#just gonna. rip a chunk out. and patch it over with something second hand and completely different

[chaoticbuggybitchboy]

Alright I made it home so u guys get to see the plush my mom bought me for like Easter or something last year

This is Franklin and i genuinely cannot remember when I named him and if I named him after Frankenstein’s monster or after the adhd thought of “ripped apart to be put together by the same person who did the damage -> fun ghoul -> Frank Iero -> Franklin.”

I’m planning to give him a patch soon but a cooler one than the eye. It’s gonna be leopard print.

[wolferine]

Unforgivable - Part 3

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Summary: When the reader loses their temper, it causes them to commit an act they can never take back...

Warnings: Violence, blood, language

Word count: 2413

Part 2

Tags: @yeetus-thyself @phoenixofash @lilclownx @yeeterthekeeper @alessiapn @diaryoflife @user19422004 @zoldszemulany56

You sit alone on a park bench, wearing a heavy black backpack filled with Hammer’s latest invention. He’s here too, more than a mile away, watching you from the shadows. Your task is to do all the talking and distracting; Hammer wants to take the kill shot. You don’t really care, as long as Tony Stark dies for what he did to Natasha. 

At midnight exactly, Tony walks up to you, wearing a hoodie, jeans, and his signature sunglasses. However, you know from experience that Jarvis is inside the sunglasses, providing him with information about you and his surroundings.

“It’s a little late to be wearing sunglasses, isn’t it, Stark?” you say, standing up. Hammer lined your backpack with lead so Jarvis can’t see into it, but you’re still nervous.

“You know I have astigmatism,” he says.

“I don’t really care,” you respond. “Take them off.”

He doesn’t need a second warning.

“So, what’s up with you, Y/N?” Tony pockets the sunglasses. “Where have you been lurking all this time?” He stops about ten feet in front of you.

“Just…working through some things,” you reply.

“For six months?” Tony scoffs. “We waited for you to come back.” 

“You know I couldn’t do that.” Your jaw clenches. “But for you, Stark? I’d make an exception any day of the week.”

“What’s up with all the theatrics tonight, huh? Would’ve been a lot simpler to have this chat at the Tower,” Tony says.

“I’m not an Avenger anymore.”

“Says who?”

“Says me,” you snap, trying not to let your impatience show. You’re waiting for Hammer’s signal, but he seems to want to take his time. Your eyes drift to the glowing blue arc reactor in the center of Tony’s chest and you put your right hand in your pocket casually.

“Just spit it out, Y/N. Why am I here?”

“You’re here to die, Stark.”

“Well, have at it.” He opens his arms tauntingly and you tense, ready to tackle him to the ground and beat his head inside out. 

“You killed Natasha,” you snarl, and his expression changes. But you don’t have time to process it, because suddenly, the watch on your wrist vibrates. 

Hammer’s signal. 

You take your hand out of your pocket, now holding onto a tiny sensor disk, which you throw at Tony’s chest. It latches onto his arc reactor and powers it down instantly, preventing him from activating his Iron Man suit.

Then you dive to the ground, because Hammer starts blasting away with his rifle.

Tony catches a few bullets in his chest and legs, unable to react to both threats at the same time. He falls onto his back, blood pooling around his body as he gasps for air. You activate Hammer’s suit, which tears out of your backpack, covering your torso and limbs in a thin layer of metal armor.

You climb to your feet, your helmet snapping over your head, and charge towards Tony. But something—or someone—completely blindsides you, sending you skidding in the direction of the carousel.

It looks like a variation of Iron Man, although the suit is smaller and more feminine. The colors are black and red, evoking a pang of familiarity in your chest. You stand again, an eight-inch blade shooting out of your right wrist, and you beckon the Iron Woman (?) to come at you.

She does, but when you swing your blade at her, she blocks it and punches you so hard in the chest you fly back into the carousel and knock a horse completely off its pole. You’re pretty sure you cracked a rib as your breathing sends a stabbing pain up your side. You hang onto a bench to get up, and suddenly the carousel comes to life, lights flashing and music crackling through the speakers.

You’re transported back to the day you were last here with Natasha, when you asked her to be your girlfriend.

Both of your horses are out of sync. When she goes up, you go down, and neither of you can stop laughing. You’re pretty sure you’re the oldest adults on the carousel without kids, but you don’t care.

The way her hair effortlessly blows in the wind and the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs lights up your heart, and you still can’t believe she chose you over everyone else in the world. You’ve never been so in love with another human being before, and you don’t think there will ever be another like her.

When the rides end, you take her hand and lead her to an empty patch of grass in the shade of a tree.

“Natasha, will you go out with me?” you ask, your voice trembling. She nods and brushes her fingers over your cheek. “I promise to keep you safe and love you every day for the rest of my life—”

“Calm down, it’s not a marriage proposal.” Natasha laughs as you sweep her off her feet. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Just preparing.” You kiss her and feel her smile against your lips. You’ve never been happier.

You’re so stuck in your head you don’t even notice the Iron Woman coming after you until she punches you in the face. You stagger back, stunned, as she punches you several more times. The face of your helmet snaps off and you feel your nose bleeding. You slash out with your blade wildly, forcing the Iron Woman to back off.

“Y/N,” the Iron Woman says, and you don’t even care how she knows your name, “You need to stop.”

“Get out of my way.” When you leap towards her, she lifts her foot and kicks you in the chest. You somersault backwards, head over heels, as she retreats. The rotating platform of the carousel does nothing to help your balance and the lights and noise distract your focus. You crouch behind a stationary horse, searching for her amongst the painted animals.

You break the blade off your wrist, poised to throw like a javelin. When the Iron Woman pops out from behind a black horse, you bring your arm back to throw the blade, but she fires from her gun before you can. The bullet bounces off a pole and buries itself in your left cheek.

The pain is like a branding iron as you scream and fall to your knees, the blade slipping out of your fingers. Blood pours out of your mouth, the taste of metal coating your tongue as you gingerly reach in to swipe the burning chunk of lead over your teeth. You finally spit the bullet out, but the pain persists.

The Iron Woman holsters her gun and approaches you, thinking you’re too distracted to notice. But you do, another blade flicking out of your left wrist and you ram it into her thigh as hard as you can. The blade crunches through the plates of her armor, but she elicits no reaction to being stabbed.

“Y/N,” the Iron Woman repeats.

“Just die already!” you scream, withdrawing the blade and trying to stab her again.

The Iron Woman’s helmet slides back and you freeze when you see her face.

It’s Natasha.

Immediately, your anger melts into confusion and happiness.

“H-How…How is this possible?” you stammer, more blood spilling from your lips. “T-They…They told me you died.”

“No.” Natasha shakes her head, kneeling to your level. “But you never came back for me.”

“Because I hurt you—” Hammer had said she was dead, and that Tony—no—you—had killed her.

“I forgive you, Y/N. For all of it.”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.” You stumble back, tears and blood mixing on your face.

“Please come back to me, Y/N,” Natasha begs, as your head spins from the turn of events. “I still love you.”

Suddenly, it’s like all of Hammer’s training reverses. Tony was never the one responsible for harming Natasha—you were. And now Tony’s bleeding to death, which was again, your fault. You won’t let this rest on your conscience. You’ve done enough damage and now it’s time to redeem yourself, as little as you can.

“This is all Justin Hammer’s doing,” you say, letting Natasha pull you to your feet. “He’s had me kidnapped for the past six months. He thought I would be able to help him kill Tony, but he’s not going to be successful anymore. Because you weren’t part of the plan.”

Natasha smiles and you feel your heart melt. Whether or not she’ll take you back, you owe this to her.

“He’s about a mile out, west from here. He has no guards—arrogant bastard—it’s just him and his rifle. You go get him and I’ll get Tony,” you say. Natasha nods and flies off. For a moment, you’re filled with jealousy over her suit. How come Tony never made you one?

You make your way off the carousel and find Tony still on the ground. You check his pulse. It’s weak, but there.

“Tony, I’m so sorry,” you say, as a spray of bullet rips through the ground. You grab his arms and pull him to take cover under a bench.

“Y/N?” he mumbles.

“Yeah. I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

“No…” Tony says, grabbing your hand. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I was a complete asshole to you that day—”

“No, I’m the one who tried to shoot you, for God’s sake—” You rip his shirt into ribbons to wad up against the wounds in his chest and legs. “You’re gonna be okay,” you promise. “It’s Justin Hammer who’s behind all of this.”

“I recognized his work from your suit,” Tony gasps. “It looks like shit.”

“You can tell him that yourself.” You find yourself smiling despite the circumstances. “He wanted my help to end his ultimate rival. He manipulated me into thinking that Natasha was dead and that you were the reason for it—” You pause. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

“It was the least I could do for you.”

“I know she probably won’t want me anyway after all this, but it was good to see her again.”

“She only wants you. It was always you or no one.”

You throw yourself onto Tony when the bullets start again and you feel them bounce off your back and legs. Fortunately, when Hammer made your suit bulletproof, he probably didn’t think it would have to bulletproof against his bullets.

Suddenly, the gunshots stop and the silence is deafening.

When you finally look up, you see Natasha flying over, holding Hammer by the collar.

You don’t even mind when your face splits into a painful smile. “That’s my girl.”

***********************************************************************

Two weeks after Hammer is arrested, Natasha convinces you to come by the Avengers Tower. It’s a strange feeling as you walk in for the first time in over six months. When you left, you’d never thought you’d be back, but here you are. Your only belongings are a single duffel bag with some clothes stuffed inside.

You ride the elevator up to the Avengers’ quarters. You’re a little more wary of the SHIELD agents that pass you, wondering if anyone will double-cross you again, but you remain courteous. You punch in your code to see if it still works and it does, the doors opening.

“Look who’s finally come home.” Tony’s there to greet you and he hugs you tightly.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, still guilty you almost got him killed.

“Good, no thanks to you.”

“Sorry again.”

He waves you off.

“Where’s—” you start, but then you see her. She comes around the corner in a wheelchair. Your heart drops to your feet.

“Things have been a little different since you left,” she says. So that’s why she had no reaction when you had stabbed her at the carousel. She has no feeling left in her legs after your bullet pierced her spine.

“Natasha, I’m…I didn’t know. Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.” You turn around, but she rolls into your legs and grabs your hand.

“Please stay,” she says. “Like I told you before, I’m not mad.”

“But you have every right to be.”

“Can we talk?”

You nod numbly and let her lead you back to where your shared bedroom with her was. Nothing inside has changed. In fact, your clothes are still hanging in the closet like you’d never left. You sit on your side of the bed.

“What do you want me to say, Y/N?” Natasha asks.

You shrug. “Call me an asshole for what I did. Tell me you’d never want me back.”

“Okay. You’re an asshole for shooting me and leaving me,” Natasha says without hesitation, and you flinch. But somehow, you find solace in hearing her say the words you’ve played over and over in your head for months. “And yeah, after the whole thing happened, I didn’t think I could ever take you back. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you and told myself if I ever saw you again, I wanted you to know that I forgive you.”

“But I don’t know if I could forgive myself,” you whisper.

“Well, I forgive you, and I think if I can do that, you can, too.” It hurts her to see how much you’ve changed in the past six months. Your face and body are thin from malnourishment and Hammer’s torture. Your eyes are dull and permanently swollen from basically crying every day for six months. Some of your fingers are crooked from not healing correctly and you have scars running up your arms.

She reaches out and touches the puckered mark on your cheek from the bullet. “Besides, we’re kind of even now.”

“Hardly.” You chuckle.

“We can start slow,” Natasha says, putting her hands on your shoulders. “Because I’m not sure what still works down there, anyway.”

You smile, and her heart warms at the sight.

“Can I lie with you?” she asks and you nod, scooping her up and carrying her to the bed. You put her down gently and lie next to her. She pulls you close until your foreheads touch and you close your eyes as you breathe in her familiar scent. “Why did you pick the carousel as the meeting place?” she asks.

“I…I don’t know,” you mumble. “For some weird reason, I thought I’d see you again, at least in my memory. But then I did in real life, too.”

“I’m so glad you came back,” Natasha hums, brushing her lips against yours.

“I’m so glad I did, too.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: The end! :) Fun facts:

-Part 1 was inspired by the scene in X-Men: First Class where Magneto accidentally deflects a bullet into Charles’s spine (which resulted in Charles’s paralysis). -Part 2’s Iron Black Widow suit was inspired by a concept art photo I saw that was cut from Avengers: Endgame. Here’s the link to that post. -Part 3’s carousel scene was inspired by the season 1 finale of Netflix’s Punisher.

Join my taglist for future stories here! Thanks for reading, and until next time...

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Real? Not Real?

Prompt: Uh hello, I just wanna day that I really really love your work. I came across it this morning and I’ve been binging it all day, and you are a REALLY good writer :) if it’s not too much to ask (and feel free to ignore this), could I request one of the Sides (preferably Janus) having a bad day and derealizing and another one (preferably Patton or Remus, but really any work) comforting them and helping them get grounded? Maybe something that is after the wedding, with everyone at odds with each other so no one notices at first?

Thanks for the prompt, babe!

Read on Ao3

Warnings: disassociation, derealizing, some things that could be interpreted as self-destruction

Pairings: none, other than platonic moceit and dukeceit

Word Count: 2287

The wall is yellow.

 The wall isn’t yellow. 

The wall is yellow. 

Janus pushes his door closed and sighs, leaning against the wood and taking his hat off. He scruffs a hand through his hair and lets his head thunk against the door.

 “Well,” he mutters, “that wasn’t exhausting.”

 The conversation had dragged on for hours; from picking apart every little idiosyncrasy and explaining every other word, it’s a wonder he had any energy left to even sink to his room.

 Well, he didn’t. That’s the point.

 He heaves himself up off the floor, stumbling a little when his body decides that no, actually, we’re going to remain on the floor because we dislike you personally.

 “Thank you,” he grits out as he fights the urge to collapse back to the floor, “no, really, I wanted to be able to fall over as soon as I tried to move.”

 When the floor looks like it stops spinning for a few seconds at a time, he reaches for his cane and shuffles over to the desk. The chair creaks a little in protest as he all but collapses into it. He tosses his hat toward the coat rack, missing terribly, and rips his gloves off.

 “Ah!”

Janus cups his hand around his wrist, biting back a curse as the glove catches on the underside of an older scale. He glances around. The first-aid kit is on the other shelf.

 “Damn.”

 He could just…stretch out and get it? Probably? He swallows and reaches. And reaches. And reaches.

 Why—why can’t he touch the shelf?

 Controlling limbs gets exponentially easier the longer and more disembodied they get. All the time.

 Janus grits his teeth and concentrates, closing his eyes until his fingers bump against the shelf.

 “Thank you,” he mutters as he brings the first aid kit back to his side. “That was certainly the picture of compliance.”

 The first aid kit, because it is an inanimate object—or rather, a collection of inanimate objects—says nothing.

 Trying to apply first aid one-handed is such fun. He ends up holding back the sleeve with his teeth as he rubs the ointment onto the patch left by the scale. The wrapper sticks to his fingers with the determination of a static-filled leech, refusing to budge even as he pries it off with one hand only for it to attach viciously to the other.

 “Get off!”

 It flutters down to lay infuriatingly close to the trash can.

 Or is it in the trash can?

 He reaches down to pick it up and put it inside. He can’t feel it through his gloves. So he takes them off. Maybe then it won’t get stuck. It lands in the trashcan noiselessly.

 Muttering to himself, he gets his gloves on their spot on his desk and goes about getting the rest of this stuff off. Snakes aren’t supposed to run warm, so why can’t he feel anything?

 He goes to undo the clasp on his cape only for his fingers to meet the soft fabric of his shirt. Oh. He must’ve taken it off already. Wait, did he even put it on when he left?

 He glances over to see it hanging on the hook by the door. Exactly where it was when he woke up this morning. Or was it? Wasn’t it draped over his chair? No, that was when he was about to leave.

 No, he put it on his doorknob, didn’t he? To make sure he didn’t forget it?

 But he never forgets his cape.

 Janus shakes his head, immediately regretting it when the action sends him into a dizzy spell. God, why is he so tired?

 It doesn’t matter, he decides, because he was going to take his cape off but now he doesn’t have to because it’s already off. So he can take his shirt off now.

 But first, he should take his gloves off. Trying to undo shirt buttons with gloves on is a tedious process.

 His fingers scratch the bandage over a spot on his hand. That’s funny. He doesn’t feel any pain coming from it. Maybe it’s healed already?

 No, no, he just put that bandage on.

 “Get yourself together,” he scolds himself, going to undo the buttons, “you’re being ridiculous.”

 Is he, though?

 He spent so long observing and mirroring the others today, just to get in the habit of it when he needs to, that is it really a surprise that he can’t really remember what his own limbs are doing?

 Yes. Yes, it is.

 His shirt lies in the corner. He doesn’t remember putting it there. He’s still wearing it, he hasn’t gotten all the buttons off yet. His fingers touch his bare scales. Oh. Maybe he has.

 Why does it look like it’s the wrong color?

 Janus squints hard at the offending pile of fabric lurking in the corner. As he stares, the fabric moirés into a dizzying display. He blinks. That shirt isn’t patterned. It’s just a plain white shirt. Why is it doing that? Is it doing that? Are Janus’s eyes doing that?

 He crosses the room, stumbling a little as he gets up—since when has that table been there?—and grabs the shirt. It folds and bends and warps around his fingers. It should be cool to the touch. The fabric is soft, normally.

 He can only tell he’s supposedly squeezing it from the wrinkles that appear around his fists.

 “This doesn’t belong here,” he mutters, going to put it in the laundry basket.

 The laundry basket is not where it’s supposed to be.

 “Fuck.”

 Did he leave it downstairs? That’s always a risky move; Remus will capitalize on any opportunity to completely and utterly destroy any abandoned object. He turns to go rescue his laundry basket only for it to appear out of the corner of his eye.

 Oh.

 Has it been there the whole time?

 Janus frowns. He looks at the laundry basket, he looks at the shirt, he looks at his cape, he looks at his gloves.

 The bandage on his wrist should be itching.

 It isn’t.

 Why not?

 Oh.

  Oh.

 He smiles to himself and lets the shirt fall to the ground.

 Right, how could he forget?

 This isn’t real.

 None of this is real. He doesn’t exist. He is a figment of Thomas’s imagination, created as part of an elaborate plan to explore personality facets for entertainment purposes. He is not real. He cannot exist in any way that matters.

 That is why the first aid kit won’t speak to him. That is why his shirt creates patterns that are impossible. That is why the laundry basket keeps appearing and disappearing. They’re not real. None of it is real.

 He is not real.

 The walks flicker a pale white as he sinks slowly to the ground, staring up at the fake ceiling. The floor is not solid under him. His legs do not groan and scream in protest as he lies his nonexistent weight across them. His eyes do not fog up. His head does not throb. The door does not feel like a cage, trapping him in a spiral of down, down, down.

 Nothing is real.

 Least of all time.

 …

 …quiet.

 “—nus!”

 “Janus, are you in there?”

 “Snake-Face, if you don’t open up right this instant, I swear—“

 “Kiddo, you never came down for dinner, we’re worried, are you alright?”

 “I’m gonna break this fucking door down.”

 “Remus, no—!”

 A loud thud does not startle him awake. His eyes do not fly open. His body does not refuse to respond as chunks of wood fly all over his room. The walls do not look like they’re transparent as someone peers at him. They are not real.

 “Janus? Oh my goodness, Janus!”

 Patton. Patton is also not real. That is okay.

 Patton does not rush across the floor to him and fall to his knees. His eyes aren’t welled up with tears that he bravely tries to fight back, smiling down at him. Patton’s hands do not cup his face tenderly. He doesn’t say anything.

 “Kiddo?”

 He cannot speak. Real things cannot speak.

 “Kiddo, can you hear me?” Patton does not stroke his thumb gently over his cheek. “Can you breathe?”

 Real things do not breathe.

 “Fuck,” Remus does not swear, “he’s derealizing again.”

 “He’s what?”

 “Derealizing.” Remus does not run to crouch beside them. Remus does not gently tuck his hands under his legs to lift them into a more comfortable position. “Gets stuck in his own head, caught up in his own lies.”

 Patton does not help Remus. He does not cradle his head and lift it up. The pillow suddenly under his head is not real, not soft, not pleasantly cool. His hand does not stay in his hair, stroking gently.

 “He’s overcorrecting,” Remus does not murmur, “convincing himself that nothing is real.”

 “Oh, kiddo,” Patton doesn’t sigh, doesn’t ruffle his hair gently, “you’re real, kiddo, stay with us.”

 “He’s not gonna believe you, Daddio.”

 “Then what do we do?”

 “You’re not gonna like it,” Remus doesn’t say.

 He doesn’t get up and leave. Patton doesn’t stay, still stroking his hand through his hair soothingly. Is it soothing? Does it feel soft? Caring?

 Patton—Patton is caring, right?

 “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart,” Patton doesn’t—does?—murmur, “you’ll get through this, okay? You’ll get through this, I know you will.”

 “Here.”

 Oh, Remus is back. Is? Isn’t? Is Remus real?

 “Just hold this, okay?”

 “It’s really warm, are you sure—?”

 “That’s what the towel’s for.”

 Remus doesn’t crouch back down next to him. Patton isn’t gripping whatever Remus just gave him in his fist. He doesn’t look worried.

 Wait, why is he worried?

 “Ah!”

 He cries out in surprise when something freezing presses to his stomach. Cold. Cold, cold—

 “Shh, easy, Snakey,” Remus soothes—wait, doesn’t soothe? Is Remus real?—immediately replacing the cold with something warm, warm, warm, “it’s okay, it’s gone now, you did great, just stay here, okay?”

 “Re-Remus?”

 “Yeah, Jan-Jan, it’s me, I’m right here, can you grab onto me?”

 He can’t, he’s not real, Remus isn’t real, but Remus is right there—

 “There you go,” Remus encourages when his fingers hook through the ends of his sleeves, “you got me, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

 “Why—what happened? Why are you here?”

 “You never came down to dinner, kiddo,” Patton says, stroking his solidwarmreal hand through his hair again, “we got worried. No one could call you and the room wasn’t letting us sink.”

 Well of course it wasn’t, it isn’t real.

 Wait.

 “How did—“ he gasps— “how did you know I was here?”

 Patton frowns, tilting his head. “Because we care about you, kiddo, you’re important to us.”

 How can he be important when he isn’t real?

 “Hey,” Remus says sharply, giving his wrist a little tug, “no drifting off again, Snakey, stay here.”

 “H-here?”

 “Yeah.” Remus presses the hot pad into his stomach and oh, it’s so warm, it has to be real. “Right here, Jan-Jan. You feel this?”

 “Yes.”

 “This is real. This is real. I’m really here, I’m really holding this to your real stomach. You’re real. The floor is real. Patton’s real.”

 Patton’s real?

 “I’m real, sweetheart,” Patton says softly, still rubbing his hand through his hair, “and so are you.”

 He opens his mouth to try and breathe. If he’s real, he should be able to breathe…right?

 “That’s it, kiddo, good.” The hand in his hair moves again. “Just lie there and breathe for a moment, okay?”

 He looks over at Remus. Remus starts to rub little circles into his stomach with the warm towel.

 “Stay here, stay real, Snakey,” he encourages, “just focus on this.”

 The floor becomes solid under him again. Patton’s hand, his voice, he can hear them. Feel them. He blinks at Remus, real Remus, still working patiently.

 He must make some noise because Remus pauses, looking up at him. Then he takes the towel and reaches up to slowly, slowly brush it over his cheek.

 The tears that spring to his eyes at the tenderness of the gesture certainly feel real.

 “Oh, kiddo,” Patton whispers, pulling him into a solidwarmreal chest, “it’s okay, shh, you’re safe, you’re real, everything’s okay.”

 He gasps again, trapped in the warmth of Patton’s embrace. Remus scoots in behind them, wrapping his arms tightly through the limbs that still don’t want to work.

 “Why can’t I move,” he chokes out, “why can’t I move?”

 “You’re exhausted, sweetheart,” comes Patton’s soft reply, “you overworked yourself today.”

 “But I can’t feel them!”

 “Here,” he whispers, gently squeezing one of his arms, “can you feel that?”

 “O-only a little.”

 “How about here…and here…there.”

 Patton’s hands are so warm and solid and real.

 “P-Patton?”

 “Yeah, kiddo, I’m right here.”

 “Remus?”

 “I’m here too, Snakey, we gotcha.”

 “Am I—is this—“ he swallows unsteadily— “is this…real?”

 “Yeah, kiddo,” Patton murmurs as Remus strokes firmly up and down his back, “this is real.”

 Patton is real, solid and warm against him. Remus is real, solid and warm behind him.

 Janus opens his eyes and stares at the yellow wall.

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[loversdelusion]

Days Scattered

Deacon St. John x St. John!Reader

Part 2 of 3

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Deacon spent the next day orchestrating a plan of rescue, much to his own dismay, Rikki convinced him that he couldn't go in blindly shooting or both of them might not come back, Deacon was deep in thought, his mind constantly racing over what was happening to you.

(Y/n) groaned in pain, her head and wrists were aching, she didn't know why they were aching but she got her answer when she opened her eyes to her wrists being strung up to two thick branches, she was in a candlelit room, words were crudely written on the wall in blood, sharp dead branches littered the room, she assumed it was the Ripper's definition of decoration.

"Shit.." She rolled her head, doing her best to stretch her neck muscles, (Y/n) lazily tugged against the bindings, seeing how secure they were, seeing they were tied pretty firmly against her, she still kept tugging, despite the burning sensation of the ropes digging into her wrists "Dammit!" She exclaimed in frustration, sighing heavily as nothing was happening.

The sound of approaching footsteps sent her alertness to 11, her eyes darting to the door across from her, the door slowly opened, it's hinges creaking steadily, a Ripper was in the doorway, this one seemed different than the others, held a more powerful aura. "Carlos.." She said, weakly as she came to the realization of who this was, Carlos let out a small smirk "Mongrel Princess, when the group I sent out told me they were successful in catching a Mongrel, I never expected it to be you.." Carlos took slow but calculated steps to where she was bound.

Carlos stood two steps in front of her "Oh my, should've told them to be gentle, I would have if I knew I was dealing with precious cargo" Carlos leaned closer, (Y/n) could see his numerous cuts more clearly, she leaned back as far as she could.

"The little St. John" Carlos declared, almost proudly, (Y/n)'s gaze hardened, she looked to be thinking hard, her face contorted into a look of shock "Jessie.." She muttered quietly, Carlos barely picked it up "Jessie Willamson.." Carlos pulled away, sighing lowly "That is not my name, not anymore, I soon won't have a name at all, we renounce our names to rid of our pain" he stated "As do all Ripper's".

"Deacon had a hand in torching your Mongrel tattoo off after you murdered someone in the MC over drugs..I was there, I watched them drag you into the old safehouse, Deacon told me to stay in Jack's car and to turn on the radio while they dealt with you" (Y/n)'s gaze darted at Carlos. "I came out of the car after awhile, Deacon came out of the safehouse and from the second he opened the door, I smelled burnt flesh and I saw your body on the table, bloody and torched, thought you were dead but guess I was wrong" Carlos let out a breathless chuckle. "I have found the path, and soon you, your brother and Boozer..will be forcefully put on the path, as for you..you will be my wife" Carlos sneered, leaning closer to her, she could almost feel his breath on her face "Fuck off, I'm not marrying you" she replied, kicking him in the thigh, Carlos let out a low growl "But first, you must be cleansed" Carlos eyed her left arm which was covered by her shirt, he looked away and down next to her, he picked up a blowtorch.

(Y/n)'s eyes widened at what he was about to do "You touch me with that and I will shove that so far up your ass, you'll turn into a dragon" she tensed against the binds as he lit the torch, it's ominous blue glow lighting the small distance between Carlos and (Y/n)'s facial features. "Princess, you must be cleansed as I have" Carlos held a dangerous look in his eyes, he grabbed a knife, cutting through her shirt's sleeve with ease, he ripped it off once the fabric was thin enough, he exposed her inked skin to his insane stare, (Y/n)'s arm was tattooed with a whole sleeve that reached from her shoulder and down to the back of her hand "My, my..your whole arm is tainted, that's not good" he tutted, bringing the torch back up again.

Sweat was rolling down her face in beads, her chest heaving heavily, Carlos brought the blowtorch closer to her arm, she began to feel the white hot heat of it, nearing closer and closer with every second "You'll pay for what Deacon did" Carlos muttered lowly, (Y/n)'s whole body jolted and tensed at the feeling of the hot flame torching her tattoo off, she screamed, gritting her teeth together tightly, tears welled up in her pained (e/c) eyes.

Carlos brought the torch away, admiring the small patch of melted skin on her shoulder, the smell of burned skin wafted in the air, (Y/n) almost gagged at the scent, Carlos said nothing as he brought the torch back to her skin, burning another patch of her tattoo off, she yelped, thrashing wildly against the ropes, trying desperately to back away from the crazed Ripper, the pain was unbearable and she begged to God that she would black out already. Her head lulled forward, the pain from being tortured mentally and physically exhausted her "No, no, Princess, you stay with me" Carlos patted at her tear-stained cheek, Carlos roughly gripped at her chin, pulling her face to look at her arm.

(Y/n)'s jaw clenched at the sight, more hot tears trailing down her face, it was burned up to the middle of her bicep, words refused to be spoken at the sight of her arm, the top layer of her skin was completely gone, she could just see black charred, bloodied patches of the tissue underneath, it was a stark difference compared to the rest of her untouched arm "Don't worry, Princess..I'll cherish you regardless" Carlos was pressing his face into her hair, inhaling heavily at her scent, but she ignored it, too traumatized at her injury to fight back anymore.

-

Deacon made it into the Ripper's camp, Boozer right behind him on his bike "You remember the plan?" Deacon spoke in a loud voice over the roar of the engine "Yeah, blow the dam, drown the rats, kill Carlos and save (Y/n)" Boozer replied, Deacon didn't acknowledge it, keeping his attention forward on the road. They approached the dam "You know how to do this, right?" Deacon asked, raising a dark brow at the one handed man beside him, Boozer shook his head with a chuckle "Easy as riding a bike" Deacon rolled his eyes "Are you sure? I mean, I know how to do this, I was in the army for God's sake" Boozer shook his head again "I got this, brother, just watch my back".

Deacon guarded Boozer as best as he could, keeping the Ripper's that attacked off of him, Boozer was on the last charge "You sure this is gonna work?" Boozer asked over the walkie talkie "You doubting my plan?" Deacon replied, a teasing lilt in his voice "It's..it's a lot of water, it'll get 'em" Deacon said "If you believe it, I will too" Boozer said, a few seconds later. Boozer approached the last detonation site, Deacon sniping the Ripper's that attacked with ease "How's it going, Boozeman?" Deacon asked, a wary tone in his voice "Hey, it's not easy with one hand" Boozer replied "Just hurry it up" Boozer rolled his eyes "I got it!" Boozer started into a dead sprint, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and the dam "Get the hell out of there, Boozer!" Deacon yelled, waiting for his friend to catch up.

The explosives went off, sending a shockwave and tremors through the surrounding area, the blast knocked Deacon and Boozer on their asses "Christ!" Deacon shouted as he covered his face to protect it from the brief blast of heat, the area darkened as the light from the bomb died down, Deacon and Boozer let out a laugh "Fucking hell" Boozer exclaimed as he sat up, Deacon helping him to a stand. They looked at what was left of the blast, tons of water was still rushing through, big chunks of debris was being swept towards the campsite "Lets get going" Deacon nudged Boozer's arm, both of them setting off into a jog.

-

Carlos left (Y/n) alone for a bit, saying something about Deacon and Boozer needing to be here to change too, her head was hanging, exhaustion taking its hold on the beaten and battered girl, the sound of the door opening was heard but she paid no mind to it, lighter footsteps approached her, she still ignored them. "Hey.." it was a girl's voice, (Y/n) weakly lifted her head, her bloodshot eyes met the worried ones of Lisa, a girl her brother saved a while back "Lisa..?" Her voice was weak, barely there, Lisa was bald, cuts littered her body, the signature 'R.I.P' symbol carved into her forehead. "That's not my name.." Lisa grabbed a knife nearby, gingerly grabbing hold of the uninjured part of her arm "Ripper's are cleansed of their pain, and made into a new person once they completely abandon their name..and I have" she cut the rope and (Y/n)'s arm limply fell to her side, a sharp jolt of pain shot through her body as her shoulder muscles stretched, pulling at her healthy and injured skin, she yelped, hissing at the sensation, Lisa cut the other rope.

(Y/n) was unprepared to hold her full weight, she collapsed into Lisa, who barely caught the older woman "I-..I can't" (Y/n) whispered weakly, Lisa helped her stand fully "Yes, you can" she quietly said words of encouragement "Your brother might be here, the dam was blown, the camp is flooded" hearing the mention of Deacon lit a small fire of hope for her. "C'mon, I know a way out but you need to walk" Lisa held her at arms length again, (Y/n) grunted in pain at the bruising on her legs, she closed her and sighed heavily, willing the pain away "I'm right behind you.." She said quietly, crouching low behind her as she walked out of the room "I'll meet you outside" Lisa said in a rushed whisper, walking ahead of her.

(Y/n) eyed the room she was in now and if she wS being honest at all, she felt a lot safer in the room she was being held in, (Y/n) carefully stalked towards the Ripper slashing up a survivor, who looked nearly dead, she grabbed the Ripper, wrapping her hand tightly over his mouth and slicing his neck open with the knife Lisa left her, she helped the body quietly fall to the ground "So, you wanna find the Path, huh? Let me help you, motherfuckers" she said through gritted teeth, wiping the blood on the knife against her pant leg.

She cleared the whole room, silently mourning the losses of the survivors that she couldn't save, she opened a set of double doors, it opened to a skywalk, she walked into another set of double doors but they were already open, it had a small staircase inside that led into another room. This one had a group of Ripper's in it "There's too many" she said under her breath, she carefully walked towards the door instead, hoping they wouldn't see her, she sighed in relief at breathing in fresher air than what was inside.

-

Deacon and Boozer fought their way into the lodge, killing every Ripper and Freak they saw "What if she's not here?" Deacon rose an irritated brow at Boozer "Like not at the lodge but somewhere else in their territory" Deacon's stare left the one handed man "We look for her, and I don't care if we have to kill every single one of them to do that, they're all fucking dying tonight anyway" Deacon grumbled, venom in his tone.

-

(Y/n) panted, having escaped the area where she was held, she was too scared and exhausted to go look for her little bit of things, she was grateful that she decided to pack light today, bringing merely a boot knife and handgun, her jacket she could part without, again she packed light to just go out on a bounty run, not to get attacked by Ripper's.

She ran through the fields, trying her best to remember which way the lodge was, she prayed to whatever was left out there that Deek would find her or she would find him, she could hear the shouts and yells of the Ripper's, finally discovering that she escaped, this only fueled her adrenaline, running even faster.

She wasn't completely aware of her surroundings, not realizing she was crossing a road or that a Ripper was on patrol there, but the Ripper was aware of her, the female Ripper lunged at her, successfully knocking her to the ground, (Y/n) yelped in pain as she landed on her injured arm, she scrambled to her feet as fast as she could, realizing she was in danger "Where you off to in such a hurry, little girl?" The Ripper rasped, a sickening smirk on her face, (Y/n) growled, clutching her knife as tightly as possible, the Ripper was armed with a club, nails embedded at the tip of it.

(Y/n) sliced through the air, the blade connected with nothing, the Ripper laughed wildly as she swung the club around, (Y/n) narrowly dodging every swing, (Y/n) swung again, the blade cut into the Ripper's skin, the Ripper kicked at (Y/n)'s hand that held the knife, successfully knocking it out of her hand, (Y/n) cried out at the pain, she was now left defenseless, the Ripper still having her weapon. The Ripper swung once more, this time (Y/n) ducked low, the attack barely missing her head, she could feel the swing send a gush of air across the top of her head, (Y/n) saw an opportunity of attack and she took it.

(Y/n) kicked the Ripper in the kneecap, the Ripper's knee easily snapping backwards at the force of her kick, the Ripper doubled over, screaming in pain at her broken leg, (Y/n) hastily came to a stand, glaring down at the Ripper who tried her best to still grab her, she eyed the leg, cringing as she saw the bone protruding through the skin. "Guess eating shit and dirt all day didn't do you any good" the Ripper growled "You little bitch!" (Y/n) took two steps toward her, standing directly above her head "Get low, bitch" (Y/n) said as she stomped hard on the Ripper's head, a chill creeped up her spine at hearing the sickening crack of the Ripper's skull caving in.

(Y/n) kept going, she could see the lodge across the field she was in, the dam was indeed blown up, the damage from the water was strong but they deserved it, they all did, she trudged on, despite her legs protesting. She paused in her steps as she heard a light staticy noise- like from a radio, she scrambled to find it instantly, scrounging around through all the debris and looking around in the vehicles, she found the source of the noise, it was a walkie talkie, she grabbed it and immediately held down the talk button. "Deacon St. John, come back" she said, her voice nearly wavering, nothing yet "Boozer, Deacon, come in" she said again, more static reached her eyes, she sighed heavily, wanting to hit something but she held back "Deek, please come in" she begged, stray tears trailing down her dirt and blood covered skin.

-

Deacon cut through the last Ripper standing between him and Carlos, they went inside the lodge, both sighing in frustration at the lack of stairs "You're never gonna make it up there" Deacon grumbled, Boozer kicked a pillar that was next to him "Yeah, I know, I'll boost you up though, throw in an extra hit for me, will ya?" Boozer got into position to boost Deacon up to the second floor. "-con St. John, come back" Boozer and Deacon froze at the sudden voice blaring through Deacon's walkie talkie.

"Boozer, -eacon, come in" the signal was cutting up badly "Deek, please come in.." The voice came through loud and clear that time, Deacon gripped the device and pressed the button "(Y/n)?! (Y/n), is that you?" He released, white noise filled the air for what felt like forever. "Deacon..?" Her voice was low, Deacon felt like he could burst into tears "(Y/n), it's me..I'm here" Deacon replied, he could hear her sniffle, he could tell she was crying. "Deek, I wanna go home.." She sounded so weak, Deacon swore he'd kill everything here for making her like that "Wh-where are you?" Deacon asked, brows furrowed with worry.

"I made it out of where they were keeping me, I'm outside, on a road" Deacon nodded "Okay, just uh, come to the lodge, and be careful" Deacon pleaded "What are you going to do?" Her voice replied, Deacon's gaze hardened "Something that should have been done awhile ago" Deacon released the button, turning to Boozer "I'm ready".

[adhdeancas]

@hell-is-where-the-party-is you convinced me. 

This is: Dean tries to give himself top surgery in a motel bathroom. 

TW: gore, performing surgery on yourself, dysphoria, mild suicidal ideation

Disclaimer: DO NOT DO THIS. THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA DO NOT DO THIS. (I am not a doctor so I don’t even know how bad of an idea this is, I used my imagination and some research.) 

For the record, Dean knows this is a bad idea. He does.

"Okay, okay shit. You can do this. Fuck." he mutters, shaking his hands out and hoping some of the nerves will go with them. They don't, which is just his fucking luck. He shoves his jeans to the floor with his socks and hesitates. Okay, boxers stayed on. He can afford to ruin a pair of boxers. Better that than be totally exposed when he does this.

His first top layer comes off easy, the second less so, but he takes it off too. Then he pulls off his sports bra, wincing a little at the tenderness. When you wear a sports bra all day every day, no matter how comfortable it was when you first put it on, it cuts into you like your own personally molded armpit knife after a while. And then he is shirtless, and he is actually doing this.

"You can do this, Dean." he doesn't even wanna look down. "A little bit of pain, and then you never have to do it again. Flat chest. How it should be." he lets himself imagine it, just for a second. Opening his eyes and leaning in to look in that dusty mirror and lifting up his shirt to see smooth, flat skin looking back sat him. Fuck, it's a dream. "Okay, damnit."

Dean crawls into the tub and braces his back against the grimy wall. He'd done all the boring-ass research he could, the musty medical textbooks suddenly seeming a whole lot more interesting with a goal in mind, sanitized all the surfaces even though there were decades of motel living caked under the alcohol coating. A swig of whiskey for luck, a belt in his mouth so he doesn't bite his tongue (or scream, he can't wake Sammy up), and he starts.

"Lidocaine spread to all affected areas," he chants to himself quietly. His voice is too fucking high. "All affected areas," he corrects with an artificially lowered tone, squeezing his eyes shut. He can do this. Hell, he's helped his dad hunt, he's seen dead bodies and he's done his share of patching up his dad's injuries. He can do this. He waits until he can't feel the poke of his knife against his skin, then takes a breath. "A few minutes of pain and then- and then- you're fucking free."

Dean plunges the knife into his skin. It hurts immediately, the lidocaine not enough, blinding fuckin pain, but he tears across with his knife before he can think about it, a jagged line on his left. The blood pours down his stomach and soaked into his boxers, and Dean is crying like a little girl. He can hear his own sobs through the belt, but he keeps going, because he started this. A similar line on the other side, and more blood. Dean isn't one to get woozy at the sight of blood, but seeing so much come out of him makes him feel like he is going to die in this dingy motel bathroom. He digs the knife in and saws, feels himself biting into the cheap leather of the belt. Better to die having tried to live.

What medical textbooks can't tell you is how the fat grips onto the skin, onto the muscle, and tearing it away isn't like sawing it off a piece of raw chicken, because every pull tears at your core like you're ripping your chest to ribbons. His chest fights to stay on him, and he fights to cut it off.

"Dean?"

Dean swears and blinks the tears out of his eyes so he can see. He's not done. He's not close to done. "If you gotta pee, do it somewhere else!" he shouts, voice muffled from the belt hanging from his lips.

"Dean, are you okay?"

Sammy sounds so small. Dean swears. He can't die in this filthy-ass tub. He can't do that to Sam. He can't leave him with their dad and the memory of finding his big brother in the tub with one tit lying in the drain. "Great, fucking, go-" he tries to take the next chunk off while he's still talking, to distract himself from it. It doesn't work. He faints. It's only for a few seconds, but a few seconds are all Sam needs to get worried enough that Dean can hear his stupid small little feet running on the thin carpeting.

"Dean!"

Dean doesn't know what Sam expects him to do. He doesn’t know what he thinks is happening in here. "Sam, I'm fine, please don't-" his voice is too weak to reach across the three feet to the door, let alone beyond.

He knows he's only got a few seconds before he blacks out again. He can see it building on the corners of his vision, black spots turning to clouds. So he rips at his flesh viciously, like it's something that's not him, because it's not, and because he can't live with it anymore. It's a tumor and it's clinging underneath his skin and his tears aren't because of the knife but because of the desperate need to get it out.

"Dean," Sammy gasps. He's jimmied the lock because of course he has, and he's standing there with his spindly pre-teen body, eyes big as the moon. "What did you-"

"What does it look like, Sammy," Dean mutters weakly. The black threatens to overtake him, but he tries to stay above it for Sammy. He winks out once or twice, but he tries.

"Dean, we gotta- we gotta get you to a hospital." Sam breathes, worry seeping through his every gesture. He tugs the knife out of Dean's hand, which lets go too easily, and he prop's his big brother's head up. "Dean, look at me. Look at me. You're gonna be okay, okay? We're gonna go to the hospital and they're gonna fix you up-"

"No, Sammy, please, we don't have the money, and Dad doesn't have the- the time, we'll get CPS called on us, no Sammy, no hospitals,"

"Dean, you've lost blood. You, you're cut up pretty bad." Sam's voice shakes. He tries to take in the damage.

"What if they… what if they try to put it back?" Dean whispers, his voice creeping into the high register he hates as his throat closes up in fear and tears. "Sam, please, I can't,"

Sam's crying too now. The kid's fucking terrified. "Okay."

"Just- gimme, gimme the knife." Dean hates to say it. He doesn't want the slick knife back in his hand or the roiling pain back with every saw.

Sam doesn't give him the knife. "You're in too much pain."

"Well no shit, I cut my fucking chest open!" He tries to sit up to take the knife from him and gasps so hard the belt falls from his mouth.

"Dean, this isn't working. You'll never get through it," Sam's voice takes on that hard tone that a 12 year old just shouldn't have, the one that reminds Dean he's more capable than he or his dad give him credit for. He's problem solving. He lays the knife down on the tile and pushes himself to his feet. "I promise no hospitals, but you have to let me sew you up."

Dean shakes his head. It makes him dizzy. "No, I'm not done."

"This won't work, Dean! Fuck!" Sam covers his face with his hands. Now that he's cussing, Dean knows he's serious. "Bobby. We'll get Bobby to help. He's dug bullets out of Dad before."

Dean bites his lip. A bullet in a shoulder is a lot different than fat out of a chest, but to be fair, Dean's had even less experience. And to be honest, no more pain sounds pretty good right now. "Promise?"

"We'll start driving tomorrow."

John's still a state over on a hunt, and he's alone, which means he'll spend at least three extra days there getting drunk off his ass. It could work. "Okay."

Sam lets out a relieved breath. "Okay good."

"Then hand me the bottle on the counter."

Sam picks up the white pill bottle, any prescription long since rubbed off. "What is it?"

Dean grins a nervous lopsided grin. "Percocet?" Pretty easy to get on the road, if you knew who to go to. And hunters always did.

Sam just shakes his head and throws it at him. He leaves and comes back while Dean dry-swallows the pills, holding floss and their stitching needle. Dean silently thanks any sorry Greater Power out there that he doesn't have to sew himself up with the fishhook he'd snagged for the occasion. "Hold still." he commands, and it's dumb the way he's so young and so demanding at the same time. Dean would make a joke but he for once doesn't feel like being a smartass, so he just leans against the tub and focuses on the feel of the plastic at his back, tacky with his sweat.

Sam helps Dean shower after that, letting him lean on his shoulder as he stands next to him full clothed and lets the water wash the blood down the drain. It's only when he's putting Dean in bed that Dean actually talks again. "Hey bitch," he mutters, flapping his hand. Sam returns to his side, still eyeing the stiches to make sure he doesn't rip them out. So far, they've held. "You'd make a pretty good nurse."

Sam rolls his eyes and squeezes Dean's hand. He knows that's his way of saying thank you. "Shut up and get some sleep, jerk."

"Yes, ma'am."

It's the only time Sam can remember in his whole childhood that Dean lets him drive Baby without even trying to argue that he can make it to Bobby's himself.

[ziracona]

Been a hot minute, but I have like three segments ready to go one after the other, so I’m taking it as a win. Here’s the first!

The Kid (pt: 1, … 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ?) [Fate Grand Order AU]

A flurry of arrows slams into the wall just past me, blowing a hole in it the size of a person, and I pivot and sling myself through.

“Here!” I call, skidding to a stop just long enough to bolster a surge of mana and take a shot at the ceiling. I roll out of the way of falling debris, and Emiya slides into the room and past me, springing off the debris as it hits and leaping up onto the next floor.

Robin and King David come dashing in the room after, and as soon as I see they’ve cleared the doorway, I leap up too. Emiya and I are both in the air when the other two clear the floor, and that bone thing crashes through the wall below and bursts up through the ceiling, snapping at us.

It's close—it’s too close. I hear screams around me but don’t have time to look yet, send a burst of bullets into that thing’s mouth as swords appear out of nowhere around Emiya and launch themselves at the yokai. The force is enough to slow it, and Robin and King David land safely on the floor as Emiya and I do too.

More screaming. There’s humans on this floor. Lots of humans. I see big groups of guards—maybe fifty people, on my left. Another squad about the same size on the right and running this way, but at a distance. People in business suits and more in lab coats litter the floor, those close to the explosion we just made dragging themselves back to their feet and fleeing, those further away not even looking back to help fellow workers before doing the same, all desperate to avoid the thing dragging its massive body out onto the floor. I see a guy close by in the rubble, trying to pull himself away from the bone monster and failing—he must’ve been right above us when I shot the floor, because it looks like a chunk of shrapnel from the explosion got him in the leg, and he can’t make it up.

However human Robin smells from Ritsuka’s hair tie, the man has to smell 18x as real, and the gashadokuro turns its hungry, empty eyes on him.

I’m really tempted. To just watch it eat him. I haven’t ever seen this guy before as far as I know, but a lot of the time I didn’t have the strength to lift my head high enough to see anything but dress shoes. Whoever he is, he’s got a name card and a lab coat. He works here. He’s doing this to us. That’s more than enough reason. I still got my own memories real fresh, and what I saw of Robin and King David and the Lancer guy.

The gashadokuro opens its mouth and snaps, force there to rip his head off his body so it can drink his blood. I get there first, hand on the back of his collar, and fling him down the hall on my right with so much force he goes about three yards, hits the ground, and rolls.

Angry at missing its snack, the monster turns on me and makes a sound like a roar without a voice behind it, and takes a swipe with its giant hand. I leap out of the way, ricochet off a wall, and land crouched on its other side firing from the hip into the back of its skull.

The second one erupts through the floor down the hall, not by us. Shit—must have smelled the humans. It’s on top of the group of fifty or so guards and I hear bursts of gunfire and screams.

“Shit!” calls Robin out loud. King David’s already past him, positively rocketing down the hall. He darts right into the center of the group, and I hear his harp for a second, then lose sight of him. The gashadokuro snags a human with its huge hand, but as it tries to lift him, somehow the man, to both their surprise, slips through his fingers. Gotta be King David, I think, impressed, and I take a shot at its hand, knocking it away from a second target.

“I’ll go with him,” calls Robin, “You two take this one!” and he’s gone then too, running up onto a wall and springing off it, taking shots from his crossbow as he gets close. I almost miss a swipe the monster by us makes, but I hear the sound of the wind through its fingers and roll out of the way. I riddle its hand with a cylinder worth of bullets, but the damn bone regrows a second after splintering—these things are infuriating to fight.

Above it, Emiya summons a longbow and takes a big shot at its skull, and the whole thing explodes, fragments of bone going everywhere, but its already rebuilding by the time he lands, and he’s breathing hard now.

“We running out of mana?” I ask him mentally, a little worried myself.

“We’re pushing it,” he replies, and I can hear the tension.

The gashadokuro drags itself completely out onto the floor and goes crawling after the fleeing people on the right, towards Emiya. He curses and summons his bow and fires at its oncoming form, but it barely slows down.

Ah shit.

“Hey!” I call.

There’s a sudden burst of bullets and I stop, halfway to calling out my noble phantasm, staring at the myriad of holes in Emiya’s chest. He flinches, and looks down at them in a very real mixture of surprise and disgust, and turns to look at the fleet of guards still heading this way.

They shot him. Unbelievable. We’re slowing these things down and keeping them from getting eaten, and they fuckin’ shot at him.

He vanishes, and reappears beside me, the lancer still slung over one shoulder, a grimace on his face and blood running down his chest. I look at him in surprise, then turn and watch with him as the yokai with no real interest in us tears off in an awful crawl in a space too small for something this massive, after the squadron of guards realizing their mistake, and the staff trying to flee past them.

Uh. So. Are you just…letting it eat them now…or?

He glances over at me and lets out a breath, then turns to watch the monster again. It starts to get close. I can see the guy I threw earlier, just barely made it to the front of the guard line, but not past. This thing is going to destroy all of them, and a pretty big part of me really wants to let it. But, I promised, and I raise my pistol.

“Hold on,” says Emiya.

I glance over, and his expression is hard. “I want to put the fear of God in them. If we don’t scare them, they’ll never unsummon that thing. Wait until the last possible second, and aim for the head.

He flicks his wrist and his longbow appears in one hand, a sword in the air, which he takes and pulls back like an arrow as I watch. “I’ll get whatever hand it picks someone up with.”

I nod, aim, and wait.

There’s endless bursts of suppressing fire from the guards, screams and shouts. Fear and desperation—from behind us where King David and Robin are, and in front. Shit, hope they didn’t shoot Robin or King David too.

“You gonna be okay?” I ask, glancing at the blood still running down his chest.

“Yes, it isn’t dangerous, but I can’t afford to patch it up yet.”

He’s right. We’re all running deadly thin on mana.

Which sucks, because leaving the wound’s gotta hurt like hell. We do what we gotta though.

Okay. Ready. Steady… I keep my eyes fixed on the yokai as it gets closer and closer to the line of armed guards. It reaches them, hungry jaw open and grinning, empty black nothing of eyes perusing food with hate and hunger. It whips out a hand and snags two at once, and I hear people calling to each other and panicked shouts, more gunfire.

“Now,” says Emiya.

“Time for a duel—One bullet, and I’m gonna lay you flat! Draw!” I call out my phantasm, feeling the mana from Ritsuka flood from her into my body and then burst out as an unparalleled shot from my colt.

My noble phantasm goes off like a bolt of lighting, tearing through the hall and into the thing’s head, rupturing its skull and the top of its spine and sending it collapsing against the ground. At the same moment, Emiya lets his sword fly and the hand holding two captives explodes in a shower of bone, and the men hit the floor gasping for breath with probably some bruised ribs and definitely, like Emiya had hoped, the fear of God in them. As a mass, everyone in the hall there—guards, staff, they all turn and run, firing as they go.

I lower my gun. Then immediately raise it again as the thing’s skull begins to reform, and while it still only has half a skull, it turns its head to roar at us.

Ah shit.

Beside me, I hear an unexpected voice groan, and remember that Emiya is still hauling the lancer around on his shoulder. I look over and see the guy open his eyes slowly, still hanging limp over Emiya’s chest, and then lift his head a little and squint at the room ahead. His expression changes. “Oh what the fuck is that,” he says, looking for Emiya and taking a second to realize he’s slung over his shoulder, but finding him pretty quick. “Did you all actually manage to make the situation worse while I was out?”

“Well, we’re actually doing okay,” I answer for him, “We got both gashadokuro onto a floor far away from Ritsuka, and we’re hoping they got a way to unsummon them.”

The lancer turns his head to look back at the bone monster. It has decided hating us is less important than wanting to eat any human it can find, and is crawling after the fleeing Ur-shanabi staff again.

“Do we follow I guess?” I check with Emiya, snagging a quick look over my shoulder for King David and Robin. I can see both. They’ve managed to embed their yokai in the wall, and the civilians and security staff on that side of the hall are fleeing as well while it’s slowed down. It’s already dragging itself back out though, and it’s definitely going after, so we’re all in about the same position.

“Hm,” he replies with a nod, deep in thought himself.

“Why are you pouring blood?” asks the lancer, staring blearily at Emiya’s chest.

“The guards shot him,” I reply, starting to run after the monster.

Emiya takes off too, and I hear the lancer call out, “Hey—you can put me down! I’m awake—I can walk!”

“Can you?” asks Emiya in a very interesting tone of voice, and he dumps the lancer on the ground without looking. The lancer curses and tries to drag himself up, and I pause to make sure he can, when something happens. It’s hard to describe—it’s like getting the breath knocked out of me, except on some deeper level. Almost like getting faint but really, really fast. I stumble and almost trip, barely catching myself with a hand against the hall wall. Just ahead of me, Emiya stumbles too, and skids to a stop and turns, eyes on the lancer. The guy isn’t moving.

“Shit,” whispers Emiya, reaching his side again in an instant and stooping beside his body, “You okay?” he asks me.

“Yeah. Little…dizzy, I think,” I say, “But okay.” What…? I feel it hit me. The only thing it can be. Ritsuka!

I reach out with my senses and try to find my master. This should be easy—we’re supposed to always be able to find them, so we can go to their side and protect them.

I can’t sense her.

Shit.

Okay okay—she’s alive! I can still feel the contract in effect, so she isn’t dead! But she’s somewhere I can’t see, and she must have just used—wait. Right, two possibilities. A little relieved, I look back to King David and Robin, and my heart sinks, because even from here, I can see no traces of Robin’s phantasm, and they’re both stopped too, like Emiya and me—talking and looking confused. Crap. Crap nobody else used mana then. Which means Ritsuka did. But why? Defending herself?

“I can’t find her,” I tell Emiya tensely.

He looks up at me with a kind of frozen alarm, and I can tell he’s trying himself, to find her. “Shit,” he whispers again, looking at me, but hand still on the lancer’s chest.

“He’s alive?” I ask.

“Just almost out of mana,” confirms Emiya, lifting him up and slinging him over his shoulder again. The guy groans and mutters something unintelligible. Emiya seems relieved by that. “He’ll probably be up again in a minute.

“Hey—We can’t sense Ritsuka,” comes Robin’s voice in our heads, tense.

“We can’t either,” I reply.

“The mana drop just now was from her,” adds Emiya mentally to all of us, “Something’s wrong—We need to move, now. –Those things are Ur-shanabi’s problem. We’re finding the kid.”

[valeriethepussycats]

Assemble

Chapter 7

Pairing- Loki x Reader x Steve (one side)

Warning- cursing 

Your thoughts and other characters are in italics.

Nick sits up, clutching his ribs he looks and see Y/n unconscious. He rushes over to Her and clutch her in his arm. “Y/n wakes up wakes up.”

Nick lays Y/n on the ground and struggles to his feet. He then puts on his earpiece.“Hill?!”

Pandemonium erupts. Emergency alarms set off, fire extinguishers activate near surrounding fires and every agent is in a spinning scramble for their positions and armaments. Agent Hill keeps the bridge as calm as possible.

“Turn up that engine! Number 3 engine is down! Can we get a run in?” Hill runs over to Galaga Player. “Talk to me.”

Galaga Player points to monitor. “Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but it's impossible to get out there and make repairs while we're in the air.”

“We lose one more engine, we won't be. Somebody's got to get inside and patch that engine.” Hill reported to Nick.

“Stark! You copy that?!” Nick questioned.

“I'm on it!” Tony answered.

“Coulson! Initiate official lock down in the detention section then get to the armory! Move out!.” Nick ordered then Agent Coulson runs out of the bridge.

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Natasha looks over to Banner, who is breathing heavy, having landed hard. He is gripping the grated floor to maintain control, but his eyes are green, his face intense. “I'm okay. We're okay, right?”  Natasha whispered.

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Barton leads his men into the air ducts of the ship. They rappel down into a corridor.

“Get that engine down! Detention! Get him through the dark! Come with me.

Two of his men follow him. They head towards the bridge.”  Barton ordered.

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Tony and Cap run through a dim, debris filled hall. “Find engine three. I'll meet you there.” Tony told Steve. Cap peels off as Tony approaches a tech room. Inside, Tony's Iron Man suit stands waiting, lit above in all its glory.

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Bruce’s face  in the dim light as he struggles to suppress the rage, but his face is growing, changing slowly. Natasha is pulling herself painfully free, talking to Bruce...

“Doctor... Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me.” Two approaching Shield soldiers arrive to check on her. She furiously waves them away. They bolt out of there. “We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never...”

“Your life?” Bruce’s voice has the change in it the bitter amusement is morphing to a growled threat. Another explosion rocks the carrier and he turns to look at her, transforming just as the lights go out.

“Bruce.” Natasha pleaded.

Banner suddenly starts transforming into The Hulk and gives Natasha one last knowing look. Natasha struggle free of the rubble. She stops. The Hulk, sensing her, turns his head and puts on a face of a disturb monster. Natasha  jolts  up the stairs with the Hulk  chasing after her. Natasha maneuvers like a black widow should. She rolls under a turbine, starts to crawl within the maze of pipes. The Hulk  pulls them out from above the catwalk.Natasha falls through under the catwalks and quickly and stealthily escapes. The Hulk lets out a roar of rage unlike anything. Primal. Not human.

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Y/n slowly opens her eyes  and sits up on her elbows and see that she’s in a dark room.

”Really the dark room I we were pass this.” Y/n shouted into the abyss but no one responds.

“Oh so you gonna act like you can’t hear me. Phoenix!!” Y/n yelled.

The Phoenix appears behind Y/n. “You called for me.”

“Thank you for greasing me with your presents. I thought we were gonna learn how to be as One what happened. What the hell was that back there.” Y/n questioned.

“I don’t know what your talking about.” The Phoenix answered.

“Making every object known to man on the ship levitate ring any bells?” Y/n asked.

“That  wasn’t me.” The Phoenix stated.

“What?!” Y/n staggered.

“No that was you.” The Phoenix answered.

“No that can’t be right you’re the telepathic you’re the telekinesis not me  that’s always been you.” Y/n  protested.

“Is it?”

Y/n looks up at Phoenix confuse but before she can open her mouth to say anything she’s cut off with the loud roar echoing in her thoughts to the point it snaps her awake and she laying on the floor. When she looks up and see Loki smiling mischievously then blacking out again.

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Fury runs in and sees the chaos has increased even more the before. The Helmsman is in complete disarray. “Bring the carrier inwards and head south. Take us to the water.”

“Why water? Navigations recalibrated after the engine failure.” Helmsman told Nick.

“Is the sun coming up?!”  Nick asked.

“Yes, sir.” Helmsman answered.

“Then put it on the left! Get us over water! One more turbine goes down and we drop.” Nick explained.

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Captain America, pushing with all his strength the door to portside, sees Shield tech in full oxygen masks shoot fire extinguishers and cover from sparks -- largely unable to do  anything. Engine 3 is totally dead. A large chunk of the port side is torn off.

“Stark, I'm here!”

“Good. See what we got.” Tony flies in his Iron Man suit and gets close to the damaged engine.

Tony observes within his viewscreen at the damaged engine and its layouts. “I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and work on dislodging the debris.”

Iron Man begins pulling on the stuck rotors then looks over at Steve. “I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position.”

Iron Man flies into giant cooling conductors. Captain America  jumps  over to the other side of the broken railing. Captain America gets himself to the control panel and opens it up. For a man who grew up as a yank, what the fuck is this!

“What's it look like in there?” Tony asked.

“It seems to run on some form of electricity.”

“Well, you're not wrong.”

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Natasha continuously crawls under the catwalk. She stops. Then...Boom. Boom. Boom. The room vibrates. Rhythmically. Natasha pulls out her gun and slowly walks out onto the catwalk and spins. and then a roar. The Hulk. Natasha fires a shot into a liquid nitrogen pipe that hits the hulk in face. Hulk smashes it with all his might. Natasha begins to run through the maze of corridors. The sound the monster is coming. Finally, she reaches and a long corridor. As she runs, behind her, The Hulk  tears up the hallway, coming at her. Natasha turns to see, but theHulk slaps her into the wall, smashing into the ground.  Hulk marks his territory. Natasha looks up. A fear she has never felt begins to seep out. Hulk raises his hand and IS knocked off his feet by Thor who tackles him into the next room.

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Both Thor and The Hulk  roll across the floor. Every person runs the hell out. Thor looks up at this magnificent beast. Hulk stands up and moving like a boxer, wants Thor to make his move. Hulk makes his move. Swing and a miss . Thor swings his massive hand and almost knocks The Hulk off his feet. Hulk keeps swinging and missing, pissing him off.

Finally, he brings down his arm, but Thor grabs it and wraps around it. “We are not your enemies, Banner! Try to think!”

Hulk lifts his arm up, to Thor's surprise, and he sending him flying as he punches Thor’s face with his fist.

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Iron Man continuously blasts broken debris off the turbine engine. It's bad, but still fixable.

“The relays are intact. What's our next  move?” Steve said into his earpiece to Tony.

“Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push.” Tony explained.

“Well if that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded!” Steve declared.”

“Then stay in the control unit and reverse polarity long enough to disengage mag...”

“Speak English!”

“See that red lever? It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word.” Captain America  looks over at the other side where he was. He sees the red lever and jumps towards it.

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Thor crashers  into another stack of crates. As he raises his head, he feels something on his lips... blood. As he swipes it off, the  roar of the Hulk is not too far. Thor extends his hand out. The roar gets louder and closer. Thor focuses. His hand strains toward mid-air. His eyes tight in concentration. The Hulk runs right at him. At the last second, Mjölnir flies into his hand and Thor uppercuts Hulk, who crashes into a fighter jet. Hulk stands up, shaking his head like `what just happened.' He shakes it off and angrily rips off the tail of the jet, torques his body like the a Greek Discus thrower and hurls the massive plate at Thor. Thor Slides and ducks under the tail.

Jumping up, he throws Mjölnir with all his strength, knocking the Hulk head over heels. Hulk falls down, hammer in hand. He tries to lift it, but can't. Mjölnir rests atop his hand. Struggle as he may, Hulk wraps his hand around the hammer. The hammer doesn't move. To no avail -- he strains with all his might, screams from the effort, bellowing.

Thor jumps up again, kneeing Hulk in the face. Thor grabs his hammer, jumps on him, using the hammer as a lock for his chokehold. Hulk tries to pull him off.

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Fury and Agent Hill look over their monitors. “We need a full evac on the lower hangar bay.”

Agent Hill nods. She leaves to exit out, but a Sliding Grenade appears. “Grenade!”

The grenade goes off, sending her down the steps. Fury fires a shot at the open entrance. He moves over behind the side of the  entrance. A handful of Barton's men enter. Watchful, ready, waiting... Fury steps out, his gun drawn. A shoot out and hand-to-hand ensues, but Fury is unable to stop one of them, which is why he is shot in the head by Agent Hill, who looks hot and sexy holding her gun.

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Agent Coulson walks up the armory door. He places his head into a  facial recognition scanner. Walks into the room.

“We got perimeter breach! Hostiles are in Shield gear. Hold on to every junction.” Sitwell announced.

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Hulk crashers from under the floor, sending Thor on his ass. Hulk grabs him by the neck.

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A gunfight opens up. Agents exchange fire with brutally efficient tactical soldiers.

“Sir, the Hulk and Thor are in shuttle levels 2, 3 and 4!” Sitwell informed.

“Sir, the Hulk will tear this place apart!” Hill yelled.

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“So your just gonna keep me here. I need to wake up I should be out there helping I know you hear what’s going on.” Y/n explained.

“I didn’t hear what’s going on and you can help use your powers in Manhattan The Phoenix disclosed.

“Manhattan why would......The Tesseract. You saw were the local.” Y/n replied.

“Of course I notice did. Now use your powers.” The Phoenix told Y/n

Y/n  plus one hand on her head and the other hand out trying to concentrate and locate Bruce’s thoughts when she finally finds him she feels rage uncontrollable rage.

”She’s finally excepting this power as her’s and she doesn’t even realize it.” The Phoenix whispered to herself.

Go to Manhattan leave the Helicarrier the Tesseract is there I don’t know where but it’s in Manhattan when everything calms down here I’ll meet you but you need to leave now or you’ll hurt a lot of people

The Hulk  hears someone’s voice broadcasting in his head giving him a command without him realizing he turns around, letting out his primal roar. He Takes a running start and leaps out the panel Plummets to earth, roaring his swan song.

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Y/n  stands in the dark room dumbstruck.

That it actually worked.

Even while she’s unconscious she can still use her telepathic abilities. It makes her wonder if all the voices here in her dreams are made up or is it real.

“You found out the truth about your mother how she abandoned you The anger you felt it was in sync with mine.” The Phoenix explained.

“You’re angry because you’re here with me?” Y/n wondered.

“No of course not.  I fear that I am the only one of my kind.”

Even if you are you’ll never alone I will always be here.” Y/n said with a smile and The Phoenix smiles  back at her.

she’s like the child I met many years ago

[writemywaytoyourheart]

Onsra- Chapter 15: Burn Baby, Burn

Pairing: vampire!jungkook x female reader

Genre: angst, horror, drama, romance

Word count: 2k

Warnings for this chapter: none I think :(

Tag list: @jjungkook99

Onsra: ML, Previous

Enjoy :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You expect fear to grip your heart and consume your body, at the realization that Jungkook really could have killed you. But, it doesn't. Instead, to your surprise, sadness washes over you and you feel tears spring to your eyes.

"I'm sorry."

You hear yourself saying it, but the you can't control the words spilling from your lips.

"I'm so sorry. I-"

"Y/n, you've no reason to be sorry."

Seokjin has his hands on your shoulders and you can hear the strain in his voice as he takes a shaky breath.

He's lost someone so dear to him, they all have. Their little brother. They had to watch him as the real Jungkook faded away, slipping from their grasps and being replaced by someone so cold and hard, someone so empty. You can't imagine how you'd feel if you had to see Ga-In not only be attacked by something so vile, but to watch her slowly turn into that same thing.

Tears steadily stream down your face now and Seokjin pulls you into a quick hug. "It's okay y/n. It's alright. We won't give up on him. We believe that we can find him again."

It's confusing that Seokjin is the one comforting you right now, you feel like you should be the one reassuring him, not the other way around. You pull back slowly and Jin continues, "Just be careful around him, y/n. Don't be alone with him, and please try not to rile him up." He sniffles and lets out a short laugh. You try to send him a smile and nod slowly.

"Ok."

You and Jin sit at the kitchen table in silence for another few minutes, when you hear the front door open and shut loudly. You flinch and Jin notices the fear in your eyes at who it could be. He gets up and motions with his hand for you to stay there, then he leaves the kitchen and you hear him speaking lowly to whoever came in.

"Jungkook, can we please talk?"

"No."

"Jeon Jungkook, let me speak to you please."

You hear shuffling around and then someone stomping up the stairs before Jin comes back into the kitchen. His face is blank and he just walks over to the fridge, opening it and looking through everything. "I'm going to start making lunch. You're welcome to go find everyone else and see what they're up to. Jungkook won't be coming down for a while so you're safe. I'm sorry, y/n." He turns to look at you solemnly and you shake your head while standing.

"Please stop apologizing to me, Jin. You have done nothing but be kind to me."

He nods and turns back to the food, so you walk around the house in search of your friends. You peek into another sitting room to see Yuri lounging on a couch, Jimin sitting in an armchair and the two of them in a deep conversation about some book they both read. You hear Jimin laugh and Yuri sigh in annoyance.

"Come on Jimin, you can't tell me that ending didn't irritate you. It was so cliché!"

"You are so sour! Don't tell me you're not a hopeless romantic, I can see it on your smug face!"

You watch them for a second before deciding you shouldn't interrupt their conversation, so you walk around some more before you see a glass door leading to a porch in the back. You open it and step outside, then see Ga-In crouched over, her back facing you.

Taehyung is crouched right next to her and they're looking down at something between them. You walk over curiously and peer over their shoulders. A tiny frog is swimming around in circles in a glass bowl that's full of water. "Is it a girl or a boy, though?" Ga-In whispers and Taehyung shifts a little, his eyes still glued to the little animal. "I- I think it's a girl?" He whispers back and you try to hold back a laugh. Ga-In nods and stays silent for another minute before she reaches a tentative finger out to pet the frog's tiny head.

Surprisingly, the frog stays still until Ga-In pulls her hand away and then it continues to swim.

"I think its name should be Bubbles."

Ga-In states simply and Taehyung chuckles, "Bubbles...I like that."

"Me too!"

They both jump at the sound of your voice and you give them a smile, "She's really cute, Tae! Sorry I took so long to see her." They both stand up and you follow them. Tae gives you a bright boxy smile, "Thanks! I found her in the wood boards under the porch. She was stuck, so I saved her." You give Tae a smile and look at Ga-In, not missing the blush dusting her cheeks, then you look down and give her a confused look when you see her legs.

"Where did those pants come from?"

Ga-In follows your gaze and touches the sweatpants that are slightly too big for her, but the length is almost perfect. "Oh! Taehyung let me borrow them."

Tae nods and scratches the back of his neck, "Yeah, I mean. Seokjin hyung hasn't had time to find clothes for you girls and pants are kind of important, you know."

He smiles shyly and you pat him on the shoulder, "That was nice of you! Well, I think I'm gonna go find a book to read or something." They both nod and you turn to go back inside. The pair of them crouch to the ground again and continue to whisper.

You can't help the pang of jealousy in your chest at the fact that the only two friends you have here are already making friends with these boys, and so quickly too. Jungkook has only been picking on you, and even though Jin is kind, you can't help but feel like a burden to him.

You make it to the top of the stairs and turn to walk to your room, when a door down the hall opens and you hear someone walk out into the hall.

Looking up, you see Jungkook standing there awkwardly. You watch him for a second before pressing your lips together and turning to walk away. You can't help but wonder what he used to be like, before he was bitten. The thought makes your heart sting as you open your door.

Jungkook clears his throat and you stop when he starts to talk.

"I- uh."

You're not sure why, but you decide to face him. Maybe he's going to apologize?

Jungkook just stares at the ground, then his eyes slowly trail up and land on the pain relief patch Jin put on your wrist. His brows furrow and his mouth opens slightly. Then, he turns quickly, hurrying back into his room and slamming the door shut without saying another word.

Yeah, that's what you thought. 

-

The overwhelming smell of smoke burning your nostrils is what makes you jerk awake. You sit up in a panic, covering your mouth and nose and looking around the dark room frantically.

Where is it coming from?

You stumble out of bed and search blindly for Ga-In's. When you find it, you start to smack around, looking for her. "Ga-In! Yuri!" You whisper shout until you feel someone grab your arm. You almost scream, then you hear Yuri's voice close to your ear, "Open the windows, quick!" You cautiously make your way around the room in the general direction you remember the windows being, until you feel cold glass on your hands.

You fumble with the lock and throw the windows open, gulping in the fresh air before you duck back into the room.

"Yuri, get the lights!"

The room is soon illuminated, and you see a lump where Ga-In is hiding under her covers. Yuri is coughing by the light switch and smoke is snaking into the room from under the door.

Heck, that's a lot of smoke.

"Ga-In, get up. We need to get out of here."

You roughly shake her and she whines but comes out of her hiding spot nonetheless. Yuri looks out the window but then slowly comes back. "We won't fit through the window, do we go out the door?" You nod hesitantly, seeing as that's the only way out. All you can do at this point is pray that the fire isn't right outside the door. You run over and yank it open, coughing when smoke billows into the room, choking you until you slam the door shut again.

"Where is everyone? Get out! There's a fire! Out! Someone find the girls!"

"I can't find Tae!"

"I'm here!"

You hear running and shouting from outside the door and you pound on it, "We're okay! We're coming out!"

Then you rush to the vanity and grab the rag, tearing it in two and dunking it in the water before shoving the wet cloths into Yuri and Ga-In's hands. "Put this over your mouth and nose and get out of here!" They both nod and do as you say, smoke enveloping the three of you when Yuri opens the door again. You run back to the vanity, tearing a large chunk off your shirt and submerging it in the water before placing it over your own mouth and nose.

When you walk out of the room, the smoke burns your eyes as you try to blink the tears away. You hear someone shouting at everyone to get out, but it's so dark and your eyes are stinging so bad you can barely keep them open. You trip and fall on the ground as you try to find the staircase, dropping your wet cloth in the suffocating darkness. Your lungs feel like they're going to burst as you smack around on the ground looking for your life-saving sad wet rag.

It's hot.

It's so hot.

Why is it so freaking hot?

Your head spins and you start to crawl across the floor after deciding to abandon the ripped shirt before you feel someone run into you, cursing loudly while they grab at your arms to pull you to your feet.

"Move! Go go go!"

They're screaming at you and you drag your feet across the hallway, but really the only thing keeping you moving is whoever picked you up off the ground as they practically carry you to the staircase.

"Do we have everyone? Is everyone out?? Who's left?"

You can hear Seokjin screaming from downstairs as your foot catches on a crack in the wood and you tumble down the last few feet when the hands gripping you lose their hold. You land in a heap at the bottom, muscles aching but still screaming at you to move.

Someone comes up behind you and lifts you up, dragging you to the front door and all but throwing you out. You fall onto the porch and scramble to the grass, hacking your lungs out and trying to get fresh air in.

"It's a diversion! Nobody leave! Stay close to the house!"

You think it's Hoseok that's shouting now but you can't focus on anything. When you finally get your bearings, you look up in horror at the mansion that's now half covered in flames. The only other person you see is Jungkook, his hands on his knees as he coughs uncontrollably. Did he carry you out?

The sound of the old house burning down is earsplitting as the wood snaps and the fire grows bigger, the orange flames licking up every inch they can. Your stomach lurches and you turn to the side, throwing up and coughing until your throat is raw.  

"Y/N!! HELP!"

You freeze at the sound of Ga-In's terrified scream.

"Ga-In??" You shout hoarsely, only to be answered by another heart wrenching wail, from Yuri this time.

"Y/N PLEASE!!"

You whip your head around for the source of the screams. All you can see is darkness and a giant fire.

"Yuri where are you??"

You stumble to your feet and look around frantically.

"Y/N!"

The woods.

They're coming from the woods.

You yank yourself up and take off running in the direction of the forest, completely ignoring the shouts of Jungkook from behind you.

"Y/n, stop! Where are you going??"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a/n: let me know what you think, or not. Ya know. Either one. 🙃

[lostinthewiind]

Hey, could I get a Buck Compton x female!reader? If your comfortable writing about the reader getting hurt at the same time Joe Toye loses his leg in the show? I don't want her to be killed but severely injured enough that she gets sent home, like she tries to help Joe instead of Bill. I know Buck gets sent home soon after Joe gets sent home too. It's just an idea, if your not comfortable writing something like this then please don't feel like you have to write this. Thanks in advance!!

Kesten’s the name, writing angst is the game, baby! Boutta throw on my sad Spotify playlist and GO TO TOWN! Sorry in advance (I’m not actually that sorry)

WARNING(S): near-death experience, blood, angst 

TAG LIST: @gottapenny @warmommy @scissorsfordoc @david-weepster@wexhappyxfew @curraheev @mayhem24-7forever @one-who-hunts-eagles @bandofmarvels @i-am-a-lost-girl16 @wildwilliamguarnere @higgles123 @those-dusty-jump-wings @medievalfangirl @maiden-of-gondor @whoabrekker @thefricklefracklesin @junojelli @bandofgays @itisjustmethistime @whatwouldidowithoutgeorgeluz @dumpofdumblings​ @inglourious-imagines @misspiggyfeels

So Cold

Just a few more steps; just a little further. You were almost there. Faltering slightly, you adjusted your grip on Joe Toye’s jacket, your grip slipping more and more with every backward step you took. 

Looking over your shoulder, you tuned out everything around yourself—the screaming, the explosions, the flying dirt and chunks of tree bark—and focused on his face; on those bright, blue eyes.

Buck’s mouth was moving a mile a minute, calling you toward him as he waved wildly, but you didn’t hear a thing. The ground shook beneath your feet with every mortar that crashed into the earth, and no matter how badly you wanted to run into his arms, you knew you had to get Joe to safety. 

Fear evident in his eyes, Buck finally bit the bullet, or so to speak, and jumped out of the safety of the foxhole. He started towards you, his steps confident and deliberate as he moved through the chaos of the forest. 

You smiled when you saw him coming to help you. Just a few more steps, just a little further and he would be beside you. One second he was there, right in front of you, and the next thing you knew, your vision went black and you weren’t sure if you had closed your eyes or if it was the world that had suddenly gone dark.

There was a high-pitched, constant ringing in your ears; that was the first thing you noticed. The next thing you noticed was how much your body ached, all over, non-stop. When you finally opened your eyes again—or when light finally returned to the world—you were staring up at the sky and the canopy of treetops above you. 

You drew in a sudden, sharp breath of the cold air. It hurt. It hurt like hell.

You weren’t sure how long you laid there for. Maybe it was only a few seconds. Maybe it was a few hours. You had no concept of time. The only thing you were paying attention to was the sky and your laboured breathing. The air stung your lungs more and more with every breath, but still, you inhaled and exhaled, over and over again, determined to keep living.

This was not the end. Not for you.

As the ringing in your ears slowly and gradually subsided, you began to hear the explosions again, and filling the silence between the mortar blasts was screaming. Some of the screaming was far away, echoing through the forest, and some was closer.

You could hear Buck screaming, calling out your name again and again. His voice was hoarse and desperate, the words ripping through his throat. You pictured tears welling in his beautiful blue eyes and felt your entire body ache even more than it already was.

Mustering every last ounce of strength you had left in your body, you flipped yourself over onto your stomach and clawed at the snow. Your fingernails broke and your fingertips bled as you dragged yourself back along the ground toward the foxhole, the gashes and tears in your flesh leaving a horrific blood smear behind yourself. 

“I’m okay.” you gasped out, more for Buck than for yourself. “I’m okay.”

The second the German mortar attack stopped, Buck scurried over to you and lifted you into his arms. You let out an agonizing yelp in the process, but there was nowhere else in the world that you would rather be. “Y/N!” Buck collapsed to his knees, still holding you. His eyes trailed over your body and the many wounds you had sustained, the only saving grace being that all of your limbs were still intact. 

With Joe’s screams calling the rest of the company over, Eugene was there in seconds, tending to the man who was now missing the lower half of his right leg. His screams were bone-chilling and each one shattered your heart more than the last. You knew you could have saved him; you knew you should have saved him.

Overwhelmed with the situation and your adrenaline beginning to wear off, you began to hyperventilate. “I lied,” you gasped for air. “I’m not okay . . . I can’t breathe . . . I’m not okay.”

Buck wrapped his arms around you as tightly as he could without hurting you more and buried his head into your neck. “You’re gonna be just fine,” he demanded more than assured. “Nothing is gonna happen to you! You’re gonna be just fine!”

“Buck . . .” you exhaled. Your mind was too foggy to think of any more to say to him. You just wanted him to look at you. If you were going to die, you wanted those blue eyes that you had fallen in love with to be the last thing you saw.

“You’re gonna be just fine.” he pressed his tear-soaked lips to your chapped ones. When Buck opened his eyes again, yours were closed and they didn’t open again.

Fearing the worst, Buck began to shake you violently in his arms, crying out for you to wake up. When the medics arrived and loaded your body onto a stretcher, Buck refused to let go of your hand for the longest while, and when your fingertips finally brushed out of his grasp, he stayed there in the snow for hours on end. He didn’t move, he didn’t blink, he didn’t talk. 

He just sat there, staring at the red-tinted snow that you had left behind. For all he knew, that was all that was left of you; the chilling scene of your desperate escape from death. 

Reaching down, he grazed his fingers against the red snow. It was cold. Everything was so cold.

                            ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Coming to, you felt as though you were waking up after the explosion all over again. Were you dead? Was this hell? Were you destined to wake up in the aftermath of the incident over and over again, forever?

Then you decided that there was no way you could be dead because your entire body still hurt, and from everything you had been led to believe, there was no pain in the afterlife. You weren’t sure if that was true or not, or really if there even was an afterlife, but at that moment, it brought you some form of comfort.

When you finally gathered enough bravery to open your eyes, you were beyond thankful to not see the sky above you. Instead, it was a plain, boring ceiling, and never in your life had you been happier to see such a mundane object.

You cracked a hint of a smile. 

In an attempt to sit up and take in your surroundings, your arms gave out almost instantly, and the sound of your whimpering and crashing back down onto the cot alerted a nearby nurse. 

“Oh, don’t try and move by yourself.” the kind-looking woman rushed over and propped up some pillows behind your back before she helped you sit up. “Here.” she smiled. 

“T-thanks.” your voice was raspy and your throat stung when you spoke. 

Reaching for a cup of water, the nurse handed it over and encouraged you to drink. You did as you were told. “Thanks.” you tried again, this time having much more success with the simple word. 

“You’re welcome.” the nurse smiled again. “How are you feeling?”

You thought for a moment and took the time to look yourself over, your skin covered in patched-up wounds and dried blood. “I’m okay,” you answered. “I think.”

“That’s good. He’ll be glad to hear that.” the nurse gestured to the cot on the other side of you. “He’s been watching over you and asking about how you’re doing every day. He really cares about you.”

Craning your neck to the side, you felt your heart well at the sight of the man in the cot beside you. Lying on his side, facing you, Buck was fast asleep. 

“I’m surprised he’s asleep,” the nurse said. “Poor guy’s barely slept or eaten since he got here a few days after you did. I’m assuming you know him, yes?”

“Yes.” you nodded. “Yes, I know him.”

Taking the empty cup from your hands, the nurse turned and started for another patient. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you woke him.”

Scooting to the edge of your cot, you carefully reached out and took the hand that Buck had hanging off of his cot in yours. “Buck,” you whispered, and immediately, his eyes shot open.

It took the large, blonde man a few seconds to realize that what he was seeing was real and not a dream, and when he did, he smiled wide and his hand clamped around yours hard. “You’re alive.” he breathed out. You nodded. “You’re also cold.” he looked down at your hand in his. “So cold.”

“But I’m alive.” you smiled as you stared into his blue eyes, happy that they were the last thing you saw before closing your own, but even happier that they were one of the first things you saw after opening them again.

“But you’re alive.” he reached across with his other hand, grabbed ahold of the edge of your cot, and slowly and carefully pulled it right beside his. Then, he kissed you. 

“I missed you,” you told him, gently placing your palm onto his cheek.

“I missed you more.” Buck pushed into the touch, having craved it for so long. “I’m never letting go of you ever again.”

You smiled. “I don’t want you to.”

[thepavensiestyle]

A Fighter is Born

A bright, sunny day would promise heat for a majority of the early morning. Seeping well into the later afternoon. An expansive sea in possession of rough blue waves would lap up against the sandy shore of a littered beach. The conditions were visible along the horizon as heat waves rose up to distort reality. 

But well beyond this sunny patch of peace, the scenery had erupted in chaos. Nothing natural but rather manmade. An illegal sparring ring consisting a myriad of races that had ranged from humans and elves, to orcs and tauren. Though, there was more where that came from, a lot more. Horde and Alliance both coexisted in order to get a view of this popular event in Stranglethorn. Members of both factions assembled in a friendly clash of one mass for but a singular look at those that would be participating in the center ring. 

The roar of a crowd sounds just as those already on the sparring grounds had first made contact. At first glance, they could be mistaken for gnomes or goblins. But on closer inspection, the fighters were made up of children. Whose ages ranged from 5 to 10 years old. Regardless of those circumstances, these particular fighters appeared well trained. They carried weapons like they’d had years of experience with them. 

Although, deep underground, the sound of the crowd muffled.

The latch of one iron shackle sounded in a faint click as it clamped around the bared ankle of one such human boy. It wasn’t anything to hinder him in any way but it sure was tight. Tight enough to cause discomfort. “There, that’s to identify ya’.” Such was always Kleegal’s excuse on the matter. The well dressed Goblin stood roughly around the height of the 7 year old child, perhaps a few inches shorter. 

The boy was not as well dressed as Kleegal. He wore no shoes on his feet, a patchy and faded shirt along with ripped shorts. Beside him, another Goblin had stood with a drink in hand. This one was a female, her blue hair dolled up nicely in a loose bun on the top of her head. She wore a lack of clothing as well, though not quite so roughed up as the child. “Make sure ya win for us, will ya’?” Was the first thing she’d said. Ena was always focused on the riches that had come from accomplishing such tasks. 

“‘Ey, kid.” Kleegal spoke without regarding Ena for the moment. “Just rememba’, if ya’ lose, you ain’t gonna be allowed back inside for the night. Ya’ hear?” The male would look the boy in the eyes, pressing the threat by the slight tilt of his head. He receives no verbal response other than the light nod of the boy’s head. But he was acceptant of it all the same. “Good, good.” 

From behind the Goblin couple, a door had seemed to swing open to allow for a brutish orc to enter with a child of his own. A child who was also of orc descent and had already been huge for his apparent age. Tall and buff by the looks of it, and staring at the human boy like he was fresh meat. “Ah! Karguk!” Kleegal announces before making his approach towards the burly Orc. 

“We’re about to be called up.” The Orc had spoken in a deep and gruff voice. Complete with the intimidation to scare off a lion. A singular hand would shove the Orc child forwards, allowing him to stumble gracelessly into the room. “You’d better get the little-” Karguk looks over at the human child and grumbles. “-worm ready to lose.” The same hand used to shove his own child would be one to pat him on the shoulder. A gesture used to show off the prominent size differences between human and orc. 

Kleegal would fall to a lean against one of the posts holding up the underground ceiling and laughs at Karguk. “He ain’t gonna lose! We trained him well enough!” This would be enough for Karguk to expel a gutterous series of laughter. 

“And I have trained mine well.” Once again, he pats the Orc child’s shoulder. “I will see you in the stands, Goblin.” That would be when the giant Orc would turn around with the child in tow to leave the underground room. All the while, the remaining trio would stand by watching. Kleegal and Ena with sneers while the human child had nothing short of fear written across his features.

“Well!” Kleegal calls back out just as the door to the room closes. “He was peachy, wasn’t he, Ena?” Laughter commences, until the male was right back to confronting the child. “Johnny boy.” He finally called the child by his name. “You betta’ not lose this one. It’s gonna really put a stake in our career if ya’ do. So let’s do this!”   

Out of the room Johnny had been ushered, and onto the sparring ring outside. The hot sun boring down upon everyone who’s attended. Though it seems the attendees had less of an issue to worry about. There’d been vendors going about selling drinks and snacks for the audience. Many overhangs gave the audience shelter from the merciless sun but standing in the very center would be open for all elements to view. The worst of the conditions being the sun of course. And with the ground being made entirely from sand, standing still for too long meant burning your feet, if you’d been unlucky enough not to wear shoes. Kleegal would only linger for a short time to mumble something towards the human child before he hurried away from the sandy center. Desperate enough to flee the harsh conditions. 

“‘EY LOOK!” From the booming crowd, one voice stood out to them both. “Kleegal’s free laba’! AHAHA!” Then the Goblin’s voice would be drowned out by the loud crowd. Whistles and cheers would sing in an immense choir as voices filled up the entire audience. Though, Johnny and the orc child both stood together in silence, both peering up at the crowd of faces. 

And above all of the sound of cheering, an echoed voice through what can only be described as a loudspeaker would manifest. Another Goblin’s voice. “Ladies and gentlemen! Here we have next on the docket, fightin’ for this swell 13th anniversary of the Black Sun Sparrin’ Ring! This time we got somethin’ a little different! We got a new competita’ with us! Ahaaa! Today will be the day to showcase a series of new faces overall, most of which should be bloody by the end of this! Now we will be featurin’ Yegoth! Also known as Beast! The mightiest orc boy in the land! Challengin’ against Lil’ John! Who we will call, Fish Food!” The name call would promote laughter amongst the crowd around them. “You all know the rule! First fighta’ dropped for 10 seconds is the losa’! Ladies and gentleman, are you ready?!” And with that, the promotion of louder cheers and whistles as the crowd would get pumped for the coming fight. “Alright! Let’s get ready to rumble~!” Shortly afterwards would be the sound of a loud bell that brought the fighting to its introduction. Which had only excited the crowd even more.

That was the same time Yegoth had started forwards, raising his hefty fists up in defense. He approaches Johnny rather quickly despite his immense size. While Johnny would stand by and simply watch to see exactly what was to come of the action. He’s seen fights like these go down but never has he been in the center ring doing the fighting. It wasn’t like the boy even knew how to fight but he braces all the same. 

Yegoth would have been able to land the first hit, while Johnny had taken it like a champion. He emits a loud yelp as the force had sent the boy back several paces from where he’s first started. Already, the side of his face had bruised over and his head rattled by the impact. It was by some miracle he hadn’t fallen over into the sand but he straightened up in an instant. 

Though, this had not seemed to be the end as Yegoth had once again recoiled a fist to land directly into Johnny’s nose just as the human boy turned to face his opponent. Immediately, blood would spurt from his nostrils and the impact this time had pushed Johnny to fall on his ass in the sand. The announcements would come up as this was witnessed. “And we got the first drop in not even two seconds of the intro! Will Fish Food get back up?! Help me count! 10! 9! 8!” He continued to count down while Johnny stayed seated, with the help of the crowd counting along with him. 

Johnny would raise a hand to his bloody nose, barely listening to the sound of the numbers counting down. Although, it was just when the audience and announcer had reached ‘3’ that Johnny had slowly gotten back up. He was relentless despite his desperate desire to flee and leave the area. Not to mention the sudden nausea from the rattling of his brain with all the whiplashing as a result of the punches. Needless to say, he wanted to get out of there. But the only way out was to either win or lose. And losing only meant sullying his foster parent’s names. He didn’t want to do that. 

So he pivots back and raises his arms up in a defensive posture this time, similarly to his opponent’s stance. Yegoth was big and tall but that might have just been an advantage for Johnny. He was small and more agile than his counterpart. The sight of Johnny’s positioning gave cause for Yegoth to sneer and smile with mockery. It was easy to note that the human child had no idea what he was doing and to the orc, it might be the only thing he needs to best him. Use his lack of coordination against him. 

At first, Yegoth had sprinted towards Johnny and feints a punch in his direction. During such an action, Johnny would raise his arms up to cover much of his face but when no impact was made, he instead felt the real punch to his uncovered stomach. He let out a wheezing breath and was quick to drop his arms to protect his stomach, now leaving his face uncovered for yet another punch to his bloodied nose. 

The blow was enough to send him backwards a few steps at first before flopping on his back in a heap onto the sandy dunes. Curling up into fetal position, Johnny would make no move to actually stand back up. Despite the daunting sound of the crowd and announcer counting from 10 to 0. He wanted to throw up in that moment but he held his breath so as not to allow for any spew of chunks to leave his empty stomach. Vomiting would only add insult to injury for both the loss and the obvious tears in his eyes. 

Though once again, one thought would stand out against the others. The thing Kleegal had once said before he entered the sparring stage. About his career and all, Johnny did not want to be responsible for his losses. So again, the boy would force himself back to a stand just as the crowd and announcer made it to ‘2’. “TWO! And Fish Food is relentless! Second time! Could this be his charm?!” The announcer shouted loud, again urging the crowd to laugh and roar in cheer. At that moment, Johnny’s ears had started to ring. Head pounding and heart thumping hard against his chest. His blue eyes locked down on his opponent much like a predator to its prey; just as the orc had begun to lunge for Johnny once again. Time would gradually begin to move in slow motion to a point of stoppage and just before Yegoth was able to close the gap with Johnny, the human would duck down to let the orc’s fist soar past him as he swung it.  Unknown to Johnny, something seemed to have gotten over him. How was he able to commit to these actions with no training at all? In the next instance, none of that seemed to matter as the 7 year old straightened back up to land a heavy blow to the side of Yegoth’s face during his recovery. The momentum from the orc’s punch preventing him from defending his person for a time and so the fist would land. The attack was enough to rattle Yegoth but not completely deter him; he was mostly caught off guard by it. How Fish Food suddenly had the prowess to fight against Beast. When Yegoth pivots back towards Johnny to follow up with an attack, the human had suddenly dropped in a crouch to the sand and collected a handful of it in order to throw it in his opponent’s eyes. Giving cause for a loud yell from the orc to manifest before his hands had risen up to try to clear up the grainy mixture that blinded him. It was in that moment, Johnny would take to attacking every aspect of the orc’s person. Punches and kicks would land on the entirety of his body and it was when Johnny kicked the other in the groin that Yegoth dropped. Sand filled eyes wetting with tears in a desperate attempt to get them cleared up enough to see. Both of his green hands struggled to rub away the countless grains that were stuck under the small crevices and sockets. But in the end, it was for naught. The poor boy was down and laying on his side in the sand while Johnny awaited for a response. Blue eyes rage filled and boring down on Yegoth like he was the enemy of this arena. He had half a mind to continue brutalizing the boy but he does no such thing.  This time, the announcements and the count down from 10 was music to Johnny’s ears. With no prominent move from the Orc to stand back up, he could manage a smug grin up until the 0 mark was struck and the audience both cheered and booed in one chorus of excitement and disappointment. Regardless of it, Johnny turns about in the hot sand to raise his scrawny arms up in celebration. “We have our winna’! An unlikely fighta’! JOHNNY BOY! The Unda’dog who was able to pull through!” The announcements would continue but Johnny tuned it out, smiling throughout. All he could think about was sleeping in a nice bed back home.

[nessaiscute]

The one you don’t expect

“Dad what are we doing here?” I asked.

“I'm taking you hunting. Stated dad as he grabbed an axe.

“Mom said i wasn’t allowed though.”

“Your mom worries too much.” Dad stated, “No ones going to hurt you.”

Ugh, why is he like this? Everyone tells me that my dad is a scary big iron knight. The winter prince who killed without any mercy, however, if you ask me? He's a mega nerd, like no lie he could only kill anyone by boring them to death by never shutting up about mom. Hasn’t he heard that winter knights are looking for him, you know dad...the people who are disgusted by you? Sneaking me out isn’t going to win you any favors, dad.

So here I am, watching my dad strap a saddle to a horse away from the prying eyes of Fix or Glitch who would go running to mom and this would all go to heck. I did really want to hunt, but I also didn’t want mom to kill me over dad getting hurt. One time dad went missing for 2 hours and mom nearly tore the whole palace apart to find him. Turns out the fool was sleeping in the dungeon because he had a headache due to too much sunlight. I wonder if mom ever regrets marrying him? He has to drive her insane. 

“Ahh there we go.” Dad stated and he got on the horse, “come on son, I’ll make you a man yet.”

I’d rather be an alive man not a dead one, but i'm just a kid, no one listens to me and gods do I want to hunt. So i took my dads hand and he pulled me up and buckled me in. I warped my arms around him, although i didn’t want to admit this but there was a comfort in knowing dad was here. No matter what scary beasts or winter knights awaited us, i knew we would be alright. Dad was here. Although If he ever reads this I will deny it. Deny it to my dying breath.

“Ready?” Dad asked.

“Yea.” I started and we rode off into the forest.

I was starstruck. The forest was amazing.

I was gasping at every little thing, the huge trees and the small animals heck even the bugs. I thought about keeping a spider or two but i think mom would ground me for 2 centuries if i did that. 

“Enjoying the sights, little warrior?” Dad asked grinning.

It felt a little warm all of a sudden and I puffed, “It's just… so different from the palace.”

Dad chuckled, “The forest is where fey test themselves, it's supposed to be different from a place where people of power live. But son, this place is not a place to live. It's full of danger, you must never come here without me.”

I suddenly felt… really scared, i didn’t want to go home but I felt like I didn’t belong here. Some of the larger animals noticed us, eyeing me up. Like I was a tasty steak rather than a powerful fey. I tightened my grip on my dad’s waist. Really thankful he was here with me, and praying that all those rumors about him being good at killing were true.

Dad noticed, “What's wrong? Whats scaring you?”

He followed my eyes to a troll glaring at me, dad had a glare of his own but the troll just charged at us. I shirked but dad just pulled out his bow and shot it dead between the eyes, however its head exploded and the chunks turned to solid ice, the rest of its body fell to the ground. And i loosen my grip, although my heart was still beating very hard in my chest. We stopped and I got off the horse, dad jumped off and softly pivoted me to him. Titling my head to look into his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a soft yet stern voice.

“Yes, I'm just…. That was scary. How did you shoot him so fast?”

There was a slight pain in his eyes, as if he was recalling something I was never meant to know, “You don’t want to ever be that good boy, now, lets set up a fire. I need to make you a bow, come over and watch.”

“Okay dad.” I beamed and dad went to work.

 I was confused as to why he brought an axe  till he started chopping the tree, it was so strange, I thought dad as this mega nerd. The person who literally turns into a wuss the moment mom is mad at him, however, recalling how fast dad killed that troll and watching how he takes an axe that's even bigger then I am and pounding it into this giant body of bark with ease. He looks pretty darn cool. The tree quickly fell, dad then ripped out a piece of the bark inside of the tree. Then he pulled out his bowing knife he kept on his person at all times and started forming the wood.

Dad caught my attentive stare; and he chuckled, “Not as easy to do as it looks in books isn’t it?”

“Yea, it looks really hard, don’t cut yourself dad.”

That caught him off guard, he stopped and stared at me bewild but only for a few seconds he smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry.” What's with the odd confusion? I'm just concerned.

I watched him for what felt like hours, It was art. His movements and how he knew exactly when to move his hands, I’d probably bleed out due to cutting myself a bunch of times. What is he forming anyway? I know not to ask, that would distract him and he would get mad. Although I’ve never seen my dad get mad at me before. He scolds me a little but never actually mad.However I didn’t want to start a trend, besides it was becoming clearer and clearer that he was making a bow. The wood was being molded into what dad wanted it to be, when he finished he pulled out some thick string and sowed it to the wood, he then pulled it back and let go, to see if it was working and it was.

“Get over here.” Dad said and I did.

He handed it to me, “Your first weapon, if it breaks let me know.”

I felt a thrill spike through my body, my first real weapon. A long range bow, I would snipe something from a long distance with this, Who knows what wonders I could do with it. It was very exciting to think about.

“Now, lets see if you can use it.” Ash smirked and we went to work.

We had been following a deer for a few hours, I was nervous about it. Dad didn’t notice but it seemed…. Different. I watched TV shows about deers. This one was going all over the place, like it didn’t have a mind of its own. It finally stopped, dad signaled me to raise my bow to fire. I did so.

However as I did the deer let out a roar and charged straight at Dad, knocking him down. Dad went to pull out his blade but the antlers of the deer disarmed him.

“Don’t touch my dad!!” I cried out and shot an arrow.

It was out of fear and instinct, I had never fired a weapon or deflected a blow. I was sure i missed and dad was gone, however my shot connected straight through its skull and it fell to the ground dead.

“Dad!” I cried out and ran to him.

When I got to him he wasn’t moving, and… I saw blood pouring from a wound.

“Oh no! Dad!”

“I’m fine. Son, do me a favor, go back to the camp and find the salve. Hurry boy.”

“Yes sir.” I started and I ran off.

I had to hurry, dad was dying. Dad was dying and it was my fault. I wasn’t fast enough, I found the bag fast enough and found the salve but my mind kept rushing. What if dad’s already dead? What if mom hates me for this? What if she blames me for dad's death? What if she throws me out? Throwing those thoughts out of my head I rushed towards dad.

However, he wasn’t where I left him. Gods no please no. my eyes darted around, i didn’t see him anywhere and then something grabbed me and lifted me into the air. A hand, grabbing my throat.  I barely saw the armor of a winter knight, he wasn’t wearing a helmet he was grinning.

“So this is the traitor’s brat…”

“Where… is….my dad?” I growled.

“You don’t need to worry about that, You won’t live long enough to see him again.”

“Screw you! I want to see my dad!” I snarled.

That got me a punch to the gut. The pain was unreal, I had never been hit before. I spit out some blood that got on his armor. That enraged him and he pounded my body on the ground and pressed his leather boot on my head. 

“You ruined my armor you brat! I'm gonna kill you even slower now!”

I felt a presence, i didn’t know where it was but i felt it creeping. And before i knew it a blade went straight through the knight's chest and he fell to the ground I looked up and there was dad. He was patched up and everything. However my brain didn’t focus on that. I started crying.

“WAHHHHHH!!” I wailed the tears falling freely from my face. 

This must have puzzled dad, I couldn't help it, I was scared my head hurt and I really wanted to go home. I didn’t want mom to hate me, my body was reacting on its own. I wailed and wailed, I expected dad to hit me like the knight did.

But he didn’t.

He scooped me in his arms and held me tight. 

“I’m sorry Kerrian, I'm sorry.”

The feeling of safety from earlier returned, I pressed myself to him, Softly sobbing. 

“Dad…..” 

He carried me to the horse and we went home.

I half expected mom to be pissed, raging, but...she was just worried. Mom knew I spit blood that I was attacked by a winter knight. Although dad didn’t say how he got cured and broke free of the winter knights that kidnapped him. However, mom also knew that I was scared of her leaving me alone because of dad. So she sent me to my room till she was ready to talk.

It was getting late, how much longer?

The door opened and mom was there. She  sat next to me on the bed.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good.”

“Do you really think I prefer your father over you?”

“Not exactly, you just care for him a lot. I...i just panicked mom. I’m sorry.”

Mom then stroked my hair, smiling softly at me. I couldn't help but smile too, both my parents are really good to me.

“Kerrian, I love you just as much as I love your father. I’d never throw you out. I'd never blame you for your father's death. Although I don't like thinking about that notion it does plague me sometimes. But know this, you both mean the same to me.”

“I understand mom.”

Mom then kissed my forehead, “Good, I love you.”

“I love you too mom, and tell dad i love him too.”

Mom giggled, “I sure will, now sleep good night.”

“Good night mom.” and I fell deep into slumber feeling very lucky at my situation. 

[latestageyouth]

When you walk away (Nothing more to say)

chapter 6 - literally just a bleaching hair tutorial

trigger warnings: sympathetic Remus and Deceit, a spider, hair bleaching, swearing, implied bad childhood? (let me know if I missed something)

summary: Virgil helps Remus finally do something with that bird's nest he calls hair and oops angst happens

A few sharp knocks sounded the window. Virgil looked up from his laptop, widening his eyes at the figure behind the glass, which waved him. Virgil rolled his eyes and took off his headphone, walking over to the window and opening it, letting Remus in.

'Why didn't you just walk through the front door?', Virgil questioned.

"Eh, this is more fun," Remus shrugged, looking around the room. He stopped and squealed when he saw the terrarium where Susan was, making a web. He went closer to the terrarium, cooing at the tarantula. Virgil raised an eyebrow, smiling softly. Remus turned his head to look at him, "Sorry not sorry, Susie is just too cute to resist."

Virgil opened his mouth to question the nickname but found himself unable to speak. Oh, of course, how could he forget. He looked away from a second before shaking it off, signing to Remus, 'True'. He crossed his arms and walked closer to Remus.

Remus straightened himself, "So, why am I here again? You wanna hook up or somethin'?"

The taller rolled his eyes, suppressing a smile. He walked over to a table where his computer was, along with other things such as empty glasses or crumbled paper. Virgil picked up a box of powdered hair bleach and waved it at Remus.

Remus widened his eyes a little, but the expression soon changed into an intrigued one, "Oh? What are you gonna do? Bleach my pubes?"

Virgil tried so hard to not throw the box at him, he really did. But he didn't entirely trust himself so instead, he put it down, he needed those hands to sign anyways, 'You always complain about wanting to dye your hair'.

"And you know how to do it?"

Virgil gestured to his black hair with purple in it.

"Touché. So are we gonna do it now, or?" Remus smirked slightly as Virgil nodded, picking up the box and walking out of his room. Remus waited for him for a few seconds, before Virgil stuck his head back into the room and gestured for him to follow. Virgil led him into a bathroom with a big mirror above the sink. There was a chair placed in front of it, which Virgil led him to sit on. He watched as Virgil placed the bleach on the edge of the sink and went to grab some other things from the cabinet next to the door. On the sink, he placed a "developer" from what Remus read on the label, whatever-the-hell that was, a mixing bowl and a mixing brush. He gestured for Remus to stay as he went out of the bathroom, presumingly to find other things he needed, and who was Remus to argue, he never bleached his hair before.

It wasn't long before Virgil returned, this time with rubber gloves on and carrying a measuring spoon and tin foil, setting the foil down. He opened the bleach and scooped a spoonful of it, pouring it into the mixing bowl. He set the spoon down and poured the developer into the bowl, mixing it together with a mixing brush. Remus watched all of it in the mirror, "You, uh, you sure you know what you're doing?" Virgil made eye contact with him through the mirror. He smiled at Remus, nodding. Remus nodded back, feeling more sure, "Okay."

Virgil put the mixing bowl down to sign, 'Where do you want to bleach it?

"Uh, I dunno..." he touched the tips of his hair softly, thinking, "Maybe my tips?"

'Are you sure?'

Remus nodded, "Yes I'm fucking sure. Aren't you the one who came up with this in the first place?"

Virgil rolled his eyes and walked in front of Remus, taking the brush and dipping it in the bowl. He took the tin foil and ripped a piece off. He took Remus' hand, at which the man in question flinched, and guided it to hold a chunk of his hair mashed into a bun on top of his head. Remus felt strangely sad when Virgil took his hand off of his, taking a chunk of the hair on his back and laying it against a piece of tin foil. He began adding the bleach onto the tips, bleaching roughly four or five inches but focusing mainly on the bottom. Remus soon found the strange feeling replaced with the thrill of doing something new. The process was repeated around eight more times before the bottom layer of the hair was covered in tin foil. Of course, Remus' arm began to hurt, "Are you done yet?" he whined.

Virgil shook his head absent-mindedly, finishing the last piece of hair that remained. Finally, Virgil wrapped the last of the bottom hair and gave Remus a thumbs up in the mirror. Remus let his hair fall down with a relief filled sigh, shaking his hand, "Shit, you have no idea how fucking hurt can you get by not doing anything."

Virgil let out a breathy laugh, though making almost no sound. Remus found it weird at first, like someone put a tv on mute, but eventually got used to it. At least now he didn't stare at Virgil when he laughed, Remus didn't even stare because he found him weird he just liked looking at Virgil laughing, as it didn't happen very often.

Remus took one of the foils into his hand, "So, how long 'til I get these off?"

Virgil looked up in thought, 'About forty minutes,' at that, Remus groaned. Virgil raised an eyebrow, 'What did you expect? 2 minutes?'

Remus looked away, "I mean yeah, kinda."

Virgil facepalmed. Remus laughed at the action, standing up, "So, is Picani here? I haven't seen him. What did you do? Did you kill him?"

Virgil shook his head as if it was a serious question, 'It's parent-teacher conference today, remember?'

Remus snorted, "Oh, yeah, shit. Mom's gonna be pissed as fuck. I mean, she's always pissed after parent-teachers, so..." he trailed off, looking up at Virgil.

'What do you wanna do now?', Virgil signed awkwardly.

The shorter shrugged, "I dunno, man, it's your house, you choose...or should I?"

'Please don't,'Virgil seemed to think for a minute, ignoring Remus' chuckling, 'Have you watched Zombieland?'

"No, what's that?"

Virgil widened his eyes, 'Are you serious?'

Remus pouted, "Yeah, what is it? Is it some kind of porn?"

The taller rolled his eyes, taking Remus by the hand and leading him to the living room. The strange feeling Remus had before had returned, somewhere in the back of his mind the word he was searching for to describe it, but Remus couldn't reach it. His chest felt tighter than usual, almost like Virgil was squeezing it. What was this feeling, Remus didn't know, but guesses it had something to do with the fact that he didn't eat anything all day. Yeah, now that he thought about it, he was really hungry. Dee would probably lecture him about his eating habits if he was here.

Virgil seated Remus on the couch in the living room, going to look through the stack of DVDs next to the tv. He finally settled on one, which Remus assumed was the one he and Virgil talked about a moment ago. He placed in on the DVD player under the tv, then got up and walked into the kitchen. Remus used that time to look around the room. It was...very neutral, if Remus had to be nice about it. But he didn't have to, so it was pretty fucking boring. The wallpaper was light beige. The couch was beige. The carpet was beige. Remus started to hate beige. At least the floor was dark brown. He noticed a few photographs on the wall next to the big wooden bookshelf. It had mostly Picani and Virgil in it, but one photograph stood out. It was of what Remus assumed was a young Picani, maybe around 15? He's poking his tongue out, along with some brown-haired woman. Remus walked closer to the photograph to take a good look at her. She was pale, very much like Virgil. Her curly hair was going past her shoulders, stopping shortly below. Her icy blue eyes were the same colour as one of Virgil's eyes. Behind the hair, Remus noticed a patch of skin darker than the rest, going up to her jaw.

Slam.

Virgil yanked the photo off the wall, walking over to the trash can and dropping it in harshly. He turned to go back to the kitchen, a kitchen pass-through making it possible for Remus to still see him.

"I uh, I- I'm sorry."

Virgil didn't reach, his expression shifting from irritated to neutral. He drank the water he poured himself.

Remus looked at the empty spot in the middle of the wall, "Look, dude, I didn't know...whatever the hell the business with that chick you have. Like, I guess it's Picani's wife or some-"

"Stop."

Remus widened his eyes at the quiet brittle voice, just on the edge of his hearing, obviously sore from not speaking for a long time. Virgil seemed to be the second to realize, widening his eyes before shaking it off.

He reached into the freezer and pulled out two tubs of strawberry and mint ice cream. Remus didn't bring up the obvious elephant in the room, instead forcing on a smile and walking over to grab two spoons from the dishware drawer. It wasn't long before the two were settled on the couch under a blanket, leaning against each other while eating ice cream. Virgil was silent, as always. Remus made comments through the whole movie, well, not whole obviously, he didn't want his precious hair to fry off.

He shoved the spoon full of ice cream into his mouth, "Shit, bro, Wichita and Little Rock really did that. We stan illegal queens," Virgil tapped his shoulder, "What'cha want, emo?" the man in question pointed to his foil-wrapped hair, "Oh, right, I forgot."

He set the tub down and went to the bathroom, waiting for Virgil to follow, but instead was met with signing, 'You can wash it yourself,' at which Remus raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, sure, okay," he hesitantly walked to the bathroom, glancing at Virgil before shutting the door.

Virgil sighed heavily, leaning against the sofa. He put hands on his face. At least he avoided more awkwardness. Emile is gonna be back soon, just a...what's the time again? Virgil checked his phone, good, just a few minutes now. Just a few minutes of awkwardly sitting through the movie until Emile comes home. Just a few minutes. Virgil didn't notice the water stopped running.

"Well, how do I look?"

Virgil glanced at Remus leaning against the door frame, hair still wet even though Remus had a damp towel in his hand. The tips of his hair bleached, blending together nicely with his naturally dark brown hair. Maybe Virgil was biased because he did that, but it looked beautiful on him, even with the wet hair. Virgil gave Remus thumbs up, smiling tensely.

"Damn right, I look so fuckable!" Remus looked in the mirror in the hallway proudly and Virgil couldn't help but let out a soundless laugh.

[grumpyalpacaman]

Nexus Notes - Chapter One

"I already told you, you big dumb bastard, that energy core regulator isn't worth 3,000 Credits. It's not even close!" The young woman slammed her hands down on the clerk's table. Her eyes set in a narrow glare, she scowled between loose strands of bright red hair that fell in front of her face.

Behind the ramshackle stand of partially gnawed scrap metal stood the enormous shopkeeper.  The device she so coveted was tightly gripped in his huge, clawed hand. Dangling cables swayed to and fro and the polished chrome casing reflected the blinding glare of the sun. 

The taurus were the inhabitants of the planet Kakataka in the Aldebaran star system and the largest, most cantankerous of all sentient species in the galaxy. They were also notorious hoarders.

It erupted in a flurry of guttural growls, its ruddy brown scales rapidly scraping and clattering against one another to create a series of accompanying clicks. The chattering noises he emitted elicited a whir of life from a machine strapped to his broad, tapered chest. The gadget lit up and started to translate in a low, robotic voice.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Nexus. This a rare treasure. There is nothing else like it on Pantainos."

"Zakka, you are so full of shit," she said, as she reached into her lab-coat and withdrew a small pair of oval-shaped glasses. Slipping them over her nose, she peered past the imposing, alien shopkeeper to the staggering pile of discarded mechanical trinkets and components behind his kiosk. “I can see two more in the back from here!” Frantically, she removed her glasses and stuffed them back into her coat.

"3,000 credits or no regulator." 

The young woman stood up as tall as she could and crossed her arms over her chest in her best attempt to look authoritative. She was short and scrawny by human standards, not to mention leaning on a cane and absolutely minuscule compared to the seven-foot monster before her. "Listen here, you idiot, you have no idea what that's worth to me and you're just going to eat it anyway! So hand it over for a fair price and stop impeding scientific progress."

Without warning, the shopkeeper opened his jaws for the first time, the lower portion of his face splitting into two and spreading out in a slavering, triangular maw. Then, he chomped into the device in his hand. His shredding teeth crunched and tore the metal apart with ease as he ripped off a chunk and swallowed it before hurling the remnants straight at Nexus's head.

With only a moment of shock, she narrowly ducked under the incoming projectile. The move sent her stumbling and she barely managed to catch herself with her cane to avoid an untimely fall, face-first onto the cold steel ground. If the yelling earlier hadn't drawn the attention of the other merchants and customers that populated the market, this certainly would. Within moments, Zakka had dunked one of his whopping lizard paws into a pile of scrap parts and used it as a shovel to hurl yet more junk at the girl.

"Whoa! Is this how you treat all your regulars?" Head held low, she scurried away from the bellowing Taurus. Gears and batteries skittered across the ground and peppered her lab coat. One unfortunate stray something or other even bounced harmlessly, but no less annoying, off of her forehead. "Zakka, you Lunatic," she yelled as she departed the market square.

She looked back over her shoulder more than once on her way back to her apartment, just to make sure there wasn't an angry alien reptile behind her. It wasn't until she was nearly three blocks away that she stopped to catch her breath, leaning against the wall of a building and wiping her brow with the sleeve of her coat. Just from that short run, her muscles ached and her chest burned with exertion. "I left my apartment for that damn regulator and the dumbass took a bite right out of it," she said between gasps. “Still, I hope nobody calls the police on him. He may be a seven-foot, spiky asshole, but he’s still got the best stuff in the entire city. And perhaps more importantly, he doesn’t ask ridiculous questions like, ‘what are you gonna do with this?’ or ‘do you have a license for this highly unstable radioactive material?’”

She spent nearly a minute bent over and panting before rising back up and fanning out her coat to relieve some of the intense heat. “What I would do for a breeze right now. Just a little one.”

Pantainos City, built in the most habitable, lush part of the colony planet for which it was named, was in Nexus's own words, "Too damn hot in the Summer to be conducive to intellectual pursuits." So then why, she often wondered to herself, had the United Earth Federation decided to build its premier academies here? Pantainos was one of the UEF's earliest and most prosperous colonies and had become a grand centre for training and education in the past several decades. Academies and accompanying campuses for humanity's most prestigious schools in the fields of science and military had developed here and dominated much of the city. The best and brightest across all of UEF space were sent here to learn.

But far from the glamorous universities and labs at the city's centre, Nexus walked along the ill-tended streets at the fringes of the sprawling metropolis as she made her way home with a scowl on her face. Not that her neighbours could tell the difference between her usual scowl and today’s, extra perturbed scowl. 

The moment she stepped into the lobby of her apartment and felt the cool, temperature-controlled air hit her face, she let out a long sigh. The familiar sights of the dusty floor, the seemingly permanent ‘out of order’ sign on the secondary elevator and the ever-expanding patch of mould on the far wall were just about the only means through which she could differentiate this and every other apartment building on the black. Nexus whispered a silent thanks to the closest thing she knew to a religious figure, Joey the maintenance guy, that one of the two lifts remained operational. If given the choice between the stairs and sleeping on the crumbling bench in the lobby, Nexus would have to spend some time seriously weighing her options.

With only a brief stutter of resistance, the elevator ascended to the second floor and deposited her in the hallway to find yet another annoyance. "Great. If the heat and the taurus weren't bad enough, some ass-clown piled a bunch of boxes in front of my door!" she thought. For some reason or another, cardboard shipping boxes of varying sizes, piled six high, stood right up against the entrance to her apartment.

Without another thought, she stomped forward and delivered a swift, hard kick with a flip-flop clad foot to the side of the box mountain. Much to her chagrin, the pile barely moved. So, she took a step back and shoulder checked it with the entire, fairly insubstantial, weight of her body and this time she sent it tumbling to the floor with an appeasing clatter. She grinned down at her handiwork, hoping there was something both fragile and valuable within.

The commotion brought someone running almost immediately as a man stepped out of the open door across the hall, looking concerned. His expression promptly shifted to surprise and confusion as he spied Nexus standing over the upended pile of his belongings.

If he put on a uniform, he'd look like he walked right out of a military recruitment ad for the Federation. She thought immediately of a very large and very stupid dog. He was like a man-shaped golden retriever and just as blonde.

"Did you knock over my boxes?"

"Oops," she replied with a shrug as she reached for the keycard in her pocket.

"The hell, lady? I keep important stuff in those."

"Well then maybe you shouldn't keep 'em in front of my door." By this point, she was already daydreaming about punching him in his stupidly handsome face. Though she was pretty sure she’d break her hand on that square jaw. 

He furrowed his brow and attempted to speak up but upon noticing the cane in her hand, he suddenly became very stiff and cast his eyes toward the floor. "Uhm... Sorry," he said as he kneeled and started to gather up his things, shuffling them out of the way for her. "So that's your apartment then?"

"Yep, 37B," she said with the absolute most disinterest she could muster while jabbing a thumb toward the numbers posted behind her.

With an armful of boxes, he stood back and extended his free hand toward her. "I'm just moving in next door. I'm Parker Walsh."

Her eyes drifted back and forth between his hand and his face for several seconds. "Are you suggesting I make physical contact with you?"

"Generally speaking, an offer to shake hands with someone would imply that, yes." Yet more confusion was starting to creep into his voice.

"Ew.” Rolling her eyes, she turned, swiped her card over the electronic lock and stepped into her apartment.

"Ouch," he shot back. "Can I at least have your name?"

"Nexus," she said as she slammed the door behind her.

"There is no way that is your real name," he yelled with his lips scant inches from the door but to no response.

"Parker?" said another man, sticking his head out of the open apartment. He was thinner and less chiselled than his friend but with a sly, fox-like countenance. "What are you doing out here?"

Parker shrugged. "Neighbour girl kicked over our boxes."

"And so you quit unpacking to come out here and flirt with her?"

"Not at first."

"But you did flirt with her?"

"She didn't even give me a chance. It’s just not fair."

"My heart aches for you, brother. Now get back to work. We need everything set up by tomorrow."

"On it." With boxes in hand, he started back toward his apartment, taking one glance at the door behind him as he went. "Well then. See you around, Nex."

The moment she stepped inside her apartment and flicked on the lights, she felt her legs start to shake. She grumbled softly, finally allowing herself to wince at the constant pain she felt in her muscles and eased her body into the wheelchair lying in wait by the door.

Inside her apartment, where one might normally find furniture, decorations or just about anything, Nexus had cables, power generators and several large processors stacked against the wall. In the corner sat a desk with a pair of computers, razor-thin glass panes mounted on swivelling stands. Nexus produced a third, smaller device from inside her coat. With a few swipes on the surface, her chair wheeled itself over to the desk. Once situated, she began sliding her fingers across the dual screens and they came alive with images and information. Her eyes darting back and forth between them. Within arm's reach of her chair sat the single greatest scientific achievement of mankind, an espresso machine. The divine tool was accompanied by a mountain of discarded flavour pods, generally counting among the excessively sweet variety. Though that didn’t stop Nexus from addition several more teaspoons of those godly white granules once the machine had finished its business.

All this technology (save the espresso machine) was connected to a strange, ceiling-high object in the middle of the room. The device occupied the vast majority of the available floor-space. It appeared to be a huge mechanical ring of some kind; that stood eight feet high and across. At the moment, it was deactivated.

She looked upon the centrepiece of her chamber briefly, shook her head, and returned to her work. "Damn Zakka, always a pain in my ass."

It wasn't long before she noticed she had an update on her post on the local University forums. She wasn't exactly a student, but where else was she going to share her hypotheses?

"Oh fantastic, this idiot," she said with mock excitement when she saw who posted. "Hello, Student 681966, a man so boring he uses his student ID as his screen name." Nex skimmed over his latest dull refutation of her work and rolled her eyes. 

"Your ridiculous idea of a potential intersystem artificial intelligence program has no bearing in modern computer science. Even the most simple-minded of your species is aware that software is limited by hardware.

You persist in the idea that your entirely theoretical sub-space processor would alleviate this issue and allow a program to move freely between systems, but this has in itself a litany of issues. There is no evidence to support the idea that information can travel freely between sub-space and normal space. How do you propose such a device would maintain a fixed location within sub-space? In addition, the power requirements would be astronomical.

Fixed sub-space pockets have never been found to be a remote possibility and tests have resulted in failure, every single time. The only possible use for sub-space is point A to B travel through fixed gates."

With a guttural groan of frustration, Nexus swept a hand back through her sweat-matted hair. "This guy has no imagination."

Reclining in her chair steepling her fingers, Nex pondered the list of possible rebuttals. Everything from explaining the potential power of a flywheel energy storage system in the absolute vacuum of sub-space or reference to the sub-space tests performed by Earth scientists decades earlier that implied the possibility of direct access to sub-space beyond simple two-way passages. However, when she received a sudden response from a rather important contact, she decided to let her opposition stew for a little while.

Anxiously, she opened the message with a tap of her finger and pulled the contents up on-screen.

"I have acquired the information you requested."

That alone was all she needed to send her mind alight with fireworks. There was some more afterward about releasing the hold on the promised payments and how to contact him again. She absent-mindedly tapped out an affirmative response and delved into the attached files with all haste possible.

A few weeks ago she'd contacted someone who claimed to have worked on some classified Federation experiments performed on Pantainos. She'd been making a few inquiries about them and they had become a subject of great interest to her, even though they never got off the ground. What they were attempting to develop and why it failed is still unknown to this day, but Nexus's digging had told her that it had something to do with personal-sized sub-space gates, as opposed to the massive rings that transported ships across the galaxy.

"I was right," she muttered to herself after nearly twenty minutes of poring over the contents. "Schematics, test results, dates and locations."

She gleaned from the notes that they had managed to design a miniaturized sub-space gate, though from what she could find, it wasn't able to sustain itself before collapsing after only a few seconds. Several pages appeared to be missing, including details of who was involved and the purpose of the experiments, but all the technical data she needed was right here in these files.

Again she gazed upon the massive mechanism in the centre of her apartment, this time with new excitement and rattling nerves. She bit her lip and considered her options before giving a small nod of affirmation. "To hell with the regulator, I've got work to do."

She wheeled over to the huge ring and pushed herself out of her chair. For hours she consulted the new specifications and adjusted her machine. Multiple trips were made back and forth between the device and her computer and she went through around a dozen cups of coffee and sixty teaspoons of sugar. She scoured every crate of spare parts she had lying around (which was no small number) and the clamour of her tools filled the apartment until the early morning.

She awoke with a start around noon the next day. She had passed out in her wheelchair with a collection of her tools sprawled across her lap and around her wheels. She yawned, grumbled and rubbed the sleep from eyes shadowed by black bags.

Blinking rapidly, Nexus looked at her device, consulted the schematics and then back to the device. It was a match. Better than a match even. She felt she'd improved on the old schematics. "I did it?" She brushed back a tangle of red hair and chuckled to herself. "Of course I did it."

Still coming to, she mumbled out a few commands. "Computer, begin recording a new log now. " A small robot, not unlike an ambulatory tripod, came alive. There was a lens built into the machine’s head, which promptly veered in Nex’s direction.

She pushed herself to her feet and stumbled toward the terminal mounted at the edge of her ring-like device. "Sub-space portal NG Model-1, test 27, sans energy core regulator. Upgraded system to further compensate for the Verdricci effect. Added new subsystems to target a specific location within sub-space, based on new research documents. No more firing off randomly. Begin activation now."

Triumphantly, she punched in the key sequence to start up the machine and listened with glee as it whirred. Lights flickered on around the ring and sparks coursed across the empty space in the middle.

Staring into her would-be sub-space gate, Nexus's hands shook excitedly. "Alright UEF, let's see what you were up to."

The machine's laboured noises intensified and she could feel a charged tingle on her skin. Then, all at once, a disc of torn space appeared inside the ring, contained and stable. Her smile vanished, only to be replaced by a slack jaw and wide eyes. The sight beyond the portal sent shivers through her body and made her stomach churn. Floating in the vast emptiness of sub-space, was a cylindrical device surrounded by lifeless human corpses.

[gregnas-the-grouch]

A tale of swole midgets and hairy hats.

@crowned-grimmsnarl

Yemir seemed overjoyed, slamming her right fist into her left palm as the sound of knuckles popping could be heard. However, Baozhai seemed less than pleased. A large frown forming over her perfect face as she glared at Yemir and especially Muffin. She had hoped Muffin would decline Yemir’s offer and they could be on their merry way. But alas, fate was cruel, as usual. Thus, Baozhai proceeded to smack Yemir over the back of her head. The Gallade let out a small yelp before glaring at Baozhai. “What? What did I do now?!” The Gallade yelled. “Absolutely nothing.” Baozhai said in a tone that would suggest otherwise as she left Yemir alone with Muffin, only adding to her confusion even more. Muffin merely cracked a smile at this. Those two were like a mother and daughter bickering with each other. “I take it that woman is related to you in some way, spirit?” Muffin said with a grin. 

Yemir merely snorted, glaring at Muffin. “The only relation that woman has with me is that she was my old man’s main squeeze once upon a time. That’s it! And I ain’t no spirit! I’m just as alive as you are… I think. Whatever, I’m getting distracted here. Fight time!” Yemir grumbled as she raised her fists. The Hatterene’s grip on her scythe responded in kind, tightening with anticipation. Yemir wasted no time in making the first move. Leaping at Muffin with reckless abandon. Despite the big ass scythe the Hatterene carried, the ghostly Gallade seemed less than concerned with dealing with it. A slight smirk spread across Muffin’s face as she stood her ground. And as Yemir was mere inches from Muffin’s face. Fist cocked back for an explosive punch, Muffin vanished. Confusion filled Yemir’s face, her brain unable to process what just happened as she felt something hard and blunt smack her behind the head, sending the Gallade careening into the ground face first. Skidding along the ground, Yemir abruptly lifted her head up, mouth clogged with wet dirt and slick grass.

Her uncertainty had been replaced with annoyance as she turned to face Muffin. Who had a cheeky grin on her face as leaned on the handle of her scythe all nonchalant. “What’s the matter, spirit? Surely one as mighty as yourself is above being tricked by such simple pranks, no?” The Hatterene laughed, amused by Yemir more than anything else. Less than pleased, Yemir spat out the dirt, her eyes twitching in annoyance. “The only reason you-”, was all Yemir could say before she got jabbed in the face by Muffin. Her anger only rose as her face started turning into a slight shade of purple. “Would. You. Knock. That. SHIT. OFF!” Each word preceding another jab to the face. Muffin merely laughed, going in for another jab when a loud crunch cut her off. Pulling back her scythe, the blade was missing, leaving it as nothing more than a glorified stick for a few seconds before shattering to dust.

Muffin turned up to see Yemir, her sharp teeth on display as she could hear something crackling inside the Gallade’s mouth. Yemir then let out a bit of a belch, looking a bit content. “Nice bit of ghost energy ya got going there. Would ya happen to have seconds?”, Yemir laughed. The Hatterene said nothing, her amusement replaced with a more intense face as she held up a hand. Dark energy crackling and twisting into her hands before it solidified into the same scythe as from before. Only this one took on a pure black, the color as foul as her mood as she brandished it before Yemir. Eager to return the favor.

Yemir smiled before charging at Muffin like before. The Hatterene narrowed her eyes. Did the ghost truly take her for a fool? It mattered little in the end as Muffin took a defensive stance, scythe at the ready as Yemir neared with bullheaded recklessness. And once again, the Hatterene disappeared, appearing behind Yemir as she swung her scythe with full force. Only to look surprised as her scythe halted halfway through, seemingly stopped in place as it slammed into Yemir’s muscular arm, which had been quickly raised to block the attack. It felt solid as steel, the blade barely cutting into Yemir’s thick skin. A small trickle of purple blood slid down as Yemir slowly turned her head to face Muffin, an angry smile spread across her face as her teeth glinted as menacing as her eyes. Those strange eyes. “I thought we were fighting, not doing tickle fights.” The Gallade snarled as the shadows around her began to warp and twist. As if they had a life of their own. Muffin had little time to react, using her blink to escape at the last second, the shadows springing to life as they whipped themselves at the Hatterene, but not before a tuft of hair drifted had been sliced off. Drifting down slowly in front of Muffin.

Yemir gave Muffin little time to rest, relentless chasing after her with battle lust as her vents and mouth started to steam up. The Hatterene wasn’t taking any chances this time. Constantly blinking just out of Yemir’s range as her mighty fists slammed into the ground. Causing the earth to quake, craters jutting out from the impact as shadows slashed wildly into the air. At the rate this was going, Mocca’s front yard would be reduced to nothing. Thus, Muffin deliberately led Yemir towards the adjacent forest. However, the mighty midget’s patience was growing terribly thin with these cat and mouse games. Placing both hands firmly onto the ground, Yemir let out a strained growl as the earth underneath her had been ripped out. And what Muffin saw bewildered her a little. Yemir had tore out a good chunk of ground. Enough to rival the size of the trainer’s house itself. The angry little Gallade hoisting it with some effort as she glared at Muffin. “Stop running away!” Yemir yelled, chucking the large mass of land at Muffin like an oversized bowling ball.

Muffin barely blinked away in the nick of time, a loud crash preceding her narrow escape as she turned around to see a large patch of trees, broken and buried under the mound of dirt and rock. Muffin at this point wasn’t sure if she should be impressed or worried. The hue on her scythe changed once more into a bright pink, a manifestation of her Dazzling Gleam. It was obvious at this point her physical attacks were gonna do little against Yemir. And sure enough, here came the Gallade, carrying a sort of belligerent swagger as she stomped towards the Hatterene. More than ready for round two. Muffin waited for Yemir to storm in close enough before swinging her scythe forward with precise intent. Predictably, Yemir tanked the hit, holding up her arm to block the attack. Only to look confused as it passed through her body like mist. Muffin pulled her weapon back, distancing herself slightly as Yemir patted herself slightly, uncertain of what just happened. 

After a brief inspection, Yemir raised her head with a confident smile. “C’mon, Hat, I thought you could pull an attack better than-” Was all Yemir could say before she faltered, dropping to one knee as she vomited a torrent of purple blood. Muffin raised a brow. “Perhaps this would be a good time to stop, yes? I wouldn’t want to end up accidentally maiming you, lest the Cofagrigus get angry with me.” Muffin said with an outstretched hand, Heal Pulse at the ready. Yet, she paused when Yemir raised her head, showing a pained, manic smile as blood dripped between her teeth. “Are ya kidding me? Why would I stop now? My insides are all messed up and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Guess ye ain’t such a wimp after all.” Yemir spat as she slowly rose up, the steam emitting from her body only seemed to increase in intensity. Muffin narrowed her eyes, the grip on her scythe tightening as she braced for the next attack.

Sure enough, Yemir sprinted towards the Hatterene, more relentless than ever as she continued to launch herself at the hat gremlin. Flinging herself at Muffin, the Hatterene blinked away, retaliating with another swipe of her Dazzling Gleam. The blade carving through Yemir, more blood erupting from her mouth. Yet, this did little to stop the ghostly midget. If anything, her excitement only seemed to increase. Chasing after Muffin with increased fervor. Muffin looked confused as she kept slashing away at the Gallade. She was doing damage against the spirit. Yet it only seemed to have the opposite effect on her. As if she ignored the pain entirely. And before the Hatterene knew it, Yemir was upon her. Hand clenched into a tight fist as it slammed into Muffin’s face. The Hatterene’s vision went spinning as she felt weightless, unable to process anything that was happening as she skidded across the ground. Groaning, Muffin slowly rose up, her long hair limp and lifeless as she gripped her head in pain. It felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to the back of her head.

Breathing a quiet thanks for her Focus Sash, she slowly stood back up, eyeing her opponent. Yemir seemed to already be sprinting towards her with fire in her eyes. Whoever this lady was, Muffin knew she was in trouble now. Unable to focus her mind, the Hatterene had a last ditch plan in mind as she threw her hair up into the air like a matador’s cape. Yemir, predictably, ran into it. Letting out a muffled yell as a curtain of silvery hair fell upon her, disorienting the Gallade in the process as she flailed around, trying to make left from right. Muffin wasted no time in hitching her newfound ride. Her small, yet strong hands grappling onto the Gallade’s back as she did her best to rodeo this unruly ghost. Easier said than done. Yemir could feel Muffin perched upon her back, instincts going berserk as she started to thrash about. 

Being blinded by the vast field of hair only added to Yemir’s rage. Flinging herself every which way, the Hatterene could only cling to dear life as Yemir smashed herself into every tree and boulder she could find. And if that didn’t work? Just fall atop her back and hope to crush the wee hatted one. Muffin did her best to avoid these clumsy attempts to crush her. However, it felt like she was on a roller coaster with all the spinning around and sudden shifts in direction and momentum. This was a wild ride and Muffin wanted off. Her fingers dug into Yemir’s thick hide, clinging for dear life as she felt her world tumble and twirl. Every second, Muffin could feel her stamina slip as this brute of a Gallade flung herself around the forest. Every second, her movements became increasingly sluggish while Yemir’s only increased with intensity. Then, Muffin felt the hard impact of being crushed against a boulder. She faltered, losing her grip as she fell off with her hair in tow.

Sliding off, the Hatterene’s hair became limp, allowing Yemir to wrest herself free of her hairy prison. Turning around, the brute made note of the Hatterene laying on the ground, exhausted, barely able to move. Letting out a loud snort, the Gallade stomped right up to Muffin, raised a hand, slowly brought it down on Muffin and… Lifted the Hatterene gently onto her feet. “Ha, that was a good fight, lassie!” Yemir said with a smile as the steam slowly subsided from her mouth and elbow vents. “I mean it, I haven't been able to let loose for the last month. Feel a million times better, should do it again sometime!”

[supernatural-freek]

Gone Too Soon

Synopsis: The Winchester boys are on a hunt when they find another hunter. A woman who claims she's retired. But she might just be the one to save them both.

NOTE: NOT a sister!winchester fanfic for once. Who woulda guessed? also, it's way shorter than I intended but I couldn't bring myself to write the whole thing, so I just ut out a huge chunk.

MASTERLIST

.

"So this chick moves to town three months ago, and then suddenly locals are being ripped apart?" Dean handed Sam the fake FBI badge as they looked up at the deceptively normal-looking house from the Impala. "Sounds pretty monsterish to me."

"I'm still not sure about this," Sam said, shaking his head. "The town she moved away from never had any strange killings except for her brother."

"Exactly. She kills her bro then moves here to upscale." Dean swung open his door. "C'mon."

He waited for Sam to clamber out the car before starting up the path to the front door. It was a reasonably small house, the decorations bland and unimpressive. Their monster had gone to great lengths to seem pretty damn normal. But Dean knew better. He knew what he had to do.

He knocked on the door, glancing at Sam grimly as he heard light footsteps. The door opened to show you glaring back at them with exhasperted brown eyes. "Y/N Caster?"

"That's me," you said grumpily, and Dean puffed his cheeks out as he adjusted to the attitude you had.

He held up his badge. "FBI. I'm Agent Clancy, this is my partner Agent Holland, we'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Uh-huh."

Sam frowned. "What?"

You looked them both up and down, raising an eyebrow. "You ain't FBI." You rolled your eyes at their sputtering and sighed. "Look, first off, megabot's hair is way past protocol length. He'd have his badge suspended for that. And that iconic car on the street? They'd never let you drive that, not in seven hells. Not even if you paid them. so, I'm gonna guess you two are hunters, and the only two hunters I know of that drive a black, hardtop, four door, '67 Chevy Impala are the Winchester boys. How may I help you?"

Sam cleared his throat, looking confused. "Did you call me megabot?"

You shrugged. "You're tall enough." Dean was still staring with wide green eyes and you shook her head, turning away and opening the door a little wider. To Sam you said, "You wanna slap that stupid look off your brother's face and come in? I hear you have questions for me."

Sam nodded slowly as you walked away, still trying to process what had just happened. He nudged Dean. "I told you."

"Shut up," Dean grumbled, pushing past him.

Sam smirked and followed him.

They found you in the kitchen, grabbing three beers out of the fridge. You motioned for them to sit at the table, and they did almost immediately. Dean eyed your figure as you flicked the caps off the drinks, and Sam hit his arm. "Dude."

"What?" Dean hissed back. "She's hot."

"Dean Winchester, you keep your eyes on my face or you won't have eyes at all." Your voice was cool and unbothered, and Dean swallowed and looked down at the table. "Better."

Sam fought back his laugh of amazement as you set down their beers in front of them, sitting down with your own in hand. "So are you here on hunting business?" He asked.

You gave him a pointed look, then glanced at the house around you. "Yeah, i bought the house because I plan to leave soon." Sam slumped slighty at your scathing tone and you let out a one breath, softening your voice. "No," you said. "I'm not here for hunting. I moved here to settle down, to get out. I heard about the attacks and called Bobby, who I assume was the one who sent you two here."

"You know Bobby?" Dean blurted.

You nodded, taking a long drink of your beer. "Sure do."

"Right, except Bobby never said what it was," Sam said.

"My best guess was werewolf, except the heart were never stolen. Perhaps ghost?" You shrugged and took another drink. "I dunno."

"You haven't checked it out?" Dean asked, bewildered. Your hand tightened its grip on the beer bottle. Sam noted the movement and gave Dean a look. Dean ignored him. "You're just letting this thing kill people?"

Your eyes darkened. "I don't like it any more than you do, you daft idiot," you spat, and Dean's disbelief faltered at the old pain on your face. "I hate sitting around, going to work as if nothing superntural is happening. But I am done with hunting. Why do you think you guys are even here."

"Why would you quit?"

"Oh," Sam said quietly, suddenly understanding. "Oh."

You didn't meet his eyes. "What?" Dean demanded.

Sam looked at his older brother and shook his head. "Her brother, man. She moved here after her brother died."

Dean's mouth moved and no sound came out, his green eyes softer than they had been a minute ago. "Oh."

"Yeah," you said bitterly. "Oh."

It was silent and tense and awkward for a few moments before Dean cleared his throat. "How did it happen?" He asked timidly, half-expecting you to lash out. "Y/N?"

You sucked in a sharp breath and looked out the window, as if you were looking for someone the boys coudn't see. "He always wanted to quit," you told them. "He hated hunting, hated that he could never form a meaningful relationship with anyone cause we'd be gone before anything could happen. He was tired f not saving people. He wanted to go to school. He said he'd become a teacher, and he'd work with little kids." You laughed dryly. "I called him crazy, but I knew his heart wasn't in it anymore. So I told him that we'd settle down after one more hunt, just one. I said he could pick where and we'd live like normal siblings. He could get a girlfriend and a degree. He was so excited.

Out last case was a shifter. It should've been easy, but we seperated. Too late, I realised there were too of them and I heard him scream just as i killed the first one. By the time I got there, it was too late and I couldn't save him."

You fell quiet after that, your eyes vacant and far away. "And the second shifter?" Dean prodded gently.

"I hunted that bitch down and I took my time in killing it." You glanced back at the boys, and there was something twisted in your eyes. "I made it suffer first."

"We're sorry," Sam said softly, giving you a half-smile. You didn't return the sentiment, just drained the beer bottle and wiped your mouth.

"Anyway," you said. "That's why you guys are here. Kill the thing and then get out of town."

Dean nodded, looking more subdued now. You sighed and stood up, collecting the empty beer bottles and shuffling back to the kitchen to dispose of them. This time Dean didn't bother to attempt to ogle your long legs or your figure. He just kept his eyes down as he late your story over and over.

"Thanks for the drink," Sam said, pulling Den up out of the seat. "We'll see you around."

"Don't count on it," you said as you closed the door behind them You thought that the house was too quiet after they left.

.

Sam and Dean found out that it was not a ghost, or a werewolf, or a shifter or a vamp. In fact, they had no idea what it was, only that it was fast, strong and its claws hurt like hell.

They had no chance at getting back to the Impala, and none of the weapons they had would even scratch the damn thing.

"Sammy!" Dean shouted as the monster lunged at his little brother, sharp claws aimed straight at the younger Winchester's heart. "Sammy, look out!"

There was a blur of colour before the creature howled, backing off instantly. Sam scrambled away, and Dean stood in front of him protectively as their saviour rse to their feet.

You grinned at them through bloodied teeth. "Hey there boys."

Dean stared at you with wide eyes, seeing the blood drip down your torso. Your jacket was ripped, as was your shirt, and both were stained a horrifyingly familiar shade of red.

That would have been Sam if you hadn't gotten here.

The creature leapt for you again but you stabbed what looked like a branch of some kind into its face and it howled, staggering way before collapsing in a heap. You threw your lighter at it and watched it go up in flames.

"Y/N, you okay?" Dean called, darting over to you now the imminent threat was gone. You swayed on your feet, more nd more blood gushing down your front from three deep puncture wounds. One of them was over your heart and Dean knew, deep down, that you wouldn't survive this. "Jesus, Y/N, you moron."

He caught you as you started to fall, and you tried to laugh at the worry on his face. You ended u choking on your own hot blood. "Tell Bobby that I'm sorry for blaming him. He didn't know there were two shifters."

"Hey, you're gonna tell him yourself." Dean shucked off his outer shirt and pressed it on the wounds. It was futile, but he wouldn't quit. Not after you saved him and his younger brother. "Look, we're gonna patch you up. You'll be fine."

"I know," you rasped, looking up at him nd seeing different eyes, familiar eyes. "I'm going to see my baby brother again."

And oh, Dean could fee his heart break for you, break for the desperate hope and love in your voice as your breathing grew laboured and your body trembled in his arms. "Okay," he whispered, barely managing to smile.

You smiled and reached for his face, cupping his cheek before your hand fell away and your head lolled back nd he was holding a dead body.

Dean let out a shaky breath as Sam aid a hand on his shoulder.

"She gets to go home," Sam said quietly.

Dean didn't say anything.

[mimi-love-4ever]

Summer Heat

SasuSaku Month 2018 - Day 13: Summer Heat Rating: T+ (Language) Context: Non-massacre, non-shinobi AU A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you like it! Here’s the previous prompt, Day 12 (Dinner).

Sasuke was carrying a bucket of paint and a tray of brushes the first time he saw her. He blinked several times to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Pastel pink hair and alluring green eyes. She was talking animatedly with his uncle Obito near the front gate of the house as she swept her strangely colored hair up into a ponytail. Since he had his earphones in, he failed to hear what she was saying, but whatever it was it had his uncle howling with laughter with the way he was bending over and slapping his knee. It honestly looked like he was dying from oxygen deprivation.

Whatever the girl said couldn’t have been that funny, he thought to himself, almost annoyed.

He forced himself to look away and kept walking towards the end of the fence where he was supposed to start painting first. When his uncle had convinced his parents to let him stay for the summer, to clear his head before college began, Sasuke hadn’t expected to be put to work. Obito had bought an old house in a nice, quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of Konoha and had decided to renovate it as a summer project. So, honestly, he should have suspected he’d be used for free labor by his eccentric uncle. The only thing that had kept him from driving back home was that Obito had promised to teach him some martial arts, which is something his mother had forbidden him from learning when he was younger.

The next time he saw the girl with the pink hair, he was driving through downtown Konoha one afternoon. Obito had sent him to pick up something or another at the store like a little errand boy. He just happened to take a glance to the right at a stop light and saw her spinning on her tiptoes as easily as a breath of air. She was in a dance studio, alone. The passionate expression on her face caught him off guard. He couldn’t deny she was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. Which is why he grumbled to himself and sped out of there before anyone caught him staring. Sasuke was not in the habit of letting girls catch his eye and he did not plan to let it happen.

He arrived back at the house thoroughly annoyed, threw the shopping bag on his uncle’s table, and holed up in his room. He slipped in his earphones and spent the next couple hours trying to put that girl out of mind. He tried so hard that he ended up falling asleep to the image of sparkling viridian eyes, nonetheless.

It was almost a month into his stay when he ran into her again. Obito had left him a to-do list of things that needed to be done while he went into town for a few hours. Sasuke called bullshit because his uncle had been gone since early morning and he was stuck cleaning the stinky gutters as the sun blazed on mercilessly. Sweat trickled down his neck right down to his shirt, making it stick to his body uncomfortably. The heated up metal of the ladder he was standing on wasn’t helping the situation. He groaned in protest and decided to scoop one last patch of gutter gunk before calling it quits. Not even the music blasting through his earphones was helping him put the summer heat out of mind. He let the ball of gunk fall to the ground carelessly, where he could then pick it up better, when his ladder shook roughly and almost toppled him over.

Sasuke cursed loudly and looked down trying to find the source of the disturbance. His eyes widened in shock when he saw pink muddied locks, then a furious face with green eyes  shooting daggers at him. He ripped the earphones off and quickly climbed down.

“What the hell is your problem?” The girl exclaimed. “I was just trying to get your attention and you go and drop this shit on me!”

Sasuke winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you, or hear you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I figured,” she pouted and tried to get big chunks of gutter trash off her head. “Great, now I gotta go all the way back home and shower.”

“No, wait.” Sasuke surprised himself by saying and  looked away embarrassed. “Uh, why don’t you come in? You can use our bathroom.”

She raised an eyebrow at his boldness. “I don’t even know your name, buddy. You could be a killer for all I know, looking to kidnap girls like me.”

“Annoying?” Sasuke quipped.

“Young and full of life.”

Sasuke couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her reply. “Sasuke Uchiha. College-bound student, not a killer.”

“Oh, you must be Mr. Uchiha’s nephew!” Her eyes brightened as she stuck her hand out to him. “He hasn’t shut up about you, you know?”

“Great,” he grimaced. “I can just imagine the things he’s said.”

“Well, you don’t look stupid, for one,” she giggled. “Although, he did also mention you have a stick up your ass, so…”

You’re dead, Obito! Sasuke glared at the floor furiously. He could feel the tips of his ears burn red.

“Sakura Haruno,” she introduced herself, chuckling. “Now that I know you’re not a closeted killer, I wouldn’t mind using your bathroom, but I still got my eye on you.”

After their official disaster of a meeting, Sasuke found Sakura stopping by more often. She would try to get him out of the house any chance she got, but to no avail, so she ended up trailing after him and helping out. Once Obito found out what was going on he waited for Sakura to go home before laughing and teasing him relentlessly about her. Somehow his uncle got it in his head that he and Sakura would soon hook up, which is why he almost freaked out when two weeks later Sakura started pestering him about a party. A friend of a friend was hosting a party at her family’s summer house, about forty minutes away, and Sakura insisted he should go with her. Of course, he flat out refused, remembering his uncle’s teasing. That’s when Sakura had pulled out the big guns.

Her pink lips formed a pout as her viridian eyes widened slightly and she looked at him pleadingly. His thoughts betrayed him as he found her to be entirely too enticing for her own good. Needless to say, she played him like a damn fiddle.

Sasuke threw on a clean white t-shirt, jeans and a pair of black Converse and waited for Sakura to show up. Since he didn’t want to tip off Obito of the situation, he told Sakura they should take her car, to which she readily agreed. It seemed Obito had started teasing her too whenever he wasn’t paying attention.

At seven, on the dot, Sakura was pulling up in the driveway. She waved at him without getting off and he hurried over to the passenger seat. The drive on the way over was laid back with Sasuke simply enjoying the cool air from the AC beating away the heat of summer while Sakura played songs from her playlist and sang a long at the top of her lungs. She grinned at him and laughed every time he would complain about the too bubblegum pop songs she played, but he never once told her to shut up or change it. When they finally reached their destination an hour later, the party looked to be well underway already. Sakura parked down the street and was checking over her light make-up as he got out.

The second Sakura stepped out of the car, Sasuke knew this party was gonna be hell. He hadn’t noticed it when he got in the car, but Sakura looked good. Way, way, too good and damn it all if he didn’t find her insanely attractive. She wore a thin red, off the shoulder top that fell a little short and showed off a good amount of her flat stomach. It accompanished a tight, high waisted black skirt that stopped mid-thigh and a pair of black wedge sneakers that had a mesmerizing effect on her long legs.

“Do you think I look okay?” Sakura asked him, biting her lip, as she tucked a rose-colored lock behind her ear.

Sasuke had never felt so conflicted. He wanted to tell her that she looked amazing, but at the same time, he wanted to shove her back in the car and drive away so no stupid hormonal boys could look at her.

“You look fine,” he forced out.

“Oh,” she said. He could have sworn he saw a flash of disappointment in her eyes before it was gone and she smiled. “As long as I don’t look terrible. Come on, Sasuke, we need to loosen you up.”

As soon as they stepped through the door, Sakura was bombarded by a vivacious blonde who grinned like a Cheshire cat at her outfit and handed both of them a half-filled red cup. Ino, he remembered Sakura mentioning the name of her best friend. She wasted no time in pulling her into a throng of people in the middle of the large living room that were supposed to be dancing, but looked to be too tipsy for that. Hard paced music blasted from hidden speakers around the room while a strobe of light flashed every now and then.

He wasn’t the type to drink, but when he caught several leering glances directed at Sakura, he chugged the entire contents of the cup. Whatever it was tasted terrible and almost made him gag at the after taste. Although he hadn’t known Sakura for very long, he felt protective of her. It almost came at no surprise seeing as how there was just something about her that drew people right in.

Sasuke ended up in a corner, mostly to hide from the attention other girls were directing at him in the form of flirtatious eyes and not so subtle looks. He focused instead on Sakura and the big smile on her face as she danced. She had ditched the cup and had both hands thrown up in the air above her, her hips swaying sensually in time to the rhythm of the music. He lost count of how many songs Sakura danced to, but she eventually made her way over to him slightly out of breath and fanning her face.

Her eyes shimmered with excitement and her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink. She looked at him with a certain intensity that made the room heat up a couple of degrees.

“Dance with me?” Sakura giggled, tugging on his arm.

“I don’t dance,” he replied, glancing at the tangle of people unamused.

“Oh, come on!” Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. “I promise to keep my hands to myself.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Sasuke found himself muttering under his breath.

“I’m gonna go get another drink then.” She gave him one last hopeful look before maneuvering through the living room and out of sight.

Having nothing better to do, he followed Sakura to the kitchen area, pushing people out the way. He could never understand why girls tried clinging to him when it was obvious he wasn’t interested. All except Sakura, that is…

He shook away those thoughts and rounded the corner. The sight before him, however, made all those thoughts come roaring right back. Sakura was leaning against the counter, drink in hand, smiling and laughing as some guy was talking to her. He stood a little taller than her, which made him lean down closer to Sakura’s face to be able to be heard over the loud noise of the music. Too close. Sasuke found it incredibly hard to resist the urge to shove him away and punch that smug grin off his face.

I have no claim on Sakura. Sasuke repeated like a mantra over and over in his head.

The guy leaned down even further and whispered something in Sakura’s ear. He put his hand on the counter and placed his other on her small waist. Her eyes widened a bit at whatever it was that he said before an offended expression crossed her face. Sasuke was about to step in when Sakura lifted her arm and dumped the contents of her cup on top of the guy’s head.

“Asshole,” she snarled angrily and pushed him away.

The guy stumbled back, but managed to grab her wrist in a firm hold. “Don’t be such a bitch.”

In a flash Sasuke shot forward and gripped his arm tightly. He squeezed hard until the guy let go of Sakura with a groan of pain and fell to the ground clutching his arm. Sasuke ushered Sakura out of the kitchen, pushing past a small crowd that had gathered around them, and headed out the back door. Unlike the inside, the backyard was deserted and quiet enough to hear. Sakura stomped down a set of stairs and plopped down on the bottom step, fuming. Sasuke followed after her.

“Why are guys such jerks, Sasuke?” Sakura exploded. “Ugh, I swear, I always attract the worst.”

“That idiot, what did he say to you?” He asked a little curiously. He wanted to know whether he had to commit murder or not.

Sakura’s cheeks turned red, but it looked like more from embarrassment than anything. She huffed, “I’d rather not say.”

He frowned and figured it must have been pretty bad if she didn’t even want to tell him. Since he’s known her, she’s never held anything back. He also didn’t fail to notice the glossy shimmer in her eyes that signaled incoming tears.

“Forget that guy, he’s a loser if he can’t appreciate a girl like you.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them.

She turned to him and felt the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Annoying?”

He smirked. “Young and full of life.”

A chorus of giggles fell from her mouth, turning into full blown laughter a second later as she remembered their first encounter and the very same words being spoken between them. A comfortable silence fell over them. Sakura enjoyed the cooling summer air and admired the stars above while Sasuke couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.

“Hey, Sasuke?” Sakura broke the silence.

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” she smiled so brilliantly, he thought his heart would stop. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Hn.”

Sakura laughed at his one-word syllable, but was overjoyed when she could discern more than that one word. Although Sasuke didn’t talk a lot or express his emotions as easily as she did, she was quick to pick up on just what exactly he was trying to say. Not for the first time, Sakura was glad she met Sasuke and more than happy that they had become friends. Friends…

Before she lost her courage, Sakura raised her head up and pecked his cheek. His warm skin felt like silk under her lips and sent a shock of electricity down her spine. She moved away and stared straight ahead, feeling a sense of shyness creep over her.

“Happy birthday, Sasuke-kun,” she whispered.

Sasuke sat frozen in his spot. The spot where she had kissed him blazed hot like wildfire and slowly spread throughout his body. He slowly registered her words and wondered if this was Obito’s doing. A faint blush reddened his cheeks as he tried to  figure out what to do or say. Frustratingly enough, his tongue twisted itself and left him speechless. Instead, he puckered up the courage and cradled her hand in his tentatively, giving her enough time to pull away if that’s what she wanted. She didn’t. Their fingers interconnected effortlessly, like two complementing jigsaw pieces.

“I’m really glad I met you, even if I never see you again after this summer,” Sakura said, every word ringing with sincerity.

“Don’t be annoying,” he stammered and squeezed her hand firmly. “We’re not going to stop being friends just because summer ends.”

“Oh yeah?” Sakura teased, her shyness melting away. “Can’t live without me, Uchiha?”

“I think you mean, you can’t live without me, Haruno,” Sasuke shot back easily.

Sakura poked him in the rib as payback and both erupted in laughter. The party was completely forgotten as Sakura launched into a story and Sasuke listened like he always did, while neither noticed their fingers were still interlocked.