#is the scrubs fandom alive

[stepbackattack]

Me and @nyatem in the medical show trenches

[anewgayeveryday]

Today's LGBT+ Character is

Todd "The Todd" Quinlan from Scrubs-Bisexual and Polyamorous

Requested by Anon

Status; Alive

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

John 'JD' Dorian from Scrubs-Bisexual

Requested by Anon

Status; Alive

[swift-creates]

category: Gen

fandom: DC Comics (Young Justice, Batfamily)

characters and relationships: Tim Drake, clone baby, Kon haunts the narrative (Timkon isn’t explicit but. it��s a clone baby au)

warnings: almost drowning, infant whump

Summary:

@ailesswhumptober Day 29: Ownership, branding, “Everybody will know that you’re mine.”

Tim tries to clone Kon, but this time it works.

notes: I can write so many Timkon fics with this prompt list :fireElmo: Inspired by this post by @hyperblue which has haunted me from the moment I saw it please come bother me with interest about this AU or any of mine plsplspls on my knees in tears pls

—

Tim woke to the loud beeping of one of the many machines in his lab. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, frowning at his reflection in the powerless computer screen; there were sleep marks on his cheek from the sleeve of his sweater, but aside from that he barely looked like he’d rested at all. The circles under his eyes hadn’t budged, and he sighed and scrubbed his hands across his face. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see them, anyway. He rarely left his lab except to grab more snacks from Titans Tower when he ran out, his work far too important to abandon. 

Tim got up and trudged past the empty cloning chambers to look for whatever had gone wrong, picking at the plaster on his arm where he’d drawn his own blood. His tablet lay on a table across the room, and he needed to recheck the Kryptonian environment values he’d copied off the Batcomputer-

One of the chambers wasn’t empty. 

He stared at it for a second, seeing but not quite understanding. Attempt one hundred and twenty-nine successful, the green letters said cheerfully. He stepped closer slowly, as if it was an animal that would lunge and try to bite him, and gingerly placed a hand against the glass. It was near but not exactly room temperature — 99.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 37.3 degrees Celcius, to be precise, ever so slightly warmer than a regular human temperature. 

“It worked,” he said to the empty lab. The machines keeping 129 alive seemed to sigh in response, then the beeping got louder, and the infant stirred in its glowing pod. No, not just stirred. It flinched. 

Error, the screen read now in bright failure red. The small letters underneath would have told him the reason, but he didn’t read it because 129 was struggling, tiny lungs seeking desperately for air and only receiving fluid. Tim’s heart screamed, and then he realised he was screaming. 

He can’t lose him. Not again and not like this. 

One heartbeat, and he was rushing forward, smashing the glass with his bo staff and pulling the infant out of the pod. 129 coughed up liquid and was still for a terrifyingly long moment, and Tim’s heart froze in his chest. 

Then the baby took a shaky breath and let out a gloriously loud cry. Now he was wet and wailing, but he was breathing. At least he was breathing. Tim went to rub a hand across his face in relief and halted when he realised it was covered in thick fluid. “It’s okay,” he said, and realised his throat was choked with tears. 129 cried louder and kicked his little legs as Tim became painfully aware how austere and clinical his lab was, absolutely no place for a helpless infant. There was no milk ready for him, no swaddling cloths to wrap him up in. And it was so, so cold. He must be so cold. Get it together, Drake. 

There was a shirt hanging on the back of his chair, and Tim reached for it, wrapping 129 in the black fabric and holding him close. “Shhh. It’s okay. Shh, shh.” The baby’s cries lowered slightly in volume, but didn’t stop. Tim bounced him gently, folding the shirt over him to keep him warm better- 

The edge of a familiar red insignia peeked out from underneath the folds of the shirt, and Tim froze. Kon’s shirt had artificial amniotic fluid and a crying baby in it. Kon’s shirt was wet and soiled and ruined and gone and Tim can’t even protect this one last part of him can he-

Then he was sliding down the wall to the floor and realised he was the one crying now. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, to Kon and to 129 and to no one at all. “I’m s- I’m so sorry.” 129 made a soft sound in his arms, but that just made him cry harder. Tim couldn’t take care of a baby. He’d failed Kon and failed Bart and failed Bruce and it’d been barely a day and he was already failing 129. 

As if that wasn’t enough, he had the stark realisation that the child in his arms resembled old baby pictures of Tim himself a little too closely, the tiniest package of Kryptonian blue eyes in a round little face. “Everyone will know you’re mine.” This wasn’t supposed to happen. His DNA was supposed to stabilise Kon’s, not influence it. He’d given 129 the curse of being related to him, in addition to being the ghost of a dead man. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He curled in around the infant and wept, surrounded by broken glass and a broken heart. 

[manias-wordcount]

Hello!! I am new to FMA fandom but i was reading your works and i really really love how you characterize Edward especially in your work “Powerless��� it was the perfect mix of fluff and angst and i was wondering if you could another piece just like it? Like Reader ends up in a situation or in the crossfire of a fight where civilians ended up hurt and Edward gets a call from the staff of the clinic/hospital Readers staying in?

In a HeartBeat (Edward Elric x Reader)

𝗔/𝗡: 𝗶𝗺 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗺! 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆!!

𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚!! 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗷𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱, 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚?

“Mr. Elric, this is Central Hospital. We regret to inform you that there was an attack near your place of residence and-”

It’s like his feet are moving on their own. 

A call from the hospital. A mention of regret. The expression of grief. An attack near his home. There’s only one person who he would ever get this call for. He didn’t even have to let the voice on the other side of the phone finish speaking. He knew who they were calling about. He knew what they were calling about. They were calling about you and the fact that his worst nightmare might come true.

And so his feet began to move on their own- not even bothering to hang up the phone. He knows he’ll lose too much time if he stops now. You’re far too important for him to care about courtesy. You’re far more important for him to even bother to respond to his brother’s calls behind him, asking what’s wrong. Asking where he’s going. Asking what he heard. But Ed couldn’t stop. He just couldn’t. You’re just too important to him. You just are. 

That’s why you’re the only thing on his mind as he races through the streets, breath ragged and eyes wild as he pushes himself to go faster and faster. He’s coming from his office. It’s not a short trip. But he makes it shorter by cutting through alleyways and weaving in between the daily lives of the people on the street. He narrowly misses some. Others he smashes into their shoulders, causing him to shout half-there apologies he can barely be bothered to get right in response to all the exclamations of anger.

But honestly…who cares about any of them? Who cares about the ordinary people on the street. The ones oblivious to what's going on in the world. The ones who never know any fear. Who cares about any of them? He doesn’t. Not right now.Because his mind is far too busy thinking about the worst. His mind is far too busy imagining what he might see when he finds you. 

How badly were you hurt? 

Was this a targeted attack? 

Were they going after you? 

Was someone trying specifically to kill you? 

Were you conscious? 

Were you even alive?

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know.

That’s why he only grits his teeth and even runs faster. His lungs burn in the process. His heart beats directly in his ear. And the world is nothing short of a blur around him. But it takes him to the hospital faster. It takes him to you faster. And before he knows it? He skids his way into the emergency department, tossing the doors open and demanding to know where you are in a voice that feels so very far away- even for him.

The room is full of people, and all eyes draw themselves to him. Some are injured. Dressed splints with bandages still stained red. Their eyes are wide with fear and anguish and pain. They cower at the sight of him- a boy dressed in the blood who bares his teeth and lights fires with his eyes. A baby cries after a while. A sea of whispers starts to spread. But none of these faces…none of these voices are you.

But some of the people… some of them work here. Some of them are dressed in scrubs and come over to greet him in voices that are placating and show that they know what they’re doing. That he’s not the first person to show up in an emergency room lobby like this and he certainly won’t be the last. They ask him to calm down. He tries. They ask him for a name. He gives yours to them. They ask him what his relationship is to you. He tells him that he’s the Fullmetal Alchemist and it’s his job to keep you safe and he’s going to find you with or without their help. The scrubs- the nurses- look at each other. They exchange silent glances and communicate in looks over their masks that he just can’t seem to read.

Then they tell him that you might still be asleep but they can take him to you if he would like. At the revelation, his heart aches.

“Yes,” He breathes out, the words barely above a whisper. “Yes, please.”

It’s only minutes later that he finds himself in your room. The nurse who led him there explained everything that they knew on the walk over, but he still finds himself just barely recalling bits and pieces. Gunfight between two strangers, just a block away from where he stays. A small stampede in the street that was over in seconds. No one dead. A couple were injured. 

The bullet that grazed your upper arm and the major concussion you received when being shoved into the street were some of the worst of the injuries they’ve received and treated from this incident so far.

But you were alive. You were alive and that’s all that mattered to him.

You were asleep when he first saw you though. It was exactly as the nurses said. And you didn’t wake up when he was let in your room either. You didn’t wake up when Ed went to stand over your hospital bed, brushing a few stray hairs out of your face as the nurse said they’d be back to check on you later. And you didn’t wake up when Ed decided not to even wait for the door to close before climbing onto your bed and cuddling you up to his side as he held you close and held you tight. Tracing the bandage wrapped tight around your arm and shoulder with feather-light touches. 

You made a soft sound at his presence. Your face twisted up in surprise. But you moved in closer. And you kept on sleeping. As if he wasn’t even here. As if you were just back at home, napping your little heart out on your shared bed with him. Waiting for the moment he comes back from work to spend time with you.

He closes his eyes at the thought and breathes in your scent. The sterile smell of a medical environment still lingers in the air, but it’s still you. The bed isn’t as soft or as comfortable as the one the two of you share at home, but it still fits two. He must have run like a madman across town, bumping into people and bobbing and weaving without a care for anyone else in the entire world. But he’s still here. He still made his way to you.

And maybe now, that his heart and starting to slow and he can focus on something other than his spiraling thoughts of you in danger, he can find some peace. For your sake, at least. Because he’s here now. You're safe now. He’s right by your side and will never let you go now. And if you wake up, lost and confused and afraid? He’ll be right here to calm you down. To remind you that you’re safe. That you’re okay. And that everything will be alright. He’ll do that for you in a heartbeat. He’ll do that for you the moment you wake up. Because he knows you’ll need it.  He knows you need him.

Almost as much as he knows he needs you too.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

each separate dying ember

Fandom: Sunrise on the Reaping Rating: T Word Count: 1524

Summary: Haymitch goes for a walk before sunrise, reflecting on a conversation he heard between Katniss and Peeta the night before.

This town hasn’t made a sound for Haymitch since the morning he returned on the train. The scenes in his head have stayed quiet all these years: no thunk when the coffins hit the platform, no crackle to the fire he couldn’t tear his eyes from while Burdock’s weight pressed him flat in the road. No pleas for Burdock to press harder, snap his ribs, stop his lungs from inflating, let him die.

But Haymitch guesses those last ones were just in his head.

It’s not a regular deafness, like you get blowing the tank in Sub-A or triggering a plate-mine boobytrap to eradicate a heap of enemy supplies. This is a deafness that lets sound in but strips the meaning, the way he saw Asterid do with herbs in the apothecary shop when they were young, leaves sheared from stalks, clean away. Haymitch has worked at this deafness, worked at it as hard as his pa worked in the mines. While he still feels like a newcomer to the rest of his life, he’s made a career of this.

So the undoing is unnatural. He doesn’t want to hear, doesn’t want to be in the world where coffins crack when they’re slung like sacks and the walls of your house crush in on themselves like dry bones. Those sounds seemed so long gone that getting them back, reacquainting himself with the part of his mind that selfishly remembered how to hear, is the freshest pain Haymitch has felt in….

He hasn’t been able to tell how acutely Katniss and Peeta notice this special skill of his. Then, he’s never particularly cared to try. Here in 12, he’s had his house and, more importantly, his reliable supply of white liquor. Hasn’t given a hang what anybody notices or ignores about him in a good long time. Now that he’s letting the sound have meaning again, the softest sigh of Lenore Dove deafening in his memory, can the pair of them tell? When he tells them details for the book, is there a sign in his face that indicates he can hear the sound of four hands working the pump to fill the cistern? Does the swish and scrub of laundry show in his grey eyes when the light hits them right?

Maybe not. Maybe the pair of them are too caught up in each other, and Haymitch knows how that goes—now with sound. Maybe the three of them are too close to mind talking about each other’s faults and peculiarities out in the open. Fuck knows they’ve got a mountain between them. Whether or not they knew or cared that he could hear them doesn’t bother Haymitch, but he did hear them, talking the night before, wondering about him in the kitchen while he lay half-asleep on the couch, too close to something he’s decided to call peace to recall whether they were in his house or he in one of theirs.

“Do you believe him?” His voice.

“Which part?” Hers, not angry, but an edge of defensiveness on Haymitch’s behalf.

“It was all so awful for him. When he got back. Relentless.”

“I don’t know if he ever did get back. Did we?”

“If you don’t know, I sure don’t.”

There was self-deprecating humour in the words, a goodness Haymitch would still die to protect, if he had to. He’ll never stop feeling that he should have been shoulder-to-shoulder with Wyatt, defending the most vulnerable of their allies.

Peeta continued, “I only mean that maybe he misremembers how fast it all was, how close together their deaths were. Snow—”

“Snow was capable,” Katniss said with finality.

“No question.”

A sound like chair legs on the floor, and Haymitch wondered if they’d shifted closer to touch. Katniss was skittish as hell—more right to be than any person alive, probably—but Haymitch had seen the two of them holding hands. She let Peeta, in the garden, when he’d been working the soil. It made Haymitch burn for the woods, and he usually sent a scalding scoff of white liquor down his throat after the feeling, trying to temper his own expectations with a brutal hand.

“I knew he had someone,” Katniss was saying now, and Haymitch knew he’d missed something, trailed off in his own thoughts, still relearning to hear. “I wish I could picture her.”

“I left space for a drawing, when he’s ready to describe her to me,” Peeta replied, so gentle it makes Haymitch want to force himself out of his own consciousness.

“Lenore Dove Baird. Can you picture Haymitch with a girl named Lenore Dove?”

The former meadow is a gulf of ugliness and misery, but the only thing worse than confronting it is ignoring it, so Haymitch heads that way, out across the grey world before the dawn. He likes the quiet. The quiet has been his ally since he was sixteen years old. His roommate, in the house that would never shelter his family. His companion, after he firmly turned his friends away.

Under the ragged fence, over the bomb-turned earth, avoiding the graves. Grave. Graves.

Far enough and Haymitch knows the ground is green, though the light doesn’t show it yet, the sun not high enough to strike the earth like mining emeralds. For now, the blades are blueberry-black, deep and dark like the night sky Sid loved so much has been poured all over the ground. Like Haymitch walks on water, the world beneath his feet just a reflection of one people have never managed to hurt. Just like Lenore Dove always wished for this old place.

At the horizon, the sky becomes violet, as though someone’s on the other side, scraping at the grey so the colours can get through. The grass gets taller, wetting Haymitch’s pantlegs.

“I can picture a lot for him,” Peeta said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, before we knew him, Haymitch was a sort of caricature, wasn’t he? Up on that stage every year, drunk enough for people to smell the fumes from the crowd.”

“He wasn’t weak,” Katniss said tightly, making Haymitch wonder idly whether that had been her own preconception or just the general one.

“I still don’t know everything he was,” Peeta added, cautious but kind, “but when he talks about his people, I think I start to believe.”

“Believe what?”

There was a long pause as, presumably, Peeta collected his thoughts. Haymitch found himself surprised by his own anxiousness to hear what the boy would say.

“I believe that he could love people—a lot of people. I believe that he would have died for any of those Tributes if he could’ve. I believe he had someone…”

The words got wet, turned to mush, and Haymitch heard a chair again.

“You have me,” Katniss promised.

“Real,” Peeta said, answering the question Haymitch has heard him ask his girl many times.

After a moment, he found his place and went on.

“I believe Haymitch had someone, and that he was loved, and that she would have died for him. She left this glow on him. She’s on every side he turns towards the sun.”

That made Haymitch turn towards the back of the couch. He didn’t know what to do other than press his face into the seam and pull a cushion against his head until he couldn’t hear them talking anymore.

It’s far. He hardly remembers, and probably wouldn’t if it weren’t something he could never forget. Eventually, Haymitch claps eyes on the shape of the stones in the dark and peers to see the tender weathering of time.

He might talk to her, in a while. At first, he just sits in the damp grass across from her headstone, his gaze moving over the poem that adorns it without exactly reading the words night still obscures, not needing to, each one engraved with equal depth and care into the monument he carries to her in his heart. The anguish is no longer a deep well but a flat lake—present, vast, but something he can wade into without the fear of drowning. Haymitch sits with his eyes closed and thinks of different words, then how they sounded in his girl’s mouth.

The ground is still wet when the change comes. The air is still cool, and the birds she was not named after coo to wake the day. Slowly, his forehead warms and the world on the other side of his eyelids burns as bright as a flame. Haymitch opens his eyes and squints into the sun.

But the sun is not his love, its rising not guaranteed. For him, forever, there has always been a force more constant, a gravitational pull more compelling, a heat like all-fire that never dips below any horizon.

Like rabbit fur, like feathers, pink and purple turn grey this mysterious mix of warm and cool. The stone glitters as though with sparks, and Haymitch sits forward to cover with his hand the place where he buried the flint striker long ago. He lays his cheek against Lenore Dove’s headstone, so the sun can strike them both together.

[typicalopposite]

sunday sentences... a lot of 'em

i have been tagged in many things by many people... I just have not been writing much. Until... well this

while the majority of the fandom is clowning about Buck and Tommy getting back together... I'm out here clowning about not starting a new wip before I finish another one... another MPREG wip at that!

I got a whole chapter for y'all! <3

Chapter One

He is up before the sun… like always. 

LA is still dark out at 4 AM, no matter which side of daylight savings it is– it’s as quiet and as calm as the ever busy city will possibly get. Tommy chose this as his starting time many years ago for that very reason, and it has never changed. He slips on a pair of running shoes and a thin windbreaker that he’ll probably end up tying around his waist at some point, and heads out the door. 

The air nips at the top part of his face, his grown out stubble guarding his cheeks and chin… He needs to shave today, so he decides to cut a mile from his run to account for the extra time needed and turns a few streets sooner than his typical route. This way takes him by Mrs. Hardett’s house– he wonders if she’s even still alive, he can’t remember the last time he took this way. She would surely be asleep so he has no way to know, however he does see her old station wagon parked in the driveway and the freshly bloomed Buckwheat bush he helped her plant a couple years back, as he passes…

Buckwheat makes him think of Evan– well, everything makes Tommy think of him... but that is a given– the rest of his run back to his house.  

He is still lost in the thought as he decides on a simple breakfast; nothing too fancy, because it’s just him… A bagel with some smoked salmon cream cheese and a bottle of water is what he grabs as he passes through the kitchen, heading to his room. It makes him think of a meme in a group of them that Evan sent him about a person not wanting to find other fish… because they want the emotionally insecure salmon… or something like that.

Was that supposed to mean something?  He’s sure Evan would have said so if it did…

He plugs his phone in and flops onto the bed, unlocking the screen and is instantly met with last night's text thread… between none other than him and Evan. Tommy sighs, reading over the last message— sleep tight! don’t let the bedbugs bite!

He’s like a giant child… Tommy kind of— no… he completely loves it. Isn’t that just… great. 

He doesn’t know how long he just lies there staring at the message before he takes note that he has another unread message. It’s from Ravi; it’s a link. He follows it to a YouTube channel Ravi told him about a few days prior, when they met for lunch. The topic had started veering into Evan territory and Tommy was on the cusp of shutting down, packing it up, and bolting. Ravi, bless him… must have picked up on the mood shift, because suddenly he is talking about listening to these strange, dark, and mysterious stories on his drives to and from the station. 

“I’ll send you the guys channel,” Ravi had offered when Tommy seemed interested. Tommy pulls up the latest video, and pauses it to watch on his ridiculously long drive— 

“Shit,” he hisses out loud realizing he has blown right through his allotted extra time; he still has to get ready! The last bite of the bagel he saves for Soot— an old stray cat that took up with him many years ago. Back when he was still with Abby; she never cared much for cats, so Soot came with him in the break up. It was the only time he left a relationship with anything besides a broken heart… He’s been his little crotchety rock through all of the ones he’s left with that followed. 

A quick shower, a much needed shave, and the smell of salmon scrubbed from his tongue— the man looking back at him as he checks his teeth in the mirror is, in theory, ready to face whatever today brings… 

Damn… looks can be so deceiving, can’t they? 

He grabs his phone, and the last bite of bagel, as he heads out of the room. Soot is sunbathing in the reading chair— more like his sleeping chair, really— flipped over on his back like a dog… Tommy’s surprised his tongue isn't hanging out. He perks up the moment Tommy drops the food into his living room bowl. (“Living room bowl?” Evan had teased Tommy. “Sounds like an excuse to spoil him…” he’d concluded, after Tommy argued that Soot is old, and the kitchen is far from his chair… Evan had rolled his eyes, but the next visit forward he began to leave a little treat in both bowls before he’d leave… Soot seems to miss him, too…)

“I’ll be back later,” Tommy says, scratching behind Soot’s scarred left ear and rubbing down his back. “No parties while I’m gone.” He laughs when the old cat stops eating and gives him an incredulous look like he understood the request. 

Tommy locks the door, walks to his car, and just as he’s about to climb inside his phone dings. A text from Evan. Shift starts soon… but I just wanted to say I’m actually super stoked for Thursday. :)

He pulls the text thread down, going back just a few messages to where Evan asked if he was planning to play basketball Thursday… and that if he wasn’t, would he be open to going biking with him. As if Tommy could tell him no— it was maybe even the fastest of course Evan has gotten out of him to date. Me too ;) he sends back, and unfortunately doesn’t catch his error until he checks the thread again after he arrives at his destination. He sent a wink?!

The message has been read; it has not been responded to. 

Fucking great! 

Tommy sighs, turns his car off, and gets out.  

~~~

Logically Tommy knew there would be a lot of paperwork. He did not, however, expect to have an entire novel worth of forms he would have to fill out. There are so many personal questions he’s not entirely comfortable answering and some he doesn’t really have answers for— any family medical history is as unknown to him as it is to the doctor. He is vague with a lot of it… just says he’s a first responder, not what branch. He gives his PO box, not his physical address. He uses a What’s App number instead of his actual one.   

It’s not like they can really complain about him not being entirely truthful… or entirely trusting of them… the whole thing is very sketchy, and he is sure they know that. Still, he signs off on the bottom of another page and flips it over. Blood type? He thinks he’s B Positive– which is hilariously ironic, because when has he ever been– so he puts B Positive. Has he ever taken drugs? Hah! Wouldn’t they like to know. He puts no… it was a lifetime ago anyway. Are you sexually active? Does a hand and or a dildo count? He unlocks his phone, sees the still unanswered text and begrudgingly puts no– want’s to dramatically add and never will be again, but he doesn’t.

Page by page he answers the questions: his allergies (dust, roses– which was a hilarious and unfortunate discovery the first time Evan ever bought him flowers– and some types of pollen), any medications he’s taking (he’s not… he probably should be), and any serious illnesses he has. 

Well that’s the whole reason he’s here… isn’t it? 

Life has the ability to drive even the strongest most level headed people into the ground, and Tommy has never been  anywhere near a strong, level headed person— regardless of what anyone might think. He had never wanted to follow in his dads footsteps; drinking was never something he enjoyed… The military is a brutal hell hole, however, and he needed something to dull everything going on around him. 

He stopped when he got out… and then he joined the fire academy. He was drinking again a few weeks into life under Gerard. Again just after Abby… again just before coming out. He can’t even remember exactly when he started getting sick… he only remembers the doctor's words. If you don’t stop… you’ll be dead in a year. So he stopped. He got better… A few casual drinks now and then but he was not willing to lose flying– lose helping people– his only escape from life. Then he broke up with Evan… Then he hooked up with Evan… Then he made he idiotic self-punishing decision to just be friends with Evan after everything with the outbreak and the dramatically terrifying Bobby scare… Somehow just being friends has been exponentially worse than being nothing to him…

He was quickly slipping back into a very dark place, and he couldn’t afford to start craving the mental release of a bottle. He also couldn’t afford to run into Bobby at another AA meeting– he had years ago… Bobby is the only other person who knows about his alcohol problems… and his liver– so he went outside of LA… he went quite a ways outside of LA actually; a couple of hours away, close to where Sal had moved to. The meetings were standard, just something to get the weight of it all off his chest… “I’m worried about needing the escape,” he said at one. “Sometimes I just need to forget the hell I’m stuck in– that I keep putting myself in– but I know my body can’t handle it.”

When the woman in the business suit— three inch heels and thin frameless glasses— sat down beside him, at first Tommy thought she was a therapist… ready to offer her support for the sad sack of a man who just poured his heart out about his health fears to a room of strangers. Instead she leaned in and began to whisper to him. They were in the back and the room was clearing out and yet she kept her voice so low Tommy could barely hear her even right by his ear. 

An experimental drug. 

Hope for a clinical trial one day.

The possibility to reverse illness and disease no matter how severe— to keep you from losing quality of life for fear of causing harm to your body.

Groundbreaking.

Life altering… Changing… Saving!

Tommy teasingly asked if she worked for some alcohol company… that she seemed to be trying to bribe him with the opportunity to freely drink again with no health risk. She only laughed and patted his knee, stating she was only using that as a topic point… she would never encourage anyone to do something inherently bad… but the risk of illness shouldn’t be the reason people don’t do things in life. 

“You said you help people, in your line of work…” she continued, cocking a brow and giving a slight smirk. “So do I. This drug will help society… It can save society.” 

He was left a card with a number, a request to seriously consider it, and a hinted offer of it being worth his time— mostly he was left torn. 

Torn much like what he did to the little card once he got home and fished it out of his pocket, tossing the pieces into the trash can. Which is where it stayed for a few days and almost got thrown out forever had it not been for the call from his landlord— he had decided to sell the house. Tommy had to move or buy. He had been begging his landlord to let him rent-to-own the house for years… Now if he wanted it, he had to buy it in full… or pack up and start over somewhere new? Maybe it had been the universe's slap in the face to him turning down Evans offer, he thought bitterly. 

He complained to the void… and to Soot, who seemed very unconcerned. He contemplated for a few more days… Then he fished the card out… and called the number. “Just how worth my time are we talking,” he asked, trying to ignore how he could hear the candy apple red lipped smile as she asked what changed his mind, how he could hear it stretch wider when he admitted he was curious about the compensation. She assured him it would be very generous– half up front half when he returned after the six week expectane trial window. 

He thinks must be crazy to be doing this, and yet here he is… signing the last of the papers and returning them to the desk. A nurse calls him back, she takes a urine sample, a blood sample, checks his vitals and sends him to a room to wait for the doctor– Diana Reddin, she had informed him on the phone. The woman walks in, now donning a white lab coat over a nearly identical pants suit (save for the color) from the day he met her, and a very pleased smile. She shakes his hand and leans back against the counter looking over his paperwork. She questions his blank family medical history and he explains he hasn’t spoken to his family in quite a while… She doesn’t press. 

She asks how he is with needles and he tells her not too bad… “Good,” she laughs. “‘Cause this one is a bit of a doozy…” She closes his chart and smiles. “I’m sure you did your research on the company–” which he had… call him old fashioned but he’d be damned if he was going to blindly trust a lady in a pants suit just because she gave him a heartfelt speech and a fancy business card. They were well known scientists– trained in modern medicine, researching ways to assist with a multitude of diseases; Dr. Reddin was even featured many times on the site. If it wasn’t legit, they had gone beyond all out to make it appear as if it was. 

“I can’t express enough, on behalf of our entire team, how appreciative we are for you, Mr Kinard,” she said. “You’re going to help us make history. We are going to change the world.” 

Tommy hums– it sounds very noble, very intense… when put like that. Maybe he should have considered this more… The room has gone silent and he’s aware it’s apparently his turn to speak, Dr. Reddin’s brows lifted as if waiting for an answer to a question he didn’t even hear her ask. “Uh… Sorry… what?”

“Would you like to get started today?” Dr. Reddin asks, and damn they are wasting no time it seems. “We can get the ball rolling, if you’d like. We will get the big scary injection for the drugs stimulant out of the way, get you set up with the six week supply of the expectane, and I will have the first part of our agreed upon payment waiting with Louise up front.” Five thousand dollars– ten in total– it is all he needs for a downpayment on the house.

Tommy swallows, feeling like there is a fist in his throat making it extremely difficult. He pulls out his phone, unlocks the screen and checks the message. Still nothing… and so he slides the phone back into his pocket, and says he will start the trial. 

<3<3<3<3<3

gonna be a different kind of mpreg this time! if you have seen the movie Junior you'll get it, and hopefully get all the references too!

a few tags: @30somethingautisticteacher @sunnywithachanceofbi @nine-one-wanton @herrmannhalsteadproduction @judymarch15

@loversinmalta @somethingaboutfirefly @dum-amo-vivo9 @lovetommyactually @quintessenceofdust88 @rosyhoneydew

@ladyeyrewrites @cafe-con-letty @beanarie @unhingedangstaddict @leashybebes and anyone else who wants to join in!<3

[feather-dancer]

Tales of Arcadia fanfic recommendations part 8

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8

If at all interested in my own writing you can find it here! Several of my own are currently getting scrubbed for improvement to make them more readable. Currently goal is for all of Spotlight being completed by the end of the year.

Been a while huh? This has still been sitting in my drafts though even when my brain decided “Nope not reading” for a while. Still got quite a hefty backlog to read through along with authors I’m subscribed to for their most recent works as and when they pop up. Regardless, determined to get back on top of it and unearth things I want to give a shoutout to because it’s cool shit :)

To you, fans past and present and surviors of RotT Tales of Arcadia fandom.

General Tales of Arcadia

But Everything Hurts - You don’t come back from death with a free pass and Douxie’s fall from the castle cost was chronic pain for an immortal’s lifetime. He was told to learn how to live once, now it is learning to manage.

Of Hunger Pains and Old Habits - Food is hard when you’ve spent a very young life without it until life takes a strange turn and it becomes plentiful. Died in habits are hard though, Douxie will hear the unconvinced whispers for the rest of his life.

almost there - When Jim heads off until the Darklands alone Toby and Claire try to hold themselves together not knowing if he’ll ever return. This is set post season 1 and is wonderfully bittersweet.

Our Little Viginette - Moppet faces the end of an era with the fall of Camelot and (Temporary) loss of Merlin after the Battle of Killahead.

A way to cope - Jim pretends to cope with the trauma of being in the Darklands a lot better than he actually is, as long as he keeps the breakdowns out of sight then nobody can worry right?

dandelion eyes - In which Bellroc discovers the concept of nail polish.

Adieu - The final moments of Angor Rot

Saudade - It’s perfect. They beat Gunmar, nobody died and he can finally enjoy being a teenager again, Thinks Jim. Then why if he stops ignoring the feeling for even a few seconds does it all seem so hollow...?

Rise of the Titans

The Last Changeling - Jim escaped the timeline filled with mistakes in hopes of making things right. He didn’t account for those left behind to grieve or the changeling that suddenly found himself as the last.

I Can't Pull the Sword From the Stone - Jim went back and now Toby is the new Trollhunter which should be smooth sailing right? Except history is refusing to repeat it’s self exactly, little elements are already changing and Jim’s experiences have left him tainted with magic he can’t control along with all the memories and traumas. It’s hard to grieve for someone who is technically still alive but everything you had is gone without a soul out there to understand.

More is all you need - Jim has gone back, something stupid by his own admittance, however in sorting through his thoughts he comes to a realisation.

Stricklake

Comes Around - Post Trollhunters season 3, it’s a struggle to figure out what to do when you have a cradlestone full of babies and a changeling that no longer is but you have to just try and muddle through somehow... Perhaps a chance to try figure out what your relationship is meant to be too now things have calmed down a bit.

Media Consumption - Wholesome fluff that also involves Wally and creating an addict to the HtTyD franchise early on.  

A Measure of Intellect - The goblins are breaking into the stricklake household and they’ve already stolen the blender. The fun part is figuring out exactly what they’re up to. Related to Media Consumption.

enough - Figuring out a normal in the mundane of after everything has happened is quite a lot for a jaded changeling. Very fluffy.

The Wild Hunt - Letting your troll boyfriend hunt is good enrichment but the prize for capture is even better.

The Armour of Daylight - A little glimpse into a high fantasy world where everyone might just be a little bit cursed.

The School Of Janus - This is an AU while also being Stricklake so it lives here. The Darklands are the most prestigious educational process in the world according to their promo material and Jim is prepping to head there while putting off most of his packing as long as humanly possible. Good thing he does really the banter is delightful.

Ink Stains - An AU making an escape in the name of shipping again. Here Barbara married into court politics with her husband being an heir for Camelot and changelings are a secret guard force protecting those important hiding away in plain sight. Incredibly cool world building going on here.

Keen Swimmers 2023 - A collection from last year mostly in AU territory and very tasty. Read the summaries and off you go!

Special Delivery - Very short and sweet, if you’re interested in the ship just trust me and click it.

Locked Rooms - Barbara lost her memory. She doesn’t know how and she doesn’t really know why either. All she does know is that whatever they are seem to be behind a locked door and that strange imagery is leaking into her dreams.

Alternate Universe

Dig your eight graves - It was only supposed to be a fun trek out for Halloween for the Arcadia kids, test out the set up and give feedback so the owner could improve them for when it would officially open the next year. Nobody could have predicted how it’d go so horribly wrong.

Content warning: This fic is marked Mature for character death, body horror, desecration of corpses and for being of the general slasher genre. Please check the tags before proceeding.

Between Daylight and Darkness - The Sunshine AU is back and it’s time for the team to go Trollhunting.So how many spanners can Jim being the nearest equivilent to a were-troll throw into the works of canon? Well hopefully nothing fatal...

Toby's Appointment - Sometimes you need to read very silly things and this is probably the funniest possibility you could find in the dentist waiting room.

The Grave of the Felled Forest - A boy and his familiar go to check out Merlin’s places of power/various stash spots to make sure all is still well. They are not anticipating visitors or his intent to be poked. Part of The Heart of Janus AU.

[fairy-writes]

I THINK OF YOU (WHEN I THINK ABOUT FOREVER)

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!!

____________________________________________________________________________

Fandom(s): Solo Leveling

Pairing(s): Min Byung-Gyu x Reader

Baek Yoon-Ho x Reader (platonic)

Word Count: 1.1k

Genre(s)/Tag(s): Gender Neutral!Reader, Reader is Smaller than Byung-Gyu, Established Romantic Relationships, Platonic Relationships (Baek x Reader), Post-Season Two, Baek Yoon-ho is a Good Friend

Notes: Title taken from the song “When I Get There” by P!nk

I’ll just say this now… I have no idea what I’m doing. Like, legitimately, I’m an anime-only watcher and am on… like… chapter six of the manhwa.

____________________________________________________________________________

When you woke up, the other side of the bed was cold. 

You curl in on yourself, pulling the blankets closer as you bury your nose in the other pillow.

His smell is starting to fade…

It took a tremendous amount of effort to get yourself out of bed, but you managed to do it. 

You even manage to shower and eat something for the first time in days. The hot water cascades down your back, and on autopilot, you shampoo and condition your hair, scrub your body, and even shave. But after your shower, you realize you have used Byung-Gyu’s shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. The scent of peppermint and eucalyptus surrounds you, and as you should’ve guessed, you feel tears pricking the corners of your eyes. But they don’t fall. 

They never fall.  

The apartment is cold when you step out of the steamy bathroom. Gooseflesh immediately pebbles on your arms and legs as you wrap the towel tighter around your body and head back into the connected bedroom. 

The walk-in closet smells of dust as you flick on the lights, and you stare at his side of the closet. T-shirts and button-downs are pressed neatly on their hangers, and his trousers are folded over in his dresser. A very fine layer of dust covers his usually shiny dress shoes. 

You rifle through your own dresser and pull out a pair of jeans before pulling a button-down from his side and slipping it over your head. The smell of peppermint and eucalyptus envelopes you.  You tuck the hem into your jeans and slip on the first pair of shoes you find on your side of the closet. 

Just then, right at five o’clock in the afternoon, there’s a knock at the front door. 

Your eyes are heavy with tears as you open the door to find Baek Yoon-Ho standing before you. His eyes soften when he realizes exactly what shirt you have on. Your fist your fingers in the front of the shirt, and wait for him to speak. 

“You ready?” He asks, and you nod silently. You grab your wallet and keys and follow the S-Rank Hunter down the stairs of the apartment complex to where his car is waiting. 

The car ride is just as silent as you watch the world pass by from the rush hour traffic. Yoon-ho tries to make conversation. He really does. But Byung-Gyu was the one who kept conversations alive. The mere thought of your husband made tears well up, and you sniffed, wiping your nose with a handkerchief you kept in your pocket. But they don’t fall.

They never fall.  

Yoon-ho puts his hand on your knee, not in a creepy or perverse way, but in a… comforting way. Like he understood what you were going through. Because he did. Of course, he knew, he was there when Byung-Gyu died. 

“We’re almost there,” Yoon-ho reassures you, and you just nod,

“Right.” You mumble, twisting your ring around your finger. 

The bar and grill is quiet-ish. There are a few patrons, some at the booths, some at the bar, and some mingling outside on the patio. But you don’t recognize anyone. 

Just how you liked it nowadays. 

Baek ushers you to a booth while he goes up to the bar to order your food and drinks. You pull your phone from your pocket and turn it on. Your home screen—Byung-Gyu and you when he proposed—stares back at you. 

You turn it off and just pick at the peeling QR code on the table to pay the bill when you’re done. 

Someone you don’t recognize immediately slips into the booth across from you. 

He’s tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a long coat, a white t-shirt, and dark wash jeans as he studies your solemn expression. He says your name, and your eyes narrow the barest bit. 

“Who’s asking?” You snap, and it is then that Yoon-ho comes back, setting a tray of food and drinks on your table.

“Ah, Hunter Sung, you made it.” He says, your eyes darting back to the mysterious man in shock. 

So this was the country’s tenth S-Rank…

And—

“You’re the one who saved the hunters on Jeju Island.” You say, almost in awe and with the most emotion that you’d felt in weeks. Sung nods, eyes filled with a flicker of confusion. 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve met before. Hunter Baek told me your name but nothing else.” He said, and you offered a sad sort of smile,

“Byung-Gyu was my husband.” You say, and his eyes barely widen and fill with recognition. 

“I asked them to come. You said you had something for them.” Yoon-ho said, and you frowned, 

“What do you mean?” You ask, and Sung reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out an envelope. Your name is written in unfamiliar handwriting that must be his own. He reaches across the table and hands it to you. You open the envelope with tentative hands and tip the contents into your waiting hand.

Only to gasp when it hits your palm. 

A ring, just as shiny as the day you put it on Byung-Gyu’s finger, gleamed in the light of the bar. For the umpteenth time that day, you began to cry. Only this time, you couldn’t stop the tears. They dripped down your chin, hot and sticky but very much cathartic. 

You dissolved into a sobbing mess, deep, heaving sobs erupting as you tried not to break completely. 

Sung looks on in a sort of pity, Yoon-ho rubbing your back. 

“I thought this was lost. They said they couldn’t find it.” You choked out, ragged gasps taking up any air you managed to inhale. A lump in your throat made it difficult to breathe around the cries. People were starting to stare, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care about that. 

“It was lost in the fight with how he was injured. He wasn’t wearing it when he died.” Sung explained, and you nodded, 

“He always took it off for raids.” You said. Sung hummed in response as if this made sense. 

“How did you find it?” You ask eventually and slip it on your finger next to your own ring. It was large on your finger, but you didn’t care. You could always find a chain to put it on later. Sung shrugged, 

“I have summoning magic. I had one of my summons find it.” He said as if this explained everything. 

It didn’t… But you could press Yoon-ho for answers later. 

“Thank you… Thank you!” You lunge across the table and wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him into the first hug you had initiated since Byung-Gyu died. 

He stiffens, but you don’t let up until your tears dry. 

And… with the ring on your finger… Byung-Gyu feels just a little closer than before. 

Maybe he would even be proud of you.

[mithrilhearts]

Yes, I'm alive, and I have a lot to say.

It's been a while (for me anyway), and currently I am taking a different approach to my life—what makes me happy? The start of this year has been hard for me mentally, and had it not been for a select few, I probably wouldn't be here right now. January was a very scary time in my life, to put it simply...

That said, it's given me a lot of time to sit and reflect on what I want in my life and who I want in my life, with many things to consider.

I'm engaging with new hobbies to help keep my mind at bay and to venture into new business opportunities and expand what I already do. I'm getting into creating things like soap, body scrubs, candles, etc., which has been a lot of research and fun planning. I'm very excited to keep doing these things and see where it takes me—I plan to open an online shop very soon for this!

I'm keeping myself busy—I'm playing games, I'm still writing fanfic (albeit a lot slower and more infrequently), and I'm focusing on my job(s) as best as I can. I'm taking life day by day and trying to find things to look forward to, even when things seem very bleak.

Now, what does 2025 bring?

I'm going to the Shinedown concert this summer, which has me over the moon excited! I've planned a week off from work in July as well to recharge and hopefully get myself out there even more with other little local events (festivals, farmer's markets, anything to get me out and about). I'm also scheduled to get a new tattoo next month, one that has a lot of meaning and can join my otherwise "Tolkien Arm" to kind of break up the theme a bit—some Amaryllis flowers!

Fanfic has ultimately been tossed to the backseat of my life, and I am not sure how it will play out in the future. I love writing, and I love the source materials from which I've written and participated in, but a lot of that enjoyment for actual "FANDOM" kind of went down the drain a long time ago with drama and whatnot that simply didn't need to happen.

I am going to take an indefinite hiatus from Tumblr and other socials of a similar vein. I have made some incredible friendships along the way through my fandom journey, even if some of them have fizzled out due to changes in interest or other fandom-related nonsense as mentioned above. It doesn't really need a second thought from me anymore. I can't regret the friendships or the morals I stood behind, but I also can't sit and linger on the "what if" or "why" something is or isn't happening. It's been a lot of thinking on my side, but I want to focus on my life outside of the internet (I want a positive mental health space, and unfortunately, fandom just doesn't give me that luxury).

Taking a step back from online life and focusing on myself has made an astronomical difference in my mood, so I’m going to keep up with that for now. I appreciate those of you who have been super supportive during this time when I've been struggling to figure out how to live. Thank you so much for reaching out, especially early on; I apologize for that concerning post I had dropped in January, talking about self-harm. I'm still alive, and I'm doing SO MUCH BETTER already.

For now, this is goodbye, but keep your eyes peeled on AO3 because I'm still posting fic, though as stated above, much slower than before.

I won't be checking Tumblr too much from here on out, but I'll give it a peek just in case now and again. 💖

Thank you for the support over the years, and remember, it will be sunny one day.

-- Mithrilhearts (aka Maeve, aka Razzy - lordoftherazzles)

[bigasswritingmagnet]

Fandom: Girl Genius Pairing: Oggie/Oggie's Wife Summary: De night it vos my turn to taste de Jägerdraught, she left camp. Din leave nottin, din take nottin. It vos ten years later, ven ve vos out pillaging, dot Hy found out she had taken someting avay vit her after all.

Ten long years ago a story was left without an ending. Radka believed if she simply stopped telling the tale it would never need to be finished. Before she could tell Ognian about her pregnancy and before he could risk his life taking the Jägerdraught, she fled, leaving the pages of their story open and free of that final note of tragedy.

But the reality is, lives are not chapters in a book, and the story doesn't go away just because you stopped reading. Ognian gets the surprise of his life and Radka has a lot of explaining to do.

AO3 Link | Sequel to The End - Or Lack Thereof

“Vasil.”

The boy scowled at his feet, shoulders hunched.

“Vasil.”

Finally, he lifted his head and met her eyes. Vasil was the spitting image of his father, except for his eyes (which was unfortunate, but better her eyes than be burdened with her chin). Ognian might be dead, or he might be alive, but either way Radka could see him every day in Vasil’s laugh, his voice, in the wrinkle of his nose and the light in his eyes – even if they were the wrong shape and color.

It was exactly what she had wanted, and it was a knife in her heart every time.

But while the face was Ognian’s, that sullen, stubborn glare was all Radka.

“You cannot fight the world for me.”

“He called you a whore.”

“He called you a whoreson.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“Only technically.”

Radka had tried to teach him her way of dealing with people, cutting them with words, which could hurt just as well and didn’t get you in near as much trouble. She thought he might take to it – he had not inherited Ognian’s mental acuity, for which Radka was also thankful – but Vasil found physical retribution faster and easier. 

“I hate this stupid town!” Vasil exploded. “Everyone thinks they’re better than us! They all talk about us behind our backs, and you want us to just smile and ignore it!”

Radka had travelled as far from Mechanicsburg as she could get before travel became too difficult, and settled in a little town called Poveste, which she came to loathe exactly ten minutes after it was too late to leave. The tavern owners were condescendingly sympathetic to a young woman in the family way by a mysterious man she would not name who ‘might be dead’, and allowed her to perform for their guests when they had them, and scrub the floors when they did not.

They even offered room and board in exchange for a percentage of her earnings, but Radka would rather scrape by in the lean winter months than put up with daily compliments about how surprisingly moral she was for a ruined woman.

“You don’t have to ignore it, and you don’t have to like it, but we live here, Vasil, and that means we have to get along with people.”

“So why don’t we just go?”

“Even if we could afford to move, anywhere we could afford to live would be just like this, with no guarantee I could find work.” It was an old argument, and one they had been having more and more frequently as Vasil grew older and less satisfied with the life around him. Radka didn’t like it much either, but what else could she do? Pack up and go to Mechanicsburg and hope whatever family Ognian had believed her?

“We could—”

“You are changing the subject,” Radka pointed out. “I want you to stop fighting each and every person in the world who makes the smallest slight against me. Do you think you might be physically capable of that?”

Vasil opened his mouth, but before he could answer – not that it mattered, she knew the answer would be ‘no’ – the bell in the center of town began to ring the frantic, desperate tones of alarm.

Radka flew to the door and stuck her head outside. Doors were slamming shut, men and women were running for shelter or for weapons. When she looked down the road out of town, she could see a distant red glow drowning the stars.

“Jӓgermonsters! Jӓgermonsters coming from the west! It’s the Heterodyne!”

“Well, shit.”

Radka closed the door and shot the deadbolt home, as if it would buy them more than a few extra seconds.

“Mama?” Vasil was looking up at her with wide, worried eyes. Radka tried to think sensibly. She could not trust that every one of the Heterodyne’s men would recognize her, especially in the chaos of an attack. She needed to think of them as the monsters they were, not as the men she performed for.

“Close all the shutters, lock the back door. Poveste is too small and too poor to be their main target. This is just them blowing off some steam. They’ll burn a few buildings and kill a few cows as they ride through, but they won’t stop.”

I hope.

“How do you know?”

“I know many things. Go.”

Radka took the box with their savings and buried it in the coal box, but left what little jewelry she had lying on her dresser. If someone did come in here, they might not think to look for hidden things if they found something valuable laying around.

They heard the thundering of hooves, the pounding of feet, and the unnatural howling of the Jӓgers — monsters and man alike. Radka clutched Vasil to herself, but when she glanced down at him, she saw no fear in his face, only a grim solemnity that made him look unusually unlike his father.

Vasil was five when he first asked why he didn’t have a father. Radka didn’t like to lie to him, but she didn’t think he would understand if she told him. He had been old enough to understand the concept of death and grief, but far too young to understand the fear of them.

“I had to leave him behind,” Radka had told him. “He might be dead now.” 

“Are you sad?”

“Yes. But I have you.”

You couldn’t prove a negative. If she didn’t see him, it only meant she couldn’t spot him in the dark and the chaos. But if she did see him…

Radka slid open one of the shutters, just enough that she could see the road and the front walk. They were moving fast, and lit only by torchlight and burning buildings, and Radka could not see their faces beyond a jumble of fangs and snouts and fur.

One man, tearing by on foot, snagged the rose trellis at the foot of the path to the door and brought it crashing down, tearing the flowers up by the roots. He didn’t even stop to see his handwork.

“Unnecessary,” Radka muttered.

And realized she was no longer holding Vasil. The door was swinging wide open. Radka looked back out the window and – Vasil. Standing in the road. Holding a rock. Face twisted with outrage.

Radka let out a low moan of horror and lunged for the door. Just as she reached the doorframe, Vasil drew back his arm and threw.

The world seemed to slow. Everything was hushed and distant. Radka’s eyes followed the stone as it slid through the air and thought not this kind of tragedy, not this kind of tragedy, not this kind of tragedy—

Then the rock cracked against the back of the Jӓgermonster’s skull, and the screaming and shouting and chaos came rushing back. Radka’s muscles tensed, but before she could make a move to haul Vasil back inside to safety, her heart stopped in her chest because Ognian turned around.

Ognian.

Alive.

Battle axe clutched in one hand, a military greatcoat over a bare chest, rubbing the back of his head and staring at Vasil with a goggle-eyed disbelief that Radka would have gleefully mocked him for, once. His blonde hair was tucked behind pointed ears and in his open mouth she could see

Vill hyu still let me kiss hyu ven Hy gets de teeth?

fangs, but it was still Oggie. It was Oggie and he was burning the town down around her ears and she was so happy to see him she could have cried.

I will, she wanted to say. I want to kiss you, I will always want to kiss you.  

Vasil pointed at the shattered trellis and uprooted roses.

“You’re a tough guy, huh?” he shouted over the crash of weapons and the screams of excitement and terror. “Yeah, really impressive, knocking down a plant. Why don’t you hit something that can hit back?”

Ognian checked his hand – no blood – and visibly shook himself.

“Hyu go back inside, kid,” he said, sharply. “Vere iz safe.”

Radka felt faint. Her heart ached. Just the sound of his voice nearly brought her to her knees. This had to be love, there was no other way to explain how she could be standing on the wrong end of a Jäger raid and feel for him exactly as she had when she knew him as nothing but her lover. 

Vasil raised his fists, feet sliding into the position she had taught him. He’d learned the fighting part well; it was the your goal is to end the fight and get away as quickly as possible part that consistently escaped him.

“Fight me,” he demanded. “You coward.”

Ognian’s face went hard. He bared his fangs and stalked towards Vasil.

“Hyu vant a fight?” He lifted up his battle axe, which had never seemed to sharp and so deadly as it did now, the light of the burning bakery glinting off its edges like fresh blood.

Vasil stood, unmoving and unafraid, as Ognian stalked towards him. Radka felt panic make her chest go tight. Vasil was exactly as stubborn as his father. Unstoppable force and immovable object: Ognian was going to try and scare him away, and Vasil would call his bluff, and then what would Ognian do?

Ognian raised his axe one handed over his head.

Vasil tensed, drawing back his fist.

Because Ognian was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. He had to be. She knew Ognian, and yes, it had been ten years but she knew even the worst of the Jӓgers thought twice about mowing down children, surely he would never…

Radka realized she was standing there like the prize maiden sworn to be handed off to whichever knight in shining armor won the fight.

“Ognian! Oggie, don’t!” 

Both her boys froze. Both looked to her.  

Ognian’s jaw dropped.

Very slowly, moving no other muscles, Vasil and Ognian turned their heads back to stare at each other. The axe fell out of Ognian’s still upraised hand, landing blade-first in the dirt road and sticking.

Radka darted forward, grabbed them both by their collars, and dragged them into the house. Pushing them inside, she slammed the door behind herself.

“Vasil,” she said, conversationally. “Do you remember the conversation we just had when I said not to fight the world for me?” Radka gestured at the door. “That? That was exactly what I was asking you not to do.”

She was vibrating with nerves and something like fear, her eyes flicking back and forth between Ognian and Vasil’s faces so quickly it nearly made her dizzy. Both were still staring at her, Vasil as if he had never laid eyes on her before, Ognian as if he couldn’t tell if she was real or a hallucination.

Radka wondered what kind of a picture she made to him. Part of her was surprised he’d recognized her – sometimes she barely recognized herself. Her clothes were practical wool dyed practical colors, no flashy silks or low-cut vests. Her figure had gone soft after the pregnancy; life had seen fit to sneak early greys into her ginger curls. Worry and stress had carved their lines on her face.

But Ognian had changed, too, now that she could see him closer in the light. Not older – he would never look older, not anymore – but different. He had never been a fastidious man, but he had kept himself clean cut. Ognian was unshaven, his hair shaggy, looking long out of neglect rather than design. Beneath even that, there was something else she could not quite put her finger on. Something harder and sharper. Perhaps the Jägerdraught changed things on the inside, too.  

Jerkily, she gestured between the two.

“Ognian, Vasil. Vasil, Ognian.”

Radka clasped her hands in front of herself and waited while the two stared at each other. At no point had she ever imagined this moment. Secret sons and fathers were deathbed revelations given by a woman who would immediately die and thus never have to explain herself to either party or face any consequences for her actions.

Radka was in a lot of trouble.

“A Jӓgermonster?” Vasil shouted. “You said he was dead!”

“I said he might be dead.”

“You didn’t say he might be a Jӓgermonster!”

“Because, Vasil, my having had a Heterodyne raider for a lover would be quite a problem here, and you – like your father before you – are a great big blabbermouth.”

“I am not!” Ognian and Vasil both said at the same time, and stared at each other again.

Then Ognian looked at Radka, who forced herself to meet his eyes and not shrink back.

“I was going to tell you,” she said, “and then you were going to be a Jӓger, and you…and then I didn’t tell you.”

No immediate response. Radka’s strength failed her, and she looked away. When at last Ognian spoke his voice was low, disbelieving, and full of pain.

“Hyu did dis to me on purpose?”

“I didn’t do anything to you—”

“Didn’t do anyting?” Ognian interrupted, anger slowly consuming betrayal. “Didn’t do anyting? Hyu tell me hyu von’t care if Hy become a Jӓger, den hyu leave vitout effen a note! Hyu haff my son, und hyu vuz neffer goink to tell me! Hy vould go my whole life not knowink und it iz gonna be a real long life, Radka!”

“No, you wouldn’t know! It would not hurt you, because you were either dead or ignorant of the fact, and therefore, not in any position to be injured—”

“Hyu tink hyu leavink didn’t hurt?” Ognian demanded, and Radka flinched. “Hy thought—hyu said hyu didn’t care but den hyu left!”

Radka shut her eyes. What a marvelous plan she had had, if Ognian had been a character in a story who disappeared the moment he was off-stage. In leaving, she had avoided her tragedy and served Ognian his on a silver platter. Can you still love me when I am a Jäger? No. So very no that she would take off running and never look back.

That was the hardness in his face, she realized. She had cut him deeply enough to leave scars. She’d broken his heart.

“How many soldiers do you know who would be pleased to discover they are suddenly saddled with a pregnant lover?”

“Me!” Ognian shouted. “Me! Hy vould! Hyu tink Hy vould, vut, trow hyu avay? Iz dot de kind of man hyu tink Hy am?”  

“I didn’t know what you would do!” Radka snapped. “It wasn’t like we’d ever discussed it!”  

“Hyu could haff asked!”

“Oh, yes,” Radka said, sarcastically, and put on a voice of poisonous false cheer. “’Hello, my swain, apropos of nothing, how would you feel in a purely hypothetical situation if I were to say, accidentally get pregnant by you just as you are about to become a Jäger?’ Ognian, you have your moments, but you are not that stupid!”

“Hyu iz goink to make fun of me now? Hy’z not an idiot, und Hy’z not a bird!”

Radka stared, brow furrowed, and then put her hand to her face. “Swain, Ognian, not swan. It means lover.”

“Now hyu iz tryink to give me a vocabulary lesson!” Ognian shouted, hysterically. “Vut iz wrong vit hyu?”

“I didn’t want to know!” Radka shouted back. “That was why! It had nothing to do with you being a Jäger, it was about you becoming a Jäger! There was a ninety percent chance you were going to die horrifically, and I didn’t want to know if I was living in a world that didn’t have you in it! You wouldn’t be a tragedy if I never saw the ending!”

Ognian stared at her, mouth wide open. He let out a wordless scream of frustration, burying his hands in his hair. He walked away and then swung back, furious, marching towards her, jabbing a finger at her. 

“Hyu and hyu damn stories—!”

Vasil, who had been watching, silent and forgotten, leapt in and shoved Ognian hard. It was only because Ognian was in motion and caught off guard that it made the Jӓger stumble back a few steps.

“Don’t yell at her!” Vasil shouted, fists clenched.

“Und Hy dun effen know vut to tink about hyu!”

Tears began to stream down Vasil’s face, and Radka’s heart shattered again and again with every word. “How do you think I feel? All my life she told me my father was so great and she loved him so much and I get you! I get a Jӓgermonster and you’re yelling at her and you wrecked our garden and I hate you!”

Radka crossed the floor, dropped to her knees and hugged him tightly. Vasil collapsed sobbing into her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Their door burst open and three Jӓgers came pouring in. They immediately screeched to a halt, their laughter dying on their lips. Radka glanced at Ognian, and knew what a picture they made. Mother and son cowering away from the big bad Jӓgermonster.

Not a man having his entire life turned upside down by the woman he’d...

“Get out!” Ognian bellowed, and the Jӓgers scrambled away, the last one even pulling the door shut behind him.

The surprise had drained the tension from the room. Vasil was hiccupping and sniffling, but his tears had stopped enough that he could wipe his face. Ognian leaned against the table, rubbing his forehead and staring at his feet.

And Radka…

“I didn’t think it would hurt you,” Radka said, softly, “because I didn’t think you’d be alive to be hurt. It was too...poetic. I show up to tell you I’m carrying your child moments after you’re chosen for a ceremony that kills most people who take it.” She looked at Vasil, who was watching her with an oddly wary expression. “I never told you that your father might be a Jäger because I didn’t think he was. And he is absolutely right.”

Ognian looked up in surprise.  

“He is perfectly justified in being angry at me for making major life decisions that affected us both, based on the assumption that the real world operates like a story, without his input.”

“So vut vuz all dot about me beink too stupid to die?” Ognian demanded, without much ire.

“Narrative convention would outweigh your intellect, obviously,” Radka said, with a dry and humorless twist of her mouth. “It would have been the perfect end to a romantic tragedy, and I played my part, resigning myself to a life of joyless drudgery, the fire of any kind of happiness gone out save the one piece of you I was so lucky as to get.”

And then Ognian and Vasil turned to each other and shared A Look – the look of two people commiserating over a situation that was exasperating, but not unexpected.

“Yes, alright,” Radka said, irritably.

“Mama…” Vasil said, with great pain on his face. “Mama, that’s stupid.”

“Thank you, Vasil, I am aware.”

“Now,” Ognian pointed out. He glanced at the door and cocked his head, listening. Radka heard it too—the sounds of chaos were a little further away. “Ve iz only passink through on our vay home. Hy can’t stay.”

“Well,” Radka said, standing and brushing her knees off, not looking at Ognian. “I can hardly keep you here—”

“Oh no, no, no,” Ognian interrupted, once more jabbing a finger at her. “Hy dun tink so. Hyu dun get out of dis dot easy. Hy iz not leavink hyu here to have to raise our son all by hyuself. Hyu tought Hy vould die because it vuz a tragedy, but Hy iz still here. If it izn’t a tragedy, it iz a comedy, und hyu said a comedy ends in a vedding or a feast, und Hy…”

He gestured around the room.

“Dun see any food.”

Radka’s mouth popped open.

“That,” she managed at last, “is the least romantic and most personally tailored proposal I have ever heard.”

“Iz dot a yes?”

There was an insistent tugging at her sleeve. Vasil stared up at her, imploringly.

“If you marry a Jägermonster, we don’t have to live in Poveste anymore,” he said, earnestly.

“I…well, no, obviously, but—”

Ognian took her hand and drew her in, putting his hands on her shoulders. Radka’s mouth began to wobble.

“It didn’t even work,” she whispered. “I put everybody through all that and it still hurt.”

“Vell maybe hyu learn hyu lesson for next time.”

He pressed his mouth to hers in the most wonderful, most emotionally complicated kiss of her life. His arms were as strong as she remembered them.

When they pulled away, Ognian’s expression was slightly worried.

“Dot’s definitely a yez, right?”

Radka smiled, her heart swelling, and put a gentle hand on his cheek.

“I am delighted to see you have not grown a single ounce of brain in the last ten years, you deeply stupid light of my life. Yes, Ognian, I will marry you. With all my heart.” 

The kiss was longer and a little deeper this time. They both ignored the quiet blech from Vasil. When at last Ognian pulled away, it was with great reluctance.

“Hy should probably go before anybody sees me.”

“Go out the back. We’ll pack and leave at dawn.” She smiled. “You’re an easy bunch to track.”

“Ve iz takink de east road,” he told her. “De Heterodyne vill camp soon.” He kissed her again, briefly. Then to Vasil, he said “Hey, ven ve get to Mechanicsburg, Hy build hyu a new flower ting, ya?”

“Trellis,” Vasil sniffed. Then, with some forbearance, “Okay.”

Ognian squeezed Radka’s hand one last time, and was gone.

And then it was Radka and Vasil alone, again. If she didn’t look at the broken deadbolt on the door, she could pretend it had never happened. Some strange and terrible part of her brain played the story of her and Vasil running in the opposite direction, leaving Ognian waiting, waiting forever and ever, his heart breaking all over again—

She took a deep breath.

“Vasil, could you start packing? Fast and light. Mama’s going to lie down and have hysterics for a bit.”

[rebelliousstories]

Coming Home

Relationship: Luke Alvez x Reader

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Request: No

Warnings: Angst, Descriptions of Violence, Fluff

Word Count: 2,945

Main Masterlist: Here

Criminal Minds Masterlist: Here

Part Two of: That’s My Wife

Summary: It’s a race against the clock in order to get inside and find out where Luke’s wife has gone.

Previously…

“You are just gorgeous. Don’t know how that man ever landed you.” As he grew closer, Theodore raised his gun with his finger on the trigger, and fired.

Bang

~

Leonard grabbed his brother’s arm and raised it towards the sky just in time for the bullet to graze her shoulder. He wrangled the gun out of Theodore’s hand. “The hell are you doing man? We need her alive!”

“Maybe you need her alive, but I’m perfectly content in seeing how well agent Alvez copes with the loss of his little wife.” The man tried to make another pass at her, but was stopped once again by his brother.

“We kill her, and we have no chance of getting out of here alive. I mean, we’re already going to have a hard time with you killing that guy, and for someone calling the cops on us before we ever started.” Leonard leveled with his brother.

“The hell you talking about, Leo?” Theodore scoffed.

“The agent on the phone, Rossi, he said that this was the first time we’ve ever been caught. That could only mean that someone tipped them off before we ever got started here.” The two brothers were chest to chest, and toe to toe. They had forgotten about the hostages and the reason they were there.

“Ted didn’t canvas the place properly.” Wulfric suddenly piped up. Both brothers turned to the man who spoke.

“What did you say?” Theodore turned, a dangerous growl in his tone.

“You didn’t canvas properly,” came his reiteration. “You were suppose to take care of this job, because we thought we could trust you to do it right.”

Wulfric stood and left the room to go find Samson, leaving the other two alone.

~

“Okay, thanks to Garcia, we have blue prints of the building. There is the main entrance and exit here at the front,” Matt pointed, “but there is one side entrance. It’s a wonder they haven’t even tried to use it yet.”

“What is their endgame?” JJ asked, looking down at the blueprints. Everyone stopped for a second as they processed the woman being there.

“What are you doing here?” Rossi inquired, with his brows arching.

“Heard you guys needed a little extra help so I postponed my vacation by one more day. Will is staying with the boys.” She smiled as she was refocusing on the case.

“Garcia brought me up to speed, but I’m still confused as to how and why they got caught now.” The rest of the team was with her there.

“There was something about the way Leonard reacted when I mentioned that. It was like he was just now realizing that they were stuck.” Rossi mentioned. Spencer held up a hand.

“That could be because he wasn’t thinking about that possibility. He could think they’re too good to be caught.” However, David shook his head.

“No. Get Garcia on. I think I know what went wrong.”

~

Luke paced back and forth throughout the room with his arms tucked in. He had not said a word. Emily had stuck him in the mobile command center while the rest of his team was working the case outside. While the air conditioning felt amazing, Alvez was losing his mind thinking about his wife that was stuck in the building. With a slam of a door, Prentiss stepped inside and closed it behind her.

“Have there been any threats made against you recently?” Her tone left no room for nonsense.

“No. Emily, what’s going on? Where is my wife?” Luke pressed, already on edge.

“Luke, answer my question. Have there been any threats made against you or your wife recently?” Once more, she asked. Alvez scrubbed his hands over his face before placing his hands on his hips.

“No. Nothing.” He admitted. His voice was defeated.

“What about anyone watching you?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Prentiss sighed, “what about the trial? You had to go and testify as the arresting agent. Did one of the twins make any threats against you?”

Luke had to pause. It had been so long ago, in time and cases he has worked, that he had pushed it to the back of his mind. Scrubbing his face for what seemed like the hundredth time, he tried to think about the trial. Nothing was coming to his mind the longer he thought about it. Luke pieced together the events of today and tried to search his memory when he finally found it.

“At the trial, when the verdict was read after my testimony, Theodore was screaming at me. He blamed me for them being caught and sentenced. He called my wife by name, and said that he would make me regret it. I didn’t pay it any mind at the time.” The look of revelation on Luke’s face told Emily everything she needed to know.

“Let’s go.” They walked outside and found the rest of the team to clue them in. However, before they could, Prentiss’ phone rang out.

“What have you got Penelope?” She asked, standing around with her team.

“Ma’am, it’s her. They just- they’re, oh god.” Garcia whimpered as whatever she was looking at was happening.

“What’s going on, Garcia? What’s happening to my wife?” Luke demanded, resisting the urge to yank the phone out of his unit chief’s hand.

“Theodore just hit her over the head. They’re taking her somewhere in the bank but I can’t find it.” The woman’s voice was weak as she tried to articulate what was going on.

“That’s it.” Alvez growled. He tried to make for the building, but was held back by Matt and Spencer. It was like they were corralling a wild bull with how much the man was thrashing around.

“Let me go! I need to go in there!” He screamed, but there was no moving the two men holding him back.

“Alvez!” Emily yelled over his protests. Turning around, the agent was panting with rage.

“I said I wouldn’t take you off. Don’t make me do it.” She promised, watching as the man walked off. Prentiss nodded to JJ to go look after him, before she turned back to the team.

“Garcia, you still there? What’s going on inside?” Recentering the rest of the team, Prentiss assumed her role as team leader.

“Yes, I’m still here. I’m trying to gain access to the CCTV cameras outside the bank to see if there is something that I can find.” Furious typing was heard over the line, when David piped up.

“Garcia, is there a camera over the side door of the bank? We know that there is one but we’re wondering why they haven’t used it yet.”

“Um, yeah. Oh, oh no,” she began, “um, so I see Wulfric and Samson transporting something out to a car but they keep going inside. Why would they do that?” Penelope asked confused.

“Because they are wanting Theodore and Leonard to take the fall for the job.” Spencer stated, feeling dread fill his stomach.

~

Groups of people sat around the bank as Leonard kept his gun on them. Meanwhile, Theodore was busy beating on Alvez’s wife. The sounds of flesh hitting flesh caused even Leonard to flinch. He turned and saw the woman fall to the floor with bruises already forming on her face.

“Alright, give it a break man.” Leonard pulled his brother off of the woman. She curled in on herself while Theodore panted with a smile on his face.

“Where the hell are Wolf and Shark?” The man looked around as he waited. His brother looked as well, but stopped after a moment.

“They probably found a way for us to get out.” Theodore commented, turning his attention back to the woman on the ground who was still curled in. The phone rang again. This time Theodore answered.

“Hello?”

“Theodore,” David answered, “how are you doing?”

“I’m feeling fine. Can’t say the same for Mrs. Alvez. How is Mr. Alvez by the way?” He teased, keeping his eyes on the woman on the floor.

“For your safety, he is not coming in there. Say, do you know where Samson and Wulfric are?” David asked.

“They’re finding us a way out.” Theodore commented as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

“Oh, they’re finding a way out alright. I just don’t think you’re a part of their plan.”

“You’re wrong.” He hung up the phone, and walked over to his brother.

~

David sighed as the phone hung up yet again, and turned towards Emily. The two senior members of the team had a silent conversation with just their eyes.

“How do you want to play this?” He asked, hands resting on the table beneath the phone box. Prentiss thought for a moment.

“Let’s get Samson and Wulfric the next time they come out. Reid, you and Simmons take care of that. Dave, Tara, we need to find a way to get inside.” With their assignments, everyone took off.

The two men went around the side of the building and saw that the twins had just disappeared back into the building. Waiting for the right time, their firearms were drawn as they assumed their positions. Reid stationed himself behind Matt, who was right in front of the door. It was only a few minutes before the door opened again. Samson and Wulfric stopped dead in their tracks as they saw what was waiting for them.

“Hey boys.” Matt teased, motioning for them to drop to the floor. Samson noticed the other agent behind him, and dropped. His brother followed suit, and the two were swiftly arrested and placed in a car to be taken downtown. After that, the agents made their way back to the rest of the team, and hoped that there was an update. Luke and JJ had joined them again which was a good sign.

“Are the Mitchell’s taken care of?” Emily asked, receiving nods of conformation in return.

“Went down without a fight.” Matt commented, focusing on how to get the rest of the people out.

“So, Theodore is seemingly calling the shots. We need to find a way to get Leonard to get out so we can take his brother down. He’s the main threat to her right now.” The unit chief explained.

“Let me try something.” Luke finally spoke up. Everyone looked towards the man, whose voice was rough with emotion.

~

“Where the hell are those two?” Theodore growled as his brother looked around the back of the bank.

“I don’t know. They aren’t here.” Leonard stated. The phone rang again. He stalked over to it and wasted no time in answering.

“What did you do?” He screamed, waiting for Rossi to answer him.

“Hello, Leo. Looking for someone?” It was Luke instead. Leonard stopped as he processed the voice.

“Luke Alvez,” Theodore turned to face his brother in shock. “What can I do for you, mister agent?”

“How about a sign of good faith? Let some of the hostages go.” Luke’s request made Leonard laugh.

“What kind of husband- what kind of man are you? You don’t want to speak to your little wife?” The man leered, confused by the agent’s words.

“I can see that she is okay right now. If you let the hostages go, I’ll come in myself and we can talk.” Leonard held his brother’s eyes while on the phone. He heard the call mute, and then click back on.

“No firearm, no vest. Once you’re in, we’ll let the hostages go.” He hung up the phone, and felt a surge of adrenaline power through him.

“Looks like we’re getting our reunion after all.”

~

“Luke, you can’t go in there. We’re not giving them another hostage.” Rossi shut down the notion as Luke was removing his gun and vest.

“If it means getting those innocent people out and away from danger, I’m doing it.” He set down the effects and jogged to the door before his team could stop him. Shouts of his teammates disappeared when he opened up the door and went inside the bank. Once he was in, he could see the carnage. The body of the man from earlier was dragged off to the side at some point, and people were grouped together. Men, women, and children were separated in different parts of the lobby. With hands up, Luke walked further into the building.

“Agent Alvez, how nice of you to join us.” Theodore greeted him, pointing his own pistol towards the agent. He held eye contact before a whimper tore them away. Looking down, Luke saw his wife; beaten, bruised, bloody, and broken. The man noticed his attention had drifted.

“Oh she’ll be fine. Maybe.” He teased, treating it like a big game. Refocusing, Luke found Leonard next to him.

“The hostages need to go. I came in on your terms, now they need to go on mine.” Alvez reasoned as Leonard patted him down. Once he was cleared, he started going to get the groups to their feet and moving them to the front door. Luke kept his eyes on his wife while he heard footsteps leave the building. Knowing that his team had them taken care of made Luke feel better about focusing his attention on what was happening inside.

“Oh I have waited so long for this.” Theodore growled, hauling Luke’s wife to her feet by her hair. The sound made Luke lurch forward to help her, but Leonard grabbed the agent tightly to prevent him from reaching the other two people.

“Now,” Theodore came closer with the woman in tow, ”what to do with you two?”

“Neither one of you care about Samson or Wulfric?” Luke choked out. The arm around his throat relented just a little bit.

“What did you do to them?” Leonard inquired, but Luke just chuckled.

“They’re half way back into the system by now. We caught them about to sneak out a side door without you, and with the money.” The brothers looked at each other, and looked at the agent inquisitively.

“You’re lying.” Theodore breathed out, yanking to woman closer in retaliation.

“No,” Luke rasped, “my team found out who you all are, how you met. I already knew your M.O. so it was just a matter of figuring out that the other two were using your hatred to do bigger and bigger jobs. And just like we took them in, you’ll be going back in.” He struggled against his captor for a moment before relaxing. They would be getting out of this.

“Not going back to jail. Ain’t gonna happen.” Theodore said, shaking his head. From behind him there was movement that Luke caught, only because he was looking for it.

“See unlike you, I know when to take the low road and drop.” Luke’s eyes were on his wife, but he was not sure if she could see with all of her hair in the way.

“You? Low road?” Theodore laughed, ”you won’t take the low road, mister FBI agent. You’re too much of a goody two shoes for that to happen.”

“Let’s put that theory to the test.” Without warning, Luke dropped to his knees and threw Leonard over his shoulder to slam him into the ground.

“FBI! Let the woman go and show us your hands!” JJ yelled, walking in with Emily and Matt next to her. Leonard was busy being wrangled by Luke who was tossed Emily’s cuffs in the scuffle. Once he was apprehended, Theodore was much more willing to give up as his brother kept begging him not to shoot his way out. The Jameson twins were taken outside by Simmons and JJ, while Emily stayed behind to over see her other agent.

As soon as the danger had passed, Luke ran over to his wife and pulled her into his arms. They were both crying and whimpering as they finally got to hold each other after the whole ordeal. Alvez holding Alvez; he kept pressing kisses into her head, before moving her hair out of her face to assess the damage.

“Mi vida. Oh, you’re here.” He whispered, looking at the bruises on her face.

“Hey sugar. Didn’t mean to spend so long at the bank. Kinda got held up with lines.” She rasped, prompting a watery chuckle from Luke.

“Only you would joke like that at a time like this. We gotta get you to an ambulance, corazón.” Standing, Luke gently helped his wife up, careful not to put pressure on any injuries. Emily had already radioed in for an ambulance, and she went to help. However, he was not ready to let go of his wife quite yet. Luke wrapped her arms around his neck and hoisted her into his arms bridal style, and carried her out to meet the EMTs. Before they could leave, Prentiss pulled agent Alvez to the side real quick.

“What you did was reckless, stupid, and you put in danger one of my agents.” She scolded, noticing how there was no trace of apology on his face.

“You did well Luke. Take care of her.” Dismissing her agent, Luke happily climbed in the back of the ambulance and held his wife’s hand the entire way to the hospital.

“How are you feeling, amor?” Luke asked in a hushed tone while he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.

“Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds its way back to you.” ~ Ranata Suzuki

“Better now that you’re here.” She replied, happily hugging her husband to her until the paramedics made them separate so they could do their jobs.

[asirensrage]

Saudade - Chapter 30

Rating: Explicit Pairing: Mikey x OC, Hanma x OC, Ran x OC, Mikey x OC x Draken Fandom: Tokyo Revengers Warnings: swearing, violence, threats of violence, murder, smoking, sex, consensual sex between teenagers, alcohol, recreational drug use, mention of trafficking, torture, family neglect, mentions of sexual violence. isekai OC. memory loss. unbeta’d **warnings are not exhaustive** Summary: No one seems to realize she doesn’t belong until she finally runs into her “new” brother, Hanagaki Takemichi. Now, hearing his story, Takara makes the choice to help him and hopefully find her way home, but faking it til you make it only lasts so long when you start losing the memories of the life you had before. As Takemichi becomes the only family she’s ever known, how far will she go to protect him?

notes: The aftermath of the events and Takara's realization of what her future holds. I hope you enjoy this chapter. There's a lot in it. I considered breaking it up but I knew that it would be too short if I ended it anywhere else. Please let me know what you think. As always, expect spoilers for the manga and the last season aired of the anime.

also on ao3

fic masterlist - prev chapter

In the days after, Takara focuses on taking care of Takemichi. She can’t help it. She forces him into bed rest and the two of them hang out on their couch, eating ice cream and trying to recover from their injuries. Their parents take her excuse of a skating accident without question but their mother dotes on Takemichi by giving him everything he wants. Takara barely even feels the resentment that eats at her for that. 

She barely sleeps. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Kisaki and Emma’s bodies. She feels the heartbeats fade under her hands. She can’t get the feeling out and no matter how hard she scrubbed in the bath, she still feels like she finds bits of blood in the cracks of her skin or under her nails. She feels a little numb. 

The news reports on the Kanto Incident, blaming gang violence for the deaths of Emma, Kisaki and Izana. Ran and the other Tenjiku executives are arrested for it. There’s a search for Hanma. The repeated news reports are how they discover that Kakucho is alive.

It almost makes Takara cry again. Kakucho survived. Someone survived. She retreats back to her room. She’s not sure if it’s relief or satisfaction, but the knowledge that she didn’t completely fail this time alleviates tension she barely realized she had. It’s enough to knock her out. She sleeps for ages.

⛸️

Emma’s funeral is worse than Baji’s. 

Maybe it’s because she was closer to the girl, but it feels like something breaks. She hasn’t seen any of them since that night and it’s ten times worse that it’s her’s where they’re reunited. 

Mikey is holding himself steady, looking resolute and strong, but Takara knows better. It’s the same way he looked when Draken was in the hospital…when Baji died. She sees it in the dead look in Mikey’s eyes and the tone of his voice when he thanks them for coming to pay their respects. 

She almost doesn’t recognize Draken with his hair down and loose. He kneels before Mikey and his grandfather and apologizes for not protecting her. Takara’s throat tightens as she sees him cry when their grandfather tells him that Emma loved him back. That she was at rest. 

She doesn’t stop the tears from falling, doesn’t look away as she silently apologizes to Emma. She should have done better. She thanks the younger girl for her friendship…and for being the one who got hit instead of her brother. 

Takara leaves as soon as she can, slipping out and hiding in an alcove as she digs out a cigarette from her purse. It takes a few tries before she manages to light it because of the way her hands are shaking. The first inhale of nicotine settles her racing heart and by the second, she feels a little more calm. A little more able to deal with this. She’s surrounded by other people’s grief and she’s sick with the guilt of it. Emma is dead and Takara might have inspired the approach. 

“You okay?”

She looks up quickly at the voice, hiding the cigarette automatically. Chifuyu is standing at the entrance, hands shoved in his pockets as he looks at her.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be,” he says. “She was your friend too.”

Takara takes a drag of the cigarette. “She was,” she agrees. “But I didn’t know her as well as the rest of you did. I didn’t-” She stops herself before she admits, “I feel so fucking useless in there.”

He frowns slightly. “What? Why?”

She shakes her head. “You wouldn’t get it.” 

“Try me.” 

Takara takes another drag, exhaling softly as she watches the smoke rise. “She shouldn’t have died and there’s nothing I can do to alleviate that pain from…” from herself. From Takemichi. She changes the subject. “You know he’s probably going back soon.” 

“Takemitchy?” Chifuyu asks before nodding. “Yeah, not like he can stay here. He’s in a coma in the future, isn’t he?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s good, though, right? I mean, this…this is awful, but if Kisaki’s dead, that means the future should be good. He and Hina should be alive and well.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. Logically, that should be the outcome, but gangs don’t always just disappear and new teams get formed every day. Eventually, the guys arrested will be released and she doubts men like Ran will suddenly be reformed. Besides, Hanma is still fucking out there. She probably hasn’t heard the last of him. Takemichi is going to go back to the future and she’s going to be the one left with the fallout. She feels exhausted already. 

“It’s not the same though,” Chifuyu admits.

“No. It’s not.” She stubs out the cigarette before tucking the butt back in the case so she can dispose of it properly later. “We should get back.”

“Yeah,” he laughs slightly and rubs the back of his head. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think we snuck out together.”

She snorts. “Don’t worry, we’ll just tell them Takemichi sent you after me.”

“I’m not sure that would work,” he says.

“Yeah,” Takara nods, thinking of the rumours that surrounded her. “I know.” She follows him back to the others and tries not to let the guilt eat her alive. 

⛸️

She’s not entirely sure this is a good idea, but Hinata is standing next to her and it’s the least Takara can do for the girl her brother loves. It feels like a never-ending parade of funerals, but this one is different. There’s no real love lost here, not for her, but Takara is good at pretending. She walks into the funeral like she hasn’t wished Kisaki dead herself. 

It’s awkward talking to his mother. 

“How did you know Tetta?” the woman asks softly, after thanking Hina for coming. 

“We…ran in the same circles,” Takara answers vaguely. If the woman didn’t know her son was a delinquent and murderer, who was she to take that away from her? It was in the news, so the woman was willingly blinding herself, but it was none of Takara’s business. Her parents barely acknowledged her. If his wanted to act like he was the perfect son…well, it felt like home. 

The funeral is sparse in comparison to Emma’s. 

There is family and a few friends, but it’s easy to see that Hinata and she are one of the few teens there. His mother cries, mentioning something about lost potential and Takara bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood. He had potential alright. To be an obsessed psychopath. Takemichi had revealed what he had learned, how Kisaki had yelled that if he couldn’t have Hinata, no one could. 

He had to tell someone, apparently. Her brother struggles with the fact that he killed Kisaki, even if it was an accident and he didn’t actually mean to. She still sees his mangled body when she closes her eyes and she only found them at the end. It’s no surprise that Takemichi does too. 

Hinata cries during the service. Takara’s purse is well stocked with tissues that she hands them over as needed without looking. She’s too used to her emotional brother. Hinata thanks her quietly as she dabs her face and Takara offers some to the people around her that she sees might need them. She did the same thing at Emma’s funeral once she got a hold of herself. 

“Thank you for coming with me,” Hinata says softly once they leave. “I know you weren’t…that you didn’t like him.”

It’s the understatement of the century in Takara’s mind. 

“It’s no problem,” she says, keeping her thoughts to herself. “I know you were friends. I might not have liked him, but he was still just a kid, even with everything that happened.”

“So are you,” Hinata points out. 

“Doesn’t feel like it,” she admits. Takara takes a deep breath and sighs. “I’m always just a phone call away if you need someone, Hinata. I know you and Emma were close, and you’re dating my brother, but we’re friends too. If you ever need company or help or anything, let me know.”

Hinata hugs her tightly. “Thank you.” 

Takara returns it before asking, “You need me to walk you home?” as she pulls away.

“No, I think I want to go by myself. Try to stop crying before I get there.” 

“Okay,” Takara nods. She knows what it’s like to need space and if she’s honest, she doesn’t want any more company. She’s tired. “You want me to send Takemichi over?”

Hinata blushes and Takara laughs. “No! It’s okay! He’s meeting Mikey today, isn’t he?”

“Oh, right.” She hasn’t spoken to Mikey since the funeral, but Takemichi told her that Mikey had requested he meet him one on one. He didn’t know what about. “Well, I’ll tell him to call you when I see him.” The two of them say their goodbyes and part ways. 

Takara waits until Hinata’s out of sight before she pulls out a cigarette and lights it. It’s starting to become a habit but she can’t quite convince herself to stop. She doesn’t want to stop. Not when it calms her shaking hands and rapid heart. 

“Still seeking my taste, huh princess?”

She stops walking and turns. Leaning against a wall in the alley is fucking Hanma. He’s dressed casually, hood up to cover his hair and face, but there’s no hiding who he is. She drops the cigarette and glares. 

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” she snarls. 

“Yeah?” he asks, “maybe I’ll let you.” 

Takara pauses at the tone of his voice. He doesn’t sound like himself. There’s none of that cocky bravado that he always has, especially when he’s teasing her. “What?”

He bends down and picks up the cigarette she dropped, taking a drag since it’s still lit. An indirect kiss that he doesn’t even mention. “You went to his funeral.”

“Oh.” Despite her anger at his actions, at everything he’s done, she forgot that he and Kisaki were friends. “Yeah.”  

“How was it?”

“Empty,” she says, deadpan and honest. He huffs in reply but doesn’t say anything as he takes another drag. “That’s what happens when you’re a murderer.” 

His eyes flash. “Don’t say that shit.”

“Why? Because it’s true?”

“You didn’t know him.”

Takara juts her chin up, glaring. “I know he was an obsessed psychopath who couldn’t get over the fact that the girl he liked is in love with someone else, and when his plans failed, he killed someone. Hinata’s fucking lucky she never knew how far his delusions went because if she rejected him now, I have no doubt it would have been her funeral I’d be at instead!” 

He grabs her, yanking her into the alley and shoving her against the wall, hand at her throat. His grip tightens.

“What? Gonna join him?” She taunts. “No wonder you two were friends. Two sides of the same fucking coi-”

She’s cut off as his mouth presses against hers. Takara shoves him back, but Hanma forces her into submission, using the hand on her neck to tilt her head up as he deepens the kiss. She bites at his lip but he merely groans, shifting his thigh to press between hers. 

Takara grabs his hair, yanking hard but all it does is make him try to get closer, as if he can melt into her. She digs her nails into his shoulder and she tastes blood in his kiss. She wants to punish him, to make him bleed for helping his friend and hurting hers. She wants to hate him, to feel his heartbeat slow under her hands and yet her leg hooks over his waist, pulling him closer. 

Hanma moves them, lifting Takara with a prompt to wrap her legs around them. She doesn’t know how he has access to the building they’re pressed against, but he does. It takes a minute before she realizes that they’re in dark bathroom and he rests her on the edge of a sink, not letting go. 

He digs his fingers into her skin, forming bruises in their wake. His mouth moves to her neck as he shifts up her skirts. Takara doesn’t mention the tears she feels against her skin. 

⛸️

When they finish, when Takara finally pushes him away and fixes her clothing again, Hanma is quiet. It’s weird. He lights another cigarette and takes a hit before passing it to her. She takes a drag and lets the smoke settle her nerves before she slowly exhales. Her lips are swollen, there are bite marks on her skin and bruises blooming, but he’s the one who's bleeding from her teeth and nails. 

She wonders if he was searching for comfort in seeking her out, but Takara has never been comforting to boys who didn’t deserve it. Not in her opinion. They used each other because she no longer feels as unsettled as she did at the funeral. It’s a little fucked up to admit, but she hopes Kisaki is rolling in his grave at the fact that she’s the one who is holding the leash now. She doesn’t want a dog though. Not him. 

“You need to leave.”

“After that, princess?” he jokes but it falls flat.  “Sure you don’t want to go another round?”

“You have ten minutes, Shuji, before I call the cops and tell them where you are.” 

He pauses and stares at her before he gives a huff of laughter. “You would,” he says softly. “Always so mean to me.” 

“Did you expect any different?” she asks, stealing the cigarette back from him. He lets her. 

“Nah, wouldn’t like you as much if I did.” He leans forward and brushes his lips against hers in the softest kiss they’ve ever shared. “I’ll be back for you.”

“I’ll be waiting with a knife.”

The laugh he gives finally sounds more genuine. “Can’t wait. Bye, princess.” 

She doesn’t say goodbye. She leans against the sink that he fucked her on and watches him leave, cigarette burning in her hand. She finishes her smoke before flushing the butt down the toilet and leaving. She needs a shower. 

⛸️

Takemichi practically pounces on her when she gets home. 

“I fucked up!”

For her brother to swear, she knows it’s serious. Despite the grime and dried sweat that begs her for a shower to clean herself from, she focuses on him. He’s supposed to be safe now. “What happened?” she demands. 

“Mikey wanted me to tell him everything that happened in the future and I did but I also accidentally told him that you’re not really my sister, or at least you haven’t always been, and that you just showed up and we met for the first time on that day they had that fight and that you know everything and have been trying to help…” 

She stares at him, processing the long run-on sentence that he tried to say as fast as possible. “...what?”

Takemichi winces. “And Mikey disbanded Toman.”

“What?!” Her mouth drops open. Of everything she expected him to say, none of it is what came out of his mouth. She can feel a headache forming already. If Mikey disbanded Toman, that left an open spot for the championship. Just because the winning team leaves, doesn’t mean all the players are out of the game. “Fuck.”

“I’m so sorry, Taka! I didn’t mean to tell him about you!” 

She blinks before she remembers that was what he was worried about. “Did you tell him that Chifuyu knows too?”

“No…”

Takara sighs. Of course, he didn’t. Her brother seemed to be made up of only caring and determination, but there wasn’t a lick of sense to him. “It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll deal with it.” If she’s lucky, Mikey will have only been focused on listening to bits about the future, and will ignore the fact her brother thinks she didn’t exist before she knew him. “Did he say why he ended the team? Toman?” 

“He said we achieved what he wanted. That the era of delinquents he dreamed about was made, that it was my era, not his. He told everyone he wanted to end on a high note.” Classic move for a winning team. 

“So…what’s everyone going to do now?” Takara asks. 

“I don’t know. Everyone was upset, but we’re gonna bury a time capsule! In one week, we’re gonna meet up with our stuff and bury it…then open it in twelve years.”

“When you go back.”

“...yeah.” Takemichi swallows and looks at her. “I’ll be going back after that.”

Takara nods. Logically, she knows he can’t stay but that gives her one week with the version of her brother that she actually knows. The one she’s been trying to save. “I know.” Her fingers twitch, itching for a cigarette. She’s been smoking too much if the slightest stress makes her want one to deal with it.  

“I almost…don’t want to go back…” 

Takara wants to dig her fingers in and demand he doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to leave her here. She’s going to be alone. With Toman disbanding, there will be no reason for her to be near Takemichi or his friends. Hanma is gone. Ran is in prison. She’s going to have to dig through the dirt of this place to figure out who’s going to make a play for the gaps left by Toman. 

“It’ll be fine, Take,” she assures him. “I’ll keep an eye on things while you’re gone…make sure you turn out the way you should!” Takara lunges forward and wraps an arm around his neck, yanking him down so she can rub her knuckles on his scalp.

“Ah! Taka! Get off! You’re ruining my hair!”

“Good!” she laughs. “Maybe it’ll look better.”

“Hey!” 

⛸️

tag list: @raith-way @zeleniafic @veetlegeuse @chickensarentcheap @residentdormouse

@themaradwrites @kingsmakers @thatmagickjuju @awkwardchick87 @hayatoseyepatch

tr tag: @mitsuwuyaa @blackfire2013 @bleach-your-panties @reiners-milkbiddies

saudade tag: @thisbicc @scythegal @bontenxo

network tag: @pixelcafe-network

[pinazee]

Becky Barnes has to be the most underrated hatchetfield character. Like her coolness to fandom appreciation ratio is way too low. This bad bitch didn’t accidentally knick her abusive husbands femoral artery, she aimed for it, and left that bastard to bleed out in the woods.

Then she shot Linda in the middle of her forehead with zero hesitation and without any context into the whole wiggly situation. She decided Linda had to go and handled it.

But also she’s a sweet character. She was in that line, probably after work since shes still wearing scrubs, for the kids at the hospital. Plus, I personally, like to believe she didn’t “miss” hitting hannah with that needle, i think part of her knew what was happening and stopped herself.

Ill admit, i under appreciated her myself, but what a great character.

(P.S that stanley guy is still alive somewhere isnt he?!? Tbh, i don’t want him to come back because i dont want becky to have to deal with him anymore. But if he does, I hope another lady stumbles across him and finishes it for her.)

[klbwriting]

Adventures In Atlantean-Sitting

Chapter 2

Fandom: Aquaman

Pairing: Ormxfemale!Reader

Warnings: None

Summary: Arthur tells the council he has a plan, Orm meets YN and isn't too pleased

Arthur spent the next few days in Atlantis with the council, laying out exactly who this tracking metahuman was and what they could do. He explained that YN was someone who Batman had found originally. She had lived in Gotham for her whole life, in Arkham mostly, because she seemed to know too much about everyone around her. They thought she was using this power to help supervillains, however, she was not helping them willingly. Batman had gotten her out of Arkham and after she helped him track down a few of his more elusive foes he helped her get reestablished in Coast City under the eye of Green Lantern. She was able to get help controlling her power and now the Justice League called upon her if they needed help and paid for her to live just outside the city. She was trusted completely, very predictable, and she would be able to find Orm and when she did she would report back to Arthur and he would have a squad take in the exiled king. After much debate about whether an Atlantean should be with her while she did this, they council finally agreed to let the king do it his way first. Orlan, surprisingly, was on his side about this. Arthur knew it was because Orlan wanted to see him fail fantastically. He went back to the surface and contacted Orm, telling him to meet him at the edge of the woods north of the city.

Orm arrived at the meeting spot, carrying his bag. He figured Arthur was taking him somewhere new, there was an attack by Atlantean's on the city, he couldn't stay there. They might have found him and then Arthur would have a conflict with the surface world and the council in Atlantis. The man couldn't handle that kind of stress, he could barely handle tying his shoes. Orm sighed, he needed to stop thinking that Arthur was such an idiot. He had defeated Orm, had found Atlan's trident, apparently was able to run the kingdom well enough that the people at least were on his side. Arthur was not the imbecile older brother anymore, he was a good king, and a good brother who was willing to deal with Orm and his shit.

"There's my baby brother," Arthur said, moving to lift Orm by surprise, hugging him from the side and turning him around in the air. Orm struggled. Alright, Arthur was still an imbecile. "Now I need you to be completely honest with me, did you attack Coast City?" Orm was appalled.

"NO!" he said. "That attack was rudimentary, if you're going to attack a city like that, you don't just send in a small ground assault, you use the water that is right there to destroy half the city first, then you come in with a large ground assualt..." Orm stopped when he noticed Arthur holding back a laugh. His eyes narrowed. "You already knew I had nothing to do with it." He nodded.

"I did, but that insight into your brain was fascinating. You are a terrifying little man," his brother said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Come on, I got the council to agree to me finding you, not sending out an Atlantean search team," he explained as they started walking down a side dirt road into the trees.

"Why do they even think it is me?" he asked. Arthur sighed.

"They found a weapon under some rubble, the DNA attached to it was yours," he said. Orm's eyebrows shot up. He could still activate some weapons? He may need that for later. "O don't get any ideas, I already made sure to send teams out to the rest of the caches in the world, you're scrubbed from all of them now." Orm's small fledge of hope deflated. He coup attempt would have to wait. "But anyway..."

"Where are you taking me?" Orm asked now, just noticing they were just going into trees. There wasn't any town or even a bus station to take him somewhere else.

"Let me explain. Because your DNA was found the council wants to find you, they know you're alive now. I promised them I would have a specific person find you. Well, I know where you are, this person I'm taking you to is a friend of the League. She's agreed to keep track of you and to house you until the real culprit of these attacks is discovered." Orm frowned. So Arthur's grand plan to help him was to have someone babysit him? He wasn't a child. He just needed to get far enough away, maybe stay towards the inner states for awhile. The council would soon forget him again and he would be able to find someplace new to settle for awhile.

They finally exited the trees to find a small cottage surrounded by wildflowers. There was an older model car parked by the red door. The place looked a bit magical to Orm. He had just watched a movie where there was a cottage like this, it seemed like a place nothing bad could happen. Arthur walked up to the door and knocked. A woman answered and smiled big at Arthur, hugging him tight before looking to Orm and smiling. Poseidon, that smile was like sunshine. Orm immediately liked her, but hated that she was his keeper. He would be getting out of this place as soon as he could. She walked over, extending her hand to him. Orm shook it politely before pulling back. The woman smiled.

"You must be Orm, Arthur has told me about your predicament. But you have no worries here. This place is completely off the books, so no one will know you're here. Well except me, but you knew that," she said. "I'm YN, come inside." She took his bag before he could argue, and walked back into the house. Orm entered and looked around. It was small, but just enough for one, maybe two people to be comfortable. She stood in the middle of the main room. She pointed out where everything was, living area, dining table, kitchen, bathroom, and one bedroom. He frowned.

"Am I sleeping on the couch?" Orm asked. The couch looked old, and honestly, not very comfortable. Arthur nudged him hard in the side, glaring. Apparently he was being rude.

"No, I am taking the couch. I set up my room for you. I wouldn't let a king sleep in squalor," she said. Orm flushed a little at the term. Was she needling him or trying to be kind? Arthur glowered a little and Orm decided she must be being kind to him. Arthur however, could see the look YN was giving his brother. She was smitten by Orm and Arthur really wished she wasn't the only meta he knew with these powers. She might be a liability. He knew Orm would run and he needed his brother to stay put and he needed someone who could keep him here and right now that was looking less likely. Maybe he would have Lantern come by tomorrow, just to check on things. Right now he needed to leave and get back to Atlantis.

"Well, you two kids have fun, Orm, stay here and YN, please keep an eye on him," he implored. YN saluted him and smiled. Orm just sighed and nodded, pretending defeat. "Thank you." With that Arthur left and Orm and YN were left alone. YN smiled and Orm for a moment thought, maybe I'll stay.

[absandersons]

First Place

Fandom: 911

Pairing: Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz

Words: 2209

Rating: T

Summary: Buck wakes from the same repeating nightmare to a knock on his door.

Title comes from this song.

Also on AO3 here

Stay with me.  He was pushing on the wound in Eddie’s chest, soaking the gauze he had packed on there, soaking his hands, a hole blown in a levy, a tidal wave that Buck couldn’t stem.

A loud rhythmic sound, maybe one of the machines on the rig acting up.  Buck didn’t have time to worry about that, he just had to worry about keeping Eddie awake.  Keeping him alive.

He was not allowed to leave, he wasn’t allowed to go to a place where Buck couldn’t immediately follow.

Stay with me.

He repeated the words like a mantra, like a prayer, saying them over and over as Eddie’s eyes rolled in and out of focus, his hand scrabbling blindly on the metal floor beside him, then coming up to rest on Buck’s forearm, then back down again.

Stay with me, you have to stay with me.

More of that rhythmic noise, louder this time.  He thought he heard his own name.

“Open up!”

He looked around, only now noticing that the rig was empty.  He looked up at the driver’s seat.

Empty.

Buck, Eddie whispered, his hand coming up to touch his face now, Buck-

Stay with me. 

Stay with me.

You have to stay with me.

“Buck!”

He sat straight up from the couch, gasping for air, his heart doing its best to beat out of his chest as whoever was at his door knocked loudly again.

He scrubbed a hand down his face as he moved slowly towards the door, trying to shake the fear that clung to him like a second skin.

Just another nightmare, just like all the others he had had since Eddie had had a hole blown right through him.

He had thought, maybe stupidly, that with Eddie home now, things would go back to normal.  He was safe, at home with Chris and probably Ana.  He was home.  He was with Chris.  It was fine.

He would tell himself this over and over, even as he would watch the clock tick nearer and nearer to dawn, and would finally gave up on sleeping all together and just sit in front of the tv, not taking in the flickering images in front of his eyes.

He thought it might be easier if he could stay with Eddie, but he couldn’t ask him that.  He had his own life, his own son, his own girlfriend.  He didn’t need Buck hanging on like a lost puppy, clinging to him like a life raft in a storm.

That never worked out for Buck, but he had never been able to let go.

He pulled open the door, only to see Eddie himself, dressed in that cream colored henley that Buck had always thought looked great on him and…pajama pants?

“Hey,” Buck blinked, looking around, “I didn’t expect-“

“Can I come in?” Eddie was shifting side to side, like he was nervous, and it was rare that Buck ever saw Eddie nervous.

“Sure,” he said, inwardly thankful that Taylor had already left.  She didn’t like to stay the night, she said Buck was too cuddly and it made her too hot, “I figured you’d be with Chris.”

“He’s in bed,” he looked over his shoulder, into Buck’s apartment, “Can I come in?”

“Oh, sure. Of course,” he stood by to let him pass, analyzing his movements as he walked by him.

He was moving well.  Buck had been up half the night googling signs and symptoms of infection or blood poisoning or a myriad of other things WebMD told him could come along with an extended hospital stay or a heavy caliber gunshot wound.

He’d lost so much blood, seeping out onto the asphalt, his insides out-

He gave his head a little shake, closing the door and following Eddie to the couch, sinking down onto it next to him, and looking at him curiously.

The silence stretched on, Buck watching Eddie, Eddie watching his hands. They were twisting together, like he was working up to something.

“I dumped Ana,” he finally said, so bluntly that Buck was taken aback.

“Oh did-  Did something happen?”

Something like a small smile curled Eddie’s mouth, but he still wouldn’t look at Buck.

“Yeah.  Carla.”

Whoa. This was a new development.

“You-  You’re dating Carla?”

“What?  No,” he laughed, “No it-  it was something she said to me.”

Another silence.  Buck couldn’t understand where this was going, or why Eddie had come to the loft just to tell him this in the middle of the night when they would see each other on shift the next morning.

“What’d she say?”

“That-  That I had to make sure I was following my own heart, not just Christopher’s.  And I was thinking about it and I realized she was right, I was just with Ana because she was nice and because Chris liked her.”

“Oof. Rough.  Hope you didn’t say that to her.”

“But I realized,” Eddie continued, plowing over Buck’s words, “That there was someone we had in common. Someone Chris loves that I-  I think I do too.”

There was a sick kind of sinking in his gut, something that he didn’t really understand, but something that was common anytime Eddie mentioned a date or someone he was seeing.

“Oh yeah?” he tried to keep up a bright smile, “Who’s that?”

Eddie didn’t answer him, but just…looked at him instead.

“What?”

“You know,” he seemed to be choosing his words more carefully now, “When I got shot, you were the first thing I saw.”

Buck shifted; he didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to remember that horrible moment, something that he was sure was going to keep him awake for years, screaming nightmares punctuating his sleep.

Eddie on the ground, his warm blood splattered across Buck’s face…

“It didn’t even hurt, really,” Eddie was saying, “The shock of it, you know.  I don’t even remember falling, but I remember I couldn’t see you.”

Buck rubbed at his chest, where was he going with this?  It’s not like he didn’t remember, it was just a couple of weeks ago and felt like he was still living in the nightmare.  He saw him bleeding out, Buck powerless to do anything but watch every time he closed his eyes.

“And then I looked under the rig and I saw you, and I could hear yelling and shots from the sniper and screaming and a fire nearby, but I-”

He broke off, shaking his head, but the idea of him not finishing what he was going to say was suddenly too heartbreaking to bear.

“What?  You can tell me.”

He took a deep, steadying breath.

“I was reaching for you. I was reaching for you because-  Because I didn’t want to die without touching you, even just for a second.  Just one last second.”

Buck felt like all the air had been punched out of his chest.

“You-”

“And then the way you talked after.  How it should have been you, how it would have been better if it was you,” Eddie shook his head, looking almost angry, “I can’t-  Chris needs you. I-  I need you.  I need you, Buck.”

“You-  You need me?” he said slowly, trying to force his brain to work faster.

“Yeah,” he whispered, shifting closer to him on the couch, so their knees were touching, “I need you more than Chris does, and he’s already complaining that he hasn’t seen you in two days.”

“I just wanted to give you your space,” he mumbled, head low.

“You don’t have to give us-  Give me any space.  I want you around, always.”

“For now,” Buck let the words slip without even thinking, his internal monologue slipping out uninvited.  Instantly, he wished he could take them back, because Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed down in concern and he reached for him, gripping his knee in his hand, warmth leeching through the fabric of Buck’s sweatpants.

“What do you mean, ‘for now’?”

“Nothing,” he said it too quickly, but wouldn’t pull away from Eddie, nothing in the universe could make him pull away from Eddie ever again, “It’s stupid.”

“No,” he was using that same tone he had used in the hospital, when he had told him that he wasn’t replaceable.  Forceful.  Assured.  Like nothing had ever been more true.  “Tell me what you meant.”

“It’s just-” he had never said this to anyone, never let it see the light of day. Because if he said it, he would lose them that much faster, “Everyone leaves eventually, when they see me.”

“See you?” he couldn’t escape the look on Eddie’s face, “What do you mean, see you?”

“Just when-  When I’m too much. Because I’m always too much. It’s what everyone says.”

“Who says that?  I wouldn’t say that.”

“I just-  The way I act. I’m too much. I’m…I’m exhausting.”

Eddie’s whole face changed.

“Oh Buck-”

“No it’s fine.  It’s fine.  I shouldn’t have said anything-”

“I was just mad at you-” Eddie sounded frantic, “I didn’t mean.”

“It’s not you, it’s everyone. My parents, my sister, the rest of the crew, any girl…ever.  Even Taylor tells me she can’t stay because I cuddle too much, even when I’m asleep I cling too hard.  I know I’m too much and I just-  I can’t get my hopes up that anything would be different here.”

He swallowed, blinking back tears that stung his eyes.

“Hey,” Eddie’s voice was so gentle, “Will you look at me?”

He didn’t want to.  He didn’t want Eddie to see him going to pieces over something as silly as this.  It was just the truth, something that he had known from the time he was a child, even years before he knew that he was only born for spare parts; he loved too hard, and he crushed the people that he loved in the process of loving them.

So it was easier for everyone to leave him, or else risk being suffocated.

A gentle hand came up to lift his chin, and he was looking at Eddie, his gaze something dangerously close to tender.

“You aren’t too much,” Buck snorted wetly, making to shrug him off, but Eddie held fast, “No, listen to me.  Really listen to me.  You aren’t too much, and fuck everyone for ever making you feel like you were.  Fuck me, for all that.  I was just angry at you-  I didn’t realize what I was saying would leave-  Leave such a mark.  But it’s not true, Buck.  You’ve never been too much, not for Chris.  Not for me.”

“I don’t know,” he wanted to try for humor, otherwise he’d be bursting into tears right here in front of Eddie, “You get pretty annoyed at me.”

“Yeah, that’s because you’re pretty annoying,” a ghost of a smile flitted across his face, “But that doesn’t mean you’ve ever been too much.”

Buck closed his eyes, hot tears leaking from them against his will.  He felt the pad of Eddie’s thumb wiping them away, and he leaned into the contact.

“Don’t-  Please don’t just be saying this.  Don’t say it if-  If you don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it,” Eddie’s voice was so earnest that Buck opened his eyes, “I mean every word.”

They stayed like that, just looking at each other, and Buck felt almost like it was a standoff, seeing who would break first.

“I don’t-  I don’t know how to feel,” he finally said, pulling back from Eddie just slightly, so that he dropped his hands, “I still-  I think I need to sleep, I can’t put anything together.”

“Are you sleeping down here?” Eddie looked critically at the blanket and throw pillow Buck had been using as a makeshift bed, “What’s wrong with the loft?”

“I can’t sleep up there,” he looked away from him, “Not that I can sleep much better down here either.”

“Just can’t sleep?” Eddie arched an eyebrow at him, “Or is it-”

“It’s you,” Buck said, nearly bitterly, “I keep dreaming about it.  The shooting.  Everything.  I keep having to stop myself from calling you at three in the morning just to make sure you’re okay.”

There was a pause, one where Buck could practically see the wheels in Eddie’s brain turning, before he said,

“Then come home with me.”

“What?” Buck said loudly, sure he had misheard him.

“Come home with me,” he repeated, steadily, “You won’t have to check on me if we’re in the same bed.”

That strange feeling in his chest had vanished, replaced by something warm and blooming.

“You mean that?”

“Oh yeah, I definitely mean it,” he got to his feet, groaning slightly, and extended his hand to Buck, “What do you say?  It’ll give Chris the thrill of his life when he wakes up to find you in the house.”

“Just Chris?” Buck fished tentatively, and Eddie laughed, leaning into his space, so that they were only an inch or so apart.

“Not just Chris,” he whispered, pressing his lips gently to Buck’s.  He leaned into the kiss, pulling Eddie in closer, careful with his left side, ever aware of the bullet hole that had torn him apart and brought them together.