#meta masterlist season 3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sundrop-writes · 11 months ago

Text

Your First Kiss With Jason Todd

Jason Todd x Gender Neutral Reader

Summary:

Jason always thought he hated you. He did hate you.

Until he didn't.

Until his love for you ruined him in ways he couldn't even imagine.

Jason Todd x Gender Neutral Reader. Frenemies to Lovers. Pure Angst (Hurt, No Comfort). Set during Season 3.

Word Count: 8,200

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: This fic is almost entirely angst - hurt, no comfort. This fic does not have a happy ending!!! So be warned of that before you enter here. Jason and the reader are described as ‘hating’ each other, but they are more like frenemies/annoyances - they have a playful banter (at the time, even they don’t know that they like arguing because it’s sexual tension and passion for each other); the reader is completely gender neutral - the only pronouns used for the reader are you/yours; this is mostly written from Jason’s POV (which is where most of the angst comes from); Jason describes himself as a ‘zombie’ or ‘half-alive’ - but he is fully alive and has all of his mental faculties, he is just freaked out about the fact that he was resurrected; the reader does not have any meta powers, but is described as being very good at combat (this does not denote the reader’s body type); mentions of sex and some sexual themes - but there is no outright smut and no detailed descriptions of sex; mentions of negative stereotypes surrounding frat boys/frat houses - including STDs and group sex (mentioned in a negative light); mentions of Jason masturbating (and thinking about the reader while doing it); mentions of Jason’s canon trauma (being kidnapped and tortured by Deathstroke, dropped off the building); mentions of Jason being killed by the Joker (and being ressurected by Crane); mentions of the reader mourning Jason’s death; mentions of drugs and drug addiction (based around the canon storyline of the anti-fear gas); mentions of Jason’s trauma surround his mother’s drug addiction; mentions of Jason killing Hank (as in the canon); the reader is kidnapped (by Crane or someone who works for Crane) and held hostage, and later rescued by Jason; somewhat graphic descriptions of violence (Jason beating up Crane, other background instances), gory descriptions of a death toward the end (mentions of acid burns and choking on non-breathable air); major character death - the reader character does die. Like I said - no happy ending. Sorry not sorry.

A/N: This is set during Season 3 - and this does feature spoilers for Season 3 if you haven't seen Titans before. So if you wanna watch the show spoiler free, definitely avoid this fic. I was imagining this to be set around episode 6 or episode 7, before Crane's plan to use the ice cream factory is taken down by the Titans, but obviously Jason breaking away from Crane's control so early goes against the canon - so there's that. Also, if you wanna pair some music with this for something truly heartbreaking, I would highly recommend the classic Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush, or the highly underrated Colorado Sunrise by 3OH!3 (the lyrics are way more depressing than people realize, and I love it as a whump song. oomf). I also feel like the song Cloud 9 by Beach Bunny would go so well with this fic, but in like - the most devastating way. I haven't written something this cruel since I wrote Ghosting and I had so much fun doing it. You can't leave me alone with whump for too long, I turn into a monster. I need to go back to smut again quickly lmao.

...

Jason Todd was in love with you.

It was something that he hated himself for. Actually, it was one of the most infuriating, devastating facts in the world. But it was true. You were someone who was so entirely amazing. You were beautiful - literally the hottest person Jason had ever met who wasn’t photoshopped or catered to be some unrealistic daydream. You were clever and smart and strong. You could kick anybody’s ass on any day of the week and still have enough energy left to tell them how much of an idiot they were and list all of the reasons why.

And you would definitely never love Jason back. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he could ever have someone like you.

So he kept all of that stupid, idiotic love to himself. It was a secret that he had sworn to die with - and technically, he already had.

Jason tried not to linger on the very fucked up, seemingly impossible fact that he had come back from the dead. And now he was existing as some weird, fucked up zombie thing - resurrected from having his skull caved in by the Joker to do Jonathan Crane’s bidding. This definitely wasn’t what Jason would have wanted out of a renewed life - but hey: when an Arkham prisoner gives you rotten lemons.

When Jason wasn’t beating down drug dealers, stealing money, or strapping bombs to people - when he was trying his hardest not to focus on the fact that he had died and he was now living some strange half-life, reliant on Crane’s drugs, he was thinking about you. He thought about you a lot.

He hadn’t come into contact with you since his strange foray back into the land of the living. That was probably for the best. He knew that you had freshly come back to Gotham, upon Dick’s request. Nightwing had called for backup from all the ex-Titans to help end Red Hood’s reign of terror. Jason wanted to stay as far away from you as possible.

Genuinely, he didn’t want you getting caught in the crossfire of whatever Crane was planning. He wished you had stayed out of Gotham, but he knew that you were too loyal, too good not to come to the aid of the Titans when they needed you. He couldn’t reveal himself to you just for a taste of nostalgia - one last argument before you sold him down the river for good. But fuck - he thought about you a lot.

When the two of you had first met, you were the last person he ever thought that he would surrender that stupid, soft label of love to. Even months into first knowing you - he would have said that he hated you. He would have told anybody that he found you to be the most annoying person on earth.

Your relationship used to be the worst kind of dance.

Every single time that Jason opened his mouth, you said something to contradict him. To a point, he believed that you didn’t even fully stand behind the things you said - you just enjoyed arguing against him. That you did it for sport. You used every single last bit of your time and energy to get under his skin. From mocking him to calling him a fuckboy to prodding at his grammar, poking holes in his points by smugly correcting him. He always found you to be the most infuriating person in any room. But it seemed that the more frustrated he got with you, the more cool headed you remained.

He tried to mock you back, and you shrugged it off. Every time he became visibly annoyed in your presence - you giggled. He wanted to strangle you.

And it was one fated day that he realized the line between heat fueled by frustration and heat fueled by lust truly weren’t that different.

…

“Jason! I thought I smelled you coming down the hall!”

Jason groaned when he heard you make this comment.

He thought that for once, he could have some peace to train alone - but it appeared that he would have no such luck. You were already in the training room, holding a long bo-staff as you ran some drills. Apparently, you were eager to exercise your mouth too - already whipping off clever insults the minute that Jason entered the room.

When all he could muster was a glare in your direction, you let out a giggle. His blood boiled.

“Between that god awful Axe body wash and that alcohol based aftershave that you like to drown yourself in, you smell like a walking frat house.” You continued, blabbering on even though Jason had made no efforts to engage you. At least not yet. “Just throw in some Busch Light and weed, and I might be able to catch gonorrhea just from the stench.”

That was the nerve that hooked Jason into the conversation. First of all - he smelled fucking delightful. He always made hygiene one of his personal priorities. He was absolutely not one of those guys with crusty, sweaty balls. And second of all - he was not one of those STD spreading manwhores. He was clean in all senses. He always used a condom.

“Sounds like you’ve got experience with that.” Jason quipped back.

He looked to you for some kind of reaction, some inkling that he had gotten under your skin even a fraction of the way that you did his. His movements were rough with annoyance as he began wrapping his knuckles with tape so he could have a few rounds with the heavy bag - mostly out of a need to pound out his frustration on something. He was getting too angered with your presence in the room and not wanting to snap and take it out on you. (He already had enough on his record with Bruce, and despite popular opinion - he was trying to improve.)

When you weren’t quick to respond, Jason continued.

“You used to letting frat boys all over you? You seem like the type of person who would enjoy a good, sloppy frat house train. Twenty guys, one after the other, none of them knowing your name, just because you’re so needy for a good fuck.”

Jason grinned, feeling like he had won this conversation with the essence of shock alone.

But no. As always, you remained cool. You grinned right back at him, stepping toward him, crowding into his personal space as you said your next words in a low, smooth voice.

“Sounds like you spend an awful lot of time picturing me running a train.” You smirked. “Is that why you’re always so late getting up in the morning? You wake up and the first thing you do is get a hand on your dick, imagining me getting fucked by a lineup of guys? Probably just wishing that one of them was you.”

Jason’s face fell flat.

You were so strikingly confident in your words that it made his stomach twist. Facing him down, speaking such filthy words without flinching - embarrassment and heat collided inside of him. Even more so with what you did next.

You put a hand out in front of your crotch, mimicking the motions of jacking off while you mocked him in a broken voice.

“Oh, oh fuck Y/N! Come on! Take my sloppy, frat house cock!”

You then mocked a whiny series of moans that must have been Jason’s fake orgasm - and while Jason’s insides bubbled with a confusing heat, you quickly dissolved off into laughter.

“Shut up.” Jason snapped, forcing his eyes down to focus on the process of taping himself up - praying that you wouldn’t see the heat that had spread across his cheeks. “You’re the fucking worst.”

“Only when I’m with you.” You replied, blowing him a kiss - to which he stuck his middle finger up at you.

He was eternally thankful when you went back to your own training in silence, only taking occasional glances up in his direction.

…

After that point, Jason had to admit to himself that he was attracted to you, at the very least. He could no longer deny that you were insanely attractive; you were a very, very hot person. And somehow, even past your annoying habits, he was being drawn into the orbit of your gorgeous looks and your wonderfully cocky, filthy mouth.

But he still hated you. He definitely still hated you.

He hated it even more when you became right - and you did become the object of some of his more heated fantasies. He became downright annoyed at the times he had his hand around his cock and imagined himself hate fucking you - imagined forcing every cocky retort out of your mouth, imagining you breathless and needy beneath him, begging for more with every hard push of his hips.

He hated how everything changed after Doctor Light.

Jason wasn’t thinking about your stupid beautiful cocky mouth after that. His mind was full of glass and he was being shredded from the inside out. He came home broken. After everything that happened with Deathstroke and Doctor Light - he was some fragile bird; some chewed up, used, pitiful thing. He didn’t have the energy to fight you anymore, not even for sport.

So after he was rescued, still floating in numbness, he didn’t know what to do when you burst into his room unannounced. You practically shoved the door off its hinges, and stormed across the room toward him - tears hot in your eyes. You pounded curled fists against his chest, screaming at the top of your lungs. Half of your words were static in his ears, but the tone of your voice pierced through his heart like an arrow. You called him stupid, asking where in his empty head he had gotten the idea to go off by himself.

Jason didn’t have it in him to fight you. So he broke down.

He felt like the world’s biggest idiot for crying in front of you. But his throat was tight and he choked on the tears - he was too tired. He just couldn’t hold them back. He screamed back, and asked you to lay off. To get off his fucking back.

You looked shocked. Like you had swallowed a piece of glass.

You surprised him when you uncurled your fists and wrapped the most tender, gentle hands around his back, and for the first time since he had known you - you embraced him in a hug. He was weak and he needed it more than he was willing to admit, so he let you. He sobbed against your neck, his own cries too loud that he missed the timid sound of your apology.

That wasn’t the only time you surprised him that week.

He knew it was because he was some broken little bird, but you started taking care of him. You brought him plates of food without being asked, and when he attempted to shove them away - you refused. You told him to eat before you had to ‘shove it down his fucking throat’.

You didn’t mock him. You didn’t correct him. And you surprised him even more when you turned the sharpness of your tongue on the others when they tried attacking Jason. They accused him of planting booze in Hank’s room or drawing crosses on Rachel’s mirror to fuck with her, among other things. And you popped veins in your neck going on a winding rant about how stupid and baseless their accusations were.

Jason wasn’t sure if you knew it, but you jumping to his defense wrapped him in a blanket of protection that he had never before felt. It was so entirely strange, but welcomed coming from you. Especially because he knew that it was genuine. He knew that you didn’t have any ulterior motives for doing this - for some reason, you just wanted to help him.

When you extended an invitation toward him to come with you as the group dispersed, torn apart by Dick’s nasty, festering secret - Jason felt welcomed by you. He knew that the dynamic between the two of you was changing at a breakneck speed, and he had to embrace it. He found himself eager to follow the weird, newly developing kinship that he had with you rather than wanting to stay in the empty coldness of the Tower with a brooding Dick.

From there, it was really difficult for Jason to pin down the exact moment that his feelings transitioned toward you from casual lust to something more. He couldn’t tell exactly when it turned into that panic-inducing, ‘oh my god, I’m fucked’ feeling of being in love. After leaving San Francisco, during the entirety of the time that the two of you were in Gotham together, your relationship remained completely platonic.

It was a few short weeks spent kicking ass as the best vigilante duo the city had ever seen, but there wasn’t a single moment Jason could point to where the two of you lit up with that romantic spark. It wasn’t some romcom bullshit come to life. It was just the two of you being friendly for once. The two of you helping each other survive.

Back then - Jason wanted you, badly. Even if he didn’t know just how badly, he wasn’t going to fuck up the whole dynamic just to get laid. He felt safe with you. He kicked ass with you. He was good with you. And during that short time - he was happy. So he wasn’t going to do anything to risk that happiness. Happiness was too rare for him. So why the hell would he try putting the moves on you, scare you away, and fuck it all up?

…

A little slice of that happiness came in the form of Hal’s Diner. It was a place in downtown Gotham, open twenty four hours, and you and Jason had gotten into the habit of stopping there after your patrols.

The two of you would kick some ass - break the legs of some drug dealers, make sure that women got home safe if they were walking late at night, keep the streets a little safer. And then you would change out of your patrol outfits and head to the diner, just as the sun was rising over the scummy streets of Gotham. You would get breakfast and Jason would get dinner. He would steal one of your eggs and you would take half his burger, and you would always comment about him putting way too much ketchup on his plate.

It was harmony.

“You know, every time I see you make a grown man cry, it brings me such intense joy.” Jason grinned as he said this, reminiscing about a beautiful moment from earlier in the night.

He spoke about it in the same manner that someone might reminisce about seeing a relative or a cute puppy. But this was natural for the two of you - since you had taken up vigilantism as a duo, violence was a sweet art for the two of you.

“Well, if he would have left that girl alone the first time I asked, I wouldn’t have broken his arm.” You shrugged, speaking very casually about it yourself.

You then picked a piece of bacon up off your plate and took a bite, grinning at Jason fondly. You did appreciate it when he complimented your skills.

Jason chuckled.

“You know, it is nice to see you using your powers for good instead of evil.” He commented.

“My powers?” You parroted back, your mouth half busy with chewing, your words slightly muffled.

You didn’t have any metahuman powers, so this comment did leave you slightly confused.

“Yeah.” He nodded, entirely confident in the statement he had to follow. “Your endless amount of energy to harass people and be endlessly annoying. The powers you used to spend all your time using on me.”

“You used to deserve it.” You were quick with your tongue as usual, not missing a beat with this statement.

Jason’s only rebuttal was to pick up a french fry - one not doused in ketchup - and throw it at your head. You flinched slightly when it bounced off your forehead - but when it landed in your lap, you easily picked it up and put it in your mouth, not thinking twice about doing so as you tossed Jason a wicked grin.

That. That must have been the moment.

That was the moment he realized that he was truly in love with you. You grinning at him from across the table, your smile lighting up your whole face, playing around with him like he actually made you happy. Like he could spend the rest of his life making you happy.

That’s why it hurt so much more when your phone buzzed on the table a few minutes later. When you told him that it was the Titans - Gar in trouble. That’s why it hurt so fucking much when you left.

Jason knew, in hindsight, that he should have gone with you. But he flailed like a rabbit caught in a snare, and rather than just agreeing with you, he felt the trap tightening around him, and he opted to chew off his own foot rather than simply letting you help him free.

He stupidly argued that it was some test from Dick. That the Titans could deal with their own problems. Jason knew that deep down, he was still tender from everything that had happened - Dick dropping him, even by accident. The accusations, the secrets. The rejection. He felt like he was laying down a line - he was letting you make a choice.

Him or the Titans.

But it shouldn’t have been a choice. It was Gar. Jason should have stood by his friend. He should have gone with you.

Deep down, Jason feared that if he did go with you - the Titans wouldn’t want him back. He feared another cutting rejection. They would simply bench him again, they wouldn’t even need him to help save Gar. They wouldn’t want him to help. He was useless, after all. He was careless and stupid. That was why he needed you to choose him. To stay.

That was what his mind was screaming out as you looked at him, disappointment flooding your eyes as you questioned him about Gar, about going back to the Titans.

Stay. He silently begged. Pick me.

And watching you snatch up your jacket in a huff and get up from the table, your food barely touched - his eyes boring into your back as you retreated - it was like having his heart carved out of his chest. And because he was so fucked up, he just sat there. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. He didn’t chase you.

He let you go.

Having you suddenly disappear from his life was like missing a limb. Jason was constantly aching around your non-presence, constantly missing you. He felt torn up from the inside out, wondering if his frayed nerve endings would ever heal themselves. When he went to Donna’s funeral, he stared at you from across the tarmac - telling himself that if you even so much as glanced in his direction, he would cross that sickly one hundred foot black sea and talk to you. He would make the leap and apologize.

But you were fettered and stubborn and you kept your head straight. You knew it was the ultimate punishment not to acknowledge him. So the moment that the plane took off, Jason shoved on his helmet and sped off on his bike.

He easily became numb after that.

He went back to Bruce - to lay low and lick his wounds, or because it was the only place he knew, he wasn’t sure. He tried to be a Robin that wasn’t with you. It didn’t work. He felt more broken than ever. It was cheesy, pathetic bullshit - but he talked about you in therapy. Leslie encouraged him to reach out to you, but every time Jason’s fingers hovered over your contact in his phone, his hands shook, and all he remembered was the look of pure scorn you had given him before you snatched up your things and left the diner that day.

He thought of you as he suited up to go after the Joker. He considered how easy it would be for the two of you to take down the stupid clown together - how flawlessly the two of you worked as a team.

Jason thought of you as he drew his last breath, soaked in blood and struggling past the world-ending pain. He wondered, in a haze, if you were warm in your bed in The Tower while he was pressed into the cold ground, taunted by the laughter that rung in his ears.

…

Jason didn’t know how hard you cried for him when you heard the news of his death.

You wouldn’t have dared to say that the hole in the middle of your chest was caused by love - caused by the heartbreak of a lover being stolen. But you certainly felt robbed when you heard that the Joker had killed him. You seethed and you heavily considered marching toward Gotham to seek revenge.

You knew that Dick was angry with Bruce for finally giving in to what the Joker wanted and killing him. For finally ending their sick, twisted game. But when you found out - you were glad that the clown was dead. You wrapped one of Jason’s stolen shirts around your pillow, and you slept a bit easier at night.

…

Jason knew that he should have left town.

Crane claimed that Red Hood was going to be the next Batman - that he was going to be something the Bat never could. That he was going to actually keep the streets safe. But so far, all Jason had done was steal, kill, terrorize, torture. Crane spoke of omelets and breaking eggs - pigs and bacon, and ‘marketing’ himself to the public. But truly, it never made any real sense to Jason.

Jason knew that now, he was the type of man lurking in the night whose arm you would have broken if he was lingering too closely to the vulnerable. And you would have been right for doing so.

Jason was tired. He felt lost - directionless. He was getting tired of Crane’s bullshit. He missed you. But he knew that he couldn’t just go running back to you. You likely wouldn’t have accepted him back into your life if he did.

When Crane called him in that night, wanting to discuss ‘the game plan’ - Jason was worn. His patience for all of it was already wearing thin, and what happened next - it truly caused him to snap.

Jason showed up in full gear, wearing the costume of an alias he no longer believed in; foolishly dressed up as someone he had truly begun to resent. He was holding his helmet in hand, his heavy boots clunking on the floor as he dodged around Crane’s egghead lackeys - a random group of people who were working to convert the anti-fear gas into a larger batch. He knew that they were aiming to get more and more people in the city hooked; if Jason hadn’t abandoned his morals in this new life, he might have cared more about the consequences.

Instead, he made a B-line for Crane, who was typing away at something on the computer.

“Jason, my boy!” Crane grinned at him, giving a false, performative grin over his shoulder. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?”

“What do you want?” Jason asked, his tone flat.

He was far too tired of Crane to engage in more word play or stupid riddles.

“Never one for pleasantries, are you?” Crane chuckled.

Jason didn’t offer him a reply - seemingly confirming his theory with this simple act.

Truthfully, he wasn’t. He wasn’t feeling very pleasant today. He hadn’t felt very pleasant any day since he had been so rudely pulled from the morgue and zombified to do someone else’s bidding against his will. Being an undead puppet didn’t really make a person all that pleasant.

Crane reached into the pocket of his oddly quaint grandpa sweater and pulled something out - a small glass vial, containing some clear liquid. It looked harmless - like water. But Jason knew Crane, and he knew that whatever it was must have been entirely dangerous if Crane was carrying around such a small dose of it.

“Do you know what this is?” He asked, giving the vial a small shake, jostling the liquid inside to emphasize his point.

Jason hesitated before he shook his head in the negative. He hated to appear clueless and stupid around such an intelligent man, but he didn’t want to guess and be wrong. He knew that being misinformed around Crane was dangerous. But being cocky and pretending to know more than Crane was even more dangerous.

“This is a very highly concentrated form of liquid Methadone.” Crane explained. “It’s a highly addictive substance. And I think it’s going to give the mass market version of your formula that little extra kick that it needs, ya know? Keep the people coming back for more!”

He let out a bright chuckle, as though he was talking about a cleaning product that was marketed on an infomercial or some kind of great recipe for soup. That was one of the things that scared Jason the most about Crane - his ability to talk about life changing, deadly things with such jarring enthusiasm. He truly thought of bringing people their worst nightmares and their most painful deaths as ‘beautiful work’.

“What about it?” Jason prodded quietly.

He knew that Crane hadn’t called him here just to brag about a new idea to add something to the formula. He needed Jason for something.

Jason just hoped that he wasn’t looking to use him as a guinea pig again. He would likely rather die again than go down the path of heavy drugs. One thing he had vowed - he wouldn’t end up like his mother.

“Well, you see, my boy, that’s where you come in.” Crane grinned at him. “Due to its highly addictive qualities, Methadone is also a highly regulated substance. But because I am the wonderfully well-connected man that I am, I happen to know that there is a very large stash of it just sitting there, ripe for the taking, in this quaint little building uptown.”

Jason’s gut stirred with suspicion.

“Where uptown?” He asked.

“Well, it’s just-” Crane stuttered, and then sighed, deciding to get it out and over with. “The Wayne Memorial Cancer Research Facility.”

Jason glared at him.

“But see, it’s fine! Because I happen to know someone who knows their way around the Wayne Tech security systems very well. So Red Hood breaks in there, gets me my-”

“No.” Jason said flatly, before he turned and started to walk away. “Find somebody else. We’re done.”

Crane had threatened to replace him before. Crane had no-so-subtly threatened to kill him alongside being replaced. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe Jason would be better off dead. Maybe Crane would find out that Jason was irreplaceable after all. Maybe Jason was a dirty, seedy criminal shaped by life for only one thing: ruining the lives of others. If Jason couldn’t do that, he wasn’t sure what he would do.

But he wasn’t going to fucking do this.

Killing was one thing. Stealing from drug dealers and mobsters was another. What he had done to Hank had crossed too many lines - but it didn’t even begin to approach the lines that this crossed.

Stealing from a facility that Thomas and Martha had set up when Bruce was just a child, shitting all over their legacy, using skills that Bruce had taught him in order to do it? That was too far. Jason couldn’t say that he had morals anymore, but he still had that voice of common decency in the back of his head yelling at him to stop it. Maybe it was your voice, correcting him at every turn the way you used to.

He should listen to that voice.

He should leave town.

“Hold on, hold on there, Jaybird!” Crane called after him.

The pure annoyance that the nickname caused was the only thing that stopped Jason. He considered turning around and shooting Crane just to shut him up.

“See, I think you forget how this works.” The man went off again - talking in that humming tone he always used that made Jason’s ears numb, made his brain switch off. “Every loyal dog gets a treat. A little motivation to get that Pavlovian mind barking in the right direction.”

Jason turned back around then.

“Nothing you say ever makes any fucking sense.” He barked out, ready to leave Crane with these as his last remarks before he left Gotham forever.

But then Crane tapped at a few things on his keyboard and pulled something up on the monitor - a dark, grainy video feed that had Jason squinting his eyes and walking closer to get a better look.

When Jason was able to truly take in the scene - his stomach dropped.

It was you.

You were sitting alone in some anonymous, concrete warehouse - probably in the industrial district of Gotham, if Jason had to guess. Crane didn’t like to keep his insurance policies too far away, he liked to play it close to the vest. You were tied to a chair, duct tape tight over your mouth, very much there against your will. You were looking straight ahead, with the camera angled down from the top corner of the room. Even through the grainy, black and white footage, Jason could see the wetness of tears streaking down your face.

You were terrified.

Jason’s helmet clattered to the floor, slipping from his grip as the shock overtook his system.

For the first time in weeks, fighting through the numbness of the drugs and the hazy shock of his new half-life - he was terrified too. Then he was angry. Rage bubbled up inside of him like a sharp, acidic bile.

“What the fuck have you done?” Jason growled out, the anger setting his jaw so tight that the words could barely escape between his teeth.

“I told you - every loyal dog gets a treat.” Crane said, a barely contained glee filtering through his voice as he peered over Jason’s shoulder at your weeping face on the screen.

He clapped a large hand on Jason’s shoulder, and Jason felt himself nearly choke on his own tongue - so swollen with anger that it barely fit in his mouth.

“So, go fetch, doggie.” Crane continued. “Go get me what I need. Otherwise, that sweet little treat of yours is gonna play dead.”

Crane leaned over and whispered those last words into Jason’s ear - and that was what truly caused him to snap.

In a flash, Jason grabbed the hand that was on his shoulder, whipped Crane around - there was a loud crack as Jason broke Crane’s arm. The egghead types who were working on the formula all paused; some of them gasped or hid behind things, but none of them were brave enough to intervene. Jason shoved Crane’s face into the monitor, cracking it out like a spider’s web but never fully obscuring the image of that dark, cold warehouse - the place where you were alone and terrified.

He twisted Crane’s broken arm, making a sound like glass grinding in on itself, and the man let out a howl.

“I think you forget how this works.” Jason barked at him, his voice so dark with rage that it almost sounded like he was wearing Red Hood’s voice modulator even though his helmet was on the floor at Crane’s feet. “When dogs get pissed off - they bite.”

He twisted the injury again, and Crane let out another bitter howl.

Jason demanded to know where you were, and Crane squeaked out an address. It was in the industrial district, so it checked out in Jason’s mind. It didn’t seem like a trap or a false answer to waste his time.

Jason shoved the pathetic, useless man to the ground, kicked him in the gut for good measure, and then leaned down to grab his helmet before shoving it on. He would need it in case Crane had anybody stationed there, guarding you.

Crane shouted something at him as he walked away, but Jason was barely paying attention - now very singular minded on his mission toward you.

“You have to learn to play by the rules, Red!” Crane choked out. “You won’t like how this ends! I made you! I fucking made you!”

…

Jason was surprised to find the building empty. No guards, seemingly no bombs, no gas canisters. At first, he thought it really was a trick, a misdirect to waste his time. But when he had just about given up hope of finding you, searching one of the back most rooms that used to serve as overflow storage for Ace Chemicals - he found you. Concrete and anonymous, some of the beams having eroded away in places from improper chemical storage.

When you saw him stalking toward you - his gun drawn, heavy boots thudding against the floor, modulator puffing out heavy, mechanical breaths - you let out a terrified whimper past the duct tape and more tears flowed freely down your face.

Jason felt a twinge of guilt. Of course. You had no clue it was him.

Perhaps he could get away with the mercy of never revealing himself to you. He could keep his mask on, release you, drop you back off with the Titans and then leave town. But eventually, Dick would tell you who he was.

At the very least, he could give you the comfort of seeing a familiar face after the hell you had been through. You were wearing a sweatshirt and simple cotton pants, and running shoes - it looked like you had been plucked off the street during a jogging session. He could only imagine how much Crane’s lackeys had scared you.

Once he was confident that the area was secure, he holstered his gun and then reached up, removing the face mask from his helmet and tossing it aside.

“Hey, hey, it’s me.” He told you - attempting to be gentle and soothing in his voice.

He approached you slowly, not wanting you to be scared as he reached to his belt for a knife - only with the intention to cut the ropes around your torso, wrists, and ankles.

He watched your expression as you flashed through a range of emotions - deep confusion, a bit of relief, sadness, and then strangely - burning anger. You glared at him with the most intense rage he had ever seen from you - more intense even than the day you had stormed into his room and called him stupid and suicidal for going after Doctor Light without backup.

Jason was slightly afraid of the lecture that would come next, but nonetheless, he knelt beside you and began cutting you free.

The minute that one of your hands was free, you reached up and ripped the duct tape off your mouth. You took only a fraction of a second to wince in pain from the tender skin of your lips being disturbed before you began verbally tearing into him.

“Jason Todd!” You screamed at the top of your lungs, so loudly that Jason was sure some of the edges of the corroded concrete pebbled off and fell down just from this. “Jason fucking Todd! I should have known you had something to do with this!”

“Wh-?”

Before Jason could question your odd choice of words or even recognize it as an accusation, you raised your other freshly free hand and slapped him squarely across the cheek - it was a hard, skull-shaking clatter. It had Jason dizzy, falling back onto his ass and dropping the knife before he could finish cutting the ropes around your legs.

“Fucking ow!” Jason griped, reaching up to grab his now very red cheek.

“You are such an asshole! Of all the completely idiotic, stupid things you have ever done-”

“I didn’t fucking kidnap you! Okay? I didn’t do shit!” Jason quickly argued back, finally now realizing that you thought he had put you here in the first place. “I’m here to rescue you!” He said each of these words slowly, looking you in the eyes, hoping that his point would get across more firmly this way.

There was a tense moment as you stared back at him with your jaw locked. It was likely that if your feet hadn’t still been tied, you would have run away - or kicked him. Jason was thankful that you couldn’t do either at the moment.

“Why?” You asked, finally breaking the tension.

“What?” Jason gaped.

This was the last thing he had been expecting.

He was saving you - why were you questioning him?

“Why are you ‘rescuing’ me?” You asked, taunting his phrasing of it with a mocking tone and large air quotes. He now regretted freeing your hands. “So you can bargain me off to Dick for ransom money? So you can put a bomb in my chest?”

You said the last part with intense disdain, tears dancing in your eyes.

So you did know what a monster he was.

He was surprised that you hadn’t hit him harder.

Jason heaved a sigh. He reached over and picked up the knife, very slowly, very tentatively resuming cutting the ropes on your legs to free you.

“I’m just freeing you so that you can be free. That’s it.” He said quietly, defeat lacing through every inch of his voice. “You don’t deserve this.”

He cut the last rope and folded the knife, sticking it back in his belt. He stood up then and caught a glimpse of your face - you were wearing the most complex expression he had ever seen. Perhaps confusion, perhaps anger. Maybe somewhere deep in your eyes - hurt.

He turned and moved to leave, hoping you would simply follow him out of the confusing maze of the building and he wouldn’t have to drag you out kicking and screaming.

“That’s not an answer.” You told him, your tone sharp and certain - the same tone you always used to correct him.

Jason whipped back around then, heaving a sigh as he looked at you - standing in the middle of the room now, arms folded over your chest, glaring at him on the spot. Cocky and so sure about yourself. Too damn certain and immobile in your points. Infuriating.

“Why the fuck do you have to make everything so damn complicated?” Jason shot back, annoyance and dread tight in every inch of him. “Why do you have to interrogate me about every damn thing that I do?”

“Because you make stupid ass decisions when I don’t.” You easily fired back. “Now tell me: why are you doing this?”

“Because I wanted to.” Jason huffed.

“Why?” You prodded again.

He let out another hot huff, and you didn’t let it go.

“Come on Jason!” You shouted, increasing in volume as you became more frustrated with his lack of an answer. “You didn’t just develop a conscience all of a sudden! Why did you feel the need to suddenly drop everything and come to my rescue? What makes me different than Hank? What makes me different than-?”

It was the annoyance grinding on him. It was a combination of your nagging voice, the lack of drugs in his system for the first time in weeks. The rawness of the world ragging on his last good nerve. The sound of your voice putting him in line - exactly where he was supposed to be. The way you reminded him of the truth now more than ever.

“Because I’m in love with you!” Jason shouted.

It was almost… angry. It was a declaration that hit you like a whip - more like an insult than something warm and kind. It wasn’t made of sweetness, like some moment from a film with a gentle piano riff wrapped around it. It was real - made of the haunting kind of passion that kept Jason awake at night.

Your eyes widened. Jason’s breathing stilled as he waited for you to react - to say something.

“Oh.” Your voice cracked around this syllable, and your eyes danced with more tears.

Jason felt his own heart crack apart inside of his chest, more terror flooding him.

He had died with the secret because he had never wanted to live up to the embarrassing vulnerability of confessing it. In the deepest part of his mind, he had lived this horror a thousand times. Him finally creeping out onto the edge of oblivion - speaking those words. Confessing. And then you stabbing him in the heart, rejecting him.

The reality of it ripped through him so much harder than it ever had in his nightmares.

Any last tiny piece of his soul that had survived being murdered by the Joker had just been shattered by you.

“Yeah. Fucking oh.” Jason echoed back, his own tears clutching at his throat.

Seeing him with that naked vulnerability dancing behind his eyes - it reminded you of the same person who came back from being kidnapped by Doctor Light. It reminded you of the real Jason you had gotten to know.

In that moment, it all came crashing toward you. You gasped harshly as you could barely breathe around it.

That hole in your chest had been shaped like a lover - it had been shaped like him. Filled with the pain of letting him get hurt, leaving him alone in Gotham to be murdered by the Joker. Filled with the doubt and confusion of never knowing what could have been between the two of you if you had chased those flirtations a little bit farther.

And now, he was standing right here in front of you, somehow perfectly alive and well - and there was only one possible thing you could do.

“Jason.” You gasped out his name, unable to fathom more words.

Before he could move, you reached out and grabbed both sides of his face, one of them still singed with a burning ache where you had slapped him so hard - and you pulled him into a kiss, hard.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t dainty or smooth like some Hollywood love confession - it was hungry. Bordering on feral as you both fought to consume more of the other person, bleeding out little moans and fighting for breath past each other’s lips. Jason’s hands rushed to embrace you, wrapping around your back and grabbing a needy, possessive handful of your ass while you kept your grip tight on his face, keeping his face forcefully close to your own as you devoured his mouth.

You felt some of his tears escape - such a rush of emotions making him raw and unable to hold them back, and you moaned pitifully into his mouth as he wetness slipped underneath your palms. Whatever it was - his pain, his pleasure; you would take it. He was all yours now.

…

Far off, on the other side of Gotham, Crane chuckled quietly to himself as he watched the scene unfold. He had pulled up the camera feed on a separate tablet, seeing as Jason had used his head to crack the monitor. With his broken arm bound in a temporary sling, he used his one good hand to pull something out of a drawer - a remote with a single button.

“For these violent delights have violent ends,” He recited to himself, still grinning widely as he looked at the two lovers in the grainy, black and white footage. “And in their triumph, die like fire and powder. Which as they kiss, consume. Even the sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness, if the taste confounds the appetite.” Crane poised his finger on the button. “Therefore, love moderately.”

He pressed down, and dissolved into more epic laughter as he watched what came next.

…

You were only human, and you could only kiss Jason for a few minutes before your brain demanded oxygen. As much as you hated to pull away from the sweet, bruising sting of his lips, you forced yourself back and immediately took in a sharp breath that turned into a rolling pant - Jason let out a needy whine in protest.

With his arms holding you so securely and the dizzying heat now flowing through you - you almost didn’t catch it. But it was there, in the background, something steadily present that wasn’t there before.

Beeping. A small, electronic beeping.

“Do you hear that?” You asked Jason, squinting your eyes with confusion and looking around, trying to find the source of the noise.

He did hear it.

“Fuck.” Jason mumbled.

Panic flooded him. The whole thing had been a trap.

He pulled away from you hesitantly and grabbed his mask up off the ground, snapping it back on.

“We have to go. Now.” He told you, his voice now sharp and robotic through the voice filter as he grabbed your wrist and began dragging you away - you became limp to his direction for once and simply followed, fear tight in your gut once again.

Jason didn’t want to consider the possibilities, but he knew it could be anything from a large bomb, meant to tear you to shreds, to a large dose of fear gas waiting to be deployed. And he didn’t have an antidote at the moment. He needed to get you out of the building and transport you to safety.

When the two of you came to a door - one of the many that Jason had passed through on his way in - it snapped shut in Jason’s face. It was on some kind of mechanical locking system, that much was apparent. Jason rushed forward, trying to pry it open - but it was welded steel, and it wouldn’t budge.

Jason heard more slamming - more metal forcing itself shut on the same locking system.

“Jason?” You croaked, that unsure terror back in your voice again. Something so rare for you. You were looking to him for answers. You were looking to him to rescue you.

Overhead, the last bits of light were shut out - glimpses of the street lights outside - as thick metal shudders collapsed down over the windows. The room was sealing itself shut, becoming air tight.

“Stand back.” Jason told you, not waiting to see if you followed the instruction before he pulled out one of his guns and began shooting at the door’s heavy metal hinges. He knew it was futile and he feared that one of the bullets might ricochet off and hit you, but he didn’t have many options left.

Then he heard it. The gentle hissing of gas being released into the air.

Jason was naive to have hoped that it was Crane’s classic Fear Gas - that would have been a merciful walk in the park compared to what he had planned for you. Betraying Jonathan Crane meant that Jason had to be truly punished.

Jason turned to you, wrapping his arms around you, as if trying to shield you from the air itself - but it was too late. You began coughing and struggling to breathe, and Jason looked on with confusion as his chest twisted with guilt.

With his helmet on, he felt nothing. For the first few moments, he didn’t even understand what was going on as you gasped for air, struggling to form a word as you choked on each breath. Jason had no clue what the substance was or how he could fix it, looking on in horror as thick fog clouded around your ankles - your eyes bulging out of your head as you struggled for oxygen.

“Y/N?” Jason gasped, holding you by both shoulders as you became weaker and leaned on him. “Y/N?”

You couldn’t answer him.

You continued to wheeze, your breath hitching against your throat harshly. As the fog reached up to touch your face, it left angry, blistering marks in your skin. Unlike Jason, you had no armor to protect yourself - and somehow, Crane had turned the air itself acidic. Your eyes became wrecked with bloody red streaks and your face swelled as you continued to choke.

Jason’s insides screamed, but he felt too still.

As more of the fog touched you, some of the marks on your neck and your cheek blistered more and opened up, bleeding out pinkish bubbling puss as Jason continued to hold you - he didn’t know what else to do.

All he could do was hold you.

A harsh foam seeped out of your mouth as you choked on your last half-breath, and Jason felt a stinging pain consuming him - he wasn’t sure if it was the acidic fog finally breaching through his clothing, or the biting pain of having you limp in his arms - dead, as he huddled there on the floor.

“Come on.” Jason wept, steaming up the inside of his helmet as he recycled back his own breath now. He reached up to your cheek, accidentally skimming off a layer of your marred skin with his gloved thumb as he tried to wipe away some of the teary blood that had leaked from your eyes. “Come on, Y/N. Wake up.”

Jason simply wept. And he held you.

As he looked at the camera feed, Crane smiled.

“This is what happens when you don’t play by the rules, Red.”

...

A/N: SOOOO obviously this ending leaves us with a lot of questions - did Jason survive? I think this can be interpreted one of two ways: one, Jason did live. He managed to escape somehow, and he had scars all over his body from the acidic fog, and he enacted a very vicious, bloody, torturous revenge on Crane before going into hiding forever (or before using Red Hood to give actual justice to innocent people who needed it, his scars always a reminder of who he lost). Or - he sat there in shock and eventually choked to death as well. Or he pulled the whole 'my life is not worth living anymore' thing and just took off his helmet on purpose. So you can imagine that either of those things happened next.

Also, if you didn't catch it (or, if you're not a Saw person) - this situation was heavily inspired by the final plot twist trap in Saw X. I love the acidic fog, and I feel like Crane could be a trap guy. The Titans version of Crane could be good friends with John, imo.

Also, if you enjoyed this fic, check out my DC Titans Masterlist for more of my other fics!! And please consider reblogging and commenting on this fic to tell me what you liked about it.

#sundrop writes #jason todd #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd x reader #jason todd x gender neutral reader #jason todd x gn!reader #titans fanfiction #dc titans #titans x reader #dc titans fanfiction

257 notes · View notes

aidenzhouappreciationweek · 4 months ago

Text

Welcome! To Aiden Zhou Appreciation Week!

This is the official blog for the appreciation week for the amazing Aiden Zhou, from the High School Story trilogy on Choices: Stories You Play!

This year's event will be taking place over October 9, 2024 - October 15, 2024. But we will continue accepting submissions for the 2024 Prompts until August 1, 2025, which is when the new prompts will be announced.

Aiden Zhou Appreication Week 2024: Prompts List

Day 1 (October 9): Music Man Aiden

Day 2 (October 10): Fashion/Design + Beauty + Flowers

Day 3 (October 11): Relationships: Romance, Friendships, Family

Day 4 (October 12): Free Prompt! (also the day I headcanon as Aiden’s birthday)

Day 5 (October 13): Cunty Aiden + Cutie Aiden + Weather/Seasons

Day 6 (October 14): AU + Crossover

Day 7 (October 15): Pride + Culture/Ethnicity/Heritage + Colors

Feel free to suggest your own possible prompt ideas for future years’ events, btw!

See below for the submission guidelines and (eventually) previous years' masterlists!

General Guidelines for Submission:

We’ll reblog pretty much any posts that are Aiden-centric and Aiden-appreciative/positive, whether or not it’s made for this event. But if you want your post to be considered a submission and listed on the masterlist, you must A) mention this blog and B) specify which prompt or prompts you’re submitting for.

The tags #AidenZhouAppreciationWeek, #AZAW, #AZAW2024, are highly recommended, but not necessary.

If your post is very long in length (eg. if it’s a long fic, has images that take up a lot of length), we highly recommend putting a “Read More” button in your post.

Any submissions that lean into NSFW or suggestive territory, and/or feature sensitive topics should be tagged accordingly.

You don’t have to create for each prompt or each day. Create for as many prompts and days as you like.

You don’t have to create for a prompt on its respective assigned day. Eg. You can create for a Day 1 prompt on Day 4.

You don’t have to create only one piece per prompt. If you have multiple pieces you want to create for a certain prompt, then by all means, go for it.

You don’t have to use only a specific day’s prompts together Eg. You can have a piece that uses a Day 1 prompt and a Day 4 prompt together.

We will still accept submissions even after the event dates have passed. You will have until the next year’s August 1 to submit posts/creations for the current prompts! Eg. For the AZAW 2024 prompts, you will be able to submit for them until August 1, 2025.

What IS welcome:

Any medium of human creation. Art, fanfic, poetry, edits, animation, picrews/meikers* moodboards/stimboards/gifboards, icons, memes/shitposts, gifs, AMVs, playlists, headcanons, character recreation in another game (eg. The Sims), etc!

Meta posts. Eg. screenshots of favorite scenes/moments from the Choices game itself, essay/analytical writing, even just simply gushing/rambling over Aiden nonstop!

Pieces or posts that you made prior to this event and/or initially not for this event, but you've decided you want to submit them!

WIP/unfinished pieces.

Submissions can be works that you have made yourself, or works that you have commissioned from someone else.

*If you’re submitting a picrew or meiker piece or anything similar, please link to the template in your post!

What is NOT welcome:

Bigotry of any kind. Posts of a nature that is sexist, racist (especially Sinophobic), queerphobic, ableist, xenophobic, etc. are obviously not allowed.

AI-generated material of any kind. This includes images or writing made by genAI, ChatGPT/character.AI screenshots, etc. Feel free to let us know if we accidentally promote AI generated material. We support human creators here!

Just don’t be a dick, tbh.

Previous Years’ Masterlists

[Will be linked here]

#aiden zhou #playchoices #choices stories you play #pixelberry #choices stories we play fandom #choicesstoriesyouplay #hss aiden #high school story aiden #AidenZhouAppreciationWeek #AZAW #AZAW2024

44 notes · View notes

lizzybeth1986 · 11 months ago

Text

Liam and Olivia: When You Prefer The Side Character To The Main

Series - TRR's Alternative LIs: The Romances that Didn't Happen

Previous: A Brief History of Alternative Romances in Choices

A/N1: My apologies for the length of this one! There was a LOT to explore, and even more that I had cut out from my initial draft.

A/N2: This essay operates on the premise that Liam is not the "favoured LI"/"golden boy" of the team - an argument I have made in detail in other Liam-centric essays. I am not interested in arguing those same points in my comment box/reblogs. Visit the Liam section of my meta masterlist if you want to learn more about that.

CW: Mentions of non-consensual kissing. Mentions of the plot against the MC in TRR1. Very fleeting mention of the "infertility subplot" TRH pushed onto Hana.

(Screenshot from HIMEME's YouTube channel)

As I mentioned in the previous essay, TRR (along with ES, to a far smaller extent) was the only series that seemed to make an attempt to pair even their popular LIs with another character. It also was (along with TCaTF) one of the very few books that hinted at an alternative romance in the first book itself.

This section of the essay series will perhaps be the longest, since Liam x Olivia got the earliest hints, and was built up first. While the other three pairings were introduced or hinted at in Books 2 and 3, the reader got to see glimpses of a possible Liam x Olivia pairing from the finale of Book 1 onwards.

Why An Alternative LI?

TRR is, essentially, a story that hinges on the likelihood of an arranged marriage. The character that makes this entire story possible, Liam, is expected to pick a bride by the end of his social season, whether he is ready for marriage or not. The ending of Book 1 itself ties his ascension as a king to marriage.

(Screenshot from Skylia's YouTube channel)

To prove Madeleine's point, the finale actually shows us that until he picks a fiancèe, he literally won't be addressed as king, but still as Prince Liam. So while this point does get heavily retconned later on in the series, the original story itself required Liam to be married sooner than any of the other LIs.

But Liam's story doesn't just hinge on needing a good Queen for his kingdom. His arc - at least in Book 1 - involved learning that being a good king doesn't mean he needs to sacrifice his own desires or romantic sensibilities. If that were the case, he could have just been stuck with Madeleine. No - the story was supposed to be about Liam learning to validate his personal aspirations without hurting his political position. It was essential then that the woman he picked was someone he either was already in love with (the MC), or someone he grew to love over the course of the series.

When you take this context into account, having an alternative romance becomes not only convenient, but essential.

And if the MC doesn't choose Liam as her endgame...who better for this "romance" than an old friend who has always held a torch for him?

A Romantic Rival

(Screenshots from Skylia's YouTube channel)

As most of the fandom remembers the first book and the trajectory of the Liam and Olivia relationship in it pretty well, I'll try not to go into too much detail. The Olivia of Book 1 has two parallel storylines: the one with the MC, where they first start out hating and then learn to like each other...and the one with Liam, which begins with Olivia assuming she will win the social season, but becoming more and more resigned to the MC's chances of winning as her position in the competition declines.

There is obviously a lot more focus on her dynamic with the MC, for two reasons:

1. Until the MC chooses an endgame, an LI will never show more interest in another person. It will always be the alternative LI whose interest initially drives that side-story. Making an LI reciprocate that interest can result in a negative impression of them, as fans could potentially believe that their love for the MC is not genuine or special. This is the case for all LIs in the series, not just Liam.

2. Narratively, the first book wants to make Olivia's love for Liam their big character reveal. It is the first time Olivia actively opens up to the MC, and is canonically the beginning of their "friendship". So very little emphasis is placed on her emotional attachment to Liam until the Coronation (with her cactus gift and her confession to the MC before leaving), and even less on how Liam feels about her.

Whatever little we do get of Liam and Olivia's dynamic before the finale is focused on their childhood friendship. We learn from Liam that she was a sad, lonely child when they met, heartbroken by her parents' death and the negligence of the aunt who was supposed to raise her. Her attachment to Liam emerges from his support of her when they were children, and we later learn in TRH that he not only supported her, but often empathized with young Olivia and comforted her in ways that didn't give away her vulnerabilities.

Olivia claims at the beginning of TRR1 that "everyone just assumed Liam and [Olivia] would get married one day". Given what we learn later about Constantine and the Nevrakis family (and the fact that no one backs Olivia's claim at any point in the book), it is possible she was exaggerating. But it is also true that until the MC gains more popularity and Madeleine makes her entrance, Olivia is assumed to win the social season quite easily. In the same way that Madeleine is positioned as the "political" rival in Book 1's story, Olivia is viewed as the "romantic" counterpoint to the MC.

From Liam's end, there is actually very little shown about his thoughts on Olivia. It is clear that he cares for her, wants the MC to think well of her and understand her circumstances. While as a child, he comforted her when she was called a cactus by reminding her that they were tough plants that no one messed with; as an adult he is pained by her vindictiveness towards people who haven't even harmed her. There is plenty of grounds here for some sort of relationship, but enough there that shows why the MC who will marry him would be a slightly better fit.

The second half of TRR1 focuses on softening Olivia to an extent - having her and the MC optionally bond over their dislike for Madeleine (who is viewed as the "bigger bad" at this point) and having her only occasionally approach Liam for his company. Her feelings for him come to the forefront only during his Coronation, around the time she withdraws due to the blackmail exposing her parents' attempts to assassinate King Constantine.

This moment in the series completes Olivia's transition from antagonist to a possible friend. The reveal that Olivia loved Liam all along ensures that the MC can sympathize with her for not getting the man she loves, and allows the reader to envision her as a future ally.

To some who already vouched for a Liam-Olivia endgame before the finale, this moment was a confirmation. To others who didn't exactly see Olivia's actions towards Liam as rooted in affection, this moment was a revelation. Whatever it was, this moment made her extremely popular in the fandom.

But this scene also had a more important purpose - it provided players not interested in Liam, a possible out from the situation. The ending of TRR1 hinged on Liam choosing the MC as his future bride, then being forced to accept someone else when the scandal broke out. Book 2 allows the MC to explore what she wants without the expectations of a social season. The prospect of a titled lady who genuinely loved Liam being his potential endgame would make it easier for fans of other LIs. It sounded like a perfect ending for everyone.

The (Unwanted) Kiss, and What It Says About the Fandom

(Screenshots from Danni Stone's YouTube channel)

A scene that often gets ignored (or conveniently forgotten) when discussing Liam x Olivia in TRR1, is the kiss in Lythikos.

The Lythikos Ball in Ch 8 is already a social battleground of sorts for Olivia. She wields her power as hostess here - monopolising Prince Liam's company, and humiliating the MC and her friends with the worst seating and ice-cold food. Things come to a head when - while dancing the Cordonian Waltz with Liam - she forces a kiss on him, completely disregarding his ability to consent.

I use these precise words to describe this incident for two reasons. First, because canon refused to do so. Second, because most of the fandom refused to do so.

Different characters in the story respond to this incident in different ways. A shocked "what a bold play!", a sarcastic "Olivia's growing up, how sweet", and an enraged "she's gone mad with power here!" emerge from the ladies of the court - all focused on Olivia's intentions and actions. None of these responses ever address Liam's end of this situation.

Even more interesting are the options the MC is given to address the situation when Liam speaks to her later.

(Screenshots from Danni Stone's YouTube channel. This is the second dialogue option)

She either speaks to Liam like nothing happened, or engages in victim blaming. Personally I think both options are as bad as each other. Neither of these options include "are you okay?" or "were you comfortable with that?".

Liam's answer to the MC's (optional) accusations is perhaps the only time the issue of consent is even barely addressed (and even here Liam is duty-bound to think of Olivia's welfare over his own comfort). It is appalling that it takes the MC practically victim blaming this man for that to happen. And it is equally disturbing that Liam's response is so apologetic, so contrite, as if this entire situation was his fault.

The kiss is viewed as a number of things in the book: an affront to the suitors who have no power in Olivia's estate, or a political blunder. But what does it mean to the man who had this kiss forced upon him? Would he really feel comfortable or safe around her again after that? The writers clearly didn't know, nor did they care. And most of the fandom was only too happy to follow suit.

The few times this kiss was spoken about amongst the fandom, the question of consent was barely ever addressed. The kiss was either brushed aside as unimportant, seen as an indication of the "love and passion" Olivia had for Liam, or viewed as a manifestation of her jealousy towards the MC. Liam is sometimes seen as "clueless" for not "noticing Olivia's feelings...I mean, she literally kissed him!!" All of which could be true, but it doesn't erase the fact that his consent was never given, nor his comfort with the situation ever considered.

It is doubly ironic given the fandom reaction to the MC's plight in Applewood, after Tariq attempts to kiss her without her consent (though this situation involves significant privacy violations and dark conspiracies, and Liam's does not). The MC's situation was (rightfully) viewed as horrible and potentially traumatising, and many were upset that the emotional impact of it wasn't adequately addressed in the story. It wouldn't be surprising if Liam's situation wasn't viewed on the same level - given the difference in contexts - but the fandom and canon rarely saw this as something that happened to him, without his consent.

Ironically, the fandom never really considered Olivia planting a whole smacker on Liam's mouth as possible "proof" that she could engage in creepy, entitled behaviour...but they did often view Liam as "creepy" for...complimenting diamond-option outfits, or saying romantic-coded dialogues that the MC would reciprocate by default (again - I don't deny this is a problem and those lines should have been coded properly. However one cannot deny the doubt standards here). Olivia was the one who forced a kiss on the object of her affection in canon, but Liam was the one who got so many "abuser" and "harrasser" (and worse!) depictions in fanfic when TRR2 and 3 were out.

I will be addressing this particular scene again in another context, in a later essay in the series. I would like my readers here to not forget this scene, or the (lack of) outrage around it. It would be helpful to ponder over why Olivia's behaviour here is largely viewed as no big deal, especially when other side characters (and at least one main character) could be villainized for far, far less.

Olivia and Liam in TRR2 and 3

(Screenshots from Skylia's YouTube channel)

TRR1's finale and TRR2 show a small shift in Liam and Olivia's dynamic. Now that he is engaged, and in love with a woman who isn't Olivia, their interactions become sporadic and awkward. To ensure that Liam won't be viewed as a cassanova, the narrative keeps their interactions to a minimum. Group scenes that involve Liam often leave Olivia out, and group scenes that involve Olivia exclude Liam.

However, to address the "romantic potential" from TRR1's finale, the book shows Liam and Olivia interact in at least one scene in Ch 10. Here, they have a short, stilted conversation that leaves Liam concerned about Olivia's well-being, and that makes Olivia grieve over her unrequited love for him to an equally concerned MC.

Olivia's story in TRR2 largely centers around establishing her character (snarky, prickly, warriorlike. Much of this is actually a deviation from her writing in TRR1), strengthening her relationship with the MC, and integrating her into the core group.

Olivia's feelings for Liam get addressed again after the MC makes her final choice of LI. The MC's acceptance or rejection of Liam's proposal results in a bit of tension between the two women. If Liam is the MC's choice, Olivia admits to her heartbreak despite being truly happy that Liam has found love. If not, she reveals a slight resentment that the MC could so easily throw away the love that Olivia so badly wanted. The narrative allows Olivia her complicated, ambivalent feelings towards the Liam x MC match, and expects the MC to understand and sympathize. By default.

If you don't choose Liam in TRR3, his romance with Olivia does start here. And by this I mean that Liam is now allowed to reciprocate her affections.

(Screenshots from the Skylia YouTube channel (Drake playthrough). The screenshots aren't in order. 1st Liam x Olivia scene is the handholding at Applewood (5), 2nd is dancing at Vegas (1st two), 3rd is Liam asking Olivia for a dance at the finale ball (middle two), and the last is Liam asking Olivia out (6))

Even in the playthrough where Liam is marrying the MC, his default is to trust Olivia, show her kindness and staunchly defend her to people who suspect her motives. Liam advocates for her innocence in TRR3 Ch 2, even as her family becomes one of the prime suspects. The MC may vouch for her by choice...but if she does choose to suspect Olivia, it is Liam who pushes back against the idea.

By this point, the MC and Olivia can cement their friendship if the former has worked on gaining her trust. If not - the book has already created an inbuilt mechanism to ensure Olivia's loyalty anyway. It is tied to her gratitude and affection for Liam, the one person who consistently believed in her from childhood. Whether the MC makes an effort to win her approval or not, Olivia respects her. Her emotional attachment to Liam as an old friend, and loyalty to her king, ensures that her support is gained by default throughout.

Outside of his own playthrough, though, the narrative does slip in a few extra scenes where Liam shows an obvious romantic interest in Olivia. It's small - he isn't exactly yelling from the rooftops that he loves her - but it is definite progress where he seeks her out for support, dances with her and eventually asks her out to dinner at the finale. The scenes are few but prominent, and leave no doubt to the reader that Liam fully intends to court her.

So...why is Liam still single in the Drake, Hana and Maxwell playthroughs of TRH?

Writer Bias

When you read enough interviews and watch enough livestreams from the TRR team, one thing becomes very, very clear. They love their TCaTF callbacks. And no callback is more beloved to the writers than the repurposing of Zenobia Nevrakis' sprite to create her descendant, Olivia.

In this section, I will focus in particular on Kara Loo, COO of Pixelberry and one of the head writers of the TRR/H/F series. Going by several interviews and social media posts, Kara wrote most of Olivia and Drake's scenes and dialogues (along with "some of the Prince's speeches"), and was in fact the driving force behind how Olivia's character came to be, in the original series.

"...when we were creating Book 1, we wanted an evil redhead to be your antagonist, and Kara said, "Oh, what if we used Zenobia, but the twist is she's a Nevrakis descendant?"" - Jennifer Young, Looking Back on The Royal Romance (Sept 2018)

Kara has openly admitted before to having a fondness for Olivia's particular character type. In an interview with Daily Dahlia, she spoke of Val, one of the TCaTF LIs, in glowing terms that perfectly fit the way Olivia has been written as well:

"I love writing Val Greaves in The Crown & The Flame. I love writing for characters that are a little meaner and will really just say what they’re thinking, even if it isn’t exactly tactful." - Daily Dahlia's Interview with the Pixelberry Crew (Sept 2016).

The love for mean (and white! Don't forget white) women among the team, is pretty clear when you look at the kind of reception TRR's mean white women get.

Notably, Kara does have the occasional nice thing to say about Liam too. In an interview before the release of TRR2, she spoke of how "considerate and loving he is", how "there is nothing mean or selfish about him". As a Liam fan who kept seeing him bashed left and right after the TRR1 finale, those words initially felt like a massive relief.

But now, seeing the way the team treats nicer and more diplomacy-oriented characters in the series, this fulsome praise for Liam's selflessness gives me pause. It reminds me too much of how most of the team swore up and down that Hana would be their choice of LI to marry in a livestream, at the same time that they were slamming an infertility subplot on her in the books. Looking back with the knowledge of how the writers would treat Liam later, praise like this seemed less focused on finding him lovable, and more on ensuring that he gave constantly to the MC without ever getting much in return.

While Liam's treatment is not as bad as Hana or Kiara's, one must take note that the team - esp the head writers - have never really hesitated to throw Liam under the bus or retcon entire chapters and backstories to make characters like Drake seem better than him (eg. The narrative choice to have Drake claim Liam was leading the MC on when they first met in TRR3, which has led to more than one attempt to rewrite the bachelor party).

Part of this could be attributed to just the fondness for a specific character type. But I do think that with Kara in particular, ideology also plays a role in her preferences. There are at least two interviews from the team where her liking for darker, more violent storylines has been mentioned. In TRR3 the team affectionately called some of their brainstorming sessions with Kara as "Kara's trail of bodies" (one idea was to kill off Madeleine in Lythikos), and in the TRF livestream they mention that she initially wanted a war storyline.

This leaning towards a more militaristic mindset shows...in the care that Kara takes for Olivia's dialogues and especially her spy scenes (tho such scenes actually don't contribute much to the plot). In contrast there is a subtle disdain for the more diplomacy-minded characters shown in scenes where Olivia's ideologies are measured up against theirs (eg. Any scene where Hana and Olivia are supposed to work together, or the vast difference between the "valiant" Lythikos tournament and the "ridiculous" Castelserraillan flower competition in TRH3).

Even though it is often the diplomacy that saves the day at the end, the framing always highlights the militaristic way of thinking more positively. Given that Kara writes a lot of Olivia, and a fair amount of Liam, it's pretty obvious now where her (and the team's) particular bias may lie.

Because of this bias, it became far easier for TRR's writers to lean into popular fandom myths when it suited them, or pander to a particular section of the fandom. Which is the subject of my next section.

Fandom Entitlement

Olivia often has two types of fans - the ones who wanted to ship her with their MCs in canon (and couldn't), and the ones who wanted to be "bestieeeees!" with her. The frustration of the former was rooted in the fact that wlw had only one romantic option, but I will not be talking about them.

The latter were found in plenty among the Liam, Drake and Maxwell stans - all of whom either viewed her as an ally to win over (Liam), or as someone to push onto Liam, so they could romance the men they preferred in peace (mostly Drake and Maxwell. Some Hana stans but not as many).

As I'd mentioned in an earlier section, Olivia's final scene in TRR1 allowed people who didn't want to romance Liam, to envision a narrative 'out' for themselves. By the time Olivia reappeared in TRR2 Ch 5, she'd gained a cult following among many, many fans. A lot of them were actively rooting for the start of a romance between Liam and Olivia, and very few resented her for her feelings or begrudged her past actions.

But there was one downside. The intent among the majority who rooted for this pairing, was more about "getting Liam out of the way", than any actual romantic potential. Because of this, certain Liam x Olivia stans (ironically, the Drake romancers were the loudest voices in this group) felt a ridiculous level of entitlement towards this pairing.

A number of readers insisted on having Liam fall for Olivia immediately, wanted him to show feelings for her instantly, and complained when he didn't do so while his (optional) romance with the MC was still on.

Olivia's sad, longing gazes in TRR2 propelled many a reader to complain about what an awful situation poor Olivia was in and how insensitive and uncaring Liam was (even in the face of screenshots that clearly showed him worrying about her desolate mood). One of many examples comes from a post in Feb 2018 - a Drake stan's written walkthrough of TRR2 Ch 10, and ironically the following lines were made above a screenshot set that clearly showed Liam noticing how sad she was and worriedly asking the MC about that:

Liam finds you and as always, can’t help fawning over you. This time Olivia is right there and he is like, Oh yeah, Olivia, you are too here, hi. She definitely notices, gets upset, and leaves because she really does love him and she is third choice at best.

This was not the only one. There were multiple posts like these, and they often positioned Olivia as a figure of sympathy, yearning for a love that would never be hers. Liam in these readings was always positioned as someone who "didn't care" and later, "didn't deserve Olivia".

When he did start showing an interest in Olivia in Book 3, it went largely unnoticed by most of the fandom, even though he was romancing her in at least 3 out of 4 playthroughs. There were very, very few posts made about any of these romantic moments. Instead, from Chapters 3 to 10 of TRR3 - where Liam didn't show any indications of heartbreak re: the MC - certain Drake/Maxwell fans made posts complaining over his not pining over the MC, or theorizing that some of his friendly attempts to educate the MC about the country had to have been done with more than friendship in mind.

This section of the fandom often got insane amounts of pandering from the writers themselves. When TRR3 returned from a hiatus post Ch 9, we were suddenly hit with more scenes involving Liam's "heartbreak" (it featured sporadically in all three of the other playthroughs, but you could tell it was tailor-made for the Drake one because it got referenced there waaaay more) before the big battle with Anton. Fandom spoke far more on these scenes than on the ones they got for Liam x Olivia.

What was completely missed was that such "heartbreak" scenes happened because there was a demand from readers who weren't even Liam stans in the first place, and the same stans didn't hesitate to flip and label him "desparate" or "pining" or write fanfic where he was an absolute creep in response to a thing they asked for!

As for talk of the Liam x Olivia ship post TRR3, the phrase "sloppy seconds" started to be used often to address the pair after the series ended, and there were quite a few posts claiming that Liam didn't deserve such an incredible woman like Olivia.

(Edit Source: the playchoicesconfessions Tumblr blog)

Using the pining subplot that nonLiam stans had asked for, some of the same people would insist that Olivia "deserved better than to be sloppy seconds" (at some point after TRR3, I noticed that even some Liam stans would say the same!). This argument often came hand-in-hand with the lie that Liam never cared for Olivia enough (as one can see in the edit above). It also often hinged on the premise that the MC was Liam's first love, that he wouldn't (and shouldn't!) ever get over her, and that anyone else would rank as second best to him. And while I agree that Olivia deserves a partner who would wholeheartedly love her, this argument seemed to come from people who were eerily reluctant to imagine Liam leading a happy life without the MC.

Tbh, the fandom at large has always had a very confusing relationship with Liam as a character. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that from TRR2 onwards, making Liam a scapegoat was a very popular reading from the fandom. He was often expected to live up to impossible standards - way more than the other male LIs - and criticized incessantly for dialogues and action that the other two could easily get away with.

Many fans were (rightfully) frustrated by how Liam could have romantic lines by default (which the MC would by default reciprocate, to their chagrin) all through TRR1 - while ignoring romantic default dialogues from Drake - but also complained when Liam responded more calmly than expected to her rejection of his proposal. They also didn't like that he could be largely neutral/merely friendly towards the MC for most of TRR3. Damned if he didn't, damned if he did.

I'm not saying that this was the viewpoint of the entire fandom. There were people - yours truly included - who pushed back against such a biased view of this pairing. Against a view that insisted on centering only Olivia's feelings, while either badmouthing Liam for not returning her love, or ignoring the times when he did. There were people who pointed to canon for proof that he cared.

But enough voices vouched for this other, more unsavoury reading that "Olivia deserves better than to be Liam's sloppy seconds", that it became quite popular. That it became the accepted view in canon too, when the writers began work on TRH.

Olivia x Liam (not), TRH and Beyond

As we all know by now, Liam x Olivia did not happen in TRH. After a dance and an invitation to a date in the finale, Liam was back to being single and uninterested in any romantic relationships (like all the other LIs). It went to the point where he was ready to appoint the MC's future child as his heir (heir apparent, not presumptive. The fandom mockingly dubbed him "Rumpelstiltskin" for this). At the time, I imagined that perhaps the narrative was trying to erase the pair altogether, since no other LI got paired up either. It would be fair.

This wasn't exactly the case. In fact, in my opinion, what they managed to do was much worse.

(Screenshots from the HR Gameplay YouTube channel. Liam is renamed "Rayden" here)

Savannah's bachelorette (TRH1 Ch 7) has the MC and the ladies "address" certain pairings that were hinted at in TRR3. One doesn't get addressed at all, one addresses the LI by name only if the playthrough isn't the one where the MC is married to him.

Olivia's is the only one that got addressed regardless of whether the MC was married to the man she had wanted or not. And looking at the scene now, I really, really wish they didn't write it at all.

If the MC encourages Olivia to talk about her feelings for Liam, the latter shows anger and resentment over Liam not choosing her twice over. This, despite the fact that he did attempt to date her the previous book. This, despite the fact that he never indicated interest until he actually felt it. This... despite the fact that not returning the feelings of someone who likes you romantically is a normal, natural thing that said someone should accept without judging other person!

In fact, the fandom was more than willing to view other LIs "not returning feelings" as normal, natural and blameless...so why did only Olivia get sympathy and praise for her unrequited love, and why did only Liam have to be criticised for the same?? Even in THIS scene??

Liam x Olivia would not be referenced for 3-and-a-half books after this, until the very end of TRF. Over the course of the series, the team tested her compatibility and possible chemistry with at least two side characters. One was Jin, the Auvernese spy that Olivia fights with in TRH1 Ch 19. While they did seem to have some banter in the first book and a smattering of scenes in the second, interest quickly died down and Jin was written out of the story once the Auvernese royals' scandals were exposed.

TRH3 then hinted at Amalas x Olivia as a pair, peppering hints as early as the introductory chapters. There had been a few murmurings among the fandom for the same, since a number of wlw were fond of Olivia, and people liked headcanoning her as bi or lesbian (in fact, when the team claimed in a TRH1 livestream that having Olivia as an LI would "soften her" too much, the fandom protested). Amalas x Olivia was met with more approval than Jin x Olivia, and in TRF you could encourage Olivia to ask either Liam or Amalas for a dance.

Liam himself never got any other options for romance (understandable, none of the LIs did), and in fact had several aspects of his story chipped away, chunk by chunk, to benefit other characters. In the end, Liam is treated like Olivia's "alternative LI" than the other way around.

It was a pretty ironic ending for a pairing that people felt so entitled over in the beginning. After years of protests against Olivia being Liam's "sloppy seconds" just because he chose her after being rejected by their MCs... the narrative didn't mind treating him like some sort of "consolation prize" (one of two) for Olivia. And as expected, nor did the fandom.

Conclusion: Could This Pairing Have Worked?

Much as I dislike it now, I did think Liam x Olivia had some potential back then. Politically and emotionally, Liam and Olivia were opposites in many ways. There was a lot you could explore. Their background history and the sweetness of their childhood story had the potential to add layers to their dynamic.

But for a pair like Liam x Olivia to work, romantically, some things would need to change:

1. Respect in the writing room for both their ideologies, not just Olivia's. If you view one with adulation and the other with disdain, that will eventually show in the writing. These two could have been a solid power couple if the team could just set aside their boners for violence and knives once in a fucking while.

2. THE KISS. If you're going to have that kind of a scene around, especially in the context of TRR1's larger story, it needs to be addressed. From Liam's point of view. With Olivia openly regretting it and atoning for it, and Liam getting to choose how to handle that. It isn't just enough to assume they spoke offscreen, and then pretend the forced kiss never happened or that that violation meant nothing.

Olivia was wrong. Olivia crossed boundaries. Olivia disregarded Liam's consent. Liam was the victim here, not the person the MC should be shouting at - even by option.

If a romance should proceed between the two, that kiss deserves to be addressed with a lot of sensitivity and respect to Liam's own experience.

3. BALANCE! Between their perspectives, their viewpoints, their beliefs. Which would only be possible if you equally valued both characters.

4. Respect for Liam's feelings and his romantic choices, whatever they may be. Liam knows what he likes best. Him not returning Olivia's feelings is not a crime, nor does it make him any less of a caring person. Him falling in love a second time, seeing an old friend in a new light, should have been embraced as a concept.

Loving someone else deeply in the past shouldn't make his feelings for his second love any less genuine. But most of the fandom adopted such a way of viewing the Liam x Olivia relationship because it allowed them to pity Olivia and blame Liam (again) - and the team validated those sentiments out of excessive care for one character, and a lack of it for another.

Changes like these four would have definitely made for a better-written alternative romance. But given the kind of team and the fanbase TRR had, none of the changes I mention here would ever have a hope of becoming a reality. Olivia is too popular, too beloved to her writers and fandom, (and too white!) to be viewed with even this much of a critical eye. And tbh, once the fandom has marked a character (esp a character of colour - customizable or not) as a scapegoat, they would enjoy bashing them too much to stop. From then on, it would only be a matter of which excuse, which nitpick, which set of double standards, would work best.

Liam and Olivia had potential. And the narrative was able to get that story to the point where the two could at least have a first date. But team TRR squandered all its future possibilities in the mad rush to pander to a portion of their fandom, with a clear bias for the side character...and so we will never know how a more balanced portrayal would've looked like.

A/N3: I have quoted posts that have actually appeared on Tumblr, but without any identification marks. All of them are one among many such posts - either lost to digital decay or hard to find. I do not want to call out any of the individual posters - I want to make it clear that many of these posts are indicative of a fandom-wide problem. Do not try to find out, or harrass, these posters.

Next - Maxwell and Penelope: When You Like the Side Character So Much, You Gift Her A Shiny New LI

#essay series: trr's alternative LIs #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #king liam #liam rys #olivia nevrakis #trr meta

107 notes · View notes

jomamaofficial · 1 year ago

Text

An Empty Vessel pt.2 (Dabi x Fem!Reader Dark Angst)

A/N: Happy holidays my lovely toes. I am so sorry for this delay, my laptop broke down 😃😃. I urge you all to read the TWs and CWs because I have delved into dark topics. As always, my Ask Box is open for any requests or just a conversation. I absolutely adore all of you, and I want to take this time to thank you guys for your support. Seeing your comments and messages motivates me to write :) <3. Please remember to take care of yourselves, and enjoy. As always, I would love to see your thoughts in the comments :). TW: Vague sexual harassment, substance abuse (weed, alcohol, smoking), death and bleeding. CW: SPOILER: Season 6, Dabi’s backstory, PFL, AFO and Shigiraki plot, swearing, vague mentions of intimate acts. Taglist: @marlenemckinnonsleftfoot @sukunasleftkneecap @istoleyourmanho3 @witherfag Masterlist Edit: Part 3 😼😼 Word Count: 2919. Summary: In the stories Rei used to read him, heroes always won. Reality wasn’t a story though. The villains won the Meta Liberation War after 6 years of fighting. With the death of Pro Hero Endeavour, and the reign of All For One, Dabi could finally leave his past as Touya Todoroki. He no longer had family. But what about the past that haunted him to this day. A family that belonged to Dabi, not Touya? One that escaped unborn?

——————————————————————————————————

Musutafu, Japan– it made international headlines.

The Paranormal Liberation Force finally did it.

The nation observed a minute of silence for the fall of Pro Hero Endeavour.

Musutafu was now all for one. And the entire nation would soon suffer the same fate.

Dabi stretched his neck to the left, stretching his right shoulder as he fought the growing tingles in his body. Chills ran up and down his spine as his eyes followed the tears of rain flooding the dimly-lit road.

He loved how empty this street was: no cars, no news reporters. There were no signs of nagging parents and their brat children, and there were no heroes patrolling the streets, strutting up and down like they owned the place.

It was just him and the soft sound of the rain which seeped into his socks, staining them with the remains of what was now All For One’s headquarter city.

Dabi wished to hear the familiar croak of Tomura’s voice: the back and forth banter, the late-night clicks of the video game console. Back when it was just them, the League of Villains. Tomura, Kurogiri, Toga, Twice, and him. Back when he didn’t ruin everything.

Dabi never told anyone, but there was a tiny part of his soul that withered away when he was near All For One.

Dabi felt small. He was 5’9; he never felt small.

But that thing would always tower over him. His slimy touch was forcefully ingrained into Dabi’s skin— that thing touched him like he owned Dabi.

And Dabi hated the way his mind memorised the way All For One used his crooked fingers to tilt Dabi’s head up to inspect him.

“Oh he’s a little doll isn’t he, Tomura? Where do you find these pretty boys?”

He hated the way All For One laughed after; it was a broken wheeze that rang murder in Dabi’s mind.

He watched as All For One forced Tomura to laugh with him, and Tomura’s apologetic eyes wavered when he looked back at Dabi.

He hated Tomura for laughing that day.

But he hated that laugh much more; the laugh that tainted the fresh air they stood in.

Now, Musutafu’s entire air was tainted by that laugh.

Now… Musutafu belonged to All For One. And Dabi could only hear that broken wheeze.

It would follow him everywhere.

So despite the rain’s destructive nature, Dabi allowed the weeping drops of the sky to fill the emptiness inside of him. The cool drops were better than the air.

Dabi was just an empty vessel. Nowhere to go, no one to go back to.

The Meta Liberation War quenched everyone’s thirst for blood. The dirt was saturated with the blood of heroes and villains alike.

He found it amusing, he really did as he bore his vacant eyes into the rusting ground. Dabi watched as everyone’s blood mixed together under his foot.

He raised his eyebrows, and chuckled.

‘All it took was death for them to stick together’.

Dabi travelled further away from the battle ground, quite deliberate about the steps he took. He counted underneath a shallow breath.

“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven,” until he reached the sixty-second step.

His heel pressed against the seeping soil surging scarlet.

And the world was still.

So still and silent that the gentle wind snuck up on the thin man, and he let out a broken gasp as his knees gave out.

The ringing in his ear struck a bitter note. His chest heaved up and down, up and down, and his eyes were blankly fixed on the ground beneath him. Thick, warm blood oozed through the thin cloth that covered his knees.

Enji Todoroki finally died. And Touya Todoroki was responsible for it.

Touya Todoroki, after 7 years of persistent efforts, was officially fatherless.

Finally, it dawned upon him: after 30 long years, Touya Todoroki couldn’t chase him anymore. He could finally find solace in Dabi.

And Dabi was alone. He had no family.

As the joint finally caught up to him, after four or five rookie puffs, the raven man started asking himself what he was doing here.

Surrounded by a group of homeless men who he caught rummaging in the dumpster, they were huddled away into the darkness of a dimly lit alleyway. It smelled like shit, offending his heightened state of smell. Flies picked on the waste scattered below them, their constant buzz creating a monotonous flow.

Dabi peeled his lips open as he felt each individual cell respire on his skin. His heart felt like it was growing inside of him, puncturing his dry lungs, getting louder and faster with each beat.

As a young boy, he saw Enji drink every evening for two years. Dabi used to sneak a sip when he was alone. Dabi was often alone.

He caught Enji with a lit cigarette in his fingers. Dabi stole one and showed it to his friends. Dabi coughed a lot that day.

Enji never touched drugs. He was against it.

Dabi never took drugs; the thought of it never passed him.

“How does it feel kid?”

Dabi’s consciousness was dragged back to reality, the bleak colours of his surroundings painting a vibrant picture.

“I can feel my skin breathing,” he responded, his lower jaw hanging open as he struggled to keep his neck straight.

Howls of laughter echoed in the distance, but the scarred man took no notice.

The joint was held to his lips, and Dabi took another puff.

Dabi wanted to individually itch the surface of his eyes with his nails. It was miserable.

But the ripple of the individual muscles in his cheeks felt so warm and happy when he smiled. That was less miserable.

So he kept on smiling, jaw still gaping. His staples pulled against his grafts, but the molecular traces of marijuana in his bloodstream shielded him from the pain.

Dabi was taken aback– gravity was working exponentially harder against him. A man touched the corner of his lips, the thick and coarse pad of his thumb sending him back, seven years ago.

Oh he’s a little doll isn’t he, Tomura?

“Boy”, the man slurred, “you’re bleeding.”

He shoved his bloodied thumb in Dabi’s face.

Dabi struggled to focus his gaze on the thumb in front of him, switching between double and triple vision.

“Can’t feel it,” he mumbled, his reactions delayed as he scooted away from the stranger.

“Everything’s breathing except these.”

Dabi was mesmerised by the feeling of his grafts against the pads of his fingers. It restored the faint twinkle in his hollow eyes.

“Why are you all fucked up everywhere, boy?”

It took a few moments to register, but Dabi did respond.

“Useless mom, dick dad.”

A unison of delayed ahhhs followed, and Dabi began to feel a knocking pressure trapped in the inner corners of his wide eyes.

“I was never his first choice,” Dabi chuckled. He wasn’t sure if they could hear him. They sure as hell couldn’t understand him, but he was fine with that.

“I was his first born son. No fuckin’ use. Dropped me like I was a waste of time and money.”

The offensive smell of the blunt dug him further away from reality. Dabi was content with his own company.

It would always be just him, forever and always. Because after everyone leaves, you’re left with yourself– your only support.

The more he delved into his loneliness, the louder he heard his skin breathe, it was deafening. And so the silence on his graft became even louder.

For a man who was considered dead all his life, Dabi wasn’t used to his living body. Senses upon senses, he was bombarded with the constant reminder that he was still alive. Even his dead, unresponsive skin felt alive. Because it was the absence of feeling that felt different.

Many people would describe euphoria as extreme feelings of bliss and joy. It was this boxed definition that led Dabi to believe that he could never feel euphoria. But in this moment, whilst Dabi sunk deeper into his conscience– his doubts finally quiet, time finally stopped.

And his body finally let go.

The familiar bud of the joint met his mouth again, and he inhaled the noxious fumes until he smoked his fears away into the midst of the neverending clouds in the night sky. The full moon gleamed down on his pale skin, bathing his grafts in a lunar embrace.

Unlike the sun, which beat its scorching rays on his sensitive skin, the moon shyly kissed it, leaving trails of beautiful markings that soothed his aches.

Dabi’s heart was working overtime. Blood rushed to his scalp, and his body completely shut down. There was one name that his heart called for.

A name that belonged to the past. The moon shyly casted a glow on that face too, but it averted its lunar eyes when Dabi defiled his past, leaving trails of burns that caused her aches.

He was wrong.

Touya Todoroki, after 7 years of persistent efforts, had no family.

But Dabi?

Dabi had a family.

Dabi woke up to blue skies and a gentle sun peeking behind the stained curtains. His body was sprawled on the tiny bed, his limbs spilling out the sides, here and there. He blindly groped for his phone in the midst of thin sheets, switching it on to check the time.

09:23 AM.

He groaned and threw a dark shirt on top of his eyes, blocking the obnoxious sun as he squirmed to find his sleep.

Moments passed and all he could focus on was the neverending tick of the clock in the corridor.

“Fuck it.”

Dabi slipped on some shirt, and put on some shoes, and slammed the door when he left.

09:36 AM.

No wonder he could hear the tick, the corridor was ghost-quiet.

Routinely, Dabi heaved himself over to the bar, scanning the counter for a quick shot.

09:41 AM.

Toga walked inside the lair, her hands hidden inside the cuffs of her cardigan. Dabi nodded at her as he let out a yawn.

“Everyone die or summin’?”

Toga stared at him, her eyes glazed.

Dabi immediately straightened up.

“Wait, did they actua-”

“She’s gone.”

09:49 AM.

Dabi’s jaw tensed up, gripping the shot glass tighter.

“Who’s gon-”

His body was jolted back into the counter, the loud glass shrieking as it fell from his hands.

“Don’t you dare Dabi. Don’t you fucking dare.”

Her eyes were red. Her fist was clenched around the loose cloth that hung on him.

Dabi averted his eyes from Toga, releasing a shallow breath.

Toga’s chest hiccuped underneath her cardigan, and she hid her face into his chest, staining it with stale tears.

“She’s gone,” she repeated, a broken record.

Dabi clasped his arms around her, his hands patting her head.

09:59 AM.

“She left.”

Dabi reached for the flask hidden in his inner pockets. Bony fingers struggled to open it, fine tremors running through his bones.

‘Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, eighteen…’

Door number eighteen. A few strides away. But the growing feeling of heaviness in Dabi’s feet warned him: it was going to be a marathon.

Countless strangers pointed at the lone man in a tattered, thick jacket. Dabi grasped at the wire fence that separated the long stretches of the park and pavement, muttering something underneath his breath.

The sight of free cars strolling past him caught him off guard every single time. He had no sense of time, no sense of direction.

He was far, far away from Musutafu.

Here, the air felt fresher.

It wouldn’t be long before it was infested either.

But he had to owe All For One some credit.

His reign of terror gave the PLF members a huge leverage when it came to accessing government files.

Dabi flipped through piles of kojin bangō, particularly scanning through documents of 27 year-old mothers, registered births and quirk-hybrids, and a certain family name.

He found everyone’s name, everyone’s identity; no one was safe.

Yet the name his eyes yearned for was nowhere in sight.

Countless days and nights were spent silently begging for a lead. On day 18, Dabi finally left the building, clutching onto a piece of paper close to his heart.

Saira Uchiyama.

Names didn’t match, but it was the only name that he could trace her back to.

Dabi took the final steps up the road, feeling lighter than he had in days.

It was on his right. There was but a sliver of road that separated Dabi and door number eighteen.

His fingers started picking at the ripping cuticles on his nail bed, and the grown man started to track his breaths.

He took a step.

A car honked at him.

“Watch where you’re going!”

Dabi didn’t draw back.

He took another step, and another, and another. One more, maybe two.

He could feel the gravel underneath his boots. Dabi lifted his broken face and a perfect house stared down at him. Pristine brick walls stood proud; the bright toned paint complimented the thriving flora in the yard. It fit in so well with the lines of houses, strong and shielded.

This was someone’s home. Bonsai trees armed the right side of the yard, some trimmed, others growing wild.

There were two floors and a garage; more than enough for a perfect family.

Dabi was stopped by the fence gates that guarded the perimeters. He struggled to get past.

Encrusted in metal, his eyes laid upon the name beside the door.

Engraved in gold letters, it read Uchiyama.

He was a step away from Saira Uchiyama’s front door.

Dabi’s hand reached towards the door handle, but he stopped when he felt the unwelcoming chill of it.

He eyed the doorbell instead. He fisted his hand that was itching to press it.

The drowning noises of children’s laughter bled through his skull from the park that was behind him. The drones of parents buying ice cream, and husbands holding their wives’ hands. This was the type of neighbourhood he was in.

And someone told him. Since when did Dabi develop the need to preserve this?

He was a lone man, half dead. He was disgusting. He couldn’t find her name. Now he was outside some poor woman’s house. Saira Uchiyama. How would she feel seeing a decaying man waiting outside her front door? How would her husband feel if some uninvited scarred freak asked to meet his wife, hands empty?

He felt a thick substance roll past his cheek and drip onto the clean welcome mat.

Dabi pushed his raven locks out of his eyes, biting onto his knuckles as he struggled to maintain a steady breath

His nails moved to pick at the staples underneath his eyes.

He couldn’t do this.

‘I can’t fucking do this.’

Through his bloodied waterline, he looked at the doorbell one more time before turning around.

He couldn’t fucking do this. Dabi didn’t belong here.

He tried to move forwards but his legs were shackled to the pebbly footpath. His rhythmic heart couldn’t let go. His twisted mind forced him to go.

His desperate eyes latched onto the bed of perfect flowers on his right.

Like an open flame, the flowers stole all his attention. Dabi stilled.

Their indigo petals mirrored the deep colour of his dead skin. He was entranced by the bold opening, the beautiful colour bleeding out and reflecting the glimmering hope that built up in his cerulean eyes.

“What’s your favourite flower Dabi?” Toga asked as she played with her blunt knife, running her thumb across the blade.

“Typ’a fucking qustion’s that?”

“God Dabi, don’t you know how to have a civilised conversation with someone. I’m just trying to get to know you better!”

“And asking my favourite flower’s gonna do that?”

“It’s called small talk, Dabi.”

He scoffed, pushing past the young girl to rummage through the cabinets.

From the corner of his eyes, he picked up on her amber eyes intently pressing him for an answer.

“For fucks sake. Fine. I’ll do your little small talk”, he gave in, evoking a small squeal from the blonde.

Dabi considered her question for a minute, pressing his tongue against his cheeks.

“I saw these flowers once,” he gulped. “They were blue, kinda like flames. My flames. I saw ‘em in one’a those gated areas. I guess they were pretty nice.”

Toga pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side as she tried to paint a picture in her head.

“Do you know what they’re called?”

“The fuck would I know? Probably one of those fancy rich flowers grown by fancy rich people,”, he shrugged.

“I’ll ask the newbie, she’ll know what they are.”

“Have fun talkin’ to lil’ miss know-it-all,” he scoffed, happy as Toga skipped away, leaving him alone. Finally.

A week later, Dabi found out what they were called as he was sharing a cigarette on the roof.

“By the way, they’re called Rindou flowers.”

Dabi quirked up an eyebrow, his lips curled in a sneer.

“Those flowers you like, they’re called Rindou.”

Dabi’s ears perked up at the small giggle that followed.

“I guess I could say being ‘miss know-it-all’ isn’t the worst thing, huh?”

Dabi’s chest heaved as he turned around, his pace fast as his hands inched closer to the doorbell.

Ring.

The wind stilled.

He could hear footsteps run down the stairs.

Click.

The handle moved.

The door creaked open.

It was 09:59 AM.

——————————————————————————————————

Keep a look out for Part 3, my angst-loving toes. If you would like me to add you to the taglist, please comment or message me :).

Edit: Part 3

249 notes · View notes

katiefrog217 · 8 months ago

Text

Good Omens Fic + Poetry | Personal Recommendation Masterlist

I said I'd do it, so I'm doing it. For both myself, and so others can enjoy! I'll try to tag the original authors and link any secondaries/people who recommended me the stories!

If you feel so inclined, you may read my own (very long, very angsty) fic or it's companion piece:

Dubious Excerpts from the Chonicles of a Demon (Retired) | Post-Season 2 / Crowley comes back to the bookshop / Seriously, its a lot of angst/ Self-Contained Meta

From the Confidential Journals of A.Z Fell | Crowley found Azi's journals woops / Mostly Fluff / Ties in to previous Fic / Can be read Standalone

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

To clarify: this list is going to be a collection of stuff I've personally read/been recommended. I'll try to make sure to tag everyone who owns the fics (if they have a Tumblr) and the people who recommended them to me (if at all). I'll update this list as I go, and might start sorting things into their own posts if it starts to get too long. I'm not going to be able to tag all warnings, so PLEASE HEED the A03 tags!

This list is not meant to play favorites! If I read it and enjoyed it, it will be going on this list. That means the quality may vary, but I think everyone should have a chance to have their work seen! Inevitably though, I will have my favorites, and if I ABSOLUTELY think you should read one, I'll mark in in Green. Everything else will be in Orange for visibility. Anything with NSFW Content will be marked with a (!!!).

If you would like to recommend me a fic (self-promotes welcome and encouraged!), feel free to drop a recommendation here, DM me, or send me an ask if you want to remain anonymous! If you don't see your's here, I haven't gotten to it yet!

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

Poetry

@lickthecowhappy does a LOT of poetry for GO, and they have a masterlist on their own blog for their stuff, but my personal favorite is Pour Hot Water Into A Pot With Leaves

This Black Out Poem | Written by @crowleys-bentley-and-plants

Questions (Sonnet No. 2) | Written by @aziraphalesdiaries

This Two Part Poem | Written by @knifeforkspooncup

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

Short n' Sweet

Literally anything written by the account @meanwhile-at-the-cottage (Seriously follow them they make my day)

Nada | Written and Recommended by @gabapunk (Pining/Season 3 where you at??)

This One-shot | Written by @bloodashre (Post season 2/ The world is ending but their love is not).

Hazel Storms and Gentle Ormes | Written by @ardentlake and beta read by thatskindarough (Short chapters but cute, Crown Prince Crowley)

His World In Her Hands | Written by @nik-knight to an art post by Camilleflyingrotten (I was genuinely unwell after this one| Azi got hurt and Crowley begs)

Rain In Avalon | Written by SnowFilly1 and recommended by GoodOmensDuh (Long One-shot, Arthurian Times, Intimacy eluded to but nothing explicit)

Cozy Preening | Written by @canadiankazz and recommended by GoodOmensDuh (Not much plot BUT OMG SO CUTE/ Wing preening fluff)

Lord Knows it Would be the First Time | Written and recommended by @knifeforkspooncup (Angst/ But also Fluff / I want these idiots to be ok)

This Silly Story about Unicorns | Written by @brightwanderer (seriously just read it/I cackled really hard/ Crowley can be a dummy and I love that about him)

Starmaker and Starlight | Written by NohaIjiachi and recommended by thatskindarough (Super cute/ pre-fall Aziracrow / You already know exactly how it ends / but read it anyway/ this lives rent free in my head now)

Divine Interventions (!!!) | Written by @ineffable-roh (AKA Rohese_Purrs) and recommended by Knifeforkspooncup (Norse Deities do a little matchmaking / Fluffy NSFW / Male Crowley with lady bits)

Time Folding in On Itself | Written by Chernozemm (AKA black_earth) (Post season 2 / Aziracrow get to the point/ these two really need to talk)

Impromptu Collab (!!!) | Written by MrGhostRat (Human Streamer AU / Indulgent NSFW / Plot what Plot / Please Mind the Tags)

Free | Written by @eviebane for Flawless (Small, cute, please read Flawless first for context)

A More Gentle Touch | Written by Nik-Knight for ME?? (I'm 100% Biased here / Creature Omens AU / IDC if you don't give a fuck about my au, this is cute AF please read it / Pure FLUFF / Dove Aziraphale and Snake Crowley my beloveds)

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

Long Fics

This Is Who You Are | Written and Recommended by @azeutreciathewicked (Medium Length / Post Season 2 / RAPHAEL AGAIN HELLO / If you really love creative explainations for Heaven you'll LOVE this / A seriously interesting concept behind Azi and Crowley's relationship/ Snake Crowley and Bird Aziraphale my beloveds)

Instructions Not Included | Written by @brightwanderer (AKA Atalan) and recommended by DoomedLemur (Post Season 1 / Aziracrow run a detective agency for the supernatural / Hello Raphael (this time a different person) / Heavenly lore / There is some weird shit going on / WINGS)

And They Were Streamers | Written by @mrghostrat and recommended by HaeMey (Ongoing /Streamer Au / Its got art / KICKING MY FEET I LOVE THEM)

If We've Got Nothing (We've Got Us) | Written by @kedreeva, recommended by someone on Patreon (God POV / Grey Feathers / Medium Length / Old but Good)

Big Name Feelings (!!!) | Written by mrghostrat (Completed / Au/ Skippable NSFW/ Ace Crowley / I've never felt more seen and called out wtf/ I stayed up until 4 am reading it)

The Many Venomed Earth + sequel Such Rebel Blood | Written by @fremulon (AKA Curtaincall) and recommended by HaeMey (Human Au / Murder Mysteries / Crowley gets framed for a murder in the first one oh no / DETECTIVE (not really) AZI ON THE CASE / mutual pining / eventual payoff)

Mon Horrible Chéri (!!!) | Written by MrGhostRat and recommended by TheCommonMold (Completed/ Human Teachers AU / literal enemies to lovers / ONLY ONE ROOM OH NO--)

Flawless (!!!) | Written by MrGhostRat and @chernozemm (AKA black_earth) (Huamn AU /Cheating Azi / very painful / seriously there is some angst here / happy ending tho TRUST)

Not Light, No Light | Written and recommended by PolarisVega (Their first fic / Season 3 headcanons / Fun Crowley Headcanons)

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach | Written by mouseonamoose (aka Nnm) and recommended by lickthecowhappy and GoodOmensDuh (Crowley Goes to Therapy / Old but still REALLY good / Pre-season 2 / Super long chapters but very worth)

Angel-Centered Therapy Through A Multicultural Lens: An Integrative Approach | Written by @mouseonamoose (Same as the previous, but Azi this time / Unfinished by nearly done / my poor baby Azi)

Factory Settings | Written by Anonymous (I don't remember how I found this one/ swear I must have seen it on Tumblr/ 60 chapters!! / Read carefully it can get a little confusing / Timey Whimey BS / RAPHAEL??/ Post Season 2 shenanigans with a good ending)

Telling Tall Tales (!!!) | Written by @siobhans-world (Human Aziracrow/ Azi is gay AF but lonely / Pretends to be Maggie's Bf (accidentally) / oh no hot cousin alert/ Not done but almost/ mutual pining)

Time Marches Forward | Written and Recommended by @bellisima-writes (Post Season 2 / Starts a little rocky BUT OMG? / FIRST FIC? / I dedicated my entire day to it / Adam is such a good character holy shit / I think about this fic all the time / wish a few more things were flushed out bUT THATS OK/ lots of angst/ someone save my boy Azi)

How Do We Turn on the Light? (!!!) | Written by @moonyinpisces (Post Season 2/I had insomnia and this was my companion / read all the chapters in a few hours and I'm FROTHING AT THE MOUTH / I swear to anybody I'm hanging off their every word / Still Updating / Super Long, Super good / full of angst and love and AAA/ light NSFW content/ they keep getting cockblocked)

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #fic rec #fic recommendation #Personal List #None of these are mine #But I want to share them #Writers deserve recognition #good omens fanfiction

71 notes · View notes

gingergofastboatsmojito · 8 months ago

Text

🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻

#GINGERPOVS THE BEAR °Masterlist°

🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻

So here you will be able to find all my musings, all my POVs, all my theories, metas (?), etc about this show that I love soooo much. Enjoy, follow the #tag & share, please!

🐻 General panel → #GINGERPOVS ̉

Follow the tag for updates ⬆️

🐻 Sydcarmy themed↓

Not being capable of saying "I'm sorry"

Leading with the ❤️

The Sydcarmy dynamic

It all comes down to this

The Syd factor

The Thom factor

Braciole

Come back

Backfire

3 of swords

Not there yet

The heart of the show

The Bear

Important vs Enough

To the Platonic crowd

Promo/Smiles

Can't wait

Side notes

Sugar

Guys' mindset

Sydcarmy numbers

My dream Sydcarmy ending?

Shooting for the Michelin 🌟🌟🌟

Sydney Adamu

Vibrant Collab

VC gone wrong

Timelines

Menu S3

Menu S3 to S4

773

Ying Yang

TensionS

Golden

Flushed Carmy

Scorpio eyes

Terrified

Walls

Carmy

Reactiveness

Knives

Primavera

Blue - Rosé

The awful truth

Stuck under the table

The end of Carmen Berzatto

Perfect

Best ❤️ declaration ever

Short ribs beef

S1 Sydcarmy foreshadow

Syd's territory

His whole arc

Wrong crowd

Sydcarmy's song

Mercy

💋 💋 Blowing chef's kisses

Synchronicity

🐻 Claire Dunlap↓

The Claire factor

Plain sight

Strange currencies

We may never meet again

She drove the relationship

Full circle

Claire's dark side

Enjoyment and amusement

Logan

Claire's characterization

Claire's characterization according to MG + Storer

🐻 Miscellaneous ↓

His music

The Mikey factor

Unpopular opinion

Anger

The Bear The Movie

Double date

What dish will it be?

Ages

Names

Flavor profile symbology

S3 predictions

S3 predictions II

S3 predictions III

S3 predictions IV

S4 predictions

Storer is Storing

Luca - Carmy - X

Carmy & love

Fennel

How bears bear?

The jacket

Acid

Common dark side

Storer

Coach K's plot layout

Storer's language

Season 4 Predictions Vol.1

Remember to Reblog this thingy and thank you so much for loving The Bear! 💋

#GINGERPOVS #sydcarmy for life #sydcarm #the bear #the bear fanfiction #the bear fx #carmy x sydney #the bear hulu #sydcarmy #ao3 fanfic #sydney adamu #syd x carmen #carmy berzatto #the bear meta #gingermetamasterlist

56 notes · View notes

queen-of-deans-booty · 5 months ago

Text

Fan Fiction: Final Part

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Warnings: canon angst and violence, extra angst

Summary: Not only did Chuck write books about your lives, but a damn musical theater is putting a play on about your goddamn lives. You try to let them handle this one on their own but they're not letting you go, and it's time to bring insurance to make sure you never leave them.

Season Ten Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. I love seeing any and all comments <3

Marie and Maeve are back in the auditorium but Marie is panicking.

"Hey!" Dean exclaims and rushes over to Marie. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," she gasps.

"Why don't you guys calm her down and I'll find wooden stakes in the trunk."

Sam leaves and Dean kneels down to get on Marie's level.

"Is Marie gonna get eaten?" Maeve asks.

"If we're lucky," you glare.

"Nothing is going to happen. Don't listen to her. Marie, look at me." When she does, he continues. "As soon as that curtain rises, we're going to be there to take out Calliope."

"This is all my fault. If I hadn't written this dumb play, none of this would've happened."

"First of all this play isn't dumb." You open your mouth to say something when Dean glares at you. "It's not dumb."

"I thought you didn't believe in this interpretation?"

"I don't. Like, at all, but you do. I need you to believe in it with all you've got so we can kill Calliope and save your friends. Can you do that?"

"Yeah." She takes a deep breath. "If Sam, Dean, and Y/N were real, they wouldn't back down from a fight. Especially my sweet, brave, selfless Sam. There's nothing he can't do."

"I'm not touching that subject," Dean shakes his head.

"Okay, let's do this!" She grabs a dark wig that the young woman was using who was playing Sam. "I understudy Sam. I used this for my one-woman Orphan Black show, last year. it's gonna have to work for Sam." She puts the wig on her head. "Writer. Director. Actor. I'm gonna Barbra Streisand this bitch."

Guess it's time for a fucking show. People pile into the auditorium once the show is about to begin to see this either rock or go up in flames. The curtains are closed so no one sees what's happening backstage. The girl who plays Dean walks past Dean wearing the amulet that Sam gave him all those years ago. You're not sure what happened to that necklace.

"The Samuelt?" Dean asks Marie.

"That amulet is a symbol of the Winchesters' brotherly love."

Sam comes back with three wooden stakes he's prepared for the fight that will happen. He hands you yours, and you yank it from his grasp angrily. All the girls line up and Sam scans them with a frown.

"Wait a second, where's Chuck?"

"Oh, I love him, I do, but the whole author introducing himself into the narrative thing is just not my favorite. I kind of hate the meta stories," Marie says.

"Alright, listen up, girl," Dean announces. "Now, you're all here because you love Supernatural. I know I have expressed some differences of opinion regarding this particular version of Supernatural. Tonight is all about Marie's vision. This is Marie's Supernatural. So, I want you to get out there, I want you to stand as close as she wants you to, and I want you to put as much sub and add text as you possibly can. There is no other road. No other way. No day, but today."

"Did he quote Rent?" Maeve whispers to Marie.

"Now, you get out there, and you kick it in the ass!"

The girls cheer from the pep talk and encourage each other. They all separate to either go backstage or on stage as they get ready. You and Dean stand on one side of the stage while Sam stands on the other side, all with stakes in hand. Marie slips through the curtain to address the audience.

"This is stupid," you hiss at Dean.

"Shut up and keep an eye out."

"Good evening, everybody! Welcome to our production of Supernatural. I'm not gonna lie. It might be a full-on Gallagher show opening up this piece. Uh, those of you in the front rows may want to use the ponchos we provided for you under your seats. You may, in fact, get wet on this ride. Um, I would like to thank the cast and crew--"

"She's stalling. Let's do this," Dean says to Maeve.

"Copy that. Curtain, kids. It's showtime."

The music starts playing, making Marie jump in surprise.

"That concludes our introduction for the night. Everybody sit back, relax, and enjoy the show."

Marie scurries on stage as the curtains open. The beginning number of singing your life introduction sounds and the girl who plays Dean steps forward. The song you heard when you first arrived starts playing, and she goes through the song about how John and Mary got together, had Sam and Dean, your mother dying, blah, blah, blah.

Dean seems to be enjoying the song while you're absentmindedly playing at the thing on your neck. You can't fucking believe Dean did this. When did he have time to search for something like this? Has he been planning this for a while? Was Sam in on it? You look over at Sam in time to see the big scary scarecrow appear behind him. Apparently, Dean sees it too because he starts warning his brother who is confused.

"Turn around!" Dean yells slightly lower than the music playing. Sam turns to face the scarecrow who grabs him. This is all happening while the girls on stage act and sing. "Come on."

"Do we have to," you complain. Dean drags you along backstage to get to where Sam is, but the younger brother is nowhere to be found once you get to his spot. "Where the hell did he go?"

The first act ends and goes straight into the next one where Fake!Dean and Fake!Cas are having a conversation on fake phones.

"Okay, you can pop in tomorrow morning."

"Yes. I'll just wait here, then," Fake!Cas sighs.

Another song starts playing which is a solo moment for the girl who plays Cas. You and Dean rush over to Marie who is already backstage. Apparently, she saw the moment Sam was taken.

"What do we do now?" she panics.

"Just, stick to the plan, okay? Keep singing until the scarecrow comes for you."

"Don't die, okay?" you grin and pat her back as you walk away from her.

Marie walks on stage as soon as Cas' part is over so she can begin singing her part as Sam. She is nervous about what's about to happen but is acting like a professional. The scarecrow appears behind Marie to consume her, and that's when Dean jumps into action. He jumps onto the scarecrow, forgetting he's on stage in front of a large audience. Both Fake!Sam and Fake!Dean keeps singing as if this isn't happening behind them. You look to the audience to see one of the members in the front row put his poncho on.

The scarecrow and Dean wrestle before the monster throws Dean across the stage over to you. He slides right in front of your feet, and Dean glares up at you.

"Help!"

"Fine," you roll your eyes.

You twirl the stake in your hands as you walk onto the stage. You're not fucking scared of this thing. You'll fucking take it down before it realizes what's going on. The scarecrow runs at you to tackle you but you quickly move out of the way before he can touch you.

"Missed me!" you laugh.

You jump onto the scarecrow's back to strangle him but he grabs both your arms in retaliation. He uses all of his immense strength to flip you over him and to the front of the stage. You quickly get up and ram your stake into his chest. You turn him so his back is facing the audience and yours is facing the backdrop of the set. You step back from the scarecrow when you see it start to tremble.

The scarecrow explodes in a purple goo substance, covering almost everyone in the audience. A bit of goo gets on your jacket to which you huff out in annoyance. You walk toward Dean and shove the stake into his chest.

"You're welcome," you scoff and walk off.

Silence falls on the audience until the guy wearing the poncho stands up and begins clapping. Everyone in the audience follows suit, and Dean steps next to a starstruck Marie.

"Take a bow, Sammy."

Marie, Dean, and Fake!Dean takes a bow for the audience. It's a good time to take an intermission for the rest of the crew to get ready for the final act. Sam suddenly appears with Ms. Chandler and the other young girl who went missing. It's time to finally get out of this shitty town and back to the Bunker, so Sam and Dean are saying their goodbyes.

"You did good out there, kid," Dean says to Marie.

"You're not so bad yourself."

"You know what? This has been educational to see the story from your perspective. Keep writing Shakespeare."

"Even if it doesn't match how you see it?"

"I have my version, and you have yours."

The light starts flickering to signal it's almost time to go on again.

"One minute, folks. One minute," Maeve announces.

You and Dean walk away from Marie, but she stops him from going far.

"Dean?" She must believe you're who you say you are. "You should have never thrown this away."

She gives him the prop Samulet he noticed earlier. Dean chuckles as he takes it, and he admires it.

"It never really worked. I don't need a symbol to remind me how I feel about my brother."

"Just take it. Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean automatically says.

He quickly realizes it's not Sam he's talking to and blushes in embarrassment. Marie laughs at him before turning to you.

"Y/N, look, I don't know what's going on with you, but the Y/N I read about has a love so strong for Dean that nothing can break it. I just thought you'd want a reminder of it."

You take two steps closer to her before Dean has a chance to do something.

"The last thing I'd want to remember is my lame-ass excuse of a husband."

You turn and walk away, not missing the way Dean's eyes fill with sadness and hurt. What you're saying to him and about him is really hurting him, and that fact brings a smirk to your face. Dean pushes back the tears and walks to Sam.

"You know what, Dean? You were right. Staying cooped up isn't helping us. We need--"

It's as if the universe aligned perfectly because the next scene starts with Fake!Sam and Fake!Dean in the car. They're having a conversation that perfectly fits with what Sam was about to say.

"We need to get back on the road, Dean. Doing what we do best."

"What is that?" Marie asks.

"You're right, Sammy. Out on the road. Just the two of us."

"The two of us against the world," Fake!Sam says.

"What she said," Sam smiles and nudges his brother.

The scene moves onto a different one where all the characters get on stage to sing a cover of Carry On Wayward Son. Characters you know in real life. A girl steps on stage that you're not sure you recognize, but when you do, a smirk grows on your face.

"Who's that?" Sam asks Maeve.

"That's Adam. John Winchester's other kid. He's still trapped in the cage in Hell with Lucifer."

Poor son of a bitch.

"Carry on my wayward son / There'll be peace when you are done / Lay your weary head to rest / Don't you cry no more / Once I rose above the noise and confusion / Just to get a glimpse behind this illusion / I was soaring ever higher."

The song continues as Sam and Dean watch with raw emotion in their eyes.

"Masquerading as a man with the reason / My charade is the event of the season / And if I claim to be a wise man / It surely means I don't know / Carry on my wayward son / There'll be peace when you are done / Lay your weary head to rest / Don't you cry no more / Carry on."

You grab both of their shoulders and fit your head between theirs so they both can hear you above the singing.

"I am so glad I don't have a soul because that was painful to watch."

When you leave, Dean turns to Sam with tears in his eyes.

"Purifying her soul better work because I need my wife back."

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

#dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester angst #supernatural #supernatural fic #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #supernatural angst #spn #supernatural series rewrite #supernatural season 10

24 notes · View notes