanted to punch himself in the face more. “Then why? Why didn’t you come back for me?”

“I did,” he chokes out. “When I escaped, the first thing I did was go back for you, but the facility had already been raided and there was no one there. I checked every inch of the building.”

Bucky had never felt so scared, because what if the government took you too? They would never understand—framing you as a villain even though that was far from the truth. But there was no news of your capture, so with a breath of relief, Bucky continued to look through other known Hydra facilities.

“I tried my best looking for you, but I also had to be careful because I was a wanted man at the time. When months passed by and there were no clues, I thought that maybe you had escaped. I was in Bucharest waiting for you. Remember how you said you always wanted to go there? I knew that if you escaped, you’d find me there. Even when you didn’t show, I never gave up. Steve… I think I told you about him once—he found me, he helped me and cleared my name. After that, I still searched for you but it all ended up being dead ends. And…” he pauses for a moment, “and so I thought you were dead. I should’ve tried harder. I’m sorry.”

He had mourned you and blamed himself endlessly for it.

He knows he should’ve asked for help, but instead, he took this task upon himself until it got too much—because that was the one thing he struggled with the most, asking for help.

When his side of the story finally comes to light, you break into a sob. “I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he says, “but please, drop the weapon and let me help you.”

You swallow hard at his confession. He never stopped looking for you. You didn’t even consider how hard it must’ve been for him after everything and yet you’re lashing out on him.

“How are you going to help me?” you say. “I’m a mess. All you have to do is say those words and I turn into a weapon.”

Twelve. Ember. Fragment. Nine. Academy. Order. Frigid. Yearning. Blue.

Those were your trigger words.

“I got you out of your trance, didn’t I?” he says with a gentle smile.

Hydra needed you to rebuild their empire and they relied on those nine words to do so. To them, those nine words were your greatest weakness but one of them, the last one, the one they liked to spit out in vexation, was also your greatest strength—your salvation.

Blue.

You think back, moments prior, when all he had to do was use his voice and all you had to do was look into the blues of his eyes. Hydra can repeat those words all they want, but Bucky would always be able to bring you back.

At that, your grip relaxes and the knife finally drops onto the floor, it’s noise ricocheting off the walls.

“There’s a place called Wakanda and I know someone there who can help you. Her name’s Ayo and she’s amazing. She helped me overcome my words.”

He brings his hands back up to cradle your face and you shutter at the familiar touch—at the calluses on his palms. “And I think you’ll like it there. It’s quiet and there’s so much… green.”

You let out a small laugh through your tears but doubt still fills your mind. “But… all the things I did,” you whimper, “I did such terrible unforgivable things. There’s… there’s so much blood on my hands.”

Sadness flares around his heart. It was all so familiar. He knows the feeling.

“It’s not going to be easy. God knows how long it took for me to believe that none of it was my fault. But let me be the first one to tell you,” he says, wiping your tears away with his thumb. “None of what you did was your fault. You were a victim.” He swallows a deep breath, “There are going to be days where it’ll be too much too bear and there are going to be nights where all those casualties will haunt you,” he admits. “But… but you’ll get there. Someday, you’ll learn to stop punishing yourself for something you didn’t do.”

And he vows that he’ll help you every step of the way.

You breathe out slowly, digesting all his words. “You can trust me,” he tells you, “I won’t let you down this time. I’ll be here.”

Blinking up at him, the small hesitant part of you so desperately wanted to say, “How can I trust you?” but his eyes were telling you everything you needed to know. Because it was filled with nothing but honour and truth.

He breaks away from you and reaches out his hand. An invitation. You stare at it for a while, then you slowly lift yours and brush your fingers amongst his before grabbing it tightly—a truce of sorts, a promise. He squeezes back in return, a loving smile on his face, just like all those nights many moonlights ago.

Your breath hitches when he pulls you into his embrace, your face burying perfectly into the valley of his chest. He wraps his arms around you in urgency, in fear, almost afraid you’ll slip out if he doesn’t.

“It’s over,” he mumbles into your hair.

Because two floors down an explosion erupts, finishing off the last remaining garrison of troops. Three hallways down, Natasha sets fire to a room that contained the other small red leather book that held those nine suffocating words written in Russian. Outside, the last Hydra officer attempting to flee falls to his knees from an arrow to the chest. And the only hope they had left to rebuild their regime was safely in Bucky’s arms.

He pulls away and uses his thumb to rub gently across your cheek, “It’s over. The war is finally over.”

Now that the worst is over, Bucky’s hopeful. There will be other conflicts to come, that was just how it worked, but this one, the one that held you and him underwater for years was finally over. War always took too much, but this time, it gave something back. Because among the ashes and ruins you came back to him, no more oceans in between.

“What do we do now?” you press nervously. You were taken at a young age and spent years in the Red Room before you were sold off to Hydra. Like Bucky, you’re in the wrong time period, there’s no one to go back to.

There’s so many things you could do, Bucky thinks. You can finally start living the life you deserved, the life that was taken from you too early. He’ll have to explain all this to his teammates but he knows they’ll understand. They treated him so well, there’s no doubt they’ll show the same kindness for you. Then, he’ll go with you to Wakanda, get rid of the words, maybe stay there for a while so you could heal—maybe show you the goats he took care of during his time there.

You’ll probably adjust to the 21st century better than him—you won’t need to start off with a flip phone, that’s for sure. He’ll make you listen to all the great records and watch all the movies you missed out on. There’s so many things he wanted to do with you. He knows you have no memories, no recollection. It didn’t matter, Bucky thinks, he would make new memories with you, ones worth cherishing and remembering. If you’ll have him, of course.

But first and most importantly, “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? Then we can talk about it,” he says, rubbing the grime off your nose.

He grabs your hand and heads for the exit. But before he does, you pick up your knife from the floor and in one quick motion, you spin around and throw it. The knife embeds itself into the wall a few metres away, right next to a prying face. You stand in front of Bucky and stare at the intruder with a murderous gaze and Bucky’s heart races at the thought of you still wanting to protect him after everything.

The blond raises his arms up in surrender.

“Steve,” Bucky says from behind and you briefly recognize that name. You turn around to look at him and he meets your eyes, nodding. You relax your stance.

“Hi,” Steve says, voice slightly hoarse. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Bucky scoffs at him, as if he wasn’t eavesdropping the whole time.

Steve looks at the both of you, then a gentle smile adorns his face. “C’mon, the rest are waiting outside for you both.”

You step forward. This is it. Freedom. A new life. Bucky notices your hesitation as you suddenly stop in your tracks. Intertwining his fingers with yours, he squeezes with reassurance. You take a deep breath, then the two of you follow Steve to the exit, leaving behind the smoke and memories of your old life.

Outside, the sun comes up slowly but surely on the horizon, painting the awakening sky a gentle warm hue of oranges and pinks.

A new beginning awaits.

#bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes imagine #bucky #bucky barnes

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marvelfanfn2187a113 · 1 year ago

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Best Friends

Sam and Dean Winchester x little sister!reader, Castiel x child!reader

Requested by Anonymous

Synopsis: you don’t want to go to school, and the boys are having trouble making you

“NO!”

Dean was out of his bed in a second and bolting towards the library when he heard your scream.

“No, no, no!” You continued, and Dean heart pounded in his ears as he yanked out his gun.

He froze in surprise when he reached the library. Sam was making a desperate attempt to wrestle a sweater on you, and you were fighting him like it was made of acid.

“What…” Dean wasn’t even sure what to ask.

“Dean!” At the sight of the oldest Winchester you finally managed to slip out of Sam’s grasp and ran right to Dean.

“What’s going on?” Dean asked as you latched yourself to his leg, hugging him like your life depended on it.

“She doesn’t want to go to school,” Sam grunted as he followed you over to Dean, reaching down and trying to pry you away.

No!” You screeched, and Sam grimaced as he continued to pull at your hands, trying to unclamp you from Dean’s leg.

“Kid, cut it out,” Dean grunted, leaning down to help Sam. “Just go to school.”

“No!”

“Why not?” Sam sighed.

“I wanna stay with you!” You whined.

“I’m flattered,” Dean muttered sarcastically. “But you’ve gotta go, so just—“

“Got her,” Sam sighed in relief when he finally managed to pry your fingers off Dean’s leg. “Alright brat, let’s get you to school.”

“Brat” was Sam’s occasional nickname for you, and it was normally used ironically, like when he called Dean “jerk”. However, Dean could tell that Sam meant it a little more this morning.

“I don’t want to!” You whined as Sam carried you to the Impala, Dean trailing behind in case you tried anything. It turned out to be a good instinct, because before Sam could buckle you in, he turned for one second to look at Dean, and you took the opportunity to jump out of the car and make a run for the bunker.

“Hey!” Dean lunged for you, but missed.

“Cas!” You yelled suddenly, trying to summon the angel. “Cas I need you!”

“What’s the—“ Cas froze for a moment when he saw the scene; Sam, scooping you into his arms while you yelled and struggled, and Dean doing his best to keep you from kicking and/or biting Sam. “Matter,” he finished lamely, still unsure if he should interfere.

“We’re trying to get her to school,” Sam grunted when you kicked him in the ribs.

“She’s having a bit of a tantrum about it,” Dean added.

“Cas, help!” You cried.

“Can I talk to her?” Cas asked, and all three Winchesters seemed to freeze for a moment.

“Have at it,” Sam shrugged, setting you on the ground but keeping a hand on your shoulder to stop you from running.

“I won’t let her escape,” Cas assured Sam as he knelt in front of you, and Sam stepped back to give you two some space.

“N/N, I thought you liked school. Why don’t you want to go?”

Castiel’s gentle tone calmed you, and your response came out much quieter than your previous ones.

“I wanted to stay here with Sam and Dean,” you sniffled, shuffling on your feet.

“What about your friends at school? Don’t you want to be with them?”

“No.”

Cas was surprised when you started to cry at his question.

“Why not?”

Sam and Dean were both getting impatient, but Cas’s attention was fully on you.

“Be-because Lily’s been sick all week, and she’s my best friend! If she’s not there, then I don’t want to go!”

“And why didn’t you tell Sam and Dean this?” Cas asked.

You just shrugged, still sniffling. “They-they’d make me go anyway.”

“It’s true,” Dean called out.

Cas ignored him, still focusing on you.

“Don’t you have any other friends to play with?”

“No,” you whined, the tears once again streaming down your face. “Everyone else is a butthead.”

Castiel had to bite back a smile at that.

“Do you know who you remind me of?” He asked.

“Who?”

“Me.”

“You?” You sniffled. “How?”

“Well, every time I have to go to heaven, I don’t want to. Just like you don’t want to go to school.”

“Why?”

“Well, because all of my best friends are right here,” Cas smiled. “Sam, and Dean, and of course my favorite little Winchester.” You giggled as Cas poked at your stomach, your tears slowly stopping.

“But you don’t say anything,” you argued.

“Well that’s because I know that I have to go anyway. Even though all the other angels are buttheads.”

You giggled again at Cas’s words.

“I have to go,” Cas continued, still smiling. “Because I have a job to do. And you have a job to do right now; you’ve gotta learn, so you can grow up smart like your big brother Sam.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Sam elbowed him.

“Oh.” You seemed to ponder Cas’s words for a long moment. “But…will you be here when I come back?”

“Of course, little one,” Cas promised. “I’ll be ready and waiting to see my best friend.”

Your face lit up at this, and the boys relaxed. You wouldn’t fight school anymore, at least not today.

“Cas, can you take me to school today?”

“I don’t think Dean would like me to drive the Impala…” Cas began, but when your lip began to quiver Dean stepped in.

“Just this once, ok?”

“Yay!” You giggled as Cas lifted you into his arms and deposited you into your seat. “Hey Cas?”

“Yes little one?” Cas asked as he buckled you in.

“You’re my best friend, too.”

“Oh yes?” Cas smiled at you.

“Yeah, and Sam, and Dean! You’re all my best friends.”

Cas did something that he rarely did—he bent down and pressed a gentle kiss to your head.

“Then we’re all very lucky, little one.”

#dean winchester #dean and sam #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #supernatural dean #the winchesters #winchesters x reader #sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #winchesters x sister #castiel x winchester!reader #castiel x reader #castiel #cas x reader #cas x you #Castiel x child!reader

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biblomaniac · 5 months ago

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Supercorp headcanon:

Lena gives Kara extravagant gifts not because she’s rich and money is no obstacle, but because that the only way she knows how to show that she cares.

Lena grew up and a largely loveless home. Any gifts she received were most likely only for show, or had a practical purpose. When she was young, Lena learned that people wanted her for three things: her body, her name, or her money. Buying expensive gifts for fake friends and temporary dalliances became the only way she could express even the simplest of gratitudes.

When she meets Kara, she keeps up the practice. An office full of flowers for a positive article and a company to keep Kara happy and employed are only the ends of an extreme spectrum. Lena would give Kara just about anything to keep her happy, although Kara doesn’t ask for anything but Lena’s time.

By profligate present #50, Kara has to put her foot down about the amount of gifts the brunette gives.

“What do you mean you don’t want it? I can exchange it for something better.”

“No, Lena. It’s lovely, but I just can’t accept it.”

“I don’t understand. Why don’t you want it? Is it not good enough?”

“Lena,” Kara can hardly explain before Lena is on her phone ordering an upgraded model in three different colors.

“They have red, blue, yellow, green, purple… Y’know what? I’ll get the first three and we can go from there.”

Kara uses a small burst of SuperSpeed to grab the phone from Lena’s hand before she can press ‘order’.

“Lena, there is nothing wrong with it! I can’t accept it because you have given me too many gifts already. I appreciate them, you know I do, but it’s just too much. I don’t need you to buy me gifts to make me spend time with you. I just need you, Lena.”

Lena is stunned for a moment before she drops her head to hide quivering lips. When she looks up, her green eyes are misty. Kara wraps Lena in a hug before any tears can fall. A few minutes later, when Kara thinks Lena has calmed down enough to speak without crying, she pulls away enough to see Lena’s face while they talk.

“Lena, what’s wrong?”

Lena keeps her eyes pointed to the floor, feeling ashamed at her outburst. Kara’s right hand grasps Lena’s chin just enough to tilt her head up.

“Look at me, baby. You don’t have to be embarrassed. Tell me what’s wrong.”

In a voice meeker than Kara has ever heard from the strong, outspoken woman, Lena admits:

“I just… no one has said they wanted me for me. Any relationship I’ve ever had has been transactional. I don’t… I don’t know how to show you I care without giving you things. You mean everythi—a lot, to me Kara.”

Lena almost lets the extent of her feelings slip, but she isn’t so far gone as to get entirely loose lipped. Kara wants so badly to scoop Lena up and just wrap her in comfort, but she doesn’t want to overshadow the initial matter at hand. She decides unfiltered honesty is the first course of action, then the comfort can commence.

“Lena, I LOVE you. I don’t need the gifts, or your money, or anything like that. If you never bought me another present, I would still care as much for you as I do right now,” Kara leans down slowly, pressing her forehead against Lena’s.

Lena gazes up at Kara, eyes watery and searching. Kara never breaks eyes contact, content to hold Lena’s gaze until she finds what she is searching for. It feels like ages have passed when Lena finally replies, and even then, Kara doesn’t think she would’ve been able to hear the CEO if not for her SuperHearing.

“I…I love you, Kara. Not as a friend, but as more. I wanted to show you how much you meant to me, in hopes that you would want more. I was too afraid to say anything; too afraid of you deciding that one day, you couldn’t handle being friends with me anymore. I don’t think I could take it if you rejected me, Kara. I—“

The blonde cuts her off with a kiss. It doesn’t feel earth shattering or like an explosion of fireworks. It feels like coming home. Lena squeals, wrapping her arms around Kara’s neck when the reporter reaches down just far enough to grasp Lena by the back of her legs and lift her enough to comfortably hold Lena against herself.

With beaming smiles, they separate their lips but remain pressed against each other.

Emboldened by their newfound comfort, Kara presses kiss after kiss to Lena’s face. Lena giggles, squirming away as much as she can while held aloft by Kara.

“If I knew all I had to do to get you to kiss me was stop accepting your gifts, I would have put an end to this when you bought me that ridiculously expensive coffeemaker that I never figured out how to use.”

“Kara!”

#supercorp #supercorp oneshot #oneshot #headcanon #kara x lena #lena luthor #kara zorel #kara danvers

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jjtheresidentbaby · 8 months ago

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Hi! Congrats on 1000 followers!

Could you do a cg! Rafe Cameron x little! Reader with the prompts "shh, go back to sleep. you need it." and "shh shh, no, it's alright. you're fine, shh."

Btw, I love your blog and I’m so happy you’re doing obx fics now!

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ you’re fine ⋆ﾟ⊹ ➢ event masterlist

» rafe cameron x reader

» a/n: hope you don’t mind me taking some creative liberties and making this pouge!reader turned kook!reader

» warnings: set sometime in season 3, talk of canon events, pouge!reader turned kook!reader, pet names, nightmares, angst, crying, hurt/comfort I’m still not sure I like this

Rafe jolts when you wake up with a choked off scream that quickly turns to a sob, he moves from his place in a chair in the corner of the room to the side of your bed in seconds, already reaching to rub your back.

“Shh, shh, no, it's alright. you're fine, shh.” He soothes and pulls you up into his lap when you reach out for him.

“It’s okay baby, you’re alright.” It’s so gentle coming out of his mouth you’d swear it wasn’t Rafe if it wasn’t for the moonlight coming in through the window lighting up his distraught expression scrunched on his face.

It’s been months of this. Of waking up in nightmares that leave you shaking and grasping for Rafe to be at your side, of Rafe doing absolutely everything he can to comfort you, of you trying to adjust to living in Tannyhill with Rafe rather than back on the Cut near Jj’s house where you grew up. You and Jj don’t talk anymore, none of the pogues give you so much as a sparing glance, they’re all too aware of what side you chose when you didn’t flee off that cargo ship with them- you stayed with Rafe.

“I- I was back there-.” Rafe tightens his arms around you with a low shh that you listen to easily, leaning into his touch and letting him start to rock the both of you in place.

“You’re not there, you’re here with me. We’re safe and back in obx, we never have to be there again.” It’s not the fear that was steadily coursing through your veins on that boat that bothers you, really it isn’t, it’s the look of absolute betrayal that spread over all your old friends’ faces.

It’s something you can’t shake and while you know you made the right decision- you, Rafe, and Barry melted the cross down, you’re all rich, Ward isn’t around to bother you, you’re living a better lifestyle than you’ve ever dreamed- it’s still stomach churning to think about the pogues. You don’t even know where they are right now or what they’ve been up to, once they found out you helped melt the cross that was it, you had hope that maybe they’d see where you were coming from but that crossed the line. A line you truly didn’t think existed.

You grew up on the Cut with them, hell you had problems with Kiara when John B introduced her because she had a house on Figure Eight, you never thought you’d end up on this side of island for anything more than a job or a party, you thought you’d be with them no matter what, that nothing that happened would break the bond between you and the other pogues and now-. If you think about this too much you’ll get a headache.

“Shh, go back to sleep. you need it." The feeling of Rafe’s chin hooking atop your head brings you back to where you are.

“I’m sorry.” After that day on the boat where you had clung to Rafe the second you two were alone, crying and scared, slipped so far into your headspace you couldn’t think about that fact that you were hugging around Rafe Cameron- it feels like all you’ve done is apologize to him. The guilt of absolutely everything you do eats at you, no matter what choice you make it ends up hurting someone, you end up being the problem.

“You don’t need to apologize, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Rafe replies with zero hesitation as he always done. He’s never questioned your loyalty to him or said you need to get over what happened with the pogues, in some weird way you think understands it, he doesn’t have anyone but you and Barry left. And even then- Barry betrayed him once, you can still feel the tension between them at times because of it.

“You’re always taking care of me and I’m still a mess.” It took all of two seconds for Rafe to jump into caregiver mode on that boat when he realized that you were regressed, you don’t think he’s ever gotten out of it. Months later and nothing has changed, he’s taken on the role as your caregiver without a single question or judgement made, as if he already knows everything he needs to know to watch you.

“Shush baby, it’s not your fault those pogues put you through so much.”

Logically you know Rafe’s version of events are skewed and probably will be no matter what you say- but it still hurts a little to think he blames them in full. It was your own fault, you went along with every plan they came up with from that first day John B said you guys should go out looking for the royal merchant after that storm, and even if you eventually felt out of your depth and like things were getting too hectic and you wanted to tell them to stop- to go back to how you all were before- it’s still on you.

“They’re never going to forgive me.” You whisper and truly don’t mean to, that was supposed to stay in your head.

“They’ve put you through hell, you aren’t the one that needs to be forgiven, you made the right decision. The smart one.” You nod at Rafe’s serious but soft tone and curl farther into his chest.

“Yeah, I’m glad I have you.” Everything else aside- you’d do anything to keep Rafe around, he’s there for you in a way none of the pogues ever have been and you can’t ignore that.

“You’ll always have me baby.” He presses a kiss to the side of your forehead and lays you both back against the bed, shifting slightly so you can lay over his chest and he can pull a blanket over both of you.

“Try and sleep, I’ll be here when you wake up.” You hum to Rafe, letting your eyes slip shut in contentment. He will be here when you wake up, you know that, you’d never doubt that, and it makes some of that guilt slip off your shoulders.

#jj writes #jj events #outer banks agere #little!reader #caregiver!rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron #pouge!reader turned kook!reader #<< I’ll probably write more of this if yall like it

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volklana · 7 months ago

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I Really feel That I'm Losing My Best Friend.

Modern!Sihtric x Reader

Title Comes From This Song:

Request: Hi lana!! Can I get a best friend modern sithric x fem reader smut? They're just friends until everyone in their friend group brings up that reader and sithric would be a cute couple and it changes the dynamic of the relationship and they begin to have sexual tension until it just blows up

Thank youuu

A/N: I am awful a writing smut so I did my best. I'm really sorry if this wasn't what you wanted. But you know me by now there has to be angst dripping through the plot

Also this is not proof read because I have a fever, but I will correct any mistakes I come across xx

“You always fucking cheat,” you pouted attempting to swipe the cards from Sihtric’s hands and his eyes glistened with mischeviousness.

“Do not,” he laughed incredulously, pulling them away from your hands, to which you physically attempted to wrestle them out of his grasp, his laughter bouncing off the walls.

Uhtred had bored of the game ten minutes ago and was lying sprawled out on the sofa, his head resting on Gisela’s lap, bottle of beer resting on his stomach, and rolled his eyes at the exchange between you and sighed.

“Are you seriously telling me you two are not fucking?” he swiped and Gisela gave him a warning look over the hand of cards she was still holding.

Sihtric completely stilled in your arms and you immediately retreated.

“Oh come on!” Uhtred urged looking to Finan to back him up “I can’t be the only one who thinks this right?”

“We’re just friends,” Sihtric stuttered and Finan and Uhtred laughed.

“I’m your friend and you don’t look at me like you want to take all my clothes off,” Finan teased and Uhtred smirked his way.

“Leave them alone,” Osferth chimed in and you were grateful for a second, “I’m sure they’ll tell us when they are ready,” he smirked.

“It’s not like that-really, we’re just friends,” Sihtric tried to persuade, absolutely refusing to meet your eye.

“I’d like Eadith to be my friend,” Finan winked to Uhtred’s raucous laughter.

“In that case me and Gisela are just friends,” Uhtred chimed along too and you couldn’t help but shrink at being the cause of everyone’s laughter in the room.

“Uhtred!” Gisela warned with a stern look, to which he shrugged in surrender.

“C’mon, you’d be such a cute couple,” Finan added and Sihtric was rising from his spot on the floor, cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment and made his way outside to light a cigarette.

Gisela booted Uhtred off her and tutted “Now look what you’ve done.”

Your stomach was uneasy as you made your way into the kitchen to get another drink, you could hear Gisela and Uhtred arguing. She was scolding him for being such an arseling and you were grateful to her.

“You know how shy he is!” she chided.

You watched Sihtric outside, pacing up and down as he smoked. He ran his fingers through his hair and your heart skipped a beat, when he suddenly looked in through the glass and into your eyes.

You made your way outside and he offered you a cigarette which you gladly accepted, and ducked down to meet the flame of his lighter.

“Are you alright?” you tried after a few minutes of uneasy silence.

“I just wish they would cut that shit,” Sihtric sighed “I don’t want things to be awkward between us.”

“They don’t have to be,” you said softly “Sihtric we know what we are, nothing they say matters, okay?”

He nodded, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“Are we good?” you asked, bumping his arm and he laughed a shaky laugh.

“Always,” he replied.

Uhtred appeared sheepish after a few minutes, scratching the back of his neck, and Sihtric laughed.

“Did Gisela send you out here?”

“No-Yes. Kinda.” he sighed “The bottom line is I was joking. You’re my friends and I love you both and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“Forget it,” you smiled kindly, squeezing Sihtric’s hand in yours.

Sihtric tossed and turned on Uhtred’s sofa, you were sleeping soundly on the pull out bed on the floor beside him but Sihtric was sick with anxiety.

He cursed himself for being so weak. It was getting hard to deny to his friends that there was nothing between you both when he couldn’t even deny it to himself any more. He was ashamed at the tears pooling in his eyes, threatening to spill but he swallowed the lump down and willed them away, just as his father had taught him to.

Be a fucking man, it was drilled into his head from as soon as he was old enough to comprehend and he turned his back to face away from you.

Despite his father’s beatings, despite how much he tried to stomp it out of him, Sihtric was soft and he was so painfully in love with you that sometimes his chest physically hurt with longing.

It was pathetic- he was pathetic.

Sihtric drove you back to your apartment the next morning and he was unusually quiet the whole ride back. Usually he would come up for a coffee, but when he didn’t unbuckle his belt and left the car running, you uneasily retrieved your overnight bag from the trunk of his car.

“Thanks for the ride,” you smiled, testing the waters and he gave a tight lipped smile in response.

“Of course, it’s what friends are for,” was all he offered but he didn’t get out to hug you the way he usually did and you climbed the stairs to your apartment with a feeling you couldn’t quite place brewing in your stomach.

You and Sihtric did everything together. You had a weekly cinema date without fail once a week, every week, since you met. Sihtric was a film fanatic, he consumed movies both in the theater and on his own in his apartment. You suspected it was because he was never allowed to watch films as a kid and now he was making up for lost time. You knew just enough about his childhood to know that it was not a happy one. His mum had died, leaving him to be raised by an abusive father and an older half brother who relished in torturing him. Sihtric never went into specifics but you knew that he had gone hungry and dirty for periods of time and the thought of it broke your heart. Because Sihtric was an absolute light in your life, whenever you were with him you were carefree, his joy for the little things in life was absolutely contagious, like the first time you had made him try cotton candy and you watched his eyes widen and a huge grin broke out over his face as he devoured it. But your absolute favourite thing you did together was the spontaneous late night drives in Sihtric’s car with the windows rolled down, singing along to whatever playlist was on, and on so many of those rides you wondered what it would be like if Sihtric were to put his hand on your thigh, or throw his free arm over your shoulder while you snuggled into his side, but you had to quickly dismiss these thoughts, because he had made it abundantly clear time and time again that you were his best friend and you would never risk losing him because of your little fantasies.

Except it felt like you were losing him already since the night of the party...

You collapsed onto your bed and checked your phone for the thousandth time, to find nothing, no memes, no song recommendations, no silly pictures, Sihtric had sent you absolutely nothing in the last four days and you were trying not to let it upset you, but you couldn’t help but feel hurt. This was the longest you had ever gone without hearing from him, he always texted you multiple times a day, and now you were getting radio silence.

You picked up the stuffed bear that Sihtric had won you at the fair a few months back and gave it a squish sadly, it still smelled vaguely of Sihtric's cologne after you had begged him to spray some on him.

You quickly snapped a pic of you kissing its cheek and sent it to Sihtric.

‘We miss you x’

Sihtric opened the message and sighed, how was it possible to be jealous of a damn stuffed toy.

You bit the inside of your cheek, you could see he had opened the message but no little dots popped up to indicate that he was typing back.

You let thirty minutes pass, feeling sick with anxiety the whole time, and when he still hadn’t replied you climbed under your sheets and switched out the lights.

Sihtric felt bad opening your message and not replying, but he sipped his drink as Osferth returned from the bathroom, face briefly lighting up when Osferth announced this round was on him.

While you lay in bed trying to figure out why you were crying.

‘Wish it was me there with you x’

He typed after a few hours, and deleted and typed again, before he accidentally pressed send in it his drunken stupidity. He fumbled to quickly unsend it, but the blue tick lit up indicating that you had read it.

Your heart hammered in your chest, as you considered what you wanted to say, once you crossed this line, you weren’t exactly sure you would be able to put the genie back inside the bottle.

‘I wish so too x’

After what seemed like an eternity he replied,

“Goodnight, y/n, Sweet dreams xx”

Sihtric was avoiding your messages and dodging all your calls. Your heart broke even more when you saw an insta story that Osferth shared of him, Finan and Sihtric at the movies, your stomach sank down to your toes because you had always thought that was yours and Sihtric’s thing.

You messaged him for the umpteenth time that week, ‘Have I done something wrong?’ But just like the previous messages you had sent, he opened but never replied.

Your heart was breaking, you were getting up going to work, and coming straight home and getting into bed. Your anxiety was the worst it had been in years and you kept a hold of your phone, willing a notification to come through anything at all that would show you Sihtric was still your friend. You were going insane at night trying to figure out what you had done wrong, had you offended him somehow? Or worse, had he sensed your feelings for him that night at Uhtred’s and just didn’t want to have the awkward conversation, or let you down gently.

But the final nail in the coffin came when Gisela texted you late on the Saturday exactly two weeks after the night Uhtred had decided to stir the shit.

‘I’m so sorry you couldn’t come tonight. It’s not the same without you!’

Your head was whirling, and you felt like you were going to be sick, until our phone lit up again.

‘Sihtric did invite you didn’t he?’

You could have landed Sihtric in the shit by telling her that he hadn't, but you knew Gisela would gut him from the inside out if she knew he was treating you like this, so to protect him you replied.

‘Of course! I’ll catch you next time xx’

Sihtric sat on his reading chair, the lamp in his living room the only thing lighting his apartment. His stomach was twisted up in knots and it wasn’t from the alcohol, it was because of you. He’d been avoiding you for weeks now. Dodging your calls and making excuses to not meet up and when that wasn’t enough he just stopped replying to you altogether. Radio silence.

He knew you didn’t deserve to be treated this way, and if it had been any other man treating you like this he would have offered to kick the shit out of them, but he couldn’t risk you seeing him this way. He had tried for so long to pretend that he had no feelings for you, to act as if you could just be friends, but ever since the night Uhtred had spoken his feelings out loud it was like a damn had burst and trying to bury his feelings now felt like trying to stop the tides with his bare hands.

The crippling fear of losing you sent him into an avoidant survival state, he had never been shown a healthy way to navigate conflict or loss and so he did what that scared little boy had always done. He hid.

He sipped his brandy,enjoying the way it burned. The ‘what ifs’ swimming around in his mind. What if I were just honest with her? What if she turned her face away in disgust? What if she cast me aside? What if she couldn’t overlook his confession and ever be his friend again. Or, and his heart picked up speed, what if she felt the same?

He was pulled from his thoughts by a gentle knocking on his door, he was tempted to ignore it until the knocking progressively became more insistent.

Finally relenting he opened the door to see you before him, face a mixture of hurt and anger, and red eyes a dead give away that you had been crying.

“We need to talk,” you shook and Sihtric mindlessly stepped aside and allowed you to come in, but he remained frozen to his spot by the door when you reeled on him.

“I don’t understand Sihtric, you’ve been avoiding me for weeks now. You are my best friend and I feel like..I feel like I’m losing you, and I don’t know what I’ve done!”

“Nothing!” Sihtric choked, shaking his head furiously “You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s me. I’m going through some shit and I just- I needed to deal with it alone.”

The anger softened from your face but the hurt remained, “You know you can talk to me Siht, so you don’t have to go through anything alone. You can tell me anything. Including- if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.”

He didn’t.

He didn’t want to be your friend anymore, he wanted to be so much more, but the fear of rejection kept him rooted to the spot.

“I’m sorry,” he choked, voice wobbling. “I’m still learning how to communicate, I will try to do better for you I promise.”

“Sihtric,” you cried crossing the floor and pulling him into a hug, “You don’t have to try. You just have to be you,” you muttered as your arms locked around his shaking form.

“I just really missed you,” you whispered into his hair, the smell of his apple scented shampoo that you loved filling your senses.

“Gods, I missed you too,” he replied, shaking, but grasping on to you.

And so things went back to some form of normality but the weight of two unspoken confessions were hanging over the friendship.

You were officially invited to group outings again and you and Sihtric slipped back into a somewhat familiarity with each other.

Except Sihtric felt like he was trapped in a snare. Every time you spoke, his eyes lingered on your lips imagining what they would feel like to kiss, what they would look like wrapped around his- he shook his head before his mind could even wander down that path. He was consumed with longing for you, day and night it was all he could think about, but fear of losing you always knocked whatever bravery he had within him to tell you the truth.

Until the night he saw you across the dancefloor, dancing with another man, head thrown back in joy as he moved his body in time with yours to the beat and before he could even think straight he was marching across the floor and grasping your arm.

“Sihtric?” you questioned face full of worry.

“Please, I need to talk to you?” he begged and you followed him in an instant outside, completely ignoring the call of the man you had been dancing with moments ago.

Sihtric paced back and forward in front of you and you tried to reach out a hand to steady him but he swatted it away.

“I have to tell you the truth,” he finally rushed “I can’t hold this in any longer. I’ve tried, believe me I’ve tried so hard to- but I can’t do it anymore.”

“Sihtric?”

"-I’m in love with you y/n. Painfully. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been avoiding you because I know you don’t feel the same and you just want us to be friends, but I can’t pretend anymore.”

You were silent for a moment, considering him, “Who said I just wanted to be friends?” you asked bewildered.

“What?” Sihtic reeled, mismatched eyes boring into yours in surprise.

“Sihtric Kjartansson," you sighed "It is you who wanted us to stay friends. I have always wanted to be more.”

“What? He repeated face scowling trying to understand.

“At Finan’s birthday last year, you took the forfeit over the dare to kiss me, because you said you didn’t want to kiss a friend. From that night on I tried to put my feelings to bed.”

Sihtric pinched the bridge of his nose in disbelief “I didn’t kiss you that night because once I kissed you I would never have been able to stop.”

“Then I really wish you had kissed me that night,” you smiled and took his hand “In fact I think you should kiss me now.”

He didn’t need to be told twice , he surged forward, cupping your face in his hands and kissed you.

You looked up at Sihtric through hooded eyes, his naked torso glistening with a sheen of sweat. His slender body and muscled arms looked like a god carved from marble in Ancient Greece and you were willing to get down on your knees and worship.

He placed his thumb on your bottom lip, sliding your lips open as he inspected your waiting form below him.

“So beautiful,” he mused, dark eyes raking over your body “So beautiful and mine.”

You hmmd against his thumb, and he moved to hook his finger under your chin forcing you to look up into his eyes “Say it,” he commanded “Say that you’re mine.”

Your eyes fluttered with adoration and the hazy smile that crossed your face had Sihtric’s pulse racing “I’m yours Sihtric,” you promised, “Only yours.”

“Let me show you,” you begged and you moved with him towards the bed, where he sat looking unsure for a moment, until you pressed a gentle hand to his chest, motioning for him to lay back. Others who did not know Sihtric like you did might have expected a dominant, possessive lover but you knew him better than anyone else in the whole world.

What he needed was to be taken care of, to be shown he was worthy of love and given it freely, and reassured that you were going nowhere and now that you’d had this taste of him you truly would never leave him again.

You were lovedrunk as you kissed down along his neck, collarbones, his chest and followed down the length of his abdomen, before finally taking him in your mouth.

He was a whimpering, moaning mess beneath you and he surprised even himself when he eventually found the strength to stop you, picking you up and flipping you over before slipping inside you with a gasp.

He picked up a pace that had you gasping and grabbing at his strong back for something to hold on to. Something to stop you falling off the edge. When you could finally not hold on any longer, urged by Sihtric’s whispers for you to let go, you did, seeing stars as you gripped him through his own release.

If there was one thing you had learned about Sihtric it was that he truly meant what he said when he told you that he would never have been able to stop with one kiss, the man was insatiable. His lips or hands were always on yours and you did not know where he found his stamina for in the bedroom but one thing was for sure, he had never felt this kind of love in his entire life and he was never letting it out of his grasp again.

Tagging: @canyonmoon-2@sihtricfedaraaahvicius@whitedarkmoonflower@shamrockqueen@thenameswinter99@foxyanon@acdassenza@thatawkwardlittlefangirl @gemini-mama

#sihtric x reader #sihtric x you #sihtric smut #sihtric kjartansson #sihtric kjartansson x reader #sihtric fic #the last kingdom fic #volklana writes

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daughterofthequeen · 1 year ago

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Things Aren’t Always What They Seem and Sometimes They Are

Pairing: Anakin Skywalker x padawan!reader

Summary: You’re Anakin’s padawan and after your master has a close call you develop nightmares of his death. Every time you close your eyes you see it, so you decided staying awake is the best way to keep your mind at ease and keep your master safe.

Warnings: Angst, fluff, platonic relationship, crying, nightmares, reader uses she/her pronouns, small mention of blood, reader has at least shoulder length hair, description of throwing up, description of death, light description of head being cut off, detailing insomnia, I made my own cw battle, I think that’s it let me know if I missed anything

A/N: I just needed this. Either Anakin can be used, but both Anakin’s are the same to me. Also readers nickname is stub btw due to her stubborn nature(gimme Ik). In this storyline Ahsoka is Kenobi’s padawan, but Anakin still uses Snips for Ahsoka since they’re still always around each other due to Ahsoka being readers best friend and Kenobi also always being around. This is also longer than I planned, sorry.

No.

No, no, no, no, NO!

This is not happening. This is not happening! It’s impossible, he’s survived far worse than this, right? A building exploding with him still inside it was a piece of cake when it came to my master. So why isn’t he answering his comm, and why can’t I feel him?! His force signature is gone!

He’s dead.

That’s why I can’t feel him. Everything around me was basically nonexistent to me, all I could focus on was the rubble in front of me that had my master trapped. He couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t be, and I refuse to believe that he is. I wanted to go search for him, to help get him out of there because he needs me, but I couldn’t move and all I could hear was my heart beating loudly in my ears. Until a louder noise snapped me out of it.

“COMMANDER!!!” Rex yelled as he grasped me by my shoulders and was roughly shaking me, which snapped me out of my shock. “Commander the tank lifters are here to remove the debris.”

“Hurry, Rex.” After Rex leaves to go give the orders I turn back to the rubble as I tried to dig deeper into the force to try and sense my master’s force signature. I came up empty handed until I felt a pull towards the other side of the destroyed building. I followed it until I heard a voice. Dooku. I know that slimy voice from anywhere. I hurriedly hid behind a large rock, that I could tell used to be a wall, as I listened to Dooku’s conversation.

“And you’ve found nothing?” Dooku voiced to a battle droid.

“Nothing. We’ve looked everywhere.”

“Hmm” Dooku wasn’t so sure, Skywalker wasn’t easily terminated, how ironic it would be for him to be taken out by a simple explosion. He closed his eyes to focus on any life signature, but the only ones he found were weak and they were all similar in some way, confirming they were just feeble clones. And he was about to call this a success until he felt a stronger force signature, and it wasn’t under the rubble, definitely a Jedi. Dooku opened his eyes and looked to his right, looking straight at the stone you were hiding behind, but before he could act his holoprojector went off. “Yes master?”

“Return to your castle, I have more important matters for you to tend to.” A blue tented hooded figure spoke.“Now.” The hooded figure quickly added sensing the hesitation his apprentice gave off.

“Yes, master.” The holoprojector cut off and Dooku called for all the battle droids to fall back, and they left taking their victory. And their victory? The termination of Anakin Skywalker.

I quickly ducked behind the destroyed wall before Dooku could see me, even though I was certain he could feel me. But to my luck he was called away, I waited for the last separatist ship to fly away and that’s when I left my hiding spot. I started looking around the same area Dooku was to try to find any sign of my master, but there was none. A sickly feeling washed over me, I was close to letting the breakfast I had this morning back up, but was able to keep it down. Though I couldn’t stop my eyes from welling up with tears.

“Master?” I whispered fearfully, my voice not able to speak any louder without cracking.

“Master.” I said a little louder, as the tears started rolling over at this point.

“MASTER! WHERE ARE YOU??!!!” I finally screamed, the tears are now unstoppable and so were the sobs. The cries broke free. I was sobbing uncontrollably, and soon found that my legs were not able to hold my weight anymore as I dropped to my knees. The pain from the rubble that was made up of stone and metal went unnoticed. Bracing my hands against the ground to keep myself up and grounded as much as I could. I started pleading to the force to give Anakin a few more strings of luck, so he could make it out of this alive. So caught up in my own pain, I didn’t even hear the stones moving to my far left, let alone the foot steps.

After Anakin no longer felt Dooku’s presence and when he was sure he wasn’t coming back he used the force to move the destroyed stones that were surrounding him and some of his troops away from them. And they started climbing their way out from the rubble. After he made it out and helped some of his men out as well he looked around making sure there was no danger as he was catching his breath. When he looked to his right, he spotted his padawan. His padawan who‘s supposed to be on the other side of the explosion sight. What is she doing here?! Dooku and his droids could’ve seen her and he wouldn’t of been able to get out from under the rubble in time. It’s like she does the complete opposite of what he says, to stress him out on purpose. He sighed and started his walk over to his padawan, and when he did he seen and heard the predicament she was in. She was crying? Why is she crying? He wondered if she was injured. She was clutching her hands to her chest, which made him worry even more. He hurried to her side, and as he dropped down next to her, he grasped her shoulders, turning her towards him to look her over.

“What is it? Where are you hurt?” Anakin’s heart was racing at this point as he panicked. All he knew is he needed to help her, but his padawan on the other hand had a different reaction upon seeing him. Regardless of his efforts to get her up she wasn’t moving, and she heard nothing he was saying. All she could do was stare. Her master was alive? How? His force signature was gone and that only means one thing. Death. So how was it her master was kneeling in front of her trying to make sure she was okay? For the second time that day she had to be shook harshly to snap her out of her shock. But it still did no good to help her understand what was going on.

“(Y/n)! What’s wrong?” Silence.

“(Y/n), talk to me!”

“Master?” Was all that she could whisper out.

“Where are you hurt? I can’t help if you don’t tell me.

“You’re alive.”

“Wha-? Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“The building- I mean you were still inside. Your signature was gone.” Having to explain what she thought happened only brought the tears back, unable to stomach the loss of her master, someone who’s like a father to her, and the closest she would get to having one. The thought of losing him was unbearable, and not to mention against the Jedi code. Attachment was forbidden, and she knew her attachment to Anakin was way more than it should be. She threw herself into him, much to Anakin’s shock. Her face buried in his neck, with her arms wrapped around it as well, as she let the rest of her tears out.

Anakin’s heart broke at the sound of her sobs, they sounded so broken. The original plan was to plant the bombs and get out of there which you were able to do successfully and get to the extraction point unscathed, but the separatists knew about their plan and next thing he knew hundreds of battle droids blocked them in. He was able to keep the ceiling from crushing him and his men around him, and was able to cloak his signature from Dooku. And that meant from everyone else as well, so he could see how that might have scared you. Wrapping his arms around his padawan, he made sure to keep a firm comforting grip, letting her know that he was here and not going anywhere. She cried harder at his promise, she could feel it, he was telling the truth.

𝟺 𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑𝚜 𝙻𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛:

It’s been 4 months since the incident, 4 months since I believed my master was dead, 4 months since I’ve had a good nights rest. Ever since the Battle of Aravion I haven’t been able to sleep. Every time I close my eyes my darkest fears come to life. So I do my best to stay awake as long as I can. Some would say that’s unhealthy or dangerous with me fighting in a war and all, but I’m doing fine . . . .mostly.

“Hellooo, Coruscant to Stubs.” I hear my master say as he comes into my line of sight, snapping his fingers in front of my face which I turns snaps me out of my daydream. “You with me?”

“Sorry, Master. What were you saying?” Shaking my head to clear and focus my thoughts.

“I said if you don’t focus you’re going to get stunned, and I’m sure you don’t want that to happen, right?”

“No, master. I’m sorry, master.”

“Sorry?” Anakin mumbled to himself, you never say sorry to anyone even when you are, unless it’s in front of the council or something, you show your apologies more so with actions, not words. And there’s usually a snappy comeback by now. What’s going on with you?

“It’s fine, what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.” I’ve might’ve said that a little too quickly. Oops.

“Stub, I know you. What’s wrong?” Anakin knows how to get me to crack. It’s just something about his soft voice that makes me feel like he could fix whatever’s going on with me. No matter how big or small. But not this time, my problems will go away on their own. I just hadn’t got the incident through my system is all. After all, part of becoming a Jedi is being able to let go of your personal feelings, and that’s not something that you can’t rely on people for, it’s a matter of you.

“There’s nothing wrong, I was just wondering when our next mission would be. We never stay here at the temple for very long. I guess I’m just a little anxious.”

“Yeah, I was like that too at the beginning of the war, but I just learned to relax whenever I’m given a peaceful moment. It keeps your head clear and it helps keep you balance.”

“I will try.” I took a deep breath as I turned away from my master and walked back to the where the 501 boys were waiting. I got into my starting position, lighting my lightsabers. I had to focus, that was the only way to get Anakin to believe me, so I had to last my usual time or he would know something was definitely up. I gave Rex a nod, letting him know that I was ready. He gave the signal, and for the next three minutes it was going well. Until I was hit in the back, then everything went dark.

BOOM!!!

I groan as I sit myself up. I must’ve been stunned about 5 or 6 times, my body isn’t usually this stiff after waking up due to growing a tolerance. But wait a minute. Stun shots don’t sound like explosions. I quickly stood up to scan my surroundings only to see I was in the middle of a battle field. I must’ve been hit with a blaster shot, but I didn’t feel any pain besides the stiffness. How did we get onto a battle field, we were just in a training room a few minutes ago.

BOOM!!!

I turned towards the front and could see nothing but fog. I lit my saber and started deflecting the blast that were coming my way. Maybe they couldn’t wait on me to wake up. What was the mission again? Wait. My master would never leave me behind, regardless of the mission, unless it was safer somehow. So where is he? I looked around again and heard a groan this time. I turned to my right to see a trooper. I quickly ran to help in any way I could.

“Trooper! Are you ok?!”

“I’m fine as I can be commander.” He groans.

“What battle is this? What was the mission?”

He coughs harshly. So harsh blood comes up. “The plan was to blow the factory. Groan. I suspect the others have made it there already.” He cuts himself off due to coughing more.

“Help will be here soon trooper stay awake.” I tried comforting him as I squeezed his hand. Trying to keep my emotions at bay.

“They knew we were coming. Gasp. We didn’t stand a chance. But you insisted we go on with the plan. General Skywalker agreed, trusting your judgment. Gasp. Half of us were wiped out. You walked us to our death.” All of a sudden the comms in his helmet we’re getting louder. I heard the screams of the troopers in pain. The yells of orders being thrown out by Rex. The explosion that seemed closer than it should’ve been in the comm, like it was right next to that poor trooper that was unlucky enough to get hit. I back down towards the trooper I was comforting only to see he was deadly still. And I knew he was. His eyes were staring straight up towards the sky. Like he embraced the call of death on his life. I heard the sobs and even looked around to see where they were coming from, but they were coming from me. I did this, all this was my fault. This was my mission, the troops were following my orders, I lead them to their deaths knowing it was a trap to begin with. I hurriedly stood up and started running forward. I moves as fast as I could until I could see the building and could hear the explosions more clear. I ran until I got to the front of the lines using my saber to block incoming blasts, and thankfully as always Rex was there.

“Rex!”

“Commander, you’re alright!”

“Yes. Where’s General Skywalker?!” I had to yell for him to be able to hear me over the sounds of battle.

“He went to set the bombs, he should be back by now.”

“I’ll go help!” But I was stopped, a hand gripping my arm.

“The bombs are about to detonate any second!”

“Anakin is still in there!”

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t let you go in!” After that statement the building collapsed in a fiery blaze. We were far enough away to feel nothing but the strong wind the explosion put off.

“Rex, hurry and get the tank lifters here. I’m going to find Anakin.” And I took off regardless of Rex’s yells. I made it to the blast sight, but upon arrival Dooku and his mindless droids were there. I hid behind a large rock when I was struck with a hard case of deja vu. This has happened before, maybe the first time was just a vision. The force letting me know everything was going to be ok. I peaked around the corner seeing Dooku talking through a holoprojector to a cloaked figure. After their conversation ended, Dooku ordered all the droids to load up and evacuate. After he left I ran to where I was last time waiting for my master to unmask his signature. When he did I hurried to that area and helped with moving the debris that was around them. After getting him and the troops out safely I walked to my master to check and see if he was ok.

“Master, how are you feeling?” I was a lot calmer then last time, a little too calm. But he’s fine maybe for once things will actually go our way.

“I feel fine, but where were you stubs. We could’ve used your help.” He was out of breath, but still managed to be sarcastic. He was fine. I let out a light laugh.

“Come on master, let’s get you back to the transports so we can get you checked for any brain damage. Well, more than usual.” I smirk and turned to walk off, but felt he wasn’t following, so I turned only to see him standing really stiff.

“Master, what’s wrong?” I was so close to him. My hands were on his shoulders just in case he might fall. Suddenly, a red light pierced through my masters chest and would’ve passed through the top of my head if I hadn’t of moved just in time. Only to realize it wasn’t just a light, it was a lightsaber!

“NO!!!”

As my master dropped to the ground Dooku was standing right there over him. The color of his lightsaber reflecting on his wrinkled face. I paid him no attention though, I ran to my master hoping by some miracle he was still breathing. I lifted him up and moved myself behind him, so he could lean on me, hoping it would give him some kind of comfort. But maybe it was just to comfort myself.

“Master! Master, get up! Get up!” I was trying to pull him up, help him stand, so we could get out of here, but the only response my master gave was falling to the side, hitting the ground. “No! Master, get up. No, no, no, no. Let’s go. Please, let’s go.” Rows of heavy tears rolled down my closed eyes as I was sitting on my knees praying that this wouldn’t be true. I grabbed my masters ungloved hand, still warm though it has only been a couple minutes since it happened. It felt like hours. Dooku didn’t even have the courage to give my master a fighting chance. What coward stabs someone in the back, and calls it a honorable victory. Falling forward, I hugged my masters dead body as I sobbed so loud the stars could hear me across galaxies. My voice coming out in squeaks as I try to tell him how sorry I am, how sorry I was of failing him, how I didn’t see Dooku coming, hoping he would believe me, or at least hear me in the afterlife.

“Feeble child.” Hearing his voice only made me angry. I gripped my sabers and ignited them, quickly turning around striking Dooku down where he stood. And of course he was able to keep himself up, all he did was drop to his knees. But what I planned next no one could walk away from. I slowly stood, and walked towards him tauntingly, I wanted him to know what was coming. Before he could even attempt at grabbing his saber, I made sure to cut through his useless hands. I then lifted my sabers, crossing them at his neck as I looked him in the eyes, pulling my sabers apart. The body dropped and I watched as the severed ball rolled in the opposite direction. I looked down and seen a red lightsaber, but it wasn’t Dooku’s. I looked over to my other saber seeing that they were identical. The red I was seeing was coming from my lightsabers, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care. And unbeknownst to me, my eyes reflected the damage I’ve done as well. A piercing yellow with red rimings, the eyes of a sith.

I gasped as I quickly sat up, looking around. I was able to slow my heart enough and calm my raging brain to notice I was in my room. How’d I get here? Was everything that just happened a dream? There’s was only one way to find out, find Anakin. Fearfully, I got up and walked out of my room, cautiously but quickly searching for my master, too riled and unfocused to use the force. I walked straight across the hallway to his quarters and knocked. It went unanswered, taking it upon myself to open the door, only to find he wasn’t there. Everything left untouched his messy bed from yesterday still in the same state it was, saying he’ll fix it later. I took off to the training room, still nothing. Then to the cafeteria. Nothing. At this point I was starting to worry. I didn’t want the grand masters to see me like this knowing they would sense my fear and unease, but this was Anakin, I’ll risk it. I went to the council room, also empty. This sickly feeling washed over me, and I ran to the closest bathroom. Passing Obi-Wan and Anakin padawan in the process.

“Stub?”

“I thought you said she was resting?” Obi-Wan crossed his arms at his former padawan’s ability to keep up with his own padawan.

“She was. Why is she up this late?” He mumbled, his confused frown deepening as well. Even if she was up, why was she running through the halls? Either her and Ahsoka were sneaking around in the pantries again or something was wrong. Without so much as a warning to Obi-Wan, Anakin took off to follow his padawan. He caught up to her only to see her burst into the women’s restroom.

“She had to use the bathroom.” Obi-Wan stated the obvious.

“Why not just use the one in her room? I think somethings wrong master. She’s been acting strange lately.”

“Anakin, your padawan is your responsibility. You should know why she’s been acting differently.” He scolds.

“I know that, Master. But-”

“But what?”

“She usually comes to me when she’s ready, so I don’t push it.”

“Anything could be going on with her Anakin, whether she wants to or not it’s your job to find out what’s causing her trouble.”

“That’ll just push her further away. I know Stubs, if I push to hard it’ll just delay the progress of her telling me. I know because I’m the same way.”

“You’ve never been that way with me.”

“That’s because I knew you years before I even became your padawan. Stubs and I are only a year in.”

“And you both are already so much alike that you would think the two of you share the same brain.” Anakin rolled his eyes at his masters comment and walked up to the women’s bathroom door, but when he did he could sense waves of fear going through you. He almost walked into the room, turning towards Obi-Wan seeing if he would stop him. It’s not like anyone else was in there, they only felt her.

“I’ll keep watch to make sure nobody else goes in. Go.” Anakin nods, closing his eyes as he walked into the bathroom just in case you were actually using it.

“Stub?” He calls out softly, his voice echoing throughout the walls. His only reply though was the sound of soft gagging. “Stubs?!” He called again this time his eyes are open as he ran and found the stall you were in. It wasn’t even locked. He found you on your knees, head above the toilet dry heaving into it, while also trying to catch your breath. He went to get some paper towels from the dispenser, wet them, then came back to keep your hair out of your face. Once he was sure you were done, he knelt down in front of you and turned you towards him, brushing your hair behind your ears to keep it out the way and started cleaning your face. He was worried, yes, but he knew you didn’t needed him playing 20 questions right now.

“Can you stand?” He spoked as softly as he could.

The whole time you didn’t know who was helping you, you barely noticed someone was there helping you at all. But when your eyes focused as you looked up, a small gasp came from you.

“Master.” A sense of deja vu washed over him.

“Are you able to get up?” He started to panic because tears started rolling over your cheeks. He was about to ask what was wrong but your body slamming into his stopped him, again. Confused? Way more than he was before. Worried? Even more so. Anakin maneuvered you so he was able to pick you up, and carry you out of the bathroom, simultaneously throwing away the paper towels. The door opened and he came face to face with Obi-Wan. Who only gave him a ‘take my advice’ kind of look. Receiving a tired sigh from Anakin.

“I know. I’ll see you tomorrow Master. Good night.” To which Kenobi responded back with a good night of his own.

He made his way back to your room as he constantly looked down at you to check and make sure you were ok. Your eyes were barley open, you looked exhausted, as your head laid in his chest. You should be, he wondered how long it was going to take you to break after not sleeping for months. He was hoping his heartbeat would’ve put you to sleep by now. He knew you thought you were keeping it a well kept secret. That’s the whole reason you both haven’t been on a mission yet, he asked the council to give the both of you a few days off, refusing to let you put yourself in anymore unnecessary danger. He was surprised the council agreed, chalking it up to Obi-Wan putting in a word for him. He could’ve just banned you from coming on missions until you told him what was wrong, but that would’ve just made you retreat and hide your restlessness better. This was the best choice. Making it to your room, the door slid open, and he gently laid you down on your bed. He was about to let you rest and get to the bottom of this in the morning, but your hand quickly grabbed his, keeping him from leaving.

“Don’t go.” You whimpered, breaking his heart of what felt like the thousandth time that night. He complied and released a heavy sigh.

“You have to tell me what’s going on with you Stubs. I’ve given you enough time to figure this all out and tell me what’s going on, but this has gone to far.” He kept his voice low to let her know he wasn’t upset with her just worried. You sat up regardless of him trying to lay you back down but true to your nickname, you’re just stubborn. He stayed where he was kneeling in front of you, letting you have the height of the conversation, physically and metaphorically.

I couldn’t look him in the eye knowing that I would start crying again.

“I just had a bad dream, that’s all.” Trying to play it off as nothing.

“Yeah. One among the many for the past few months, right?” That caused me to lift my head involuntarily. How did he know?

“How-“

“Look Stubs, I understand what it’s like to have constant nightmares, ok? I just don’t understand why you won’t tell me about them.” He chuckled, an unamused one with a confused frown on his face.

Looking back down towards my bare feet, trying to keep the tears at bay. But failing at that too, a breathless sob breaks out.

“I just- I just don’t understand why they keep coming back! I mean I’m starting to think-” I cut myself off not wanting to speak into existence. Instead, I shoved my face into my hands. I’m not sure I can keep going with these nightmares, they keep getting worse.

“You’re starting to the think they’re visions.” To which I nodded to. “Are they the same dream or is it a different one every time?”

“It’s a different one ever time, but they always have the same outcome. You said you’ve had nightmares before. How did you stop them?

“Tell you what, if I tell you about my dreams, will you feel comfortable enough to tell me about yours?” Anakin didn’t like sharing his past with anybody, but for the sake of getting his padawan to trust him completely, he would do anything. You gave him a nod, to which he nodded back.

“It wasn’t that long ago actually. It was around the very beginning of the clone wars. They were about my mother.”

“Master-“

“And how she died. I didn’t understand it at the time, but they weren’t nightmares. They were visions.”

“I’m sorry, master.”

“I’m not telling you this so you could feel sorry for me. I told you so you would understand when things like this happen you should talk about it to someone not hold it in, because one day you might be able to save a life.”

“But if it is a vision. . .I fail.”

“Not all visions are set in stone. And they can be almost impossible to understand by yourself.” As he explains he reaches out to gently grab her hands giving them a gentle squeeze.

“They’re about you.” Going back to looking down at my feet.

“What about me?”

“You die. And I’m always to slow to save you.” Looking up to see his expression, he doesn’t look scared if anything he looks amused. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask confused.

“Is it ok if I see it?”

“How can you do that?”

“Easy. Hold still.” After he says that his hands move to the side of my head, our eyes closed , and our foreheads laying on one another’s as he searches for the memories. When he finds them they suck him in deep, so deep he has to take a deep breath to keep himself grounded. Your fear, your pain, your anger. But right before he pulled away, he was able to see where they all started. Guilt flooded through him. He didn’t realize how much he scared you. He pulled away and moved to sit next to you on the bed. He paused for a moment trying to figure out the best way to reassure you.

“Listen, Stubs. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m sorry I frightened you. Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I was afraid. Everything I was feeling, everything I am feeling is forbidden for a Jedi to feel. And I didn’t want you to look at me any different.” I replied, looking the opposite way shamefully.

“Stub. I am the last person to judge you. I have your back, just like I’m sure you have mine. Whatever I can do to help you, I will do. But I can promise you, I’m not going anywhere. And you don’t have to be scared of that happening anytime soon, or at all for that matter. Understand?”

“Yes, master.” Not giving him time to reply. I threw myself into his side, wrapping my arms tightly around him. He returned the gesture, pulling me into him even more.

“Bed time.” He pulled away, lightly pushing me to lay down, and pulled the blanket over me.

“Master? When’s our next mission?”

“We don’t have any, and we won’t until you’re well rested.”

“Huh?”

“Oh yeah, you don’t know. We won’t be completing any assignments for a while. I requested to take some time off, due to my padawan deciding it’s ok to go into battles with little to no sleep.” He smirked knowingly.

“You knew.”

“Of course I did. Now get some sleep, please.” He replied as he turned to leave.

“Master?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

His playful smirked turned into a soft smile. “Good night, Stubs.”

“Good night, master.” I responded as I laid down already half asleep, ready to catch up on all the months that were missed.

A/N: The longest fic I’ve completed, but it had to be done🫡. Proofread, just let me know if I missed an error, I hope you guys enjooyyy.

#star wars x reader #star wars fanfiction #sw anakin #anakin skywalker x you #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin x you #anakin x reader #anakin skywalker x padawan!reader #anakin skywalker #anakin fanfiction #star wars anakin #clone wars anakin #the clone wars fanfiction #anakin skywalker x platonic!reader

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patroxlos · 4 months ago

Text

home base . ch4

"friends who sleep on call with each other" - 2.4k words

ultraman: rising (2024). kenji sato x reader

master post. ao3 link.

previous: ch3. "friends who believe in mpreg"

next: ch5. "friends who fuck things up"

With his dad back to help him with the Baby, Ken needs to call you to check if you are okay.

You nearly fall back into old habits. ---

Ring…

One thing Ken loves likes appreciates about you is that no matter the timezone or how busy you are, you always pick up the phone for him.

Ring…

Sorry, your call is not—

Okay, so he exaggerates sometimes.

Ken flops on his bed post-shower, hair still damp as he throws his phone to the side. Mina flits around nearby to ensure that he finally sleeps tonight while his dad watches over the baby in the basement. And he is trying his best to. His joints are begging him to succumb to his fatigue, and he can barely keep his eyes open. Yet, he still lay awake. He knows what he needs.

Mina worries like a mother hen, hovering over the bed. “If you would like, I can run one of the simulations instead if she won’t answer,” she offers.

“No Mina, it still makes me feel a little creepy,” he grumbles.

Her mechanical whirring grows a bit louder. “It would just be for a few minutes. No one has to know.”

Okay, tempting. “...Can you run a quick one?”

Before Mina could start up the projector, his phone lights up with a familiar ring tone. He never dove so fast to answer a call.

His phone nearly slips out of his grasp as he fumbles to press the green button—

You are greeted by a freshly showered Ken Sato through the video call. You sit up straighter on your bed as you blink, bleary.

“Hey,” his relief leaks through your phone speaker. Though it is a bit dim in his room, his camera still caught the crinkle of his eyes as he saw you. “You’re okay. I saw in the news you got picked up by a—”

“You ever heard of a shirt?” You cut him off.

“You know I don’t sleeping with one.” He chuckles when he sees you roll your eyes.

“Whore. No wonder you’re knocked up.”

“Think about who you are slutshaming.” You see him ease into his bed, hearing his soft yawn as he lies down on his left side. “Stress isn’t good for our baby.”

“You know, you don’t have to baby trap me into staying, as the gossip mag claimed. Our fight at the Yakisoba place last night wasn’t the end of the world.” That fight felt worlds away now given all that happened to you in the past few hours.

Ken laughs nervously. “Honestly, I was scared that the article ruined our friendship even further.”

You lie down on your right side and put your face close to the camera, eyebrows scrunching. “Worse things have been written about us.”

“Never a pregnancy though.”

“That one article about me, claiming I was double-timing you and Yuzu, was a lot worse.”

“I still don’t get what you saw in him,” he grunts. “And will you stop calling him Yuzu? He publicly broke up with you.”

You aren’t stupid. You know exactly why Ken hated your most recent former boyfriend, Yuzuru Hanyu. Hell, Ken used to respect the guy so much as a fellow athlete until you started dating him. He does not have to say it out loud for you to know the reason. He knows you know. Neither of you have ever addressed it.

“It’s been a year, it was mutual, and he’s still my friend,” you point out as you adjust your covers over your left shoulder, a flash of deep red seen briefly.

“Yeah well you tell him— woah wait, hold the phone up to your arm.” The sudden urgency of his request nearly jolts you awake.

You bury yourself into the covers a bit more. “It’s fine. Doesn’t really hurt.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“I thought this was a sleep call, since the last time you asked for one was three weeks ago. You look like you haven’t had a good night’s—”

“Can you stop changing the subject and show me your arm?” He snaps, his fatigue making him irritable. A drop of water from his damp hair hits his camera, which he promptly wipes away. “I called you because I heard you were grabbed by a kaiju.”

“So you don’t want me to help you sleep? You always tell me you pass out like a baby when I help.” You try to lift the mood but he wasn’t having it.

“Arm. Now,” He scolds, like you are a dog.

You scoff at his tone, but you brought your left arm from out under the covers. You use your mouth to tug up your sleeve as you held your phone with the other hand to show him the fresh, angry bruisings imprinted on your skin.

“Oh god—”

“It’s just from when that tiny kaiju picked me up. It squeezed me a little bit but I’m just glad its claws didn’t scratch me.” You push your sleeve back down.

“I’m so sorry.” For some reason, his apology sounds so personal.

“It’ll be fine,” you try to soothe him through the call. If you two were together in person, you would have reached forward to squeeze his arm. “It is going to fade away in a week. I got it checked too before I went home, nothing was broken. I’m still here.”

He mumbles something to himself, and you strain your ears to hear a guilt-filled this is all my fault. You don’t really understand what he means by it, but perhaps it is just grief making him say strange things. It is hard when those you cared for get taken too soon by a monster. A multitude of families all across Tokyo struggle to cope with the losses they have sustained, and the entire city lives in fear that it will happen to them.

“Kenji? Are you alright?” You ask slowly. His face is blank, save for the misery that shone in the crease of his forehead.

He closes his eyes, trying to relax his face. “...Can you just keep talking…”

“You wanna sleep?” You start thinking about what to talk about this time. Often, he likes hearing about your day the most. However, not much has happened to you today save for the incident.

He nods.

“Okay.” You talk about the company and the work you have been doing— how often times it feels like a 24/7 shift. You know he only wants to lie down and listen, so you warm up to give a lengthy discussion about numbers and recent data points in market research that you found interesting— maybe it will bore him to sleep. His even, measured breathing tells you that he is close to. While there is so much for you to talk about your work, you begin to start running out of things you actually want to discuss. You are also getting sleepy, and you even have to rest your hand holding your phone on the pillow since your fingers are getting too tired to secure it in your grip. You are about to draw a blank, but your mind wanders to when you were stumbling on the roof of a building earlier that evening.

Oh, you think. Maybe he will find it a little funny. Haven’t messed with him in a while.

“Also, is it just me or has Ultraman gotten hot?”

You startle when his eyes suddenly shoot open. “I’m sorry— who?!”

“The 40-meter superhero?”

“Him?!” His voice is alert but hoarse, his throat pushing out words amidst his drowsiness.

You laugh freely at his reaction, bringing up your thumb to your mouth to bite a little on your nail as you explain yourself. “I dunno, he… I never really thought about him like that, being a giant and all but maybe it is because I never came close or spoken to him before…he saved me earlier from that kaiju and I kinda found it hot? Just being so tiny in his palms—”

“Please stop talking.” You have never seen such a conflicted face on him before.

“Why? You jealous he has a killer waist?”

“I can tell you that that is the furthest thing I am feeling right now.”

“You know he knew my name too,” you continue, failing to notice the way he freezes. “Do you know the theory that Ultraman is like a human guy when there aren’t any monsters? I bet he knows me from the internet or something,” you giggle.

“Yeah, of course he knows who you are…Who wouldn’t?” You mistake his nervousness as sarcasm.

Can’t he just let you have a little celebrity crush? “Kenji, it’s not like I’m going to fuck him. He’s all smooth down there and I don’t even know if his mouth works like that.”

“Can we talk about anything else? Please, I can’t fall asleep to this…” He grumbles with half of his face buried in his pillow, strands of hair sticking to his forehead.

“Maybe you can’t sleep because your pillow is all wet from your hair. Should I come over and teach you how to dry it properly?” You joke.

“Yeah?” He rasps, eyes heavy. “You wanna come over?”

He is nearly about to pass out, fatigue causing his mental filters to lower. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.

That does not stop your throat from going a bit dry.

You were quiet for a bit too long. “Kidding,” he mumbles.

You let out the breath you were holding, looking away from the screen.

“Too much stuff is going on,” he continues. “My dad is here and I’m struggling to adjust to the fact that he might stay with me for a while.”

“You’re speaking to Professor Sato again?” While you are hopeful that this will be a step toward the right direction for the father and son, you worry about what exactly is happening in Kenji’s life that he cannot tell you. You cannot imagine what would bring him to ignore his closest friend in favor of confiding to his estranged father. Perhaps it was a personal family matter.

He sighs, signalling that he is not in the mood to talk about it–he never is–and you let it go.

“I know you said that you can’t put in the effort right now to maintain our friendship, but,” you pause, unsure if what you will say will help. “I miss you.”

His shoulders shake as he laughs. It fills your bedroom. “Fuck you have no idea.”

“It’s just been some time since you have called me for sleep help.”

He does not respond immediately, but you clearly see how deep his eyebags are— or actually, have been, the past few months. “You told me…to call you when I need someone. I really…really need you… I wish you were here…”

The call falls silent. It strikes you suddenly how your bed feels emptier than normal.

You wonder if it is worth the risk to fill it with one more body.

…

“Come over.”

His breath hitches.

You decide to say it a bit clearer, surer. “Come over. It…It doesn’t have to mean anything. We can just cuddle. I think…I think you need it.”

“I…” He clears his throat. “I thought you said—”

“It’s just one night.” You have no idea who you are trying to convince, but a dull ache begins to rise in your abdomen.

He slightly narrows his eyes, a little distrusting. “I don’t want to do this if you’re only doing it to make me feel better.”

“Kenji, I miss you.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“I can send a car to pick you up if you’re too tired to bike here. I’ll let you go by the morning,” you try to entice him further. “Kenji…do you need me to tell you how much I need you? Because I do.”

He swallows loud.

“I need you.”

“Fuck— okay, I’ll be there.” he places down the phone so you are met with the view of his ceiling. You hear frantic movements in the background, a jingle of a belt buckle as he hurries to put on his pants.

“I’ll send the car—”

“Not fast enough. I’m awake enough to bike.”

You couldn’t stop the grin from forming on your face. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Hey, no take-backs,” he barks to the phone from a distance. “We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

Once he finally picks it up again, you see he is dressed in a white shirt and leather jacket. The chain around his neck catches in the light. You slightly nibble on your bottom lip.

“I’m just coming over to inspect your bruises,” he gruffly justifies.

“Mmhm.”

“And I want to make it up to you for how MIA I’ve been the past few months.”

“Just how will you do that?” You let your voice drop slightly, and he groans at the tone.

“Nothing like what you’re thinking, perv. You said a cuddle is fine, and I’m too banged up for anything else.”

You giggle. “I did. I won’t stop you though if you wander a bit.”

“And I will stop you if you so much as touch—”

A crash was heard at the end of his line. You bolt up as you see him stumble and fall as if an earthquake rocked his house. The phone flies from his hand and the camera meets with the floor. More crashing was heard, and you hear a robotic voice which you recognize as his AI, Mina, enter the vicinity.

“Professor Sato needs help with—”

“I got it, I got it!” You hear Ken snap. He picks up the phone again, and his face is contorted with exasperation. From behind him, Mina floats in view.

“Hey, Mina…” You weakly greet her.

She greets you back. “Apologies, that Ken cannot go to you—”

“Now who decided that?!” He interjects, frustration exploding. “Can’t he handle it alone? Like I have for the past—”

Another loud bang is heard through the call. You wonder whether this was what he has been dealing with all this time. It definitely sounds…occupying. You struggle to temper your disappointment. “It’s okay, Ken. I understand.”

He grinds his teeth, but nods. “I am so sorry.”

“We know that it is a bad idea anyway,” you murmur back. “You coming here. Maybe this is a sign we shouldn’t…go back to old habits.”

His face is unreadable. “Good night. Call you soon.”

“I’ll tell my assistant to wait for your email…about my schedule,” you recall your previous conversation.

“I miss you,” he simply says.

“I miss you too.”

#ken sato x you #ken sato x reader #kenji sato x reader #cross posted on ao3

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hiemaldesirae · 6 months ago

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this is such a radiostatic coded poem and actually i think i know a way to make it worse. walk with me okay just. we're all familiar with hanahaki right.

imagine a hanahaki au where vox develops it after a messy radiostatic fallout. at first its bad- so bad in fact that rosie, who he'd done his best to cut contact with following the fallout, seemed to have noticed and sent him condolences and advice for 'getting rid of it' by simply confessing and letting out his feelings. not that he had a way to contact alastor at the time, thanks to the man's disappearance, but... deep down, he knew she had a point.

because really, theres actually quite a simple fix for hanahaki: simply confess your feelings for the object of your affection and no matter the response, the flowers slowly taking over you will slow their ascent. but vox doesn't want to. he tells himself its for alastor- tells himself that he knows alastor would only feel more disgusted with him, that it would sever the last remaining bonds between them and form an everlasting distrust on alastors mind... but in part, its also because- well.

when he feels the itch in his throat come up again, when he feels the need to run to the bathroom and hide himself away until the blood and the petals stop coming up and over and down all over the floor, when he feels himself slowly wasting away, cold and alone and unloved by the only person he's ever wanted... the tiny flowers, forget me nots and periwinkle stain the floor alongside his sinners blood. theyre the only thing left of alastor he has, now. and deep down, vox knows, its the only thing he'll ever have of alastor. theyre both too prideful to ever go back to what they had before, and even if they could.... well. would alastor even want to?

so he keeps it to himself. vel and val are the only ones other than his assistants to know- and in theory, that could work against him, seeing as while he has his contractees under lock and key, the same does not apply for his friends... but, well. it's nice to not be alone in this. nice to know that he won't be alone when he goes. nice to know that when he passes out from a particularly bad episode that he'll wake up swaddled in layers of blankets and soft quilts, that warm english tea velvette introduced to him waiting by his bedside along with the newest indulgent, trashy romance book val selected for him. it's nice. and he almost thinks he can bear with it like this-

that is, until the princess invites him to her hotel. and invites him to play friendly with alastor once more, to stay in the same vicinity as the other overlord without either of them trading sharp barbs and words with each other. and- and it's- it's nice. it's so good, to no longer be at each others throats. so nice to finally sit and talk with al, get to hear his voice without having to sneakily tune into a broadcast.

it's so nice that he almost forgets he's living on borrowed time. but of course, as all things do, life- and death, too- work their course.

it happens when he's visiting the hotel. not really the place he'd wanted to be when it happened- vox had hoped- well. he's not sure what he'd hoped. but... he'd hoped to be with velvette and valentino when it happened. to at least have the two people who understood by his side when he eventually succumbed to his own weakness. instead, it's alastor who notices first as vox's frequency goes slightly off tune, eyes widening as the flowers and the blood come up. it's alastor who sprints to vox's side first, immediately scooping the other up into a gentle hold as his shadow summons come to vox's aide. it's alastor, who grasps his hand tight as vox continues coughing, gasping and choking for breath, dribbling red blood and flower petals falling from his mouth.

alastor recognises those flowers. of course he does, he was the one who had shown them to vox.

in his delirium, with desperate hands clutching him tightly and begging him to hold on, please, please, i can't lose you when i've just gotten you back--

vox smiles.

a hand reaches out blindly, fumbling for a moment before he finds what he's looking for. bloodstained claws reach up, shaking hard as they tuck two flowers behind alastor's antlers.

i'm sorry i could never tell you, al, he laughs. it's weak. he's growing weaker, and by the panicked look on alastor's face, he can tell, too. i- i was scared. didn't- didn't wanna lose-- the last bit of you i had left. at least this way... i got to keep this part of you.

he smiles again, wider. it probably looks disgusting, with the flowers and the blood everywhere. he probably looks like a mess. but it's fine. he has to say this.

i hope you enjoy this last part of me, too.

and with that, alastor is left in the bloodstained foyer of the hazbin hotel, clutching a still body to his chest.

#if you wanna dull the pain imagine that dying by hanahaki (since youre dying for someone you love) gets you sent up into heaven via loophol #or you know . hehe #waves my hands around and smiles slightly oopsies #maybe lucifer can help #radiostatic #hazbin hotel #ran rambles #chai writes

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lizardlicks · 1 year ago

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Momo surprise

“I’m a little worried about Momo,” Aang said to his friends as they gathered around the morning campfire and started preparing for their day. “He’s been acting kind of off lately.”

The lemur in question was fussily nosing around Aang's abandoned bedroll in tight circles. As the group of teens watched, he laid down in a curl, chirped unhappily then got up and resumed tugging and scratching at the bedding. “How can you tell?” Sokka asked. He was by no means a lemur behavior expert. To him all of Momo’s actions were strange. It was possible that Aang's Avatar-ness gave him some kind of spirit connection to flying lemurs. Unlikely, but still possible.

“He doesn’t have as much energy, even though he’s sleeping more.” Aang explained, frowning. “You don’t think he’s sick, do you?”

“Maybe it’s the climate?” Katara offered helpfully. She wasn’t a lemur expert either, but she and Sokka had struggled the first few weeks with adjusting to the Earth Kingdom’s warmer weather. As far as she or anybody else knew, Momo has lived his entire life in the towering, windswept peaks around the Southern Air Temple, so maybe the sudden change had affected him too, she reasoned.

“It’s because you’ve been giving him too many treats,” Sokka told Aang matter-of-factly. Lemurs were outside of his wheelhouse, but he'd helped the older boys with conditioning the polar dogs for sled pulling every fall. Spoiled pups turned lazy and fat, a hard lesson to learn for the littler children who only wanted to express their love.

“You think so?” Aang looked contrite.

“Yup,” Sokka said as he reached to snag a piece of star berry off the board Katara was using to prepare their breakfast. He snatched his hand back with a squawk when she smacked him.

“He is looking a little pudgy, Aang,” Katara said without taking her eyes off the food. Poaching brothers were too wily to be given that kind of an opening.

“Monkey feathers. I just can’t resist him when he gives me The Eyes.”

“I know,” Katara agreed. “He’s weaponized his cuteness.” “You’re going to have to.” Sokka nimbly dodged a sister elbow, but he still didn’t quite manage to snag any tidbits from Katara’s pile of fruit. “It’s for his own good.”

Momo, apparently noticing he was being talked about, finally abandoned the bedding to perch on Katara’s knee. “No, bad lemur!” She snatched her cutting board up and held it over her head. “No more extras for you!”

Sokka whooped in victory as he snagged a slice of moon peach and popped it into his mouth before Katara could adjust her defenses. “You’re on a diet, mister,” he informed the lemur as he sucked the juice from his fingers.

Momo chittered and pinned his ears back.

“Sorry, buddy,” Aang said regretfully as he scooped Momo up and tucked him into the crook of his elbow. “I already gave you a big handful of lychee nuts when you woke me up, you’re gonna have to wait until lunch time for more food.”

Aang could never quite tell just how much human speech Momo understood, but the lemur appeared to grasp something about the situation. He curled his tail around and grasped it anxiously, cooing at Aang with all the force of The Eyes that one tiny flying mammal could muster.

Aang held strong. For all of three seconds. “Okay... well. Maybe a couple berries wouldn’t hurt?”

--------

“AAAAAANG!”

The young monk bolted upright in his bedroll at the sound of his name, startled out of a sound sleep. Sokka was loud. Loud and very upset.

“What!? What is it?” He blinked several times, then rubbed at his face, trying to get his eyes to focus on anything distinct before he realized the reason he couldn't see anything was because dawn was still hours away. The moon hung in the sky, a crescent barely thicker than a thumbnail, with no light to offer. Hedgegoosebumps broke out across his arms. Aang hugged himself as the night pressed in, suddenly no longer a sheltering veil, but full of hidden threat from enemies he couldn’t see.

The sleeping lump to his right rustled and shifted as Katara sat up in her bed roll. “Sokka-haaah,” her voice stuttered, breaking off with a yawn. “What's wrong?”

“What's wrong? What’s wrong!?” Sokka was rapidly climbing in pitch with each repetition. “Why don’t you look at this situation and tell me, huh?”

“Uhh.” Aang squinted into the dark and tried to make sense of their camp. Appa was still peacefully snoring several yards away, completely oblivious to the sudden chaos. Katara was wiggling and shuffling her way out of her sleeping bag, growling unflattering things at Sokka under her breath, and Sokka. Sokka was standing in the middle of their sleeping circle. He looked like he was holding something, but Aang could not for the life of him see what it was.

“We can't see anything without light, Sokka,” Katara groused. She finally won her struggle with her sleeping roll and started patting around for her bag. “You couldn't have lit a fire before you started yelling loud enough to alert the Fire Lord himself?”

“Oh, gee, why didn't I think of that! Could it possibly be because I'm dealing with Aang's mess over here!?”

Aang didn't remember leaving a mess. In fact he'd been careful to pack up everything before turning in for the night just in case they had to make a quick getaway. A few too many lost supplies had trained him quickly.

“What are you talking about?” He asked while stretching, less alarmed now that he knew Sokka was just. Well, being Sokka. They weren't being attacked, there was no life or death situation he had to fight through in the pitch dark.

Katara, having retrieved some kindling from her pack, scooted over to their banked campfire and began to poke the coals awake. She had apparently given up any hope of going back to sleep until her brother was sorted out. Even Appa was starting to rumble awake with the commotion.

“You said Momo was a boy!” Sokka hissed.

Aang. Blinked. “Yeah?” he said, uncertainty clouding his mind. He must still be dreaming, why would Sokka wake up the whole camp to debate their pet’s gender?

“Then explain this!” Sokka shoved his cupped hands out, away from the protective shield of his body, just as the fire flared with a pop and Katara's satisfied grunt.

Cradled in between his palms, fur still sodden and sticking, was the teeniest, tiniest lemur Aang had ever seen.

#sokka #aang #katara #momo #the gaang #minific #atla fanfic #atla #avatar the last airbender #lizard writes stupid things

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kommandonuovidiavoli · 8 months ago

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How did we get here...?

Nigel's parents died allegedly in a car accident when he was 14. When the news reached the spaceship he was on, he requested to be sent back on Earth immediately, and he was let go from the GKND.

Since he was still a minor, Father, or rather, Ben took him in and strangely... things were starting to get good. Maybe it was the fact the man realized he lost more than he wanted to admit, but he started treating Nigel as a kid of his own, arriving to reprimand the Delightfuls if they tried to play tricks on him.

The day the high school principal called Ben to school, because of Nigel being a distraction and cause of unsettling for being gay, Ben threatened to cut funds to the school if they dared to expel him because of that.

"The boy has every right to be happy, no matter who he wants to his side. And if that causes problems around school, I suggest you educate your students better on the matter. They are the real problem."

Fact is, that after two years of living with him, Nigel not only was starting to trust Ben, but also... care for him. He saw him as an adult he maybe could trust.

But then, he turned 16. Or better... 18.

Father knew Nigel could have his same powers hidden inside him. The only way to awaken them was for the person to be an adult. And Father already waited two long years, so he decided to cut times a bit. He built a machine, starting from the faulty delightfulizing one, that would advance Nigel's age by two years and awaken those powers he wanted to bad.

On the day of Nigel's 16 birthday, breaking that trust the boy slowly was building, he dragged him into that machine and started the plan he'd been working on for years at this point.

Everything turned out as planned.

Nigel now had those dark powers, raw and powerful, and he would use them as he wanted. If only he didn't miscalculate a little thing...

Nigel didn't want that. And now there was a furious batter inside him to take control, two forces battling, resulting into a body out of control, that would attack anything and anyone around himself.

Even Father.

He didn't know the kid was actually that strong, and with a single strike he left Father grasping for life. And he was still battling and losing, apparently, not being able to control that dark, terrible power.

Luckily for him, his friends realized something was off when they couldn't hear from him for the whole night, so they decided to go check on him. They found the Delightful Children running to them and asking for help, because it was not what they wanted!

When they got to Nigel, they couldn't recognize him at all. They needed to get him back to normal before the KND would know that another kind like Father was around, or they would lock him in forever!

Cue POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, they tried and hugged him all together, trying to reassure him everything would be okay.

It worked. Nigel calmed down and was left a crying mess in his friend's arms.

Numbuh 2-2 was the Soopreme Leader at the time, and he managed to help them hide what happened so that Nigel could think about getting better only. He would stay at Abby's, so that she and Simon could keep an eye on him better.

After the ordeal, Father and the Delightfuls would disappear for a year. No one heard from them since.

Nigel took time to get back from the shock of now somehow being two years older, a legal adult, with powers he didn't want and with one last piece of his heart missing.

Since he was an adult, he was able to get his parent's house back. He decided to finish school so he could stay closer to his friends, and was given CODE 0010 RED.

Since the house was inhabited again, the KND could finally claim the Treehouse above and reestablish a new Sector V.

And from there, the Teen AU starts.

#teen au #knd #kids next door #nigel uno #father #this got a bit long again but YEAH!#Now this is explained too #hope everything is clear #lore

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ruiningsalads · 2 months ago

Note

Happy Friday! How about “Ha. Don’t think too highly of yourself. Just because I crave your company every now and then, doesn’t mean you’re my weakness. You’re not.” for Varric x Cassandra from the 'I'm weak for you' prompts?

ugh I'm obsessed with these two. this maybe wasn't exactly the prompt, but it's making me feel all the feels. a lovely little ficlet for @dadrunkwriting

Varric's head lolled forward, his chin resting against his chest despite the muscles in his shoulders screaming in agony. He was simply too tired to keep his head up, even though he would prefer to see what his captors were doing.

Their plan was the most hare-brained scheme he'd ever heard: capture the dwarf to lure his Inquisitor friend into a trap. He was touched that they thought he was important enough that Lavellan would rush in without thought just to save him; but he also wasn't in any hurry to remedy their misconception. After all, they might just kill him outright if they knew. So, he sat on the most uncomfortable chair ever made with his hands tied behind its back and imagined all the horrible things he would do to them once he had Bianca back in his grasp.

He also now knew better than to wander off alone to take a leak. Apparently, that was when people liked to sneak up on you and throw a sack over your head.

The sound of fighting outside his little room had his head snapping up. The meathead left to guard him drew a small, but wickedly sharp, knife as the door splintered open. There, her sword and shield at the ready, was Cassandra, and she was mad.

"Stop, or the dwarf gets it!" The idiot actually held the blade to Varric's neck. He felt the cold metal nick his skin, releasing a warm trickle of blood.

Cassandra's cold gaze flicked from the knife to the thug holding it. "Do you think that threat works on me?" she demanded.

"You seem awfully eager to get him back," the man leered.

"Do not mistake my duty for eagerness," she retorted as she took a step closer.

Varric hissed as the knife cut a little deeper, and she hesitated. The man laughed, low and mean. "Duty, eh? I'd say the only duty you're doing is--" But before he could finish that thought, Cassandra swiftly pulled a small knife from her belt and threw it. Suddenly, the blade at Varric's throat was gone as something heavy fell to the floor behind him.

Cassandra moved to untie him, not paying any mind to the dying man.

"Duty, huh?" he rasped, pressing a newly freed hand to his neck wound.

With surprising gentleness, she pried his hand away and peered at the cut. "It's true. My duty is to the Inquisition and its agents." She tsked and pulled a small vial from her belt, poured some of its contents onto a handkerchief, and pressed it to his neck. Immediately, he felt a sting as the cut began to heal.

"And here I was thinking you actually cared," he grunted through the pain.

Her eyes locked with his. "Whatever my personal feelings are, they cannot interfere with my duty." Maker, he was starting to hate that word. But then she reached with her free hand to stroke his cheek. "That does not mean I will sit by and let someone harm you, not if I can stop it. Understand, Varric, that I cannot allow myself to have such a weakness, no matter how much I care about you."

He grimaced. "Yeah, I got it. Thanks for saving me anyway." When he moved to pull away, she gripped his shoulders to hold him in place. Reluctantly, he met her eyes.

"I love you, Varric. Never question that. I am only trying to say... I just mean..." She sighed in frustration. "You're far better with words than I could ever hope to be."

"Just say that first part again," he murmured.

Her smile was more beautiful than anything he'd ever seen. "I love you, you meddlesome dwarf."

#dragon age fanfiction #fanfiction #da drunk writing circle #dadwc #tethraghast #cassarric #cassandra pentaghast #varric tethras

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bunningchaos · 10 months ago

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..This was meant to just be a shading test, but it somehow turned out like this.

Anyways, from what I've seen and were told. It's the murderer's birthday, so uh.

Happy birthday to the dusty boi!

Albeit this drawing definitely isn't a good celebration

Dust belongs to Ask-DustTale, on Tumblr!

Swap belongs to Popcorn Pr1nce, on... Uh, where?

Andd, because I felt like it, putting a extra story thingy underneath the cut

This is mainly only for the drawing

Time and time again, the timeline kept on being rewinded back to the start. As if the human whom monopolized the power of 'Determination' had encountered some sort of issue that forced them to go back constantly. Starting all over again, rather than continuing from where the last save point left off.

How unusual, Sans couldn't grasp the situation at all. Even so, this wasn't going to stop him from moving forward with his plans on gathering EXP and LV for himself. All for the sake of hindering the human's progress and to get stronger, much stronger than the vile being that treats every monsters' lives like nothing but toys.

As much as he tries to tell himself, "It's for the better". Guilt still overwhelms him heavily, especially when he land the final blow on his own brother. His one and only precious family member, though that's besides the point. He had to forsake literally everything he knew, his morals, the others that he knew. Even the friends he made from other Universes, having no other choice but to cut contact with them. For the fear of possibly putting them in harm's way just.. didn't feel right.

Not like the current situation was any better! Why?

The current issue, right at this very point, lies in the fact that.. there wasn't any monsters in sight. No matter where he looked, exception for the few that he had managed to dust within Snowdin's town. All of it accumulating to lesser LV than the initial amount he'd normally obtain in the prior resets.

Adding onto the fact that he could barely even get one simple thing done courtesy of the constant reloading and resetting that was ongoing. This in turns, ended up frustrating him more than expected.

Just what the hell is wrong with that thing this time?

Did they finally get bored of dusting monsters and decided to mess with him by screwing with the timeline?

That surely can't be it, right?

Or was it...?

Hell if he knows, pushing aside every single thoughts in his head for the time-being. He made his way towards Waterfall, his slippers damp from the snow, the fluffy fabric making soft 'squish'-like noises with each step that was taken. Disturbing the tranquil silence, where nothing else could be heard other than the subtle noises from the waterfall.

Too peaceful, everything was far too peaceful. In a horrible way, dust could be seen drifting within the air. The atmosphere abnormally tense whilst then temperature dropped to a all-time low, even lower than the snowy region's.

Narrowing his eye sockets, his eye lights glowed dimly. Barely illuminating the darkened surrounding, there having absolutely no light sources other than the occasional echo flowers scattered around randomly. The bright blue glow emitted from those flowers was eye burning, to say the least. Yet it did a pretty good job of lighting up the area, albeit a limited range.

Even so, every single one of those flowers he walked past. All repeated the screams and noises of sheer panic, presumably from the residents of Waterfall. The culprit that caused all those, however, was unidentifiable from just these voice 'recording'. If one can even call it that.

For there isn't a single word nor sound, uttered from the perpetrator.

This definitely wasn't the doing of that disgusting thing, so, who else could it be?

Undyne? No, she isn't the type to harm others. Maybe except the human, after all. Sans did witness her going all out against them multiple times, yet it never succeeded. They were always stronger.. no, they abused their ridiculous ability to reload and kept on trying, when they failed the first few times. Unfortunately, getting the upper hand eventually and finishing off the Captain of the Royal Guard, once they learnt from their mistakes that caused their deaths and losses.

Alphys? Definitely not, she's too much of a coward to even hurt a fly.

Asgore? Yet another no.

So who...?

Unbeknownst to Sans, as he lost himself within his own thoughts. He failed to notice a presence behind him, one that was familiar yet also not anymore.

Within the blink of an eye, Sans was abruptly yanked backwards by a hand grasping tightly onto the bright red scarf that hung around his neck. Startling him right back into reality, his balance being thrown off as he barely managed to keep himself from falling onto his bum. His guard immediately rosed up, however, before he could even react nor do a thing.

A sharp blue bone, was pointed directly at his neck. It was a clear threat, that if he moved even one inch. The culprit wouldn't hesitate to harm him, and knowing of his current stats. He dare not make a move.

For once, in a dreadfully long period of time. He felt fear seep into his body, whoever this was. Is definitely dangerous, even though they didn't give off the same presence as the human.

"..Huh?" Sans uttered under his breath, his eye lights shrinking when he took notice of the all-too-familiar cyan gloves that the other person.. no, monster, was wearing.

It can't be. There's no way, he tried to deter his thoughts away from the numerous possibility that stirred within his mind. Yet it was all for nothing, once the other spoke up

"Found you." The voice was so unsettlingly cold, sending chills running down his spine. His entire body tensing up and freezing in place, he couldn't move. It felt as if his feet were rooted straight into the ground.

Not just fear, but sheer disbelief overtook him entirely. Not at all needing to turn around, to figure out the other's identity. As it was more than obvious, Sans so badly wanted to curl up into a hole and die.

It was Swap, the one other version of himself that resembled his own brother, Papyrus. Especially, being quite righteous and isn't afraid of speaking up plus doing things for the greater good. Due to him wanting to join the Royal Guards, hence having a more, dominating presence and attitude.

So, if that was the case. Why did Sans feel so much bloodlust from him? The one monster that is meant to be.. kind and forgiving, but not naive. At least, not murderous.

"Don't underestimate me, Classic. Did you really think you could cut me off that easily?"

Swap's tone was like a sharp blade, cutting through the tense silence. His entire demeanour had completely changed, there wasn't even a single shred of the once upbeat tone he used to have.

As much as Sans didn't want to cry, his body betrayed him. Bright blue tears welling up within the corner of his eye sockets, this wasn't supposed to happen.

The other skeleton wasn't meant to be here, neither should he be.. this.. malicious. It felt as if this 'Swap' was nothing more than a genocidal freak, with the presence he gave off.

Sans was more than certain he made sure no one else, but himself knew what was going on. He ensured that he left quietly without arising any suspicions.

..Or did Swap just paid too much of a attention to him?

No one could tell at this point, even Sans himself wasn't sure what Swap's intentions even were.

Since his thoughts trailed off, only now piecing together the puzzles of what caused the human to have so much issues.

They were caught up trying to deal with Swap, a completely new and unexpected obstacle.

....

This is going to be troublesome.

#undertale #undertale au #sans au #utmv au #utmv #bunningart #bunningstory #dust sans #murder sans #swap sans #underswap sans #gonna add a extra tag for this specific swap boi #LV!Swap #might do more stuff for him #just maybe

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fandomwriterstuff · 4 months ago

Text

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Remus Lupin x Reader (I tried to make it gender neutral)

Words: ~1.3k

Heavily inspired by Death by a Thousand Cuts by Taylor Swift.

TW: Angst, Muggle!reader

You knew Lily Evans because your parents were friends, but if someone were to ask you, you’d tell them that it didn’t matter how you met, the two of you were soulmates. You were best friends growing up, even when she had to go off to boarding school. While she was gone for the school year you kept in touch and you spent every second together when she was home.

One summer her school friends were visiting, and you were introduced to them all. They were a wonderful group, a bit odd, but wonderful nonetheless. That’s how you met Remus. He was tall and beautiful. He had mysterious scars all over but that didn’t take away from his charm. You liked that he was bookish and thoughtful, and he took a liking to you too.

You knew he went to Lily’s special boarding school, and that it wouldn’t last, but you spent the summer together. When you weren’t spending time with the group you were with Remus curled up reading together, talking about anything and everything, or sneaking off to share intimate moments.

It started off innocent enough with the reading, the flushed cheeks, and the longing gazes. But one day the heat was all consuming while you sat in the sun and the tension snapped like a rubber band. You were on his lap with your lips pressed to his, your tongue in his mouth while he grasped desperately at your waist.

Things only escalated from there and you found your traitorous heart developing feelings for the handsome lad. You wanted to tell him, to empty your chest of that suffocating feeling, but you knew he had to return to school. However, he only had one year left so you thought maybe you would stay in touch.

You didn’t keep any of this from Lily of course, but you did swear her to secrecy.

It was the last day of summer when Remus broke it to you. He wouldn’t be returning to visit Lily the following summer, his studies and career took precedence. You swallowed the lump in your throat, gave him your best sad smile, and pretended you were just saying goodbye to a friend. You pretended for his sake that you would be okay, and you told the same lie to yourself every night thereafter for weeks.

Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts

Flashbacks waking me up

I get drunk, but it's not enough

'Cause the morning comes and you're not my baby

I look through the windows of this love

Even though we boarded them up

Chandelier's still flickering here

'Cause I can't pretend it's ok when it's not

It's death by a thousand cuts

Forgetting Remus was hard when you still sent letters to Lily at her fancy school, and she replied with all the fun things her and her friends were doing. That wretched, empty sadness was digging its claws deeper into your fragile heart with every letter. Especially since you didn’t receive any from the person you really wanted to hear from. You wanted to send Remus a letter but you couldn’t imagine what to say.

“Hey Remus, I know I was a fling to you but there’s a missing piece of my heart that I’m afraid you took with you.”

“Hey Remus, I hope I’m able to see you again in the future even though you basically said you’d never come back. I’m not sure if you said that to spare me but I think it did the opposite.”

“Hey Remus, you made me feel like love was something I could achieve even though my parents are divorced and hate each other. You made me feel like I was warm and fuzzy inside. I wanted to spend more time with you.”

Every time you thought about what to say it felt more and more pathetic. You saw him everywhere: in the trees you sat under together, the places you frequented to eat lunch, your own damn bedroom. You had to change your bedspread because you missed laying on it with him. Everything reminded you of the way he made you feel, how it felt to be held by him, and what it felt like to be cared for. But that was all gone now, and you felt the loss deeply.

I dress to kill my time

I take the long way home

I ask the traffic lights if it'll be all right

They say, "I don't know"

And what once was ours is no one's now

I see you everywhere

The only thing we share

Is this small town

Remus, like you, was a hopeless romantic. You thought that having that in common would mean he wouldn’t break your heart. You thought he would have more care with the person he claimed to care so deeply for. When he told you he could write sonnets about the way your eyes looked when it was sunny, you believed him. When his hands cradled your chin as he kissed you like he would never kiss another person again, you believed him. You believed it all.

You said it was a great love

One for the ages

But if the story's over

Why am I still writing pages?

You clung to the hope that he would write to you, or that he would ask Lily about you, but it was in vain. After some time, your loneliness turned to anger.

How could he leave you and then completely cut contact? How could he lead you on like that? You thought he would at least… at least… Ugh! He never said he would write. He never said he would visit. He never made any future plans with you. He cradled your lonely, frail heart in his hands and nursed it back to health only to crush it like a cigarette but under his boot.

When winter came and went, your anger turned to acceptance. It was just a fling, and you needed to figure out how to move on. You needed to find something to bring you joy again. You would be okay again.

My heart, my hips, my body, my love

Trying to find a part of me that you didn't touch

Gave up on me like I was a bad drug

Now I'm searching for signs in a haunted club

Our songs, our films, united we stand

Our country, guess it was a lawless land

Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand

Paper cut stings from our paper thin plans

My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust

Trying to find a part of me you didn't take up

Gave you too much but it wasn't enough

But I'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts.

When Lily came home that summer without all her friends, after you’d spent a year being bothered by her sister and your parents, you were doing your best to get over it. You’d picked up painting, you were doing well in school, and you were thinking about college. Boys were the last thing on your mind.

You were at work, in the little bookshop downtown you’d been working at for a few months, when you heard the bell over the door ring.

“Just a minute,” you called. You were the only one working, so you put down the novel you were returning to the shelf, dusted off your shirt, and made your way to the counter. “How can I help you?”

A dirty blond head of hair slowly turned around, and a wide smile graced his mouth before he spoke.

“I hope you didn’t forget about me.”

Masterlist

#marauders era #the marauders #marauders fanfiction #remus lupin #x reader #remus lupin x reader #reader insert #death by a thousand cuts #songfic #taylor swift

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salem-witch-slut · 1 month ago

Text

Farewell Our Future Days (Preview)

Canon!AU Ellie Williams X Abby Anderson

SYNOPSIS: Ellie is captured by the Seraphites and dragged deep into the woods where she sees a WLF hanging from a tree, seconds from being disemboweled. If it wasn't for her brother friend, she might have been dead. Now they just need to get out of the woods, together.

WARNINGS: Canon typical violence, stab wounds, heavy infections (not the cordyceps), stitching, blood and slight gore, swearing, Ellie gets fucked up seven ways to Sunday (I'm aware that she most likely wouldn't have gone that far with the wound she has, but Ellie has plot armor, shove it)

WORD COUNT: 6.7K

A/N: I'm trying to decide if I should continue this story. I wrote this before I posted another chapter because this was my favorite idea. Basically, the premise of this story is "What if Ellie left after she learned the truth about what happened to the Fireflies and fled to Seattle to try and find the rest of them? What if Yara died in battle and Ellie becomes almost like a big sister to Lev?"

So if we like it, I may continue it. If not, at least you get to read this chapter? Someone asked me to write this a long time ago and I never finished it. I'd like to... Enjoy!

Dividers made by @cafekitsune

The rain dripped down Ellie’s face through the massive trees in the park. At some point, she had to stop fighting and just accept her fate, but she was far too stubborn to just lay down and die like that. These fuckers… These are the ones who were hunting Lev. They were the ones who made him feel less than he deserves. The ones who almost forced him to marry a man three times his age… She was gonna kill them all.

Her shoes were almost destroyed by how badly she was struggling, and how the men holding her wrists seemed indifferent to her fight. It didn’t matter how many times she kicked them, or how badly she threatened them, they were twice her size and could fold her in seconds. The dark forest seemed almost endless, until she saw the illumination of a fire raging. They were approaching the fire and Ellie suddenly felt terrified they would roast her alive.

The man on her left whistled and Ellie looked up to see… someone hanging from the tree! Her blood ran cold as she looked up, seeing a woman gasping for breath as the Seraphite removed the dagger from her abdomen. Ellie knew what followed after that, and she was grateful that she didn’t have to see it so close up.

“Get… the fuck off of me!” Ellie said for probably the thousandth time, twisting her wrists in their hold as the man on her right shoved his knee into her back and forced her to bend down and look up at the Seraphite woman holding the knife. Ellie seethed with rage.

“So,” She spoke, leaning closer to Ellie. “You are the Corrupter, are you? You are the one who has tainted our dear Lily’s mind—”

The woman was abruptly cut off when Ellie slammed her forehead against the woman’s face. It hurt like hell, but it was so gratifying to hear the woman’s nose breaking under the force of her skull. The woman shrieked and stumbled back, dropping the knife in her grasp and putting her hand over her nose that gushed with blood.

“Call him that again, you fucking cunt!” Ellie shouted, her voice echoing in the forest. Maybe if she was lucky, infected would swarm their positions and rip these fuckers apart. But it didn’t seem like luck was on her side. The woman looked at the two men, her face covered in her own blood and motioned to the pavement.

Ellie froze, making eye contact with the blonde hanging from the tree for a split second before she was slammed to the ground, her vision spinning from the force of her head hitting the pavement. And if she thought it was bad now…

Ellie looked up and her blood ran cold.

The Seraphite was on top of her in seconds and she was holding the knife once again. Ellie wiggled and tried to escape, but she just wasn’t strong enough. The woman brought the knife down, and Ellie could only let out a choked sob as the knife stabbed directly into her abdomen. Ellie’s face twisted from pain to full fear as she went from being proud and aggressive to terrified… But not of dying; no, Ellie was terrified of leaving him.

The knife wasn’t exactly huge, and it didn’t go deep enough to clear to the other side, but the chances of her surviving are slim to none if that woman disembowels her like she intended. Ellie choked on a sob, looking up into the Seraphite’s eyes and ready to meet her ill-timed fate, when an arrow went through her face, and then in her chest. The knife fell out of her hands, and she let out a singular gasp before dropping to the ground, lifeless. The two men reacted like she was no longer the active threat, and they pulled out their weapons, looking around in the darkness. Ellie didn’t need to look to know that it was Lev.

“It’s the apostate!” They shouted, leaving Ellie on the pavement. And now that they weren’t focusing on her, she slowly stood up off the ground with the knife in her flesh and without caring about what the consequences were, yanked the knife out of her abdomen and she jumped on top of one of the men, stabbing the knife into his neck repeatedly. Blood seeped from the open wound and soaked her clothes, but she was running on pure adrenaline and the drive to save someone she loved. Nothing would stop her from keeping him safe.

The man slowly dropped to the ground and Ellie made sure he wasn’t getting back up and stabbed him directly in the face, breaking the knife off in his skull and watching him choke on his own blood before falling lifeless to the pavement. Ellie slowly rose up from the ground and looked at the last man standing, ready to fight him if she needed to. But it seemed that it wasn’t necessary. The man began backing up, holding his pistol in her direction and ready to fire, but dropped the gun when an arrow pierced his hand.

He screamed in agony and stumbled back a few more steps. Ellie gasped, watching the blonde tied to the tree wrap both legs around the man’s neck and begin to strangle him with her thighs, while still hanging from the tree. He tried to fight her off, but she was somehow stronger than him, even with her arms tied around her back and a rope wrapped around her fucking neck. And while it was slowing him down, this wasn’t going to kill him. Ellie looked around and picked up the hammer from the other man’s corpse and stepped forward with malicious intent.

With a loud cry of anguish, Ellie slammed the claw of the hammer into the man’s skull, inches away from the woman’s thigh and she dropped down on her hands and knees, feeling dizzy from the blood loss and pain that was racing all over her body. She pushed a hand into her stomach and tried to slow her breathing down… the choked sob that left her throat was nearly heartbreaking as she began crawling away and pushed her face into the wet dirt.

“Ellie!” The sound of Lev’s voice made her look up. She saw him jump over a downed tree trunk and immediately stopped when he saw the woman hanging from the tree… It was clear that she was a wolf, and he had severe mistrust for them, but his concern was on Ellie, not the woman about to choke to death. “Ellie, you—”

“M’fine…” Ellie immediately forced him to worry about something else, covering her stomach with her hands and looking up at the woman who was getting redder by the second. “Where are they?”

“Not far,” Lev looked around, hearing the shrieks in the distance.

Ellie coughed, dropping her head against the rock she was leaning against and looked up at the blonde. “Cut her down.”

“Ellie, she’s a wolf—”

“Lev,” Ellie responded sharply. “W-We won’t make it on our own… please.”

It seemed like the obvious answer, but Lev was so reluctant to follow that order. With a sigh, he removed the knife from his chest and began to saw at the rope holding the woman up in the tree.

Ellie slowly pushed herself off the ground, holding her stomach and forcing herself to keep going with the pain racing through her entire being. She wasn’t going to give up any time soon, and she watched the woman drop from the tree and hit the ground with a loud thud. She coughed and gasped as Lev slipped the blade of his knife into the leather binds on her wrists and immediately jumped back once she was free. He rushed over to Ellie and wordlessly placed the knife in her hands, practically begging her to protect herself.

Ellie looked down at his knife and stumbled on her feet a little. It was sturdier in this situation than her switchblade, that's for sure. Longer and thicker. It would do more damage. “We’re not fuckin’ dying here, kid.”

“No,” Lev responded, notching an arrow into the bowstring and pulling back, ready to fire at the infected coming for them. “We’re not.”

The blonde yanked the hammer free from the Seraphite’s head and stood up to her full height. Under normal circumstances, Ellie would have been able to admire her… incredible muscles from her shoulders down to her calves, veiny hands that bulged when she curled them into fists, a slight snarl on her face as she looked around to zone in on the infected approaching… Yeah okay, this woman was hot. In other circumstances, Ellie may have had time to admire her, but definitely not now.

“Watch your backs,” Her voice was deep, gravelly, and Ellie pretended it was because she was just hanging from a tree and not because she sounded that fuckin’ hot all the time. Ellie's heart rate went crazy, and she held her stomach as tight as possible… How the fuck did Joel do this?

It was the only thing that kept Ellie going. He survived a rusty pipe stabbing him through and through, somehow missing all of his vital organs and holding on for literally a whole day with the open wound… She can get out of this fucking forest with a deep flesh wound to her stomach.

The stalkers were coming in full force and Ellie was hit with a new wave of adrenaline, stumbling back as one of the infected bolted directly for her. She ducked as the creature swung at her face and jumped behind it, stabbing the infected in the back but letting out a grunt of pain at feeling it slam its elbow into her face. Ellie yanked the knife free and looked up, feeling hands go across her face and she stumbled back until her spine smacked against the scorching car.

“Ellie!” Lev shouted out, noticing she was pinned down but didn’t see the infected running up behind him.

“Lev, behind you!” Ellie snarled with rage and shoved her hands into the stalker’s chest, making it stumble back just enough for her to shove the blade of the knife into its neck. She yanked it free and watched the monster writhe around before dropping into the dirt.

Lev jumped back as the stalker swung for him and released an arrow that pierced the monster in the face. It fell to the ground and Ellie gasped with relief, picking up one of the torches on the ground and holding it to the fire. She thought that was it, but then a stalker jumped out of the darkness and almost pounced on her.

Ellie dropped the torch in her hands and put up her arm, blocking the stalker from attacking her. For a second, this moment seemed so familiar… Except she was in a mall last time she was like this. And normally she would have been able to fight off the infected, but she didn’t feel nearly strong enough for this, and the pain was starting to get to her.

“Get OFF!” Ellie stumbled back at the stalker being yanked by the cordyceps on their head and watched the blonde woman slam the infected down to the ground. She swung the hammer into their face over, and over, and over again until the handle snapped like a twig in the woman’s huge hands.

Ellie huffed, pushing her hand into her stab wound and letting out a shaky breath. The adrenaline was putting in heavy work for her, and she could almost function. She picked up the torch with her bloody hand and looked over at Lev who immediately ran up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I got this,” Ellie wiped her face with her shoulder and looked at the woman who was staring at the two of them. “We gotta get out of here.”

“Where are you going?” She demanded, her voice faltering with the stress of the situation. Ellie moved as fast as her injury would allow, stumbling down the muddy hills while Lev guarded their rear to the best of his ability.

Ellie used the torch to light their way. “Out of the woods. We need to get to the coast!”

The infected were all around them, but Ellie wasn’t planning on stopping any time soon. Her only goal for the course ahead was not to get fucking bit again, because she didn’t want to explain to Lev that she was immune and pray he didn’t put an arrow through her head.

Ducking under low branches and following the path that the Seraphites created over time with their foot traffic, Ellie slipped, and her entire side slammed against a rusted vehicle, groaning with pain as her injury oozed more blood around her fingers. “God damn it.”

“We can’t slow down, Ellie,” Lev put a hand to her back, and she sniffed, trying to keep her composure as they rushed through the forest with the blonde trailing behind them. Ellie couldn’t fool herself by saying she wasn’t scared, standing there without a gun on her and infected literally circling them like sharks.

She would pull out her switchblade, but she needed to keep constant pressure on the wound, or she would most likely bleed out in minutes if she let go.

“This way, c’mon—” Ellie shouted out in distress as she was tackled into the mud, jagged nails going across her face from the stalker beating her into the ground. She pushed both hands onto its face and shouted in rage, digging her fingers into its skin and pushing back as hard as she could.

The blonde was quick on her feet, and she was grabbing the infected in seconds, slamming the creature’s neck down onto her knee and snapping its spine. Ellie huffed and began crawling backwards, her body hitting the car and her heart pounding in her ears. She had never felt more useless in her entire life and all she could do was hope the wolf and Lev could hold their own and she would live to see the sun rise one more time.

“Come on, come on,” Ellie hissed through clenched teeth, standing on her feet and picking up the brick out of the mud in her shaky hands as the stalkers surrounded them. The second that one of the infected got close enough, Ellie was lunging forward and shoving it into the ground, straddling the monster and slamming the brick into its face. “FUCK YOU!”

The brick shattered on its face, and she groaned, nearly collapsing on top of the corpse but felt Lev pulling her back off the infected and resting her against the back of the car. “Stay here, okay?”

“Yeah,” Ellie huffed. “Yeah, okay…”

Ellie didn’t even see what was happening after that moment. The fight was a haze as the wolf and Lev fought off the remaining infected. Her vision was starting to blur as she saw Lev fire a shot into the last stalker’s face, and she slammed her head against the back of the car.

Almost slipping out of consciousness, Ellie was jolted awake when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Lev, looking at her with those terrified eyes that made her immediately panic no matter what was happening. “Ellie? Ellie, come on! We have to go!”

Ellie huffed and gave a weak nod, shoving herself off the ground and limping her way onto her feet. As soon as she stood up, her vision began to clear, and she was feeling the intensity of the situation again. Who knows how long that was gonna last?

“You two okay?” The wolf asked, looking in every direction in the woods as Ellie reached for the dropped torch and stumbled backwards, pushing her hand into her stomach to try and stop the bleeding as best she could.

“Yeah,” Lev immediately responded without hesitation. “We need to keep going. They’re not going to stop.”

“Lev, which way?” Ellie choked out, looking in every direction. Lev took the lead and climbed over one of the hills, holding out his hand for Ellie to take and got her over the ledge. She almost fell and ate shit but managed to catch herself before she hit the ground.

“Follow me,” Lev moved with high speed, ducking around all the twists and turns possible as Ellie tried so hard to keep up, but her injury was really starting to slow her down. The wolf was taking notice at her wobbling around and she decided to bring up the rear, just in case Ellie fell down into the ground.

The paths began to blur together after a while, and only Lev would know the way forward. The wolf was clearly apprehensive. “Every direction looks the same. You sure you know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” Lev snapped, not even turning to look at her as he approached the parking deck in front of them. The stalkers were starting to close in, and they needed to move fast. Ellie didn’t know how she was still standing up as she coughed and forced herself to power through the pain. There was no fucking way that she was leaving Lev alone in these woods. Somehow the thought of Seraphites finding him was worse than the infected getting him.

Lev slowly moved the foliage away from the hole in the wall and dropped down into the lower level of the parking deck. Ellie let out a huff as she slipped on her converse and fell down into the deck, her legs shaking and her knees hitting the dirt. Everything was hurting and she felt dizzier now than she’s ever felt in her entire life.

“Shit,” Ellie hissed and pushed her entire face into the mud, bending over and groaning as her blood dripped down into the soil underneath her.

Lev was obviously panicking about how weak she looked. He’s seen Ellie get hurt many, many times in these past few months, but nothing as bad as this… And they’ve always been able to get to a relatively safe place in order for them to patch her up. But this time? They were running blind and living on hopes and prayers.

“Ellie, please,” Lev knelt down next to her for a second and held out his hand for her to take. “We have to keep moving.”

Ellie huffed and gave a weak nod as Lev yanked her up to her feet. She looked down at her hand and saw it was smeared with blood and mud, her stomach clenching angrily at how the wound was most likely covered in bacteria now. Fuck, if she didn’t bleed to death, she may just die from an infection. How ironic…

She stumbled a bit and moved forward, almost tripping over the bodies inside of the parking deck and hearing the heavy boots of the wolf soldier behind her dropping down inside of the deck with them. Ellie picked up the torch from the ground and held it out for Lev to take for a second as she looked around for the right link of the fence.

“Those are fresh,” The blonde muttered, looking at the bodies. “Is there another way around?”

Lev resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “If there were, we wouldn’t be going this way.”

Not to mention if there was another way, it would have been far too long for Ellie to handle. They slowly moved down the tunnel and Ellie saw the slightly raised link of metal fence, dropping down to her knees and attempting to peel the metal back with just one hand, keeping the other to her wound and groaning as her straining against pulling it was almost tearing her open flesh.

“Hey, move,” The blonde walked up behind Ellie, and she just gave in. Under normal circumstances, she would deny help and say she could do it herself, but this was not normal circumstances. The wolf grabbed the fence with both hands and effortlessly moved it back. “Go!”

Lev dropped down and moved through first, putting the torch out and helping Ellie through the hole in the fence, putting a hand to her wound and looking down at the blood slowly seeping from her shirt and staining her jeans. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

Every second of this made Ellie think of Colorado… This situation just felt too fucking familiar for comfort. She slowly leaned against Lev as he helped her away from the parking deck and into a clearing. Of course, they were so focused on Ellie not falling over that they weren’t aware of the Seraphite running up on them.

With a loud shout, the massive woman knocked them both over onto the ground, targeting Ellie out of the two of them. The Seraphites knew exactly who she was… she was the Corrupter. A hand closed around her neck as the woman lifted her up out of the mud and squeezed at her throat, forcing Ellie to let go of the stab wound and grab at her wrist. Her nails dug into the woman’s skin, and she attempted to kick her off but there was almost no force behind her hits. She was way too weak for this kind of fight.

Ellie was fully expecting to die like this, but the wolf wasn’t gonna let that happen. The blonde tackled the Seraphite to the ground, nearly getting hit with the massive hammer in the process. Lev immediately grabbed Ellie by her arms and pulled her away from everything in order to keep her from bleeding out.

“YOU!” The Seraphite shouted, clearly remembering the blonde from somewhere.

The disgust in the wolf’s voice would have almost been comical. “Are you wearing my backpack!?”

Whatever happened after that, Ellie wasn’t focused enough to follow it. Lev pushed his own hands down against her stomach, making her let out a weak groan of agony as he did his best to stop the bleeding. It would have been so much fucking easier if it wasn’t raining, but this was Seattle. How did anybody stay dry in this damn city?

“Stay with me, Ellie,” Lev pushed his face down into her head and held her like she was going to die at any second. “We’re gonna be fine. We’ll be fine, right? Right?”

Ellie gave a shallow laugh and let out a cough, holding on as best as she could. “C-Can’t kill me that easy, kid.”

The moment would have been nice had she not felt like she was on the brink of death. “We just… h-have to get out of the woods… Then stitch me up… I’ll be fine.”

Optimist until the end, that’s what Lev would tell her sometimes. It didn’t matter how destitute their situation was, she was always thinking of how shit would go right… She made it this far, right? She didn’t live this long from being a fucking pessimist.

The sound of metal stabbing through someone’s flesh had Ellie looking up just in time to see the blonde woman finishing off the Seraphite by slamming that huge hammer down into her face, spike first. Her face twisted in disgust at the noise as the wolf forced the corpse over and pulled her backpack off the dead woman.

“Got it,” she said mostly to herself and looked up just in time to see Ellie and Lev standing on their feet. “You guys all right?”

Ellie laughed, slamming her body against the truck behind her next to the garage door. “You really wanna know?”

Silence carried between them as the wolf ran her muscular hands across the garage door and lifted it up off the ground. Ellie went through first, and then Lev, followed by the wolf. They stumbled inside of the old mechanic shop and Ellie almost went face first into the bumper of the car suspended in the air. For a moment, she wondered what it looked like when people were working there… Maybe there was music playing? Maybe sometimes things would explode? Who knows…

“How you doing?” The wolf asked Ellie, making the redhead roll her eyes.

“J-Just fucking hope I don’t bleed to death,” She leaned against the wall and tried to slow her breathing down. The momentary reprieve was well deserved, but it just heightened her torment. She needed to stop moving so her blood could stop rushing so bad, so she could actually close the wound… Ellie missed her backpack.

“Grab anything you can,” The wolf explored her surroundings as best as she could, clicking on her flashlight and looking around in the darkened shop while Ellie found an old rag on the table and pressed it into her stab wound to try and stop the bleeding as best as she could.

“We can’t take this stuff,” Lev said. “It’s from the Old World.”

“Are you f—” The blonde started but stopped herself. “We need supplies. We’re not out of the woods, yet.”

Ellie snorted. “Pun fucking intended.”

Lev shared a look with Ellie, and she just made a face, shrugging her shoulders. It was up to Lev on whether or not he took the supplies laying around. And while Ellie had no hang-ups with taking things, she respected Lev and how he didn’t want to use stuff from the Old World. It was a Seraphite thing, and something she didn’t understand, but decided it wasn’t for her to understand. Just for her to respect.

“Hey,” Ellie gently tapped his leg as she almost slid down the wall. “G-Grab that bottle over there.”

Lev grabbed the glass bottle out of the half-open drawer and lifted it up, twisting it in the dark before he handed it to her. She uncorked the bottle and sniffed the contents before grimacing. “Okay, fuck… Yeah, that’s alcohol.”

“Ellie,” Lev said with slight disappointment, fully expecting her to drink it.

Ellie made uncomfortable eye contact with him before corking the bottle. “It’s a good disinfectant, dummy. I’m not gonna drink it.”

He would have smacked her, had she not been so injured. Ellie slowly slid down onto the ground and rested her head on the concrete wall behind her, taking a deep breath and calming down as best she could.

“Never seen Scars going after Scars before,” The wolf muttered as she dug underneath a wooden panel and pulled out something from underneath before tossing it over her shoulder, deeming it useless.

“Seraphites,” Lev immediately corrected.

“What the hell did you do?” Abby looked at Lev mostly, completely going over Ellie. It made sense; Ellie was clearly not a Seraphite.

Lev resisted the urge to lift up Ellie’s shirt to look at the wound, kneeling down and pressing his own hands to her stomach. The added pressure made her whimper and she had to bite down on her lip to muffle her cry of agony. “I shaved my head.”

Abby seemed very unsatisfied with that answer. “Fine. Don’t tell me; I really don’t care.”

Unfortunately, that really was the truth. All he had done was shave his head and embrace the side of him that they wanted to destroy. Ellie’s stomach twisted in uncomfortable rage… She could have only imagined what would have happened if she hadn’t been there to save him in time.

Would they have forced him to marry the elder? Would they have hurt him? Maybe even killed him… Ellie would not have let that slide. She would have gone full Anakin Skywalker on that village in and killed everybody.

It was too soon by the time the momentary reprieve was over and Lev was pulling Ellie back onto her feet. The wound didn’t hurt anymore, but there was a dull ache in her abdomen that felt borderline numbing. Her legs felt weak, and she was dizzy, but she was still fucking moving somehow… How was she still moving?

“Feels like you’ve done this before,” The blonde mumbled as Ellie crawled up the makeshift bridge to the surface. She was up in seconds, and Ellie nearly fell over just stepping up too high. The wolf held her hand out and Ellie sighed, slapping her bloody palm into hers and letting the blonde help her out of the shop.

“Fuck,” Ellie stumbled on her feet for a second before standing up straight and huffing. “You have any idea… How many fuckin’ arrows I’ve taken? This is… this is nothing.”

“Keep that attitude,” The wolf gently patted Ellie on the back as she helped her forward while watching Lev clear the path to the next building up the outside staircase. “Not gonna carry your corpse for him.”

Ellie would have laughed had she not been so out of it. Her eyes kept threatening to close as she stumbled through the woods, seeing Lev shoot an arrow into a stray runner’s face and watching the infected tumble down the staircase and nearly hit the wolf in the legs. Ellie just grinned and stepped on the corpse’s chest, yanking the arrow out and wiping the blood on her pantleg. “Semi-useful.”

“Whatever you say,” The blonde pulled Ellie over the last of the top stairs and tried to keep her from falling down the steps as she moved towards the open window. Lev accepted the arrow that Ellie gave back and she slowly stumbled inside of the building.

Everything was fine… And then Ellie slipped.

“Ellie!” Lev shouted out as the redhead slipped on the wet linoleum floor and fell through the collapsed paneling of the roof, falling into the mud puddle on her back and making her entire face twist in pure agony.

“FUCK!” She shouted, gasping for air and pressing both hands to her wound that began to ache all over again. It’s a miracle her spine didn’t snap from the impact. Both of her travel companions leaned over the side and looked at her. She slowly sat up and coughed. “I’m good… M’fine…”

“She is not fine,” The wolf jumped down next to Ellie in seconds, mud splashing onto her body in the muck as she reached out with one hand and grabbed at Ellie’s arm to try and pull her off the ground. “Come on, we gotta move… Hey, hey wake up!”

Ellie was starting to slip out of consciousness as she saw stars behind her eyes… everything was getting far too difficult, and she was so… so fucking tired…

“Get up! Come on, you gotta get up!” The blonde demanded, shouting louder than she needed to. Ellie looked up at the ceiling and saw Lev jumping down next to her, placing both of his hands on her cheeks and then looking down at the wound that was practically gushing blood at this point.

“No, no, no, Ellie stay awake! Stay awake!” Lev begged, tears in his eyes as Ellie slipped out of consciousness. It seemed that the fall was the final straw for her, and the last thing she remembers is someone violently shaking her before she was completely out.

Hours went by, but for Ellie, it felt like days... Even years.

“Ellie… Ellie…”

The headache she felt was beyond painful. Ellie very slowly opened her eyes and looked up to see Lev standing nearby and the blonde kneeling down next to her. The rain had stopped… Or at least she thought that’s what it was. No, they were inside a building, and Ellie was laying down on a couch. No wonder she felt better.

“Hey kid,” Ellie smiled weakly. Lev let out a deep gasp of relief, bending forward and pressing his forehead into her chest like her surviving was the best thing in the world. Ellie wiped her face down on her wet, muddy shirt and looked at the wolf who was digging around in her backpack for something. “Why are you still here?”

The blonde looked offended for a second before she pulled out a med kit and cracked it open. Inside was a suture kit and Ellie immediately felt like her heart was gonna stop. This was not a great thing… She almost wished she was still unconscious.

“Not gonna just let you bleed out,” She muttered as she scooted closer to Ellie, pulling out a pair of surgical scissors and slowly snipping away at her shirt. Ellie would have been upset or embarrassed under normal circumstances, but she couldn’t give a shit now. Once the shirt was cut off, Ellie got to see the wound and she wished she hadn’t seen it. The wolf seemed less than bothered, but slightly grimaced. “You still have that alcohol?”

Lev pulled the bottle from his quiver and offered it to the blonde who sterilized the suture needle with it and then dumped it down onto the knife wound. Ellie gasped weakly, slamming her head back down onto the arm of the couch and closing her eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“Here, bite down on this,” The blonde folded up a cloth and handed it to Ellie who immediately stuffed the fabric into her mouth and looked away from the scene of the woman brandishing a needle and threading it with suture twine. Ellie knew it was coming, but feeling the needle pierce her skin was agonizing and she wanted to be dead all over again.

They expected her to scream more, but Ellie could only lay there, tears tracking her face and her breaths coming out as the most pathetic whimpers and whines around the fabric stuffed into her mouth.

The blonde was meticulous and made quick work of the stitches. It didn’t look very pretty, but the wound was closed up and Ellie grabbed the alcohol before taking a massive drink from the bottle. It burned going all the way down, but she would rather feel that than the burn of her skin.

As soon as she was done, the blonde placed a patch over Ellie’s stitches after wiping off her blood-stained skin and put the kit away inside of her backpack. Ellie slowly reached out and placed a single hand on the woman’s shoulder, breathing weakly and offering a smile that was clearly induced by the blood loss. “What’s your name?”

A moment passed as the woman rinsed her hands off with the alcohol and wiped them on her wet pantlegs. “Abby.”

Ellie jokingly held out her hand to shake Abby’s, and she seemed to share the cynical humor in the situation. “Ellie.”

For a moment, Abby didn’t say anything. She just held onto her hand and gave a weak chuckle. “Hi, Ellie.”

But it seemed reality caught up to them. Abby was on her feet in seconds and reaching for her backpack, leaving the room with a simple “Thanks for cutting me down.”

And just as fast as she was in their lives, Abby was gone. Lev locked the door behind her when she left and returned to Ellie’s side, attempting to help make her as comfortable as possible. Ellie shivered at the cold air against her bare skin and attempted to peel off the shreds of her blood-stained shirt. Not to mention the way her jeans stuck to her clammy skin, smearing her flesh a soft, sticky crimson color.

Lev slowly helped her sit up and peeled the shirt off her body, slowly easing her down the length of the sofa and rolling up the shirt, putting it under her head. Ellie groaned a bit as her skin strained on the stitches a little, looking over at Lev and smiling weakly. “See? I’m fine.”

“That’s not funny, Ellie,” Lev put his quiver down on the table nearby and slowly draped the leather jacket from his body over her own to keep her warm. Ellie rolled her eyes, but still smiled as she looked over Lev’s head.

“For what it’s worth,” She started. “You look good like that… Had too much hair anyways.”

Lev simply smiled and sat down on the floor next to her, resting his chin on his folded-up arms and placing a hand on top of hers. Both of their hands were stained with blood, but it didn’t seem to bother them all that much. All that really mattered was that they were both alive, and still together… Ellie was terrified that she would never see him again.

“Thanks, by the way,” Ellie muttered, right before she fell back asleep. “For saving my ass.”

Lev patted her hand. “You save my ass, I save yours, right? We’re a team, Ellie…”

Ellie smirked and held out her fist, to which he responded promptly, bumping his fist against her own. Ellie taught him what a fist-bump was in the first few weeks of knowing him. He didn’t have a clue what to think of the gesture but after a long time, it just became normal for them. It was almost their way of saying that they care. How dumb is that?

Lev didn’t move from her side the entire night. He kept holding onto her hand as Ellie slipped in and out of consciousness, watching her freckled face get paler and her body starting to get sticky with sweat. “Ellie, you—”

“M’fine,” She immediately deflected. “Fine… J-just need to rest, and then we’ll… we can…”

“Tell me about it again,” Lev begged, kneeling down and putting his chin on the fabric of the sofa. His eyes met hers with sparkling desperation. “Tell me about home.”

Ellie smiled weakly, scooting a bit further down and turning her head to look at him. She always told him about Jackson, but she only ever called it home. He absolutely adored her stories of home, and she said that one day, they would go back, and they would live there forever. Who even knows if that would be possible… Ellie lied through her teeth. She gave the kid something to fight for; a promise of the future.

She never told him that her destiny will be to die for humanity. How would she even tell him that?

“Home has tall, safe walls surrounding it so that the demons never get inside… Or anybody that wants to hurt us,” Ellie reached out for his hand, and he smiled, holding onto her own. “H-Home has so much food, it’s almost too much. Where everybody has a home, and everybody is trusted… Home is where they will accept you for you, Lev.”

“How do you know?”

“Lev,” Ellie normally pushed his hair out of his face but now that he didn’t have any, she simply put a bloody hand against his cheek and smiled. “I’m kind of like you… I like girls, and I am a girl. That’s a big no in your society, isn’t it?”

“One of our villagers… he admitted to liking men,” Lev admitted. He bit his lip and sighed. “They strung him up like a wolf.”

“Fuckers,” Ellie muttered, ignoring the throbbing feeling in her stomach and turning so she wasn’t fully on her back anymore. Her brows pulled together, and she wiped her sweaty nose against her shoulder and tried to slow her breathing down. “Lev, I… I promise that when w-we go home… No one will e-ever hurt you again.”

“What if…” Lev huffed. “What if you don’t—”

“I said I’m fine,” Ellie grabbed his face with both hands, squishing his cheeks for a second. “Just need to rest… I just need… need to…” And in mere seconds, Ellie was falling forward, completely slipping out of consciousness. Lev sighed, seeing that she was still breathing, which relaxed him if only a little. He carefully repositioned her body, so she was laying on her back again and wiped off her forehead.

Ellie was asleep the entire night… and long into the morning. And when the Seraphites found them and tried to kill them. Lev fought them off, but without Ellie being able to help, it was only a matter of time before the Seraphites closed in. And then neither of them would ever get to go back home. Lev was shaking the entire time, hiding in the corner next to Ellie with a pistol in his shaky hands that had never held a gun in them before. He hurt his wrist when he fired it first, but ignored the ache as he defended not only himself, but his sis— his best friend too.

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