#if you've read the other chapters you know what this is about

[leeny-leens]

Act ii: Soulmatism

pairing: poly!Moonkiller x f!vamp!Reader

summary: Barty Crouch is essentially your soulmate, the platonic love of your life even, but he's too fucking smart for his own good and it threatens your little bloody secret more than once. You grow through the years at Hogwarts with him and make a common enemy, until he tells you he kissed said enemy.

warnings: mentions of blood, animal death (not too descriptive), bullying of sorts, fainting

content: BartyVampy friendship ftw, Reader referred to as Fangs by Barty, mild Professor Sprout slander but it's for the plot I swear, are they friends or are they dating? Worse, they're in love but they don't know, Remus is straight up an asshole but it's not his fault??

wc: 6.1k

AN: this chapter got rewritten 5 times and I swear I was about to go insane oh my god??? Big shout-out to the absolutely lovely and amazing and talented sweetheart that is @revesephemeres for beta reading this, she's such a darlin 🤍 ANYWAYS YOUR THOUGHTS ARE APPRECIATED ON THIS TY

Taglist: @starrystormwritings @whimsical-mistakes @eneywey @hellokitty-girl666 @lettertovera

s. masterlist | Act i | Act ii | Act iii | Act iv | Act v

Attending Hogwarts as a vampire is not a walk in the park, and certainly not for the faint of heart. It comes with a certain set of challenges that invent themselves anew each year, just when you think you've figured it out and got the whole thing down. It all starts in your first year, where you're left with not a single friend for your first two months of attendance. It's boring, it's horrible, yet it most certainly breeds some sort of character in you —or at least that's what you wrote your mother in all your letters when detailing your daily life and lack of connections.

That issue is, however, quickly resolved, your saving grace emerging in the form of Bartemius Crouch Junior —Barty, if you don't want to wake up with bite marks all over your arm— who is something between a blessing and curse at once.

He's loud, he's unhinged, he's loyal to a fault and he's also pretty much your soulmate and the platonic love of your life.

Your fateful first meeting is in the library, where he sees you hunched over an ancient tome you smuggled out of the restricted section about poisonous herbs and their care. Immediately, he declares that you are 'best friend material' and never leaves your side again, sticking to you like velcro wherever you go.

There are no complaints on your end, considering you grow up isolated and lonely as a vampire. Having Barty around is like a dream come true; someone who won't leave you no matter what and is equal parts clingy and needy without a speck of shame. It's a match made wherever they produce touch and attention starved children with little to no social skills and regard for the concepts of societal standards to be upheld in your day to day life.

Barty is everything you’ve ever wanted in a friend; someone who listens to you when you talk, asks all the right questions that others might be afraid of, and most importantly; isn't scared of you or your habits. No, he isn't afraid to probe and ask and get to the depths of your mind, no matter how unhinged it might be for an eleven year old.

Soon enough, your names are whispered in sync, where one goes the other is bound to follow close enough. Together, you terrorise the halls of Hogwarts with quick wit, ambition and a certain lack of self preservation that proves to be a double edged sword when it comes to trying out new spellwork.

It gets to a point where all your professors raise their eyebrows in suspicion should they see one of you without the other, their alarms ringing with a sense of impending doom.

Overall, it’s a quite successful first year at the school for magic and wizardry, and it only goes uphill that summer. Through some sort of miracle —how, you still don't know to this day— your parents agreed to let Barty spend the last two weeks of summer break at your home. Somehow, even more miraculous than that, his father had agreed to send his son off to the Welsh Highlands to spend the end of summer in your little village. You're not quite sure how he'd been convinced into doing so, but you're fairly certain your own father had played a significant role in the whole process, considering he had various high ranking connections to the wizarding world, more specifically in the ministry of magic.

That summer is an absolute bliss that you spend exploring the forest with Barty, going on the occasional adventure down in the village and otherwise wrecking havoc everywhere you go. Surprisingly, there are only very few incidents that put your vampire identity at risk, and even then, you’re able to smoothly navigate the situation without having Barty grow suspicious.

It is one of the many summers yet to come that you would spend together, but it still serves as a great transition into your second year.

Your second year comes and goes with its own set of challenges, charged with the sort of anticipation that comes when you are about to enter a new phase of the unknown.

Looking back, this is the year where you make some of the most fundamental choices of your school life, ones that will come to haunt you for the following years.

One such choice is befriending the one and only Lily Evans.

Whispers of the most brilliant witch in all of Gryffindor don’t evade you of course, yet you are much too busy focusing on your academic achievements and your chaos-causing with Barty to pay her any mind. That is, until you fall out of a window and she saves you.

Well, okay maybe that's not exactly how it goes, but close enough okay? It isn’t even really your fault, honest! You were simply walking down the hall at a highly accelerated speed, because you may or may not have been trying to escape some Fourth Years you hexed during breakfast, when someone ever so rudely shoved you as you weaved your way through the masses. Unfortunately for you, this all transpired on the fourth floor. Even more unfortunate? You lost your balance and tumbled straight to an open window that you almost fell out from, had it not been for Lily casting a spell that saved you from across the hall.

She was sweet, concerned and every bit an exasperated older sister that you never had. Your bond with her solidifies itself quickly after frequent encounters in the library, turned to purposeful meetings. Quickly, you become part of her little Gryffindor friend group that consists of her roommates Marlene, Mary and Alice. The girls are sweet and fun to hang around with, a bit like chaotic older sisters that constantly help you out and give you all the know-how needed to survive anything from boring classes to sneaking under the watchful gaze of Professor's after curfew.

Still, they could never replace Barty, and your bond with him grows through various trials that year, such as —but not limited to— detention because you broke into Slughorn’s supply closet, sneaking out into Hogsmeade together as well as all the late nights you spend up at the Astronomy Tower talking about everything and nothing.

Unlike the previous one, your second year ends on a sour note. A foul worded letter from Barty's father arrives at breakfast during your last week, sending both of your moods down into the dump. And to top it all off, the so called ‘Marauders’ decide they need this year to end on a bang, quite literally. Fireworks erupt during the final breakfast, popping slime filled balloons over every table that coat your entire body in the green mess.

It smells weird, it's sticky and you can barley get it out of your clothes. A quiet, foreboding sense of anger begins to seethe under your skin the moment you fix your gaze on the cackling four boys at the Gryffindor table, all your instincts screaming at you to rip their heads off their neck. The hairs on your arms raise, a shudder runs down your spine the moment you lock eyes with one of them; a lanky boy with messy sandy hair and amber eyes that are darkened the moment they spy your features. The air shifts notably, almost like lightning crackling between the both of you and it takes everything in you to not fight him. Vaguely, you recall that this was the same boy who made you feel uncomfortable during the sorting ceremony last year, but there's no reason for you to feel so hostile towards him, even if he contributed to your misery.

That summer comes and goes, the boy named Remus Lupin no longer on your mind as you spend the probably worst eight weeks of your life trying to survive each day.

You see, the summer before your third year is when things really start to go downhill, a set of challenges like never before arising.

While you have to suffer in the trenches of puberty, you're also hit by the sudden development of vampire instincts, from one day to the other you start craving actual blood and feeling as if you might drop dead like a fly in the middle of the winter if you don't feed. The world, already much louder and sharper than your human peers perceived it, becomes a million times more enhanced, your senses at their full capacity now. Your mouth aches all summer long from the growing pair of sharp fangs in your gums, and the sensory overload causes headaches any time you spend more than five minutes in the sun. Your strength grows tenfold, which means you have to replace your bedroom door about 60 times that summer because you can't quite control it just yet and break it every other day.

Worst of all? The smell of blood clouds your mind at every turn, your rational thinking impaired significantly the longer you go without feeding. It scares you, especially when you find yourself wandering outside one full moon night, a dead rabbit between your hands when you finally come to your senses. You have no recollection of even exiting the house, and one look at your bloodied and messy state in the mirror back at home is enough to send you spiraling. A spiral so deep, you refuse to return to school out of fear you might lose control, might hurt someone or worse, get found out.

It takes a lot of reassurance, convincing and practice for you to agree to go back.

“My sweet Blooddrop,” your father had whispered, his hand gently rubbing your back as you clutched his back, your body shaking with silent sobs. “I promise, this is completely normal for any young vampire and with enough practice, you’ll be brilliant at controlling yourself.”

The only upside to the whole fiasco is your newfound ability to transform into just about any creature of the night —for now limited to bats only per your mother's instructions. It is technically possible for you to transform into any nocturnal animal, like an owl for example, but that would require much practice and years of patience to cultivate this skill so far. For now, you have to make due with learning how to fly and navigate the night as a bat.

With frayed nerves, and the tiniest bit of hope that this year might not be so bad at all, you start as a third year in Hogwarts. Initially, for the first three weeks, everything goes peachy. You make sure to feed before going to Hogwarts, and adjusting to the turmoil of student masses surrounding you is difficult but still manageable. Sure, Barty picks up on your disarrayed state, but it isn’t anything you can’t lie your way out of. He's observant, maybe too much for your liking, but it's nothing you'd want to change — not that there's anything you'd ever change about him, because Barty is perfectly okay the way he is. Still, it's a dull reminder of what you now have to keep a secret when he starts calling you Fangs, fascinated by the sudden growth of canines in your mouth.

“Wow, were your teeth always this sharp?” He asks one morning at breakfast, his attention captured by the way your fangs pierce easily through the food. Pre-development, you already had protruding fangs that are sharper than most people's teeth, but now, they’re larger, stronger and much more obvious when you open your mouth. You swallow thickly, shrugging his question off with a nonchalant expression. “It's genetics I think? My parents also have sharp canines,” you answer, mentally high fiving yourself when he accepts the answer and returns to his own plate of food.

The incidents begin to pile however, the closer the full moon draws. While you might not be chained to the lunar cycle, unlike beastly creatures such as werewolves that cannot control their irrational nature, you can still feel the way your bloodlust grows and your senses sharpen the fuller the moon becomes.

The week leading up to the full moon, Barty picks up on your agitated state of mind with worry and concern, constantly taking your hands into his own to prevent you from biting your nails and shredding your nail beds. He keeps a stash of lollipops on his person at all times that he hands you without a question anytime you begin to bite your lips, or your gaze becomes unfocused, voice fading as your mind begins to float away somewhere you cannot anchor back so easily.

It’s all sweet gestures, especially with how your thoughts stray into a million directions. Your senses are pulled into every place, each breath and pulse of living creatures like needles pricking your skin. And the sound of rushing blood? Your mind is almost gone by the time it's full moon. It makes it the tiniest bit more bearable, and it cultivates the hope that maybe things won’t be too hard when he is by your side.

Luckily for you, Dumbledore owes your mother a lifelong debt —you didn’t pay attention, something about a sister of his?— and thus, your mother skilfully manages to bend strict rules about Hogwarts attendance and what not. Before she sent you off to school, she’d given you a ruby ring, the intricate emblem of your family engraved onto the cool silver metal. It’s elegant, and a perfectly hidden object to be transformed into a port key that directly leads you to the woods of your home.

The night of the full moon, Professor Sprout picks you up in front of your common room way past midnight, hurrying you along the shadows of the hallways until you arrive at a hidden passage. Under the cover of the night, the both of you sneak across school grounds, all the way down to Hogsmeade and out to the ward border, where she sends you off with a small smile as she watches you make use of the port key.

And that’s how you handle it every month; you are essentially sent home for the night, meeting with either your father or mother —sometimes both if they had the time— and you use the night to hunt and feed to your heart’s content before returning to Hogwarts.

It works quite perfectly actually, save for the times where Barty swears he saw you sneaking with Professor Sprout out of school. The first time he confronts you, all wild and fiery in a dark corner in the dungeons, you nearly break under the pressure and tell him the truth.

“Fangs! You will not believe what I saw last night,” he faux whispers as soon as he sees you leaning against the wall, away from all the other students waiting for Professor Slughorn to let them into the potions classroom. You’re fidgeting with the ring, twisting and turning it as your mind recalls the time spent with your father running and chasing prey in the forest.

You look up, tilting your head as you dissect his expression. He’s nearly vibrating from energy, mouth pulled into a wide smile that others might find uncanny, yet all you can think of is how adorable it is. His piercings —ones you gave him last year in the bathroom of moaning Myrtle when he insisted he wanted to look more rebellious and cool, like the muggle characters from the movies you watched over the Christmas Break— glint in the light of the torches, a cold contrast to his warm hazel eyes that stare into your soul.

Without awaiting an answer, he leans in even closer, his breath hot against the shell of your ear as he whispers, “I saw you with Professor Sprout,” he declares, and it takes everything to not let his words affect you. Any change might give you away, so you do your best to act confused.

“Me? I was sleeping dumbass,” you snort, ruffling his hair as you push him away from you. He pouts at the loss of proximity, but immediately beams and grabs your hand, guiding it to his face and nuzzles into it.

“I did, I swear!” He whines, but you only pinch his cheek. “B, why on earth would I be with Professor Sprout in the middle of the night?”

He frowns, thinking about your words carefully and you take the chance to really drive your point home. “Where’d you see me?” You ask, eyebrows raised, praying your voice doesn’t waver in front of him. Even the subtlest of changes wouldn’t go unnoticed by this bastard, so you have to be cautious.

He thinks about it for a few moments, like he's trying to make sense of what he saw and what he knows logically to be true. “Somewhere outside? Looked like you were sneakin’ round,” he answers with a shrug and you burst into a fit of giggles.

“Yeah, because Stickler-To-Rules-Sprout will most definitely go out with a student past curfew,” you giggle, the sting of guilt aching like a burn when he flushes red and stutters. For good measure, you give his shoulder a playful hit and take his hand in yours, dragging him to the classroom when you spot Slughorn opening the doors, the conversation long forgotten when you settle into your seats, instead taking apart the lesson's topic.

Between dodging Barty’s relentless suspicions, acclimating to the monthly hellish cycle and surviving school, you don't think it can get much worse but boy oh boy, does life decide to prove you wrong.

It begins with a chance encounter a few months into the school year, just a week or two after the full moon. Your energy is at its peak, mischief is on your mind all the time and Barty is more than happy to participate in whatever little prank you want to pull. The both of you are on the run — as per usual— from a group of Ravenclaw quidditch players with neon pink hair that you may or may not have been at fault for, when you round a corner, cackling loudly as you duck and avoid the students in your way.

You collide against someone, the both of you almost sent to the ground tumbling were it not for Barty catching your arm and pulling you up at the last moment. Immediately, your fingers twitch with suppressed aggression, a sense of dreadful alarm engulfing you like a second skin in mere moments.

When you look up, a pair of hostile amber eyes are seizing you up, Remus Lupin glowering at the sight of you. He stands up, his friends orbiting around him with concern to make sure he is okay. He shakes them off, not sparing them a single glance as he locks eyes with you.

“Use your fucking eyes,” he spits out, venom so heavy you think it might’ve choked you if it were tangible. The tone, the words and his overall stance seems to take his friends by surprise, their jaws dropping to the ground in sync. Beside you, Barty bristles, ready to jump the bloke for the way he speaks to you but you hold him back, shaking your head softly. You give Lupin an unimpressed look, standing to your full height to match his imposing demeanour. “I use my eyes when there’s something worth seeing,” you reply coldly, your face souring with disgust the longer you look at him.

His jaw tenses, his hand twitching to reach for his wand and you mirror his stance.

“What? See something you wanna hex, Lupin?” You taunt, gleefully smirking at the way he grinds his teeth at the remark.

“I would be very careful with my words if I were you,” he quips, eyes darting past you with a small, condescending smile, “if not, you might end up in more trouble than you already are.” From down the hall, you can hear the Ravenclaws hounding you approach and you curse, grabbing Barty’s arm and make a run for it, but not before turning around to give Lupin the finger.

The news of your little spat makes rounds like wildfire, and soon everyone in the castle hears about how quiet and kind Remus Lupin is in some sort of feud with you. You hate that your name is being spoken in relation to that twat, but there’s little you can do to stop it, especially as your arguments and fights become more and more frequent.

Barty, ever the loyal attack dog that he is, makes sure to run Lupin and his band through the mud every time you clash, standing imposingly tall at your side, ready for attack should you give him the signal.

An incident that sticks to mind is near the end of your third year, when you attend the duelling club after class. It’s an extracurricular tied to DADA, an opportunity for advanced students from each house to use the theory in practice. The catch? First and Second years have it together, Third and Fourth years together and so on. You’re happy about it when you spot Lily waving at you across the Great Hall, but your mood immediately drops when you see Lupin leaning against the wall, spinning his wand in one hand, the other holding a book in his hand that he deems more important than the chatter around him. As if he’s equipped with a radar tailored to make out your presence, his head snaps up sharply the moment you walk in, his expression darkening when he spots you. Barty is chattering away by your side when he follows your line of sight, immediately frowning at the sight of your self proclaimed foe.

“Do you think I can get away with Avada-ing him?” You mutter under your breath, almost snorting at Barty’s enthusiastic nodding. He launches into a tirade about the best ways to get rid of the body and what excuses you could be using as well as intricate spells to layer to evade any suspicions.

By the time the meeting starts, you can almost blend out Lupin’s presence, thinking that if you just stand at the very far end of the room and avoid him, it might just be bearable.

It works for just about 20 minutes when you listen to your Professor explaining the rules of duelling and what spells might be useful, until he claps his hands and announces that he will be calling two students up to demonstrate at random. Immediately, you feel your body tense, a sort of heavy dread settling in your stomach as you watch him draw two names out of a box. He unfolds the papers, announcing the first name out loud.

Barty nudges you forward with a grin when your name rings through the hall, but it quickly falls when the second name is announced.

“Remus Lupin,” your Professor calls out with an oblivious smile, and the whole world spins and tips over. Somehow, you find yourself up at the stage, shrugging your robes off as you stand across Lupin.

Everyone holds their breath, a few snickers coming from his pesky friends but you pay them no mind, your entire focus zeroing in on your foe.

He grips his wand with a sort of casualness that is entirely misplaced for the atmosphere in the room, and it pisses you off to no end. Despite the Professor’s warning in the back of your head, reminding you that this is a demonstration with no purpose to hurt anyone gravely, all you can focus on is your instincts telling you to get rid of him right here and now.

As soon as the start signal goes off, you’re racing across the platform with inhumane speed, launching spell after spell at Lupin. His surprised face ignites flames of satisfaction in your mind, and he barely manages to dodge your attack before he begins firing his own spells. Flashes of blue, red, gold and white shoot across the platform at a dizzying speed, the calls of your friends barely registering in your moment as you duck and jump, counter and attack like your life's on the line.

It’s clear Lupin underestimated you, his reactions just a fraction too late each time you relentlessly send hex and attack after him, but what he lacks in speed he makes up for in talent. He takes you by surprise, firing four different spells at once that you try to dodge. One of them sends you flying against the wall, the air knocked out of your lungs at the sheer impact but there’s no time to recover. He’s standing in front of you in seconds, quicker than any normal human should have been able to move, and his eyes are void of emotions, only cold and murderous intent glimmering in the pools of amber. You can hear his heart beating, blood rushing at an uncanny speed and he points his wand at you.

“Forfeit,” he calmly says.

You falter, almost considering his demand but as soon as you see the twitch of his lips, you change your mind.

“You wish,” you sneer, channeling all your hatred for him, feeling the magic surrounding you like fine thread. You will it to pull and constrict around him, to ball like a web and with a jerky motion of your hand, he’s hovering in the air, his wand dropping to the ground. His eyes are wide with both awe and disbelief as you get up and limp your way to his wand, picking it up like it’s gold on the street. You hold it up like a trophy, a grin overtaking your features when you turn to the crowd. That very same grin fades into confusion when you see their eyes almost bulging out of their skulls, worried expressions staring at you as you spot Barty fighting his way through the crowd, shoving and pushing until he is up on the stage. He says something, or at least you think he does, because you can see his mouth moving, but strangely the words don’t reach you. Your vision goes dark for just a moment, your legs wobbling until your knees hit the wooden surface, slumping forward. Somewhere, it registers in your mind that you must’ve dropped Lupin’s wand, and him too if the thud that you feel beside you is anything to go by.

Barty is standing in front of you in seconds, dropping to his knees to cradle your face with worry. He speaks and talks but you can’t hear anything aside for a ringing in your ears, but you can tell he’s yelling at Lupin when he turns to the side and his expression grows furious. He props you up against a chair —where that came from, you don’t know— and despite the heaviness in your body, you still manage to turn to watch him grab Lupin by the collar and deliver punch after punch to his face.

You want to stop him, do something, say anything to hold him back, but your body won’t cooperate as your vision blacks out again, this time for good.

The aftermath pretty much solidifies your hatred for Remus Lupin, constantly picking fights with the bloke when your paths cross. It’s not like you want to, but you can’t help it when he looks at you like you’re some sort of scurrying rat, not even worth wasting his breath on. The both of you attempt to keep your sparring verbal, but who’d be at fault if one or two pranks go wrong and someone ends up with bright red skin for a week or comically enlarged limps?

You want to avoid him, you really do, but it doesn’t help that you’re friends with Lily and the other girls, because they frequently invite you to their outings, parties or study sessions. And of course, having one of the most brilliant witches in the castle explain the material of the year ahead to you isn’t an opportunity you’d pass up on. You make sure to not bring Barty along to those meetings, afraid he might actually jump Lupin if he sees him, and try to blend his face out of your line of vision. For the rest of your time at Hogwarts, you swear you’ll do everything in your power to not get involved with Lupin and keep time spent around him to a minimum. It’s easier said than done, especially when you make the unfortunate discovery of him actually being somewhat your neighbour.

It’s the summer after fourth year, Barty once again invited to spend it with you. Now that you’re older and had some time to master your vampire instincts, your parents are much more lenient with you going down into the village with no supervision.

They left on a week long business trip, giving the both of you heartfelt goodbye when they departed.

You mother embraced Barty and you, giving the both of you kisses to your cheeks as she made sure to list all the things you were to do and avoid.

“And remember, no skipping meals, you hear me?” She said sternly, ruffling Barty’s hair affectionately. He gave her a toothy grin, a salute with the promise to make sure to behave before your father ushered your mother to the car. Before he hurried after her, he turned back and gave you a hug, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Take care, okay Blooddrop?” He whispered, and the lump in your throat only allowed you to nod. He had let go of you, stepping to Barty who’d been observing the scene with an expression mixed between jealousy, awe and happiness.

Barty had grown taller in the first few weeks of summer, but he still was a good head and a half shorter than your giant of a father. He smiled, his hand a steady beacon of warmth on the boy’s shoulder. “Be careful son, wouldn't want you getting hurt while we’re gone, yeah?” If Barty’s eyes filled with tears, and if his arms tightened more around your father’s body when he embraced him, then that’s between him and himself only.

After the last ‘I love you’s’ were exchanged and you watched the car disappear into the horizon, you grabbed Barty and dragged him out to the lake. The summer of 1977 was uncharacteristically hot in your region, and so you spent every free second in the water. When the sun no longer beat down on you, a sort of cool breeze sweeping across the land in the fading rays of sunset, the both of you finally went back home, showering before taking your bikes to go into the village. You planned to have Barty sit through every single James Bond movie, horrified that he hadn’t heard of them before. You wanted to give him the proper movie experience, which required unholy amounts of snacks that you were to get from the corner store.

You drag him into the store after securing your bikes, giggling at the way his pupils widen and his mouth falls slack at the sight of the snack aisle. “I love muggles,” he declares, immediately disappearing into the ice cream section as you busy yourself with filling the basket with chips and sweets. You can hear him ramble in the aisle over, occasionally popping his head to ask you questions or excitedly show you different kinds of ice cream. His excitement is contagious, and it gives you a new found appreciation for all the things you grew around and took for granted for the longest time.

When you finally have all the things you need, you call for him and begin your search, stopping mid-step when a familiar sense of danger and disgust settles over you. You turn around, just as the sound of your last name echoes from the other side of the aisle, and your body tenses at the sight of Lupin and his friends standing at the other end.

“What are you doing here?” Potter asks, his voice tinged with suspicion and alarm. You narrow your eyes, taking in the very casual attire of the four boys, your eyes darting to catalogue every possible escape route.

“I should be asking you that,” you press out, focusing your attention on the way Lupin almost growls at the sound of your voice. “Are you seriously stalking me Lupin? That’s low,” you remark, satisfied at the incredulous noise he makes. He almost drops the chocolate in his hands, crossing his arms as he huffs. “As if!,” he shoots back, glaring pointedly at you, “You’re the one stalking me.”

You don’t get to reply, the sound of Barty calling for you growing closer until he spots you and is by your side in moments, rambling about the three different ice cream types he picked. He notices your darkened expression, turning around to find the source of your misery and immediately groans with too much theatrics. “Oh my god are you following us even during summer? That’s a crime and could get you in jail,” he chastises, subtly shielding you from their critical gazes. “What? No, we aren’t stalking you,” Potter sputters, clearly flustered by the accusation, “We are visiting Moony for the summer!” It takes a few moments for you to connect the dots that Moony must be Lupin, and you slowly look him up and down, a horrible thought forming in your mind.

“You are visiting Lupin? Here?” You ask slowly, watching as Lupin catches onto your train of thoughts. Horror creeps onto his expression, and under other circumstances you would’ve delighted in it, but not when you feel the same horror crawling across your skin. “Yes,” Pettigrew clarifies, none the wiser to the death sentence his words sign, “Remus lives here.”

Barty turns to you, eyes wide and mouth twitching at the revelation. You almost drop the basket in your hands, knees growing weak for a moment when the horrific reality hits you like a truck.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, “we live in the same place.”

A flurry of dramatic gasps comes from the Marauders, but you don’t stay to listen, dragging Barty off to the register before fleeing the store, biking back up the hill and then the winding path into the woods at lightning speed.

You religiously avoid the village after that, sticking close to the woods lest you run into Lupin and actually be sentenced into Azkaban for killing someone.

Barty, bless his heart, is on high alert the entire time, swearing that he’d help you flee the country should you really want to get rid of Lupin. Nothing money and a few well worded threats can’t do, he said with a wink, and you ever quite appreciated your best friend so much as you did in that moment.

The summer passes, and so you become Fifth Years, your OWL exams looming at the end of the year. They bring a certain shift into your dynamic with them, because despite the amount of time you already spend together, it somehow grows in that year. He follows you like a lost puppy, carrying the stacks of books you brew over when you study and offers helpful advice when you work on assignments.

But something else is different this year too, as if the summer had brought on a change in the way you operate together. The air is laden with unspoken words, charged with glances that linger a fraction too long, touches set your skin ablaze like the heat of the sun on a sunny summer day. You somehow realise for the first time how good looking your best friend is, especially when hoards of admirers follow him at every turn and corner, silently vying for his attention when really, there’s no one else he looks at aside for you.

The weight of his gaze is both dizzying and has your heart growing weak, you note, when he stares at you like you hold the entire universe in the palms of your hands. Perhaps, it’s not the way friends are supposed to look at eachother, but you tell yourself that you and Barty are just very close, very friendly and share an unshakable bond.

Soulmatism, you had once called it when Marlene teased you about the proximity between the two of you. It’s the word you chant over and over in your head when the both of you are the last ones left in the library, stowed away in some quiet corner under the torches.

It’s the word you chant like a mantra when he folds his arms on the table, resting his head on them and stares at you with that quiet reverence of his, like he would drop to his knees any second and offer you the whole world.

It’s the word that plays in your head on repeat when the phantom touch of his hands on your waist, cheeks and back has you aching and writhing restlessly in the dark.

It’s also the word that echoes in your head when he comes to you one day, a few weeks into your sixth year, and confesses he kissed Remus Lupin.

[dixonsdarkelf]

Giving this a proper reblog because it deserves more feedback 🖤 Some of my favorite parts are listed below.

Chapter 1:

“S'wha' ya signed up fer when ya agreed to marry me, sunshine,” Daryl began playfully, eyeing the ring on your finger fondly. “In sickness and in health. In cleanliness and in filth.”

This is one of the single funniest lines I've ever read in my entire life lmaooooo Daryl is so unintentionally funny

“Not gonna give me a name?” he asked rhetorically. His smirk widened into a wicked smile. “Okay, then allow me to introduce myself instead.” He extended his arms, as if basking in the sunlight. “I'm Liam Davis, head of the Knights. Welcome to Sunny Meadows, and a new, better life for the two of you. That is, if you do your part, of course. We don't take well to freeloaders. No more life on the road for you. We're here to ensure a better tomorrow for all of us.”

Liam is already very sussy wussy. And Sunny Meadows is super Midsommar coded IMO (a compliment as Midsommar is one of my favorite movies).

Chapter 2:

“M'alrigh',” Daryl mumbled, glaring up at his attacker, his eyes alight with the fire of a thousand suns. “Asshole punches like a girl. No offense, Peach.”

LMAO DARYL 😭😂 You're lucky your wife doesn't take offense to this.

“For good reason,” Liam replied with a nod, motioning for you and Daryl to follow him. You shared a look with Daryl before following behind the man, Daryl following close behind. “You can't be sure about the dangerous pricks that are out there.”

You're one to talk, bud.

“Sir, please relax.” Mariah walked up to the side of the bed, grabbing a tube of some sort of gel from the drawer. “We have some new equipment we've been wanting to test out. We found this ultrasound machine yesterday. We just want to test it out and make sure it works.”

I started heavy breathing at this part, ngl 😬

“Oh, wow. That's a strong heartbeat,” Doctor Owen Miller told you with a smile, the ultrasound depicting a growing baby. “Congratulations, you two.”

I wanna be happy for Reader, but I know Daryl is pissed for a number of reasons...

Chapter 3:

However, you weren't having any of it. You were nothing if not extremely persistent, so you'd stop at nothing until you'd had a chance to explain yourself. “No, I'm not gonna stop until you've let me speak my mind.”

Good for you, Reader. Stand on business, babe.

The man—Lucas—sent you a small smirk, his eyes trailing you up and down. And for some reason, you knew that the arrival of this man would only mean trouble.

This immediately made my skin crawl (a compliment).

Chapter 4:

Liam—either extremely smart or extremely stupid—interrupted the intense stare-off with the clearing of his throat. He clapped his hands twice and stood up from his seat. “No need for the hostility, gentlemen. We’re all mature, responsible, reasonable adults here. No need to rip one another’s throats out.”

Actually, bro, it very much feels necessary.

Your mind was in overdrive. You barely even noticed that you had somehow managed to grab an ornament from the shelf next to you, or that you had brought it over Lucas’ head. You only realized that fact when the man tumbled down to the ground and you were sprinting towards the weapon.

Absolutely obsessed with this. Wish I could've done it to him myself.

Chapter 5:

Daryl sighed in defeat. It physically hurt his being to do what he was about to do, but he had to. He had no other choice. “Alright,” he conceded in a whisper. “What’cha wanna know?”

I can hear the defeat in his voice 😭 Poor baby 💔

“Intruders!” someone yelled from afar, before being interrupted by a scream.

Teehee I wonder who that could be 🤗

Chapter 6:

And Daryl truly believed that. He felt like an absolute failure at that moment. He failed his family, he failed his unborn child, and most of all, he failed you. You could be dead in that well and he would not be able to do anything. He was supposed to protect you! To ensure your safety! How could he fail at that? You were the most precious thing in his life, and he was failing you. He was failing you. He was failing you. He was failing you.

Oh this caused me an immense amount of pain (a compliment)

Daryl’s heart both sped up and stopped simultaneously. He had never once thought that he would be as happy to hear that voice like he was at that moment. The gruffness of the voice, mixed with the southern twang of the accent was one Daryl was all too familiar with. “Rick.” The door to Daryl’s prison flew open with a loud bang as soon as that name left his lips, soon accompanied by the sound of footsteps rushing into his cell. The beams of multiple flashlights fell upon his face, and the light made it possible for Daryl to make out the faces of his rescuers: Rick, Michonne, and Glenn.

RICK! MY SHAYLA! MY BABIES!

Ah, ah, ah, ah. Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, and repeat. That was the stupid motto you had drilled into his mind back when you were being taught to do those types of medical procedures by Hershel. He had offered to be your test dummy, and you had kept singing that particular line of that song over and over again. He had thought it was stupid back then, but now it was coming in handy. He just hoped it would work.

This shouldn't have made me laugh, but it did (just a little bit).

I can't wait for the final chapter of this! I'm so excited you don't understand 🖤

⋆✮⋆ I’ll keep on adding as I write.

Fluff—❤️ | Angst—💔 | Suggestive—❤️ | Smut—🔥 | Platonic—💜

Summary: While on a run, you and Daryl got captured by a group that took you both to their community named “Sunny Meadows”. Despite the name, you could quickly note that the people were not as sunny. You two needed to escape, for both your lives and for your unborn child’s. However, that was easier said than done.

Overall warnings: Swearing, blood, death, attempted sexual assault, torture, pregnancy (although it isn’t a main plot point).

Chapter One ❤️💔

Chapter Two 💔

Chapter Three 💔

Chapter Four 💔

Chapter Five 💔

Chapter Six 💔

Chapter Seven...loading

[yanara126-writing]

The Many Meetings of Death and Death (4/5) - Razor Rain

Daud is a wreck. Corvo is a player avatar. Neither of them is happy about it.

Well maybe the Outsider is.

-

Read here or on Ao3 (2386 words)

Have fun! Comments always welcome! :)

--

Thomas wakes to pain burning in his mind. Not the pain that is familiar, a stab wound, acid burns or even a bullet, but the agony of yawning emptiness in his soul, the likes of which he's only felt once before. During the Overseer attack.

This is worse. Back then (was it really only two weeks ago?) he was writhing in agony, clinging barely to consciousness as that awful sound set his left hand on fire and drilled itself through his skull, locking off that now cooly familiar connection through the void in his mind. That was better. It hurt horrendously, made even worse by knowing what it meant, that one of their own had betrayed them, but even then there was trust. Daud was coming. All Thomas had to do was live to see it.

Now there is no such trust. Groggy, in pain and his senses dulled Thomas knows well where is. And what the pain in his head means. He keeps his eyes shut, listens to the water rushing outside the window, and imagines, just for a short moment, that it's a few months earlier. That he's simply taken a hit to the head on a mission or an unlucky slip during training and that Montgomery is about to come and patch him up. That Daud will soon transverse right in front of his nose to rip him a new one for such an amateur mistake. That the worst the world can do to him lies a decade in the past next to the decaying corpses of his parents and their co-conspirators. He doesn't succeed.

A broken sob rips itself from his throat that has nothing to do with the pain. With effort he opens his eyes, forcing them to focus, even though he would rather do anything else in the world than face reality. Face the undeniable proof for the gaping hole in his mind where the bond has been for almost half his life. But Daud has trained him better than that. The world doesn't care for what you want, all you can do is face it and force your will onto it. And the rest is Void.

When his eyes finally focus and compensate for the waning light outside, every muscle in his body freezes. He is where expects to be, under the window in Daud's office. (Propped up against the wall rather than lying on the floor, his mask on the ground nudging his hand, which implies things that do not penetrate the pain and fog in his mind.) Not four metres away from him is Daud, slumped over his desk, framed by the setting sun shining through the other window. A whaler sword is stabbed through his back, wedged so deep it's pinning him to the wooden surface. Sightless eyes stare blankly back at Thomas. Blood still trickles slowly down his chin, collecting in a small puddle, soaking into the already waterlogged wood of the desk.

Thomas only doesn't scream because he stops breathing. His fingers are numb against the waterlogged floor. He is no stranger to death, has never been. Not before and certainly not with Daud. He has taken lives himself, in defense and otherwise, and has watched life drain from countless more. He has known for a long time that his own is unlikely to be peaceful and is content with that. But this is wrong in a way that tears into his soul anew, sinks its poisoned teeth into him and rips out his heart into tattered bits. Daud was supposed to be... Not untouchable, not anymore, not since that day six months ago, but unyielding. A rock in the branding, chipped and discoloured but firm against the rising tides.

Thomas has known for a while that something had to break, to give. Has watched Daud pace and skulk around the base with tight shoulders and tighter words, waiting for a reckoning they all knew had to come. Sitting in here, in the quiet office with only the sound of weepers shuffling past beneath the window, his legs aching from the awkward pose and the hole gaping in his soul, Thomas can't help thinking the universe made a mistake. This was never supposed to happen. Daud wasn't- Daud wasn't meant to die before Thomas. Thomas isn't blind, he quietly took Lurk's place for a reason, he is the best scout Daud has trained aside from her, and he is proud of it. He knows Daud meant to die to Attano. The fact that he spared the man when they fished him out of the Wrenhaven already half dead and then had them throw him into a barely secured pit is sign enough on its own, that he then sat here and just waited, refusing to order the Whalers to engage, is the curled signature under the execution order. Thomas is not happy about it, but he knows. He also knows Daud meant to make it an occasion, a challenge, a fight to keep Attano busy and make himself into the barely defeated monster. A hard earned victory for Attano and a cleaner conscience for Daud as he died.

The body staked to the desk has nothing to do with Thomas' master. It's not the Knife of Dunwall who died here, not the terror of the Isles, not Daud the assassin, Daud the man who plucked Thomas from certain death and gave him a weapon to fight all of Dunwall's horrors with, like he's saved so many others of their number. The broken bleeding corpse across from Thomas is not his master. It's a mutilated old man, barely recognisable and yet horrifyingly familiar.

No fight happened here. Daud didn't see it coming. Didn't even have the time to get up from his chair. Attano rammed a sword through him, one of their own, and Daud died alone, pinned to the desk like an insect in an exhibit at the academy, while Thomas lay unconscious on the floor. Morbidly he wonders if the fact that Daud's head is turned towards him means his master was looking at him in his last moments. Watching over Thomas' insensate body for one last time while was bleeding out and drowning in his own blood. He hopes not. He hopes it was over before Daud could notice that he wouldn't be granted his last fight. That Attano took even this from them. Or perhaps Daud was staring over to the window accusingly, demanding to know why Thomas didn't- didn't save him. Didn't do his job as he was trained to, didn't see Attano coming, didn't do what he came here to do and stayed here for even though he was ordered away. Another sob forces itself from Thomas' chest and it sounds like it reverberates through the gaping hole in his head.

Slowly, still dizzy from what was most definitely a modified sleep dart and from the shattered remnants of the bond clouding his perception, he drags himself off the ground. He stumbles the few steps over to Daud's body and crumples  again next to his master. His knees hit the floor with a thud and as he stares into dead, glassy eyes staring through him, nothing can hold the flood ripping through him anymore. One sob turns into many and soon he is a mess on the floor, as broken as the corpse before him. The tears flowing from his eyes burn, as if themselves made of the acid Thomas feels shredding his chest. Grief, fear, hatred, all intermingling into one dizzying concoction of emotion that threatens to drown him. He looks to the body, the pool of blood he can now see that collected on the ground beneath, to the tip of the sword that juts from- from the chest into the desk, his breath having turned into wet gasps, as if it was the still warm blood choking him rather than hot tears.

He doesn't know how long he kneels there on the ground, losing all sense of time as he can't look away from the corpse's eyes. They're not accusing, they're not surprised, not pained, they're only empty, like the glass pearl Jordan wears in her empty socket. As if no one had ever been behind them. Until Thomas can't take it anymore and slowly lifts his trembling hand. He tries to be gentle, to be soft, but he doesn't know he can be anymore. It feels less like closing Daud's eyes for the last time, and rather like forcing down a corpse's eyelids. There is nothing gentle in the action, nothing soothing when there is nothing to soothe left, only the desperate need to not have to see anymore.

It's somehow worse after. He stares at his hand, the feeling of dead, cold flesh ingrained in his fingertips. It's not the first body he's touched, not even the first body of someone he's known and loved.

It gets more difficult every time.

But this is wrong in many more ways. It's wrong that Daud is dead, it's wrong that he died sitting, it's wrong that Thomas could reach out and touch him like this. Daud's touches have always been precious things, treasures given in rare moments of intimacy. Receiving the mark as he holds their hand through the burning of the new connection in their mind. A rough shove or yank in missions gone sideways. Fleeting flashes of personal attention that many saw and all keep silent about. He helped Jordan slot in her new eye. He tied off the bandages around Misha's chest. He stitched a cut above Billie's eye. He clasped Thomas' shoulder after his first solo scouting mission. They are given, never taken.

Reaching out and touching him seals reality in a way that nothing else has. Not the gaping ragged hole in his mind, not the sword stabbed clean through the body, not the sight of empty eyes. The feeling of stiff, creased, rapidly cooling skin against his fingers.

The door flies open with a crack, slamming into the wall to reveal Rulfio, no mask to be seen but sword ready in hand. He freezes in the doorway as he takes in the sight. The bang rips something loose in Thomas and he stumbles to his feet, glancing over at Rulfio who still stands by the door, the older Whaler's face caught somewhere between anguish and resignation, shoulders slumped and hands curled into desperate, helpless fists.

Like a spark ignited rage fills Thomas, burning through the grief and terror and dousing it in blessedly mind-numbing hatred and fury. Some Whalers rely on emotion to keep them above water, draw on spite and anger to be able to do their jobs and sleep at night. Thomas has never been one of them, but in that moment he understands. The intoxicating feeling of seething resentment, the burning need for vengeance. It's not just Thomas. It's all of them, all Whalers, their family, that Attano took this from. And perhaps it was deserved. Perhaps it was fair. The death of a killer (how many of their family have died to Attano's hands? He doesn't even know yet.) for the death of an empress. But Thomas learnt long ago, locked behind a basement door and trying to set his own broken fingers, that the world doesn't give people what they deserve. And he refuses to let this be the only time it does.

With a snarl he turns to the body, grips the sword impaling it and yanks. He can feel the blade grind along bone and sinew as he forces it out. The body is jostled with the movement, and Thomas nearly vomits. Eventually the sword comes free, bloodied tip to hilt. Thomas' knuckles go white as he clenches it. Rulfio hasn't moved from the door, watching Thomas with a strange look in his eyes.

Outside someone screams, a heart wrenching roar muffled by a Whalers' mask. Rulfio flinches and turns to the window, his usually tan skin white as a sheet in the setting sun. Thomas chokes on another sob. His head feels fuzzy and nausea rises in his throat, and yet he knows he cannot stop now. There is no stopping anymore. There wasn't for Daud, and Thomas will follow him as he always has.

He drops the sword the desk like it burns his fingers and turns back to the body. His hands shake as he reaches out and slowly slips off Daud's coat. It takes some maneuvering to get it off the stiffening body without having to touch it too much, and Thomas feels like he's suffocating the entire time, like he's committing a terrible sacrilege and the void itself is crushing him for it. Eventually he has it in hand, sticky with not quite dried blood, the back ripped open where the sword stabbed through it. Unable to stop his shivering he can't look up from the ruined coat.

The sound of leather on wood eventually makes Thomas glance back up, to find Rulfio hesitating one stop into the room, that strange look again in his eyes as he fixates on Thomas.

The screaming outside has tapered down into muted sobbing, but the voices have multiplied. He can hear some clambering, Whalers long used to the void in their step trying to figure out how to safely enter the building again without their transversals.

Thoma swallows, his breath shaky, and squares his shoulders. No stopping.

He shrugs off his own blue coat and lays it over Daud like a blanket, like he simply fell asleep over their reports again. Then he takes the ruined red coat, torn and stained as it is, and draws it over his own back. It's uncomfortable, it's too big, it's filthy, and it fans the flames of hatred making his face burn. He takes the sword, red and gleaming, and turns to Rulfio.

Rulfio looks back, emotions racing across face too fast for Thomas to see, if he had anything left to even care about them. He glances between Thomas and the body and the window. Then something seems to click or maybe break and steel fills eyes. He draws himself up, taller than Thomas, his shoulders tight and he nods. No words are needed.

Thomas grips the sword tighter.

It's time for hunting.

[walkingstackofbooks]

What's the ideal length of a fanfic chapter?

I am at least a few weeks out from finishing my fic, but I'm just thinking ahead to how I want to put it up

It's a 5+1 fic, so has automatically got 6 chapters. (Julian is stuck for six consecutive days in a timeloop.) Originally, I was just going to post 1 chapter every week as I edited it, but while Chapter 1 is a friendly 3,500 words, Chapters 2 and 3 are both just over the 10,000 word mark, and I'm only halfway through Chapter 4 but it's shaping up to be at least 15,000, somehow!

So my options are:

The Original Plan

I aim to publish one 10k+ word chapter each week.

Pros: It's as intended, each "day" of the story happens in full, within its own chapter. Good if you like long updates?

Cons: Since I don't *actually* know how long editing will take, I might not be able to keep to a weekly schedule and timings may vary. Pretty lengthy chapters.

Plan 2:

I cut each of the original chapters in half for publishing, and either:

2a - I aim to publish two 5k+ word chapters each week.

Pros: It's still mostly as intended, each "day" gets published in full, just in two parts. Shorter chapters

Cons: Timings may vary again, since it's a lot to edit in a week. The story is split up slightly arbitrarily.

2b - I publish one 5k+ word chapter each week (cutting the original chapters in half)

Pros: I should be able to stick to the weekly schedule for sure. Shorter chapters

Cons: Each "day" of the story is cut in half, probably at a somewhat arbitrary point. 1/2 of Chapter 4 is still going to be 7-9k in length 😅

Plan 3

I publish one or two 3-6k word chapters each week. I'd think of the story as one long tale rather than as The Six Days and split up the current chapters into smaller ones at places I feel are suitable.

Pros: Shorter, more even, chapters. Better pacing Being able to stick to a weekly schedule (and possibly an extra chapter every so often)

Cons: Completely abandoning the 5+1 structure Story won't be told as intended

[eupheme]

(i don't want to say goodbye to them either! but so excited to read this and inhale more of logan & his honey - they have my whole heart)

man this beginning hits so hard, that is so much for honey to process and carry, her fear makes so much sense. i am breathless reading about her and laura at the mansion, how she finds parallels between herself and logan - wanting to survive for her!! i love how important laura has become to her, gosh my heart feels tied up in knots.

You gasped for air, unsure of where you stood—what this new power meant for something that once existed with such ease. Would he love you in spite of your powers? Would he only see her? Would he save you…one last time?

!!! gnawing on the bars of my enclosure oh my god. they way they move together, they truly are soulmates. and ouch that hurt when she flinched from him, worried she'd hurt him! 😭💖

He’d dig you out of your grave with bare hands bloody from the pain you might cause.

!!!!!!! i love how he's the perfect person to help her in every way.

When you met Logan in that parking lot you expected things to shift. The winds were always meant to change, pieces finally clicking into place as he happened upon the other half of his lost soul. But Laura snuck up on you. She latched onto your bleeding heart, the kindness you showed even as you grieved the person you used to be. A girl who fought alongside her dying father—a lost soul begging for redemption at the end of the timeline.

the found family!!!! their relationship is so beautifully done, I loved this realization so much and how completely and lovingly you've worked laura into their lives.

“Don’t need a window bub,” he breathed. “You’ve always been able to see me.” / You were always meant to find one another. Always standing at the end of each other’s path—willing one another forward with a love greater than the universe.

god this is so beautiful (and the gift from laura! I am !!!). the little advice logan gives that came from Charles was such a great touch, how he's not truly gone, either, with how much he was loved and how his teaching is helping logan teach her. and how they share the same thought as he joins her, and then later as he's realizing what she needs and letting go of those emotions and anger - the “I love you too much to ever hate you.” !!!!

i loved that this is what flips the switch between them, and how much need is woven into their reunion. he makes her glow!!!! oh my god.

When the world came to a halt and time finally allowed you to meet one another in the middle. This time as two halves of one whole.

only you could pair such a hot moment with this healing and impactful moment, god it's so good.

Logan swore he died and went to the fucking afterlife at the sight of your mouth stuffed full of his name.

this and the claws in the mattress (coming as she tells him she loves him), holy shit 😵‍💫💖

“I love you,” he breathed against your lips, running a thumb along the line of your throat. “‘M gonna love you for the rest of my life.”

sobbing!! it's coming from her heart!!! god this crushed me in the best way, I have tears on my cheeks and I'm also grinning so hard. I know we have an epilogue so I will have more to say there but just - I've loved every chapter and every word of this. this is THE worst wolverine fic for me, and I know it always will be. the way you write him and his love for honey and how seamlessly she's fit into his world and with laura and wade - this is truly a masterpiece. 💖

RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT ME

➛ 09. DESPERADO

a/n: i want to say that i waited so long to put this one out because life got unruly and unmanageable and horrid and while that is true that's not why i waited. i don't want this story to end. i don't want to say goodbye to logan and his honey. this fic has meant so much to me the past nine months. it inducted me into a fandom that became a comfort for me to turn to. but it's also my whole entire heart poured into a love story filled with tragedy and pain. and i couldn't bring myself to write its ending. but here it is. the final chapter (excluding the epilogue of course).

summary: time is cruel. time is infinite. time is...you. when you first came across the lonely x-man you never thought he'd carry you through a love that felt as delicate as time. yet there you stood on his front stoop - a different person - asking him to save your life. one last time.

word count: 10k

pairing: logan howlett x f!reader

warnings: EXPLICIT SO MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY!!, angst, and overt amount of angst, heartbreak, arguments, ptsd, superhero training, arguments, mean!logan, laura kinney being amazing, violence, tw: blood, mention of death, love confessions, spit, cum eating, creampie, rough sex, tears, so much crying it's actually concerning, small amounts of fluff (but not really), p in v sex, hope, time.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER | EPILOGUE | SERIES MASTERLIST

"Logan...tell me about your dream."

"I will. I'll tell you everything. Just not tonight."

The crunch of dirt beneath worn tires rocked the old car the harder you pressed on the gas. Speeding down a deserted lonely road felt exactly as you expected. The shitty coffee you bought at a nearby gas station sloshed in its place near the dash—the scent of whatever food you could find on the way here forced you to roll down the windows. All of which were somehow cracked in particular places and squeaked with each movement.

Laura prompted you to bring a jacket. Wade did what he could to loan you a knife (even as you rejected him). Althea gave you the keys to her beat up car—a grin on her face and the reminder of her pistol in the glove compartment. Each offering their own version of a goodbye they never thought might come to pass.

Instability became the makeup of your life, the echo of who you used to be disappearing into smoke and ash with each passing day. The unfamiliar itch beneath your skin screamed between the bars of a cage you trapped it in. You could hear its call—the need to flow between gaps and crevices of your bones. The demand to embed into your veins rang true with fear and agony. Emotions you could taste like fuel on the back of your tongue.

You tried to live with it. Forget that what she placed in your body even existed. And some days you found you could fall with ease back into a version of yourself that once walked this Earth. The normalcy that came with having a job and going home to an empty apartment, the promise of simplicity until the very end.

A person before the other half of his soul carved his way into a dull life.

You could pretend you were anything but a person afraid of their own body.

Terrified of the mind ravaged by centuries you had yet to live; by the promise of one day outliving Death.

You could separate yourself from the memory of him, from the hope that he would come find you. But when fate's distinct grasp yanked harshly at your psyche it returned. Flaring to life with a vengeance that would linger long after you managed to capture it again—forcing it into the darkness with a snarl. It pulled you through time, fought with tooth and nail to find space in a still healing body.

After finding yourself in the X-Men mansion thirty years in a future you barely recognized, you knew the short span of time spent ignoring it was rapidly coming to an end.

"Send her here."

"I'll keep her safe."

His voice cracked through your skull, pounding against bone the longer you drove—the wind whipping through the rapidly approaching car.

Laura spoke his words over her soda, the clock nearing three in the morning as you fought anxiety and nausea. A mere whisper of truth to keep you sane—a reminder that someone in this world ached for you, that you could still be saved in spite of the chaos that stirred in your lungs.

His promise should have warmed your heart, brought tears of relief to combat the madness you drowned in. But they tasted like ash from a fire that still roared. Words pulled from a life he already lived, meant for a woman he used to love.

He made that same vow before. He promised to protect Fortuna, even after life handed him the severed and bloody strand of fate. The faith you once held for a man who still owned your soul—who clung to every living breathing part of your overwhelmed body—diminished. Slowly yet all at once you understood who Logan Howlett was. Who he might never be.

You were never supposed to be this. Finding your path now carved by eternity was never in the cards of your small life. Yet how could you ignore what burned its way through your skin? How long could you push off deciphering the unknown before it tore you apart?

How were you meant to put trust in the man who'd broken this promise before?

How could you call him a savior? After so much grief.

"You have to go!" Laura shouted dumping the burnt pieces of her toast in the trash. "He can help you."

"I can handle this myself."

"He's trained to help mutants-"

"And I said I'll take care of it," you snapped.

She knew you were lying; you knew she could see right through your false sense of calm. You had nothing left to offer, no parts of yourself to give as you stared forever down the barrel of a gun yet to be fired. The bullet was locked in the chamber, waiting for someone to pull the trigger. Breaking down felt wrong. Merely another burden added to an ever growing pile. But moving mountains had never been your forte.

Laura fixed problems. She took care of those she loved.

She was all the things Logan yearned to be—a protector who never abandoned the other half of their heart. She stood tall and bared her teeth and when life offered only one way out she dug her claws in to carve out something new. She solidified herself as your kin—a daughter left by her father with an unspoken promise that hung in the air.

Protect her family.

The decision to leave came swiftly. With the swing of a hammer nailing your coffin shut and devastation painting the grave he never buried you in. Whatever existed in your body rose to a crescendo you couldn’t control anymore.

Laura dragged you out to an open clearing near the mansion days before. A space hidden away from others that liked to talk—as she put it. Here you could exist as yourself. No longer the hermit dreaming beneath the floors of a library, shuffling papers and boxes older than you into their rightful place. Here you could be time. Endless, forever growing, forever shaping what you never thought possible into reality.

You could let go.

But that was the thing about chaos. It cherry picked moments never meant to be damaged. Instances in time that were swallowed by peace—light flickering behind memories you would have had centuries to replay. Eons to contemplate and eternity to revisit.

You shut your eyes to the sight of Laura bracing herself into the ground, claws puncturing her boots and burying into inches of hardened soil. She expected the power to unleash itself in waves, lashing into the surrounding area with the need to consume. Until you slid the lock out of place, released the breath trapped in your tight chest, and drowned in the anger that broke free with vengeance.

It blinded you, overwhelmed every sensation you might have been able to focus on. Slamming into Laura in an all too familiar rough strike you’d witnessed once before—in the crack of Fortuna’s whip. She went flying into a tree and the deafening snap of her body hitting the floor forced you to shove it back down. Swallow the pain that flared through your cells, screaming for a sliver of the freedom it once had.

Time encased itself into an already fragile body.

It only seemed like a matter of time before the clock ran out and outrunning the detonation was futile.

Causing harm was inevitable. A side effect you swallowed down alongside the shitty whiskey Logan drank—the burn a rope you latched onto. Dragging yourself up and out of a pit you were trapped in. You knew pain would follow, pressed into your unstable footprints. But hurting Laura is where you felt the rope wrap tight around the raw skin of your throat.

She’d suffered enough; experiencing the instability of your powers was never part of the plan.

“I’m not hurt. I heal fast-”

“I can’t. I won’t hurt you.”

“Even if you do…”

“No.”

Perhaps this was the burden Logan bore like a wound that burned. The possibility that he could hurt the ones he loved without trying. A streak of paranoia tangled along the makeup of your DNA, strangling the breath from your lungs. He ran from you once before—pushed down his feelings for your sake.

Back in a time that felt like decades before all of this. Bound by the freedom of humanity you never realized you should have cherished.

He left to keep you safe.

Ironic that it would be you doing the same.

Even though she existed as another version of him. A hero in her own right. Hurting her—by accident and fault of your own obliviousness—forced bile up your throat. The ache in your chest suddenly a flare of emotions you were afraid to pick apart.

She was your own. You came to that conclusion the day she came to your rescue, willing to save the stranger her father’s soul was tied to.

So you left—to keep every part of her safe.

You wouldn’t save yourself because Logan believed in you, or because Laura and Wade fought to keep you afloat. You’d save yourself because she deserved a better protector. Someone who would finally take the weight off shoulders that were far too young to bear the brunt of the world’s pain. A girl—brash and brutal and exactly like her father—who never asked for this.

You’d survive for her. Until her dying breath one day existed in your mind fractured by time.

The house was breathtaking, standing at the edge of a cliff encased in hills and mountains covered by trees so thick sunlight would never break through. Wood and windows and the comfort formed by a man who no longer walked this Earth. Yet there it was, his memory carved into the structure of a place meant to outlive him.

Laura told you about this house—how she lived here on her own for a year in an attempt to remember her father—but nothing prepared you for the sight of it in person. It suited him. A perfect reflection of a soul you got to know over what little time you had together. Simple yet sustainable. A home meant to survive.

It shouldn’t have surprised you to see him waiting. Standing at the porch, a mug of coffee on the wooden railing in front of him, a forgotten novel left in a chair crafted by hand. Surely the other Logan’s work in another life you were never meant to be apart of. He watched with scrutinizing eyes of hazel and a body tensed for the appearance of yet another mistake—the harm he caused blatant on your exhausted form.

You should have expected this.

Prepared for it.

But the longing that slammed into your chest, twisting the knife deep enough to crack bone, sent you reeling. Gasping for air as sat in the idling car, hands gripping the wheel tight enough for your knuckles to scream out in pain.

He was here and he was watching you as if the world suddenly started to spin again. A man who finally managed to kill the hollow ache in his body—the other half of his soul feet away and close enough to touch.

You and Logan moved in unison. An extension of one another even after so long spent apart. He stepped off the porch quickly, you stumbled out of the car—the keys pressed hard and unrelenting in your clenched palm. And for the first time in months you didn’t know what to do next. He’d been the shaky one in this relationship, clutching onto you for guidance, but now the roles were switched.

Now it was up to him to lead you.

“Honey,” he breathed, voice softer than before.

You gasped for air, unsure of where you stood—what this new power meant for something that once existed with such ease. Would he love you in spite of your powers? Would he only see her? Would he save you…one last time?

“Hi Logan,” you uttered meekly, lips hesitant to curl into a wry grin he’d never seen cross your face.

So timid compared to the person from before; new and afraid and yet still drenched in the familiar warmth of a love he’d claw his way back to every time. He came to the conclusion long ago, the moment he watched you meander out of that store—unassuming and unaware of what was to come. He’d die for you. There was no place for him if you didn’t exist.

No matter the universe you were meant to find one another.

A match made at the beginning of time and stardust and the collision of galaxies. The was no stopping the inevitability of love.

“I’ve missed you.” The truth wasn’t hard for him to admit. Not when it was you.

Surprise flickered across your face, lips twitching as a smile fought to bloom. “I missed you too.”

“There’s so much I need to fuckin’ tell you honey.” He surged forward, hand outstretched with his heart bleeding into the lines of his palm.

What he didn’t expect was for you to flinch back, feet stumbling in the dirt as you put distance between your bodies—enough to stop him in his tracks. This wasn’t borne out of the displaced fear that he might hurt you. Quite the opposite. You were terrified you might hurt him. That this unhinged power would break him in ways he couldn’t fix—wounds his body might not be able to handle.

“Laura explained what happened.” He took a step and the hot burn of tears welled in bloodshot eyes. “You’re not gonna hurt me honey.”

“I could. I hurt her without meaning to.” How could you explain the surge of anger that overwhelmed your body, firing along snapped synapses and half formed memories? “I…I can’t control it Logan.”

“I know,” he uttered, his hand curling around the shape of your jaw, tilting your head back to see the tears that blinded your vision. “I know what that’s like.”

Reasoning with the darkness in your own mind felt like an impossible task—something he’d never witnessed in someone with so much light. You weren’t meant to be broken this way. Never supposed to be handed the weight that came with powers—the future of struggling to maintain some semblance of control every second of every day. His soft sweet girl. Bent into something new, yet entirely familiar as he watched your lashes flutter.

You relaxed into his touch, the caress of his thumb along your cheek a welcome warmth you could lose your pain in. He was there. He would drag you from the edge of an ocean you couldn’t traverse alone.

He’d dig you out of your grave with bare hands bloody from the pain you might cause.

“That’s it,” he murmured, blue sparking to life in the whites of your eyes. “Let it in for me honey. Don’t push it down.”

A breath escaped your lungs, tension wound tight enough to splinter down a stiffened spine began to dissipate, and suddenly you could feel the grasp of power settle into your open palms. Blue unfurled from your body in waves, cerulean and midnight, the shadows of night and day colliding around you. It bled into the space, wrapping around his body, lapping up your arms until the rope around your throat snapped.

“It’s…” You gasped, molding your hands around something solid, a unfamiliar welcome weight. “I can feel it.”

Logan felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, hackles coming to attention as the shift happened in quick succession. It cracked through the air, lightning along the horizon of darkened storm clouds. Burning down his back until he staggered away from you shouting. That all too familiar whip slid up around your arm, wrapping tight to flesh and bone as your eyes flared white.

Anger seethed in the air, pungent and bitter along the back of his tongue. Only this wasn’t coming from you—barely a fraction was tinged with your honey-like scent. This stemmed from the rage Fortuna left behind, the lingering agony she set into the DNA of your body without asking for permission. She left you brittle, waiting to shatter as madness crept into your heart.

The sight of blood seeping through his flannel snapped you back into place, body going rigid and hands curling into fists as you shoved it down far enough to hurt. He was already healed—skin stitching itself back together—but you couldn’t see straight. A cry emanating from your parted mouth.

“I’m sorry. I-I didn’t meant to-”

“It’s healed.”

“She’s in my head. That fucking rage is in me and I can’t get it out.” Your hands slapped over your mouth as the muffled sob broke free, strong enough to slice another string of his heart.

“Honey.” Grasping your hands in a tight grip, he pressed them around his waist—his blood soaked shirt seeping along your palm. “Feel that? No scars, no open wounds. It’s done and gone.”

Solid muscle rested beneath the soft press of your fingers, the steady thump of a heart you could pick out with your eyes closed lingering where you touched. He cupped the back of your neck and suddenly you weren’t a helpless case unable to be saved. You weren’t the person destroyed and brought back from the brink—someone capable of causing enough pain to scar.

You were his, the same person from all those weeks ago, and you were going to be okay.

The space felt familiar—filled with a peace you knew Logan sought. Even if it was subconscious. He set the coffee on the coffee table, settling into a leather couch large enough to make him look small. The tables were hand carved with designs you’d seen once before. In the door his hands set in place so long ago; the gift of his love before he even knew what to call it.

“It feels like you.”

He huffed, ducking his head to stir sugar into your mug—the tips of his ears blooming crimson. “Yeah well it’s not really mine.”

“It’s yours,” you assured. “Laura wouldn’t have handed you the keys if she didn’t see it too.”

Seeing him here dragged the overwhelming all encompassing love back to the surface. Until you were swallowing around it thickly, battling the last dregs of pain that pierced your spine with your chilling new reality. It wouldn’t be the same. None of it. Falling for him, letting him back in, it would forever be stained with the grief of what happened.

The death of the person he used to know clashing with the mutant sitting before him.

He cleared his throat, settling into the creaking couch. “How is she? Laura.”

“Strong,” you smiled. “A lot stronger than me.”

“You’re strong too,” he replied.

“She’s different.” The coffee was a sweet bite on the tip of your tongue—ridding your body of whatever exhaustion still lingered. “She’s like you. Stubborn and angry, but there’s something there beneath it all. Like she knows what she has to lose and refuses to let it happen.”

Logan went stiff, hands mechanically bringing the mug to his lips. “She’s better than me,” he muttered.

You hummed. “Better than either of us. You’re lucky to have her as your own.”

“Not just me.” The words sunk deep, right down to the root of all the grief you refused to dig through. The cloud that hung just a bit too low. “I don’t think you saw it honey. But she chose you. Probably even before she fuckin’ chose me, you were hers.”

When you met Logan in that parking lot you expected things to shift. The winds were always meant to change, pieces finally clicking into place as he happened upon the other half of his lost soul. But Laura snuck up on you. She latched onto your bleeding heart, the kindness you showed even as you grieved the person you used to be. A girl who fought alongside her dying father—a lost soul begging for redemption at the end of the timeline.

Without knowing it she became everything you searched for.

The daughter that dug her heels in and vowed to love you. Even when you couldn’t love yourself.

Home would always exist in his arms, a place of safety you knew you would fall into. But now you found it in the eyes of a girl who could finally sheath her claws and settle. Home existed with both of them. A family found and forged in the chaos of time.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he finally spoke, pulling you from the thoughts that ran rampant. “I know Fortuna’s…your power. I’ve helped get a handle on it before. And I’ll tell you everythin’ you need to know about it, all the research Charles put into figuring it out.”

Believing him was easier than breathing. What reason did he have to lie? When the alternative was already a future you watched play out before your very eyes. You couldn’t turn into her—refused to lose any more of yourself to a power that remained unwanted and unsteady.

Sucking in a breath, you felt yourself settle into the comfort of his presence. Oh how you missed him—your heart pining for him to come close, to press his lips along your skin that now ran hot. If you asked him to drop to his knees he’d relent without question. So you kept your mouth shut. Offering him a smile as the olive branch.

Your time would come again. An inevitable future written in the stars of every universe.

For now you were okay with this. Friendship and support as you struggled to keep your head above water.

“What do I have to do?”

Logan exhaled, shoulders falling with a grin. “Stop pushing it away. You’ve gotta accept it as your own.”

“But it’s not mine.”

“It is now,” he stated. “Whether you want it or not honey this power is with you. There’s no gettin’ rid of it.”

Much to your own disappointment, he was right. “What if…”

“Say it,” he said softly, urging you into the waves that crashed at your legs, his hands clamped around yours.

“What if I accept it and nothing changes? The anger…I can’t live with it Logan.” Swallowing the stone lodged in your throat, you bit back whatever tears crested to the surface. “I-I don’t want to die like she did.”

They were unrelenting and hot against your cheeks, spilling over your trembling lips, and before you could blink Logan was in front of you. Crouched before the chair, his hands gathering yours to the soft press of his lips. A mouth you dreamed about—kisses that haunted the back of your mind every time you closed your eyes. He inhaled your scent, pressed a line down your palm and into the juncture of your wrist; your vein thumped an unsteady beat he smiled against.

“You aren’t dying,” he whispered like a vow, reverence dripping off his tongue. “You are going to live for a long long time honey. And you’re gonna do it with me. I won’t let this power take you okay? I won’t.”

He’s made promises once before, now broken and tossed to the side. But you swallowed his words with a sigh, cupping his face to draw his forehead to yours. To indulge in the contact you never thought might come again—at least not in this lifetime.

“I have your room ready,” he said as if he wasn’t prostrated before you, praying to the love of his life that you might grace him with your forgiveness.

You laughed, light and airy and a balm to his cracked heart. “I have a room?”

“It’s mine. I figured you’d want the bed.”

“Logan I’m not going to kick you out of your bed-”

“No use arguin’.” Calloused palms set themselves on your shoulders, gentle and promising in their soft brush. “I’ll be fine on the couch. Besides…I’ve been there before.”

You huffed, sliding to the edge of the chair as his hands found purchase on your hips. “Is there a window to see you through?”

“Don’t need a window bub,” he breathed. “You’ve always been able to see me.”

Right from the very start you caught sight of the man you would love through the ends of time. The one who had your name written in the tissue of his heart the day he was born. You were always meant to find one another. Always standing at the end of each other’s path—willing one another forward with a love greater than the universe.

“I should go get my bag.”

With a sigh he reluctantly let you go, helping you stand. “Take your time honey.”

The trunk creaked as you pushed it open, the keys dangling from your front pocket. Logan stayed inside dragging what wood he had left into the bedroom’s fireplace. The nights were cold here—temperatures never an issue for him—and you could still feel the brunt of it. Though your body now ran warm it didn’t deter you from freezing in the middle of the night, blankets barely enough to keep what body heat you had trapped inside.

You yanked open the small duffle bag stolen from Wade’s closet, seeing what clothes you managed to find in half empty dresser drawers and a closet that held most of Laura’s things. Sweaters were stuffed in the bottom, a book or two, and the small Polaroid gifted to you by Wade. Even though Logan was here in person you still clutched it tight, welcoming the comfort it brought.

Set atop the mess you haphazardly packed was a small key chain tucked into tissue paper. Bright blue and painted with enough tender care that could only come from one person. A bird ready to take flight.

The familiar scrawl of her handwriting was squeezed on a torn sticky note, the words barely legible yet utterly her.

Good luck.

P.S. Peter helped me make it.

Such a simple phrase to bestow on someone who ran from her. But there she was pressing her faith into your hands, wishing nothing but to see you bring her father back to her.

A family awaited your return. That was enough.

THREE DAYS LATER

“I can’t do it!” you screamed, falling to one knee with a harsh grunt as Logan wiped the sweat off his forehead. “It’s to much to fucking hold.”

“You were born to do it.”

“Coming from the man who doesn’t have to do much. How reassuring.”

He laughed, offering and hand up as you struggling to catch whatever air your lungs could hold. “Charles said it’s never from where you think it is. So where is that?”

Your face scrunched, eyes flicking down his bare chest glistening with sweat. Logan fought against the itch he couldn’t scratch—his relationship with you temporarily on unsteady ground until the dust eventually settled. That still didn’t deter his feelings. The stirring in his stomach at the sight of you panting and gasping for air, scent calling to him the longer you stood there drenched in sweat.

He would be your friend. The person you needed in order to get you through this. What happened after would be entirely up to you.

“Focus honey.”

Sighing, you shut your eyes to the sun. “It’s a pull on my insides. A sharp kinda painful tug on the stomach.”

“‘S not supposed to be painful. Means you’re fighting it.”

“How am I supposed to know I’m fighting it?” you bit out, nails burrowing into your palm hard enough to draw blood. “If I don’t know where its source is then how can I control it?”

Hands clamped onto your forearms, dragging your palms to rest over the heart you knew beat for you—the organ he’d gladly rip out if you wished it. “Here,” he said, voice a soft rasp that rang in the back of your mind. “This right here is where its buried. In the very bottom. So deep you’d forget what you were fuckin’ looking for if you tried to search. You pull it from there and you got your control.”

That was the thing…how could you pull from a broken heart? How could you find anything amidst the shards of something that was once your sole purpose for living?

When he left he took the last pieces with him, ripping them directly from your chest. So how could you work with half a heart?

The anger still existed in the far reaches of a darkness you tried to ignore. Swallow the pain, place it somewhere unreachable, and perhaps you might find a semblance of the person from before. But finding them was like digging into a shallow grave with no body. How were you meant to crawl out? Find the easiest path to fixing what was beyond saving.

“And if I can’t?” you asked. “If…If that’s too much?”

“I’ll be right here honey,” he assured, thumbing the pulsating vein on your wrist. “I won’t let you fall alright?”

Easier said than done.

“Okay,” you sighed. “I’ll try again.”

“Good girl.”

You snapped to attention, eyes wide as his lips curled into something you replayed on a loop for weeks on end. A smirk that burned a hole in your chest, heat curling at the base of your rigid spine. He said it on purpose. This you were aware of. And it did exactly what he intended—dragged you back to the present moment, beyond the cloud of rage begging to escape.

He kept you centered.

Shaking loose the tension in your arms your eyes slid shut, mind opening like the blooms found on the edges of his property. A flower ready to welcome the sun. You fixated on the rhythm of your heart. Each beat pumping and flowing enough blood to keep you upright; you dug there. Pulled at the veins and muscles, cracked open your ribs to inspect the makeup of your most precious organ. A surgeon ripping yourself apart in an attempt to save what still remained.

Blue flared to life dimly, peeking between the aortas and tissue as you clawed at what stood in your way. So close to finally grasping hold of what refused to give itself over. So fucking near to the end of what pain sunk its teeth deep enough to scar.

So close…

A clock ticked in the back of your mind, unrelenting in its monotonous function. Each one louder than the last—drawing you to the edge of the unknown that called your name. You scrambled to silence it.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, decades, centuries-

All of it too much too soon. It wrapped tight around your throat, yanking you back hard enough to send you flying into the ground. Logan’s voice shouting barely broke the surface as you struggled to gasp for air—fingers tugging weakly at the whip that slid around your limbs.

Trapping you in the darkness, feeding what little strength you had left to the all consuming nature of what she left you. This was to be your future. Death by the time she allotted you, the expanse of a universe you would get to see grow and one day wither away—fading into existence like the man who stood before you now.

“Let me go!” you shrieked, waves of sapphire swarming your body, painting over your skin and sinking down to the bones that burned.

It wanted to consume you. Leave nothing behind for him. No parts of you left to bury in yet another grave. The image of that shovel standing upright flashing bright in your mind, dirt smearing along your cheek as you kicked out into the air—oxygen depleting quickly. Until your eyes were filled with black spots, the haze of blue cresting the edges of your once clear vision.

Hands wrenched you still, slamming them to the ground by your head as the familiar echo of his claws pushed to the forefront of your mind. Slicing through the whip with a shout, he felt the power seep into his body. Time stripping away his skin, peeling the flesh until blood steadily leaked down his arms. Your eyes were white—iris swallowed whole by the threat of what took hold inside you.

An anger he put there. A rage he should have stopped.

The last tendrils of the woman he never saved.

“Let her go,” he roared, pulling the whip free from your neck, feeling it dissipate into the air around him. “Let her live!”

Slowly at first and then all at once the hold released. Air burned your lungs rushing in, filling you with an eerie calm as Logan knelt over your body—his hand turning your face up to check the state of your eyes. Back to normal. Free of the milky white hue that haunted him in the middle of the night. You were safe from whatever existed in your heart—the power that held enough reluctance it could very well kill you.

This wasn’t new information. You both knew this might not work; keeping powers that were corrupted once before housed in your body would only lead down one path. Yet that was the reason you were here, laying beneath him as your mind finally settled—hand laying over his to keep him close.

Logan refused to let you succumb to the anger.

He wouldn’t stand there watching as you drowned beneath the weight of what he caused.

He wasn’t going to run from what felt so right. He’d dig his heels in, claw at the darkness that begged to keep you, and forever remain the man who kept you from falling over the edge. He would do for you what Charles did for him; what he never got the chance to do for her.

“You’re okay,” he murmured, thumb dragging along the length of your jaw. “You’re still with me.”

You swallowed, eyes fluttering at the warmth of his palm—turning your lips to the rough skin. “I don’t think that went too well.”

“No,” he chuckled and the sound lit your insides on fire. “No I think we still have some work to do.”

Thirty minutes passed before you found yourself alone in his bedroom. A towel held tightly closed against your chest as he rummaged in the living room. The scent of dinner wafted through the open door, pasta and wine shared at a table in the middle of nowhere—reminiscent of a past that you weren’t sure belonged to you anymore. That night happened so long ago, in a time where you held onto the certainty you could be happy with him.

That even as the world crashed around you, this would remain solitary.

A flannel lay in front of you. Tossed beside your bag as a peace offering you weren’t quite sure what to do with. Take it and open the door just a bit more to a love that continued to hang over your heads. A ghost buried in the walls of your apartment, painted over walls that could reflect your laughter back to you—a space tainted by the image of simple joys.

Leave it and allow yourself the time to heal—to figure out where you stood as someone merely trying to survive. You weren’t the same—Logan knew this. But ignoring the way your body came to life in his vicinity would be what killed you in the end.

Not time itself but the time you spent apart from him.

The door creaked loud enough to break the stilled water you sunk beneath, his shadow casting over the bed beside you. He stood in the doorway, eyes dragging down the length of a body he could picture behind closed eyes. Limbs he felt twine around his own, skin he sunk his teeth into. There was no denying he could barely handle being away from you, but being this fucking close without any barriers nearly drove him mad.

“Dinner is ready,” he throatily muttered, hazel eyes swallowed whole by a dark pupil.

“Logan.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.” Breath came out in shaky exhales, hand barely able to hold the towel up after a day of straining yourself. “I don’t know how to repay-”

His growl was familiar, a rumble that came from the depths of his chest as he took the final two steps to press himself into your back. “Don’t finish that fuckin’ sentence honey.”

Sighing you clasped a hand over his along your stomach. “You keep saving me.”

“I’ll save you for the rest of our lives,” he admitted, complete certainty bleeding through the strength in his voice. At least that’s what you let yourself believe. “Even if after all this you make a different choice.”

You turned sharply, nose brushing his—lips desperate to seek out the ones that claimed you long before tonight. “It’s you. My choice will always be you.”

Maybe this was it. The point of finding him, the reason he came to this universe in the first place. Maybe it was all to stand here, pressed tight and breathing in the air you both exhaled, for as long as time would allow. He smiled against your cheek, fingers curling into the towel that hung loose at your hip, before he pulled away. Patting the spot with a hum—light shining in eyes that you would recognize even at the end of the world.

“Come and eat bub. Before it gets cold.”

Silence ate away at your mind in the darkness. The bed was too large for just yourself. A massive thing in the center of the room meant for comfort and peace of mind and a man who took up space. You could hear him shift on the couch every hour, the door left ajar as you fought to find sleep in this place.

Over the weeks you’d grown used to Laura on your couch. The shuffle of her boots as the night waned—always worried that something might happen. Now her father echoed the same sentiments. His feet padded along the floor as he moved to and fro, his shadow lingering just outside the door. Waiting for you to invite him in, give him the chance to cross that threshold.

You wondered if he would hold you if asked. Would he sleep with no nightmares?

Twisting into the covers, you watched a hand peek through the gap. The question hung in the air before it ever left your mouth—silence exchanged in the air between sleep hazed looks and longing hearts. He shut the door behind him gently with a click. Solidifying the line now fazed out of existence.

However much you tried to pretend this would remain a friendship the truth was far louder in contrast.

A love like this would never be diminished. Not even by your own hands.

“Can’t sleep?” he whispered, sliding beneath the comforter.

You hummed. “The bed’s too big.”

“Feels that way for me too.”

The words stuck to the back of your throat, daring you to finally take what was right in front of you. “Will you stay?”

His arm curled around your waist, lips finding your shoulder beneath the dark flannel you wore. “‘M not goin’ anywhere.”

This time without hesitation…you finally believed him.

ONE WEEK LATER

Frustration became a comforting ally in the days that followed. You were doomed to snap eventually. A time bomb ready to explode as the hours passed and failure became something you were accustomed to. Training your body to accept a power it couldn’t understand weighed on you—drawing the anger you swallowed down tight into the confines of your chest. It pleaded with you to be let out, to finally have a place to go.

“We’ll go again.”

You scrubbed a hand down your face. “This isn’t working.”

“It will.”

“When?” you snapped. “When I finally have no hold over my own fucking actions? When I kill someone?”

Logan caught it before you ever did. The flick of a switch, the door that needed to be opened. You were swallowing emotions down as he did liquor, shoving them back into the carcass of who you used to be. Trying to mold yourself back in the box of humanity wouldn’t work—he could already see the detrimental effects on your mind. The hatred you held for something you couldn’t control.

You were walking the edge of a thin line slowly sinking into the sand.

Perhaps you needed to drown.

“Go again,” he pressed, watching the anger surge to the surface.

The cruelty wasn’t ripping you open, forcing that rage to finally sputter out of existence. It was that he allowed you to keep it in for so long. Hiding what you struggled against, keeping him from seeing the pain—the grief. You were begging for help—gasping for air—and he just stood there.

Now things were different.

Bracing himself as your eyes closed, he watched the spark of power begin to emanate from your hands. The opening of that blistering hatred, the fury you needed to confront. You glowed in the last hints of the days sunlight, blue pouring off your body, settling above the ground in a cloud of your own making. Past, present, future. They met in the middle, twisting and tangling within your body.

The embodiment of something that rivaled Death.

“You’re not trying hard enough,” he barked out the words—eyes catching every minor shift you made.

“Let me do this my way-”

“Do it again.”

You sucked in a breath, chin raised in a defiance that never burned so strong. “You need to stop.”

Logan could practically hear the clock tick down, the wires and mechanics settling into place. “Start over and this time do it right.”

“Logan-”

“You said you wanted to learn. So we’re gonna learn.” His claws slid forth, body tensing as the blue burned white in the center of your chest—irises flashing gold. “First lesson. Listen to what I fuckin’ say.”

He went flying as the blast ripped from your body, slamming him into the side of Al’s car. The sound of metal crunching beneath his body made him wince—your form advancing quicker than he expected. He knew he would see a glimpse of her peeking out behind your power. He waited for it. So it surprised him when he saw nothing but you.

You finally wielding a power that belonged to no other. It submitted with ease, filling that void you could no longer ignore. Your hand pulled from the air, melding together the unfamiliar form of something he’d only seen once before. A blade—long and dripping gold—was clutched in your palm, the snarl along your face enough to have him bracing for the final blow.

The knife went in easier than expected, plunging into his stomach with enough strength to jolt him back. But the task was done. You sliced the final chord holding it all together and when blood poured over your hand, you finally came back.

“No!” you cried, hands flying to cup his already healed wound, the weapon nowhere to be found.

What was once apart of the universe would go back, falling into the rules of nature set long before you were born. You could borrow. But none of it was yours to keep.

“I-I’m sorry. I don’t-”

“That was progress,” he smiled, getting back to his feet.

You gaped at him, tears spilling across cheeks smeared in his blood. “Progress?” you exclaimed.

“It had to happen-”

“What part of this is progress? I stabbed you. I lost control!” Your voice ricocheted off the trees, his heart twisting at the sight of you so brittle. So fucking broken.

Life was painful—this he was used to. He was comfortable with it, understood it. But watching you shatter is what brought every fucking agonizing thing back. He lived it all over again, all at once.

“Honey-”

“I wanted to hate you.”

Now it was his turn to feel the grief that clung to his body like a second skin. He knew he hurt you. Could see the anguish plain as day play across your face as you swallowed the choked sob that bubbled to the surface. You didn’t come here to be saved. Neither of you did. Logan wasn’t even sure it was possible…to be rescued from this hell.

“You left me,” you sobbed and hated yourself for it. “And I wanted to hate you for it. You just walked away from everything! From our life and what we planned. From…what did I do wrong? Was it so painful to see her in my face that you had to go?”

“I didn’t want to go,” he rasped. “Wade and Laura-”

“Bullshit!” The touch of him grasping for your hands set off exactly what you were afraid of parting with. Emotions that kept you alive, pain that you could count on. “I was thrown into this and you weren’t there! You weren’t there to help me, to keep me from death. You weren’t there Logan!”

“I know!” he roared. “And I fucking hate every goddamn second I spent away from you. I hated myself for leaving you!”

“Then why did you stay away?” The crack in your voice did him in. Loaded the adamantium bullet into a gun only you could hold.

When he spoke he barely recognized his own voice. Dull and empty and the lilt of a man from a different universe. The man who fucked it all up—again. “I don’t know.”

Nodding, you did what you could to create a chasm of space—fighting for breath as he all but punched it out of your lungs. “I went looking for you.”

His heart stopped.

“In the past,” you choked out through fresh tears. “It was an accident. I didn’t even know what was happening, but apparently even unconscious and out of control…I still want you.”

“You can hate me,” he offered. “If that’s what you need to get through this.”

“That’s just it Logan. I couldn’t hate you even when I tried.”

“Baby…” It was wrong to let hope linger. To stare at the mess he made, the person he swore to love and protect. He should have killed the flicker as it bled into his twisting heart and he nearly did.

“I love you too much to ever hate you.”

And everything stopped.

He saw your eyes widen as he rushed towards you, the hitch in your breath and falter of your heart at the unexpected. Logan couldn’t control his own actions. He didn’t want to. He’d gone weeks without your touch, eternity wondering if someone existed to match his imperfections. Until there you were, wounded and jaggedly scarred and flawlessly fitting into the gaps of his soul—the darkness he could see reflected in your own eyes.

He kissed you. Violently. A mash of teeth and tongues as you met him in the middle—hands clawing at his shoulders when he hauled you up his body. You clung to him, uncaring that you looked desperate because that’s what you were. Wretched and lost without the man who molded the shape of your heart in his hands.

A moan stuttered out from the back of your throat, throaty and loud. He swallowed it with one of his own. You could feel his hands everywhere, gripping your hips, along the back of your thighs, digging into your ass hard enough to hurt. But you held onto the pain. Welcomed it with a pleased sigh as he stumbled up the steps into the house—his tongue wet and demanding against your own.

“Fuckin’ thought about this,” he got out between a groan—your teeth scraping the vein along his neck. “Every night.”

You could picture him in bed alone, head pushed into the pillows far too soft for his own liking, rapidly stroking his leaking cock. All to the thought of you. The memories spent buried between your legs, lapping at a cunt he could practically taste.

It spurred you to drag him back to your lips, hips canting along the buckle of his belt. “Need you inside baby.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded, licking along his bottom lip. “It hurts without you Logan. Need you to fuck me. Please.”

The wall was cold against your back—his hand slamming beside your head to keep himself steady. Your words dug right to the base of his spine, chest heaving as you whined into the kiss. Breath wasn’t important; focusing on anything other than the feel of your hands tugging at his shirt slipped his mind because you were here and you were pleading with him to touch you. Take what he’d been longing for.

Silver glinted in the darkness, metal wrapped around his neck, and you nearly missed the sight of familiar dog-tags resting right above his heart. A name etched into the metal you traced many times before.

“You kept them,” you breathed, dragging a finger along the tag.

He grinned. “They came from you.”

So easy to admit. So simple to say.

Suddenly it hit you that the Logan before you had changed. Healed in his time spent away. He did exactly what he promised he would when he scribbled it in that letter. He’d come back to you someday. Even if it wasn’t the way you expected.

“Take me Logan,” you pleaded. “I’m yours.”

His hands ripped at your top, teeth sinking down hard into the plush skin of your breast. Crying his name, you tugged at his hair—whether to pull him away or draw him in you didn’t know. All you could feel was the delicious flicker of pain curling tight around your stomach. Slick pooling into the pants he worked a hand into.

“You got no idea what you do to me.” Words were cut off at the feel of you dripping wet and hot along his palm.

“Fuck Logan.”

Muffling you with a kiss, he curled two fingers around your clit that practically begged for attention. He wanted to suck it into his mouth—taste you until you had no choice but to wrench him away from you. Time spent alone wouldn’t be what drove him over the edge. Sliding into your tight cunt as you cried for him would be.

His eyes rolled back when he pushed into you, the stretch of his fingers pulling a rasped moan from your throat. You pushed yourself into his touch—grasping at any part of his body you could reach when he found the spot that made you wither. This was how you wanted to die. Trapped in his hold as the burning pleasure shot up your spine, a haze clouding every other thought but him.

He possessed you from the very start. If only he understood how willing you were. How pliable you became at his touch along your body.

“Still so fuckin’ tight,” he growled, pumping into you fast enough for the squelch of his fingers to echo off each wall.

You drowned beneath the sound—gasping in his mouth when he fixed on that one spot and became unrelenting. “I’m gonna-baby I-I’m gonna cum.”

“That’s it. Be a good girl and make a fuckin’ mess on my hand.”

The final fraying piece holding you altogether finally snapped. Your sob was broken against his parted mouth, thighs trembling from the pleasure that nearly became painful. He held you close, hips grinding into your inner thigh as you gushed over his palm—the flutter of your walls sucking his fingers in even further.

Did you finally break beyond repair?

Your body sang a tune you couldn’t recognize, a glow emanating beneath the skin dim enough to remain unnoticed. But you felt it all the same. A warm soothing caress along every nerve and vein. Welcoming you in as your chest pressed to his—heart beating in time with his. Logan kissed you, messily licking into your mouth when he pulled you from the wall and made his way into the bedroom.

“You’re glowin’,” he mumbled, pride glimmering in his eyes.

“What?”

Focusing on anything beyond the touch of his hand along your bare waist, the burn of his gaze along your breasts, wasn’t possible in this moment. When the world came to a halt and time finally allowed you to meet one another in the middle. This time as two halves of one whole.

He closed his lips around your nipple, fingers pressing into the wet cavern of your mouth—spreading your taste on the flat of your tongue. Your hips jolted, fingers scrambling for the button of his jeans. A task he was more than happy to appease you with. Teeth scraped along your skin and your stomach leapt—heart blooming under his attention. His mouth met yours, teeth clacking together hard enough to hurt, but you never noticed.

A hold tugged on your chest, gold flaring to life in lidded eyes. Beneath the layers of lust and wanton need lay the power you’d been fighting. It floated to the surface, grabbed your hands tight enough to blister the skin, but Logan’s tongue along your stomach soothed the pain. You sighed and tipped your head back into the pillow, fingers carding through his hair.

“Prettiest fuckin’ pussy in the world,” he rasped yanking down your pants until they were a rumpled mess on the floor. “And all mine.”

You smiled, drawing him close enough to feel his lips brush along yours. “All yours Logan,” you purred.

“And this-” His hand clutched your own, dragging it over the straining bulge of his jeans, grinding up into your touch hard enough to pulled a gasp from lips still smeared in his spit. “‘S all yours honey. Every part of me.”

“I want it.”

He smiled, canines bright in the dim room. “Yeah? You want me to fuck you?”

You nodded. “I missed your cock baby. How you fill me.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, head falling to your shoulder. “You’re gonna kill me if you keep runnin’ your mouth like that bub.”

“Sorry,” you giggled. “I forget how old you are.”

“Old huh?”

“Can’t have you dying on me from it baby.”

Whatever he said next went unheard—something along the lines of I’ll show you fuckin’ old—because he stuffed you full of those same spit slicked fingers. His other hand busy on working himself out of his jeans. You melted into the bed with a cry of his name, fingers clawing at his wrist to pull him closer, to press against your throbbing clit. Until you felt the head of his cock slide through your dripping folds and tap right where you needed it most.

“That feel old to ya honey?” he cooed, lining himself up as he pushed your cum into your already parted mouth. “C’mon. Use that pretty brain of yours.”

A muffled shout was all he got in return, pressing into you slow enough to muddle every thought that could have entered your mind. The stretch felt like everything you’d been longing for. All those nights spent alone wandering the pitch black maw of your own head—every fucking morning waking up without him. They built in the base of your chest as he finally pushed right up to the base of his cock—filling your cunt to the brim.

You felt him in your chest, along the length of your throat, and even then it wasn’t deep enough. Another fractured piece of your heart sewed itself back together, the needle puncturing the thrumming organ as he groaned long and hoarse against your neck.

“So fuckin’ good,” he murmured. “Squeezin’ me just right.”

“L-Logan-”

“I know baby. I know.”

The first thrust sent your head back into the bed, your legs hitching up around his waist and nails digging into his shoulders. But Logan wasn’t looking to be kind. He couldn’t find it in himself to fuck you slow.

He broke you. Sliced through whatever bonds were tying you down to the Earth and yanked you up to be in heaven right by his side. A god among men—how could you not worship at his feet?

Claws slid free puncturing the mattress as he fucked into you without mercy. Plunging into your sopping pussy loud enough to pierce the grunts and moans echoing through the room. It was wet and raw and you clung to him tight enough to draw blood to the surface—the sticky mess between your bodies enough to shove you close to the edge.

“Gonna fuck you full honey. And this time it’s gonna fuckin’ stay there,” he bit out, hand sliding along your stomach.

You nodded dumbly, voice practically unrecognizable in the haze of lust you were lost to. “Please-”

The cold metal of his dog-tags bumped against your chin and without even registering, your teeth closed around them. Logan swore he died and went to the fucking afterlife at the sight of your mouth stuffed full of his name. Muffled moans and a mess of spit spilling free as his hips stuttered, body tensing to fight the impending release.

He wouldn’t finish without you. Not until he heard those sweetly whispered words—the vow that lived and breathed a life of its own.

“Tell me again,” he breathed against your lips, thumb pressing hard and fast to your clit. “Say it for me honey.”

“L-Love you Logan.”

He nearly collapsed over your body, cock pounding into your hard enough to send an ache through your hips. “Again.”

“I love you,” you sobbed.

Grinding deep he came with a shout, pulling you off that cliff right alongside him. You felt white flash behind your eyes, legs locking behind his back as his mouth crushed to yours, his spend filling you until it dripped down and around his balls. Pooling along your thigh. For whatever time remained you were outside of your own body, bliss restructuring the fragments of your darkest parts. Each part of you he broke.

Everything he swore to fix.

“I love you,” he breathed against your lips, running a thumb along the line of your throat. “‘M gonna love you for the rest of my life.”

A sharp prick punctured your heart, unraveling the ties that bound you to the body you’d known your whole life—pulling free each lock and barrier set in place the day you changed. You didn’t fight it, barely found enough strength to recognize what it was. But before you could grasp for the remnants of your old self, you found it pouring between your fingers like sand.

Logan sucked in a breath, eyes drinking in the sight of you glowing. Blue and gold and a the burning white he knew only came from the insides of stars—cosmic power stripped from the universe around you now pulsing in time with a heart he owned.

Warmth pooled over your head, spreading down to the tips of your toes as you lay beneath him—finally at ease with who you were. Time peeked out behind the curtains of your mind, settling along each bone, burning itself into your being. Solidifying itself into a soul that now shined in the glow of his love.

You sighed into its touch, eyes fluttering shut as Logan cupped your cheek. “I can feel it Logan. Time.”

“Where’s it comin’ from honey?” he whispered.

With a smile, you watched the centuries flash in your mind, time spent with friends with a family and daughter yet to play out in real life. Moments you’d revisit and cherish. A path you finally walked freely.

“My heart.”

a/n: i want to say so many things about this series and how much it has meant to me. but i will save that for the epilogue. thank you so fucking much for sticking around this long. i hope you love the small snippet to come.

[britishchick09]

@cestlefantome has the rewrite!!! :D

[blueivyy99]

Calm and Serenity (Part 2)

Sylus x Non!Mc

summary: you didn't know what sylus saw in you. he said you were calm, quiet and serene and that's what he needs. you believed it. he showed it. not until little miss hunter came. she's everything you're not. news that she's in danger can make the ever so calm sylus to run and leave everything behind. it made you think, would he do that for you as well?

tags: angst, romance, hurt and comfort, confused sylus, non-mc reader (this is it for now)

note: thank you for the love in the previous chapter 🥹

Series Masterlist

It's been a month or two since the last time you've been with Sylus. It saddens you that the time you get to spend together is cut short, only seeing each other at night when he pleases to have dinner or greet you goodnight.

You asked Luke and Kieran about what's happening, but they don't know either. They just know it has something to do with Miss Hunter, about Aether Core, about something that you have very little knowledge about. You mentally noted to search about it later.

“He is very grumpy lately,” Luke said, "He was glaring at us like he wants to skin us alive whenever me and my twin are being a little louder than normal.”

"The only one safe from his anger is Miss Hunter,” Kieran added. "I don't appreciate that Boss is playing favorites in our team.”

You tried not to let out a shaky breath. Luke noticed and he had to elbow Kieran to make him shut up.

"Sorry, Y/N.”

You gave him a small smile. "It's okay. I'll try and catch Sylus one of these days. I'll talk to him.”

The twins scurry away while arguing. They think they offended you and they are passing on the blame with each other.

On normal days, it's not easy to get you offended but lately, every little thing just makes you … sensitive.

Maybe it started when you wanted that crow brooch that is neatly placed on Sylus's table …

When you asked him for it he just said, “It's for Miss Hunter,"

He took it from your hand. Albeit gently, it still weighed heavy in your heart.

You know you don't always get your way but with the little seeds of jealousy slowly growing in your heart, it's easy to feel hurt and feel neglected.

You just wanted that damn brooch and you know that he can buy another piece. Or even make you a custom-made one, one that is more inclined on your taste.

You took a deep breath.

Sylus is stressed. You know that and it's not right to add more to his burden. It's just a brooch after all.

“I-I didn't know, but when you have the time to grab one, remember me, okay?” you said.

"Next time, sweetie.” He replied and quickly went back to reading reports.

You don't know if he took your words seriously, but you have enough faith in him to trust that he did.

Or maybe the disappointment started when you wanted to go to Linkon.

There's a newly opened arcade shop that you're really itching to go.

Normally, Sylus would agree and watch you play. He's not the best when it comes to the claw machine, anyway.

So imagine your surprise when he rejected your offer. Not only that, the answer that followed chipped away at your heart little by little.

“Me and Miss Hunter already went there. It's not as fun as the other ones you've tried. You're just gonna waste your time there. Not even new plushies,” he even had the audacity to roll his eyes at that.

It seemed like he didn't think before speaking or he didn't see anything wrong with what he said.

Truthfully, there is none. The logical part of you knows he didn't say anything wrong. But for fuck's sake! Really telling your girlfriend that you went to the arcade with another woman? That's new. That's not something she expected of Sylus.

“You went with her?" you asked. You're anticipating his answer. Praying it's something logical. Something acceptable.

Please tell me it has something to do with those missions.

He looked at you, trying to see what's in your mind but you didn't show anything. Blocking any negative emotions from seeping on the cracks of your face. You tried to look as curious and as genuine as you can be.

Thankfully, he believed that.

“Yes. We went there after getting some intel around the area. She dragged me inside and she played until her heart's content. I remembered she went home with that crow plushie with a bib. She looked happy,"

You almost wanted to scoff at his face. You wanted that plushe as well, he seemed to forget about that. If it's only about the plushie maybe you can push down these negative feelings but here he is looking so endeared while saying that. As if he's not talking to his girlfriend.

Patience. Patience.

“I see. Good for her.” you said. "I also want that crow stuffed toy. Good thing to know they have them."

You tried giving him a hint. It's not like you to make anyone guess what's on your mind.

But then there's silence. And a beep on his phone. He tore his gaze away from you and your statement long forgotten.

At that point, you're holding yourself together trying not to scream and yell at him.

Maybe that's where it started. Maybe it's when you know that the distractions were not just caused by the missions but by Miss Hunter herself.

==

You sighed. It's evening and Sylus is still nowhere to be found. You texted him but you're met with silence. You wanted to call, but you hesitated. It feels like you don't have the right to do it.

Worry starts gnawing at you when Luke and Kieran hurriedly go out. They didn't even have the chance to say a proper goodbye.

Minutes kept ticking, and you heard it.

Explosions.

Your heart stopped and you wanted to run to where it was because something tells you that Sylus is there. He's in danger.

But before you can even step out of the base, Sylus's men stopped you.

“Boss’s orders to not let the Madame go out when the mission is in full swing. Please wait for him here."

You wanted to pull your hair out. You're trembling with worry but anywhere you go, someone will stop you. You can't even sneak out because that will surely trigger the alarms.

With a heavy heart you slumped on the couch.

“Fucking hell, Sylus what is happening when are you coming home!” you muttered to yourself.

You kept pacing and pacing every second seemed to last a lifetime.

Until the door opened.

And there he was, shirt torn, hair deshiveled and a few scratches on his body.

"Thank God you're alive!” you exclaimed and caught his heavy body before he lost consciousness.

"Sylus? Sylus!” you tried shaking him, but he won't wake up.

You settled him on the couch and grabbed the nearest first aid kit you can reach. Sylus might have the fastest regeneration in the world but it won't ease your worries about the small cuts that still remains on his body.

You tried suppressing your tears seeing him like this but you just can't. As you press the cotton on his cuts, you can't help but open your mouth and nag him about being careless.

“I know you think that this body is invincible, but please be careful! You need to come home to me. You have to come home to me. No matter how I'm annoyed at you right now, you don't have the rights to make me worry like this.”

“What's so important in that mission that you exhaust yourself like this? What's so important about Miss Hunter that you're willing to do such great lengths?"

You know that he can't hear you, but still you talked to him until you calmed down and ask his men to help you settle him in bed after changing him. You called the physician to check him up for anything. You kept yourself busy to shrugg of the nerves but those questions still linger in your head.

Sylus is a strategist even though he looks smug and arrogant. He carefully plans everything and tries to move in quiet only letting the results speak for themselves.

But this? This is not the usual.

Explosions everywhere and declaring a full on war with his enemies is not his style. You know that there's nothing really beneficial for him in this deal with Miss Hunter.

You managed to understand a bit about what their goals are. Getting that Aether core for Miss Hunter.

Tough mission, yes. But Sylus won't grab it if he won't benefit from it. And that's what you're left puzzled with. Sylus is a businessman, everything should be give and take.

So? What's in it for him?

==

You didn't expect the answer to voluntarily come to you. You went to his study to look for something or anything that you can help him with now that he's still unconscious when you stumbled upon a journal.

You thought it was not Sylus's. You never see him as someone who will write down his thoughts but you were dead wrong.

You opened it expecting it to be a list of things related to Onychinus, but you were greeted with phrases, sentences and some sketches about Miss Hunter.

You read each of them, it was a jumble of words. You almost thought it was a fairytale.

Past lives.

Dragon and Sorceress.

Kindred Spirits.

Energy Linkage.

Sweet Evil Trap.

All of it is too much. Too much for your poor little heart to take. And from what you understood, Miss Hunter is from his past. Someone who has a part of his soul.

Someone he waits for.

And the bitter realization although still unfounded, you concluded that maybe she's someone he still loves.

But what about you? What's your place in the grand scheme of things?

“I’m keeping you around because you’re still useful.”

Those lines ring in your ears. Sylus always say that to everyone but you. You thought that maybe you are an exception. That you're not someone disposable to him because you matter.

And as you soak up all the information that you knew, you started to doubt yourself as well.

note: aaackkk thank u for reading lemme know your thoughts! Part 3 soonest!

[alienssstufff]

This Should've Been an Email

His mouth moved without it telling it to, then closed like whoever was possessing him didn’t know what to say either. There was something going on, something Etho could feel but didn’t understand. They were standing on the edge of the world, and Etho didn’t know how to tell Bdubs he was out of time. Was he out of time? Maybe he was just going insane again. Maybe-

“Etho, there’s a lot of void energy going on right now, can you focus-”

You can’t outsmart a god. You can only run.

-

[ READ HERE ] Latest addition to the Should've Could've Would've series and sequel to the YCAOverse byyyy incredible great @goingdownorup cinemaaaa is HERE and we are BACK IN THE BUILDING!!!

[rambling undercut]

you've fallen for my trap card, ramblings not about the actual fic yet sorry - I'm going to talk about art technicalities at you now :]

Ver without the text:

I drew this up on a whim immediately after finishing the first chapter. Other than it being fanart, this year I want to think smarter when making elaborate pieces - this being the one of the first experiments on it.

sketches have always been my starting foundation I usually go through a few iterations gradually building off the rough thumbnail all the way to lineart. Here I'm establishing perspective and rhythm (movement), using background and props to better frame the emphasis (focal) rather than overwhelm the eye with unnecessary detail.

Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier manga panels were an inspiration for the lineart (reoccuring character. WHA changed my life)

I even started actually putting base colours instead of skipping to shading... BASE COLOURS. BASE COLOURS WITHOUT SHADING? Crazy world we live in. Above were me testing which colours worked best for the background and purpose. Ethubs look a little out of place atm - this changes in solid filters

Shading itself was a lot of back and forth in constant fumbles to maintain the rhythm instructed in the lineart, adding emphasis how values needed to carry the visual communication of this piece especially with a line heavy background because of the wheatfields. Everything uses either cel shading, filters, or gradients - I wanted to find a way to add complexity to my regular rendering style without needing to manually blend/paint (takes too long)

During this stage, Heikala's watercolour art was the study in crowd control (backgrounds with organic repetition)

Smaller misc details that couldn't fit anywhere in the previous pages. Overall while there are some things I still would change/redo, overall very pleased as a first (second) attempt ^_^

[keferon]

Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Part one

Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.

Under the cut⤵️

Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?

Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?

For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.

Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.

It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.

Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.

His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!

But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.

Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.

He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.

Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.

Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.

He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.

So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.

That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?

Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...

His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.

Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?

Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.

Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.

It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!

People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.

In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.

He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.

Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.

Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..

He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.

Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.

In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.

Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.

Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.

But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.

Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.

Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.

Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.

Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.

Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.

Uggh.

The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.

Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.

When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.

When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.

The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??

Freaking cursed.

Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.

One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???

Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.

It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.

If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--

He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?

He's going to get sick.

He needs to talk to Jazz right now.

____________

Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.

They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).

“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”

Jazz frowns

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.

“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”

Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.

“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”

Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.

“Mech, what the hell?”

“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.

Before thinking for a bit, and adding.

“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”

And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.

This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.

Prowl looks confused.

Jazz looks absolutely frantic.

“SWERVE????”

Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?

Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.

Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.

“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."

Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.

“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”

There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.

“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”

Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.

Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?

“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”

He pauses dramatically.

“The long version is...”

Jazz raises his hand

“What's a holoform?”

Swerve sighs.

“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”

Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl

“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“

Prowl hums

“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”

Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.

“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”

Jazz laughs

“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”

“ I was.”

Prowl frowns.

“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”

“.... I had a lot of practice...”

Jazz claps his hands.

“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”

“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.

Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused

“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”

“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”

“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.

Swerve blows the hair out of his face

“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”

Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.

“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”

Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets

“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”

Prowl twitches his door wings

“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”

Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.

He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.

He's thinking.

Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!

Then he remembers the mess he left behind.

Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.

Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”

“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”

Jazz looks...puzzled.

“Is that bad?”

Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...

“It's...complicated.”

This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...

And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...

Hahahahah oh fUCK.

He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.

It's also probably too late.

But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.

And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.

Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face

“ That expression you have...”

Swerve puts the smile back on his face.

“I need to get to Earth.”

___________________

Swerve is not an idiot.

Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.

He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.

Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.

The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.

He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....

Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.

“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”

Swerve laughs.

“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”

“It's not harmful?”

Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.

“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”

Jazz tilts his head

“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”

Swerve bites his knuckles.

“ I have some unfinished business?”

“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”

Swerve only laughs in response.

_______________

Concentration is tricky.

Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?

Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost

Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.

What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.

He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.

The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.

After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.

He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--

Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.

This is the place where he was last.

He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.

Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.

Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.

Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.

All right.

He's got things to do.

_______________

He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?

He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.

He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.

Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.

All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...

He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?

The answer is probably none.

Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.

A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.

Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.

Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.

Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.

Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.

It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.

He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.

It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.

Blurr's name isn't there.

So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.

He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.

That's...something's wrong.

He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”

Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.

“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?

Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.

Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”

This is it, Swerve thinks.

He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.

He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.

He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.

Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi

Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.

Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.

Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.

Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.

Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.

“'Got bored without me Swindle?”

Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.

“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”

Blurr wrinkles his nose.

“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”

Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”

Swindle adjusts his glasses

“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”

“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.

Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.

“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”

He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.

Goes back to his seat.

“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”

He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.

“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”

Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again

“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”

Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.

“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?

Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose

“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”

Blurr blinks.

“Why are you telling me all this.”

Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.

“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”

Blurr's eye widens

“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”

“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”

Blurr runs his fingers through his hair

“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”

Swindle puts his hat back on.

“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”

The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.

Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”

They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.

“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”

Blurr smiles sourly.

“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”

Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”

Blurr bites his lip.

“I..don’t know...”

Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.

Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.

Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.

The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.

The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.

Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.

Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.

Ah, damn it.

Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.

And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.

Blurr ... is crumbling.

Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.

But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.

He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.

And continues to act like a jerk of course.

The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.

Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.

When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.

Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.

It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.

It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.

Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”

Investors say, “I think he likes me.”

Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”

Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.

Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.

On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.

Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.

Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.

Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.

Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.

But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.

It makes a difference. Small one. But still.

It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.

From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”

More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?

There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.

While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.

After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.

“Good show.”

Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.

“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”

Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.

Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.

“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”

Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.

“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”

Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.

“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”

Blurr freezes.

No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't

“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”

Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”

Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.

Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.

“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”

Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.

“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”

Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.

“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”

He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.

“You are broken. I can fix you.”

Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.

“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”

Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.

“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”

Blurr flinches.

“I don't need your help.”

“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”

...

“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”

Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.

____________________________

Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.

Holy shit...

Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm

“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”

“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”

Jazz laughs

“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”

Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.

“Ah...”

“So it worked?”

“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”

Jazz rubs his hands together happily.

“I'll take it.”

Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.

He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.

He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.

Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.

Left to himself.

He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.

....

Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?

He looks at Jazz and Prowl.

“You two get along really well.”

Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.

“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”

Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.

On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.

_____________________

”Are you a ghost?”

Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.

He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?

“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”

Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.

Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.

“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”

Blurr squints amusedly.

“You can walk through walls?”

“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”

He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.

“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.

Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.

“ Show me more?”

“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”

“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”

Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.

Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.

“They really drugged you huh?”

“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”

He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair

“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”

Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.

"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?

Race???”

He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???

Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket

“I won't.”

He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.

“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”

Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.

“Well...at least you're alive....”

Blurr shakes his head.

“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”

“...”

“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”

Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.

Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”

Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.

“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”

“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”

Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...

Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.

“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”

“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”

Swerve stiffens.

“I...Wwhat?”

“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”

He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues

“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”

Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.

Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.

“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”

“You'll tell me later?”

Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.

“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”

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

Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.

“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”

Swerve snorts.

“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”

“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”

Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.

“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”

Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.

“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.

Swerve laughs.

“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”

_______________

His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.

He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.

They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.

Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.

Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.

Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.

Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake

“Mind some company?”

Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.

“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.

“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”

Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly

“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”

“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”

Pharma tilts his head

“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”

Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.

“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”

“What do you mea...”

“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.

“No I'm just...”

“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”

“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”

Swerve shakes his head.

“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”

“Wh..”

Blurr rolls his eye.

“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”

“Wait..”

“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”

Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.

“Can at least one of you shut up??”

Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner

“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”

He raises his eyebrows knowingly

“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”

Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.

“…..Wha....there's rumors?”

“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”

He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself

“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”

Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.

“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma

Swerve shrugs.

“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”

Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.

A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.

“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”

Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.

“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”

Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.

Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.

Then he reaches out his hand to him.

Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.

Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.

Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.

Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....

“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”

Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.

“You're real???”

Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him

“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”

Blurr shrugs.

“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”

Swerve twitches.

“Third??? How are you still standing???”

He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.

“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”

Blurr laughs quietly.

“I'm glad you're back.”

_____________________

He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.

When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.

“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”

“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”

Jazz smiles

“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”

“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”

“Worried about what your human friends will think?”

Swerve swings back and forth on his heels

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”

Jazz frowns

“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”

“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”

[acid-ixx]

'cause you're takin' it like a champ, sweetheart !

(nsfw) romantic! yandere conner kent x gn! reader

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

— masterlist ; leaked sex tape post ; other post !

a/n: mdni. purely nsfw. inspired off of @luludeluluramblings. the reader here is gender neutral but is a bottom, so interpret them as any gender as you will! mentions of breeding, oral (giving &. receiving), and overstimulation.

i'm sorry but i just read about the sex tape thing and now i'm shitposting you guys. what if instead of making chapter 6 for my series angsty, i make conner and you have kinky, sloppy, sweat-drenched sex after your first date? what if instead of the batfamily stripping you away of your freedom, conner strips you naked right before one of the secret cameras placed inside the room you're both in, that he's sure records every single passionate movement you both make in bed?

what if instead of you crying from the pain of all the negligence, you writhe and mewl like an overstimulated pornstar as he pounds away all your worries instead??? and if the footage unknowingly gets leaked? holy shit, not only do you possess the title of bruce wayne's infamous bastard child, but you're now also known as a kryptonian monsterfucker who definitely possesses the energy of a bull if it means you could handle bed-breaking sex to the point you're sure anyone from a mile away could hear your bated, snappy breaths and conner's sporadic, non-stop humping into the most pleasurable parts of your body.

cause even if he's half-human, that doesn't take away the fact that he is half-human. he sports features that aren't typical in normal anatomy. this just translates to: less energy is consumed when fucking you, so he could go on and on and on eating his love out, leaving marks for hours whilst simultaneously ensuring that you're probably well-bred (and i hc that it's probably almost exclusive to kryptonians that they cum, a lot) and dripping and feeling full by the end of the night (or day, heaven knows just how long he could go off worshipping your body).

and yes, the leaked sex tape piqued the interest of most curious eyes and it's probably going to be the spectacle for most researchers curious about kryptonian anatomy- but consider this. conner's not the only man obsessed with you. there're some romantic interests out there seething with rage, at the same time nutting and touching themselves to the video and playing it on repeat cause you're taking it like a champ.

unfortunately for them though, you've already been too addicted to the feel of conner spearing you down that you just can't fathom anyone else holding you the same way he does. you love the dichotomy he puts you through (to the point you ignore the red glinting lenses above your body) when he's possessively pinning you to the any fucking surface with his strong arms wrapped around your waist, with no chance of escape, the sensation of his dick penetration in and out in a hasty, yet rhythmic beat. yet despite the harsh thrusts, his hand still find itself to your sweaty forehead to wipe away stray hair, his lips taking its sweet time softly pressing kisses from the crown of your head all the way to your lips.

"good j-job takin' me whole, sweetheart— ah! god, i love you..." he whispers praises with his parched throat on your ears, every syllable enunciated with the thrum of his hips, your legs nearly resting over his shoulder. if not for his breaths hitting the inside of your ears, goosebumps spreading throughout your body, you wouldn't have picked up on the bass of his voice complimenting you.

your grip on his body only tightens, eyes shutting deeper into the near zenith. with just how much you're humping back despite the soreness in your muscles, tears escaping your eyes from pure, unfiltered pleasure, it's as if you're putting on a performance for the whole world to see.

"i— AH! i love you, t-too, kon– baby!" your reply came in the form of a squeal after another of his particularly harsh thrusts from waiting for your response. god, your throat hurts, it's more sore than conner's, taking him in your mouth fully felt like a fever dream, but you could remember the shape of his tip puncturing the back of your throat that it has your body reeling for another mind-blowing orgasm.

the glass of water on the stand beside you both is empty, it's been empty for hours. yet conner's still thirsty, how else would he be quenched from his urge when his previous ministrations of eating you out whilst prepping you to take his dick makes him even hornier? there's something about your body that makes the kryptonian want to memorize every single detail from how you writhe when the piercing in his tongue penetrates a sensitive part of you, and oh, the salty taste of your sweat and tears is heaven for a starving man like him.

shit, the thought of sloppily devouring you whole after he fills you up time and time again would be the cherry on top. overstimulation works pleasures on his sweetheart's body like a charm. he loves seeing the more desperate parts of you begging for more yet telling him to stop at the same time, as your hands still tangle harshly on his hair to keep him in place.

... but for now, he's got to focus on the lack of love marks on the expanse of your body, his vision nitpicking all the places in your skin that he's going to suck hickeys on. it'll definitely be his final piece of the puzzle to show all your other admirers his claim on you.

and the whole world can only bear witness to the artwork he's creating with you.

welp, guess it's just going to be you and conner alone in the room for a while, satiating both your hunger for each other, haha...

— oh, and don't forget the hundreds of cameras placed strategically to record all angles of your bodied fucking like animals!

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 34: The Whole Truth

Summary: In life, we will be confronted with difficult choices. Sometimes you won't know you've made the wrong choice until it's too late

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 12,900 words

Warnings: Dead dove: do not eat, Angst, graphic violence and torture, mentions of predatory behavior towards a minor, Phillip Graves is a major creep, lots blood and injuries, kidnapping and its aftermath, hostage situations, anxiety and panic attacks, language, very explicitly described torture, ‘mega gets hit a lot, choking, biting, ‘mega gets stabbed with an ice pick, author can’t write COD missions, vomiting, lots of heavy emotions, detailed descriptions of pain, guns, background character dies on screen, descriptions of guilt and grief, lots of POV changes, some descriptive language of gore and blood at the end, rehashing of ‘mega’s injuries from the last chapter, a lot of angst and very heavy content, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe

A/N: This chapter deals with some pretty heavy content. Please, please, please read and heed the warnings. I have included content warnings for the more graphic parts before they happen, so if you don't want to read those, you can skip ahead to the next part. I suggest taking breaks if you need to, read it in installments if necessary. And I cannot stress it enough, please heed the warnings.

11/30/24 **This chapter has been edited and rewritten from its original version**

MASTERLIST | <- Previous | Next ->

“Hi darlin’.” His grin widens like he’s happy to see you. “Been a long time.” 

You squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, your brain still sluggish. You feel sick as you try to process, try to figure out why and how. You try to move your arms again, but your wrists are stuck, hands burning as you pull. You desperately want them free, desperately need them free. 

“Easy,” Phil says, putting his hands on yours, pushing them flat against the arms of the chair. They’re warm and calloused, the same hand that had been on your face a few moments ago. “You’re gonna hurt yourself. More than you already have been.” He lifts your left leg, making you groan quietly as a deep ache throbs down to your foot and up to your hip. 

Running. A gunshot. Pain.

“He had strict orders not to harm you.” Phil says, adjusting the bandage wrapped around your calf. “Don’t worry. We got you all fixed up.” He sets your leg back down gingerly, his touch lingering for a moment before he looks back up at you. 

“Why?” You croak out, trying to make sense of what happened. 

Corporal McKinney broke into the barracks and chased you into the woods. He shot you and drugged you and now you’re here, restrained in a chair staring at a man you haven’t seen for years. A man who was once your dad’s best friend. 

“A lot has happened since we saw each other last.” He says, pushing himself to stand. “I left the Marines after a few years, formed my own group of military contractors. Invited your dad to join, but you know how he is. All honor and duty and serving the country. Of course, you haven’t seen him in quite a while, have you?” 

You stare up at him, starting to get scared. You never liked Phil. There was always something about him that put you off. He always stared too long, always sat too close to you. He always greeted you with a hug that lasted too long, squeezing you too tightly against him. He was sweet on you in a way he wasn’t with anyone else. He could be intense, brash and almost downright rude sometimes. He was a firm believer in traditional packs too, even if he never spoke about his own pack, his own omega. He had to have one, if he was as dedicated as he said. 

He was far too much like your father. 

Phil was always kinder to you, though. Softer. Not quite as callous and bellicose as your father in public. He was polite, always happy to lend a hand, always glad to roughhouse with your brothers to get their energy out. You saw the way your mother looked at him though. Perhaps her apprehension bled into you, those dormant omega instincts picking up on something she was projecting. 

He made you uncomfortable, and she knew it. 

What could an omega do, though, in a world where they don’t have opinions, they can’t argue, they can’t disagree. Your mother never said anything because in the world your family existed in, the world Phil existed in, she couldn’t. 

“He was so angry when he called.” Phil continues, staring down at you. “Ranting and raving about how his oldest daughter betrayed him by presenting as an omega. He couldn’t stand having such a useless child in his perfect pack.” You flinch at his words, even though you heard your father spew those very words after your presentation firsthand. 

“He called you?” You ask, the pieces starting to come together as your brain finally snaps fully into awareness. You knew he called someone, but you hadn’t thought it would ever be Phil. 

“Of course.” Phil chuckles. “We were good friends, pals, buddies. He knew I could help him.” A shiver runs down your spine. You know what he’s going to say next. “So I did. I have some contacts in some high places, people who owe me favors. So I made some calls, pulled some strings, got you into FIOT immediately, with some strings attached of course.” He leans down so you’re almost face to face. “I wanted you. They put a note in your file. You wouldn’t be placed in the registry when you were old enough, you would go to me and my pack.” 

Bile churns in your stomach as you process his words. It all makes sense now. The stares, the hugs, the closeness with your father, your rapid enrollment in an institute that can take weeks to process applications. It was all so you could be his. Something he’s wanted from early on. 

“You would have been mine,” He pushes himself up straight again, starting to pace back and forth in front of you. “If the fucking CIA hadn’t gotten involved!” You flinch as his voice raises, the frustration starting to darken his scent. “They froze your file, made the claim null and void. All for what, their little initiative that never really existed in the first place?” He huffs out a laugh, a smirk tilting his lips. “Small world, though. Who knew we’d be seeing each other again after so long.” 

He steps closer, looking down at you. You hold his gaze, suddenly feeling afraid. Even though you know him, even though you spent a good part of your childhood around him, you’re afraid of him right now. Your mind starts to revert back, the urge to lower your eyes, break eye contact like you’re supposed to flashing through your mind. 

Don’t stare alphas in the eyes. They’ll take that as a challenge. It’s not your job to challenge them. Your job is to be subservient. 

You would have been subservient to him if the CIA hadn’t gotten involved. You would have been under his control, bowing to him and his will. You’d have pups by now, at least one. He’d always talked about having a big pack with lots of pups someday, always glancing at you when he said it. 

You’re going to vomit all over him. 

It’s not just the truth that scares you, though. You’re being held captive here. That thought has registered in your mind now, the reality settling in as you get over the shock of the last few minutes. Corporal McKinney kidnapped you from base, and now you’re restrained in a chair surrounded by unknown alphas. Phil isn’t going to help you, take pity on you. He’s not here to be nice, to have a little chat and catch up on life.

That possibly ended as soon as he was denied what he wanted. 

His hand cups your chin, holding your face up as he looks down at you. His thumb is rough as it strokes your jaw, a tickling feeling starting in the back of your mind again. There’s an almost bittersweet look in his eyes as he holds your gaze. You refuse to lower it, refuse to give him that satisfaction. “You’ve grown up a lot.” He says, his hand sliding down your neck to the collar of your shirt. “You always were cute, though. I knew early on you were going to be an omega. You were far too...calm and compliant compared to your brothers. Always so polite and eager to please. You can tell if you pay attention, you know. Those dormant instincts start to show themselves long before presentation.” 

His hand pulls your collar to the side, revealing your mark. His eyes harden as he stares at it, his lips turning down into a frown. A shiver runs down your spine as the darkness in his scent intensifies. He’s not holding you hostage just to tell you about what could have been, what direction your life might have taken. He’s here for a reason, and you know your pack is involved. Something has happened, something behind the scenes, something John was looking into. 

“What’s going on?” You ask as he releases your collar, taking a step back. 

“Well, you’re being held hostage.” He says, like it isn’t already obvious. “You’re...shall we say...leverage to ensure your pack follows orders.” 

You blink at him. You haven’t heard from or spoken to your pack in weeks. You should be relieved that they’re apparently still alive, but what if you had been right and they don’t want you anymore? Why would they take you if your pack has abandoned you? Or did they take you to ensure they wouldn’t...

“Laswell stuck her nose somewhere it shouldn’t have been.” Phil says, crossing his arms. “It’s only so long before your pack finds out. Let’s just say...they’re not going to be happy about it. So, to ensure they don’t do something impulsive and reckless as they are known to do, you’re going to play hostage.” 

You gulp as you stare up at him, suddenly feeling very afraid. Your scent spikes in the air, clouding it with the bitter scent of anxiety. It was the plan all along. You knew it even if you hadn’t been told outright. Deep down you’ve always known it wasn’t about strengthening packs. It wasn’t about studying how an omega would increase or decrease the efficiency of military packs. With the events of the last few months, the idea had started to form in your mind. You know you weren’t alone in those thoughts. John and Simon were digging into the cameras for a reason. They were put up for a reason. 

It was always about control.

That was the point of the initiative. That was why they put cameras up, that was why General Shepherd was so invested in the state of your pack and if you had been mated. He needed to ensure you were close enough to them so if something happened that wasn’t supposed to, you could be used against them. 

You’re nothing more than leverage. 

Your scent spikes in the air, clouding the room as reality sinks into you. Something happened that caused this. Something called your pack away to isolate you, to leave you vulnerable. They wanted you alone as a contingency. 

Something did happen. 

Now you’re here, being held captive by a man you used to know, a man who could have been your alpha had things not played out the way they did. The thought has your stomach churning. How far will they go? How far will Phil take things? Could he be merciful because of your history? Or will his ruined plan make him more ruthless? 

You’ll be punished for something you can’t control. 

Phil makes a soft sound as he looks at you, shaking with fear in the chair. “Don’t be scared. As long as your pack does as they’re told, I won’t have to hurt you.” He turns the light back to face you, nearly blinding you. “Now, smile for the camera.” 

They’re safe. 

It had been close. A rough position to be in, but they managed it. He never doubted them and their abilities, but four against nearly fifty with no backup were not good odds. He’s been in tighter places before, and while he had his doubts, he is grateful Johnny and Simon were sent in when they were. Even if it was a bit suspicious.

“All accounted for.” John says as he sinks down onto one of the jump seats next to Kyle. 

They’re all battered and bruised from their final fight. He’s ready to get home, ready to get back to you. From the sound of it, things were not going well, according to Johnny and Simon. He has a lot to make up for, a lot of apologies to make. 

“Fucking Russian PMCs.” He says, speaking to Kate over the comms. “It’s not a coincidence Kate.” 

Kate lets out a sigh that crackles through the comm. “No, it’s not. My team and I came across some information while we were digging into the cameras.” 

“What information?” He asks slowly and carefully. He doesn’t like being kept in the dark, especially when it comes to his pack. Especially when it comes to you. 

“Not just information on the initiative, but information on General Shepherd.” 

“What information?” He asks again, slower this time as Johnny and Simon move in closer. 

“Shepherd was the one that sold those weapons to AQ and the Russians.” 

John looks at the other three members of his team. He knew something was wrong, something was off about the way Shepherd had acted while informing them about this mission. “He wanted those missiles found and destroyed so he could cover his own ass.” He says, his stomach starting to twist. He doesn’t like the way this is going. 

“But we found out the truth before you could find all the missiles.” Kate continues. “He sent you on a wild goose chase to give himself a chance to escape.” 

John’s hand tightens into a fist. “Where is he now?” 

“He’s gone dark. Totally off radar.” 

John pushes himself up to stand, the adrenaline pumping again. “I’m going to find that bastard-” 

“John.” Kate says, cutting him off. “There’s something else.” 

The twisting in his stomach intensifies. There’s a bad feeling tickling in the back of his mind. He doesn’t want to entertain the dark thoughts that are brewing. “What?” 

“They took your omega.” 

His stomach clenches, his breath catching in his lungs. The other three shift on their feet, all of them stepping closer. The scent in the plane thickens, anger and confusion mixing into a toxic cocktail. He hopes he heard that wrong, that there was some kind of interference in the connection and his brain made up the words he missed. “Repeat that.” 

“They took your omega.” Kate says again.

He lets out a long breath, his muscles tensing. He’s had a bad feeling tickling in the back of his mind for the last few days. Something was wrong, something was off. He should have known it was all a ruse. Why would AQ and the Russians store a missile in any of the places they had been sent to in the last week? It hadn’t made sense, and he had wanted to voice his doubts, but the consequences of a missile being launched because they decided not to look in one place was greater than his own perceived doubts. 

They had been right though. 

Of course it had all been a plan. Of course there had been something fishy about it. He’s hardly ever wrong. He’s been praised on his instincts on the field and off. He should have known. Pulling Simon and Johnny when they did should have been enough evidence, even if they had been needed in the end. 

“You’re positive?” He knows she is. There’s no mistaking something like that, there’s no doubting it. 

“There’s a video.” Kate says, John’s stomach dropping. “I’m sending it to you now.” 

John pulls out his phone, his fingers white as he holds it up. He’s angry, beyond angry. If they’ve laid a hand on you...if you’ve been hurt because of his own failings, his own inability to see the truth...

He clicks on the video when it comes in, a familiar face popping up on screen. “Hi boys. Been a while.” 

“Fucking Graves.” Johnny growls, his hands closing into fists in anger. 

“I have a little something of yours I think you might be interested in.” He turns the camera around, your face popping up on screen. You’re restrained in a chair, wrists red from the zip ties, but there’s a glare on your face, looking as mean and threatening as you can. There’s a bruise on your cheek and what looks like a healing cut on your lip. Someone hit you. 

“Smile for the camera.” Graves says, a bit too cheerfully. 

You don’t smile, your glare sharpening as the camera gets closer to your face. There’s still fight left in you. Whatever has happened hasn’t been too bad. Yet. 

“Let’s make this simple.” Graves says. “You stay away from Shepherd, and I won’t have to hurt this pretty little face. She is pretty, isn’t she?” 

You shift in the chair, your leg lifting before you kick outward. 

“Ow, you little bitch.” The camera jostles for a moment before it’s straightened back up, a hand shooting out to wrap around your throat. There’s no sign of any struggle, the glare still prominent on your face. “Feisty thing. Gotta keep up with those wild boys somehow.” 

The hand tilts your face just slightly, showing the mark on your neck. It is you, not that John doubted that from the beginning. It may have been almost two months, but he wouldn’t forget your face that easily. 

“Like I said,” Graves continues. “Follow your orders and she’ll be released unharmed.” 

The screen goes dark and John resists the urge to throw his phone. He shoves it back into his pocket, turning towards the wall of the plane. He throws his fist against the metal as hard as he can. It hurts, but he can barely feel it over the rage burning hot in him. 

“Fucking Shepherd!” He shouts, rearing back to throw his hand against the wall again.

Graves has his omega. Graves has his omega and now you’re being used as leverage. They’re all being played like puppets. 

A hand catches his fist before he can punch the wall again, easing him back. “Easy.” Kyle says, trying to soothe him as best he can. “We have proof of life, we know that she’s alright for now.” 

“For now.” He growls, looking around at the members of his team. “But for how long?” 

“They knew we’d go after Shepherd as soon as we learned the truth.” Simon says. “This has been in the plans for a long time.”

“They’re trying to get us to make a choice. Focus on getting our omega back while letting Shepherd escape, or go after Shepherd and let our omega be tortured.” Kyle says. 

“Those fuckin’ wankstains.” Johnny says, shifting on his feet. He’s angry, the bitter scent filling the enclosed area of the plane. They’re all angry, angry at those responsible, and angry at themselves for falling for it. “They were usin’ us the whole time.” 

John lets out a long breath. He needs a clear head going forward. He needs to be able to beat them at their own game and cause the least amount of damage to you as possible. As much as going after Shepherd first is tempting, cut the head off the snake and end things before they get too far, he knows that won’t stop Graves. He’ll continue even after Shepherd is dead. 

There might even be a second contingency. They kill Shepherd, you die too. 

“John, we can’t leave her.” Kyle says, still holding his hand. His fingers are wrapped tight around his wrist, trying to ground him as best as he can in this tumultuous moment. 

“The longer we wait, the worse things will get.” Simon says. “We go after Shepherd, we may never see her again.” 

There won’t be anything to come back to. 

He stares at his pack, all standing there, staring at him, waiting for him to make his decision. He’s their Captain, he’s their alpha. It is his decision in the end. He’s the one that they will follow, even if he makes the wrong decision. Even if he tears them apart in the end. 

“Where is she?” John growls, into his comms. 

“We’re working on decrypting the video now.” Kate replies.

“I need a location, Kate.” John says impatiently, heading towards the cockpit. For all he knows those flying the plane are in on it too. 

 “We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got. You’ll be the first to know as soon as we find something.” Kate tried to placate him. 

“I better be.” He growls. 

Kate lets out a sigh as the comms close off. It’s not a captain she’s speaking to anymore, it’s an angry alpha. His pack, his omega is being threatened and now they all have to face the ramifications of it. She’s just as much a cog in this machine. She fell for this, she brought you into this, and now you might get hurt because of it. How she didn’t see the reality has shame burning through her. They were all blind, all led astray, all fooled by the red herring. 

There was never an initiative. It was never about strengthening packs. It was always about control. They wanted a way to control packs. Shepherd knew if the secret ever came out, there would be no stopping the consequences. Legal or illegal, retribution would come for him if the truth was revealed. 

This was his way of stopping it. 

That's why the 141 were the guinea pigs. 

They are the most dangerous threat to Shepherd, and he handed them a way to control them under the guise of strengthening packs, experimenting on how their dynamics and efficiency would shift with an omega added in. Even worse, they all fell for it. 

Time is of the essence now. Graves won’t stop, even as word reaches Shepherd that they’re easing off of him. Her only hope is that Graves won’t kill you. That will give them nothing to live for, and it will make them more ruthless than they already are. They’ll go after Graves, and then they’ll turn their eyes to Shepherd. 

No matter what you’ll always be a way to control them. 

If she can find Graves, she can send out a team to get eyes on his location. That way, they’ll have a direction she can point them in, and they won’t be going in blindly. This is a delicate situation, and she can’t trust Graves to uphold his end of the deal in this. They’re not going after Shepherd, but will that stop Graves from hurting you just because he can? 

There’s more to this than they’re letting on. She knows it, deep down. There’s something else, something even deeper below the surface. 

She’s got a lot of work to do. 

They’re going to need help. 

Christine can’t sit still anymore. She can't take it. It’s been almost eighteen hours since your disappearance and there’s been nothing. No word, no news. She knows you’re alive. Kate had confirmed that, but that hasn’t eased the burning questions eating away at her mind. What is your current state? Who took you and why? Where is your pack and are they even aware of what’s happening? 

She’s been sitting and twirling her thumbs. She can’t bring herself to do any paperwork, any research. What is there to do besides sit and worry? She doesn’t have a patient to take care of because she lost the one she was supposed to watch. 

She huffs out a breath, pulling her phone out of her pocket and dialing Kate. If Kate won’t call, she’ll call herself. Kate’s probably busy though, so Christine can’t blame her too much for not calling. She’s probably so far from the front of Kate’s mind right now. 

The phone rings twice before Kate answers, sounding tired and disheveled, just as much as Christine feels. 

“Laswell.”

“Kate, I need to be there.” She doesn't hold back, doesn’t try to make small talk. There’s no time for it. She knows how Kate is doing, and it’s not great. 

“Christine, I don’t know if I can take that risk.” She says. 

“I need to be there. I can't take sitting around here anymore. When...” When not if. They will find you. She knows it. “When you find her, she’s going to need someone she knows there, someone that knows how to take care of her.” Christine lets out a breath, the relief of getting her thoughts out taking some of the weight off her shoulders. 

Kate sighs, but she has to know Christine is right. She’s not sure what state you’re in, and depending on how bad it is, and where your pack is, you’re going to need her. Even if you think she was behind this. “I’ll have a plane ready to go in thirty minutes.” 

“Thank you, Kate.” She says, letting out a sigh of relief. 

“Don’t miss the flight.” 

Christine hangs up, gathering a couple things from her office before closing and locking her door. She nearly runs to her barracks, packing a bag quickly. She’s not sure what to bring, or how long this will take. She’s not even sure exactly where she’s going. 

She hurries to the airfield, phone in hand. She’s not sure where the plane is or which one she’s taking. She’s just relieved Kate is doing this for her. 

Her phone buzzes as she reaches the tarmac, making her pause. She lets out an annoyed sigh before answering the call. 

“Of course you have to call at the worst possible moment.” She says. 

“I’ve always had the worst timing.” Alex’s voice comes through the speaker, and she can almost hear the smile on his face. 

“I can’t talk long. I’m about to board a plane.” She says. 

“I know. We’ll pick you up on the tarmac.” 

She blinks in surprise. It’s been years since she’s seen her brother, months since she’s spoken with him. Ever since he retired from Delta Force, his regular calls have been happening less and less, and they’ve reached near radio silence over the last couple years. Now he’s involved in this too? 

“Kate called in a favor.” He continues, and that’s all she needs to know. “We’ll see you in a few hours.” 

“Yeah.” She says, tears brimming in her eyes as she smiles. Despite everything, she’s glad she gets to see her brother again. Glad she has some support in this. Your pack will be mad. They’ll blame her. She’s not afraid of them, but she knows Alex will stand behind her no matter what. “See you then.” 

**Content Warning: light torture, ‘mega gets punched, further injury to previous injuries, panic attack**

Your hands are starting to go numb. The constant attempts to free yourself from the zip ties isn’t helping, but you’re beginning to get twitchy. Your omega is scratching at the back of your mind, begging to be free, but you know you won’t survive it. The room is full of armed mercenaries, and you’re sure if you tried to take out Phil first, you’d be pumped full of bullets before you could even do any damage. 

He’s leaning against the wall far too casually, staring at the phone he’d used to record the first video of you. His explanation had been simple. Your pack stops going after General Shepherd, you don’t get hurt. The longer they chase Shepherd, the more Phil gets to torture you until they decide your life is worth more than Shepherd’s. 

Will they choose you over Shepherd? What if they’ve already decided to abandon you? What if your fears were right and they’ve given up, and that’s why they were gone so long? They won’t care what happens to you if they have written you off as a burden, as a loss. They’ll let Phil torture you to death and they won’t even blink an eye. You’ll just be another casualty. 

It makes your stomach hurt, the idea of your pack letting you die. Even the idea of someone who had once been a friend of your family being so cold towards you has nausea bubbling in your belly. He doesn’t care. His only worry is money, not the past. He doesn’t care. He’ll do the bidding of whoever offers the highest price. 

He lets out a sigh, pocketing his phone as he pushes himself off of the wall. “Looks like your boys don’t follow orders well.” He bends down, putting his hands on his knees so he’s face to face with you. “They’ve decided to leave you here with me. Looks like Shepherd was wrong. They don’t really care about you as much as everyone thought they did. Makes me sad, them abandoning you so easily.” 

You try to ignore his words, try to convince yourself he’s doing it on purpose, trying to mentally break you. Yet you can’t deny those words play exactly into your doubts, your fears. Have they really left you here, choosing Shepherd over you? Would they decide to do that? How easy had that decision been made?  

Tears blur your vision as you stare up at Phil, your eyes burning as you try to put on the bravest face you can. You won’t let him have the satisfaction of knowing he’s getting to you, playing into your fears. 

“Unfortunately, that means I have to hurt you.” He stands up straight, staring down at you for a moment before pulling his fist back, hitting you across the face. 

You see stars for a moment, your head snapping to the side. The left side of your face is numb, the taste of metal flooding over your tongue. You’re bleeding, blood pooling in your mouth. A hand grips your chin, pulling you back so you’re sitting up straight in the chair. You stare up at Phil, the fear fading away to anger as you glare up at him. Your face is throbbing, and you know it’s going to swell and bruise later, more than it already has thanks to Corporal McKinney. 

Traitorous bastard. 

They all are. 

“I do feel bad for hurting that pretty face.” He says, stroking your jaw with his thumb. 

The movement is impulsive, the anger becoming too much. You spit the blood in your mouth in his face, the droplets splattering across his skin. He turns his head away for a moment, bringing his other hand up to wipe at the blood. 

“That wasn’t very nice.” He says, looking down at you. 

“Fuck you, you fucking creep!” You yell, kicking at him with your bad leg. 

He releases your face, catching your leg easily. He pushes his thumb against the bullet wound, all the fight leaving you as pain tears through your body. You let out a scream, trying to pull your leg away but he won’t let you. He holds his thumb there as you scream, the tears streaming down your face. 

“Okay, okay please! Please stop!” You beg, the pain radiating up into your hip and side. You can’t take it anymore, your brain starting to go fuzzy as you hyperventilate. 

He releases your leg, his hand wrapping around your throat to lift your face. The tears are streaming down your cheeks, mixing with the blood from the cut on your cheek. There’s no sympathy, not even regret in his eyes as he stares down at you. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, but if you can’t behave, I’ll have to do just that.” He releases you as you continue to hyperventilate, your eyes starting to glaze. You’re distressing. Will Phil help you? Will he do what he has to do to keep you alive? If you die, there won’t be anything stopping your pack. The entire plan will be over. They’ll go after Shepherd, then they’ll hunt down Phil. 

Cold ice water hits you in the face, shocking you back into clarity. Phil is holding the cup of water he’d been letting you drink from periodically. You blink at him as water drips into your eyes, your breaths hitching but far slower than they had been. You’re awake and aware now. 

You didn’t even know it was possible to do that. 

“Don’t distress on me now.” He says, putting the cup down. “We have so much ahead of us.” He moves around to the back of your chair, bending down until his breath hits your ear. “Besides, you make me help you out of distress, I might not be able to stop myself.” 

Your eyes pinch closed as his lips brush the shell of your ear before he stands back up, tears mixing with the icy water still sliding down your face. 

“Please tell me you have good news.” Kyle says as they stand around the table. John is still fuming, anger rolling off of him like it has been since they found out the news. He’s hanging onto the quickly fraying strings of control he still has on his alpha. 

“We’ve narrowed down locations to the US.” Kate says, standing bravely before them. It’s not the first time she’s been before an angry alpha. It’s not the first time she’s been before an angry John. 

“Damn it, Kate, we need a location.” John says, slamming his hands down on the table. 

“We’re working on it as fast as we can.” Kate says, unflinching. “We’ve got limited people and resources now. We can’t trust just anyone anymore.” 

John lets out a long breath as Kyle puts a hand on his chest. He’s tired. They can all see it in his face. He’s tired and angry and rapidly losing control. 

Simon pushes Kyle to the side, blocking John’s view of anything but him. The big alpha puts his hands on John’s shoulders, looking him right in the eye. “You won’t do her any good by raging like this.” He says, his voice flat and calm. “You know these things don’t happen immediately. They’re underground for a reason and we just have to be patient.” 

“She doesn’t have that kind of time.” John says loudly, but there’s a strain to his voice. 

“It’s better to wait and have a direct location than to run around on a wild goose chase. That’s what they want. They want us angry and thinking on instinct.” He squeezes John’s rapidly drooping shoulders. “We all want her back, but we just have to trust Graves will keep his end of the deal.” 

“She’s stronger than she looks.” Johnny says. “She’ll give ‘em hell.” 

John runs a hand over his face as he begins to deflate. They’re right. It’s better to wait and know for sure than to waste time running around and exhausting themselves. 

“Please tell me you have any news.” John says, moving back towards the table. 

“I do.” Kate says. “I’ve called in some backup. They’ll be here shortly.” 

Christine nearly runs down the ramp once the plane has stopped on the runway. She’s jet lagged and worn out after eight hours of worrying, but she’s eager not only to finally get some news on you and your status, but to see her brother for the first time in a long time. 

It’s not hard to find him. 

“Chrissy!” He grins, hugging her tightly. 

She has half a mind to complain about the nickname she’d endured her entire childhood, but she can’t find it in her as she hugs her brother tightly. She’s missed him, more than she realized. Their jobs have kept them busy, her with her medical studies and practice, and Alex with...whatever it is he does. 

“It’s been far too long.” She says, pulling away from him. She’d love to stand there and hug him for an hour, but she can’t. They have more important things to do. Time is of the essence, if her worst fears are true. 

“A lot has happened, a lot has changed.” He says. 

She looks him over, spotting the more noticeable changes in comparison to the last time they were face to face. “You could say that.” 

“We can talk about it later.” He turns to the other person with him, a woman. “Christine, this is Farah.” He introduces her. “Farah, this is my baby sister Christine.” 

“Nice to meet you.” Farah says, shaking her hand. 

“You as well.” Christine looks between them for a moment. She knows that look in Alex’s eyes as he looks at Farah. 

“We should get moving.” Farah says, ignoring him. 

“Laswell has moved off the grid.” Alex says, opening the driver’s side of the SUV. 

Smart, if things are as bad as she thinks they are. 

Christine gets into the back, letting out a long breath. She’s closer now to finding out what’s happened to you. The guilt is still eating her alive. If she just hadn’t left, if she hadn’t believed the phone call, put it above your safety. 

Things might have been worse if she had stayed. 

“Kate filled us in about everything.” Alex says as he drives away from the airfield. “At least in regards to the pack and your involvement.” 

“There’s some things she’s not telling us.” Farah says. “Though if things are as bad as they sound, I don’t blame her.” 

“I don’t know much of anything.” Christine says, staring out the window as they drive out of the city. “I feel like it’s my fault. If I hadn’t left her alone...” 

“It’s hardly your fault.” Alex says, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “If this was all planned, there wouldn’t have been anything that would stop it from happening.” 

“They might have done worse if you had stayed there.” Farah says, speaking Christine’s own fears aloud. 

“I wish I could see her. Make sure she’s alright.” Christine says. “If something happens to her...” 

“From what I hear she’s a hardy omega.” Alex says, trying to comfort her. “She’s withstood a lot. She can survive the 141, she’s probably giving them hell as we speak.” 

**Content Warnings: light torture, choking to the point of almost passing out, blood, very detailed descriptions of pain, non-fatal stabbing**

It’s getting hard to breathe. Phil’s grip around your throat is getting tighter and tighter, less and less oxygen getting to your bloodstream and your brain. Your mouth has an almost permanent metallic taste as blood drips down your chin. Blood stains Phil’s arm from where you bit him, teeth marks red and angry looking from where they broke the skin. 

“You fucking bitch.” He growls, jaw clenched. “Your alpha should have taught you some manners.” 

His hand squeezes tighter, cutting the air off entirely. You begin to panic, tugging against the restrains with your raw, cut up wrists. Black dots begin to dance in your vision, your legs straining against the zip ties keeping them attached to the chair. Your hands and feet are going numb, your entire body tingling. This is it. You’re going to be choked to death. 

He holds his hand there for a moment, letting you struggle before he lets go and you suck in a gasp of air. You slump over in the chair, blood splattering on the floor as you cough, your throat raw and sore. Tears burn in your eyes as you heave, trying to get the oxygen flowing through your body again. 

Phil bends down to your level as you sit there, head hanging as blood drips from your mouth. Your tongue is raw from how many times you’ve bitten it. It’s impossible to tell how much time has really passed. There’s no windows in the room. The only light source is the cracks around the door behind you. Even then with the bright light in your face constantly, it’s hard to tell anything anymore. 

“Feisty still, but everyone has their limits.” His hand cups your chin as he stands, lifting your face to follow him. His hand holds the back of your head up as he wipes at the blood under your nose and on your chin almost gently. 

Tears stream down your cheeks as you stare up at him, unable to even care anymore that his hand is so close to your neck. All he has to do is move it down just slightly and squeeze and you’ll be unaware of anything around you, at the mercy of his bidding. 

That would almost be a relief. 

He dumps another icy cup of water over your head, keeping you from slipping too much into a panic. The cold water stings the cut on your chest and the one on your arm as it slides down your shoulders. You’ve lost the ability to feel the throbbing in your calf, numb to most of the pain in your body. 

Why haven’t they come for you? Where is your pack? 

Have they written you off for good? Was finding Shepherd more important than you? 

Phil’s phone goes off, your stomach dropping. He stares at the screen for a second before turning back to you. 

You shake your head, the tears cascading down your cheeks. “No,” You start to shake. “No, please-” 

“You know I have to, darlin’.” He moves behind you, tugging on your hair to keep your head up as one of his men stands in front of you with a phone in hand. 

He counts down on his fingers before pressing record. 

“Having fun yet?” Phil says as he reaches around your head, holding your chin in his hand. He tilts your head back making you look up at him. “We sure are. Aren’t we, darlin’? Tell them. Tell them how much fun we’re having.” 

You’re still crying, unable to stop as you stare at the camera. They really have given up on you. They’ve deemed you unworthy of saving. They’ve let you sit here and be beat up and tortured all because they put the job first. 

They really have given up on you. 

Are they even watching? 

“Please,” You croak out, half begging your pack to care, half begging Phil to have mercy. 

“Since you can’t seem to bring yourselves to care about your own omega,” He shifts slightly, someone handing him something behind you. You catch a glint of metal, your heart rate picking up. You’re panicking, breaths coming in shaky gasps. You know he can do worse. He’s threatened worse, but what is he going to do? “It seems you need a little more...motivation.” 

You try to wiggle out of his grasp in panic, wrists bleeding again from tugging at the zip ties. They’re coated in your blood, your leg throbbing but you don’t care. You need to get away, get free. “No, no-”

You let out a scream. 

It’s sharp and piercing, but nowhere near the sharp pain in your neck. It fires through your very nerve endings, making you aware of the very cells in your body. It shoots up into your brain, igniting every neuron in your brain. Your very blood feels like it’s boiling, your skin on fire from the pain. Every inhale feels like you’re breathing in sand, and every exhale is like glass shards dragging through your lungs and up your throat. The tears streaming down your face may as well be slicing through layers of skin, every wound pulsing and throbbing with a new kind of angry vengeance. 

You’re sobbing, nearly choking on air as the pain continues to pulse in your body. It’s too much, every sensation inside and outside of your body meshing together in an agonizing harmony. 

“Shhh.” Phil tries to shush you as he bends down, his cheek resting against the side of your head. “I know, I know. You’ll be alright.” He presses a kiss to the side of your head before letting you go limp in the chair. 

Your scream still hangs in the air even after the video ends. 

It’s otherwise silent in the room, all eight of them feeling the weight of their decisions on their shoulders. The scents in the air are full of pain and regret and guilt and anger. 

“Was that fatal?” Kate asks, breaking the tense silence. 

“No.” Christine chokes out, her voice shaky. Her hands are trembling where they’re tucked against her sides. Her arms are crossed over her chest, trying to bring herself some kind of comfort after what she had just watched. “He went for the scent gland. It’s not a fatal injury, unless you go too deep, but he knew what he was doing.” She swallows the lump in her throat. “It’s just incredibly painful.” 

Her words hang in the air for a moment, all of them still trying to process what they had just seen. 

John slams his hands on the table, all of them jumping. “I fucking told you.” He says, his voice laced with the deep growl of his alpha. “I fucking told you Kate, she should have been flown out here as soon as you made the call.” 

“I know.” Kate says, undeterred by his anger. She’s seen it many times, though she’s rarely been on the receiving end of it. “I know, I made a bad call. None of us knew they would take it this far.” 

“But we knew something was going on behind the scenes.” John says, still radiating anger. “All precautions should have been taken.” 

“There was no guarantee her being here would have stopped them. She might not have been any safer here.” Kate says, trying to ease his anger, even though she knows it’s completely warranted. “This goes far deeper than we thought it did. Even before this plan was set into motion.” She waits a moment, letting the air settle. “A year ago, a convoy was smuggling missiles and other weapons into the Middle East in an off-the-books operation. The convoy was attacked and the missiles and arms were stolen by a Russian PMC group. The operation was conducted under the command of Shepherd, and the soldiers in the convoy were all Shadow Company.” 

“That’s how Graves is tied into this.” Kyle says. 

“It goes deeper than that.” Kate says, pulling up a file and displaying it on screen. “The missiles and weapons being smuggled weren’t being sent to aid allies in the Middle East. Shepherd sold them to AQ and the Russians. The PMC group that attacked Shadow Company was hired by Shepherd to make it look like an ambush.” 

“Fucking weasel.” Simon growls. 

“I don’t know how much Graves knows, or how much he helped hide the entire operation, but his ties to this go even deeper than that.” Kate says, and they all shift closer. “Graves has history with your omega.” She says, pulling up an old photo. “We combed through one of her brothers’ Facebook pages. Found an old photo of her dad with Graves. They served on the same base when her family lived in Texas before Graves left to join MARSOC. She would have still been a child at the time.” 

They stare at the photo, Graves clearly identifiable as he stands next to another man, beers in their hands. There’s two other boys in the photo, young and grinning at the camera. Standing in front of Graves is a little girl, a happy grin on her face. They’re all in various combinations of red, white, and blue. 

4th of July, they assume. 

“That’s how she got into the institute so fast.” John says, staring at the photo. He’s never seen a photo of your father before. You must take after your mother. “Graves pulled the strings.” 

Kate nods. “He did, but under the condition he would be the one to claim her when she grew old enough. The CIA wiped out that claim when they froze her file.” 

The 141 all shift on their feet, sharing looks. John feels a sick twisting in his stomach at the implications. Your position in the photo suddenly makes sense. Anger burns in him, deep and bubbling like magma. He’ll kill the bastard. 

“This is revenge then.” Johnny says. 

“In a way, I think.” Kate says. “We took away what he wanted. Graves wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.” 

“This all is what the initiative was created for.” Christine says, leaning against the table. “A contingency in case this all was uncovered.” 

“A way to control us.” Kyle says. 

Kate nods. “Yes. It was all a plan to give the 141 a weakness, a way to be controlled should the situation arise. In this case it just so happened to be the uncovering of his traitorous arms deals.” 

“We were all pawns in this.” Christine says. 

“We let them walk right in and take control like that.” John says, turning to Christine. “You let them walk in and take our omega.” 

She turns to face him, undeterred by his agitation and anger. “I did what I thought was right at the time. I got a call from one of the front desk workers in the med center saying that someone was waiting in my office for me.” She explains. “They wouldn’t say who it was, and the whole thing felt off. I knew whoever would be visiting me was not going to be friendly, so I felt it was safer to leave her in the barracks than take her with me and risk something happening in a place she doesn’t know well. In the barracks at least she’d know places to hide and barricade herself.” 

She takes a deep breath, still facing down John fearlessly. He’s coiled tight like a spring, ready to jump at any moment should he deem it necessary. It’s those protective instincts, the knowledge that his omega is somewhere else, taken unwillingly and being tortured feeding into that need to fight. 

“My office door was open when I got there.” She continues. “I always leave it locked. I went in prepared to fight, but I was attacked from behind. Hit over the head and drugged with something fast acting, something that would keep me incapacitated long enough for him to strike.” She stares up into his eyes, projecting her scent just a bit to try and get him to calm down. “We all made mistakes here, things we thought were the right choice at the time.” 

She’s not wrong. They all know it. They had just seen proof of it.  

“The assailant?” John asks, turning back to Kate. 

“Corporal McKinney.” Kate says. “He was in Shepherd’s pocket from the start. Someone who could watch first-hand. Someone who could sneak into the barracks unnoticed without many questions. He was likely the one that put the cameras up.” 

“Fucking wanker.” Simon growls. “He approached her once in the mess. Early on. Tried to introduce himself to her. Backed off as soon as I intervened. Never tried again, at least that we know of.” 

“She never mentioned him.” Christine says. “Or anyone else on base that might have tried to approach her.” 

“Where is he now?” Kyle asks. They’re all angry, frustrated. How had they not seen this happening? 

“Local police tracked his car to an abandoned airfield not far outside of Hereford.” Kate says. “He was dead inside. Police ruled it suicide.” 

“I’m sure it was.” John says. 

They all know it wasn’t. 

“Shadow Company likely picked her up from there with orders to stage a suicide.” Kate says. 

“One less loose string to worry about.” Simon says. “Covers their tracks in England.” 

They all go quiet. How this had all happened right under their noses? They’re all guilty of falling for it, for being too trusting in a world they know they can’t be too careful in. Allies can turn on a dime and become enemies. Betrayals can be easily bought. Things can turn downhill within a blink of an eye. They’re supposed to be prepared for the worst, ready for every possibility. 

They had written this off as a conspiracy, and now their omega is paying for it. 

“We need a plan.” Farah says, breaking the silence. 

“We can’t let Shepherd get away with this.” John says. 

“We cannae just leave her.” Johnny argues against his head alpha. It’s a brave thing, considering his alpha’s current mental state.  

“I don’t know how much more she can take.” Simon backs his beta up, the desperation and pain on your face still visible in all of their minds. 

“Let us go after Shepherd.” Alex says, offering up a solution. “He’s obviously watching for you to come after him.” 

“We can move undetected.” Farah agrees. “He’s less likely to expect us. You need to focus on your omega. Shepherd will show himself again eventually.” 

“Do we have a lead on their location?” Kyle asks, turning back to Kate. 

She nods. “We do now. I sent a team out to try and track location through the videos and where they were being sent from.” She pulls a map up on screen. “We have a location.” 

“Texas.” Alex says. 

“He took her home.” Christine says. 

“We have a plan then. We go after Graves, Farah and Alex start tracking Shepherd. Kate is eyes in the sky for us.” John says. 

“She’s going to need medical attention as soon as possible.” Christine says. She looks at Kate. “Where is the nearest military base from their location?” 

Kate types on her computer. “Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth.” 

“Get me there and I’ll be waiting. She’s going to need someone she knows.” She says, looking at John. “She’s not going to just let anyone close to her after this. She may not even let you close.” 

John stares down at her for a long moment. She stares back unflinchingly. She doesn’t get intimidated easily, not after years of dealing with institutes and alphas alike. 

He lets out a breath, staring down at her for a long moment before he nods. “I trust you.” 

“Short reunion this time.” 

“I’m just glad I got to see your face again.” Christine says, looking up at Alex. 

“Things are...complicated.” He says. “Maybe after all of this is over we can go and get some coffee. Talk about our lives...as much as we can.” 

The corner of her mouth twitches up in a smile. “I’ll hold you to that.” 

Alex pulls her into a hug, holding her tightly. “You’re doing good work, Chrissy.” 

She shakes her head at the nickname, but she holds him just as tightly. “I’m trying to.” 

Alex pulls away, squeezing her arms. “I’d say you are. You care a lot. To the point some might call it a character defect.” 

She scoffs, slapping his chest playfully. “Not like you’re much better.” She glances at the car where Farah is waiting patiently. “I’m happy for you.” 

“Oh, we’re....” Alex blushes to his ears. “We’re not...” 

She gives him a look. “Mhm sure.” She looks up at him one more time. “Be safe.” 

“As best I can.” He says. “Take care of yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself either.” 

“I try not to be.” She squeezes his hand before stepping away. 

She watches the SUV drive off, stomach churning with nerves for both of them. Shepherd is dangerous, but Alex has fearlessly faced down danger since he was a kid. He’s always been brave and determined, loyal and unafraid to do what he thinks is right no matter what. She trusts him to take care of himself, she trusts Farah to help him, even if she only met the woman today. 

She trusts them both to take care of each other. She trusts them both to help put an end to this. 

Your body aches, muscles screaming. You can’t take much more. Your cheek throbs painfully, swollen to the point you almost can’t see out of your left eye. The pain burning from your neck makes the other pain in your body nearly irrelevant, nearly nonexistent. It’s like electricity, burning through your very cells. Every movement seems to make it flare, makes the electric shock jolt through you. The burning pain that follows makes you whimper, a pathetic choking sound squeaking out from your bruised throat. 

The pain makes you nauseous, vomit staining the front of your shirt and pants. It’s mostly bile and the little food you’ve gotten since your kidnapping. 

Nutrient bars, meant to keep you fed and nourished for a short period of time. 

You may never be able to eat them again. 

“Fuck.” Graves curses, staring at his phone. “They’ve backed off.” He steps up to you, looking down on your pathetic form. “Looks like your boys do care about you after all.” 

Do they? Are they really coming for you, or have they simply given up chasing Shepherd because they lost all their leads. Will they come for you, or will they leave you here to rot? What will Graves do then? Try to take you as his own omega? Kill you out of anger? 

Your stomach churns and you can feel the bile rising. 

You vomit again, the warm liquid splashing into your lap. You can’t lean far enough anymore, not without the risk of not being able to pull yourself back up, not with the pain burning your every movement. You can’t even lift your head anymore, your body weak and battered and bruised. There’s blood everywhere, on you and on the floor. You can still taste it in your mouth, mixing with the sourness of bile. 

Graves gives you a disgusted look before turning to the others in the room. “Duran, Lewis, keep watch. The rest of you come with me.” 

He leaves the room for the first time in what you assume is days. For once the cocktail of scents begins to disperse, all but two of the alphas finally disappearing. Where they’re going or what they’re going to do, you don’t know. You can’t bring yourself to care either way. You just want to go home. You want to see your mother again, your brothers and sisters, even your father would be a welcome sight after this. You want your alpha, you want him to hold you, to take you in his arms, keep you safe.

He abandoned you. He left you to suffer like this. 

Your breathing picks up as you sit there, chin to chest as you stare at your bloody shirt. The smells in the room are awful, the scents no longer there to block out the sour bile and metallic stench blood. Tears are streaming down your cheeks, pink tinted splatters dripping onto your pants. What are you going to do now? What are they going to do to you now? Will they keep you alive long enough for your pack to arrive then kill you in front of them? Will they torture them too, make them watch as the life slowly leaves your eyes in revenge for chasing after Shepherd? 

A sob rips through your sore throat up out of your lips. 

You just want to go home. 

You just want to be free. 

You can be. 

Distress. The final defense. The last ditch effort omegas have to save themselves. Distress will lead to your omega taking over, and if nothing else, a quiet death you won’t even realize is happening. Your body will give out and you’ll be safely tucked into the back of your brain, comforted by your instincts. You won’t have to worry anymore. You won’t have to care. 

If nothing else, the pain will be over. 

I’m sorry. 

You begin to breathe heavier, ignoring the pain in your body as you push yourself to hyperventilate. The alphas behind you might do something, might try to stop it. They could, but would they even know how? Would it even work if you got too far? They’re not your alpha. They can’t comfort you, bring you back from the edge without forcing you. Will they even bother? 

You tilt your head to the side, putting pressure on your injured scent gland. You sob at the pain, the burning flowing straight into your very cells, making them scream. You push through it, your wrists twisting against the zip ties, digging them further into your already damaged wrists. The pain pushes you to a point of panic, your heart rate through the roof. You can feel it, the tightening of your muscles, your joints locking into place. 

You’ve never done it purposefully before, but in this state, it’s not hard. 

They left you. They’ve abandoned you. They’ve given up. It’s all your fault they left. They’re not coming for you. You’re not worth it. 

The thoughts send you down the spiral, the edges of your vision starting to go dark. You’re floating away, hands and feet going numb as your wheezing, shallow breaths block the oxygen from getting to your brain. You’re sinking, your body floating as you begin to retreat into the back of your mind. The cage is open, your omega soothing you as you drift off, curling up in the back recesses of your mind. 

You’re safe now. She whispers. 

There’s no going back. 

You’re going to get out. 

Even if you have to do it yourself. 

The last breath you remember taking is shaky, making you cough before your vision begins to fade to grey, then to black. You’re getting out of here no matter what. You’re going to go to sleep. If you fail, you’ll never know it. Your death will be quick and gentle and you’ll never know it happened until you’ve moved on to whatever is next. 

You won’t remember any of this. That’s your only consolation. 

Your vision fades to black as all memory and awareness leaves you. The last thing you remember is the snap of the zip ties around your wrists as they break. 

“Graves has moved with some of his men to the western building. It’s likely the hostage is being held in the eastern building. Gaz and I will go after Graves. Ghost and Soap will try to secure the hostage.” 

“Keller is on her way to NAS JRB as we speak. They’re on standby for medevac.” 

“Stealth is our priority. They know we’re here, we risk losing the hostage. Quick and quiet, take them by surprise. The faster we do this, the sooner it will all be over.” 

**Content Warning: blood and slight gore, someone gets shot offscreen, some gorey and explicit imagery towards the end**

He’s not unfamiliar with high stakes missions. It’s his specialty. He’s cool and calm under stress and pressure, which is why he gets chosen for them. He can detach easily, get the job done and then go home and forget. 

So why are his hands shaking? 

This isn’t a high stakes mission, not like one he’s used to doing. The stakes are higher, higher than he’s ever had before. It’s not just eliminating some faceless target, it’s not just rescuing some faceless hostage. 

It’s rescuing you. 

How much did he get for this assignment? How much did he settle for once he learned you were involved? 

He hates that you were involved in all of this. He hates that they all fell for it, blind to the truth, blind to Shepherd’s traitorous actions. They refused to entertain those conspiratorial thoughts, and now you’re paying for it.

He hates it.

He should have never left you alone like that. He should have argued against Price and his decision to leave when they knew something wasn't right. They should have known something was going on behind the scenes, that there was a higher purpose to all of this.

His conspiracies had been correct from the start.

He hates that it had to come to fruition.

How could Graves torture an innocent omega? You're not just an innocent omega to him, though. You're a broken promise, a lost opportunity, one he'd waited for, for a long time. Of course he wouldn't have stopped as soon as they started going after him. He wouldn’t give up just because Shepherd told him to stop. He’s ruthless and uncaring of who he hurts and why. He gets his orders and he completes them, no matter what, so long as whoever is giving those orders can pay a high enough price.

Far too much despite that fact, most likely. Maybe he should become a merc. Less rules and more money.

It’s not a bad idea. 

He lasers his focus on the building as they creep through the trees, moving silently. Two against however many are inside. It was impossible to tell with how many were moving between the two buildings constantly. 

He brought the whole squad. He planned on putting up a fight regardless. 

At least they have the element of surprise on their hands. 

“We move silently through the building.” He says as they approach the door. There’s two guards standing outside. “They know we’re inside, things could go downhill quickly.” 

“On you, LT.” Johnny says, taking point beside him. 

“Drop one, I’ll take the other.” He says, aiming at one of the two Shadows guarding the door. 

It���s quick and quiet, their bodies slumping onto the damp dirt. Simon scans the area before moving forward to the door. It’s unlocked, Johnny pushing it open slowly to check for a trip wire. 

None. 

Sloppy, or perhaps on purpose. They can’t be too careful. Shepherd will have let Graves know they’re not on his trail anymore. He’ll be expecting them. 

They split up, combing the bottom floor of the building. He takes out two more Shadows, checking every room for a sign of their target, but they find none. 

“Second floor.” He says, waiting at the base of the stairwell for Johnny to join him. 

“You think she’s in here?” Johnny asks as they creep up the stairs, careful not to make too much noise. 

“Well, we’ll find out.” 

It’s far too unguarded to where they’re holding you. Graves will have assumed they’d split up. He must have moved most of his men to the western building to put up as much of a barricade as possible. He can picture Graves standing there, the smirk on his face as he holds a gun to your head. Will he take that risk, shoot you in front of them and give them nothing to live for? Or will he use a knife, letting you die a slow, painful death in front of them? 

Or, maybe he moved them to the western building to make them think that’s where you are. Focus their attacks there so they leave you behind. He gets cornered, he send the word to kill you before any of them can get to you. 

More red herrings. 

He pauses before he reaches the top of the steps, taking out the shadow standing down the hallway. They split up again, looking through rooms at the top of the stairs, making their way down the hallway. 

One of the doors is open, and he silently motions for Johnny. He counts down silently in his head before rounding the corner, rifle up as he scans the room. His stomach churns as he looks inside, taking a couple cautious steps forward. He’s seen a lot of things in his time, done a lot of things, but this is different. 

“Screaming Jesus.” Johnny says, lowering his rifle as he steps in behind Simon. 

There’s blood everywhere. 

It’s coating the floors, leaving a sticky residue as it dries. It’s the room you were in. He recognizes it from the video, and the bright light in the corner is a dead giveaway. The chair in the middle of the room has been broken, the wood of the arms snapped off and splintered. There’s four bloody zip ties on the floor, along with several instruments on the floor including the ice pick. 

He wants to shove that into Graves’ eye for what he did to you. 

There’s two bodies on the floor, one of them dead in a pool of his own blood, the other choking as blood seeps onto the floor under him. He steps up to the shadow, putting his boot on his chest and pushing. The Shadow lets out a groan, coughing up blood. 

“Where the fuck is she?” He growls, staring down at the quickly paling face. 

“Fucking bitch went crazy.” He chokes out. “Went running.” 

Simon steps back, pulling out his handgun and firing two bullets into the Shadow’s head. 

“Price, we found the room.” He says into his comm. “The hostage isn’t here. A half-dead Shadow said she bolted.” 

“LT.” Johnny says, motioning to the door, the only other exit from the room. There’s a bloody handprint on the door, one too small to be one of the Shadows’. 

“I think she managed to get out.” He says, staring at the handprint. His stomach drops, his hand tightening around his rifle. He glances down at the bodies, throats cut and faces bloody. “I think her omega took over.” 

“You and Soap go after her. She’ll do the one thing she knows to do, the one instinctual thing she can do if she has nothing to fight.” Price says. “We’ve got Graves cornered.” 

Simon pushes the door open, cool air flowing into the stuffy room. There’s bloody shoe prints heading down the stairs. He can see the rapid turn on the concrete below before they head off towards the trees. 

“I’ve got a trail.” He says. 

“Go.” Price says. “Simon...you know what you have to do.” 

He does.

He motions for Johnny to follow before hurrying down the stairs. The longer they delay, the further you’ll get. He doesn’t doubt some Shadows followed you if you made that much of a ruckus. The more time they waste, the more dangerous things get, and not just because they might lose you or the shadows might catch up. 

He races towards the treeline, rifle in hand, but there’s no one else standing guard. Price and Gaz will have taken care of those in the other building, and those that were outside probably went after you. 

He slows once they break the treeline, trying to catch any hint of your scent that might be left. His only hope is that you’ve left a trail. He’s a tracker, he knows what he’s doing. His senses are stronger, more in tune. He can find you. He can track you down. He has to. 

The guilt is eating him alive. If something happens to you, he’ll never forgive himself. He’s right here, so close and yet so far. You’re running on borrowed time and there’s only so much of it left. Eventually you have to slow, eventually your body will start giving up. Will it be too late then? If a Shadow finds you when you can’t fight back...

“Dead Shadow ahead.” Johnny says, motioning to the slumped over body ahead of them. “We’re on the trail.” 

“Let’s hope she left more markers on the way.” He says, kicking the Shadow, but the stab wound in his neck is all Simon needs to know. “Keep going straight.” He says, continuing on the path they’ve been following. He needs just a whiff, a hint of your scent. Something. 

They come across another dead Shadow, this one off to the side of the path they had been following. He turns, making an adjustment before moving forward. Johnny keeps close, both of them watching for more Shadows, or for any glimpse of you. All they can hope is they’re on the right path. 

He nearly sets off in a run as he hears a sound ahead. It’s a yowl, almost like a mountain lion. It sends a tingle down his back, his alpha blaring warning alarms. A threatened omega is a dangerous thing. Fierce and protective of themselves, capable of great feats and lethal if you get too close. 

It’s you, no doubt. 

Price had been right. 

He has no choice. 

He pushes forward, his steps quick as he makes his way through the bushes. He spots you near a boulder, trying to fight off a Shadow. He’s got the upper hand, using his size against you. You’re getting tired, your movements slowing. Simon aims with his rifle, a shot to the head dropping the Shadow. You drop into a crouch, surveying the trees. You’re covered in blood, a knife in your hand as your wild eyes search for them. 

“Distract her.” He says to Johnny. “Make yourself as unthreatening as possible. I’ll go around and get her from behind.” 

He doesn’t even wait for an acknowledgement before he’s moving, slipping around to the side of the boulder. Johnny steps into the clearing slowly, holding his hands up, talking to you quietly.

“Easy, kitten. Ye know who I am.” Johnny is careful not to get too close, his steps slow as he moves to the side, getting you to turn. “We’re just here to help ye. Get ye home and safe.” 

You’re holding the knife up, brandishing it at Johnny. Simon isn’t sure if you’ve ever thrown a knife before, but he doesn’t put it past you to try in this state. 

He hopes Johnny’s reflexes are fast enough. 

He slips out from behind the boulder as you pause, wasting no time as he races up behind you and grabbing you before you can bolt or go for Johnny’s neck. You let out another yowl, struggling against him as he wraps an arm around your chest. Your teeth sink into his arm and he lets out a curse, but he doesn’t let go. If he lets go, they won’t get another chance. It’ll be too late. 

He doesn't want to do it. His mind flashes back to his father and mother, one of the few times his mother fought back. It hadn’t lasted long before her body went limp, practically a ragdoll in his father’s hold. Simon had grabbed Tommy and ran, barricading them in his room. They didn’t want to see what was going to happen next. 

He doesn’t want that kind of control over you, he doesn’t want to put you through that trauma. The disorientation, the fear, the confusion. That must have been what it felt like after being sedated during your heat. You had been sick for days, crying in Johnny’s room. He had heard every sob, every attempt to soothe you. 

He put you through that. He made you face that despite the fear on your face as Johnny escorted you to the med center. 

And now he has to do it again. 

He has to this time. He has no choice. His only other option is to let you die. Price will never forgive him. Johnny won’t even look at him again. He’d betray them worse than you did, worse than Shepherd, worse than Graves. 

You never really betrayed them in the first place, though. 

You were afraid, untrusting of them, unsure because of your past. He had been foolish to blame you, foolish to think it was somehow your fault. You acted out of fear, out of terror. How you must have felt in those moments when that beta showed up, when you faced down Shepherd alone, when you returned to find your space invaded and those cameras all over your room. They weren’t there to protect you, they weren’t there to support you. They left you alone and you hid it from them because you didn’t know any better, because you were so afraid. 

He’s a goddamn fucking prick he’s been. 

Tears blur his vision as he tucks his free arm behind you, shifting your position just enough so he can get his hand around the back of your neck. You kick out with your legs, releasing his arm, your head tilting back in a last ditch, instinctual effort to protect yourself. 

His eyes squeeze closed as you let out a yelp, his fingers digging into the back of your neck. It’s hard enough it will leave a bruise, but he has to be sure. It’s the only thing that might save you. It’s his only option, his only chance to keep you alive. 

“There you go.” He says quietly into your ear. “Need you to relax for me.” 

Your body goes limp in his hold, head resting back against his hand as he holds you there. Your muscles twitch as the tension leaves you, eyelids fluttering before they close. His arm stings where your teeth had sunk into his skin, hard enough to draw blood, but he doesn’t care. 

“Keep resting.” He says, easing his hand from the back of your neck as he shifts you in his arms. “Gonna get you somewhere safe.” 

You’re like a ragdoll in his arms as he lifts you up, cradling you against his chest. You’re warm, hair sticking to your forehead. 

“Call it in.” He tells Johnny, his eyes still glued to your face. “We need that medevac now.” 

“Price, we got her.” Johnny says into his comm. “We need medevac stat.” 

You look so peaceful despite the blood soaking your body. Partially yours, partially the Shadows you killed in your escape. You look like a gruesome painting, a gorey depiction of an omega pushed too far. Something they’d put on display in a museum, a photo that would win prizes in celebration of such a natural state caught on camera. It would be circulated for decades, something talked about centuries from now. 

A raw view of humanity’s inner beasts. 

He can’t stand it, seeing you like this. They did this to you. They are the reason you’re like this. They made the bad call in the end, they put you through this. You won’t forgive them, not after everything. You went weeks without them, without a word and then this happened. Innocence tainted in the blood of the guilty. The bloodstained omega held in the arms of the blood-tainted alpha. He should be the one covered in their blood. He should be the one carrying the weight of torture and desperation on his shoulders. 

The guardian dog covered in blood in the name of protecting his innocent sheep. 

How he’s failed you. How they all failed you. 

He pushes past the pain, past the grief, past the guilt and the horror of what they did to you, what they put you through. 

They’ve got you back. You’re safe. 

It’s over. 

NEXT ->

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[whambambatfam]

Webs of a Wing

Chapter 1

I am not well versed in DC knowledge. I've read a bunch of the older comics but, honestly, these timelines are too confusing to say I have a firm grasp on what the fuck is happening at any given point.

Anyways, this is my story, I made a tumbler for it. I'll definitely upload again..

When the fly on the wall starts to spin webs of their own, can the bats catch on? Or will they be left to dangle in the web they've tangled?

───── ⋆⋅ 🕸 ⋅⋆ ─────

You're hardly school aged when you wake in a strange place, vague memories of someone patting your head as you fall asleep. Then it was all blurry and you went from cold hard ground, suddenly, to a warm bed worth more than you've ever seen.

Laying still, staring up at the ceiling, you lay dazed until you hear the door starting to creak open. Quickly shutting your eyes you wait for the suspect to peak inside.

When his voice sounds, back on the other side of the door, you perk up, "Who's this? They're kinda cute." A boy, most likely a few years older than you.

When that deep, fear inducing voice reaches for you, you jump out of bed after it. "Apparently, my child." He couldn't possibly be talking about you, right?

You make your way silently to the creaked door. Peeping through to watch them. "Huh? What?? Like seriously???" Hands resting on his hips, a boy of black hair and lean physique gapes.

A tall man with a build as intimidating as his voice, "Yes, I've run a DNA test and everything." His large arms cross over his broad chest.

Mirroring the older man's stance, the boy questions, "So, who's the mom?"

"I'm still working on that.."

"Have you.. asked them?"

There's a heaviness lingering in the hall around them. "We don't know if they'll talk yet, not till they wake up." He doesn't like not having answers, clearly.

"Can they?"

Swinging the door open, you bark out at your own defense, "I knew how'd to talk!"

His shoulder shot up, face blossoming in embarrassment, "Oh, sorry." Sighing, he tries to appear nonchalant. "Well, heyyy.. kid.. My name's Dick.” Placing a hand on your shoulder, he smiles, “Guess I'll be like, your, uh, big brother?"

Eyes widening, you step away from his grasp. Being in a strange place with strange people claiming to be your family was concerning. Even in your young mind, alarm bells rang loud and clear.

Like a light shining through your darkest times, his voice cut through the tension. “This may be all too much for,” A man, much older than either, rests his hand on your back, “the newly young master Wayne.” He ushers you gently back into the room. All gentle pats and kind smiles as he insists on you resting.

You never spoke about who or where you came from. It hurts to try, to think of the cold, the dark, the pain, the fear. Push out all the bad. Make it just go away. You just wanted it to go away. Wanted to take every memory of before and lock it up, never to be found. So, that's what you did, burying every painful memory. After some time, your young mind turned repression into suppression. Now, left with only bits and pieces, you couldn't remember even if you wanted to.

So, you’ll need to fill in the emptiness with this fresh start.

Life in the Wayne house started off joyfully. You found serenity in the solitude of the manor, disconnected from the rest of Gotham. When Alfred wasn't pushing tedious homeschooling work, you explored the massive house you'd be calling home. The quietude of empty ballrooms, winding halls and stodgy gardens was your respite. While it wasn't a place made for children, you felt at peace for the first time. The perfect home for a ghost with plenty of walls for flies and flowers alike.

Coming from unknown origins with no paperwork to speak of left you in a peculiar predicament. As a child was low grasp on the passage of time, you couldn't exactly say how old you were. Let alone when your birth date was. No one has ever bothered to tell you and if they have you certainly weren't going to remember. Infact, at Alfreds insists on a celebration, he comes to find you've never truly experienced a birthday of any kind. He had to correct this at once, give you a proper one with cake, singing and presents. It makes him wonder what sort of childhood you've been plucked from.

“Well, young master.” Alfred takes your hands as you climb the step stool next to him, “It's been a year now since you've joined us at the manor.”

Your hands slap onto the counter when you finally reach it. “Yeah, I like it.” Smiling wide up at the old butler, you babble on, “everything is so big and warm and it smells nice and I like when you cook and I wanna cook too and-” Alfred hushes your ramblings with a hand on your head.

“Yes, that's lovely, my child.” The other hand opens a draw nearby. “And that's what we'll be doing today.”

You tilt your head as the hand on it brushes over it and falls away, “Cooking?” Craning your neck, you try to peek at the cards he flips through.

“Well, baking, but yes.” He confirms, offering you a smile that's warm and sweet like his cookies, “Today was the day you joined the family, it's as good a day as any for a party.”

Your eyes light up, “A party for what?”

“Your birthday, my dear.” He chuckles softly at your look of awe,“Today will be your birthday, and every year I shall make you a cake.”

“Woah, every year?” You gasp as he hafs you the small stack of cards, each a handwritten cake recipe. While you can't read them yet, there are pictures of each cake pasted alongside the words. “That's a lot of cakes.. Can I help?”

“Whichever you like most we'll bake.” You're quick to pick one, waving the card around frantically, “I would be honored to have your help as well, young master.”

Alfred got to work with measurements, letting you pour everything into the bowls. He shows you how to mix, guiding you hand over hand when you struggle. You can't help spilling half of you what you're given, covering the counters. Sliding the pan batter into the oven, Alfred has you assist by wiping away your mess.

As he begins readying ingredients for frosting you ask, “Are those guys gonna join us?”

You're too busy scrubbing batter from your stool to see the way he deflates. “Unfortunately, your father and brother are tied up in something.” He sighs, taking the rag and finishing your job. With a sullen smile he hands you a measuring cup of sugar, “Perhaps next year.”

The night is spent merrily celebrating. When it cools Alfred frosts and decorates your cake. He places a number of candles, It's the first of many birthdays spent with just you and Alfred.

The next years were your first time in true schooling, a prestigious boarding school to boot. You couldn't remember seeing so many other children before. The eyes you received from strangers when given your new last name made your skin crawl. Deciding to forgo it in most encounters. Yet, for some reason to a great number of your fellow classmates, that fact seemed to matter greatly. If you met someone who insisted or withheld their friendship without, then you'd simply roll your eyes, never speaking to them.

You decided friends weren't important, instead making it your goal to not just succeed but to exceed. If this was your shot of a real family, you wanted to show them you were something capable. Worthy. You were hopeful, determined in getting close.

Only to be pushed aside at every opportunity.

“I got’ perfect score!” The words burst from you with such excitement you're bouncing on the balls of your feet.

Bruce doesn't even bother to look at the paper you're frantically waving at him. Simply mumbling as he places his mug in the sink, “Very nice.” Before turning to Dick, “Come on, son. It's time to go.” You thought maybe this was how a father was supposed to be. Cold, distant and hardly ever around for someone so small.

Alfred steps up from behind your slumped form. Plucking the paper from your dejected gaze. He hums softly before you hear a rap on the fridge beside you. “Wonderful job young master.” You smile for him as he pats your head. Happy to have at least someone’s acknowledgement.

From what your classmates say, a big brother will either pick on you or support you. Soon you came to find that living with Dick Grayson didn't guarantee you any of his time. Good or bad.

So, despite the terror that being center stage fills you with, you entered your school's spelling bee. The thought that maybe you could possibly impress them gave you just enough nerve.

“Hey, um, Dickie...” When you catch his sleeve, your teeth skin into your cheeks. He peeks over his shoulder at you, “Here, it's a competition.”

His nose wrinkles slightly before he smiles. “Spelling bee?” Not a real smile, you don't get those. It's a empty, meaningless thing that hardly lifts his lips.

“If you're not busy.” You clasp your fingers together, steeling your nerves.

“Uh, yeah. Maybe.” It’s thinly masked disgust if anything.

Time came to discuss bringing you into the public eye, an official declaration of your relationship with the Wayne's. Just the thought of it was unsettling, like placing a target on your back. The last place you want to be is the spot light.

“I don't wanna go. I won't go.” It was then in that moment, when the words left your lips, you could see it in his eyes.

A wave of relief Dick couldn't quite stifle, lip touching at the corner before turning to Bruce, “Maybe they're just scared of all those new people. With everyone looking at them, seeing them as your..” That uptick in his features falters slightly, “first child, technically.” Back then, you thought he cared. That this was actually for your protection. “It's a lot of pressure, maybe it would be better. For them, to stay safe.”

Bruce crosses his arms, examining his older child before looking back to the younger. “You have a point there, Dick.” You've twisted your fingers into Alfreds pant leg, half hidden behind him. “Fine. I won't force you to do anything you don't want to. It might even be for the better.” Neither of them wanted you there, thinly veiled behind words of care, never quit saying it.

Not once then did you realize. There was nothing you could do, nothing you could say, nothing you could show for. Nothing to make them see you, the real you. You couldn't provide them with anything, that made you useless.

“Very well, Master Bruce.” With a sigh, Alfred guides you away as the two leave. He was always the one in your corner. Before you even know this life would be a battle.

This give on the topic began your gradual slope into obscurity. In the hectic years of adolescence, you'd come to the conclusion that private schools are for snobs. You manage to convince the old butler, with baked goods, to allow a change of schools. Not wanting to slow your studies yet overwhelmed by your known family reputation. Public school seemed viable, no one had to know who you really were. There seemed to be no object, or real acknowledgment of this decision.

You used to believe, despite how they act, this was it, this would be your family and you could be happy. Surely, you thought, it's because you're new to them. It must be hard to connect, you found it quite difficult yourself.

So, you decided, you'll just need to put in more effort. Show them that there is something that you and they can do together. You took up everything you Alfred offered to teach you when he was around. You learned to cook, sew and clean the whole manor faster than the master butler himself.

Of course, he had other priorities, not just as your caretaker. Try as he might to keep you at the top of that list, he still has duties to attend. So, you would take your days, even weeks, alone with stride. A good time to build your skills on your own, finding new ways to utilize them. Hoping for something, anything, to bridge the gap with your new family.

“I'll be home late today, Al.” While you had gotten away from uptight private schooling, Alfred still set into a well funded school.

He gives a light chuckle of disbelief over the phone, “You have plans, young master?” Pinching the device between your shoulder and ear, you fumble through your first ever locker.

“It's just a club, I'll still need you to pick me up after.” With all your free time, you thought you'd use more of your growing skills.

“At your service my dear.”

You took time to catch on, years of peeling away from the background. Picking and pulling apart from the inside out, finding something that could peak their interest. Hoping to think twice, even once to turn their heads back to the lone manner.

That's how you found them, their secrets; and the life that pulled them as taunt in one direction as the other did. Digging for a way that you could connect from beyond the twice eye catching lives they live day and night. You were piled with reasoning when you found that special place in the library they all seemed to love. The idea of passing the security felt out of reach at the time.

Walking along the dark water line, looking out to the misty sky. You don't wish for misfortune, but you wait. When that light flickers on and that familiar symbol reflects on the dark Gotham clouds, your breath catches. Ducking alonge the rocky cliff wall by the large alcove, you listen to the rumble. You brace yourself as something in the shallow cave opens, the rumble growing.

Then you have your answer. The Batmobile comes billowing out of the cave, in its wake you hide. Long after its departure from the property, you emerge from your hiding spot. Slipping through the closing doors and wandering down into the bat cave.

Despite how they see through you most times, you're sure Alfred knows when you sneak in. So, appreciating this to be Alfred throwing his hand up and hiding his eyes for your sake.

It's awe inspiring to say the least, especially knowing you live above it every day. It felt like peeking through the lives of strangers and you couldn't look away. You don't know why he kept it from you but you didn't want to be shut out for knowing. Yet, you couldn't satiate your curiosity with just this visit.

You had told Alfred you had a meeting after a club and that you would be home late. For some strange reason he promised Dick would pick you up.

Water splashes up from a speeding tire as you walk along the misty Gotham streets, “Aw man, come on!” Of course Dick didn't show! Why would he? When has he ever?

Now, in this situation, Alfred would wish for you to call him for assistance.

“Over there! Look, look!” Across the intersection a pair gasps and squeals, fingers pointed up at the Boy Wonder. The last thing on his mind as he leapt through the night sky, was an unwanted sister.

If only Alfead could get everything he's ever wished for, but you're not a fairy.

Following gunshot and bangs you skirt around chaos, nearly avoiding an obvious outbreak of costumed thugs. You watch in ired fascination as they beat down each threat thoroughly. As the moon starts to sit lower again and the bad guys are carted away, you realize how long you've been gone.

You arrive at the gates in tune to be blown past by the Batmobile. Inside, Alfred gives you a look as if he knows every secret you've even kept. Thankfully he doesn't say a word, You're out of your damp clothes by the time the dynamic duo ascend to the manor.

For people of the shadows, they never could seem to see you creeping through them.

It's through this that you managed to learn about Barbra Gordon. The commissioner's daughter was someone you could only catch glimpses of from time to time. It was rare for you to catch her attention. Much too preoccupied with her work for the Bat, your father.

The batgirl's skill inspired your own delve into tech. Hacking, coding and even trying your hand at tinkering with new devices. Creations that you've jerry-rigged and hoped against hope that she would even glance at.

She's coming over today, you overheard dick say so. You've poked your head over the banister as you wait to spot the red head. Yet, once she's there, you freeze. Dick and Barbara push through the front doors together. Light rain chasing them inside from the sturing storm. Their foot falls followed by light laughter and easy chitchat. If only it was so easy for you.

You watch as your brother scurries off, promising to grab a towel. This is your shot. “Oh, um!” Words are coming from you before you even know what to say. Stumbling over yourself, you bumble over, haltung in front of her. “B-Barbra?”

“Huh, who?” At the ruckus you've made, she whips around. Head on a swivel 'till green eyes locking on you. “Oh! It's you.. uh..” looking you up and down she stumbles as well.

You have to give her your name, again.

“Right, right. Sorry.” Barbra looks off sheepishly, carting a hand through her hair. Hand flicking droplets from the ginger ringlets.

“It's okay..” that's alright, that's normal Even. You don't see each other all that often.. even though you remembered her name just fine. “I just want to ask you about some-” Unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly, she cuts you off before you can pull out what you want to share with her.

“I've actually got to-” Her mouth snaps shut before she thinks better of words, “Well, um, talk with Bruce.” She finishes with an awkward chuckle and mumbled “Y'know how it is. Always something with the Wayne's.”

No, “Yeah..” You didn't know.

You've never shared more than a last name with the Wayne's.

Patting your head she smiles, “Sorry again, hun. Maybe later?” turning away down the hall Dick had disappeared to. Even to the all seeing eye you were nothing but a mere fly on the wall.

Gothams streets were dark, dangerous, and the only place you could see them for more than a minute. You loved nights like this, when you could slip from the manor. Undetected by the inattentive gazes that should have kept a preteen like you home.

With this habit of bird watching, you found yourself looking more into your subpar self defense. Living in Gotham has given you a natural caution but all too often you've wound up in tight situations. All because you couldn't keep your eyes off them. Maybe if you show them you could do that, fight back, they might see you.

You put yourself out there over and over, “Uh, d-dad?” Alfred insisted you call him that, but it never felt right, “I've been doing, um, I have this..” taking a breath you force it out, “It's martial arts, could you come see me?”

Another paper half glance at before the typical, “I'll see what I can do.”

Apparently, there are some things even Batman can't do.

“H-hey.. I, uh, am doing..” You pull out the flier for your competition. inspecting it over before looking to see him. Half-heartedly glancing up from his comic, Dick gives you a once over before continuing to read, “Gymnastics.”

Finally his eyes hold yours when the word shoots from your mouth. For a second you think this is it. This is when you’ll finally have his attention. Finally make that long awaited connection with your big brother. “I'll see, why don't you ask Bruce?” Dick lays the paper on the living room table in front of him.

“I did... he said the same thing.”

The paper is still there when you come back later.

[oceandolores]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 | masterlist!

Dbf! Joel Miller x female reader

"God loves you but not enough to save you,"

summary: In the small town near Austin, Texas, you are trapped in a life of rigid expectations and silent suffering. As the preacher's daughter, you endure the mental and physical abuse of your father while your mother, bound by obedience, offers quiet love. Your longing for a father's warmth finds an unexpected solace in Joel Miller, your father's best friend and neighbor. In Joel's presence, you discover a forbidden sanctuary, where your yearning heart is met with a gentle strength you've never known.

warnings: 18+ only, Minors DNI, AU, No outbreak. (TW) mentions of substance abuse/alcohol use disorder, adult content, religion abuse, violence, blood gore, mentions of death, sexual abuse, sexual content, domestic violences, pedophilia, cannibalism, human trafficking, dad's best friend!Joel, HUGE age gap (i will not specify her exact age, but she's legal and Joel is 49), daddy issues, mentions of toxic family dynamic, Joel is widowed, Ellie is 16, angst, smut A LOT, forbidden relationship, soft and protective Joel, innocent and pure reader. your last name is Gibson. any other details will be explain throughout the story. inspired by the album Preacher's daughter by Ethel Cain and also mix with lana del rey vibes.

𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡

❝ to my love, Joel.

,...found you just to tell you that I made it real far, i never blamed you for loving me the way that you did.

while you were torn apart, i would still wait with you there.

don't think about it too hard, honey. or you'll never sleep a wink at night again.

and don't worry about me and these green eyes,

baby, just know that i love you. and i'll see you when you get here.

i love you forever, Joel... ❞

THE PLAYLIST! (on spotify)👰🏼‍♀️

the preacher's daughter ▪️ dbf! joel miller

MASTERLIST!🐇

Chapter 1: "But I always knew in the end, no one was coming to save me,"

Chapter 2: "Because that's how my daddy raised me,"

Chapter 3: "I watched him show his love through shades of black and blue"

Chapter 4: "He looks like he works with his hands, and smells like Marlboro reds,"

Chapter 5: "Because for the first time since I was a child, I could see a man who wasn't angry,"

Chapter 6: "Let him make a woman out of me,"

Chapter 7: "You wanna fuck me right now?"

Chapter 8: "The fates already fucked me sideways,"

Chapter 9: "Christ, forgive these bones I'm hiding,"

Chapter 10: "and that's why I could never go back home,"

Chapter 11: "I don't care where as long as you're with me,"

Chapter 12: "If it's meant to be, then it will be."

Chapter 13: "Beautiful people, beautiful problems."

Chapter 14: "You put your hands into your head, and then smile cover your hearts."

Chapter 15: "Something's bad is 'bout to happen to me,"

Chapter 16: "Tag, you're it."

Chapter 17: "If he's a serial killer then what's the worst that could happen to a girl who's already hurt?"

Chapter 18: "He's cold-blooded so it takes more time to bleed"

Chapter 19: "Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise,"

Chapter 20: "You poor thing, sweet, mourning lamb. There's nothing you can do."

Chapter 21: "If we die tonight, I'd died yours."

Chapter 22: "I'm always going to be right here, no one's going anywhere"

-THE END-

read it on wattpad!

the preacher's daughter by babyvenoms

ENJOY! and if you guys have any like visuals to this, or art that you made for this I would love to put it here, just let me know! thank you!! 🩵

[httpsserene]

𝐡𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫 | 𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨

summary: nobody can keep up with your growing list of hobbies, except fernando.

pairing: fernando alonso x brazilian!fem!reader

content warning: fluff and humor. explicit language.

from, serene: requested by and written for @loomiscorpse 🤍 i promised that i would write this for you in july and i finally found the time to fulfill it! this is how i learned fernando has a back tat. what rock have i been living under? happy reading, babes xxx

(in case i'm m.i.a., there's a category 5 hurricane that's looks pretty serious. i'm probably going to have a power outage. prayers to anyone else in the path of the storm, evacuate if you're on the west coast, and stay safe.)

⌕ join taglist | upcoming chapters | table of contents ↻

igstory • yourinstagram just uploaded!

[caption1; sip and paint with the ladies 👩🏽‍🎨🎨 carmenmmundt kellypiquet][caption2; for my first painting, this is good right?]

alexandrasaintmleux: i'll put it in a gallery 🤩 alexandrasaintmleux: i can't believe i'm friends with the best artist of our time 😌 yourinstagram: alex pleaseee omg 😳🤭 yourinstagram: you realize that means you think i'm better than claude monet right ? alexandrasaintmleux: ,,,second best artist of our time yourinstagram: 😆😆😆

fernandoalo_official: looks beautiful 😍 yourinstagram: you really think so??? fernandoalo_official: yes i like what you did with the colors and brush strokes of course yourinstagram: what detailed compliments meu bem 😂

carmenmmundt: i still don't believe that you've never painted before 🤨 carmenmmundt: you did so well !!!!!! yourinstagram: thank you my love 🥰 yourinstagram: i think i am going to keep painting. it was very fun! carmenmmundt: you should! you're quite good at it :)

instagram • yourinstagram

liked by heidiberger_, fernandoalo_official, francisca.cgomes and 101,723 others

yourinstagram encontro noturno em cores 🖼️

view comments

user1: ptbr to eng translation "date night in color 🖼️"

user2: wow!!! you improved so much already! have you been taking lessons?

➥ yourinstagram: thank you! the only lessons i'm learning are from youtube haha ➥ yourinstagram: and i have painted every day since i started! ➥ user3: you definitely have a natural talent for this! and a lot of potential!!! ➥ user4: it's taken me years to develop a minimal understanding of color theory and shadows. she's done it in two weeks 😕

user5: i know leonardo hates that he didn't paint this 😩😩😩

➥ user6: he's rolling in his grave for sureeee 🙂‍↕️ ➥ user7: bitch why tf would a ninja turtle be mad about this ☠️ ➥ user8: leonardo DA VINCI YOU UNEDUCATED CUR ➥ user7: my fault forgot the turtle wasn't the only person named leo 🫣🫠 ➥ user8: HOW DO YOU FORGET THE MAN WHO PAINTED THE MONA LISA ⁉️⁉️⁉️

pepemartiofficial: i loved doing art in school! i can teach you a few things if you want 😁😁😁

➥ yourinstagram: you mean primary school? which was like last year for you? i think i'll pass garoto 🥴 ➥ fernandoalo_official: josep maria marti sobrepepa don't piss me off. ➥ fernandoalo_official: test me and you can say goodbye to a formula one seat. ➥ user9: ain't no way pepe just tried to step to fernando's girl who's TEN !!! years older than him ➥ pepemartiofficial: shhh i can be mature for her 🤤 ➥ fernandoalo_official: count your days ���

carlossainz55: the painting is really good, you made the water look so realistic!

➥ yourinstagram: obrigada carlitos! ➥ carlossainz55: where's fernando's painting 😈 ➥ yourinstagram: it was very good! but he did not want me to post a photo of it :((( ➥ fernandoalo_official: it was very ugly carlos 🙄 ➥ yourinstagram: it was not that bad i just could not tell that it was supposed to be a tiger and not a house cat that was struck by lightning 😅 ➥ carlossainz55: i will pay to see this painting 🤣🤣🤣

twitter

igstory • astonmartinf1 just uploaded!

[caption1; admin was just forcibly handed bear coasters ??? she said they remind her of lance 🐻][caption2; the crochet culprit is on to her next project!]

user: lance bear agenda still going strong 💪

lance_stroll: i want bear coasters 😞 astonmartinf1: meet me downstairs, she gave me extras to hand out to the team lance_stroll: she's the best 🤩🤩🤩 lance_stroll: see you in 5?

user: DUDE she's onto clothes already??? how?!!!

user: admin i need you to send me photos of that sketchbook 👺🤲🏻 user: i need her patterns admin i'm not playing around astonmartinf1: lol get blocked loser 💀

instagram • fernandoalo_official

liked by carlossainz55, lance_stroll, yourinstagram and 234,586 others

fernandoalo_official there is yarn and hooks in my car. this has gone too far.

view comments

yourinstagram: you make a man a shirt with the materials HE bought for you and it's a problem. ungrateful behavior nano 😤

➥ fernandoalo_official: the shirt is very nice i even posed for a picture. all i ask is for no hooks to be left in the cupholders? ➥ yourinstagram: can we compromise and i leave them in the glove box 🥺

user10: let me get this straight: you crochet for a month and suddenly you become a fashion designer?

➥ yourinstagram: not a month, three weeks* i have been crocheting ➥ user11: oh fuck off- how are you good at everything 😩😩😩 ➥ yourinstagram: i am not! and i still cannot make a granny square no matter how hard i try to ☹️ ➥ user12: you don't need to know how to make a granny square when you can make actual pieces of clothing!!!

landonorris: may i have something crocheted too?

➥ yourinstagram: what would you like landinho 😊 ➥ landonorris: may i have a beanie? or a sweater?? ➥ georgerussell: ooooh i'd like a beanie too! ➥ francisca.cgomes: i want that top you're wearing! or something similar!!!! ➥ lance_stroll: what about earmuffs? ➥ lilymhe: a cardigan would be so nice ➥ charlesleclerc: i want a sweater!!! ➥ fernandoalo_official: leave her alone you greedy children 👹 ➥ yourinstagram: ignore him! text me what you all want with inspiration photos and i will let you know!!!

messages • sebastian -> fernando

igstory • yourinstagram just uploaded!

[caption1; hobby update >>>][caption2; to the woman at the craft store who put me onto oil paints...you saved my life][caption3; the wag crochet requests are almost finished!][caption4; first pottery class! had a really fun time :)]

user: i-i need to sit down👄 user: how do you even have time to do all of this?

user: i feel like i've never taken my hobbies seriously after seeing this

user: ffs how long have you been doing pottery? user: it's hard to learn at first but it's worth it if you stay committed 🫶🏽

instagram • yourinstagram

liked by charlesleclerc, lilymhe, francolapinto, and 192,037 others

yourinstagram que divertido! thrown, painted, and fired by me 🌸

view comments

user13: this is a reminder that there's always somebody out there doing what you love better than you 😒

➥ user14: wasn't she JUST at her first pottery class? and she already has a set of dishware 😨

user15: i feel like i have to apologize for even attempting pottery

user16: i would hate to give my gift after her on birthdays and christmas 😬😬😬

➥ user17: valid take. she can make custom clothes, paintings, and ceramics??? i might as well not even show up 🤦🏻‍♀️

kellypiquet: where do you even find the time to do this?

➥ yourinstagram: i have not slept for more than five hours in a very long time. it also distracts me when nano is away so, i keep myself busy. ➥ kellypiquet: please take better care of yourself! the clay will be there after you sleep and i'm sure fernando would like you to sleep too. ➥ fernandoalo_official: 8 hours at least mi amor ❤️ ➥ yourinstagram: fiiiiine 😞

lance_stroll: bring the domino set next time! i want to learn how to play!!!

➥ yourinstagram: i will make you cry if we play dominoes 🤫

user18: you need to start an etsy shop or smth? i think anybody would buy something from you!

➥ yourinstagram: if i do that, i'm afraid it would stop being a hobby and become a job. i don't want to lose the love i have for them :) user19: you could do limited releases? or just list a few items at a time? yourinstagram: i guess that's true. i don't think i will though, i didn't start my hobbies to make money. it's just fun for me 😁

twitter

igstory • fernandoalo_official just uploaded!

[caption; onto the next obsession]

user: damn you didn't lie about the entire botantical collection 😧 user: she's crazy user: i respect her grind though

user: and she made them look like actual boquets 😍 user: why didn't i think of that???

yourinstagram: they are not obsessions. yourinstagram: the proper term is hobby, we have talked about this nano 😒 fernandoalo_official: do you want the vespa or the bonsai…🤨 yourinstagram: both por favor! and get the porsche 911 kit while you are there 😚😚😚😚😚😚

user: she crocheted her own cover up dress user: i love women 🙂‍↕️

instagram • yourinstagram

liked by fernandoalo_official, kellypiquet, landonorris, and 317,940 others

yourinstagram um hobby? ok. quatro hobbies ao mesmo tempo? não repita meus erros 🤕

view comments

user20: ptbr to eng translation "one hobby? ok. four hobbies at the same time/once? do not repeat my mistakes 🤕"

➥ user21: thank u translator woman ➥ user22: thank u translator woman ➥ gabrielbortoleto_: thank u translator woman ➥ user24: one of these things is not like the others 🧐

landonorris: can't wait till it gets chilly in monaco 😌

➥ landonorris: the only thing i'm going to be photographed in is my crochet beanie and sweater ➥oscarpiastri: i'm surprised you're not wearing it now since you're perpetually cold ➥ landonorris: i didn't want to bring it in my luggage in case it's the time i lose my luggage 🤓 ➥ oscarpiastri: wow…that's smart ➥ landonorris: why do you sound so surprised 🤨

lilymhe: i see you learned how to make granny squares 😆

➥ yourinstagram: it took me three whole days to make one 🤧 ➥ lilymhe: damn 💀 ➥ yourinstagram: i am not lying when i say making that first granny square was harder than making your cardigan 😮‍💨

fernandoalo_official: is it weird if i feel proud of you?

➥ yourinstagram: i think it is something to be proud of :) ➥ fernandoalo_official: well i am very proud of you mi amor 😘 ➥ yourinstagram: 🥰😚😚❤️❤️❤️

user25: those paintings!!!! woah, you're like a serious artist now 😨😳😱

➥ user26: fr! you can see her own unique style clearly in these! ➥ yourinstagram: you all are too sweet! it took me a while to switch from reference painting into creating my own art pieces! ➥ alexandrasaintmleux: i wasn't joking when i said i want to put your work in a gallery 🤭🥱 ➥ yourinstagram: alex pleaseee 😖

user28: what are you going to do next? book binding LMAO

➥ yourinstagram: you are right! nano is out buying the supplies for me now 😁 ➥ user28: i was joking 😟 ➥ yourinstagram: and after that i think i am going to learn how to make a cute scrapbook!

© httpsserene - do not repost. photos used are from pinterest.

[itsbenedict]

mutual 1: conventional morality is nowhere near cringe enough to be based. you agree.

mutual 2: i'm going to liveblog my attempt at solving this obscure statistics conundrum you've definitely never heard of

mutual 3, reblogging mutual 2: oh, yeah, the Obscure Statistics Conundrum, we've all seen it. i have strong opinions on the obvious easy and simple way it should be solved, somehow

mutual 4: i need. to fuck that old man.

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 6: [twenty-post long reblog chain arguing about politics with a stranger in stubborn defiance of the obvious fact that the stranger is not reading a single word they're saying]

mutual 7: here's my take on the latest chapter of the current Wildbow serial that you're going to have to blur your eyes and skip past because you haven't found time to read all five million words of this cool thing you don't want to be spoiled on

mutual 8: what if [the most deranged shit you've ever heard in your life]- and we were both girls?

mutual 4: don't forget i need to fuck that. old man. please.

mutual 9: [automatically generated link to a post on some ideologically extreme underground social media site with ten users that they use instead]

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: god every single thing about my life situation sucks so fucking much i want to cry and now you do too

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 10: reblogging that last picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 4: that old man. you know. what i need.

mutual 11: here's today's doodle :) [outlandishly beautiful piece of original art which gets seven notes]

mutual 12: only posted eighteen spicy takes about gender today, so here's a new one i just came up with. is this anything

mutual 13: hey, wanna look at this pornography that somehow hasn't gotten taken down by Tumblr yet?

mutual 14: [a pun so bad she gets put in the fucking Hague]

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 5: picture of a bird

mutual 15: [21st reblog on the politics reblog chain where everyone is talking past each other and has zero intention of persuading anyone]

mutual 4: i need to FUCK that old man. what do you mean he's dead

mutual 8: what if i fucked that old man. and we were both girls.

[frmisnow]

ONCE AGAIN, MILAN ! - (nsfw)

summary. what happens when you and jungkook find yourselves once again in milan, this time with no business attached — well a hol' lotta sex for sure!

notes. guysss i changed my mind! there will be a fifth chapter because there is something that i want them to do- a refrence to chp. 2 + they need to get lil cheonsa duh?? ✶𝄞 if y'all are currently reading this, i'm probs already on vacation! so it'll take a minute, regardless, i hope everybody enjoys!!

warnings/includes. non idol! ceo! jungkook x f! employee! reader, smut described/implied multiple times!! (morning sex, very slight voyeurism / heavy flirting in a boutique, NASTY dirty talk) , drabble-ish (idk i just want them to be happy), cheonsa mention (we cheered)

the morning had begun in the best way possible. the bright italian sun on your face, the hotel sheets lightly crumpled, well- and jungkook.

jungkook who had woken you up with gentle kisses starting from your face, moving to your shoulder, all the way to your tits. kissed your sore little thighs too, because "they deserved it" after all the things they've gone through - sure.

he made love to you. moaned how beautiful you were along with some other sweet dirty nothings.

it was the kind of sex that made you feel cherished, worshipped even, as if all of his love was burried solely in his tip and he poured all of it into you, when you both came.

after spending what felt like hours wrapped up in each other, you had finally left the bed, your body still tingling from the morning’s activities. the first spot was a cat café, jungkook had read about it somewhere, thinking of you.

you both had spent a few hours in there, sipping on your respective lattes, playing with the little cats while their tiny paws brush against your legs. jungkook had his polaroid camera out at all times, clicking away.

showed the photos to you, told you how cute you looked, how the kitten in your lap looked just like you. how you both should get little cheonsa just like that.

closely after, you both took your time strolling through the streets, hands intertwined, ending with him pushing you into a high-end boutique. you smiled at his eagerness, it wasn't the first time he spend that black card of his on you.

jungkook handed you a dress, that reminded more of a whisper of fabric rather then a real garment, leaving little to the imagination. but you instantly nodded, that's what you liked about being with him; you didn't feel shy, there was no reason to. not with every single thing jungkook has said about your body this far.

the fitting rooms were large, they felt like rooms by themselves. jungkook sat outside patentily, tapping his legs. when you walked out you could clearly see him trying his absolute best not to reach out his hands, his pupils widening ever so slightly, taking a deep breath to compose himself, "turn around, angel, for me."

you did as he said when done, walking over to take a seat on his thigh while his fingers immediately moved to stroke your thighs, mumbling how pretty you were.

the way you were sitting, so close to him, he could make out your pretty panties peeking under the dress. black lace, with little bows he had gifted to you when you visited that lingerie place a few days ago, thinking of you in that store didn't make his growing buldge any better.

and you most certaintly made it even worse by whispering into his ear, how much you needed him and how wet you've been ever since this morning.

he bit his lip, your body was so painfully close and your skirt only rode up, gently pinching your thigh almost as a light warning, "remember where we are"

following you made a little pout, but mumbled a reluctant 'fine' anyway, making your way back into the fitting room.

next stop was a restaurant, you hadn't even noticed that it had gotten late by this time but jungkook took care of it, as always. how he managed to get a reservation at this place, you didn't quite know but you certaintly weren't complaining. he had pulled your leg over his some time ago, running his hands over the skin, the action innoccent in a way caring, like he was so sorry that you had to walk this whole day even though he had spoiled you shamelessly.

his fingers drew patterns and tiny circles over the skin, his face glowing from what was left of the sun through the large windows.

"i'm so happy" you smile, your fingers moving through his hair lightly.

jungkook's lips curl into a soft smile, just like yours, leaning into your touch, "i'm happy too, angel" his voice low and affectionate, "everday"

the evening went exeptionelly well, he talked you stupid about some of the other things he wanted to do, didn't mention business even once.

you both walked back to the hotel, you liked the city at night and had asked him to walk instead of taking a taxi. he didn't let go of your hand, swinging.

he walked back to the hotel with you, holding your hand tightly, it had been your wish to stroll back, you liked the city at night. it all reminded you of that night but it was different this time, it felt good not having wine in your system.

for once you felt like you actually could love jungkook, without alcohol, without your job, any other factor in your way. you could fuck him freely without having to blame the alcohol for it, after.

love is lust. that's why he pounds you into the large matress, tells you how bad you've been, how greedy you were.

he asked questions, dirty ones, you were way to brain fucked to understand dare to say even answer.

asks how much you'd like it, him filling you up everywhere, in the bathrooms, around his apartment, in the elevator, during your shifts at work, how he'd make you walk around feeling full, feeling dripping and sticky under your skirt.

describes how he'd call you into his office just so he could take you nicely on his desk. have you walk out later, nod to all your colleagues, like a good girl.

you barerly hear him and the words make you moan out are vile things that people only say when they are about to come. how you wanted to marry him, have him around you all times, how much you wanted him every minute.

you thought about how small you'd want the wedding to be, you, him and little kitten cheonsa. and you moan again, like a porn star.

and he responds, gripping your hips tighter, "i'd marry you tomorrow if you asked me to, hell i'd make a baby with you right this second if you wanted."

he let out a grunted string of 'please's though you weren't even sure what he was begging you for. your brain felt so incredibly mushy.

few seconds later, he filled you up, making a mess of you. he instantly reached out to touch your chin gently to look at you, "you okay, princess?"

you managed to nod but he shock his head, "words, i need to hear you, angel" it was a soft order, one you couldn't look away from.

so you reassure him that you are happy and so content, he seems to like your words, smiling. lifting you up and maneuvering you on top of him, still inside of you. his fingers trace over your bare back soothingly as he lights a cigarette with his other hand, just like that night.

and you smiled to yourself because you knew. you knew that this time when you woke up, you wouldn't have to leave, you would be able to look at his sleeping smile as long as you wanted. it was a comforting thought.

— cheonsa means angel.

🍓 tag list — @chansloverr , @marimarvelfan , @bxcndd , @1-in-abillion , @ahgasegotarmy116 , @copycat-namjesus , @malkaimoon , @geminiml95 , @taiwan0618 , @jungkookfics , @rrosiitas , @stuti2904 , @spiderlilyserendipity , @m00njinnie , @ririkookiemonster , @emptynessclub , @yoongznme , @snow-strawberry , @ttanniett