#i tried not to be TOO gory...but trust me he does WAY worse with this form. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

agerestorybits · 4 years ago

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I’m not little I swear!

Roman was laying on his stomach on the floor coloring as disney music played in the background. His door left open in case anyone needed him. He looked up when he heard a knock on the door frame. Virgil stood there more, awkward than normal.

Roman smiled, “What brings you to my domain dark night?” Roman asked, shifting so he was sitting up.

Virgil stepped in hands in his hoodie pockets. “I...noticed that you...Well.” Virgil gestured to the coloring book on the floor.

“And? Would you like to join me?” Roman asked, already summoning a second coloring book for Virgil. Nightmare before Christmas themed.

Virgil relaxed a little, “Yeah. I would. Thanks.” He sat down on the floor and pulled out a crayon from the pile on the floor.

Roman went back to coloring. They both worked in silence for a while before Virgil spoke up. “Just so you know..Um..I am too.”

Roman looked up at him. Virgil glanced at the coloring book again. What? An artist? Why didn’t he just say that? Was he embarrassed? Scared Roman would be mad at him. Roman smiles reassuringly, “Trust me when I say there is no problem with that. If anyone gives you any grief about it they’ll have me to mess with.”

That seemed to be the right thing to say as Virgil smiled a bit. “Thanks.” They went back to coloring. After a half hour Virgil finished his picture and stood. “We should do this again sometime.”

“Indeed!” Roman agreed. “The sooner the better!”

Virgil shifted on his feet, “So...you don’t mind if I tell Logan and Patton about..this? Do you? I mean if you want to tell them yourself-”

“I would never tell them something if you wanted me to keep it secret.” Roman promised. Why Virgil was making such a big deal about coloring he had no idea. He didn’t really understand Virgil that much but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to support him. “Tell they if you want. Do I need to be there for you?”

Virgil smiled again, “nah. It’s cool. I’ve got it….thanks.”

“Well good luck!” Roman said.

“I might need it.” Virgil muttered as he left. Roman rolled his eyes, Virgil could be so over dramatic. And that was coming from him!

Roman went back to coloring.

---

Virgil took a breath before blurting it out. “I age regress.” Patton and Logan looked at him. “So does Roman!” He added before they could say anything.

“Oooookay?” Patton said. “What’s that?”

Logan gave a brief explanation. “In all honesty I’m not surprised about Roman.”

“It does make sense.” Patton agreed.

“Yeah.” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, “So um..Alright. I was wondering if you weren’t too weird out by this-”

“Not at all.” Logan said.

“Full support kiddo!” Patton added.

“Thanks...Would one or both. I’m not going to pick..And if you don’t want to I won’t hold it against you or anything! I just..”

“Virgil.” Logan said, “Breath.”

“Will you be my caregiver….ers?” He asked in a small voice.

“Of course!” Patton said. He turned to Logan. “What is that?”

“Patton don’t agree to things you don’t know about.” Logan said before giving an explanation.

Patton frowned, “I thought I was already taking care of you.”

“I mean. While I’m little.” Virgil clarified.

“Well duh! I’m not going to stop just because you need a LITTLE extra help!” Patton said brightly.

“I agree to help.” Logan said.

Virgil smiled. This was going better than he expected.

---

Roman was...confused. He wasn’t going to say anything in case he insulted Virgil but...He didn find it weird that he was wandering around in the middle of the day in a onesie with a..was that a pacifier????

Even stranger was Logan and Patton took it in stride and even seemed to think that Roman wanted to do that too.

Was this a prank? A joke he didn’t get? Was he supposed to comment on it?

“Are you sure you don’t want to try a paci?” Patton asked.

“Err...no thanks pat.” Roman said holding up a hand.

“Patton, he might not be little right now.” Logan said.

Little??? What?? “Alright what is going on? Am I missing something? I feel like I’m missing something.” Roman said.

“You don’t have to hide it. Virgil told us!” Patton said.

“It wasn’t like you were trying that hard to hide it.” Logan said.

“Hide what?” Roman asked. Was this about the art thing? What did that have to do with dressing in a onesie?

“About your age regression.” Patton said.

“My...what?” Logan and Patton glanced at each other.

“You really don’t need to hide it.” Logan assured him. “As you can see we have already accepted Virgil for it. We aren’t going to judge you.”

“We can even take care of you too if you want!” Patton said excitedly. “Oh! You two could have playdates!”

“Back up. What is age regression? And Virgil said I did that?” Roman said. He wasn’t going to argue with Virgil….Yet.

Logan gave him an in depth description of age regression which raised more questions than it answered.

Why did Virgil think he age regressed? Did he age regress and not know? No he was very sure that he didn’t age regress. He just liked to do kid activities. That wasn’t the same thing!

Roman shook his head, “I don’t age regress.”

Patton crossed his arms, “Now Roman lying isn’t a good habit.”

Roman blinked in surprise. “I’m not lying??”

“Do you need to go in time out?”

Roman froze. WHAT?

“Alright. Call me when you aren’t acting crazy.” He said leaving.

“Roman!”

He kept walking. He wasn’t watching where he was going; he was just getting out of a situation that was crazier than he liked.

Speaking of crazy.

Remus looked up as Roman entered the Dark side common rooms. He was hanging upside down over the back of the couch eating a confetti. “Oh. What are you doing here?” He’s mouth is full of colorful paper.

Roman groaned and collapsed on the couch next to his brother. “I just had the strangest conversation.” He threw himself into the story of what just happened as Remus half listened but paid more attention the more Roman talked about��

“Little space! I mean what even is that??”

Remus was silent for a solid minute. “I mean...I do that.”

“You do?” Roman asked.

“Yeah! I mean.” Remus flipped off the couch onto the floor then jumped to his feet, spilling the confetti in the process. “It’s great! No filter! No worries about anything!”

“Isn’t that you normally?” Roman asked.

“Well… I mean I’m a bit more...PG when it happens but other than that….yeah.” Remus said before offering Roman some of the small amount of confetti that remained in the bag. “Want some.”

“No thanks. So if you regress….Do you have someone who watches you? Like..a caregiver?”

Remus’ face dropped. “I asked Janus but...turns out I’m a ‘bit much’ for him. So...no.”

“Oh.” Roman frowned. Thinking through his offer. “Well Logan and Patton seem to want someone else to take care of.”

Remus snorted and threw himself down on the couch again. “You’re kidding right? There’s no way they would watch me. No one would.”

“I would.” WHY DID HE SAY THAT? He almost took it back but, The way Remus’ face lit up… He had to try.

“Really?” Remus said almost bouncing.

“I mean. I’ll try.” Roman said.

“Good enough!” Remus said. “I’ll see you in a couple hours! I gotta get in my head space!” He said running off.

Roman watched him go, a sinking feeling that he got himself in something he had no idea how to handle sinking in.

---

Remus showed up at Roman’s door not wearing a onesie like Roman thought he might, but a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that he clearly made himself that was a mix of tye-dye and gory images with stains that looked like real blood. He had a stuffed octopus that was looking worse for the wear and a paci on a clip.

“Hihi!” He said moving past Roman into the room. Roman closed the door.

“Hi? So what do I do?”

“You watch me.” Remus said. “Duh.” His voice was higher...more kid like. Which made sense.

“Alright. So you want to do something?” Roman asked.

“Mmmmm I dunno.” Remus said putting the octopus on Roman’s bed.

“Does he have a name?” Roman asked.

“Yeah! Cephy!” Remus said bouncing. “He collects skulls!”

“Really?” Roman asked, playing along.

Remus nodded clearly having fun that someone was so interested in his stuffed friend. “He eats all the bones cept the skulls! Those he pol-....pol..”

“Polishes?”

“Yeah! Shiny and stuff.” Remus said waving his hands as he talked.

Roman looked over Cephy. “Mmm. He’s looking a little rough. Do you want me to patch him up?”

“Yes! We can make a octopus hospitel!” Remus said grabbing Cephy and shoving him into Roman’s hands. “I’ll be the mad doctor and you can be the real doctor who does the...surge- a- ge!”

“Surgery.” Roman said.

“Yeah! Dat!” Remus said beaming.

Roman had to smile too. Remus was just..lacking a better word...cute like this. Janus was missing out thinking that Remus was ‘too much’ to handle.

Roman sewed up Cephy and put a little magic in him to make him softer again. Remus was thrilled he watched the whole time asking questions about what Roman was doing and talking about other things that Cephy liked to do.

“-and then bam! Dead!” Remus fell over onto Roman’s bed.

“Oh dear.” Roman said half listening to the story half focusing on the stuffie in his hands. He needed to put the finishing touch on. A spell that made it so Cephy didn’t get torn up again.

“There! All done!” Remus jumped up and grabbed his stuffed friend.

“Cephy! You’re alright! You lived Surge-a-ge!” Remus said hugging him. Roman didn’t bother correcting him. He was going to keep messing words up. As long as Roman got the gist of it he didn’t mind.

Remus looked at Roman suddenly, “I’m hunge.”

“Oh. Well it is getting late isn’t it? We should both get some dinner.” Roman said stand and without thinking about it took Remus’ hand and led them to the kitchen. By late it was LATE. Almost midnight.

Roman was kind of glad no one else was awake. He didn’t want to face Patton and Logan yet. Nor confront Virgil about saying he was little when he wasn’t.

He made eggs which was the first thing that Remus suggested that was edible. And toast. With jam….and juice.

Ok so he made breakfast at midnight. Remus didn’t have a problem with it. He even tried to feed Cephy some.

“Done!” Remus said, pushing his plate away. “Now we play something else?”

“I don’t think so you little gremlin, It’s bedtime.” Roman said.

Wait...did he just call remus a gremlin? Shit! He looked at Remus closely but the only thing he was upset about was having to go to bed.

“Ugh! But I wanna stay… stay…’yawn’ up!” Remus said before yawning a second time.

“Nope. Bedtime. Gremlin.” Roman said running with the nickname. Remus grumbled but agreed.

“Carry me?” He muttered. Roman picked him up and made sure he still had Cephy before taking him and tucking them both in bed.

“Goodnight gremlin.” Roman said, flipping off the lights.

“Night night.” Remus muttered half asleep.

Roman turned around and jumped as he was met with Janus. “Gah!”

“You did good today.” Janus said. “Watching him.”

“I don’t get why you think he’s too much to be honest.” Roman said a little tense.

Janus laughed, “You haven’t seen his temper tantrum yet….besides I’m not very partenal….Not like you it seems.”

“Thank you?”

“Good luck Roman.” Janus said, turning, “You’re going to need it.”

---

Roman sat reading from a storybook as Remus played on the floor half listening. He noticed Janus out of the corner of his eye reading his own book. Only Janus hadn’t turned any pages in almost twenty minutes giving Roman the sneaking suspicion that he was listening. He read just slightly louder and kept an eye out for any movement from Janus.

Sure enough Janus closed his book after a few minutes and set it aside but didn’t get up and leave. Instead he just closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair farther. Roman’s smile widened as he continued reading.

“It’s lunch time.” Remus reminded him. Roman closed the book and saw Janus open his eyes and caught Roman watching him. Janus wordlessly got up and left.

“Yeah. Let’s get you some food.” Roman said, taking Remus’ hand and taking him to the kitchen.

Janus had been hanging around Remus and Roman when a lot. More than Roman expected of him. He had never really thought of Janus as being sociable but it was clear that he was.

Roman couldn’t stop thinking about Janus’...warning? It felt like a warning. Like something was going to happen that he would NEED luck for. But he had no idea what. Were Patton and Logan going to become even more intolerable?

They were trying to get him to regress around Virgil and didn’t believe him when he said that he didn’t regress. They firmly believed he was just being shy about it? Why would he be? It didn’t make sense to him but it seemed to make some kind of sense to them since they would not drop it!

He sighed. Remus looked up at him from his lunch. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing you need to worry about gremlin.” Roman said, brushing Remus’ hair out of his face.

Remus hummed, Roman could tell by the look in his eyes that he was snapping out of his younger headspace. “Roman.”

“It’s nothing!...Really! Just...you know. Them.” Roman said, waving his hand. At least for the most part Virgil seemed to believe that he didn’t regress. But Patton and Logan just would not let it go.

“Do I need to bust some heads?” Remus asked.

“No.” Roman rolled his eyes. He sat down and crossed his arms. He looked towards the hallway that Janus had disappeared down before leaning forward on the table. “Do you now what’s up with Janus?”

“Did he say something to you?” Remus asked confused.

“Well...no. I just thought it was weird that he was hanging out so much when you’re regressed when he thought you were ‘too much to handle’.” Roman said using finger quotations.

“Well he’s not handling me is he? That’s you!” Remus said. “Who is doing a good job by the way.” He muttered the second half before taking a quick bite.

Roman blinked at the praise. Remus was begrudging to give him any compliments when he was bigger due to their dumb slibing ravalry they had going on.

“Still…”

“If he didn’t say anything he’s fine! He’ll say something if he has a problem!” Remus said.

Roman raised an eyebrow. “Really? The master of lies and secrets is going to be completely open about his problems?”

“Yeah...why not?” Remus asked. “I mean you’re part of the group now.”

“The group?”

“One of us! You spend more down here than with the others at this point!” Remus said a bit happy about it.

Roman froze. He….he did. Didn’t he? He just wanted to avoid them from trying to baby him and he liked taking care of Remus and talking with Janus and-

He stood up so fast he made Remus jump at the sudden action. “I need to go talk to them!”

Remus waved him off. “Good luck.”

Roman paused. Why did they both think he needed luck so much?

----

He ran into Virgil first. Who for the most part was regretful that he jumped to a conclusion and got Roman into this mess.

“Are you ok? You looked stressed out.” Virgil said.

“Fine.” Roman said.

“Right. Because you’re known for your one word answers.” Virgil crossed his arms.

“Alright so I’m not feeling my best at the moment.” Roman said, throwing a hand in the air.

“Any way I can help?” Virgil asked.

“Oh I think you’ve done enough!” Roman snapped. Virgil flinched. Roman’s anger died down. “Sorry. You didn’t know this would happen.”

“Still...I should made sure I knew for sure what was going on first before-”

“Breath. It’s fine. I’m sure they’ll give up on me ‘regressing’ any day now.” Roman said, patting Virgil’s upper arm. “Hopefully.” He muttered as he moved past Virgil.

He found Patton and Logan in the common room. “Oh hey! You’re back!”

“Yep!”

“Are you feeling alright?” Logan frowned.

Roman took a breath. “I need you two to drop this whole me regressing thing.”

Patton and Logan glanced at each other. “Are..are you sure?”

“Very.” Roman said flatly.

Patton nodded to himself. Logan stood up, “Alright. It’s your choice.”

Roman was feeling hopeful that he had gotten through to them. Then Patton spoke, “If you ever change your mind about doing it alone we’ll be here.” Roman groaned.

Well...It was better than nothing.

---

While they did drop trying to get him to regress around them. They were checking to make sure he was regressing on his own and suggested he go regress to get rid of some stress when he was tense. He finally just agreed to going somewhere else, (them taking this as him going to regress) just so he didn’t have to bother with it.

He stormed into the dark commons and froze as he saw Remus regressed...with Janus. It was clear from his pacifier and childlike outfit that he was little too. Unless this was some weird joke he was missing out on.

“Janus?!?” He accidentally yelled.

Janus and Remus both jumped. Janus looked up terrified, tears appearing in his eyes. Roman’s caregiving instincts kicked in. He dropped down next to Janus and quickly went about calming him.

“Hey. No it’s ok. See? Everything is fine.” Roman said softly.

Janus stared at him with wide eyes. He slowly reached out and touched Roman’s face before reaching out with both arms. Roman pulled him into his lap. Janus cuddled up as close as he could to Roman’s chest.

Remus whined, “Hey!” He crawled over and Roman hugged him to his side. Remus wasn’t that cuddly but he must have been a bit jealous of Janus at the moment.

Oh boy. Maybe this is what he needs luck for.

---

Janus stopped regressing as Roman served them supper. He started shifting in his chair awkwardly and clearly wanted to leave.

“Hey.” Roman said gently. “We don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. I can pretend it never happened if you want.”

That seemed to be the right thing to say as Janus relaxed a bit. He sat back. “No..This needs to be addressed.”

Roman sat down. “Alright.”

Janus stared at his plate of food, across from him Remus was eating quickly. His legs kicking back and forth. Those his eyes said he was older than he was acting.

Janus was quiet for a while before speaking. “I can’t handle Remus’ regression because I regress too.”

Roman nodded. “It causes it?”

Janus nodded. He looked up at Roman. “So….”

“If you want I can watch both of you at the same time. It’s not too much.” Roman couldn’t really promise that but today had gone well so why not at least try?

Janus stared at Roman for a solid minute before speaking. “I’d like that.”

Roman smiled. Remus cheered. “Little friend!” Roman and Janus both smiled at that. “Maybe Virgil could join us for a playdate!” Janus’ smile froze.

Roman held his breath for Janus’ reaction. After a second Janus unfroze and nodded, “Worth a shot.”

---

Setting up the playdate was more work than he thought. Patton was sure that having Remus around a regressed Virgil would be bad for him. “I just don’t want him getting hurt!”

Roman assured him that he had been watching Remus, (“Like a big brother!” Patton said completely blowing over how Roman said he was Remus’ caregiver) and that he wouldn’t hurt Virgil or Janus.

Logan was the one who agreed. “We’ll both be there. We can watch them.”

“I’m so proud of you for doing this!” Patton told him. He was almost sure that Patton thought he was finally going to regress around them.

He just smiled tightly and moved on with setting everything up. Virgil was genuinely excited about it. While Remus and Janus had playdates together before, Virgil never had. So while he was nervous about it, he was also ready to play.

Roman held Janus and Remus’ hands as he took them to light side common room where there was a pillow fort set up, snacks were being made fresh in the kitchen and the t.v was set up for movies. Of course there were toys in a chest in the back of the pillow fort due to the fact that the t.v was most likely just going to be background noise.

Virgil was waiting in the pillow fort. They had decided before to have them all small before getting them together in case an argument broke out and they couldn’t regress.

Janus surprised all of them by running over as soon as he saw Virgil and hugging him. Remus beamed and ran over to join the hug. Roman smiled at them.

“Do you want to go join in kiddo?” Patton asked.

Roman shook his head, “I’ve got to finish up the snacks so-”

“Pfft! You don’t need to worry about that!” Patton said. “Logan and I have that! Just go play!”

“I’m here to watch them. Not play.” Roman said firmly.

“You don’t have to.” Logan said. “We are more than capable of watching all four of you.”

Roman grit his teeth. “I am not regressing.”

Patton gave him that stern look that said he wanted him to stop acting and just go along with it. Roman didn’t back down. He walked over and sat on the couch so he could keep an eye on Remus and Janus.

Virgil waved to him.

Roman relaxed a little. He could get through this.

---

He could not get through this! He was holding himself back from yelling at Patton, “I do not regress.” He said as he fixed Janus’ paci clip.

“You don’t have to hide it! We know!” Patton said. “I thought we got past this!”

“You are not listening to me! Neither of you are!” Roman snapped.

Logan frowned. Janus tugged on Roman’s sleeve. He was getting upset at all the angry faces. Roman picked him up. “It’s ok.” He said soothing him.

He took a breath. He can do this. This is fine.

Until Patton tried to take Janus from him with a quick you don’t need to do that. “Oh! I think I do!”

Janus started crying and Roman felt even worse. This isn’t how he wanted tonight to go. He walked into the other room with Janus to calm him down.

“You two really suck ass you know that right?” Remus said clearly not regressed anymore. Neither was Virgil who was glaring at them.

“I told you that I was wrong and he doesn’t regress! Why can’t you get that?”

“Virgil.” Patton said. “Then why does he know so much about it?”

“He doesn’t regress.” Remus said firmly. “He takes care of me when I’m regressed!”

“Well maybe if he didn’t have to he could regress! Maybe he’s so busy dealing with you that he doesn’t!” Patton argued.

Logan stepped between them before Remus could punch Patton. “Patton I think they are telling the truth. We were wrong about Roman regressing.”

“What? But..You said that-”

“And I was wrong.” Logan said.

Patton deflated. “Oh….oh no.”

“We need to apologize.” Logan said.

Patton nodded.

Roman came back in with a sleeping Janus. “Remus are you ready to go?”

“In a minute. These two have something to say to you.” Remus said.

“We’re sorry.” Logan said.

Roman’s eyebrows shot up. “I...what?”

“We didn’t believe you...we didn’t trust you to tell us the truth. And we’re sorry. We should have listened to you.” Patton said.

Roman smiled, “Thank you. Remus?”

“Yeah yeah. Time to go.” Remus said walking over and taking Janus from Roman. “I’ll get him tucked into bed. You can handle this.”

Roman nodded. Remus smiled at his brother and winked before leaving.

They talked for a while. Both of them were really listening to Roman about how he wasn’t a regressor he was a caregiver.

“That….makes more sense.” Logan said.

“It suits you.” Virgil said.

Roman smiled. “Thank you. I’ve found that I have quite the talent for it.”

Patton shifted, “Roman...I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright Patton. I forgive you. You saw what you wanted to see.” Roman said. Roman looked at Virgil, “Not like I haven’t done that before. The important thing is moving past it.”

“That’s….good advice.” Virgil said surprised.

Roman looked at him offended. “I do have good ideas you know!”

“And we promise we’ll listen to them.” Patton said. “To you.”

Roman nodded. Guess he didn’t need luck after all. He just needed help from people he cared about. And who cared about him.

“Oh stop it! I can almost hear you being sappy!” Virgil said.

“What are you talking about?” Roman said.

“You’ve got that look on your face.”

“I do not have a look! I have looks!”

“Yeah sure-”

Virgil and Roman fell into their normal banter. The awkward air that had been between them was gone. They were back to normal. Or rather a new normal.

#Little janus #little virgil #little remus #cg roman #cg logan #cg patton

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scandalousfemale · 4 years ago

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Ch. 4 Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Chinese!OC x Kelce

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Zombies were meant for apocalyptic movies and TV shows where one could binge watch for a day and return to their mundane life. But something happened, a lab test went wrong and suddenly the outbreak started. This story takes place exactly three weeks after zombies slowly started to take over the planet.

Series Masterlist

WC: 5,320

Warnings: Violence, a whole lot of violence. Violence involving knives and guns. It’s a zombie fic, this chapter have zombies in it! I tried my best not to get too gory but at the same time, it does kind of go there. Main character deals with PTSD. I think that’s all the warnings right now. Like I’ve mentioned before, violence. Please, do not read if you’re not comfortable with that topic.

A/N: This was a harder chapter to write because of the fighting scenes and trying to get Kaili to spend them with characters so that you as a reader can also experience these characters in this universe. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! I know that the support I get from this fic is amazing and keeps me going, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read this. Also... how do you think Kelce will feel about the end of this chapter??

“Fuck,” Kaili cursed. The air escaped her lungs as her body hit the ground for the second time in a minute. Rafe had dragged her out of her room at first light, telling her that for her to have breakfast, she’d have to fight her way back in. At first, she thought he was joking, surely the boy couldn’t have been serious. But the minute she laughed, her eyes still half shut from sleep, he stepped in front of her with his arms folded across of his chest.

All sleep escaped her when he pushed at her shoulders to try and knock her off her feet, which wouldn’t have been that hard to do, considering he was a whole foot taller than her and probably a hundred pounds heavier. At that point, she wiped at her face and told him that he'd lost his mind, trying to evade his grasp as she stepped sideways from him. As big and bulky as Rafe looked though, he was fast. And he was able to push her back again, causing her to fall this time. They went on like this for maybe half an hour. Until Kaili started fighting back, throwing a punch that he blocked twice. The third punch landed solidly on his cheek but it was almost like it didn’t faze him, he continued instigating her.

Of course, he wasn’t quite doing this out of pleasure, even though Kaili would beg to differ. The group of kids had promised each other that they’d train the other in what they were good at. Seeing as the situation is only going to get worse from here on out. So, training began. Kelce promised her shooting lessons, Kiara had offered her cooking lessons, Rafe offered up his fighting skills (which, when she had asked where he learned, the younger kids in the group seemed to have a couple of things to say), JJ offered lessons on how to make weapons out of practically anything. And of course, Pope had offered her a lesson on pretty much anything boy scouts related; such as how to tell which direction she was going in and how to start a fire.

She didn’t expect anyone to go easy on her, she didn’t need them to, but Rafe seemed to be the type to give tough love more than he praises. Every time she learned one step or studied his movements, like learning when to move back when he showed signs of moving forward, he’d tell her to do better. He’d always find another flaw. His reasoning was a valid one, of course. He was punishing her for almost getting JJ killed.

Rafe was adamant that if she was insistent on running into the face of danger then she should be able to hold her own. In which she reminded him, in the nicest way possible, that she did, as she pointed to her knives. But he did make a point, on the off chance that she didn’t have her blades, she’d lose. And so she found herself, in the crack of dawn, on the ground panting and hoping that she could knock Rafe off his feet just once.

“Get up,” Rafe had said harshly as he wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. His height more intimidating now as she laid on the ground, trying to catch her breath.

“No,” she breathed out, her hand coming up over her face as she blocked the rising sun from her eyes. Suddenly in the shade, she knew he had taken a new spot over her.

“What did you say?” Rafe grit through his teeth and she wondered if this man had ever relaxed in his life.

“We’ve been going at this all morning!” She groaned as he gripped her forearms and yanked her up to her feet.

“The next guy to come at you is not going to give you time to take a breather,” he reminded her.

Kaili didn’t say anything back, only narrowed her eyes at him because he was right. Again, Kaili had taken a deep breath in and quickly reached out for his arm, intending to twist it behind his back but she must’ve gotten the grip wrong because, in just two moves, he had her against his chest with her hands trapped against her chest and his arm. The scene was far too similar to the one the guy at the camp had set her up in. Without realizing it, Kaili had tensed up completely, clenching her eyes shut as she tried to block out the feeling of the man violating her.

She felt sudden darkness come over her vision, her ears ringing, and all she could think about was that she needed to get out of his hold. Suddenly, she was kicking her heel to his shin, thrashing in his arms as she threw her elbows back. Maybe she was even screaming because when she came to, Rafe had her on the floor again, one hand over her mouth as his legs pinned her arms down. She blinked the cold and dark night away, the image of that man’s blood spilling out to the floor as her blade was stuck in him. Slowly her vision was returning to Rafe’s wild eyes and his moving mouth. She couldn’t grasp what he was saying but the panic of not being able to move her arms freely was bubbling back up inside of her.

She closed her eyes again, trying to calm down before she had a complete meltdown at the immobility of her arms. That’s when she finally could focus on what Rafe was saying, he was telling her to stop. All he kept repeating was the word, “stop”. As she laid there, unmoving, she felt her wet cheeks underneath Rafe’s hands. Slowly, he moved his weight, lifting his body from her arms. She let out a sob then as she hugged her arms to her chest before quickly going up to his hands on her mouth, trying to peel him off her.

“If you scream again, the zombies will hear you and come our way. If they haven’t already fucking heard you. Promise you’re not going to scream again,” Rafe’s tone was much less aggressive than it was throughout the whole morning.

Kaili only nodded, quickly backing away from him when he finally removed his hands. Still sitting on the ground, she had hugged her arms around herself. Embarrassed and confused at what had just happened, why she reacted that way, and why that man is living in her memories when she wanted to forget him.

“I’m sorry,” Rafe knelt in front of her, his tone apologetic and sincere. His hands carefully placed beside her so that she saw them in her line of sight but not close enough to touch. “I didn’t know— didn’t think you’d have PTSD from… whatever that happened to you,” he threaded carefully and Kaili reminded herself that he wasn’t there to see it happen. He didn’t know. “I also didn’t think you’d go fucking batshit but now I know, I won’t touch you like that again.”

Kaili just shook her head at him as she used her shirt to wipe the tears and the sweat away. Wanting to laugh at his comment and hit him in the mouth at the same time, she just leveled her eyes with him, “that guy I killed at the camp, he had me in that hold,” she explained soberly. She could tell the second that her words clicked with Rafe because apologetic and slightly annoyed turned into realization, which quickly turned into anger. He glanced at her wrists, the purple bruises that decorated it, and then back at her face. His lips pressed into a thin line before he wiped a stray tear from her face and sat down across from her if only to watch her back, as his long legs stretched out on either side of her.

The silence between them wasn’t awkward, nor was it truly comfortable. Rafe glared at the spot between them and then released a long exhale. “I didn’t think about how that could’ve affected you before I dragged you out of bed today,” he began, still not making eye contact with her. “I was just so angry at the situation you’ve put yourself in. The one you put us in. That I made it a mission in my head that you wouldn’t put anyone in danger again by worrying about you if you just knew how to fight. I didn’t think that was how the bruises were caused.”

“It’s fine,” Kaili assured him but her voice was distant, “I didn’t even know I’d react that way. I’m sorry.”

Rafe’s hand was immediately on her knee, as his eyes met hers, “don’t apologize for how your brain deals with trauma. Trust me, I’d know. It’s not something you can control,” and it’s almost like he said it was a snarl but he was trying to be nice. Or at least Kaili believed he was.

“How old was your cousin?” He inquired, seemingly lost in the thought that had upset him.

“She’d just turned sixteen,” the girl replied, noticing how his grip tightened for a second on her.

“Not so much older than Wheezie then.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat as she shook her head, “had her whole life ahead of her, you know. All it takes is one little mistake. A lapse in judgment. A second. Then it’s all over.”

“I think that’s why I’m so angry all the time,” his voice barely audible as the morning sun rose and the noises around them started to stir. She never noticed how loud everything truly sounded when she’d gotten used to the silence and company of just one other. “It’s not fair to her. She had her whole life to live and now she’s trapped in this nightmare. I’d go through it alone a hundred times if it meant she didn’t have to,” he kept his voice low, his furrowed eyebrows and angry eyes scanning behind her as he noticed the noises of the neighbors and their housemates, himself.

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” Kaili put her hand over his, trying to comfort him but it doesn’t seem like her words or actions can get past the boy’s anger. “I’m sorry…for your sisters.”

“Yeah,” he said as he took a look at her, “and me for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know your cousin. It sucks but I can’t say I care much about her death. But I do care about you and how it’s affected you. How it still affects you and for that, I’m sorry.”

It took a bit for Kaili to digest his words. She had to rearrange his sentence and fill in the empty areas herself as she tried not to be offended that he had just said that he didn’t care that her cousin died but also, he was right. He didn’t know her cousin. He couldn’t have known how incredible she was and how much the world was missing without her. “You’re right. You’re shit at this comforting thing.” Kaili settled on a response.

She didn’t expect to make the boy laugh, the hardness in his eyes softened if only for a moment before returning. Shaking his head as if to get a thought out, he was suddenly serious again. “You know if it ever came down to it. I’d rather die than turn into one of them.”

“Well, technically you’d already be dead.”

“No, for real, before I turned — before anyone of you even turned. I’d pull the trigger for you. I hope someone will do it for me.”

Kaili processed the request and then nodded, “I think if the time comes, which I hope it won’t, you’d have a whole group of people here that would do anything for you.”

Rafe shook his head as if he didn’t quite believe that but he didn’t comment more on it. Moving his hand from underneath hers, he stood up, pulling her up with him. “Come on,” he said as they both started towards the house again, “wouldn’t want Kelce to think we’ve fallen in love and ran away together.” He teased, as her cheeks flushed, trying not to think about what Wheezie had also said the night before about Kelce.

——-

Four days have passed since the group arrived at the house. Kaili truly only kept track of time through how much food was left in their inventory...which on the fourth day, was almost out. Even when she and a couple of others were skipping their portions to make sure that John B could eat because he was healing and Wheezie could eat because honestly, they didn’t want to hear her talk about how hungry she was.

A trip to the store was starting to feel inevitable, even though no one was volunteering to be the one who went. JJ offered the idea to raid the houses next to them but Kiara pointed out that there might still be families holed up in their houses, too afraid to leave, and it would be unfair to strip them of their hoard. Yet even when she inserted her input, she wasn’t keen on being the one to get the food herself either.

Kaili, out of necessity and annoyance, had stalked up the stairs into what is now her room and had gotten back into her first day outfit. The one that they had found her in; the black long-sleeved shirt, tucked into her black jeans, that were tucked into her combat boots. The weapons belt neatly secured around her thighs and her hips but now she had a newly added gun to her waist. Kelce has been teaching her how to shoot while she had been giving a masterclass on first aid and knives.

Once Kaili had arrived down the stairs again, Kelce was already meeting her, wrapping tape around the cloth wrap he’d put around his arms to prevent anything from biting through. Kaili would’ve said that his thought process was sexy and the fact that he ripped the tape with his teeth was even sexier but he’d been avoiding her ever since the first time she fought with Rafe.

Okay, maybe avoiding isn’t the right word because it’s not like he left the room when she walked in but what he did was worse. He didn’t meet her eyes. She’d try to talk to him and all he’d do was hummed in response or reply to her question and shut down again. She was getting irritated since nothing that she had done had brought this on but she also didn’t want to confront him because he must’ve had a lot on his mind and maybe he wasn’t doing it purposefully. So, she allowed it to slide.

“Where are you going?” She couldn’t help but be snippy at him when he attached the long automatic gun onto a sling and put the strap across his body.

Looking at her as if she had asked the most obvious question that he couldn’t believe he’d have to answer to, he replied slowly, “with you.”

“Uh, I’d rather go with someone who’d communicate with me out there,” she said, forgetting that she was going to let his silence slide, as she leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed. “At this rate, you’d probably let a zombie kill me just to avoid looking at me.”

In a blink of an eye, Kelce had her boxed in with his arms on either side of her, gripping onto the counter as his eyes met hers. Something about the intensity in his gaze made her want to just push him onto the floor and have her way with him but she didn’t. Instead, she just rolled her eyes at his actions, looking irritated at their current position.

His eyes searched hers as if he was trying to come up with the right words to say but couldn’t settle on one. “Have I been avoiding your eyes? No, look at me because it seems like you have something to say. Have I ever once ignored the hundreds of glances you’ve thrown my way and thought I hadn’t noticed?”

“Yes,” she breathes the word almost immediately. She wasn’t prepared for where this conversation was headed nor was she prepared for his confession that he made seem so unimportant.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he explained. Which didn’t make Kaili feel any better and in any other situation, with any other person, she’d feel claustrophobic between his arms — though he hadn’t touched her once.

“All the more reason for you to stay,” her tone trying to sound indifferent as she stared at his necklace that was dangling between them.

He chuckled humorlessly, “staying isn’t going to change anything for me. Besides, I’m not going to stay here while you’re out there.”

And maybe Kaili was imagining it but it felt like he had gotten closer to her as if his mouth could have grazed hers but he had walked off before she could even make sense of it. As the boy met up with Rafe in the living room. Kaili shook her head at the interaction, now was not the time for a distraction.

Rafe had decided to come along with Kelce and though others might’ve used him as a buffer for the situation that had just happened, Kaili had decided that the best route was acting like it never happened. It was simple enough. JJ had secured them a compact car that they could use and as they passed the fourth hoard of zombies when they had gotten into town, she was starting to become very thankful for him. Kaili hated the sight of them. Their greenish and gray bodies jerking about as some lacked their body parts. One of them, she could’ve sworn, looked right at her. The zombie’s one eye trained on hers as they drove by. The other eye dangling from its socket like some cheap Halloween costume. Kaili wondered if her cousin was now one of them if she could handle seeing her like that.

Her heart thumping in her chest as they pulled up to the grocery store, a couple of people running in and out of the store. Even as she saw the scene, she didn’t trust them. Humans were just as bad as zombies, if not worse. She wiped the sweat off the palm of her hands onto her jeans. As the car pulled into a stop. Rafe looked back at her from the driver’s seat, as if to ask her if she was ready. She wasn’t but she nodded regardless of her emotions. As she exits out of the car, she noticed that the atmosphere around them was a chaotic silence. People with shifting eyes, wiping their heads back and forth as they whisper to their company instead of trust their voice to be low enough not to get attention from the flesh-eaters.

“I’ll take care of the water, you go for the first aid and some nonperishables,” Rafe whispered to her, and then to Kelce he had instructed him to find any type of meat they could cook if there were any left. If not, then canned foods were never a bad idea.

Kaili walked into the grocery store and dug her nails into her palm as images of Wei popped into her mind. No, she had a task and she was going to complete it. She didn’t have time to get lost in her self pity, not when there were other people’s lives at risk. Looking up at the signs above her head, she started walking to the correct aisle, sticking any food she deemed useful in her currently empty backpack. Not five minutes have gone by until she heard this blood-curdling scream from outside of the store. In the wake of her panic, she had zipped up her bag and clutched it in her hands before peeking through the end cap, towards the entrance.

Her knees locking themselves in place as more people started screaming and running, she couldn’t tell if they were running in or out of the store. Hell, her fight or flight didn’t even kick in until she spotted a little girl in the middle of the entrance just crying. Now, the smarter option would’ve been to keep hidden, go out through the back as all the flesh-eating creatures ripped through the victims who were waiting there for them but she couldn’t. Kaili pulled the backpack straps on her back as she ran towards the girl, sliding on her knees as she scooped her up and began for the other side of the store.

“Where’re your parents?” She asked the girl as people ran by her and blood splattered onto their shirts. She couldn't get the girl to calm down as the shelves began being toppled over in an attempt to crush the creatures but all it did was create more noise.

“What are you doing?” A female voice was shrill as she ran down an aisle, “that’s my daughter!” The woman said as she picked up the little girl and cling onto her.

“Then don’t leave her alone,” Kaili snapped at the woman, pulling the gun out of her waistband and firing two shots right behind the lady and her child, as the zombie was getting too close to them.

The woman had run off with her child, with no sign of even a simple thank you. Kaili didn’t think too much about it though, her main concern being that she needed to get out of here alive. Fuck, she needed to find the boys. Putting the safety back on the gun, she decided that it would probably be best to keep her bullets and use the machete instead and so she did.

Hearing a growl behind her, she quickly turned around, only to be knocked down by a drooling zombie who’s missing a jaw. It crawled on her with the jerking movement and she could hear its bones popping with every single move. She had moved her blade up between them and tried to move the creature off her with that, so she would get better leverage in the fight but it didn’t budge. Its tongue moved around in her line of sight, the top row of teeth mimicking the motion of snapping the jaws together if he were to have a lower one. Pulling her knees up, she was able to kick off the zombie, not thinking that her shoes had just touched the exposed ribs. Scrambling to get herself up quickly, she jumped onto the zombie with her blade in its forehead. She had cleared off some zombie necks as she made her way through the aisle, suddenly realizing how many dead people were around her, soon to be undead.

The urgency to find her friends has kicked in. In the midst of it all, she had sliced her hand on a sharp corner of a shelf. Finding a woman screaming for help, she was able to push the zombie away from her and jump on the creature to stab him in between his eyes. Before she even pulled the blade back from the oozing brain in front of her, she was met with a snapping noise near her ear. Instinct had pulled her back but that was before she noticed that the snapping monster wasn’t advancing towards her, that it couldn’t. With the overwhelming smell of human flesh from the creature spitting at her as it tried to bite into the air next to her, she recoiled back away from it. There was a hook around its neck and at the end of the handle, Rafe was holding on tight to it and flinging it off to the side. The thing was too brainless to get up by itself anyway. He had pulled her up quickly and grabbed her hand as he led her towards the entrance of the store, not stopping once to help the rest of the people who were still fighting the zombies.

Kaili wanted to pull back but she willed herself not to look around, knowing that she wasn’t alone and it was about priorities. She wasn’t going to kill Rafe because she wanted to help someone she didn’t know. She concentrated on not tripping over the bodies and obstacles in her way that Rafe barely even saw as a hardship. Dragging her out of the doorway, as if he’d been in and out a hundred times before, he swung a bat that she hadn’t even noticed was in his other hand to clear a pathway. Kaili, seeing that they were heavily outnumbered, even if there were other people in the parking lot fighting these zombies as well, began swinging her blade next to him. Before she could even get the words out that she was looking for Kelce, a car had turned a corner and screeched as it zoomed towards them. Rafe pulled her steady to his side as the zombies were knocked over like bowling pins, the sounds of bodies hitting the floor forever etched into her mind.

Seeing Kelce through the driver’s window, they had quickly loaded themselves into the car and drove away. Neither of them said anything at first or even acknowledged what had happened until Kelce fixed the rear view mirror so that he could see her from the front seat as he drove, “are you okay?”

It was a dumb question, of course. She wasn’t okay. Who could be okay after that?

“Yeah,” she replied, hissing when she tried to grab onto her wrist to ease the pain of her palm bleeding but then accidentally gripping her bruise.

“Were you bit?” Rafe turned suddenly from the passenger seat, staring at her intensely as if he’d be able to make her crack if she was lying.

“I wouldn’t have gotten into the car if I was,” she spat at him, irritated that he had even asked that question. As if she’d put all of them in danger because she was too scared to face her death. No, that’s the thing about it, she wasn’t afraid of dying. She was more afraid of watching the people she loved die. Though at this point, she felt like she was getting used to it. “I cut myself.”

“You should’ve been more careful,” Kelce inputs his opinion into the conversation, definitely not reading the room that the girl in the backseat didn’t want to hear what she should and shouldn’t have done.

“Gee, you’re right. Next time I’ll make sure I don’t accidentally hurt myself...on purpose.”

“Okay,” Rafe raised his voice, sounding annoyed at the exchange as he tore his shirt off over his head and wrapped it around the gushing wound, the way that Kaili had shown him how to. Honestly, she didn’t think he was even listening when she was showing the group how to do it and now she couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. He knew the look on her face immediately and flashed her a smile, his eyes still dead as ever.

When they had reached their temporary home again, Wheezie had rushed out of the house to greet them but quickly ran back into the house when she saw the state of the car. The blood that covered it and the random torn arm that was stuck underneath the car, Kaili figured it must’ve been a grizzly sight for someone her age. Someone who’s never been face to face with a zombie.

Once they were all showered and bandaged up, they were sitting in the living room, Rafe had taken over as the speaker of what had happened earlier that day. Though he had embellished some parts, including the part of the story where he saved her from the zombie that was trying to eat her face off. Kelce didn’t like that part of the story much and Kaili didn’t attempt to correct Rafe that it wasn’t entirely like that. It was the only time that she saw his eyes shine in excitement so she let him tell it how he remembered. She did joke with him about it though, serves him right if he was painting her out to be the damsel in distress.

“All in all, I’d rate the rescue a six out of ten,” she said casually as she shrugged her shoulders, a smirk playing along her lips.

“I saved your life,” Rafe reminded her, his eyes about to pop out of their socket.

“Yes, but you also told us to split up in the first place. Honestly, Rafe, that’s a rookie mistake, to begin with,” and with that, the whole group had started talking over each other. As they finished their dinner. The first real one in a while.

____

After Kaili had cleaned up everything and made sure her bleeding stopped, she made it known to the group of people that were still chattering that she was headed to bed. She wasn’t at all that tired but she needed space to decompress. It was hard for her always being around people but even though she was grateful that she was with them and not alone, she needed to clear her head from the day that had just passed.

She closed the bedroom door and made her way to the window, overlooking the neighborhood, the lights in some houses were on while some people chose to patrol the streets with their big guns for a show as if that would scare off the looters but everyone knows that those desperate enough to loot already have nothing else to lose.

Finally curling up in bed, Kaili wrapped the blanket around her body and drifted off to sleep. Her slumber only lasted about an hour before she was awakened by someone shaking her. She jolted awake, knocking the intruder on the floor and jumping on top of him.

“Are you planning on fighting me with your eyes closed?” a familiar voice whispered and she tried shaking the sleep off of her, rubbing at her eyes to see JJ below her.

“I’m sorry, what happened? What’s wrong?” She said hurriedly as she got off him and made her way towards the door but JJ pulled her back and pushed her back towards the bed.

“Nothing’s wrong, relax,” he whispered at her and then paused, “well, something wrong happened in my room and in my bed but that’s why I need to stay here tonight. It was either you, Topper, or Kelce, and you are the nicest of the three.”

Kaili eyed him, now more curious, “listen, if you’re a bed wetter, you gotta tell me now.”

“No!” JJ denied almost a little too loud, which made Kaili purse her lips to the side and crawled back underneath the covers with suspicious eyes. “Pope and Kiara are like...fucking next to me. Typically I wouldn’t care if someone did that but it was in the same bed and they wouldn’t even let me join.”

At that, Kaili couldn’t help with how hard she laughed. Knowing him, he was probably serious. So, she patted the space next to her, “jump in Romeo,” she instructed as she yawned and turned to her side.

“Thank you,” he said the words so fast, they sounded like one. He jumped into bed next to her and spread out on his side of the bed, she guessed that must be more comfortable than sharing a bed with three people. Especially if those two were a couple.

“People need to get their priorities straight around here,” JJ mumbled, sleep taking over his voice as his eyes drifted close.

“Tell me about it,” Kaili couldn’t have agreed more.

Tags: @rafej-cambanks @downbytheouterbanks @anxietyandtacos @bedazzledbanks @millyelliot @stargazingstarkey @stfukie @jellyfishbeansontoast @rafecameron @queenk00k @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless @thegreatestofheck @starlightstarkey @spideymyluv @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar @pogue-writings @pankowrudeth @deathcompass @butgilinsky @cutiecolbsss @bricksatanakinswindow @outerbankslut @jiaraendgame

#kelce #kelce obx #kelce fic #kelce x oc #kelce outer banks #outer banks au #outer banks kelce #obx kelce #deion smith

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iwillsithereandtrytocontribute · 4 years ago

Text

Solus

Pairings: None

Warnings: Nightmares, parent death (past, not described in detail),

Masterlist Ao3

Spoilers for the Rome Arc

I’ve been having a lot of Feelings about Sasha, Rome, and the letters so have this. I’m planning on having a sort of series follow-up, but we’ll see how I much I get done of that.

Some quick notes:

1. The title "Solus" is Latin for alone. 2. There's some Latin interspersed in the text, it should be translated right after. If not, please let me know. 3. My personal headcanon is that Sasha did name a kid Brock and just didn't mention it because none of the people receiving this letter actually knew Brock.

Enjoy :)

Sasha Rackett has had her life torn apart a thousand times, a thousand ways. She’s lost her parents, her friends, her rivals, her mentors, and everyone in between. Growing up in Other London though, you learn to be tough. To have a thick skin so that if you can’t dodge the knives they still can’t leave a mark.

Nothing could have prepared her for this. So much has happened in the span of three days. She went to Rome, saved Beaming Gusset and the other hostages, time traveled, lost her friend, and watched the fall of Rome in real time. And here she is trudging along in the countryside that surrounds what was once Rome. The gutted empty shell she’d seen 2,000 years in the future now that the dragons had had their fill of revenge.

Sasha is not alone for once, though sometimes she can’t quite decide if it’s a blessing or a curse. She thinks maybe somewhere in the middle. She’s grown used to being around company, even just those few friends, the past couple months. Gods, it’s only been a month or two since she left London behind, likely forever. Does London even exist now?

Cicero follows doggedly behind her. It’s his turn to hold the kid. Sasha couldn’t save everyone. Hell, she could barely save anyone, but they couldn’t ignore the child they found, half buried under the rubble. Somehow he had survived. And somehow they had found him. Sasha couldn’t save everyone, she couldn’t save Grizzop, but she could save him.

Cicero looked up to catch Sasha’s eye and she realized with a start that she’d been staring at him. She nodded at him awkwardly and he nodded back.

“Water?” Sasha asked, forgetting where she was for a minute. “Um, right sorry,” she continued seeing Cicero’s confused expression. “Right. Á-áqua? Right? Or is that Spanish,” Sasha mused to herself. Judging from the change in Cicero’s expression she’d gotten it right. He carefully laid the kid down and took the water skin as Sasha offered it.

As he drank, Sasha took stock of their combined injuries. Cicero is looking a lot better than he did yesterday, even going on with no sleep as they are. His main injuries were healed by the potion and he had gotten over the shock well enough. Sasha had had worse. And the kid probably had some head trauma, fading in and out of consciousness like he was. So all in all, they might look like hell, but they were surviving.

“Témpus?” Sasha tried in her broken Latin. The potions they’d taken back in Rome had long since worn off, leaving a language gap with a thin bridge across, held up by the few Latin lessons she had taken back when Barret had sent her to Upper London for “an education.”

Cicero held up 4 fingers. “Quáttuor hóra.” 4 hours. Sasha nodded and took a deep breath. She took the water skin back and hooked it onto her belt. She counted her daggers obsessively, checking and double-checking that her spring-loaded wrist sheaths were loaded. Finally satisfied, she lifted the kid as gently as she could, muscles screaming in protest as she lifted him, and continued in the direction Cicero had pointed in as they left the destruction of Rome.

“I know a place,” he had said. “This way.” Sasha had followed because what else could she do? She was alone, alone, as out of her element as it was possible to be. So she followed.

It took them just over 5 hours to reach the house. The villa really. It was large, with wide sprawling grounds and tall pillars that surrounded the courtyards. Sasha slumped slightly with relief. Here was a place to rest, if only for a little while.

Cicero gestured her inside, staggering in behind her, his legs weak beneath the kid’s weight. He wasn’t particularly large, but they had been trading him off for hours with little to no rest. They had been too anxious to get away from Rome. Sasha didn’t know much about the fall of Rome, and certainly if the dragons had decided to pick off the few people who had escaped the city no one would have known about it regardless. Cicero seemed to share her anticipation if not her thought process, and had agreed without question not to sleep for the night.

Sasha sighed, rubbing her forehead. She was going to have to learn Latin wasn’t she?

She made sure the kid was taken care of. The villa seemed pretty empty, but she trusted Cicero a moderate amount at this point. Something about living through an apocalyptic event with someone makes you want to trust him. Sasha would not be surprised to learn later that the villa was owned by a rich family. All of whom were in Rome at the time of its fall. At its center. The chances of their survival were slim to none. They did not turn up to reclaim their home.

Finding a room for the kid, she’s started calling him Brock in her head, was easy. Sasha sits in a chair across from the bed, intending to keep an eye on him for just a little while. It wouldn’t do for him to wake up alone. Sasha has woken up alone before.

The dark she loves so much, suddenly pressing in close. The bedsheets, blankets, her own clothing, suddenly tight and strangulatory. Her panicked heavy breathing as she pads down the stairs to her parent’s bedroom, silent as ever, only to find a pristine, empty bed. Huddling, knees close to her chest as she instructs herself over and over not to cry. Failing.

Sasha wakes up with a start, knife immediately in hand and held to her attacker’s throat. Cicero blinks uncomfortably, shaking slightly as he carefully removes his hand from Sasha’s shoulder. Sasha wrenches her dagger from his neck in a motion so quick it looks as though she was never holding a dagger at all.

Looking outside she can see the sun setting. She must have fallen asleep. She’s no stranger to nightmares, though that one’s worse than most. Sasha rubs at her eyes as Cicero tries to lead her out of the room.

“No. No, wait. We shouldn’t leave him alone!” Sasha pulls away, only to be caught by Cicero again. “Um, um.” Sasha racks her brain. “Solus,” she says, pointing at the kid. Alone. Cicero nods, pushing her towards the door again. Sasha tries protesting again, when he lets go of her to sit in the chair he had found her in.

Sasha nodded with understanding. “Grátiās.” Thanks. Cicero returns the nod with a tired smile.

“Sómnus.” Sleep.

Sasha understands. And she sleeps.

Not without nightmares.

There’s the usual contenders; losing Brock, losing her parents, Barret’s manipulation, a particularly gory end to a co-conspirator from an Other London heist. But over the last months, she’s gained oh so many more. In her dreams she listens to Mr. Ceiling tear her mind and body apart, feels her humanity slip away, sees Zolf leave, and Grizzop die. Over and over she sees and feels spears plunge, needles prick, knives slice, and magic burn. Sasha does not remember the last time she slept through the night without waking up in a cold sweat, but the dreams have only increased in number and intensity.

Sasha does not remember the last time her eyes were clear of their deep circles, that against her pale skin give her a sickly glow even when she’s not mostly undead.

Sasha wakes up, and stays awake when the sun rises over the gently sloping hills surrounding the secluded villa. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she gives a small smile at the beautiful scarlet red sunrise. Her smile fades when she sees the thick wall of smoke at the edge of the horizon, assisting the sun in painting a blood red sky.

A painful reminder that Rome has fallen and Sasha was here to see it. Alone.

Years later

They went back. Back to the city once they were sure the dragons had had their fill of it. They found so very few to save. Mostly children. So many children. Sasha’s heart broke to hear their cries, to see them clutching at the torn clothes of their parents as they came to save them. They aren’t alone anymore.

Some were too young to know their names, too young to remember their families in a couple of years. Sasha gave them names. Amidus, Wilde, Brock, Azu, Grizzop, Sagax for Zolf, even Bertus. It took a couple years for the sad smile she had whenever she said their names to turn genuine, but it did happen eventually. It was as much a way to remember her friends as her yearly trips to the temple of Artemis in the nearest city were.

She taught them everything she knew. Acrobatics, stealth, throwing daggers, how to detect traps, the whole lot of it. Cicero covered the more academic side of things, the villa had a decent library, and all things considered he was a good teacher.

Sasha had never expected to live long. It just didn’t happen in Other London. Before she left, Barret was the oldest person she had ever seen and he wasn’t far past fifty. Besides, her line of work was dangerous. Yet, here she was, living. Passing down a legacy to these kids. She hadn’t realized how much she had wanted someone to learn what she knew, how much she wanted to pass down her knowledge.

She found that fulfillment in the children and teenagers they rescued from the still-smoldering ruins of Rome. And they found new lives with her and Cicero.

Still, on the days she felt like she was forgetting her old life, Sasha would slip away. To a secluded spot in the orchard that only she knew about and slide on her old leather jacket, and she would just take a moment to remember.

Remember gruff Zolf, with more rough exterior than a ship covered in barnacles. The first to make her a partner rather than someone to order around. Flighty little Hamid, gods Sasha missed his hugs. Out of all of them, he was the one who’d stuck around the longest. The soft, kind Azu and her complete understanding. It was rare that Sasha could find someone to be silent with, and yet there Azu was. Grizzop, who practically vibrated whenever he got angry. Sasha always started crying by this point. Grizzop, who had given everything to protect her. And Wilde. After all their time spent together, Wilde had grown on her. Sasha still thinks of puns he would like sometimes. She writes them down on a sheaf of paper. Maybe he’ll get them one day. Even Bertie’s sharp edges have been softened with time, and memory always puts a hazy glow on the past. Sasha knows he was horrible, but he’s still a part of the best and worst months of her life, so she can’t just forget him.

One day, many many years after Sasha has been trapped in the past she sits down to write a letter. One that she hopes might someday reach her friends. Her only way to say goodbye.

She’s been writing them letters for years. Hamid, Azu, Wilde, even Zolf in the vain hope that they will find them.

They are a mix of English and Latin, it’s been so long since she’s spoken or written in her native language, she can hardly remember it anymore. As time passes, they become almost entirely Latin. Sasha knows they’ll find a way to read them.

She’s getting on in years now, so much older than she ever dreamed of being. So she writes each letter knowing it might be her last, not that she ever believed any different.

She signs each one with the name her family gave her. Both of them.

Whosaskinus “Sasha” Lolomg

So... Here. Like I said, I have plans to make a short series with some letter Sasha writes to the party (because there’s no way it was just the one) and I really like writing in her voice. If you’d like to be tagged in that when I post it please let me know. If you just want to chat my inbox is open. Stay safe :)

#rqg #rusty quill gaming #sasha rackett #rqg cicero #rqg spoilers #rqg fic #jasper writes

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curiosity-killed · 4 years ago

Text

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

Note: I’ll be on vacation Thurs—Mon so updates will be on pause till I get back (sorry lmao!)

He is a little irritated, deep in his belly, at being so weak as to need tending, but he lets the warmth of their care offset that frustration. It’s easier today, when everything is bright and warm with happiness.

Then Wen Ning stiffens, twists, and his hand closes around an arrow a hands’ width from Wei Wuxian’s skull. “Wei Wuxian!” calls a tiny figure on the cliff’s edge. He squints, trying to decide if he recognizes them or if they’re some errant cultivator who thinks they can take down the Yiling laozu on their own. The sunlight glints off gold robes and he can just pick out the vermillion dot between their brows. How gracious, he thinks. Jin sect sending a welcoming party when I’m already on my way to them. “Wei Wuxian, remove your curse at once!” “Do I know you?” Wei Wuxian calls back, bracing his hands on his hips.

He has only ever cursed one person, and this Jin disciple certainly doesn’t look like Wen Chao. Even then, forcing Wen Chao to tear strips from his own legs and eat them was more of the blowback than an actual curse, a return on the sentence Wen Chao gave him when he dropped him into the Burial Mounds.

“You! How dare you!” The outrage is familiar, niggling something at the back of his mind. “I know it was you who cursed me,” the man shouts. “Who else would lower themselves to such nasty tricks?” “Who else indeed,” Wei Wuxian mutters, but it’s tired. Mostly he doesn’t care what people say about him, but his patience is thin and strained when it comes to this. What has he done that’s so wrong, after all? He has tried to repay his debts, to protect his family, to live justly. What part of that is so malignant, so repulsive in the eyes of the world? “Is this not your work?” the Jin disciple demands, tugging open his hanfu. “Release me at once!” Even from this distance, the speckling of gory holes across his chest is distinctive. Wei Wuxian recoils, horrified. The hundred holes curse is particularly gruesome, cruel in both its agony and its appearance. “Why would I curse you?” he yells. “I don’t even know you!” He can pick out the sneer on the disciple’s face, curling his lips in disdain. “Since you are incapable of honor and won’t release me,” the disciple spits. “I will have to kill you!” Amusement creeps up Wei Wuxian’s throat, cold and edged. If they want to kill him, they ought not to have wasted time with such theatrics.

“Kill me? Can you?” He glances toward the archers lining the cliff, eyebrows arched in doubt. “Can they?” They should know better than to think him defenseless by now. Resentment is everywhere; he carries it in his bones. There’s a small snap beside him, the sound of Wen Ning’s suppression necklace breaking. Resentment rises in a rush, a geyser-roar that echoes in his marrow. A volley of arrows pierces the sky. Wen Ning throws himself forward, grabbing hold of a boulder wider than he is tall and slamming it down as a shield in front of Wei Wuxian before flinging himself up the cliff. Wei Wuxian tucks close behind his new shelter and waits. Wen Ning had been the one to suggest he go as Wei Wuxian’s companion, and he had gently refused to be put off by protests. It had seemed too risky to let him come among the people who’d had him killed, but now, Wei Wuxian is reluctantly grateful for his presence. There will be a mess, but at least they’ll walk out of it alive. He can feel the anger, the bitterness, crawling up the ladder of his ribs. The injuries the Jin get are deserved, are less than what they’ve earned. How dare they set a trap for him with his nephew as the bait? How petty and despicable. Today was meant to be for celebration, meant to be a bright-glow day of family and joy. Now, they’ve gotten their dirty-gold hands all over it, twisted and reshaped it into another mess that will be pinned to his name. Fine. Let it be. He’s tired of staying politely in his cage, of constraining himself to fit within their mean tolerance. They opened the gate. They carried the stick. “Wei Wuxian, this is the price of your arrogance!”

He turns to see the leader standing there at his side and, oh, he does remember him. Vaguely. Some cousin of Jin Zixuan — the loud-mouthed brat who was in charge of the Wen prison camp that used to be here. “Let’s see your capability now,” the cousin spits, raising his sword. He lunges, throws himself into a flurry of offense. It might be impressive against someone else, someone unused to defending theirself with a flute. But Chenqing is not just a stick of bamboo, and Wei Wuxian is no one else. Lan Zhan insisted on training together during the war, dragging Wei Wuxian out to clearings and small yards in their camps until they were both soaked in sweat. Bichen could not scar Chenqing; this rat-faced junior is little more than a gnat. He skirts out of range of a strike and feels something shift, slip loose from his robes. He reaches, instinctively, for his chest, but the box that should be there is held in the cousin’s unworthy hand. “Give it back,” he demands. This cousin has no right to touch the gift, is undeserving of even knowing it exists. He turns the box in one hand, lips curling in a sneer. “Is this the gift you think worthy of Jin Rulan?” he asks, derisive. “Did you really think we’d let you attend his celebrations? You, the Yiling laozu, at the Chief Cultivator’s own tower?” His hands are shaking, the edges of his vision hazy. The invitation was signed from Jiang Cheng. His brother wouldn’t betray him, not like this, not with family on the line. But— But if the rest of the Jin sect knew of the invitation, knew the quickest path between Yiling and Koi Tower is through this pass— It would be the perfect opportunity for revenge. They might have even encouraged Jiang Cheng to send the invitation, knowing it a better lure than anything signed by a Jin hand. His nails bite into the pad of his thumb as his hand tightens around Chenqing. He can feel the shift, the black-sand blood rising in his veins. If they want a trap then let them have his teeth and claws. He lifts Chenqing to his lips. “Stop! Both of you!” Jin Zixuan’s golden robes are strangely ruddy, as if viewed through bloodied waters. Wei Wuxian is aware, distantly, that some part of him is trembling; his heart is too loud against the bone of his ribs and sluggish. “Zixuan, what are you doing here?” the cousin demands. His voice is too loud, screeching. It would take so little to silence him. A single note, a flick of his fingers. Resentment could curl around his neck, throttle him. A single spirit could bite out his larynx with jagged red teeth. He deserves it. It’s only fair. He attacked with the intent to kill. Isn’t it right, isn’t it only equal exchange, that Wei Wuxian give answer? Did he not ask a question seeking a reply? He can’t kill Zixuan. It takes some effort to remember this. Shijie would be sad. It might be better for her, in the long run, to be free of him but — but she would be sad. He can’t hurt her. His shaking hand closes tighter around Chenqing’s burning surface. He can’t hurt him. Trash — indelible stain — dirty waters — There’s a crack, the scraping sound of nails against wood. The box bursts, splinters. Rage rushes through him, a river undammed. “Wei Wuxian! That’s enough!” Chenqing shudders with the impact of the sword against her side, and she echoes with his anger, a cave-ring of resentment rippling between them. She hums, high and keening and hungry. “Stop Wen Ning and we can talk,” Jin Zixuan says, as if there is any room for words here. “Don’t make the situation worse. There is still space for common ground.” Common ground? Common ground? Are they not the ones here with blades unsheathed to cut his own neck? How reasonable it must seem to them to ask him to prepare the parched earth between them with his own blood. Of course he must be the one to stop. He is the one broken and snarling and rabid, after all, the wild creature they never should have brought in off the streets. It doesn’t matter how many men he killed for them, how much of himself was carved out in their service. “The moment I stop him, he will be pierced by your arrows and die,” he snarls. “I should stop? What about you?” “Don’t be unreasonable!” Jin Zixuan snaps, facing him fully. “This is a misunderstanding. If you both follow me to Carp Tower, you can stand and give a full account.” He speaks so reasonably, so sensibly. Of course he would believe anyone at Carp Tower would listen to a full account. Of course he trusts in the pulleys and levers hidden behind their golden façade. What cause has he ever had to doubt when his family’s corruption has carried him from cradle to throne? “Jin Zixuan, let me ask you,” Wei Wuxian says. “When you invited me, can you really say you knew nothing of their plan to kill me?” He fumbles through a protest, affronted by the audacity of a claim against him. The Jin sit so high in their tower, so removed from mundane things like blame. They’ve removed the bodies from the prison camp, but this is an old pass and the rocks have not always been so steady. The dead are everywhere, if you know where to look. Wei Wuxian has shared their company as close as lovers and brothers and old friends; they rise up to greet him, eager with relief. Revenge is the sweetest song. There’s a wet crunch: flesh, tendon, bone. The gasp and choke of a punctured lung. Something flickers in his periphery, a figure wound in qi and resentment together with a saber’s edge. The lines of the world are blurred, hazy with the red of spirits hungry for new flesh. They’ve waited so long for their answer, for their peace. They have starved in the desolation of unquiet rest.

“Wei Wuxian! Jin Zixuan!” He’s heard the voice before, rough and hard with command. It’s faint compared to the hisses and screams of his companions. All the world seems shifted on end, a bottle balanced on a precarious edge. Red floods the pass, writhing, crackling, snarling. There are familiar fingers hooking around his spine, slipping into the spaces between his ribs, running lovingly up his throat. There’s a scream, a wet howl of pain. Wei Wuxian, they sigh, whisper, sing. He knows this multitude, has been scoured by this choir. Wei Wuxian, do you remember? He made a promise once, a long time ago. He said he would be their speaker, give breath to their petitions. Blood breaks across his lips, gasps out of his shredded lungs. He promised the world would not forget them; they promised he would have revenge. The world shudders, shivers. It takes more than blood to make an oath like that. He stumbles; his knees shake. A sacrifice isn’t worth anything if it isn’t full-hearted. There’s a dark figure blurred before him, gold laid out in their arms. Shijie must have looked so beautiful at her wedding; he wonders if she’ll forgive him for cutting it short. His legs give out and the dark rises up to meet him. Wei Wuxian — don’t you want revenge?

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #untamed fic #wei wuxian #my writing

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thewritingcaptain · 4 years ago

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A Failed Homecoming: Chapter 2

He had no qualms about giving him the money - regardless of if he got it back or not, he certainly wasn't lacking in it - but more so about the aftermath of that. He didn't really want to let the guy escape, but he didn't really have the time to fight him if it wasn't necessary. If he went in there and the guy genuinely would let him walk out of there with the kid, he'd have to hand over the money and go. He couldn't in good conscience stay long enough to get his hands dirty, not with Peter bleeding out in a corner.

Notes: This chapter does contain some torture, though it’s not gory or excessively violent. Peter is electrocuted and eventually has a seizure. None of it is described in excessive detail, but it is mentioned. So trigger warning for that. And maybe some mild cursing. If you’re okay with all that, read on, and I hope you enjoy!

The next half hour or so was a blur for Tony.

At some point, he found his suit, and suddenly it was just on, and he didn't even remember doing it. Then he spent the next 15 minutes or so pacing while he waited for Pepper and Hogan to retrieve what he'd sent them to.

He couldn't sit still. His mind was racing. He'd never had to deal with a ransom demand before, exactly, but he'd had Pepper abducted once. He'd been forced to make decisions for the good of the many over what was best for her, and he'd nearly lost her for it. He didn't intend to come close to that again. This time it was just Peter on the line, and nothing was going to stop him from getting him back, even if it meant he had to tear this guy from limb to limb, with or without his suit.

What was worse was that he'd tried to warn him about this. And Tony hadn't even deemed him enough of a threat to go after him himself; he'd sent the FBI to do it, knowing full well their history of incompetence. He'd scolded Peter for trying to stop him. Because he was afraid of this, yes - but that didn't stop it from happening, and it certainly didn't stop this guy from going back after Peter as soon as he didn't have the means to protect himself. And that was most definitely his fault.

He couldn't shake the image of the kid's bloody face from his head. He just kept seeing it flash in front of him, seeing him slumped and unconscious, bleeding out, waiting-

"Tony!"

He whirled. Pepper and Happy were quickly approaching, lugging two bags - one large duffel, presumably with the money, and a smaller one over his shoulder, presumably with clothes for Peter. "This is it," Happy told him, handing him both bags. He took them both, pulling the duffel over his head, then the smaller backpack across his shoulders. "You're wired up?"

"Same as always." He retracted his mask as Pepper approached, letting his arms go around her instinctively as she hugged him. "Friday will signal you if I need back up." He kissed Pepper on the head, then pushed her off gently and stepped away, starting to lift off the ground.

"Should I call May?" Happy asked.

Tony shook his head. "No. Not yet. You'll just worry her when we don't have all the information. Once I get him back we'll decide how to handle it." He slid the mask back into place. "I'll see you soon." He boosted the throttle, flying towards the door.

"Keep in touch," Happy called after him. Tony spun in the air to face them long enough to throw a mock salute backwards before rocketing into the sky.

"Friday, you ready for this?" His eyes flicked through all the stats.

"As ever, sir. What can do I?"

"Pinpoint me Peter Parker's location and send me the quickest way there."

It was silent except for a dull hum for a moment as he worked, and then the flight plan popped onto the screen in front of his eyes. "The quickest way is to fly in a straight diagonal path southeast. You will have to veer a bit at the end to find the warehouse. At the recommended speed, arrival time is approximately 38 minutes."

"Top speed?" Recommended speed be damned right now. He'd flown at top speed many a time before against recommendation, and it hadn't killed him yet.

"Approximately 22 minutes. But sir, you know I have to advise against it."

"I don't really care what you're advising right now, Friday. A kid's life is on the line. Now kick it."

The throttle roared to full capacity, and he shot through the night like a speeding bullet. I'm coming for you, kid. Just hold on.

Approximately 20 agonizing minutes later, Tony was hovering a few hundred feet in the air, looking down at the warehouse.

This was it. He was here, and the best plan of action he had was to go in and try not to let himself go red with anger and kill this guy.

He'd just have to trust that the trackers he'd had added to the bag would be enough to lead the authorities to him, or for him to come back and finish the job later, if it came to that.

Tony touched down on the ground and closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself. "Friday, retract the suit into the gauntlet, but be ready to deploy on a second's notice."

"You got it, boss." The suit began to fold in on itself, the different bits of nanotech rolling across his body and disappearing into the gauntlet. He adjusted his sleeve to hide most of it and trusted the darkness to do the rest, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking inside slowly.

It was indeed incredibly dark inside the warehouse. The only light sources really appeared to be a few dimly lit bulbs scattered throughout the building, and a few windows that let in the moonlight.

It was enough for Tony to see exactly what he needed to. It didn't take long to locate Peter, tied to one of the support beams across the warehouse. The boy appeared to be still unconscious, which wasn't surprising considering his head was still trickling blood, and on closer inspection he could see more on the side of his shirt, and the awkward angle his leg appeared to be twisted in. Great. His injuries were extensive, then, just as Tony had suspected. That suggested some sort of fight, at least. On one hand, he was proud the kid had lasted long enough in a fight to sustain those injuries, but on the other, he wished he didn't have to be in that scenario at all. Maybe when this was over, he'd try to rectify that.

He hadn't realized he'd started moving toward the kid until a voice said, "Ah ah ah. Not another step, Stark, or we can add something to that list of injuries you already see."

Tony stopped in place. The voice was coming from above. He glanced up, trying to locate a source, but it was too dark to see very far. "Still hiding, are we? Too afraid to face me like a man?"

"Not hiding. Just waiting." The man who called himself Vulture dropped from the ceiling, landing between Tony and Peter. He was wearing a gauntlet similar to Tony's on his hand, but much bigger, and obviously made to hurt. He could see the electricity it commanded, flickering in wait. He could also see the glowing weapon that he was holding in his other hand, clearly one of the illegal ones made from alien tech that the kid had been talking about.

Tony's eyes lingered on the gauntlet for a moment, knowing instinctively that that was what he'd used to shock Peter. He'd have that thing destroyed, if he had any say in it. Then he forced his eyes away, back to the man in the dark leather suit. "Nice costume." He cocked his head, nodding to the duffel bag he had slung over his shoulder. "I've got your money."

"Good. Take it off and send it over here. Nice and slow, or I'll fry the kid again right here." He held out the fist with the gauntlet on it in Peter's direction. Great. So the thing shot electricity too.

Tony's eyes flicked to him instinctively, and he pressed his lips together, knowing saying anything would just make this situation worse. He slowly pulled his hands from his pockets, grabbing the duffel with one hand and holding it out towards him. "How do you want me to do this?"

Vulture regarded him for a moment, one arm still held out towards Peter. Then he jerked his head to the side, indicating a table on the opposite wall to the one Peter was tied to. "Take it over there. And keep your hands where I can see them."

Tony looked at Peter again, then back to the villain before slowly starting that direction. He set the duffel on the table, conscious of being monitored at all times. Slowly, he raised his hands, showing him they were empty.

It was the wrong move, apparently. "Do you think I'm stupid, Stark?" His voice was dangerously low, and Tony knew immediately he'd made a mistake. This guy had something in those weird ass goggles of his that was helping him see - meaning he saw well enough to notice the gauntlet on Tony's right hand.

"N-"

He didn't even wait for Tony to finish the word. He fired a beam of electricity from the gauntlet, right at Peter.

The effect was instantaneous, and so was Peter's scream.

He was screaming almost before he was conscious.

He'd been drifting in and out since he'd first woken up, and by now he'd realized that something was seriously wrong with him. The fuzziness in his head had only worsened, and he was starting to suspect that the lack of feeling in his limbs was from more than just being tied up. The utter lack of any type of response or even sensation, coupled with the fact that he still couldn't see even though he was sure his eyes were open had his suspicions growing, only he was too fuzzy to actually figure out what it meant or what had happened. Getting to this point was a blur.

Being electrocuted was enough to refocus reality for sure. Physical sensation be damned, but there was no way for him not to feel this. It was a particular feeling, and it was inside his body as well as out, magnified a hundred times through every part of him. And he couldn't writhe, couldn't move even the slightest bit-

All he could do was lay there and take it.

Some small, still functional corner of his mind picked up on the fact that he wasn't the only one screaming. The voice was familiar, undeniably, but he couldn't focus enough through the pain to be certain of anything more than the fact that it was a male voice.

"Stop! Stop!" The tormented scream was almost loud enough to match his own.

And suddenly it was over. Peter's body melted instantly, unable to so much as form anything more than a soft moan. How was it he couldn't feel anything on the outside, but the pain was still just as bad?

"I gave you what you wanted, now leave him be."

Could it be? No. He was insane. It was the pain. There was no way…

"Oh, but I had to do something, Stark. I told you not to bring the suit, didn't I?"

Stark. Tony. Oh no. Tony had come for him? The small part of his brain that was still functioning was both relieved and terrified by this turn of events. Why did he come for him? How did he know he even needed to? What had he given Vulture? Why would he have come without his suit? Then the more panicked thoughts started to roll in. Oh, he was going to be in so much trouble. How did he find him? How much did he know about what had happened, and what would he say when he found out? They'd already been on rough terms after what happened with the ferry. The likelihood that Mr. Stark was going to let this go was not very good at all.

Even through his haze of pain, he was smart enough for that thought to scare him almost as bad as he was afraid of what was happening right now. He just had to survive what was happening right now long enough for it to make sense to be afraid.

The situation was out of his hands, and his injuries soon started to cloud his mind again as he lay there. All rational thought started to dissipate as he started to sink back into his mind and grew dangerously closer to succumbing to his injuries. It was all he could do to hold on to the edges of consciousness, knowing and holding on to the thought with his last ounce of power that if he passed out again right now, he might not wake up.

And so he laid there and waited.

No no no no no no no no.

Tony had seen a lot of things in his time, especially since becoming Iron Man, and he'd caused a lot of people a lot of pain, directly and inadvertently.

Nothing compared to this.

Watching the boy he'd so callously left to his own devices get tortured in front of him was the worst thing he'd ever had to endure. It was unbearable.

"No! No! Stop! Stop!" He hardly realized the words had torn from his own throat in that moment. All he knew was that it took every ounce of his self restraint not to throw himself between this monster and his kid, and the only thing holding him back was that he knew it would only turn into something worse if he did.

He nearly collapsed with relief when Vulture lowered the gauntlet, and he saw Peter just melt back into the pole behind him, breathing hard and letting out a low moan.

There was murder in his eyes when he refocused on Vulture. "I gave you what you wanted. Now leave him be."

Vulture simply cocked his head at him, lowering his arm slowly. "Oh, but I had to do something, Stark. I told you not to bring the suit, didn't I?"

"I didn't!" The gauntlet shot back up, and Tony threw his hands up quickly. "Wait! Don't do it. You're right, I did, but you didn't leave me any choice. You said alone and fast and a suit was the best solution. I took it off before coming in, didn't I?" This wasn't going at all how he wanted it to.

The other man just stared at him, his head still tilted as he studied him. "Take it off."

"It is off."

"Completely, Stark."

"I can't, I- No!" Vulture had raised the gauntlet again before he'd even finished, and Peter's screams filled the warehouse again. Tony took a shuddering breath and stumbled forward a bit, the panic in his system overriding his better judgement for a moment. "I can't, I can't, I have to get us out of here somehow!"

Vulture hadn't even broken eye contact with him, seemingly unbothered by the teen's anguish. "You can put it on again when I'm gone. Now take it off, or I'll double the power here."

Tony didn't hesitate. His hands were shaking with panic and adrenaline that he had no chance of hiding, but he ignored it the best he could as he worked it off and held the gauntlet up.

Vulture jerked his chin in the opposite direction. "Toss it away."

Tony threw it over his shoulder, holding both now bare hands up. "There! Now stop it!"

The electricity cut off, and Peter's screams died with it, his whole body going rigid and spasming for a moment before relaxing again. The boy couldn't even muster the energy to make a sound to whatever was happening, it seemed.

Tony closed his eyes for a moment. Medical science wasn't his area of expertise, but he knew a seizure when he saw one. They were running out of time. "You got what you wanted," he told Vulture, his voice unexpectedly hoarse when he spoke. He didn't bother trying to clear it. "Now go. Or at least let me take the boy and leave."

Vulture lowered the gauntlet, regarding Tony for another long moment before nodding once. "Don't move," he warned as he stepped away, his wings folding out from behind him and expanding as he moved across the warehouse, grabbing the duffel full of money. "I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark, but we both know that's not true. But here's to hoping we don't meet again." And then he jumped, his wings catching him in the air, and he swooped right out the entrance of the warehouse.

He'd barely cleared the doorway before Tony was moving, snatching up the gauntlet as quick as he could before dashing madly over to Peter. "Kid!" He slid up to him on his knees, looking around wildly for the bonds holding him in place. Thankfully it was a simple rope that secured his hands behind the pole - something Peter could have easily escaped from had he been conscious and at full strength - and Tony severed it easily with a mild shot from his hand. The suit was already reforming around him. Clearly Friday had been monitoring the conversation from inside and had taken the cue himself on return to contact with Tony's body. "Peter! Come on, kid, can you hear me?"

All he got in response was a tiny sound that he wasn't even sure if it was a groan or a whimper. It was enough for Tony to know he was still alive, and that was enough for him at the moment. He scooped him up, wincing as a hoarse scream tore from the kid's throat. Oh, he was hurt, and those shocks would be enough to leave anyone tender, but he didn't really have another choice. It would hurt no matter who moved him and leaving him there was not an option.

He cradled the kid to his chest and kicked up the throttle. "Hang on, kid. I got you. You're going to be okay." He had no idea if he could even hear him, let alone comprehend what he was saying through the pain, but saying so made him feel a little better at least.

Maybe if he said it enough times he could convince himself of it.

A low growl building in his throat, Tony shot into the air, heading for the nearest hospital.

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proxylynn · 5 years ago

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Underfell: File Name not Edgy Enough #24

Chapter 24: Drama

WARNING: I WANT NO RESPONSIBILITY OVER SPOILING THINGS FOR OTHERS. THAT BEING SAID, THIS IS HOW FILE NAME NOT FOUND WOULD FUNCTION IN THE AU OF UNDERFELL. BEFORE YOU READ THIS, UNLIKE THE NICE TIME OF UNDERTALE, THIS WORLD IS KILL OR BE KILLED. THIS STORY WILL BE GRAPHIC, GORY, USE SWEARS LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS, AND DEAL WITH SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTERS. FOR EXAMPLE, THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE READ THE FILE NAME RELOCATED SPOOF WILL KNOW HOW I PICTURE THIS VERSION OF LYNSIE COMING TO THE UNDERGROUND. IT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING DUMB. IT IS BECAUSE SHE CHOOSES TO END HER LIFE. SO TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I MADE IT BECAUSE I NEEDED TO LET SOME OF THIS EDGINESS OUT OF MYSELF. WHICH I GUESS MAKES UNDERFELL LYNSIE EVEN MORE TRUE TO WHO I REALLY AM. ANYWAY, ENJOY. ^_^

You know...I used to love darkness. It was the one element that felt the most kind to me. Now it's a different story. At this point I hate it. Nothing good comes when I'm in darkness anymore. If I'm not dreaming then I'm being used by a maniacal scientist as his personal experiment.

{What are you doing here?}

Or this crap happens.

"Seeing as I don't get a choice in these matters, I should be asking you that. So...Why am I here, Chara?"

{Go away.}

"Why so serious? You've been avoiding me like the plague."

{You've been listening to Gaster behind my back.}

I sigh.

"Are we really about to do this?"

{Do what?}

"A childish back and forth of 'how could you do this' b.s."

{I warned you not to trust him. And what do you do? You cut deals with him.}

"You've been rummaging in my head. Not very nice of you, bro."

{Don't call me bro. Family doesn't backstab family.}

"Heh...You've been dead so long you forget what humanity is like. And I didn't backstab anyone."

{Yes you did!}

"How? How does seeking aid from the best source of soul knowledge so I don't go kill-crazy backstab you or the family?"

{That's not the point! You didn't listen to me! Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?!}

Where is this coming from?

"Dude, calm down. You're a kid. A dead kid. You should be used to no one listening."

The darkness rumbles with thunder. Energy swirls around like wind or unseen water. A form begins to take shape, distinctly that of a male child. The boy is pale-skinned, has bright pink cheeks, piercing red eyes, as well as light brown hair, and dressed in a red sweater with a black stripe across the middle, black pants, and brown boots. This is Chara...at least...Chara pre-death. And oddly he's intimidating.

{I am so sick and tired of people not listening to me.}

"*scoff* Join the club, kid. You really think I ended up here because others heard what I had to say? You can't expect me to ignore help because you tell me no. It's MY soul. MY problems. And I will deal with them MY way. Not anyone else's."

The energy gets stronger. It's starting to become visible as it clashes around him.

{Not again...I won't let it happen again...}

I don't like the looks of this. But what can I do about it? It's not like I have power here.

"Look, I'm sorry if I piss you off. I have an annoying tendency to do that. It's not intentional. I..."

{I won't let you kill Asriel again!}

Confusion seems to be my normal state of mind these days. Does he actually mean me? Is he having a moment like Sans and thinks I'm Frisk? Could he even be thinking of Gaster? Or is he calling out all the other past humans to fall before me? Either way, I'm not going to get through to him. The look in those eyes of his gives me the message loud and clear. Talking is pointless. Now I'm left to do the one move I've done all my life...brace for impact.

{Not again! NEVER AGAIN!}

As expected, his rage causes the energy to lash out at me and all I can do block. Damn things cut like knives. I can't tell if bleeding is possible here but it feels like it.

"*mutter* Geez...And I thought I had issues. *grunt* No one is out to kill Asriel! Calm down!"

He doesn't say a word. Yet the energy intensifies. Hitting harder. Pushing back. Pushing me away.

"*strained* Do you think this solves anything? That lashing out at me keeps him safe? Harming me only puts him in more danger!"

Again, he's not in a mood to listen. The energy is cutting away at me more. I won't be able to take it much longer at this rate.

"*snarl* Damn it, Chara! Don't be like Toriel and put your problems on me like it's my fault!"

For only a moment there's a break in his attack and I think that maybe...just maybe...maybe he sees that this isn't the right way of handling the situation. This hope is dashed when he suddenly rushes me and grabs my shirt. The look he has. So spiteful. It breaks my guard.

{If we're really family...You won't come back here again.}

He blasts me at point-blank range and everything flashes from black, red, and then white.

"*gasp and cough*"

God, I hate this shit. Each time I wake up I feel closer to dying. Like one day, I'll open my eyes but be unable to breathe or I won't wake up at all.

"Bad dream?"

...Or I'll wake up in an unknown place with lord only knows who.

"With the wack you took, a little nightmare is the best outcome you could've gotten. Though we still can't rule out brain damage quiet yet."

I can't see anything apart from the ceiling. A brace of some sort is restraining my head. I can feel bands on my wrists and ankles. And something else...something cold.

"Hmmm...Vitals look stable. Then again, it's been a long time since I've had to human hooked to this thing. Oh well."

Great. From bad to worse.

"Not a big talker, huh? Or are you just slow to take in what's going on?"

I am in no mood for this crap.

"In any case, the short version is you're now in Hotland. No one knows you're here. And if you ever want to go home, it's best that you cooperate."

The sigh that leaves me is one oozing with boredom. I'm numb to this. I've been here too long to care.

"You're taking this oddly well, human."

"I'm in no position to care. I'm restrained in a place I don't know. You already have points on me I can't bounce back from. So why not skip the spiel and be blunt. It'll be easier on us both."

There's a scribbling noise.

"Subject is reasonable yet bitchy after having woken up."

Okay...Now I have some clue.

"You're Alphys, right?"

By the sudden startle that shakes her, she wasn't expecting me to know.

"H-H-How do you...?"

"People talk. It's not like there are others down here that know what a human is and have done things to them before. Makes for a very select list of names."

She huffs through her nose.

"Perhaps you'll be of more interest than your predecessors after all. Aside from your soul that is."

She taps on something and it makes me snarl in discomfort. No wild guess needed that it's my soul.

"You're a first. I've never seen a human soul infused with magic before. Though it is funny how it can be afflicted with something so common to growing children and you are...clearly not one."

I try to not think about that stupid issue of soul puberty.

"Yeah, well...What can do? Stuff happens."

"Lucky for you...it's a condition that is easily fixed with some stabilizing magic. You might be able to feel it. It's rather cold. Much like everything else in this world."

So that's another mystery solved. I'm basically getting the equivalent to hormone balancers. The question...Why?

"Seems a little odd."

"How so?"

"No offense, but experience has taught me that no one does something for someone else down here without there being a reason. So spill it, doc. What reason could you have for treating my condition?"

There's a sigh and a loud click before the slab I'm on begins to move, slanting me to almost stand. Now I can see the room better, the machinery, the odd patch on my exposed purple soul, and her. A slightly corpulent reptile-monster that appears smaller than she is due to slouching. She has yellow skin/scales, wears spiral-shaped glasses, a red and black striped sweater with a matching black skirt, and topped off with a classic white lab coat with a few frayed ends.

"If you must know...He insisted on you being fully healed. I swear things would be more interesting if I didn't fix you. But no...he was going to annoy the piss out of me. And frankly, I'm not in the mood to tear him apart for scrap."

He? Oh...Him.

"Ah, I see. Mettaton is a crafty guy. Must be his inner ghost."

She gives me a questionable look.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because I know his cousin and he told me."

She groans and adjusts her glasses with her middle finger.

"That information is not for the public to know. You'd be wise not to spread any rumors about it."

"*scoff* Please. If I haven't blabbed by now than I ain't blabbing ever. Besides...There's no point telling anyone anyway."

She scribbles on a pad.

"You'd be wise to keep that mentality."

I roll my eyes.

"So where is he? Dude went so far as to have his flunky give me my second bat to skull injury and drag me here, the least he could do is show himself before overly explaining some elaborate plan."

She stops writing to look at me.

"HE is getting himself and I quote 'ready to shine like the star he was born to be' end quote."

If ego was hot air that metal body of his would be floating like a parade balloon.

"But what you said makes me wonder. You've watched his shows before, haven't you?"

"Enough to notice predictable patterns. Sure, the first show is fresh. But then he repeats the same theme in every show the rest of the day. It's hard not to notice."

"Like he tries too hard and looks like a moron."

"I wouldn't say that. It's endearing that he tries when it comes to an idea he likes. Whether or not the audience likes that sort of thing is subjective. You can't please all the people all of the time. Only some people some times."

"Try none and ever. Ratings have been in the dumper. The only small increase to have happened was that time he tricked you into phoning in. Heh...I still can't believe that worked."

"I'm not heartless. I don't want to see anyone hurt or die if I can help it."

She goes back to scribbling.

"Subject is a bleeding heart idiot."

I struggle to shake my head.

"Not the first time I've heard that and it won't be the last. Yet you can't honestly tell yourself that there isn't at least one person you'd risk it all for."

She pauses. Her scribbling stops to tap the pad. But this is not a long pause before she resumes again.

"Side note...If the subject is this stupid, how has it lived this long and what does that mean for surface humans?"

I can't roll my eyes hard enough.

"So you'd do anything for that fire elemental, huh?"

This has my attention.

"It's one thing to associate with monsters. Most are ignorant of what a human is. Making it easy to blend in and not be killed. But to be romantic with a monster? And to have been so dumb as to do so in public no less? That's just begging for trouble."

My glare has her smirking.

"Be a real shame if something unfortunate were to happen to him."

"You do not want to go down this road. Not on those tires."

"You are in no position to stop me if I do."

"Trust me, doc. You don't want to make me angry. Bad things happen when I snap."

My seriousness is not taken seriously.

"I'll be sure to enjoy studying every moment of it."

I sneer daggers at her.

"Humans are such pathetic and pitiful creatures."

"And yet we won the war. Go figure."

That earns me a very nasty look.

"I think you need to learn your place, human."

"I'm strapped to a table. I think I know my place."

"Let's double-check that..."

She reaches into her pocket and suddenly I'm thrashing harshly as electricity is sent shooting into me. After the longest five seconds ever, it stops. I'm left panting through my teeth and smoking faintly.

"Seems your tolerance is stronger than expected. Still...that should be enough to remind you to behave. Right, human?"

I want to defy her. I know I can. But the situation is not favoring me. She holds the power and knows it.

"*huff* Whatever."

She smiles and heads for the doorway.

"This will be interesting. That much is sure."

The door closes behind her and I sigh. Is it wrong that I miss the days of Papyrus beating me? Fuck my life. Okay...Time to make a plan.

[Meanwhile: The Ruins]

Fear. Fear is laced on the wind. Paternal fear of a mother for her child. When Toriel's voice was met by silence alarms went off. When she found the doors open when last she had shut them panic sank in. Her child's belongings were left behind, including the flower called brother. And one look at the snow beyond the door only added to her worry. The pristine snow was a disheveled mess. Footprints. In every and all direction. The worst part is the snowfall beginning to fill in the indents.

Searching.

Screaming.

Scanning for any clues as to where her child was. Yet she was lost. Second-guessing which set of tracks were the human's and uncertain if the ones she first picked were indeed the right ones. Scrambling, she picked another set and stuck to it. Swerving and swiveling through trees like dogs along a pole line. These tracks seemed hopeful enough. Stretching further into the distance than previous sets. At the rate she was headed, she would find herself in town and the location of the child would then follow suit. Just a little more. Just a bit further and then the real path shall be clear.

Yet...Why were the trees still constant?

The environment the same?

Where was this going?

...

The bridge.

These tracks made her head back towards home. Never faltering as they beelined for the bottomless pit. No deviation. No hesitation. Just clear forward motion to death. Her heart stopped. Everything stopped. She just stood there. Staring into the abyss. Contemplating just how deep or where it led. Could the human...did she...was this her fate? No...NO! There...There had to be a way to check. The...Oh! The phone! If she was in that pit or not, the ringing of that simple phone will provide her with answers.

[RING...]

She held that object muffled in her paws. Listening to the wind and anything at all.

But there was nothing. Simply the sound of snow landing on the world.

This...gave her hope. Hope touched the monster's soul for the first time in ages. Yet this begged the real question...Where is she? Perhaps some aid to this situation will be necessary. Seems like a visit to the town is in order.

[A cold walk later]

The hour is late. No one is out and about. Except for one. One that has very limited options at her disposal. In all their talks and jokes, Toriel never learned what Sans's house looked like. With a nervous lump in her throat, she approaches the bar and trembles as she knocks on the door of the obviously closed establishment. As one would guess there is no response. So she continues to knock, pressing with her urgency. After about five minutes of the most polite pounding on a door ever, a faint light approaches.

"*grumble* We're closed. Can't you read the sign?"

She ignores the annoyance due to the situation.

"Please, I need your help."

There's a pause. The door clambers open enough to show part of Grillby's face.

"M-Mrs. Dreemurr?"

"Forgive my rudeness. But I must speak to you about Lynsie."

"I didn't mean for it to be so big! It's just a hickey! I didn't hurt her, I swear!"

His defensive words confuse her and this makes the panicked man of flame become shamefully aware.

"You didn't know about that...Did you?"

Her eyes squint in judgmental frustration.

"I did not."

A small snort of steam comes out of her snout. Grillby, feeling like shit is going to end badly, slams the door in fear. Her own fear, overwriting her motherly rage, has her pounding on the door.

"Open this door!"

"I don't want to die!"

"Please! My daughter is missing!"

"...What?"

He opens the door fully now, knowing well the former queen would not lie about such a thing.

"She's missing?"

"Yes. I can not find her. Only footprints from many bodies."

She is surprised by the real concern coming to Grillby's face. He is quick to go for his phone but she shakes her head.

"I have already tried. She does not respond."

"Hmmm...This is sounding like an abduction. Has there been any notice left for you? A note? A call?"

She mopes.

"No. Nothing. I was hoping you might have a clue. Was there anything odd you noticed on your way home?"

He shakes his head.

"Unfortunately, no."

Her heart sinks. Seeing this has Grillby goes into support mode.

"Don't lose hope. We don't have much left. You know her better than I. She's prone to getting into trouble. But you know what?"

"What?"

"I know someone that can help. Just...Let me bundle up. If you can imagine, the cold and I..."

"Understood."

Grillby shuts the door and Toriel waits outside.

[Elsewhere: the Ruins]

"Ugh...my head..."

A dazed and delirious Flowey stirs in the dark confines of a bag. Unzipping a pack from the inside is bad enough, but doing so with leaves for hands is fucking ridiculous. And while hungover to boot. After some time, mixed with muffled swearing, the great escape is complete! The flower is free! Yet...Something is amiss. The bag he was contained in was not in the bedroom as he would have expected and the doors leading outside are wide open. This isn't right. It is time to ditch the pot and sink his roots into the ground to do some stealthy investigating. Covert flower style.

[Meanwhile: in Snowdin]

"Are you certain we will not be bothering them at such a late hour?"

"Don't worry about that, Mrs. Dreemurr. It's part of their job to deal with stuff like this. Plus, you're the Queen and they are in charge of looking after her. If they don't want to go through hell, they'll help."

"I hope so."

Grillby guilds Toriel the out of place house on the edge of town. Of course, they lived in a place like this. Why she expected different she didn't know. The curtains were closed yet glowed with the light of activity still going on inside. Muffled chuckling could be heard behind the walls. She recognized it easily...Sans.

"Sounds like someone's having a good time."

"Is it normal for others to be up still at such an hour?"

"Depends."

"Depends?"

"You know. Reasons. Some can't get these kinds of moments during day hours. Others just can't fall asleep all that well. Him? I think his reason is therapeutic. Ending the day on a laugh to forget all the bad stuff. But that's just my guess."

She pouts as he knocks on the door. Sans's puns when behind the Ruins exit were always on the borderline of being sad, she never thought much of it other than guessing the outside was just terrible. Now, learning more and more, she couldn't dismiss it as easily as before. But such thoughts are broken with the movement of the curtain and door opening seconds later to show the confused skeleton.

"what happened?"

Even with no word said, Sans is smart enough to know that their being here means nothing good.

"She's gone."

Sans's sockets widen.

"...get inside."

Further goading wasn't needed and once inside the door was locked much to the former queen's concern.

"now what do ya mean she's gone?"

"Not getting Papyrus? You know how he gets."

Sans sighs.

"fine...hey, pap! get your ass down here!"

A loud thud bangs the inside of a door upstairs.

"*MUFFLED* I TOLD YOU NOT TO BUG ME!"

"the queen's here! the human's gone!"

Rampant scuffling rushes to a door that is flung wildly open.

"SHE'S WHAT?!"

Toriel fiddles with her fingers.

"My child is missing. I believe someone has taken her."

Now in serious guard mode, Papyrus joins the group.

"ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT SOMEONE HAD THE GALL TO COMIT SUCH A BRAZEN ACT IN MY TERRITORY?!"

"what clues do you have that she didn't just pull a stupid stunt like last time?"

She swallows dryly.

"There were tracks. Lots of them. All scattered about the snow that were not there before. It looked like some person or persons were trying to make it as difficult as possible to distinguish what track lead where."

Papyrus growls lowly.

"SANS, CONFIRM THIS AND SEARCH FOR ANYTHING SHE MIGHT HAVE OVERLOOKED."

Sans nods and teleports out.

"Overlooked? I searched those woods for what felt like ages. I overlooked nothing."

"DO NOT TAKE IT AS AN INSULT. IN SITUATIONS OF PANIC, IT IS EASY TO MISS DETAILS. I AM MERELY CHECKING FOR THE BEST RESULTS. AND, AS LAZY AS MY BROTHER IS, HE HAS SHARP EYES. IF SOMETHING IS AMISS, HE WILL FIND IT."

"Awww..."

Grillby smirks.

"You actually complimented him. Shame he wasn't here to hear it."

Papyrus folds his arms and glares at the elemental.

"AND YOU'RE HERE, WHY?"

Grillby copies his pose except his expression is that of cocky smugness.

"I think any monster worth their dust would be man enough to care about what's happened to their girlfriend. Don't you?"

Papyrus opens his mouth to say a condescending remark but then doesn't due to his mind registering what was just said and putting things together now that it's clear.

"YOU...YOU! YOU'RE THE ONE HAVING THE INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ENEMY!"

"If you want to put it that way, yes."

"YOU'RE SICK."

"And loving it. What's your point?"

A weird energy could be felt between them as if they had something to say yet weren't, and it was making Toriel feel rather uncomfortable. Though part of her was miffed at Grillby for being too blatant about being with her daughter while she is present.

"YOU KNOW NOTHING GOOD WILL COME FROM MAKING YOURSELF SO VULNERABLE."

Of all the things Papyrus could've said, no one saw that coming. Yet Grillby takes it well.

"I've been spurned before. If it happens again, it won't sting so much."

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT."

This had the flaming man sneer and bite his tongue, holding back words that weren't ready to be said at this moment. Papyrus turns his attention to Toriel and she flinches.

"I NEED YOU TO TELL ME EVERYTHING."

She nods.

"Understood."

[Elsewhere: Snowdin forest]

The old lady wasn't kidding. The path outside of the Ruins looked like the frenzy made on kids the last day of school. The only difference was these tracks were randomly deliberate. Whoever made these wanted them to be seen. Not a thing normal folk do around here unless goading others into a trap. Following them would be pointless. They likely only go where they wanted them to go and covered up the real tracks. Bastard smugglers. They know what they're doing. Though someone was a little sloppy. A few stray drops of blood dot the tread of a couple of tracks. Who told them about a human being down here?

[RING]

Must be Papyrus. Maybe Toriel shared something helpful.

"sup."

"WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND SO FAR?"

Guess she didn't say much.

"not a lot. but from what's here, it looks like the work of the body snatchers."

"IN SNOWDIN? ARE YOU POSITIVE?"

Why would he not be?

"it's like the reports undyne briefed us on. a group goes about making distractions and cleans up the evidence made by the single soul doing the dirty work."

As if life down here isn't hard enough.

"ANY LEADS?"

Sans looks back towards the Ruins.

"her boot tread doesn't go past the exit door all that much and i found a few stray drops of blood. my guess is they laid her ass out with a sneak attack then carried her off. such active numbers couldn't have just got here all at once or it would be too noticeable."

"YES, IT'S POSSIBLE THEY WENT THERE ONE AT A TIME THROUGHOUT THE DAY AND HID TILL THE TIME WAS RIGHT."

"bet it helped that this was our worse day."

"TRUE. THESE PRICKS ARE CLEVER."

Is it really clever to take advantage of a missing worker and one too distracted to pay attention?

"don't praise them just yet. i might have an idea of where they come from."

"REALLY?"

"yeah. some moron decided to wear mtt brand shoes. you know? the expensive ones that have his likeness on the bottom."

"HMMM...MTT BRAND ITEMS AREN'T COMMON OUTSIDE OF HOTLAND. THERE'S NOT A LOT OF JOBS IN THE OTHER ZONES TO MAKE GOLD FROM."

"yeah. so either someone saved up for ages or we're looking at scum from hotland."

"YOU DON'T SUPPOSE ALPHYS IS INVOLVED?"

"Then what are you doing with the human? Because, frankly, it should've been sent to my lab by now."

"wouldn't surprise me. bitch knows about the human. and i've had the feeling she's been behind most of the reported disappearances. but you know undyne would never question it. thirsty fish bitch."

"IF TRUE, THEN THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET VERY DIFFICULT."

"so...they told ya anything?"

"BOTH OF THEM REPORT NOTHING UNUSUAL LEADING UP TO THE HUMAN'S ABDUCTION. THOUGH THE QUEEN MENTIONED THE GIRL RECEIVING A PHONE CALL BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED."

"a phone call?"

"THE QUEEN ALSO NOTES SHE HAS SEEN AN UNKNOWN NUMBER POP UP IN THE HUMAN'S PHONE. WOULD YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW ABOUT THIS?"

"can't say i do. it's not like she told me about..."

"Hell, you used Mettaton for that tile puzzle. The guy's been obsessive ever since seeing her. He hasn't stopped talking about being so close to the human since he came back from Snowdin Forest."

"It was Mettaton! He traced my phone number from the other night."

"It's Mettaton. He called me again. And you know that he knows what I am."

"*soft* BUT DID I JUST HEAR THAT SOMEONE IS LAYING THEIR NASTY HANDS ON MY HUMAN?"

The realization hits Sans like a brick to the skull.

"...*whisper* oh shit."

A faint ringing can be heard.

"HOLD ON. SOMETHING'S HAPPENING."

The soft voice of Toriel answers a random call, possibly from the kidnappers. But her worried tone quickly turns to excited hope and the word child is heard.

"COME HOME, SANS. YOU'LL BE NEEDED FOR RECOVERY EXTRACTION."

"got it. be there in a sec."

He hangs up and sighs. This was worse than he figured if Mettaton was indeed the culprit. Damn machine was the reason for a RESET on what was a peaceful timeline. Well, at least there are some things he can count on when it came to the human. The girl was no damsel in distress. He just hoped nothing triggered her soul to turn black. He teleports back home completely unaware of the flower spying on him the entire time and intends to follow to find out more.

[HOTLAND LAB: around the same time]

Alphys has left me alone for a good long time now. Letting me assess my surroundings and bonds. They're tight. While one of my wrists is slightly loose. It's a trap. A ploy. She wants me to try. To make an escape attempt. I can do it. The issue is what happens when I do. Probability is not on my side. A scientist of unknown IQ has my on their turf and has who knows what in the line of traps lined up for prey that it has studied for years. Mines. Turrets. Lasers. Gas. Flamethrowers. Swinging blades. Spike pits. Razor wire. Possibility is limitless. Yet the possibilities only worsen if I remain here. I hate double edge swords. Damned if do and don't. Argh...Fuck my life.

"*wince*"

Yanking my wrist through the restraint brings back memories of the skeleton's shed. Seems like this is my role in life. Getting taken and escape. So annoying. At least that damn thing didn't dislocate. I need to keep quiet. Though it's kinda pointless. I'm more than likely being monitored in some way. Still, my odds are better if I adhere to being paranoid and ninja my ass through this place. Belt restraints are effective but old fashioned and flawed, easy to get out of if you have a free hand. I'm free in less than a minute and rips the patch off. Medical or not, I don't like my soul being out. It makes this already messed up thing even more messed up. If my paranoia and overthinking brain are on point, then the door is most likely unlocked. There's probably even a set path I'll be forced on too. Drive the cattle to the slaughter, or so they say.

A light touch on the door has it open to a dimly lit hall. Totally giving off horror movie vibes. The air has a faint stale scent, this area most likely hasn't been active in a long time. The darkness makes the hall look exceptionally long. But down it I must travel and travel I do. My steps echo like I'm walking in an empty school. Giving me unease. Like, at any second, someone or something will pop out. I haven't felt so skittish since my middle school days dodging campus security to cut class and leave the building. I'm too on edge. A slight humming isn't helping my equilibrium either. Did she set up some sort of audio mind scrambler? Am I overthinking shit? It's a 50/50% on either at this point. So I change tactics. I run. If something happens it'll at least happen quickly.

Yet...I don't seem to be going anywhere. I pass countless doors without turning a corner. I must be going deeper into insanity or something isn't normal about it. It's almost like it's...

"Son of a whore!"

I stop and grab onto the edge of a door frame. Only for the floor and walls to pull me in two directions.

"A möbius strip? No...A treadmill. Very sneaky either way. Almost didn't catch on if it weren't for that humming getting louder when I ran. Heh...Willing to bet the motor is basic and can't push past its standard limits. Which means..."

I start running backward, the hum grinding loudly as momentum builds before stopping and allowing the convener to drag me in the direction I was headed before.

"You can't correct the way it moves until it slows down to the bare minimum speed."

I ride the out of control road up to where a door, unlike the rest, becomes noticeable, this thing has a knob. Flinging it open and jumping out saves me from that dumb endless hall. One annoying trap beat. Who knows how many more to go. At least this area looks normal enough. It's open, much like a normal living space, but it's not that exactly. The interior is faint red. There are two floors, the ground floor is what looks like a workplace and the second floor is a more personal space. I'm on the second floor.

"The hell...?"

The door behind me shuts itself, sealing to blend with the wall and its knob covered by a decorative mask of an angry looking cat-girl. Everything up here seems out of place and clearly belongs in some oddball bedroom. Beside me are five fully stocked bookcases containing all sorts of things. Alphys's obsessions and hobbies, comics, anime figures, an ice cream machine, unopened letters, etc. litter her room. It's honestly very creepy. Especially the wall posters of that same angry cat-girl that have eyes that follow you. I bumpy slide down the escalator handrail, not trusting the walkway to not be a trap, and feel instant unease once my feet touch the tile floor. On the ground floor, there is a large screen that's probably been used to monitor me, a fridge with a supply of instant noodles, a messy desk with her computer surrounded by odd instruments, and a washroom. This place is creepy. Where's the exit?

*RUMBLE*

The building shakes faintly though the sound was rather loud.

*RUMBLE*

It feels like it's moving...closer?

*RUMBLE*

"The hell is going on?"

The lights suddenly go out. All is very still. Till...something explodes and sends into what I guess is a wall.

"SURPRISE!"

The lights come back on and reveal Mettaton, who is now posing after bursting through a different wall.

"SUCH A FABULOUS AND RANDOM ENTRANCE. DON'T YOU THINK SO, DARLING? HUH...DARLING?"

I am less than happy shoving rubble off of me.

"Unnecessary and overly flashy. Yep...That's a Mettaton entrance alright."

"TOO MUCH?"

I dust myself off.

"Just a tad. Though, I'll give you points for it being memorable."

"BUT IF GIVEN THE CHANCE TO RATE IT?"

"Um...7 out of 10."

"HMMM...NOTE TO SELF, NEXT TIME ADD FIREWORKS AND LASERS."

Is it cute that he's trying to be cool?

"So...Is being whacked with a bat your way of saying I was taking too long to get here? Or is that how you treat all your fans?"

His screen flashes.

"OH! NO. THAT WAS MORE OF AN IMPROVISATION ON BURGERPANTS'S PART. I DO HOPE YOU CAN OVERLOOK MY POOR JUDGEMENT IN HIS COMPETENCE."

I rub my head.

"I'll give you a pass this time. Mainly because I'm thick-skulled. But no more headshots. It sucks being unconscious so often."

"FAIR ENOUGH, DEAR."

"Well, you got me here. Caused a little trouble maybe? So now what? What does a bot like you want from little ol' me?"

"OH, DARLING...WHERE TO BEGIN?"

He rolls over to me and my creep vibes are tingling. Especially when two of his four hands start posing my arms and the other two cup my face.

"AMAZING. I'M ACTUALLY IN THE PRESENCE OF A REAL LIVING HUMAN. I'VE HEARD STORIES AND SEEN FOOTAGE, BUT I NEVER THOUGHT I'D EVER GET...TO TOUCH...YOU."

What the...? Why is he saying that in such a captivating tone of voice? And why is it making feel like a dumb cliché girl? I thought Alphys fixed my soul's emotional sensitivity? I shake it off. Now's not the time for this.

"Getting a bit handsy don't you think?"

I usually save that joke when talking about Gaster, but this fits the situation too. His screen blanks for a moment at my playful voice, though I feel stupid on the inside, before flickering randomly and he lets me go.

"MY APOLOGIES. I LET MY EXCITEMENT GET THE BETTER OF ME. PLEASE...FORGIVE MY ILL BEHAVIOR."

It's so hard to get a read on him. His TV self and off-camera self are like night and day. I don't know if I can drop my guard around him just yet. This isn't normal. I'm out of my element and still dealing with lots of unknowns. Better to play safe than end up sorry...or dead. I sigh and clap my hands.

"Be kind, let's rewind."

A "?" appears on his screen while I offer my hand to him.

"Howdy, Mettaton. It's nice to finally meet you. I'm Lynsie."

He's confused, that much is certain. Though it's short-lived as he swoons dramatically and falls into my arms. Dear lord! He's heavy! Must be the junk needed to work those four arms.

"MY GOODNESS. AFTER BEING TREATED SO RUDELY, YOU CHARM ME WITH A SIMPLE GREETING? OH, WHAT MARVELOUS CHEMISTRY! I KNEW YOU'D BE PERFECT FOR THIS."

I knew there was something sketchy. I drop him.

"Once again, I encounter the creature known as selfish d-bag. I'm going home."

Not sure where the exit is but I walk away from him anyway. He, of course, scrambles to get us and zips in front to block my path.

"NO, NO, NO, DARLING. YOU HAVE IT ALL WRONG. PLEASE DON'T BE SO HASTY TO LEAVE."

"Then to prevent my irritated departure you must answer me these questions three. Doing so truthfully will have you see me remaining here with thee. But...if deception is sensed, then you shall be cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. But since it's under renovations, I'll resort to smacking you instead."

God, I'm a nerd. Like he, or anyone else down here, knows Monty Python and the Holy Grail. However, the idea of a game seems to excite him.

"A Q&A? OH, DARLING, DO ASK AWAY. MY ANSWERS WILL SURELY BE THE STUFF YOU LONG TO HEAR."

I hold up a finger.

"First question...What are your plans for me since you have me here?"

His top set of hands twiddles their fingers while the bottom hands move as one does when dramatically speaking creatively.

"MY PLANS? OH, NOTHING MUCH REALLY."

I cock my eyes.

"Mind telling me what exactly what that is?"

"DO YOU WANT THAT TO BE YOUR SECOND QUESTION?"

I sneer.

"No. But you're not doing this right."

"HOW SO?"

"While you technically answered the question, you did so in the laziest and non-informative way."

"VERY WELL. I SHALL BE MORE INFORMATIVE WITH MY NEXT ANSWER."

"Thank you."

A second finger is put out.

"Second question...Nothing weird happened while I was unconscious, right?"

"*GASP* DARLING! THAT IS VULGAR OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE! WHILE I SHALL ADMIT..."

His hands cup my face and hold my shoulders.

"SEEING SUCH A HAPLESS FLOWER LIKE YOURSELF BE BROUGHT HERE. HURT AND UNRESPONSIVE. A LESSER MONSTER WOULD BE TEMPTED TO DO ALL SORTS OF THINGS. FORBIN THINGS. ANYTHING WOULD BE ON THE TABLE. LIMITED ONLY BY IMAGINATION..."

His voice is different. Completely monotone. All too personal. A shiver trembles down my neck. He lets the hands drop from my face but not the shoulders.

"BUT I AM NOT LIKE THOSE WEAKLINGS. I KNOW BETTER THAN TO PLUCK A FLOWER BEFORE IT BLOSSOMS. AND OURS IS ONE THAT IS JUST STARTING TO BUD."

I hate so much right now.

"DARLING?"

"Too much info."

"WELL, YOU DID ASK FOR MORE."

"Then...*sigh*...Never mind."

"AND YOUR THIRD QUESTION?"

My third? Oh! Oh shit!

"Yeah, my third question...Did you or your goon bother to inform Toriel of this impromptu adventure/kidnapping in a way that won't result in property damage/loss of life?"

"WELL..."

Big red flag warning! Fuck being nice! serious time!

"Where's my phone?"

"HUH?"

"I know it's not on me. Do you think I can't tell if there's suddenly no weight in my baggy pockets? Now if you want to escape death at her hands or mine, please...Hand it over."

He throws his hands up.

"DARLING I DON'T..."

*Bang*

He is surprised by the sudden strike.

"Don't make me do that again. Now, please, give me my phone."

"I PROMISE, DARLING, I DON'T HAVE IT."

I want to hit him again, but my throbbing hand is screaming. Change of plans.

"Give me your phone."

"W-WHAT? WHY?"

"Don't make me break my hand in repeating myself."

He rumbles and a phone shoots out of a port on his side.

"YOU ARE SCARY WHEN SERIOUS. HERE."

"Thank you."

I reach for it and he pulls back.

"AH AH AH. FIRST, A LITTLE PROMISE. YOU CAN USE THIS, BUT THEN YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING FOR ME."

I growl in building annoyance.

"WELL? THE CLOCK IS TICKING."

I don't have time for this crap.

"...Fine."

He giggles and hands it to me. I scroll through his past calls. My number appears under some others all marked as SLAVE #...I guess he fits in down here more than I thought. Metal boss from hell. My phone could be with any of the goons so I thank my lucky stars that Toriel's number is burned into my head. Time to brace for impact.

[Snowdin: Skeleton House in present time]

Sans returns home in the kitchen, needing a drink to replenish his magic if he's to teleport any more tonight. He steps into the room to see the other three all trying to listen to the small phone at once. Guessing they are too focused to remember phones have an intercom function.

"Child where are you? Are you hurt?"

"A little sore, but otherwise okay."

Oh...never mind then. They're just being weird.

"As for the where I assume this is the Lab in Hotland. *muffled* There are no other labs in the Underground, right?"

"*faint* THAT'S CORRECT, DARLING."

The electronic voice is recognized by all except Toriel.

"Young one, who is that with you?"

"Would you believe a robotic TV star?"

"*faint* OH, DARLING, YOU FLATTER ME."

"Make that a robotic TV star with an ego bigger than Papyrus's."

"FUCK YOU, HUMAN."

Papyrus interrupts.

"Oh wow. I expected this but had my doubts Nanny would actually do it. Who else is there?"

"You had us worried, pussycat."

There's a pause.

"Don't tell me you thought he took me?"

Toriel laughs nervously.

"*groan* Mom..."

"ENOUGH WITH THE CHIT CHAT. ARE YOU ABLE TO LEAVE ON YOUR OWN OR NOT?"

"Hmmm...As far as I know, I'm able to go. But I have to do something for Mettaton first."

"Why?"

"I had to promise to do a favor to use his phone. Mine might be in the hands of some goon."

"What is it you have to do?"

"That's a good question. *muffled* Yo, what's this thing I have to do?"

"*faint* NOTHING TOO DIFFICULT. I JUST NEED YOU TO BE YOURSELF FOR THE NEXT...OH...LET'S SAY TWO HOURS."

"*muffled* What?"

"*faint* I THINK IT WOULD BE EASIER TO UNDERSTAND IF YOU TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO TURN ON THE TELEVISION."

The mood shifts ominously.

"*muffled* You can't mean what I think you mean."

"*faint* GO ON. TELL THEM."

"Uh...Turn on the TV?"

Sans grabbed the remote before the other could scramble and with a heavy feeling in his soul hits the on the button. The screen comes alive to a timer counting down. The caption above reading "Live Once In a Lifetime Event Special". The timer has less than five minutes remaining. Panic strikes. Papyrus steals the phone.

"GET OUT OF THERE, HUMAN!"

"Okay, ow, my ears are bleeding."

Grillby snatches the phone.

"Lynsie, you need to get out of there. You're being set up to appear on TV."

The next sound the group hears is the phone clattering to the floor and sprinting feet hitting tile flooring. Other sounds can be heard. Mechanical and aggressive sounds. Then...the line goes dead.

"SANS, GO GET..."

"i can't."

"What? Why not?"

"all she said was she's at the lab. do you know how big that place is? i need to know exactly where or i'm just wasting magic."

"But, Sans, you promised me you would..."

"i know tori, i ain't forgetting it. i don't want her exposed to the underground either. trust me on that. but i can't just poof to a secured building. alphys is probably expecting interference. and trust me, it's not a good thing to just pop in with no quick plan to get out."

Suddenly the TV begins beeping. The timer clocking down the remaining ten seconds. And all they could do was watch and wait. At the timer's end, the screen darkens to black before a flashy title screen appears while glam-rock plays. The image then cuts to live footage in a weird game show looking room and then...

"GREETINGS ALL YOU BITCHES AND BASTARDS. WELCOME TO A VERY SPECIAL EVENING OF ENTERTAINMENT. TO START THINGS OFF...A QUIZ SHOW!"

Mettaton flamboyantly parades around.

"BUT WAIT. WHAT MAKES THIS SPECIAL THAT IT WARRANTS LIVE BROADCASTING? WELL, YOU INGRATES, IT'S BECAUSE WE HAVE A GUEST THAT'S GOING TO BE WORTH WATCHING. ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE OUR LEADING LADY...THE ONE THE ONLY..."

The camera jumps to a stand where a spotlight illuminates onto the bound and gagged human. Arms restrained behind her back and ankles cuffed to the floor.

"THE HUMAN!"

Her glare is full of rage and the beastly noises escaping the gag as she trashes in the binds make her look as dangerous as the humans of old.

"THAT'S RIGHT, A REAL LIVING HUMAN. YOU MIGHT BE QUESTIONING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THIS CLAIM. YET I ASSURE YOU, SHE IS THE REAL DEAL."

One of his hands stretches out towards her. She recoils from the grasping appendage but she can't move from the metal hand that proceeds to taser at the chest. The pain makes her screech and her light blue soul briefly emerges. Upon seeing the heart, Mettaton stops the attack.

"AS YOU CAN SEE, HER SOUL IS CLEARLY THAT OF A HUMAN'S. SHE IS 100% HUMAN AND NOT CGI OR SOMEONE IN CUSTOM. FOR NOT EVEN THE GREATEST ACTOR OR SPECIAL EFFECTS CAN MAKE A HUMAN SOUL. AND DEFINITELY NOT ONE SO LOVELY."

The assaulting hand tease touches where the soul came from and the human cringes. Though she's not the only one. Toriel is appalled and Grillby is fuming.

"OH BOY! I CAN ALREADY TELL IT'S GONNA BE A GREAT SHOW! EVERYONE GIVE A BIG HAND FOR OUR WONDERFUL CONTESTANT!"

All four of his hands clap as he moves over to podium across from her.

"I TAKE IT YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED BEFORE, GORGEOUS?"

She huffs loudly through her nose.

"NO PROBLEM! IT'S SIMPLE! THERE'S ONLY ONE RULE. ANSWER CORRECTLY...OR YOU DIE!"

Mettaton laughs evilly yet the human rolls her eyes. The others look to Sans again.

"don't look at me. i have no clue where that room is."

Their attention goes back to the screen as the Fair Fight Field actives as if they were in battle.

[METAL CRUSHER begins to play in the background.]

[Mettaton attacks!]

"YOUR MOVE, DARLING. YOU GET ONE FREE TURN BEFORE WE START."

The girl weighs her limited options.

[FIGHT]

[ACT]

[̴͝SP͜͞E͡L̵͜L͟͠͏]͘͢

[ITEM]

[MERCY]

Her confusion is warranted. An unknown option could lead to bad things.

[ACT selected.]

[New options available.]

[CHECK]

[CRY]

She huffs and makes a choice.

[CHECK selected.]

[Mettaton – HP: 9999 ATK: 300 DEF: 999 – His metal body renders him invulnerable to attack.]

Her eyes nearly bug out of her head.

"NOT A BAD FIRST MOVE, DEAR. IT'S NEVER BAD TO CHECK ME OUT."

A screen mounted behind him blinks on.

"LET'S START WITH AN EASY ONE!"

A question appears on the screen.

[What's the prize for answering correctly?]

A) Money

B) Death

C) Freedom

D) More questions

Four buttons pop up on her stand.

"CHOOSE CORRECTLY OR BE MET WITH TERRIBLE PAIN."

The look she has is one filled with hate. Yet she complies and presses the D button with her chin. A pleasant fanfare goes off.

"RIGHT! SOUNDS LIKE YOU GET IT! HERE'S YOUR TERRIFIC PRIZE!"

Her turn is skipped due and the screen puts up another question.

"What sort of crap is this?"

Grillby interjects.

"Her turn was skipped. How is that even possible?"

Toriel ponders.

"leave it to that quack to figure out a way to break the rules."

Sans says between drinks.

[What's the king's full name?]

A) Lord Deathbeard

B) Killer Killington

C) Asgore Dreemurr

D) Krampus

The human quickly presses the C button and the fanfare goes off again.

"CORRECT! WHAT A TERRIFIC ANSWER! ARE YOU SURE YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE?"

She nods.

"ENOUGH ABOUT YOU. LET'S TALK ABOUT ME!"

She groans as the screen brings up another question.

[What are robots made of?]

A) Hopes&Dreams

B) Metal&Magic

C) Blood&Guts

D) Hate&Spite

She pops her neck and presses the B button. Once more the fanfare plays. This time Mettaton gets some attitude.

"TOO EASY FOR YOU, HUH?"

She shrugs.

"WELL THEN...HERE'S ANOTHER EASY ONE FOR YOU "

[Two trains, Train A, and Train B, simultaneously depart Station A and Station B. Station A, and Station B are 252.5 miles apart from each other. Train A is moving at 124.7mph towards Station B, and Train B is moving at 253.5mph towards Station A. If both trains departed at 10:00 AM and it is now 10:08, how much longer until both trains pass each other?]

A) 31.054 minutes

B) 16.232 minutes

C) 32.049 minutes

D) 32.058 minutes

She's hesitant now. Her eyes hold uncertainty.

"Oh no..."

Toriel mutters.

"We have yet to go over such math lessons."

"THEN SHE BETTER BE A GOOD GUESSER."

The human's eyes dart from button to button. She has no clue. She picks one at random...A. A buzzer goes off.

"WRONG! WRONG! WROOOOOOOONG!"

Mettaton points at her and fires a laser blast into her left shoulder. If it weren't for the gag her cries would be excruciating.

[HP ██████████████████████████ 26/36]

She pants, biting the gag to brace some of the pain.

Toriel is understandably horrified and Grillby is worried. Though Sans and Papyrus are impressed.

"SHE'S GOTTEN TOUGHER."

"the is no pushover. the tin can is gonna learn that the hard way."

"SORRY, DARLING. BUT THE CORRECT ANSWER WAS D. MAYBE YOU'LL HAVE BETTER LUCK WITH THE NEXT QUESTION. THEN AGAIN...DON'T 'COUNT' ON YOUR VICTORY."

The next question pops up.

[How many eyes are in this jar?]

An image appears for a split second.

A) 54

B) 53

C) 55

D) 52

Not given much time to study the image, she once more has to guess.

"What kind of game is this? She is not being given a fair play."

Toriel complains.

"ACTUALLY, AS WRONG AS IT LOOKS, HE IS FOLLOWING THE LAW."

Papyrus corrects.

"You must be joking."

"he's not. one of the laws enforced after you left the king was to stop humans at all costs while giving them some form of a chance. the tin can is giving her multiple choices and only inflicting minimal damage. if he wanted to, he could just off her right there."

Explains Sans.

"As much as I don't like it, it makes sense. With one soul remaining to break the barrier extremes are bound to be made to get it. For what is the life of one human when held next to the entire Underground?"

Grillby comments and Toriel frowns. Even she sees the point in that. But that does mean she likes it.

The human contemplates her choices and seems to do a mental coin flip before pressing the D button. This time, the buzzer sounds.

"COMPLETELY UTTERLY WRONG!"

Mettaton blasts her again in the right shoulder and her roar is bloodcurdling.

[HP ████████████████ 16/36]

The bloody gaping holes in her shoulders make her slump over against the stand. She won't last much longer if this keeps up.

"THE CORRECT ANSWER WAS A. YOU MIGHT WANT TO TRY HARDER FROM HERE ON."

An annoyed groan was her reply.

"HMMM...MAYBE YOU NEED SOMETHING ELSE. LET'S PLAY A MEMORY GAME."

The screen produces a new question and image.

[What monster is this?]

The monster shown is half of a Froggit's face.

A) Froggit

B) Whimsun

C) Moldsmal

D) Mettaton

This one seems like a no-brainer yet the human seems unsure. Mostly because blood loss makes it hard to think.

"WHY IS SHE HESITATING? THE ANSWER IS CLEARLY A."

Papyrus bitches.

"Really? You think it's that easy?"

Grillby retorts.

"THEN WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS?"

"I'm surprised you do see it. It's obviously D."

"BULL CRAP. I BET YOU 10G IT'S A."

"Fine. Just don't be upset when you're wrong."

After thinking long and hard about the question, the human presses the D button. The fanfare plays.

"I'M SO FLATTERED YOU REMEMBERED! LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THE WHOLE IMAGE."

The picture unfolds to reveal Mettaton wearing a shirt with a Froggit's face on it.

Papyrus's jaw clenches as Grillby folds his hands behind his head with a smug attitude.

"You need to listen to pussycat more often. She did say he had an ego bigger than yours."

"FUCK YOU."

"Just pay me by week's end."

Papyrus grumbles while turning back to the TV.

"YOU'VE BEEN ON A ROLL SO FAR. BUT CAN YOU GET THIS ONE?"

The screen brings up a new and rather odd question.

[Would you smooch a ghost?]

A) Heck Yeah

B) Heck Yeah

C) Heck Yeah

D) Heck Yeah

The human and the watching group all share the say "what the fuck" look.

"GO ON. CONSIDER THIS AN ACT OF MERCY."

She sneers and reluctantly presses the B button. With no wrong choice to make, the fanfare plays.

"GREAT ANSWER! I LOVE IT!"

A steaming Grillby hates it.

"HERE'S A SIMPLE ONE."

The screen pops up the next question.

[How many letters in the name Mettaton?]

A) 11

B) 6

C) 8

D) 10

A relatively easy question except for the number of Ns at the name's end increases and eventually goes out of the screen with the numbers in the answers increasing accordingly.

"How in the world do you answer that?"

Toriel puzzles.

"it's c."

Sans says softly to the confusion of the others.

"for a second, the real numbers were there. c had eight, which is the right answer regardless of the increasing."

"Here's hoping she saw that too."

Says Grillby while adjusting his glasses.

The human is beginning to look paler than normal. The strain on her body and mind making things difficult. She wearily presses the C button, mainly due to landing on it after a slight dizzy spell, and the fanfare plays.

"OF COURSE THAT WAS EASY FOR YOU!"

She grunts against the stand, pushing herself to keep going even as her body wants her to stop.

"Come on, pussycat. You can hold out just a bit longer."

Grillby says to himself before flinching at the feel of Toriel's hand holding his. She gives him a motherly smile and it helps calm his nerves for now.

"YOU'LL BE SURE TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS ONE!"

The screen pops up another random question.

[What's a pretzel's favorite color?]

A) Black

B) Yellow

C) Red

D) Dusk

This had to be one of the odder questions to be done though tame. The human wastes no time picking a button. Either to end it faster or knowing it, who's to say. But her head thuds onto the B button and the fanfare plays.

"CORRECT! YOU'RE SO LUCKY TODAY!"

The amount of blood pooling on the floor says otherwise.

"TIME TO BREAK OUT THE BIG GUNS! HERE IS YOUR FINAL QUESTION."

The screen shows the question.

[How bright is this text?]

A) 85% Bright

B) 84% Bright

C) 86% Bright

D) 83% Bright

This made little sense. The question text was the same color as all other questions. How was this even answerable to her when she can hardly even look up at the screen?

The group is just as confused. How do you tell the percentage of brightness to text?

Though after some time of no movement from the human, Mettaton rolls around his podium.

"DARLING? ARE YOU ABLE TO MAKE A CHOICE?"

A tired moan drones out of the gag.

"TELL YOU WHAT, I'LL BE NICE AND HELP YOU OUT."

Mettaton zips over to the slumped over human.

"MY MY. SUCH A MESS YOU'VE MADE BACK HERE. GOOD THING NO MESS IS TOO BIG FOR MTT BRAND INDUSTRIAL CLEANER. IN STORES NOW."

The robot plugs his latest product in the middle of a show...real classy.

"what a jackass."

Scoffs Sans.

The other soundly agree.

"OKAY, DEAR, ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS STARE AT THE BUTTON YOU WANT TO ANSWER FOR AND I SHALL PUSH IT FOR YOU."

She tilts her head and stares.

"IS C YOU'RE FINAL ANSWER?"

She exhales long and loud through her nose.

"I'LL TAKE THAT AS A YES."

He unnecessarily extends his arm in a twisty and bendy way before pushing the C button. However...Buzzer sounds.

"OH BOY, THAT'S EMBARRASSING, HUH?"

This time he blasts through her right leg making her buckle in pain to the crimson soaked floor.

[HP ██████ 06/36]

[Background music briefly pauses in silence]

"WELL WELL WELL. THAT SETTLES THAT, DOESN'T IT?"

To much befuddlement, Mettaton proceeds to remove the restraints and gag from the broken girl.

"*weak* W-What are you doing?"

"SUCH A SILLY QUESTION. IF YOU DIE THE SHOW HAS NO DRAMATIC TENSION! WE CAN'T GO ON LIKE THIS!"

She's in no position to fight this or wants to. He collects her from the ground and seems to gently hold her in two of his arms. So much red coats just about everything. He then addresses one of the many hidden cameras in the room.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU ALL MIGHT BE THINKING. BUT METTATON, WHY AREN'T YOU GOING TO KILL THE HUMAN? YOU CLEARLY HAVE THE CHANCE. TO THAT I SAY, NO. SHE WON THIS GAME. AND THEREFORE, SHE PROCEEDS TO THE NEXT ROUND OF OUR LITTLE GAME. THAT'S RIGHT! THIS WAS JUST THE FIRST ACT! NEXT UP, MORE DRAMA! MORE ROMANCE! MORE BLOODSHED! STAY TUNED, LOSERS...! NOW IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME...THIS LOVELY LADY NEEDS TO HEAL. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER THESE COMMERCIAL MESSAGES."

The broadcast fades into commercials. The four of them are left with more questions than answers. But at least one thing is going in their favor. Mettaton wants to keep her alive. Perhaps in the next show, she'll appear in a location that's more recognizable and rescue can be done before anyone else tries to get her. Though the four of them weren't the only ones watching the show. A small indent in the window and ground below were all the tells of the sneaky flower. His mission now clear. Save his sister.

[Hotland Lad: Medical Room]

Alphys finishes setting up life-support systems by the time Mettaton wheels in with the now very near dead human.

"Put her here."

He need not be told twice.

"Some first act. She's almost dead."

Less of a reprimand and more of a statement by Alphys while she begins plugging the human into the machines.

"I WAS WORRIED NEAR THE END. HAD SHE MISSED ANOTHER QUESTION I MIGHT HAVE NEEDED TO GO OFF SCRIPT. MAIN CHARACTERS CAN'T DIE SO EARLY IN THE SHOW."

"You're just lucky I can fix this."

"WILL SHE NEED LONG TO HEAL?"

Alphys sticks in an IV drip and taps it for bubbles.

"Don't rush this. Your blast, while clean, went through a lot of muscle and bone. Not to mention all the blood that'll need to refill. That kind of stuff will need longer to repair."

"BUT...WE CAN'T JUST LEAVE COMMERCIALS GOING TILL THEN."

The annoyed scientist shoots him a look.

"Then I guess you need some filler till then."

Mettaton cringes.

"FILLER?! SUCH A DIRTY WORD. WHAT WOULD IT EVEN BE?"

"How about you figure that out elsewhere? I need to work. Or do you want this to take longer?"

That had him speeding away as she then shouts.

"And clean up all this blood! This is a lab! Not a butcher shop!"

She was unsure he heard all that but focused on monitoring the human.

"*sigh* You are so lucky I'm bored or you'd be under my knife right now."

The human involuntarily twitches, earning a smirk from the spectacle-wearing lizard.

"Maybe you'll heal sooner than expected."

Oh, how she enjoyed her work.

#undertale #underfell #Anomaly #Lynsie #sans #papyrus #gaster #grillby #grandpa semi #mettaton #napstablook #chara #flowey #frisk #toriel #Asriel #asgore #undyne #alphys

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malereader-inserts · 6 years ago

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The Art of a Psychopath

Fandom: Riverdale Pairing: Core Four & Psycho!Reader Summary: One in a hundred children are psychopaths. Word Count: 2,426 Request: “Could you do a psycho!reader with Riverdale maybe? I love your work btw 💜“ Warning: Gory, Blood, Suicide mentions, Psycho Reader - Honestly I’ve surprised myself when writing this.

Sweet little (Y/n).

He was a fresh breath from all the bullshit that was going on in Riverdale. Sweet innocent summer boy who wouldn’t have thought about the drug raids around Riverdale, wouldn’t have touched G&G, be associated to the farm.

He was almost too good to be true.

Sweet little (Y/n).

Not so little. Not so sweet.

It is no accident that it is the reptile, the snake, that symbolizes evil in our myths. For these creatures do not require love to raise their young as mammals do. As such they do not evolve an ability to feel love, only to survive. Likewise, the psychopath does not feel love, they are an evolutionary throw-back to our reptilian brains, an accident of genetics.

Psychopaths can run charities as shields for the activities they truly enjoy – causing others pain and emotional distress. They take a perverse pleasure in attaining positions of public trust and respect, they are charming and socially intelligent. They don't play by the same rule book as the rest of society and so they win with ease. No morals mean no restraints.

You found it amusing at first, you could play the whole town like a fiddle. Lean back whilst the farm played the bad guys.

It was the talk of the town, how members of the cult were the only ones that clapped at the end of the musical - you weren’t for theatrical works. Students, people you considered to be closed with, were talking about it as well as their parents.

You tapped your fingers against the desk, your eyes staring into Evelyn. When she turns to look at you, you simply smirk and waved. She shivered under your stare as she hastily walks away with Kevin.

She could feel tension with you, some dark presence.

“Isn’t your dad going to do something about it, Jug?” You asked, yawning and running your hair back, “Ominous clapping at a school production, bit weird.”

“I don’t know but we need to stop them before something gets worst.”

And that gave you a push.

So, the next time the farm was the talk of the town it was completely for a different reason.

“There’s a bigger problem than the Gargoyle King,” You hear from Jughead, “The farm was trashed, didn’t you hear?”

“They killed Polly’s babies - used their blood as a warning,” Betty lets out a shaky breath as Jughead holds her close, “The farm is under investigation.”

“What did the message say?” You asked, curious, holding back a wicked smile - you found it glorious.

“Well, dad says it said ‘All Men Should Die,’ dad doesn’t know if they mean the farm or the whole town.”

“That’s sickening, who in the right mind would do something to innocent babes?”

The core four shared a look, talks of curfew was starting, a bigger threat was arising in Riverdale. Still, you were seen as the little innocent boy, some kid who was too curious and yet so oblivious. You were just getting started, you were in the background, no one saw the shift in your eyes.

How those pretty eyes shifted so menacing.

Murders continue to happen around Riverdale. A murder of Lodge’s current butler. Blood smear on the walls, the head of the butler on a pole as the body was sitting upright. Then, an innocent serpent, hanging out dead of a smashed window. In came the hanging of a civilian in Veronica’s speakeasy.

“Five murders all around Riverdale. This is even worse than my dad.” Betty breathes out, reading news from her phone.

“Even, my dad is getting concern - he wants me to shut down the speakeasy,” Veronica huffed.

“Yeah, dad doesn’t want me to hang around after school anymore,” Archie nodded, sitting in the middle of the room.

You sat by the vending machine, the farm had been awfully quiet and Kevin had come back to Betty - begging for forgiveness. Reggie was sat net to Veronica as Josie placed herself on the armchair that Archie was sitting on.

“What if we knew this person?” Josie asked hushed whispered, “Do you think we could be next?”

It was a good question, you thought to yourself, and yes, they could be next.

You sat on the edge of the stage of the speakeasy. Your hands stained with red, your white shirt covered in splatters. You had cuts up your arms, evidence of rope burns on your wrist.

You clenched your jaw, as you stare at the floor. Gazing up as you hear footsteps coming down the stairs from the entryway. You smirked when you settled a gaze at the core four.

“So, you’ve decided to meet me.”

“Why is there blood on your hands?”

Your dead eyes flickered towards Veronica, she jumped to be on the receiving side of the glare as you scoffed.

“Don’t ask stupid questions, V,” You used her nickname against her, your voice was unsettling - low and drained of emotions. “Why do you think there’s blood?”

“There was a murder, found by the police station,” Jughead explained, “tied up and gagged - eyes gouged out and organs carved out.”

“Hmh, when you put it that way, it sounds vile,” you hummed, “Shame, he was a screamer - didn’t last long. The babies kept quieter than that bloke.”

“You killed my-”

“I did you a favour, Betty,” You interrupted, “This town is boring, I need entertainment, who gives a shit about the farm? Gives me an excuse to torment that girl, what’s her name? Eve? Ava? Evan?”

“Evelyn.”

“Wish I could care enough to know the name,” You ignored Betty’s reply, “She’ll kill herself soon, it’s a matter of time. I’ve been egging her on, you know, daddykins is too worked up by the death of the babies that she was evidently no one.”

“Are you insane?” Archie asked you giggled, a shiver ran down their spine as you fixed your stare to him.

“Do you want me to answer that?” You snorted, “So, why have I gather you here today?”

You stood up, tilting your head to each side, a pop of your bones releasing tension. You let out a harsh breath, you watched how Jughead stood in front of Betty, her arms snaking over his shoulders.

“No particular reason, you know? You four seem to be always in everyone's business, so why don’t I just speed things up for you?” You continue to talk, “Have you checked in with the parents?”

“If you touch my dad-”

“Jughead,” You sighed, feign offence, “Your dad? You think so low of me, why not JB?”

“If you lay a hand on her, I will-”

“Do what? Your little pocket knife won’t kill me, I’m far more experienced in this area than all four of you,” You blinked slowly, “Rat me out, more people will get hurt, try to kill me then there will be no point in running. Running won’t matter. I’ll hunt you down if I have to. You see, what doesn’t kill me might make me kill you.”

“Why?” Archie asked he could feel his heart beating so loudly.

You send him a wicked smile, “Because I want you to suffer, suffer in silence - you can’t say anything because you’re afraid. I want you,” You step forward, “to be nervous when you see me, I want you,” Another step, “to be so afraid that you’re constantly looking over your shoulder.”

“You’ll fall.”

“And when I do, I'm bringing this wretched town with me.”

Such a pretty face with a dark soul.

The town had been on edge lately, no murders lately and the core four had been sick to their stomachs. Watching you fake your smiles, fake your laughter. The more they look the more they noticed how fake you have been, your body language was convincing - open arms, soft eyes and relaxed shoulders.

“Don’t you find me charming, Betty, dear?” You asked, leaning against the table with a smile, she stops typing on her laptop.

“Of course,” She mumbles as you rose your eyebrow, she cleared her throat and spoke louder, “Of course.”

The edges of your lips quirked upwards. She cringed how you thought yourself to be so important, you had a big ego.

“I’m doing you a favour, Bets, didn’t you hear? Farmgirl tried to kill herself last night.” You grabbed a nearby chair and firmly put it next to her, sitting down, “Aren’t you happy?”

“You told her to do it-”

“Yeah, well, not exactly. You just string up a few words and it’s her pretty little mind that does it for her.” You shrugged, ignoring how Betty’s hand shook as you turned her laptop, “Writing about me again? I liked the last entry of me, you make me sound very evil, very convincing. Even I was afraid of myself.”

“Do you not care?” She asked, watching how you flicker your eyes to her before lingering for a moment and sat straighter.

“Care? Why would I care? A girl just tried to commit suicide with no strings attached to me.”

“But, it’s all your doing.”

You laughed, “Me? Possibly, but who is the one who’s been actively trying to take down the Farm? Not me, that’s all you.”

Betty’s eyes widen, your words were strung up so perfectly. Perhaps it was her fault, but the moment she zoned back in and saw you grin like a madman, she had realised that you were teasing her - how easy you could manipulate someone to think in a way to your desire, what you had exactly done to Evelyn.

“Now, I’m tired of you,” You whine, abruptly stood up, “My senses are dancing for another cold-hearted murder.”

“My hands slipped.”

You sat on the bleachers, a knife in hand as you stare at the bodies that lay dead on the gym floor. After school hours as the core four found you sitting there. Once again, finding you smeared in blood. Founding that your arms were heavily coated, splatters of blood were on your face. They watch you swallow before your eyes flickered up at them.

You usually made the murder as messy as possible but very coordinated, most of the time people like you like to keep things clean. But, you found that tiresome, you wanted to mock the dead’s family, how the victims had no dignity when you murdered them. But, the five bodies in front of you were just laziness, you admit, you could do better.

“I told you not to rat me out,” You drawled out, lack of remorse in your voice sent shivers down their spine.

The four had noticed how there were people behind you, their wrist tied behind their back and their legs tied tightly to the metal seating that sat. A hood to cover them, you took no notice of them, they weren’t struggling - they’re good, they’re doing exactly what you asked them to.

“So, as I promised, I hurt more people,” You shrugged your shoulders, playing with the blade in your hand, far much bigger and sharper than the one that Jughead owned, “I’m waiting if you’re wondering.”

“For want, you sick bastard?” Veronica sneered as you grinned wildly, your wrist flicked back as you opened your arms and you tiled your head.

“I appreciate the compliment, V, perhaps you could compliment your way out of death.” You chuckled, as you clean the knife with your shirt, “I’m waiting for the rest of the gang to join us, we’re playing a game. Hangman or my shared responsibility game of murder!”

“What?”

The core four share a look, as your eyes widen and shook your head in a way to ask them what they don’t understand.

“I have four, unwilling, participants, behind me. I’m still playing with the thought If I should hang them now and every guess wrong I cut of their limbs or I should set a time, say thirty seconds - if you guess the word in that time frame, they live, if not. A choice from their parent to cut a limb and another thirty seconds is added on, we continue till you save them or as a group project we murder them.”

The gym doors burst open as the core four parents came rushing to their side. You waved with the knife holding hand. The rest of the parents standing behind the four and their parents. You chuckled darkly, low and rough as you watched the reactions of them.

“Let’s see what’s left in you for me to break,” You challenged, your eyes darken as you immorally grinned, “Shall we see whose life is on the line today?”

“You’re not going to get away with this (Y/n),” Hiram announced as you licked your lips, “You’ll be sentenced to death with all these murders-”

“I’ve murdered ten people within this two-month period,” You spoke, stepping up the bleachers to reach your victims, “Would you believe me that I was the one behind Jason’s murder? How I was the one to convince his dad to shoot him? I was the one to push Clifford Blossom to murder his son?”

“Jason was innocent!” Penelope screeched, you roll your eyes.

“I strung up Clifford Blossom, like a suicide, easy-” You lengthened out, “And I got away with it.”

“You heartless-” Tom boldly spoke, as you raised an eyebrow - tutting him and you shook your head

“Heartless? That implies I had a heart to begin with, ain’t that right Kev?” You unsheathed him from his hood, a gag around his mouth to stop him from talking.

Tom’s eyes widen, his heart tightening to see his child trembling. You patted him on the shoulder, Kevin flinched in your touch, the shiny blade glistening too close for liking. You marched with pride down the bleacher. Freeing Reggie, Josie and Cheryl from their hoods.

“Not so bold when it’s your kids on the line?” You teased, you poked. You held your blade up, admiring it, “Shall we start the game? Your choice, Archie, because if someone dies - it’s your fault we played that game.”

You raised an eyebrow, grinning wildly, you were excited. Watching everyone shift uncomfortably under your power.

“If you don’t pick, you’re ruining my fun and decreasing their chances of survival.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because innocence died screaming and I want to ruin you, break you, I want to demolish any good of your heart. I want too, that living is just as hard with the guilt on your shoulders.”

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princessamericachavez · 6 years ago

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sunlight | fjorester

Fjord goes to Jester after his last nightmare.

They have been staying in this new house for three days only but some things are beginning to feel like routine: Beau uses the training room before anyone else is awake and then greets them for breakfast, Caleb stays up in the library until ungodly hours, the house fills with the smell of tea every afternoon and the room to Jester’s room is always wide open. Fjord thinks it makes sense since she picked a spot high in a tower where no one usually passes by anyway, but there is something else about the gesture that seems oddly fitting to him. Still, he always tries to knock when he comes by to summon her for dinner or a group meeting, trying to respect her privacy.

Not today, though. Today, his knuckles stop inches shy from the door frame and he freezes there, looking at her. It’s not like he’s purposely spying on her, and it definitely has nothing to do with how pretty she looks with paint smudged on her face and the soft morning sun that comes in through her big windows framing her figure (today is one of the odd days that the Kyrnn allow light to reach the city, later they will go join their celebration of the Luxon to learn more about it), or because she just looks pretty like this. It’s not that at all, really. He just- He just doesn’t want to interrupt.

She’s clearly busy, buzzing around from one wall to another, adding images to her new spaces, making it her own as she does with every room she steps into. She’s talking, too, chatting cheerfully with her god despite no one else being in the room. He’s only caught her talking to the Traveler a couple times before, this feels different. Fjord can’t quite put into words what it is about the whole scene that strikes a chord in him —that feels so different like he’s witnessing something no one else has had the privilege of seeing before. So he just leans against the doorframe and lets his eyes follow her around, as a fond smile tugs at his lips.

“Yes, yes, this will look so great, you’re gonna love it!” Jester says as she jumps over the bed to reach the opposite wall of the room. “I mean, I know we are probably not going to stay here, like, forever, you know? Because we have so many other things to do, but it’s kinda cool that we have a house again, don’t you think? And you can come to visit me more often and it will be just like old times. Well, almost, but better because we have more friends now. And also- oh, hi, Fjord!”

A smile shines across Jester’s face when her eyes land on him. He wonders if he should tell her about the strike of yellow across her cheek, but it looks nice on her so he decides against it.

“Have you been watching me paint?” She asks, tilting her head, and he could almost swear she sounds excited by the idea of him staring at her.

“No. I-I mean, yeah, but I just didn’t wanna interrupt,” he fumbles a little. “It was just for a couple minutes, really, not like I was trying to creep or anything, just-”

“It’s okay if you were,” she cuts him off, and he thinks she sounds breathless. Her eyes meet his for a longer moment than usual before a playful smirk takes over her features. “Though that wall was still fresh so you probably got your armor dirty.”

“What?” Fjord straightens and sees a pink smudge where his shoulder pad was touching the wall. “Oh, fuck.”

“You look like Caduceus, now,” Jester giggles.

Fjord rolls his eyes but can’t help but laugh with her.

“Did you want to see me?”

“Uh, yes, actually,” Fjord’s expression sobers up entirely as he remembers the reason for his coming here in the first place. “I was hoping we could have a word, in private.”

“Oh?” Jester, still smiling, wiggles her eyebrows at him. “You wanted to have a talk with me in my room all alone?”

He can feel his face burn at the implied suggestion in her tone. “Y-yeah, I guess. Or anywhere else really. I just- it’s something important.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jester skips towards him, pulls him in with that unbelievable strength of hers, and closes the door shut. For a second, Fjord panics wondering if she might’ve gotten the wrong idea about his visit, but she only guides him towards a small table by the window and makes him sit down. “So, is this a secret?”

“Yeah, it is,” he nods, gathering courage. “I- I had another nightmare, the other day.”

“You had a new wet dream?!”

Fjord closes his eyes and lets out a heavy sigh. There we go again with the jokes. He should really be used to it by now with her. When he opens his eyes again, though, Jester’s face is scrunched up into a frown. When she speaks, her voice is unusually quiet.

“Did he- did he kill you again in your dream?”

Fjord nods. “Drowned me,” he deadpans and keeps the more gory details for himself because Jester doesn’t need to worry about that more than necessary.

“Maybe we can talk with Mister Clay about giving you some special sleeping tea,” she says quickly. “Or maybe Caleb or Nott have a spell against bad dreams? Or we could try to make like, something that keeps him out of your head? Maybe like a lead hat, like the box where we were keeping the Luxon thingy?”

He shakes his head through all of her ideas but lets her go on until she runs out of them.

“Thanks, Jester, but it’s not the dreams I’m worried about. It’s what happened after.”

“What... what happened after?” Jester leans over the table slightly, face twist with so much worry that he almost bails. Almost. But this is Jester, and not once has she judged him or made him feel like the sad little lost boy that he still feels like some days. She watches him intently and any lies his silver tongue might have woven melt away on the spot.

“I woke up and my sword was out on the floor. I couldn’t poof it back in or out like usual, and I- I didn’t have my powers. Nothing. Nada.”

He can see horror spread through her face.

“Oh, no, Fjord! Did you lose your magic?!”

“For a while, but it’s back now, I think,” he says, and invokes some eldritch energy to his hand to reassure her. To reassure himself. “But I don’t know how long it’ll last. If I don’t do what he wants, I think Uk’otoa can just take it all away, leave me with nothing.”

“So... do you want to open the third temple?” Jester asks.

Fjord is taken aback by her suggestion. He hasn’t even considered the possibility, knows all too well what is at risk and even in his worst moments of panic he wouldn’t trade the world’s safety for his hearts deepest desires. What shocks him is the way that she asks, honestly, and that he can read clear as day in her eyes that she would do it, she would come with him and doom the world if he asked. The realization almost terrifies him, but he can’t tell if it’s the possibility of them ending the world or the unmeasurable size of her loyalty.

“No, Jester,” he rolls his eyes as if she’d said something ridiculous. “I’m not going to end the world to save my powers.”

Her shoulders relax.

“That’s good... but what are we going to do, then, Fjord? I mean, technically, I guess, if you run out of magic you could learn how to fight. Like, Beau and Yasha don’t really have magic, you know? And Nott, does, a little, but she also uses a lot of her bows and stuff. Or maybe you could learn new magic! Like Caleb’s! Or maybe you can find a different god or-”

“Jester,” this time he cuts her off, voice heavy and resigned to reality, “I can’t do that to y’all. Without my powers I’m- I’m just a sailor. That’s it. I would be a liability, put y’all at risk. I’d just get in the way.”

“Fjord!” Jester drags his name and he pauses when he recognizes a dash of indignation in her tone. Her hand reaches out and grabs his over the table, blue paint-covered fingers squeezing his with reassurance. He looks down at their intertwined hands, and back at her. Her violet eyes are firm and her expression gentle. “You are our friend! We are not going to just leave you somewhere because you have a little problem with your god. And we don’t hang out together just because we can kick ass, even though that’s pretty darn cool, really. We are a family, right? We are the Mighty Nein! And you are one of us, powers or not.”

Fjord can feel hot tears knotting in his throat, choking out his voice. He can feel the fear that has been eating at his heart for the past three days twist inside him. He’s not worthy of her trust, of these friends, of this place. Anything he has he owes to the powers of a capricious god that could take it all away in a blink. As his mask falls apart and his face decomposes, he ducks his head to hide the emotions burning through him.

All he sees now is Jester’s hand covering his. He turns inside her grasp to hold on to her too and she responds with a squeeze.

“We’ll figure it out,” she says. “I promise, okay?”

He nods, still not looking up.

“I’ll ask the Traveler about it, too. He’s a god, right? So he probably knows a lot about this kind of stuff, probably, or maybe he could help you somehow.”

“I’d appreciate that,” he admits. He’s still unsure about her deity, but at this point, nothing could be worse than the tightrope he’s walking with his own.

It’s the second time she asks her god to intercede for him, too. Something about it, about her going to her own god for his sake, warms him... and having seen the miracles she can perform with the Traveler’s help, he’s not about to reject any kind of help.

“Jester,” he says, unsure of how long he’s been silent, “would you mind not-”

“Not telling the others?” She says at the same time.

Fjord finally looks up and finds her looking at him intensely, one eyebrow arched. He nods.

“Sure, Fjord... though I’m sure they would want to help too.”

“I don’t want to worry them for now. Not until I know more about this, at least.”

“Okay,” Jester whispers with a smile tainted by sadness.

“Thank you, Jester.”

“Of course, Fjord. Thank you for telling me.”

“I’ll- I’ll let you get back to your painting. Your room is looking great, by the way. It’s very nice.”

“Thanks!” She cheers up. “I could also paint your room later, if you want! I could add a lot of seamen and swords and balls to it!”

He barks a laugh, standing up. She’s messing with him, he knows it, and appreciates it —if anything because it breaks the tension that’s been building inside him through this whole conversation.

“Tell you what, I’ll think about it and I might take you up on your offer,” he chuckles. He’s mostly kidding, but part of him thinks it might be harder to wake up terrified of his god if Jester’s mark is all around his bedroom when he does.

He waves a quick goodbye and makes his way out of the room. As he opens the door, Jester calls for him one more time.

“Fjord!”

He turns around to look at her. She’s standing in the middle of the room as if she’d been about to follow him out and stopped midway through.

“Everything will be alright,” she says, “I promise.”

She gives him a reassuring smile. Fjord takes it all in, the sunflower-yellow smudge across her left cheek, the confidence in her voice, the brightness of the room bathing her with sunlight, and he believes her. The horror clawing at his heart disappears like the shadows of the Xhorhasian eternal night did this morning under the power of the sun. It feels like he’s filled with clear blue skies and hope again. He trusts Jester Lavorre more than anyone in this world, after all. If she says things will turn out okay, he believes her wholeheartedly.

#fjorester #critical role #fjord #jester lavorre #sofia's nonsense #cr spoilers

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taesbetch · 6 years ago

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02 | Blood//Water

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Gory, Smut (eventually) Mafia!AU

Summary: Taehyungs life has become consumed with the gang lifestyle. But when he becomes a bit too greedy he endangers the only person he's ever truly cared about. Fighting fire with fire is never a good idea, but Taehyung is lit match in a room full of gasoline, will everyone make it out unburnt?

Word Count: 2.5k

Previous | Next

Normally waking up in the morning wouldn’t usually include a panic attack due to the unfamiliar surroundings and the foggy memories of the night before. But there you were, clutching your chest as it tightened in fear, throwing your breathing into a haze.

Gasping for air you tried to silence yourself as not to draw attention to your room but the sobbing and inevitable noise that came with your bodies need for air was too much for you to hold back.

Your eyes stung as they adjusted to the light breaking through your curtains; controlling your breathing you allowed your body to shake in confusion, your suddenly exposed skin covered in Goosebumps. Missing the warmth your bed had provided you dove back under the covers still weeping uncontrollably You let the remaining tears fall onto your blanket as you wrapped it around your body.

Finally normalising your breathing pattern, you let the silence of the room you were in relax you and let your mind drift to anything other than focusing on what your future held. Your body felt sticky and gross, probably due to the amount of sweating you had been doing both during the extreme events and through the night.

Looking towards the bathroom you thought it wouldn’t hurt to wash yourself. You had been blessed with amenities, so you might as well take advantage of them. Turning on the shower you thought about why you were being treated so nicely, why you were being protected.

Taehyung wouldn’t confirm anything, but all of this must mean the two of you would’ve met.

Trying to rake your mind for answers you let the hot water hit your skin as you thought hard through your memories trying to find him hidden in one of them. Flashes of your childhood ran through your mind, pressing their painful edges to the front of your mind.

“Take her with you! I don’t want her! You’ve successfully fucked up our child so she’s your problem now!” you saw the outline of your mother as she shoved you towards who you knew to be your father-

Shaking your body out of replay mode you breathed out with a heavy grunt as you let the water hit your face, cleansing yourself of the painful past you had tried so hard to move past. Thinking back to the day your mother left you with your alcohol addicted father you never fully understood why.

Your childhood was filled with gaps in your memory, things that your mother and father would fight about that just didn’t make sense to you. not only did the love to argue over who made you worse, they constantly fought over who would have the burden of taking care of you – successfully making you feel like shit.

Getting out of the shower, you looked at the clothes you were given. All the clothes were either black, grey or white – their shape long or baggy to hide whatever they were placed over. You rolled your eyes before grabbing one of the many sweatpants and jumpers.

Timing seemed to be on your side, just as you readjusted the heavy material you heard locks moving and keys jingling. As the door opened you were greeted with a cheery smile from hoseok, his calm demeanour making you gravitate towards him, almost like a safe place in this unfamiliar mess.

“Come with me, I got permission to take you to the rooftop, you’ll feel better up there” Hoesok smiled as he held your door open, signalling with his hand to follow him. You walked towards him with your eyes wide. You could leave your room???

Of course, leaving your room with an escort was not freedom but if you were to pick someone out of the people you had met last night, it would be hoseok.

The walk up to the rooftop was silent as you took in your surroundings the halls ways consisted of the same colours in your wardrobe. Black, grey and white. You heard the chatter of others every now and then, but you saw no faces to match their voices.

As you reached the door you realised how much taehyung must trust taehyung and how capable the man must be. He was the only one guarding you and the only one watching you.

“You probably have a lot of questions – I know it must suck so now that it's just you and me. Ask away and I’ll let you know what I can” He stated. Your lips parted in awe as the two of you walked onto the roof, the view of the lake below knocking the breath out of you.

As you sat yourselves down on a bench nearby you sighed as for the first time in a hot minute you felt relaxed.

“well, what did he do? Why does he have to protect me?” you asked as you watched the lake glisten underneath the suns gaze. Hoesok was right about the roof making you feel better. The breeze was soft and cool, and the day was bright and warm. It was almost impossible to have a bad mood on a day like this with a view like this.

“we were supposed to be working in collaboration with the block boy’s gang but taehyung scammed them to get what he wanted. Told them he’d give them fifty to off someone for him and only gave them twenty not to mention the gang that we were working together to take down is not one you wanna mess with. Taehyung purposely withheld certain information from the block boys to get them to agree with his plan. In the end, they lost both their scout and chameleon. ”

“fifty dollars seems a bit cheap for murder” You muttered as that was the only piece of information your brain had take from what he said.

“no, I mean fifty thousand” He laughed as he threw his head back.

“sorry what?!” you chocked, your breath catching in your throat.

“what you think you can just pay people fifty dollars to take a life?” he asked, his eyebrow raised as you looked at him like a deer in headlights.

“well…yea some of them” you said as you shrugged your shoulders.

“anyway, what did you mean by scouter and chameleon?” you asked as you turned yourself towards him, trying to get comfortable on the steel bench.

“well those are just nicknames for whatever part we play” he explained.

“So, each person has a position in the gang?”

“yep, there’s the scout, the sniper, the shadow and or chameleon, the hitman, the planner, the hacker and the leader. It’s pretty much just as it sounds. I could go into more detail but taehyung doesn’t want me telling you too much” Hoseok smiled as you closed your eyes in frustration.

“which one are you?” you asked as you analysed him, trying to figure it out.

“which one do you think I am?” he said with a cheeky grin. His eyes were sparkling and kind, his face always seems familiar and the way he held himself was that of everybody else.

“to be honest, you don’t really look like you’d be in a gang” You stated looking at the man who you assume was just a regular guy. That’s when it hit you. chameleons are known for blending in…

“ohhhhhh, you’re the chameleon!” You exclaimed excitedly.

You smiled happily before remembering you had restrictions on what else he could tell you.

“So what else am I permitted to know” Your voice laced with sass and annoyance. Hoseok smiled before thinking for a second.

“ask and I’ll answer or deny” He added as he folded his arms over his chest.

“mmm, how did taehyung get into all this gang shit?” You asked hoping the answer would somehow help you understand how you were involved in all of this.

“Sorry, denied” he sighed.

Grunting you bite your lip trying to think of another question.

“How did you get into all of this gang shit?” You asked, the guy seemed to nice and to normal to be into this stuff.

“I needed to pay off my sister's hospital bills. Taehyung was nice enough to take in an untrained useless piece of crap and turn him into who I am today. I owe a lot to him” He said as his eyes travelled to the view in front of you.

“How's your sister doing now?” you asked hesitantly, sensing what the answer was.

“She unfortunate didn’t make it but its okay, she’s better off now,” He said before taking a deep breath of fresh air.

“I hate to do this to you, but I've gotta take you back now,” he said giving you a sympathetic look.

“thanks for talking to me, don’t tell the others but, you're my favourite” you joked while sending him a wink. He laughed before the two of you stood up.

Making your way back to your room the two of you were silent again, your ears were listening out for any discussions going on, one that would maybe tell you something about the man who was ‘protecting’ you.

“Taehyung!” Hoseok greeted as the two of you approached your room.

“I guess I'll be leaving you here” Hoseok said giving you a supportive smile before walking away. You looked at taehyung as he unlocked your door. staring you down as you started walking inside his hands reached out to grab your arm, his grip soft.

“wait-“before he could continue what he was saying a voice you knew all to well yelled out to you. The blonde-haired man you were best friends with appeared out of nowhere, the man who broke the heart of your other best friend was now standing in front of you, grinning from ear to ear.

Your heart stopped; for a split-second, happiness ran through your body. Your friend who had gone missing was alive and well…but why was he here? When the realisation hit you – anger and hurt consumed you.

“Mark what the fuck!” You shouted in shock, the feeling of betrayal setting in quicker than that of happiness. His smile dropped as he realised his current dilemma.

“You haven’t told her that Sana and I were sent by you?” he asked in confusion – taehyung face tightening at the sudden revelation. He looked at you sadly before his mouth opened, no sound came out as he tried to explain himself.

You marched into your room, running a hand through your hair as taehyung dismissed mark.

“So your telling me that you’ve infiltrated every aspect of my life?! What the fuck? Why!” You yelled as taehyung closed the door behind him, clearly already tired of this conversation.

“For your protection”

“FROM WHAT! THE BLOCK BOYS! Have you thought that maybe I would have been safer without your interference! That maybe if you would’ve just stayed the hell away from me I would have had a happier and safer life. God! What is wrong with you! My whole life is basically a lie, all because you have some obsession with me, for reasons I don’t know and that you won't let me know because ‘you can’t explain it right now!” You yelled at him, your fists clenched so tightly that your nails draw blood from your skin.

“calm down” he ordered, his eyes narrow and dark. Though he didn’t seem shocked at your sudden outburst he defiantly wasn’t pleased with it.

“no! I’m not gonna calm down! I don’t know you! I have gone through every memory possible and I have no freaking clue who you are!” You shouted, your face red with fury and your heart heavy with the knowledge that your life had been filled with subtle lies.

“every memory possible?” he asked his voice deep and taunting.

“Yes!” you exclaimed, not letting his intimidating voice scare you into submission.

“Even the ones you can’t remember? The ones locked away in the blank spots in your mind?” He asked, his voice harsher than before. You could see some form of hurt in his eyes but it was for reasons you didn’t understand. You stood there in shock, no one knew out your blank spots – but here he was, calling you out on them.

“How do you know about that…” you said quietly, your eyes tearing up from confusion and pain. Wer4e the people you called your friends ever your friends? Why was this boy from parts of your life you can’t remember so determined to keep you in his life? What were you missing?

“You don’t know me because I’m the part of your life you can’t remember. And trust me. It's better that you don’t” He growled. His voice booming with authority. Although he wanted to leave the conversation there, you were keen to keep it going.

As you inhaled, ready to shout about how unfair it is for him to keep the information he knows about you hidden a loud banging on the door interrupted you.

“Boss!” A voice that you identified as Jungkooks shouted.

“WHAT!”

“we just got news that the block boys are planning an attack” He answered. His tone unbothered by taehyungs

“on the mansion? That’s ridiculous” Taehyung shot back, his ear getting closer to the door.

“apparently they’ve got help” you heard before the sounds of feet running got further away from the door.

Taehyung shot you a look before grunting and angrily exiting your room. As the door slammed shut You sat on your bed with a huff, still too emotionally riled up by the argument to fully comprehend what jungkook had said. Taehyungs rival was planning an attack. They were coming for revenge. Which means they were coming for you.

AN: Its short but it felt weird to have the other part i wrote in with this chapter - like...well i can’t spoil anything but the next chapter will be longer and more...mmmm action packed.

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kinosternon · 7 years ago

Text

Here’s my @natsume-ss gift for @swankitty!

(Ugh, I’m sorry this is so late and also such a mess. And I hope it isn’t too gory or two angsty, because honestly I did try, but I apologize if it is)

Word count: 5,506 TanuNatsu, hanahaki AU with a happy ending, confession, hurt/comfort Summary: Tanuma takes on a curse that exploits people’s secrets in Natsume’s place, because he has much less to hide...but he may have been overlooking something in that assessment.

It starts as a curse spreading from spirit to spirit, from an ancient, bitter, withered old tree that has finally fallen, releasing a curse that is difficult to contain, and even more difficult to purge.

Natsume first hears about it from Tanuma himself, who heard it from Matoba, who goes to Tanuma's father, of all people, to ask him to purify the area. Tanuma's grateful that he cautioned his father to wait until he could ask Natsume about it, after seeing the look on Natsume's face when he explained who, exactly, came to visit.

Tanuma insists on coming along, despite Natsume's protests.

"We'll be careful," he promises, instead of arguing about how he'd feel if he put Natsume in harm's way and left him to face it alone. It's easier that way.

The spirits all cleared out of the area long since, when Natsume and Tanuma and Ponta go to investigate. They find the tree, ultimately, at the base of a mountain, well off the beaten path, a ring of dead grass all around it.

"I don't sense much of anything," Tanuma says, eyeing the tree. "It seems pretty creepy, though."

"Me neither," Natsume admits. "But...there's definitely something strange about it."

"No, it smells like trouble." Ponta waddles between them and the tree, hackles raised.

"The tree?" Natsume asks, skeptical.

"There's something inside, fool," he says. "It's strong enough to try hiding its aura, but it's there."

Suddenly, Natsume jumps as if stung and turns behind them, looking at something over his shoulder. Even Ponta twitches, his stance shifting so he can keep the tree and the spot Natsume's staring at in his sight at the same time.

"Why?" Natsume asks the trees, and Tanuma settles himself to wait for someone to explain to him what's going on.

"It's a curse left over from a spirit that's long gone," Natsume says, finally, after a conversation that's left him pale, shaken. "It's been attacking the spirits in the area. All of them have left, or are hiding."

"They're the smart ones," Ponta says, nose in the air, still glancing occasionally over his shoulder. "Don't underestimate that thing just because it looks like a plant. It's pretty powerful. Just being around it is making my nose itch."

"What does it do?" Tanuma asks, when the clearing falls into an uneasy silence after that. "The curse."

"It latches onto people's secrets," Ponta says grimly, "and eats away at them from the inside out."

"Oh."

Tanuma wants to say something more, wants to have something to add, but he can't think of anything. The two of them are the experts here, not him.

Still, he can't help but notice that suddenly, Natsume looks afraid, and that, more than anything else, puts him on his guard.

It keeps him two steps behind Natsume, and when his eyes widen and he's able to make out a shadowy presence from a hollow in the tree, it has him stepping forward.

Natsume suddenly jumps back and screams and starts clawing at his chest, and Ponta disappears just before the clearing is shook by a huge gust of wind and the old withered tree simply evaporates in a bright burst of light.

Tanuma's on the ground beside Natsume in a second. He's not unconscious, but his hands are pressing against his chest and his eyes are so, so wide.

He starts having a conversation with someone right beside his head, and then with Ponta, judging by the angry huffs ruffling Tanuma's hair. But as he's only privy to half of the conversation, Tanuma can only wait and watch, and gather what he can from Natsume's side of the conversation.

The curse that they'd found—that the Matoba's were too frightened to face themselves, that they'd tried to send Tanuma's father to encounter—is the last remnant of a youkai grown bitter in its final moments, a parasite that has so far proven impossible to destroy.

Natsume looks so afraid, talking to Ponta and whatever spirits are watching them. And Tanuma, though he can only follow part of the conversation, thinks he knows why.

Natsume isn't a liar, Tanuma knows. He's just been trapped by a world that refused to accept his view of the world, his suffering, the dangers he faces, so he learned to hide it all. Even a handful of good years with people who care about him aren't enough to erase the fear of rejection that his childhood forced into him.

Because of that, it's hard to imagine a spirit more dangerous to him than one that finds and exploits what you don't want to say.

"Natsume," he says finally, when the conversation seems to have stopped. "I'm not following everything they said, but is it possible to transfer the curse? It only just started, so there has to be a way, right?"

Natsume looks more frightened than ever. "Tanuma, no. Even if there is..."

"You don't have to do this on your own," Tanuma says, right over him, because this is no time to let him sacrifice himself. "You have to keep your secrets. You live with the Fujiwaras, and you're always seeing things nobody else can. There's no way this thing won't be incredibly dangerous for you. Right?"

Natsume looks like he wants to argue, and then stops, biting his lip. There's sweat at his temples, and he's looking a little bit like he regrets everything he's ever done.

(Tanuma wonders if the curse has started already, and the thought only redoubles his resolve.)

He turns to the side, his best guess at the spirit Natsume was talking to before, then glances over at Ponta, who's transformed back and is looking at him with that eerie, knowing gaze he gets. "Is there a way to transfer the curse?" he asks them.

There's silence, and then Natsume says, voice grim, "She thinks there is. She isn't sure."

"What do we need to do?"

Natsume shakes his head. "It's pointless. Who would I even pass it to?"

"Well, it's a truth curse, right? Ideally, someone like Nishimura," Tanuma says, smiling humorlessly. "I don't think he could keep a secret even if he wanted to, which he usually doesn't."

Natsume glares at him. "I couldn't possibly—"

"You can't do that to someone who doesn't know," Tanuma says. "I know. It'd be wrong, and if you could explain it to them first, you wouldn't have this problem in the first place."

Natsume's hands are shaking at his sides, but he's still smiling, trying to be brave.

"So it's me or Taki, then," Tanuma continues, and Natsume's smile crumbles. "I'm the better choice. Taki doesn't talk about these kinds of things with her parents, either."

Natsume looks ready to shut down the conversation altogether, so Tanuma presses on. "I don't have to lie to the people in my life," he says, voice and face hard, direct. He's trying not to be unkind, but he isn't sure it's working. "I'm very, very lucky in that. I'm the safest person to bear the curse, until we can find a way to deal with it. Maybe it won't even take at all."

Natsume shakes his head. "I can't..."

"You can't take this curse, Natsume," Tanuma says. "It would really, really hurt you."

"But—"

"You aren't listening to me," Tanuma says. "You can't say things even when you should, even when you seem to want to. I know that you keep secrets for good reasons. Do you really want to choose between frightening your friends and family by telling the truth, and worrying them when the curse takes effect?"

Natsume falls silent, then, but in his eyes Tanuma thinks he can see indecision.

"Taki survived a worse curse than this one," Tanuma says. "Let me take this much on."

"All right," Natsume says. "But if it causes any problems, we're putting it back. And we'll find a cure, somehow."

"Sure," Tanuma says, smile tight. "Think of it as a way to buy time."

The process for transferring the curse doesn't take very long at all. Half of it is invisible to Tanuma's eyes, but he can see the ritual circles easily enough, and he knows the moment the ritual is finished because something catches, ever so briefly, in his throat. He coughs, and falls to his knees.

"It's all right," he says a second later, as Natsume half-falls beside him and starts looking him over. His face is twisted in concern and guilt, and instinctively, Tanuma reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

"Are you sure?" Natsume asks. He searches Tanuma's face so, so carefully, looking for concealed pain or fear.

For a second, Tanuma feels lighter than air, and can't keep a faint smile from moving across his face. Natsume is so close and so open, where normally he's guarded, his kindness couching itself in a thoughtful distance.

"Yes," he says, the words floating out of him, effortless. "I'm okay. It doesn't even hurt."

"Okay," Natsume says. "Then we should get home. I need to call Natori, and probably Taki..."

They talk about the curse on the way home, but Tanuma can't help but feel that Natsume's worried over nothing. He's blessed with family and friends he doesn't need to hide from, not any part of himself; what would the spirit even have to work with?

It isn't until that evening, thinking over the events of the day and how it'd felt to be fussed over, that he feels the faint sensation, like a pinprick, in his chest, just under his ribs. He dismisses it as a phantom sensation and turns over, going to sleep.

Natsume talks to Natori that weekend, and gives Tanuma a charm to wear. He hangs it on a cord and wears it under his shirt, below his heart. He trusts Natsume enough to forget the matter there, though the occasional worried glance Natsume throws his way tells him that he might be the only one that's comfortable forgetting.

A few weeks later, as winter drags its bitter way along into the first hints of spring, it takes weeks of a cold getting progressively worse for Tanuma to even begin to wonder whether spirits are involved. Natsume's suspicions come first, of course, and he ends up soothing them before his own even really start.

For a little while, it seemed that every time Tanuma so much as came down with a cold, Natsume would give him that certain wide-eyed, wary look, like he was trying to figure out if something was going after him. After a while, he'd started to grow accustomed to the way Tanuma was out of class more frequently than the rest of their classmates, how everyone accepted this as more or less normal for him.

It takes longer, now, for an illness of his to raise red flags for Natsume, as long as there are no sudden headaches or other telling signs.

"Are you all right?" he asks, with that one specific concern in his voice, the third or fourth day that his persistent cough just won't settle.

"I'm fine," he says, with a fond smile, because a week or so to shake off the tail end of a cold is still well within a normal period of time, and Natsume hasn't adjusted that much, it seems. Tanuma doesn't like to worry Natsume, but it's nice, when it's something small and harmless and easy to reassure him of, to be reminded how much he cares.

When, a week later, it's still not great—when the coughing is more violent and more painful, he still doesn't think it's any more than a nasty cold. He switches to a different kind of medicine, starts carrying cough drops in his bag, and still doesn't suspect it's anything supernatural.

Until, of course, he realizes that breathing hurts a bit more when Natsume's around, and the pain lingers till a little while after.

It's like claws digging into his chest, tightening ever so slightly every time he breathes. It's like something rising up in his throat, occasionally choking him when he tries to brush off Natsume's concerned questions. It's a flutter in his heartbeat when Natsume stands by his elbow with an arm around him on the stairs, because he's been a little shaky lately and sudden coughing fits throw him off-balance.

(Come to think of it, that last one could be caused by something else entirely. Tanuma isn't sure whether that's better or worse.)

It doesn't even feel like he has words for it, for the crest of emotion that comes over him when Natsume leaves and all the things he can't say, can only feel, come crashing over him like waves.

What if he is lying, and it's the curse after all? How can he tell the truth if he can't find the words?

The next week, Tanuma starts staying home from school. Natsume goes over from the first day to go check on him, and though he wasn't expecting it, Nishimura and Kitamoto and Taki all come along.

Tanuma sounds awful—he's definitely got a nasty cold—but he seems pretty energetic otherwise. Kitamoto tells Nishimura off for trying to bring him a bouquet, talking about allergies and spring fever. Tanuma says cheerfully that he's never had much of anything like that, and rushes off to find a makeshift vase. They play card games and pretend they're going to work on their homework, and when Nishimura has to leave for cram school and Kitamoto to make dinner, Natsume and Taki linger behind briefly.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Taki asks him this time, quietly. "It's not the curse from before, is it?"

Tanuma just shrugs, looking between them. "If I figure anything out, you'll be the first to know. Probably I just need to sleep it off."

"Okay," Natsume says, but he doesn't look terribly happy about it.

Natsume comes by every day after that, sometimes bringing others with him, sometimes arriving alone. Tanuma would be lying if he said that he didn't appreciate the company.

The flowers Nishimura brought seem perfectly healthy, a welcome spot of color in the room, but petals keep appearing in odd corners of the room. One morning, Tanuma thinks he sees some on his pillow when he wakes up, but then he blinks and they're gone.

He sits up, coughs, takes some more medicine, and stumbles downstairs for breakfast.

By the time Natsume comes over that afternoon, the coughing has gotten worse. They make a half-hearted attempt at covering what they did in class—Natsume's grades might go up a little after all this, Tanuma teases him between coughing fits—and then try to play some shogi, but Tanuma can't concentrate, and they put that aside, too.

Suddenly, a coughing fit starts and doesn't stop. The tearing noise in his throat is painful just to listen to; Natsume doesn't want to imagine what it feels like. His hands rise of their own volition, but he isn't sure what to do with them.

The sensation of something slightly wet and oddly soft, cool even, lands on one of his palms. He lifts it to his face and sees that a flower petal has landed there. It's stained with blood at the corner.

Natsume feels a completely different kind of sick from Tanuma in that moment, dizzy and terrified.

"It's okay," Tanuma gasps, breathless, when this fit is over. "I've had worse than this. Really."

Natsume holds the petal to his face, examining it closely. The edges are ragged.

Tanuma blinks at him. "What is it?"

Natsume looks at him seriously. "Are you sure you're not hiding something?"

"...Ugh," Tanuma says, and rubs his face, sounding resigned. "Yes, I'm pretty sure." Still, he doesn't look surprised when he adds, "Why? What are you looking at?"

"Flower petals," Natsume says. "I think it's the curse from before."

"But..." Tanuma shakes his head. "It's not like I've been lying to anyone."

"I believe you," Natsume says, frustrated. "Have you told your dad...what's going on? Would it help if I talked to him?'

"Maybe," Tanuma says. He's leaning against the pillow, face gray. "Actually, yes. I guess. You could invite him up here, and we could do it now."

They try. Natsume is intensely uncomfortable about talking about spirits with an adult who isn't Natori. He pushes through it anyway, and Tanuma's father, though he seems a bit lost, is also very grave.

At the end of the conversation, Tanuma has another coughing fit. The only thing that changes is that Natsume can double-check that Tanuma's father can't see the flower petals, either.

Tanuma's father takes him to the doctor the next day. They aren't sure what the problem is, but there seems to be something in Tanuma's lungs.

"It's liquid," Tanuma said. "They think the tissue there is getting weaker, or something."

Natsume isn't used to things like this having tangible effects, not like this. He is very, very scared.

"This is all my fault," he confesses, running his hands through his hair.

"It isn't," Tanuma says seriously, and how can he still have such an even keel about this? How can he still be looking at it logically when his life is in danger and Natsume is the one to blame? "I made a mistake. I thought I knew myself better than I did. It was hubris. Like we talked about in literature class, remember?"

Natsume smiles, but he knows the expression is pained. "Not really."

"Maybe you were sleeping through that part," Tanuma says, and it's so gentle that it doesn't even sound like a reprimand, barely like teasing. "I shouldn't have been so proud. I guess...I guess I was a little mad, too."

"Mad?" Natsume asks. He is not used to Tanuma being quite this honest, but he's remembered of raised arms on a hillside, terror abating slowly into relief and deep, deep regret as Tanuma bares his soul to him without meeting his eyes.

"I guess I was a little mad at you," Tanuma says in a tiny voice. It's a steady one, though, and not as breathless as Natsume has gotten used to. "You...I know you have good reasons for hiding things, Natsume. I know you do. Even when they're old reasons that aren't true anymore, they were still good ones, once. But...I wished you didn't have them. I thought that...that I wouldn't be like that. That I could show you that some people weren't like that, and maybe..." He pauses. "This is stupid," he says, frustrated. "I was stupid about this."

"No, keep going," Natsume insists. "Please."

Maybe this will help, he doesn't say, but the hope hangs between them anyway. Natsume is pretty sure that secrets that are open between the people talking about them don't count as secrets anymore.

"I thought...if I could show you, encourage you...then maybe you could change, too." Tanuma's shoulders hunch in on themselves. He looks miserable. "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't work like that. I should have been more patient."

"Tanuma..." Natsume puts a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay to be frustrated with me. I get frustrated with me, too, sometimes."

"I'm mostly frustrated with myself at the moment," Tanuma admits, voice tight.

"That's okay," Natsume says, because he isn't sure what else there is to say.

He rubs Tanuma's back when the next fit comes, and brushes the fresh petals off the covers.

When Natsume comes back a few days later covered in dirt, with twigs in his hair and a cut across one cheek, he tries to blow it off as no big deal.

Tanuma's feverish and weak, but even so, he's having absolutely none of that.

"Did they hurt you anywhere else?" he asks. He's still mobile enough to shuffle to the bathroom and grab the first aid kit under the sink.

"I'm fine," Natsume says, looking alarmed. "You should stay in bed—”

"Please don't be like this," Tanuma says, sitting back on the bed and patting the space beside him. "Over here. It would hurt if that got infected."

Natsume looks very sad as he sits beside Tanuma, but something else creeps into his face as Tanuma starts to brush at the wound on his cheek, doing his best to be gentle.

Tanuma doesn't let himself look. He's trying to focus on doing a good job at this, and the pain in his chest is already distracting enough as it is.

"I don't want you to leave me out of the loop about things like this," he says. "I want to know what's happening to you."

He sees the corner of Natsume's mouth turn down in a frown. "I don't want to worry you when—”

"I'm going to worry anyway," Tanuma rasps out. "Please, don't keep me in the dark. Tell me when you're having trouble. At least let me be someone you can talk to. Let me do that much."

He pulls back, and sees that Natsume is shaking. It's hard to hide, when there's only a few inches of space between them.

"I don't...I can't..." he says, but stops like the words are sticking in his throat.

"What?" he asks, softly. He squeezes Natsume's arm, hoping to get him to lose that thousand-mile stare.

"You...if something happens to you...then..." Natsume finally manages to look at him. "I couldn't stand it," he says quietly. "I would rather have never...I can't let the world of youkai harm you because of me. No matter what happens."

It takes more than words for Tanuma to really understand, but some careful thinking. He imagines being Natsume, and having only three people in the world he can talk to. (Tanuma only has three people, too, but they're all human and they're his three most important people, and it's enough.) He remembers the bits and pieces of the stories Natsume's told, about spirits, and how so few of his friends aside from Ponta ever seem to stay.

Natsume's not seeing him as lesser, not the way Natori did even when he was being (barely) polite about it. He's afraid of being alone again, and the fear of Tanuma not being there to protest someday in the future weighs more heavily than his fear of hurting Tanuma's feelings in the present.

Tanuma almost thinks, in that moment, that he's pinned down what it is he has to say. There's something on the tip of his tongue, and yet...

He can feel the vines sink in deeper as he makes an exasperated face and musses Natsume's hair, but it doesn't matter. Natsume's shocked expression is almost worth it anyway.

"Silly," he says. "I'm not going anywhere."

When he comes upstairs to visit the next day, Tanuma's eyes seem glued to his lap.

"I went to the doctor again today," he said. "They're thinking about putting me in a hospital."

Natsume just stares at him, fear freezing the pit of his stomach.

"I'm sorr—" Tanuma starts, and then starts coughing again.

Helplessly, Natsume bends down to help him, rubbing his back and hoping against hope for the fit to pass.

"Natsu...me..."

They're barely even words anymore. Natsume's lucky he can recognize his own name from Tanuma's lips. There are petals clogging his mouth that Tanuma can't even see, can only half-feel, choking his every breath. This has gone altogether too far, and he's scared that if Natori isn't able to come up with the exorcism soon, there won't be enough left of Tanuma's lungs—of Tanuma's life—to save.

Then Tanuma's shaking hands reach up, and Natsume takes one of them, and feels them pushing weakly upwards. He guides them up till they're...on his face? But from the way they cling there, he hasn't interpreted Tanuma's gesture incorrectly. They pull slowly down, and Natsume brings is face down. He tries to turn his head, thinking that maybe Tanuma wants to whisper in his ear, but Tanuma's hands, weak as they are, resist the movement.

"Sorry," Tanuma mouths, when their mouths are bare inches apart, "just...once," and then he keeps pulling down and lunges upwards at the same time, and the soft bitterness of flower petals fills Natsume's mouth, the taste of blood coppery on his tongue.

And then Tanuma falls back, and Natsume reels, and then realizes, and there's a whirlwind of cherry blossoms.

There's no flashback, this time. No compilation of images to comprise a secret. No glimpse at what it was Tanuma saw, the first time the shy golden-haired boy arrived at their school, the first time they talked, the suspicious skulking as Natsume tried to get the measure of him.

There's only a warm body in his arms and Tanuma's gasping breaths, deep whooping, hacking coughs that are stronger than he's been able to manage in weeks. Petals and blood and other, worse things come up, and Natsume pulls himself behind Tanuma, rubbing his back as the boy wheezes, bent almost double.

There are tears streaming down his face by the time he's finished, and tears in Natsume's eyes, too, of sympathetic pain. He's trying to think through the panic, but his eyes keep being drawn to the bloody roots that only he can see, torn from the inside of Tanuma's ribcage as the spirit-seed finally gives up its claim there.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" is what he says first. It's impossible for it not to, looking at the evidence of all that pain and fear. "Why did you take the curse, if it was something you wanted to hide?"

"I didn't realize," Tanuma says. His voice is a haggard disaster of a shadow of itself, much like he is. "I didn't know."

"How can it be a secret if you didn't know?" Natsume asks, suddenly angry on his behalf.

Tanuma stares down at his hands. "I guess it was a secret I was keeping from myself, too."

"Well, just to be safe," Natsume says. He climbs out from behind Tanuma and half-sits, half-kneels on the chair beside him. He takes Tanuma's hands, blood-speckled as they are, and squeezes them, looking seriously straight into Tanuma's eyes. "Tell me everything."

So Tanuma does.

They can't stay in that position for long; soon enough, Tanuma is hiding his face again, the embarrassment and the intensity of it all getting to him. Still, he keeps talking.

Natsume almost wishes he could turn away, too, but he doesn't dare miss a single word. Not when it's Tanuma's safety they're talking about.

Not when he didn't expect to have this conversation with Tanuma, ever, in either of their lives.

When it's said out loud...it's not as much as Natsume's expecting. It's still a lot—it's incredible, it feels out of nowhere, it's terrifying—but it's really just a bunch of feelings. Very strong ones, but not so overwhelming that it didn't take Tanuma months to track them down.

It's a bunch of hopes for the future, but that's just what they are—hopes. And the more of them Tanuma says out loud, the clearer they get, the more manageable.

It's like a spirit. Shadows twitching at the corners of his vision will frighten Natsume every time—they can overwhelm him with fear, even when what's causing them turns out to be something small, or relatively harmless.

But hearing Tanuma's words out in the open like this...it's different. It has Natsume thinking about things that he's felt, and the longer he hears where Tanuma is coming from, the more the feelings inside him become less ambiguous, too.

As he listens, too, an answer starts to grow inside him, like a plant unfurling new leaves. He can feel it changing into something very different from what he would have expected even a few hours ago, when they both thought that Tanuma was dying.

"I." He stalls, realizing he doesn't even know how to start.

"Tanuma," he says, looking for the words that are true, because after what he's gone through to bring the truth out, Tanuma deserves Natsume's very best effort, "I care about you, so much. I haven't really thought about...the rest of it. It's difficult. I know more about youkai than people, and the way youkai love is...complicated. I don't know what's different and what's the same. But..."

He chokes, and isn't expecting it. He's terrified, for a second, of flower petals...but no, this is just plain old tears.

Tanuma's scrubbing at the few drying flecks of blood on his hands, looking self-conscious. Natsume fetches the rag from where it's lying over the edge of the basin on the bedside table and helps him start to clean them off on something that won't stain the sheets worse than they've already been stained.

"I'm so...so glad that you're not dying," he says, finally, voice tight, knowing that it's not enough. Waiting for the prickle of vines and leaves and roots, and feeling awful, because this is about Tanuma, not him. "I'm so sorry that I made you go through all of that. I don't...I don't understand why you're even still here," and here's the truth, because it's coming out faster than he can control it. "I don't know how you can feel any of that, and not hate me for what I did to you."

"I don't hate you," Tanuma says simply, and if he's irritated by how basic that is, how far behind Natsume is in understanding him, he doesn't show any sign. "I've never hated you. I've always been curious, and then I've admired you, and been scared for you, and angry I couldn't help you, and...I want to be here for you, Natsume. Always."

When Tanuma puts it like that—less of the hearts and star-crossing and more of the simple, steady practicality of it—Natsume thinks of how little he wants to leave now, how little he wants to leave ever, and smiles.

"I think," he says, and has to take a breath against tears in his throat. "I think I'm okay with that. I want to, to help you, instead of hurting you and making you worry all the time, and I'm not sure I can, but..."

"You're...already telling me so much more than you used to," Tanuma says, and there's a quiet peace in his voice. "I must have...wow. This feels really, really good. I must have really wanted you to know."

Something in Natsume's chest warms at the thought. "I definitely know," he says. "I'm not...I don't know how...ugh, I wish I was better at this."

"You don't have to be," Tanuma says. "I don't want you to fell like you have to be anything you're not. I just want to help you. And have fun with you." He bites his lip with a tiny twinge of what looks like guilt. "And...uh, maybe..."

His fingers find their way into Natsume's. He's blushing, Natsume realizes, and it's more than the leftover flush of fever, if his eyes aren't deceiving him. Then again, he's pretty sure his face is giving him away, too.

He's no good, for someone who's an expert at life-threatening situations, at responding to sudden displays of emotion like this. But he twines Tanuma's fingers in his own, and thinks about what he might do later, when Tanuma is feeling better...and for now scoots forward and sits behind Tanuma again, bracing himself so the boy can lie against him.

"Is this okay?" he murmurs in Tanuma's ear, and Tanuma shivers, and nods.

"Good," Natsume says. "Lean back. You need to rest, after all that. We'll clean up in a little bit, and you can ask your dad to set up a doctor's appointment in a day or two, so you can be sure you're really okay, and we can start looking at homework..."

"Ack, stop it," Tanuma says, half-laughing as he slumps against Natsume's chest. "I'm feeling half-dead already, quit killing my will to live."

Natsume chuckles, breathy and afraid of dislodging him, and strokes one hand absently against Tanuma's hair before wrapping a reassuring arm around his shoulders.

They wake up two hours later, covered in small spots of drying blood and a mess of plant life only Natsume can see, and Tanuma turns and smiles at Natsume, and they feel a flutter in both their chests.

They don't say anything about it, not yet, truth or no, because this growing thing is still fragile, needs to be nurtured, not uprooted. It will take time, and care, and it could grow into something very dangerous indeed.

But none of that stops them from quiet smiles, and getting caught looking at each other for a moment too long. It doesn't stop the lingering goodbye hugs, or cuddling the next two afternoons. And, when Tanuma's deemed well enough to go to school the third day after, it doesn't stop them from walking half the way there holding hands.

#natsumess2017 #natsume-ss #swankitty #natsume yuujinchou #tanunatsu #hanahaki au #h/c #blood cw

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alphacrone · 7 years ago

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bitty dates anonther falconer au

so the graduation kiss doesn’t happen

and bitty tries to move on and jack goes onto join the falconers

and there’s some falcs family get-together early on in the pre-season and bob and alicia can’t make it for Reasons

so jack invites his other family

which -- is sort of a terrible idea bc Tater’s flying solo so he adopts Ransom and Holster and shenanigans happen immediately

(think Tater and Bitty doing lifts on the ice but with ransom and holster and alcohol)

and shitty’s hanging all over jack because they haven’t seen each other in weeks and he introduces himself to everyone as jack’s brother -- “but not like a lame- ass biological brother, a brother of the heart” -- and lardo’s somehow got all these falcs rookies following her around like little ducklings

so bits is kind of off by himself, hovering near the refreshments to monitor which pies are most popular

(he might be distancing himself from jack on purpose. he might be trying to move on. it might be really hard.)

one of the rookies (is it poots? probably) comes up to grab a HUGE ASS slice from the peach pie and makes really inappropriate noises while shoveling it down

“dude this shit is SO GOOD,” he says, then realizes he’s talking to a really cute guy and tries to remember what manners are. “um, hey, i’m ian”

“b- eric. and thank you, i worked hard on that pie”

and ian’s all DUDE NO SHIT REALLY and, again, remembers he’s talking to a really cute guy who probably is attracted to normal human beings and adds, “so, you here with zimmermann’s crew?”

and b’s all, “yeah, jack’s one of my best friends, we were so excited he asked us to come, blah blah blah”

so meanwhile jack’s been feeling weird all afternoon and it’s not just because shitty’s been forced to keep his clothes on. he realizes, sort of belatedly, it’s because he’s barely seen bittle all day. he doesn’t Like That.

jack drops shitty off with lardo (who is regaling all these wide-eyed teenage guys with stories of her kegster victories while george looks on, impressed)

and he wanders over to find bittle in stitches as ian tells him some story from juniors

and jack’s not jealous. why would he be? bittle makes friends the way other people breathe -- constantly and naturally. jack is a little sad bittle would rather talk to some rando than him, but he tries not to think about that.

the samwell crew crashes at jack’s “’swawesome bachelor pad” that night, shitty in jack’s bed, bitty and lardo in the guest room, ransom and holster on the pull-out in the living room

except- shitty disappears early on into the evening and bittle slips into jack’s room before midnight, incredibly cranky, and flops onto the empty side of jack’s bed, half-asleep

“i’ve been sexiled,” he grumbles, shoving his phone onto the bedside table and sighing loudly. “burn your guest room sheets in the morning.”

jack laughs and turns over to face bittle, whose eyes keep fluttering open and shut, nose scrunched up in annoyance. it’s the cutest fucking thing jack’s ever seen.

bittle’s phone lights up and bittle grabs at it blindly, huffing in laughter as he reads the message.

“ian,” he clarifies, when jack asks who would be texting him at this hour. “we exchanged numbers before he went home”

again, nothing jack should be jealous of. he and bittle text all the time. but they had to build up to that, when they first actually became friends, texting only for class- and practice-related things, then when bittle was drunk, then on roadies when they were at separate ends of the bus, eventually reaching their best friend-level of texting-

jack wasn’t jealous that a stranger was already at the midnight-texting friendship level with bittle. why would he be jealous?

before he can ask about it, though, bittle’s asleep, on top of the covers and clutching his phone. jack bites his lip and sets bittle’s phone aside and very, very carefully pulls the throw blanket from down by his feet over bittle, so he doesn’t get cold in the middle of the night.

in the morning, when the samwell crew leaves, jack hugs bittle just a little tighter than normal, a little bit longer. he’s not sure why. it just feels right.

so flash forward, and bittle starts coming down to providence pretty frequently. sometimes it’s to visit a cousin at brown (freshman, right outta georgia, not adapting as quickly as bittle did, needs a familiar face every now and then) and sometimes it’s to visit jack. he hangs out with ian quite a bit, which jack thinks is weird and isn’t jealous of at all.

but he loves having bittle around, no matter the reason, so jack doesn’t look this gift horse too closely in the mouth.

towards the end of the semester, bittle starts to get really stressed-looking. jack doesn’t see him as much, as busy as they both are, but he texts bittle constantly with little reminders throughout the day: drink plenty of water, try to get a little sleep, ransom does yoga at the fitness center on wednesdays you should join him, take a break from baking to go over your flashcards, call me if you want me to quiz you on french i’m free for a bit, etc. etc.

there’s one evening in particular where jack’s getting off the plane after a series of away games and ian’s listening to an upset voicemail from bittle and is visibly upset himself.

and jack can hear him saying something like “eric, please talk to me... can i come down tomorrow? i think we need to talk.”

and, still visibly upset, ian gets in his car to go home and jack gets in his to do the same but he- he can’t stop thinking about bittle. bittle never gets upset enough about anything to call someone. ever.

so jack “110% even at friendship” zimmermann speeds up to samwell and sneaks into the (unlocked) haus, dripping wet, and knocks quietly on bittle’s door.

and bittle is fucking floored and jack’s only real explanation was “ian said you were upset about something” and he’s absolutely tackled into a full-on bittle bear hug. (tiny bear hug. koala bear hug)

(and lord is jack making it hard not to be in love with him.)

he still crashes in bittle bed that night, in a pair of holster’s sweatpants bittle stole from the laundry, and bittle doesn’t tell him specifically what’s wrong but he cries a little, mostly over jack being there, and falls asleep with his head on jack’s shoulder so jack thinks he probably did something right.

and then.

he and bittle are hanging out one evening not long after that and there’s a knock on the door and it’s ian and, okay, jack likes the guy, he’s a team player and works really hard, even if he isn’t the most skilled rookie, but this is jack’s time with bittle, why is he here?

but bittle suddenly has this really nervous look on his face and ian is practically shaking and they sit down on the couch next to jack and ian says, “s-so, um, jack. me and eric- we’re um. we’re dating. have been for a while. we wanted you to be the first to know, knew we could trust you with this.”

and OH. jack’s sort of thrown for a loop, so it takes him a minute to respond, and ian’s getting paler and paler and bittle looks like he’s going to bite through his own lip and jack manages to say something supportive and bland, just to get bittle to smile in relief.

and he is supportive. he’s always been supportive of bittle’s dating misadventures. and he understands why they’ve kept it a secret it all semester, even if it’s clearly the thing that upset bittle so much.

but he’s also jealous. and it’s pretty hard to deny any more. but ian’s a decent dude and clearly cares about bittle so jack tries to tamp down those ugly feelings and claps them both on the back and thanks them for trusting him.

ian chooses not to come out to any other falcs only george. he’s mostly friends with the other rookies and they’re all young and cocky and...well, the ones making most of the questionable jokes in the locker room.

(i imagine there’s a fun moment when ian’s coming out to george where she’s all “oh, bittle? speedy little guy” and ian has no idea Why or How she knows that until he remembers that she would’ve watched his boyfriend’s tapes pretty closely while recruiting zimmboni)

(i also imagine a SUPER FUN moment when he comes out to her where he sort of chokes on his words and accidentally says “i’m dating zimmermann...’s friend, eric” and for a terrifying second george has to prepare herself for two of her boys dating each other)

and because ian doesn’t know the samwell crew, bittle doesn’t tell them about it at all. jack is his only friend with whom he can talk about ian.

so jack hears it all, the good, the bad. (luckily, not the gory details. southern gentlemen do not [REDACTED] and tell)

in the spring, things seem to get worse between ian and bittle. they’re both busier and there’s a lot of phone tag and missed connections and jack can see ian getting visibly frustrated with it. there are a few times he sees ian, when they’re out with the guys, straight-up declining bittle’s calls.

he tries to stay out of it. jack’s an adult, he doesn’t meddle or intervene in other people’s business. but. but. this is bittle. bittle’s happiness is more important to jack than almost anything.

(and wow that’s a lot for a guy who only recently realized he wanted to be bittle’s secret NHL boyfriend. but he’s an all-in kind of guy.)

around february (valentine’s day??) they have two off days in a row and jack’s pretty exhausted so he opts to spend it on his couch with microwaved pad thai and netflix documentaries. that is, until there’s a knock on his door.

and bittle’s there, tears on his cheeks, looking smaller and more vulnerable than jack’s ever seen him, babbling on and on incoherently. jack ushers him in and gets him tissues and a beer and manages to put together that ian broke up with bittle.

(which??? what a fucking idiot??? who even does that?? he’s bittle???)

and jack more or less says that. “why would he break up with you?” he genuinely asks. “you’re amazing.”

and bittle cries again and says something about the stress of hiding their relationship and not making their schedules line up and all jack can think is that if he had the chance with bittle, he’d do the fucking work to make that relationship solid, to make it work. he’s now rethinking his opinions on ian’s work ethic.

and pretty much jack plies bittle with beer and microwaved food and television and lets him rest his head in jack’s lap and strokes his hair all evening and tells him he’s way too good for ian.

(his mother was in a series of hit teen romances back in her day and jack maybe learned too much about dealing with boys and breakups from watching them as a child.)

part of jack thinks that this breakup will be the end of bittle coming down to providence every free weekend. but it isn’t, and he certainly doesn’t question it the next time bittle shows up at his place rambling on about wanting to check out a new patisserie downtown.

they eat too much and wander around the city talking about everything. that evening they take out indian food for dinner and jack runs through flash cards with bittle, then drives him home in time to join a party going on in their living room.

(jack crashes in bittle’s bed again. but it’s different, now that they’re both single and jack knows he’s in love. but it’s too soon and bittle probably not interested, so he falls asleep watching the rise and falls of bittle’s chest.)

things continue on like this all semester. sometimes jack brings tater to hang out at the haus. sometimes lardo comes with bittle to visit jack. luckily, ian isn’t a star player, so his name isn’t brought up too often around the haus to upset bittle (and how could it when there’s a literal shrine to mashkov being built in the living room, over the TV)

so the falcs are playing [insert team] here during the cup play offs or whatever (lol they play hockey in this comic what?) and jack gets checked mega hard, real bad, there’s blood and shit, definitely a concussion, maybe broken ribs and all that jazz. bad enough that everyone takes a knee and jack’s taken to the hospital.

(is that a thing in hockey? in lacrosse you gotta take a knee when someone’s really hurt but that sounds hard on skates idk)

ANYWAY jack’s out for the game (season?) and like he’s gonna be fine but there’s blood and bitty loses his shit

i’m talking, he’s fucking calling ian to make sure jack’s okay, ian whom he hasn’t spoken to since the breakup. luckily, they’re playing close by (providence? boston? idk how playoffs work, if they play in their home arenas or not) ANYWAY close enough that the samwell crew packs into holster’s mom-van and roadtrips to the hospital

they try to convince the nurses they’re jack’s family but like...no

shitty meets them there and is on the phone with bob, the only person who is at all calm because he knows these types of injuries well

and george is in the lobby and she sees bittle and has heard enough from both jack and ian that she likes the kid and manages to get him back to see jack (without his loud and huge cohort, unfortunately)

and bits cries the moment he sees jack in that hospital bed, even though he’s totally fine, bittle, don’t worry about it, just some cracked ribs and a concu-

he’s cut off by bittle kissing him, more out of relief than anything, because if jack is chirping him then he’s not dying and before bittle can realize what he’s done jack is reaching up and pulling him back in, kissing him as soundly as one with a moderate to severe concussion can.

and so since jack’s out for the rest of playoffs (and the falcs don’t make it much further without their lead scorer) he spends quite a bit of time, um, recuperating in bittle’s bed at samwell, and then in providence as bittle finds a last minute internship there for the summer.

so it starts about a year later, but it’s still the zimbits we know and love. but they’re a little more prepared. (jack has a fucking gameplan, based on everything that went wrong with ian. he’s got schedules for their skype dates. he’s ready to make this thing work forever)

(and it does.)

#zimbits #check please!#otp: hit me like a ray of sun #anna writes things

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parchment-and-petrichor · 8 years ago

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Look, publishing community. We need to talk.

About ten years ago, you let the Twilight series take over the world, and with it, naive young girls’ belief that overly protective stalker boyfriends were something to strive for. Since the series’ completion, readers and moviegoers alike have vowed to do better. We hoped to put these toxic ideals behind us with every conversation we had about the problematic nature of Stephenie Meyer’s books. We hoped in doing so, we could finally move forward to read and support more wholesome, meaningful content.

Yet somehow, you chose to invest your money in Sarah J. Maas, and unleashed a whole new, far worse beast upon the world.

Why are we still letting toxic romances dominate the YA genre? Have we learned nothing from the likes of Meyer at all?

Let’s take a step back for a moment. As with her first series, Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas set out to write another fairy tale retelling in her latest A Court of Thorns and Roses series. By the time Mist and Fury begins, we’ve all but cast the Beauty and the Beast pretence to the wind. In perhaps the most dull first third of any novel, Feyre is suffering extreme depression and PTSD following the trauma incurred at Amarantha’s wrath. I am wholeheartedly here for portrayals of PTSD in YA. In fact, I encourage it. And given how much of a non-entity it is in Throne of Glass following Celaena’s pre-series traumas, this almost seems like an improvement on Maas’ part. But not when it goes on and on and on for 200 pages. Reading about any protagonist moping in self-pity is a 50-page deal at most. I get we’re supposed to see Feyre’s lack of self-worth at the start of this novel. I get that her trajectory is clearly one of her realising her value and gaining empowerment. Fine. But you can tell that story in 150 less pages. Believe me, as someone who has opened a novel with significant scenes of abuse and trauma, I know what it means to cut back. It pays to trust your reader and rein it in sometimes.

Which comes to one of the most blatant transgressions Maas commits: her lack of editing. Sure, at this point, she’s kind of well-known for her signature long sequels. But larger word counts do not good writing make. This novel could have easily been a solid 400 pages without the faffing about she does in the beginning.

There are some books that really excel in being split into distinct acts. Separating segments via setting or plot shifts can really solidify the narrative, but Maas’ acts can be separated out according to isolated moments sliding along a scale of boring, great, horrifying, and dire. Which is not what you want out of a narrative arc.

I actually thoroughly enjoyed the middle of this novel. For 200 pages, it seems like Maas has begun to atone for all her grievous harm done in her previous works. She introduces some interesting female characters for Feyre to befriend. The friend dynamic of Rhysand’s council is easily one of the strengths of the series and I wish she could have introduced them by the end of the first book. Amren in particular is a fascinating character, who, for a hot second, seems like she might kick some ass in a dark, ruthless, gory kind of way. She and Feyre have a great scene where they’re given permission to go out on a mission and be badass. I was excited to see where this would go and I looked forward to seeing these new battle sisters doing some serious damage together. Unfortunately, there are once more, long interludes where Amren keeps herself locked up, decoding things while the others go out and do the exciting stuff. Until the climax of the novel, the best, most dynamic addition to the cast has been shafted. As are all of the female characters in this series.

Here’s the thing.

For the most part, I like the girls in this book. At face value, they’re great. Nesta, Amren, Mor, and Feyre could all hold their own in battle as easily as they could all have a slumber-party style ki-ki over wine together. But the patriarchal world they’re placed in does no favours for them. Maas’ faerie world is build up by patriarchal traditions, where the men are led by their territorial, violent animal instincts:

“What’s normal?” I said.

… “The … frenzy … When a couple accepts the mating bond, it’s … overwhelming. Again, harkening back to the beasts we once were. Probably something about ensuring the female is impregnated. … Some couples don’t leave the house for a week. Males get so volatile that it can be dangerous for them to be in public, anyway. I’ve seen males of reason and education shatter a room because another male looked too long in their mate’s direction too soon after they’ve been mated.”

This hyper-masculine tradition also happens to heavily feature treating women like commodities they can use and throw away whenever they like. Rhysand, a character Maas tries so hard to pass off as a celebrated feminist, even tells Feyre in the heat of passion that, “I want you splayed out on the table like my own personal feast”. Every single one of Maas’ male characters, including, and especially Rhys, is a product of this tradition. But instead of engaging with commentary about how toxic such a worldview is, Maas just lets her characters carry on in this reality without consequence, self-awareness, or rebellion against it, as can be seen by Rhys’ explanation of women’s place in the kitchen, and Feyre’s subsequent acquiescence to that role as Rhys' partner:

“It’s an … important moment when a female offers her mate food. It goes back to whatever beasts we were a long, long time ago. But it still matters. The first time matters. Some mated pairs will make an occasion of it– throwing a party just so the female can formally offer her mate food … But it means that the female … accepts the bond.”

This old-fashioned, dare I say, archaic misogynistic ideal is just treated as the norm, effectively cementing every other male fantasy writer’s depiction of patriarchal societies as the ultimate world-building feature of the genre.

I don’t know what Maas is thinking, but whatever it is, it’s not cute.

Why are we still putting fantasies set in patriarchal worlds on such a high pedestal? It’s fantasy! What’s more, it’s 2017! You can’t tell me it’s more realistic to write a patriarchal society than literally any other kind in a fantasy world. When Maas, a woman writer creating her own world from scratch, has the chance to do whatever she wants, this is what she gives us?

One of the most horrifying scenes in A Court of Thorns and Roses (which is also shockingly overlooked) is Rhysand drugging Feyre and turning her into his slave whore without her consent. Maas sweeps this under the rug with a quick explanation that is all justified to a.) save Rhys’ fearsome reputation among the other realms, and b.) protect Feyre from the horrors of Amarantha’s kingdom. Just when I thought this particular plot was given its much needed closure (shut it down, Sarah. Shut it down right now!), the slave whore plot rears its ugly head again:

“I had heard the rumours, and I didn’t quite believe him.” [Keir’s] gaze settled on me, on my breasts, peaked through the folds of my dress, of my legs, spread wider than they’d been minutes before, and Rhys’ hand in dangerous territory. “But it seems true: Tamlin’s pet is now owned by another master.”

“You should see how I make her beg,” Rhys murmured, nudging my neck with his nose.

Keir clasped his hands behind his back. “I assume you brought her to make a statement.”

“You know everything I do is a statement.”

The only difference is, Feyre’s aware and consenting this time. Still, the skimpy dress and incredibly graphic touching on Rhys’ part all in the name of creating a diversion isn’t good enough to justify his actions. Rhysand’s created a thinly-veiled excuse to once again, objectify Feyre, touch her inappropriately in front of everyone, and lay claim to her when she’s not his to claim:

“Try not to let it go to your head.”

…I … said with midnight smoothness, “What?”

Rhys’ breath caressed my ear, the twin to the breath he’d brushed against it merely an hour ago in the skies. “That every male in here is contemplating what they’d be willing to give up in order to get that pretty, red mouth of yours on them.”

…His hand slid higher up my thigh, the proprietary touch of a male who knew he owned someone body and soul.

His eyes on the Steward, Rhys made vague nods every now and then. While his fingers continued their slow, steady stroking on my thighs, rising higher with every pass.

People were watching. Even as they drank and ate, even as some danced in small circles, people were watching. I was sitting in his lap, his own personal plaything, his every touch visible to them.

This isn’t romantic, this isn’t sexy, and it’s straight up not okay!

At what point did this series just turn into a horrific Princes Leia/Jabba the Hut smutfic? I know the only ones imagining what it might’ve been like had Leia been chained to Sexy McSexMachine instead of a giant blob are usually the pervy weirdos. Meaning no one in their right minds would want that mental image. Absolutely no one. In fact, the moment that image popped into my head, the final implosion of Rhys and Feyre’s sexual tension was made all the more cringe-worthy. There’s a reason Carrie Fisher spoke so strongly against Jabba and the gold bikini. She knew what it meant to be objectified, something Maas does not succeed in exploiting with Rhys’ choice to put Feyre in these skimpy outfits not once, but twice in this series. While yes, putting her in these outfits is ultimately a con-game, why should he be lauded for still playing by patriarchal rules in the first place? Shouldn’t the correct course of action be to break down those gender barriers?

All I have left to say about that is, I’m sorry, Sarah. You wrote that Leia/Jabba fanfiction. You made your bed. Now lie in it.

I suppose it’s about time to address the elephant in the room: Rhys. Oh boy… I don’t know how someone can pull together a character’s development so offensively, but Maas somehow wins the prize. He spends the entire first book as a lackey to the villain, doing the best he can to humiliate and emotionally manipulate Feyre. Now, we’re expected to believe he’s not only Feyre’s true love (oh, sorry… mate), but a feminist icon? I’m sorry. No. Did we already forget that he drugged her and made her dance for him in Leia’s gold bikini? It happened. I’m not about to let people forget it…

Readers fall all over themselves over him for coming to Feyre’s rescue when she begs to be saved from her wedding to Tamlin. On the surface, he’s set up to directly juxtapose Tamlin’s controlling over-protectiveness by letting Feyre do whatever she likes. Yet there’s still an unhealthy amount of Rhys manipulating situations in order to do what he feels is best for her. Not what Feyre thinks is best for herself, but what he thinks is best. Every single decision Feyre makes is based on Rhys’ influence. Nothing she does is for herself. By making Rhysand’s word law, Maas effectively strips Feyre of her agency, ironically, the one thing Rhys has attempted to help her regain in the first place.

What’s more, I don’t know who any of these characters are outside of their relation to Rhysand. They all revolve around him, because in Maas’ paraphrased words, he’s the most beautiful, powerful, strongest male in the kingdom. I honestly don’t need this overcompensation to make up for how toxic he is as a person. Not to mention, his male friends are nothing but carbon copies of him. Cassian and Azriel share his colouring and Ilyrian wings. I’ve seen plenty of fanart out there depicting the full cast of characters and I can never tell one male character from the another, nor one female character from another. The men (Azriel, Cassian, and Rhysand) are handsome and dark haired, the women (Feyre, Nesta, Elain, and Mor), beautiful and blonde. Again, the only stand-out is Amren, who is woefully underrepresented and poorly used in the novel. When you have a white cookie cutter template for every character in your patriarchal world, you’ve gotta step outside your box to deliver some diversity at some point. Otherwise, everything’s just vanilla with a side of racism.

If you think Rhys is the only male character abusing women in this novel, you would be dead wrong. Every single female character in this series has an honestly triggering backstory involving rape, whether emotional or physical. This novel is undoubtedly the sort of thing that should come with a warning. I’ve seen copies with warnings that the series is not suitable for young readers on the back cover, but it’s both irresponsible to then market it as YA, and not discuss rape and abuse responsibly. In fact, given how frequently Maas uses the rape card and how non-existent any discourse concerning the consequences is, I’d say this is a dire case of romanticising rape. And I’m tired of seeing readers obsessing over series like these en masse. It's doing nothing but perpetuating rape culture.

Mor in particular has a brutal rape backstory. This is made all the more upsetting by how eager her father is to sell her off to the highest bidder, and her desperation to lose her virginity on her own terms:

“I wanted Cassian to be the one who did it. I wanted to choose … Rhys came back the next morning, and when he learned what had happened … He and Cassian … I’ve never seen them fight like that. Hopefully I never will again.I know Rhys wasn’t pissed about my virginity, but rather the danger that losing it had put me in. Azriel was even angrier about it–though he let Rhys do the walloping. They knew what my family would do for debasing myself.”

“I wanted my first time to be with one of the legendary Illyrian warriors. I wanted to lie with the greatest of Illyrian warriors, actually. And I’d taken one look at Cassian and known. … He just wants what he can’t have, and it’s irritated him for centuries that I walked away and never looked back.”

“Oh, it drives him insane,” Rhys said from behind me.

What’s worrying here is that while the men are praised for playing the patriarchal system to protect their women, female characters like Mor aren’t shown the same respect for protecting themselves. Mor’s entire character arc is punishment for her female sexuality, kept completely out of her control. Not once does a female character speak out against her sexual abuse, nor do they seek justice for it.

In a recent interview, Maas has stated that she only writes sex scenes if they further the plot. When literally everyone’s backstory hinges on sex, whether consensual or otherwise, I find that doubtful. If there’s one positive thing i’ll say about Maas, it’s that i’m glad she’s leading the charge for sex-positive female characters. But empowering are these characters really, when they’re defined by their desirability to men and their past sexual traumas? Sure, Feyre has sexual agency, but what else does she have? Especially in a patriarchal world where this is expected of her, and she doesn’t even use this “power” to her advantage…

Look, I’m glad Feyre’s getting pleasured the way she wants it, when she wants it, and the detailed depiction of her sexual stimulation might help girls become more aware of their own bodies and sexuality. But when this is the highest profile series featuring female sexuality in the YA market right now, what kind of example are we really setting here?

Feminism doesn’t begin and end with sexual expression. It’s more than that and Maas’ characters have to join that fight. Especially given it’s one of the highest selling fantasy series in the market right now. Sarah J. Maas is not the feminist role model we need for this generation of girls.

We need more than this.

In short, I’m absolutely shocked and appalled that so many people blindly gave this book 4 and 5 stars. Even those who acknowledge how problematic Maas’ writing is. Is it really worth overlooking blatant normalised rape culture to call something your favourite series? As I said from the outset, we’ve already been there with Twilight. An entire generation of girls fell head over heels for Edward Cullen, a 100+ year old stalker who dictated Bella Swan’s ever action and motivation. Now, here we are again, encouraging a new generation of teens to swoon over this sexy, emotionally manipulative product of rape culture, without any acknowledgement of the consequences.

We need to do better. Starting with readers. Starting with authors. Starting with publishers.

It’s time to hold ourselves accountable for the content we praise and allow kids to read. Because toxic masculinity and rape culture are not values to uphold. We live in a world where the President of the United States can brag about grabbing women by the pussy without recourse. Where old, white men are constantly dictating women’s reproductive rights. Where women are catcalled in the streets and victim blamed for the clothes they wear. Where girls can’t even go out at night on their own without the threat of sexual assault.

Is this really what we want to teach our daughters, sisters, students, friends? That it’s okay, to allow passing men to objectify us, just because they have power over us?

Listen, girls. This is the thing: men have power over us so long as we give it to them. So long as we keep laying down and accepting that we’re weak and in need of defending, they’ll keep doing it. And people like Sarah J. Maas will keep holding to those gender expectations. They’ll keep defining romantic ideals based on hyper-masculine overprotective, possessive men.

It’s up to us to redefine romantic ideals. To tear down toxic masculinity and uplift healthy, equal relationships based on mutual respect.

Because you’re worth so much more than that. You deserve better than Rhysand. Align yourself with people who value you for who you are and not just your body. Listen to them when they praise you for your talents. Accept their recommendations when they stumble across media showcasing aspirational women rising above the status quo. You are more than just an object holding a man’s attention. You are yourself and you deserve the world.

Look beyond the smokescreen of Sarah J. Maas’ works and aspire to be something more.

#sarah j. maas #acotar #acomaf #anti-acotar #anti-maas #fantasy #feminism #YA #young adult #toxic masculinity #female sexuality #rape culture

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proxylynn · 6 years ago

Text

UNDERFELL: FILE NAME NOT EDGY ENOUGH part #2

Chapter 2: Flowey

WARNING: I WANT NO RESPONSIBILITY OVER SPOILING THINGS FOR OTHERS. THAT BEING SAID, THIS HOW FILE NAME NOT FOUND WOULD FUNCTION IN THE AU OF UNDERFELL. BEFORE YOU READ THIS, UNLIKE THE NICE TIME OF UNDERTALE, THIS WORLD IS KILL OR BE KILLED. THIS STORY WILL BE GRAPHIC, GORY, USE SWEARS LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS, AND DEAL WITH SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTERS. FOR EXAMPLE, THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE READ THE FILE NAME RELOCATED SPOOF WILL KNOW HOW I PICTURE THIS VERSION OF LYNSIE COMING TO THE UNDERGROUND. IT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING DUMB. IT IS BECAUSE SHE CHOOSES TO END HER LIFE. AGAIN, THIS IS A BETA AND THIS OPENING CHAPTER IS LIABLE TO CHANGE TO BETTER FIT THE STORY AND MY NEWEST WRITING ABILITIES. SO TAKE THIS DEMO WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I MADE IT BECAUSE I NEEDED TO LET SOME OF THIS EDGINESS OUT OF MYSELF. WHICH I GUESS MAKES UNDERFELL LYNSIE EVEN MORE TRUE TO WHO I REALLY AM. ANYWAY, ENJOY. ^_^

Darkness...everything is so dark, I can't see anything, I can't hear anything, I can't feel anything...there is nothing, nothing but darkness...dark, darker, yet darker...the darkness keeps growing, the shadows cutting deeper...wow...dying is very bleak...why does everyone think something incredible is supposed to happen...all there is, is the empty nothingness of the void and the deafening silence of nonexistence...

"🕈✌😐 🕆🏱 🕆💣✌ ✏" (WAKE UP HUMAN!)

"*gasp*!"

My eyes shoot open painfully, I feel as if I had just come back to life. My lungs feel empty and crave oxygen greedily, and my entire body aches...especially my left arm. Great. Just fucking great. Fuck you fate! Fuck you death! You could've at least do me a solid and finish the job or not damage me at all!

I lay where I am for awhile, letting my body adjust to what had happened and waiting for the pain to numb. I seem to have landed awkwardly. My lower body feels like its aimed to the ground while my top-half is clearly looking up at the hole I just fell into. Something's broken, I just know it.

"Well, this sucks. *groan* Fuck you, universe! Once again, you fail to get rid of me! *long sigh* Even when I give you control, you won't let me die. *pause* I wonder...Do they even notice I'm gone? Better question...Will they care? God! Was it too fucking hard just to be told 'I love you' before heading out that damn door?! Would it really be so bad to feel like I matter all?! *sadness* Is it really so wrong to know someone cares?"

I can feel the urge to cry coming but bite my tongue. I don't have time to pity myself.

"Okay...What's the damage?"

After about 20 minutes of laying like a lump, I force my body to move and straighten while sitting up. My joints pop multiple times and I see why my arm is now so messed up. It would appear my earlier prediction was true, I landed on a fallen crystal shard that had the luck to be jabbed into my shoulder.

"Whelp...This is gonna sting like the dickens."

I take a cautious grasp of the crystal that's protruding in the front and take a few deep breathes before holding it. That's when I grit my teeth and yank it out hard as the crystal is tossed across the room.

"*wincing* Yep...That hurts...Oooh, that hurts...How bad is...Huh...Not bleeding as bad as it feels...I call that a win."

I try to put some weight on it and it folds like an origami swan. I try moving my fingers but they don't respond. Damn it. The whole thing is dislocated. I know I'm a sucker for pain, but even I need help fixing this thing. Looking back up, I can see the mouth of the hole I fell from. That has to be a good 50-60 feet from the top to the bottom, definitely no way to climb out even if I had both arms. Nope. I'm stuck down here. My eyes wander around my landing place, I've landed on a small bed of yellow flowers that are now stained red with my blood, there are about 4 large marble pillars that I can barely see, stalactites coat the walls, and of course the dead vines that somehow creep their way out of this pit. Suddenly something shiny gets my attention.

"Heh...Glad to see someone made it here in one piece."

My iPod managed to bounce its way over to what looks like the only exit I can see in this place.

"Well, as long as I'm stuck here..."

I move to get up and immediately drop again.

"God damn it..."

My right leg doesn't want to work with me either. At least it has feeling and I can move it, so I know it still functions.

"Sprain? Broken bone? Geez...I can't get a break. *snicker* Or can I?"

Lame jokes at my own expense aside, I try once more to stand and this time not put as much weight on it. This thankfully works and I'm able to limp my over to my lonesome device. I'll check if it works later. Right now, my goals are to first find someone or something that I can use to heal. Damn myself for not going to medical school when I had the chance. I slowly begin to follow the only path that is given to me, oddly enough there's a door-less archway. Yeah, like this isn't foreboding at all.

Entering this room, I find it's completely empty except for a single flower. It's a golden flower, with a white androecium, six yellow petals, and a green stem. You know, a typical looking flower if ever there was one. It is odd how flowers of any kind are able to grow down here without sunlight. They should be as dead as those vines.

"H-Howdy!"

A sudden voice freaks the crap out of me, but what really is freaking me out is the fact that the flower has a face and is now nervously smiling at me.

"I...I'm FLOWEY. FLOWEY the FLOWER!"

A talking flower? A real talking flower complete with a name? My mind makes no sense of this.

"Uh...S'up?"

It seems surprised to see me, looking me over like I'm some sort of new type of animal. Has he never seen a human before? Of course not, dummy, it lives in a freaking cave! Wake up, idiot. I know I fell down and hit a lot of shit, but I can't be so stupid. I've had worse head trauma than this. Still...Am I really that weird looking?

At least I think I'm normal enough. I'm 5'8'' tall, got a decent body type, long brown hair I let loose that reaches my ass but is currently curtaining my face, pale white skin, got 2 surgical stainless steel captive earrings in each earlobe, dressed in a red blood stained long sleeved t-shirt and now ripped black dungarees with that have chains hooked on each belt-loop, some black combat boots...Okay, yeah, I take it back. I'm fucking freaky looking.

"S-Say...You're n-new to the UNDERGROUND, aren'tcha?"

Why do I have the sudden urge to be a huge dick?

"Heh...Yeah. You could say I just dropped in."

It gulps, I believe out of intimidation.

"G-Golly, y-you must be so c-confused."

"Look, flower-boy, there's no need to sound so scared. I ain't gonna mess with you."

It tilts its head.

"Huh? You...You're not?"

My right leg fidgets before I buckle to it again. This seems to worry the flower.

"W-Whoa! Are you okay?"

"*grunt* The fall messed me up...My leg isn't wanting to move so well. It's not as bad as the arm though."

"Your arm...?"

Now it seems to take notice of the limb appendage dangling at my side.

"You're bleeding!"

"Dislocated...Can't move it. Not so bad, really. I'm right-handed."

"H-How are you able to make jokes at when you're so hurt?"

"Eh...It distracts from the pain. *wince* Doesn't stop the pain though. Y-You wouldn't happen to know if there's somewhere I can get patched up? Maybe someone else down here that's a doctor or something? Hell, I'll take a creepy old witch covered in warts and wreaking of cat piss if they'll fix me."

It looks around, like an animal knowing a predator is nearby.

"I...I know we just met, but...You seem...Well...Honestly, you seem like a weirdo. B-B-But a decent weirdo that hasn't tried to kill me!"

"Why would I...? Whatever. You were saying?"

"R-Right...Do you think you can trust me?"

"Flowey, was it? I don't know how much you know about humans, but if this wound isn't sealed, I will die. So I'd like to skip the 'do you trust me' cliché and get to the part where you help me so I can help you."

Its eyes widen.

"W-Why do you think I..."

"You're acting as nervous as a cat in a dog pound. Flowers aren't really high on the big bad scale. I can put two and two together enough to know you're in a bind just talking to me this long. So again, I say let's skip to the part where you help me so I can help you...Please?"

It gives me a sad but understanding look before nodding a tad more confidently.

"Alright. Put that arm on the ground in front of me."

I crawl over to Flowey and do as it asked. I lurch down and plop this hunk of dead weight onto the dirt. Flowey looks at it and then me before looking at my hand. I start to question so much, like my sanity, at this point till these little vines begin creeping out of the soil and make their way up my arm. I bet this would feel strange if I had the nerve connection. With the vines scaling up my arm, Flowey's body follows suit and soon enough its reached my shoulder.

"Now this might sting a little."

"Probably not as bad as yanking the rock out of their in the first place."

Still, I brace myself for whatever is to come. It feels like time stops till my eyes widen in intense pain.

"*roar*!"

A vine quickly wraps around my mouth to muffle my loud sounds of pain as Flowey shifts his roots to enter the wound, filling it. Other vines snake their way downward, wrapping around my torso and curling around my bad leg. Please say this is hell! Please say I'm in hell and this is my punishment for trying to die! Because if I really am alive this is fucked up!

"Shhhhh! You really don't want the guardian to find you here. If we're lucky, she'll think that roar was from another monster."

Monster? Guardian? Again, please tell me this is hell!

"I know it hurts. Just bear with me a little longer. Ow! No biting!"

"*muffled whimpering*"

"Almost...and..."

*clack*

"*muffled roaring*"

"There. I managed to pull the bone back into place. You should be able to move it again...I hope. I'm not a doctor after all."

"*muffled whimpering*"

"Oh! And I'm helping to brace your leg too. Just try not to do anything reckless. Okay? I'm just acting as a temporary band-aid. Now, I'm going to remove the gag. Can you promise to not scream or...roar?"

I nod slowly. Cautiously, the vines leave my mouth and I make little whimper sounds.

"That bad?"

"My life flashed before my eyes..."

"And?"

"...It was disappointing."

Flowey pouts but gasps when I move my left arm to move the hair out of my face so I can wipe the tears from my heavily bagged hazel eyes.

"Whoa...You have a face."

I roll my eyes.

"What? You thought there was nothing here?"

"Well, no. I just thought...well...You looked so creepy with your hair like that."

"I can see that. So...You're rooted around the bones?"

"Just till you can heal."

"Neat."

"So...Do all humans roar?"

"Nope. I'm just weird like that."

"Why?"

"I don't know how to scream."

"...Really?"

"Yep. I roar instead. It's just how I am."

"I'm not sure if that's cool or not."

"Whatever floats your boat. But, uh...As a flower, don't you need dirt?"

"Uh...Maybe?"

"...What do you mean maybe? Are you really fine being in my blood?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not really a normal flower."

"So there aren't other talking flowers down here?"

"Nope. ...Just me."

Seems I've touched a sore spot. Best move on to something else. I push myself up and stretch to a stand. It feels so bizarre, yet, not in a bad way.

"You mentioned a 'guardian'...Mind telling me more?"

"Oh! Her name is Toriel. She patrols the Ruins looking for fallen humans to take their souls."

That gets to me.

"So the legends are true? The monsters are really down here?"

"You know about that?"

"Only what is in old folklore books. Humanity has moved on since the old days. Gone is the way of magic. Modern man is the master of technology now. It's actually really sad to find out this is real...No one believes the old stories were true. Monster kind is nothing more than myth up there now."

Flowey looks hurt and I don't like it. I pat his petal head.

"Don't be sad."

"Huh?"

"The world may forget you down here, but I won't. So buck up my friend."

Its eyes widen.

"F-Friend?"

I rub the back of my head bashfully.

"Look at me. What kind of friend doesn't even tell the other their name. Man, I suck at this. Hi Flowey, I'm Lynsie. But you can call me Lynn for short. Nice to meet you."

It smiles.

"It's nice to meet you too."

[You've made your very first friend. It fills you with an oddly warm fuzzy feeling...and DETERMINATION.]

Uh...What?

"You okay?"

"Did you just hear something?"

"No? Did you?"

I shake it off.

"Probably just my imagination."

"Okay...We should get going anyway. The longer we stay in one place, the worse our odds of safety are."

"Alright. *pose* Come with me, Flowey! We shall now travel down the only road given to us!"

Flowey looks at me funny.

"Oh my god, I'm attached to a huge dork."

"You'll get used to it."

"I highly doubt that."

And off we go. Adventure and probably more bullshit await us. We walk through another archway and into a dreary looking space. The walls are layered in red brick, dry red leaves sit at the base of the duel stairway while some leaves make a square in the center of the room. Up the stairs and through another archway we enter a room that actually has a door in it, but it also has six raised stones on the floor and a yellow switch by the door...what's this about?

"Hey, you need to press the buttons in the right order and then flip the switch to get through the door. The RUINS are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and door keys. If you want to make it out of here you'll need to do these things."

"Seems a bit dumb."

"I know this one. Just walk where I point."

Taking directions from a flower...never saw this coming in my life. I move where Flowey guides me to and then flip the switch, the door opens.

"Seems easy enough."

"They'll get trickier the farther we go."

"Of course they will."

I go to walk into the next room but pause for a moment, a plaque by the door has my attention.

[Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road.]

What is doing that?!

Feeling weird I enter the next room and Flowey proceeds to teach me even more about puzzles.

"So...What can you tell me about the 'underground'?"

"Yeah, you really don't know what to do, do you? Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do."

"That's why I asked."

"Alright. Just don't freak out about this."

A strange energy is felt and a red heart appears on my chest. This makes me feel awkward and vulnerable. I don't like it.

"See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!"

"Interesting..."

I do feel a sense of power, not sure what it means, but I like it.

"Your SOUL starts out weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV."

"LV? Like as in Level?"

He snickers and shakes his head.

"No, silly. LV doesn't mean level. Well, not quite really. What do you think this is? A video game or something?"

"It's just the first thing to pop up in my head. I play a ton of video games and LV usually stands for Level."

"No harm done, Human. Anyway...What LV stands for is Level of Violence."

"Ah, an acronym. Very clever."

"LV is a way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others. To increase your LV, you need to gain EXP."

"I'm wrong for thinking that's Experience Points, aren't I?"

"You really are a big nerd."

I shrug.

"EXP is also an acronym. It stands for Execution Points. A way of quantifying the pain you have inflicted on others. When you kill someone, your EXP increases. When you have enough EXP, your LV increases."

"I don't mean to interrupt, but...Why would I need to be killing down here?"

"Since the War, monsters have taken to a darker side of thinking. In this world, it's kill or BE killed. Humans that fall down here are to be killed and have their souls taken to King Asgore so that the barrier can finally be broken."

I give this some thought.

"Flowey...How many souls are needed to break the barrier?"

"Seven."

"And...How many does the King have?"

"Flowey?"

"...Six."

A sudden sense of weight hits my soul.

"So...I'd be the last one needed. The final soul to free all monsters."

"Yeah."

[You asked the universe if it would hurt to be someone that mattered...It answered back with a YES.]

Seriously, what the fuck is that?!

"I know that's a lot to drop on you, but you need to know this stuff. Monsters will be trying to kill you left and right to get a hold of that soul. You need to be ready to take a life to save your own."

I stop and cup my soul in my right hand. So much fuss over this thing? So much riding on it. So fate, you've decided to finally give me an answer to all the times I've asked why you made me ignored. What a sick sense of humor you have. At least death has better jokes.

"*giggles*"

"Um...Why are you laughing?"

"*chuckles* Because life is funny sometimes."

Pressing my soul inward to return to my body, I can't help but smile at such universal irony. Okay world, you kept me alive this long. Guess this was what you were waiting for my sorry ass to do all these years.

"Flowey..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm not going to kill anyone."

It looks at me in disbelief as I start walking again.

"Wha...What do you mean you're not going to kill anyone?! There's no other option!"

"You'd be surprised by the weird and random choices one can make when given a chance."

"I'm telling you, there is NO choice! If you don't fight, you WILL die!"

"Oh, I never said I wasn't going to fight."

Now it's confused.

"I...I don't understand?"

"I mean it when I say I'm not killing anyone. Hell, I can't even get myself to die. I doubt the reaper wants what I send its way either."

It looks concerned.

"Human..."

"So if death doesn't want me, then I sure as hell ain't wasting this second chance. I will not kill. But I will defend myself."

"...You're going to get us both killed."

"No...Just myself. I'm the one with the soul needed to free everyone. The moment shit starts going south, I won't hold it against you if you leave me."

Flowey just stares at me. What thoughts run through your head little flower-boy?

"*scoff* Like I can really leave you, idiot. You're a sitting duck without me."

I see this as Flowey's tough guy act and simply smile.

"Glad to know I have a partner that's got my back...among other body parts."

It flinches.

"Was that suppose to be a joke?"

"Why are you flustered, flower-boy? Did that get under your skin?"

"Stop it."

"Why? Do you have a bone to pick with me?"

"Stop it! You're not funny."

"Ow. And here I thought you were rooting for me."

"*growl* I said...SHUT UP!"

I merely laugh as we enter the room after this. But this is when things get weird. There's a training dummy in it.

"Well, Ms. NoKill, time to show me what you got. As a human living in the UNDERGROUND, monsters WILL attack you. Even if you don't do anything to justify the attack. Just being human is warrant enough. When you encounter a monster, you will enter a FIGHT. Let me see how you handle the Dummy."

I go up to the dummy and check it out. The Dummy's appearance is that of most dummies. Structured with a head, body, stand and no arms. It looks to be made a cloth-like material, probably stuffed with cotton, has one button eye and has visible stitches. It won't take much effort to break it. But...

"Yo, what's up?"

Flowey's eye twitches.

"What are you doing?"

"Can't you see? I'm talking to it."

"Why?! It's a freaking dummy!"

"No need to be so rude. Please forgive my friend here, I think it woke up on the wrong side of the flowerbed."

"Argh! Stop making those stupid jokes."

"I will when they stop being funny."

"Look, just hit the dummy. At least once. It's not like it can harm you if you do and desire revenge."

"You don't know that."

"*annoyed* Fine! Do whatever you want!"

Flowey's so cute when ticked off. But this doesn't feel so weird to me. Having no one to talk to makes you talk to yourself and objects a lot more than others would care to know. A familiar energy tugs at me and my SOUL reappears...it's green now. Very strange.

"You look like a nice guy. Just because you're a dummy, doesn't mean you deserve to be hit. In fact..."

Out of all the random things I tend to do, this one goes up on my list. I hug the dummy. I'm not expecting much to happen from this, other than Flowey to go nuts, so imagine my shock when a black box pops up beside me and the dummy.

[You hug the DUMMY.]

[It seem really uncomfortable about this and tires of your shenanigans.]

I suddenly feel movement and let the dummy go. Upon doing so, the dummy floats away into another room. Leaving me and Flowey to share the same dumbfounded look.

[YOU WON!]

[You earned 0 XP and 0 gold.]

The FIGHT seemingly over, everything reverts to normal. My soul returns to me and I am very confused.

"Uh...What?!"

"What just happened here? What was that box? Can I really earn money this way? Did I really just hug a living dummy? So many questions!"

Flowey seems a bit startled by my sudden flip into rapid questions, but its leaf slapping my cheek shuts me up quick.

"Snap out of it! I'll explain everything. The box is a magic used by none speaking monsters so that they can communicate with others. It can even translate body movements and hand signals."

"That...makes some sense, I guess. So wait, the dummy was a monster?"

"Probably a ghost possessing the dummy. If a ghost finds a suitable body and their soul connects right, they can become corporeal like a living being."

"Oh my god, this place is fucking nuts!"

"What's nuts is YOU. I said FIGHT and you hugged it. If that were a real fight you'd so be dead."

"But it wasn't a real fight. So there was no need to attack."

"*grumbles* As for gold, most monsters will pay you depending on how you handle the FIGHT. And every FIGHT gives you experience. Whether it's good or bad, that is up to you. But judging by how you handle things, that's going to be experience in stupidity."

"Hey, it's like the sign said...Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road. I choose to take the road less traveled."

"You really are an idiot."

"You know you love me."

"*scoff* There is another puzzle in this next room...I wonder if you can solve it?"

"Is that a challenge?"

I go into the next room and look around for the puzzle or its possible solution. The only thing I can see is this odd pattern on the floor. Definitely not a walkway. Could mean something else. The puzzle maybe?

"Ribbit! Ribbit!"

"Huh?"

"Look out!"

[Froggit attacks you!]

I feel something leap at my back and knock me down as my soul emerges. Then hops off to be in front of me.

[HP ████████ 8/20]

"Oh come on...Well, I can't really bitch about that. I did get fucked up in a fall and all."

"Focus, human. The Froggit already had its turn to attack. Now it's your move."

"Turn-based fighting and I have HP? Are you sure I'm not in a video game?"

"I don't even know anymore. Just do something."

I take a moment to at least get a look at my 'opponent'. Froggit's overall appearance is that of a large frog. I say large as this thing stands almost to my knees in terms of size. Only its two front feet are visible from this forward facing view, it's eyes are red, for some reason it has fangs, and has three black marks on its chest. Between its two front feet is what appears to be some small creature with red eyes that excessively blink and has a frowning mouth. I have no clue what strange ass frog this is, but if I were to make a guess, I'd think this is it's baby, attached mate, or just maybe attached sibling. I don't know. That's all I can think of at least. Because I really don't want to think of it as a mutant with two heads. I've seen enough weird mutant frogs online. Just when I'm about to think of something, more magic boxes appear before me.

[FIGHT]

[ACT]

[ITEM]

[MERCY]

"Hmmm...Let's try this one."

[ACT selected.]

[New options available.]

[CHECK]

[THREATEN]

[COMPLIMENT]

"I'll check."

[Froggit – HP: 20 ATK: 4 DEF: 5 - Life is difficult for this enemy.]

Well, that sucks. Maybe I can try something to make this easier.

[COMPLIMENT selected.]

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen a more awesome looking monster in my life."

I hold a thumb up to really sell it.

[You are intimidated by Froggit's raw strength. Only kidding.]

"*whisper* You look like a huge jackass right now."

"*whisper* Not now, Flowey."

[Froggit didn't understand what you said, but knew it was nice and was flattered anyway.]

Flowey is so confused right now but I go over and give the Froggit a little petting on its head.

"There, there, buddy. Heh...Adorable looking fella you are really."

[Froggit is grateful and feels bad for attack you.]

"Awww..."

"Really? All that over a compliment?"

"This world might be kill or be killed, but a little kindness can go a heck of a long way. Ain't that right, buddy?"

[Froggit feels happy and seems reluctant to fight you.]

"Thanks, buddy."

[MERCY selected.]

[New options available.]

[FLEE]

[SPARE]

[SPARE selected.]

[YOU WON!]

[You earned 0 XP and 2 gold.]

"Did...You really just win?"

"I call that checkmate, Mr. YesKill."

I let Flowey processes that for a moment, poor flower-boy looks as though I've blown his mind. After a bit more petting, the Foggit leaves and we head into the next area. Now I'm halted by a bridge that is covered in spikes.

"So is this the puzzle?"

"This is the puzzle, but..."

"Yes?

"I forgot how it goes."

"Eh...It doesn't look too bad. I mean, these things are pretty short. Plus I saw that weird pattern on the floor."

Just to be sure, I double back and check the pattern again.

"Got it?"

"Got it."

We go back to the 'puzzle' and walk through the spikes safely before making it to the other side.

"Tah-dah! Teamwork power!"

"Just how old are you?"

"You won't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"Twenty eight."

"Told you so."

"You're either lying or you're suffering from massive head trauma."

"Believe what you will, flower-boy. It doesn't bother me in the slightest."

We travel into the next room but for some reason my right leg stiffens up. I look at Flowey with concern, as it is the one helping to move that leg.

"What's wrong?"

"Shhh...Do you hear that?"

I listen for anything odd but quickly force myself to jump backward due to something I see. No more than a second later does a ball of fire suddenly hit the ground where we just were. Seeing this makes Flowey gulp in fright.

"Talk to me, Flowey. What is this thing?"

It's shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

"I-I-It's...It's...HER."

All the way at the far end of the room, stands an ominous silhouette. I can't make out much, but what I do see is horns, glowing eyes, and fists of fire. This is not going to end well.

#undertale #underfell #OC #Lynsie #Sans #Papyrus #Gaster #Grillby #napstablook #mettaton #toriel #asgore #asriel #chara #frisk #flowey #grandpa semi #undyne #alphys #anomaly

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