#like just try not to make too many waves and you'll be fine. ive been here for over 10 years now

[strwberri-milk]

May i suggest a fic or whatever of Kaeya inspired by this song??? It's just so cute to think of it!!!

Hmm I'm going to Indulge a bit :D the reason why ive chosen this trope is bc 1) this song gives me driving at night vibes 2) i konw nothing about mj outside of my friend in elementary LOVED his music and was devestated when he died 3) this song also makes me think of fall in middleschool and that disctinve smell but?? you and him are not staying as tiny children i just used my school experience to set up context :D

You don't know much about Kaeya, other than the fact that the two of you have grown up in the same area. As far as you're concerned, your friend groups don't have much in common and his crowd was very different than yours.

However, he was polite, and you liked that enough. Whenever you two had a class together he made it a point to say hi to you, and if he was sat next to you he'd even make conversation. Outside of that, you had no reason to seek him out, especially thanks to the throng of people he seemed to surround himself with.

Unfortunately for you, Kaeya's somehow developed a devastating crush on you. You didn't seem to remember this, but once when he was younger and new to the school you sat and played with him through many a recess. He knows he's changed a lot, but he had no idea it was so drastic you couldn't put two and two together.

He thought it was just something passing, and that if he spent time with other people he'd get over it. But, the more time passed the more this ache to have you in his life persisted. Kaeya could never act on it - he was far too terrified to change the seemingly inert state of your relationship.

For now, he'd satisfy himself by just spending time with you in class every so often, or waving hello to you in the halls. It wasn't until his last year of high school when he thought he was over you that he realised he was dead wrong. Being assigned the same home room and having to see each other at least once a day minimum made his heart skip a beat every morning, nervously checking his appearance to see if he could get your attention.

Yes, he feels a little desperate, no, he's not mad about it.

"So, did you apply for early admission?"

You look up and see Kaeya, looking behind him to see if any of his friends are behind him. You assume he's just killing some time, scooching over to let him sit down next to you until you're forced to stay in homeroom for once.

"Yeah, I did. You?"

He sighs a little, blowing his fringe out of his face.

"Yeah. I got accepted."

You raise a brow, looking at him a little impressed. Kaeya's been a good student as far as you knew, so you're not surprised but considering that applications just opened for University two weeks ago you can't help but be taken aback.

"Wow. I'm pretty nervous. Did you get a safety school too?"

"Nervous? You'll be fine - everyone gets in, and you do well in class," he reassures, resting his head on the desk.

"And I did. I'm just waiting for the safety schools to respond just in case I change my mind."

Kaeya knew that with graduation creeping up on everyone he was running out of time to try and confess. He's been trying to get the gall to do it, building himself up every morning but failing miserably whenever he sees you.

"Yeah. I'm planning to just go to school locally like everyone else does. Not exactly rich enough to go abroad. Or smart enough," you laugh, fiddling with a pen.

"I want to go there too!" he says a little too excitedly, clearing his throat as an attempt to cover up.

"Diluc, my older brother, goes there too and I think it'd be nice to stay local. Maybe we'll see each other?"

"Hopefully! The transit will be a bitch though, right?"

Kaeya sees this as his chance, speaking before his mind can catch up.

"I can drive you! We have to make our own schedules so if ours align then we can carpool. I won't make you pay gas or anything, just in company." He winks at you, hoping that his charm is coming out, not nerves.

"Sure, if you want. That'd be nice - only if it works out for both of us, alright?"

He nods in response, trying not to bounce his knee too aggressively at how excited he is at the prospect.

Fast forward some years later and the two of you are deeply embroiled in your studies. You got accepted where you wanted to be, and Kaeya ended up deciding to stick with his first choice at the local school. To his delight, he was able to strike up a stronger relationship with you, now both friends rather than classmates.

He drives you to class or makes you drive his car the mornings he's too tired to. You meet on campus between breaks, have lunch together, or crash each other's classes on occasion when someone's bored. It's everything he could have asked for but that doesn't stop that yearning he thought would go away.

He's tried other people, wanting to see if he could get over you without a rejection but it seems like he can't, mumbling lightly to himself as he waits outside the building you're in to pick you up.

He needs an answer today, even if it's no. Just something to finally shut up the voice in his head saying it might be a yes and to just finally shoot his shot after all these years. His fingers drum against the steering wheel, eyes watching as people flood out of the building for your familiar form.

"I always have so much fun with you," you say after catching your breath from a stupid joke Kaeya made, leaning back in your reclined seat as you look out his car window and out to the trail.

"I'm not wrong though," he says, still laughing a bit. "Why are we parked outside of a park when we could just go walk around!"

"It's nice to just be like this, don't you think?"

You sigh a little, yawning and closing your eyes as you take in the sound of the wind rustling through the trees. The sun is beginning to set, washing you both in reds and pinks and he takes the opportunity to admire you.

He knows that if he doesn't act soon he could lose you forever. Your journeys at school are beginning to close, giving him less of a chance to guarantee time with you. His heart thuds loudly in his chest, desperate for the chance to finally make his feelings known.

He opens his mouth, not expecting the weak little noise that comes out. You turn to face him, holding back a teasing laugh to give him your full attention. He tries again, finally finding the words.

"I'm in love with you. I have been since the day we met and I just want you to give me a chance. Can you do that? Please?"

He hates how desperate he sounds, playing with the edge of his sleeves and averting your gaze to avoid looking at you. He has no idea if you'll say yes or no, slowly raising his eyes back to yours when he feels you put your hand on his.

"I thought you'd never ask."

[lizzyverydizzyyo]

D.E.A.N | Chapter 30 - Peak

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. | @whumptober-archive

Fandom : Original Work

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

AO3

Wordcount: ± 8086 [Also very action-heavy, so I can’t cut it into two chapters]

TW: Suicide Pact, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, Dread, Minor Character Deaths (antagonist), Blood, Injury, Weapon, Gun, Firearms, Shooting, Drugs, Graphic Depiction of Violence, Gore, Explosion, Medical Instruments and Treatments

He can sense it’s nearly over, although he doesn’t know on whose favor fate will fall into: his side or the enemies’. All who remain are now left to lick their wounds pitifully, wondering if they’ll ever get back to the way it was. Mark tells himself that, at least, ones dear to his heart are still breathing on this God’s green earth.

Whumptober 2023 Themes (last 4 and Alt. Bonus only):

Day Alt. bonus — Aftermath of Failure

Day 28 — “You'll have to go through me.”

Day 29 — Troubled Past Resurfacing

Day 30 — Bridal Carry | “Not much longer...”

Day 31 — Emptiness | Setbacks

Whumptober 2022 Themes (post-event, not completionist):

Day 11 Alt. — Ambushed

Day 24 — Fight, Flight or Freeze | Blood Covered Hands

Day 26 — No One Left Behind | Separated

This story is set in the last half of 2016.

——

Once they’re in the open, they whip their heads left and right, trying to figure out which vehicle Angie and Doctor Lowe are near to. There are two vans: one on the far side of the left, and the other on their right but close. It’s probably not helping that everything is dark.

He didn’t realize how late it is. No wonder many sections of the headquarter looked dark before. What time is it anyway?

Suddenly, they see Angie’s head poking from behind the van on their right. Her arm follows, showing up from the other side of the van to wave to them.

“Angie!” Mark calls out happily, although he still makes sure he keeps quiet.

Anna and Mark sprint to close the distance.

He doesn’t know about Anna, but he feels warmth washing over him with his heart feeling a little lighter. Like giant boulders are lifted off his shoulders. Like hope.

“How did you get here? How did the bomb go?” Anna blurts out quickly.

“Long story. I survived. That’s all that matters.”

“Okay. True,” Anna replies.

Mark gives himself a few seconds to scan Angie and Doctor Lowe quickly, seeing some cuts and bruises here and there, and scratches on their clothes, but they’re alive and well and standing firmly. They’re all okay. Mostly.

Across him, Angie throws a slight look towards Nick in Mark’s arms, one arm lolling on the side and dangling weakly. Nick is quiet and not moving, his head laid against Mark’s chest, but his own chest still rises and falls. Angie stares at the bloody palm of Nick that’s hanging down. She doesn’t point it out.

Which is probably for the best because they can’t afford to panic and spread the anxiety towards each other. They need to be steady and quick now.

“Get in,” Doctor Lowe tersely instructs Mark while Angie walks towards the back of the van to open the doors. It’s not locked.

Mark frowns while looking at the van, pausing a few steps away. He scans their surroundings and sees no one else beside 5 of them.

“What?” the surgeon turns around to him exasperatedly.

“Is this safe?” he asks. “Did any Helga people get to it?”

“It’s fine. I’ve been here all the time we were separated,” Angie says urgently to Mark. “The agents in charge of guarding the backyard just left for the inside not too long ago, so the vehicles were still protected from any sabotaging.”

Mark contemplates for a few seconds, but ends up closing his eyes and sighing as he accepts Angie’s explanation, so he steps forwards to approach the van.

“The keys?” Angie asks him.

Mark faces her fully to give her better access to Nick’s pockets on his utility belt. Nick stays still, eerily silent. He doesn’t react at all to Angie rummaging her hand through his many pockets until she gets to the one with the handful of metal keys.

“Okay, good, lay him down there,” Doctor Lowe instructs him once Angie has the keys in her palm. The surgeon points to the far side of the van’s interior.

Mark bends down his body a little so that he can fit into the back of the van as he steps into it. He climbs into the van’s inside while crouching, still with Nick in his arms, but when both of his feet are firmly on the floor of the van and he is pretty much squatting, he starts shifting his legs one knee at a time to kneel. He shuffles that way a bit until he reaches the divider between the back of the van and the driver section so that he can deposit Nikolai on the floor.

Nick is still unmoving with face leaning against Mark’s chest and one arm lolling around, even until he gently lays Nick down.

“No, no. Sit him up a bit. His legs can’t be higher than the rest of his body,” the surgeon interjects, pulling on Mark’s arm a bit to stop his movement.

Nick finally makes a sound by groaning weakly when Mark tries to pull his body up into sitting position, while Doctor Lowe pulls his legs straight from slightly bent position. It seems to be very important that Nick’s legs are lower than his torso as he is bleeding like this, as said by Angie too before the first surgery.

Once they’re settled inside, Doctor Lowe turns back to pull the doors in and slam them closed. Only then does Mark take off his helmet and put it away. He takes off Nick’s helmet next to see his face and gauge how he is doing.

Nick’s eyes are half-lidded, blinking sluggishly once in a while. He looks extremely pale with cold sweat drenching his body and wetting his hair. Even his skin is cold to touch.

“Kid, just last a little bit more, okay?” Doctor Lowe now says as he crouches to sit next to Nick across from Mark, both facing the weakened boy. The old face uncharacteristically shows strong emotions and non-clinical concern, for once.

Nick’s thin hands are on top of his own abdomen, but they’re not really pushing on his wound strongly, probably because his energy is completely depleted. Mark kneels on one knee in front of him as he puts his own palm on top of Nick’s to push at it firmly.

Nick winces and weakly shifts his head to the side.

“Sorry, I’m sorry. We need to put pressure on your bleeding,” he tells Nick softly.

Nick turns his head forward again to look at him, face seemingly half-conscious. His breathing is labored and dragging, and when Mark takes Nick’s left wrist to feel his pulse, it’s faint but abnormally rapid.

“Why the fuck are we not driving yet?”

He sees Doctor Lowe raising his head to look over Nick’s head towards the divider, his face urgent with a somewhat angry look. He has never been a patient man in all the time Mark has known him, after all.

“Hey,” the doctor calls out again, “what are you waiting for?!”

He bangs on the divider, making Nick wince and moan in pain again. Mark glares slightly at the surgeon, but the man doesn’t seem to care.

“We’re looking for the key!” they both hear Angie’s muffled voice.

“Do it fucking faster!”

Even with the divider, Mark can hear Angie and Anna frantically mumbling with each other, “Where the fuck is the key? Is it this? No, that doesn’t fit, fuck! I don’t know which one? Did they not say which key is for which car! Oh my god…” with metal jiggling.

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you serious, you dumb bitches? Go now!” Doctor Lowe yells out incredulously.

“We’re trying, okay?!” follows with more metal clanking from both women in the front.

“For fuck’s sake, just cut the cord and start with it!” Mark now screams in turn in frustration.

“Are you fucking serious? No! It’ll just destroy the car!” Angie responds from the front.

Nick shifts his head to the side again, weakly gasping with eyes barely open.

“Angie! Anna! Come on!” Mark yells again after looking at that.

He hears more metal jiggling and hissed arguments from the front, and he is about ready to get out and sort the problem out himself, but then he hears the van sputtering then humming to life.

“Gotcha!” he finally hears from Angie.

Mark and Doctor Lowe unconsciously exhale in relief and sag their bodies at the same time. He can even hear Nick exhaling weakly too.

He turns to Nick again with a tight smile, trying to be calming and reassuring.

“This is it. We just have to reach backup team and it’ll be over. You’ll be okay there,” he says softly.

Nick simply looks back at him, seemingly fighting against his exhaustion so that he can keep his eyes open. He winces a bit before blinking weakly, then his eyes stay half-lidded until they all can feel the motion of the car starting to be driven away.

Of course, in ideal situation, it’s better to drive slowly and carefully so that Nick isn’t jolted around while bleeding like this, but there are still dozens of Helga people they’re trying to run from in here, and possibly even more who are still trying to reach this headquarter. They don’t have any other choice but to accept Angie hitting the gas and speeding up along their path until they reach Central Hub’s backup team.

Doctor Lowe and Mark have just taken off their guns and put them on the floor when they simultaneously push at Nick’s shoulders instinctively. He is whipped from side to side at a sharp turn Angie is taking, so they’re making sure Nick isn’t knocked around—especially on the head—and injured more.

“Argh…” Nick immediately yelps in pain at the sudden movement.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m sorry,” he soothes Nick.

He can see tears flowing from the corners of Nick’s swirly blue-brown eyes as they’re squeezed shut. In turn, Mark squeezes Nick’s shoulder a little to calm him down. Eventually, the van is going at a more even pace with less bouncing as it seemingly settles on an established road.

“You keep pushing on his wound. I’ll try to connect to backup,” Doctor Lowe eventually instructs him.

He simply nods and sits down with crossed legs so that he is in a more comfortable position to hold Nick. His own right shoulder is leaning against the divider as he keeps his left palm’s pressure at Nick’s abdomen. Mark sees Doctor Lowe sit on his heels while clicking on his watch for a while.

The old surgeon tsks.

“The reach is too short with this,” he comments.

“Well, yeah. It’s for a contained network. It’s not meant to be far,” he responds.

“It would be nice if it can. I was hoping its reach is far enough considering we don’t have any of our heavy-duty laptops.”

“There is our satellite map on the dashboard, isn’t there?” he inquires.

“For them,” the surgeon nods his chin to the front to refer to Angie and Anna, “but not us. We can’t see where we are from here. Can’t prepare.”

Oh, that makes sense.

“I guess we should just keep our comms open to connect to backup’s network.”

“I’d rather not do that for too long. We can be intercepted. There are only 5 of us here,” the old man informs him, finally clicking the button on the earpiece itself, seemingly disconnecting from 1034’s headquarter’s network.

Mark too ends up clicking on his earpiece to disconnect it.

There is no point in connecting to 1034’s headquarter anymore since they’re leaving that place and won’t need to communicate with any of them. He knows they’re not going to send more chaperone agents for Nick because there simply are just not enough agents to fight Helga in the headquarter itself.

It’s better to make sure their connection isn’t intruded on by any non-authorized party by turning it off completely.

He almost falls asleep due to his extreme exhaustion and lulling silence for a while when Doctor Lowe suddenly talks to him.

“Shift him a little,” Doctor Lowe instructs Mark.

He furrows his eyebrows.

“I need to see behind us,” the doctor explains, pointing at the screen on the divider that’s supposed to show the back of the van through the small camera on the door.

“Oh.”

Mark gently slips his right arm between Nick’s back and the divider to circle Nick’s body from behind, pulling him closer almost to an embrace until Nick’s head is lying on Mark’s right shoulder instead of covering the screen.

He doesn’t realize the intimacy of the gesture until Doctor Lowe stares at him for a few seconds.

He is about to push Nick away a little bit to minimize the too-personal sense of their position, but when he sees Nick’s closed eyes on the pale exhausted face, he just doesn’t have the heart to do it. Who’s going to have a problem with it anyway?

Doctor Lowe ends up shaking his head and rising to kneel so that he can get closer to the screen and turns it on.

It crackles a bit before he sees the screen coming to life. Not that it’s going to help in telling them where they are, especially since it’s dark outside, except just to see if their environment is safe.

For quite a while, all they do is just glance at the screen every so often while mostly ignoring it in favor of laying back and closing their eyes to get a little bit of rest. They’re not really expecting anything noteworthy to happen, but he hears a bang on the divider from the front.

He and Doctor Lowe furrow their eyebrows and look at each other.

“Look at your watch! What colors are they?” he hears Anna inquire.

“What? What color? What are you talking about?” he shouts back with a perplexed expression.

“There are incomings shown in our satellite map. Are they our guys?”

He immediately straightens up his back with an alert look, just as Doctor Lowe does. They whip their heads to look at the screen.

It’s not obvious in the beginning, but he can see some dots following them from behind that are getting closer and closer and eventually appearing like several vehicles that are not D.E.A.N issued.

Oh, fuck.

He looks at his watch over Nick’s head and shoulder who is still leaning against his chest, clicking a button on the side to turn it on again.

They’re all brown pulsating dots following from behind.

“Oh, shit,” Doctor Lowe whispers horrifically.

“Nick, Nicky, get off, I need to move,” he says to Nikolai, trying to be gentle even if he is about to lose his shit.

Nick flutters his eyes open and winces, seemingly having fallen asleep before.

He hates being rough with Nick, but he has to quickly shift Nick’s body away from him so that he can move to grab his rifle again.

Doctor Lowe is kneeling while slamming the seat covers up, seeing what’s inside their under-seat storage. He frantically grabs all manners of firearm cartridges, from long rifle ammo clips to boxes of handgun bullets from the inside. Mark can see that besides those, there are explosives too like grenades and some smoke bombs.

There are also different kinds of rifles there, seemingly more of a sniper rifle type, along with some rifle tripod mounts.

Sniper rifle be damned. He’ll use them when he has to. Bullet is a bullet once it’s in someone’s skull.

“Wha…” Nick mumbles with half-lidded eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says distractedly as he starts reloading several magazines worth of bullets for his pistols, then inserting a long ammo clip into the chamber of his rifle along with Doctor Lowe.

Not long after, they immediately hear shots hitting the back of their van.

Shit. He thought they’re out of the woods already.

Doctor Lowe frantically rummages through the storages again, muttering furiously to himself.

“Doc, you got bullets. What are you looking for?” Mark asks in frustration.

“I need sticky tapes for the rifle mounts.”

“What?!”

Doctor Lowe sits on his heels again while turning towards him.

“I’m not Addrianne or Mary who can probably shoot the fucking moon without rifle mount, all right? I need a steady mount.”

“Just shoot with your machine guns!”

“You do it! I’ll find some tape.”

Mark tsks incredulously, but he does grab his helmet to put it back on before pushing open the hatch on top of their van. He takes a slight look at the screen to get a feel of what kind of enemies they’re dealing with before popping his head up with his machine gun pointed to the back.

There are 5 jeeps following them.

“How the fuck did they know about us?!”

Mark ignores Doctor Lowe’s question to start pressing his rifle trigger, followed by resounding shots and strong recoils that hit him much harder than usual with his current shooting position. He mostly hits the windows and non-vital parts of the enemies he can see.

When he pauses a bit, he observes them and finds that they all look fresh and battle ready, maybe even more combat-trained than the ones swarming 1034 before. There are women there too, ones who look as military-trained as the rest.

He absently thinks about Doctor Lowe’s question.

He doesn’t like the thought that maybe there was a planned breach of information about their strategy. These enemies look especially prepared for this kind of battle, while the ones in 1034 look more like low level thugs of the syndicate who just happen to be given firearms.

He bows down his head under the hatch when the other side returns the shots, waiting until they stop so that he can shoot again. On his left a little bit behind him, he hears shotgun shots and cocking from Anna who is poking her head out of the window to shoot with him.

He feels their van swerving to the left sharply, feeling himself knocked to the side and hit hard on the chest by the metal opening of the hatch.

“Fucking hell, Angie!”

“I’m avoiding their shots!”

He breathes hard as he steadies himself, pointing his machine gun again to shoot mostly at the driver of the jeep closest to them.

They seem to know his plan, so that jeep also swerves to the side to avoid his shots.

“Move!” Doctor Lowe yells at him from under.

Mark looks down to the inside of the van and sees Doctor Lowe holding a short rifle tripod mount, presumably with sticky tape on the bottom of the feet.

He pulls himself down to allow Doctor Lowe to stick the mount to the top of their van, using the opportunity to pull another long ammo clip to be slung over his shoulder as preparation before the current one runs out.

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to install that!” he half-shouts.

“Shut the fuck up. I told you I’m not a sniper. I’m just doing what I can,” Doctor Lowe shouts with voice half-muffled by the windy surrounding. “Now give me that rifle!”

Mark looks down on the ground to see the different kind of rifle usually used for precision shooting. He simply grabs that and follows the surgeon’s instruction.

Unlike their automatic machine guns which can shoot endlessly as long as they keep pressing the trigger and have ammo clips attached, the rifle Doctor Lowe is using right now is semi-automatic. It requires him to pull the trigger each time he wants to take a shot, although he doesn’t have to keep reloading each time.

Mark kneels on one knee with his own rifle strap slung over his shoulder again, both of his arms holding the gun itself, while he faces Nick.

The younger man’s face is alert and scared, no longer has any trace of sleepiness as before. Mark’s heart clenches at the deep fear shown on that bony and pale face, undoubtedly in pain too at the sudden movements Angie keeps making.

Nick is holding the sides of the opened seats for dear life.

“What’s going on, Mark?” he asks shakily as he starts crying again.

“It’s fine. We’ll deal with it,” he softly says, once again saying it both for Nick and himself.

Eventually, Doctor Lowe removes his rifle from the mount and pops back down to gather more ammos and fill the chamber with them once again. Mark uses this opportunity to pop back out, and he starts shooting again.

He aims lower this time, trying to point at the wheels.

Their van swerves to the side once again, so he groans as the corners of the opened hatch hit him on the chest again.

“Argh!”

“Sorry!” Angie simply shouts.

He starts shooting again once he is sure Angie is done with her swerving. He hits one person, and he can see the man’s body flopping to the side and bowing forward. The driver next to him doesn’t flinch or look away from the road despite having her comrade shot to death next to her.

Mark starts pointing his gun at another jeep now, going for the passenger shooter again. He only manages to shoot the person’s shoulder, but that’s good enough. She’s not going to be able to shoot properly like that.

He pulls back, going down into the van again to take a break from the harsh recoils and avoid the shots from the other side, so Doctor Lowe rises again with his semi-automatic rifle after reloading it.

Doctor Lowe focuses on the scope, taking a shot more carefully and slowly. Mark can only guess what’s happening. The only way the people in the back of the van can see what’s behind is by looking at the screen, but that has a limited view.

He hears another shot from Doctor Lowe, followed by loud crashing, but before he can catch what’s happening, there is another bang to the back of the van, so now the screen crackles then goes black.

Oh, great. Fantastic. As if they weren’t already stuck and cornered before.

Even so, Doctor Lowe lowers himself again, gathering ammos to be inserted into the rifle chamber again.

“Your turn,” he tightly says as he keeps focusing on inserting some ammo clips.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Got one of their drivers.”

He furrows his eyebrows as he thinks about what Doctor Lowe means until he raises his eyebrows in surprise.

The driver shot by Doctor Lowe either got injured enough that they can’t steer the vehicle well anymore, or killed so the jeep swerved around uncontrollably until it hit another one.

Basically, taking two enemies’ vehicles at once.

Not like Addrianne, my ass, Mark thinks.

“Your turn, Hayden!” Doctor Lowe yells at him.

He immediately jumps up over the hatch to point his gun again.

As he guessed before, there are now only three jeeps still following them, while the other two are falling behind so far in the back. Still, that doesn’t mean they can’t change drivers and start chasing his team again. He doesn’t know if their jeeps’ engines are damaged enough to stop them completely.

He squints his eyes at the recoil of his rifles, still not used to how harsh and painful it is while being shot this way, but he keeps going. He quickly pulls the end of the other long ammo clip to start inserting it into his machine gun’s chamber. He cocks it after it’s inserted and starts shooting again.

He got two, but only some back passenger shooters, not any driver like what he aimed for.

“Here,” Mark hears Doctor Lowe call to him.

He pops in a little only to see the surgeon handing him a smoke bomb. He would prefer the grenade, but they’re still too close to throw it safely, so he accepts the smoke bomb anyway.

He pulls away the pin with his teeth and throws it far into one of the jeeps’ open roof. There is clanking and harsh hissing before smoke quickly seeps out of the can and fills the jeep. The jeep swerves wildly to the side after that and gets left behind.

Two more to go.

He starts shooting again for a while until his ammo runs out.

He only manages to simply graze the remaining chasers instead of causing substantial damage to his enemies. Behind the two jeeps, he starts to see the jeep left behind after the smoke bomb, and it’s gaining on them. He also sees another one, which is one of the two crashing jeeps that Doctor Lowe shot before.

Oh, fuck. It’s going up to four again, then.

Doctor Lowe and Mark keep taking turn shooting either with machine guns or sniping rifles, or even a shotgun they find after rummaging through the under-seat storage more carefully. Once the ammos for those run out, they take out their pistols, which are not ideal because they’re not as strong as machine guns or as precise as sniping rifles, but better than not fighting back at all.

He can feel his worry and panic starting to rise again each time he pops back down and sees more and more empty bullet boxes and used clips.

“Hey kid, you need to hold on really tight on this seat, okay?” Doctor Lowe cryptically tells Nick as he points at the jutting metal under the opened seat.

He doesn’t understand why Doctor Lowe is saying that considering Nick is already holding onto the seat so tightly.

Nick is no longer pushing down on his abdomen and seemingly hasn't been for a while, which means he’s been bleeding more than they would have liked compared to if he’d been pushing at his wound. He’s getting even paler, grimacing more often after every swerving and jolting from the speed of Angie’s driving.

He faces where Doctor Lowe is pointing.

“Wha… about—”

“It’s okay. Mark is gonna help you with your bleeding,” the surgeon cuts him off, instantly knowing what Nick means.

Doctor Lowe cocks his head to the side to point at Nick. Mark gives a questioning stare for a bit, but obeys the surgeon’s command.

“You hold on tight too,” the old man says cryptically again, but doesn’t wait for Mark to comply before popping out of the hatch.

Mark simply kneels down facing Nick with one hand pushing at the wounded abdomen and another gripping a handgrip tightly as the doctor tells him to.

He’s not sure what the surgeon is planning until he hears loud boom and a sense of this van almost being flipped over, roughly knocking him over to the floor. Thankfully, he pulls his left arm from Nick’s stomach quickly enough to throw it above his head so that it’s cushioned against the metal body of the under-seat storages.

Still, the force of it brings sharp pain to his forearm that can’t help screaming in pain. He feels like he has broken the bone in his forearm, or at least given it some deep musculature damage.

Nick thankfully gets thrown into his arm too, so his head isn’t knocked around too at the harsh bump the van was put through.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Doc?” he cries out angrily.

The doctor simply pops back down to bend down and grabs an item.

“We have no bullets,” he tightly says without a care towards Mark’s offense.

“And you didn’t think to warn us before throwing a fucking grenade?”

“I did.”

The surgeon knocks at the divider twice before popping his head back out while gripping another grenade.

This time, Mark is more ready.

He elongates his legs to tightly push against the under-seat storages on both sides. He pushes feet against the left under-seat while his lower back is pushed against the right one. Being tall has its perks, it seems.

One of his hands is holding onto a handgrip attached to the divider while his other hand is putting Nick almost in an embrace again. Nick too is holding on to a handgrip on the other side of the divider, while his other hand is pushing at his stomach.

He hears another kaboom and feels the van jolts around roughly, but without throwing his body around since he has good enough grip on his surroundings. It happens three more times, each time adding more and more aches onto his body due to the rough jolting, on top of his muscles being forcibly and endlessly taut.

Nick too keeps keening in pain, fisting Mark’s shirt desperately while leaning over and sobbing.

After the third explosion, Doctor Lowe bends down to frantically crawl all over the floor, repeatedly slamming the seat covering of the storage loudly. He keeps mumbling to himself like he is possessed, until he eventually reaches the one closest to Mark and Nick near the divider.

“Move over,” the surgeon tightly orders him.

Mark has to bodily carry Nick in his arms to move him away so that Doctor Lowe can turn that storage upside down too.

They wince when they feel harsh shots at the back of their van, now being dented by the repeated firings of strong firearms.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Nick’s half-lidded eyes land on the surgeon’s back.

“Wha… what’s—what’s going… on?” Nick stutters weakly.

Doctor Lowe’s shoulders slump again, giving Mark another jolt of fear. It’s never good when the surgeon slumps like that. The beer-bellied man then weakly sits on his heels with his head leaned back while exhaling shudderingly.

They hear more shots, and the dents get deeper.

The doctor still doesn’t face Nick or Mark, and instead bangs on the divider.

“Anna! Why aren’t you shooting?!”

Mark can feel his heart thumping on his chest painfully, faster and faster the longer it takes for Anna to reply.

“There is no more bullet,” they all hear Anna shout with her own resigned voice.

“Try to find more! Under Angie’s seat or something!” Doctor Lowe tries again.

“We tried, Doc. We can’t find more!”

Just as she is done talking, they hear more bullets shot in their way with clanging sound. Mark realizes that one manages to lodge itself into the door of the van.

He feels cold washing over him.

Nick shudders in his arms, and Doctor Low stares helplessly at that bullet.

Everything feels like slow-motion, or being submerged into a pool with a sense of detachment the more bullets shot in their way. There are now several bullets being lodged into the van’s backdoor. One of them is even pushed out into the inside of the van by another bullet shot to that hole.

“No…” Nick whispers horrifyingly with tears starting to flow from his eyes again, “…no, I don’t—I don’t wanna… go back…”

He whimpers again.

Mark hopelessly stares at the closed doors with many bullets lodged into them, as does the old surgeon in front of him. He feels a sense of cold dread in his chest. In his arms, Nick turns away from the door and pushes his face into Mark's shoulder instead.

“No… I don’t want them to take me again… please, I don’t want to…”

Mark squeezes his eyes closed at Nick's muffled and desperate mumbling and tightens his arms around the fragile body, accompanied by more shots towards their van.

“It’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay. You’re not going back. You’ll be okay,” he whispers gently to Nick as the boy keeps crying in his hold.

He moves his hands to rub Nick’s back up and down, tucking Nick’s head into the space between his neck and shoulder, cradling Nick like a child.

“It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, don’t worry, yeah?”

He knows it’s a lie, of course.

There are four jeeps worth of highly trained Helga members on their tail. Maybe more, considering their screen is broken and they can’t see outside if there are more jeeps coming. They’re cornered. They have no weapon—no bullets, no protection, no means of fighting back.

God knows how long they still need to go to get to Central’s backup.

They…

They lost.

But he keeps rubbing Nick’s back up and down, continuously telling Nick that everything’s going to be fine.

Eventually, Nick whimpers, “Just… just kill me… please… I don’t want them to take me back…”

“No, don’t say that, come on,” he whispers gently to Nick’s ear, hating that Nick is trying to shatter his self-made illusion.

Across from him, Doctor Lowe stares with just as much emptiness on his face. The man even looks scared with glistening eyes.

Nick pulls back to face him fully.

“Just kill me…”

“Nicky, don’t—”

“I know we’re stuck, Mark.”

He stares back at Nick’s sure face, even if it’s wet with tears and pale.

“Don’t let me go back to them, please…”

Mark breathes out shakily, wincing once in a while when he feels more shot at their van.

“Just kill me…”

Nick chokes on a sob after that, face terrified but resigned at the same time.

Behind Nick, he sees Doctor Lowe digging into his pants then pulls out four glass vials.

Mark stares at them, catching a glimpse of ‘morphine’ and ‘100ml’ on the labels.

“No,” he firmly says to Doctor Lowe.

“You know we’re done, kid,” he tells Mark gently.

“No, we’re not. We’ll be fine.”

Doctor Lowe gives him a heartbroken and pitying look, but…

They’ll be fine. They have to be fine. He doesn’t have to kill Nick to prevent him from being taken back. They don’t have to kill themselves so that Helga can’t torture them back. They’ll be okay.

They’ll be fine. They’ll be fine.

Even if there are more bullets lodged on their door, they’ll be fine.

They’ll be fine, they’ll be fine, they’ll be—

“I’m too old for this shit, son,” Doctor Lowe says with palpably heavy sense of exhaustion as he takes one bottle from his palm and keeps it in his own vest pocket.

Four bottles and one taken by Doctor Lowe already.

He gulps painfully.

Nick… Nick has to have one. He deserves that, at least.

It’s either Mark, Angie, or Anna whose fate in Helga’s hands will be uncertain.

Mark bites his lip, feeling terrified too with cold realization seeping into him. He feels his eyes getting wet, suddenly thinking about his mom and how he never got to say a proper goodbye to her, or Jackson. Or the others in his team.

How Nick will never get to taste freedom, except by taking one of those bottles.

It’s so unfair. Why is it all so unfair?

He hugs Nick tighter with his own closed eyes and tears flowing down his cheek.

“It’s okay,” he continues softly again to Nick’s ear, “you’ll be okay. They’ll never take you again. I promise. You’ll be okay.”

He keeps doing that, delaying the inevitable, trying to find it in his heart to help Doctor Lowe injects the content of that bottle to Nick’s vein when push comes to shove. And it will come to shove.

There are more shots to the van, and he feels deep plunging in his chest again.

Maybe he has never been cut out for this. For being a D.E.A.N agent. He doesn’t think a true D.E.A.N agent should be this shaky and terrified at the face of danger they supposedly signed up for.

“Wait.”

He opens his eyes and stare back at the surgeon.

The old man’s face is confused with furrowed eyebrows.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Mark asks back.

“There are shots fired,” the surgeon replies with widened eyes.

Mark glares, feeling angry at the fact that he’s emotionally being yanked around. The surgeon is the one forcing Mark to come to terms with what they’re going to face, but he is now the one being obtuse and playing around.

“I can fucking see that, Doc,” he harshly replies.

“No, look,” the surgeon says, curiously with a smile blooming on his face, “there are shots outside.”

Mark glares even more at the surgeon’s demented game.

“I’m aware. I have ears and eyes.”

“No, listen,” the old man emphasizes.

He stays glaring with Nick crying in his arms while refusing to look at the door with bullets lodged all over it. He doesn’t understand the point of Doctor Lowe saying all of these stupid shits.

But then he furrows his own eyebrows. There is something strange about the gunshot sounds.

Obviously, he can sense some bullets being shot in their way, be it through sound or the vibrations once they hit their van, but he still turns his head towards the doors along with the surgeon.

“These are not shot towards us,” he concludes.

On top of that, he finally hears some really loud whooshing above them, enough to penetrate the metal body of the van and into their hearing.

Mark quickly clicks on his earpiece comm, almost missing it in his haste. Immediately, there is a crackling sound of it connecting to a network.

Mark clicks on his round button.

“This is CC75 reporting in. Are you 1056? Over.”

“Oh, god,” he immediately whispers out.

“I repeat. This is CC75 reporting in. Are you 1056? Over.”

Mark shakily clicks on his square button while looking at his watch, seeing light blue dots all around them.

“We copy. Confirming this is 1056. Over,” he shakily replies.

“What’s your code? And is the informant with you? Over.”

“This is MT56. And yes, the informant is with us. Over.”

At that, Doctor Lowe jumps up and slams open the hatch again.

Mark immediately looks up, now realizing that the whooshing sound are from several helicopter blades.

“YOU’RE LATE YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!” Doctor Lowe screams with his hand thrown upwards while cackling like a maniac. “WHOO HOOO!”

Mark chokes out a half-laugh half-cry at the surgeon’s excited yell.

They still hear more shots, but it’s clear that it’s more between backup’s heli and the Helga members chasing them, rather than between those members and their van. He can even hear slight booming while their van is jolted around a little. He can only guess that it might be from backup’s grenade launchers.

Doctor Lowe pops back in and basically lets himself drop to his ass while leaning back on his arms, still laughing once in a while. He has tears too on his face despite the weirdly soothing chuckles.

Mark closes his eyes and lets more of his own tears drop to his cheeks, but out of relief. He hugs Nick even tighter while burying his face into the black hair.

“I told you we’ll be fine, right?” he whispers to Nick’s ear, now being honest.

Nick wraps his own arms around Mark too and pushes his face deeper into Mark’s neck, sobbing too out of relief.

Mark hears more crackling, so he clicks his square button again. He hears a different person talking this time, with a voice he is more acquainted to even before going into D.E.A.N.

“Agent Hayden, I have informed Agent Kingston and Agent Basset that you should drive forward for 20 more miles with two of our helis and three other backup’s vehicles, totalling 40 protection agents until you reach our rescue station. There are Medic agents ready to treat the informant’s puncture wound on his abdomen and other injuries all of you might have sustained. Do you copy? Over?”

“Yes, we copy, Agent Callahan. We’ll meet rescue teams in 20 miles. Over.”

“Good. Unfortunately, we can’t send all of our backup with you because we’ll need to assist 1034, but I think 40 agents are plenty enough to protect 5 of you. Do you copy? Over.”

“Yes, we copy. Of course, Sir. We’ll manage with that. Over.”

He is about to click circle to turn off his comm, but he hears another crackling signifying another request to connect to him.

“Good to hear you, son. Would love to hear Jackson too, but I bet he’d be proud of you anyway.”

Mark chuckles.

“Thank you, Sir. I’m trying my best.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.”

He waits for a bit, but eventually the familiar senior agent says, “CN94 over and out.”

The van continues to go for a while, with the shooting sounds eventually ceasing to the point that the bumping motions have become calming and lulling them all into a state of half-asleep. Mark makes sure to continue staying awake for the most part so that he can help Nick put pressure on his wounded stomach.

He doesn’t have the energy to think about what it means that Nick is leaning slightly to the side so that he can keep lying on Mark’s chest. Nick’s black-haired head is tucked so deeply under Mark’s chin that he can feel his lips slightly touching the dark sweaty strands. Mark’s arm is also still circling around Nick’s back and putting pressure on the wound that way.

He doesn’t even realize it when the van starts to slow down until it comes to a stop.

Suddenly, the doors to the back of the van are slammed open with lights flooding the space. He has to squint and put a palm over his eyebrows to adjust to it.

He sees several people wearing D.E.A.N’s standard uniforms with bulletproof vests on top who are pushing a gurney towards them, rolling it until it touches the back bumper of the van. Some step into the van itself to help Mark and Doctor Lowe shift Nick around until they can deposit Nick onto the mattress.

The bed is adjusted into a position where it bends upwards in the middle so that Nick isn’t completely lying down. An oxygen mask is quickly fitted onto his face with his head raised a bit so that the elastic band can be pulled behind his head. They put his head back to the bed again after that.

He doesn’t really notice Doctor Lowe walking away to be treated himself.

They immediately start wheeling Nick away, but before they can move far, Mark already steps forward quickly to approach the gurney without thinking. Nick too suddenly lifts his head with a desperate whimpering while reaching out to Mark. When Mark is close enough, Nick quickly holds his hand and grips it tight.

“Sir, we need to insert IV in him for the transfusion and other medications.”

“Let me go with him,” he insists, ignoring the other Medic agents who are trying to get him to sit down and be treated too.

He can’t be bothered to think about himself until he can see Nick safe.

“We’ll need to get him to a medic facility and into a Central Hub HQ. He is a critical informant.”

“He is a 21-year-old human trafficking survivor with PTSD. He is not just an informant,” he replies firmly with a little bit of offense and anger on Nick’s behalf at how they just reduce him to another mission object.

“Yes, sir, we’re aware,” the agent firmly responds to him without reacting to his impassioned words, “but he is still our critical informant, and we need to transport him to a safe confidential location as soon as possible.”

“Let me be with him until then,” he insists.

The Medic agents stare at him then at Nick who is still gripping Mark’s hand, no inhibition in his exhaustion and severe blood-loss. One of them sighs.

“Just until he is ready for transport to a medic facility.”

“Thank you,” he responds with deep relief and gratitude.

“And you’ll need to be treated too in one of the tents.”

“Yeah. With him.”

They give him an unreadable look, but he is too exhausted to think about what that means. They end up simply wheeling Nick into one of the medical tents with Mark on the side still continuously holding Nick’s hand.

Mark can see other agents being wheeled into some tents too, some arriving with helicopters. He assumes those are agents from 1034 and their backup after they decided Nick had plenty of backup agents protecting him already. Some of those arriving agents are able to stand and walk by themselves, but some have to be helped to move around. Some don’t move at all.

He doesn’t know what’s their exact status, and he is too afraid to think more about it, so he focuses on Nick again.

The Medic agents start pulling at Nick’s clothes to unzip his bulletproof vest and outright cuts up his shirt to get to his wound. Nick whimpers a bit at the sudden touches from strangers around him, so Mark squeezes his hand and whispers, “It’s okay, they’re not hurting you, they’re taking care of you, don’t worry”. Nick seems to calm down at that, and the Medic agents give him another unreadable stare that he is starting to get irritated with.

Is it so strange that he wants to calm Nick down and make sure that he is okay?

Nick reaches out shakily to move his hand out of Mark's grip and closer to the lower side of his bulletproof vest. He furrows his eyebrows seeing Nick's movement until the pale frail hand eventually hovers while the boy mumbles half-consciously, "Hmm... you... your bleeding..."

Mark feels warmth in his chest, relieved that Nick is safe enough to be able to feel concerned for someone else. And touched that in his muddled sense, Nick still cares about his condition.

"It's fine. Just lightly grazed. I'll be okay," he says as he bends closer to Nick's ear and squeezes Nick's palm lightly.

One of the Medic agents frowns with a disapproving look, seeing as the blood is copious enough to warrant a guess that it's slightly more than a superficial wound. Whether it's because he is minimizing his injury or because he keeps refusing to be treated until Nick is done, he doesn't know.

Nick shifts his head again to stare more directly at his right waist.

"Hurts? Doesn't... hurt?"

"I'll be fine," he chuckles, "don't worry about me."

"Hmm..."

Nick continues looking like he hardly has wits about him, unfocused despite trying his hardest to cling to consciousness.

The Medic agents keep treating Nick regardless, cleaning up his wound and entire front torso with disinfectant. He is guessing it also contains anaesthetic so that Nick isn’t too in pain when they cauterize his wound with the cauterizer. One of them lifts Nick’s palm that’s not gripping Mark’s palm and starts palpitating the skin to find a vein until she settles at one spot. Another Medic agent brings her a plastic pan with IV attachment instruments and materials in it.

After that, it’s pretty straight forward until the saline and blood bags are attached to Nick.

There are agents firmly walking out of a newly arriving helicopter, and the Medic agents who are caring for Nick turn to look at those agents slightly before looking back at Mark.

“He is going to be transported now.”

A firm dismissal.

But Mark doesn’t really care. He still walks to follow Nick’s gurney even when Nick has let go of his hand, maybe because the mask also disperses sedative so that he doesn’t feel afraid anymore being bounced around between strangers without Mark.

Eventually, they lift the bed to raise it and insert it to the heli with Nick being shifted around a bit. Mark sees that those swirly blue-brown eyes are closed, and his breathing is steady. Nick might have fallen asleep or unconscious, but he seems okay overall.

The helicopter’s blades are spinning again, creating strong gush of wind around. Mark has to put an arm over his face to soften the blow, then it takes off.

Mark would have liked to follow Nick all the way to the medic facility, and maybe beyond, but he does understand the need for the separation and confidentiality, so when some Medic agents clear their throats, Mark turns to them to dutifully follow them into a tent and sits on one of the beds as instructed.

Mark closes his eyes and leans his head back while they fuss over him. He takes a deep breath, finally letting himself feel the entirety of his shaky body, along with his exhaustion and the pain of the last many hours—and maybe even days or weeks—washing over him, but also deep relief.

When he opens his eyes again, he fittingly sees the dawn breaking with the sun starting to peek out of the sandy landscape.

A new day. A symbol of everything horrific happening before, now over.

Not everything is well and good, of course, considering there is still the question of Nick’s condition—which he doesn’t know whether he is allowed to be told or not after this.

There is also deep grief when he sees agents being wheeled on gurneys into several medical vans and helicopters, some of them fully covered by white sheets as their bodies and the fabrics are smeared with deep red, while the others are in varying degrees of being injured.

Even after this, there will most certainly be many more missions to deal with the rest of Helga. Undoubtedly going to be much more difficult than this.

But the yesterday of chaos is over. It’s really over.

It’s all okay now.

He can finally breathe easy, until the next mission.

***

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

[orcelito]

Genuinely wondering how many Twitter users r actually coming to tumblr. Like is tumblr the de facto alternative to twitter?? I know there's been a lot of overlap in fandom communities, + a large number of former tumblr users that migrated over to Twitter back when the porn ban started (which notably marked the decrease in average insufferableness here & increase over there, but I digress).

Do Twitter users propose going to other places, or do they default to bringing up tumblr? I can't tell if I'm seeing that just bc ppl on tumblr naturally will talk about people talking about tumblr, or if it's genuinely that widespread.

[theravencawsatmidnight]

Part One

Important> so this will be written in parts. An example would be: Queen Y/n’s Story. Then the next part would say Mattsun, meaning his story is next.

These will be long so i appreciate and love who decides to stick around with me on this ride. Ive never done multi endings so i hope you enjoy. (Character Bios at the bottom Link)

Tags. @squeaky-ducky @galagcica @ysatrap

Queen y/n

The sun woke you up this time. Harsh rays forcing their way in through the window, curtains swaying lightly. Tooru usually woke you up for his breakfast, he must be out already. Slowly you rose out of the cold bed stretching your arms above your head ready to start the day. You had the castle to yourself it seemed like, thats unusual for a monday.. Wonder where that King is.. Deciding you did not care you got dressed in your expensive dress with the help of your friend Millie, she was your maid and the best friend you could have.

“You look lovely Miss Y/n!” she beamed while giving your corset its final tug to tighten it.

You gasped for breath a few times and shook your head. “Oh Millie, thank you , what should we do today?”

“Huh?! Is the King away?! “ she rushed to your side jumping in place, Millie was wearing her usual maid clothes with her hair tied back in a braid. “Oh my goodness we have the Kingdom to ourselves?!”

“Must be,” you turned to go take a peak outside by the window, the village was coming to life with the sounds of people, chatter and the smell of freshly made bread. It was nice, having the Kingdom to yourself but you were not really enjoying it, as much as you wanted to . the village hated you, refused to even sell to you sometimes. A stroll around would be nice.. But maybe not today..

“Miss Y/n?” Millie rushed over bunching herself into the window too to look out . she smiled taking in the fresh smell of bread, suddenly her eyes got big with stars.

“Its nothing Millie, im just thinking. Sometimes i like to look out this window and pretend im somewhere else.”

“Do you smell that?! It smells like chocolate!!!” she shook you not hearing what you said at first.

“Chocolate? Sweets?” you stood up straight squeezing Millies hand. “Do you think?!”

“I do i do !! he must have returned to us!”

Wasting no time you pulled your friend out of your room and down the many stairs dashing past the other servants paying them no mind. You both pushed the big doors open rushing down to the village to a very familiar carriage that just got into town.

Two doors on the carriage opened, “There they are!!!!!!!” yelled a happy happy voice.

“Satori !!!!” you both yelled with glee. “Our favorite chocolatier!”

The happy red head pretended to faint at the flattery and gave you each a hug. “Oh my goodness ! i dont know what it even say!” he squeezed you both again. “My favorite customers, ive brought you many many new sweets to try, come come! They won't eat themselves!!!”

Hajime & King Oikawa.

The King had not come home to his castle , in fact he was at the Brothel all night with his favorite whores doing everything he dreamed of; everyone loved him there, he was their best customer without a doubt. The constant giggling, money falling off the bed, clothes flying everywhere was just a regular night for the King and the ladies. He had no worries here, nothing to think about, nothing to worry about. The village loved him no matter what he did, and they already hated his wife so this was fine to them. Hajime had stayed close to the brothel all night, waiting for his friend and King to be done. He had brought some papers and quills with him to write down information about other Kingdoms with him. The one in charge of the place, The Madam had always offered for Hajime to do his work inside but he always politely declined.

He was happy sitting outside , his three eyed ravens often joined him and told him new things they had found out. He was sitting comfortably till a shoe hit the back of his head.. It was going to be a long night.

In the morning Hajime went inside to see his King passed out under a bunch of women, he shook his head pinching between his eyes just taking it in. Hajime was a loyal friend , but he hoped that one day his friend would get what's coming to him.

“Oi, King, Tooru, wake up” he kicked his leg on the bed waking up some of the girls who gave him an angry look .

“Sorry loves, “ he smirked as they got up, taking the blanket with them to cover themselves. Chins high, full of attitude. “Oikawa!” He kicked again, waking up his friend.

“Gah…!!! Easy .. “ he rubbed his head and pushed his hair out of his face turning to lay on his side. “What time is it?” he asked very groggy.

“Time to be a King.” Hajime threw the royal clothes at the annoyed King and went to the door. “Ill meet you at the castle , i have some things i wanna discuss”

“Hmph, “ grunted the King as he got out of bed to dress. “Sometimes i wish i was but a lowly peasant, begging for food on the street, no responsibilities, spend all my money on the whores if im lucky, ahhh the life…” Oikawa threw his cape while holding his arm out. “But that will never be!! For i am King Tooru Oikawa!!!”

Mattsun.

The waves gently crashed against The Aoba rocking it gently back and forth. It was a fine ship, the most powerful one in the Kingdom. It won many sea battles , cleaved many enemy ships and saved its share of people. Mattsun loved this ship, it was his baby, his queen. No one could change his mind about the sea, he loved being on it, land not so much. He wanted to travel the world on this ship, live on the sea for the rest of his life.

The sound of cheering could be heard just off the docks, Mattsun rolled his eyes looking towards the village. He was laying on the side of the ship on his back watching the clouds drift by, his right leg dangling off the side of the boat. The King, hisi friend, was greeting and waving at everyone as he walked by. Mattsun rolled into his ship to his feet rolling his shoulders, he placed a hand on The Aoba rubbing gently. “Ill be back, be good okay?” his voice low and full of sadness. He hated having his queen docked. She belonged in the sea.. The open sea. Not tied up like this.. “Dont let anyone come aboard, knock em off okay?” the ship swished and it got a smile out of the man, he hopped over onto the dock taking one last look back before heading to the castle.

Yahaba & Kyotani

“Ive done it!!!” the very loud slam of metal hitting the cold stone alerted Kyotani. He looked up to see Yahaba giggling over a new weapon like a little kid, his hands hovering all around the object as if it was magic . Yahaba was a … questionable blacksmith; he loved to make things, anything! Even things he shouldn't. He was involved with the black market too and they were hsi best customers besides The King and Kyotani.

Kyotani had been laying on his back on some hay inside Yahaba’s stone home with a stray puppy on his chest just watching the clouds from the window. He was always here, if he was not here he was out thieving or fighting or walking in the woods. It was early morning and after a night of wrestling wolves he found himself here, picking up a stray puppy in the village on his travels.

The man got up with the sleepy puppy in his arms, setting it down on the ground. “Past the village, in the woods to the side of the path, is a little home , you'll see a dog there, he looks like you. “ he scratched the strays head. “There's food there,” he said. The little puppy rubbed on Kyotanis hand and rushed off barking full of happiness.

“Hound! Hound come see!!!” said the eager friend.

Kyotani rose to his feet joining the blacksmith behind his work table , he smirked at the two objects. Bracers, brand new, freshly made bracers. Just for him.

“See see ? “ Yahaba pointed to the spikes on the ends of the knuckles and poked one lightly making his finger bleed. “Now you can slice and dice! And cut! And kill!”

“I already kill” he told his friend watching him set the two bracers in water to cool off. “They look perfect, what do i owe you Yahaba”

“Hmm… ive heard the Kingdom over has rare Jade, a precious blue like the ocean”

“Consider it done.” Kyotani took the bracers out of the water to shove in his bag. “Do we have to go to that… meeting…”

Yahaba pouted at his friend and Kyotnai rolled his eyes. “Fucking Oikawa,”

“How much is the debt again?”

Kyotani shot a look at his friend, making him back up with his hands up .

“If i could kill em, i would. “ was all he said, exiting the stone home watching the passing villagers avert their eyes once they saw him.

“I know, have you met his wife ?” yahaba asked, joining his friend

“Didn't know he had one, I feel sorry for her.”

Yahaba slung his arm around his friend's neck while they walked to the Kingdom , footsteps heavy.

Queen Y/N

You had spent the morning with Millie eating chocolate and gossiping with Satori about his travels, he had been all over the world, and he always shared his stories with you , you wanted to see the world, travel, it had been your dream since you were a little girl. You still had hope that one day it would happen. A bell rang making you slump on your friend.

“Duty calls.” you sighed.

“The King must be back” Millie said, pulling you up with her.

“I can hardly contain my excitement.” you teased, giving Satori one more hug. “Thankyou for the morning my friend.”

“Always, “ he kissed your hands, giving you a happy smile.

“You turned to Millie wiping some chocolate off her cheek with a little smirk. “Well, lets go see what my loving husband wants..”