#like kind of dissociated and masking it with the silent thing

[silver-grasp]

I think it's really funny that TLT1 Xiaoge with Yang Yang is probably the most unsettling and feral Xiaoge, from what I've seen so far (which makes total sense), but is ALSO the show that has the shot of him sitting in the boat like a sopping wet kitten looking completely adorable. That post that's just a compilation of Xiaoge gifs kills me every time because of that. Guy who's silent and terrifying and aloof and does insane shit like crouch on the floor and hiss at a creepy coffin but also is going to sit in a boat and look like a wet kitten if he gets the opportunity.

[charliemwrites]

Still thinking about Nikto, and that anon ask I answered just a bit ago.

Content: Dissociation/Depersonalization, Unhealthy (not harmful) Coping Mechanisms, Codependence, Trauma/PTSD symptoms, Sexual Themes

After the hallway incident you’re a bit shaken. A life of a heavy burden, but your shoulders are used to the weight; you’re a medic. But what Nikto offered you in the hallway — no, not offered, but gave, devoted. It makes it hard to breathe.

You’re not sure if what he’s seeking (or perhaps found?) is solace or penance. You don’t think you have much say in the matter really. If God asked His disciples to stop worshipping, would they?

The comparison feels too bold, even in the privacy of your own mind. Smacks of narcissism and ego. You don’t feel powerful. You feel scared. Of what it means to hold this broken, burdened man in the palm of your hand, trying to keep all the pieces together without cutting yourself on them.

Don’t be so careless with your life, you told him.

He’s taken those words as religious creed. He doesn’t storm around corners, guns blazing anymore. Doesn’t drop from heart-stopping heights to stamp-sized targets. Hes not the first one out nor the last one in anymore — though he never lets you get out first or hop in transport last either.

Suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise.

He cares for his wounds now, too. Cleans and changes them regularly, doesn’t over exert them before they’ve healed. You’re so dizzy on pride in him that you kiss the front of his mask one day, telling him “thank you”.

He grunts in something that sounds almost like shock and shakes his head at you. You figure he doesn’t feel he deserves praise for doing as you’ve told him. You do it anyway.

Things start to settle into this new normal.

Until you can’t find him anywhere. He’s become your new shadow, another limb, and suddenly he’s gone like so much smoke. You’re both fresh off a rough, but successful mission. You’ve just finished a stint in the infirmary and your debrief. Usually hed take that time to clean off and change in privacy, back before you could miss him.

Where is he?

You find him bleeding in his room, trying to care for his own wounds. Mask off, shirt gone, a new knife wound added to his macabre collection. You scramble to his side and collapse at his feet, snatching the needle from his shaky, slippery hand.

“Don’t you ever—” you choke on the words, unusual tears welling. You’re a medic; you’re not allowed to cry during treatment. But all you see if Nikto and blood and—

“I am okay,” he says in that low, crackly voice. Gravel in a blender. “It is not bad.”

You swallow and don’t answer, can’t because you’ll start weeping into his wound. Just stitch him up, hands steady even as you sniffle and the rest of you trembles.

When it’s done, you start wiping away the excess, prepping a bandage. He’s so silent you can even hear him breathing, but you feel his eyes like a physical touch. Finally make yourself look up at him meet his piercing eyes.

“You come back to me from now on,” you say. Quiet, firm, fervent. “I don’t care what it is, you return to my side always.”

The silence stretches and stretches, and he just stares with that unfathomable gaze.

“Understand?” you insist.

“Yes.”

Those two commandments become that basis of his new existence. Nikto once thought he survived it all because he still had work to do. He was wrong; it was because he still hadn’t found his purpose at all.

He’s found you now though, and you are a demanding god. But not a cruel one

Your first commandment is atonement. This vessel requires so much work. Food and water and rest. Maintenance for every abrasion, upkeep to stay strong enough to stand at your side, to protect you. It is endless, bitter work. He doesn’t care for the labor itself, but it must be done.

It is made bearable with you.

Your second commandment is salvation. Your quiet chatter during meals, the lingering taste of your mouth on his water canteen. Your kind hands mending tears and holes, keeping whatever he is now whole and hale. Your company in the gym, on sparring mats, at his side at the gun range. The smell of your sweat past the mask, your laughter goading him into another round.

You let him sleep in your bed. Let him wake you with nightmares or memories. Keep him warm because this thing he inhabits doesn’t always remember it’s not dying anymore. You are so very alive, the realest thing in any room. Your touch is the only thing he can feel sometimes.

It takes him a long time to realize that his body (because it is a body you tell him, a living one that needs care) reacts to you.

That some mornings the press of you against him is especially sweet. That there’s more than relief and pride when you pin him down. That, at most points of the day, his body wants your touch for more than just grounding.

He’s hard most times that he’s with you, simply for the fact that you are there. And he is with you almost always.

(That it is not actually always grinds at him, niggles in the back of his mind. A sticking point. He wants it to be always, you with him at all times. Like when he used to wear a cross pendant.)

You notice, of course you do, sensitive to your most loyal devotee. He can’t tell if you’re offended, but you haven’t sent him away. Sometimes you flush and he thinks he’s certainly upset you, but for all he’s survived it would kill him to break your second commandment. And so he stays, even if he waits to be told to leave.

“Nikto?”

You never need to call his name, he is always listening. He likes the sound of it anyway. These syllables and sounds that have a meaning, that you use for him.

“Do you… want to do something about that?” you nod to his crotch. There’s a blatant bulge pressing at his tac pants. At some other time, he would probably would have found it uncomfortable.

“Do what?” he asks.

You shrug. “Get off? I could leave—“

“No.”

You blink but don’t seem surprised. “Do you want to just ignore it then?”

He shrugs a bit. There’s a flicker of amusement in your eyes. You like when he makes gestures. He tries to remember common ones, and when to do them, and tries them out for you. Though you never seem to mind his stillness either.

“It does not bother me.”

You hum, look like you’re going to go back to your tv show.

“Does it bother you?”

Your eyes dart up, mouth parting in surprise. You didn’t expect him to continue the topic. Neither did he.

“It doesn’t bother me,” you reply, tilting your head. “But if you want to do something about it, we can.”

We.

“We?”

“If… if you want me to do something… I would.”

He couldn’t ask that of you. Not ever. He’s not allowed to want anything of you when you’ve given him everything.

“No,” he says quietly finally. “Just ignore it.”

“Okay.” You smile at him, touch his hand. It is bare, mangled tattoos on display. He wishes he could feel it more. “Come snuggle in?”

Snuggle in.

Such a quaint turn of a phrase for a creature in your room, wearing a man’s face. He climbs in, shoes gone, mask gone. You wedge yourself against his side and he stares absently at the screen as you continue your show.

Previous | Next

Masterlist

[2-sleepy-for-this]

Little Ribbon Dancer

Howdy folks! Here is a lil oneshot to get me back in the swing of things. :)

This is just a thing for @crustysoapbubbles, you requested this a while ago, sorry it took so long, I’ve been all over the place. Hope you like it! Some groovy Gangle G/t angst :D

tw ~ falling, fear, unintentional fearplay, minor self depreciation, Kinger shenaniganary Word count ~ 1k

When Gangle woke up in the morning, the last thing she expected was her bed to be like a vast expanse of fabric around her. In fact, her whole room was gigantic to her… 

What kind of nightmare…

Gangle suddenly gasped. This was too real to be a nightmare, and it seemed like it wasn’t her room that grew.. she shrunk.

The ribbon character started to panic, breath quick and uneven as she looked around. The constantly worried eyes of her mask seemed appropriate for this situation.

What would she do? There wasn’t much she could do at the moment… maybe find Caine?

With trembling ribbon limbs, Gangle stood and looked over the edge of her bed. She saw the drop to the floor was long… and even though she knew cartoon physics wouldn’t let her get seriously hurt, she still felt terrified of the drop. 

However.. she noticed how on the floor next to the bed there was a pillow, one of the five that she didn’t use much that had probably fallen off the bed in the night.

This would be scary… but there wasn’t another option, so Gangle walked to the very edge and prepared to jump…

Only to attempt to chicken out at the last moment. But the momentum of the running start caused her to fall anyway with a startled yelp. 

Fortunately, she landed on the pillow anyway and was only mildly disoriented. 

Looking around, she saw that the door had a crack under it big enough for her ribbon body to fit under.

By the time Gangle made it down the hallway of bedrooms, she was completely out of breath and tripping over her own feet. Finally, she took a moment to catch her breath, and that’s when she noticed the familiar form of a royal-looking chess piece. 

Kinger seemed to be staring, dissociating most likely, and not paying attention… he would be a good help in finding Caine…

Gangle ran over to him, yelling out his name but soon realizing that he couldn’t hear her, whether from the dissociation or her size change, she didn’t know.

Regardless, she still tried waving her arms around to gain his attention… and she almost regretted it when she did because immediately his eyes were blank and looking at her in a way she thought was much more intimidating while she was the size of a hand.

Kinger gasped loudly and suddenly, staring down at her with wide eyes.

“Part of an insect collection…”

He muttered under his breath, one of his disconnected hands reaching out to grab Gangle. She let out a squeal of fear and covered her eyes with ends of her ribbon hands. She was grabbed by the giant hand and lifted up high into the air, only to a normal sized person it was only a few feet off the ground. 

The grip wasn’t tight though, not to her flattened digital body of ribbon, and once the hand stopped at kingers eye level, it opened, leaving Gangle sitting in his open palm as he inspected her.

“K.. Kinger! It’s me!”

She spoke up with very little confidence, her arms practically tied together with how much she nervously fidgeted with them. 

There was a pause, of Kinger being frozen and silent… Gangle knew what was coming.

A sudden scream came from the chess piece character as the hand she was on flailed at a high speed, she was wrapped around his thumb for dear life… 

She squealed in fear as she was flung around while Kinger continued to scream.

“Stop! Stop- wait!”

As her tiny voice yelled, Kinger paused and brought his hand up to his face in surprise, his constantly wide eyes staring at her in curiosity and confusion.

“Oh, Gangle. You startled me…”

He sounded exasperated from the screaming. She was still shaken up from the unexpected flailing… though Gangle supposed she should have suspected that considering startling Kinger was never a good idea.

“Uh.. sorry, Kinger.. I-I don’t know what happened to me”

She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Without her comedy mask, that’s how she always felt. Small. Sad.

Only now that was literal.

“Hm… well, maybe it was your mental perception of yourself losing your mask, causing you to feel mentally small, turning you physically small.”

He spoke with a surprising amount of sense. Gangle stared at him for a moment.

“You mean… my digital form matched my mind…?”

“…. Your what?”

Immediately Kinger went back to his own strange mental state, forgetting everything he had just said. Gangle sighed and decided not to bring it back up, instead wanting to focus on her original plan.

“Just… can you take me to Caine?… I-I don’t.. like this.”

“Right, yes, of course!”

He made his way around the circus tent, searching, while also keeping his palms cupped against his royal cape. They continued like that until eventually they spotted the AI ringmaster dusting the ceiling of the tent upside down. After calling his name once he was levitating in front of them, his boisterous voice boomed.

“Well, hello Kinger! Any particular reason for disrupting my cleaning duties?”

The chess piece held up his hands. Gangle stared up at Caine with an apprehensive look before muttering.

“H-hi… can you fix this..?”

“Well, let’s see…”

Caine inspected the tiny figure, a hand where his chin would be if he had one.

“A glitch! Simple fix, Gangle! There!”

He snapped, and suddenly Gangle was normal sized again, causing Kinger to scream again and drop her. She dusted herself off and looked down at herself. She didn’t expect it to be that easy….

“Hey… Caine… could you also… f-fix my comedy mask..?”

She asked hopefully, wanting her other face fixed if Caine had already helped her once so simply.

“Hm… No! But… An adventure will cheer you up!”

Gangle gave a saddened whine as a collection of groans sounded throughout the tent, signaling that the others had heard the unfortunate words of adventure.

Maybe next time.

——————

thanks for reading! Any more prompts for one shots are welcome! I may do a list of fandoms I’ll write for soon :)

Tag list: @da3dm @i-am-beckyu @lunar-but-little @phoenix-on-the-run

[astorichan]

2, 21 and 25 for Straza + Shaye? (Either or both, whichever you prefer :3)

[This is for the edgy ask game]

2. What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

Shaye: probably the sheer level of unhinged they are. They tend to hold themself very still, very high-strung, and overall their appearance is more of a stoic, silent kind of character. It's when they talk or move that the illusion shatters.

Straza: how soft he really is. His mask gives him a bit of a narrow eyes, disgusted and egotistical look, which he prefers. But if you get the chance to grow closer to him, he's kind and thoughtful, likes putting others before himself.

21. Does your OC have any illnesses or disorders? How do they handle it?

Shaye: definitely depression, and some kind of a dissociative disorder. I'd hate to diagnose them, because I'm far from a psychiatrist, but they handle both Very Badly. They put every sensation in a little box to be looked at later, and just never come back to process anything. They are almost completely disconnected from their body and memories, too.

Straza: he battles depression as well, but he's better at handling it. He has tricks and coping mechanisms and he recognises the signals of deterioration and betterment fairly well. He does have a similar "later" mentality, and he shoulders the blame for everything instinctually, but he struggles to avoid the worst of it.

25. What is your favorite thing about your OC?

Shaye: their unhinged. They're an extremely fun narrator with a good sense of humour and satisfying flow to their introspect. Also, that unhinged leads to them having no limits for things they'd do for their loved ones, and that gives me many a good feeling.

Straza: his faith. He believes in people till the very bitter end, willing and longing to see everyone right their wrongs and do better. He wants to, deep at his core, see everyone chase the joys of life in whichever ways they can - he knows just how fleeting human lives are, and suffers deeply for the knowledge that almost no people actually give themselves space to enjoy that life. He loves wholeheartedly, with desperate abandon. I love the way he loves. I love how forgiving and thoughtful he is. I'm in Shaye's camp of not understanding how he can do that, but, yeah, it's my favourite thing about him.

[lady-laureline]

I want to get to the bottom of neurodivergent burnout. I feel like there are a lot of people that have no context to take it seriously in, so they don't.

As with a lot of these posts, writing this is my way of ironing out my own understanding - take it with a grain of salt, I'm not a professional. I've tried to keep it general but as I'm speaking from a late-diagnosed audhd experience, it will lean in that direction.

Also, depending on how much you relate, this may warrant a mental health trigger warning? There's self-talk that isn't very kind.

×××

The precursor to burnout is survival mode: a state in which the body doesn't allow itself to fully enter a state of rest, as it is perceived to be "unsafe" by the nervous system. Neurodivergent symptoms aren't always a cause for stress in and of themselves, but people displaying them quickly learn that symptomatic behaviour rubs others the wrong way, even if they lack the intuition to see why.

☁️ People don't like the way I behave.

×

This is compounded by miscommunication.

Say a divergent child says something that sounds neutral to them, but rude to everyone else. They might get reprimanded for hurting someone's feelings, but they don't see how what they said was hurtful. Say this child's requests for an explanation are seen as insolence instead of curiosity.

The adults might come away thinking the child needs more discipline. The child might come away knowing they did something wrong, but unsure as to what that was or how to avoid it in the future.

☁️ I can't trust myself to say good things, even if my intentions are good. If I say a bad thing, it's my fault even if I don't know why it's bad.

×

The more these situations crop up, the more the emotional takeaway morphs into low self-esteem and constant vigilance (to catch mistakes before they happen). As the child grows older and responsibilities increase, they are also faced with a more nuanced picture of society that they're already lagging behind - demanding more nuanced masking, which is already a separate workload - on top of battling those good old sensory issues.

To those who don't know what the fuss is about: you know when you have a fever and your skin is super sensitive? If you separate the tingliness from the discomfort, and then apply that discomfort to the rest of your senses, you'll get a pretty good idea of what sensory overwhelm is like. We don't all experience this the same way (for example, I'm generally fine with food textures but really sensitive to noise) or with the same frequency, but it tends to be both unpleasant and consistent.

These additional energy drains inevitably lead to feeling the effects of hard work without anywhere near the same results of our peers. The easiest explanation, and the assumption most uninformed make, is one of personal shortcomings. Laziness. Selfishness. A "bad attitude".

☁️ No matter how hard I try, it is not enough. I haven't earned my pain. I haven't earned my rest.

×

It's a frustrating experience, and all those feelings need to go somewhere. We learn skills such as silent crying to hide our "overreactions"; we use our anxiety as a driving force for productivity. Many disabled people have the dissociative method down pat. And then there's the assertive emotions.

Displaying anger out of bounds of the neurotypical context is a whole other kettle of fish. When the nervous system is cortisol city, things will boil over eventually. Any witness is likely to be unaware of the extent of the stressors that led up to this outburst, so it can seem to happen out of the blue. Plus, if the inciting incident appears insignificant to the onlooker, they'll probably think it's all a bit childish.

Say what you will about neurospicy social skills but we have a killer radar for cringe. Raise your hand if you smush down irritation on the regular. Better yet, raise your hand if you "never get angry".

☁️ My frustration is misplaced and out of proportion. If I show it, I lose the respect of people I care about.

×

Maybe we've been afraid to feel what we feel our whole lives, but there comes a point where something's got to give. We might even be making a conscious effort to get in touch with our emotions after years and years of ripping them down and sealing them away. It's a Pandora's box situation: once the seal is broken, there's no getting the horrors back inside.

That's usually the beginning of what is widely recognised as burnout. There is so much to sort through, life effectively gets put on hold, at least for those of us lucky enough not to crash and burn the moment we let go of the wheel.

Recovery isn't a matter of a little vacation time: it can take months or years, and it may not look like work but it very much is. The trauma runs deep and we have no choice but to get to the bottom of the trench if we don't want to be stuck in a permanent state of exhaustion. It can be isolating as there's not a lot of energy left for much else - overextend and your body will slap you back in line so fast your head will spin. And no, you do not get to choose what overextending yourself entails.

To anyone actually going through this, try not to keep yourself in check, at least when you're alone. Your psyche does not want to pretend anymore. Pretending has repercussions now.

×

It may come as a surprise that a lot of people don't take kindly to healing. A person in burnout recovery is (by necessity) less accessible, more self-centered, taking up more space and drawing new boundaries. Unmasking may reveal a person your friends don't understand like the contorted version of yourself they got to know. Furthermore - change, when seen as a threat, can cause people to lash out.

☁️ Healing is a punishable offense. It hurts those around me. They don't want me as I am, but they don't want me to change, either.

One of the things I've had difficulty accepting is that there are good, caring people in my life that don't deserve an explanation of what I'm going through. They might have a space in their hearts for the person they think that I am, but the capacity to truly get to know me isn't there, at least yet.

Once I'd been burned enough times, I made a decision to settle for nothing less than sincere interest as a prerequisite for any attempt to make myself understood. From there, it wasn't not far to the bittersweet realisation that the only person's permission I need to grow is my own.

×

I'm not sure how to wrap this up, which might mean future edits (there are always more edits), but the thought is complete enough to post.

I suppose there is no end to becoming one's own person, and even though the line between recovery and living can be blurry a lot of the time, existing with purpose is a decision each of us has to make.

I'm sending a telepathic hug to anyone who needs one right now. Take care of yourselves.

×××

The self-talk of some weird kid:

"People don't like the way I behave. I can't trust myself to say good things, even if my intentions are good. If I say a bad thing, it's my fault even if I don't know why it's bad. No matter how hard I try, it is not enough. I haven't earned my pain. I haven't earned my rest. My frustration is misplaced and out of proportion. If I show it, I lose the respect of people I care about. Healing is a punishable offense. It hurts those around me. They don't want me as I am, but they don't want me to change, either."

(I've included this depressing subconscious narrative because I think it's important to show how little unresolved rejections add up over time. One can put on a dazzling performance to meet social demands while believing all of that, and we desperately need community support that is informed and equipped to help them pick up the pieces once the show falls apart.)

[whitehairandblood]

Double Trouble | Oneshot

This is kind-of-but-not-really part of the canon BTL timeline, but is mostly just an AU that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote something for it.

I have no idea when (or if) I'll update BTL, but I thought I'd upload this one because I'm pretty happy with it. It's longer than anything I've written before which doesn't say much, but it still made me do a double take when I checked the word count

Jamie is a cis guy! They use they/them pronouns (unless there's a typo somewhere lol) but they are a cis man. It doesn't get clarified in the writing, so I wanted to do a little disclaimer up front.

CW: Hand whump (nail removal, finger mutilation), blood, reference to eye whump, sadistic whumper, multiple whumpees, referenced dissociation

"Torin. Are you sleeping?"

".. Torin?"

"Tryin' to."

"Oh. Sorry."

Torin sighs. He forces his body to relax in the uncomfortable chair again, willing himself to return to that blissful space between sleep and awareness.

"Uhm."

Torin groans, not even trying to mask his annoyance. He turns his head towards Jamie, still downcast, his unkempt hair obscuring all view the of his face. He struggles to catch a glimpse of Jamie's face through the thinning strands- made all the harder by his blindspot. 

He finds a deep weariness etched into their features, some strange combination of anxiety and exhaustion. It almost makes him feel bad for the kid.

Almost.

"What." He rasps, stomping down the urge to clear his throat right after. Every word scrapes painfully on its way out, taking considerable effort to even form, let alone speak out loud.

Screaming for hours tends to have that effect.

"I was just.. I wanted to say sorry. For earlier."

There's a sort of weariness to Jamie's own voice. They sound hesitant. Cautious, like one wrong word could set Torin off and make him launch himself from his chair, go right for Jamie's throat. They both know he's chained down, but even that seems like a small reassurrence compared to what Jamie's witnessed only a few hours ago. They knew Torin has killed before -it was hardly a secret, even to those who haven't read Stormchaser's confidential files in excruciating detail- but simply knowing about it and witnessing it firsthand are two entirely different things.

Even thinking about it makes Jamie want to rub at their own throat. Despite the perpetual trembling and heavy scarring, Torin's hands are just as strong as they look.

They just wish they hadn't found out about it the hard way.

But Torin doesn't attack. He just scoffs, turning his head to face forward again.

"About fucking time."

Jamie swallows.

"I- I mean it. I'm sorry. I was stupid. I just wanted to--"

"Wanted to what?" Torin hisses, venom dripping from every word. "To prove yourself? To show him he can't mess with you? That you're tougher than him? Tougher than me?"

"What?" Jamie sputters, "No! Not at all, that's not-"

"You think I haven't tried that before? Toughing it out? Hoping he'll get intimidated? Hoping he'll grow bored of the fight and stop coming back one day to leave me to rot?"

Jamie remains silent. Torin can practically hear the rapid thump-thump-thumping of their heart in the deafening silence.

Or maybe that's his own heart, trying to bruise his ribs from the inside.

Torin raises his head slowly. He doesn't miss the way Jamie flinches at the sight of his face, and something dark flutters in his stomach at the reaction. He knows what he looks like.

The blood covering his face.

The missing eye.

Some sadistic part of him enjoys Jamie's expression, that mix of horror and barely concealed disgust.

And that guilt. Oh, the guilt.

"I told you to keep your fucking head down. Don't talk to him. Don't give him what he wants. But you had to run your fucking mouth, because you had to have the last word, didn't you?"

When Jamie doesn't answer him, Torin leans as close towards them as his restraints would allow him. Even with the few feet still left between them, he can see Jamie trying to recoil, trying to get away from the perceived threat.

"Didn't you?"

"I'm sorry."

Jamie's voice sounds so fucking small in the vast emptiness of their concrete prison. They sound like they could burst into tears at any moment.

Torin's lip curls into a snarl.

"You fucking better be."

• • •

The door opens slowly.

The metallic creak of its hinges is what alerts the two captives before either of them could notice the movement, two heads turning upwards, one frantic, one resigned.

Salem enters the room. The door slams shut behind him, the sound of it locking reverberating inside the small enclosed space with a grim finality.

Torin's eye follows Salem's every movement from under the crusting blood and heavy eyelids. Their gazes meet for only a moment, but Torin's stomach churns at the wide grin Salem gives him.

"Glad to see you both awake and at it."

Salem receives no answer. He rolls his eyes half-heartedly.

"Oh come now. I like to think our last chat went exceptionally well. We only lost, what, an eye? A finger? That's not that bad. It could have gone worse if you ask me. Don't you think so, Snow White?"

Torin grits his teeth. He lets his head drop, if only to avoid Salem's shit eating grin directed at him. His fists clench on their own accord, the nauseating gap between his right pointer and ring finger making his stomach turn.

He shoots Jamie a whithering look from under his hair. Jamie averts their eyes, their hands shaking where they're bound behind the chair.

Salem continues.

"Anyways, I'm not here for you for once. Shocker, I know. Count your lucky stars while you still have the eye for it."

Salem turns to Jamie, then, with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"You, on the other hand..."

Jamie freezes up, all color draining from their face until they're white as a sheet. Their chest stutters as their breathing grows uneven. They look like they want to say something, even going so far as to open their mouth, but they quickly shut it when Salem takes a step towards them.

It earns them a humorless chuckle.

"Aww. What's the matter, princess? You seemed so eager to talk last time. I was hoping we could continue that chat, since we were so rudely interrupted the last time."

Jamie is acutely aware of Torin's murderous glare.

They keep their mouth firmly shut.

"Don't you worry, I'll get you to loosen up in no time." Salem says, ruffling Jamie's hair non-too gently. Jamie jerks their head away from the touch, resisting the urge to spit on Salem's shoes.

Salem chuckles.

"Cute. Answer just one question for me, though."

Jamie risks a glance upward, flinching back when they find themself face-to-face with Salem's grin.

"Which hand are you the least attached to?"

The silence that settles over the room is nothing short of suffocating. Jamie's breath gets caught in their throat, struggling to find its way past the steadily forming lump there.

"Wh- what?"

Salem's grin sharpens.

"You heard me. Left or right? Either you pick or I do, and trust me, you won't like what I choose."

Jamie's eyes dart around the room, looking anywhere, anywhere that's not Salem or his cheshire smile. They land on Torin, who raised his head upon hearing the question and is now staring, wide eyed. His gaze meets Jamie's, flicking from them to Salem and then back. His hands close into fists again.

Jamie yelps when a hand grabs their face and shakes.

"I asked you a fucking question, princess. Answer me before my patience runs out."

"Uh.. L-left."

In the corner of their eye, Torin turns his head away.

Salem releases their face with a rough shove.

"See, that wasn't so hard," he says, already stepping behind Jamie's chair.

He grabs their hands by their joined wrists. Jamie shudders when they feel Salem's breath ghosting against the back of their neck. His voice is entirely too close for comfort.

"I'm going to release your hands. Move a fucking muscle and I'll cut them both off. Mkay?"

Jamie winces when Salem squeezes their wrists, grinding the delicate bones against eachother. They shut their eyes, tight. Their answer comes a little too breathlessly for their liking.

"I understand."

Jamie can hear the grin in Salem's voice.

"Good. Stay still."

The rope binding Jamie's wrists falls apart, but they stay frozen like a deer in headlights. Salem moves their hands forward, and in the same movement, binds them to the arm rests of the chair. Jamie remains still throughout the whole ordeal, barely even breathing. Their eyes remain tightly shut until Salem snaps his fingers in front of their face to get their attention.

"Eyes up. I'm not telling you again. Close them again and I'll get right to chopping fingers, no warm up."

Jamie nods, finding a spot on Salem's face to stare at that are not his eyes- it ends up being his chin, and more specifically, a tiny birthmark right at the corner of his mouth.

But then that mouth grins, flashing teeth, and Jamie's eyes slip further down to Salem's neck. Lightning shaped scar tissue circles it, bursting from his throat and spreading in the shape of fingers wrapped around his neck.

Jamie shudders.

They hiss when Salem squeezes their wrist again, something sharp glinting in their other hand. Jamie's eyes fixate on it as it draws near. Their heart threatens to jump right up into their throat as a cold realization settles in.

"W-wait, that's- I said left! I picked left!"

Salem chuckles.

"Oh I know."

Jamie gasps when the blade, which turns out to be a scalpel begins to dig under their fingernail. Their breathing grows shallow as they begin to panic.

"W-wait, wait, please wait, please-!"

Fear begins to claw its way up their throat, threatening to choke them. They try to jerk their hand out of Salem's grip, but his hold combined with the rope binding them leaves absolutely no wiggle room.

The scalpel digs deeper, drawing blood.

"Stop, stop, stop, please, please, stop-"

Salem tuts.

"Good effort, princess, but you're not the one I want to hear right now."

Jamie's eyes snap up to Salem's face only to be met with that same cheshire grin. Salem then turns his attention to the one other person in the room.

Steel blue eyes meet gold.

The rage in Torin's eye is intense enough to make lesser men fall to their knees. However, Salem is not one of those men. Chained down as he is, all Torin can do is bore a hole through Salem's shit eating grin with his glare.

"Well, Snow White?" Salem asks, "Don't you have something you wanna say to me?"

Torin grits his teeth.

"Fuck you."

Salem shrugs.

"Fine then." He says, his tone light, dangerously so, as he turns back to Jamie.

Jamie's struggling begins anew when the scalpel returns, burying itself further. Blood wells up and seeps from under the nail, smearing on the armrest as Jamie's hand begins to tremble.

Their mindless begging gets interrupted by the occasional painful whimper or hiss as Salem digs the blade around, so obviously trying to stay quiet. Torin wonders, only for a moment, if that has something to do with their earlier scuffle.

Suddenly, an agonized scream cuts through his thoughts and leaves Torin's ears ringing.

"Oops." Salem mumbles, but Torin can hear that fucking grin in his voice, even if he can't see his face.

"Eh, it's fine. I still got 9 tries left."

Torin feels like throwing up.

It seems like after that initial scream, Jamie can't stop themself from making noise. Every movement of Salem's hand is followed by another yelp, another painful whimper, another half-hearted attempt at begging for mercy that they all know won't come until Salem gets what he wants.

At some point Jamie devolves into sobbing. By the third nail, they give up on coherent speech altogether.

By the third nail, Torin turns his head away.

He never stops listening though. Every little noise from Jamie just makes his stomach roll more and more violently, makes him want to burst his own eardrums if it meant he didn't have to hear it anymore. The smell of blood invades his nose, the coppery taste his mouth. He tries his best to find that middle distance again that kept him alive during his first run-in with Salem, force himself to focus on that instead of Jamie's audible suffering.

He almost manages it, until Salem roars in frustration.

He yanks the blade out from under the nail on Jamie's right ring finger, ignoring the sharp yelp it elicits.

The shaking in Jamie's hands have spread, turning into a full body tremble. Their breathing comes in short, sharp gasps, and Torin wonders how the kid remaines conscious at all. When he turns to look, he finds Jamie's eyes unfocused, staring into nothing. Fresh tears drip down from their chin.

"Fine. Fine." Salem huffs, dragging a bloodied hand through his dark hair. "Maybe I haven't made myself clear enough for you."

Torin's attention suddenly goes from Jamie to Salem, who's holding the scalpel in a white knucled grip. His other hand grips Jamie's hair roughly to make them look up at him.

"Pick a finger."

Jamie blinks a few times, still not really seeing Salem in front of them. Their voice sounds wrecked, barely a whisper when they try to speak.

"Wh.. W-what?"

Salem's grip on their hair tightens. Something sharp flares up in Torin's chest, but he stomps down the urge to test his restrains again. He doesn't dare move, holding his breath as Salem tugs on Jamie's hair to bring their faces to eye level.

"Pick. A. Finger. You don't want me to pick for you."

Before Jamie could even think of an answer, Salem brings the scalpel's blade back to their hand, causing them to tense again. His grip on their hair releases in favor of holding onto their wrist again.

"No, scratch that. Maybe I will pick for you. How about this one?"

The blade presses into the flesh on Jamie's middle finger, right above the first knuckle.

"You did flip me off yesterday, didn't you? As much fun as it was to whack off Snow White's finger for your fuckup, I don't want you to think you can get away with that shit again."

Jamie's eyes find their focus on the blade as it begins to dig in.

"No, n-no, stop, stop, please-"

"What do you think?" Salem asks, turning his head towards a wide eyed Torin. "Think I can cut through bone with this thing? It's really not meant for it, but you'd be amazed by the kinds of things you can do with a bit of elbow grease."

Torin shudders at the expression on Salem's face, nothing shirt of excited. Gleeful, even, as he turns back to his work and begins to move the blade back and forth. Jamie's screams fill the room once again, much more frantic than before, bordering on hysterical.

"Stop! STOP! Fuck, fuck, stop, stop stop stop, please stop, PLEASE!"

Torin can't take his eye off the scene. Blood spurts from the fresh cut, pooling under Jamie's hand until it overflows, dripping to the floor, staining Salem's hands and clothes alike. He ignores it, moving to press his weight onto the blade once he hits bone.

"Shit- this is harder than I thought." Salem chuckles. "I thought such a tiny fucking bone would snap by now, but what do you know? I should have brought the shears back with me, they worked so well the last time."

Salem lifts the scalpel blade after a few more moments, exhaling loudly. He sounds almost annoyed. Jamie's breath comes in hiccuping sobs, eyes once again unfocused as they stare at their blood covered hand.

"Maybe I can try closer to the joint. I feel like cartilage is easier to cut than bone, right? Is there even cartilage in your hands? Or just even more tiny fucking bones? Fuck it, I'm gonna try."

Jamie cries loudly when the blade returns, pressing right in the middle of the second joint.

"NO! No please, Salem please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry- please don't please don't please don't-"

"Oh my god, will you just shut the fuck up?!" Salem roars, pointing the scalpel at Jamie's eye. "Quit your fucking begging, because I'm not stopping until-"

"STOP!"

Everything comes to a screeching halt as Salem turns around. Torin meets him head on, eyes locked in yet another staring contest. The murderous expression melts away from Salem's face, replaced with something much, much worse.

Satisfaction.

His shit eating grin returns.

"Sorry, what was that? I didn't hear you."

Torin grits his teeth, fighting the creeping nausea. Jamie's eyes drift over to him, wide and shining with tears and hope. Torin ignores them.

"I said stop. For fuck's sake Salem, they're just a kid. You know they don't deserve this."

Salem pretends to consider his words.

"Hmm, ask me again. And be nicer this time. You know what I want to hear."

Torin swallows the bile in the back of his throat. He shuts his eye as he feels his face burn, what little remaining of his pride slowly getting chipped away.

"Please. Stop hurting them."

Salem tuts.

"Come on, Snow White, you can do better than that. Get creative with it. I know you can."

"Wh-" Torin stammers, caught off guard. Rage rears its ugly head again. "What the fuck do you want me to say? You got what you wanted!"

Salem turns back to Jamie without a word, and Torin's stomach drops. He throws himself against his restraints so hard his chair almost tips over.

"You got what you wanted you bastard! Get away from them- don't you fucking touch them! You hear me?!"

Jamie makes no sound when Salem's hand closes around their wrist again. Their eyes remain fixated on Torin, the full body trembling starting up anew. Salem throws a glance at Torin over his shoulder.

"You better think fast if you want to convince me not to hurt them. Getting those shears is starting to sound real tempting right about now."

"I'm- I already asked you! I already said please, I don't know what else you want!"

"Oh, I think you do." Salem drawls, leaning his weight onto Jamie's wrist until they wince. "Better get to it."

Torin licks his lips, eye wide as it searches Salem's face for something, anything that could give him a clue. Salem quickly grows tired, and without warning, stabs the scalpel right into the back of Jamie's hand. Jamie wails, fingers twitching uselessly.

"NO!"

"Chop chop, Snow White."

"FUCK! OKAY! Okay, just, don't- just stop- leave them alone, please just leave them alone. Fuck, please."

His own voice borders on crying now, desperation so overwhelming he struggles to breathe. He stomps down his pride when he feels Jamie's big brown eyes trained on him, boring a hole into the back of his head.

"Please stop, please stop hurting them, please. Leave them alone. You- you can hurt me instead."

Salem's eyebrows shoot up and Torin wants to disappear into the ground when he laughs in his face.

"You think I need your permission for that? No -although it's a tempting offer- that's not what I want. Think, Snow White. Remember our first few weeks spent together?"

Silence.

Then, realization.

Then,

"Absolutely fucking not."

Salem's expression darkens, but his smile remains the same. He releases Jamie's wrist to tangle his fingers in their hair instead, pulling their head back to bear their throat. Jamie yelps when the blade is yanked free from their hand, and Torin watches in silent horror as Salem instead raises it to rest right over their adam's apple.

"Be very careful with what you're going to say next."

Jamie's eyes never leave Torin. They only close them when they feel the blade graze the skin of their throat, smearing their own blood to leave a faint red line. They make a choked little noise, stuck between a gasp and a sob.

Torin shudders.

"Y.. You wouldn't."

"Are you willing to bet on that?"

Salem counts 7 seconds before Torin finally, finally fucking breaks. He hangs his head low, completely boneless in the chair he's bound to, his hands opening and closing behind him as he tries to collect himself.

He looks, for lack of a better word, absolutely crushed.

Defeated, thinks Salem. Fucking finally.

He mumbles something under his breath, too quiet for anyone to hear but himself. Salem's grip on Jamie's hair tightens and he tugs, causing them to cry out. Torin's head snaps up immediately.

"I did what you-!"

"I didn't fucking hear you." Salem hisses, "Say it again. Louder."

Another 5 seconds pass.

"Please.. please sir. Please don't hurt them."

Salem's grin makes Torin's stomach churn, right along the shame that's currently eating him up from the inside. He can't bring himself to look any higher than Salem's feet. His gaze shifts over to Jamie's bloody hand, then higher, to the scalpel still pressed to their throat, then slowly, slowly, up towards Salem's own neck.

He looks at his scars. At his handiwork. Something else sparks inside him, something that makes the shame all the easier to bear. It's the only reason he can bring himself to look Salem in the eyes at all, not missing his slight grimace when he notices Torin staring at his neck.

Jamie gasps when the blade is removed, their head falling forward when Salem releases his grip. His expression remains unchanged, grinning ear to ear. Torin questions whether or not he actually saw it change, or if his mind had been playing tricks on him.

He chooses to think he did.

"There we go. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Salem's tone sounds entirely too condescending for Torin's taste. His shame begins to melt away, giving way to anger once again when Salem steps away from Jamie to approach him instead.

He spits at Salem's feet. Salem stops, still entirely too close for comfort. If Torin didn't have his hands tied, he might even get to finish what he started all those years ago. There wouldn't be anyone to stop him this time.

Salem leans down, hands on his knees.

"I gotta hand it to you, you lasted much longer than I thought you would. It only took you, what, 3 years? Almost 4?" Salem taunts, watching the fine tremor in Torin's shoulders as he strains against his chains.

"I told you I always get what I want."

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

Salem chuckles.

"You've tried once already. Look where that got you."

Torin remains silent.

Salem straightens up. He turns to leave, his gaze lingering on Jamie's still shaking form. They've been awfully quiet for a while now, but the unsteady rise and fall of their chest reassures Salem. He stares at their mangled hand.

"I'll get someone to sort that out. Wouldn't want you to die of an infection before I'm done with you."

With that he leaves, slamming the heavy door behind him.

A heavy silence falls upon the room.

And then Jamie starts sobbing again.

[mostlydeadallday]

Lost Kin | Chapter XIX | Whisper in the Dark

Fandom: Hollow Knight Rating: Mature Characters: Hornet, Pure Vessel | Hollow Knight Category: Gen Content Warnings: referenced abuse, child death, panic attacks, dissociation, self-harm AO3: Lost Kin Chapter XIX | Whisper in the Dark First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter Notes:  It was coming eventually. Here's another reason Hornet didn't want to face the knowledge that Hollow was alive: it's proof of concept that any vessel could be. I sincerely wish her luck in dealing with that. Next chapter is one I'm particularly excited for: Hornet encounters a familiar figure on the shores of the Blue Lake. (Also @slimeel​ has done it again: check out the fantastic new illustrations for chapter 16—as well as my new icon! Isn't it shiny?)

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Hornet stayed at Hollow’s side for hours.

She watched their breathing steady, going back to the deep, nearly soundless rhythm they fell into in sleep, interrupted only by residual shivers as their body began to loosen from its tight curl. Their hand and arm gradually relaxed, losing some of the tense stiffness, the silk and padding she had wrapped it with coming to rest under their tucked chin.

Her arm was aching, but she did not stop. She shifted slowly, resisting the urge to groan or sigh as she changed position, never ceasing the stroke of her hand up and down their mask. When she had settled more comfortably, she gave a little more weight to her touch, curling her fingers a fraction to let her claws scrape softly across the faint whorls of living bone. She remembered how soothing it had been to feel her mother’s claws on her face, their knife-edge sharpness used so gently, that faint vibration humming through her skull, and Hollow seemed to feel it too–their eyelids dropped, closing over the ever-swirling void.

Time dragged on as she crouched there, heedless of the growing pain in her knees, heedless of everything she had meant to do. She could not have marked the moment when they fell asleep, nor what told her they had done so, only knew that the watchfulness went out of them, that last humming string of tension falling silent.

Still, she did not stop.

The light outside the window was well and truly gone. The only other illumination rose from the embers of her forgotten fire and the cluster of blisters still pulsing, weakly, on Hollow’s chest. Their other wounds had ceased to glow, fading to a dark and sullen color that she could barely see against the darkness of their shell.

The infection was leaving them. She had a chance at saving them, more of a chance than she had expected or hoped for, and she did not know what to do with it.

How much of her sibling remained, beneath the neglect and the pain and the memories of torture? Beneath the void she was told had stolen their life away?

More than she thought. More than she ever dreamed possible.

She allowed her gaze to roam as they lay still beneath her hand, similarities and differences striking her anew with faint shocks like built-up static.

What were they? What had the void changed? What had it left behind?

They could communicate. They could reason. They could feel pain, and fear, and something like comfort, if their relative calm now was any indication.

What did she do with a vessel that had not only survived the infection, but was sentient?

To what degree? They plainly had a mind, but she did not know how they could still be sane after what they had endured. Their mind might be as broken as their body. They might be able to communicate only the most basic of concepts: yes or no, pain or pleasure.

And did that make then any less worthy of respect, any less deserving of dignity? Did that excuse what she had done and how she had treated them?

No.

If she was damned, though, so was her father, and her mother, and everyone else who had ever treated them like an object, like a thing. What kind of person could they be, after an endless lifetime of neglect and suffering? What had they once been, and what had they become?

She knew their upbringing had been one of strict utility, their waking hours taken up by training and preparation. Rarely had she seen the Pure Vessel idle. The nearest they had come was their presence in the throne room while the Pale King held court, a rare occasion in and of itself. They had been a white-clad shadow on the edge of her vision, never stirring from their unnatural stillness, armored hands folded on the hilt of their nail. They were a symbol of power, of resolve, and she could hardly see that in them now, broken and bereft as they were.

Had they been this lonely, this afraid, even then? Had that perfect image been nothing but projection?

If so, if their awareness was not a new development, they had hidden it so well that she never had cause to doubt that they were anything more than what they showed the world.

She tried to imagine her life without a scrap of comfort, without a smile or caress or warm word from her mother, without the easy company and gentle tutelage of the Weavers. Without any acknowledgement of will, any respect for her decisions—any opportunity to make decisions at all.

Oh, gods—without a voice, without the ability to laugh or cry or scream when she needed to, with no words to express or explain herself, with no way to hum or sing or whisper to herself in the dark. Only eternal silence, eternal obedience to the being that had created her, with no choice but to become what he wanted her to be.

Her next breath nearly broke, nearly cracked, nearly bared everything she was trying to hide. Had they ever been soothed in this way? Had anyone ever offered them a kind word or a warm embrace? Had anyone ever thought to comfort them as the days grew long, as the kingdom crumbled, as the world narrowed and closed around them like the walls of a tomb? Certainly the Radiance had never done so, and she could not imagine her father ever reaching out to offer solace to a being he believed to be mindless.

Even as a hatchling, even before they grew to fill the role of knight, would either of their parents have thought to nurture a child they thought long-dead? Had anyone taken their hand when they stumbled, or lifted them up when they grew too tired to walk? Had anyone held them when they lay awake in the dark?

And how badly had they needed it, for them to defy all the odds and react to it now? How desperate must they be, to ask her to help them, to lean into her touch, though she had caused them nothing but pain?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, words nearly swallowed by the ache in her throat. “I’m so sorry.”

She was a coward to tell them now, when they could not hear her. And even if they could have heard, they could not answer. Their voice had been stolen long ago, when the Pale King first lowered their egg into the Abyss, when the hatchling within had drowned in the welling void, sacrificed and reborn before they ever took their first breath.

But she would not wish to hear that they forgave her.

She did not deserve to be forgiven.

She would not have offered forgiveness in their place. She would have lashed out with teeth and claws, extracting blood for blood, pain for pain, drawing forth screams where she had been given only silence.

And if the weight of a kingdom had been placed on her back? If thousands or millions of lives rode on her existence? If civilization itself depended on her cooperation?

She might have done the same. She might have stifled every spark of anger, every flicker of regret, and drifted through her own life like a ghost, believing herself capable of the impossible. She might have swallowed down her father’s demands and fulfilled his every wish, allowing his will to work through her hands and accepting every pain and terror he visited on her, all for the sake of a kingdom that she loved despite it all.

Hornet clenched her free hand in her lap to stop its trembling. When she thought of it in that way, she had already done it. She had already lived this lie, already acted out this charade. She was still bound to a task whose purpose had grown shaky, still sworn to a kingdom that had all but crumbled into dust. She could not leave, but neither could she stand by and do nothing.

She had been named Protector. It was one name she held that still meant something to her.

Even though she had failed.

Her vision blurred again, with exhaustion, with hunger. She blinked to force it clear. She had not allowed herself to think of it until now, but the evidence of her failure lay there in front of her: the Hollow Knight, free from their bindings, from the seals that had ensured their stasis. And despite all the fragile, desperate plans she had spun in the interim, she was still no closer to discovering another stopgap, another method of holding back the infection.

It was finally over.

Hornet shook her head violently, once. She could not afford to think like this. She could not allow herself to be weak. No matter what had happened to the seals, she would find a way to restore them. She would step into the Dream herself if need be. The Radiance could not be unleashed upon the world.

More than just Hallownest would suffer for it.

But where had she gone wrong?

Maybe she had allowed herself to falter one time too many. Maybe she hadn’t been strong enough. Maybe, after countless years spent watching, waiting, her vigilance had slipped.

She hadn’t even been there when her mother’s seal had broken. She hadn’t felt it happen, though she always thought she would.

Herrah had died alone, in her sleep, surrounded by the corpses of her people, and her daughter had not even noticed.

She had sat there for hours before, on days when she could no longer bear the chaos of the falling kingdom. The bedchamber had been a constant, something she could return to and rely upon, always the same restful silence, always the same seals gleaming bright in silk and soul. She had slept at Herrah’s side when she could not sleep anywhere else, had held her mother’s hand and spoke to her and touched her—much as she did now, for Hollow.

Hollow was not Herrah. Hollow, at least, would wake.

Hornet looked down, tracing the gradual curve of their mask as they slept, her thumb grazing the faint seam under their mask where their mouth would open, though she had never seen it. Did they have fangs like her, hidden away behind their jaws? Short, serrated ridges, like the queen? Or rows of jagged teeth that could snap open in threatening display, like their father?

She let her hand drift down from their horn, keeping the pressure of her touch constant while she gave in to curiosity. There were vents there, under their jaw where their mask ended, where their dark skin vanished beneath the lustrous white. Vents that silently eased open and closed in time with their breathing, barely visible but brushing her fingers with a steady flow of air, slightly warm.

 The skin itself was bare, soft as velveteen, soft enough to catch lightly on her callused pawpads. It extended down under the thin, hard plating—almost more like scales—that covered their throat. They took after the Pale King in most ways, though parts of their biology were still alien to her, mirroring neither Root nor Wyrm. Perhaps something ancient coded into the void, some impression of life that had once existed there.

All vessels were similar in a few marked ways. The horned masks. The black chitin. The empty, staring eyes. But she had never had cause to linger over them, to wonder at their makeup or compare it to her own. All her other encounters—

Her hand scraped to a stop.

All her other encounters with vessels had ended in death.

Except one.

She took a breath of chilly air that seemed too thin to sustain her. Suddenly she was above herself again, pushed backward and out of her body by the force of realization crashing in.

So many vessels. They flashed in her memory, white mask upon white mask, soulless eyes and little grasping hands, and the ease with which they died, spitted on her needle or strangled in her silk.

It seemed unthinkable, now, but she had never bothered to count them.

How many?

How many?

Were they all as Hollow was? Were they—did they feel? Did they fear? Had they longed for company, for sympathy, for mercy, right up until her blade split them open and their shades rushed free?

How many vessels had she murdered?

A high, wheezing whine broke through, and she looked down at Hollow in alarm before realizing her own throat thrummed with the noise, and her hand shook on their mask, and her eyes were burning fierce as fire.

Hornet jerked back, swallowing down the sound before she woke them. They did not stir, exhausted, and she could not blame them.

She had hurt them. But at least they lived.

She could not say the same for the others.

She had thought—she had thought—

But it didn’t matter now, did it? They were dead. They were all dead.

The sobs she had buried earlier clawed their way back to the surface. Her breath came shallow, quick as wingbeats, pathetically high over Hollow’s slow, rasping inhale.

They didn’t wake.

She didn’t think she could bear it if they did. If they looked at her with those fathomless eyes, if they reached out for her, if they trusted her—

They couldn’t know what she’d done in the name of protecting them. The lives she’d ended, the graves she’d dug, the losses she’d never mourned. The losses she had never known to mourn.

In the name of ensuring the stasis. Of preserving the kingdom.

Of extending their suffering.

She’d killed them. She’d killed her siblings.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know—

And it didn’t matter.

The walls were closing in, and when she pushed up on shaking legs it seemed her horns would scrape the gilded ceiling. The room was small, and tight, and damp and cold and suffocating and she couldn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do it anymore.

She staggered to the hearth, where her things lay, and scraped them up, nearly dropping her needle to the floor when her tingling hands fumbled with its weight. The soul vessels and spare knives in the knapsack clattered like breaking glass, and she gasped and pressed them close, afraid to look over her shoulder, afraid to find that she had disturbed them, afraid to meet those eyes again.

They didn’t know, but she would still see her own guilt reflected there. She would see the accusation, the pain.

How many could you have saved?

Why am I the one you chose?

Her shell clenched tight around her heart. Her lungs fluttered wetly against their cage. She needed out. She needed out of this house, out of this city, out of her own crawling skin.

Dizzy, she clutched her belongings to her chest with one hand and fumbled along the wall with the other, feet scuffing along the rug in the dark, eyes burning, unblinking. She had to go. Where, she didn’t know, didn’t care. She had to fly, had to move, had to pry this guilt out of her chest. She needed to run, needed to feel the burn of her legs and the buzz of her silk until the pain in her body drowned out the pain in her soul. She would cut down every husk she saw, drawing the sharp outlines of battle around her mind, etching them again and again until this muddled blur of grief was erased. She would kill and kill until she balanced her scales, until she outweighed the lives taken by her void-stained hands.

How could it ever be enough? How could she ever be enough?

She couldn’t. She couldn’t be. She would never be.

She threw a last desperate glance over her shoulder. Hollow lay crooked on the pallet, knees hanging over the edge, back and side streaked with inky void and smears of tarnished gold, gone dull and dark now that their wounds had finally clotted.

She had saved them.

She had doomed them.

She had done what she had to do.

That wasn’t enough anymore.

Cracked chitin, leaking void. A pale mask, cleaved in two. Soft claws scratching, round eyes bleeding, crying. Limbs going limp, little shades surging free. The accusing glare of those bright, bright eyes.

Hornet choked. Stumbled back, putting the wall between her and them. Her free hand found the door; she had just enough sense left to open it slowly so the hinges would not creak. The key was a swinging weight around her neck; she fumbled it into the lock, turned it with fingers already slippery from the rain.

And if there were tears sliding down her mask amid the chilly tracks of raindrops, if a muffled sob escaped her throat, if she stood hunched against the door for a moment and pressed her hand flat against the timeworn shellwood, if she whispered a weak apology there, a pitiful plea hammered to silence under the pounding rain, before she shoved off and staggered away—

If that was so, there was no one there to see.

○

Hornet ran.

She ran until her knees throbbed, until her thighs trembled, until her arms numbed and her breath rubbed her throat raw. She ran until the rain diminished to drizzle and then to the occasional cold drip, falling with a tick, tick on her dirt-streaked mask.

And when she could run no longer, she flew, needle strung and thrown with frantic rhythm, yanking herself through the whistling air as if pursued by the deadliest of foes.

She had no plan, no direction, and she knew that this was foolish, and she did not care. The burning energy in her core was enough. The quick flicker-blaze of instinct was enough. Anything to keep her from thinking, from remembering the hot-cold sting of void on her shell, the crunch of splintered chitin under her needle, the twitch of a hand or a foot as she stood watching, waiting for the stillness of true death—

Her swing pulled up short and a stone platform slammed into her thorax. Air left her lungs in a sudden gush. Her needle clattered away, out of reach; empty space yawned beneath her scrabbling feet, dust and stones falling through the dim blue distance and vanishing into the fog.

Feet slipped. Claws slid backwards. Panicked, she grated out a hoarse yell, firing off a hectic cloud of silk. A great gout of soul burned up in an instant, manifesting in fine, lashing filaments that wrapped her and the platform both, enveloping her in a clumsy, sticky web that—thankfully—took some of her weight and allowed her to half-climb, half-wriggle up the side, scraping her mask and knocking her knees on the rough surface in the process.

Her legs wouldn’t hold her at the top. Panting, she rolled to safety and lay face-up, left hand feeling sloppily for her needle, though her fingers were too weak to grasp once she found it.

For an instant, a single, blessed instant, she did not think anything at all. The height and the pain and the pounding terror had stripped it all away.

Then the emptiness became a lack, an impression of what was missing, and she remembered.

Murderer.

Something edged out of her throat. A whimper.

Pathetic.

Anything that saw or heard her now would think her easy prey, and she was, lying limp and exhausted in plain sight, in an area she had not even scouted, a cavern she had no indication it was safe to rest in.

Where was she?

Sitting up was one of the hardest things she could think of, but she did it, fighting against the fatigue that dragged at her, against the dizziness that made the drifting mist tilt and sway.

A sense of silence was the first thing that came to her, an eerie incompleteness, with only the faraway dripping of stalactites to break it. No shuffling footsteps or rasping breaths disturbed the quiet, which indicated no husks nearby—at least not the fully mindless types that frequented the City. The air was damp and chill, but grayer, with a clammy, briny scent she recognized immediately. Far away at the end of the room, a steady light flickered, dreamlike, against the ceiling, like a piece of fabric suspended in the air.

That was why the room was so quiet. She was in the caverns beneath the Resting Grounds.

She had fled almost all the way to the Blue Lake.

Fled was the word for it. To leave Hollow alone when they were so vulnerable, when they had deteriorated so quickly the last time she left them, when she knew their fever had still not broken, that she had work yet to do.

And that was only the beginning.

The vessels’ faces intruded on her vision, one blurring into the other, much the same and yet all different, in ways she had never bothered to learn. She had been told that they were mindless, empty, all but husks themselves, and she had never seen any point in differentiating them, in memorizing the shapes of their horns or the drab colors of their cloaks. Never wanted to look deeper than the all-encompassing black that swam behind their eyes, never wanted to ponder what they may have been like before the void consumed them.

She had had enough pain in her life. She saw no use in inflicting more. Imagining who the vessels may have been, the kind of life they might have had, would never make her less alone. It would never make them family.

And everything she had put off then, every thought she had tried to bury and every stray fantasy she had folded away—all of them were crowding her now.

Small and weak, most of them had been. Easy to finish off. Tenacious, though in a blind, single-minded way that she attributed to whatever sub-sentience the void bestowed. They wanted what the void wanted, which was oneness. Unity. And they would never stop pursuing that, at the cost of what remained of Hallownest.

That goal drove them to attempt to unseal the Hollow Knight.

None of them had gotten very far, thanks to her.

She coughed, hard and long, and when she could draw breath again it rattled almost as much as Hollow’s. The muted blue-gray of the cavern drained to black and white for a moment until she steadied herself, and blinked, and deliberately pulled in one breath, then two.

Were the vessels only ever doing what she would have done for one of her own kind? Were they the only ones who might have understood how much Hollow suffered?

How could she have killed them for it?

Blindly, movements stiff and rote, Hornet dragged her needle to her side and levered herself up with it, standing as well as she could with her legs still trembling like leaves. Even with her energy shriveled to ashes, even as her throat burned with every breath, she could not stop. She could still run. She had to. She would run until—

Until—

She would just run.

Her needle bounced off the rock with her first throw, and she cursed as she reeled it back in, the silk running cool as water through her too-warm palms. She needed soul again, and soon; she’d consumed far too much of her reserve in that frantic silk-storm. That kind of undisciplined use was exactly what her tutors had had to hammer out of her.

At least it had kept her alive.

She huffed a cracked laugh and threw again, aiming for the rippling light, then swung from the platform and into the air.

○

Taglist: @2amtime @moss-tombstone

Send an ask or reply to this post to be added to (or removed from) the taglist!

[shinebrightlikeanarwhal]

sallyface characters + there younger selfs

HOW AM I JUST NOW SEEING THIS OMFG

Travis (au version) would probably be so embarrassed seeing the scrawny, and aggressive little kid he was. Especially seeing the look of surprise and hope flash in his little eyes. Younger Travis would have no idea things have to get worse for him to get better, if he is lucky enough to go down the same path as him. (Canon) there would be a dissociation between them. Travis would hide himself in the cults robe and mask so his younger self doesn't have to fear for what's to come. Especially when regarding his blind eye and however his father afflicted him with it.

Sal (AU) and his younger self would sit down and chat over guitar playing. Something nice and sweet for the boys to enjoy. They talk seriously about the future, what to be careful of and to trust their feelings. Y!Sal: Even about travis? A!Sal: Especially about travis.

Sal (Canon) would probably just stare silently at his younger self. Recount the good days when he was young and had the world to roam with his brother and friends. When he didn't worry about demons taking over the town. A Cult leader that somehow was connected to a high school bully. Just himself and his friends on a wacky adventure. The Younger Sal would ask questions and either get nothing or very vague responses. Sal knows himself well enough to know that will be the only answer he gets.

Larry (AU) and younger Larry would 100% have a field day. Recounting the glory days of their years. Laughing about past and present flings. A!Larry hinting at Larry about Travis and cackling at the embarrassed and angry expression. He doesn't ruin the surprise but he does enjoy seeing the little pep in his step as Y!Larry runs back to the others.

(TW: SU!C!DE MENTION) Larry (Canon) and Y!Larry have a very awkward encounter at first. The realization dawning on Y!Larry hurts as they both silently sit. They dont look at eachother, they just stare into the void. Y!Larry: Does it hurt?

A!Larry: Like a bitch at first.,,

Y!Larry: Were we alone?

A!Larry: Nah

Y!Larry: Was it terrifying?

A!Larry: Nah, I don'ts think so... it kind of just stops.

Y!Larry: Do they miss us? A!Larry: Everyday. Ma keeps the shirt in a nice box in her closet with our picture.

[cupidcreates]

Hi, I hope the last day of 2020 will be a success for you. I have a request for yandere Dabi and / or Chisaki when they hear that their dear, affectionate s/o call them "love" or "happiness of my life"

Affectionate Names

With Yanderes Dabi and Overhaul

(Oh my fucking GOD beech I’m SO SORRY this took LITERAL MONTHS to post. I promise I’m never gonna let an ask sit for that long again holy crap. I really hope this was worth the wait bestie, I tried really hard to make it cute for you nonny. Hope you like it!)

Touya Todoroki - Dabi

Disgust, Anger, Hatred, Fear, Dabi’s used to these emotions playing across the faces of the people he interacts with. He knows how he appears to others, how his very visage causes visceral reactions of discomfort in others. He’s fine with that, in fact he revels in it.

If it’s not the abject loathing of a stranger than it’s the cool detachment of his allies. Dabi finds a sort of warmth, even an odd sense of comfort in their gazes. It’s distant, reserved, and to the point; Dabi never has to question what his allies want from him or what their intentions are.

The indifference many find cold is rather temperate to Dabi. 

The fair weather is what he likes. Nothing too cold, nothing too hot, nothing can be resurrected from mild memories.

Dabi was content with this treatment.

Until he met you.

It had been a long time since anything stoked the kind of fire in his chest like you did. Heat typically coincided with anger, but you didn’t make him angry.

That’s not to say he didn’t mistake it for anger at first. He definitely wanted you dead, seemingly at random, for a few days after seeing you pass by him on the street.

But after a while of reflection he realized you didn’t ignite his hate the way thoughts of his family, his father, or society did.

No, this was a completely different feeling, something brand new.

Something to be explored, immediately.

There was something about you he needed, something you had that he had to get for himself.

And Dabi’s not one to not get his way.

He set out to have you, and have you he did. It took longer than he might have liked (though, anything but immediate compliance is too long for Dabi) and you put up a better fight than he would have expected but he did eventually get you swept away from your previous life.

In his mind he won you over.

In your mind, and in reality, he stole you away from your home in the dead of night and trapped you in an undisclosed location until you eventually broke and developed Stockholm syndrome.

After all, he wasn’t mean to you. He kept you fed and watered, the basement stayed a nice mild temperature, and the rats that scuttled about were actually kind of cute when you looked at them the right way.

You were eventually happy, which is what Dabi wanted as it finally allowed him to get close to you.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted from you. He’d started by simply sitting by your side (once you had calmed down enough to let him do so without screaming) then he progressed to holding you (awkward as it was at first) and once he could trust that you wouldn’t run off he allowed you free roam of the hideout.

Free roam as in you were attached to his hip.

He brought you nearly everywhere, as if he was a child and you were his favorite stuffed bear. He wasn’t sure why he felt he needed you around, but he figured he’d find out if he gave it enough time.

And it’s not like you were trouble, you were actually very helpful, getting him out of more than a few scrapes and sticky situations.

He eventually surmised that this, whatever you two had going on, was something like the affection he missed out on in his youth. It was nice to hold your hand, nice to sit you in his lap as he listened to Shigaraki drone on about his next plan, nice to spend a night with you on the rooftops. 

The time he spent with you didn’t strike a chord in him like his first encounter with you did, but he was content.

He could only ever be content.

He didn’t need anything stronger than baseline serenity.

Or so he thought.

He thought right up until the night he was sitting alone in his room (room being a generous term for the hovel hole in the wall he kept his nearly flattened mattress in) dissociating after a very long day.

Dabi tried not to dissociate frequently, it was best to stay aware of your surroundings when you’re a wanted criminal, but when he did allow himself to fall into this state he was typically here for hours. Nearly comatose as he fled back into his mind.

You knocking softly at the door went completely unnoticed, in fact he didn’t even realize you were there until you had entered the room and sat next to him on the mattress.

Your presence took him completely by surprise and shocked him out of his stupor. It took him a moment to recover his composure and re-mask, and in those several seconds with his guard down you saw Dabi’s face more youthful and innocent than you ever had.

You’d asked him a question, he was aware of that much, but the only thing he caught, the only thing he registered was the word at the very end of your sentence.

“Are you okay, love?”

Love

Rather forcefully Dabi was taken back to his childhood; before his quirk manifested, before his siblings were born to replace him, before his own family turned on him in favor of his youngest brother. It had been so long since someone had called him love; so long since his mother would come into his room early in the morning and brush his bangs out of his face, softly calling to him to wake him up and ready him for the day.

Having already been in a vulnerable state, the name cut through him like a knife. Shaken to his core by the memories ripped fresh in his mind he was, for the first time in his life, grateful that his tear ducts had been burned away so long ago.

He gave nothing away, his face already masked up again and his demeanor its typical cool indifference. He spoke to you as he always had, the tremble in his voice only perceptible to him.

He pushed his head into your shoulder and was silent for a while, just taking in you presence, before offhandedly telling you that he didn’t mind if you called him that again. In private of course.

Love

He thought he could get used to that.

Kai Chisaki - Overhaul

Open affection was not only not necessary in Chisaki’s life but also abjectly disgusting.

Perhaps he never really had good examples of tender kindness and open endearment as a child. Maybe he simply couldn’t comprehend affection in the way others could.

In any case, physical fondness and other such displays of the sentiment were completely foreign to Chisaki.

He didn’t mind this, he had much more pressing matters to attend to. Having a partner of any sort other than business would only slow him down.

Oh but you just had to come along, didn’t you? Had to go nosing around where you didn’t belong, a foolish venture already, and then you had to be incompetent's enough to get yourself caught waist deep in his business.

It didn’t matter, you didn’t matter, whatever you knew about what he was doing didn’t mean a damn thing. All he had to do now was keep you quiet.

For good.

He had to kill you, this much he knew. He’d have no issue doing it, after all who were you anyway? A nosy little cashier at a run-down shop on the brink of bankruptcy. You had no family, if you did they certainly didn’t care about you if the state of and neighborhood your apartment was located in was anything to go by.

You were a threat to the sanctity of his mission, a potential interference to his operation. Simply put you had to go. This was fine, nothing personal. Just business.

But oh you just had to didn’t you? Had to look at him with the most pathetically pleading eyes he’s ever seen as you begged him to let you live. You already knew what he was up to, undoubtedly you understood the torture and death he willingly inflicted upon others. You knew the pleading would do you no good, surely you knew your death was inevitable.

Except that it wasn’t, was it.

Because you had to, you had to come along with a face too sweet to be atomized. Had to, somehow, worm your way into his brain and stop him from dismantling your upper body.

Was this your quirk? Were you somehow influencing him? It had to be something of your doing, the tightness in his chest and warmth in his stomach was something of your doing.

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to destroy something so precious, so pure even. He just couldn’t do it.

But no obstacle comes without workarounds, and he didn’t have an underground labyrinth of empty rooms to not be used.

So if killing you was out of the picture, his only recourse was to keep you hidden away. At least long enough for him to figure out a permanent solution for you.

Living toys are so much more fun to play with anyway.

He kept you holed up in a secret room, watched your every move as months passed. You were very interesting to him, in fact he found almost all of his (precious little) spare time consumed by you. He made sure to visit you daily, though your fear kept you mostly mute at the beginning.

Once you were sure he wasn’t going to obliterate you, he noticed you relaxed and even opened up a little bit. You even allowed him to touch you gently a few times and, to his surprise, he never broke out after his skin made contact with yours.

He figured you must have been sent to him, by some divine or cosmic intervention. You grew on him quickly and he made sure to pamper you in any way he could, moving you to a larger, more luxurious wing of the lair and making sure you had three meals a day of only the best quality food.

One morning he’d decided to visit you earlier than usual, walking down the long hallway towards your room and considering the topic of conversation today.

As he neared your room he overheard you speaking with the associate assigned to your meal delivery today. Pausing just outside the door he caught the tail end of your conversation.

“...so lonely until Chisaki visits. The room is lovely but he’s truly the only happiness of my rather dull life.”

Chisaki considered this for a moment. Perhaps it was a clever deception? Something for him to intentionally overhear and cause him to lower his guard?

Couldn’t be though, he’d never visited you this early, if you wanted to deceive him you’d have waited until your evening meal to speak these words.

A sudden, rather disconcerting warmth overtook Chisaki; Like a flower of light suddenly blooming in his chest he was overtaken by the urge to abandon everything and stay by your side until he withered away and his bones turned to dust.

Regaining his sanity he shook the thought from his head. He’d worked too hard for too long to let go of this now. No, he’d have to continue with his operation, the consequences of letting go now would be too great.

He was, however, sorry to hear that your life thus far had been dull. Had you said this months ago he would have scoffed, because of course the life of a cashier was dull; but now, after months of you having been here, it should have improved.

The only assumption left for him to make was that this must have been his doing. Fair enough on his part, as he couldn’t be sure trusting you was a wise idea.

But if this was how you truly felt about him, maybe he could consider letting you have greater roam of the property. He might even allow you time outside.

Only if you brought your happiness along, of course.

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia Ch 19

Your bags were jumping and sliding around in the back of Madeline's rusty pickup truck. She had been kind enough to offer you a ride up to the lodge when she stopped by the shop earlier.

Madeline had seen the sour look Nate kept sending you and how you were intentionally not looking over towards the soon to be graying young man. Not one to beat around the bush she asked what was up, mam bear mode peeking through.

Nate was just being a dick to you and saying you had to stay with the Cowells longer than what had originally been agreed to. Big Jo seemed fine about letting you go back home now, even with your resolve set to continue hanging out with Toby. But Nate was trying to put a tight leash on you since you “wouldn't listen to reason” - so he said.

Even with security at the cottage updated Nate still thought it best to keep you with them if you were planning to still interact with Toby. More than likely he was trying to make that harder for you to do since staying with them would definitely make it easier for him to keep track of you.

The thought alone set shivers down your spine. Like a constrictor slithering up your back to rest around your neck and do what it does best.

It had been really hard to breathe these last few days.

But all Madeline needed to hear was “Nate” and “being a dick” before she said she'd take you herself. Thereby ending the conversation and silent argument in the shop, as she spun on her heel stating when she'd pick you up later.

Nate hadn't been too happy about the exchange but he could suck your dick. He's been annoying you with all this Toby bullshit and doesn't get to tell you what he thinks right now.

The drive up is silent, but that comfortable kind of silence between two old friends who don't ever really have a need to talk to hang out. It's nice because it gives you tons of time to think about just what you're about to do.

Going over several scripts all at once in your head.

You want to talk to Toby. You still haven't read that file but it just doesn't sit right with you that it was ever even given to you in the first place. Toby being completely unaware of the total breech of privacy makes your stomach flip just like your bags in the back right now. It's not like you ever asked for the detailed life file but at the same time it feels wrong not to let Toby know tht something like that even exists for him. His past being dug back up all without his knowledge or consent. And now here you were about to lay it right down in front of him.

Was this the right move? You're the one bringing it to his attention, if it's something that will mess him up it'll be your fault that he's upset. Jo and Nate may have gotten the information but you still count yourself as being a complacent party to all of this.

Your stomach feels like it's on a drop tower as it sinks further into a pit of guilt.

You feel like the scum of the Earth right now. Hopefully he isn't too upset.

Seeing your downcast eyes, you were a lot more expressive than you ever really realized, Madeline pipes up, “You gon' be ok there sport?”

A small smile bit at your lips. There's a reason Madeline Cobb was known in Kepler as Mama. She took care of those she saw as her own and that was damn near half the town at this point. Hell you'd heard a rumor she raised most this town. The lodge had been her orphanage  before all the kids grew up and turned it into a resort once new arrivals stopped coming. That's probably the reason it's always been so warm and welcoming, it was a home first.

“Yea...just nervous.”

She lets out a small chuckle at you.

“Don' be, 'm sure that Toby boy will say 'yes'. And if he don' well you just come find me. I'll set him right.”

Ok now you were just confused.

“Huh?”

“Don' worry about it, he likes you jus' like you like 'im. It'll work out for you two.” she reaches over and ruffles your hair before jumping out of the pickup. You hadn't realized you were already at your destination.

And it was too late to correct Mama, she'd already made it inside the lodge, about why you were so nervous. The warmth in your face makes you even more grateful for your mask. Barclay was getting bit by the end of the night, the man really needed to get a boyfriend and stop trying to manifest one for you.

The door to the lodge opens again, you hardly paid it any mind. So lost in your own musing you didn't even notice the man walking towards you. Your goat plush had fallen beneath your seat and you were attempting to grab it but it was too far out of your reach.

“You good there?” Toby's amused voice calls, startling you.

Popping your head out of the opened car door. Heart racing faster at the sight of your friend standing there with a small smirk on his bandaged face. You weren't ready for this.

His eye looks better, well like a normal black eye and not a swollen lump that threatened to over take his socket. Now his eye looked like it could still function out of the slight opening. Fuck this was hard enough when you'd pictured only one eye looking at you but now you had to calculate for both!?

Is it weird that this is what worries you? Are you derailing from the actual situation? Distracting yourself so the conversation is easier on you. So you don't have to think about the possibility that Toby won't want to be friends after this. That he'll end up hating you for something you hadn't done.

God you really want to cry.

“Hey, space cadet.” Toby's made his way over to your side and puts a gentle hand on you knee, “You ok? Did something happen?”

He's really sweet, you're going to miss him.

No, stop. You need to get a grip and stop thinking like this. Toby will understand and you guys can continue being friends, a bit awkwardly but still friends. You'd get to hang out and maybe wander through the Monongahela together.

“I...I dropped my goat.”

He cocks his head to the side, brows slowly smoothing out and he gives a gentle squeeze to your legs as he reaches under you, hand searching for your lost plush.

The warmth that was once collecting in your cheeks shoots down past the void sitting in your stomach. Just another thing to add to your list you suppose. After a week of nearly no privacy or comfort you are thoroughly pent up. You don't necessarily want Toby, just need someone or something to help relieve the fire between your thighs. He just happens to be in proxcimity of that fire, poking the flame that hasn't been snuffed during your stay with the Cowells, making it dance and writhe reminding you of the need.

But you can't focus on that yet, you'd give yourself a hand when you finally got back home. Right now you needed to focus on Toby. And having that uncomfortable conversation.

“Here he is.” placing the goat in your lap he looks into your eyes, a slight glint in his.

He's in a really good mood tonight. You have to ignor the whispers in your head, telling you you're about to ruin this for him.

Luckily a tic to the right shoos those thoughts away for you.

“YN?” his hand is back on your knee, it's such a small gesture maybe even completely subconscious but it helps ground you.

You haven't read that file but you can't see Toby ever doing something awful enough to warrant Nate's barrage of paranoia and fear. Even if he did....he couldn't still be bad right? You're such a good judge of character and you called Brian on his masking there's no way you'd miss Toby lying to your face.

“I...” he's looking into your eyes searching as you take a steadying breath, “I just really need a slushie right now.” your eyes drop to the goat in your hands.

You fucking coward.

It's silent for a moment as you chastise yourself for not just coming out and telling Toby you wanted to talk. Toby's hand falls easily from your knee and to his side.

“A'right then, you good to drive?” you really missed your chance here, “'cuz Brian's got Connor tonight.”

Wait what?

You look at Toby who simply raises the right side of his mouth in a lopsided grin. A subtle raise of his right brow tells you he understood what you'd asked for. When was the last time anyone was ever able to read you so well?

“Yes!” you push the goat into Toby's chest and practically dive into the back seat for your bags. “I can drive. Franklin?”

“Don't work tomorrow, so sure.”

His good mood seems to pick back up a bit. He's chuckling as you rush to gather everything and head over to your car, barely shutting Mama's door as you do. Toby gives it a good bump with his hip to make sure it shut properly. He unlocks your car for you and slides into the passenger's seat while you arrange your shit in the trunk.

You catch sight of the skull still in your trunk and figure you'll just leave it as is for now. Since it seems that literally every time you close this trunk you forget it exists. Bye weirdly placed deer skull maybe one day you'll have a wall mount worthy of your beauty.

Before closing the trunk you do rab the file. Maybe having it up front with you will help you actually tell Toby about it.

When you open the driver's side Toby's hand is already outstretched and waiting for your phone, this isn't his first rodeo after all. You can't help but smile as you hand it right over to him. He notices, because of course he does, and beams back at you. Sending more warmth throughout your body. After collecting your emotions the guilt comes back around.

You need to stop being horny on main. And in front of Toby no less. It's weird, like you're riled up for him and not because you're attention starved and haven't known solitude for over a week.

By the time you're driving off the lot Toby had picked you 'Let's drive to nowhere' playlist. A perfect choice for tonight, seeing as these are all either songs to dissociate to or have mental break downs with. And with you obnoxious emotions either is up for grabs. Aside from the music the car was silent as you drove out of town.

You were so wrapped up in what to say to Toby, how to say it, when – that you ended up not saying anything at all. Toby on the other hand couldn't wait for you any longer and broke the silence himself.

A habit he seems to have, must not like silences.

“Normally you don't shut up,” the words were harsh but his tone wasn't for once.

He watches as the scenery changes from quaint country road to interstate. “Did something happen?”

An awkward anxious smile makes its way on to your face. You've never been good at schooling your features and smiling was unfortunately your default in the even of confrontation. It was probably just your brain's way of protecting you from emotional trauma.

“Sorta.”

To his credit Toby waits for three full songs before prying for more information.

“Another attack?” he's on edge.

To be fair you are too.

“No, like hell Jo and Nate wo-would let me leave if that were it.” your head jerks twice to the right. You miss Toby's wince.

Nate barely let you leave the shop today, you had to get outside assistance aka Mama.

“Ok, so what happened then?” as you bit your lip trying to find your words Toby is running through his own list of possibilities. “Dis Ma- Tim do something to you?”

Huh?

Why would Tim have anything to do with this? Are they still fighting? But Brian has Connor tonight...that doesn't seem likely but you've really only hung out with Toby thus far. You don't know enough about their group dynamic.

You also didn't miss the beginning syllable Toby said. Was he trying to say 'Matt', 'Mark', 'Manny'? There were so many names that Tim's alter could have but at the least you've more or less been told there is an alter to begin with.

But why would Toby be concerned about Tim's alter? Was he the one that punched Toby? Were they actually the two fighting and not Tim and Toby? This is confusing just being on the outside, you have no idea how the trio copes with this situation.

“Oh no, Tim and Not Tim have been nice to me.” if you're coming clean about the file might as well come clean about knowing Tim has an alter. This way Toby could pass along the message to Tim and Not Tim.

“Back up, not liter-mrrow – literally. 'Not Tim'? You've met Mas-Ma-Masky?!”

Masky? That's a strange name, but who were you to judge the name someone gave themself. Maybe he's a He/Him enby.

“Not like formally or anything, but I'm pretty sure he was the one that helped me and Ronnie out the other week.” you switch lanes to drive off of the interstate, hoping to find a secluded road to have this conversation on.

God knows it's going to take all of your concentration.

Toby was seething in his seat and you know the tension is only going to get worse going forward.

You can hear him muttering to himself, 'of course' or 'he didn't remember', over and over. Finding a good place to park the car you take it and turn to Toby, who's still lost in his own head.

“Tobias.” you call trying to jostle him and it works a little too well in a sense. As he blurts out, “Don't! Masky's dangerous stay away from him!”

He immediately freeze like he hadn't meant to say that. And while it wasn't a tic it was probably an impulse brought on by his anxious frame of mind. He's popping his knuckles again too.

You don't know why you said it, looking at Toby's wide blown pupils – riddled with fear and nerves, you should've kept you mouth shut.

“Dangerous like you?”

Or at least phrased that a bit more eloquently.

Toby's eyes grow dark and his good eye cuts low nearly matching it's swollen twin. A shiver runs down your spine even though you know the malice is not for you.

“What.” he hisses out.

It's not a question, it's an order. He wants to know what you know and maybe even who told you. Maybe he thinks Masky told you something, since that was the topic of the previous conversation.

Dark eyes watch you like a hawk as you pull the file from the map holder in your door. His chest is nearly heaving with every breath at this point, can he hyperventilate? That's a dumb question he most certainly can. And he's either on his way to that or a panic attack. You hope you don't send him into a panic attack, Connor's not here to help. Connor know pressure though, Toby's had him preform it on you during your spells. Would it work the same if you laid on top of Toby? You're getting too distracted right now.

Not trusting yourself to not just back down now, you hold the folder out to Toby to take.

He's just staring at it like it'll attack him at any moment, and honestly it might...just not physically. He glances up at you. There's a funny flash of deja vu likening back to the first time you met. Cold indifferent and confused eyes looking at you as though you were some strange alien they'd never seen before. This time however there's a spark of something else in them. Something dark that festers beneath the surface. Was that hatred, betrayal, or was that the wall he was building back up. The wall that would sever this friendship.

Stop projecting. He hasn't even taken the file, he can't possibly know what's going on right now.

“What's that?” see.

“Nate got super protective after the attack, I guess the other day you just like rubbed him the wrong way. So, he had someone look into you. That file is everything they found...pretty sure it's your whole life, I swear I haven't read anything. Not even a peek. But Jo and Nate tried to tell me the-”

He snatched the file from you before you'd even said you hadn't looked. He opened it and a second later it was closed and he took a shaky breath before looking at you.

It was your turn to look like a deer in headlights tonight, you knew that breath was one of barely concealed rage. This was it, this was where everything ended, all because Nate had “a bad feeling” about Toby.

But you trusted Toby, he wouldn't hurt you. He was your friend.

“So” he lets out a harsh sigh, “you didn't...you haven't read anything?”

You hastily shake your head, “What did they tell you.” he looks off to the side and his mouth is all screwed up, and not in it's normal mangled sense.

“That I shouldn't see you anymore, you did something bad, awful, terrifying; Nate's list goes on but I sort of...fo the fingers in the ear 'lalala' thing” you say sheepishly, “anytime he tries to tell me something. Jo stops when I ask him to. He's not too worried about you...I think.”

Or he's working behind the scene to keep you and Toby separated for the long run but that's speculation and not the point of this conversation so you don't mention it.

Toby's flipping through the file skimming it, no doubt looking for his checkered past, he finds what he's looking for and nods once continuing on like he was reading a grocery list. Which he may as well have been, a grocery list of all his transgressions. With the way his fingers gripped the edges of the folder you could tell he was putting on a front about the contents.

They did bother him.

“Why didn't you look, why didn't you listen YN?” was he seriously angry at you for that?

“It was an invasion of your privacy. Whatever's in there I wanted you to have the ability to tell me on your own terms – if you ever even wanted to. Not because you were forced into it because I found out from some third party that doesn't even know you.”

“Then why the fuck did you -wrong- practically jump into a car with me and then hand me a file on my shitty life!?!” He slammed the file down into his lap with a lot of force, more than he should have used for sure. “They think I'm a menace and they're right you shouldn't have...you need to...” he trails off looking like he's trying to disintegrate the file in front of him with latent laser eye abilities.

His arms are shaking.

No – he's trembling. The way he's biting his lip tips you off. He's trying to hold himself together, trying to stop himself from breaking. This can't be the same person Nate's so worried about.

“You're biting your lip, that's not good for you.”

“Fuck off.” it's half hearted at best, no real weight behind the words. And he does let his abused lip go.

“It's a breech of trust if I didn't tell you this...I wanted to give you the file because you should know it's been read by two people, to my knowledge.” you place a hand on his forearm, “Toby, I don't know what you've done in the past but...you know you aren't that person now, right?”

He's out of the car in an instant, slamming the door behind him. You follow, as dumb as you understand it is, getting out of your car in the middle of no where with a very unstable person.

“Get back in the car. I mrrow I can't...I need a minute.” his shaking is so much worse now that he's standing, It's even put a tremble in his voice.

“You're stupid if you think I'm leaving you alone in the middle of no where.” you stand your ground, he may need space but this is not the place to have it. You're only a few miles from town, you can get him back to the lodge where he doesn't have to see or be near you.

Hell you won't say a word on the way back.

“Like you're not stupid for ignoring the warnings that I'm dangerous! I've killed people! Did you know that?! Did you even think that's what was so bad!?” he's giving you the same glare he had on when he talked about the fight with Tim.

“I could literally kill you right now, you've driven us out to who knows where but still remained in walking distance back to town. You live on the outskirts of it and it'd be so easy for me to make you disappear and everyone would believe your stalkers got to you.” his chest heaves at a vicious rate.

Despite the venom and truth of his words, you can't find it in you to be scared of him. If anything his rant proves Toby must not have been mentally well during his crimes, he's acting like a cornered alley cat not a serial killer. There's a vice grip on you heart at the thought.

“Ok...are you?”

It's like a switch has been flipped in him and he calms instantly.

“What?” he knows what you're asking.

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked like you'd been asking what time it was.

He stares at you looking you up and down, “No...I wouldn't.” his neck jerks triggering your own tic.

“Then I'm safe.” you slowly approach him, much like you would a feral alley cat. “I trust you Tobias.” you reach out to tough his arm again.

It hadn't worked in the car but Toby does seem to calm down faster when he's being touched. Like the sensation brings him back to reality and locks him there.

“Y-you shouldn'n'n't.”

He doesn't pull away this time as you place your hands gently on his forearms. His eyes raise to meet yours.

“...I've killed.”

He sounds so helpless.

The only thing you find shocking about this is that he actually did it. You know people are capable of all sorts of vile things. But the way Toby's voice breaks, the tremors that run through his body. You can't see any similarity with the horror show you once imagined, a Toby covered head to toe in blood and a vicious grin.

The fact that Toby killed doesn't really phase you much more than the ever present 'how' that rings out. He must have had a reason. Jo wasn't too worried so maybe it was circumstantial. Not to mention Toby's among the general public. Could it have just been an accident? A misunderstanding?

“I don't – no I'm not going to say 'I don't care', because this is something that really effects you but I...I guess what I'm trying to get at is..it doesn't bother me. I know it should but, Tobias I just can't picture you as a murderer.” that blood stained Toby flashes before you singing 'liar', “I got to know you before finding out any of this. So, I know there must've been a reason behind it. And that's...and you don't have to tell me anything.”

Nothing more is said, after all you've said everything you could think of to deescalate the situation. And Toby is frozen as he stares at you. You'd have thought he was dissociating had it not been for the way his eyes still held that tiny reflection of light. He was still present, just unsure how to proceed.

Honestly you were stumped too, you had no idea how to begin this conversation let alone end it.

“My – there was...” you rub his arm in a small circular motion. You don't need to hear anything more, it already feels like too much information that he'd lost the agency for.

But your gentle shushing did nothing because he continued, “Clairse says I had a psychotic break and...just went after the biggest stressor at the time.” he pauses with a deep breath and closes his eyes in the process. “She says it wasn't really my fault, I was under...a lot of – I wasn't there, where I should've been mentally. My dad was abusive...anyone in my situation would've broken at some point.”

His words are hollow and robotic. A mantra he's learned to say although he doesn't believe it.

You'd normally give someone the choice but this time you just slip you arms over his shoulders and pull him into a hug. There's no resistance from him either, if anything he leans into the embrace and grips onto your back. His trembling doesn't stop but it's softened by the pressure.

“You don't have to tell me anything Tobes. I don't want you to...not if it's this painful.”

“I want – want to tell you about Lyra.” his voice cracks in tandem with his neck as he says her name.

And he does tell you, against all your protests to take his time. He tells you everything laid out his whole life right in front of you. From being home schooled early on – isolated within his own home for years, to his older sister and her untimely accident that he's still clearly wracked with guilt about, and then the spiral that ended in patricide and a fire that ate his entire neighborhood.

By the end of his recounting he'd stopped trembling and letting out the occasional sniffle – and now the two of you were leaning on the hood of your car. Looking at the stars that just started coming out for the night, you occasionally whispered affirmations to Toby as he tells more stories from his childhood. The good ones this time.

His spirits aren't as high as they were when you'd started your evening but they're much better than they were two hours ago.

You chuckle as he finishes telling you about the time he and Lyra managed to sneak out of the house for a concert only to realize they had no way of getting back into the house when they returned. Their mom just opened the door letting them inside with a small crease in her brow but the smile that played at her lips told them everything they'd needed to know. They weren't in trouble, she'd sent them off to bed and in the morning asked how the show was. From the way Toby talked about his mom you can tell he really loves her. The feeling must've been mutual, if she sent them off to bed instead of dishing out a punishment all because Toby had smiled for the first time in weeks that night.

“Ah, favorite child Toby strikes again.” you joke.

This time Toby didn't say anything, you had been throwing small jokes in to help keep the mood light, but he just looked at you with his head tilted. A grim expression barely crossed his features before being replaced with a lopsided smile and warm but sad eyes.

“Y'kn – Kyra used to say that all the time.”

“Must be true then.”

He looks at his hands with the softest expression you've ever seen. It's an expression normally given to Connor, just sadder this time.

You nudge him getting his attention back to the present.

“You still want that slushie?”

He takes a moment to look around you and finally rests his gaze on the stars. “Not Franlin, not tonight.” he says focusing back on to you.

“Think we're two exits from Riverton if that helps. They have Wawas.”

“Wawas?” he chuckles.

You nod, “Yea they have smoothies and milkshakes.”

“Ooh la la.”

You both snort and head back into the car. It's surreal to be buckling back in, joking around with Toby when just hours prior you thought you'd be ending your friendship the moment you opened your mouth.

You can't help but ask, “Are we cool?”

“Yea...we're good. 's not like you fucking asked for the information.” he leans his head against the window and crosses his arms into himself.

“I'm still sorry about it though.”

“Know you are. But it's over now.” the finality of that statement takes the weight off of your shoulders. For the first time in days you can breathe again.

“Thanks for telling me everything...you didn't have to. But I appreciate you sharing it with me.”

His nails dig into his arms, or they would have if they weren't chopped down to the bit.

“I mrrow I-I didn't tell you everything...”

Nope this was over and done with, no more sad and scared Toby. You couldn't handle anymore, guilt had found a friend in discomfrot and the two had set out to eat you alive with every tremor that tore through Toby's body.

“What are you like a child murderer or something?” Giving a laugh to soften the joke.

….

You missed the way Toby tenses and sucks in a breath. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, so hard he's certain you hear it. Is that where you draw the line? Child murder. Of course you had to have some boundaries he couldn't just expect you to be cool with everything he's done. You were sure to figure it out sooner or later no thanks to your boss. But Toby couldn't loose you now. Not when you've been an anchor he hasn't had in such a long time. He feels almost human again when he's with you.

He's been quiet too long, at least he thinks he has. He needs to say something, joke around back and dismiss the notion. You can't know not now – maybe not ever.

“I'm trans!” he hadn't meant to blurt that out.

He stared at you with wide eyes. Why had he said that, that hadn't even crossed his mind. Just as he was about to laugh it off you reached over and lightly punched him in the arm. That small gesture sent a tickle down Toby's spine. It was such an innocent touch, but he was touched starved and knew it.

“I am too goof. Thanks for telling me but why the wait?”

Fuck now he had to think of something. Talking to you always made him so brain dead.

“Mrrow...mrr-you saw me as a man first...I wanted to keep it that way.” maybe he didn't have to make something up, just tell you the half truth.

Brian had questioned him when they got ready for the picnic why he hadn't worn his trans tie dye shirt and he's said he misplaced it. A bold lie to tell someone like Brian, especially since it'd been a gift from his mom. She had sent it in a care package last June. He'd never loose something his mom gave him, at least not so quickly. If he'd been being honest with himself at the time, he was worried about your reaction. Of course he knew you were trans too so not like you'd be one to be a transphobe, but he didn't want you to stop seeing him as a man and only see him as trans.

“Toby, you are a man. Nothing short of you telling me otherwise will change that for me.”

Toby isn't sure when you grabbed his hand but he's aware of your hold when you start to rub along his knuckles. He watches your thumb circle jis joints and pressing a bit into the divots as he takes another deep breath.

He gives his best smile, a lopsided uncomfortable looking thing, “I don't think I like when you call me Toby.”

[ranmanjuu]

—gen z mc with uesugi-takeda + misc. forces

ahh, i’m so glad people liked my gen z oda hcs! lol it’s usually pretty slow from my writing blog experiences until now, but i’m rlly happy! i was planning to do u-t and the others but then i decided to stop at oda and continue another day. thx for the asks tho! and yeah, i do take requests but it’s more of a pasttime, since this whole blog is just my stupid ideas written out and shared out there.

also someone said that a gen z mc could be old enough to romance the warlords, like, early twenties. and yes, very fair if u wanna romance ur mans with memes and existentialism go for it!! i just think it adds more to the comedy side of this child they have to babysit, while not fearing death or any consequences from their dumb of Ass decisions. someone who fears no death and armed with no braincells is a fool, but a Child who fears no death and armed with no braincells is also a fool, but more bizzare and has That Vibe y’know

@niphredil-14​ and @arthotsglasses​

tw: s*icidal, violent jokes treated in a light manner

also spoilers to some things of their characters

—kenshin:

who is this,, , sassy lost child??

he first saw you prepared to throw hands with ronins who were being Elite Dickheads. ofc, armed with nothing compared to the sworded-adults, he had to interfere.

no matter how cold he treated you, masking his secret !!!-like concern, you seemed so unfazed through it. you still interacted with him like normal,,,,, why?? do you want a death wish?

and each time he threatened you with,, anything, you responded with, “the only one who gets to hurt & kill me, is ME”

...... what?

he’s convinced you’re the biggest fool of a person. and he’d be right but even so, he has a weirdly strong need to protect you as you two got closer. you’re often with sasuke, so it’s harder to avoid you.

even with all the Horrible jokes you make on a daily basis, if your passionate side with everyone having equal rights of being treated as human, for him it shows a side of you that makes you seem precious and pure and kind hearted.

and the overprotective side increases.

which is, ,, a bit problematic sometimes cause you have the tendency to target and piss off anyone in a 10 meter range by just one (1) sassy comment, along with your lack of impulse control and blurting out everything in your mind. it’s made you a lot of short enemies in the sengoku period, and kenshin would always be ready to slice them down behind you.

sasuke has to tame him down with his Masters degree in kenshin-wrangling.

at banquets, kenshin would often have you beside him. if you’re too young for sake do age for drinking exist in sengoku? probably not. it’s more of sasuke advising for him to not give you alcoholic drinks he’ll have you pouring for him or just munching away at pickled plums or food.

—shingen:

(ngl i kinda had a hard time with this since it’s erasing a big part of his overall character,,, flirting)

once he heard the news that oda had taken in somone as young as you during honno-ji,, ,,,he’s in a very “how dare that demon >>:( taking such a pure soul,....”

and when you’re taken to kasugayama as a captive, you’re,,, surprisingly very calm and whelmed. you don’t have much sign of fear or anxiety in your overall demeanor meanwhile you’re busy dissociating and spacing out to feel those

you actually don’t seem to hate your captor. but shingen isn’t sure if your ‘fingerguns’ is a good thing or not cause it depicts you pointing guns @ him,, (dw is good shingen)

while yes being held hostage—no matter how good you’re being treated—isn’t ideal and kinda not very cash money, you consider shingen v chill. man has a kindheart!! “i diagnose you with good vibes.”

if he ever sees your righteous side, as everyone else, he’ll deeply admire you. he himself is someone who believes in such as well. and hearing the circumstances in the modern world regarding those things (blm, etc.) his heart truly does go out for you. he feels sympathy for such a young person like you having to take action

also your dirty humor around him, echigo’s player, kind of makes him question where and how you learnt it

and,, his illness.

through getting straight to the point and not falling for it each time he changes subject/dodges the question, you managed to get to the bottom of his illness. shingen himself thinks it’s not something you have to burden with knowing—you’re so, so young.

but that doesn’t matter to you. the world’s given you such a shit time, you’re mature enough to understand the situation at least.

and as he finishes his explanation, all there was is silence. it felt wrong to say any of your usual quips,, so all you did was slowly came there and hugged him.

that was more than what he’d ask for.

—sasuke:

oh hell yeah

you are in your element with him. the chillest guy to talk to, and probably the first one you’re the closest to

your phone was dead after like 2 days of use, and you were miserable while hideyoshi, like a typical parent, told you to go outside and into town. sensing your bad mood, sasuke asked what’s up. you deadpanned, “my phone game ended and now i’m ready to commit not breath.” you oslemnly look out in the bustling streets and clutched your fist like an Anime Protagonist, “those boomer memes were right all along... i am absolutely Miserable and Useless(^TM) without it.”

in response, you could’ve sworn he did the Anime Glasses thing as well, “then we at team Moderately Awesome Sengoku Ninja are happy to announce the launch of a DIY phone charger, made with the electricity from a fruit and the main functionality of a solar panel. and has more durability than samsung’s.”

there were Stars in your eyes now. with a big grin, you thank him, “i’d die for you, sasuke.”

“then perish.” he said with a blank look. (yukimura, in the bg: ???!!!??!??!?)

the next day he consentually breaks in through the ceiling and gives you the weird contraption. you’re now saved, soul-wise.

the memes start coming and they don’t stop coming from the two of you. in any situation. whether it’d be at a teahouse, or at a battlefield that can determine your life and death.

and you can have discussions about current world events, or the past ones, with him and he’d understand completely what you’re talking about. it’s those rare nights when you’ve been thinking and have a deep conversation with him in his room, and as an adult, it makes for interesting results as well.

the others are endlessly confused, but you’re both so unapologetically yourselves.

and he’s super protective if the circumstances are tough. he feels bad for dragging another person in the sengoku with him—much less when they’re so young like you.

if you’re enough of a lil shit, once you’re taken into kasugayama, in the nights where you can’t sleep because brain at what would be 3 am, you’d probably trudge over to his room and wake him up to tell him what kind of mind-blowing shit you realized.

—yukimura:

when he saved you from falling to your death, your reaction already set off weird Vibes inside him. what do you mean, “you stopped me from fleeing this fleeting world by the sweet embrace of death” ?!?!?! are you crazy?? yes

he doesn’t waste time getting blunt with you at all either.

once he goes into azuchi as a merchant, he silently observes you talking to sasuke for a bit. what’s with your weird language?? and crude humor???? never in his life has he met someone in your age act like that wtf

even so, he still operates on the basis of ‘‘if sasuke trusts you, i trust you’’, no matter how utterly concerned you make him feel

you have a dirtier mind than him! unsurprisingly. along with everyone else, you often tease the poor soul, a nd you’d gladly tell him what the innuendoes mean ( 69, etc.) and maybe sprinkle in some gay jokes in there

and why do you keep mentioning this “bromance between him and sasuke” ?? what us,,, a bromance????? and why is sasuke in it??

he takes you out to teahouses to eat chestnut dumplings and other desserts with you. you always seem to target the one he doesn’t like the most and have a bit of banter

your relationship is built on banter but what’s different rlly

he treats you much more maturely than other people your age. as in, he doesn’t pull back his punches in words most of the time. you don’t seem to around him also, it looks like.

and, he’s also very protective of you. he regards you as his little sibling, as rat as you may be. and he does care about you—he might just be a bit unwilling to say it

—yoshimoto:

you think he’s very chill, if a bit unique but who were you to judge. and he is, if you ever meet him in echigo or even azuchi

his big liking to art and something of apathy to people is osmething you can respect. there’s something about that kind of Vibe that you find oddly a mood.

and oh boy oh boy you wasted no time pulling up your phone and showing images of what art is in the future. whether it’d be a screenshot of anime, fanart, aesthetic-like ones, palette-themed—the whole shabang. 

and, somehow, you were left ranting to him  about how some artists in the future get it so shitty for theft, reposting, not crediting, the list goes on (please be a decent human being to artist, sincerely the author) and he can’t help but just listen in silence and kind of thinking about how you’re so passionate about the Struggles of artists. and it isn’t something he sees often in the sengoku era—where war rules most things.

and he does find art from the modern times interesting, how they’re so different and vast in styles. and not only that, it’s not like the future only has one major style like then, each hand can draw such different pictures and still have beauty in each. he appreciates and admires that.

and he does tell you his thoughts ^ while you give your own insight. it’s so fascinating to see someone like you having strong opinions on this.

because, well, rn art is a big thing in our lives as we’re stuck inside. a part of entertainment is looking at any media of art—and he finds his view of art and yours quite the same. you two came from a time of turmoil (one moreso than the other) but still think art isn’t exactly irrelevant just because it isn’t a cure to diseases or the Ultimate Weapon.

you had to Surgically Remove him from your phone so you can use it and to stop him from draining your battery looking at the art

and he often drags you out to town and admire pieces when you’re holing yourself in too much. your comments are always unknown to him, “radical”, “that’s one i can vibe with ngl”, and the list goes on.

and you occasionally call him pretty boy as a compliment rlly

—kennyo:

when you first saw him at honno-ji, and he won’t forget the one (1) line you gave him, all you said to his warning of ooo spooky demons was, “that’s lit fam gtg tho”

and that alone was enough to stun him for a few seconds

honestly you told the others of your meeting with kennyo before they told you it could be kennyo. just a throaway line of “oh yeah there was this dude with a scar across his face.” / “,,, ,....that’s kennyo. he’s really dangerous actually—” / “oh, poggers”

you’re probably kind of half the reason the oda forces found who dun it.

and it was an eye for an eye, kennyo himself found out that you were their child chatelaine, and very close to the others. as per his villain-schedule, he kidnaps you .

he laments about how “such a pure soul such as yours is not to be stained by the demon’s hands”

oh how Wrong he was.

you were the definition of the opposite of pure. and you seemed unfazed, which surprised kennyo but shrugged it off. he was willing to face you screaming and panicking, along with shouldering the sin of doing the deed. but instead, he was met with a raised eyebrow and, “this is unexpected and probably not welcomed but what am i doing here.”

he was stunned for a moment before explaining what he can. 

“......... fuck.”

he cringed ever so slightly at your curse. but your attention seems to stray so quickly off of the fact that you were bounded and helpless, to the fact that you have the man doing unspeakable things to civilians and you absolutely don’t approve.

throwing your common sense to maybe be civilized, you went off on a rant of how human rights and how to not be an ass to him. all he could do was just listened, shocked to even cut you off.

when he did, he gave the whole ‘unsaved demon’ shtick, and you weren’t taking that kinda shit. he believed he was truly unsaved—you knew that. but that doesn’t make it okay.

eventually, he left you with a cold end of the conversation.

he admires your spirit in a way—but with what he’s experienced,,, it’s a bit of unreachable for him.

if at any point you saw the soft side of his with animals, you just gaped at him for a split second and whispered, “the gap moe is strong with this one.”

also old man died inside when you said that you’d fight god, along with many things.

all in all, to him, you’re insufferable. but weirdly,, fascinating.

you’ve totally ok boomer’d him once cause he rlly looks old

—motonari:

,,. if your speech to kennyo was bad, he’s going to rant hell.

motonari already knew you were interesting even when his men just spied on you. your behavior, so brash and impulsive, is going to be so fun to have, he thinks.

through some planning to stir up more chaos, he kidnaps you and brings you unto his ship. same as kennyo, you showed no clear sign of surprise, and that’s when he decided you were either used to this in any way, or a fool. both answers, he liked.

you’re kind of really confused on why he’s doing what he’d doing. “i get it, i like to stir up chaos myself but it’s harmless,, most of it—but not until the people are in danger, bitch.”

and by that line, motonari leans towards you with a deadly smirk, “now, i can bite, ‘kay kid? you don’t wanna be in the receiving end... do you?”

“do it, coward.”

and before he could let out even a wheeze of laughter, you continued on on a lecture of, again, not being a dick and letting people live their life in peace. and much less all of this damage, for what? chaos?? yeah you wanted to see the world burn but it wasn’t literally.

however, his patience was running thin. he shuts you up forcefully, and leaves.

even so, after a cooldown period, he still talks to you (,,,, well, that’s kind of a generous term) because, right he was, you were so fun in his eyes.

an interesting observation he made,,, was that you picked up on his big dislike of physical contact. and he’d think with how annoying you were at times, that you’d weaponize it. but you didn’t—in fact, you kept your space (not that you were planning to get close) and respected his boundaries.

he thinks you a bit of peculiar for that decision, some wary, and perhaps naive.

one of the days—the more dangerous ones—he was planning to take you to the oda as bait or something. and you weren’t taking it like that. two days before arrival, a storm racked up. you stood upon the edge of the ship with the rest of the crew watching you like you were a madman.

“the oda won’t want me if i’m dead, would they now?”

motonari stands in his composure, guffawing, “all i need is to make sure they believe you’re alive, kid.”

a smile that showed absolutely no fear and 1000 percent spite spread in your face, “not unless i decimate my own body until all the trail left is my blood. the only one who gets to do that shit to me, is me.”

finally, a look of wavering shows in his face.

you were saved last minute,, and the rest is history.

[cgs1211]

Healing yourself while parenting

You are dissociated, depressed, and your house is in shambles. Your mind cannot focus on anything but that one event in the back of your conscience. It nips at your heels, clouds your every move, and you feel like you are in autopilot. Nothing feels real except for that pain. Sure, your kids are fed and bathed and clothed, but their mom or dad isn't present. You feel guilty, but you cannot seem to pull yourself out of the detached space you're in.

Within the past few years I'm sure a good amount of you have suffered in this way as I have. I'll share a personal story, in case someone would be able to relate: In 2020 my husband and I began trying for our second child and I quickly became pregnant. Within a few weeks came lockdowns, stress, fear, the full feature.

I already had a 1 year old and the stress of it all boiled up inside me and my body could not take it any longer. I woke up one morning bleeding; Later I remember sitting in the emergency room alone, masked, and silent. I went home later and felt the contractions, then gave birth in my home by myself to a tiny baby, sac intact. I couldn't mourn, I had no time to. I had a 1 year old who was constantly in need of a mommy to feed her, take her to the park, do bedtime routines. That pain was buried for a full year before it came out on the anniversary of the event. I felt every feeling that I had previously come back full force, it was like I was back in the emergency room waiting for the doctor to come in.

It is important that we as parents understand that we cannot be there for our kids unless we are there for ourselves first. No amount of band aids, comfort foods, or ignoring the subject will help. You must get to the root of what hurts and flush it out like you would with an infection.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic many of us are out of jobs, struggling, isolated, depressed, and a few of us are suffering through trauma alone.

How to begin the healing process:

1. Have the drive to heal

the first step you've already accomplished, if you are searching for or seeking information on healing your traumas as a parent- you have the drive and the potential to reach your goal.

2. Change one habit at a time.

Don’t push yourself to be extra productive or overzealous with personal goals. If you’re coming out of a depression, it’s easy to try to rush yourself into wellness, but you must give yourself time to thoroughly process your trauma. You have to build your emotional strength and express that weakness that you have held on to for so long. Like a sickness, trauma does not go away the instant you decide you feel a bit better.

3. Change your outlook.

Are your kids are alive, thriving, fed, and fully clothed (most of the time?) Yes? so then you have done your Job as a parent. Now it’s time for you to take care of you. You deserve a life that you enjoy living, not just an "okay" existence. You are meant for so much more and have so much more potential within yourself. You need to stop feeling guilty for taking time to yourself to grieve and process traumas. Its okay, you're healing to be a better parent for your little ones.

4. Seek professional help

There are multiple different low income therapy options available to you online:

Cerebral

Betterhelp

Talkiatry

Rethink My Therapy

If therapy isn't your thing, spiritualism is a tool you can use to help you focus and direct your thoughts. You know yourself best. Remember that everyone's recovery looks different!

5. Give it time

Rome wasn't built in a day. Great things aren't often achieved quickly, and this goes for recovery as well. Remember to give yourself time and be kind to yourself. Healing is not easy, but there is a light at the end of that dark tunnel you are traveling through.

[zosonils]

surely post some autistic ferb things for us all,,,,,,

hell yeah anon!! here’s an absolute hell dump of Ferb Autism Indulgence Things because i have really been wanting to get my grubby little autistic hands all over him lately

his special interests are engineering and tetris [which is the game he’s internationally ranked in!]

he stims vocally by humming or repeating other vocalisations, but rarely with actual words

if he’s too nervous to vocalise/just not in the mood he goes for small hand movements to stim like clicking pens or tapping his fingers

he does flappy hands/arms when he has a lot of excitement to release! otherwise he prefers to stick to smaller/more subtle motions for a variety of reasons

he only repeats actual words as echolalia, almost always off of either phineas or perry! that thing they do where perry chatters and the boys mimic it and they all just loop off each other for a while is absolutely an echolalia loop for all of them [yes even the platypus]

a very epic headcanon i have is that owca agents are typically labelled as having therapy animal training to give them some more wiggle room with showing intelligence, so perry is officially a therapy platypus for the flynn-fletcher kids, especially the boys. ferb does the aforementioned echolalia chatter thing with perry and also just generally finds him extremely comforting to hold. of course perry’s figured out all of ferb and his siblings’ needs by observation and makes sure to subtly be as comforting as possible for his kids, especially if they’re having a meltdown and need to hold someone who won’t try to talk to them

ferb genuinely dislikes communicating verbally, due to a combination of general social anxiety, struggling to translate his thoughts into words, and finding it physically uncomfortable to talk. it’s not serious enough to prevent him from cracking a joke or vocalising his thoughts every once in a while, but he prefers to be nonverbal as much as possible and communicate through gestures and body language

throughout the series he only ever speaks on his own terms and as much as he’s comfortable with, so it comes out without issue, but if he’s forced to talk when he doesn’t want to or while he’s under stress he struggles to string sentences together and stutters really badly. fortunately he’s got nice friends and a great family so this issue rarely presents itself, although it comes up sometimes during the school year in battles with pissy neurotypical teachers over oral presentations

over time he starts to work past the discomfort [genuinely, it’s on his own terms as opposed to masking to get allistics off his back] so that by the time he’s an adult he can hold an entirely verbal conversation for a decent while before it drains him, but he still tends to avoid speaking if he can

phineas instinctively understands ferb’s silent emotional cues, a lot better than he understands most people’s [but that’s a whole other infodump lmao], and unless ferb actively indicates that he wants to talk for himself phineas usually speaks for both of them and translates any of ferb’s less neurotypically obvious signals

phineas and ferb made The Ultimate Fidget Cube as one of their daily projects [they were being mass produced for an hour or two and then something or other happened, there was a mobile phone and an avalanche of instant noodles, long story short only the handful they made for themselves and their friends are left now] and neither of them go anywhere without it

ferb doesn’t have any specific comfort/security objects but he feels significantly more at ease if he’s got some kind of tool in his hand or within reach [or, failing an actual building-stuff tool, anything he can hold and Do Something with, like a pen or his fidget cube or a video game controller], and is a lot more stimmy with his hands and generally anxious if he isn’t holding something

perry performs the task of comfort item better than any inanimate objects but platypi aren’t allowed to come to school even if they’re very polite :(

believe me the brothers have tested this numerous times

school is stressful for ferb because it fires up his sensory overload and is usually where he’s forced to do some neurotypical shit that upsets him, but his friends always have his back and linda and lawrence are definitely super involved in making sure their kids’ needs are met and respected by their teachers, so he manages pretty well unless something really bad happens to set him off

he’s susceptible to sensory overload, mostly with bright lights, sudden noises, and being touched. the light and sound involved in many of his and phineas’ projects is alright because he usually designed them and knows exactly when they’ll come on and what it’ll be like, but if he doesn’t have that prediction available he freaks out easily. being touched [especially without warning] is the absolute fucking worst and he almost invariably flips out if someone unfamiliar tries to touch him or he’s hit with an unexpected sensation he doesn’t like

he only rarely has meltdowns because he’s good at self-regulating when he needs to and his friends and family know what does and doesn’t fly with him, but when he does they’re often triggered by either sensory overload or being forced to talk

when ferb starts entering meltdown territory his verbal skills are the first thing to shut off, and if it gets worse he usually stops communicating altogether and enters a really bad dissociative state that he won’t come out of until he feels safe again and can be carefully brought back to his senses

standard procedure for ferb meltdowns is to get him a weighted blanket and some tea and a perry if you can find the slippery little bugger, let him snap back to reality at his own pace, and once he can communicate his needs again pay extra close attention to them until he calms down enough that he can properly self-regulate again

his favourite sensations are weight/pressure, the funky bumpy shit perry’s tail has going on, and anything soft!

most of his clothes [including his usual outfit in the show] are tight-fitting but made out of soft fabric for maximum comfy

the blanket on his bed is a weighted one, but if he’s too far from his room or it’s too hot to be comfortable under a blanket sometimes he’ll just find the tightest spot he can wedge himself into without getting hurt or stuck and squish himself in there to calm down a bit

his favourite food texture is crunchy stuff, and he samefoods with particular cereals and sandwich combos that rotate every few months when he finally gets tired of the exact same breakfast and lunch every day and wants slightly different identical meals

while he’s fine with variation from day to day, he’s very firmly attached to the summer/weekend formula of wake up > cereal > big idea > where’s perry > [building montage] > mom holy fuck > sandwich > [having fun montage] > our fuckoff massive contraption has vanished somehow > oh there you are perry > snacks > nondescript vibing > dinner > bed time, and if this schedule gets significantly thrown off it really bothers him

ferb shows his emotions more subtly than neurotypicals, which can make him seem hard to read, but his external emotional range is still extremely distinct - he just expresses it in atypical ways sometimes!

one of his most notable atypical emotional cues is that thing he does when he’s startled and he pulls his hands up - he does this in we call it maze when candace falls over on her skates in the beginning, split personality when busting candace scares him, lost in danville when he’s worried another capsule might fall on him or phineas, and the phineas and ferb effect during how do i do it when milo’s exercise bike crashes, just to name a few instances! this boy has Unique Emotional Cues and i love him for it so much

he’s better at reading emotions than phineas [as low as that bar is], but sometimes misses more subtle cues and doesn’t quite trust his ability to read anyone aside from phineas, candace, and his closest friends

he’s been aware that he’s neurodivergent ever since he was diagnosed as a little kid [he was first diagnosed with autism when he was extremely baby, not even three years old, and had it continually reconfirmed as he got older] and he’s been entirely happy with being autistic for as long as he’s known what that even means, with this only being reinforced as he found siblings and made friends with other autistic kids :)

good lord this is such an infodump i’m sorry i just love my son so very much and have been feeling particularly self indulgent today ;<;

[ajokeformur-ray]

Hey we talked earlier. I just wanted to send my request before I forget. Can you write a fluff piece where the reader has an emotional break down and Arthur comforts her? One day it gets to be too much. She screams and starts to cry. Arthur comforts her, helps her get a bath and cuddles in bed with her. Thanks so much ❤️

Hi, my love! Yes, I remember asking you to send this in to me so I didn’t accidentally forget about it - it’s so hard to keep track of DMs and I really appreciate you taking the time to send this in to me.  I’m really sorry that I wasn’t able to get this out to you in time, life has been... quite difficult lately and it’s gotten in the way of things I want to do. I hope you like this, darling, and that things get better for you!💚

TW; dissociative tendencies, general sadness, non-sexual nudity (Arthur gives you a bath), ONE reference to being suicidal right at the end of this piece (Arthur’s thoughts; canon). If you think that any of these warnings may negatively affect you in any way then please consider skipping this piece. Take care of yourselves, loves!

Word count: 2, 874. 

You could feel how close you were to breaking down. It was approaching you a little bit closer every single day and at this point, there was little to nothing which could be done to stop it from happening. You were too far gone and, if you were really being truthful with yourself, you didn’t want to even try to stop it from happening. What was the point? It would happen whether you wanted it to or not, such was the stage you had reached within yourself. You didn’t have the time to break down emotionally, but that was the difficult thing about feelings. They demanded to be felt and you could only wait it out and hope that the resulting destruction wasn’t the wrong kind of chaos.

You knew not when the oncoming storm would become the incoming storm, but you knew, somewhere deep inside your tormented soul, that it wouldn’t be long. You could feel yourself beginning to crack around your rough edges. You could feel the world becoming both too loud and yet too quiet. Everything was muted by the roaring of blood in your ears and yet heightened was it in sound by the pounding in your head, which only made you more susceptible to headaches caused by stress. When Arthur touched you, it was like electricity was crawling across the surface of your skin. You were hyper aware of every moment during which his arm brushed against you when he walked past you in the apartment; the touch both accidental but also something which Arthur needed so that he knew you were right there beside him. When someone spoke, it was too loud and yet too quiet. Whenever you had a moment to yourself, you became aware of how desperately you needed to cry, to scream out to the world about your pains.

You felt invisible...

... But not alone.

Never were you alone when you were with Arthur. You had known great loneliness in your life, and horrible bouts of isolation when situations and circumstances bigger than you had taken your loved ones away from you for who knew how long, but since the day you had met Arthur, a seemingly ordinary way which had witnessed the very birth of serendipity, you hadn’t ever felt truly alone. Even in your perceived invisibility were you seen by him, just as you were the only one to see him when he, too, thought himself to be invisible.If anyone understood what you were going through, it was Arthur. He, who had been so abused, neglected and mistreated in multiple ways across his three decades and some of life. He, who had been tried and tested, used up and left for dead. He... who held your battered heart in the palms of his weathered hands and desperately tried to help you with the strength of his death defying love for you. There was nothing which Arthur wouldn’t do for you, just as there was nothing which you wouldn’t do for him, and each and every day did the two of you prove this depth of love to the other person.

You were this close to breaking down emotionally. You both hoped that you were alone when the storm tailored to your experiences hit, and wished that Arthur was there to see it happen so that he could be there for you. All, if not most, of the old wives’ tales which you had been raised on had even a small amount of truth to them, and so you should have known to be careful what you wish for. 

In the end, all it took was for Arthur to look at you.

There was nothing... special about the look on his face. He just glanced over at you from where he was stood in the living room, his sea green eyes sought out your own and... you lost the fight. Your breath caught in your throat and you coughed a little, as if to clear your airways. But there was nothing to be cleared. Your breath caught again and your sharp inhale made Arthur’s gaze sharpen as he looked at you, as he really looked at you. He had known that something wasn’t right, he had known that you were suffering, but he also knew you well enough to know that he couldn’t push you to tell him. With patience and persistence and a great deal of worry had Arthur simply waited for the inevitable, just as you had. All at once did everything come crashing down and Arthur saw the precise second that your ceramic mask, the one you put on every day before you left the apartment, slipped off your face and shattered all over the floor into a thousand pieces. A scream had an ice cold grip around your tried heart and it clawed its way up to your throat, up, up. It was right on the tip of your tongue and you clamped a hand down over your mouth to muffle the desperate noise which escaped you.

Arthur’s dark brows were furrowed and almost touching, so deep was his concern for you, and he cooed in understanding. “Oh, Y/N,” Arthur opened his arms, ready to welcome you home. His tone was soft and his words were gentle. Arthur was everything you needed in this moment but his sympathy, as warm as summer, only made you feel worse, somehow. You took one step forward, and then another, and a paragraph from a page in Arthur’s journal which you had accidentally read once slipped into your mind just as you fell into Arthur’s arms. Step step step step step. “Come here, darling. I’m here. Not going anywhere.” You remained in Arthur’s arms for only a few moments, tears beginning to blur your vision. The urge to scream was still there, but you didn’t give into it. Instead, you found yourself wanting to cry. It was a more peaceful mode of self-expression and you tried to be casual in the way you swiped a hand over your face. But Arthur knew you like he knew the backs of his veiny, weathered hands, and he saw you. “Why don’t we get you a bath, hm?” You nodded, your breaths coming faster now, and quicker. Arthur shushed you gently and his thin lips, cool to the touch, pressed a tender, lingering kiss to your temple. 

You closed your eyes to fully enjoy and to take in Arthur’s gentle, tender affections, and the man cooed in sympathy once more as he walked with you to the bathroom. His steps were slow and measured and you thought that you picked up on his humming of Slap that Bass, though you were unsure due to how beautifully off-key Arthur was. Your own mind seemed far away and yet so close to you and through a television screen did you watch Arthur turn the taps, the tendons in his wrists so prominent as they seemed to almost protrude through his skin. Oh, how badly you wanted to press a kiss to his pulse point. To feel his heartbeat against your lips, to feel the most real proof of his existence right there. You wanted Arthur in the most emotionally intimate of ways and you knew that Arthur knew exactly how to give that to you. The bath filled quickly with water and you got yourself undressed. You were shy about your body, especially in front of Arthur, but you were too emotionally distraught to do much about it. The gentleness with which Arthur took care of you as he washed your hair only caused tears to come into your eyes and Arthur shushed you quietly. He meant not to tell you to be quiet, he meant not to tell you that you couldn’t cry, but he was meaning to tell you that he was there with you. That it was his deft fingers in your hair as he used the right amount of each of your products. Somehow did he know that you liked to leave your conditioner in while you washed yourself over to give it time to work with your hair, and Arthur kept you focused on him and on his actions. He refused to let you sink deep inside yourself, knowing was he that what you needed right now was some tender loving care.

You needed him and Arthur felt a secret thrill run up his back. He loved how much you needed him and, truth be told, he needed you just as much. Soon were you physically taken care of and Arthur helped you up and out of the bath, wrapping his best towel around you. It only had two holes in it. He felt a stab of guilt that he didn’t have any towels which weren’t falling apart at the literal seams, but he reminded himself that you wanted him for all that he was and all that he would ever be, and the love which swelled in his frail chest at the thought brought a smile to his face. 

Love.

“What do you want, Y/N? Dinner or cuddles?” Arthur’s quiet, soft rasp broke through your silent reverie, shattering it much like your carefully applied mask every morning had broken when you had finally laid eyes on your Arthur less than an hour ago. How time flew when you were with him. 

“’M not hungry, Arthur,” You dashed a hand over your face and roughly dried yourself off. Arthur frowned in disapproval. Didn’t you have any patience with yourself? He wondered how you could treat yourself so awfully but be so tender with him, but he knew the answer already, for he did the very same thing. “Can’t we just go to bed? Please?”

Oh, help him. Arthur cupped your face in his cool hands and used the calloused pads of his thumbs to wipe your tears away. He pressed a kiss to your forehead and you bit back a sob. Fuck, you loved him. He was always so good to you. You could only hope that you were just as good to him. He deserved nothing less. “Yeah,” Arthur nodded, granting you what you wanted easily. It was only early evening, not yet nine, but he was exhausted, too, and all he wanted was to climb into bed and cuddle you until the world melted away and all he knew was the two of you. On this night were your wants and needs aligned. “We can do that.” Anything for you, sweetheart. Arthur choked on his next words and so he was unable to finish his sentence, but you heard them anyway. You would always hear Arthur, just as he would always hear you.

Arthur headed out into the living room, subtly leaving you to get dressed into the clothes you preferred to sleep in while he cleaned up the mostly tidy apartment. The man of the house took care of messes, he never created them. Dirty plates were piled in the sink to be washed tomorrow. Overflowing ashtrays were emptied and the ashes which were spilled over were deftly swept into his hand and put into the rubbish bin which sat underneath the coffee table. Everything was taken care of with hasty movements, rushing was Arthur to be with you, his one and only who understood him. After he was done, Arthur retreated back into the bedroom and the door shut behind him with a quiet but firm click. You could wholly let go, now. It wasn’t that you couldn’t have let go before, but there was something about cuddling in bed with Arthur, your nightly ritual and your most favourite tradition, that made it easier for you to be your entire self.  Lying in bed were you, the duvet pulled up to your chin and Arthur’s side of the bed was pulled back. You were waiting for him. You teared up again at that thought, so sensitive were you in this moment that the smallest of things were setting you off. You had been waiting for Arthur for your entire life, it seemed. No one comforted you like Arthur did. No one made you laugh like Arthur did. No one soothed you, encouraged or supported you like Arthur did. No one motivated you like Arthur did. No one was there for you like Arthur was. You had been waiting for him for your entire life. Arthur had been waiting for you, as well. The both of you had been so alone without each other, but now did you have everything you had ever needed or craved within another person, and never again would either of you be alone.

Arthur cooed to see you curled up so cosily in bed, to see that you had pulled back the duvet for him, so considerate were you, and to see you crying. “Come here, Y/N. I’m here.” He crossed the room in a few easy strides and slid easily beneath the duvet, pulling you towards him. He was rarely this confident in his movements, but you needed him and that worked miracles on the things Arthur could do. He knew exactly how to comfort you, intuitive and perceptive was he, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you. “Not going anywhere.” Those same words had been spoken earlier that evening and you curled in on Arthur, your tears flowing freely now as they poured, hot and fast down your face. You choked on another scream and Arthur rested his head on the pillow beside you, his mahogany curls mingling with your own hair as every part of your bodies intertwined. You pressed yourself into Arthur and he hummed in thought, letting you arrange yourself as you wanted to before he got comfortable, too. The both of you were settling in for the night, now. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. I get it...” Arthur sighed. The sound was heavy in untold truths and even in your own distress did you feel your heart breaking for him. “It’s hard. I know.” Arthur’s nose, cool to the touch - always so cold was he, warm was his soul - nuzzled against your cheek and you pushed into his touch, trying to shuffle even closer to him even though you were already pressed together. Arthur chuckled and rained kisses down upon your face, his lips drying out your damp, tear stained cheeks. 

You nodded, clamping your lips together so that you couldn’t scream or cry. You weren’t sure what was building in your throat but you knew that it would be a loud noise. You just wanted to sleep now. You just wanted Arthur.

“I want you, Arthur. So much.” Your bottom lip trembled, still so overwhelmed were you, and Arthur could only love you more. You were always so honest in your feelings for him and it was something he had always admired within you.

Another coo, another kiss, and his arms squeezed around you. “You’ve got me, Y/N. Always. Won’t let go, okay?” His voice was quiet, his words full of a future you had always dreamed of, and his tone was kind. He was your everything and that had never been and would never be any different.

“Promise?” Your voice was so small, defeated but not defeated were you by the world, and Arthur felt his heart break. What had the world done to you? Bitterly did he know that it had done the same to him, and though he was already falling, too late was it for him, it wasn’t too late for you and he would be damned if he took you down with him.

“I promise. You’re my one and only. I’ll do anything for you.” A Joker though he would one day be, that was a vow which he would take seriously.

You shut your eyes, nuzzling into Arthur, and he only managed to hold you tighter despite how physically and emotionally close you were together. “Thank you for taking care of me, angel. It means a lot to me. No one’s ever...” More tears soaked into Arthur’s bare chest and you kissed the evidence of your own pain away from his skin. “No one but you.” Was all you could stomach to say. You had had enough now and you just wanted to sleep.

Arthur nodded knowingly. He always knew what you were trying to say, even and especially when you didn’t. “You’re welcome, darling. I love you. So much.” With another kiss, a tender squeeze and a gentle smile, Arthur helped you to put your mind to rest as finally, finally... did you sleep. He wouldn’t sleep much this night, haunted by insomnia and nightmares was he, but with you beside him did he think that perhaps he, too, would get some rest. You were his one and only, his reason and his purpose and the one reason he didn’t cash in on his refund for life itself, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you.

You were his Y/N, and he would always take good care of you, just as you always took care of him. It was what you deserved and Arthur was beginning to think, thanks to your reverent love, that so did he.

AF/J @impulsiveclown   @astheworlddturns @fluffedstar @jokersqueenofchaos @germansarechill @tsukiakarinobara  @lynnesm @sagyunaro  @greghouse  @flowerglitterwoman @ben-solos-writing-avenger @jokers-doll @arthurjokersgirl @antonija89 @lilliryth @hotpacino @obsessedandthirsty  @call-me-harley-quinn  @cacklinghyena @arcanealaanais

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober Day 22

Drugged | Withdrawal

Ao3

Note: Jason is Robin

-o-o-o-o-

It's the same thing every day. The day begins with nothing. Just sitting here, with his hands chained to the wall, watching the table in front of him and waiting for Dick—who's strapped to the aforementioned table—to slowly wake up. Dick's been waking up later and later every day, but that's not really his fault. 

It's the drug's fault. But Jason's getting ahead of himself.

Because, after Dick wakes up, the shakes would begin. Dick will insist over and over again, every time Jason asks, that he's okay. But Jason doesn't believe him. He's seen this before in his own mother. As the day progresses, the symptoms would as well. The shakes would be joined by a sweaty parlor. Dick's stomach would grumble angrily. He'd constantly shift and move in his bindings in a clear state of anxiety, tugging at his wrists and ankles to the point that they began to bleed. 

By the time they bring lunch, Dick's barely able to keep a sentence, his voice wobbles so much and his memory begins to hold onto less and less. Their captors are practically formless, their faces and body types all hidden behind layers of cloaks and black masks. They don't speak either. They just toss Jason a bottle of water and a wrapped sandwich that definitely came from a gas station. Then, they spoon feed Dick some sort of broth with soggy vegetables and very unsatisfying looking chunks of meat. At first, Jason and Dick both refused to eat, even if the caps were sealed and the packaging untorn. 

But days passed. The withdrawal made Dick starving and malleable, willing to eat without arguing too much. With Jason, he started eating because it became clear that if they wanted to poison or drug him, they clearly would have already. 

After lunch, they were left alone again. For hours. Hours that Jason spent curled up against the wall, tearing strips into the plastic packaging of his eaten sandwich and tying knots with them… just to keep himself occupied as Dick would begin gagging and sniffing and groaning and trembling. Jason would look up at him every so often to see him deeper and deeper into withdrawal and being able to do nothing about it except writhe.

Hours would pass. Then, the people who captured them would come back with dinner. They'd confiscate Jason's plastic knots and braids, give him another sandwich, then immediately inject an unmarked syringe filled with a yellowish liquid straight into the crook of Dick's elbow. 

Dick would immediately go still. Silent. Lax. He'd stare at the ceiling, completely calm and breathing deep. At first, Dick didn't go so still so quickly. It's clear this kind of drug has some sort of tolerance that has to built up to. 

Dick screamed and jerked in his restraints the first time. Cried during the couple after. And isn't that strange? The guy is a legend. While Bruce doesn't talk about him often… Jason knows the legacy he's trying to carry while being Robin. He honestly can't believe that he's this guy's… adopted… younger brother. No one in Gotham doesn't know who the original Robin was. Jason's still trying to earn even a smidge of the same respect, even from the criminals. 

Sure, in the beginning, Dick and Jason started off a bit rough. But it ended out alright, yeah? Dick gave him his blessing to be Robin, and then handed him a slip of paper with his apartment's phone number. They went skiing a couple weeks ago, and Jason had a lot of fun. 

Dick Grayson is so perfect. And Jason's just watched him scream and struggle and sob because of drugs.

Jason really hates drugs. 

Now though, Jason's not sure if Dick's instant dissociation is better or worse. They've worked Dick up to a point where his body feels like it needs the drug more than air to breathe. The withdrawal is getting more and more intense every day that passes, to the point Jason's sure that if his mom… 

Well... to the point that most druggies would be taking multiple doses a day by now. 

"What do you shitheads want?" Jason asks for the billionth time. He tries to ask every time they enter the room. 

They don't answer. They never do. They don't even look his way. 

Jason's begun to think that he's just there as collateral. They haven't done anything to him. Not even an annoyed slap when Jason screamed his voice raw at them the third time they drugged Dick.

They just use Dick's gagging reflex to put more brothy soup in his mouth, and then they leave.

This is when it gets absolutely awful. Jason's known even before becoming Robin that when someone is this high, there's no point trying to talk to them. It's like his mom- it's like Dick isn't even in the room. It's just Jason, alone, sitting on the moth-eaten sofa and forcing himself to pay attention to Treasure Island even though he's already read it a thousand times. 

No. No he doesn't sit on the couch. He sits against the cold wall, his tailbone aching, his wrists stinging against the shackles, trying to work up the energy to eat his sandwich while Dick falls deeper and deeper into a forced addiction. 

The night wears on. What Jason assumes is… the end of the ninth day? He's mostly measuring days by meals and when they come to drug Dick. The little cell they are chained up in doesn't have any windows to know for sure. Could be more than nine days, could be less. 

Jason does his best to just... ignore Dick, because it's this stretch of hours that has Jason's anxiety spiking the most. There's too many bad memories with drugs. Too many awful moments that conspired because of them. If he looks up, he won't see a completely relaxed and high-off-his-ass Dick Grayson. 

He'll see Catherine Todd, foam leaking from the corners of her mouth and her body colder than what it should be. He'll see the syringe still in her arm. He'll see a still chest. 

He busies himself by moving as much as the chains allow him. The tether to his shackled wrists is welded about half a foot above his head, and there's just enough length for him to touch a small diameter of stone floor around him. When he stands up, he's not able to lift his hands above his head. He's not able to move more than a few feet towards Dick. He makes the best of it though. He stretches as much as his shackles will allow. He leans forward against the wall and does makeshift pushups. He counts the links in the chain. He goes down to touch his toes. 

He keeps going until Dick finally groans, the drugs wearing off hours later. 

Though, it feels sooner than normal. Maybe Dick's accidentally built a tolerance and the doses are starting to wear off quicker. 

Whatever the case, Dick groaning out of a nauseating trip is the sign for Jason to finally sit down and curl up the best he can on his side. He watches Dick's twitching fingers. Listens to his small whimpers and noises of confusion. He sits there and watches Dick be alive until his eyes fall closed and he doesn't dream of Dick being still. Dead. Next to the body of his mom while his dad (Bruce?) screamed about how Jason's a failure and he should have stopped it. 

He falls asleep, wakes up a little while later, and the day repeats. 

-o-o-o-o-

"How long…?"

"I think… thirteen days?"

"…"

"Nightwing?"

"N-nothing. It just… it just…"

"Hurts?"

"Yeah… it- I- everything just really- b-but I'm okay. Don't worry about me."

"… You don't have to lie to me. I know. I understand."

"Sorry… I just… hngh- fuck"

"…"

"…"

"Is it… getting worse or-?"

"Ca-can we talk about something else?"

"Yeah. Sure, big bird. I'm okay to talk about something else."

They talk about something else for about fifteen minutes, both of them persistently not talking about drugs or withdrawal or addiction or dead mom's and angry deadbeat dads. They also don't talk about Bruce, because while Jason's still holding out hope that Bruce will come for them, Jason's pretty sure Dick doesn't. 

But it's okay. Jason will hope for the two of them.

Twenty minutes pass before Dick simply can't keep a conversation anymore. The stuff he's one must be strong. Severe. The kind of stuff someone like Black Mask would sell. The stuff that would get you so deep on its hooks that you'll lose your job, house, family, everything just to have a single more drop in your system. 

Thirty minutes pass. Then more. And Jason sits quietly as Dick falls apart.

It's not even close to lunch yet.

-o-o-o-o-

Something finally changes on what Jason's pretty sure is day fifteen. He knows something has changed when lunch passes without a single visitor. He knows something has changed when the time ticks ever onwards and Jason's left clutching his completely empty stomach and watching Dick suffer. Cry. Writhe. Gag.

He knows something's finally changed when the door finally opens, but it's a long time after lunch; and yet still a little while before dinner.

He knows something hasn't changed for the good when their captors enter in a group of six instead their usual three or four. 

He knows somethings definitely changed for the worse when they surround Dick like a pack of hungry cultists around some poor virgin.

"What are you doing?" Jason demands, standing up and walking forward as far as his chains will allow. It's not very far. He's not even within kicking distance of the closest person. 

One of the kidnappers reach into their cloak and brings out that stupid syringe. However, instead of immediately injecting it into Dick's practically torn apart arm, they hold it above Dick's head. 

Jason feels like he's swallowed something sour when Dick immediately stills. 

Oh. 

Jason understands now. 

"Tell us the name of Batman, and we'll let you have it," the person says. Voice is deep, probably male, but Jason doesn't care. All he cares about is that the man waves the syringe back and forth above Dick's bound form like it's a bone and Dick is a very, very desperate dog. 

"You sick bastards," Jason breathes. He can't... even process how much he hates this. It's not fair. Addictions shouldn't be… used against someone like this. They've patiently worked Dick to this point, and then they're going to give Dick a choice between something he never wanted but feels like he needs… or something he cannot tell. "You fucking fuckers."

Jason goes completely ignored. By the kidnappers because they've been ignoring Jason this long, why stop now. By Dick because he's too focused on watching the syringe and licking his chapped lips. 

Finally, Dick speaks, and Jason really wishes he hadn't. 

"P-please…" 

"Tell us who Batman is," the man repeats and Dick immediately dissolves into pathetic sobs.

"Please… puh-please… I- I can't-"

Dick jerks in his restraints, like he wants to jump forward and stab the needle into his own arm himself. 

The man repeats his question and Jason finally has enough. 

"HEY! YOU CULT WANNABES!" He shouts, tugging on his restraints and snarling. "Get the fuck away from him or I'll tear your throats out!"

"Batman's name, Nightwing. Then you can have this."

"N-no- st-stop- I don't-"

"Listen to me! Stop ignorin' me!" Jason tugs harder on the chains, but all he succeeds in doing is breaking the scabs next to the biting metal, allowing blood to flow down his filthy wrists. "Don't listen to them, N! Ya don't want it!"

And for the first time, one of the kidnappers turns to face Jason. They walk forward so suddenly that Jason takes a startled step back. Before Jason knows it, his cheek is stinging from a vicious slap he didn't expect. He doesn't get a chance to recover from it either, because suddenly his wrists are grabbed and the tethering chain is hooked onto something high above his head against the wall. Something he hasn't even noticed till now. Jason struggles to place his footing as he finds himself almost hanging by his wrists; helpless to the kidnapper as they shove a strip of tape over his mouth.

Effectively gagged, Jason goes back to being ignored while the kidnapper returns to the others surrounding Dick. 

Jason growls and tugs in the chains, but he goes nowhere. 

He can only hang there and watch as they continue to wave that stupid dose of drugs above Dick's head, asking the same question over and over again with the same steady, manipulative voice. 

Jason's seen Dick cry many times these past several days, but never as desperate and broken as this. Jason sorta hopes that Dick just… throws everything away to tell them Bruce's name. Just so this could end. Just so they'll give Dick what he needs so his body will stop torturing itself.

"Br- n-no-"

"Batman's name."

Dick shuts his eyes and shakes his head, tears escape the corners of his mask as he twitches and chokes on gags. 

The kidnappers seem to be getting impatient now. The man holding the syringe sighs then bends forward and presses the tip of the needle on the inside of Dick's arm. Dick jolts like he's been electrocuted, his eyes flying open and the tears doubling as the needle enters the already severely scarred area of skin. The man doesn't press down on the needle and Dick wails.

Jason feels like he's going to throw up. 

This is so sick. So messed up. He wants to scream but all he can do is throw himself against the chains and slam his back uselessly against the wall. He tries to work the tape off his mouth, but he can't quite move his jaw or tongue the way he wants to.

"Batman's name, Nightwing. And make sure it's honest, otherwise we have smaller needles for smaller people."

Well, at least Jason knows why he's here now. 

The bad thing is, it works. Dick shutters around the needle in his arm and chokes back another sob. "Ok-kay- d-don't- hurt Robin- kay- okay-"

Jason falls still. There's nothing he can do. At least, when Dick tells who Batman is, he won't be in so much pain anymore. But that's only if the kidnappers actually decide to let him have the dose.

"Name, Nightwing. We don't have all day."

"-kay- I- n-name… bah- Bru-"

Suddenly, the door bursts open, and Jason sags against his restraints in sheer, knee numbing relief. None other than Batman makes it in the nick of time to slug the closest bad guy straight across the jaw. The kidnappers go down hard, and immediately the rest are scrambling to figure out if they should fight or run. 

Batman doesn't give them a choice.

In a terrifying series of events every single kidnapper in the room ends up in crumpled heaps on the floor. Without a single pause, Batman stalks towards Dick. Jason doesn't have a single chance to stop him before he grabs the still full needle in Dick's arm, and rips it out before tossing it across the room. Dick goes perfectly still for a single moment, ridged like his body is desperately trying to figure out what to do. Then, he completely falls apart. 

Bruce stills as if he has no idea why Dick is reacting this way.

Jason has enough. 

"Rrs!" Jason shouts behind the tape, tugging on the shackles so hard he feels a streak of heat travel down both of his arms. Blood is dripping from his elbows by the time Bruce rushes over to Jason and picks him loose. 

The moment Jason's hands are free, he doesn't even bother to rip off the tape on his mouth. He ducks under Bruce's arms towards the disregarded syringe. Thankfully, it's not broken and it's still full. Jason wipes off the needle with the torn remains of his cape as he rushes back towards Dick.

Bruce makes a noise of both shock and questioning when Jason jams the needle into the inside Dick's elbow, pushing in the liquid until only a few drops are left. 

Dick lets out a few more sobs, but slowly relaxes, then goes completely still. It's eerie. Jason feels like he's going to be sick. 

He pulls the needle out and holds it in his shaking hand. He reaches the other to his mouth to rip off the tape, blinking tears from his eyes. Maybe from the sting of tape. Maybe from guilt. 

Either way, he looks at Bruce and holds out the syringe.

"It's not his fault," he whispers. "It's not."

"Robin…" Bruce says slowly, taking the syringe. 

"It's not… he… he tried to fight it- but they- and he-"

Bruce suddenly wraps Jason into a hug while Jason finally shatters. 

But a good kind of shatter. The kind of shatter that makes you feel like you can make a stained glass window with broken beer bottles and string. 

Dick's not okay. Jason's not okay. Neither of them are anything close to okay. 

But Bruce is here. He came, even though Jason went against his wishes and went to visit Dick. Even though Dick and Bruce are still fighting. He came. 

And it will only get better from here. Jason knows it.

[mirasage]

Muse Sage Backstory

UHHHHHHH im a fucking bitch for tragic anime backstory, so as follows is how I’ve written backstory for Sage. If riot ever decides to feed us good, I’ll listen, but I love the idea of her using her powers for,,, bad.

Mirai was from a poor family, born to work, doing labour since she could walk. Working to live meant she had no time for school, and both her and her brother were illiterate, something she didn’t realise was an issue until they moved to the big city. Regardless, she was happy with her life, living in a bubble, developing her quiet disposition, prefering to look inward, content with her own company. It’s a normal day in the city when the first light shatters her reality, and as she sobs over her brother’s prone body, clutching desperately at his spasming form as he bleeds out, her hands begin glowing beneath the fabric of his shirt. Her parents are buried deep, deep under the rubble of what used to be her home, and suddenly, she has nothing. Holding him until he goes cold, she weeps as her skin stitches itself back together.

She wanders the dead city for days before beings picked up by scavengers, deep in a dissociative fugue. The looters aren’t good people, but they have a roof, and food, and over the next couple years, everything goes dark. She masters her abilities, realises she can heal the harm she does, and doesn’t use it for good.  To this day, she only remembers bits and pieces, but along the way, she earns the title of “The Butcher”, still revered in certain circles. They give her a place to work, a disgusting basement, and she carries out their dirty work for her. Scrubbing will never be enough to get the grime out from under her fingernails, and she feels like Lady MacBeth in the way that the blood will stain her soul. She makes a life for herself in the carrion, deep in the gore of things. Surviving is adapting, and so she transitions from girl to soldier. Eventually, she learns to read - it’s a long journey, all half burnt books, (remnants of the explosion that shook the city, the world) and frustrated outbursts, but the words call to her, and as shapes make way for letters, and she learns about language, she finds a refuge. Sage still runs with her scavengers, working for a shadowy company she knows nothing about, but the pay is good, and she can practice her abilities (and have a corner she knows she won’t be interrupted in for when she slowly reads her books). Along the way, she picks up medical textbooks, forces doctors and surgeons from before to teach her, the threat of her abilities hanging heavy in the air. It’s not long before she’s masterfully wielding a scalpel, and it’s not long before medicine, the kind that isn’t “magic”, becomes her raison d'être.

Mirai has long since become a woman when a masked figure drops into her sanctuary to tell her she can be more than this. He’s heard about her, knows more like her. Mask tight to his face, he tells her that he can help her get back what she's lost, help her find a family, and at the same time, use her unique skill set for retribution. It’s justice he’s talking about, but aren’t justice and vengeance the same thing? One nod is all it takes to agree, and she finally leaves the city, joining a team of individuals like her. It’s like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders, and she’s no longer so alone. It’s on one of her first field missions with the valorant protocol that everything goes very, very wrong. Coms go dark, and the heady scent of copper fills the air. Gunshots ricochet off heavy concrete, but it’s so much louder when they stop, blood rushing in her ears, heart pounding, hyper aware of every little sound. She feels small, and dirty, flashing back to her days in her makeshift dungeon. Heavy in her hands, the cold steel of her phantom is her only comfort as she silently traverses the battle site. Mirai zeros in on him from an angle, and isn’t sure if he’s dead -  the man that recruited her - but he’s lying prone in a dark puddle, no noise coming from him. It’s a bitter, dark feeling, and she’s never felt more desperate than when she places her hands on him. “I wasn't strong enough before... but now, now I am strong enough for us all!” Fuelled by anguish, she pours her all into him, seeing radianite fractals bloom from her palms, encasing him in a chrysalis of cyan. Mirai wasn’t expecting wasn’t expecting for him to burst out, ready for action, but she takes it in stride, effortlessly hones the new skill, practicing whenever she gets the opportunity, which in her line of work, is often.

It’s only when the door lock clicks behind her that the facade breaks, calmness giving way to fury, to grief. She mourns her brother, hates herself for her lack of skill, feels the weight of the knowledge that he would still be alive if only she’d known. Compartmentalizing is coping, and as time passes, Mirai becomes who she was, not who she is. Mirai is who she is when she’s really feeling, when she’s alone enough to be vulnerable. She’s reborn as Sage - the wise healer, strong enough to move a mountain, infallible. The slight smile never leaves Sage’s face, a practiced mask of understanding, but underneath the obsidian shell, Mirai writhes, and The Butcher scrubs her hands.