#idk ask to tag? there's some blood and bruising

[tr1ppykay]

1 week post OP -> 2 weeks post OP

seeing the healing happen slowly each day is really surreal. a lot of the stiffness and skin tightness is already clearing up. i'm not wearing the binder because i'm lucky and don't have much swelling or fluid buildup, just tape on the incisions and aquaphor + bandages over the nipple grafts

the nerve regeneration is pretty painful, but only for a few seconds at a time. it feels kind of like spasm or a pinching sensation, with a surge of what i can only compare to a static electricity shock. it sucks but im being optimistic and taking it as a good sign that i'll get sensation back :)

[bubbles-for-all-of-us]

Bruised knuckles

request: Obsessed with your Ruhn fics! Can you please maybe do one where he gets jealous on a night out with a reader where he sees a ale button in her and he gets very possessive over his mate and she loves it

a/n: idk what it is about this man that gets me going lately. I don’t understand this.

warning: blood, fighting

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Ruhn didn’t like doing business on nights out. Especially not when you tagged along. Tonight was supposed to be different. He was supposed to take you out. A date night. One that was already long overdue. He had been a shit boyfriend lately. Fuck if he didn’t think he was edging into the territory of an ex at times. So, he had stepped up. Cut down on the time with the boys. Cut his work short just to pick you up from work.

So to say that he had practically burned the phone in his hands when the message pinged. But it was from his sister. Interest conflict. Both were family in different ways. But Ruhn had always dreamed his relationship with Bryce would be different. Better. So denying her felt like burning another bridge. And she rarely asked. “I’ll be real quick," he muttered against the shell of your ear. “And then I will be fully yours all night." A boyish grin on his lips, one that shined brighter than the gentle smile on your face. But you were always gentle. So gentle and sweet. Ruhn knew that he had swung way higher than he could reach when he tried to smitten you the night Dec introduced you to him. “Just do your thing and come back in one piece," you muttered back, leaning in to press a kiss to Ruhn’s lips before pushing him back slightly, nudging his legs back with your heel.

Now Ruhn just wanted to get back. It had been forty minutes since he had left, and if, from the way he had been constantly glancing at his clock, the man didn’t get the message that he was done, he no longer knew what would help his case. When they finally parted ways, Rugh stopped at the bar first. He needed a couple of shots to loosen the tension in his neck. The last thing he wanted was to bring his shit mood to you. He also got you another drink that nearly shattered in Ruhn’s grip when his eyes landed on the private VIP lounge.

There was another man there. Where was his fucking security? Man, he left to look after you. The fuck sure had a death wish with the way he leaned forward. Constantly trying to brush his knuckles over your exposed legs. You didn’t seem interested. If anything, you looked annoyed. The male chatted away as if he was the most interesting thing here. While you sat there with an unamused look on your face, swirling your drink from time to time.

Ruhn shoved the glass at some random girl who was the closest to him as he strolled forward, undoing a couple of buttons on his shirt as he went. “You can touch it if you want," Ruhn’s blood vessels nearly popped at the male's words, the way he flexed his arm in front of you. “Give me a reason to not bash your teeth in,” he growled as he yanked the guy up by his shirt. "Chill, my guy, just rounding chicks up, seeing the vibe," the guy pushed back against Ruhn, laughing. “I’ll show you the vibe," Ruhn growled, his hand coming to the male's hair as he turned to drag him out.

"Ruhn," you called from behind. “Stay there," he growled back, more and more people turning to stare now. He had barely made it outside before his fist collided with the male's jaw. “You ever think," Ruhn hissed, “On coming up to women and rounding chicks up," another blow landed on his jaw, pained grounds echoing. “I will personally find you." Ruhn hissed at the bloody face in front of him. He was seeing red. Even the idea of the smallest sent off this man on you was driving him into overdrive.

The metal door creaked. “Take care of this." Your voice filled the back side of the alley. But Ruhn’s anger only rose higher as the two men who were on watch tonight came into view. “Where were you?” Ruhn growled, yanking one of them by the shirt. “We just..." the man began to say, but Ruhn quickly cut in. “Fired. Both of you," he hissed. Ready to shout when you come into view. Grasping his face. Your long nails digging into his cheeks as you scowled at him.

“Take a fucking breath in," you hissed. Your scent wrapped around him. Calming Ruhn’s mind. You always felt close to him. The mating bond made sure of it. But now… His fingers reached for your hips, pulling you slightly closer. “Popping off like a firecracker," you huffed, pushing his hands back, and making Ruhn growl. He wanted to feel you close. No, needed to. “You didn’t need to go and do all that." You threw your hands in the air, turning away from him.

Ruhn didn’t think; he let the need within him act as he reached for your neck, pulling you back against his chest. “Don’t turn away from me when you yell," he hissed into your ear. “Don’t go caveman on me," you growled back, but you didn’t push his hand away. No, instead, your fingers brushed over his. “I thought we were over this," you muttered as Ruhn leaned in, nuzzling his nose against your shoulder. Breathing you in. But there wasn’t even a single note from someone else. You. Shit tones of him and a dusting of the things you did before you had even climbed into his car tonight.

“I would have kept you locked in your cage for a while longer," you teased, reaching back to brush your fingers through his hair. “Very funny," Ruhn said. He knew that he had to work on his rage when it came to other males being near you. But the simplest thought of someone else being by your side. Someone else making you laugh. Having your full attention. This was the universe laughing at him. Poking at the fact that he haven’t been valuing who was by his side. Showing him how it would feel from another perspective.

"Hey!", Your delicate fingers brushed over his cheek. Ruhn didn’t even feel you shifting in his arms. “You blanked on me, bad boy." You pinched Ruhn’s cheek smiling, but he can’t bring himself to return the expression. “Fuck, I ruined tonight," he sighed. “You can go ahead and name me the shittest boyfriend," Ruhn huffed in defeat. “Ruhn, we already talked about this," you sighed. “We are both adults, both busy," you reasoned.

“But you don’t deserve that half-time bullshit," Ruhn hissed back. “You can and should just walk away." You stood staring at him for a heartbeat. "Ruhn," you breathe out, your heart aching. He didn’t lift his eyes to meet yours. “My love hasn’t changed just because we had a harder month," you said, stepping closer. “I missed you, yes. But I won’t just pack my bags and go. I love you, silly." Resting your chin on his chest, you tried to catch his eyes. “We’re a team," you mutter, “Even if you leave your dirty underwear all over the place," you shake your head, managing to drag a light chuck from Ruhn.

“I don’t like other men near you like that," he muttered. You couldn’t help but laugh. “I think everyone got the message clear; you don’t need to worry." His arm snaked around your shoulders as he pulled you closer. Brushing his lips over your forehead a couple of times. You didn’t rush him. Letting him ground himself for a moment more before your eyes landed on his hand. Angry, red knuckles are visible even in dim light.

A soft gasp slipped past your lips, “Your hand." You pulled it up for inspiration. “We need to clean this up," you frowned. “It’ll be healed before we even get home; don't worry about it," he promised. You let out a deep sigh. Standing in his arms for a moment longer. “I want shitty fries and a burger," you puffed, making Ruhn let out a laugh. It was better for both of your sakes to just go back home anyway. “Order while we drive; we’ll eat it in our pajamas." Ruhn pulled your chin up, kissing you tenderly one last time before spinning you around. Slapping your bum while he was at it, making you walk ahead of him. Laughing as you turned back, practically blinding him with that long nail of yours upon your middle finger.

[fribblr]

Was chatting with my friend about how my microwave bit me and they said it sounded like a mimic and threw your tumblr at me hehe idk if you do requests and you dont gotta do this if you dont wanna but if you ever do a microwave mimic do feel free to tag me ^^ never have i pulled my food out of that thing without ending up with some kind of bruise or skin break smh, some kind of beast out for blood i reckon!

Mimic day 22

Thanks for asking

[duckymcdoorknob]

𝓣𝓲𝓬𝓴𝓵𝓮𝓽𝓸𝓫𝓮𝓻 𝓭𝓪𝔂 16: 𝓤𝓷𝓾𝓼𝓾𝓪𝓵 𝓢𝓹𝓸𝓽

Welcome to tkcember guys.

I wonder how long it’ll take me to do these.

Idk but it sure will be fun to try and finish them before the year is out

Can you tell I’ve relapsed into my Tokyo revengers phase? Jesus CHRIST this is longer than most fics I’ve written

Not much tickles, I just wanted an excuse to write “everyone loves Chifuyu bc he’s like their little brother”

—This do have tickles in it ngl— tw below the cut: mentions of injury and violence

Tags: @fanfic-chan @ticklish-n-stuff @giggly-squiggily @chrimsss @fanfic-chan @nataliewritez happy tokrev y’all

Baji knew that being in a gang—and being so high up in command in said gang— would mean a loooot of trouble. He knew that it meant coming back home with a shit ton of bumps and bruises very frequently. What he didn’t expect was how bad it would affect him when he saw his friends coming back banged up.

First, it was Mitsuya. He had gotten into a tousle with some grunts from Valhalla over something minuscule. He won, no doubt, but Baji remembers him being unable to turn his head to the left for DAYS.

Then, it was Draken. Him and Mikey had run into some third years on their way back from lunch. They beat them with minor injuries, but Draken took a huge blow to his head to protect Mikey. Baji remembers him being unable to leave the couch for a good few weeks.

And now?

His heart shattered as Chifuyu dragged himself through the door of Takemichi’s home, where they all were hanging out that day. Baji’s loud gasp turned everyone’s eyes toward the beaten blonde. “Chifuyu…”

The boy was riddled with scrapes and bruises, some cuts still bleeding, others coated with caked-on dry blood. He was gripping his shoulder and limping a bit, his whole body shaking.

Big-Bro Mitsuya was at his side in an instant, kneeling down to his height to help him shrug off his jacket and remove his shoes. No words were exchanged between the two, only a terrified look from the white-haired boy as he examined every inch he could take in with his eyes.

“Chifuyu…” Mikey’s terrifyingly calm voice sounded as he appeared next to the duo, “What the hell happened? Tell me… now.”

Sighing, the younger boy hung his head low slightly. He seemed to be ashamed of himself and his actions. Chifuyu didn’t speak as everyone stared at him, merely trembling instead. Baji stood from the couch he was on and tapped the newly opened seat. “Let him sit.”

The stares never faltered as he dragged himself to the couch—with help from Mitsuya and Mikey of course—and smacked himself face down on the fluffy piece of furniture, sighing loudly in relief.

“Chi’ you look awful… will you please just tell us? Or even if you wanna whisper and just tell me?” The long-haired boy knelt down beside him, carding his fingers through the unkempt puff of blonde hair.

He buried his face into the cushion and uttered two words: “high schoolers.”

Takemichi gasped quietly. He had fought high schoolers? And lived to tell the tale?!

“Chifuyu, what in the fresh hell were you thinking?” Draken’s stern tone did not help to hide the evident concern lacing his words.

Chifuyu picked his head up, resting it on his forearms, his speech still a bit distorted. “I couldn’t help it, promise! I was going to the convenience store on the corner to get us meat buns; but before I went inside, I noticed this girl. An aisle over were these three high-schoolers, watching her every move through their peripheral. She looked uncomfortable, so I went to ask if she needed to be walked home, and she said she would like that.”

The group waited with baited breath for the story to continue.

“As soon as we walked out, they began to follow. She lives near here, so I made sure to take the confusing route. Y’know, the one by the bank?” The boy grimaced as he readjusted his position, shaking Baji’s hand off his head (to which the brunette took no offense.) “Even then… every single damn turn, they were ten paces behind us. Finally, I called out to them and told them to ‘leave my girlfriend and I alone.’ Stupid, I know.”

“Doesn’t seem stupid to me. I’d’ve done the same,” Mitsuya hummed from the kitchen, engrossed in the cabinet, pill bottles rattling as he rummaged around.

“They obviously didn’t believe me. They noticed my jacket and jumped me before I could even get another word out…”

“And the girl?” Mikey asked, anxiety hidden on his tongue. Everyone knew that Mikey was quite serious about the belief in his gang members respecting any female that entered their lives.

“I panicked and pulled a Takemichi,” the blonde confessed.

“…Meaning?”

“I turtled.”

A snort from Draken helped to lighten the mood a bit, but all were still listening nervously to Chifuyu’s tale. “I kept apologizing for being on top of her, and I felt terrible for putting her in such an uncomfortable position, but I just threw myself over her as a shield. I was so worried about her that I just let myself get the shit kicked out of me.”

Takemichi leaned forward attentively. “How did-“

“By the grace of the gods, your friends were passing by to go to your house at the time. Akkun managed to knock one of them square in the jaw, and that let Yamagishi sneak in and get the girl out from under me. Him and your other two friends rushed away to get her to her house. Akkun and I fought like hell, and thankfully we managed to take them down… not without me taking a couple more blows first.”

At that moment, Mitsuya returned from Takemichi’s kitchen. He placed the contents of his hands on the glass table in front of the couch, mirroring Baji’s knelt position. “Draken, you’re closest. Please, help sit him up.”

The tattooed male nodded and carefully placed his hands on each side of Chifuyu’s torso, the boy whining as his body was moved. “I know… I know… Mits’ is gonna fix you up.”

Pain medicine was administered, water was consumed, as was a very small amount of a chocolate chip granola bar. Soon enough, the injured boy was laying flat on his stomach again, with Mitsuya holding a small tube in front of his face. “Now, Chifuyu. Someone’s gonna help to put this on your back. Who do you-”

“Baji.” Zero hesitation was heard in the blonde’s voice..

Mitsuya handed the tube of icyhot to Baji, and hooked his fingers on the corners of the boy’s shirt. “Are you ready?”

“…”

“Chifuyu?”

“Its gonna scare you… I’m sorry. It looks worse than it is. I swear.”

The back of Chifuyu’s shirt was pulled up. His once soft, unblemished skin was riddled with scrapes and bruises, along with four large, red boot marks.

“Oh Chifuyu…” Mikey whispered, “how long were they hitting you?”

The blonde whined as he hid his head. He turned it, however, when he felt a small puff of air on his cheek. Baji had blown on his face to get his attention, not wanting to touch his dearest friend without his permission.

“Are you ready? I’ll tell you what I’m doing every step of the way,” Baji waited patiently for the response.

“Please just… be gentle?”

“I always am.”

Truth be told, this was not the first time that Baji had had to help Chifuyu take care of his injuries while the boy was completely out of commission. He always knew to warn Chifuyu before he did anything, because the blonde had always been jumpy and scared of touch after a fight.

“Okay, I’m going to go on your shoulders first,” the brunette explained as he rubbed some of the medicine between his hands. “Here we go. One, two, three.” He lowered his hands into his friend’s shoulders and began to slowly and delicately rub against his skin.

Chifuyu sighed a bit and relaxed after his body realized it was just Baji. He closed his eyes and relished in the warm touch, some of the pain in his shoulders starting to dissipate.

“Okay, I’m gonna go in a bit harder to get some of your muscle and joint pains away. Ready?” A silent nod allowed Baji to apply a bit more pressure.

The deathly, intensely quiet room was suddenly filled with gentle giggling from the boy on the couch, causing most of the others to smile.

“Ah. So you’re ticklish here too,” the long-haired male quipped as he continued to massage.

“Shuhuhuhut uhuhuhuhup.”

“Tell me when you’re ready for me to move down to your back.”

Chifuyu shook his head. Despite the unbearable ticklishness, the massage truly was helping his shoulders. “Nohohohot yehehehet.”

Baji couldn’t help but smile at his dear friend, thankful that he was at least still able to smile. Chifuyu’s sweet giggles continued to cut through the tension-filled air.

“Ohohohokahahahay. Yohohohou cahahan mohohohove.”

The brunette hummed in response, putting a bit more medicine on his hands. “Down to your upper back in three, two, one…” As his hands traveled downwards toward Chifuyu’s ribs and mid back, the boy writhed a bit as hit laughter increased in volume.

“Am I the only one who thinks that this is kinda adorable?” Takemichi dared to whisper to his friends, receiving shaking heads of agreement in return.

“Bahahahajihihi.”

“Mmm?”

“Dohohohont stohohohop.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Ohohok-hyehehehahaha- Ohohokahahay.”

The medicine was long since properly rubbed in, and both boys knew it, but Baji would not stop until Chifuyu asked him. His hands massaged around his upper and middle back, the boy’s laughter growing every time they snaked near his ribs.

“Okahahahay. Ihihi feheheel behehetter thehehere.”

Baji put more medicine on and paused, suddenly remembering a moment that they had shared in the past. “So… I have to put this on your lower back… do you want to go somewhere more private for this?”

“I’ve lost my dignity anyways…” he sighed, pondering,” who cares if they see?”

Baji snorted. “Okay, going to your lower back in three, two… one…”

As soon as Baji’s hands began to gently rub, Chifuyu squeezed his eyes shut and his face returned to hiding in the couch.

“I know, I know. I’ll make this quick.”

“Juhuhust dohohoho ihihit.”

The brunette sighed as he put a bit more pressure. The injured boy’s head shot up so he could slap his hands over his mouth. “PFFAHAHA. BahAHAHAjihihi!”

“I know, I know, I know.”

“Ihihihit tihihihicklehehehes. SohOHOHO bahaAHAHAD.”

“You said you didn’t mind, and now look at you now.” Baji’s hands did not move from their massage, working a bit slower than usual to rub in the medicine. “It’ll only get worse from here, giggles.”

“stahAHAHAP teheheasihihing mehEHEHE!”

Baji chuckled a bit as he tactfully rubbed in the medicine, fighting the urge to let his fingers sneak around to tickle more. If Chifuyu didn’t give him the okay, he wouldn’t dare to touch him anywhere. So, he worked with what he could and how he could.

“Bahahahjihihi?”

“Yeah?”

“Thahahahank Yohohou.”

“Any time, Chi’.”

“IhihiIHIHIS ihihit ahaHAHAHAlmohohost doHOHohone?”

Ah, Chifuyu had had enough. Baji smiled a bit, retracting his hands. “Yep, all finished. How do you feel?”

The blonde braced himself on his hands, trying to lift himself up. His arms shook with effort, face planting back onto the couch not long after.

“Careful, Chifuyu,” the long-haired male ordered, “do you need help?”

He sighed, “yeah.”

With the greatest of care, Baji lifted a grimacing Chifuyu into an upward position once more. He quickly moved to sit behind him, letting the boy rest against his chest and between his legs.

“Anything you need, and you ask us, okay?”

“Mhm.”

“Nothing is inconvenient for us. We don’t care if we have to get up every five seconds; you. come. first.”

“Anything for our white knight,” Draken quipped.

“Anything…?”

“Anything…” Mikey replied, reaching forward to take his hand and run his thumb along the base of the boy’s own.

“Does that mean we can watch Ponyo?” The blonde asked with hopeful eyes.

The rest of the boys chuckled.

“We can watch Ponyo until we’re blue in the face. Do you want some more of your granola bar?” Mitsuya cooed as he stood to his feet.

“Mmm mmmnn. Ponyo first and then-“ a yawn ripped from his throat as he leaned back against Baji. “‘Nola bar… later…”

So, there they all sat, Chifuyu “watching” Ponyo with a content smile. (In reality, he would last about fifteen minutes into the film before falling asleep) Baji watching “Ponyo.” (In reality, he was so worried about Chifuyu that he could last about a minute before checking on the boy again.) The others copying Baji’s actions.

As soon as the blonde had fallen asleep, the collective sigh of relief from the group was audible. They continued to actually watch the film, sneaking reassuring glances on the sleeping first-division vice captain.

Hours passed, and Takemichi decided to just have the boys spend the night at his place. The sleeping blonde re-adjusted his position to rest atop of Baji’s chest, the long-haired male’s arms caging down to hold him as if he was guarding him from all of the world’s evils.

Chifuyu thankfully slept through the night.

—————♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎—————

[thebigbiwolf]

Starvin' Darlin - Chapter 2

Pairing: Not quite friends to lovers Astarion x OC/F!Tav

Chapter Summary: Seeing Evelyn with Gale stirs up some unfamiliar and VERY unwelcome feelings in Astarion. And for some reason, she graces him with a midnight visit. I'm terrible with summaries but here's what's in store for you:

* A bit of possessive!Astarion if you squint

* More pining

* More biting

* Deep DEEP emotional constipation (my personal favorite)

Fic Tags: Minor spoilers for Act 1, The Bite Scene, Emotional slow burn, Angst, Teasing, Frottage (god I'm sorry), Pining, This is my first ever fic so idk how to tag things appropriately but you get the gist.

Fic Warnings: Eventual Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubcon (I cannot stress this enough), Bloodlust/Loss of control, Mentions of blood, lmk if you need anything else tagged.

Read on AO3: Here

Word Count: 5k

A/N: School and life have been kicking my ass but I finally got around to finishing this chapter and I couldn't wait to post it! I'm having so much fun writing in Astarion's POV. Huge thank you to my bestie @imaginarydromedary for being the best beta ever and for your endless patience with me.

The morning that follows that fateful night in Evelyn’s tent goes rather well, all things considered.

She approaches Astarion first. A pleasant surprise, considering they could hardly look at each other after he ravaged her the night before. 

He looks over the novel he had been skimming, Shanties for the Bitch Queen . Admittedly, not one of his favorites, but reading material was scarce these days. He closes it with a soft thud and rises to meet her, all pleasant smiles and perfectly coiffed hair. 

“Good morning.” he says, a curious tilt to his head. 

She looks a bit more pale than usual with faded, grim circles forming underneath her eyes. Her bun is a bit unruly, some strands falling into her face and parted by the wine-dark bone of her horns. She either didn’t sleep well or is still reeling from the anemia. 

The bruise he administered had spread and darkened, plainly visible even under the black ink of her tattoos. It seems she found no use in hiding it, then. Very well. It’s not like they keep extra scarves laying about the camp, anyway.

“How do you feel?” he asks, gently. He doesn’t mean to provoke her, but his curiosity is getting the better of him, and the slightest hint of shame is beginning to burrow its way into his conscience. Ugh . He thinks he prefers the tadpole.

“A bit woozy.” She responds, “I woke up this morning with the intention of asking you how one usually fares after being drained, but then I remembered,” she stops herself when she realizes what she’s about to say: I was your first. Unspoken, but lingering between them . It makes him want to laugh; A woman with a reputation such as hers acting so bashful .

“It’ll pass,” he reassures, “Just be glad I’m not a true vampire. A bite from one of them and you might wake up as a vampire spawn, like my good self. All of a vampire’s hunger, but few of their powers.”

“Speaking of hunger,” Evelyn says, realizing she’s famished. She turns from him and begins making her way towards the campfire. Finding that only charred logs and old cinders remain, she runs the black tip of her boot through the ashes with the intention of stoking the fire back to life, dust clouding, then dispersing before her.

He follows closely behind, observing. She seems well, all things considered. A bit out of sorts, but nothing a bit of rest couldn’t cure.

“You know, I had considered bringing you an apple,” Astarion starts, hovering by the pit, “Leaving it by your bedside before you rose for the day - ever the gentleman, but,” he clears his throat. 

That newly recognizable twinge of something is curling its way back into his chest, causing him to squint in discomfort. 

In truth, he didn’t know how she would react to him encroaching on her space. Not after that dreadful attempt on her life. He is a monster, after all. That, and she had already been so insufferably forgiving. Such kindness is likely to reach its end sooner rather than later.

“I - erm, didn’t want to disturb your rest.” is what he finally settles on. Polit , he thinks, Best not overdo it.

“That would have been nice of you.” She says it quietly, more to herself than to him.

“Oh, darling, you have no idea how nice I can be.” The flirtation sneaks its way out of him on an impulse. He’s about to apologize, something he seems to be doing a bit too often for his taste, when out of the corner of his eye, he catches one of their companions making their way towards them. 

“It appears we have company.” Astarion sneers, “And here I thought I was going to have you all to myself this morning.”

To the elf’s surprise, most of them were quick to come around to the idea of a vampire spawn slinking about. Especially once they found themselves in the middle of an ambush, and Astarion very quickly made good on his promises to her. 

Newfound strength coursed through his body, her blood weaving threads of heat through his veins as if it were his own. His speed was unmatched, cutting down half a dozen goblins before they had a chance to wail.

 It was exhilarating . 

The day flew by in flashes of red. Despite the many unnecessary stops Evelyn insisted on making to help undesirables, Astarion’s emotional high managed to remain relatively intact. That was, until their group settled in for the night.

As most of the others retired to their tents, the elf prepared for his nightly ritual: sifting through his collection of tomes and selecting one to read under the stars - his favorite way to end the evening. 

It was supposed to be perfect. Uneventful. Quiet .

But, there was Gale: lost in thought and muttering to himself, or maybe to the conjured image of some woman’s head floating above his hand. Astarion may have been able to ignore that in itself, but the sound of light footsteps drew his attention. 

Evelyn was approaching the wizard. 

He scoffs. Of course Gale was showing off in hopes of procuring her attention. The man was practically putting on a damn light show in his desperation. It’s not enough that the wizard eats valuable items they could be using to pawn for coins, but does he really have to be such an unbearable distraction as well?

“Pretty,” he recognizes the word as it leaves her. The sound of their chatter was too faint for it to carry its way to his beautifully pointed ears, but he could just barely read Evelyn’s lips at this angle.

Gale startles, dropping his hand along with his focus. The woman’s visage vanishes. He looks embarrassed, shifting uncomfortably as he no doubt explains himself in some horribly mundane fashion.

Astarion returns to his book, scanning over the page, but the words refuse to settle in his mind. He stares at the ink, willing the sentences to fill his head with anything other than the nonsense unfolding in front of him, but his focus stubbornly remains on the chattering pair.

Gods, he’s talking her ears off. 

At any moment, Evelyn will dismiss the man, embarrassing the hells out of him, which will make for an excellent show. That in itself is enough reason to keep watching. But the longer this goes on, the less he’s sure. 

She seems to be enjoying their chat, nodding in agreement at Gale’s words, listening to him without so much as a hint of impatience. Gale then steps behind her, a bit too close for the likes of an average, friendly conversation. His chest almost touches the woman’s shoulder as he moves into her space, the cloth of his nightshirt just barely grazing her. 

Something within Astarion begins twisting in protest. His thumb runs over the long-forgotten page in circles. The rough texture reminds him that yes, he was supposed to be reading, or at least attempting to look disinterested, but he can't will himself to turn away.

Gale smiles softly down at her, then begins to move his arms in a way that could only be described as a poor imitation of a wounded bird. Purple light emanates in front of the two of them in response. More magic tricks. Of course. As if that would be enough to impress the woman who’s supposedly been at the receiving end of every imaginable courting attempt in Faerun. 

Astarion rolls his eyes, content to continue his chapter of The Realm According to Bumpo, before he notices Evelyn following suit, imitating the very same motions. She, however, has a grace about her, unlike the bearded beast at her side. Her movements are quick and decisive, abandoning all flattery for precision. The burst of light emanates from her palms, just as it had for the wizard.

She looks pleased. Elated, even. This is the first time he’s seen her smile since she made a fool out of him in her tent, caressing his body and reveling in its reaction, like he was some sort of toy. Though her expression looks different to him now. He can’t quite place his finger on why.

He swallows, attempting to alleviate the tightness in his throat. 

A purple aura starts radiating around them, dancing and swaying in waves, as if the two were surrounded by a flowing channel of lavender, smelling of rosewater; the sun setting over a dark ocean. Even from a distance, the sight pulls at something inside him. An unwelcome ache settles within his chest.

Evelyn turns to the man next to her, unaware that they’ve been drawn closer by the magic enveloping them. She tilts her head back to meet Gale’s gaze. The way he’s looking at her, the flecks of gold in her irises locked with his: deep, brown, and moving, makes Astarion’s skin itch.  

He finds himself wondering what color his own eyes were before his transformation. Were they so seemingly honest, so trustworthy in their melanism, before they became what they are now? Sharp, red, and tinted by bloodlust. Wouldn’t they be boring? 

“You’re staring.”

He’s pulled from his brooding by the sound of Shadowheart’s observation. He hadn’t noticed her approaching him, distracted by that sickening, sweet smell. “Or has the tadpole gifted you with the ability to telepathically commune with books?”

“I’m simply admiring our wizard’s talents.” Astarion says, dismissing her with a wave, “Making sure all those expensive boots and rings haven’t gone to waste. It would be a pity, wouldn’t it? Unnecessarily sacrificing clothes that may have suited you while you’re having to traipse about in a tin can?”

The cleric snickers, “I see. Is that why you look like a kicked pup? Or, are you upset that your master’s replaced you with a new lapdog?” 

He slams the book closed. The sound surprises Evelyn, and the magic surrounding her and Gale dissipates. 

He doesn’t dignify Shadowheart with a response, nor does he spare a second glance at the others before retreating to the quiet solace of his tent.

”That wretched little…” He grumbles to himself as soon as he closes the entrance, tossing Bumpo atop the other novels in his collection, all piled haphazardly on the small desk occupying a corner of his living space. 

This type of reaction was unusual for him. Astarion would normally be happy to engage in petty banter. The more scathing, the better, but Shadowheart had somehow weaseled her way into a tender area. It left him feeling exposed, and a bit nauseated at the idea of allowing someone so clearly beneath himself, at least in terms of wit, to get the better of him. 

Taking a deep breath, Astarion focuses on releasing the tension in his jaw. Best not to let this ruin his entire night, he reasons, before lighting  several half-melted candles littering his quarters. Their flames emanate a soft, golden glow, and the process is meditative enough to finish soothing him. 

He doesn’t have watch tonight, so he allows himself some extra comfort, removing his shirt before sinking down into the soft furs of his bedroll. Astarion closes his eyes to trance, thinking the extra rest will do him some good, but the image of Evelyn rushes back to his mind -  the way her soft lips parted in surprise, realizing her and Gale’s close proximity, and how his gaze flitted down to her mouth in return..

The wizard should be wearing a damn collar around his neck with how she commands his attention. It’s pathetic.

It couldn’t be a matter of coincidence, surely. She must know the effect she has on the man. If Gale harbors feelings for her ( yuck ), even if it were the result of close quarters, Evelyn could use it to her advantage. She had just revealed the effectiveness of similar tactics to him last night, and a powerful wizard would be a powerful ally. 

Whereas, Astarion is just… a vampire spawn. Not even a true vampire. A slave. A nobody.

He rubs his face in frustration. The Sharran did have a point. Astarion may have an insatiable appetite, happy to receive all matters of attention from whatever suitors decide to shower him with it, but what about her? What if Evelyn found him less interesting, less worthy of her time and, subsequently, her protection? 

No. His ego balks at the suggestion. 

Besides, he had felt her lust for him not 24 hours ago. It moved through him as though it was his own, and the taste of her still lingers on his tongue. He heard the hitch in her breath - felt it under his own lips, and reliving the memory still stirs a familiar hunger within him. 

Though, they still haven’t spoken about it. 

The usually quiet, insecure part of him wonders if she’d just rather forget it altogether. He could empathize with that, at least. It’s easy enough for him to imagine their last encounter may have left her feeling disgusted, used.

Guilt worms its way back into his mind, cozying up right next to his tadpole but oh, so much worse . 

He hasn’t felt like this since the beginning of his servitude. He assumed the emotion had been neglected long enough to be left entirely behind him, overshadowed by the threat of whatever new, interesting ways Cazador would think of to torture him at the mere suggestion of disobedience. But here, in the thin veil of safety he’s allowed himself to believe shrouds him, he aches. 

It’s unbecoming.

Instead of resting as he should, Astarion isn’t quite sure how much time he spends ruminating on ways to quietly rid the party of Gale, before he hears the faintest rapping at the canvas of his tent. 

At first, he believes he imagined it, and gives the noise little consideration before settling back into his trance. But then, he hears it again: quick, rapid tapping. A knock. 

It surprises him. He hurriedly moves to stand. In the faint glow of the candlelight, the shadow at his doorstep dances against the closed fabric, smaller than himself and horned. A visit from Evelyn at this hour? Strange.

He undoes the ties and opens his space to her. 

Her hair is undone, dark waves falling over her shoulders and obscuring the marks he gave her. She’s wearing the same clothes she wore to bed last night, the very same black breast band. It smells as if it's been washed, though, with no lingering scent of her blood. Her loose, matching trousers settle high on her waist, just above her navel. She looks exhausted. 

Being run ragged by the events of the day while also having to contend with a missing pint or two of blood may have had more of a negative effect than anticipated. 

Evelyn doesn’t say anything at first, but he catches her eyes glancing at his bare chest before retreating back to his own, cementing themselves there. He raises an eyebrow at her, smirking, and thinks about teasing her. The temptation threatens to get the better of him, but he refrains, not wanting this unexpected visit cut too short. “Need something?”

“I was hoping we could talk.”

Her stare is unwavering, a commitment worthy of admiration.

“Right this way.” Astarion bows slightly towards her, an arm raised behind him to gesture her inside. She steps past him, careful to not brush against his exposed skin. He closes the entrance behind them, shutting out the ambient noise and drowning them in silence. His space is large enough to accommodate himself and his essentials quite comfortably, but it's infinitely smaller with her here.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you.” there is a hoarseness to her voice. She must have woken up just before making her way over.

“No, actually. I was just catching up on some reading.” Not entirely a lie. He had been reading at several points tonight. “What is it you want to discuss? I’m assuming there’s a reason this couldn’t wait until morning, not that I mind.”

“It's about you.”

Oh. No midnight gossip, then.

"I’ve been thinking about how we’re going to continue feeding you.”

“You’ve been up all night tossing and turning because you're concerned about my eating habits?” he responds, unamused, and crosses his arms.

“I have not been tossing and -” she’s about to argue with him, he thinks, but her exasperation causes her to lose her concentration. She breaks eye contact, distracted by the toned curves of his biceps, then snaps her gaze to the floor. “Would you please put on a shirt?”

“Ha!” His laugh is humorless. “I’d like to think we’re well past the point of propriety. Besides, you're in my tent.”

Evelyn pinches the bridge of her nose. “I knew this was a mistake.”

“Come now, darling. Why are you really here?”

She sighs in frustration, as if he should already know.

“I wanted to talk about last night.”

“Ugh, I’ve already apologized. What more do you want?”

A moment passes in uncomfortable silence. He can practically hear the gears grinding in her head as she searches for the right words, and he'd give anything to reach out with his tadpole and take the unfiltered thoughts from her mind. Instead, he takes pity on her.

“Unless, you’re looking for another nibble?” 

It's a joke, a way to clear the tension from the air. Entirely unserious.

She doesn't laugh.

Instead, she looks around the room: first at his assortment of decorative pillows, then to the empty elixir bottles piled in a corner, anywhere but himself. "Well, I - I don’t know.”  She clears her throat. “I just figured after today’s performance, it may be for the best.”

Wait. What?

He stiffens, so taken aback by her suggestion that the elf almost believes he’s still mid-trance. 

“What?” 

“I may be willing to help you again, when necessary.”

She has to be joking.

“You’re joking.”

“No. I’m serious, if it would help.”

“It would.”

“Then, yes.”

They stand almost toe to toe, Astarion once again absorbing her warmth. He hadn’t noticed their height difference the first time they did this, too busy devouring the poor woman like some deranged beast, but it's notable here, on equal footing. Peering up at him, her nose aligns with his collarbones.

"Tonight, then?" she asks.

"Eager, are we?"

She shrugs with indifference, "Just in case we run into any trouble at the goblin camp tomorrow."

The very picture of practicality. What else did he expect?

"Alright, then."

"Alright."

That nagging sensation begins to tug at him again - the very same one he felt as he had stepped out of her tent last night. A weak but unshakeable tension, like a magnet, uncomfortable as it is alluring. The force of it draws his body closer to hers where she stands, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Underneath her calm exterior, Evelyn’s heart is pounding. Though her breaths are steady, controlled, he can hear it from where he stands. For a moment, those are the only sounds filling the space between them, until the tiefling speaks up.

“You’re tall, for an elf.”

An oddly-timed observation, but a true one. His brother, Petras, was always outwardly envious of him for it. Though, he's not sure why it sounds so flattering coming from her lips.

“How kind of you to notice.” 

She scans the room, searching for something, until she spots the table. Her fingers run along the dark ringlets in the wood, tracing the hardened puddles of forgotten wax, until they reach his heaping pile of books. She taps her fingertips on his leather bound copy of Bumpo . 

“May I?” 

He nods, unsure of what’s been asked of him. 

Evelyn gathers the novels in her arms before piling them carefully onto the floor in a few leveled stacks, clearing the space. ”That should be enough room for one of us to sit,” she says, evenly. 

Then, there is a heavy silence; anticipation. It hangs in the air thick as smoke, twice as suffocating. She's only taken a few steps from him, but it’s as though she’s crossed an ocean. The distance between them begins to develop its own gravitational pull, making the hairs on his arms stand on end.

“Whatever’s most comfortable, dear."

The tiefling nods, then plants herself on the table’s surface, legs hanging over the edge. Evelyn is now eye-level with him, her irises glossy; catching and reflecting what little light dances off the few remaining candles beside her.

She tilts her head at him, expectantly. Her face remains neutral - practiced, as though she feels nothing at all; as if she isn’t trying to drive him mad.

She’s back to playing her little games.

Fine.

Astarion’s posture straightens as he strides towards her, confidently closing their distance. He places his hands at her sides, not quite touching her, but still close enough to feel the heat emanating from her body, even through her clothes.  

“Now, where would you like it?” The question sounds innocent enough, but the double meaning is not lost on her. 

Her grip tightens at the table’s edge, knuckles whitening. 

His head tilts downwards, looming over her like a predator, and the scent of vanilla invades his nostrils. The sweetness settles on his palate before spreading across his tongue, coating it with a rum-like burn. He runs the flavor over the sharp edges of his teeth.

"I could do it here," he whispers, dipping his nose and running the tip of it along her nape. He quietly revels in how she prickles beneath him, her body betraying her feigned indifference.

"Or, here." One of his thumbs trace the flat of her wrist in slow, circular motions, causing the pulse beneath it to flutter.

"Or…" His other hand slides atop her knee, fingers gripping and parting her thighs just slightly…

She snaps them shut.

"Just do it, dickhead."

He hums a laugh. 

“As you wish.” 

The cool brush of Astarion’s lips on her neck has Evelyn’s heart racing, a frantic drum beating against his ears. It’s just as intoxicating as he remembers, threatening to muddle the edges of his mind. “Just try to keep still for me.” he whispers.

The warning is sincere, but the stubborn woman misinterprets him. Thinking he’s toying with her, she opens her mouth, intent on insulting him, but stops short, whining pitifully when his fangs break the surface of her skin. Her body flinches at the initial discomfort, but otherwise remains virtually motionless; compliant.

Drinking from her now feels like an entirely new experience. This time, he anticipates the raging current - knows how to find his footing. Rather than being ripped under, it feels as though Astarion is floating, enveloped in warmth unlike any he’s ever known. At best, he would imagine it similar to a hug, had he ever been on the receiving end of one.

He begins to lap at the wound to keep it from closing, the press and drag of his tongue drawing out a few small, involuntary twitches from the girl. She’s being so good for him, staying put like she’d been told; fighting her own restlessness, the urge to squirm in place.

If only she would allow him to reward her, to offer his body in exchange for this endless parade of favors, he would take the chance in a heartbeat. It would be so, so easy with her, unlike any miserable encounter he’d been forced into partaking in the last few centuries. He knows he would enjoy her body, along with all the lovely little sounds she would make for him; the temporary bliss.

And it would be a fair price to pay for keeping him safe, fed, and warm . 

The mental image has Astarion’s hand moving without his knowledge, too engrossed to notice his own palm caressing the side of her face. His thumb traces the edge of her cheek as he holds her there, allowing the weight of her head to rest against his fingers. Dark strands of hair brush against his knuckles, bringing him back to the present.

He thinks Evelyn hasn’t noticed yet, believes himself safe to correct the mistake without any mutual discomfort.

Which leaves him infinitely more overwhelmed when her smaller hand grazes up the length of his arm, wrapping it around his wrist to keep it in place. Her body relaxes into his touch, seemingly more grounded. 

The intimacy is like a punch to the chest.

She’s suddenly too close for comfort. It’s claustrophobic - suffocating, strangling him along with whatever sense he had left, apparently. That damned vanilla, the dizzying scent of her blood -

Air, he thinks, I just need some fresh air.

Astarion pulls away from her, readying an apology and an excuse to swiftly dismiss the woman. 

But when Evelyn meets his gaze, the words die prematurely.  

She is a vision , freckles dappling her skin like star-covered porcelain, now flushed red from nose to cheeks. The whites of her eyes have gone glossy, dazed and dream-like, tempting him further into her space.

Her tongue darts out to wet her parted lips, the small gesture commanding his attention. He finds himself entirely fixated on them, as if it would take another life-altering, unnatural disaster to pull his focus away. 

Evelyn’s lashes flutter in recognition, then she quickly releases his wrist. The residual heat fades before he can appreciate it, leaving him cold once again. 

“Oh, sorry.” 

“My apologies."

Their speech overlaps, then silence fills the room again, and they are left to stare at each other. His hands suddenly feel much too idle at his sides, itching. He throws on a polite smile, a familiar mask, but the expression doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Astarion has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. His hunger is sated, and he should feel satisfied. He should feel like a new man. 

So why, then, does he only feel this intolerable weight in his chest?

Why does his stomach turn at the idea of her so carelessly offering herself up to any vampire spawn, let alone himself , despite the obvious danger? 

Why is he so deeply frustrated by her lack of self preservation?

Isn’t this exactly what he wanted; to have her crawling back for more?

He can't help but wonder if this sudden apprehension is part of her little plan: to confuse him, drive him to distraction, then bring him to his knees like every other unfortunate man she’s had in her sights before robbing them and tossing them aside.

Out-seducing a vampire would admittedly be an admirable feat, but why? What could her angle be, when Astarion has nothing to offer her? 

“Are you alright? You look… lost.” 

He blinks back to the present. 

“I - ” He coughs, " Ahem . Yes, dear. Of course.” 

Hot, crimson streaks drip down the sharp bone of his chin. He springs into action, away from her unfavorable concern, and grabs his nightshirt from off the floor behind him. He has just the one, beautifully embroidered and sewn back together countless times by his own hands, now being used in place of a common napkin. 

Evelyn gasps. The sound is like ice, piercing his chest when he realizes his mistake. The devil’s never seen him without a shirt on before now. Meaning, she had never bore witness to the elaborate poem carved into his back - ugly, raised scars painting his flesh and soiling his otherwise perfectly sculpted muscle. 

He regrets not humoring her request to redress earlier. 

The elf plays off the noise as if he hadn’t heard it, turning to hand her the clothes and hoping she knows better than to mention anything of it. She silently takes the garment from him and places it where he had bitten her. A blooming red stain soaks into the pale fabric. He’ll have to work on getting it out for the next several days, if it decides to come out at all.

Evelyn finally moves to stand, teetering a bit from lightheadedness. Astarion reaches out to steady her, but she shakes her head, declining. 

“I’m okay.”

He retracts his hand. The damned thing’s gotten him into enough trouble tonight already. 

“Well then, you should get some rest.” 

She scoffs, “Wow, not even a thank you?”

He lowers his voice, practically growling at her, “My dear, if you’d allow me to properly thank you, you wouldn’t be leaving this tent. Maybe not for the next week, if I’m feeling generous.”

A pretty little flush once again spreads across her face. He’s rather pleased with himself, thinking he’s finally stunned her. 

“And if you weren’t feeling generous?”

Rising to meet him, then. She is playing a very dangerous game.

Astarion closes what little distance there is left between them and grabs her face by the jaw, grip firm . The force has her stumbling, the back of her thighs meeting the hard edge of the table. Wood digs into her skin as the legs grate loudly against his decorative rugs, shifting from the sudden push.

Evelyn’s eyes shut, brows furrowed and panting as she clutches his forearms to steady herself.

To his wicked delight, she does not pull away.

His thumb drags over her bottom lip. The effort she’s expending not to whine at his gentle touch has him reeling. Her skin burns beneath his palms. 

“Then, I’d strip you, tie your limbs to this desk,” he murmurs against her lips, before tilting to whisper his confession hot in her ear. 

“And you wouldn’t be leaving this tent. Ever . ”

He abruptly releases her, turning away and waving her off. 

“Now, go. We have a big day tomorrow.”

Not sparing the woman a glance, he begins gathering his books and setting them back onto the table beside her.

She says nothing in response, but he hears her tear open the entrance to his tent and step out into the night.

[wibixthecowboy]

Play the Song: Chapter 12: As we Breathe

Task Force 141 needs a new sniper and despite their complaints, they're assigned Flash, a joke-making, ABBA-listening, 20-year-old sharpshooter with better aim than the whole team combined. In other words, Ghost is practically handed the love of his life but he needs time to adjust because she's a firecracker.

Warnings/Tags: !graphic depictions of panic attacks!, references to suicide attempts (no descriptions), references to SA (no descriptions), Age gap (20/30-32), gore, descriptions of injury/blood/wounds, justified angst, tooth rotting fluff, slow burn, protective ghost, family dynamic, big brother soap has an attitude problem, father figure Price, wholesome brother Gaz, touch starved Ghost, eventual smut, praise, choking, thigh riding, unprotected (wrap it up people), size kink, oral f receiving, ghost will do anything to get his dick sucked, idk I’m sure it will get dirtier as I go, shifting POV  

A/N: I know what you all want and I am here to give it to you. Enjoy my two, severely emotionally underdeveloped loves interacting in (somewhat) non-deadly scenarios. 

Words: 6.7k

Side note: All of these characters are fictional! Please don’t be weird about their real life actors, leave them out of this and be respectful!

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

Tag list: @urfavsunkissedleo @butskii @abbiesxox @itsasecrets-things @thatonewriterthatnooneknows @copiasratscheese​ @Sheviro-blog

★Flash

     “Will you just take the fucking applesauce?” Gaz’s voice is bordering a whine and Flash doesn’t feel the least bit guilty when she declines again. She is hungry, but her hunger doesn’t outweigh her need for entertainment. For something other than the dusty novel she’d snatched from Price weeks ago and the small window to her left.

For the last three days, she’s been stuck in her bed. Her only solace being short trips to the bathroom and the horrible nurse service being provided in shifts by Soap and Gaz. Both arrive either so guilt ridden or angry that their conversations are reduced to mumbled words.

After she’d passed out in the truck- passed out, not died, (a correction she’s had to make every time Soap decides to give her another rundown of what he likes to call her ‘Rick Grimes’ moment) the team was able to stop enough of the bleeding and get her to the nearest med bay before her heart stopped pumping.

She’d been kept sedated for the next four days, lulled into a hazy half conscious state by a concoction of epinephrine, morphine, and god knows what else. The magic drug- a more advanced and highly addictive form of a stim shot, had practically healed everything. By the third night, she’d been able to lay on her back without pain, and by the fourth, her injuries were reduced to bruising and two half healed and itching cuts on her shoulder blades and forehead. When the doctors had given her the order to ‘take it easy’ and ‘stay in bed for a few more days�� she’d nearly laughed in their faces. But after an awkward ride back to the base with Price, it was made clear that she’d be on her ass until the doctors cleared her.

Since then, she’s been rotting away in bed. With the fog of a rather severe concussion gone and only a slight wobble in her step, Flash felt confident enough to get back into training. Others, not so much.

“Stop coddling me and I just might.” Her words, although bitter, are spoken through a half smile. The joints of her legs ache with the need to move. She can’t remember the last time she’d gone longer than a day without some sort of physical exercise.

“Oh for fucks sake. Just take it.” Gaz lets out a frustrated groan and tosses the container and spoon at her blanketed legs. They land just shy of the unread paperback by her shin. A copy of ‘True Grit’ that Price had silently handed to her after she’d begged him to let her join their next raid. “Maybe Ghost will spoon feed it to you if you ask nicely enough.”

His hand freezes against the door handle and Flash’s eyes widen. That was the first Ghost had been mentioned since the incident. After his freak out. No one had spoken to her about it, so she didn’t bring it up. Other than foggy memories of him sleeping in a chair next to her bed at the med bay- his head lolled to the side in a way that made her knees weak. Ghost had been absent.

“Just eat the food.” Gaz says nothing more before slipping from her room and shutting the door gently behind him.

Guilt coils her stomach into a tight knot and the game that she’d been playing for the last few days loses its appeal.

The applesauce is dull and pasty, and when she swallows, it sticks in her throat like mud. The first night she’d woken up from her drugged sleep, she willed her memory to clear, to give her a picture of Ghost’s face that wasn’t blurred with tears and blood loss. But it was useless. After that, avoiding thinking about the last few moments in the truck had been easy. Until now.

Although every sense of hers had been compromised, her brain had no problem recalling every point of contact that Ghost had made. As if her body remembering the gentle way he held her hand against his cheek was more important than remembering to breathe. As if it still is. The healing drugs didn’t touch the burns left by his desperate hands.

The scraping of her spoon against the nearly empty plastic cup does nothing to drown out the now crashing waves of memories. Him grasping at her legs and shoulders to haul her to the truck, begging her to keep her eyes open, removing his mask. The last bite of her applesauce tastes of brine and copper and it gags her. When she coughs the skin of her hand comes back splattered with shining red. Stumbling to the bathroom, Flash drops to the blessedly cool tile in front of the toilet but the food weighs heavily in her stomach, refusing to move despite the foul taste in her mouth. When she looks down there’s a splatter of pureed apple across her right hand where the blood stained just moments ago.

Avoiding her two mirrors, Flash rinses her hands, ties her hair back, and changes her clothes for the first time in three days. She needs out, and god help anyone who tries to stop her.

_____

��    The hot Las Almas sun burns the sensitive skin of Flash’s scabbed and stitched shoulders and sends a steady stream of sweat gliding down her spine that drops to the dusty dirt road just a few minutes from their base. She’d found it while stalking Ghost on one of his runs after a dull morning of training. Now it serves as the perfect place for her to slip away unnoticed and run until her feet bleed.

She’d been going for about an hour already, entranced by the steady thump of her braid against her back as she let the hot afternoon sun dry the waves that so violently threatened to pull her under. An angry, clouding storm of failure covers every expanse of her mind. She’d failed the one chance she’d been given. Price had finally given her an in, a way to prove what she’d so desperately been trying to show them, and she’d blown it in less than an hour.

A familiar crunch of tires sounds from behind her and she moves to the edge of the rough dirt road, giving the truck room to pass, but it slows to match her pace. When she glances over, she nearly stumbles on a loose stone. Ghost is sat in the driver's seat, one arm steering at the base of the wheel and the other holding a bottle of water out the window.

“You don’t have to say anything, just take the water and I’ll leave.” His voice is withdrawn, quiet in a way that tells Flash that he understands her need for silence. And when she takes the bottle from his bare hand, the faded scars only prove her right.

He watches her drink and she pretends not to notice as the water wets her parched mouth and throat. When she finishes that one, he gently pulls it from her grasp and another is pressed into her empty hand. Flash sips this time, breathing deeply between swallows, catching the breath she hadn’t noticed she’d lost. His gaze falls to her shaking knees and the shivering of her strained thighs and she waits for him to admonish her, to order her back to the base and put a padlock on the door this time, but he only turns away to set the empty bottle somewhere in the back seat.

“Do you want to drive with me?”

The question catches her off guard. The softness with which its spoken, still detached and hesitant but sentimental nonetheless. She opens her mouth to deny, admit that she’s ran this far to be alone, but the aching in her chest tugs towards him like a magnet.

Silently, she rounds the car, slides into the passenger seat, and Ghost continues driving wordlessly down the path, at a leisurely unhurried speed. With the windows down, the hair that had fallen from her braid flutters around her face in the light wind, tickling the bare and damp skin of her neck. She licks the dry skin of her lips and tastes the salt beaded at the bow of her mouth.

The slow roll of sand dunes calms the racing of her heart and she syncs her breathing to their soft shapes, in with the incline and out with the descent. Her sweat slick legs stick uncomfortably to the warm leather seat but the relief of resting her strained muscles surpasses the discomfort.

Flash closes her eyes against the bright setting sun, oranges and yellows shine brightly in the sudden darkness and the knot in her stomach loosens enough that she can fill her lungs completely. Fresh air, spun with the sappy golden light spilling across the desert blows across her face and cools the twin trails trickling over the curves of her cheeks. Salt spreads across her tongue, but this time it carries something much heavier. They come faster now, rivulets running and turning into streams that course over her chin and down her neck, bleeding into the sweat soaked collar of her shirt. She doesn’t open her eyes as the crushing weight of the fear she’d felt sets in. So she cries. She cries for what could have happened, what would have happened if she hadn’t pulled herself from the water, and hates every second of it.

Then a warm hand is nudging her own. Ghost, in a silent mimic of her gesture from days before, wraps his smallest finger around her own and squeezes. The fear lessens, pulling back to a dull throb against her ribcage. She doesn’t open her eyes as she unwraps their pinkies and slides her hand into his to lock their fingers in a tight hold. His hand envelops her own, warm and comforting, and she fastens herself to him like a tether to a dock. Afraid that if she lets go she just might drift out of reach.

They say nothing as they cling to each other, and Flash doesn’t dare turn her now open eyes to Ghost, afraid that she’ll snap their tether by acknowledging it. So she keeps her gaze on the pinks and purples sprawled across the dimming sky and tries to ignore the burning disappointment when one final turn brings the familiar concrete building into view.

“Can we do one more loop, I can’t- I-” She begins to ask, faltering when Ghost obliges without hesitation. And a burning sense of endearment spreads so quickly through her that the stinging behind her eyes recedes. Blinking away the thick tears still lining her lids, Flash sniffs once and then sags further into her seat.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His question is a formal invitation, an obligated question. One she’s been asked on multiple occasions and refused each time. She could ignore it now and it wouldn’t be brought back up, she knows that for a fact. But whether it's the burning need to confess or the lack of social interaction, Flash feels the confession loose from her mouth in a stream that she can’t seem to stop.

“I killed him with a rock.” Even though the words are spoken by her, the depravity of the statement makes her heart stutter. “When I missed with my knife I just smashed his head in with a rock.” The memory flashes through her mind, a stunted and bloody reel of pictures. “It was too easy.”

A long stretch of silence fills the space between them and Flash can’t help but worry he’ll slam on the breaks and shove her out, tell her just how damaged she must be to resort to something so animalistic, so beyond human norm. The weight of his hand in hers grows cold and she has the sudden urge to tuck herself into the small space at her feet, away from the heavy words floating between them and the piercing blue eyes at her side.

“When you know someone coming to kill you Flash, everything turns primal. It’s not something you learn through lectures. I’m sorry you had to learn so quickly.” His words are like a balm to her nerves. Petting back the raised hackles of her mind. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to stop it.”

“It’s the SAS Ghost. Things happen. I won't always have someone there to save the day.” She speaks firmly but turns to Ghost with a sad smile, the action has the dried tracks of her tears itching. When she brings her empty hand up to wipe her cheeks, the dirt lining her fingers has her squeezing it back under her thigh.

He lapses back into his familiar silence and Flash tries not to think about the dirt wiping from her hand onto his own clean skin where their palms meet. Then becomes increasingly aware of the dust clinging to her thighs and arms and how it rubs off onto the dark surfaces of the truck. Ghost doesn’t say anything. His unoccupied hand taps lightly against the steering wheel, another quirk that Flash quickly learned meant he was picking his words carefully.

“Knowing something is going to happen doesn’t make it any easier to cope with.” The tires crunch as dirt turns into gravel, they’re just minutes away from the base now.

His words, although validating in their own way, crack open a spot in her steeled mind that she is nowhere near ready to unravel. So instead of responding, she closes her eyes and lays back against the seat, focusing on holding the now cool night air in her lungs. She grips Ghost’s hand steadfastly. When they pull into the lot this time, her mind feels clearer and when she releases his hand to go inside, she feels a little less broken.

_____

★Ghost

     Although her eyes are focused on Price, taking in every word he speaks with an endearing efficiency, Ghost still watches them. Searching for the voided, lost look that most recruits adopted after their first incident. The look that he’d seen hints of while driving with her hours before. But the blue remains sharp as they scan the layout of the next warehouse they’d be raiding. A dilapidated barn just a few miles from Alejandro’s ranch. They would leave tomorrow to spend the next two days planning their approach with Alejandro and his team. His bag, packed the moment he got back from their drive, waits next to his door. It was his desperate attempt to keep himself in his room. To keep himself busy so he didn’t cross through the bathroom and to Flash’s door to press his ear against the wood. Just to make sure she was still there, still breathing.

It was easy to brush off at first. The shaking was from strained muscles and elevated heart rate from his morning jog. But that day, when she’d come over the hill looking half dead, still clutching a bloodied rock, the fear, and dread that gagged him was undeniable. The anxiety that shook his experienced hands as he attempted to wrap unwilling bandages over a seemingly unending expanse of flowing blood was beyond uncharacteristic. Soap had taken the gauze from his hands and shoved him to the side, working with Gaz to stop the bleeding. Her clouded, half-lidded gaze had sent him into a shaking, gasping sort of fit and it was Soap who had ripped the pill bottle from Ghost’s pocket and shoved two of the pills into his palm with shaking, bloodied hands before returning to monitoring Flash’s heart rate.

After getting her to the med bay and stabilized, he’d remained at her side for the entire stay. The gentle flutter of her eyelashes was his only respite as she drifted in and out of a drugged sleep. The only time he left her side was to slip into the staff bathroom and to down another cup of the never-ending supply of dirt instant coffee the front office kept. Price had ordered him back to the base hours before she was to be taken off the sedative. It was a short exchange over the phone, gruff, tired, and ending in a snapped command.

When Price returned with her that night, Ghost had been waiting in the window. He wasn’t sure what his plan was, but when he saw the way Price had to practically lift her from the passenger seat and brace her as she limped to the door, he’d retreated back to his room, unable to look at the bandages at her temple, ones he wasn’t capable of tying. Instead choosing to curl against his headboard and choke on uneven breaths until a drug haze pulled him under.

Looking at her now, nothing like the small girl, pale skinned and drowned in hospital blankets, the beating of his heart doesn’t slow. Soap, next to him, is doodling small flowers on the mission summary and Gaz sitting beside Flash, is tugging at her sleeve. After one particularly harsh tug, she whips around in her chair and levels him with a harsh glare, when she goes to turn back, her eyes catch his. The irritation melts from her brow and Ghost struggles to keep his breath steady when his gaze drops to the blue-green bruise that still curves along her cheekbone. Flash catches his line of sight and lets the hair tucked behind her ear fall into her face, covering the bruising entirely when she turns back to Price. But the image remains, permanently branded against the large corner of his mind she’s always occupying.

They go on like that for the rest of the meeting. Eyes occasionally meeting only to hover for a moment before flitting away. Acting like he hadn’t just watched her shatter in the small cab of his truck an hour before. He knew better than to push though, the need to just forget was more familiar to him than it should be. So he watches her take notes instead, careful little words in the spaces between paragraphs with a pencil he now recognizes as his own. Stolen from the space next to his paper, he hadn’t even noticed. And despite everything, amusement flickers in his chest, and a familiar warmth tightens his ribs. Ghost dips his head down to level his eyes with Flash, glancing at the pencil in her hands and up to her waiting gaze. She smiles at him. It’s half done, morphed into a slight grimace from the split in her lip, but it still carries her usual air of mischief. And he thinks that maybe, things might be okay.

_____

★Flash

     Flash is brushing her teeth when she sees Ghost again. Her hair still damp and curling from the shower she’d taken to scrub the dried sweat and dust from her skin. She’d also braved a look in the mirror. A small blue-purple bruise curves along her skin between her cheekbone and eye, a half healed split at her lower lip, and a stitched line at her temple were all that remained of her encounter. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but better than she’d been expecting. Her shower though, had run out of her allotted bathroom time and into Ghosts. It wasn’t the first time it happened, but when it did, he would politely apologize and leave her to finish.

But now, dressed in joggers and a delightfully worn shirt, he hovers in the open doorway. She wonders if he feels it. The pull.

He’s about to turn and leave when Flash finds herself mumbling through a mouthful of toothpaste, “Don’t leave I’m almost done.” She’s not quite sure why she asks him to stay, but she does.

Flash can’t help but smile at the way his socked feet shuffle awkwardly against the tile, not sure where to stand. It’s incredibly sweet, and the softness of the action only strengthens the pull that begs her to step forward and into him.

“So,” Flash starts, spitting her toothpaste into the sink before continuing to lazily brush in half circles, “do I get to see your face now? Or is that something you reserve for people who are near death?” In one smooth movement, she’s resting on the counter in front of him, hoping the toothbrush hanging from her lips hides the wince as her sore muscles strain. “Ya know, like a ‘I can show you but then I’d have to kill you’ type a’ situation?”

Ghost is silent, unresponsive to her prodding. Any other night he would have told her to drop it and go to bed. Maybe give her a snarky response if she’s lucky. But tonight he’s quiet, just as before. And then she sees it. The way his shoulders curve inward and the flickering of his eyes as they move to look at anything that isn’t her.

“You know it's not your fault right?” Flash’s voice is soft, the same one she’d use to coax a scared dog from a corner.

“What?” A whisper.

“It’s not your fault.” She slides from the counter, leaving her toothbrush next to the basin, she walks quietly towards him. Cautious, slow enough for him to back away, she reaches up to brush a hand against his face. It’s a daring move but he doesn’t pull away.

The cotton of the mask is warm from being so close to the heated skin of his cheeks. Golden lashes brush against them and their freckled surface as his lids shutter closed. Flash drinks in the rare moment of softness. Her mind drifts back to her last few moments in the truck, how warm the skin of his face had been and suddenly, she’s never wanted anything more in her life.

“Can I touch-” Her words breathe out into the empty space between them and Ghost’s eyes fly open, wide and searching her own.

“Blindfold, I - can you wear a blindfold?” His words are stuttered and rushed with a desperation she can’t even begin to understand. Flash offers him a silent nod and then the space in front of her is empty.

She lifts herself back onto the counter, just to busy herself as she listens to the opening of a drawer and the quiet whisper of him digging through clothes in his room. He returns with a beautifully patterned terracotta scarf. Like the one’s she’d seen at the market. He sets it gently in her lap but she pushes it back into his hands.

“Here, you can tie it. So you know I’m not peeking.”

He nods once before taking the brown fabric with shaking hands and folding it into a neat strip and leaning in close to wrap it gently around her eyes. Flash senses his hesitation as he pauses before tying the knot. Wary of the bruise beneath her eye. She gives her best reassuring smile and it seems to do the trick.

“Is that too tight?” He whispers and Flash shivers as his breath fans across her ear, light and warm.

“No. It’s perfect.”

There’s a gentle rustle of fabric and then his mask is resting on her lap. Nerves beat her heart up into her throat.

“Are you scared?” Her whisper is careful, spoken into the quiet space between them. A question spoken to him but a silent admission of her own.

“Yes.”

“It's only me.” She can’t help but smile at his honesty.

“That’s what I’m scared of.”

“Can I touch you?” She murmurs, and he hums a confirmation. It’s a quiet, broken noise.

A soft sigh breaks the silence when the pads of her searching fingers meet his cheek and draw upwards to a rather prominent cheekbone. She can’t help but smile at the heat she feels beneath her fingers, he’s blushing.

Quick breaths come from his nose, followed by two long exhales. Subtle enough that if she weren’t inches from his face would have gone unnoticed, but his warm breath falls against the small strip of her cheeks left uncovered by the scarf. Her heart swells in her chest when she realizes he’s attempting to calm himself.

“Why do you keep trying?”

His words catch her off guard and her exploring fingers come to a halt at his browbone. A displeased huff urges them on and to a soft brow. Flash takes a moment to think, but it doesn’t take her long to find a response.

“Because you deserve to heal.” Ghost turns his head into her hand, muffling a groan. It’s a noise unlike anything she’s ever heard before. An amalgamation of sadness and desperation that makes the blood in her veins slow to listen.

“Has no one ever told you that?”

“No.” He speaks into her palm, hiding his face as if she could see him through the scarf.

“Well, you do.” She smiles softly and flinches in surprise when his thumb brushes against the soft skin of her lower lip. He pulls back quickly,

“Sorry, I-”

“No, you’re fine.” Flash reaches down and grabs for his hand, bringing his thumb up to her lips again when she finds it. He takes a shuddering breath and she wishes for just a moment that she could pull the blindfold up from her eyes and look at him, see the way his body is reacting to her touch, rather than feeling, and hearing it.

“Your smile.” His thumb parts the plush of her lips, so gently she almost doesn’t feel it.

“What about it?” She can’t help but laugh at his odd remark.

His face under her hand moves, and a familiar divot forms under her ring finger.

“Oh good lord you have dimples?” She breathes against his hand.

“Just on the left.” His words are murmured, shy if she thought he was capable of such an innocent emotion. And in the warm darkness of the bathroom, without seeing the scars on his hands or the dazed look his eyes so often held, she realizes just how innocent he is. The boyish way he holds her face, similar to the way a child learning to write struggles to grip a pencil. Like the concept of touching someone without the intent of harm is as foreign to him as a new language. And the realization absolutely crushes her.

“Freckles, dimples, blue eyes. You must be a real stunner.” She teases, an awful attempt to fight the burning behind her eyes. The skin beneath her hand warms again and the overwhelming urge to throw herself into him is consuming, to wrap herself so tightly around him that their skin fuses and they become one. The thought is as terrifying as it is tempting.

“Far from it.”

She frowns at his words but the hand on her face smooths her brow in a gentle caress. Her next exhale comes shakily through her nose.

Braving the waters, Flash traces up the soft curve of his cheek and her fingers catch on slightly raised skin, silkier than the rest, a scar. It travels from his left cheekbone to his hairline just above his eyebrow.

“How did this happen?” Her imploring question is light and spoken without pressure. He could leave it unanswered if he wished.

“My father.” His response is quiet but it’s a scream to her ears. Images of him as a child, a defenseless teen screaming as he clutched his head in pain fill her mind in a rush. She quickly moves on. Feeling for more, battle-oriented scars, but she feels none.

“Do you have any more?”

A rumbling laugh vibrates down her arm and warms her chest.

“Plenty. Although the reconstructive surgeries helped, there’s always going to be a mark.”

“Where?”

A gentle hand reaches for hers and guides her fingers in an arc from the corner of his mouth to a point near his hairline. She traces the spot over on her own until she feels the slight change in texture, the jagged shape that whatever had cut him left behind. She didn’t dare ask its origin.

“Your scars make mine seem like papercuts.” A nervous laugh blows past her lips.

“And I hope it stays that way.” He glides warm fingers just inches from the stitches on her temple. “You already have enough.”

“Nothing near as cool as yours.” She protests, tracing his cheek once more to emphasize her point.

The room is silent, and for just a moment, she thinks she's ruined it and then he’s laughing again. Stuttered like he hasn’t had enough practice, and Flash wishes he’d never stop.

“What?” She asks, incredulous.

“I’ve never had someone call my scars cool.” The stuttered laughs come through his nose now, in gentle breaths of air that warm her own cheeks.

Another mostly nervous laugh looses from her parted lips at the absurdity of their situation. If someone told her a year ago, as she unabashedly stared at Ghost giving his lecture, that she’d be on the counter of their shared bathroom, blindfolded and committing his face to memory with her hands she’d probably laugh. And then file a report.

Flash smiles shyly before bringing her other hand up to gently cup his face, eager to change the topic. “Is this normal?” She breathes as he leans further into her, now pressing against the counter space between her legs. Heat radiates from him, warming her in a way she’s never felt before.

“Is what normal?”

“Wanting to touch you so badly my chest aches.” The admission makes her heart stutter in embarrassment and something warm and syrupy slows the muscles of her mouth.

“I don’t think so.” His answer is mumbled, and before she can feel the sting of rejection, he’s pressing his forehead to hers in an almost feline gesture.

Their lips are just inches away, all she’d have to do is tilt her head up and they’d be kissing. The thought sends her heart thumping so painfully that her stomach rolls with nerves. Enough that she just savors the closeness they have already.

“I feel like I’m going to puke.” She whispers to him with a nervous smile and instantly regrets it. There’s just something about his presence that loosens her tongue in ways it shouldn’t.

But then Ghost is laughing again and pressing his forehead harder against her own. “Me too.”

And the confession is orchestral.

Her arms reach from where they’re pinned between them and up into the soft curls at the nape of his neck. A muffled moan is pressed into the skin of her neck so she does it again, a gentle scrape through his hair. Tremors wrack his body in waves. Then he’s pulling away and her hands are slipping from his shoulders too soon.

“Off the counter, face the mirror.” Although his voice is still soft and shaken, it’s demanding enough that Flash doesn’t protest. She feels him reach around her for something on the counter, muscled chest pressing close to her shoulder.

“I’m getting some deja vu.” Ghost’s murmur is quiet and entirely self-indulgent.

“To what?” Flash’s brows furrow in confusion under the soft silk.

“Well uh-” His words stumble out, unprepared. “That night you took that pill?”

Flash’s stomach sinks and her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth when she responds. “Uh-huh.”

“You were struggling a bit with cleaning the scratches. You couldn’t even hold the cloth.”

“Oh god.” Even with the scarf on her face, Flash still has to drop her head in her hands. “I didn’t do anything weird? Did I?” She thinks back to the table that morning, Soap's laughing and Ghost's not so subtle smile.

“No.” Ghost runs a finger slick with a paste that she quickly recognizes as the salve the doctor had given her for sore joints over her skin. Far from the scratches and cuts on her shoulders. She practically purrs at his touch combined with the cooling effect of the paste. “But you’re very touchy.”

Embarrassment floods hot through her chest and she starts to apologize but Ghost interrupts her again.

“Don’t apologize.” Those fingers drift up and to an unblemished space just past her shoulder. “Just be quiet and let me make up for my mistake.”

“You don’t have to-” Her words end in a sharp moan when his fingers dig into a tender spot against her neck. “Holy shit.” His fingers fumble a bit but he regains his composure quickly, returning back to the spot and rubbing delightful small circles against the knot. “Jesus-” Her mumbling is cut off with a soft hush and she finally gives in, dropping her chin to the heated skin of her chest as he loosens the muscles that had grown stiff after days in bed. When he reaches a spot along the arch of her spine, smoothing deep half circles into the muscle there, a broken whine falls involuntarily from her mouth. It’s entirely pathetic but she’s too far gone to care. This last sound seems to signal him though and he’s stepping back, dropping those magic hands from her lower back.

“Okay.” His voice is breathy ghost of a whisper and despite never seeing his face, Flash knows that if she were to pull the blindfold from her eyes, he’d be shaking and casting his eyes to the floor, those precious strawberry blonde curls falling across his forehead, and cheeks ruddy with the warm blush she’d felt just minutes before. But she leaves it tied neatly against her damp hair, even though her fingers itch to slide the soft fabric from her eyes.

There’s a rustling, Ghost is reaching past her to grab something from the counter and she can practically smell the anxiety leaking from his skin, along with something else she hadn’t noticed until now.

“Is that citrus?” She tries not to sound too surprised, she shouldn’t be. It had been one of the first things she’d noticed when flopping herself onto his bedding. Something she did not want to think about.

“It’s uh- oranges?” He sounds unsure, Flash is about to point this out but he continues. “My mum wore it.” There’s another brief pause. She can practically hear his internal debate over whether or not he should continue. “It’s- It helps with- anxiety.”

“Oh.” She stands there for another moment, not wanting to leave quite yet, but not having anything to say. He doesn’t move either, just stands quietly in front of her. “I like it.”

“Me too.”

Gentle fingers slide the scarf from her eyes, the light of the bathroom is blinding and she has to blink several times to clear the dots from her vision. When her eyes finally focus, she cranes her head upward from the soft cotton of his chest. Ghost’s eyes are staring into the mirror above her, at himself. There’s a small strip of exposed skin between his shirt and balaclava. She can see the collarbone that she’d whispered to so many nights ago.

“I’m going to bed.” She says to the strip, and without looking back at his face, turns and walks as calmly as she can to her room. Even though the racing of her heart screams at her to run, to hide, to grab him by his stupid masked face and kiss him.

The last thought scares her enough that she shuts the bathroom door with a bit too much force. The sound makes her jump. It’s entirely pathetic but the creeping sickness from this morning is gone, replaced with something much much worse. Something deadly, something terrifying, something that makes her want to laugh and cry. So she does both.

It doesn’t help.

_____

     Flash can’t wipe the love-sick smile off her face as she walks to their small kitchen. Her water bottle swinging in time with her steps.

“He won’t always be like that.”

The metal bottle clangs loudly against the concrete when her hand slackens in surprise.

“What?” She breathes, heart beating wildly in her chest.

“I said, he won't always be like that.” Soap says from the small couch in the ‘living room’. He’s draped himself lazily over the arm and is flicking through an old copy of the ‘New Yorker’. A cartoonish drawing of pointing Uncle Sam is printed on the front under bold red letters reading ‘I WANT YOU’.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She says calmly, swiping her bottle from the floor and continuing towards the sink, averting her eyes from the dramatic cartoon.

“Oh don’t play coy. You’re smiling like a fuckin’ teenager in love Lass. I know.” His tone isn’t accusing, if anything it's bored. Like he couldn’t be bothered to finish the conversation he’d started. “He’s true to his name. He’ll be kissing you like he needs you to breathe, and then the next mornin’ float right by you. Stings like a bitch. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“How do you know?” She asks over the flowing tap. “Did you two...” Her half question drifts, waiting for him to pick up. It takes the metal burning into her palm for Flash to realize the water is steaming, she tips the bottle over and starts again.

“Were we together?” He flips another page, casual, like he’s not admitting to fucking his best friend. “I guess you could call it that.”

“He wasn’t interested in that... stuff?” She thinks back to the way his hands trembled the first time he’d touched her, and the way he practically vibrates when their bodies come within inches of each other.

“No,” a devilish chuckle comes from behind the paper “we didn’t have trouble in that department.”

“So you were a thing?” She asks and is blindsided by a sudden burning in her chest. It curls around to tense the line of her shoulders, bringing them closer to her ears like raised hackles.

He finally lowers the magazine and shakes his head at her reaction. “No need to get possessive. It lasted about two months before he realized that fucking every ten minutes wouldn’t fix his shit load of issues.” His words immediately drench her in a cool wave, and an embarrassing guilt flushes high in her cheeks, along with a biting sympathy at his confession. “My feelings were unrequited, unfortunately.” He gives her a sad smile. “He needs someone who isn’t broken. He needs someone who can guide him out of the shit storm he’s been led into.” The magazine is flipped back open and brought back up, his tone turns curious. “Someone like you.”

She starts to deny, to tell him that she is far from unbroken, but Soap waves another hand at her.

“Don’t bother, I don’t care.” A plain lie. ���I just wanted to warn you. He can be-” a pregnant pause splits his words, “he can be challenging. He’s got a cargo container of shit that he hasn’t even begun to unpack. It can lead to some pretty rough mood swings.” Soap puts the magazine back down. “What I’m trying to say is he’s a real piece of work, but if anyone deserves the help, it’s him. I just hope you’re the right person.”

Flash can hear the unspoken words ring through the air between them.

‘Because I wasn’t’

When Flash reaches Ghost’s door in the bathroom, away from the prying eyes still pretending to read the old magazine, she knocks softly, waits a few moments, and then knocks again. There’s no response.

He’s blocked himself off again.

Disappointed and trying not to think of Soap’s words, Flash slinks dejectedly back to lie in her bed. Her IPod still lay on her nightstand, nestled in the center of a neatly swirled nest of wires. Right where Ghost had put it her first night there.

Then for some reason, imagining him taking the time to do something so unimportant with so much care, for her no less, sends a wave of something nearing homesickness through her. A brittle sort of feeling. And for the first time in over five years, Flash has the urge to call her sister.

“This is not good.”

A/N: AHHH MY AWKWARD LITTLE BABIES. I hoped you loved this as much as I loved writing it. God I love unhinged relationships, they’re just *chefs kiss*.  

[thehypnone]

Crying in the Rain

WC: 1,3K

Relationship: Raindrop (but its not exactly relationship focused)

Tags: Angst with a happy ending, idk what else, character study?

After his elemental change, Dewdrop felt like he lost all control. He was robbed of himself, of his life and shoved into body and role someone else designed.

Notes: Written for @jazz-bazz's ask that my dumbass deleted by accident. Not as angsty as I wanted it to be and weirdly written so if you think I was high when writing this no I was not... this time. I also shoved a lot of guitar stuff in there because I am myself and this was a gear talk ask sooo...

Read under the cut or on AO3.

The guitar, the Fantomen, was… pretty. It was beautiful, even, Dewdrop has always thought so, when Ifrit played it. 

They made some changes for him, already, though. The pretty knobs with “H” engraved on them were changed to boring, plain silver ones, Dew didn’t know why. No one changed Aether’s knobs.

There was no space for questions, any questions, regarding all this change.

So much has changed. Has been changed.

Rest of the changes that had been inflicted on the instrument was more technical than visual. They probably just wanted Dewdrop’s playing to sound the best way possible, he doubted anyone cared about his comfort. He knew they didn’t, actually.

The strings were too thin, his fingers were shredded already. There were also too many of them, he was tumbling over the fretboard all days long not hitting the right strings, the right frets.

Ifrit was sweet, understanding and patient… not something fire ghouls were accused of being often. But even the sweetest, most understanding, those with the most patience can and will eventually run out of it.

“Droplet, it’s not that fucking hard,” he growled, slamming his hand down onto the strings of a guitar nestled in his lap. His raised voice and awful feedback the instrument let out made Dewdrop flinch.

“‘m sorry,” he whispered as he curled in on himself. As much as the big piece of lacquered wood in his own lap would allow, that is. His now dull and weirdly warm toned hair hid his face and the tears that were dangerously close to rolling down his burning cheeks.

“No, Dew, I’m sorry,” Ifrit sighed, putting a hand on the smaller ghoul’s back. Not so long ago he’d purr at the inhuman warmth but now he didn’t feel a difference. Just some additional weight. “I just, uhm… didn’t sleep well. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lashed out.”

“It’s fine, I know I suck,” Dewdrop mumbled, barely loud enough for the other to hear.

“Dew-”

“No, don’t,” he didn’t snap, he spoke softly quietly. He was no fire ghoul. “It’s fine.”

Ifrit sighed, ran his hands down his face and even opened his mouth to speak again. Dewdrop was no longer there, a hard case for his Fantomen left empty on the floor.

They made Dewdrop’s guitar even heavier.

A few simple modifications didn’t make much difference for him, he couldn’t lie and say they didn’t make it sound better.

But they made it heavier.

It originally weighted more than his bass already and they made it heavier.

Dew wanted to cry. He did cry. He was so out of control, he sucked at guitar and he sucked at being a ghoul and he hoped he sucked enough to get banished back to the Pit. Because there was no way he’d be able to do this.

To replace Ifrit, to play lead guitar, to be a fire ghoul.

To teach Rain bass.

He stumbled under the weight of the Fantomen again, his vision was clouded with tears, his shoulders were cramped and bruised.

Why was the strap so thin? It didn’t make sense.

But, again, why would anyone care about his comfort? He was just a tool and right now he was a faulty one.

At least he was alone in the practice room. 

No one heard the butchered solos and his sobs. No one saw the blood and his shaking form.

Dewdrop couldn’t touch the bass, even if it wasn’t his. It wasn’t even the same model.

Why was Rain given a choice where he had none?

But it wasn’t the new water ghoul’s fault, he didn’t even know of Dew’s life just before he was summoned. Dewdrop couldn’t be angry at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked him, seemingly out of nowhere. The fire ghoul snapped back to reality, realising Rain had asked a question and was waiting for an answer when Dew was busy staring into the distance at nothing in particular.

Are you okay? Rain has asked. How was he supposed to answer?

“Yeah, sorry, didn’t sleep well,” Dew grumbled. “What was that?”

Rain looked at him like he absolutely did not believe him. Dew wasn’t surprised, “I asked if there’s a slide the second time or just the sixth fret.”

“Just the sixth fret once more, but you can do as many slides as you want, no one will probably notice,” Dewdrop shrugged. Rain nodded and turned back to his bass.

Dew started zoning out again as the water ghoul was going over and over again on the same part of the song. His eyes were fixed on Rain���s strap. A solid piece of leather and he wondered…

“You should get a different strap,” Rain called out from the other side of the practice stage. What?

“What?” Dewdrop turned around and sized the water ghoul. Not in a hostile way, he was just… how did he know?

It was their first actual practice as a band, the rest already filtered out, only the two of them left. How did he know?

“This strap isn’t good for you,” Rain said matter-of-factly, like it was common knowledge. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t have been, he hid it so well, he wasn’t a pussy it was just a stupid strap. “Hurts your shoulder and back.”

“Oh, I- they… they gave me this one with the guitar I don’t-”

“You should take your control back, Dewdrop.”

How did he know?

He changed the strap.

Dewdrop basically broke into one of the storage rooms by the part of the Abbey dedicated to the Ghost project and stole all his old straps he could find. The wide, padded ones with grucifix pins he added himself. They were his.

Nobody but Rain seemed to notice the change on the next rehearsal. Maybe Aether or Mountain would, but they’d probably not realise the… the importance of such a small change.

Rain noticed, and warmth bloomed in Dewdrop’s chest when he smiled and nodded at him.

His shoulders weren’t bruised anymore and his back wasn’t strained.

But there was another thing that was pissing him off and… and Rain had told him to get back control, so…

Dewdrop stole a drilling machine.

He was pissed with the placement of his strap, he didn’t have that much accessibility to the highest frets which were important for lead, for playing solos.

So he stole a drilling machine.

He drilled the hole.

He moved the strap to the side, above the neck instead of where it had been nestled in the back, where the neck met the body. He shoved three toothpicks into the hole the screw left and put a few drops of white nail polish over it to make it as unnoticeable as possible.

Only Rain noticed the change, and warmth bloomed in Dewdrop’s chest when he smiled and nodded at him, again.

Dewdrop regained all control there was to regain when he first kissed Rain.

It was like something snapped inside of him, like a rope that was slowly being cut and burned until only one thread remained, and Rain was the one to snap it. He was who started cutting and burning it in the first place, after all.

One day, years later, Dewdrop crawled out of bed, Rain’s arms and went to the newly anointed Papa’s office. He asked him for a new guitar, a Stratocaster. A few different models, actually, each one with different modifications, customisations.

Because it was going to be his and his only, and no one was going to take away his control again. He let them rob him of years of his life on Earth and he was never going to give up control again. 

He accepted the past. 

Dewdrop was a fire ghoul now, but it was his life, he wasn’t going to waste any more of it and he was his own ghoul.

Well… maybe Rain’s too.

When he took Terzo’s grucifixes off of his straps it was his choice.

In the future, when he’d put stickers on the backs of the guitars, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Not again.

[jasntodds]

Petrichor [6]

Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!Powered!Reader (little bit of fwb)

Words: 17,546 (next chapter is at most 10k i promise lol) 

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, angst, canon violence, blood, bruises, mentions of nightmares, ptsd, jason is a little bit of an asshole, mentions of being tortured, mentions of the roof scene, mentions of being kidnapped, yes i did put an utrh reference in here, i eventually fix things with bruce later

Summary:❝Pylades: I’ll take care of you. Orestes: It’s rotten work. Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.❞

Gotham is home, not just for Jason but for you, too. And now that you’re both finally back home, together, you’re ready to see where this next chapter brings the two of you. He’s your best friend and you’re his. And you both might want a little something more with being back home, the place you both feel most comfortable. Surely, nothing could possibly go wrong now.

A/N: I tried to cut out some scenes from this chapter so I'm sorry lol but everything comes back at some point so it's important. I'm super excited for next chapter lol Also idk if you guys look at my chapter titles but sometimes, 2 chapter titles go together and this is one of those cases and I am so sorry lol It's from the song Destroy Me by PALESKIN if you were curious lol I hope you guys like it!! If you want context from book 1, let me know and I’ll tell you!! You can add yourself to the tag list below, ask me to be tagged, or you can follow my library blog @jasntoddslibrary and turn on notifications if you prefer that!! I love feedback, I swear it keeps me posting on a weekly basis 😭

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By the time the next day comes, Jason and you are nearly as happy as you’ve ever been with each other. Finally, after everything that’s happened and after all these months, you have both the confirmation in your feelings. You have each other, wholly and solely. You are each other's and neither of you could possibly be happier. And for the first time, you're both doing your absolute best to ignore the anxiety that comes with that. For each other.

You both try to ignore the fear of one of you dying, or dying for each other. The fear of one of you leaving or giving up or pushing or running. For the first time, you both are finding it in yourselves to ignore those feelings because you are with the person you both trust the absolute most. And you both know, the other person deserves for you to suck up the fear and the anxiety and make a solid effort in not freaking out. Despite everything you’ve both ever known and been taught, you’re choosing each other and choosing to trust each other to always be by your sides. And you both are so happy. It’s practically euphoric.

“Good luck, Jay.” You offer Jason a sweet and gentle smile as you stand outside of Bruce’s car in front of a large house.

He is not thrilled about this. He’s done it before, several times. It’s exhausting seeing a new shrink, again, and having to tell the same damn stories over and over again. He gets the same diagnoses and that's the end of it. It never really helps. He’s left with another person knowing more about him than he would ever really like. It’s exhausting but it’s this or he’s not Robin anymore. Jason doesn’t give up that easily.

“Yeah.” Jason scoffs, looking to his shoes and back to you. “Thanks.”

“You’ll be fine and it’ll help.” Your smile grows as you pick his hand up in yours.

“We’ll see.” Jason chuckles softly. “Be here when I’m done?” Jason asks with the raise of his brows, hopeful.

In all honesty, you're masking this a bit more tolerable. You promised you’d always come with to drop him off and pick him up. Bruce doesn’t exactly trust you to drop him off. He thinks maybe you’ll ditch the appointments. So, you promise to come with and if you have to spend an hour with Bruce, you’ll do it for him. And he can then bitch to you all he wants about how the shrink doesn’t know shit and Bruce is ridiculous for making him do it. As long as he goes, you’ll be there. Before and after.

“Of course.” You chime, closing the distance between you and capturing his lips in a tender kiss.

“Would rather keep doing this.” Jason mutters against your lips as he snakes his hands onto your waist.

“Too bad.” You kiss him again. “Your mental state comes first, Jaybird.”

Jason chuckles against your lips. “Yeah, alright, princess.”

You laugh softly. “Okay, get in there before you’re late.” You pull away and your smile is gentle. “I love you.” You beam, smiling with full teeth and your eyes are brighter than Jason has ever seen before.

“Love you, too.” Jason chuckles as the fluttering of his heart nearly sends him into cardiac arrest.

You watch Jason walk up the driveway and to the front door before he knocks. You watch and wait until a woman greets him and allows him into her home. A part of you thought maybe he’d try to bail out of it. Actually make a solid effort to anyway. You almost expected him to walk up the driveway and then sprint behind the house and take off, leaving you and Bruce to chase after him. But there he is, going into a therapist’s house on his own and you're happy for him. Relieved.

You don’t always think therapy will help but nothing else is helping him and at the end of the day, he needs help even if he wants to insist he’s fine. Everyone else around him knows he’s not. The limp isn’t because he’s still hurt. You know Bruce well enough to know he would have Jason checked out by a doctor to verify he was fine. It’s in his head which makes it all feel the same as if there were something physically wrong with him. He needs help. And he thinks no one notices his hands and the terrified expression after a nightmare. He can’t work through all his problems alone and he never should have had to. And you're proud of him for doing it even if he’s only doing it so he can be Robin. The point is that he’s going.

“What do we do now?” You ask Bruce as you get back into the front seat.

Bruce almost laughs. You and Jason have been beating around the damn bush since you showed up and you're finally doing something about it. Of course, never mentioning what that thing is to him and he finds the whole exchange a little amusing. Bruce has never told anyone, but Jason has always reminded him a little bit of himself. But, Jason is his son and you clearly make him happy.

“We could grab lunch while we wait.” Bruce offers.

“That’s fine.” You offer Bruce a soft smile.

Your issues remain with him. A part of you thinks Jason’s problem is still Bruce. Bruce was a lot of Dick’s issue. Had Bruce gotten Dick into therapy instead of giving him a mask and a cape, maybe Jericho wouldn’t have died because Dick would have been able to handle his problems better. Or, at the very least, maybe Dick could have handled that entire situation better and it wouldn’t have led Jason and you after Dr, Light. Maybe it wouldn’t have led Jason to the roof that day. Dick is an adult who can handle his own problems, but he was just a kid who was never taught how and you think the same is said for Jason.

Jason’s case is a little different. He wasn’t thirteen when Bruce took him in. But, maybe Bruce still could have done better. You do, however, admire the fact he’s trying now and maybe that’s what matters. He’s here now and trying and doing the one thing that might actually help. Forcing him to get help before he’s Robin again. You will never admit that to anyone though. So, you just go along with him for lunch and try your best.

After lunch, Bruce and you head back to pick up Jason. He’s not feeling great after the therapy session. He was never one that liked it very much. He was tossed around between therapists and psychiatrists while he was in the system. It was always repeating the same story over and over again, none of them offering anything that ever really helped. It was always more a state requirement and not because anyone actually gave a shit where his mental health stood. This therapist seems different than the others but like with everyone, Jason isn’t sure he trusts her. He gave her the same spiel about his parents and asked about her because that seemed easier than the same old boring story. But, she at least communicated with him and that part was at least nice.

“So, how did it go?” You ask once you're back at the manor in your room and away from Bruce. “You don’t have to tell me what you talked about or anything. Just asking how it went.” You shrug with ease.

“Fine, I guess.” Jason shrugs his shoulders as he stands near your fireplace. “Still not fucking happy about it.” A chuckle leaves his lips.

“Figured.” You match the chuckle, leaning back onto your hands, the bed soft under your palms. “When do you go again?”

“Next week.” Jason scoffs.

“Well, I’ll be there for you.” You smile softly at him and Jason thinks that’s the only upside. At least you’ll be there before and after.

“Yeah, thanks.” Jason lets out a breath. “Okay, well fuck that shit.” He approaches you, his eyes narrowing slightly as a smirk splits his lips. “Get ready. We’ve got a date to have.” He leans down, resting his hands on either side of you.

He’s tired of talking. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s going to do everything in his power to avoid it today. It’s too heavy and he wants today to be perfect. It’s your first date. Officially, as a couple.

“Oh, we’re going soon?” You perk up as your stomach swirls. This is real. It’s happening.

“Hell yeah. Got a whole fucking night planned, babe.” His voice is low and the way he smiles like this, the light hits his canines just right and it looks like he has small fangs. He’s so endearing.

“What are we doing?” You beam with excitement as you wrap your arms around his neck.

“You’ll see. Go get ready.” Jason urges, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Okay, Jay.” You peck his lips before Jason pulls up and lets you out of his grasp.

You get up and go to get ready. And Jason starts to feel nervous.

Technically, him and Rose never went on an official date. They mostly ran around Gotham, doing busts and then spent more of their time hiding out in someone’s house. There were no official dates. And come to think of it, Jason doesn’t think he’s ever done this before and he’s thinking maybe he went a little overboard with what he has planned. But he knows you better than anyone and he knows what you like. But then he comes back to realizing maybe he doesn’t know what you would like in forms of a date, it might be different than your usual thing. He’s just hoping he doesn’t royally fuck this up like he tends to have a habit of doing.

You meet Jason back in his room. You don't do much with your hair or your makeup, keeping both mostly the same as usual but you wear one of your nicer jackets. And even then, he swears you look beautiful. He smiles softly at you. He’s so in love with you and he really hopes you like the date.

He walks up to you and takes your hand in his. He hopes you don’t notice his hands are cold and clammy. You do but you think it’s cute. Jason nervous is not something that happens very often but the idea of him being nervous for your date, makes your head swim and your bones vibrate. He’s so cute.

The two of you head off on Jason’s bike, arriving at a movie theater in the city. Jason takes you to see a movie you mentioned wanting to see. It’s simple but it’s something he knows you really like movies. And he’s not one for big fancy dates. This is simple and it’s you. You find the gesture adorable because you don’t like the idea of a fancy restaurant either. This is kind of your thing. You’d go with a group sometimes, sure, but it’s your way of showing him how much you care. Showing him your things and movies is one of those things. And you adore him for it.

After the movie, you head back to the manor where Jason has insisted the date isn’t over yet. While he’s not one for something fancy, he is one for making an effort. Words are hard, they always have been and he knows sometimes he’s never going to be able to tell you exactly what you mean to him. But, for your first date, he can make as big of an effort as he can to show it. Even though you don’t need him to. You already know.

“Okay, keep your eyes closed.” Jason states as you both stand in the main living room, his hand intertwined with yours.

“If you walk me into a door, Jason--”

“I won’t!” Jason laughs. “Do you trust me?” He asks and it’s a little sarcastic and cocky.

“Yes.” You mock, keeping your eyes closed but you want to roll your eyes at him.

“Okay, so trust me.” Jason states as he leads you through the kitchen and into the courtyard.

He looks around, letting out a breath and he definitely owes Molly and Bruce for this one. Though, he thinks they’ll be giving him enough shit that maybe he won’t have to.

“Okay, you can open.” Jason nearly holds his breath as you open your eyes to see the backyard.

There’s a projection screen in the grass with a projector on one of the outdoor tables. Blankets and pillows cover the grass in front of the screen. The tables are lined with a variety of snacks, all of them being your favorite. And there are fairy lights decorating the rest of the courtyard.

Jason remembers what you said about that scene in Tangled, with the lanterns. Fairy lights aren’t lanterns, but they give somewhat of the same effect. So, he took inspiration from it. Because maybe, Jason’s a little bit of a hopeless romantic underneath the trauma. And he’d do anything for you. Cliche and cheesy and all.

“You--how?” You look over at him, eyes wide and a smile tugging at your lips. A lump forms in your throat as your entire chest nearly combusts into flames.

“I asked Molly and Bruce for help while we saw the movie.” Jason grins at you. “You didn’t really think we were just watching a movie for our first date, did you?” Jason quips, hiding his nervousness under his cocky grin.

“You asked for help?” You ask and you're not sure what’s more surprising. The courtyard or Jason asking for help. “I actually knew we’d go see a movie but this? Wow.” You look around, your voice soft and tender.

“Yeah.” Jason scoffs. “Look, you deserve it and you liked that scene in Tangled so. I needed some help while I distracted you.”

You swear it’s perfect because at the end of the night, it’s just him and you. It’s him and you in the courtyard watching your favorite movies. It’s him and you when it matters. He’s thoughtful and caring and kind and loving. Jason has only ever known pain and neglect but when it comes to you, he manages to show love and tenderness. You don’t really understand how he manages it but you're eternally grateful for this boy with dark hair and green eyes.

“It’s beautiful.” You say softly. “Thanks, Jay.”

“You like it?” Jason asks, stuffing his hands into his front pockets, something you've picked up he does when he’s nervous.

“Yes, of course!” You beam. You let go of his hand and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him for a deep kiss. His hands meet your hips as if on instinct, giving a light squeeze.“What’re we watching?” You ask against his lips.

Jason pulls away and there’s a grin of pride and confidence this time. “I’ve got Ready Or Not lined up since we didn’t get a chance to see it before it left theaters and Little Women. I read the book and the trailer seemed good. I think you’ll like it.” Jason states as he squeezes your hips again.

“Do you really remember everything I tell you? And I did want to see Little Women, just didn’t think you’d be into it.” You chuckle softly.

“Yeah,” Jason’s chuckle is gentle this time, bashful even. “It’s important to you.” He rolls his shoulders. “See, I know you.” Jason grins at you, wiggling his brows.

“Yeah, you do.” You scrunch your nose before pressing another kiss to his lips and dropping your arms from him. You head over to the snacks. “This is really nice, Jay.” Your smile is gentle and you love him with every fiber of your existence. “Thank you.”

“You deserve it.” Jason holds his head with pride, joining you to grab snacks.

“I get to plan the next date.” You offer him a devious smirk.

“Now, that’s unsettling.” Jason teases. “But fine.”

The two of you grab your snacks and head off to the blankets and pillows that are laid out for you before Jason starts the first movie. The two of you cuddle up with each other, attention mixing between the movie and each other. Your legs are rested over him as his arm is behind you and you just exist together.

To love, wholly and honestly, is terrifying because of the pain that seems to be intertwined with love. To love is to be brave and honest and optimistic. To love is something powerful but, to be loved back, that’s the greatest feeling in the world.

It’s the acceptance and understanding that comes with being loved back. It’s being loved for every broken piece and every bad, ugly, and terrible moment that comes. It’s knowing there will be bad days and hard days where the world seems to want to destroy every happy and peaceful moment, but choosing that person anyway. Falling in love is accidental, but staying in love is done on purpose. And that is why it’s so indescribable and remarkable and powerful. It is choosing to love and be loved back, risking the pain. And at the end, it’s worth it.

For Jason. And for you.

Over the next few days, everyone gets the news you and Jason have finally made things official. Gar and Kory actually kind of figured you were together. It was more of an inside joke with the Titans back in San Francisco. How long it was going to be before the two of you realized you were actually dating. Gar won. Dick wasn’t in on it (mostly because he thought you were friends this whole time who were just too oblivious and stubborn to say anything). So, they’re all happy to see the two of you happy together. Even Conner who didn’t really get a chance to know Jason and who only knew you for a short time.

Molly is your biggest fan though. She’s the best friend of the two of you. Her best friends are dating each other and she knows you’re both stubborn as hell with minimal self-preservation unless it comes to your hearts. You’ve both always been so guarded and she swears up and down, you’re supposed to be together. You’re the most guarded people she’s ever met and yet, the two of you manage to open up to each other. She swears you’re meant for each other. 

Today, Jason goes out with Molly while you hang back at the manor to have a training session with Bruce and a marathon with Gar afterward. The training session is fine but it's definitely not as fun without Jason. So, you're relieved when you can just sit down and have your marathon with Gar, filling him in a little bit on you and Jason. He's really happy for you both and it means a lot to you. He's your best friend.

But, with the marathon underway, it’s interrupted as Bruce walks into the living room.

“Excuse me.” Bruce calls from the doorway, pulling your attention away from the show and Gar.

“Is that Bruce Wayne?” Gar beams.

“Yes.” You furrow your brows at the screen before looking back at Bruce. “Oh, did you need the living room? I can move to my room.”

“No, no.” Bruce shakes his head. “You're fine in here. I was wondering if I could speak to you, however.”

“Uh…” You look back to your screen. “We’re…we’re kind of watching something, can we talk later or do you need to talk now?” You don’t know why he didn’t just talk to you earlier.

“I would like to talk now before Jason gets home.” Bruce states.

“Oh…” You widen your eyes before looking at the screen. “Pause it and I’ll call you back when we’re done?”

“Yeah, yeah of course. Hey, Bruce.” Gar chimes.

“Hello, Garfield.” Bruce chuckles slightly as he walks further into the living room.

“Okay, I’ll call you soon. Don’t continue without me.” You warn with a fake glare that turns into a cheeky smile before you end the call.

Bruce takes a seat at the armchair beside the couch and you watch him cautiously. It’s weird. You don’t really talk one-on-one and if you were being honest, you prefer it that way. You're growing to like Bruce, slowly. He doesn’t seem so bad. It’s just, every time you have that thought, you can hear Dick in the back of your head warning you. And Jason telling you about Dick taking out one of the trackers he knew about and how he shouldn’t do that because Bruce is looking out for them. And you catch yourself keeping your distance. So, you don’t normally talk like this unless you have to and it’s sending off alarms in your head.

“What’s up?” You ask slowly.

“How are you?”

You raise a brow at him. It’s weird because Bruce definitely doesn’t seem the type to be asking someone how they are. “Uh…fine. Yeah, I’m fine.” You nod at him, giving him a soft smile. “Why?” Your eyes narrow with suspicion.

“You have been through a lot. I wanted to make sure you were okay with everything that has happened.”

“Uh…yeah? Still fine, just the usual, I guess.” This is fucking weird. Even for Bruce Wayne. “Why didn’t you ask earlier?”

“We were training. I didn’t want to distract you.” Bruce sucks in a deep breath.

“Um…okay. Well, I’m fine. I’m just trying to watch some stuff with Gar.” You nod your head and he said he wants to talk before Jason gets home which means there is something about Jason he wants to talk about. “Bruce, I appreciate you checking up on me but if I’m being honest, I think you know I’m fine or that I will be and I am getting better because I know Dick and Jason filled you in. So, I think you’re asking how I am so you can ask about Jason.”

“I do want to know how you are.” Bruce defends in his usual stoic way that's somehow a little unsettling.

“Yeah, no, I mean I’m sure you care and everything. But, if what you really want to know is about Jason, you can just ask.” You let out a sigh and you can’t understand why these bird boys have to beat around the damn bush so much. “If you wanted to ask about me, it wouldn’t matter if Jason were home.” You nod your head as you scrunch your nose.

Bruce lets out something you think might be a chuckle. “Is he okay?”

You blink at him because you can’t believe he’s asking you that. Surely, he knows. That’s why he’s going to therapy because he’s not. Seriously what is it with the batboys that they can’t just talk?

“You sent him to a shrink?” You question.

“I mean,” Bruce clarifies. “Since going. He hasn’t said much to me. I want to make sure he’s okay.”

Truthfully, if Bruce actually wanted to be honest, that isn’t really why he’s asking. He sees a lot of himself in Jason. That is the problem. He doesn’t want Jason running himself into the ground over being Robin. Bruce has done that to himself too many times. He’s been thinking about it and what Jason means to him as a son. He’s worried about him, even with the therapy. Bruce knows you care about him. He hopes that’s enough for you to give him some insight

“Why?” You ask slowly as you narrow your eyes.

“He’s my son and I’m worried about him.” Bruce answers candidly.

“Yeah, no, I mean why are you asking me?” You shake your head, a snip your voice. It’s not your job to communicate for the two of them. They’re adults.

“I thought you might know.” Bruce nods.

“Of course, I know, I know everything about him. But you should know if he’s okay.” You widen your eyes as you furrow your brows. “He’s your son.”

Bruce lets out a sigh of defeat but you keep talking.

You have more to say. It’s not your job to communicate between the two of them but it’s clear someone needs to. You don’t care much for Bruce but Jason does. And that’s important. And he’s not okay. You think seeing Leslie will help him but, maybe telling Bruce isn’t such a bad idea. Jason needs the help and that means telling Bruce.

“Bruce, I think Jason Todd has never been okay a single day in his life.” Your voice is quiet and normally you wouldn’t be saying anything but it’s gotten to the point where you're really worried about him.

You being officially together over the last week has been absolutely incredible. You both are certainly the happiest you’ve both ever been with each other. But, Jason is derailing anyway and you always knew it would happen. Your validation for him is not what he needs. It will never be the thing that he needs because you're not Bruce and you're not Dick and that’s fine. It is never about your validation when it comes to him. His issues lie with the two of them, not you. So, Bruce making him see a therapist, is driving him a little bit insane. It’s only been a week though, so you hold out hope maybe it’ll help in the long run. But, you tell Bruce anyway because he should know. He always should have known.

Bruce nods with understanding. “He has not had an easy life.”

“Yeah, no shit.” You let out a scoff. “I think saying he hasn’t had an easy life is putting it lightly.” There’s a snark and a bite to your voice because you can just hear Dick in the back of your head.

Not to trust him. It doesn't matter that Bruce and Dick sorted out their shit. A part of him doesn’t trust Bruce and every time you think maybe, just maybe, Bruce has changed enough where Dick is wrong, he says something or does something where you know he hasn’t. This is one of those things. He shouldn’t be asking you if Jason is okay or saying he hasn’t had an easy life. It’s his literal job to know if Jason is okay and how to help him. It shouldn’t be up to you to tell him.

Bruce nods. “It’s been rough for him.”

“Ya know, it’s just….I don’t think Jason has ever felt….protected, safe, cared for….or loved in….at least most of his life. He felt, at least, most of that here and as Robin but all of that is gone and Deathstroke changed a lot of that. Bruce, he’s not okay and I am only even telling you this because I’m worried.”

Being happy in a relationship doesn’t make the pain of everything traumatic that’s happened just go away. It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t suddenly fix and mend and cure mental illness. You wish it did but it doesn’t. Being happy and traumatized can co-exist. He is happy with you and you know that, but in the last week, he’s still waking up screaming from nightmares and he’s still limping after training. He’s still terrified. And you're endlessly worried about him.

“He can’t be Robin again, not yet. I made mistakes with Dick and I don’t want to repeat them with Jason. That’s why I want him to see Leslie.”

It’s not that you agree or disagree with it. But you do want to know why Bruce treats Jason and Dick the same way. They’re wildly different people. Maybe taking Robin from Dick and sending him to therapy would have worked, simple as that. But Jason isn’t Dick. Robin means everything to him. Why can’t he be Robin and see Leslie? Why does he have to be benched entirely instead of half the week even? It’s just not very fair to Jason, in your opinion.

“Okay, I get that, but you know Jason. He’s gonna prove to you he can be Robin.” You shake your head. “He’s going along with it for right now and maybe it’ll help. I hope it does, but what if it doesn’t?” You raise.

“We’ll have to have that conversation if we get there.”

“Okay yeah, and what you want him to just see a shrink for the next year with his fingers crossed he’s not permanently benched from the most important thing in his life? Only for something to happen and you rip it away from him entirely?”

“You believe he should be Robin at this point? You just said yourself he is not okay. It’s not safe for him to be out there. Do you think it would be safe to send him out there if he is deemed not well enough?”

It's not that. It's that you know, firsthand, that Jason will absolutely go out of his way to prove himself. You both do it. Jason isn't going to be able to stay benched for months on end. He's just not going to. And you know that. The fact Bruce doesn't when he knows why Jason wanted to go after Dr. Light, is infuriating. And it scares the hell out of you.

He's going to prove himself if Bruce doesn't give him Robin back eventually. One day, Jason is gonna think he's had enough and he just needs to prove himself and he'll try. The last time that happened, you both were kidnapped, tortured, and dropped from a skyscraper. And that is lucky. Somehow, that was actually lucky because you both made it out alive. What happens if he doesn't get so lucky next time?

“Whatever I think about him being Robin is completely irrelevant. It’s not my place to have an opinion. It is yours but…I’m just saying, he’s gonna prove to you he can be Robin eventually. He’ll get bored and tired of waiting.” You state. “He did in San Francisco.” You shake your head. “He’s gonna get himself killed one day if he does that, to prove you wrong.”

With Robin off the table, the training sessions have gotten…a little nuts. He’s rougher than usual and you can handle it just fine, he's not out of control. But he’s more relentless. He’s training himself into the ground again. He just wants to prove to Bruce that not only is he capable, but he’s better than Dick ever could be. Without even realizing it, Bruce doing this and the way he treated Dick, he’s pitting them against each other. And Jason is set on proving to Bruce he’s fine. No matter the cost.

“He won’t do that. He knows the rules. If I tell him not to go—“

“Dude, seriously? We knew the rules in San Francisco, too and then we went anyway. Jason is your responsibility and you have to do something, I can do everything I can but it’s not gonna be enough.” You stress because even when you have hope that therapy is gonna help over time, you aren’t sure if Jason is actually going to put in the time to let it work. And you're worried what will happen if he quits.

“I can’t let him be Robin and let him get killed out there. You said yourself, he will get killed out there. I made mistakes in the past, I cannot repeat them.”

A part of you want to blow. You were always right about him. He wouldn’t have to worry so damn much if he would stop recruiting kids to be fucking Robin. He wouldn’t have to worry so much if he would stop weaponizing their grief. He turned Jason and Dick into weapons and he’s, somehow, the one paying the consequences of that. You think the whole thing is ridiculous. It’s like he doesn’t see what he’s done to either of them and how fucked up this whole thing is. But, that’s not your place to tell him off about him recruiting people. For Jason’s sake. So, you decide you're gonna fall back on your usual reasoning for having a distaste towards him.

“Okay, you know what, you wouldn’t have to worry so fucking much if you’d just kill those fucks. Like, you know that right?” You snip.

“We do not kill people.” Bruce’s jaw squares just slightly. “We talked about this. Once you kill one person, it gets easier to kill the next until the lines blur. We cannot be the ones deciding who lives and who dies.”

You let out a scoff followed by a hollowed laugh. “And at what point is that not good enough?” You grit your teeth. “How many times have you captured the Joker?”

Bruce knows the number but he won’t say. “Several. I always catch him.”

“And every time Joker escapes, he kills at least one person. So, if over the last 10 years, you got more than 10 people killed by letting the Joker roam around and one of those people were my mom.” A lump forms in your throat with the mention of your mom. It’s some sick joke him and the Joker like to play almost. It’s like a damn game of chicken in the worst fucking way. “You let the Joker kill my mom. I’m not talking about Penguin or Scarecrow, I’m talking about killing the Joker. He puts bombs in buildings for fun. He’s killed thousands of people since I’ve been alive. You could have saved those innocent people if you would have just killed the Joker.” You shake your head. “And he’s the main one you’re worried about, right? He just escaped Arkham again, right?”

You shake your head and this whole thing is insane. It’s not even that you expect Bruce to toss his morals out the window. But you think it’s something he should consider if he's so damn worried about it. Deathstroke was different. He was the best mercenary in the world. You and Jason never stood a chance but the fuckeads here? Bruce’s usuals, they aren’t much concern besides one. And you know it. That’s why you’re having this talk right now.

“It’s the Joker. We literally laughed in Penguin’s face. Mr. Freeze, Bane, Scarecrow, and Mad Hatter are all locked up. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy aren’t even a concern. The Riddler doesn’t kill people. I know you are not worried about fucking Condiment Man or Kite Man. I can keep going. But it always comes back to the Joker being the main concern, if Jason fucks up out there with him, that's it. Right?”

Bruce gains a scowl. He doesn’t appreciate you calling him out. You aren’t right but you aren’t wrong either. “It is not just about the Joker. And I cannot cross that line.” Bruce states firmly. “You should know that. You cannot cross that line either. The Joker is still a person and I will not determine if he gets to live or die. That is not how this works.”

“And what are you gonna do when he kills Jason? Or Dick? Or the next Robin? It’s gonna happen, it will. He’ll kill one of them eventually and then it’ll be too late.”

“I will not kill him for a what if situation.” Bruce lets out a sigh and this is not where he thought this conversation was going to go. A part of him thinks there’s a chance you're doing this on purpose to avoid telling him more about Jason. You're good at deflecting and not just when it’s about yourself. “That is not justice.”

“Then the guilt will eat you alive when it happens and then I’ll find a way, myself, to kill whoever kills him. Joker’s death is inevitable regardless and you could prevent the death of your sons.” You shake your head and get up from your spot, grabbing the tablet from the table. “I respect what you try to do as Batman and taking in Dick and Jason. I think that’s admirable. But, I think everyone has morals and sometimes you have to toss your morals aside for the greater good.”

“Even if that means someone has to die?”

“The Joker is a homicidal psychopathic sadist…so yeah. I don’t narc, I don’t tell anyone what happens with me and Jason, ever. But I’m telling you that he is not okay. Putting my morals aside because I care about him. I know you do, too, but you need to figure out how to get that through his thick skull or let him be Robin. It’s that simple. Always has been. Always will be.” You end the conversation, heading back to your room because that conversation was going nowhere and it never will.

You feel your blood boil and there is just something about Bruce sometimes. You don’t see it. You don’t see why Jason looks up to him so much. Maybe it’s just because Bruce saved him. Maybe some part of Jason is so hung up on that that he can’t see through Bruce’s other bullshit. But it irks you anyway, even when Bruce is genuinely trying to be better with him.

You just find the whole thing real rich. If he didn’t want to watch his kids die, he shouldn’t have offered them the vigilante lifestyle from the beginning. Maybe they both would have ended up here anyway. They both like to help people and that can’t be just a Bruce thing. But, maybe it would have been safer.

Maybe had Bruce offered therapy from the start, it would have been better or if he could just have a damn conversation with them. Literally, anything could work besides what he’s doing now. Training them to be brainwashed, taking them out to the cabin, training their bodies into a world of pain. Manipulating them with the idea of being invincible because of a mask and a cape. Anything has to be better than that.

And you feel like you can’t even tell Jason about it because he’ll get mad and annoyed further with Bruce. He’ll be annoyed he went to you to talk. And you know him, you just know he’ll think it’s because Bruce doesn’t think he’s good enough and you can’t let him think that about himself. And it is not your place to complain about his adoptive father. So, you keep it to yourself as you grind your teeth and call Gar back.

You pretend everything is fine as you and Gar continue your marathon until Jason gets home a few hours later.

“Hello, beautiful.” Jason chimes as he stands in the doorway of your room.

You look over with burning cheeks. He looks happy right now. So, you smile back, pretend like you aren’t still annoyed with Bruce. The call with Gar helped but then he had to go and the annoyance flooded you once more.

“Jaybird.” You say with ease as Jason walks into your room, tossing his jacket onto the end of your bed.

“How’s Gar?” He presses a kiss to your forehead before sitting down beside you.

“Good.” You answer simply as you suck in a breath. “He, uh, he misses us and Rachel but he said he’s good. He really likes being a Titan, you know Gar.” You laugh softly.

“He could come visit.” Jason chuckles softly.

He misses him, too. They lived down the hall from each other for four months and went through some crazy shit together. They’re best friends. Jason thinks it’d be cool to have Gar come. He could show him the Batcave.

“That’s what I said.” You widen your eyes. “He said he’d ask Dick about it.”

“Cool.” Jason laughs softly.

“Yeah.” You let out a breath as you look back to the tablet.

Jason watches you carefully and he knows you. Something’s off. You usually have more to say. You usually ask about Molly or whatever Jason is up to when he comes back home. You didn’t this time and you look like you're not really here with him. Your eyes are distant. The corners don’t crinkle when you laugh. Your jaw is clenching and you didn’t even mention what you and Gar watched.

“You going out tonight?” He asks and his words are a little flat.

He doesn’t mean for them to be. But, it’s sore. You still go out with Bruce. You asked him what you should do because you didn’t want to overstep. Going out on patrol with Bruce is Jason’s thing. But, you don’t really want to give it up either. You love patrolling and the more you do it, the more you understand why Robin has become Jason’s entire world. But, if Jason asked you not to go with Bruce, you wouldn’t. You’d go on your own if you had to. But, Jason assured you it was fine even if it hurts, even if he wants to tell you to not to do it. Even if feels like you're overstepping.

You shake your head and furrow your brows, bringing your attention back to him. “No, I just wanna stay here with you tonight.” You scrunch your nose, trying not to set off Jason’s alarm bells.

You don’t want to be around Bruce. The only thing you want to do is be with Jason tonight. You love patrolling but not tonight. Not tonight when you're reminded of the cruelty you face every day and the life-or-death stakes that exist outside of this manor. Outside of this safe bubble. The conversation, knowing the Joker is out there and likely who Bruce will be trailing tonight, reminds you of what could happen out there. You know. You already know but sometimes conversations take place and it becomes real. Patrolling and fighting, that’s fun and it’s easy to forget the stakes. And while you're terrified of Jason dying, he’s not the one going out there right now. You are. What would he do if you didn’t come home?

You just want to stay here with him tonight. It’s too heavy tonight.

“What’s wrong?” Jason asks, searching your face for any indicators.

“Nothing.” You lie. “Can’t want to stay in for a night with my boyfriend?” You say it like that on purpose but Jason sees through it.

You aren’t as insistent on patrol as he is. But you haven’t missed a single night since you got the suit. You're turning it down and he doesn’t get why. There’s something wrong and he knows it. He always knows.

“I know your fucking obsessed with me,” Jason starts with a chuckle, earning himself an eye roll. “But, I know when something’s going on with you.”

“It’s nothing, Jay.” You sigh. “I just want to stay in.”

“What happened?” Jason pushes, gritting his teeth because now he’s thinking someone did something. To you.

He thinks of the conversation with Molly, how she thinks you'll run. She told him she's worried that you're gonna be the one to fuck it up, not him. And that if you do, Jason should just not let you, even if he wants to push. It's what you both do, push and run. Molly is right. It’s what you do but if you both don't want to hurt each other, you both need to find a way not to do that. So, he tries.

“Can you drop it, please? I’m fine.” You rest a hand on his cheek, offering a tender smile. “Thank you.”

“Worried about you.” Jason states.

“How the tables have turned.” You widen your eyes, dropping your hand.

“I’m fucking serious.” Jason doesn’t so much as grin at you.

He can’t lose you. He is so certain of that. He can’t lose you in any capacity. So, he pushes just as you do with him. There’s something wrong and if someone did something, to scare you out of going on patrol, he doesn’t care what Bruce says. He’ll go back out there.

“I….Bruce he talked to me about something and I just…” You grit your teeth. “I don’t want to go out tonight.” You shrug your shoulders, voice laced in annoyance.

“What did he do?” There’s a mix of anger and confusion in his voice. Jason trusts Bruce but he knows as much as you fake it, he knows you don’t.

“Nothing.” You shake your head. “Just, uh…Joker was brought up and you know. Shit sucks. So I just don’t want to go out tonight.” You bite your tongue with every worry you have because you can’t burden him with it.

You can't put worried thoughts into his head. He has enough going on. And you know that he does worry, in his own way, when you're out there. He's more subtle than you are and he's not nearly as paranoid but he loves you and wants you to be safe. It's a natural thing. You don't want to add to that burden by saying you're worried about what he'd do if you died. On top of the rest of the conversation with Bruce, it's just too much and you don't want him to deal with it. Not right now.

“Your mom?” Jason asks.

“Yeah.”

“You know you can tell me, right?” Jason questions, getting the feeling it’s more than that. When it involves your mom, you're sad and you tell him. You seem annoyed today.

“I know.” You offer a weak smile. Guilt feeling heavy in your chest. “It’s just….it’s heavy today and I’m tired of it being heavy. I’m fine though, Jaybird. Can you just…..read to me when Bruce leaves, please?”

Jason nods softly, moving closer to you. “Yeah, of course. Did you want to talk about it?” He asks before pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Thanks, Jay.” You smile softly. “No, I’m okay.”

“You and me.” Jason smiles softly and he’s worried about you, too.

You rest your forehead against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, it’s just one of those days, ya know? Where it just…”

“Feels worse again.” Jason finishes.

“Yeah.” You pick your head up.

He wants to help and Bruce doesn’t leave for a few more hours. So, his solution is training. It always helps you, too anyway. He just doesn’t want you to feel the heaviness of it and if he doesn’t have to carry the weight alone, neither do you. It’s like he told you, you can put it on him. He’ll carry it for you.

“I get it.” Jason stands up abruptly. “Wanna train about it?” Jason wiggles his brows, offering you his hand.

You roll your eyes but there’s a smile tugging on your lips. He always gets it. “Yeah, I almost won yesterday.” You put your hand in his, getting to your feet.

“Maybe I let you win one round, think of that?” Jason teases.

“You wouldn’t let me win anything.” You scrunch your nose. “You’re too competitive.” You beam at him as Jason lets out a laugh and swings his arm over your shoulders.

“Guess that’s true.” He says as the two of you make your way to train.

You know you’ll tell him your concerns later and tell him about Bruce because while it might not be fair to tell him, it’s also not fair for you to hide it. He trusts you and he’s doing better about telling you everything that bothers him. You owe him the same. But right now, it's just too heavy to deal with and you just want to sit with him and forget about everything for a while.

Jason is really good about helping you forget and letting you relax so it’s easier to tell him. It's one of the many reasons you adore him and wholeheartedly love him more than anything on this planet.

After a few rounds of sparring, you having lost because Jason really can’t let you win, you move to the targets. When Jason runs out on his end, he takes a break, sitting a few feet behind you and to the right, having a drink of Gatorade.

He watches you when you train. There’s something enthralling about it. You throw the knives at the target with so little effort, Jason can’t help but stare. He remembers how bad you were at combat all those months ago. He never told you, but you were not good. It was obvious you never wanted to throw a punch, like you never hit someone before and you hadn’t. Maybe a part of him thought you might be hopeless. Even when you fought Jerry, Jason is pretty sure you only got as far as you did because he was surprised and you had a hit of adrenaline hit your system from the anger. You never stood a chance otherwise. But now, you make Jason actually put up a fight in training.

He puts in effort to make sure you don’t pin him now. You never miss a target. You're even getting over your fear of heights with having to grapple from building to building and with being on so many rooftops. You're so good at all of this now and his entire chest warms because he knows a part of that is because of him. But the other part, wants to completely shatter.

On the one hand, you never wanted to be violent. You told him that, more than once. You never wanted to be this way and now you are. It’s not his fault. He didn’t make you that way. That was Jerry, that was the Joker. But he looks at what you've become and he feels guilty anyway because he doesn’t stop you from being violent. He encourages it. And he thinks of how he was before Robin.

It wasn’t that Jason was violent. That was never it. He could pick a fight just as good as the next person. But it was out of survival. It wasn’t because he liked the bloody and bruised knuckles. Or coming back with his body covered in shades of navy and maroon and the pain that went along with it. It was how he had to survive. Fight or die. Fight or let people take advantage of him.

He was small. He got lucky he grew taller as he got older but he was a small kid. It was either learn to fight and take what he could or get taken advantage of or die trying. It was learn to fight and hold his own or deal with whatever his dad would dish out or the new guy his mom brought home that didn’t really like kids. It was never that he wanted to be violent.

He was just angry with the world. Robin gives him the outlet. Robin lets him be violent in a way that’s productive. Robin lets him choose violence. Robin lets him pick fights that matter. Robin lets him let the anger and the violent side of him be a good thing instead of something that hinders him and something people find to be annoying and a nuisance. Robin has given him so fucking much including that outlet and he can’t lose it. And he just gets so fucking mad when he thinks about it. He’s mad about it being taken away and mad at Bruce and a little mad at you for getting to use his outlet as your own, even when he knows that’s not fair.

It’s the anger that always got the best of him. Not the violence.

“Where’s your head, Jay?” You ask, looking over your shoulder from the targets as Jason sits on the floor behind you.

Jason snaps away from his thoughts, looking over to you. “What?” He furrows his brows up at you.

“You’re quiet and you’re never quiet unless something is bothering you.”

It’s only been two weeks but you know him better than anyone. It’s been rough for him not having Robin. He wasn’t Robin, technically, in San Francisco. He wasn’t supposed to be anyway. He was supposed to be taking a break but that didn’t seem to bother him as much as it does now. You’re not entirely sure what the difference is this time but whatever it is, you’ve got this feeling that there’s something more going on. Something’s poking at his head.

Jason shakes his head. “Want to get back out there.” Jason scoffs.

You nod. “Yeah…” You suck in a breath, looking at your target full of knives before you move to sit in front of him. You match his position, stretching your legs out right beside his with your hands on the floor behind you to hold your weight. “You sure it doesn’t bug you I go out?” You ask.

Of course, it bothers him. That’s his thing. But, it’s yours, too. Maybe it wouldn’t sting as much if you weren’t going out with Bruce. But, there’s nothing he can do about it and it would be wrong for him to even try. So, he bites his tongue about it.

“It’s fine, it’s your thing, too.”

You shake your head. “Yeah, but if it bothers you, I can wait until you get Robin back or I can just go out on my own.” You offer.

The first night Jason was benched, Bruce asked if you’d still join I’m for patrol. Jason assured you it was fine. So, you went and you talked later about it. He swore up and down it would be fine. You like to go out on patrol. You like to help people and who is he to try and take that away from you? You’d never do that to him.

“You think Bruce will be okay with that? You going out on your own?” Jason quips.

You grin before you let out a laugh. “Well, probably not anymore.”

Jason furrows his brows, his eyes scanning over your face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You bounce around how to tell him about your conversation with Bruce earlier without including the stuff about him. It’s hard because on the one hand, you respect Bruce but on the other, he can be a little insufferable. And Jason looks up to him for reasons you don’t really think you’ll entirely understand. It’s not your place to speak poorly of him to Jason. So, you tell him but you hope he doesn’t ask what sparked the conversation in the first place.

“We, uh, we had a moral disagreement today.” You chew the inside of your cheek as you raise your brows.

“Ah,” Jason nods his head. “That why you don’t wanna go out tonight?” The moral disagreement doesn’t surprise him. He knows how you feel about all of it but he is a little surprised you even brought up to Bruce.

“Amongst a few other things but yeah. I think he might think I’ll kill people now.” You roll your eyes.

Jason lets out a snort. “What the hell did you even say to make him think that?” Jason shakes his head. “Wait, let me guess.”

“I’m listening.” You gesture a hand for him to continue.

Jason clears his throat. “You should kill the Joker. He’s a piece of shit maniac clown who kills people for fun. He should be dead.” Jason grins at you. “Sound about right?”

“Shut the fuck up.” You groan through a laugh as you tilt your head back. “No.” You shake your head at him. “I said he was a homicidal, psychotic, sadist.” You state. “And that he should die, yes.” You mutter softly while Jason lets out a booming laugh.

He is certain you’ll never let it go which he doesn’t blame you for. He gets it. He doesn’t like his dad but a part of him still wanted to go after Two-Face. Dick went after Zucco. Parents are killed and their kids want to take revenge. But, he also knows you and he doesn’t think you’d ever actually try to kill anyone, but especially the Joker. You have more self-preservation than that.

“And he said something about we don’t cross that line or whatever?”

“Yep.” Your eyes widen as you nod your head. “Him and Dick think it’s ridiculous as if Dick didn’t feel that same way, ya know? But it’s the Joker. So, uh, I might have said his death is inevitable.” You scrunch your nose and maybe that was the wrong choice of words.

Jason eyes you carefully and there is something going on with you, too. It’s one thing to have the moral disagreement with Bruce but to actually say anyone’s death in inevitable seems a little off. Jason’s so wrapped in his own anger, he’s started to wonder if he’s missing anything with you.

“Okay seriously, what the fuck is going on?” Jason nudges your leg with his.

“Nothing. I don’t think I really meant it or anything but I kind of wonder if Bruce thinks I’m serious and thinks I’m like a ticking time bomb or something.” You roll your eyes.

“Did he take the shit from you? The suit or anything?” Jason questions and he is getting increasingly more curious what even started that whole conversation and got you mad enough to say anything to Bruce.

“No. Why?”

“Then he doesn’t think you’re gonna out and kill people.” Jason chuckles. “He’d take it away and send you to Leslie if he thought you were serious.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief.” You chuckle softly. “Still don’t wanna go out tonight though.” You shake your head.

Jason pulls his legs to his chest, resting his forearms over his knees. “What started the whole conversation anyway? Did something happen?”

You pause and you hate lying to him. It’s the one thing you really don’t do with him. But, telling him why Bruce even talked to you, that just doesn’t seem fair. You worry he might take Bruce’s concern the wrong way. Maybe it’ll send him spiraling even further. Maybe it’s best if you just keep that to yourself.

“Nothing.” You shake your head. “It’s nothing, really.” You assure him before you suck in a breath. “Seriously though, if you have a problem with me going out, you can tell me.”

The switch back the topic at hand does not go unnoticed and that’s also uncharacteristic of you lately. You tell him everything that bothers you and what leads to it bothering you.

“I said it’s fine.” Jason states. “If something’s going on with you, you’d tell me, right?” Jason questions.

You nod your head. “Of course. Nothing’s, uh, nothing’s going on. You need to stop worrying.” You offer him a cheeky grin and he knows you’re lying. “Look, Jay, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t stand a chance out there. I know it’s hard being benched and I don’t wanna make it harder for you.”

“You said yourself, you like going out there.” Jason bites his tongue.

“Yeah, but if it weren’t for you, I’d never stand a chance. I know it’s hard for you to be benched and I go out. I don’t wanna make it harder for you.”

He knows you’re lying but he can’t figure out why you would lie to him about something like that. It doesn’t seem important or serious enough to need a lie. Maybe a part of him is even hurt you won’t tell him. But, he knows it’s not fair to push because you don’t push him when he’s adamant about not tellin you. He hopes you’ll tell him later when it’s not so fresh.

Jason scoots closer to you, resting a hand on your thigh. “I’m fine, alright? Go out kick and some ass, with or without Bruce.” Jason grins at you. “Stop worrying so much.”

“I’ll always worry, I love you.” You smile wildly at him.

“Yeah, I love you, too.” Jason chuckles softly. “I'm fine, I’ll be back out there in no time.”

“Good, miss you out there with me.”

“I got you, babe.” Jason presses a kiss to your lips. “Spar again, then dinner?”

“Yeah, okay.”

The next day, Jason and you head off the coffee shop to meet up with Molly. It’s colder than it has been. The air is crisp as you walk inside, hands in your jackets. It seems to fit the mood. Your hearts are heavy in your chests, matching your sleep-deprived eyes. Last night was bad.

And Molly is sat at your usual table with a smile.

You think this is good. Maybe hanging out with Molly, the three of you will be a good distraction for him. It’s been only been two weeks, but you know he’s already going stir-crazy. The more you think about it, you're surprised it took him three months in San Francisco to finally break the rules and go out.

“Hey.” You chime.

“Sorry, we’re late, Molly.” Jason takes his jacket off, throwing it over the back of his chair before he sits beside you.

“It’s cool, I ordered for you guys.” Molly states with ease, barely looking up from her laptop. When she does, she has a look at the two of you, Jason specifically. She glances to you before going back to Jason.

He looks more tired than usual lately. But today, he looks exhausted. The bags under his eyes are thick and his grin seems lazier than usual. And she knows you've been more tired lately, too. When you hang out, you nod off and completely space out mid-conversation. You look extra tired today as you lean your head on Jason’s shoulder.

“You look…tired. Are you sleeping?” Molly keeps her eyes on Jason.

You glance to Jason with a heavy heart, last night was rough. He woke up screaming at the top of his lungs. He got you in the face with his elbow. He sputtered apology after apology, nearly throwing himself into a guilt-ridden panic attack over it. It was fine, it was an accident. He was having a nightmare.

You eventually got him to calm down and fall back asleep but that only lasted about two hours before he woke up screaming again. This went on all night. It was bad. No, he’s not sleeping.

“Don’t worry so much.” Jason brushes it off with a smile.

It’s one thing for you to know but he doesn’t want Molly to know even if it’s written on his face that he isn’t sleeping. He still feels guilty and tired and annoyed and angry and frustrated. He swears taking Robin away has made the nightmare worse. Everything feels worse.

“We just had a late movie night.” You state.

“And what about you? You look tired, too.”

“I’m sleeping fine. Jason’s right, don’t worry so much.” You lift your head from Jason’s shoulder.

“What’re you working on?” Jason changes the subject as you lean forward, fully engaging with the topic change.

Molly let’s it rest. It seems weird but it’s the two to you. It’s always a little weird. Your sleep schedules are a mess anyway.

Molly turns the laptop around so Jason and you can see. The screen has a large picture, a missing person's flyer. The sidebar contains others with other missing kids.

“Diego from the shelter went missing.” Molly states, her voice annoyed “Rumor is, The Joker’s got a dude on the streets taking in strays. Diego’s poor and brown so you know the cops don’t give a shit.” Molly shakes her head with a scoff, taking the laptop back.

You feel your blood boiling. That’s the shit you want to do. You want to target those terrible people who are bringing in kids. Kids are innocent. The three of you at this very table were once innocent and you should have been able to stay that way. It was ripped from you and you never want another kid to deal with any of that. That dickhead, has got to fucking go. And who the hell works with the Joker anyway?

“Batman will take care of him.” Jason states, crossing his arms on the table as he leans forward slightly.

You snap your attention at him, narrowing your eyes. “Right.” You nod your head, getting a confused look from Jason.

“Batman protects rich people.” Molly closes the laptop, resting it on the seat beside her. “Be careful, Jason, living in that fake house got you slipping.” Molly crosses her arms. “Should’ve stayed in San Francisco.” There’s a slight bite to Molly’s words.

“Fuck Sam Fransciso.” Jason states. “That whole thing was a mistake. Gotham’s where I need to be.”

“You’ve been different since you’ve been back.” Molly leans forward, she glances to you who raise a brow in confusion

Jason leans back in his seat, brows knitting together. “Different how?”

“I don’t know. Like something happened over it here.” Molly looks to you.

“Nothing happened.” Jason brushes it off coolly. “I was bored, so I left.” You think that’s one way to put it.

“It was boring as shit there. It was nice, but it’s not Gotham.” You back Jason up. This whole thing would be easier if Molly knew the truth. You want to know how everyone can keep up with all the lies.

“Okay.” Molly lets out a breath, not believing either of you. Something definitely happened over there. “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it—“

Jason leans forward, not wanting to deal with the integration. “Where’s this guy who’s picking up the street kids?” There’s a grin that tugs on his lips and you know he’s about to go track the guy down. And you for one, are completely on board.

Molly looks to you who now also looks extremely engaged. She has a bad feeling but she does know. “I heard he’s hanging near a shelter on Dunsmuir.”

“Show us.” Jason states.

He’s not Robin but he still has the same abilities without the suit. He is itching to be out there doing something and Molly has a point. Bruce does look out for the rich. Kids like Diego can get left behind. This is a chance for him to do something. To prove to himself he can do it, even without the Robin suit. He can deal with a lowlife picking up street kids. He could do it in his sleep.

“Yeah, take us.” You match the grin Jason has and Molly finds the whole thing a bit unsettling.

Molly lets out a scoff as she deadpans. “Right. Cause you’re cops now.”

“I’m serious.” Jason urges. “Let’s just go see if he’s there.” Jason's grin is wild and dangerous as he looks to you.

“Come on, let’s go.” You jump in. “It won’t be so bad or anything. Especially if he’s recruiting kids.”

You're worried about Jason but you’ll be together. He’s one lowlife working for the Joker. That’s easy. Jason can just threaten him, get a picture, call it good. Neither of you can sit by and let him do this. Plus, you think Jason might need the pick-me-up.

“And then what?” Molly can’t believe the two of you. You are both completely insane.

“Take some photos. Show them to the cops. It’s worth trying.” Jason states and he’s so convincing.

“It’s better than sitting here talking about it.” You offer. “It’ll be quick anyway.”

Molly glances between the two of you and she can’t help but find some part of this amusing, you share a similar grin. Ones that got her into trouble, ones she knows means you’re both up to no good. Ones she knows she’ll regret listening to. And she knows it’s such a bad idea. You aren’t cops. You have no business finding this guy. But, she knows Diego stands no chance if you don’t at least try.

“Fine.” Molly agrees reluctantly.

You and Jason share a triumphant grin between the two of you. Jason swears this won’t be like Deathstroke. He’ll be on better alert in case there is a team this time and he knows you will, too. You’re going to find a lowlife, not a supervillain. And besides, with Molly there, him and you won’t do anything too reckless to make sure she doesn’t get caught in the crossfire. This will be fine.

The three of you make the walk toward the shelter. Small flurries fall from the sky on your walk. You look around at the snow with a soft smile. You haven’t seen snow in a year and maybe a small part of you missed it. Maybe it feels like home in a weird way.

“How’s Sheila?” You ask, walking between the two of them, your right hand tangled with Jason’s.

“Yeah, no.” Molly scoffs. “She was the wrong one. Might even date boys again.” Molly states.

You let out a laugh. “Seriously that bad? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You're going through some shit.” Molly shrugs. You and Jason have asked about her and Sheila but Molly is the observant friend. The two of you always seem like you have real shit going on. She didn’t want to bother either of you with her relationship problems when, for once, you and Jason seem happy in one. “Broke up yesterday, you didn’t miss much besides screaming and her throwing things.”

“That’s also a lovely breakup.” You give a large nod with the roll of your eyes. You never cared much for Sheila. Sheila was the jealous type.

“Yeah.” Molly scoffs. “It’s cool though.” Molly shrugs.

“Yeah, you deserve someone better anyway. Didn’t she lose her shit on you for being home like five minutes late?” Jason asks, glancing over to her.

“That should have been one of my red flags.” Molly lets out a dry laugh.

“Yeah, maybe.” You agree.

The three of you reach an alley where you see an older man sitting on the hood of his car with a girl standing in front of him who looks way too young to be around him. She has a bottle in a brown paper bag and he looks like he’s a little too friendly with her. You can’t help the way your hand squeezes Jason's as you feel the anger start to bubble in the pit of your stomach. Jason glances to you, squeezing back.

“Over there.” Molly states. “Gotta be him.”

Jason lets go of your hand and pulls out his phone, taking a picture and using the software on his phone to do a check on him. The software runs facial recognition through the system, pulling up his extensive rap sheet. You peek over at the screen, making out a few of the charges and this is the shit that pisses you off.

Why do they keep letting him out? He is very clearly a danger to the public and yet he gets to roam around free, hurting more kids. Now, he gets to work with the damn Joker of all people. He’s got to go.

“Got him?” Molly asks.

“Hold on.” Jason says as it finishes loading. “Name’s Pete Hawkins. Piece of shit’s been in and out of Blackgate. Hooked up with the Joker last year.” Jason explains.

“Another piece of shit they refuse to keep locked up because they don’t actually give a fuck about the general public.” You let out a bitter scoff, stuffing your hands in your pockets.

“How do you know that?” Molly asks, looking between the two of you.

“Told you. I’m still me.” Jason smiles cheekily at her.

“Right. That’s one of those things that sounds real cool, but doesn’t actually mean anything.”

“Means he’s got it covered and he’s good at it.” You smile softly with the shrug of your shoulders.

Jason nudges you with his shoulder. “Let’s go introduce ourselves.” Jason suggests and you knew this was gonna happen. “Just a conversation. That’s all, come on.” Jason takes a step forward as Molly looks to you for help.

“It’ll be fine,” You step forward with Jason. “We’re just gonna talk and that’ll be it. Don’t worry.” You offer a soft smile and you’ve been here before.

You're confident, similar to Jason, this won’t be Deathstroke. This isn’t Dr. Light. This is just some guy. This is your home. This is your city. It won’t be like last time. You swear it won’t be and it can’t be because you have Molly with you. You swear it but you feel the fear creep into your stomach anyway.

The three of you make your way down the alley until you reach this guy. The closer you get, you can hear some of the conversation. He gave her alcohol. And he compliments her smile and tells her he can introduce her to someone that can make her smile. You nearly gag. He doesn’t deserve to be here.

“It never works out like that.” Jason states as the three of you stand in front of them.

“Yeah, it’s all sweet talk until you’re in too deep then it’s anything but sweet.” You add in, your hands warm in your pockets.

There’s a silence that consumes all of you for a few seconds. The man eyes the three of you, not quite confused but annoyed. The girl though, she looks uneasy. She looked uneasy before you approached anyway. And this guy is just gonna let her feel that way. He was going to use it against her.

“Give us a second.” Pete states to the girl. “Keep the drink.” The girl nods her head and walks away, glancing back at all of you on her way down the alley. “We have a problem?” He asks.

“A little young for you isn’t she, hoss?” Jason questions.

Jason also can't stand people like this guy. He was a kid once. He remembers it all. No one was there to protect him and he can protect himself but what about the other kids? That's supposed to be the point of Batman and Robin. To protect those who can't protect themselves. He doesn't need the suit to threaten this guy and try to find out where, at least, Diego is.

“She’s old enough to make her own choices,” He states back.

“Yeah? And exactly how old is old enough then?” You quip back. “Cause, uh, she didn’t look old enough.”

“Do I know you?” He questions, the annoyance soaking his words.

“I’m fuck,” Jason starts. “She's off.” Jason gestures to you. “We hate clowns.”

“Clowns?” Pete asks but there’s a seriousness in his voice.

“You know the type.” You state.

Molly watches the two of you and she’s getting the idea you’ve done this before. That seems a little weird and somehow not even close to surprising. But, she can’t figure out why you would do this? In your free time. Do you and Jason just go around Gotham interrogating people?

“Maybe you ran across a kid?” Jason asks. “Diego.”

“Martinez.” Molly finishes.

Pete shifts just slightly and Jason takes that opportunity to close the distance between them, getting in his face. You watch the two of them carefully, waiting for any quick movements, waiting for the throbbing to start, so you move to stand in front of Molly. You knew it was never going to be just talking and that’s fine with you. That girl was lucky you showed up and he should know he can’t get away with what he’s doing and what he wants to do.

“You know him?” Jason asks.

“You must have me confused with someone else.” Pete says but there’s almost a mocking tone in his voice. Jason stares him down and it goes eerily silent for a few seconds. Pete doesn’t like the look and you're getting the feeling this is going to go south.“You haven’t done enough time to look at me like that.”

“You have no idea who I am.” Jason's voice is low and unwavering, despite the fear pushing at his chest and vibrating his blood like a relentless and agonizing earthquake.

Molly gets the idea this going to turn violent. He’s done time and she knows Jason can fight but maybe not him. So, she moves past you and walks forward, touching Jason’s arm to grab his attention.

“Jason, let’s get out of here.” Molly says as Jason looks at her and as soon he does, a gun cocks.

It’s fast, happening in just a second. The gun is cocked as Jason looks back to Pete who puts the gun right under his chin. He was just waiting for his opportunity. You swear under your breath because for some reason, you thought he’d be fine. He knows better.

“Where’s your swag, cowboy?” Pete asks as you quickly move to Molly, yanking her back and behind you.

Jason freezes, flashes of Deathstroke cross his eyes. The beatings, the pain in his leg is agonizing. It throbs and if he didn’t know better, he’d swear it were bleeding right here, right now. He falls again and again and again. Everything that happened flashes his eyes and he can’t breathe and he can’t move. Why can’t he move? He has no time to react before Pete smacks him across the face with the gun, sending Jason to the ground.

“Jason!” Molly screams, trying to push you to the side.

“You shut your mouth, bitch!” Pete threatens as he aims the gun at her, you keep her blocked, locking eyes with Pete with your mouth in a hard line.

Jason tries to get up but Pete kicks him in the face. Jason starts coughing up blood onto the ground. He’s weak. Why is he weak? He’s fought men three times the size with ease. But Pete kicks him and kicks him and kicks him over and over. In the stomach and the side, over and over again. Jason tries to back away but he’s on the ground and useless.

He was never like this. He was never afraid of everything. It never caused him harm before. If anything, fear managed to protect him. It has always kept him on high alert. It made sure he could be physically and emotionally safe from anyone that would hurt him. But, now, all it's doing is getting him beaten up. It's traumatizing reliving the same damn fear every single day. He's so damn tired of it. He's so sick of being weak. And scared.

Jason rolls on his side where Pete kicks him again and you've had enough. You tried to give Jason a little bit of time to get it together, hoping he'd be able to. But, you can't stand by and hope anymore. You push Molly to the side and move towards Pete.

“Hey, dickhead!” You get his attention, taking a solid swing to his face and then another. “You wanna fucking fight, let’s fucking go.” You have a wild look in your eyes as he points the gun at you, Molly rushing to check on Jason. “Aw, cute! You think I’m scared?” You taunt him, the throbbing in your head intensifies and you move out of the way just as he fires the gun. “Missed me, fuckface.”

You swore you'd never be unprepared again and you pull out a knife from your belt hidden under your coat. In a swift motion, you nail him in the leg. He yells out and shoots again, you already out of the way by the time he fires.

Jason hears the gunshots through the ringing of his ears and he'll never forgive himself if you get shot because he couldn't even get a single punch in. You shouldn't be taking him on, by yourself, just because he couldn't. Because he started it. You're here again. Jason's idea. You in the middle of it.

“What the fuck.” Pete grits his teeth as he pulls the knife out.

“I got more if that’s not enough for you.” You pull out another knife, tossing it between your fingers. “Bet I can nail your jugular in a single shot. Wanna find out?” You question. “If your gun is fully loaded, you have fourteen more shots. So, we can go fourteen more rounds if you want and then I can hit your jugular. I do love target practice.”

Pete grits his teeth, holding the wound and he’s missed two shots already. Whatever you have going on, isn't worth his time right now.

“I’ll see you around.” Pete threatens you before he walks off.

You let out a breath of relief as you rush over to the two on the ground. Jason is still coughing and trying to gain his breath. Molly’s hand is on his shoulder. You can see the bloody gash near his temple and he should have had this. Maybe it’s worse than even you thought it was.

You and Molly help him to his feet, Jason brushing the both of you off. He struggles to gain his footing, the pain in his leg is as bad as it was when Deathstroke cut out the tracker. His entire body is aching with every breath. He’s embarrassed and pissed.

“Look, you’re hurt, we need to get you to a hospital—“ Molly starts once Jason is on his feet.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Jason says, keeping his voice level. It’s not her fault.

“Jay.” You state.

He can't. He can't do it and he doesn't want to.

“Just tell me what I can to help—“ Molly starts.

“Get the fuck away from me, okay?” Jason screams, gesturing his arm in the other direction.

He doesn’t want help. He’s tired of people offering to help. He doesn’t fucking want it. It doesn’t fucking help. Nothing is helping. It’s been months and he’s still paralyzed with fear. Every single time, it seems to be getting better, it just gets worse. He relives it over and over and over. It’s drowning him even when he knows how to swim.

Molly stands for a second, her heart aching being yelled at. Jason doesn’t yell at her. Jason never yells at her. Tears brim in her eyes. She’s just worried about him. He just had a gun pulled at him and got the shit beat out of him. It was terrifying.

You let out a breath and you can tell Molly’s never seen him like this. Of course, she hasn't because she doesn't know. She doesn't know about Robin or Deathstroke. It's one of those times you wish desperately that she did because she'd understand. But, she doesn't and she's going to be the one left confused and hurt.

“It’s okay.” You turn to Molly walking her towards the alley. “It’s fine, okay? I got him.” You nod your head with a weak smile

Molly stares at you in disbelief. You can’t be serious because you were just shot at. How is this fucking fine? Neither of you are fine and Molly is sick of you both trying to fool yourselves and her.

“What the hell was that? With you? He almost shot you!” Molly panics, looking you over just to make sure he missed.

“I’ve been shot at before, it’s fine. Just something I picked up.” Your voice shakes and that’s new.

Your hands are vibrating at your sides and you're realizing, it’s getting a little hard to breathe. But it’s the realization that you have been shot at before. You were left for dead, twice. It all comes back in a wave but you have to push through it. Molly can’t know and Jason needs you. You need to check on him. You can’t panic over it. It happened months ago. And you weren’t the one tortured and kidnapped by CADMUS. It’s not your trauma to process.

“You were what!?”

“Molly, it’s fine. He’ll be fine. Just go home.” You keep your voice calm and pleading.

“He’s hurt.” Molly urges with tears in her eyes.

“He’s fine, okay? I’ll look him over—“

“You’re not a doctor.” Molly grits her teeth.

“I know. I’ll get him to go, okay? Just, head home and I’ll call you. It’s fine. I promise.” You pull her in for a hug before walking back off to Jason who’s pacing and fuming.

Molly pauses for a second before she decides to listen. Jason and you aren’t gonna listen to her anyway.

“You, too!” Jason screams at you.

He doesn’t want your help either. He doesn’t deserve it. The cruel voices are back, louder than ever and echoing through the deepest parts of his chest. They scream and cackle, telling him over and over that he's not good enough. Anyone could have beaten that guy up. Anyone could have taken him and anyone would know he had a gun. Of course, he had a gun. But, Jason's terrified of everything. He's too scared. He's weak and useless and hopeless. 

“No!” You yell back. “I’m not fucking leaving you here like this.”

“Get away!” Jason’s voice cracks as he stands in front of you.

“No! Molly’s right. You’re hurt. We need to get back.” You urge him as you reach for his shoulders.

He can't go back. Bruce is going to be home and he's going to have questions. What if this gets him benched permanently? What if this proves Bruce right? What if Bruce gives up on him entirely?

“No fuck that shit!” Jason brushes you off and he’s so fucking sick of this shit. “Leave me alone!”

“Jason.” You grit your teeth. “What the hell is going on?” You move forward anyway and cup his face, minding the blood.

“Just leave me alone, please.” Jason pleads with you as a lump grows in his throat. He’s so fucking sick of this. He’s so exhausted from feeling this way.

“You know I won’t, Jay.” Your eyes soften as your heart breaks for him.

Jason takes your hands in his. “You fucking should. I’m fucked up. You deserve better anyway. Go the fuck home.”

He’s pushing. Your heart breaks and you're gonna keep fighting. You have a lot of regrets and one of those is not fighting for him sooner. You always should have. You're not gonna repeat that regret. So, you're gonna fight and if he wants to push, he’ll have to try a lot harder than that.

“Jason, don’t do this.” You beg him. “Come home with me, please.”

He shakes his head and he can’t. He’ll pay for it later. He knows he will. He’s gonna push as hard as he possibly can to get you away from him. He doesn’t want you near him. He’s fucked up. He’s useless and weak and a mess. You don’t deserve him. He doesn’t want you coming to his rescue. It’s not your job and it never should be. Jason has always been able to take care of himself alone. This is no different. He doesn’t want your damn help. He doesn’t want it. It’s embarrassing. Humiliating. He loves you but he's in so much pain right now he has to do the one thing he’s always been best at. Pushing.

He’ll regret it.

“No.” Jason huffs. “I’m not going fucking home!” He yells. “Get the fuck out of here. I don’t need you bailing me out! I could have fucking handled it!”

“Why are you doing this?” You ask, your voice cracking. You tug your sleeves down, Jason catching the action.

You haven’t done that in a month around him. He crumbles with the act. He knows pushing hurts you and that’s not fair just because he’s hurt. You don’t deserve it and maybe he’s right. Maybe you really do deserve better. He can’t take it back. He didn’t mean to hurt you. Not on purpose. He can’t take it back and he can’t deal with it all. He can’t deal with more guilt and pain and disappointment.

“Just leave me the fuck alone, alright?” Jason scoffs and he walks past you, knowing you’ll never leave. You don’t have it in you to walk away. So, he does.

He knows you’ll get him to break if he stays. You've always been good at getting him to calm down and be reasonable. But that’s not what he wants to be right now. He almost wants to be angry about it. He just wants to be alone, away from every person he’s disappointed and that includes you.

You watch him walk away as tears brim your eyes. You were making progress and now you’re back here. What is so different than before? You've had to bail him out before this and it wasn’t this bad. He didn’t push like this. And you realize the difference is Robin, the difference is always Robin.

At least when he was Robin, he had that to fall back on. He could chalk up his freezing to still being able to be Robin later. He’d have a second shot at it. He’d get a third shot. He was still Robin but Bruce benched him and now he’s getting his ass kicked by some nobody trafficking kids to the Joker. He has nothing left to fall back on. Every horrible thought he ever had about himself has become true today. He is useless. He is weak. He is not good enough. And you hate that he even feels that way.

But you can’t follow him because then you’ll just fight and that’s not something you want to do. He doesn’t need to feel worse over an argument with you. So, you let him walk away and you make your way down the alley.

You head back to the cafe where your bike is parked and you decide to hang out for half an hour, hoping Jason will come back. You can go back to the manor together and make sure he’s actually okay but as the time ticks by, there’s no sign of him and he’s not answering his phone. Jason is really good at pushing.

Jason looks at his phone and it's cold. It's snowing. You should just go home but he knows you're definitely still waiting for him. But, he's not even close to being ready to talk or cool down.

Jason: go home be back later I’m fine

Jason looks at his phone, watching the bubble show up. He’s still so angry with himself for all of it. He can’t even look you in the eyes right now. He doesn’t want to do anything. He just wants to be alone. But you worry. It’s been half an hour and at the very least, he can text you that he’s fine.

Y/n 😍: I don’t want to go back without you

Jason’s heart sinks as he reads the text. He hesitates over the keyboard. He almost types out “too bad” but he can't bring himself to type it out. It'll be even worse if it does.

Jason: you have to get ready for patrol tonight anyway stop worrying

Jason shuts his phone off as soon as the text sends. He simply can't. He knows he just fucked up your whole relationship. It’s been two weeks and he just fucked it all up. He’s not good enough anyway. It doesn’t matter. And yet it breaks his heart in two.

All he wants is to be Robin and be good enough again. He doesn't want to be so tired anymore. He's tired of it all. The nightmares and shaking hands. He's tired of the leg pain and the headaches and the nausea and racing heartbeat that makes him feel like he's going to pass out. He's tired of disappointing everyone and letting them down and not being good enough. He's tired of being weak. 

You let out a sigh, texting him back saying you don't have to go but the read receipt doesn't come through. You want to give him some more time to come around before you head back. So, you get on your bike and decide to head to Excellent Gotham. You always like it there anyway and it’ll be warm. And Jason knows that. If he wants to come around, he'll know where to find you.

You open the take-out container of your food once you're seated at your favorite table against the back wall. You try to eat while you scroll on your phone. Gar posted a new picture of him with Conner and Krypto at a park. Dick and Kory are seated at a picnic table behind them. A smile tugs at your lips as you double-tap the picture and pull up the comments.

You: @/dickgrayson @/koriandr look real cozy in the background 👀

You send the comment, mostly to harass Dick. You can’t do it in person, but you can do it through social media. It is something that can cheer you up usually. And you smile softly, remembering when Kory told you and Gar how Donna was the one that showed her how to work Instagram and helped her set up her account. You miss all of them.

@/dickgrayson: we were talking?

You: wE wErE tAlKiNg 🥴

@/garlogan: they’re always “talking”

You:“talking” is the first stage @/dickgrayson “don’t do anything…graphic”

@/garlogan: 😂🤮

@/dickgrayson: NOT FUNNY

@/garlogan: yes it is

You: you said it first 😂 sorry @/koriandr ily 💕

You laugh softly to yourself. You'll never miss an opportunity to bug him. You scroll through a few more photos until your attention is pulled from your phone when someone sits down in front of you.

“Hey.” Tim chimes. “You here alone?”

“Uh…yeah.” You shake your head. “Why?”

Every time you come here and Tim is here, you have a conversation about anything, really. This isn’t too weird of an exchange but you find it odd anyway for him to ask.

“You never come here alone anymore. Jason and Molly are always with you.” Tim gestures with his hand. “Everything okay?”

Tim is observant. He notices and remembers everything about everything and everybody. Before you left, you’d come in alone but since you started showing up again, you're always with Molly or Jason. Tim hasn’t seen you alone at all since. He notices you tugging your sleeves down when you order and the fact you always sit with your back up against a wall, looking out over the entire restaurant, something he doesn’t ever remember you doing. You’ve had enough conversations over the years that he considers you friends, friends enough to ask anyway.

“All good.” You shrug your shoulders, brushing it off.

Tim sighs. “My dad said you seemed down.” It’s not a lie. Mr. Drake did say that but Tim noticed anyway.

You laugh softly, nodding your head. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“You sure? You can tell me if you want. I know we don’t know each other that well, but might help. Then I don’t have to run a delivery.” Tim chuckles.

He’s always so warm. You don’t think you've ever seen Tim seem down, annoyed but not down. He’s always excited to talk about whatever new thing has been picking at his mind. He was one of the people that told you he suspected there was a new Robin. Batman and the crazy maniacs of Gotham were a topic of discussion on occasion. And boy could he ramble about it. But, you always felt like you could trust him.

He doesn’t really know Jason. He kind of knows Molly but it was you and Tim that had the most conversation. He doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t know what happened to you or where you were and what happened. He doesn’t know any of it. And you find that a bit comforting. You trust him enough to at least talk a little bit because having to not tell anyone anything because everyone you know knows Jason is really difficult sometimes.

“Just, uh, some shit is going on and I, uh, can’t tell anyone about most of it.” You shake your head. “Me and Jason got into a fight and uh, I don’t know. He pushes sometimes. It’s fine, ya know? I get it but it, uh, it sucks anyway.” You chew the inside of your cheek.

Tim furrows his brows. “So, he gets mad and pushes you away? That’s not fair to you.” He lazily points a finger at you.

“Yeah, but he has shit going on.” You defend.

“That’s not an excuse.” Tim scoffs. “He seems cool. I don’t know him. I’m just saying, no one deserves to be pushed just because someone’s going through shit.”

“Well, he’s not an asshole to me. And I do the same shit so, ya know?”

“Well, I still think he shouldn’t do it." Tim states casually. "Why’s he do it anyway?“ Tim asks and you raise a brow at him. "I'm just saying, you're together so why's he still pushing you away?"

“I’m so serious, if you ever bring this up, I’ll kill you.” You threaten softly and Tim nods, gesturing for you to contiue. “Everyone gives up on him and I just…don’t? I’m like the only person who hasn’t and I’m not going to. I don’t even know why people do. He’s an ass sometimes and he’s all bark and bite. But, I don’t get it anyway, right? Because when you give a fuck about someone you don’t just give up cause shit gets hard. Or they fuck up. But it’s like he’s so damn used to it that when I simply don’t give up, he freaks out a little more when shit, like today, happens.” You state, keeping it a bit vague on the actual events.

Tim nods his head and he agrees. He believes in second chances. He doesn’t think people should just give up on people. He’s fucked up several times and his parents don’t give up on him. They were not happy about him dropping out but they’re not giving up on him. He doesn’t know what happened and he highly doubts you're gonna be less vague if he asks. But, he also knows some things you definitely don’t know he knows.

Tim knows. He knows Jason is Robin. Dick was Robin. Bruce is Batman. He knows you're Bluejay, a vigilante name the Gothamites have given you all because of your blue suit and you patrol with Batman. You do not talk about the irony in it. At least it's a little better than Acid Fingers. But, Tim is very observant. With a photographic memory.

Dick is one of two people in the world who can perform a specific flip and Robin 1.0 and Nightwing can also perform that trick which means Bruce Wayne is Batman. Jason was adopted by Bruce after Robin 1.0 left which means Jason has to be Robin 2.0, on top of the fact Tim remembers seeing videos and him and Robin 2.0 walk the same way. They share the same stride and confidence. And that’s how he figured out you're Bluejay.

The way you walk, how you hold yourself. You're living with Bruce Wayne, dating Jason Todd. It’s all pretty obvious to him in all fairness. So, he is kind of guessing whatever is going on has something to do with the vigilante life and that’s not something he can so much help with. But, he can try.

“Do you want my advice?” Tim asks.

“Sure?” You question.

“You said he pushes so, have you tried…letting him?”

“The point is that I don’t? So, I’m not like everyone else and I don't give up on people very much.”

“Yeah, but, you not letting him doesn’t work with whatever is going on, right?”

“I guess?”

“So, let him. And he’ll come back, right? Be there when he comes back. You said, it’s what he does. So, maybe you,” Tim gestures towards you as he leans back in his seat. “Being there all the time is suffocating him.” Tim states casually. “You could give him the space and when he comes around, be there like you normally would. Maybe he just needs the space, right?”

“I--” You pause and that’s kind of a good point you haven’t thought of. “I…yeah, actually that kind of makes sense. I just…worry about him. If you knew, you’d know why, ya know?”

“So, tell him you’ll give him space or whatever but he has to check in and tell you he’s fine so you’re not worried.”

You groan, putting your head on the table for a second before picking it back up again. “That’s actually a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s easier from the outside sometimes.” Tim chuckles awkwardly.

“Thanks, Tim. I will try that.” You nod softly.

“You're welcome.” Tim smiles warmly. "So, you decided to just come here because you had a fight and wait for him to come around?"

“Oh, you really don’t want to work. Don’t you have like schoolwork to do or something?” You quip with a grin tugging at your lips.

“I dropped out.” Tim shifts in his seat slightly.

“Why? Aren’t you like a genius?”

Tim shrugs casually. “I mean not...”

“He does our books.” Mr. Drake calls from the counter making you laugh.

“Genius.” You state with a nod.

“Kind of.” Tim rolls his shoulders.

“I just, uh, I always liked it here. Your family is always here, and always felt real warm. And, uh, ya know? Been a while since I felt that so. Like, whole family dynamic thing.” You nod your head.

“Oh, well, in that case, you can run my deliveries. Really feel the warmth of a family then.” Tim nods twice with a toothy grin, glancing to his dad.

“No, I’m good.” You laugh. “That’s all you, Timmy.” You scrunch your nose. “Thanks, though, seriously.”

“Hey, we’re friends, right?” Tim shrugs casually.

“Yeah, I guess.” You shake your head. “Coming in here enough over the years, I guess so.” You smile softly. “Seriously, thank you. And also, I’m serious, don’t tell anyone. We don’t normally like when people know our shit.”

“I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry.” Tim chuckles.

“Well, I’m gonna head back to the manor. Give him space like you said. I’ll be back probably tomorrow.” You laugh as you get up.

“Oh, well, I’ll be here.” Tim states with wide eyes. “They won’t let me leave.” He whispers.

“So, go to school.” You mock him as Tim groans.

“Yeah, alright, be safe.” Tim chuckles.

“Yeah, too. All those delivers and such.” You offer him a thumbs-up before you head out of the restaurant.

The night goes by and you don’t go on patrol. You want to be here when Jason gets home and being out with Bruce just seems like it’ll make you more annoyed tonight. It’s his fault today happened anyway. So, you stay home and listen to Tim, giving Jason some space for the night.

Jason texts you here and there saying he’s still fine because he’s not throwing in the towel. The later the night gets, the more texts come through from him. He’s calmer as the night goes on and his anger is fading away. He apologizes a few more times and he wonders how he’s ever going to come back from what he said to you and Molly. Neither of you deserve it. You were just worried about him.

At some point, Jason stopped receiving texts from you and figured that was his cue to head back home. It’s two in the morning and he has to guess you fell asleep. He thinks it’s safe to go home and get to bed. He won’t have to talk about it when he gets home. He can just try to get at least some sleep.

When he gets home, Bruce is still out on patrol. The manor is completely quiet and he goes right to your room, just to check on you before he heads to his own bed. But, when he looks into your room, the bed is still made and you aren’t there. His heart plummets because he thinks he really blew it. He’s so sure you left. Maybe you're staying with Molly. Maybe you're just waiting for him to calm down before you break it off entirely. You're done and it’s all his fault.

Maybe you were only texting him back so you wouldn’t feel guilty if he did something stupid. He’s not sure, but he really thinks he messed things up with you this time.

Jason feels tears brim his eyes as he shuts the door. His head hangs as the lump grows further into his throat as he walks to his room. He did what he always does, push until someone gives up. He really, in the pit of his stomach, didn’t think you ever would. And he doesn’t even blame you. He just feels guilty and hurt for everything in the first place. He just keeps fucking it all up.

When he reaches the door of his room, his arm is weak as it creaks open but his attention snaps to the TV that’s on. There isn’t anything playing, it’s just the screensaver but it’s on and there’s an automatic shut off which means he didn’t leave it on. He looks in the opposite direction towards his bed where you're sleeping.

Jason sucks in a breath of relief at the sight of you. You didn’t give up. You didn’t leave. You waited for him in his room because you knew he would be avoiding talking and probably you when he got back if you were awake. And his heart swells. He doesn’t deserve you. But, he walks closer to the bed anyway and strips to his boxers before crawling into bed with you and wrapping his arms around you. He presses a kiss to your shoulder.

You hum from in front of him, your back pressed against his chest. “Jay?” Your voice is groggy as you tiredly look over your shoulder.

“Yeah.” Jason whispers softly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’okay.” You smile softly, rolling around his arms to face him, your eyes barely open as you look up at him. The bruise from the day is hidden against the pillow and the low light of the bedroom. “Glad you’re home.”

“I’m so fucking sorry.” Jason states and you barely make out the guilt across his face.

“It’s okay, we’ll talk in the morning.” You snuggle against his chest. Truthfully, you're just glad he's home and he's safe. One bad day doesn't destroy everything you've built. “Not mad, just tired. Get some sleep, Jay. It’s just you and me.” You press a kiss to his chest, feeling Jason relax against you.

“I love you.” Jason mutters against the top of your head.

“I love you, too.” You smile softly against him.

Jason squeezes you softly against him and he doesn’t know why he’s still lucky to have you. His life is shit besides you and you pick him anyway. You should leave him and he knows you should. He was wrong for speaking to you that way and for pushing so damn hard. But you don’t. You're here anyway for reasons he’ll never understand. But he is immensely thankful you're still here. With him.

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Tag list: @fairyofshampoo // @italiana-20 // @jasontoddsmentaldisorders // @purplerose291 // @lovelessamai  // @makaelaseresin // @lenidaslenchen // @mayfieldss  // @ghostkingblake // @im-done-with-this-im-out // @velvetskies // @lilylovelyxo // @cryinghotmess // @yesimwriting // @vivian-555 // @stainedstardom // @baebeepeach // @legend-o-zelda // @harleycao // @somehow-lovable-trash  // @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx // @deyja-the-duck // @jasontoddslover //  @captainmarvels-blog // @totallynotkaibiased // @scarlovesyou // @whydoyoucare866 // @littlemeowmeow1000

[intothegreat-wide-open]

tagged by @wastemanjohn, thank you!!

1. Are you named after someone?

not that i know of, no. if so, thank you person i don't know for a name that always gets misspelled <3

2. When was the last time you cried?

omg please i am the biggest crybaby, i can cry bc of anything. haven't had a real ugly cry in a while though.

3. Do you have kids?

nope. and i like it that way. #childfreebychoice

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

like, in an organized way? only handball, from age 13-18. broken nose, a lot of bruised bones and bruises in general. good if you like pain, otherwise would not recommend.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

I would never.

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

physically probably height (or lack of)

7. What's your eye color?

blue and green and gray there's a little bit of everything in there

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

happy endings i'm a sap. but also gimme a good action movie with blood and bullets and unrealistic stunts and i'm happy.

8. Any talents?

yeah no, not really. i kinda have a knack for languages but since i don't use a lot of what i know regularly i can only understand/read them but not speak them.

9.Where were you born?

the same city i still live in today.

10. What are your hobbies?

i need new hobbies tbh. work has been such an enormous soul/energy suck and i have let a lot of things slide.

i do like writing, i should be doing a lot more reading than i am currently doing. i love puzzles of any sort but haven't done any in a good while. i love a good stretching/yoga session or some fun sporting things on the switch but the exercise/sporting timeslot is currently occupied by very un-fun functional exercises my physical therapist makes me do

11. Do you have any pets?

yes, three of them and i love them dearly and they drive me insane

12. How tall are you?

5'10. Taller in heels.

13. Favourite subject in school?

english.

14. Dream job?

man idk don't ask me the hard questions. if it was up to me i wouldn't be working at all but living on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no people and a gazillion animals, writing silly little stories and just enjoying life.

[honeybewrites]

Find The Word Tag

Thank you @sabewebb for the tag!! Part 1 is here, 2 here, 3 here, 4 here, 5 here and 6 here! I've gotten a little behind on tag games, so apologizes on the delay!! Hoping I can catch up on everything this weekend!

My words: Safe, Chance, Try, Touch

CW: self blame, mention of killing, mentions of injuries, mention of blood, description of injuries, swearing

Safe: Echoes of War Chronicles

CW: self blame (idk if that's a cw or not)

“Sweetheart, none of this is your fault,” Rage said seriously. “I do not blame you for any of it.” But it was her fault. All of it.  She should have protected Rage. She should have stopped Master Gerd. Instead, she’d just helplessly watched because she was so weak she couldn’t even protect those she loved. How could she even call herself strong when she couldn’t protect anyone? How could she stay with Rage when all she would do is put him in more danger, more harm, and not be able to keep him safe when it came? She was useless.  “It is not your fault. You did not do this to me.” “But I did,” she said softly. She tried to blink her tears away, but she was too exhausted to put in very much effort. They rolled down her face without care. “If I had—” “There is nothing you could have done. Absolutely nothing.” Rage gave a small sigh. “Come here, please?”

Chance: Legend of the Ancients

CW: mention of killing

“You killed it?” Lanin asked. Emaeh nodded. “You got guts, I’ll give you that.” Lanin nudged Ryuk and started walking towards Dryzl’s body. Ryuk eyed her blankly for a few more seconds before finally taking the sword from her. “We need to keep moving,” he finally spoke. “I’m sure there’s more monsters in these woods. The blood will bring them in.” Ryuk started towards the horses. Emaeh took one last look at the creature. She wanted to research it once she had the chance. It almost seemed like it belonged in the dragon family. A part of her wanted to take something off it. A tooth or something, just for research. She’d never seen anything like it.

Try: Echoes of War Chronicles

CW: mention of injuries and blood

She hiccuped apologizes for what had to be hours. What little of her voice she had left was used up quickly until she was left only able to sniffle and sob silently. Even that was used up eventually. She just sat, clinging to Rage, shaking and terrified Healer Asurr would come back for more.  She knew she should been more gentle with her body. Bruises were already forming from her thrashing and her wrist was swollen and most definitely broken. Dried blood made rings around her wrists and ankles like cuffs. But she didn’t care about it in the slightest. Rage was all that mattered. After some time Rage eventually started to stir awake.  703 tightened her grip on him and pulled back to look as he finally opened his eyes. “Mal-in-eya?” He asked hoarsely. She nodded. He tried to move and pain must have shot through his body as he cried out faintly and stilled. She put slight pressure where she still held on to him, trying to convey he needed to be still. Thankfully, he didn’t try to move again. “A-are you… okay?” He asked once he had some breath again. She just stared at him bewildered. Why in the seven Realms would he be asking if she was okay? He was the one who had just been tortured.

Touch: Echoes of War Chronicles

CW: mention and description of injuries, swearing

703 looked down again, at the gaping hole in her stomach. As far as injuries went, she had to admit this was one of her more severe ones. It was blistering now, discolored and oozing. The pain was considerable, enough to have her laying still even with her chips active. Then there was her sunburns. White, peeling, and blistering. Ancient, she couldn’t even stand her clothes touching them. She had always hated sunburns. These covered a considerable amount of her body and were definitely second degree. There was no way she could do anything in the state she was in. It was not an ideal situation.  Fuck it; she needed help. She needed Rage. And maybe, in a very quiet place in her mind, she wanted Rage. Not that she would ever admit that. It was probably just from her fever anyway, some delusional thinking or what not. She pulled out her comm. Ignoring the way her hands shook and the fact her fingers could barely type in his frequency.

I'm leaving this as an open tag, because after six of them, I've kind of lost track of who I have and haven't tagged. And with it getting later here and after a long day of work, I don't have the energy to look through.

SO! If you see this, congrats, consider yourself tagged if you want to hop on!

Your words: Far, Near, Want, Need

[baereaved]

random thing but i wish when like, authors wrote about stuff like strangulation that they actually did some research... it’s not just “no air lol” my man! there’s a lot of nuance! like it’s gonna vary depending on if ur using hands or a ligature, and if you’re putting compression on the windpipe or arteries or both, and of course there are important things to acknowledge if you want to strangle someone in a story & then continue on with said story like the after-effects! and don’t get me started on stroke risk because people write choking like the second the pressure’s gone that everything’s okay and it’s just not the case

[lustrousgh0st]

Dirty tongue 

~🖤🔞🖤~ Simon “ghost” Riley x fem!reader (code name Fox)

Warnings/tags: just smut, I know very little about cod, blowjob, cum swallowing, reader is very flirty, I guess public sex If you squint, size difference, ghost is injured, blood, spit, tears, yeah idk what else it’s smut you probably know what to expect.

Notes: I don’t feel that proud of this but I hope you enjoy it, please comment and share if you do! Will probably do a part two.

‼️Minors dni! NSFW under the cut‼️

——————————————————————————

Ghost had become accustomed to your lecherous comments and behaviour, no matter how many times he made you drop and do 20 you never gave in. In fact, you’d probably make a joke about how no man’s ever made you sweat so much. Ghost just accepted there was no changing you, It was probably your way of coping he guessed, it was hard doing this job so he couldn’t really blame you for trying to loosen the mood with a few dirty jokes.

Not that he minded at all having a hot woman making perverted jokes about him…In fact he’d say that he liked them a bit too much. It was that reason he so desperately wanted you to stop sometimes, he hated the way his cock would betray him when you made dirty comments.

Fuck knows the last time he got his dick wet and touching himself was near impossible most the time, he was depraved, frustrated.

He knew for sure that if you ever made even a hint that you weren’t joking he’d be all over you in an embarrassing time.

Right now you were tarring the squad van out of enemy territory with Ghost in the passenger seat clutching his shoulder making incredibly questionable moans.

“Shit” 

he whispered through gritted teeth as you hit a bump

“sorry sir, roads a bit bumpy”

you apologised, watching him from the corner of your eye. The grimace of pain that was painted in his eyes was…oddly attractive “Hmm fuck” his voice purred right in your chest

“Jesus L.T you been shot or are you getting your dick sucked?”

You bantered. He shifted in his seat, blood trickling between his fingers

“don’t think you’d know what that sounds like sweetheart”

he retorted and you chuckled “no but I’d loveee to find out” you smirked and ghost just glared “shut the fuck up fox” he said flatly.

“Oooh you gonna make me sir?”

You giggled knowing full well you were pushing your luck now, Ghosts grip tightened and he sighed hard “drive” was all he said with a tone you don’t hear from him often. You lifted your hands apologetically with out leaving the wheel

“alright, alright, I’ll stop….how you holding up?”

You asked, changing the subject. Your lieutenant rested his head back onto the seat “I’m fine, just keep your eyes on the road” you could tell he wasn’t really okay but you knew better than to challenge your superior and so you focused on getting to base as fast as possible.

You pulled up fast outside the medic tent and quickly got out to open the passenger door for him, you wanted to offer your hand for support but you knew better than that. After you’d seen ghost inside and made sure the medic was seeing to his gun shot wound you went to quickly freshen yourself up before being called to help distribute some supplies.

You saw one labeled first aid and you quickly picked it up, seizing your chance to go check on your lieutenant. You pushed through the tent opening and surprisingly found it quite empty, only the medic could be seen washing his hands. You placed the supply box down on a bench nearby

“how’s he doing?”

You asked and the medic chuckled “well..he’s patched up” he nodded his head to one of the tented off areas at the back and you nodded in acknowledgement.

“Lieutenaaant”

you sang out before gently pulling back the sheet that covered the space, your eyes quickly met the form of ghosts topless body, littered with old scars and bruises that were still healing. A thick bandage now covered the fresh entry and exit wound on his shoulder from the bullet.

Your eyes trailed the length of his muscular body, taking note of the prominent veins that popped beneath his weirdly soft looking skin. Of course he was still wearing that damn balaclava, his blood soaked shirt discarded on the floor 

“oh hellooo sailor”

you whistle with a raise of your eyebrows. Ghost, for once in his life, looked surprised before it quickly turned to his usual grimace, he sighed heavy as he lent back onto the cart that held medical supplies

“the hell are you doing in here?”

He questioned. Your eyes were still fixed on his body, taking every moment to savour the most amount of skin you’d ever seen of this man

“just droppin’ off a box of supplies and thought I’d check in on ya….glad I did”

you giggled finally meeting his eyes. Ghost folded his arms, chest being pushed up against his forearms and you noticed the little amused huff he gave. Despite his usual cold demeanour you could tell he found your banter amusing at times, like a dad who didn’t want to laugh at his child’s inappropriate jokes because the wife would tell him off.

He had to keep up the power balance of him being your lieutenant, can’t have you thinking you’re allowed to step out of line. Not with out punishment that is

“You should get back to it then soldier… t’s not wise to be ogling your superior”

he said lowly but you only stepped closer, too close 

“awh come on sir, at least let me savour the view first…ya know, for later” you smirked and he swallowed thickly at your hint. The implication you’d touch yourself to the image of him was too much, it was sending his mind into overdrive.

It wasn’t often he stopped using his brain and started being controlled by his dick but right now he was so fucking horny just being alone in this tented off space was enough to get his hormones flipping out.

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you ya know that”

he purred, his eyes going dark and palms sweating as he looked down at you, so fucking close he thought, he could be on you before you even had time to realise.

“so I’ve been told” you replied and you dared to try touch his chest but your wrist was quickly gripped hard.

“s’gonna get you in a lot of trouble one day”

his voice low and heavy as he glared down at you still holding your wrist in a vice grip, your heart beating a million miles an hour at the close proximity and tension that weighs heavy in your throat every time you breathe. The air felt thick, this was different to your usual flirty banter, felt like the tension had finally reached the limit and had nothing to do but snap. 

“I believe it already has sir”

your voice barely a whisper, you were really walking on thin ice now

“it appears so”

he said, you maintained the heavy eye contact he was holding as his hand slipped from your wrist and traveled up your arm, leaving goosebumps in its path. Reaching your shoulder and then your neck, thumb grazing over your pulse, he noticed the way it was thumping under his touch.

He gently grazed your jawline before slipping his grip into the back of your hair, so fast you couldn’t even register the movement. You inhaled sharply at the tight tug on the roots of your hair, your hand instinctively coming to hold onto his wrist. You both stared silently for a moment before ghost lent in, resting right by your ear, you could hardly breathe

“you wanna know what I really sound like?”

For a split second you didn’t understand, until you remembered what you’d said in the truck earlier and suddenly it felt like your stomach may vacate your body.

“Y..yes sir”

you said breathlessly, the mask of your nonchalant flirtatious attitude slipping away as it suddenly became reality. Ghost lent back, his grip loosening and coming to hook under your jaw, pulling your eyes up to meet his since he was just so much fucking taller than you.

“go on then”

he cocked a brow and you could hear the smirk in his voice, the cocky shit, you felt like a deer in the headlights of an 18 wheeler.

“really?” you questioned in disbelief, he rested back onto the cart again and waited expectingly “really” he repeated. You blinked, wide eyed while your brain rebooted, slowly falling to your knees just in front of him, your face for sure flushed a deep shade of pink.

He felt the tension in his pants grow almost impossibly tighter at the sight, the anticipation of what you were going to do, he couldn’t remember the last time he got his dick sucked.

Too long for sure.

You fumbled with his heavy belt, the significant bulge reaching down the inside of his thigh made your hands sweaty as you pictured it. You ran your fingers over the length, earning a heavy sigh from the man and then placed a trail of kisses down to the tip which had him grinding his hips forward.

Every time you glanced up you were met with that constant eye contact, making your heart pound over and over. Now that you’d unbuckled his belt and pants it was time to free the monster so to speak, shit you were nervous, what if he didn’t like it? Thought you were shit, what if you fucked up and scraped your teeth against him? Oh the embarrassment. Worst of all what if you couldn’t make him cum? Fuck, you’d have to leave the task force for sure, move country, get a new profession, change your name.

All the over thinking was making your mouth dry and that was definitely not what you needed before sucking a dick. You closed your eyes and shook your head ever so gently to mentally reset yourself and you couldn’t help the smirk that spread on your face as you realised just how crazy this was “something funny?” Ghost questioned and you shook your head

“no….well, just this is so crazy, I mean I’m actually about to suck your dick. You, my lieutenant”

ghost hummed in acknowledgement.

“quite the situation you’ve got yourself into sweetheart”

he purred, reaching to pull the band of his boxers down exposing the base of his cock, thick veins snaking down his shaft. You felt yourself throbbing at the sight, the way his hands looked, the veins on his arms and flexed muscles, the trail of hair from his belly button.

The scent of natural musk and sweat coming from him had you feeling almost animalistic, slick coating your underwear 

“hmm come on sir, get your cock out already, I’m dying to see”

you bit your lip. Trailing your hands along the soft skin of his abdomen he throbbed when you got inches away from his dick

“shit, dirty girl”

he hummed as he finally pulled himself free, thick and heavy hanging over the waist of his boxers and pants. Oh my fucking god it was gorgeous, perfect, mouth watering. You wasted no time taking hold of it, your fingers just barely connecting

“holy shit L.T how do you walk with this thing?” You said bewildered.

“I’d say a 3rd leg makes walking easier”

he quipped, fuck he’s self aware “fuck off” you bantered and ghost chuckled.

It kept throbbing in your grip, heavy as you stroked the full length, a clear bead seeping from the tip which you eagerly dragged along your tongue while your eyes stayed locked on his. The feeling of your tongue sent a shiver up his spine, the hairs on his arm standing on end as he stared at your mouth.

The hot, wet hole he wanted to fuck so bad taunting him and when you finally sealed your lips around the head he groaned almost pathetically desperate. You wished you had the self control to slowly tease him, working his dick until he whined and begged but right now you just wanted him to fuck your mouth. Wanted to feel him sitting hot and heavy on your tongue, wanted his blunt head to force it’s way down your throat, wanted to taste the salty thick cum at the end of it all and prove your loyalty by swallowing it. Ghosts head lolled back as the pleasure swept his body

“fuuuuck”

he groaned deeply, his hand coming down to encompass the back of your head, almost able to fully cover the circumference. You hummed with lust while taking him as deep as you could, it wasn’t his full length but it didn’t seem like he minded, probably just happy to be getting his dick sucked.

He held your head steady and ever so gently fucked his hips into you, spit started to slip down your chin, the thickness of his dick pushing it out with every movement. Ghost never let up on his noises, moaning and purring deep in his throat constantly, it would be no secret what was going on behind these curtains if anyone overheard.

One hand stayed braced on his muscular thigh as you moved the other to cup his heavy balls, he jolted a bit at the touch but soon cursed hard when you started gently fondling them.

“Bloody hell fox”

it was laced with his heavy accent “shit that’s good” his hold on the back of your head suddenly became a tight grip, once again tugging on your hair. You were no longer in control of your head, ghost taking complete dominance, you just had to do your best to not choke or gag but tears were starting to weep from your eyes. When ghost looked down to see your sweet eyes filled with glossy tears, eyebrows furrowed together and soft pink-lips parted over his cock he felt his balls tighten painfully 

“oh sweetheart..keep looking at me like that and I won’t last”

That didn’t exactly make you stop, the idea you could make him cum so easy was only incentive for you, wanted him to never forget it. You took the hand that was playing with his balls and wrapped it around the head of his cock, placing your mouth on the end and stroking down his length until it entered your mouth again.

You used your hand and mouth to jerk him off for probably all of 5 seconds before he was forcing your movements to still, breathing out a heavy

“careful”

it was a low husk laced with lust. You smirked devilishly “why?” Continuing to lick the tip but his tight grip in your hair soon pulled you away but you quickly defied him and continued working your hand.

Eventually ghost gave up trying to resist, giving in to your movements and releasing his grip on you in favour of leaning back

“Jesus christ”

he said in ecstasy, you felt him trembling, twitching and throbbing all over. He was close, so close and you never imagined such a wall of a man to be so vocal and trembling when getting his dick sucked. Ghost could feel the twinge every time your hand slid over the sensitive tip, he wouldn’t lie he felt embarrassed to be cuming so fast but shit you knew how to work his cock.

When he started practically panting and knuckles going white you knew that was the cue so you stuck out your tongue and stroked him against it. That face, that fucking face, eyes blown with lust, hot tongue acting as a pillow for his dick, Jesus it had him cuming hard.

Thick globs of hot white coating your tongue and lips as he moaned like a porn star, you’re gonna replay that sound in your memory so many times for sure. His chest still heaved as he burned the image of his cum decorating your mouth into his wank bank.

“Fuck, keep looking at me” 

he husked, cock still bobbing with post orgasm sensitivity “look so good like that” he watched as you used your tongue to swipe his cum from your lips. 

As you were still licking the mess up you both heard someone enter the tent, ghost quickly stuffed his softening cock back into his pants and you just about got to your feet before footsteps approached the bay “L.T?” Soaps voice called.

Your eyes shot wide and ghost gave you a look that said “act fuckin’ normal” as he called back to the man, your comrade pulled back the curtain and raised a brow when he saw you both.

“S’goin on in here?“

he smiled suspiciously “Johnny” ghosts commanding voice replied as though he wasn’t just trembling and whining moments ago. Soap flicked his eyes between you two, your hair still slightly messed and face flushed, he was definitely suspicious but he remained casual

“just checkin you’re good sir, been in here a while is all, men were askin”

he motioned behind him. Ghost cleared his throat, noticing the way his belt was still loosely undone

“I’m fine McTavish, take more than a bullet to the shoulder to kill me”

and soap laughed “too right L.T”. Soap gave a gentle nod to ghost and winked at you before starting to leave when he stoped in his tracks

“oh sir…put a shirt on, yeah?”

He smirked and left leaving the both of you to linger in the embarrassment. When your eyes flicked back to ghost his gaze was already fixed on you, he gestured for you to come to him and you did. He stroked your face, moving your hair out the way

“I guess I should go”

you mumbled kinda forlornly and ghost hummed in agreement. His hand snaked down your waist to your ass and squeezed a handful “come to my tent later” he suggested against the skin of your neck, clothed lips leaving a trail.

“Oh? Was that not enough? You horndog lieutenant”

You joked but your breath hitched when one of his hands moved to your waistline and teased at the skin underneath. Your heart was racing again

“Hmm no, I’m just not the kind of guy to not return the favour”

Oh, oh my god. You bit your lip at the thought

“Is that so?”

“It is”

“Well then, my hands are tied” you smirked before placing a longing gentle kiss over his balaclava, having to get on the balls of your feet to reach.

“Go on soldier” Ghost smacked your ass as you turned to leave, making you flinch, and you had to quickly wipe the wide smile from your face before you left the med tent.

[pillow-anime-talk]

tears.

request: hello there, idk if requests are open cuz it says open and then closed but here i am, trying. if not, i dont wanna bother :c but, could you please do some rengoku angst? still not over it, love him and your writing ♡♡♡.

# tags: scenario; current relationship; light romance; drama; hard angst; crying; mention of blood & death; mugen train; snow hashira!reader; rather sfw

includes: gender neutral reader ft. kyojuro rengoku + tanjirou kamado, zenitsu agatsuma, inosuke hashibira and akaza in the background {kny}

author’s note: hi! hope this is what you asked for :D thank you so much!

The moment you heard a terrified voice, or rather the scream of a young swordsman with slightly burgundy hair, made your heart stop for a short moment. As soon as possible and with the last of your strength, you ran towards your partner, who at that moment was fighting against a young demon. With the Eighth Form, you froze the ground under your feet, thanks to which the front of the train stopped burning, and Akaza’s legs were trapped in the ice.

“Kyojuro!” Your loud scream made each of them turn towards you. The blood dripping from your right collarbone and the visible scabs on your forehead were a painful sight for your fiancé, but he was glad you were safe. After all, he was the one who asked you to annihilate the second demon, and he had a feeling that you would cope with this task. As soon as you shielded the three children and the Flame Pillar with your body, you made a slight amusement on the demon’s face.

“Is this another toy for me? King Muzan didn’t say anything about you... Are you a new addition to the Demon Slayer Corps?” His mocking voice only caused more anger in your body. You immediately took advantage of his moment of inattention.

Third Form: Snow rain

Your quick cuts with blue weapon quite effectively chased the demon away from the five of you, so you ran to the injured men as fast as possible, asking if everything was okay. After all, you were also a good medic, and you always enjoyed talking with Shinbu about healing people and potions against demons. Fortunately, apart from a few scratches and bruises, everyone was fine.

“Y/N, please take the boys and get out of here.” Kyojuro grabbed your left arm and you immediately shook your head.

“You know that I’ll never leave you.” You smiled softly and the man just rolled his both, shiny eyes.

Your moment was destroyed, of course, by a nervous demon that ran towards you. You instantly grabbed Zenitsu and Inosuke by their clothes, jumping to a safe distance. Rengoku did the same, but saved Tanjiro from a rampaging demon.

“Boys. Listen.” You turned to two teenagers, and they turned their attention to you. “I let you swear and destroy nature around us, we have to beat this freak.” You kind of made a joke, and in a way your voice seemed to be the most serious tone in the world. The two younger people just nodded. “However, if you feel threatened, please step back.” You added at the end and then moved towards Akaza using the other Forms of your Breathing.

Your cold snow and your fiancé’s hot flames were a perfect match. The Water Breathing along with yours made sharp needles of ice, while Zenitsu and Kyojuro were great at working on the fiery lightning. Inosuke has been an amazing support to all of you, straining his own hearing and physical strength.

“You two. You’d be nice demons.” At one point, your opponent turned to you and the second Hashira, and you just laughed.

“You know, hardly anyone would want to reduce their strength and intelligence. You, as demons, are quite weak and extremely stupid.” You spoke honestly, which only annoyed the monster; he focused on you once more. Luckily, your partner reacted and pushed him away again with his katana.

Your fight continued for a few more minutes; although time passed very fast, for the five of you passed slowly. You felt like you were in a time loop where the temperature and lighting changed every short second. Each of you bravely pushed the demon off the train, and you even cut off his arm. At some point, however, you and Kyojuro, seeing that the swordsmen younger than you were getting more and more tired, allowed yourself to use your techniques to push them away from the battlefield as well. Although Tanjirou and Inosuke have sworn they still have the strength to fight, you did not allow them to continue the battle by your side.

With your hot heart you fought side by side with the Pillar of Fire. At one point you decided to use your quite similar techniques which together created a kaleidoscope of colors and water vapor.

Fifth Form: Flame Tiger

Fifht Form: Snow Leopard

You managed to hurt the demon, however at one point you noticed a strange bloodlust in his both eyes, and the movement of his hand was enough to protect the second Pillar with you whole body again.

Suddenly you felt a strange feeling of chill that wasn’t caused by your Breathing Style. It was something... different, unknown, strange.

“... Y/N?”

“My dearest...?”

When the flames were gone, the snow melted and the dust fell to the dirty ground, three young swordsmen shouted your first or last name.

“I guess the demons aren’t that weak after all, are they?” He asked with a huge smirk and you just spat out some light blood from your mouth. Your lungs and head ached, and for the first time in a long time, your eyes, feet and stomach stung so much.

“You’re still weak. The sun is about to kill you, you stupid creature. For me, it’s pleasant, so relaxing. This is what makes us different from each other.” You whispered and the demon looked up. He quickly took his hand out of you and then ran towards the dark forest. Blond-haired immediately followed him, and the boys younger than you ran up to your body, slowly laying you down on the sand and damaged grass. “Boys, don’t cry. Next time you’ll beat him. I believe it.”

“... We’ll beat him together, Y/N-san.”

“You are definitely right.” You smiled. “Take care of Kyojuro, okay? He’s very sensitive, although he doesn’t look like that.” You whispered, and they just nodded. “I love you all very much. Eat a lot and grow up healthy.”

When your fiancé returned, his eyes were full of tears and blood. Your delicate body, or more specifically your head, lay on Tanjiro’s lap while Zenitsu covered your belly with his black-yellow haori. Inosuke didn’t know what to do at the very beginning, but then he took off his mask and touched your hair as gently as he could. They were still soft and shiny.

Kyojuro simply fell to his knees at the sight of it and crawled to you, screaming towards the sky for someone to take him, not you. He shouted that he should die, not you.

Definitely no one had ever seen the Flame Pillar like this before; always joyful, full of energy and love for people, the man was now a bundle of sadness, guilt and tears. And as he hugged your increasingly stiff body tightly, he felt a stronger and stronger feeling of hatred, anger and fear within him, and there was one sentence in his head that spoke of his desire to avenge you.

[loneworldgazer]

boo boos

about: where bonten gets patched up by you.. eh except for a minoorrr error

a/n: i hate writing bonten because it's so damn cliche and "you're the only one i love" type of bs but it's addicting🔫🔫

warnings: mentions of blood and violence, chapter 189-206 spoilers‼️‼️, kissing in kakucho's part

tag tag: @rindousarus, @lucylikesbluehairedmen

(lucy idk who you like in bonten but here you go😭😭)

sanzu

obviously sanzu is the type to be careless and he sometimes would scratch his face whenever a bastard had a chance to touch him but he easily kills them off

most of the times (would say 3 times), he would be high and it's a completely wrong time for him to be sent off to a mission but he lives the risks of being high so he'll just take whatever the hell mikey gave him

it would be a lot more messier execution and blood would stick and drip down his face while rindou and ran asked him to wash off the stains of his face (no sanzu, doesn't matter if it's the results of your hardwork after pill popping and killing idc)

he eventually does clean off the grime on his face and felt a stinging sensation on his cheek, he touched up everywhere on his face and the scar was lined on the left of his cheek

he sighs with a grin and pressed the wound again and again, feeling the burn of the scar opening and closing

he hums as he slid into your private room to find anything to patch him up or maybe you.. if you could

he peeked from the door way and you were writing down.. who knows? whatever you were writing down was long forgotten when you looked up cause you felt a precense and immediately rushed to sanzu

"cmere you idiot" it's the shocking way to find out, you the partner of sanzu being the bigger person than him. the other members of bonten just watches sanzu being nagged by you like a mother a lot of times when his wild ass doesn't do things right and perhaps one of them let a snicker escape.

you grabbed onto his face gently but quickly pushing him onto a chair and he whistles like a tease to your concerned actions and you grumbled under your breath because of your wreck of a husband. you stopped going through the medkit and paused to look at him, he knows you wanted to pop a question so he tilted his head yo let him know what is it.

"um.. are you okay with hello kitty bandaids?" it was reasonable for him to laugh very loudly because you looked so nervous when you couldn't find any normal bandaids and you didn't say anything when you wiped a clean rag over him. well until he stopped laughing.

"i don't want to make you look like a fool infront of the other members, you clown"

"what are you a kid, why do you even have hello kitty bandaids in the first place hm~?" you told him with a smile threatening to grow on your lips that it was ridiculously cute that you had to buy it. don't waste your chance before it's out of stock <33

so he agrees,

one of the many things that his sweet partner can intoduce him is wearing hello kitty bandaids that fits his hair colour

he DOES NOT give two shits if any of bonten were to make fun of him, he doesn't care if he had to be called preschooler or that you were sending him to school but all that matters is to be showy with his glamarous bandaids that he had so he could remember that sweet expression on your face when he decides to wear them

it's completely okay if you called him extra because you know this man has the audacity to ask if you had hello kitty bandages if his arms bled

extra!!:

"sanzu, do you think this is a fashion show" you deadpanned at him when you see him sneaking on bandaids on his face, to what show you? because you know damn we this fool is wasting precious stuff during the time he won't need it.

he slowly starts peeling off another one when you start scolding him, giving empty threats on how you'll wrap him up in bandages to bury him later and the time you turn around again is where he quickly pushed the sticky bandaid on you.

"there, we're matching!" he points at the mirror or better he shifts you towards the mirror by grabbing your waist and loosely hugging it when you look at the glass when both you and sanzu had the cute bandaid on both your noses.

perhaps you shouldn't rub your temples and stress about this a lot because your husband will not take this seriously.

mikey

this was a boss we're talking about so mikey had to intervine because this smart group of asses are actually breaking into bonten's bank, carefully taken care by the haitani brothers

the boss got held at gun point before the last few seconds of his breath to get him to spill but mikey got impatient and accidently killed him too soon

mikey gripped the gun in frustration that his fingers could form a bruise with how hard he's holding it, an unfortunate turn of events had happened when the windows in all the rooms got smashed in by the other members of the sleaze he killed and managed to land a kick on his head

sanzu dealt with the problem quickly, blocking mikey from the enemies slinging the katana he had lazily on his side with a crazed glint in his eyes threatening the other members from getting way too close

the kick was unnessarily strong for no reason that mikey wobbled to his knees to the sheer impact the feet of the slain man (sanzu specially killed) could effect him so much

kakucho swiftly lead mikey out of the room whilst shooting down any person running in

mikey settled in your shared bedroom as he informed sanzu and kakucho to put him in the room whenever anything serious occured because he atleast wanted to see his beloved when he wakes up

the soft plush pilliows greeted his head as his half unconscious form laid on the bed before his eyes gave up and met darkness (like his impulses‼️‼️)

the taps of a wet cloth made him jolt out of his slumber and you panicked, telling him it's just you and you were just taking care of him while he's asleep. his head hurted when he shifted to look at you and you gently told him to rest when he feels bandages wrapped around his head.

he sensed your worry when your lips trembled on the face of his skin when you pecked kisses all over him and he couldn't help pulling you over into a hug which you squeled when you stumbled out of your chair.

"sleep with me love" he kissed you back on all the places you touched him with your lips to calm down the hurting beats of your heart when you see him writhing from the danger he put himself in, you held his face which he tiredly nodded to your thoughts which were all concerned for him.

you're worried if the head injury's bad, nah don't he shakes his head if you ever think that, he just needs to bask in the comfort of his love.

hours passed as mikey fell asleep in your arms, relaxed by your side when he wakes up but eventually he had to talk to the other bonten members for them to fill him in on any news

he reluctantly gets up because he wanted to still admire your sleeping face, the serene peace you were in as your chest slowly bumps on his arm when you breathe in and out when he shifts away made him feel bad but he had no choice

this was sonething he worried about and he didn't want to happen but he felt your fingertips on his back when you reached for him to stay

"mm.. mikey, your face.."

he touches his face feeling baindaids on it and he got on his knees to stare at your lips and to hear what you wanted to say

"um.. we ran out of actual bandaids from the last time you got hurt but i found my rabbit bandaids but i don't know if you want to go out to the others like.."

you stopped rambling when he puts his head down to laugh quietly to how worried you got, he shushed you to not get so concerned and he looks in the mirror to see the bandaids plastered on his cheek. he waved at you before going and shut the door noiselessly.

there's no need to be scared of his public image or whatever, mikey nonchalantly wore it around the members, he didn't mind if they let out an amused sound of them when the feared leader of bonten walks around with cute rabbits plastered on his face.

even he couldn't keep a grin from slipping out.

kakucho

they had divisions and they were given to kakucho and sanzu, mikey's trusted men

they supervised their own divisions and trained them with the basics they need to know in bonten, also giving the excuse to watch out for any spies or 'traitors'

with that the two had the time of their lives.. minus kakucho, sanzu was going crazy on his men and if you glanced quickly, you wouldn't notice how hard sanzu was on his men

there were times that sanzu might've just played all of them and kick their teeth out instead of doing warmups with them but kakucho's a lot more responsible while sanzu was respected in fear, everyone respected kakucho because of his strength and level headed behaviour

the division each took turn with kakucho, sparring with one another eventhough it might've taken a whole day because he wanted to see how capable they are without dreading that their lives would be in danger if he took his eyes off one of his men

let's just say some of them were really aggresive

while kakucho would applaud them for this to be absolute beasts in beating the hell of out of him in the session, he still tasted spite from getting pushed back and forth but he kept cool and thought this as a process for his patience

by the end of the day, everything's dismissed and sanzu would look at him with a toothy smirk because of how much damage he endured

sanzu calls kakucho reckless as he spits at him to clamp his mouth shut before a gun goes in it as bruises and scratches were on his face, the same with sanzu who liked the pain and took a while to patch up

kakucho looks in the mirror to see how bad it is and to how bad he flinched, he gets twitchy

he thought of you, he didn't want to hurt your feelings and see you glare at him in sadness on how rough things were at the headquarters when he trained so he tried his best to get rid off any visible marks on his face

it was time for him to go back so he bowed to mikey, a sign for him to leave and trudged home to see you again

it was at dead of night, clock nearing 1am when he greets the safe home an "i'm home" and he hears the television on, he slowly walks into the living room and placed a hand on the couch to pull himself to it to see you wrapped up like a burrito and snoring a little.

he smiled to himself, his lover leaving the movie they loved playing and accidently falling asleep which made him frown a bit when he realizes that you were probably waiting for him to reach.

he patted your shoulder and whisperes that he's home and asked for you to hold on when he carried you in his arms and hugged you tighter when you were all warm but your hands cold when he felt it sting against the back of his neck. he planted you on the cold sheets of the bed which you stretched like a cat to look up at him and he hisses at you not to get up so quickly when you held his face.

you smashed your lips on him which he didn't expect and he felt himself heating up to how straightforward you are, you missed him so much although it's been a day. you cursed at him for being an idiot for hurting himself all over and rested your forehead on his and he feebly says his apologies.

"but you're my idiot, c'mere" his ears red when you got off the bed to open up a medkit and he tells to stop and you were not having it and you grabbed his chin for him to look at you while he squirms a little when you also have to observe his face to look at his state.

you dragged to the shower and though he hates how troubled you were when he's hurt, he finds it endearing when you start bossing him around. he really needed someone to pull him out of his roughed up state with a little scolding.

also a bonus that he's also a simp for you so it's two good things in one to obey.

extra!!:

after the warm shower and the scrubs you did to each other, he felt relaxed while you threw yourself on the bed in sleepiness but you had to deal with some things first.

you straddled his lap while applying the bandaids on his face and he squints and looks closely at it, they were small [animal/s] dancing around on the bandaid and he left out a soft chuckle that made your heart leap.

"these [animal/s] are like you" you lift an eyebrow while pressing it down on his jaw and he explained on how you were the bigger person than anyone and 'ferocious' you were but he knew that you cared deeply about the people you love.

you lightly smacked on his cheek which made him yelp, if that wasn't the cheesiest bullshit he spewed then you didn't know anymore, kakucho has his face recognized as the respectable bonten 3 but he still had the heart of a boy holding his gifted new puppy.

[sleeping-on-cracking-ice]

IDK if your taking requests 🥺👉👈 But if it's open... Could you maybe write an imagine with chishiya, where Niragi trys to get under his skin by making chishiya's s/o uncomfortable 😱

Cruel Entertainment | Shuntaro Chishiya (ft. Suguru Niragi)

{AIB Masterlist}

Summary: Niragi scares you and Chishiya gets defensive

Warnings(s): murder, blood, threatening, swearing, Niragi being a murderous bastard (as usual)

Word Count: 1.8k

*reader is gender-neutral

(A/N): this went down a more different plot than this, but this scenario is a element of it

“Look I don’t mean to complain, but this seems really unnecessary,”

All eyes in the meeting room turned to your figure sitting on the edge of the table. The silence that followed your statement felt personal, making you frown slightly at the annoyed faces that the militants seemed to hold.

Aguni had suggested the executives and the militants comes together for a meeting in order to discuss moving some militants up further on the number tags. 

“How is this unnecessary Y/N?” Aguni spoke up, leaning forward on the table and resting his arms. His dead eyes met yours down the other head of the table, making you grow slightly nervous at the number of eyes that were on you.

Before you spoke up, your eyes flickered towards that of Chishiya’s, your boyfriend. When he caught your glance, he lifted a subtle hand to his throat and gave a gesture to tell you to be quiet.

Ever since Hatter had died and Aguni had taken over, your right to speak your mind had been diminishing, but you weren’t going to give it up as easy as the others seemed to have.

You gulped before turning back to Aguni, deciding to ignore Chishiya’s advice. If no one else had the tits to say something, then you would.

“Why are you moving your militants to a higher ranking? Everything was going fine until you came into power,” you started, keeping a stoic expression on that heavily contradicted your inner emotions.

Aguni raised an eyebrow and looked towards the right side of the table, where his second in command Niragi sat. The imperious man smirked at cocked an eyebrow at your words, making you feel uneasy.

“Is that so?” Aguni spoke in a creepily deep tone and leant back from the table, resting in his chair.

You nodded, keeping eye contact. “Don’t listen to me or whatever Aguni, but we don’t exactly know what will happen when we collect all the cards. I know you’d hate to admit it, but I think moving the numbers for your murderous ‘besties’ so they can escape the Borderlands quicker isn’t your intention here.”

You swore you were suffocating on the air in the room. You could smell the tension between your words and the rest of the executives. It was making Chishiya’s leg shake underneath the table and his eyes roll into the back of his head at your naiveness.

Furthermore, without your knowledge, to Niragi, your forehead seemed like a perfect target at that moment.

“Y-you know, Y/N has a point,” a young girl voiced up, making all eyes shift off of you for a quick moment. She sat a few seats down, holding her head slightly low and speaking in a quiet voice. “Perhaps we should vote on things rather than just immediately putting them in place though. If we do that, The Beach would be more democratic.”

You silently thanked her in your head and turned back to Aguni, but his stoic expression didn’t seem to change.

“Alright,” he said casually as he stood up. Looking over the table and the people at it, all silent, he spoke up. “Anyone that agrees with Y/N, raise your hand high.”

You glanced around the table with a slightly desperate look in your eye, hoping at least someone put their hand up. After a few tense seconds, the young girl who spoke put her hand up, followed by a middle-aged man sitting to the right of you and a few others.

You looked at Chishiya, not knowing what to do. He had himself tucked further in his white hoodie, hair hiding his eyes and trying to look as invisible as possible. He gave you a warning stare, shaking his head ‘no’ towards you.

You frowned, confused that he wasn’t contributing. Usually, he wouldn’t hesitate to stir some drama up between the executives and the militants, so it was out of character for him.

Furthermore, the lack of agreements from other executives like Ann and Mira was throwing you off. Knowing their good nature, they wouldn’t allow everything that Hatter had built to suddenly fall to murderous men. They kept their heads low, just like Chishiya, playing with their hands and trying to be as uninvolved as possible.

And soon enough, you realised why.

“Fine,” Aguni said, eyeing the four people that put their hand up in favour of you. You didn’t know too many of them personally, as they hadn’t been at The Beach for long. They were either high ranking players or random contributors to the executives.

“Niragi?” Aguni said, nodding towards the tall male.

Niragi hummed in acknowledgment and stood up quickly, not wasting a second before aiming his rifle towards the young girl and firing.

The blast of blood that fell onto your face made you freeze, realising what you had done.

“WAIT!” you screamed, standing from your seat and screaming towards Niragi. But your cry did nothing as he turned towards the man next to you and fired once again.

You ducked in fear that he was aiming at you, falling to the floor. The sound of bullet meeting bone filled your ear, and you glanced to the side to see the limp body of the man, eyes wide and hole in his bloodied forehead.

The rest of the people that voted in your favour had either dropped their head to the table in defeat or had done the same as you and fallen to the ground to hide behind the table, but Niragi stopped firing once he was sure the man was dead.

You stood from the ground and sat back down in your chair, eyes wide and breathing heavy. You could feel your heartbeat in your head, and your hands shook violently. You attempted to hide it by lacing your fingers together and squeezing, placing them on the table.

You didn’t dare look towards Aguni but glanced towards Chishiya towards the other end. He held wide eyes and shaking hands, staring at you and putting his index finger to his lips in a gesture to make you stay quiet. You nodded lightly.

Niragi let out a loud laugh and stepped out from around his chair, making his way towards you down the end of the table. You didn’t dare move.

“See what happens when you speak your mind!” he exclaimed, coming up behind you and placing a harsh hand on your shoulder. You jumped at the sudden impact and your eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

Not being impressed by your lack of reaction, Niragi gripped your hair and pulled your head back so you made eye contact with him. He leant forward over you, looking you dead in the eyes as you yelped from his harsh hold on you.

“Maybe, you should learn to shut the fuck up for once kitten,” he growled into your face, making you cringe from his hot breath on your skin. “That mouth of yours could get you in a lot of trouble.”

Chishiya shook in his seat, hand gripping the end of the table harshly at the sight of his S/O getting tormented. A million thoughts were racing through his mind, trying to think of something that he could do to help you but not endanger anyone else.

He looked towards Niragi, noticing the dark-haired man’s eyes flicker towards him from you. Just as he did so, he noticed Niragi running a hand down the side of your neck, making you flinch heavily. The humiliation of this happening in front of your peers was unbearable, more so in front of Chishiya.

“Niragi,” the blonde stood up, having had enough. Niragi pulled himself away from you, looking towards Chishiya’s tense body with a smirk on his face.

“It’s okay, you can leave them alone,” Chishiya said with a monotone tone, trying to seem calm. “They’ve learnt their lesson.”

The mere sight of seeing the murderous man near you was enough to make Chishiya’s heart rate quicken. Although he doesn’t seem it, he’s a very nervous person, especially when it came to your safety.

Niragi doesn’t move, contemplating what he should do as he kept a firm grip on your shoulder. You were frozen beneath him, wincing at the growing strength he was applying to your collarbones.

He let go, allowing you to let out a large breath. “Fine, save your little toy then Shuntaro,” he grumbled in annoyance and moving back to his seat. He knew that if he had a bigger scene than it already was in front of Aguni, he could perhaps lose his control as second-in-command.

You held your head down in humiliation, not daring to look up for the rest of the meeting, not even towards Chishiya, who was trying to get your attention to check that you were okay. After that shit-show, you made sure not to attract unwanted attention.

After the meeting, you didn’t even get a chance to stand up properly before Chishiya grabbed your hand and dragged you out into the hall. He pulled you towards an open balcony to escape anyone else that was around before turning around and facing you.

“Let me see you,” he demanded, making you furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “Your neck. Did he hurt you?” he asked frantically while pushing your chin up to look at the skin on your neck to see if there were any bruises. You shook your head and pushed his hands away.

“I’m fine Chishiya,” you insisted. But the way that you stared at the ground wasn’t convincing.

“...I killed them... didn’t I?” you croaked out, fiddling with the skin of your hands. The blood from the two innocent people Niragi had murdered was stained along your skin, making you feel physically sick. You almost wished Niragi had just shot you instead of the other two. It was you who spoke up anyway.

Chishiya sighed heavily and brought his hand to your face, holding your cheek in his palm. You felt slight tears run down your face, causing you to quickly wipe them away.

“Y/N, people are always going to die. You can’t stop it,” he said, running his thumb across your cheekbone. “That wasn’t your fault. They had the choice to not put their hand up.”

You nodded, trying to convince yourself it’s not your fault.

“But for now, we need to focus on our own safety,” Chishiya said, making you shift your gaze from the ground to his eyes. “We need to make sure we’re prepared to leave if any of the militants come after us within the next few days.”

Chishiya held your face in both of his hands and brought your lips together for a quick kiss, making more tears fall from your face at the comforting feeling of his warmth.

When he pulled away, he gave a sad smile and pulled you in for a hug, tucking your face into his shoulder by pushing on your head. “Make sure you stay by my side. Don’t worry, I won’t let Niragi get anywhere near you.”

(A/N): I’m sorryyyyy i know this isn’t that good. i rly need to rewatch some aib again cause it’s been ages since i last watched anything from it alsjldkajslja

[whump-queen]

alright here it is~

Whump-Queen Wrapped ✧.* 2022

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2,201 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@whumpsday

@emmettnet

@whumpshaped

@whumpwillow

@suspicious-whumping-egg

I tagged 1,950 of my posts in 2022

Only 18% of my posts had no tags

#inspo - 312 posts

#whump prompt - 235 posts

#queue - 175 posts

#whump - 145 posts

#whump art - 120 posts

#whump writing - 106 posts

#whump scenario - 94 posts

#whump prompts - 94 posts

#torture - 80 posts

#akias asks - 77 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#whumper pov just sorta shows up in my brain while i’m writing like ‘hey babe what’s upp bestie were gonna torture some people now uwu ✨💖’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Seth looking whumpy as hell in last week’s chapter

Normally I’m not much for sick fic but this… this hits different

This doesn’t contain any direct spoilers, but im putting the rest below the cut bc it is from S2 E35… check this last one though :)

See the full post

141 notes - Posted June 30, 2022

#4

❣️New whump picrew tag!❣️

I love this picrew so make yourself or make an oc — idk just express yourself, have fun with it and tag those beloved mutuals!! <3

rip they didn’t let me have my fourth eye

145 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

#3

now get out there and torture your little fictional characters today 💖

353 notes - Posted July 8, 2022

#2

A sense of horror

One of my favorite tropes that I honestly think is pretty underrated is a loved one or an onlooker’s overwhelming sense of horror when they discover what has happened to a protagonist/MC.

Like, a character stumbling in, bleeding and broken, their loved one’s dread building and building as they unwrap the layers of mc’s clothing with shaking hands, only to find more and more and more blood— their panic and anguish overwhelming them when they discover just how deep the injuries go.

MC being brought home after a near-disastrous rescue mission, and the caretaker is finally able to get a good look at their injuries in proper lighting, and the horror hits them like a destructive blast when they see deep, bloody gashes, whip marks crossing along their back, deep cuts and bruises in various stages of healing, a broken bone jutting out awkwardly at an angle it definitely shouldn’t be, and they’re just so overcome with revulsion and terror and heartache at what mc has had to endure. 

And the fact that, that whole time, they had no idea. There was nothing they could do, but god, they didn’t know it could get this bad. 

Or an onlooker, struck with a nauseating realization of how twisted some of their companions can be; the guilt of a bystander a weight that grows and grows, as they wrestle with dueling urges to help and to stay silent. (shoutout to @whumpsday for giving us another perfect example of this trope just yesterday)

Or even a villain/whumper, who agreed to participate in the cruelty, at some point down the line becoming too repulsed by the bloodthirst of their own comrades or fellow whumpers, suddenly unable to look anymore, wracked with guilt and disgust and thoughts of ‘god, what have I done’ 

A caretaker, rescuer, or even a new captor obtaining a whumpee who has been so conditioned by their past abuser that it makes their skin crawl. MC asking, begging to be punished at the slightest perceived mistake, or just bringing their new captor or guardian something to beat them with before falling to their knees. Anything that leaves them horrified, wondering ‘what the hell did they do to you’ yet also being too afraid to ask. The “are you my new master” trope may fall under this category and is also just immaculate. 

God I love this trope, whatever you call it. 

More whump inspo

379 notes - Posted September 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Y’all.. if you’re following me and your blog looks like this I’m literally begging you to give me something, anything, to indicate you’re a real person and not a bot.

See the full post

448 notes - Posted October 12, 2022

💖💖💕❤️‍🔥💞

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