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coffeeinallcaps · 3 years

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wip/rip meme: sw poe panic attacks

(Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!) In which Poe is FINE, he’s JUST FINE, GUYS, NO PROBLEMS HERE.

Two weeks after the Battle of Starkiller Base, Poe wakes up without a headache for the first time since Jakku. Sitting up doesn’t make him feel sick, and the lights don’t set off stabs of pain behind his eyes. There’s no wave of dizziness when he gets to his feet.

Sweet, he thinks before making his way to the refresher.

BB-8 is running preflight diagnostics when Poe gets to the hangar. The others are already there. Bastian is walking around his ship, checking the underside of the hull. Jessika waves at Poe from where she’s talking to one of the ground technicians, her helmet tucked under her other arm. Poe waves back.

“Morning, sunshine,” Iolo says, slapping Poe on the shoulder as Karé says, “All right, boss?”

“Yeah,” Poe says, and he means it. He feels good, well rested in a way he hasn’t felt since, well.

The feeling lasts until they’re about to take off.

One moment he’s fine. The next the canopy is coming down, closing in around him, and he panics.

The feeling doesn’t register as panic right away. It’s—it’s something primal, a sudden visceral overwhelming sense of wrong, something is wrong, he needs to get out of here—

“Stop,” he says, “BB-8, stop, abort,” and BB-8 overrides the control system, beeps inquisitively. Poe can’t answer the question, because he’s breathing too fast and too loud—heart beating wildly in his chest, throat, ears—and he’s already strapped in but he needs to get out, he’s stuck and the cockpit is way too small, there’s not enough room, not enough air, he can’t think, can’t breathe.

That’s when he realizes, I’m panicking.

It’s like his consciousness has split in two. He’s right here, gasping for air and ineffectually tugging at the buckles of his harness, but another part of him is divorced from all this, hovering somewhere in the back of his own mind thinking What. The. Hell.

What the hell are you doing, Dameron. Calm the fuck down. Get your shit together. You’re being irrational.

And yes, he knows, he knows that, knows it doesn’t make sense, but he needs to get out.

The buckles finally give way, and he’s moving, scrambling out of the cockpit, down the ladder that hasn’t been retracted yet. His foot slips on the last rung. He stumbles backward until his back is pressed up against something.

He still can’t breathe, still feels trapped—he reaches for his helmet, it takes him three tries to undo the chin strap, he manages to wrench the helmet off his head and lets it drop to the floor.

He’s sweating. His chest is heaving under his flak vest. It feels like he’s being punched in the diaphragm over and over again, like he’s going to be coughing up blood any second from now. Like Kylo Ren—

The vest needs to come off, too, but his hands keep slipping on it.

People are standing around him. He can see the scuffed toes of their boots, the dirty orange and olive green legs of their flight suits. “Take it off,” he hears himself say, between gasps, “take it off, take it off,” and they help him out of the vest, pull open the collar of his flight suit.

The part of Poe’s mind that is hanging back notes that this is embarrassing. A deeply humiliating experience. The part of Poe’s mind that’s panicking is unable to register it as such. The observation emerges behind an impenetrable transparisteel panel. It’s right there, he can see it, but he can’t reach it and it can’t reach him.

Someone—Jess?—says, sharply, “Step back, guys, give him some fucking space,” and someone else says, “No, I think—” and Poe closes his eyes, thinks, Yes, space, I need space, give me space and then two arms are winding tight around him. No, let go, he thinks, eyes still closed, Let me go I need and then Finn? but it can’t be Finn, Finn is still in the med bay, still in a coma, Finn is—

He struggles, half-heartedly. It’s a relief to have something physical to struggle against, instead of just the awful sense of terror ballooning in his chest, clawing at his windpipe. It gives him something to focus on. His panicking self and his observing self merge. The transparisteel panel between them drops away, and shame comes rushing in.

He takes a gulping breath and goes limp.

It’s Bastian who’s holding him. He’s trapped again, trapped between the wall and Bastian’s body, but Bastian’s body is warm and familiar and hiding him from view so it’s not too bad, really, to be trapped here. When he looks straight ahead, he can see the vast expanse of the hangar. The rectangle of sunlight at the end is a comforting sight.

This whole thing can’t have lasted longer than, what, five minutes? ten minutes? but Poe is fucking exhausted. He’s shaking, he realizes.

“Hey,” Jess says. “Poe.”

It’s just her and Bastian now. The others are gone.

Another hot, nauseating rush of shame washes over him.

“Poe. Look at me.” Jess is dabbing Poe’s face with her sleeve. It comes away soaked, he sees. Her other hand brushes against his cheek. “You with us?”

Poe nods. He’s still catching his breath. He doesn’t think he can speak. He thinks that if Bastian let go of him, he’d crumble to his knees.

Bastian doesn’t let go. He takes a small step back, but keeps his hands on Poe’s shoulders.

We’re late, Poe thinks. We need to leave. He wants to say it out loud, but the thought of getting back into his ship makes his throat close up again and a fresh layer of sweat break out on his forehead.

Jess wipes it away. She and Bastian are talking with their eyes. Poe appreciates the fact that neither of them is asking him what the hell just happened. He also appreciates the fact that neither of them is asking him if he’s okay.

The moment stretches on.

They’re late. They need to leave.

He can’t fucking get it past his teeth.

“You guys should go,” Poe says eventually, the words scraping at the dry inside of his throat. His voice sounds raw, wrecked.

Jess lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good,” she says. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

It’s the only right thing to say. He’d be putting all of them in danger if he tried to fly, let alone lead a mission, in this condition. He takes a breath. Still that pressure in his chest, like there’s a wet cloth lodged between his lungs and his ribcage. It’s like trying to breathe in deeply on a hot and humid planet. Like trying to breathe when Ren—

Poe swallows, shakes his head, says, “We have to...”

“Snap’s on his way down here,” Jess says. “We’ll be all right. I’ll take it from here. The only thing you have to do is go see Dr. Kalonia.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Bastian offers, and Poe wants to say no, wants to tell them to get out of here, it’s fine, he’ll be fine, but then he realizes one of his hands is fisted into Bastian’s flight suit, clenched so tight his fingers have gone numb. It hurts to let go.

One of Bastian’s hands stays on Poe’s lower back, barely there, as they walk. Poe doesn’t stop at the med bay. Bastian wordlessly keeps up with him.

“Thanks, buddy,” Poe says when they get to his quarters.

“Anytime,” Bastian says, with a small, soft smile that makes Poe want to sink through the floor.

He lies back on his bed with his arms folded over his face. They’re trembling. His whole body is trembling. He closes his eyes and tries to block out his thoughts.

He doesn’t move until the doors slide open.

“Poe,” Dr. Kalonia’s voice says.

Poe says, “Doctor.”

His head doesn’t swim when he pushes himself up on his hands. It doesn’t quite feel like the victory it did this morning. The familiar sour taste at the back of his throat is back, but he guesses it has little to do with a lingering concussion and more to do with what happened in the hangar just now.

Kalonia doesn’t start off by asking him questions, which—again—Poe appreciates. She sits down next to him on the bed. Her fingertips are light on his cheek when she checks his pupil response. She listens to his heart and lungs, takes his pulse.

“Headaches been bothering you?” she asks.

Poe shakes his head.

“Dizzy spells?”

“Not anymore.”

“When did your symptoms go away?” After a pause, during which she puts her flashlight back into her pocket and loops her stethoscope around her neck again, she adds, “I’m assuming they went away, because you never did come back for a final check-up.”

“Um,” Poe says, scratching the back of his neck. Dr. Kalonia reminds him of his grandmother sometimes; there are very few people in the galaxy who can inspire this amount of guilt in him this quickly. “I felt pretty good this morning?” He can’t help but add, “And in my defense, we’ve all been pretty busy.”

“From what my droids tell me, it seems you are perfectly capable of finding the time to stop by the med center for other reasons.”

Finn.

“Well, I mean, all’s fair in love and war, right?” Poe says. And then, “I am sorry, Doc.”

She smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Trust me, I would’ve known where to find you if I needed to.”

“That sounds vaguely threatening, Doc.”

“Good.” She sits back. “Look, Poe, I could run some more tests, but as far as I can tell there’s nothing physically wrong with you right now.”

“Clean bill of health, then,” Poe jokes.

“Not quite, I’m afraid.”

The doors slide open again.

“Oh,” Rey says, looking at Dr. Kalonia. “I’ll go.” She doesn’t move.

“It’s fine,” Poe says.

“I can wait.”

“It’s fine.”

Rey shrugs, then crosses the room and perches on the windowsill with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. There’s dirt under her fingernails. She smiles at Poe.

He smiles back at her.

“I don’t think there’s anything physically wrong with you,” Dr. Kalonia says. “I think you had a panic attack. A severe one.”

(MORE TALKING)

(KALONIA LEAVES)

Poe throws one arm over his eyes again. “Come over here?” he says, flinging out his other arm in Rey’s direction, palm upward.

It’s a suggestion, not a request. He and Rey have been thrust together through their mutual connection with Finn. They’ve been spending a lot of time at his bedside together. Poe still hasn’t figured Rey out, not entirely, and he’s pretty sure Rey still hasn’t figured him out, either. Rey is still figuring herself out, life on the Resistance base seeming both exciting and overwhelming to her.

The mattress dips under Rey’s weight. She leaves some space between their bodies, but she puts her hand on his stomach, pillows her head on his arm. He can hear her breathe, soft and calm.

“Are you okay?” she says eventually, cautiously. There’s something about the way she asks the question that briefly makes Poe’s chest feel like it’s caving in.

He clears his throat, says, “Yeah.”

He doesn’t sound very convincing. She doesn’t call him out on it.

“Wanna go outside?” she says. “It’s sunny. There’s fresh air, and trees.”

“Really,” Poe says.

She shoves him.

“Careful,” he says reflexively. “Don’t damage the goods.”

Rey says, unimpressed, “Seriously?”

Poe’s chest still hurts. He lets his arm slide off his face, presses the heel of his palm against his ribs. It doesn’t help.

“You know what, fresh air sounds pretty good,” he says, sitting up.

“Good call,” Rey says.

#coffee chats #star wars #scribbles #1k of poe angst for you my friend

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alia-turin-fanfiction · 3 years

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Title: The Ghost on the Shore

Rating: Mature

Fandom: The Silmarillion

Additional Tags: Loss, Memory Loss, ghost - Freeform, Haunting, Death, Sorrow, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Summary: A human walks trough the beach, looking for shells and accidentally fins a ghost everyone on her village has been talking about. She ends up hearing the ghost' story, his grief and regrets, his memories about the family he has lost and the sacrifices he had made.

She walked down the shore, picking shells and digging through the cold sands, trying to find the largest. The wedding was just a week from now and she could barely find the shells she needed to make the decorations and the jewellery. Her eyes turned west, the sun was almost through and darkness would come soon. She had to go back, but that was when a song caught her ear. She looked around, but there was no one, yet the song rose with the waves and disappeared in the wind. She started walking in the direction of the song but with every step she doubted that was even real. Perhaps there was a strange echo at night, but she knew that was not true. That was an actual voice, the most enchanting voice she had ever heard in her life.

Time passed and she found herself at the furthest point of the beach she had ever been. It would take her an hour to get back home and the sun was gone now. Stupid girl, following the unknow. Then she saw it. A shape, maybe a man walking towards her. He was wearing robes that one time might have been blue, but now they were bleached from the sun and salt, mud and old sand was covering them, the fabric torn to ribbons in some places. She knew what that was. The old fishermen talked about it. The shore ghost, he could summon storms with his voice and drive sailors mad. She stepped back but she tripped on her own foot, as all the shells she had collected fell in the sand. She panicked. Damned be the shells, if that ghost could call the storm, what was he to do with her? In panic she started picking the shells, as fast as she could, she might not pick all of them, but as many as she could and then she should run. Run as fast as possible, in the night, in the darkness, until she reached her home.

“I had a brother once.” a strange voice spoke and she froze. Her eyes traced the sand to the man’s feet, he had no shoes, the skin was dry. She lifted her eyes, her teeth grinding in fear. She expected to see a terror, maybe a torn face, visible bones, gore and blood. Old fishermen said the ghost died in a storm, a ship mast hit his face and killed him, and now he wanted to do that to everyone. There was no mast nearby, but she was sure he could find something.

His face was not gore, however. Long black hairs reached way past his shoulders, his lips were cracked the same way she saw sailors’ lips cracked if they spent too much time in the wind. His cheeks were hollow, she could see the outlines of his skull, but it was still covered in porcelain skin. Long dark circles surrounded his eyes as if he had not slept for days.

“Yes.” he continued talking as he knelt, her heart was beating so fast, this ghost was going to kill her and she felt paralized. Was that his way? Was that how he did it? “He was fair, my brother. Fairer than most, at least on the outside. His heart...never mind his heart. It’s gone now, like all of them.”

She was so scared that only now she noticed that he was an elf, not human, but he was the strangest elf she had seen. Their kind sometimes came to the village to trade, but he was taller than almost any elf she had seen, his eyes were shining like gems, as unnatural as elves eyes were to her, his were completely different. Grey, cold and shining like stars.

Maglor reached for his forehead and rubbed his temples. These headaches were terrible, he would wake up and his head would be pulsing, splitting his skull in half. If he were a braver man he would smash his head in a stone and be done with it, but he could not face what came after. No, he was where he was supposed to be.

Something in front of him moved, and just now he realized he was not alone. His eyes fell on a human female, lying in the sand looking at him with terror in her eyes. He did not remember how he came to where he was. He looked behind himself. The cave where he slept was nearby, but he did not recall walking here and even seeing anyone. He was close to the human, he must have bumped into her or something but he could not recall.

“Who are you?” he got up, patting the sand of his robes. Not that it really mattered, more sand will just get stuck to him tomorrow.

The woman crawled back, shells falling from her grip, she was trying to get as far as possible from him. Maglor reached for her, offering her his hand, but then she screamed and started crawling backwards faster.

“Wait.” She made a step toward her trying to stop her, but it was too late. She hit her head on a rock behind her.

He had not done fire in a while. He was surprised he remembered how to do it. The darkness and coldness were part of him now so he did not need the light. Besides, he hated looking at the fire. Every time the flames danced he would see Maitimo, mad and broken. His eyes were fixed on the human, she was starting to awaken. Her hands reached for her head, where she had hit the stone. Slowly her gaze fixed on her and then a scream followed. The cave echoed, carrying her voice in the darkness.

“Don’t kill me, please.” she cried, trying to push herself further from him, but instead her back hit the cold stone walls.

“Kill you?” Maglor scratched his hollow cheek. “If I wanted you dead I could have left you on the sand. You would have bled to death or the wolves would get you.”

“Where am I?” His words did not seem to calm her, her body was still tense, her eyes looking around, trying to find escape. Funny, her hair reminded him somehow of Celegorm’s.

“In a cave.” Maglor answered, trying not to dwell on his dead brother’s looks. “You hit your head, I took you in.” That did not seem to calm the human. She was young, he had lost the ability to tell their age, there was a period when they all looked as if they could be sixteen or thirty. “What is your name?” she hesitated, but her eyes finally focused on him, not on everything else around. “If you want to leave, you can, but it’s dark outside and you humans have terrible sight.”

“Elean.” she finally responded. “My name is Elean. Are you a ghost?”

“A ghost?” Maglor was about to deny it but then he thought about it. He was a ghost. A shell of what he used to be, he wasn’t dead however, but he was not alive either. “Something like it.”

“The fishermen say you can call a storm.” her body relaxed a bit but she was still trying to keep away from him.

He winced. These days he could barely walk or sing, if he could call a storm that would make for good entertainment, his father might even be proud of him for once. If his father was alive and not an ashen pile or a prisoner of his own darkness.

“I’m afraid I posses no such power.” silence followed, but he could not stop thinking about how he found her. For the life of him he could nor recall how he ran into that human. It wasn’t uncommon for him to find himself wandering and forgetting how he got there, but usually he just thought he walked the sands and sang and his mind wandered. She was the first human he had seen in years and it wasn’t that he randomly saw her. He was kneeling in front of her as if he had been talking to her. “How...did you find me?'' He wasn’t sure that was the right question, but he had no idea what the right question was. He had no idea what anything was.

“I was picking shells and I heard a song...I followed the song and I saw you.” she responded slowly as if she was talking to a child unsure if her words made sense. “Then you came to me and you spoke of your brother.”

“My brother?” something in Maglor’s chest shrank. He did not remember that. How could he mention his brothers and not even remember that? “What did I say?” he asked. His voice betrayed his own fear and confusion. “What did I say?!” she shouted and she pulled back again, the fear returning.

“You...said he was fair. Fairer than most. On the outside.” her voice was shaking, her eyes frantically looking for an exit again.

He wasn’t surprised at his words, but he could not remember saying them. Why would he talk about Celegorm to a human he had just met.

“What else did I say?” his voice was calmer, but there was still that strange feeling in his chest. He did not remember any of that.

“Nothing...you said he was gone. That they were all gone.” her shoulders sank again, more relaxed. “Who are they?”

Maglor ignored the question, he had other things to worry about. His life was not worth anything for all he cared, but his mind. That was the last thing he had left. What if he was forgetting other things? Not just how he got from here to there, but what if he was forgetting who he was...what if he forgets Maitimo and Kurvo...all of them, his father, his mother. No, he could not forget them, if he forgets them, who will sing about their sacrifice, who will remember them as they truly were not as the stories made them to be?

“I was a king once.” he finally spoke, he could see in her eyes that she did not buy that. “No. I was a son of a king, then a brother of a king, then a king and then I was just me. I watched my brother burn.” his eyes stopped on the fire. He didn’t really see Amrod burn, he didn’t even know that had happened, not until Maedhros had told him. “My father set him on fire. He didn’t know.” Maglor bit his lip, the cracked skin broke under his teeth and he could taste his blood. “Then my father died and my brother was captured.”

He would never forgive himself for these years. The moment he became a king, the moment he dared take Maedhros’ place. He was broken, but in his head he thought he could do better. He would be a greater king than the great Feanor, he would be kinder than his father, more patient, he would listen rather than act...it was all rotten. His brothers barely listened to him and only when he agreed with them they did as they were told. His cousins did not want to hear about his rights and he sank. Every day was worse than the previous until Maitimo was back. Maglor did not cry when he left his wife and he did not cry when Amrod died, but that day, next to his brother’s sickbed he cried. Not of sadness, he was happy Maedhros was back, and he was happy the burden would be taken off him, but of shame. He had been too worried to be better than his father, he needed to prove he was a son of Feanor and better than the man, better than his brothers and he never even tried to save Maitimo. His brother bled and suffered and struggled and Maglor did nothing.

“My brother came back and did what I should have done. Took the crown off and gave it to someone who would wear it with pride.” years passed, friends and kin died, but it did not matter. He was with his family and his family, despite who they were and what they did was his family. Maedhros - proud and strong, with his ghostly nightmares haunting his own fortress. Celegorm, handsome and strong like any woman’s dream with the poison dripping off his heart. Caranthir, avoiding all of them, scheming away, Curufin, the copy of their father, his words and deeds making everything rot and despair and Amras, poor Amras who lost half of himself on these cursed ships.

“I had six brothers.” he continued talking, the human was looking at him with interest now. “They were great, cursed, but they were all I had. One by one they died. One in an accident, three as they were butchering our own kin, one trying to save our last hope and…”

He should have died. When Maedhros threw himself in the fire, he should have followed. He should have thrown himself in the sea and died there, but he could not. He was a coward.

“You are not a ghost.” the woman finally said.

“I am. A ghost of what I used to be, a ghost of what I was supposed to be. The ghost of my brothers’ memories and deeds, my father’s ambitions, my mother’s disappointment. I’m a ghost. But I also bleed.” Maglor licked his lips as if to illustrate his point.

In the morning Elean woke up, the elf was gone and she could see the light coming from the entrance of the cave. Her heart was heavy for that creature she found or more found her. He wasn’t a ghost, just a mad starved elf, living alone. She walked out trying to remember every stone, every dune so she can find her way back tomorrow. She would bring him food and maybe blankets.

#the simarillion #maglor #makalaure #tolkien #ghost #my writing

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cuddlepilefics · 4 years

Text

Do you even lift?

Fandom: Stray Kids

Sickie: Changbin

Caregiver: Chan

No one's POV.:

Changbin had come under quite a bit of fire lately. He had successfully gained weight and loved how cute his squishy cheeks looked. Sadly, they came at a cost, resulting in the rapper being criticized for his belly fat. Would he cut down on food, he'd lose his cute cheeks again, so that left only one solution: more exercise to reveal his abs and hopefully still keep his cheeks. That's easier said than done though, because his schedule was already tightly packed. The only times he managed to go to the gym were after his official schedule late into the night. Changbin wasn't one to complain, so he'd take what he could get even if that meant salvaging all the discipline he could find and forcing himself to push past his exhaustion to trade sleep for exercise. The calculation was easy for him: ‘If I leave the studio at 2am, I’ll make it to the gym at around 2:30am. Exercise for 90minutes and leave the gym around 4am. Walk home and have a shower, then I could be in bed around 5am and get up to 3 hours of sleep before we have to get up again.’

He had been following this routine for the past three weeks and he was beginning to see the first changes. Mostly in his arms though, not in his abs but he was building muscles, so his abs would probably grow too, just a bit slower than his arms. The other members noticed it too and Changbin received many compliments for the size of his biceps. On the down side, he constantly felt sore and could barely remember what life was like without feeling his muscles burn with every movement. His appetite had also changed. It was so much bigger than before, which only made sense with how much he was asking from his body. Although he had deliberately decided not to diet, he also wouldn’t increase his food intake just because he felt hungry all the time. What Changbin failed to understand was that his body was desperately begging for energy, either from sleep or from some extra calories. Since the rapper gave his body neither, it was only a matter of time till he had to feel his body’s wrath. He kept spacing out, which was probably worsened by low blood-sugar levels because he decided to consume less carbohydrates and eat healthy fats instead. One day, he almost fell asleep during one of 3racha’s production sessions. Both Chan and Jisung had mocked him for it but were mostly worried because their friend had started to come home even later than Chan. They had laughed it off together and Changbin had been forced to skip his workout that day, being dragged home to get some sleep instead. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t exercise twice as hard the next day though to make up for the missed workout.

Dance practices have developed a kind of love-hate relationship with Changbin. He loved them because they were also a form of exercise but he hated them because with how slow his brain had become from how run down he was, he was always a few beats behind on the choreography. If it seemed like it was frustrating for the dance-racha that was doing their best to teach them the new dance routines, it was so much more frustrating for Changbin. He was pushing himself incredibly hard to erase something that he was criticized for, only to mess up and be criticized for something else. Over the last week, he had noticed that he could go over the choreography about five times before getting dizzy and messing the steps up even more, so he tried to use the first few rounds to show his members that he wasn’t doing that bad, going all out and using up his remaining energy. In the breaks, Felix often sat with him, massaging his neck and shoulders. The Aussie could see how tense the other’s posture was and tried to give him as much relief as possible. Changbin appreciated it, although at that point there was nothing that Felix could do to make him hurt less. It was comforting and it at least took away the stress for a few minutes and helped him relax mentally, even though his muscles couldn’t really relax anymore.

“Guys, since our schedule ends early today and Channie-hyung said there wouldn’t be a 3racha meeting today, can we maybe go out for dinner tonight? It’d even be my treat”, Minho offered. The group had barely had the time to relax or have fun together. Changbin scratched his neck awkwardly, admitting: “I was actually looking forward to visit the gym early today.” – “It’s fine, you guys can go. I’ll go with Changbin because it had been ages since I had the time to exercise apart from our dance practices”, Chan announced. Yes, he had barely been working out lately for the lack of time but his main intention was to keep an eye on his dongsaeng. The leader was afraid the younger was overworking himself. Their plan was soon settled, though a few youngers, especially Felix, tried to talk Changbin out of going to the gym but his insecurities and body image made it impossible for the rapper to skip. His head was already hurting before they left for the gym but if he thought about it, it had been hurting for the last two days already. A good night’s rest would probably fix it, so Changbin was glad he’d be home a bit earlier tonight. It’s not like he had the intention to harm himself with his excessive exercising but he failed to listen to his body telling him to stop.

On the way to the gym, Chan had asked many questions on his dongsaeng’s workout routine to figure out how hard the younger was actually pushing his limits. He was shocked when he finally grasped the extent and tried to give the rapper a few hints here and there, that he might want to think about this habit. Changbin either wasn’t getting the hint that his hyung was telling him to stop, which was possible considering how out of it he was, or he was unwilling to admit to himself, that he was slowly running his body into the ground. Chan soon gave up and realized the younger had to see for himself that what he was doing was hurting him. That didn’t mean the leader wasn’t prepared to be there and pick up the pieces when Changbin would reach his breaking point. For now, he tried to keep the mood light. They took a few pictures and compared the weights they’d be using for their individual routines, before putting in their earphones and getting started.

It all seemed to be going well. At least that was what it looked like to Chan. Changbin soon removed his earphones because he blamed the stereo-sound for the spinning in his head and his balance-issues. To his dismay, he had to accept that the change barely had an effect on his struggles. He was also shaking harder from the strain than he remembered himself shaking the previous day but what did he expect with the amount of sleep he was running on. Changbin finished up with his push-ups and stood up with the weights in his hands. Upon shifting his position upright, black spots started to dance in his vision but he was used to it. It had happened a few times over the course of the past week. He’d just drop down to one knee and wait till his vision cleared before getting up again. Changbin’s back was facing Chan, so the leader couldn’t see his discolored face, or the cold sweat that was dripping from his forehead, running down his temples. The rapper had been kneeling there for quite a while already, longer than he usually needed to, so Chan removed his earphones too and teased: “Do you even lift, mate?”

Changbin shook his head and turned his head towards Chan. He was mumbling something that resembled ‘h-hyung’, but Chan only saw his lips moving. The leader didn’t need to hear him though, the look on his face, combined with his skincolor, told Chan all he needed to know. Cursing silently, the oldest dropped his weights and rushed over to his friend. He wrapped his arms around Changbin from his back and gently pulled him backwards to sit down properly. Changbin defeatedly let go of his weights and leaned back against his hyung’s chest. “It’s okay. Just take deep breaths and the dizziness will go away”, Chan assured, holding the younger against his chest so he wouldn’t fall over. Taking a shaky breath in, Changbin failed and his breathing remained fast and shallow. One hand came up to clutch onto Chan’s arm, a desperate attempt to hold himself up, before it dropped back down, along with Changbin’s head that fell onto his chest as his body went slack.

For a second, Chan panicked before he collected himself, realizing he’d only be able to help the younger if he was able to keep a cool head. Carefully, the leader lowered Changbin to lie on the floor, feeling his pulse weak and fast. He got up and without his eyes ever leaving the younger, he collected his water bottle and a stack of lyric sheets. Chan sprinkled some of the water onto Changbin’s face before fanning him with the papers. To his relief, he soon heard the rapper groan and his eyes fluttered open. “Take it easy, you’re okay”, Chan promised, “Just blacked out for a second. I think we’re done exercising for today.” Changbin nodded and brought his hands up to massage his temples. Was his headache already that bad earlier? He wanted to keep up but his hyung held it down with a gentle hand on his chest, asking: “Please stay down a little longer, just until your face has taken on a healthier shade.” Changbin nodded again, too drained to respond verbally.

After resting for another two minutes, Changbin started to feel cold, his body not having the energy left to sustain his body temperature. Chan noticed the slight shiver and went to collect his hoodie. “Here, you can try to sit up and put this on”, the leader said with a comforting smile. He helped his dongsaeng to sit up and kept an arm around his shoulders to steady him. Changbin tiredly slipped the hoodie on, cursing his arms for burning as much as they did from the simple movement. Grabbing his towel, he dried his sweaty face. He also took a few sips of the water Chan offered him before clearing his throat and asking: “Hyung, can we go home?” The older was glad he didn’t have to argue about taking Changbin home and nodded. “Do you think you can walk or do you want a piggy back?”, he asked, studying the rapper. “Walk!” – “Alright, alright”, he laughed, pulling Changbin to his feet and wrapping one arm around his waist, while Changbin’s arm hung over his neck, “But can you give me a warning if you feel dizzy again?” – “Yeah – yeah, I think – I think I can do that”, Changbin mumbled, swaying a bit as Chan picked up both of their bags.

Their walk back to the dorm was slow and quiet and Chan was sure, the younger hadn’t fallen asleep walking. He felt a bit guilty for not stopping Changbin before it could get this bad but he also knew that if the rapper had set his mind on something, there was no stopping him. While Changbin went to their room to pick out his clothes, Chan ran him a bath. The leader was afraid his dongsaeng would slip and fall if he tried to take a shower. He let Changbin take his time and went to the kitchen to make them both some dinner. Chan had settled on making some rice with chicken to fill up their energy fast while also giving them a good amount of protein. Dishing the food onto plates, he made sure Changbin’s was heaping full. “Hey, hyung. Sorry about earlier”, Changbin apologized, walking into the kitchen with damp hair. Chan shook his head and sat him down at the table, so they could eat together, replying: “It’s alright but I hope you got your wakeup call to start listening to your body better.” Changbin nodded guiltily. “You should take the next few days to rest up because you have pushed your body way too hard. I know why you did and I’m not going to scold you because I understand your intentions but please take better care of yourself from now on”, the leader pleaded. Changbin bit his lip. It didn’t feel right to take even a day off, when it was entirely his own fault that he felt so bad. On the other hand, being able to sleep in and not having to drag his achy and wrecked body out of bed tomorrow sounded like heaven. In the end, they compromised on Changbin resting for one day and deciding afterwards if he needed another. What was sure though, was that Chan would keep a closer eye on him from now on to ensure he got the rest he needed.

#stray kids #skz #sick #sickfic #fanfic #fanfiction #whump #fluff #comfort #seo chanbin #bang chan

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nevervalentines · 4 years

Text

on the nights that dani can’t sleep, jamie keeps her company.

Some nights are worse than others.

Logically, Dani knows that she fell asleep in her bed. Jamie had gone to sleep before her, but she’d stayed up late, sifting through boxes they had dragged out of the attic that morning.

The old tenant – who Jamie and Dani have started just affectionately referring to as Agnes, inventing convoluted backstories when they get bored – had left crates of her castaways in the crawlspace behind the bedroom, in the attic hatch at the top of the stairs, and their landlord promised a break on the rent if they sorted through it for him.

Dani doesn’t mind. Jamie’s been working steadily on some sort of project, eyes bright in that way Dani knows, even now, means she’ll tell her when she’s ready – but she has a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with the storefront that emptied out on Main Street a few weeks before.

She needs something to fill her days beyond worry, beyond avoiding her own reflections, a habit she feels she only had the luxury of a few days without. It’s not as bad now, not with Jamie beside her, but the prickling unease creeps up at night, a feeling like being watched, one that burns when the candlelight doesn’t.

She’d found a dusty cardboard box of beaten, well-loved paperbacks among the junk in the attic, and laid them out on the living room rug carefully, paging through the broken spines, earmarking a few to send to Miles and Flora, for when they’re older, setting aside others that she can imagine Jamie nose deep in on the porch in jean shorts and a too-tiny tank top.

She’d crawled into bed sometime around midnight, and Jamie, half-asleep, had immediately turned into her warmth, burying her face in her chest, arm snaking around her waist.

Sleep had almost come easy, tangled in a soft quilt and Jamie’s long, bare legs, but now –

Water fills her mouth, her eyes, her nose. Dani can feel the pressure deep in her ears, like she is 12-years-old again, chasing neighbors to the bottom of the in-ground pool in Edmund’s back yard, daring each other to stay down the longest, until lungs were fit to bursting, and eardrums throbbed with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Then, it was as simple as pushing off the cool, tile bottom, straining for watery sunlight and that first, ecstatic gasping inhale. Now, there is no relief.

Dani wakes up drowning.

It’s Jamie that seems to save her. She hears the repetition of her name, a worried hum in the back of a throat, then a warm hand cupping her neck, her cheek, stroking gentle over her forehead.

“Dani, baby, it’s okay.” The hands help her sit up, a body curls around her back. “Just a dream, sweetheart. Just a dream. I’m right here. Breathe, Dani, breathe.”

She opens her eyes and it’s like she can see Jamie from a great distance, through the water. Her eyes are wild, image distorted, but she looks older somehow. She is screaming.

They are both screaming.

When she finally wrenches free from the nightmare, she is sweat-drenched and trembling. Jamie, her Jamie, is holding her tight against her chest, smoothing back Dani’s matted bangs and murmuring nonsense against her temple.

Gasping, Dani thinks she might cry, and realizes her cheeks are already wet. She turns her head to find Jamie’s wide, worried eyes.

“There you are,” Jamie says. She exhales, shaky. “That was a bad one, huh?”

Dani nods, chokes around her own voice until she manages the two-syllable break of Jamie’s name.

Soothing, Jamie cradles her closer, turns a kiss into the apple of her cheek, rubs her nose against her temple. In the sling of her hips, the warm-soft-damp of the inside of bare thighs holds Dani close, and that grounds her as much as anything – to be held, to have no one at her back but someone she trusts completely.

“Jamie,” this again, lips tucked into her mouth, a little embarrassed now. “I’m so sorry –”

Jamie clicks her tongue, chiding. “Don’t apologize.” She shifts out from under Dani’s weight, slides to the end of the bed. “I was just thinking I’d gotten my eight hours, anyway.”

Eyes cast to the bedside, Dani can see the neon digits of the alarm clock only advertise 4:30 a.m., but she doesn’t correct her, just reaches for her, a little put out that Jamie has already moved away.

“Alright, clingy, let me just get you a fresh shirt.”

Dani manages a laugh, a little tear-soaked, and sniffles. “I’m so sweaty.”

Rummaging through the top drawer of their armoire, Jamie turns to her curiously. “Like you’ve jumped in a pool. Someone tell your body it’s October, it’s well freezing in here.”

She tosses a t-shirt toward the bed, and Dani recognizes it as one of Jamie’s – black, with a scratchy decal boasting Blondie’s 1977 tour circuit. Despite the lingering sour of the dream, she feels a pulse of pleasure that Jamie would choose one of her own shirts to outfit her in. The smell alone is comforting, even though their laundry loads have long mixed, the fabric still holds something of Jamie about it.

She peels off her own shirt, skin bare underneath, and can practically hear the Looney Tune-esque sproing as Jamie’s eyes narrow in on – and instantly avert away from – her chest. It makes her giggle around another sniff, and she preens a little bit, ruffles one hand through her hair while shaking out the fresh shirt.

Jamie stops pretending not to look, wobbles a step closer instead.

“No fair,” she says, lowly. “You’re in a vulnerable state, stop showing off.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Dani says, though, yeah, maybe she is a little bit. It’s new, this – that thing where watching someone else be turned on by her also kind of gets her off. That even in the near-black of their bedroom, lit only by the glow of the clock and muted streetlights, her naked chest is enough to give Jamie that dizzy, milk-drunk kind of look.

She pulls the shirt over her head, snuggles into the fabric, dipping her nose into the collar for a whiff of detergent.

“Back to bed?” she asks, though her voice sounds unconvincing, even to her.

Skeptical, Jamie steps closer, lays a hand on her knee. “Could you sleep?”

“Probably not,” Dani admits. Shrugs. “I might just go lay down on the couch. I don’t want to keep you up.”

Jamie is already heading out of the room, looking back at Dani like she’s confused why she isn’t following.

“We’ll put something on,” she says. Holds out a hand, and says, awfully, terribly, like it’s common sense, like there’s no other option, “you aren’t waiting up on your own.”

There is still the phantom catch of water in her lungs, still faces forming in the shadows of the room in her peripherals, ghosts there, waiting with catching hands – but the inevitably of it feels impossible in light of Jamie’s certainty. Jamie who, after stepping through the doorway, knows without looking that Dani will follow.

The worst nights, the nights like these, when the Beast presses like a headache, they pop an old VHS tape into the VCR and Jamie tucks behind her on the living room couch. The blue wash from the portly, pot-bellied television set and the whir-click-hiss of the VHS unspooling triggers a placebo of near-instant calm.

The VHS tapes are also a gift from dear (likely departed) Agnes. A painstakingly catalogued box of taped Happy Days reruns, with careful handwriting detailing the original airdate, and the episode range on the cassette. Inexplicably the thirteenth episode of every season is missing. Entire nights have been spent arguing the logic of it to no avail.

Like she does every time, Dani compliments (presumably) Agnes’s organization. “Really did us a favor, huh?” she says, sinking back into Jamie’s arms, accepting a kiss against her cheek before wriggling closer.

“Is it a favor?” Jamie asks, a little snarky, nudging her hips against Dani’s, pinned between her and the back of the couch. “Or is this some sort of purgatory? Am I due to spend the rest of my life watching Happy Days reruns before daybreak with my sweaty girlfriend?”

“Hey!” It’s a difficult angle, but Dani tries to swat at Jamie anyway. Jamie just holds her tighter, buries a laugh at the nape of Dani’s neck, then a kiss.

“I’m not sweaty,” Dani says, a beat, “anymore. And we both know hell isn’t a 70s sitcom.”

Internally, the word girlfriend is spiraling through her head in a frenzied whirr. Forbidden. Delicious.

Jamie grants her another kiss, this one just under her jaw. “It better not be.”

The drone of the television in the background is enough to scare the shadows away, and Jamie drags a knit throw over the both of them, hooks her chin over her shoulder, one hand playing at the drawstring of Dani’s sweatpants. They’re lazy enough, sleepy enough, that they don’t even bother to fast forward through the commercials, just let the tape run through seven-year-old advertisements for Kellogg’s cereal and sugar-free JELL-O.

The world narrows to this sliver of couch, to Jamie stroking low on her stomach, a hand slipped up under her shirt now, unrushed, nearly unintentional. She traces shapes on the soft of Dani’s belly, inches up toward Dani’s breast like she’s considering, before running her nails gently back down.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” Dani says, voice slurred with almost-sleep, spooning back into Jamie’s hips until she hears her hiss.

“Who said anything about finishing?” Jamie murmurs. Teeth at the lobe of Dani’s ear, nosing into skin. The click of mouth on the metal stud of Dani’s earing, breath warm. “I could do this all night.”

Eventually, she’ll take pity, tune out the laugh track, slip her hand under the band of Dani’s sweats, mouthing at her neck until the Lady is the last thing on Dani’s mind.

Credits roll, the tape clunks to an anticlimactic finish, and the blue screen washes them, static crackling in fizzing threads.

“I change my mind,” Jamie groans. Dani turns in her arms, reaching for her wrist, digging nails in until Jamie curls two fingers inside her, swallowing her gasps, “If this is purgatory, I think I’ll stay.”

#the haunting of bly manor #dani x jamie #dani clayton #my writing #will i ever let dani actually sleep?????#remains to be seen #at least shes getting fingered i guess!!#in this economy take what u can get #dedicated to all the nice anons...u guy r the real mvps

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drumboydowoon · 4 years

Text

Woof Woof | Stray Kids AU

Chapter Three / Return of the Memories and the Fellowship of Fear

Werewolf!Chan au

Warnings / language

Words / 5K+

Masterlist

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The first thing you notice when your eyes flutter open suddenly, is the splitting pain pulsing in the back of your head. Then it shifts to the aches that run down your thighs to your calves. You groan at the throbbing pain and lay there for a moment, getting ready to sit up both physically and mentally.

After you’ve prepared yourself to move, you sigh and try to sit up, however, you can’t. You suddenly felt the heavyweight wrapped around your torso. You pout in confusion, then look to see what’s responsible. The questions become endless once you see that it’s someone’s arm wrapped around you. You allow your eyes to trail up the arm all the way to the face that sleeps right behind you.

Gasping, you lightly jump at the surprise of seeing Chan’s face right next to yours. You’re about ready to shove him away until you notice that his eyes are still closed and he’s letting out soft snores. It’s obvious that he’s still asleep… But why is he asleep next to you? That’s the big question of the hour.

You purse your lips as you gently push his arm off of you. For a moment, he flinches and you cringe, thinking that you woke him up. Luckily for you, Chan’s still out cold. When you move next, you make sure you’re careful to not wake him. You quietly slip away from him and get up off the painfully hard ground.

You brush yourself off and look around the room, which definitely wasn’t the bedroom that you were expecting (thank god). Instead, you find yourself in the basement of the boy’s home. More questions arise.

It also happens that you aren’t alone in the basement. Besides Chan, Felix lays on the floor next to the stairs, curled up into a ball and fast asleep as well. Curious as to who else may be in there with you, you turn around and search the room. You find another sleeping body resting a few feet away. Gazing curiously at him, you finally recognize who it is. It’s neither Minho or Jisung that you suspected. It’s Hwang Hyunjin, someone you knew a lot about, but never spoken to.

Frowning, you wonder what he was doing here, or what any of you are doing down here in the basement. Blinking, you stare at all three of them in thought for a while. What did you do last night to end up here?

Then, like a dam breaking open, everything suddenly comes crashing back to you all at once. Everything from you arriving at Felix’s house, to Felix and co. trying to murder you, to Minho coming to your rescue and knocking Chan out with a rock because he was getting a little handsy. In an instant, your jaw drops wide open as you’re at a complete loss for words.

Your body starts to shake as you slowly take a few steps back. Keeping your gaze locked both on Chan and Hyunjin, you fail to remember that he’s set up by the stairs. Taking another step backwards, your shoe collides with a body. Your entire being jumps in fear and you accidentally let a squeak escape you.

Felix groans at the contact and moves his arm out to scratch his leg, where you just kicked him. “5 more minutes…” he grumbles, but his eyes remain closed, though. There’s a cute pout etched on his face as he settles back into his previous sleeping position. You sigh in relief and this time you’re careful watch where you’re going and maneuver around him.

Once you step over him, you go up the first few steps very stealthy. After going around the corner and out of sight from them, caution goes out the window and you break into a sprint upstairs. It’s not until you're halfway up the stairs that you begin to feel a stinging sensation going across your waist to your stomach. It burns, so it makes you look down to see the issue. Your shirt is a little torn up and within those tears, you can see the angry red scratches covering your stomach. They don’t look too deep, but they sure hurt like hell.

You don’t recall getting those marks last night. Then again, everything went by in a flash, so a few things are bound to be clouded from your memory. Besides the pain isn’t what is important at the moment. Right now you need to focus on getting away as far as possible from the sleeping maniacs before it’s too late.

Waving it off for now, you continue your way upstairs and reach the door. You hurry to it and swing it open, not caring if you wake up the whole neighborhood at this point. Then you dart straight for the front door that stands not too far, yet still miles away at the same time. You can’t get out the door fast enough.

Someone in the dining room is alerted by the noise. He stops what he’s doing and stares, “Y/n?” he questions as he watches you try to make a beeline out the door.

Nearly tripping over yourself, you promptly look over to find Minho walking towards you with concern and confusion written all over him. Then his gaze wanders over to where your hand is moving towards the knob of the front door. Quickly, he rushes over and puts himself between yourself and the sweet smell of fresh air that he’s denying you.

“You can’t leave yet,” he says while slowly taking your wrist in his hand to move it away from the knob.

Sorry, but did you hear correctly? “Why not?! Why are you standing around like everything is fine? Do you even remember what happened last night? We need to get out of here!” all the words come jumbling out of your mouth as fear and anxiety sit in your gut unpleasantly. Any moment something bad can happen, so why is Minho acting so strange?

After ranting, Minho simply places his hands on your shoulders, “Calm down. Sit,” he points towards the black dining room table in the next room over.

Your jaw drops. It continues to hang open, even as he directs you towards a chair to sit down on. “Calm down?” you ask incredulously.

“You want me to calm down after I saw Felix acting like a fucking… whatever that was!?” you repeat, “Not to mention the fact that Hwang Hyunjin is here too, for some reason, and he tried to eat me as a late night snack. But thank god Chan was there to save me, then act like a weirdo who creepily sniffs girls!” you exclaim, in complete disbelief at what Minho is telling you to do. Calming down is the last thing that’s on your mind.

Finally a moment of realization hits you as Minho pushes you along. You stop in your tracks and refuse to move any further. Instead you turn to face Minho and jab a finger into his chest, “I bet you are in on this!” you accuse, “That explains why you’re so calm about all this,” you gasp at the sudden revelation you came up with out of nowhere.

Minho stares down at you with a blank face, but it still holds some resemblance of emotion because it’s quite easy to tell he’s not pleased. You gulp at the daggering stare. “Sit. Down,” both words fall sharply off his tongue as his daggering gaze commands you to do as you're told.

Though he is your friend, you sometimes forget how threatening Minho can be. Without thinking, your body has a mind of its own as it walks to one of the dining chairs and makes you sit on it. You could curse your mind and body for betraying you like that, but then again, you can’t blame them.

Sighing in relief, he follows after you and takes a seat across from you. He folds his hands on the table. You look to him expectantly, but he remains silent for a second, seemingly thinking before he speaks.

“I know you must be really confused and scared-”

“Terrified,” you correct.

He gives you a look before continuing, “Yeah and that… It’s not really my place to tell you this,” he starts, “But at this point you deserve to know after all that shit you you went through…” he trails off, trying to find the best words to use to explain it all to you. It’s much more difficult than you think.

As he thinks, someone walks into the room from the hall over, “Hey did you even start making breakfast yet? I’m starving,” Jisung asks sleepily. His eyes are half closed as he walks in. His face is covered in marks that are bruises forming. His lips have a cut near the corner and he looks exhausted. It’s like he hardly got any rest last night. But who could after a night like that?

“Oh hey, Y/n,” he greets nonchalantly before looking to Minho for an answer. Then it comes to Jisung a moment later, “Wait, Y/n?!” he jumps when he realizes that you’re there, sitting peacefully at their table.

He’s sure you would have ran for the hills by now. Thankfully that’s not the case, or that would have been really bad. He’s just surprised that’s all. He wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. Awkwardly, you smile back to the flustered boy.

“I’m trying to explain everything to her right now,” Minho fills in for him.

Jisung’s brows furrow as he objects, “What? The boys will be mad… Especially Hyunjin since he’ll find a way to blame all of this on me,” he frowns.

Rolling his eyes, Minho argues, “Well I think she would rather hear the truth from the only two normal people here.” He scoffs. It shouldn’t be that hard to guess why it would be a good idea to have the other three try to explain it to you.

“Okay, but it’s not really our place to expose a secret as big as this,” Jisung counterpoints, even though Minho literally already told you that. He’s unsure about making a decision like this. The two of them never really dealt with a problem like this.

Sighing, Minho pinches the bridge of his nose. You watch as they argue back and forth about whether it’s okay for them to tell you or not. Another headache forms in your already throbbing head.

Being extremely tired, in pain, and pissed off wasn’t the greatest combination. Their voices faded into the background while you thought of everything at once. Flashes of memories from the previous night reminded you of how absolutely scared you were. You’ve never felt so… helpless before.

For most of your life you’ve never had a reason to feel that scared. The most fear you felt was when you did something bad and you knew you were going to be yelled at for it, or knowing fully well that you did horrendously on a test that you did not study for whatsoever. But never because you had to worry for your own life.

What scares you the most is the feeling of not knowing, though. It isn’t the burning pain dancing all along your body. It’s the confusion that weighed you down the most. Did Felix always act like that? Why now of all times? Is this your fault?

There’s so many questions bubbling in one mind. Eventually it comes bursting out. Sick of the two fighting over something so pointless, you raise your voice, “Well someone needs to tell me what the hell happened!”

At once, they’re mouths shut. They both stare at you, not expecting your sudden much needed outburst. They only blink at you as you huff out a heavy breath.

Leaning over the table, you stare at the two. Barely above a whisper, your voice is still deep and dangerous in warning, “I don’t care whether or not it is your place to tell me. I’m telling you that you need to explain to me why my best friend, your weird roommate, and pretty boy, acted like a bunch of horror movie rejects.” There’s no room for debate in your tone.

You’re so tired. Somehow you’ve become completely different from a few minutes ago. Before, you were frantic and desperate to leave as soon as possible, yet now you’re so done with everything. You’ve had time to process, only momentarily, but you had time. Now you need answers.

“Y-yes ma’am,” Jisung stutters, it’s clear that he’s far more worried about you exploding at him now rather than having Hyunjin get mad later. Minho mumbles about how he can’t believe that’s all it took to shut him up.

The older of the two then resumes his previous position of leaning closer to you with his hands folded. He licks his lips in preparation, “It might sound really ridiculous,” he warns, “But it’s not fiction, I promise. Sometimes there’s things-”

Rolling your eyes, you gesture for him to hurry, “There’s no need to sugarcoat it. Just tell me. Is it drugs? Some kind of hypnosis?” The list of assumptions and guesses could go on forever, but before you can question anymore, Minho opens his mouth.

“It’s werewolves”

Blinking once, then twice, you have to think if you actually heard him right. Once again, he beats you to the point, “Felix, Chan, and Hyunjin are werewolves. Last night was a full moon, so they were way more out of control than usual.” Even after he repeats and clarifies his preceding statement, you’re still not sure if you’re hard of hearing.

Looking away, Jisung stuffs his hands in his pockets while he kicks at the ground. The other waits for your response. The room is hushed as tension rises high. Such an… interesting explanation was bound to make some speechless.

By what you understand, Felix, your loveable friend, who acts like a pesky mosquito because he just “feels like it”, is a werewolf. Someone you have known for a few years, somehow managed to hide the fact that they’re a werewolf as well.

It starts off with a scoff. But soon that turns into quiet giggles. Minho and Jisung give each other a look. One holds annoyance while the other faces uncertainty. The giggling evolves into full blown hysterical laughter. Grabbing at your sides, you laugh harder and harder, even after the fact that both boys look at you like you’re a nutcase.

In your defense though, you can’t possibly believe they’re being truthful for one second. Like seriously? Werewolves? Out of all the things either one of them could choose to lie about, they chose werewolves. You do applaud them for using their amusing creativity.

It felt like you went on for minutes before you finally began to calm down. After devolving into chokes of laughter, you wipe away the tears that were slipping from your eyes. You glance over to the two, who were not laughing along with you.

You take a deep breath of air and chuckle midway through, “You are joking, right?” your eyes continue to flick between both of them, looking for any sign that this is some cruel prank.

Blankly, Minho shakes his head, “Nope”

Your jaw drops as you look to the other boy, “Jisung?” you question, hoping he will be kind enough to enlighten you.

Jisung huffs. He looks conflicted, “Believe it or not, you’ll find out soon enough,” he ominously answers, making you rethink that it’s a joke.

It’s impossible to believe them. And it’s impossible to think you would believe them. There’s no point in lying now. You’ve already seen enough, so why are they being so frustrating about this?

Minho squints his eyes to something past you. “Looks like soon, is now...” he mumbles quietly to himself. You can’t hear him, so you ask him to repeat himself. But instead he gives whatever he’s looking at a sheepish smile, “Good morning, boys,” he greets.

All at once, you can feel your entire being freeze. It only takes a few words to figure out who he’s greeting. Three sets of groggy footsteps approach the room. It’s impossible to turn around. Rather than moving, your body sits straight up as you look to Minho with wide eyes. All the feelings from before you somewhat calmed down, come tumbling back into you full force.

In the moment, both Minho and Jisung feel bad for you (one more than the other). Subtly, Minho unfolds his hands and carefully slides one across the table towards you. You look down at his snaking hand trying to offer its comfort. Instead, you return a frown. Somehow you were able to convey that it wasn’t the time and that you are mad at him now, because his hand retreats to his lap.

In the corner of your vision, you can see the outline of someone walking into the kitchen and past the counter. Daringly, you decide to look in the direction of them. Felix ignores your presence all together and darts straight for the refrigerator. He opens the door to the freezer and sticks his head in. Sighing happily at the cool contact, Felix enjoys remaining peacefully oblivious to you sitting at their table.

From behind you, a round of pained groans and groggy voices ring in your ears. Chan and Hyunjin follow shortly after, evidently muttering something to each other. The two of them step into the room and Hyunjin’s tired voice drowns out for some reason. Chan, like Felix, is unaware of you. Your head snaps away from Felix and opts to look down at your fidgeting hands sitting on the table.

“Hey, what time is it?” Chan’s raspy voice asks. He stretches as he tries to wake up from his horrible night of sleeping on the concrete floor.

Jisung holds a hand to his face and shakes his head in disappointment. On the other hand, Minho pointedly looks at Chan, hoping that he would see the elephant in the room. Lacking in the ability to understand, Chan cocks his head to the side. It takes a second to fully comprehend his surroundings.

Getting annoyed, Hyunjin rolls his eyes and elbows the older in the side and points harshly to you, the first thing he noticed when he walked in. A chill goes through you as you feel the many stares on you. It takes another moment before he realizes that there’s someone else in the room rather than his roommates. He sees your sitting body at his table, back facing him and visibly tense.

The uneasiness seeped into him the moment he laid eyes on you. Memories from the night before were vastly blurry. He can hardly remember anything, but seeing the tears in your clothing and the way you kept your head down, he could use common sense and put two and two together. Guilt found a way to drop in the pit of his stomach since he can practically hear you shivering from here.

He gulped as he waved for the one boy that remained ignorant, “Aye, Felix…” he trails off.

Felix sighs as he hears his name, “What…?” He doesn’t want to leave the refreshing cold air blasting his face. It felt too nice. All nice things come to an end, though, or at least when they’re ruined by Chan calling him again.

Groaning, this time a little more irritated, Felix pulls away from the freezer to lazily glance at the man that’s making it hard for him to relax. Like a teenager, Felix shrugs in exasperation, “What?” he repeats with a bit more attitude. He could hear the cool air from the freezer calling his name to come back.

Felix sees Hyunjin’s scowl first, then Chan’s eyes that keep flickering between him and somewhere else in the room. He follows his line of sight to the table. You can feel your heart pick up the second his gaze lands on you, even when you’re not looking at him. If you were watching, you would be able to see the way Felix’s eyes pop open like a cartoon. The color drains from his skin at the sight of you.

He opens his mouth, stammering to say something, yet nothing comes out. Opting to say nothing at all, Felix makes the hasty decision to turn his back to you and stick his head back into the freezer. You sneak a peek to see his reaction, but are disappointed to see that he isn’t even looking at you anymore. God, how can something be so awkward and terrifying at the same time?

Chan shakes his head at the cowardice of his younger friend. It’s clear that he would have to take matters into his own hands. Putting on a very fake smile, he perks up, “Morning, Y/n! Weird seeing you here,” his voice is so cheery, you totally can’t tell it isn’t real at all.

After he calls your name for the first time this morning, you can’t help but let your body go rigid. For a second, you look to Minho and Jisung for help. Luckily for you, they’re no help at all and only offer either a shrug or an expressionless face. Classic Minho and Jisung. You’re sure going to give them hell later.

Shakily, you turn in your seat to face the boys, giving them a nervous smile that wasn’t meant to be a smile. Seeing them now makes you look at them differently. They don’t have their fangs or glowing eyes anymore. Instead, they looked like they always had. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stop seeing the horror that they were.

Chan saw how hard you were trying to not to make a run for the door, and he couldn’t blame you. Even though he can’t recall much, he’s sure that nothing good happened. And he knows for a fact that he isn’t innocent either.

“H-hey,” you curse yourself for faltering like that.

Deciding to speak up at last, Hyunjin rolls his eyes, “It’s obvious she knows. Stop acting like she doesn’t,” he scoffs. He can’t be the only one with common sense.

Chan’s shoulders drop as his fake happy act does as well, and is replaced by awkwardness and nerves. Before anyone can say anything else, Jisung pipes up quickly, “Minho is the one who told her!” he points an accusing finger towards the boy in question. Minho is just as quick to give him a sharp glare back.

Suddenly your expression of fear turns into one of doubt, “No, what Minho told me is that made up crap about you being werewolves. Please, like anyone expects me to believe that” You take a turn eyeing up all three of them, “Werewolves? More like a bunch of drugged up lunatics…”

Knowing that the boys weren’t nearly as hostile and out of their mind as they were before, was relieving. You can be brave enough to talk to them, but you can’t be caught off guard yet.

For what felt like the hundredth time, the room became quiet. Hyunjin laughed in disbelief at your comment. You raise a brow at him, “Something funny?” you ask, but you snap to something more important, “What are you even doing here, Mr. Bigshot on Campus?”

Jisung was amazed how fast your moods can change. One you’re scared for your life, then the next your insulting each and everyone of them. It’s a talent, really. Hyunjin didn’t bother to answer your question, instead he scowls at you.

Quietly, Chan twiddles his thumbs together, “Well, Minho isn’t lying… We are werewolves,” he admits, looking you straight in the eyes afterward. As uncomfortable and tense he was for admitting such a big secret like that, he still wanted to be sincere. He needed you to know that he wasn’t lying.

“This isn’t funny anymore…” you tell them with a frown, “If you can’t tell me the truth, then I’m leaving,” you get up from the chair and begin to move. You can’t deal with them. If they don’t want to tell you, then fine. They’ll just have to handle the aftermath of you ignoring them from now on.

Minho calls out to you, “Y/n-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” you shut him up. He’s just as guilty as the rest of them.

Felix is frozen in place. He can’t face you, but hearing that you’re going to leave sends him into a panicked frenzy. You can’t leave, not when you still don’t believe them. If you leave, there’s a chance he could never see you again, and you’ll only know him as the monster that hurt you. Then again, if he does tell you, you might still look at him like that anyways. He can’t think straight.

Without much thought, Felix stops you in your tracks, “Wait, Y/n”

You face him, looking indifferent and ready to shut him up too. You don’t want to hear any more excuses. If you’re fortunate, you can leave this place in one piece and never talk to them again.

Conflicted, Felix looks to his other lunatic buddies. Hyunjin can’t be bothered to care about the pleading look Felix shoots at him. At least Chan is more caring and gives him a small reassuring nod.

At last Felix sighs and his shoulders drop in defeat. He never wanted to show you this side of him, but now he has no other choice. The only thing he says to you is, “I can prove it…” before his face completely morphs into something entirely different. Rather than seeing the freckled boy with chocolate eyes, who you care for too much, you see the same monster from last night that beat the shit out of Jisung and tried to do the same to you.

At the sight of his transformation, you jump back, nearly knocking over the chair behind you. “Oh!” you would’ve fallen over if it weren’t for Minho’s quick thinking to jump from his own seat and keep you up right. He holds your arm, but lets go just as quickly after you’re stable.

The hurt Felix felt when he saw your expression is unmeasurable. But he understands that he had to do it. He understands why you’re scared. He’s had the same feeling long ago too. He raises his hand into view, showing off his sharply cut claws, “Do you believe us now?” he hesitantly asks.

All eyes are on you once again, waiting for your response. Would you look at them differently, more than you already did? Would you expose their secrets? Would you run out of the house screaming “Wolf!”? Each one of them thought up a different scenario.

They were all wrong, though. In fact, your mind can barely think of what to do. All your thoughts were strewn around in a fiery hellscape. There’s too much information to process. Although you already saw this, you can’t understand why you didn’t believe them before. In some twisted way, it made sense. But you didn’t want it to make sense. You wanted it to be normal and rational. Perhaps the drug use scenario would have been better than this.

Your jaw slacked open, trying to form a proper sentence, but nothing seems to be coming out right. You stare down at your shoes for a moment, licking your lips in thought. Taking that moment to think your words through, you finally look up at them.

“Can I borrow your shower?” you ask, not noticing how your voice pitched up.

Being dumbfounded, is saying the least. The boys wondered if they heard you correctly, but they know they did. Jisung is the first to speak up, “Y/n are you serious?! You just saw… that!” he throws his hands up, referring to Felix’s woofed out face, “And you want to wash your hair?!”

You bit your lip as you realized that the request did sound a little ridiculous, but you needed to get to an escape. “I just need somewhere to think for a second,” you tell them, feeling shy all of a sudden.

Some of them were still in disbelief, while others could understand. Nevertheless, Felix is kind enough to be one of the few who understand, so he gives you permission. In an instant, your feet are moving and you're going upstairs to lock yourself in the bathroom. Once you’re safely inside, you lean back against the door and sigh heavily.

The only feeling in your mind that you can describe right now are three tiny words, “What the fuck”

You left in such a hurry that you couldn’t allow anyone else enough time to say anything. And you’re thankful for that. You don’t know what other kind of talking you can handle right now.

You stood there for a few minutes, trying to catch your breath and calm yourself down. After you settle down, you push yourself off the door and go straight for the shower. However, passing by the mirror made you backtrack once you caught your reflection.

“Wow I look like shit,” you mumble to yourself, observing your dirt covered face. Not only that, but your hair was sticking up in every direction, and frankly, you’re surprised Minho didn’t make fun of the new look. And worst of all, your clothes appear unrecoverable with all the grim and rips covering you.

You run a hand through your mess of a hair and pout, deciding at last to start the shower. Once the water heat ups, you slip out of your nasty clothes and step into the hot inviting shower. You immediately put your head under the and relax under the warm water cascading down your body. Head empty, no thoughts. You only felt the comfort from the only normal thing you have had today.

What did you exactly get yourself into? Is the last thing to pass through your mind before you succumb to the pleasures of taking a hot shower.

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penpatronuswhump · 4 years

Photo

WHUMPTOBER 2020

No. 8

Fandom: Avengers

Whumpee: Bruce Banner

Caregivers: Tony Stark and Natasha Romnanoff

Title: The Death of Bruce Banner

By: PenPatronus // PenPatronusAooO

“We’re not naming it Veronica!” Bruce told Tony in a ‘for the last time’ voice. “Just name it what you name all the other ones – Mark 48 or 49 or wherever you’re at.” The two friends were in their lab in Avengers Tower. It was two in the morning – the perfect time for Stark/Banner brainstorming sessions. Something just coalesced at 2am. Maybe it was the quiet in the Tower or the coffee they shouldn’t drink or the darkness outside the tall windows. Or maybe it was just the mad magic of science on full power when the moon was just right.

“The other ones have names, too, you just haven’t bothered to learn them,” Tony said. He stood in front of a holographic schematic of the Hulkbuster armor with his arms folded against his chest and one fist under his chin. “How about I name this one, and you name the next one, huh? Compromise? Deal? Bruce? …Bruce?” Tony turned towards his fellow scientist and frowned when he saw Banner leaning heavily against a silver lab table. “Banner, hey, what’s up?” Tony jogged over and put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I, uh…” Bruce winced and slid his hand between two buttons of his button-down shirt, massaging his chest. “I don’t know. I feel… Weird.”

Tony noticed the sweat on Bruce’s brow and the slight shake of his hands. “Hulk weird?”

“No… Human weird. Like, uh… I don’t know it’s just… My ribs feel heavy.”

“Your ribs feel heavy?” Tony felt the heat, then – a furious fever in Bruce’s cheeks. “Hey, buddy, why don’t you sit down.” Bruce nodded. He reached blindly for a chair and only found one when Tony moved it. Banner sat down heavily in it, and put his face in his hands. Tony kept his hand on his shoulder. “I thought you never got sick. Green Giant heals you, right? I mean, he gets shot into Swiss cheese and you walk away.”

“God – my head…” Bruce suddenly clamped a hand around Tony’s forearm. “Feels like my skull is changing shape. Is my skull changing shape?”

“Not this time,” Tony gulped, “but look at your skin.” Bruce obeyed. There was a green tint to it. Not Hulk-green but about-to-puke green. It was all over. He felt his own pulse and Tony could tell by the look on his face that his heart was either beating dangerously fast or dangerously slow. “Bruce, maybe we should get you to a hospital.”

“Maybe… Maybe I should sit down,” Bruce wondered. His words were slow and slightly slurred.

“Buddy, you are sitting – Bruce?” Bruce suddenly started to shake from his toes up to his nose. Tony grabbed onto his upper arms with both hands. “Bruce!” It happened so quickly – as most shocking things do. Bruce fell out of the chair, and would’ve knocked his head on the floor if Tony hadn’t been there to slow his fall and then catch his body. The seizure caused every single muscle in his body to shake like a guitar string. “JARVIS!” Tony called, “call 911! And wake the team!”

----------

Natasha was just about to call it a night and allow herself to drift off to sleep when a voice suddenly said, “Where are we?” Her heart did a loop-de-loop. Bruce was awake and looking at her and speaking and, oh, her heart flipped happily over again. She crawled across the king-sized bed and gave Banner a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “So… Heaven?” Bruce quipped with a slight smile.

Natasha returned his smile. “Asgard, actually.”

Bruce found himself in the nicest bed he’d ever been in, inside the shittiest old barn he’d ever seen. “This is Asgard?”

Natasha put up her finger. She had her phone to her cheek. She winced when a high-pitched buzzing sound erupted from it. “Bad service out here,” she joked, winking. “Stark? Yeah. He’s awake.” She pocketed her phone and returned her attention to Bruce. “This is an empty island far, far away from Odin’s kingdom but, yes, this is Asgard.” Bruce tried to sit up in bed, but Nat put a hand on his bare chest. “Not yet,” she said. “Take it slow.”

“What happened?”

“We’re not sure. Seizure of some sort. You’ve been asleep for a week.”

“A week?”

Pounding footsteps outside. The barn door opened and Tony and Steve entered. “There he is.” Stark clapped his hands together once, then sat on a corner of the bed, opposite to Nat. “How you feeling, buddy?”

Bruce was just assessing that now that he’d gotten his bearings. “Stuff… hurts,” he concluded, half-aware that he sounded half-lucid. He reached up and scratched at the almost-beard he’d grown. “Especially my head. It’s throbbing.”

Tony nodded. His smile was so forced he looked like he was wearing a mask of himself. “Did you tell him yet?” he asked Natasha.

She shook her head vehemently. “Waiting for you to.”

“I think that’s a job for the team leader.” Tony looked up at Cap and spread his fingers out, gesturing for him to speak. Steve almost insisted that Tony be the one to give Bruce the news, but he saw something foreign in Tony’s eyes. He couldn’t name it, but it was something like a begging expression. Tony really didn’t want to do it.

Cap cleared his throat. He moved to stand behind Tony and folded his arms against his chest. “You have a brain tumor,” he said. “You’re dying.”

Bruce snorted. “If I have a brain tumor, the Hulk has already healed it.”

Steve shared a knowing look with Tony. “Well, this one isn’t healing. It’s right above your pituitary gland and it’s getting bigger every day. It’s pushing hormones into your system that are messing up all your organs. The docs at home can’t do anything for you. We were hoping the scientists on Asgard would have a solution, but they don’t. And…”

“And?” Bruce prompted.

“We’ve tried to get the Hulk to come out, to heal you, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Even kicked you in the balls,” Tony said. When Bruce glared at him Tony shrugged and said, “For your own good!”

Natasha pursed her lips together and looked down at the sheets covering Bruce’s body. “We brought you here in case you change,” she explained. “Nothing smashable on this island but us.”

“I’ll get him to come out and play,” Bruce said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. “Get off the island.”

“We’re not scared,” said Nat. “He’s been recognizing us lately. He knows our voices, he knows our faces. The lullaby works most of the time.”

“And if he’s being a jerk I’ll just call in Veronica,” Tony said with a sneer.

“We are not calling it Veronica!” Bruce suddenly shivered. “Oh! Do something else to make me angry. Might be working.”

“Uh… The flat-earthers are right!” said Natasha.

“Trump is the greatest president the world has ever seen!” said Tony.

“Tony’s smarter than you!” said Steve with a chuckle.

Bruce frowned and put his hand to his chest. “Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Whenever I get a little emotional I can… Feel him. He’s this extra weight in me that kind of wakes up and lets me know he’s there. I don’t…” Wide-eyed, Bruce looked up at Tony. “He’s there. I can feel him but… I think he’s sick, too. I think… I think he’s dying.” Suddenly, to the shock of the other three, Banner tossed his arms into the air and shouted happily. “I’m dying!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Natasha asked. “This is not how normal people react to a brain tumor!”

“You don’t get it,” said Bruce, which was true because none of them did. “I’ve been hoping to die ever since I got the Hulk. I’ve been trying to die.”

Nat frowned. “Don’t…”

“Nat, the Hulk is nothing but a dangerous burden. He destroys, he kills. I thought he couldn’t be killed but something has changed. If we can get rid of him, the sooner the better.”

“That means getting rid of you!”

“So?” Bruce’s smile was as wide as his face. “This – this is a miracle!” Nat suddenly leapt to her feet and stormed out of the barn, slamming the door as she left. The three men watched her go in silence – one of them flabbergasted. Bruce cleared his throat. He tried to look Tony and Steve in the eye, but their attentions were on the floor. “You get it, right?” he asked them. Neither replied. “I want you to stop trying to cure me,” Bruce ordered. “No pills, no brain surgery, no Asgard magic medicine. Let me die.” Tony suddenly leapt to his feet and stormed out of the barn, slamming the door as he left. “What?” Bruce called after him.

Steve sighed and pulled a wooden chair up to the bed. “Bruce,” he said, “what would you do if Nat was dying? If Tony was?”

Bruce flinched at the thought. He settled deeper under his blankets and echoed Steve’s sigh. “I’d tear the world apart trying to save them.”

“And you don’t think we’d do the same for you?”

“I don’t want you to do the same for me. Don’t you see? I don’t care if I die. All I care about is preventing the Hulk from hurting people. If that means death, then so be it.”

“You are a valued member of this team and an indispensable scientist to the world and, more importantly you’re our friend and we love you,” Cap said quietly, and all in one breath. “We’re not giving up.”

“Well, I am,” Bruce said, equally quietly. “Happily.”

---------

A month passed. Bruce lost weight. He had seizures at least once a day. When he wasn’t asleep he was vomiting, and when he wasn’t vomiting he was suffering from headaches that almost made him cry. Half of his hair fell out. He could barely walk, refused to eat, felt dizzy, and when he had the strength to he pulled out his IVs. The team tended to him the whole time. But no threat from Thor could get him to eat. Clint tried the “airplane method” with a spoon like he did with his kids, but that didn’t work to get Bruce to eat or to laugh. Every physician in Asgard came to see him, but none could help.

Nothing worked. Bruce was dying.

One morning, about an hour before dawn, Bruce suddenly woke up gasping for air. The other five were in the barn and all rushed to his bedside. It was Tony that Bruce held a hand out to. Stark took it, and held Bruce’s thin, cold hand in both of his, warm and snug in his lap where he sat on the side of the bed. Candlelight lit the scene and a few morning songbirds sang outside the barn. “Think this is it,” Bruce wheezed. “You can name it Veronica. Not that you’ll need her anymore.”

Stark laughed – one of those short snorts that propel tears and snot. “I’d give anything…” he started to say. His eyes filled up with tears, and then emptied. “I fix things. I’ve always been able to fix things and if I can’t, I have the money to pay someone who can but this… Bruce, I have, maybe, ten friends in the world and half of them are in this room… I can’t lose you.”

Banner managed a smile. “Love you, too,” he said. His lungs sounded like they were full of rocks. “Miss you.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t say goodbye,” Tony said. Then he relented. “Miss you.” Tears poured. “So much.”

Bruce closed his eyes and the rattling stones went silent. A squeak came out of Natasha and she collapsed into Clint’s arms. Thor put a comforting hand on Steve’s shoulder. Tony checked for a pulse and when he found none, he folded forward and put his forehead on Bruce’s chest.

And then the Hulk came out. Banner’s body stretched and cracked. The five Avengers backed up against the walls as the bed collapsed from the green giant’s bulk. Hulk sat up, roared happily, and then gave the others a grin with gravestone teeth. “Hulk!” he roared. “Only Hulk now! Hulk forever!”

“Well he’s looking perfectly fit,” said Steve.

“Strong as ever,” Thor pointed out.

It dawned on Clint a second before everyone else realized what was going on. “You don’t think…?”

Tony raced forward. Hulk had to duck his head under the barn’s roof – his body took up most of the room – so his chin was close to the floor, at the perfect angle for Tony to punch it. And he did. With all his strength. Hulk roared so loud that the wind he created pushed Tony back against Steve. “Don’t—!” Steve advised, grabbing Tony’s upper arms. Stark fought him off and approached Hulk again.

“You son of a bitch!” Tony hollered. “You didn’t heal him on purpose! You let him die so you could be rid of him!”

“Hulk is Hulk now!” the giant yelled back. “Only Hulk!”

“You giant green dick!” Tony continued. “You nut-less, soul-less asshole! I will fucking kill you, you hear me? I will bury you for this!”

Natasha rushed to Tony’s side and grabbed his hand. “Let me,” she hissed at him. “Let me try.”

Tony blinked red eyes. He wiped his face with his sleeve, gave the Hulk the finger, then retreated to Steve’s side.

Natasha approached Hulk. She sat down in front of him, mirroring his crossed legs and the angle of his head. “Hey, big guy,” she said. “Sun’s getting real low.” Hulk snorted at her like a bull. “Do you want to hurt me?”

Hulk blinked big, round, and hard. “No smash ‘tasha.”

“Hulk smashed,” said Nat, accusing. She pointed at her heart. “Hulk smashed bad. Hulk smashed Tony, Hulk smashed Steve, Hulk smashed everybody.”

“Hulk not care,” he decided after a moment of contemplation. “Hulk just want to smash.”

“You wouldn’t have said a few minutes ago,” said Natasha. “Not with Bruce’s heart in you.”

“Banner imprison Hulk! Hulk smash Banner!”

“If you smash, you hurt people,” Natasha reminded him. “Do you want to hurt people?”

“Want to smash!”

“Bad Hulk!”

“Smash!”

“Then smash me!” Nat stood and spread her arms, turning her body into a cross shape. “Do it!”

Hulk roared. He raised both hands and hammered them down.

His fists stopped an inch from Natasha’s hair.

“You wouldn’t have done that a few minutes ago,” Natasha said. “Not with Bruce’s heart in you.” She put her hands to her hips and lifted her chin. “Bruce keeps you good.”

Hulk retreated. “No smash ‘tasha,” he repeated.

“You won’t,” she said, “if Bruce is alive.” She waited a few seconds, then said, “Give him back to us.”

The Avengers could practically see the gears going in the Hulk’s brain. He sniffed and snorted and looked around the room like the answers were hanging on the wall. Then he sighed and reached his finger out for Natasha to take. “Sun… Getting… Low…”

The great monster crumpled like paper. Bones shrunk and tendons shortened. He curled in on himself and suddenly, there he was. Suddenly there was a naked Bruce Banner standing in the middle of the barn looking beyond bewildered. His hair was back. So was his weight. In fact, he’d never looked healthier.

“This can’t be Heaven,” Bruce deduced. The team didn’t answer. They just hugged.

The End

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years

Text

Down the Rabbit Hole part 5

“Peter, wake up. Peter, please, come on. I know you’re breathing, you have a pulse, fucking wake up, Pete. Please.”

Peter cracks an eye open and sees Makado, forehead pressed against his shoulder, her own shaking with exhaustion and frustration and fear. He wants to reach down and touch her and show her that he’s awake, that he’s okay, but his arm doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with what he wants it to do; he can lift it but it feels like he’s a million miles from his body and whispering in the ear of whoever is really lifting his arm, but they can’t understand him and they aren’t very good at working the arm to begin with. He blinks glassily and shifts his torso a little and Makado looks up and sees that he’s awake and throws her arms around him.

“Goddam it,” she mutters. She smells like peaches. Peter tells her this and she looks at him with a funny expression on her face, like she’s trying very hard not to smile and failing at it. “You really cracked your head, didn’t you?” she says. Peter tries to sit up but she puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back down gently. He raises his arm again and notices that a little bit more of his coordination has returned; he puts his hand on her shoulder and she reaches up and squeezes it.

“Are the kids okay?” he asks, and she nods.

“Yeah, they’re fine. A little banged up but we all are. They’re okay.”

Peter looks over her shoulder and sees the three of them, even Eileen, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. Fitzroy has a cut on his forehead that looks bad, but it’s a head wound, so it probably looks worse than it actually is, and Eileen is still clutching her wrist. His eyes flick up to Makado. “Have you looked at Eileen’s wrist?” he asks. “She’s been holding it like that since the first wave of convulsions.”

“Yeah,” Makado nods. “It’s sprained, I took a look at it. Not broken, thankfully.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” she admits. “I’m not a doctor. But she wouldn’t be able to move it as much as she can if it were broken.”

“Good,” Peter says, making to get up, but Makado pushes him down again.

“Not so fast,” she says, unclipping her flashlight from her belt. “Stare straight ahead,” she instructs him, and when he squints against the light she rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t squint.”

Peter tries not to but even on the lowest setting the flashlight is very bright. After what feels like eternity Makado turns it off and shrugs. “You’ve got a concussion,” she says, “but probably not a very bad one.”

“Are you sure?” Peter frowns. “I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, you look like it, too,” Makado grins. “You were only out for a minute or two, though.”

“The choke response was over that quickly?” he asks, sitting up. His head throbs for a moment and he puts his hand to it, but the feeling passes.

“No,” Makado shakes her head. “Put your hand on the floor.”

Peter does and then he feels it, a slow rattling rumble from somewhere deep, deep in the Pit, a vibration that passes up his bones and makes his teeth sing. He jerks his hand back like it was scorched. “What the hell?”

“I know.”

“What is going on?”

“No clue,” Makado shakes her head. “I haven’t been able to get anybody on the radio, and the lift stopped halfway down. I think a contraction crushed part of the elevator shaft inwards so it can’t make it all the way.”

“Shit,” Peter mutters. “So we’re trapped down here?”

He glances at the three kids on the other side of the elevator enclosure, but they aren’t paying attention; Fitzroy and Eileen are huddled together, looking exhausted, and Tyler is laid out flat on the floor, shuddering along with the pit.

“I don’t know,” Makado tells him. “The elevator is fucked so that’s not a viable way up but there are others. I know there’s a ladder somewhere that leads up to the bronchial area in the layer above this but I don’t know where it is. Do you?”

Peter shakes his head. “No,” he says after a moment. “I’m down here a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever used that ladder. We always would just take the lift, like we’re –“

“- like we’re supposed to,” Makado groans. “And you don’t have the map downloaded?”

“No,” Peter tells her. “I still have a map of the eastern face in here,” he says, tapping the computer box built into his suit’s chestplate. Makado curses.

“Mine just has a map of the LVC area, I’ve been doing tour groups for the last three days.”

“You? Doing tour groups?”

“Don’t even start,” she groans. “Ryan and Fatoumatta both have been out, Ryan’s dad died and I don’t even know what Fati’s problem was, we literally didn’t have anybody else to cover.”

There’s another grumbling moan from somewhere deep below them. Peter watches Tyler shudder.

“Pit doesn’t sound very happy,” Peter mutters.

“I’ve never heard carnal moans like those,” Makado agrees.

“I know a choke response can be bad but even if the pumps failed in the Sand Gullet it shouldn’t have been this bad.”

“No. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Do you have a wireless link with the LVC? I don’t but I don’t know if your suit…”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I thought my suit was damaged but I didn’t worry about it until the elevator got fucked.”

Peter blows his breath out. “We’re screwed, then.”

“Not so loud. We aren’t screwed, there has to be a way up to the LVC, you know how this place is, there’s always a damn ladder or access chute or elevator somewhere, you just never know where they are.”

“But if we can’t get any new maps –“

“Okay, here’s something, though – if we get to a ranger station or a call box we can jack in and try and get a direct line to the LVC that way. I think the wireless issue is the same as the radio issue, I think it’s just that a repeater somewhere got crushed. I don’t know if you know but they aren’t exposed, they’re literally just buried in flesh in places because they really didn’t want anybody screwing with them. It’s just that convulsions this strong are so rare this deep that I guess they figured it was an acceptable risk.”

“So if they buried it in muscle –“

“- which is stupid, I know, even if convulsions are rare -”

“Okay. Well, we can’t get to the ranger station in that digestive bulb. There’s a call box in the Campground –“

“Not any more,” Makado shakes her head. “I saw it when we went in there, it’s fucked.”

“Then the closest one is going to be down in the lower organ trails. There’s a call box every half mile or so.”

“Christ,” Makado groans. “I really, really hoped you wouldn’t say that.”

“It’ll be fine,” he assures her.

“Those macrobacteria had to get in somehow. Where else would it have been but the –“

“You don’t know,” he says. “It could have been literally anywhere with the level of shit we’ve been dealing with for the last half hour or so. Ouch.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says, putting a hand to his forehead. “I think I’m just catching up now, I have a killer headache all of a sudden.”

“I have a hypo if you –“

“I have some too, it’s okay. We all need to be sharp.”

“Are we trapped down here?” Fitzroy calls, and Makado turns and looks at him.

“No,” she says finally. Peter can see her struggling to think of what to say that won’t make the three teenagers panic. Tyler’s eyes are very wide, or at least they seem so in the red emergency lighting. “We’re just trying to figure out our next plan of action.”

“Are we gonna die?” Eileen asks, so quietly Peter can barely hear her.

“Not today,” Makado says. “Me and Ranger Pete here are going to get you guys out of here.”

“Okay,” Eileen says. There is not a lot of confidence in her voice. At least, Peter reflects, she’s defeated instead of panicked. Then he does a mental double-take and considers what a ridiculous sentiment that is. If she –

“Did you hear me?” Makado asks, frowning. Peter blinks.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she says, leaning closer. “You’re –“

“No, it’s nothing, I just zoned out for a second. I was thinking about how the hell we’re going to get these kids out of here.”

“Yeah, you and me both. At least it seems fairly safe in this enclosure.”

“Yeah. Have you looked outside lately?”

“No,” Makado says, “but it should be okay, I haven’t heard any more stents fail.”

“I was thinking more about wildlife.”

Before Makado can answer the floor bucks violently and Eileen and Fitzroy both yelp, but the tremor subsides slowly and gracefully, winding down with a jolting series of shudders that Peter can tell from Makado’s face she’s never felt anything like before; neither has he.

The elevator enclosure is fairly roomy, big enough for maybe ten or twelve people to wait in relative comfort. The walls are drab reinforced steel, with a few posters taped up about safety requirements and guidelines and a big recruiting poster encouraging people to apply for venterial engineer positions. This was never an elevator intended for guests to use – in fact, most of the time people wouldn’t have gotten to the Lower Gastro Zone through an elevator at all. Peter’s lead many, many tours down the mile-and-a-half walking path that meanders in a spiraling course down the Pit’s eastern side and finally lets out at a large, reinforced bulb that once was a gastrointestinal organ but, like the Campground, had been drained and prettied up and turned into a staging area both for returns to the Lower Visitor Center and for guests making excursions deeper into the Pit. Peter and the other rangers stationed there joked about it being the lower Lower Visitor Center, considering the amount of traffic they usually got, but all jokes aside, Peter had loved his assignment. Generally speaking the only guests they had passing through and downwards were the serious ones, the ones who’d been on a solo or small-group excursion before and knew what to expect and as such required only refills of water, or propane for their tents’ support packs. It had been him, Makado, Carl, and a few others who tended to rotate out as needed, but then Makado caught that promotion a week ago…

At the time Peter had tried very hard not to feel sad, knowing that she’d definitely deserved it, but he couldn’t help selfishly wishing that someone else had gotten promoted instead so that he could continue hanging out with her and Carl and all the others. The past week had been so strange without her flashing eyes and no-nonsense demeanor and quick wit when they’d teased her. He’d known Carl had felt it too, even if they’d never directly spoken about it.

“Why don’t I go down to the Lower Organ Trail,” Peter says, interrupting Makado’s perusal of the hopelessly limited general map stored in her suit computer, “jack in and download a map real quick, and then come right back up here so we can plan?”

“Peter, I really don’t want us to split up. And you’ve got that head injury –“

“Mak, listen, think about it,” he says, drawing in closer to her. She still smells like peaches, he notices. “You want to take the kids down there? This is probably the safest place for them. You’ve got a door you can bar with some of those chairs, and these walls are solid,” he says, touching them. “Got through all those convulsions without any buckling. Yeah, the elevator’s fucked, but…”

“But what if,” she says, voice a low growl, “what if you go down there and get killed by something? Carl bit it from a pack of macros, Pete. Just fucking macros. You know how many of them are down there, probably?”

“We don’t know that they got in from the organ trails,” he says. “There are a dozen other places that they could have came in after convulsions like that.”

“Don’t give me that bull,” Makado says. “You know it was the organ trails. Where else would it have been? That copepod we saw earlier? That came in from the trails. It didn’t come in from a digestive bulb, its carapace can’t handle the acid.”

“It could have come down from upwards, from bronchial.”

“If it was in bronchial it would have been literally the only copepod there. There’s nothing for them to eat in bronchial.”

“You’re making assumptions.”

“What is it going to eat in bronchial?” she asks. “Tell me.”

“Giant mites.”

“A copepod is a giant mite.”

“That isn’t entirely true and you know it,” Peter says. “Look, we’re wasting time.” He pauses there until Makado looks at him. “One of us has to go. You’ve got rank. Send me. Make the call.”

“We don’t have to. We can just go down tunnels until we find a way up.”

“You know that’s a bad idea as well as I do.”

“I’ll go, then.”

“Mak, no.”

“Look,” she says, eyes flashing, “you can put aside whatever notions of chivalry you might be having. I can take care of myself. It’ll –“

“It isn’t about chivalry. You are the ranking ranger of the two of us.” Makado looks like she wants to say something, but Peter gives her a look and she swallows it. “I’m more expendable than you are. You always knew it would come to this. I did too. It’ll be fine; I can just run down, plug in a line, download an automap of the area, and we’ll head out and be back to the LVC in time for a late dinner.”

Makado takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them again she nods. “Be careful,” she tells Peter, and Peter grins at her.

“It’ll be fine,” he repeats. “Just down there and back. What’s the worst that could happen?”

* * *

“Fuck,” Peter mutters to himself, peering around the corner again. The timer he’d set on the suit computer ticked down off of five minutes a minute ago and the triocanth is still there in the middle of the hallway, its pair of long, stinger-lined tentacles still wrapped around the tubelike macrobacterium that it caught. It’s chewed open a hole in the bacterium’s thin skin and is busily slurping out the bacterium’s innards, leaving a crusty light-orange scum on the metal walkway beneath it. Peter shakes his head.

“This fucker is still here, Mak,” he says into the radio, as quietly as he can. He hears Makado sigh on the other end of the radio, her exhale blending with the static.

“Just be patient,” she tells him again. “It’ll wander off when it’s done.”

“Or it’ll dig a fucking hole into the Pit wall and hide there waiting for me to walk past and sting me and then eat me, how about that?”

“Go around it.”

“This is a one-way trail, there’s no around it. Unless you want me to double back for fifteen minutes and hope that the next call box is intact.”

“We have time. There’s no rush.”

“You have time,” he corrects her. “Meanwhile, the one who’s actually out here risking his ass doesn’t know if something is sneaking up on him right this very moment…”

He can hear Makado smiling. “Have you tried looking around?” she suggests, and Peter rolls his eyes.

“I can see why you made head ranger,” he cracks, and Makado lets out a mock gasp.

“How dare you, sir.”

“I dare,” he mutters, taking Makado’s advice and looking around, checking the ceiling as well as the fleshy, writhing floor of the trail. He peeks around the corner again and sees the triocanth, its long wriggling tail twitching with delight. It looks to be about halfway done with the macrobacterium now. It flicks one of its powerful tentacles and sends a fluttering spray of bacterium skin flying.

“You just looked around, didn’t you?” Makado asks.

“Maybe.”

“I knew it!” she crows. “Hey, kids! Come here and let me tell you how predictable Peter’s getting! Why don’t –“

“Quiet,” Peter says, and Makado turns off like a switch. He hears her telling one of the teens that she was just kidding and to go and sit back down but he doesn’t pay any attention.

The triocanth is gone. The husk of the macrobacterium is still rocking gently on the floor, its orangey innards oozing out of it like a spilled can of soda, bubbling lightly as it reacts with and oxidizes the metal flooring of the trail. He checks the walls and the ceiling but can’t find the tell-tale breathing hole that it would have made if it had burrowed into the Pit’s flesh; it made no noise, but triocanths usually don’t. “What’s going on?” Makado asks.

“The triocanth is gone.”

“Alright, so the way’s clear?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It took off in a hurry. Like it was scared. It didn’t even finish the bacterium it was eating.”

“Maybe it got full.”

“You know what triocanths are like as well as I do.”

“Yeah,” Makado agrees after a moment. “Greedy bastards.”

“And not cowardly,” Peter continues.

“Do you think it noticed you?”

“Not likely,” he says, scanning the ceiling again.

“What are triocanths scared of?” she muses to herself.

“A shamble?” Peter suggests. Makado clicks her teeth.

“Same size range but shambles are pussies. I’ve seen a triocanth take on a shamble twice its weight before.”

“Alright, so not a shamble. What about a greater bristleworm?”

“You’d have heard it. You know how they make that crunchy sound when they’re slithering around on land?”

“Good point,” he nods. “What about a –“ Peter starts, then stops.

“Peter? What is it?”

“Off mic,” he murmurs, and then Peter reaches up, extremely slowly, and takes the earpiece from his ear. He can hear nothing except for the various drips and drops and fleshy stretching noises the Pit makes as part of its ordinary daily life. He can feel the rumble of a convulsion still wracking the Pit somewhere deeper down in its anatomy through the soles of his ranger suit, but the floor he’s standing on hasn’t bucked or pitched enough to throw him off in at least ten minutes now. The damage has been done; if a triocanth can get into the organ trail there’s clearly a torn section of fence or two somewhere.

But a triocanth is relatively innocuous; while it may have a vicious, paralyzing sting and a bad habit of burrowing into the fleshy walls of the pit to spring out and ambush anything that passes by, if he shot it with his service pistol it would die. It would take only a single bullet.

Peter has peeked around the corner again, trying to spot the triocanth. Instead, he sees an arm, reaching out from a narrow fold in the flesh of the Pit, there on the wall, a large, vertical slit leaking a little blood and pus from its bottommost corner.

The arm is long and thin and fragile-looking; it has too many bends in it, the forearm receding back to an elbow and then folding in on itself to another machine-like reticulated elbow. Its flesh is pale and slightly translucent; he can see a long thin bead of bone struck through with veins that pulse with blue, unhealthy-looking blood. The arm is huge, far larger than a human’s ought to be, though it still terminates in a five-fingered hand, proportioned exactly as a human’s, but large enough to palm Peter’s entire head with room left over.

The hand reaches out with exceeding delicacy and picks up the discarded skin of the macrobacterium and then retracts back into the slit, slopping a little of the macro’s orange innards over the wall of the Pit. There’s a coarse sliding sound that gradually recedes, and then nothing.

Peter waits, scarcely daring to breathe, for about three minutes. Then he picks the earpiece up and digs it back into his ear.

“-ammit, Pete,” Makado is whispering, sounding as if she’s on the brink of tears, “this is all my fault, fuck, come on, just say something –“

“Mak,” he murmurs, feeling a stab of guilt pierce through him; she must not have heard when he said he was leaving the radio. “I’m here.”

“Christ, Pete, you scared me,” she tells him, sounding like a week’s worth of tension has just left her body. “I thought we got cut off cause I didn’t hear anything but then I started to get worried –“

“Mak, listen to me.”

“What? What is it?”

“There’s a copepod down here.”

Makado is silent for a moment. “You mean a lesser one, right?” she says hopefully.

“No. An abyssal copepod. A big one.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw its arm, Mak.”

“You sure it wasn’t just a really pale person?”

“Yeah, it was a really pale ogre-sized person with two elbows on one arm. Come on. Time to face the music.”

“What music?” she growls. “That we’re all going to get fucking eaten by a copepod? Tell me something better, Pete. Have you downloaded that automap yet?”

“Not yet. I’m proceeding forward now that the coast is clear,” he tells her, moving out around the corner. The metal walkway angles downwards and deposits him on the fleshy floor of the trail, and he feels the telltale grab of his cleats digging in with each step he takes.

“Maybe you should come back,” Mak suggests. “We can fall out to a different ranger station, the general map is saying that there’s one about a mile and a half to the east –“

“I remember hearing at least three stents fail down that corridor,” he tells her, edging past the slit in the wall quickly. It’s almost unnoticeable now that there’s nothing inside it to bulge the opening outwards; if he hadn’t seen the arm, he wouldn’t have known it were there. “You really want to take that risk?”

“No,” Makado says after a moment. “But I don’t want you to die.”

“That makes two of us,” he says. “I can see the call box.”

“How far?”

“Quarter of a mile. I’m in the home stretch. Radio silence now so I can listen.”

“Understood,” Makado says. She’s silent for a moment, then Peter hears her breathe. “You come back to me, alright?”

“Promise.”

“Break it and I’ll kill you myself.”

“Okay, I get it. Now shut up.”

Makado shuts up, and then the broadcast clicks off entirely. Peter is alone.

It’s dark down there in the organ trail, and the jerky bob of Peter’s flashlight, slotted into the tab on the side of his helmet, is completely inadequate to illuminate the vast cavernous space. The organ trails, at least at this end, are some of the largest navigable spaces inside the Pit that aren’t sheer drops or extremely difficult terrain. The floor is smooth, struck through with veins and vesicles and callouses from decades of foot traffic.

While the organ trail’s surfaces appear open and occasionally wildlife does make its way through, all of the ways upwards, at least to this opening mouth of the trail, should have been blocked. The only way for something as large as an abyssal copepod to get there would have been for it to clamber out onto the trail and pull itself up through miles of open areas. But Peter knows that abyssal copepods practically never expose themselves like that; it’s only if they’re directly pursuing prey organisms that they will flop outwards of the tight-fitting vents and veins and arteries that are ordinarily their homes, for although a copepod is graceful and swift in the crushing grasp of a tube like that, its organically lubricated carapace shooting through at speeds of up to twenty miles an hour on a straightaway, out in the open it has to rely on the wriggling of its mammoth body and the brutal pulling strength of its forelimbs to get around.

So, essentially – the armor and fences and sonic discouragement devices and electrical traps, the spike plates and scent lures and redundant obfuscatory canals, the thin web of interlinked and interdependent methods to distract, redirect, and otherwise prevent wildlife from making it to the populated areas of the Pit, has failed, at least somewhere. Probably a plate cap got jostled loose by the series of rolling convulsions and constrictions wracking the Pit, perhaps a speaker got crushed or a scent lure sealed off. The web is redundant but not exceedingly so.

Peter feels his paranoia growing as he makes his way towards the slowly pulsing blue light of the call box. This box in particular looks alright; the first two he passed we bent out of shape and clearly inoperable, crushed by tight squeezes of tunnel, but this section of the trail is so large that even if the muscles bunched around it were to contract, it wouldn’t touch him.

Peter gets to the call box. There’s a small pack of macrobacteria rolling past in a divot of the trail floor, perhaps a hundred feet away, but they’d have to spike their way up a sheer incline to get to him, so he’s not concerned. He notices with surprise that the soft grinding noise they make is oddly comforting.

The call box is splattered with something but it’s dried by now. He smacks the side of it lightly and the dried crust of it breaks off in a shower of tiny flakes. “Mak,” he says. “I’m at the box.”

“Great,” she says. He can hear her stretching as she sits up. “There should be a jack on the side, unroll your aux cable and plug it in.”

“Do I have the right permissions for this?” he asks.

“Maybe. We’ll find out.”

Peter is halfway through reeling out the cable before he notices a blinking line on the box’s display. He leans in and squints at it. “Hey, Mak.”

“Yeah?”

“This box is saying it still has a telephone line to the LVC.”

“Really?”

“The status says ‘fine.’”

“Try calling them, then.”

Peter pulls the glove off his right hand and punches the button. The angled infinity-sign of the dialing symbol comes up and bobs back and forth. Peter stares at it as the seconds stretch onwards and onwards. He shakes his head finally. “It must be busted,” he says. “No response.”

“Hmm,” Makado grunts. “That or the LVC is fucked.”

“Come on, get real,” he tells her. “Let’s see if we still have data. I’m jacked in.”

“Okay. Slide your card.”

Peter reaches down into the acidproof pocket on his belly and takes out his ranger card and slides it. The box whirs to itself for a moment before the access menu comes up. “Do I want mainframe access?” he asks.

“No, hit 8 to scroll, it should be on the third page. Haven’t you done this before?”

“Nope,” he says, punching the 8 button a couple times. “I’ve always gotten my maps wirelessly. I think I was trained on this at some point when they put these new boxes in but all I remember is them saying that maps needed supervisor clearance. Why is that, anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s because the automap system does a ping every time someone requests it. Wear and tear and all that.”

“Well, that’s a damn inconvenience right now. The option is locked.”

“Fuck,” Makado says. “Okay, hit enter on it anyway.”

“It’s asking for a password.”

“Try putting yours in.”

Peter punches it in but the box beeps at him. “Access denied,” he reads off.

“Try putting mine in. It’s…”

Peter cocks his head. “I think we got cut off, say again.”

“No,” Makado says after a moment. “It’s just, you know, don’t laugh at me, alright?”

“Will you tell me the damn password?”

“Capital B bigmakpaddywack2258 exclamation point dollar sign.”

“Are you serious?”

“Type the damn password,” she tells Peter.

Peter bites his lip to hold back his laughter and types it in. His smile gradually fades. “Are you sure that’s your password?”

“Yes I’m fucking sure. Did you type it right? ‘Mak’ without a c?”

“Yes, Makado, I’m aware of how to spell your name. I typed it right.”

Somewhere in the trail there’s a sliding sound. Peter freezes. “You know what it must be,” Makado says thoughtfully, “they must not have updated my supervisor status yet. I knew that –“

“Shut up for a second.”

Makado gasps in mock affront. “Could you be any more rude?”

“Mak!” he hisses. “Not now!”

She lapses into an embarrassed silence. Peter drops into a low crouch, forcing himself to move slowly, and then turns, scanning the trail behind him. He reaches up after a moment and turns his flashlight off.

Peter can see nothing on the trail; the macrobacteria are still rolling past below him – the colony must be at least a hundred individuals, if not more. Peter slowly lets a breath out.

“What’s happening?” Makado whispers.

“Thought I heard something.”

“Please do not get paranoid on me out there.”

Peter peers up at the ceiling but it’s shrouded in gloom; if anything is up there he can’t see it. On the other hand, unless there’s an opening, the giant copepod he saw won’t be there – it would be too heavy to cling to the ceiling. “It was nothing,” he says finally.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But we need this map.”

“How the hell are we going to get it, though? If my password isn’t working –“

“Let me think.”

Peter tabs out of the menu and back to the main screen. The infinity symbol of the call he made to the Lower Visitor Center earlier is still bobbing back and forth, caught in limbo. He shakes his head. “Goddam it,” he mutters. He hears Makado breathing but she stays silent.

Peter thinks for a moment, then hits the control, shift, and caret keys all at once. The screen clears and then a blinking cursor appears, waiting for input. “Did anybody ever tell you the reset codes they use in Command?”

“No. I don’t even know how to get to the screen to put them in.”

“I do,” Peter says. “Control-shift-caret. But I don’t know the codes.”

“I think ‘idkfa’ might be one of them.”

“Really?”

“I overheard a conversation Sol was having with somebody one time, and he mentioned that, but I didn’t really understand and I don’t know the context.”

Peter types it in and punches the enter key. “’idkfa’ is not a valid command.”

“Iddqd?”

“If these are really the codes to anything somebody in IT ought to get fired,” he grumbles, but he types it in anyway. “Nope,” he says.

“I don’t know any others.”

Peter can feel the prickly knot of worry that’s been clenching tighter and tighter somewhere deep in his gut double in size. “Fuck,” he whispers. “I can’t get the maps, Mak, it won’t let me get the maps.”

“Peter, just wait, maybe –“

“Goddam it!”

Peter reaches out, and as hard as he dares, slaps the side of the call box. It makes a dull noise but a soft one, and even as his cheeks color and he looks around nervously at the rest of the trail, wondering if anything heard him, the box makes a chittering sound to itself somewhere deep in its innards and then the loud, tacky, 90s-esque tone of a call connecting to the LVC plays.

“Holy shit,” Peter says.

“Yo, who the fuck – who is down on the organ trail right now?” comes the voice from the box.

“Solomon? Is that you?” Peter asks, looking around nervously. He turns down the volume on the box as much as he can but the voice is still boomingly loud, echoing off the ribbed sides of the trail. It must seem much louder than it really is, Peter reasons, but the volume of it is still worrying.

“Peter? What the fuck are you doing down there, man?”

“Listen, Sol, can you get me an automap of this area? I’m jacked in but I don’t have the permissions.”

“Well,” he says, his voice as heavy and slow as it always is. “I can try, but things are pretty fucked around here.”

“Yeah, what the hell is going on?”

“Well, the LVC slipped down the gullet,” Sol starts, and Peter blinks.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “can you repeat that?”

“Give me one sec, Pete. I’m pinging the automap in that area right now, if it’s working you’ll get a download on your suit in a minute or so.”

“Great, thanks Sol. What did you say about the LVC, though?”

“The LVC slipped down the gullet,” Solomon says. “It’s at about a 45 or 60 degree angle right now.”

“Holy fuck,” Peter breathes.

“Yep,” Solomon says. “Check your maps, you should have it now.”

“You’re taking this pretty well,” Peter says.

“Knew this shit would happen eventually.”

“Is it still slipping?”

“Nah, it’s settled now. There’s some buckling down at the other end but Control is okay for the moment. Do you have that map yet?”

“Let me check,” Peter says, tapping on his wrist screen.

The automap system used in the depths of the Pit is a miracle of mechanical and computer engineering and cost Anodyne nearly a billion dollars to develop. Due to the Pit’s mutable and shifting terrain, as well as being a uniquely three-dimensional space, conventional maps became out of date practically as soon as they were drafted, or if they didn’t, they were so hopelessly general that any sort of close-in work became impossible and instead would rely on work-arounds that rangers and mining crews had to develop on the fly, which usually were inexact, imprecise, and unreplicable in the future.

The automap system, on the other hand, uses a system similar to sonar to send an ultrasonic ping through the tunnels of the Pit and then creates a three-dimensional map that can be downloaded to a ranger’s suit and manipulated using a wrist pad and linked to the ranger’s position via a positioning marker in his suit, allowing him to have an instant and accurate map of the surrounding area. The only downside is that the file size for the map itself is so large that, given the limited amount of space for an on-board computer inside a ranger suit, only one map can be held in memory at a time.

Peter watches the progress bar fill up and then taps on the file for the newly downloaded map. A few areas are hazy, indicating one of the ultrasonic projectors might have been inactive or malfunctioning, but the majority of the map is clear. After a moment the suit triangulates his location and he appears as a small green blip, which stays in place even as he rotates the map up and down, back and forth. He blows his breath out. “Got it,” he tells Solomon. “Thanks.”

“No worries,” Solomon says. “Gotta go. Lots of bullshit up here.”

“Are you okay?” Peter asks, but the call has already disconnected, and he is alone again amid the cavernous trail. “Mak, you hear any of that?”

“Got all of it, Pete.”

“Even the part about the LVC?”

“Yes,” she says. Her voice is tight with worry. “Get back here asap, we need to plan.”

“Can you connect to my suit? I’ll send you the map file.”

“I can’t get a link, already tried. When we…”

Makado is saying something else, but Peter allows her voice to fade into the background.

There’s a red blip on the map, there in the cavern with him. He looks up, looks around cautiously, but he doesn’t see anything; red would mean a moving object of fairly significant mass, but the map updates so slowly that it’s nowhere near to being a motion detector or anything. Plus, when the sensors spin down in a couple of minutes the updates will stop.

Peter takes two fingers, zooms in on the blip, then zooms back out. If this is accurate, it should be…

There’s a shriek of grinding metal behind him, and he whips around. He sees, outlined starkly by his flashlight, a long, gargantuan arm, reaching up from the cliff below, its translucent, five-fingered hand digging into the metal of the call box leaving dents easily six or seven inches deep. With a faint hissing noise the arm retracts and hauls the bulk of the copepod over the cliff, its frilly sensory antennae flicking with wild abandon. He can see the pinprick of his flashlight reflected in its limpid black eyes and takes a halting step backwards. His cleats, trying to dig in at the wrong angle, trip him and he falls, putting an arm out to catch himself. The copepod cocks its head at him, and then it reaches out, its hand seemingly large enough to blot out the rest of existence, and Peter doesn’t have enough breath to scream.

Continue with Part 6

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#mystery flesh pit #novel #fiction #underground #caving

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comphersjost · 5 years

Text

Rendezvous ➸ Freddie Andersen

sorry for all the people that wanted mo first sksksks hope y’all enjoy this though!

words: 3k+

summary: You shouldn’t want your childhood friend’s teammate as much as you do, but Auston introduced you to him, so what are you going to do, not lust after him?

warnings: smut, dom!freddie, drugs, marijuana mention and use, alcohol, latina reader, spanish is translated in the parentheses and bold

masterlist

The first time you met Freddie was two weeks after you moved to Toronto. Meeting up with an old family friend of yours to make the move easier was something you were grateful for, but what you didn't expect was for Auston to drag you over to a too big, too loud group of his teammates and their partners. Freddie locked eyes with you over the rim of his glass and shot you a smirk, raising his drink to you before Auston tugged you the other direction to introduce you to even more people.

Looking back you were grateful for the rapid introductions. He introduced you to a circle of friends through which you met more people, making Toronto seem less like the strange city you thought it was going to be and making it feel more like home. You didn't get a chance to speak to Freddie that night, caught up in the whirlwind of introductions to teammates and girlfriends and boyfriends and the blur of more people that it isn't until 2 weeks later that you really get introduced to him.

You're at Auston’s house for god knows what, he just said to come over. He texts you that the door is unlocked, so you walk in, already yelling at him in Spanish for forgetting to call his mom (which you heard from your mom, who heard it from his) and stop short in the foyer, 6 pairs of eyes blinking up at you and Auston laughing his ass off in the corner.

“Uh, hi,” you say, giving an awkward wave, before narrowing your eyes at the dumb Latino boy you love too much for your own good, and his.

You pick up an empty plastic water bottle from the table by the couch and toss it towards Auston’s head. “Cabrón!” (Dumbass!) you hiss at him, “Llámale a tu mamá. (Call your mother) And stop using plastic and get a reusable water bottle, you're killing the planet.” Auston only laughs, tossing the bottle back at you and falling short, the bottle landing in front of your feet.

“Relax, I said I’d call her tonight,” he says smugly, before turning his attention back to the rest of the guys in the room. “Guys this is Y/N, she’s my family friend that moved to Toronto because she loves me- hey!” Auston puts his arm up to deflect the bottle you threw at him again.

“I moved to Toronto for work, and also I hate you, thanks.” The disgruntled noise Auston lets out causes a smug smile to cross your face.

“Whatever, anyways,” he grumbles, “You know Mitch and Willy, that’s Kappy, that’s JT, you met Morgan at the bar, and that’s Freddie.” Auston points at each man in his living room, grinning like he knows something you don't.

You give them each a shy smile, your mouth going dry when you meet Freddie’s eyes. He smiles at you and says, “We’ve heard a lot about you. It’s nice to finally meet you.” And-

Oh, fuck, you are so screwed.

Freddie’s just, he’s a lot, with his pretty brown eyes and gentle hands and soft voice, and he quickly becomes the subject of many late night thoughts and fantasies. And really, he shouldn't be. He’s almost 9 years older than you and Auston’s teammate and probably so experienced and he’s so big and-

You really shouldn't be thinking about him like this. But with his fiery red hair and his confident smirk and dark bedroom eyes glancing at you across the table at bars, it’s just, he’s a lot for you to handle.

It’s three months after the day at Auston’s place that he catches you outside of a bar, opening his mouth to speak but stopping short to stare at the smoke rolling from your lips. You offer him the pen in your head but he only shakes his head, stopping beside you to lean against the wall.

The wax clouds your head, and makes you bolder than you normally would have been. “C’mon old man, let loose a little,” you tease. “What, never been high before?”

Freddie shakes his head lightly, a slight smile playing on his lips. “A couple times, a long time ago.”

Against your better judgement, you lean into his arm, resting your cheek on his bicep while you take another hit from the pen. “What, it fucks with your lighting fast goalie reflexes?” you giggle, swaying slightly while your head gets even fuzzier from the combination of alcohol and weed.

Freddies hand comes up to rest against the side of your neck, shifting so he has you pressed against the brick wall. Your breath catches in your throat when he leans down to run his nose along your neck. “You're a brat,” he murmurs into your ear and you gasp quietly, before he pulls back to stare at you. You feel small under his gaze, squirming uncomfortably as he stares holes into your head.

You can’t help it, movements seeming slow and cloudy when you cup the back of his neck and pull him down to meet your lips. Freddie groans against your mouth, his tongue soft against your lower lip. You whimper when his hand moves to grip your throat, the other resting on your hip. You grip his button up with the hand not in his hair, trying to drag him as close as possible.

Here he was, the man who’s been at the center of your fantasies for months and you probably won't even remember this in the morning.

Freddie’s hand tightens against your throat as he drags his lips down your jaw, a strangled moan escaping you when he scrapes his teeth across your pulse. He groans softly at the noise you make, sucking a dark mark into your skin before pulling back again. He cups your cheek, one hand covering almost half your face.

“I-” he stops, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them again, “I should bend you over my lap.”

It takes a moment for the words to register, but-

“Oh.” Your stomach knots itself, the idea more appealing than you ever would have thought. Freddie. Spanking you.

“But I can't.” You let out a disappointed noise, sticking out your swollen bottom lip in a pout.

“Why not?” you say breathily, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Needy,” he chuckles darkly. He leans down again, tugging your lip out of the pout before kissing you softly. “You're crossed, sweetheart. Which is another thing is should punish you for. So reckless and needy aren't you?”

You smile sweetly up at him, nodding and humming a soft, “Mhm.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him again, the hand that was on your throat leaving your skin to rest along your ribs.

“Another time,” Freddie whispers against your mouth.

You pout again. “Promise?”

He laughs again. “Promise, baby.”

You wake up the next morning with your head pounding and your movements sluggish and slow. There's noise coming from the kitchen, and in your hungover and still-fuzzy state you don't bother putting on pants, padding slowly through your apartment in an oversized t-shirt you don't remember putting on.

“You’re so loud,” you whisper to the giant man in your kitchen, squinting at the brightness of the lights streaming through the window.

Freddie smiles gently at you, “Good morning, sweetheart.” You shush him, reaching for the glass of water he offers you and taking sips as you climb clumsily onto the counter.

“Did you sleep here last night?” you ask, voice hoarse and raspy. He nods.

“You remember anything from last night?” Freddie murmurs as he moves around the kitchen searching for different ingredients. You groan softly as flashes from the night before return to you and your headache fades. The game, the bar, alleyway, weed, the kiss - I should bend you over my lap. Shit. You're eyes widen, and suddenly you feel sober, the fog in your brain gone.

“Um,” you stare at the ground, unwilling to meet his eyes. Your hand comes up to press on the bruise he left the night before, jerking it away at the sting.

“Hey,” he comes to stand between your thighs, tilting your chin up with two fingers. “It’s okay if you don't want - if you didn't mean it, you were crossed and I-”

“I want it.” The words come out as a whisper, and your eyes slide up to look into his. “I want you.”

Freddie’s smile is blinding. “Yeah?” he asks, leaning a little closer to you. You nod in response, your gaze dropping to his lips.

“Yeah,” you breathe, before he closes the gap.

You moan softly as he kisses you, with a semi-clear head, it feels better than you thought last night. Freddie’s hands come to rest on your thighs, squeezing them gently as he tilts his head to cover your mouth more completely. His tongue slides into your mouth and you whine, desperately trying to control the ache between your thighs.

His fingers stroke along your thighs gently, gripping you so tight you're sure you'll feel it when this is over. One hand comes up to squeeze at your breast through your shirt and you break from him to gasp, arching your back, before he pulls your mouth back to his. He squeezes again before dropping his hand to your hip. You feel him groan more than you hear him when your hands tangle in his hair, tugging at it to pull his head back so you can drop your lips to his neck.

“Can I mark you? Please?” you mumble against his neck, peppering kisses over his throat. Freddie hums his approval and you wiggle happily in his arms, sucking on the skin covering his pulse, ignoring his throaty moans until you're sure there's a big, purple mark on his pale skin. You hum against him again, burying your face in his shoulder when you speak again. “Can you spank me later? I just want you inside me.”

Freddie laughs. A loud, happy laugh that has your heart feeling warm and fuzzy.

“Got it,” he chuckles, “Fuck you now, spank you later?”

You smile up at him, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Yeah,” you giggle, “I may be a brat but I can be good.”

He kisses you again, voice suddenly going dark and low. “You can be as good as you want, sweetheart, I’ll still spank you and you’ll still like it.”

Your lips part in an o-shape, and he grins wickedly and cups your jaw, sliding his thumb into your open mouth. You close your mouth around him, your tongue sliding against his thumb.

“Good girl,” he mutters softly, his free hand sliding under your shirt to tug it towards your head. You whine when he withdraws his thumb from your mouth, but lift your arms obediently so he can draw the shirt off of you. Freddie’s hands cup your breasts and squeeze, rolling your nipples almost painfully between his fingers. You whimper softly and arch towards him, desperate for more contact, desperate for his cock.

You reach for the bulge in his jeans, not at all surprised to find him achingly hard under your palm. “Freddie, c’mon,” you whine as he kisses along your jaw and you tug at his belt loops.

“Beg,” he hums against your skin, pulling back to stare down at you pointedly.

“Please, Fred,” you plead, “C’mon, please.” He is face sharpens into a glare and you pout again. “Please, daddy? Please fuck me.”

He smiles again. “Good girl,” he coos, before tugging your panties to the side and running his fingers through your folds. You gasp and whine at the action and grip his shoulder and hip desperately.

“Please, please.” Freddie grips your hips and drags you off the counter, turning you around and bending you over it while pressing kisses to your shoulder.

“Watch your head,” he murmurs against your back. You feel your heart flutter at the care he takes to make sure you don't hit your head against the cabinet even though he's about to fuck you. He drags your panties over your ass and down your thighs, letting you step out of them and kick them to the side once they drop to the floor.

Freddie gives you no prep, and no warning except for the zip of his jeans, before the swollen head of his cock is nudging at your hole. You whimper softly at the first breach of his cock, hands grasping at nothing in a desperate attempt to ground yourself.

“Yeah, that's it,” he groans against your neck, leaving another bruise as he inches forward. “You're gonna take all of it, aren't you? Gonna be a good girl for me?”

“Yes, daddy!” you cry out as he continues to slide deeper inside you. There's a faint sting from being so stretched, but - fuck, you're finally full of Freddie just like you've wanted for three months and nothing has ever felt so good.

You rest your cheek against the cool tile of the counter as his hips meet your ass, stilling for a moment to let you adjust to the size of him inside you. His chest is pressed against your back, lips landing on any spot they can reach, and he has one hand on your hip while the other circles your waist.

“Good, baby?” he moans breathlessly, leaving another biting kiss on your shoulder.

“Mmmmm,” you moan softly, pushing your hips back as if you weren't already so stuffed with his cock. “Sooooo good, daddy, please move, pleasepleaseplease.”

Freddie drags his hips back for a moment before snapping them back into you, drawing a yelp from your throat. The sting of his torso on your ass is delicious, only adding to the sensations you're already feeling. You whine again as he grinds into you, as if he can't bear to withdraw from you for a moment.

“Oh, fuck, baby, you're so good for me, you're so fucking tight.” Freddie’s voice sounds tight and restrained, as if he's holding back.

You whine again, “Please fuck me, oh god, daddy, please, harder.”

Freddie relents, the warmth of his skin against your back and aroung your waist disappearing as he stands straight to fuck into you. He places a hand in the center of your back, the other remaining on your hip, to keep you pinned as he rails you into the counter.

The sounds leaving him are animalistic, predatory, and his cock hits spots inside you you never could’ve found on your own. You're whining, breathless, and you sound pornographic as you beg for more. Incoherent babbles of “Please, please, yes, ohhh right there, please, yes daddy, please” are the only words you're able to formulate, brain addled with the feeling of him and the fuzziness of last night’s substances.

You scramble for something to hold onto, before Freddie reaches for your hand with one of his, tangling his fingers with yours and hunching over you again.

“Fuck, sweetheart, you feel so good,” he pants against your back, pairing the words with another sharp thrust into you. The drag of his cock against your walls is almost too much, causing you to squirm under him, for more or less, you're not sure.

“Freddie,” you gasp, pushing your hips back towards him. The blow to your ass that comes afterwards has you crying out and immediate apology. “I’m sorry! Daddy! Please, don't stop!”

“Thatta girl,” he breathes into your hair. “Can you come for me, darling? Come on, I want you to come for me.” You try to reply but Freddie’s fingers slide to your clit and your eyes roll back, squealing at his relentless rubbing while he fucks into you. His voice comes out as a growl as he commands, “Come for me.”

A scream leaves your lips as he pushes you over the edge, your cunt clamping down on his cock as your body jerks through your orgasm. Freddie forces his cock in and out of you as you clench down on him, but you barely hear the throaty noises he makes at the feel of you coming on his cock.

“Baby, please, fuck can I -” Freddie chokes as you clench on him, “Can I come in - fuck -”

“Please,” you wail, “Please, inside, oh fuck please.” He lets out a long moan of satisfaction at your permission, forgoing sharp thrusts to instead grind against you before finally freezing as deep inside you as he can get.

“Yesss, sweetheart, take it all, good girl, so good for me, take it.” The heat of Freddie’s cum inside you has you squirming through the aftershocks of your orgasm, his own high seeming to last forever as he keeps spilling into you.

“Fuuuck,” you whine, all energy leaving your body when he collapses on top of you.

“You're so good,” he murmurs, kissing along your shoulder and neck and any part of your face he can reach. “You took it all like a good girl, good job, baby.” You moan happily at the praising, squeezing his hand in response.

You squeeze your eyes shut as he draws out of you, the feeling of his cum dripping from your cunt following moments after his cock.

“C’mere,” Freddie whispers gently, supporting your weak body off the counter and picking you up, before making his way to the couch. He sets you in his lap when he sits, pressing his nose into your temple and whispering sweet words to you as your eyes drift shut. “Okay baby?”

“Mhm,” you mumble back. “So okay. More than okay. Fantastic. Amazing. We should’ve been doing that for months.” Freddie laughs, before shifting to lay on the couch with you on top of him, your back to his chest. He pushes your thighs apart, hand reaching between them to play with your cunt.

“Fred!” You whine, trying to arch away from him. He hums against your neck, using his other hand to push your hips back down.

“Let me make you cum, baby,” he says against your neck, and you can feel his smile against your skin. “Then maybe you’ll let me take you out? Breakfast or brunch or something?”

Your laugh is loud and happy, before turning into a moan when he slips two fingers inside you. “Yes,” you gasp, “Yeah you can take me out after this.”

#yeehaw #freddie andersen #soft papi #frederik andersen #frederik andersen imagine #freddie andersen imagine #toronto maple leafs #maple leafs imagine #hockey #hockey smut #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #nhl smut #maple leafs smut #frederik andersen smut #freddie andersen smut #rendezvous fic

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therewasatale · 4 years

Text

have a cup of tea

On Ao3.

The room was so saturated with magic that the air was sizzling. It flow through the cables, vibrated around the monitors, and completely filled the three tanks. Each of them contained one, different colored heart, all the three pulsating slowly.

The leader royal scientist put out his cigarette and lit up another one. His hand trembled for a moment as pain flashed into his forehead, but he tried to shake off the waves of pain. They were becoming stronger and more frequent. He focused on the data with his left eye as he put his lighter in the pocket of his worn-out lab coat.

'We were only able to extract a miniscule amount of DT from the three souls. We are sure that DT is more abundant in the souls of infants than adults, however, if the subject… '

The cursor slowly pulsed.

…the subject….the subject…it…It's that damn headache again. I don't have time for this!

Dr.Gaster blew out a breath of frustration and reached for his painkiller.

His phone rang, Lerian sent an SMS based on the display. Gaster read through the message several times, but kept his right eye closed. He had been awake for more than 29 hours and it was taxing on his body, but he couldn’t let that stand in his way. His fingers started dancing on the keyboard again.

'… If the DT in the subject's soul's is not its primary aspect, it can only be found as a cohesive force. The amount needed for this cohesion is miniscule. In comparison to the other parts of the soul, DT is hardly measurable. Still our research has shown that for the soul of a monster even such tiny amount can be suitable for maintaining it for an unknown time, possible forever. '

Not far from his door, three figures stuck their heads together.

"He's not listening to any of us, Neo."

"Well, that’s far from being a new situation, especially these days," the answer was full of sarcasm, but there was also genuine concern, just carefully hidden.

Cigarette smoke rose up.

"Orchid, do you have to smoke even when we are inside?"

"Sorry, when I'm nervous I just have to…"

The three royal scientists looked at each other in silence and just stayed like that for a while.

The first voice, which belonged to an older lizard monster and bearing the name Orchid, took the chance to speak again as he blew out another dose of smoke. He moved his dark blue, scaly tail behind him as he talked.

"As we were talking about, he isn't listening to any of us, so we are forced to turn to the only voice he always hears."

"I feel like some kind of tattletale." Neo, the cat-monster, currently a full-time scientist, scratched his head with the temple of his glasses.

They had to do something; they were in agreement about that.

Their last colleague, a newbie, Alphys, stood nervously placing her weight from one leg to the other. "But-but we have to do it… Dr.Gaster…"

"Yeah, he's starting to overdo things again. We all seen his injury, I think it got worse again. If we don't do something, he'll lose his right eye completely!" Orchid glanced at his colleagues, slowly blowing out a puff of smoke. "The only question is who should go?"

There was a heavy silent which sit down on each of themes shoulder.

"I will, the king trusted me with it anyway." Neo put his thick glasses back on his nose. "You keep an eye on him in case he finally decides to go home."

Orchid snorted a little, putting out the cigarette on the wall and for once ignoring Neo's disapproving look.

"I don't think he will leave; in fact, if you ask me, he hasn't even got up from his desk in hours."

"Mhm," Alphys rubbed his hands together. She fantasized a lot about what it's going to be like working in the lab, but keeping an eye on the lead researcher never came to mind as a possible aspect of her job.

"All right, all right, I won't be long… or more like we won't," Neo hurried away.

When the two of them were alone, Orchid patted the young monster on the shoulder amiably.

"Everything will be okay, Dr.Gaster just have this habit of getting too into his work, and forgetting that there are those who are worried about him. His heart is in the right place, but no matter how big his skull is, he never pays attention to his own well-being."

Alphys smiled slightly. "We really owe a lot to him, the Core was a huge step forward in the monsters' lives here."

"As you say…but I think he's always focused on the next step. He really wants to get us out from here."

"But, if-if he continues like this-"

"Yeah…but everything will be all right, the king always can talk some sense into him."

An hour later, there was a knock on the door of Dr.Gaster's office.

"I'm busy right now."

"What a shame…I've even prepared a special tea."

A voice from the other side of the door immediately woke the scientist up from his work-haze, and almost it almost made him fell out of his chair. It didn't take three seconds and he was already on his feet at the entrance.

"Your Majesty!" Gaster opened the door and looked up at King Dreamure who head a wide smile. "Wha-"

"It's good to see you too, Gaster. I've heard you buried yourself into your work, so I thought I better visit."

"You've heard…" the scientist stepped aside and glanced behind the king down the hall. Three of his colleagues were making sure to look everywhere but at him "so my colleagues have sneaked up on me and furthermore they have bothered you with some nonsense."

"Now-now, they're just worried you might overdo the work, and they haven't, and no, it is not some nonsense." Answered Asgore kindly.

"I'm fine, sir," said the scientist with a small huff.

"Good to know," the king smiled, and put down the small box in his hand, starting to unpack. "In that case, how about we drink a cup of tea? Then I promise I won't bother you anymore."

"I-" but as their eyes met, Gaster knew well he wouldn't be able to get out of it. "All right, as you wish, Your Majesty."

He pulled another chair closer to his desk and made sure to only sit down after the king. The squeaks, vibrations, and clicks that filled the room before all seemed to fade into the background the pleasant smell of peach tea took their place.

"How are you, Gaster?"

"Everything is fine, Your Majesty. The research progress at a rate that could be expected, soon we will be able to extract the determination out of the souls without losing any of it. If that happens we will have some options in our hands to try to break the barrier."

"Commendable." Asgore glanced at the three souls for a moment, but decided not to let the past distract him from the present. "And how are the boys, Sans and Papyrus?"

"They…" Dr.Gaster took the cup and held it in his hands. Thought for a moment as he gazed into the dark, steaming liquid "They're fine too, they're growing nicely. Sans is getting more talkative, Papyrus loves to hide from me all over the house every time I'm home."

"Then you're not getting bored. It's good to hear you're not alone at home." The king smiled warmly, but in the meantime he carefully inspected the skeleton sitting in front of him.

The lead researcher looked just as exhausted as his colleagues had painted him. The dark circles now sat much deeper under his eyes, the sleeves of his lab coat were covered in stains of oil, dust, and coffee. Still, the most worrying thing was the injury running along the right side of his skull.

The crack that stretched all the way to his right eye was not new, but it had gotten worse lately, which filled Asgore with worry.

During the fighting, when survival was the only thing before their eyes. Gaster, teleported far more monsters to safety using his magic than his power would have normally and then a crack appeared on his forehead. It was neither this deep nor so wide then. It all started to get worse during his underground research. The unhealthy lifestyle; minimal or irregular sleep, bad eating habits, plus the constant stress had an increasingly serious impact on his soul and body. No one could really determine what shape his soul was actually in. He refused to show it even to the king.

And the crack just drew deeper and deeper.

"I can assure you, your Majesty, I am fine. I feel like I'm nearing a breakthrough and I don't want to lose my momentum."

"I know you carry the weight of the fate of monsters on your heart, and you have the best of intentions to act like this. I'm just asking you to sometimes think about your own well-being when you do your research." Asgore raised his hand before the monster could answer. "Before you answer we should drink, if the tea cools down, it's all just wasted."

"As you wish." Gaster took a slow sip of his tea. The warmth quickly spread through all his limbs and for a few second the painful tightness in his chest eased. He didn't even notice the feeling before. When did it appear? Maybe it's always been there. "Really delicious."

"I'm glad you like it." However, Asgore didn't touch his cup.

The room began to slowly sway in front of Dr. Gasters eye.

"What…?"

The cup clinked on the floor spilling the remaining tea to the floor.

"What…Asgore..."

The king watched him in silence, an apologetic light glinted in his eyes.

"oh…you gotta be-" the world darkened before Dr.Gaster's eyes, but before he could collapsed to the ground the king caught him and held him safely.

"I'm sorry, Gaster, but I had to act fast and I haven't got any better idea."

His limbs were pleasantly numb, and the throbbing of her eyes were a thing of the past. His hands felt some kind of soft material, but so far his head didn't feel like getting up. His scientist self, however, could not stay asleep very long and tried to discover the reason for him suddenly falling asleep. He was in the middle of his train of thoughts when he heard some nearby voices.

"Why does a skeleton always tells the truth?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"He wants tibia honest."

"Ohoho. I didn't even think about that."

"Nyeee."

"I think your brother likes puzzles more than jokes."

"He's, but I'm just being humerus."

"Nyeeeeehehe!"

"Sans…" Gaster turned his head to the side as he opened his eye.

"Don't bother your brother."

Said young skeleton-monster scratched the back of his neck a bit ashamed. "Sorry, dad."

He and his younger brother sat on the floor between a pair of coloring books and various pencils, in the company of the king, who watched the young monsters with a warm smile.

"Da!" Papyrus toddled to the couch, then raised his arms toward him.

"Hello, Papyrus." Gaster reached out carefully and stroked his son's head. Encouraged by this, the young skeleton struggled up the couch with some help from the king.

"Nyehehehe." He proudly raised his hand in the air and then crawled under the blanket next to his father. The royal scientist noticed that the fabric was blue with a large white bone embroidered on it. So, he was resting under Sans' blanket.

"So, Your Majesty," Gaster's voice sounded more different then when he was in the Lab "would you enlighten me how I got home and on this couch?"

"Well, I-"

"He brought you home!" Sans chuckled at the embarrassed Asgore who slightly blushed.

"Yes?"

"Well, I…" the king gave out a defeated sigh. "Your colleagues have messaged me that you don't move from your office, you don't eat and you don't sleep properly. While you can go or not go wherever you want, but not sleeping has a serious effect on your body. Not to mention that your sons were missing you. By the way I thanked Gerson, that he took care of the boys while you were away. "

"Nye."

"I think I can say that Papyrus agrees with me."

"Nye!"

Asgore's warm chuckle eased Gaster's tension.

"Hm, I see," he carefully placed his bone hand on his younger son's head and smiled faintly as he snuggled closer to him. Even though both of his sons born from his soul, he had no idea where Papyrus inherited his affection and kindness from.

"Thank you. Um, all right maybe I've really needed some time home." Gaster glanced at the king who watched the kids with soft eyes. "You're not staying for dinner, Your Majesty? As an apology for causing much inconvenience."

"There was no inconvenience, don't worry about it."

"But still."

"Nyeh!"

"Stay, let's make some spaghetti!" Sans nodded and climbed up next to his brother.

"Maybe, should we ask our guest abo-" Gaster's words seemed unheard.

"And there will be a lot of ketchup in it!" Sans raised his hands enthusiastically towards the sky.

"Nyehehe!" His younger brother joined him.

"Sans, Papyrus" Gaster snorted softly, but even his sons felt that his gruffness wasn’t really there.

"Come on, come on. Spaghetti sounds great, I haven't eaten in a long time, now that I think about it."

Asgore gave an encouraging look to the scientist.

"Hm, in that case we're making a giant serving of spaghetti, I think we might have everything for it already...or we'll improvise."

"You're good at that, Dad," Sans chuckled and his grin only grow when his father snorted while rubbing his son's skull.

"Okay, but no need to hurry, rest as much as you want. I'll make some tea before we start cooking. I still have a serving of raspberries."

"Raspberry?" The scientist closed his right eye and glared at the king, trying to hide his confusion.

"I'm sorry, over the years I've learned to improvise, too." The king walked toward the kitchen, "and I think I have some ingenuity in me, too."

Gaster also snorted, closing his left eye while called out to Asgore heading into the kitchen.

"The biggest gas-rose turns on a little suddenly," he took a few slow breaths and felt Sans falling asleep beside him as Papyrus wrapped the blanket around his brother and squirmed closer to them.

"The tea can in the cupboard below on the left..." the thought slowly faded to black and with it he himself. He could still feel the weight of his slowly breathing sons on his side, and the pleasant smell of raspberries. However, exhaustion and some quiet peace finally rolled over him. Taking slow deep breaths, he fell asleep.

#undertale #undertale fanfiction #gaster #gaster x asgore #asgore #asgore dreemurr #wd gaster #wingdings gaster #drgaster #copper #dadster #babybones #sans #papyrus #kidsans #kidpapyrus #sans the skeleton

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satan-chillin · 4 years

Text

Fair Game

(Chapter 1/2)

Summary: Sam and Dean encountered a completely different version of themselves. An AU of Episode S15E13 "Destiny's Child".

Pairings: Destiel & Samwena/Samwitch

Rating: T

Also available in Ao3

The heavy and ornate mahogany doors opened at exactly 12:30 in the evening and came in a couple dressed handsomely, their cheeks streaked with redness from one too many flutes of champagne from the evening celebration they came from.

“Remind me not to wear this outfit again,” the man muttered. He wasn’t one to normally voice his complaint, thinking he would sound whiny, but it seemed that the alcohol was loosening up his tongue. “I look ridiculous in purple. Like… Like Barney.”

The woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you seriously comparing yourself with a purple dinosaur?” Her sigh was fond. “You should have seen yourself in the mirror, dear.”

“I mean, I did? While you were helping me with the pocket square.” He idly touched the handkerchief. “I don’t know. I thought it’ll be nice, but, er, I might have stood out too much earlier.”

“And that’s a bad thing? To stand out on your own book signing event?” the woman snorted. “Honestly, you’re the only person I know who doesn’t want the spotlight even if he earned that right.”

The man shrugged. “That's me.”

“Aye. I know you too well.” The woman walked closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I know as well that you deserve everyone’s attention the most, you humble giant.”

With their difference in height, she has to tiptoe to peck his cheek, though the man eagerly met her halfway to give her an eskimo kiss in return, making her giggle a little uncharacteristically.

It only served to make her endearing to him.

“Thank you, though, for helping me pick,” he said earnestly. He let his hands stay on her slim waist, nuzzling the top of her head affectionately. “Should I get used to this from now on?”

“Well,” she began, patting his chest teasingly. “If you haven’t realized it yet that I’m gradually improving your wardrobe, then you’re not paying attention, dear.” She smirked at his mild indignation and pulled herself from his hold. “Although, if I have to choose,” she made a show of running her eyes from his head to toe, “My favorite will always be getting you out of your clothes.”

The man went red from root to tips, much to the woman’s utter amusement.

“Come join me upstairs if you’re willing to let me do so tonight,” she said, flicking her long red hair over an exposed milky shoulder. She walked up the stairs, sashaying her hips, knowing full well that the man's eyes followed her and the sway of her lacy black dress that seemingly molded itself with her curves.

As the man stood there dreamily and thinking what a damn lucky man he was to have someone so beautiful not only on the outside but also on the inside, someone who understood all his quirks and accepted him for what he was, he couldn't help but finger the small velvet box he was keeping inside his pocket.

Tonight, he promised himself. He would ask the big question tonight.

He could have done it during tonight's event, but then again he wasn't really into big gestures. He was in his element in moments where it was quiet with just the two of them sharing a blanket of comfortable silence.

Well, springing out the question right before he was about to get sex was not the romantic scene he was aiming for either, but… anymore prolonging and he would butcher this one out.

He knew her and been together with her for three years now, and yet he found his hands shaking and sweaty in nervousness. She loved him back, of that he was sure of, but what if she didn't want the same? Would she think that they were moving too fast? He didn't want her to think that he would limit her freedom and independence once they were legally bound together.

The man was roused out from his thoughts when a black mass of fur rubbed itself against his leg. He picked up the cat and scratched it behind the ear.

"Do you think your mom will say yes, Merlin?" the man asked anxiously.

Merlin merely purred in response at the attention it was getting, closing his eyes in bliss. The man humored him for a bit if only to delay a rejection he could possibly get.

Oh, god, I'm being a coward, he thought. An indecisive coward.

Merlin perked his head up and stared at the man. The cat seemed to agree with him, he thought gloomily.

The cat jumped back to the ground, sniffing the air and looking around. The man watched Merlin's odd movements before he broke into a run to the kitchen and out in the back. Puzzled at Merlin's sudden bolting, the man followed the cat sedately to the backyard.

"Merlin?" he called when he heard a loud and almost incessant yowl from the cat. Must have scented a prey, he thought.

And upon walking out to follow, what greeted him was…

A line.

The man stared, stupefied. Line was putting it mildly. It was glowing in an orange hue, for god's sake! It was floating, he supposed, like a tear of some sort in the middle of—he didn't know, space, maybe?

"What the hell?"

Merlin continued to yowl on the ground, encircling the line. If the man didn't know better, he'd say that the cat was excited at the discovery, like it was just handed a new toy. Merlin's pupils were round, illuminated by the reflection of the orange light. He looked up in wonder and awe.

It was unnatural, indescribable by words—and the man has plenty of those—yet his hand itched to reach out, to touch and see how it would feel.

Curiosity killed the cat, they said, though in this case, its victim was the man instead.

"No, Samuel, don't!"

The last thing he heard was Rowena's warning that came a little too late.

***

Dean woke with a pounding headache.

He groaned, sitting up from the cold hard floor and…

Where in the world was he?

Dean looked around his surroundings wildly and noticed that not far from him was someone lying face down and—God, the guy wasn’t dead, was he?

He was saved from the trouble of checking for a pulse when the man twitched and shifted on his back, groaning aloud and blinking awake before shooting up in a sitting position and finally noticing Dean.

“You too, huh?” Dean said.

“What?” the man asked. “What do you mean by that? Where are we?”

“My guess is as good as yours, man. I just woke up a minute earlier.”

The man made a move to stand, straightening on his feet. He was tall, and Dean himself was tall. Dean respectfully didn’t take note of the atrocious purple suit and the hideous man-bun that got messed up.

Just when Dean was having the impression that the man was posh with the getup and all, he approached Dean and stooped down to lend him a hand. Dean thanked him, patting away the dirt from his coat.

He got a better look of the area once he was standing and woah, the number of vintage cars he could see everywhere should be enough to trigger some kind of familiarity; it didn’t. They seemed to be in some kind of a large, rich man’s garage.

“Battery’s dead,” he heard the man mutter while tapping on his phone.

Dean checked his. “Mine too.”

His watch was ticking at 7:42 PM, and the last time he checked it had been somewhere around 11:30 PM. Dean couldn’t believe he was out cold for almost a day. Whatever tranq they administer to him, it must have been enough to knock out at least a baby elephant.

“Are we kidnapped or something?” he asked aloud, mostly to himself.

The man ran his hand through his hair, his loose man-bun gone. “It’s what I think as well but the lack of bindings and the presence of a kidnapper suggest otherwise.”

“Or this is some kind of Saw shit,” Dean suggested. At the man’s puzzled expression, Dean waved his hand. “Nothing. It’s a bad joke.”

“Are you alright, at least? No injuries on you?” the man asked.

“Headache from waking up that’s ebbing away, thankfully,” Dean answered honestly. “Other than that, nothing that I know or can feel on me. You?”

“Mild headache. Nothing more,” the man said. He closed his eyes briefly. “Um, I know this is a weird situation we find ourselves in, but if we’re going to work together, might as well get to know each other’s names.” He extended out his hand. “I’m Sam.”

“Dean.” Dean shook the hand. “Dean Winchester-Novak,” he said fully before he could hold himself back. Force of habit.

Sam frowned. “Winchester?” He smiled amiably. “Are you the Winchester one? Because my name is Sam Winchester.”

“Seriously? Yeah, I’m the Winchester. What are we, some kind of distant relatives?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. Lots of Winchesters in the States alone, but, yeah, that’s some coincidence.”

“I don’t know, man. It’s interesting to find out. Sucks it’s this way, though,” Dean said regretfully. He spotted a door at the far end of the garage. “Think that one’s locked?”

Sam followed his line of sight, deep in thought. “Only one way to find out.”

Apprehensively, they approached the door. Dean kept his eye open for any traps because you’d never know; better be prepared, right? There weren't any visible cameras that he could see at a glance so there was that.

Dean twisted the knob, half-expecting an explosion or poison spikes or whatever this possibly rigged doorknob could release.

Nothing came.

Sam peered at the long hallway ahead and gave an all-clear sign. Tentatively, they exited the garage and traversed the corridor whilst frequently looking behind their backs. It was eerily quiet and a bit dark, and it felt like they were actually the one trespassing in someone else’s property. It was ridiculous.

There was another long hallway when they turned at the bend, though this time there was a light at the far end of it. Cautiously, they approached the room, a little emboldened since they haven't encountered anyone or anything so far, and noticed that it was a kitchen with a man standing there, his back turned as he prepared coffee.

When the man turned around, Dean couldn't keep down his relief. "Cas," he said with a wide grin and rushed to meet him in a tight embrace.

Cas was taken aback, a deep frown etched on his face and was about to ask when Dean had beaten him to it.

"Cas, what's going on? Where are we? I woke up in the garage of this place with Sam here. Oh, yeah, this is Sam. Sam Winchester—can you believe it?" The words rushed out of Dean. "Sam, this is Castiel Novak. Cas for short. He's my husband."

"I'm your what?"

Sam genially extended a hand in which Cas shook dumbly. "Nice to meet you, Cas."

Cas glanced confusedly between Sam and Dean, studying them carefully as if trying to figure them both, particularly the one they were wearing. "I don't understand. Is this what you call a prank?"

"What? What you mean pra—"

"Hey, Cas, you done there?" came a male voice from outside. "We're just—"

Sam and Dean turned to the source of the voice and found two men standing there.

Two men who have their faces.

What the hell.

***

“This is like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, isn’t it?” Cas heard the other Dean say.

“What part of the alternate universe you don’t understand?” Dean retorted. “You and the Sam here with you are our alternate versions.”

“I think it’s like in the comic books,” Sam in the purple suit said. “For example, Peter Parker is the Spider-Man in his world but there’s another world where it’s his girlfriend Gwen Stacy who’s the Spider-Woman instead.” At the blank stare he got from the other three, he sheepishly added, “It’s a popular thing in our world. I used to be a fan when I was a kid—which isn’t the point, right.” He cleared his throat. “So. You said that you’re our counterparts, and you two are brothers?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Aren’t you?”

“We just met today, actually. I think Dean here is from another separate world that is not from where I came from.”

"Alright, stop. This is going to be confusing. I am Dean, and my brother here is Sam. Other Sam, we're calling you Sammy. Other me, you're Squirrel."

"Why am I called Squirrel?"

"I didn't make the rules."

"You just did."

"Dean," Sam interrupted with a sigh. "Sorry. Is Deanno fine by you?"

"That's much better."

"Yeah, you look like a 'Deanno'." Dean snickered.

Sam leveled his brother a stare.

"What's the deal with you two, anyway?" Deanno asked, ignoring Dean. He gestured around himself. "Like, is it your family's thing to kidnap your counterparts?"

"What? No. No one's kidnapping anyone," Sam defended. “Look, like you, we honestly don’t know how you got here either. What’s the last thing you remember before waking up?”

“I was driving home from an event,” Deanno recalled. “I might have stopped on the road. It was, uh—I thought I saw something.”

“Saw what?”

“Wait,” Sammy cut in. “That thing you saw… It didn’t happen to be a line, right? Like a tear in space or something.”

Deanno snapped his fingers. “Yes! That was it. Big orange line thingy!”

Sam and Dean shared a look.

“It was a rift,” Cas spoke for the first time. “You two encountered rifts in space, portals to another world which is… here.”

“What happened on our side then? Did it remain open?” Sammy asked Cas.

“I checked the garage. There are no rifts open there. It’s safe to assume both are closed,” Cas answered.

“That’s good.” Sammy sighed in relief. “I mean, my girlfriend’s probably worried to death after she saw me touching the rift, but at least she didn’t follow and possibly landed somewhere.”

“And my husband’s bound to be doing the same by now after I left a voicemail I was on my way home and did not arrive.” Deanno rubbed his face. “Fuck.”

“Woah, wait, husband?” Dean reacted.

Deanno gestured at Cas. “Yeah, him.”

Dean whirled incredulously at Cas. “Hey, Cas is nobody’s husband!”

“Well, not him exactly, but my husband’s name is Castiel Novak. I suppose he’s my Cas’s counterpart then.” Deanno addressed Cas. “But are you really not my Cas? ‘Cause I have to say, you got his character from that adorably confused frown and the trenchcoat.”

Cas didn’t know what to make of the wink sent his way.

“Can you not—he’s not your Cas, alright? For one thing, he’s a freaking angel.”

“So? My husband is too! He’s a saint!”

“I think Dean means to say that I am a literal angel,” Cas put in. “Which I am. I am an angel of the Lord.”

“Oh,” Deanno said. “My Cas is a theology professor. He’s very much human except in bed—”

“Dude, TMI!”

Hm. It seemed that his alternate self has quite a prowess in copulation, Cas mused. Interesting.

Sammy looked like he was embarrassed to be acquainted with the other Dean while Sam wasn’t sure whether to cringe or laugh. Cas believed it was the latter given that Sam was hiding his sniggering behind his fist.

“Okay, enough of that,” Sam said, thankfully. “I think it’s safe to assume that you two are our non-hunter versions.”

“Is that what you do? Hunting?” Sammy asked. “Like professional deer-hunters?”

“Uh, no. Dean and I are hunters of the supernatural. This place is more or less our home and headquarters.”

“You hunt supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves?”

Sam nodded. He was thoughtful for a second. “You don’t… Have you ever encountered any supernatural in your world?”

“No,” Sammy said, eyes wide in awe. “Your job—I thought that’s only something I’ll read in books or watch in films. It sounds exciting!”

“It’s dangerous,” Sam told him. “We also lost our family and some friends in our line of work.”

“Oh.” Sammy’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. It’s already quite some time now. Doesn’t mean it’s no longer painful though,” Sam said, smiling tightly. A somber mood fell on them. “How about you? Lawyer?”

“Ah, no. I thought about continuing to law before and realized that if I did, I would have plenty of lives on my hands in that line of career. I didn’t think I could handle that kind of responsibility,” Sammy said wryly. “I took creative writing instead, and now I’m a book writer with a few books under my belt.” He chuckled shyly.

“It’s not something I saw myself as, but I’m happy for you,” Sam said genuinely.

“What about you, Deanno, what do you do?” Dean asked.

“I own a small business,” Deannos said vaguely. “I used to be a car mechanic.”

“What kind of business?”

“The car manufacturing kind.”

“That’s far from a small business,” Dean deadpanned. “We get it, you two are our rich selves. We can handle the bragging.”

“Are you kidding me?” Deanno snorted. “Okay, so maybe we pride ourselves in being successful, but we work hard to get to it. The same way you apparently do as well, except you two put your lives on high risk every single time. Now, I don’t know how much hunters get paid for, but I think your jobs are nothing on us.”

Sam fell silent while Dean looked startled before catching himself and settling for appearing chastised instead.

“I guess you’re not so bad,” Dean muttered. He knocked on the table. “So what now?”

“You got beer?” Deanno asked.

“We do.”

Cas watched the four of them file back to the kitchen, smiling a little as he followed them sedately.

The tension was finally diffused. Now, on to the solution to get the two home.

***

Sammy almost forgot the small box in his pocket.

He pulled it out and opened it. The ring remained safely settled within. He pocketed it with a sigh. Sam and Dean and Cas were good people—like men from fiction but good people nonetheless. Sammy’s imaginative brain that thrived on fantasies for future story plots couldn’t help but drink in all the knowledge Sam shared with him about this world. It was amazing, the elements of it all, from the creatures that existed aside from the humans and to the magic and beings that governed this universe.

Okay, so God being their present enemy was concerning, but still.

He would have thought that he was dreaming, but a pinch on his arm said otherwise. It occurred to Sammy he was probably the first man to discover the truth of the theory on Multiverse. He was exactly living a comic book or a fictional storyline right now. It was a paradise for a writer like him!

And yet… And yet he just wanted to go home to Merlin and to Rowena.

“Oh, wow,” Sam suddenly said. Sammy noticed him looking at his pocket.

“It’s, um... I was actually planning to ask the big question before I arrived here,” Sammy told him. He sat comfortably in his borrowed clothes (the choices were flannels of varying colors, not that he minded) across Sam who poured two cups of coffee, one for each of them. “Thank you. I’m not really a heavy drinker. I’m a lightweight.”

“Somehow, I can see that,” Sam said with a grin. “I drink moderately unlike Dean. He’s not hearing me whenever I say we’re not getting any younger.”

Sammy chuckled. He was an only child himself, but he thought that if he had an older brother he would either be like Deanno or Dean. There would be no in-between.

“How long have you been together?” Sam asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Three years,” Sammy said fondly. “We’re already living together and have a cat.” He glanced down on his drink. "I miss them, but to be honest, I don't know how to pop the question when I come back."

"I don't think there's a formula on how," Sam offered sympathetically. "It's not easy, but if you already made up your mind to ask, then it should come to you naturally."

"Thank you," Sammy replied sincerely. "If my Dad is still around, I would've asked him for advice. Bobby was helpful with this kind of thing."

Sam perked up in surprise. "Your Dad is Bobby Singer?"

"Pretty much. My real Dad, John, died of a heart attack when I was six months old. Bobby was a family friend and raised me with his wife, Karen, and my mother, Mary. It sounded weird but they made it work between themselves," Sammy told him. “Bobby was the one who got me into books, mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and mythology. That might have influenced me into being a writer as well.”

“Bobby, huh? We had a Bobby Singer too, and like yours, he was our surrogate dad. He died eight years ago, and John five years before him,” Sam shared. “Mom’s case was a bit complicated. She died when I was six months old and got resurrected four years ago and died again last year.” Sam’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I told you, it’s complicated.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised by now,” Sammy murmured. “I know I’m only saying this because I don’t live here, but the writer side of me actually finds this world fascinating already based on what you told me so far. It’s like there’s an itch in me to explore this world.”

“I understand,” Sam said. “It’s not the safest place, but I love it. This is our world, and it has seen a lot of close calls in the last few years, but this is home, you know? Dean and I don’t see ourselves wanting to replace it with a better one, a more normal one. It’s funny because I used to think it hated us with everything life had thrown us so far. Then you find out that it’s not the world or life, but it’s God himself.”

Sammy nodded solemnly. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this but I don’t doubt that you’ll give God hell.” Sam's expression lightened. “I’m lucky to lead a different life because if I’m in your shoes, I don’t think I can have the same lifestyle as you do. Frankly, the brave one between my girlfriend and me is her. She’s more decisive and confident, and she’s the kind of independent woman who learns and moves on easily from her mistakes. It’s the main reason why I’m uncertain to ask her to marry me. What if she doesn’t want to be tied down? Or, say that it’s fine by her, but is it okay if it’s with me? I’m not like her or you, Sam. I honestly still think she could have done better.”

“But you’ll never know if you don’t ask her,” Sam reasoned. “You can’t let your insecurity eat you from within. It sounds to me that you two are fine in terms of communication. Maybe you can open this up to her as well.”

Sam, who was fully aware that he couldn’t hold a decent length of relationship with a woman without his life as a hunter hindering it, couldn’t believe that he was hearing himself giving advice in romance. To another version of himself even. Strange times.

“Is it Jessica?” Sam decided to ask; he was curious, sue him. “It’s ages ago since I’ve been in a committed relationship myself, but Jessica is the last woman I saw myself having a future with.”

Sammy frowned. “It’s not her, though I recall knowing a Jessica back in college.” He reached for his wallet to show a picture of Rowena. “Actually, her name is—”

The bunker’s siren suddenly blared, and the kitchen was illuminated by the warning red lights that darkened the room and lit the hallways.

“What’s going on?” Sammy asked when he stood abruptly with Sam.

“It’s the bunker’s alarm,” Sam told him, pulling out a gun from his waist. “Stay close to me. I think we got an intruder.”

***

Deanno whistled at the impala. “This is your ride? Sweet.”

“That’s my Baby.” Dean stood straighter in pride. “Been taking care of her for as long as I remember, even before Dad passed her down to me.”

“Inherited cars are often the most taken care of and loved,” Deanno said factually. “Well, I’ll be damned. I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of model back home. I should propose this.”

“What kind do you drive then?”

“A ‘78 Lincoln,” Deanno said, much to Dean’s utter distaste. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. My husband chose it.”

“That’s equivalent to Cas’s pimpmobile.”

Deanno laughed. “Pimpmobile is the endearment we have for it, alright. What can I say? It’s reliable. And at least it ain’t a Fiat.”

Dean was inclined to agree with the last one. He wouldn’t be caught with a ten-foot pole with that vehicle.

“Everything in here belongs to you, your brother, and Cas then?” Deanno gestured at the other cars.

“They’re all here when we inherited the place,” Dean told him. “We use them as spares.”

“And you call me rich.”

“You’re the one with a large business.”

“We expanded just recently,” Deanno allowed. “But we’re not there with the big players yet.”

Dean grunted. Business wasn’t a forte of his, though that was largely because he never bothered to find out. Who knows?

Deanno was fine, Dean supposed; a little uncharacteristic for Dean to consider him another self but then again their circumstances were vastly different too.

On their way back inside, Deanno told him that he was raised by Mary after John died in a car accident. Mary was a handy woman who learned the rudimentary of car mechanics after John passed and left the startup company he had invested in. It had been a rocky start for both the family and the business, but with some help from friends like Bobby and his wife, Jody, they managed to make it into a stable business.

Deanno was put in college, initially for a degree in mechanical engineering until he had thought long and hard and went for business administration with a major in marketing instead. He said that it was the best decision he made since that was also how he met Cas after a series of girlfriends and random hookups.

“Right,” Dean said flatly. “Your husband.”

“I don’t get why it’s such a big deal to you, Dean,” Deanno said seriously. “This is not homophobia, is it?”

“Of course not,” Dean replied shortly. No, it wasn’t that at all.

“Then what is it?”

He was spared the chance to answer when Jack walked in the war room, staring between the two Deans that he was seeing. Cas was close behind him, nodding at them.

“Hello,” Jack greeted them indifferently.

“I explained to Jack the situation,” Cas said. “He wanted to help but Billie specifically told him not to use his powers.”

“But we can still look for an alternative to bring you and the other Sam to your respective worlds,” Jack said. “Although it might take some time.”

“Not like we have a choice, right?” Deanno smiled wryly. “Don’t sweat yourself, kid.”

“I’ll be talking to Billie for the next step,” Jack told them, excusing himself. “Later.”

“I’ll come with Jack,” Cas said. “If you need me, simply knock on Jack’s door.”

"Sure, Cas," Deanno replied on behalf of Dean. He mock-saluted, grinning from ear to ear as he watched Jack and Cas go. "We'll be here too if you need anything," he hollered after them.

"Can you stop doing that?"

"Doing what?" Deanno asked innocently.

"That." At Deanno's straight face and the raised eyebrow, Dean elaborated, "The flirting."

Deanno snorted. "C'mon. All in good fun."

"You have a husband."

"And I'm flirting with someone who's technically him but an actual angel." Deanno paused to consider for a moment. "Wait. Is that why?" A smirk formed on his lips. "You're jealous."

"I most certainly am not," Dean said a little too quickly.

"See, that's the thing. You won't be doing that if you already bagged him," Deanno pointed out pityingly.

"Alright. That's it. No more of this topic."

"Eh. Fine by me," Deanno allowed easily. "So who's Jack?"

"It's a long story."

"You can summarize," he suggested.

Dean sighed tersely. He should get this out of the way. "He's Lucifer's son biologically. Cas is the Dad he recognizes," he said gruffly. "He's half-human and half-archangel, and he doesn't have a soul right now."

"Oh."

"Yep. That's our lives."

"Yeah. Sorry man, I won't be touching that subject too much," Deanno muttered. "I just thought the kid is yours and Cas's."

"Cas's, not mine," Dean reminded him tersely.

"No, like, Jack was from both you and him."

"What?" Dean exclaimed once he understood what Deanno was implying. "Where in the world are you getting these ideas?"

"Hey, now. You're the one who said he's an angel."

Dean wanted to bleach his mind when it began forming a certain image. "Jesus Christ. Cas is a guy! And he's wearing a male vessel!"

"How about angel magic?"

"Angel mag—" At this point, Dean believed that Deanno was sent to make his day even more difficult. "Okay. If that is even friggin’ possible, Cas and I are not together that way.”

“Why not, Dean?”

“He’s my best friend.”

“Weak argument. My Cas is also my best friend. What’s your better excuse?”

“How about: this is a different world, with me living a different life with different circumstances,” Dean said a matter-of-factly. “I am not you, Deanno. I am not some kind of business man with a college degree and a peaceful married life where the most exciting thing that happened to him is accidentally jumping in a portal to another world.”

A small empathetic smile was the last thing Dean expected to get. “And doesn’t that tell you something that despite the completely different lives we have, the one thing we have in common is Cas?”

Deanno was right, Dean was aware, and because Deanno was right and his statement was forcing Dean to reexamine things that he didn’t want to in the middle of their crisis right now, Dean was irritated and slowly but surely coming close to being mad.

Fortunately for Dean, he was, once again, saved by the bell. Literally. Or saved by the bunker’s alarm, to be exact.

Red lights fell down in the war room in an instant, alerting both of them. Amidst the siren, there were scuffling noises against metal.

“Dean, what’s that?” Deanno asked cautiously. Dean wasn’t sure if he was asking about the alarm or the sound along with it.

“Shit. Intruder.” Dean reloaded his pistol. He reached for another one and tossed it to Deanno. “Take that. We’re gonna need it.” He gestured for Deanno to stay close.

“I hope not,” he heard Deanno whisper.

“And I hope that we won’t need anything stronger than a gun.”

Dean crept nearby the stairs leading up to the entrance. From his position, he could see no sign of forced entry. He peered upstairs for any movement. Nothing.

Dean was on an even higher alert, the alarm ringing incessantly in his ears. “Let’s go get the others. Something’s wro—”

A huge black mass collided against Dean, sending him skidding across the floor and crashing him against a marble pillar.

“Dean!”

Deanno fired three shots at the… thing that tackled Dean down. It whirled at him, its attention was on him in an instant, growling and ready to pounce.

It was a fucking black panther.

“Take him down, Merlin,” commanded a voice.

Deanno stood frozen at the huge animal lunging towards him. Its weight slammed him down on the floor where his head smacked loudly he swore he saw dark spots on his vision. Deanno fought back against the unconsciousness and was met face-to-face with sharp rows of teeth glistening with saliva and predatory golden eyes that considered Deanno as the prey.

“G-Good kitty,” Deanno attempted. The panther snarled, its breath hot on his face. He decided to shut up instead.

“Where is he?” came above the same voice from before.

Under the red light, Deanno realized that it was a woman in a black dress. Purple lights danced around her hands, poised to attack.

“I won’t ask again, where is Sam Winchester?” said the woman furiously.

“Sam?” Deanno clarified. “You know Sam?”

A loud piercing sound rang within the bunker, so deafening that it broke the lightbulbs and the nearby glasses. It was enough to bring the woman on her knees before she snapped her head upwards, her ears bleeding, and sent a spike of purple lightning to someone above.

Deanno covered his head when plasters and debris fell on him. To his amazement, though, nothing hit him and the weight on his chest lessened.

“Don’t touch him,” warned a different voice, a much familiar one.

Deanno blinked. “Cas?”

“Dean.” Cas—his Cas, Deanno was a hundred percent sure—crouched down to check on him. “Are you alright?”

“I am, but we’ll talk later—look out!”

The warning seemed to be unnecessary when the purple lightning from the woman hit Cas on his back and he didn’t flinch one bit.

“What are you?” the woman hissed. The black panther retreated to her side, snarling ferociously at them.

Cas’s answer was a thin, pointed blade that appeared on his hand in a blink. A flicker of recognition flashed on the woman’s face.

“Impossible,” she growled.

“If that’s what you think,” Cas shot back evenly.

There was a large shadow that loomed above them, forming into the shape of a pair of huge wings that encompassed the vicinity.

“Stop!”

Jack, the kid from earlier, emerged from another part of the room with eyes lit brightly in gold. Cas turned to him with wariness but more so his fascination with the newcomer and the realization as to what Jack was.

There were hurried footsteps that followed, and Deanno didn’t have to look to know who arrived. With the present amount of people, it was bound to be a shitfest.

“Rowena?!”

The woman abruptly stopped, eyes darting past Cas and to the two men who came in. “Sam?” she whispered before confusedly glancing between the two Sam Winchesters. “Who is this fake?” she demanded.

The fighting had thankfully stopped, but another set of explanations was clearly needed. Again.

Deanno groaned from the ground. He wished he was as lucky as Dean to be unconscious for all of these.

#spn fanfic #spn #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #destiel #samwena #samwitch #samwena fanfic #samwitch fanfic #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #rowena #sam x rowena #cas x dean #rowena macleod #s15e13

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bangtan-gal · 5 years

Text

Painkillers pt. 1

Yoongi x Reader Soulmate AU Summary: You didn’t know how much his pain impacted your life until it completely disappeared. Word Count: 1.6k (oof its short sorry) Warnings: light swearing, angst, rushed writing Masterlist

You were late—again. Of course you were. Who knew that dance class would become such a pain in the ass? You sighed as you stumble into the studio, red-faced and already ready with an excuse on your tongue.

“Zuni!” You greeted cheerfully, hugging the small girl tightly. Her teacher gave you an unimpressed look; it’s the fourth time you’ve been late this week. You apologized meekly, your determination leaving you.

You had a legitimate excuse this time, work had suddenly run late when one of your co-workers messed up a client’s file. But, you had made a promise to pick Zuni up on time and what did you do? You showed up fifteen minutes late.

“Aunt Y/N?” Zuni murmured as you leave. “When is mommy coming back?”

You paused, glancing down at the young girl warily. What could you tell her? That her mother ran away with a random guy and went to Europe? Leaving you, the most unqualified idiot on the planet to take care of her daughter? That would definitely sit well with a six-year-old.

“Just a couple more months, babe” you sigh, smiling at her. She frowns in response.

By law, you shouldn’t be taking care of Zuni. It was a dumb law, but, you had to have your soulmate to even consider having a child. Then you had to get permission from the state to have one. It wasn’t a population thing, surprisingly, they were just worried about children growing up in a soulmate less world. It was stupid though, most people no longer took the soulmate code seriously anymore. Nobody loses their virginity to their soulmate, people date and sleep around, and it’s common for people to cheat on their soulmate. Nearly half of people don’t bother looking for theirs, they just marry whoever. The government was just trying to force the soulmate notion onto people and it wasn’t working.

Your connection to your soulmate was sensory—you could feel each other’s pain. It wasn’t helpful in any way, your soulmate clearly didn’t get in a lot of painful situations that could help you track him down. You occasionally felt a pinch here or a paper cut there. The worst pain you’d felt had been in your teens, when your shoulder had felt like it was on fire. It hurt terribly for several months after. You’d searched the news low and high, wondering if they’d gotten shot or hit something.

There’d been nothing.

You tried at first, when you turned thirteen and until college, but then you gave up. It sucked—according to a specialist, the pain you felt would subside once you met. If you never meet him, you’ll spend your whole life randomly waking up with a headache or hissing every time your finger stings. It made you wonder if the only reason some people found their soulmate was because of their connection.

💊💊💊

You sighed, sitting on the kitchen floor with your head between your knees. Your head was pounding and the room spun every time you moved. Whatever your soulmate was doing was clearly putting them in a lot of pain. You reached for the glass of water, taking a small sip. You’d learned quickly that painkillers wouldn’t make your soulmate’s pain go away and it sometimes felt like they didn’t know what medication was. It had lasted all night and you’d been lucky that you managed to get Zuni up and on the school bus.

You forced yourself to stand up, wincing as you tried to ignore the spinning room. You grabbed your keys, pulled a hoodie on, and stumbled out of the house. It was a ten minute walk to work, but it took you fifteen minutes since you had to stop every now and then to take a deep breath and get a feel for your surroundings. The sides of your vision was blurred out and the contrast of colors was more obvious than normal.

“You okay there, Y/N?” Namjoon, one of your coworkers, asked as you fell into your desk.

“Its your soulmate, isn’t it?” Jisoo murmured, resting a sympathetic hand on your arm. You sighed, burying your head in your arms.

“You know you could just ask the boss for a leave, he’d understand that you’re going on a soulmate hunt,” he said. You snorted, shaking your head as you forced yourself to sit up. You opened up your laptop and then glanced at Namjoon, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Our city is one of the places that disregards soulmates the most. He’s had two different wives, neither of which were his soulmate. This society doesn’t give two craps about soulmates or soul mate connections,”you huffed. “He would never let me have a leave.”

“Namjoon’s right Y/N. Everyone in the office knows you have one of the worst connections, I’m sure even our boss would let you leave.”

You didn’t reply as you started logging in new client information. You had a phone conference in an hour and you were more worried about preparing yourself for the call than your soulmate and they’re stupid headaches. You could feel your coworkers eyes burning into you, but you kept your eyes on the screen, trying to pretend like your temples weren’t pulsing.

They tried to push at you several more times throughout the day, but when you continued to be your stubborn self and show disinterest, they gave up. You managed to survive the call and convince the lady to become an investor. By the time lunch rolled around, your headache had slightly faded and you found your energy coming back.

You decided to go out to lunch with Namjoon, Hoseok, and Jisoo. The four of you stepped into the cafe, loudly making fun of Hoseok’s love life problems. You complained about work and Jisoo chuckled when you grumbled about your headache.

“Gosh, what if he has some chronic illness?” You moaned, staring into a cup of coffee bitterly. “Maybe painkillers won’t help!”

This was how your lunches usually went. You would complain about whatever random pain you were feeling that day, Hoseok would sob over his failed love expeditions, and Jisoo would always say that she was glad she found her soulmate and didn’t have to deal with this. Jisoo had one of the best connections, they could share dreams. Namjoon claimed he didn’t have a connection and didn’t think there was anyone out there for him and Hoseok was covered in tattoos of his soulmate’s memories.

“You know, at least your connection doesn’t stop you from finding love somewhere else!” Hobi huffed. “Whenever people see the tattoos, they freak out, thinking I’ve already found my soulmate!”

One of the most common connections was that they’d have each other’s first words to one another on their wrists and once they met, important phrases would start appearing on their skin. You rolled your eyes at Hoseok, throwing a piece of lettuce at him.

“Having a migraine every other month seems to stop me pretty well,” you whined.

“Oh boo hoo!”

“Okay, okay, enough about your guys’ lives. Namjoon, what’s new with you?” Jisoo asked, turning towards the quiet blonde. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“I have a friend whose going to be staying with me for a while. Actually, I should probably leave soon, he’ll be at my place soon,” he said and then stood up. You all bid him goodbye, watching silently as he left.

“I still feel bad for him.”

You nodded in agreement with Jisoo. Soulmates might not some holy grail around here, but it must discouraging to not have one. It was rare, but the universe had to fuck up every now and then. Some part of you didn’t completely believe that Namjoon didn’t have a soulmate, but you never pushed at him. It was his business and you should let him tell you what he wants.

Shortly after, you all left, walking back to the company. The streets were crowded and you struggled to keep up with your two friends, especially as you felt your headache grow. It was noisy and busy and it was started to overstimulate your senses. You kept pushing forward, knocking shoulders with people going the other way and getting jostled by the people going your way.

And then you froze.

Your hand brushed against someone’s and the headache disappeared, completely. You whirled around, searching the crowd for somebody. But people were moving too fast and there were too many to pick out exactly who you touched. It started to come back, but not nearly as bad. There’s no way, I’m just psyching myself out. Maybe it was just a coincidence.

No—the specialist said that touching would make the pain go away.

“Y/N!”

Hoseok grabbed you, pulling you along with him. You struggled against him, wanting to run the other direction to find whoever just touched you. Whoever just made the pain momentarily disappear.He pulled you off to the side where it was less crowded and frowned at you. He gripped your shoulders, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“I-I-uh, soul-he-just-no-pain—HOSEOK!” You shrieked, eyes widening as the shock started to subside. “I think I just met my soulmate.”

He blinked back at you, his gaze mirroring your own.

“Wait, who? Where?”

You shook your head, turning around. You pursed your lips—was it too late? You had no idea who it was and they were probably too far by now. You groaned, pinching the bridge of your nose. It was just your luck that you met your soulmate in the messiest situation ever.

“We… we didn’t really meet. We just touched.”

#bts #bts x reader #bts smut #bts soulmate au #bangtan boys #kpop #bangtan network #yoongi #min yoongi #yoongi soulmate au #yoongi x reader #yoongi fic #yoongi x reader smut #yoongi smut

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kellykadesperate · 7 years

Text

i’m good at hiding in the dead and grey

for @inloveamateursatbest - i expect your liver in the post xoxo

The way he wakes up with a start gives him a headache suddenly. He's holding his chest and trying to breathe right and then he rolls further across the bed to try and reach out for him.

For Aaron.

He smells him everywhere, this heavy warmness is lined within the sheets and the coldness of the purple overthrow makes his back cold, works to settle the sweat from the hours earlier.

Robert mumbles out something and then drags his body further across the bed until he's met with coldness suddenly.

And Aaron, he's not beside him anymore.

Robert's eyes are wide, breath ragged and he gulps hard. It's supposed to make things stop aching, it's supposed to make him try and rationalise absolutely everything his mind is saying.

Only it doesn't.

Only all he can hear is his own mind mocking him for -

Believing it was true?

He's naked under the sheets, drags them up towards him and dares to whisper Aaron's name but nothing comes out by tears. They form in his eyes and he waits and waits for this to be over, for him to wake up but he doesn't.

He's left you. Robert's mind hammers in his brain, won't stop. Over and over and over and -

He dives down and pulls his boxers on, he thinks they might be Aaron's but that doesn't matter because he just needs to find him and convince him that it wasn't a mistake, that he loves them, that it can be enough if they really try.

Robert cautiously draws back the curtains and the sun pours in, he breathes against it and tries to stop the tears in his eyes and everything telling him to stop trying to hope that Aaron's just taking a piss, just down the hall.

He isn't. He'd be back by now.

Robert holds his arms across his chest and blows out another breath as he moves towards the door of the bedroom, he pulls it open and creeps down the stairs.

He'll know, he'll know if Aaron's gone if he's not down there cooking them breakfast and being a soft prat.

So when he sees no one there, he -

It's like something inside him sort of shatters, and the worst thing about it is that he was expecting this at some point.

Maybe not so quickly but it was coming.

Robert holds the banister, shakes all over and spots Aaron's shoes gone from the doorway.

He couldn't stand the sight of you anymore and he's gone.

"No." Robert whispers, races down the stairs now and pulls a hand through his hair. Aaron's coat is missing, his shirt thrown across the living room floor from last night has disappeared as well and it can only mean one thing. "God." Robert physically feels the heartache pulsing through him, daring to split his insides apart and ruin him.

And everything turns murky, and mean, and cruel as he backs towards the wall and slowly feels himself drop down towards the floor because -

Aaron doesn't want him, Aaron has wised up, Aaron doesn't want him to come home, he doesn't want this.

Robert remembers last night, fucking each other absolutely senseless and holding each other's faces and kissing and being so madly and truly in love.

He thinks about every single little thing and then his heart drops, he remembers them tangled in the sheets. He remembers telling Aaron he'd have to be back soon for Seb, he remembers the way Aaron's eyes flickered for just a second and everything turns numb.

And he's sobbing, can't breathe right and hates himself for loving Aaron this much, for Aaron being his whole life, for Aaron meaning so much that without him, with him leaving him again, he's this absolute mess of a -

Suddenly there's hands on his shoulders and a panicked breath so close in his ear it makes him suddenly startled.

When he looks up Aaron's staring right at him, his eyes are red like just the sight of Robert has bought him to tears and he's frowning.

"Rob? Robert, breathe." Aaron's whispering, suddenly pulls forward and grabs at Robert's hand, he makes him squeeze it over and over again until he's less pale.

And then Robert shakes his head as Aaron tries to wrap his arms around him, he pushes him away.

"Why can't you love me like I love you?" Robert whispers through sobs and his voice breaks. Because he knows Aaron loves him, he thought Aaron loved him just as much, that he'd fight for him forever and ever but -

Aaron's face falls, mouth gaped open wide. "You what?" His voice is suddenly thick with emotion and he shuffles on his knees, moves his hand off Robert's knee.

Robert shudders, chest still rising and falling fast. "You left me, you left again." He whispers, and he hates himself for being like this.

Aaron gulps hard, "Yeah. Yeah I did but -"

Robert shakes his head, bites down hard on his gum and sighs. "I love you so much, and you still left." He has a tear falling down his face and Aaron comes further towards him, holds him by the back of the neck and tells him to look at him.

"Oi, look at me alright? I only went to get more bacon you idiot." Aaron shakes his head, eyes sorry and sad and so blue it makes Robert catch his breath suddenly.

Robert hears it, hears it all suddenly and he feels like the biggest idiot in the whole world. He hides his head and Aaron tuts and suddenly Robert is being crushed by Aaron's whole body.

When Aaron pulls away, Robert is bright red and he brings a hand up to stroke over Aaron's cheek. "I'm sorry." He whispers, eyes still raw and red. "I just thought -"

Aaron frowns. "Thought what?" He whispers.

Robert almost hides his face, "You changed your mind, that last night was a mistake." He holds Aaron's hand in his and he's never been this vulnerable.

Aaron breathes out slowly, presses a kiss to Robert's head and pulls away slowly. "I meant, every single word. I love you." He blurts out. "I'm in love with you, always will be and - Robert, I'm not leaving ya."

Robert just nods slowly, doesn't know what to say and Aaron sniffs, wipes a tear away.

"We're family." He insists, "We're a family Rob, no one - and - and nothing is going to take that away okay?"

And Aaron's so good with words now, he's grown, he's this amazing man who Robert can call his until his dying days.

Robert blinks slowly, thumb stroking Aaron's ear and making the younger man smile a little and rests his head against Robert's gentle palm. "Saying I love you doesn't quite cut it with us anymore does it?"

Because this, it must be more than love.

Aaron smiles gently, "I know what you mean." He whispers before he smiles. "Saw Seb with Vic at the shop too."

Robert instantly brightens. "Yeah?"

Aaron nods, "Told him I was making his daddy breakfast when Vic had her back turned, he proper smiled and everything." He says and Robert's insecurities melt away.

"He might love you as much as I do." Robert whispers and Aaron looks almost giddy before he's gently moving towards Robert and kissing him gently on the mouth before pulling away. "I should have left a note, I'm so sorry for scaring ya." He admits.

Robert gulps, feels Aaron run a hand through his hair. "You and me? Forever." He whispers, watches Aaron's eyes sparkle out his agreement and then Robert is feeling Aaron's cold hands press hungrily on his naked chest.

Aaron pulls away with a smile. "I'm getting started on my legendary breakfast." He whispers, stands suddenly and helps Robert up. "And you, can get started yourself up stairs." He wiggles his eyebrow a little and Robert feels everything tug inside him and -

He loves one man.

Aaron turns to go and Robert holds him by the arm, stops him and wraps his arms right around him tightly. He buries his head in Aaron's shoulder and they stand their for a few seconds.

"Could ya just hold me for a second?" Robert mumbles, because despite everything that Aaron has managed to melt away in his mind, he's still getting over the crippling fear he felt when Aaron had gone, and the way Aaron strokes his back over and over again makes everything settle.

"Always." Aaron mumbles out and yeah,

Aaron really does know his way with words lately.

Robert's missed it more than words can say.

#I wrote this in like ten minutes it is awful but I wanted to write it for you so here take this thing!#robron #robron fic rec

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randomly-random-jen · 6 years

Text

Heaven Can’t Wait - Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight - There’s More Going On

When she’s finally done with Harper, Abby wheels her supply cart over to their table. “You two are my last patients.” She grins. “Until the next catastrophe anyway.”

Bellamy laughs, but he feels her stress. It’s always one thing after another on the ground. If they go longer than a week without an emergency, he’s shocked.

Abby turns her smile to Heaven. “Well, don’t you look adorable. I love the hair.” Her fingers skim over Heaven’s head then she pulls back the bangs.

“Oh, here,” Bellamy says, fishing the barrette out of his pocket. He tries to clip back her hair, but Heaven takes it out almost immediately.

Abby goes still, sparking Bellamy’s anxiety. “What? What’s wrong?”

A second later, Abby shakes herself out. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. Just a memory from another time. They sneak up on you sometimes.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what she means, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk about it. His pulse slows now that his heart isn’t leaping into his throat. He needs to get a grip.

Heaven sits quietly, playing with Bae, while Abby cleans the few sores still left on her hands and legs where the jacket didn’t cover her. But when it’s time to check her face, she refuses to pull her gaze away from the doll. The more Abby tries to lift her chin to check her, the more Heaven fights to keep her eyes on Bae. Far from being frustrated, Abby just looks amused. Eventually, she gives up with an exaggerated sigh.

“Well, you’re almost completely healed,” she tells Heaven then smiles softly at Bellamy. “Probably because she didn’t get as much exposure. Thanks to you. You did a good job.”

Bellamy ducks his head. He wishes people would quit acting like he performed some kind of miracle. I just did what anyone would do.

“And what about you?” she says as she caps the last swab from Heaven.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles.

Abby huffs. “Uh-huh. What happened to your eye?” She gently presses around his eyebrow. “Did Clarke stitch this up?”

“Yeah. How can you tell?”

“Her knots are still messy. And slanting to the left.” She finishes with his eye. “Nothing feels broken. So?”

He sighs at her continued prodding. “There was a fight in the yard the other day. It’s not a big deal.”

“You mean that near-riot? I patched up half a dozen people after that. Everything from open head wounds to broken arms.” She gives him that reproachful, maternal look that makes him feel like he’s twelve, getting scolded for coming home late.

“Well, I’m fine.”

He has a feeling she’s biting back a lecture, but eventually, she returns to cleaning the burn marks on his face and arms. Most have scabbed over, but a few are still open and sore.

“These look worse—irritated. Have you been scratching at them?” she asks as she swabs a couple of the rawest ones on his neck.

Bellamy thinks of all the times Heaven’s little arms wrapped around his neck or her fingers pulled at the hair there. “Must be my jacket rubbing.

She finishes putting up the samples. “Well, you’re both looking good. The wounds are healing, and there’s no sign of infection. There’s just one last thing I need.” She pulls out a set of tubes and a syringe. “I have to take some blood samples to check your radiation levels. Should be quick-”

Heaven is already eyeing the needles. Well, this isn’t going to end well at all. Bellamy stays completely still as Abby draws his blood, hoping to convince Heaven to remain calm, but when Abby turns to her, she backs away, nearly falling off the table.

“It’ll be okay,” he tells her. “It doesn’t even hurt that bad.”

Heaven just glares—at him, at the needle, at Abby, at the world in general. Bellamy can’t imagine she’s ever had her blood drawn before, but she’s too smart for their goading. She clutches Bae and shakes her head emphatically.

Abby smiles, patting Heaven’s leg softly. “It’s okay—we can try another time. Considering how quickly the wounds are healing, I’m sure her levels are lowering just as fast. She might process radiation even better than you.”

Heaven finally relaxes—going back to playing with her doll—when Abby starts cleaning up her supplies, but she sits as close to Bellamy as she can without actually being in his lap.

With Heaven occupied, Abby turns her attention to Bellamy. “And how are you? Have you been handling thinks okay?”

The look she’s giving him says don’t patronize me. Bellamy swallows hard. What does she want me to say? He’s not even sure how he is. “Really, Abby, I’m fine.”

She frowns. “You’re eating.”

It isn’t even a question. Yes, Mom. Geesh. “I’ve been eating as much as anyone. I swear.”

Abby doesn’t look completely convinced, and he has a feeling she’s going to ask around to see if he’s lying or not, but she drops the subject at least. “And sleeping?”

He sighs. “Usually when Heaven naps.” He doesn’t tell her about the nightmares because those are nothing new. He needs to give her something, though, so she’ll stop pestering him. “My head’s been hurting.”

Her concern ratchets a notch. “For how long?”

Since we landed on the ground. Since I learned the world was ending again. Since I found Heaven and another reason to worry about everything. “A few days. It comes and goes.” Like whenever he thinks of Heaven leaving.

“That’s understandable, considering.” Abby unlocks the medicine cabinet and pulls out a bottle of painkillers. “No complaining. Take one when the pain worsens. Promise.”

She’s killing him. He takes the offered pills. “I will.”

“Trust me,” she says, glancing at Heaven. “Being a parent is a lot easier when your head isn’t pounding.”

Bellamy’s face heats up, but thankfully, Abby’s locking up the cabinet. Is it that obvious?

Yes.

He groans softly, hopping off the table with Heaven in his arms. “Thanks, Abby. I’ll let you know if the headache gets worse.” That should appease her for a while, right?

She cocks an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

Or not.

The voice laughs at him.

“If you need anything, Bellamy. Anything—just ask. There are people that want to help you. Let us.”

He can’t get out of Medbay fast enough but is nearly bowled over at the door as several people stumble in, carrying someone between them. The man’s face is a mess of cuts and bruises, his eyes swelled shut, nose obviously broken.

“What happened?” Bellamy asks as they heave him onto the table.

“What do you think happened,” one of them shouts back. “The Grounders got to him.”

Bellamy frowns. “Why would the Grounders-”

“Because they’re Grounders. Savages. All they understand is war.”

Kane rushes in before Bellamy can ask anything else. He gives Bellamy a questioning look like he’s wondering if this means Bellamy’s ready to take the job. Bellamy spins on his heel and gets as far from Medbay as he can before Kane can get the wrong idea.

Except, is it the wrong idea?

Now Bellamy is thinking about it. It’s not like he didn’t see this coming—he knew the Grounders would retaliate for the incident in the yard—but something about it all isn’t sitting right with him. Savages. The same word Tyson used. He wants to think it’s a coincidence. He wants to believe their people are above the eye-for-an-eye mentality, but he knows it’s not true. Not by a long shot. If anything, they have a lot more in common with the Grounders than they’d care to admit.

There’s more going on—he can feel it but has no idea if he can prove it. Not before the kettle boils over and they rip each other apart.

Five years? They aren’t going to make it five months.

Chapter 27 | Chapters | Chapter 29

#fanfic #the 100 fanfic #bellarke fanfiction #heaven can't wait #bellamy blake #abby griffin #abby doing her mom thing #bellamy pretending he hates it

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elenamatisstuff · 6 years

Text

Geetrick Teacher AU! That doesn’t have a title because i’m lazy by Panic! At The Disco

Shipping: Geetrick

Warning: i don’t know what i just did please don’t hate me, and no smut kjvoihspubfgw

Word count: 2358

i just don’t knooowwww

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

“I can’t believe you got a E in english. Gerard, you’re on of my best students, what happened?” Gerard Way just shrugged. He couldn’t admit that he was constantly thinking about his teacher, that he couldn’t sleep and that Mr. Stumph just made him crazy! Gerard spent to many nights just jerking off and touching himself, thinking about Mr. Stumph and his cute looked so good on him. Gerard just wanted to kiss his teacher so badly, he wanted to chuckles, his strong hands, his amazing voice and those lip.

“I’m worried, you look tired and sick. Are you sure you’re fine?” Gerard just nodded. Mr. Stumph rolled his sleeves up and run his hand through his dark blonde hair. He wanted squirm under his touch, he wanted to moan his lungs out while Mr. Stumph whispers dirty things into his ear.

“Is there something on your mind? Did something happen at home? Did a classmate make fun of you for being pansexual, again? If so, you need to tell me, i can help you,” Mr. Stumph said, honestly worried. Gerard is one of his best students, he needed to keep him.

“Everything’s fine, i promise,” Gerard assured, adding a yawn. Mr. Stumph swallowed hardly, before he cleared his throat and adjusted the bundle of paper on his desk.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” Gerard flinched, eyes glued on the desk, fingers nervously playing with the hem of his shirt. “Yes, i get enough sleep, Sir.” Mr. Stumph nodded. “You look tired, do you want me to help you get more sleep?” Gerard’s head shot up, a curious look decorating his eyes like expensive jewelry. “excuse me, w-what was that?” Mr. Stumph got up from his chair and walked behind Gerard, laying his hands on Gerard’s shoulders and slowly sliding them down Gerard’s chest, to his belt.

“I want to help you,” Mr. Stumph whispered hotly against Gerard’s neck, before he licked over Gerard’s sweet spot-

Gerard woke up in a cold sweat. These dreams haunt him and he doesn’t know what to do. He woke up with a pulsing erection, a headache and a feeling of guilt in his chest and gut, that gets worse when Gerard gets rid of his erection, of course thinking about his teacher.

Thank god Gerard graduated already, he didn’t have to see his teacher. He didn’t have to feel guilty about jerking off to a attractive guy that is 6 years older, but he still did. He felt as if it was wrong, as if he was wrong. Patrick Martin Stumph wasn’t just a attractive guy Gerard jerked off to, Gerard had a fucking crush on his teacher and that made everything worse, especially not seeing him anymore. Gerard missed hearing the beautiful chuckles of his teacher, hearing him ramble and make up kid-friendly swears, just to not swear in front of his class or others in general.

Gerard smiled at the thought of Patrick. He missed him, he missed the lossons, having lunch with him at school and the endless chats about music. He missed Patrick’s voice and that adorable smile as soon as he saw Gerard at the other end of the hall. He just missed everything.

Gerard decided to go back to sleep and think about work, about the music he’s writing on and not his teacher anymore, or maybe he should just get up, go to some club and wake up in someone else’s bed or with a cute girl next to him… Yeah, maybe.

The lights were sharp and colourful, the music was loud, the bass hit Gerard in the stomach what made it difficult to enjoy a drink. He just sat by the bar and drunk light beer, deciding to not want to wake up in a stranger’s bed. He felt awful. Why did it have to be his teacher? Why did it have to be that one teacher every girl crushed on and every guy wanted to hate for being such a nerd? Why did it have to be such an amazing person Gerard hasn’t seen in years. How old is Mr. Stumph now? 30? Gerard was sure Patrick still looked amazing, he just has to be every kids’ crush.

Gerard felt someone tip his shoulder. He flinched and turned around.

“Mr. Stumph?” Gerard asked, confused and surprised. he couldn't help himself from smiling when his old teacher smiled widely. “What are you doing here? Are you even allowed to drink?” The blonde chuckled, before he took place next to Gerard. Gerard chuckled too. His voice was still beautiful.

“I’m 22, i think i can.” Patrick sighed and looked at his old student. “God, i feel so old now. It’s good to see you, though. How is life going?” Gerard had no answer to that. How was life going? Not so good, since he’s barely sober and wakes up in stranger’s beds way too often.

“Pretty okay, i think. I’m finally done with college and i’m currently trying to sell my cartoons and comics.” Gerard lied. It wasn’t pretty okay, his comics and cartoons mostly failed and he gave up on them. The only thing Gerard did right in the past 4 years was college. School was something Gerard has always been good at, as long as it was just sitting class.

“What about you? Still teaching kids that swear words are bad?” Patrick chuckled, what made Gerard’s heart flip and the butterflies in his stomach cut deep wounds into Gerard. “No, i quit teaching after you graduated. I thought i should give music another try.” Gerard couldn’t believe it. “Why only after i graduated? You could have quit so much earlier.” Gerard felt his chest tighten when Patrick’s smile fell. “You were the reason i kept teaching. You needed me, and i needed you. You were such a smart and talented kid, i felt like i would have given up on you if i would’ve stopped being your teacher. Also, i was the only teacher that gave a damn about you being bullied, so…” Patrick shrugged, as if it was nothing, but it wasn’t nothing for Gerard. This meant the world to Gerard, just hearing that Patrick really cared about Gerard meant everything to him. Patrick laid his hand on Gerard’s shoulder and sighed again. “It’s was really great to see you, i’d love to see you again sometime.” When Patrick got up from his bar stool, Gerard quickly followed. Patrick gave him a asking look. “Do you need to leave already?” Gerard asked, worried to lose Patrick again. Patrick smiled nicely. “I mean, i don’t have to, but i was going to,” Patrick explained, before he took his phone out. “It’s.. 3am, we have the entire night time to catch up,” Gerard said, his heart beating fast, not wanting to lose Patrick again, he couldn’t lose him again, he just couldn’t. Patrick still looked exactly like 4 years ago, dark blonde hair, hat and a neatly buttoned jeans shirt. Gerard missed the suits, but he was sure Patrick still had them.

“Gerard, that’s very sweet but it’s late and i have to go home to my dogs,” Patrick explained, before he pushed his phone back into his jeans pocket. “You can come with me, if you want to? I mean, you’re right, we still have time to catch up.” Gerard’s butterflies grew more, his heart was beating even faster and a smile formed on his lips. “Y-Yeah, i mean, sure, why not.” Patrick chuckled at Gerard’s nervous attempt to answer. Fuck, his chuckle. Gerard will never get over these chuckles.

Talking to Patrick after all these years made Gerard happy, seeing him smile, hearing his voice and his laugh- Gerard has never been this happy in his life! When they both arrived at Patrick’s house, Gerard felt like it was a goodbye, like they’re never gonna see each other ever again, and that hurt. Patrick unlocked the front door and bit into his bottom lip. He looked between the door and Gerard a couple of times, not sure if he should ask or not.

“Do you want to come in?” Patrick finally asked, in his eyes suddenly something Gerard has never seen in his teacher’s eyes before, something he couldn’t name, something dark, something Gerard wanted to discover.

Gerard entered the modernly designed house, shyly and not sure where this was going. When the door fell close behind Gerard, Gerard flinched and turned around to look at Patrick. Patrick was dangerously close to Gerard, so close, that Gerard couldn’t feel his body, he was numb and not able to move. He continued to stay as close as possible, and suddenly, Patrick’s hands were on Gerard’s waist, and Gerard’s hands around Patrick’s beautiful jaw.

“Mr. Stumph-” Patrick fell into Gerard’s words. “I’m not your teacher anymore, you can call me Patrick.” Gerard swallowed hardly.

“P-Patrick, what is going to happen?” Gerard felt Patrick’s lips brush against his, and it felt more than just amazing. Gerard’s body was reacting to the small touch in various ways, one of the most noticeable were the slowly growing bulge in Gerard’s jeans.

“Well, what do you want to happen, Gee? What do you want me to do?” Gerard’s body started to shake and he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he really went to the bar. Patrick’s breath was heavy on Gerard’s lips, just dying to finally kiss those beautiful lips, but he didn’t want to do something Gerard wouldn’t allow him to.

“Do whatever you want with me, kiss me, fuck me, use me, wear me out, kiss my entire body and mark me as yours. I wanted you to dominate me for so long, i don’t want to be able to walk when i wake up,” Gerard breathed hotly against Patrick’s lips, what caused the ex-teacher to shiver and flinch closer to Gerard. Patrick’s breathing hitched and a lazy smile formed on his lips. Patrick’s hands tightened in Gerard’s hips, pulling him closer and pressing his lips against Gerard’s. Gerard almost moaned when he first tasted his teacher’s tongue and felt it explore his mouth, exactly knowing what he was doing. Patrick’s tongue was careful, but experiences, he knew how to treat someone else’s tongue and he knew how to dominate someone else with just one kiss. Gerard felt like melting away, only Patrick’s hands kept him supported and pressed against the door. Patrick’s hips were pressed against Gerard’s, feeling Gerard’s semi, but not wanting to tease it yet. He wanted to do that later.

Gerard’s hands tightened in Patrick’s hair, slightly pulling at them, what made Patrick groan into the kiss and bite into Gerard’s bottom lip.

Gerard leaned his head back and watched Patrick through half lidded eyes, breath heavy and lips kiss swollen and pink. Gerard’s cheeks were inked in a soft red and his lashes looked even darker and longer than Patrick had remembered.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” Patrick almost growled. He missed his student so much, he missed talking to him and he missed seeing his beautiful, beautiful face.

Gerard pushed himself off the door and kissed Patrick again, addicted to the feeling of Patrick’s lips, addicted to the taste on Patrick’s tongue, addicted to the little breaths and noises Patrick made without noticing. Gerard’s fingers worked on Patrick’s shirt, trying to unbutton it, carefully but still eagerly. Patrick didn’t mind it and kissed his way down Gerard’s perfect throat, sucking in marks, licking over sensitive spots, kissing marks and breathing against wet kisses. When Patrick’s shirt was gone, Gerard run his hand along Patrick’s chest, wanting to feel everything. Gerard’s hands kept moving, until they unbuckled Patrick’s belt. Patrick grabbed Gerard’s wrists and stopped him.

“We don’t want to rush anything, right? We have so much time left, just enjoy it,” Patrick whispered into Gerard’s ear before he kissed the spot right behind Gerard’s ear. Gerard made a noise of agreement, before he got dragged into the bedroom.

It was better than Gerard could have dreamed of, the feeling of Patrick’s naked body pressed against Gerard’s back, the heavy breathing on each other’s lips, the feeling of Patrick’s noises on Gerard’s neck. It was so much and so good, Gerard wanted this to last forever, but everything comes to and end.

Patrick’s lips trailed along Gerard’s neck and chest, leaving soft kisses. Gerard felt like falling asleep soon, but he didn’t want to, he wanted to cuddle and talk to Patrick, he wanted to hear him chuckle and laugh or complain about something. Fuck, Gerard didn’t want to fall asleep, laying so perfectly in Patrick’s arms, but he couldn’t help it and drifted off.

Sharp lights on Gerard’s eyelids made him see a warm and soft red-orange. Gerard didn’t want to move, he just wanted to sleep in Patrick’s arms, but when Gerard moved, he noticed that no one laid next to him. He opened his eyes and sat up. A dark room with drawings on the walls, posters of Bowie and a desk with tons and tons of comic books on.

Gerard laid in his bed, wearing his sweatpants and a old shirt. He should’ve known it was just a dream, he should’ve known Patrick would never like anyone like Gerard. God, he should have known.

It was 9am, Gerard had no coffee and no will to live, so he showered, changed his sheets and went to Starbucks, hoping to get killed by a bus or something. He just wanted black coffee and another cigarette. He kept staring at his still boiling coffee, trying to forget his dream, trying to forget how real everything felt, trying to forget how much he still loves Patrick.

“Gerard?” The emotional mess looked up, eyes dead and empty. Familiar dark blonde hair, blue eyes, beautiful smile and pale skin. Gerard’s eyes lit up, his lips formed a nice smile when the seat in front of him was taken by the beautiful man Gerard had thought of for so long.

Hopefully, it’s not a dream this time, but Gerard was hopeless enough to just go with it and let it happen.

#geetrick #fanfiction #my writing #you can reblog if you want to #pls don't hate me #this sucks so much ass #i'm so sorry #surprisingly no smut

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